King's Shield

by Sherwood Smith

  Inda was now alone in his house.

  He set his foot on the lowest step of the main stairway. Why wasn’t he happier? He had everything he could possibly want. Impatient with himself, he ran up to the first landing, then halted. Should he just go to his old room? He was the heir now—except he wasn’t, really. He was the Harskialdna, and Branid was the heir. Inda would have to tell him that.

  He opened the door to the heir’s suite, Tanrid’s rooms. The outer chamber was exactly the same as it always had been: the fine wingback chairs with the claw feet that he’d thought real when he was little; the beautiful owl rug on the floor, kept away from the windows so it would not fade, and never walked on. Inda sustained a brief memory of Tanrid scrupulously stepping around it in his stable-dirty riding boots.

  Inda paced the room, listening to the silence. Strange, how silences differed. Sometimes they were heavy with threat, like the silence on the sea before battle, before a storm. This silence was one of time suspended, and of absence. Tanrid wasn’t here, there was no sense of him. The furniture was too old, he’d never used it.

  Inda continued toward the inner chambers, wondering if the sadness sitting in his stomach like a hard knot was grief for Tanrid. There were no signs of him. Had everyone forgotten him? Inda peered into the bedroom. It was clean-swept, empty, the covered bed just a bed. Tanrid’s things were gone, and he’d never had any books or papers. He’d been impatient with anything that kept him out of the stable or the practice court, or from riding the perimeter when their father permitted.

  His clothes had surely gone to Branid, who was much of a size. All traditional, but Inda walked out again, head bowed.

  Chapter Thirty-six

  THE next morning, Tdor woke to her wedding day.

  She hurried down to the baths, startled at the difference in the quality of the water and the heat. She was too busy to think about it, and ran back upstairs swiftly braiding her damp, cold hair. It was just before sunrise.

  She pulled her robe around her and paused outside Inda’s old room, her heart thudding. Inda himself had whispered to her before they’d parted just after midnight, “If I don’t sleep soon I’ll drop. Meet me in my room at breakfast.”

  She scratched softly, just once, then jumped when the door opened.

  The smell of steeped silverleaf wafted out, bringing back a hint of summer, though here in the hall it was so cold her toes hurt on the stone, and she could faintly see her breath.

  “Tdor? Come in.”

  He held the door wide, and she entered, seeing that he was alone, also in his night robe. The mage was nowhere in sight.

  Because she would not live with any hint of deception or secrecy, she asked, “Where is Signi?”

  “She went down with Mother to renew the house magic. Said it’s not quite worn out, but near enough. I want to see Father, but he’s apparently still asleep.”

  “He wakens after the sun comes up. We shifted him to an east room.” Tdor forbore saying that, these days, he seldom woke even in mornings, other than to sip a little soup, a little healing brew, and then subside again into his dreams. “You said last night that you wanted to see me?”

  Inda turned his thumb up. “You were so quiet during dinner. Is there—do we understand one another?” He shook his head. “I guess I wanted to talk to you. Just you. Before everyone expects us out there.” He waved at the walls.

  Tdor turned her gaze away from that ring on his finger to his searching brown eyes. There was pain in them; his lower lid was narrowed just as it had been in the old days, after Tanrid had thrashed him. “You wrote to me the once. After the battle. Then not again, until that note about the wedding.”

  “Yes,” Inda said.

  Tdor thought of those long weeks after that very first note, the letters ill-formed as if written by a numb hand by campfire, which reported so briefly and so baldly that Inda and the king lived. She’d had to find out from Hadand that they had won. Then nothing for long, tense weeks as they waited in the south for retaliation to come over the sea.

  She said, “I wasn’t sure if you didn’t write because . . . there was a problem. That things had changed. Again. So much has changed! But I didn’t write because of your responsibilities. I didn’t want to trouble you unnecessarily.”

  Inda sank down onto the bed where once they had lain together so innocently. His hair was loose, falling down his back below his waist, his night robe unlaced; it did not hide the white puckers of long scars on his chest.

  “Is that some kind of accusation?” he asked. “I couldn’t write. You do not know what it was like.” His voice cracked on the last word, ragged, husky.

  She gripped her forearms, her blood cold in her veins. “Tell me.”

  “I hope one day to forget what it was like. It took us all night and then all day—an entire day, Tdor—to get the wounded away, and then to Disappear the dead. Everyone working. I helped as best I could, though my right hand had gone numb after the battle, and I didn’t get feeling back for days.”

  He hesitated out of habit. With Signi he did not talk about war.

  Tdor said, “Go on.”

  “Do you want to hear it?”

  “If you want to talk about it.”

  He sighed. Yes. Everything had changed. Except Tdor. “I don’t. But maybe if you know, the past will stay just a memory, and not come at me at night. When we came down from the cliffs, most of Noddy’s and Hawkeye’s men were already dead. Most! The only ones who made it through were Cama’s and Cherry-Stripe’s, because I had them up on the mountains.”

  “But it worked, right?”

  “Only because the Venn left. We’d be up there now if they hadn’t, Tdor, each side chewing the other to death day by day. They’re hard fighters, a match for us. I keep having nightmares about two armies marching together without stopping and the bodies piling higher and higher.” He shook his head and groped, his fingers opening and closing vaguely.

  She hugged her arms against her.

  “You were so right when you said it’s not a game, Haywit.”

  “I was a pompous snot,” she retorted.

  “So you said in the royal city, but I thought about what you said all the years. It-it helped me. When I made a plan, it was because I thought you’d like it. That I was making a net. Not tearing it.” He looked into her face for understanding. She looked back, a little puzzled, but waiting to hear more. “Well. The thing is, the Venn are gone north again. Evred is worried about the future. I think he can’t let himself believe they’re gone, though we don’t think they’ll be back next year.” He looked inquiringly at her.

  “Go on,” she said.

  “When I was coming down south, I got notes. In that gold box thing. Cama’s in the north, d’you see? He had some trouble at first. The Idayagans thought they could attack us after the Venn left.”

  Tdor winced. “Will the war ever end?”

  “He thrashed them hard, and they slunk off to their homes. Cama will ride around with his men on inspection, show off their numbers. Evred says we cannot let the Idayagans know just how weakened we were, or the war won’t end. Now they’re frightened, they think we’re invincible. They seem to think I am invincible. Cama wrote that all he has to do is threaten to bring me north, and they settle down. Isn’t that funny?” Inda made a peculiar grimace.

  “No,” Tdor said. “If it works.”

  “That’s what I think, too. If it works. But after the battle, I just couldn’t write.”

  “It must have been terrible for Signi,” Tdor said, obliquely approaching the ring. And what marriage would mean: legally they knew their duties, and what they didn’t know they’d learn. But the law said nothing about how a Jarl and Jarlan, or Randael and Randviar, or even a Harskialdna and Harandviar defined marriage in personal terms.

  Inda’s expression made it clear his mind was back at the battle, despite the mention of the Venn mage. “Signi won’t talk about the battle. All I know is that she saw ghosts leave.”
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br />   “Ghosts?”

  “That’s what she said. But she doesn’t talk about those, either.”

  Tdor accepted that, and remembered her promise to herself. “You are wearing a ring.”

  Inda stared down at his hand as if surprised to discover it still there. “Magic rings.” He lifted his hand. “Fox gave ’em to me. Evred wants me to wear it. He wears his. We can find one another. When I take up my duties in the royal city, it’ll mean we can always—”

  Evred’s ring. I’m such a fool, she thought. There was a lot more to be defined than just Signi’s place in their marriage.

  A soft tap interrupted before she could think about how to begin.

  Inda sprang to the door. Fareas-Iofre entered, with Signi behind her, wearing one of the women’s blue robes. “Your father is breakfasting. Get dressed. Now is the time to see him.”

  Shortly thereafter, they walked quietly into the Adaluin’s chamber. Signi effaced herself, a gesture of grace noticed only by Tdor.

  Inda’s father lay on his bed, white-haired, lined, and frail. His robe was clean, his hair freshly combed and tied back simply: all the signs of care by his wife and servants, though he was not always present enough to recognize them.

  “Papa.” Inda knelt down and took the thin hand lying loosely on the coverlet.

  Jarend-Adaluin breathed deeply, but his eyes stayed closed.

  “Papa, it is Inda. I am home.”

  No reaction, only the slow, steady breathing. Inda gently squeezed the gnarled, weathered hand lying in his so passive and childlike, remembering how it used to grip the hilt of a sword in practice early each morning, before his father went on the endless rounds of riding to protect Choraed Elgar. How strong he’d seemed. Strong, ageless, like the rocks and hills.

  Inda wiped his eyes on his shoulder, then glanced at his mother, who said, “Jarend. Inda is back. The Venn are defeated.”

  Jarend’s lips worked. He muttered something, too soft to hear. Fareas dropped down on the other side of the bed, bending close. When he muttered again, she faced them, her eyes stricken. “Pirates,” she said. “And Joret.”

  “The pirates are gone, Father,” Inda stated in a strong voice. “What Whipstick told you was true. They are gone. I defeated them.”

  Jarend’s breathing came faster. His fingers twitched.

  “They are gone,” Inda repeated. “And I am here.”

  Jarend-Adaluin opened his eyes then. His gaze wandered vaguely until he found Inda’s face. Then he focused, and his hand tightened. “Inda. You are home again. To stay?”

  Inda looked to the women for clues, but they stood quietly, hands in sleeves. “I will always protect you, Father. But Evred Harvaldar made me his Harskialdna. I can ask—”

  “The king honors our House.” Jarend-Adaluin smiled faintly and lay back, his breathing slowing, his free hand moving restlessly over the coverlet to his side, where a sword would hang if he wore the baldric. “The king chose . . . Honor.” He sighed, closing his eyes again. His breathing deepened into slumber.

  “That’s the most he’s talked since last summer,” Fareas Iofre said when they had filed outside. “He is glad you’re back, my son.”

  “Maybe now he will regain some strength.” Tdor gently closed the door.

  Fareas-Iofre raised her head, listening. The sound of voices rose from the courtyard outside the window. “The people are arriving. It’s time to get ready for the wedding.”

  They parted, the women in one direction. Inda took the long way, passing outside his brother’s chamber again. The same strange sense of loss assailed him, and he stood outside the door, trying to resolve it.

  But a flicker at the edge of his vision snapped him round, knives out and ready.

  Branid gasped and nearly stumbled back down the stairs. His eyes widened. As Inda resheathed the knives, Branid said, “Hoo, you’re fast.” He glowered. “Why are you wearing weapons in your own house?”

  “I wear weapons everywhere,” Inda said. “Why are you lurking around like a thief?”

  Branid’s gaze shifted, and then the tips of his ears reddened. He couldn’t believe that the beautiful Dannor Tya-Vayir, daughter of a Jarl, chose him to sleep with the night before. Maybe Dannor didn’t want Inda because of all those scars? Or maybe that old one wouldn’t share?

  Branid had never gotten all the female attention first. Ever. And what a night! But—

  It was strange to Inda, seeing so big a man hunch and sidle. Branid said, “I just wanted to know . . . what it was like. The battle, I mean.”

  Branid used the longing tone of a boy, not that of a man who had witnessed violent death. “Bad.” Inda gestured, hand flat. “Very bad.”

  “We didn’t see a sniff of any pirates. Or Venn. Or anything else.” Branid’s regret was odd. Defensive. “I’ve worked hard. Learned all Whipstick’s drills. I drill the men myself, now. Just the way you learned it in the academy.”

  Inda’s irritation vanished. For the very first time he wondered what it had been like to watch Tanrid and him go off to the academy, especially when Inda, originally, was supposed to stay home. After Tanrid was killed, Branid was too old and the Harskialdna had not wanted three Algara-Vayirs, anyway.

  Would Branid have turned out different if he’d gone to the academy? It hadn’t improved Horsebutt. Or Kepa.

  Inda couldn’t answer that, but he could do this: “Since we’re alone, let me ask you. Is your promise good?”

  “What?” Branid looked affronted, his voice echoing down the stairs to the alcove he’d shown Dannor the night before—the place you could hear everything said in the hall upstairs. Branid had just been showing off, but Dannor always remembered useful information like that.

  She was there now, mostly out of idle interest. She had been debating whether she could tolerate being second woman to a pompous duty-stick like Tdor Marth-Davan, if she got this fool Branid to marry her, since he seemed to be free to choose. By the end of dinner the previous evening Dannor had figured out why the local women avoided Branid, who had only two subjects: bragging about himself, and whining about everyone else.

  “When we were boys, you never kept promises,” Inda said. “But people change. I’ve changed. Have you?”

  “I should hope so! Why, if it wasn’t for me—”

  “Then listen. Evred-Harvaldar has given me orders to take my place as Harskialdna in the royal city.”

  Below, Dannor was beginning to turn away in disgust—her weight actually shifted—when she heard Inda say, “He agreed that when my father dies, you are to become Adaluin.”

  Dannor stilled. Oh, this was far better than she could have imagined. Far, far.

  On the landing, Branid’s eyes widened with shock, then pleasure. Then narrowedwariness. “But? I can’t believe you’re just going to give me the title. Just like that.”

  “It’s the king’s order. Like it’s his order that my children will inherit. But I’m happy with the title going to you if you promise me two things. One, you will honor my father as yours until he dies. Second, when he does, you will permit my mother to stay as senior woman. That means if you marry, my mother has to approve. And if someday my mother chooses to leave, you will see that she is able to travel wherever she wants to go.”

  “I promise,” Branid breathed, his face so painful to see—so much longing, fear, greed, even shame.

  Inda pulled the owl clasp from his hair, which fell down his back. He held out the clasp, and Branid’s hand closed around it. “Then it’s done.”

  Inda walked away before Branid could say anything. He thought about the things he’d say to Whipstick before he left, then forgot everything when he entered his room and saw the wedding shirt lying on his bed.

  Tdor had made it; Inda knew it was customary for the wife to make the man’s wedding shirt, to embroider it with his House device, or with things from his life, whatever her skill and patience permitted.

  This shirt was covered front and back with intricate designs:
ships and suns and owls and the House symbols of all Inda’s Tvei friends, the lines somewhat crooked—Tdor was no needlewoman—the ships like nothing that had ever floated, but he knew as he ran his fingers over the bright lines and colors that every stitch was lovingly made.

  An icy rain began to fall by midmorning.

  Inda’s shoulder ached, as if often did when the weather changed. He found Tau downstairs in the kitchen, which was filled with good smells. “I need your hands.”

  They went up to Inda’s room, where he plopped into a chair and leaned his head on his hands. Tau kneaded his bad shoulder.

  “Thanks for everything you did,” Inda mumbled as little zings and shoots of pain, and then not-quite-pain, lessened the constant ache in his bones and shoulder socket. Maybe now he wouldn’t have to wear that stupid sling at his own wedding.

  “I had fun here,” Tau said. “I was amazed to discover that the new cook has never made a feast for a family wedding. I find that sad.”

  “As sad as everything being worn out?” Inda asked. “I didn’t see it yesterday. Then I was just glad that nothing had changed. But this morning, well, everything is worn through. The mats at the children’s table have to be the ones my father used. I’d thought I would get me some new boots, but mine are in better shape than anyone’s here. Mother’s have patched toes.”

  “Signi has been renewing your magical spells. I came across her doing the buckets out behind the kitchen. It’s like she’s surrounded with the sun-glitter you see on water.”

  Inda sighed as Tau’s strong hands moved to the muscles between his shoulder blades. “Thank you for taking on Dannor. Keeping her out of the way. She invited herself along, and I couldn’t figure out how to say no. Soon’s we were inside the gate, I could see that Tdor didn’t want her here.”

  “I did my best, though it wasn’t long. You should have seen how fast she dropped me when she discovered I had no rank or relation to anyone with rank.” Tau shook his head. Dannor was the closest he’d ever met to the terrible Coco on Gaffer Walic’s pirate ship—not the taste for blood, but the utter lack of conscience. Well, at least Branid seemed to like her, which kept her out of Inda’s way.