by Anne Leonard
For a moment he was mute. Then he found his voice. “Yes,” he said. “They’d been seen by others before I got there, too.” The words were clear, spoken by someone else. He could not remember if it was true.
Aram broke a wooden stylus in half with a loud snap. That was something he never did either. He said, “Then whatever plans he’s making in that tangled mind of his, it’s probably not to do with the Sarians. Set it aside if you can for now.”
Corin looked sideways at his father. Now it was Aram who wasn’t saying all he thought. He decided not to push it. The king would tell him when he was ready. He said, “Does Hadon know about Tyrekh?”
Aram said, “God knows what his spies have told him. But I sent to him as soon as I heard, we should have his response in a day or two. We can only hope there’s time.”
“What have you planned?”
“Coll’s beginning to organize the troops, and we sent out more scouts. I called a formal war council. Most of the dukes were on their way here anyway for the summer court, so it will take place fairly soon, perhaps even tomorrow. I told the ones who have already arrived, but they’re to keep it quiet. You can tell Bron, but no one else.”
Summer court, he should have stayed away. He hoped his younger sister Tai was coming too, she would keep him sane with her dry wit and mischievous suggestions. She had married last fall and he was still not used to her absence. He was very glad she had not been made to marry one of Hadon’s sons.
His gaze went to the dog, who was sleeping on her pillow in the corner. Why had she jumped him? “Tell me what else you know about Tyrekh’s movement.”
They pulled the chairs closer together and spent some time going over the details of Aram’s reports. It felt like something acted, done over and over. Three years ago Corin had spent many hours staring at maps, discussing numbers and formations and movements of soldiers, planning defenses. There was not much in the way of alternatives, and Tyrekh would deduce the plans accurately. They had little choice in what they did. The land forced them into certain stances.
A river ran the length of the Caithenian border with Argondy. The northern half, coming down out of the Fells, was steep and rocky. The river was swift and cut into deep gorges with sheer treeless sides or cascaded down falls several hundred feet high. South the land softened to low hills, but the river widened to a lake, eight miles wide and a hundred miles long, with marshes and bogs on either side. Eventually it narrowed back to a river, but it was still as wide as a mile in some places and even boggier. Several crossing points could be made across the lake, but ferrying an army was impractical. The only viable entry for a large mass of men into Caithen from Argondy was the main road with its many-arched bridge across the river. It was still hill country there, and an army would be vulnerable to ambushes and attacks from above. That was the sole tactical advantage Caithen had. It would take a few days of steady marching through the duchy of Harin for Tyrekh’s troops to move far enough west into Caithen to be able to go quickly and in the open.
Eventually Aram pushed the papers aside. He rose and walked to one of the bay windows. Corin had the sense that he was waiting for someone or something else. After a moment of indecision, he joined his father. Their reflections were wavy from the water running down the glass. Sika got up and came toward them, her claws clicking on the floor. Both men tensed, but she only wagged her tail and sat.
Aram turned from the window to stare at Corin. “You can’t let yourself get killed, Corin, not even in battle. If the worst happens, you’ll have to hide somewhere so you can fight back later. The spies will survive. You know what is in place.”
“But—”
“I’m not giving you a choice.”
Aram was right, he always was. “Yes, sir.”
“Good.” He put his hand on Corin’s shoulder.
“What about you?”
“You don’t really think I’m going to get out of this alive or free, do you? I’ll try to, certainly, but if I can protect only one of us it has to be you. You’re young, you can keep an insurgency going for another generation if you have to.”
It depressed him. He said nothing, and after a moment his father’s hand dropped. The king returned to his seat. Corin went to the map table and looked at the map of southern Caithen, the coast along the Narrow Sea. The best port for ships to put in was Dele, and it was an easy march from there over gentle country to Caithenor. The Sarians were not either shipbuilders or sailors, but the Argondians were.
“We have to secure the Port of Dele,” he said. “Once Tyrekh gets hold of the Argondian fleet, he doesn’t need to come overland.”
“Yes,” Aram said. He sounded distracted. Corin glanced at him. He was leaning forward with his chin resting on clasped hands, looking into air. The grimness on his face was one that Corin had seen before, but not often. It was hardly surprising. The king said, “Was it peaceful in the north?”
“Yes,” Corin answered. It was an odd question. He felt words threatening to slip away again. “But the people are all afraid of something anyhow,” he managed to get out. “Spirits. Curses. It’s nonsense.” There was a white emptiness in his mind that he could not go around. He had forgotten. The thorny briars would grow instead, blocking him, stabbing him when he tried to push through.
What was he thinking? Was he going mad? For a second he felt it, everything around him a waxwork, a reflection, unreal. Then he grounded himself fiercely in the crackle of the fire and the smooth darkness of the wine in his cup.
Aram said, “It’s superstition, yes. But it’s riding the back of something else. Fear can’t be tamped down forever. It’s the same here. Everyone knows Tyrekh has yet to be dealt with, even though no one will say it. The waiting is coming to an end. Bad things are going to happen, Corin. Don’t let them take you unaware.”
The heaviness of it settled in him. He had been told that history had tides, but this felt more like a chain, one cold thick link added at a time. He had the sense that Aram was speaking of something more than Tyrekh.
“I won’t,” he said. What else could he say?
Neither of them spoke again for a few minutes. Corin randomly turned pages in the map book. He lingered over a map of the northern mountains, with their fierce names—Tower Peak, Mount Fang, the Bloodhorn—and wondered if there was anything there that Hadon could be looking for.
He was about to excuse himself when someone knocked. The king called an entrance as Corin sat back down. It was Joce, which sent a shiver of apprehension through him. The Basilisks were Aram’s secret servants, not called upon for ordinary matters.
They were remnants of the race of true wizards, nothing like the conjurers and magicians who claimed to be able to cast spells and tell the future. Every village had its witch who murmured over potions and laid the cards to no effect. In cities men tried secretly to conjure up the dead and find the path to immortality and got nothing for their trouble but a reeking mess of oils and entrails and candlewax. It was not so with Joce and his people. A thousand years ago, longer, they had been able to do all manner of things: change into animals, call the wind, speak mind to mind, see in a puddle of water what happened miles away. They needed no incantations or tinctures of antimony. But power over people was not something most of them sought—there were always a few, the evil sorcerers of tales and legend—and as the ordinary men built armies and made laws, the wizards were hunted and driven into hiding, killed or enslaved. For a while kings tried to keep them as advisers, but all the jealousies and treacheries of courts brought that to an end. If they were not killed, they were discredited, and the kings with them. They diminished, the learning and power diminishing with them, and when the persecutions of the Fires came three centuries ago they were destroyed.
Or so it had always been thought. Aram’s grandfather had found them out, hiding and desperately poor, but not yet completely powerless. That king had been overly fond
of his wine and his women but not dim-witted, and he bargained to provide protection for them all in exchange for the service of a few. The pledge had been kept unbroken ever since. The wizards who served, the Basilisks, were deadly, superbly trained in armed and unarmed combat, and virtually fearless. Much power had been lost, but they still could hold a man immobile with a single glance, or throw up illusions to protect themselves. They had enough of the shapechanging power left to disguise themselves as other men for a short time. Aram’s grandfather had called them Basilisks because of their paralyzing stare; Corin thought it might also have been a private lament for the loss of the dragons.
It was a tightly guarded secret; Corin was not sure if even his sisters knew. The spymaster knew only that they were Aram’s personally selected men, to be used for the most dangerous or important spying. Joce had been a spy among the Sarian soldiers for nearly three years. There was nothing distinctive about his looks, which had caused more than one person to not pay him enough attention. Sika padded happily over to him; he was good with animals, as most wizards were. He gave her his hand to lick.
Aram said, “What is the latest from Dele?”
“Nothing new, my lord. All’s been steady for some time.”
“When were you to go again?”
“Next week.”
“Leave it for now,” Aram said. “I want you to roam about and find the weak places here. That includes people. Lay traps if you need to.”
“Weak against what?”
“Tyrekh.”
Joce appeared unsurprised. Corin had never seen him startled. He said, “Anyone to exclude?”
“Not this time. Consider everyone from the washmaids to the dukes. If something takes you into the city, go ahead and follow it. Don’t speak to anyone about this.”
The first time Corin had heard his father give orders of this sort he had thought they were uselessly vague and redundant. He had learned the importance of redundancy soon enough, but it had been longer before he understood what Aram was doing with the broadness of his commands. Some parameters did not need to be stated. Joce knew the few people he never had to watch. He was like a cat. He would prowl and wait and sniff out everything, vanishing into shadow if he was seen, and he would notice what Aram would never have thought to look at.
“How long?”
“Come back in three days, or sooner if you find something. Corin, have you anything to add?”
Memory rose in him, a white face with water beading on it. “Why would Sarian soldiers paint their faces white?”
Joce said, “There’s something in the paint that makes them stronger and more fearless. It dulls pain. Tyrekh gives it to his best.”
“Eight of us killed twelve of them,” Corin said. “Nine hand to hand, three went down from bowshots.”
“You have good men. But—” He stopped.
“But what? Say it.”
“War against Tyrekh is not an even match like that.”
We’ve the Empire, Corin thought. He did not speak it. Tyrekh might move faster.
Joce said, “Is that all, my lord?”
“Yes,” Aram said.
Joce bowed and stepped back. On impulse, Corin stood up and walked beside him to the antechamber. The room was dim and deserted, though the shadows of the guards in the hall could be seen.
“Be careful,” he said, clasping Joce’s forearm in the soldier’s gesture of good luck. The man’s body jerked hard at the touch.
It was an insult. But it was clear to Corin that it had been a movement of the body that could not have been prevented, like a dead muscle twitching when a current ran through it. Joce looked almost frightened.
“My lord,” he said after a few seconds that seemed to last years, “you’re dangerous.” He held out his arm, and there on the skin were burns the size and shape of fingertips, red and new.
Corin felt as though he had received a blow to the stomach, but an anticipated one. “Who might know?” he whispered.
“I don’t know, sir. I’ll think about it.” He had regained his composure. “Shall I ask the others?”
“No. Not yet.”
“You’ll need them later.”
“Why?”
“Power.”
“Whose?”
Joce looked at the burns on his arm. “Yours,” he said softly.
Their eyes met and held for a long moment. Then Joce broke the contact with a bent head. Corin stepped back into his father’s room and shut the door again.
Aram did not ask why he had gone. Who else had he touched? His father. No, Aram had touched him. Not the boy taking his horse, or the guards at the entrance. The dog had attacked him, he had burned a wizard’s skin. Something was happening to him. The answer lay in the north, among the things he had forgotten.
“Corin?”
He came back. “I’m sorry, I was drifting. What was he watching in Dele?”
“Ordinary corruption. You know the sort.”
Corin did. Where there was trade there was evasion of law. It mattered for the revenues but it was unlikely to matter in the face of war. “Will it interfere with securing the port?”
“Anything could, but I don’t think so.”
Corin nodded, then, to his embarrassment, yawned.
“You must be exhausted,” Aram said. “Other things can wait. I’m sure your mother would like to see you.”
“She doesn’t have any unpleasant surprises for me, does she?”
“Such as a bride? You’re still safe there.”
“Good.”
Aram laughed. “Get on with you,” he said.
Talk to Bron, Corin thought. Ask him what I did. He might remember things. He said, “Good night.”
It was not as late as it felt, and after he had seen his mother—Talia greeted him with a brief embrace and the unwelcome news that an imminent war was not an excuse for avoiding the courtiers—he bathed, then read quietly in his sitting room. It was cowardly of him, but he did not want to think about the war any longer. Not tonight. A window was open enough to let in the sound and smell of the rain, and the fire was bright and smokeless. The glowlamps were brighter than he wanted, so he kept them off.
Someone knocked. It irritated him. He had not told the guards to keep people away. A mistake, that was, especially when it was their only useful function. He had already locked the door, so he had to go open it himself.
When he saw Seana he felt only weariness. He let her in but did not latch or bolt the door. She put her arms around his neck and kissed him. Her lips were soft and smooth, the tip of her tongue warm. It did not arouse him. She was wearing a dress with off-the-shoulder sleeves and a rounded neckline. He put his hands on her shoulders and stepped gently out of her embrace. Part of him noticed coldly that he did not burn her.
Her earrings were tear-shaped blue opals set in gold, and she wore a matching ring on her right hand. An opal pendant rested at the top of the cleft between her breasts. Her wedding ring, ornate gold edged with diamonds, glittered in the firelight. Her perfume was spicy with a hint of bitterness. Her red-brown hair tumbled down her back.
She took his hands in hers and moved forward, so that they were only a few fingers apart. It was quite clear what she wanted, and usually he would have been undressing her by now. Especially after six weeks surrounded by only men. Corin did not love her and she knew it, but they had a comradely sort of friendship. They had been occasional lovers for several years, when it suited them both and her husband, the Duke of Osstig, was away. The duke, who was more than thirty years older than she was, had to be aware that she was unfaithful to him—and it had not only been with Corin, nor had he been the first. It was widely known to be an unhappy marriage. In the unlikely occurrence of a divorce, the lawyers would be kept busy for years. Corin did not let her share his bed when her husband was at court. Adultery was
bad enough, he would not compound it with indiscretion.
As attractive as she was, he did not want her tonight. The face of the woman in the entrance hall, the beautiful woman who had blushed, intruded into his thoughts. That was not what held him back from her, though. Perhaps he was just tired. Tiredness had never stopped him before.
He sat down in one of the formal brocaded chairs and looked at her. She took the hint and sat in another, said, “Was it a hard journey, Cor?”
“No, just dull and wet,” he answered. And I’ve come home to a war. But he wouldn’t say that to her, she would think he was brooding. She was intelligent but had little patience for long consideration and by far preferred acting to thinking. “Are you chilled?” he asked, looking at her bare shoulders.
“Not especially,” she said. She tugged almost nervously at the pendant. The motion of her hand emphasized her breasts. He wanted to cover them instead of touch them. “How was the north? Cold?”
“At times,” he said, remembering the thick frost that had furred the buildings some mornings before the sun was on them. “It made one work, instead of sitting lazily.” He could not believe how banal this talk was already, they might as well have been at a state dinner. Did he really have nothing to say to her if they were not in bed?
He tried. “I’m not used to being back yet. My head is still full of military lists and assessments. What have I missed?”
She tossed her hair. “Nothing really,” she said. “Oh, there’s plenty of gossip now that the summer court has begun, but you aren’t ever interested in that. You’re about as stiff as a stone wall, Corin, whatever is the matter?”
“Nothing,” he said. He stood up. “It’s not a good idea tonight, Seana. I think you’d better leave.” He took her hand and raised her from the chair.
“Simoun will be here tomorrow,” she said, touching his chin. “Are you sure?”
There had been other times when he had declined her, and she was never upset or spiteful. He had no worries that she would make trouble. But there had always been a sense of not this time, later though. That was not how he felt now.
