As they approached, Tahn saw Elan take Mira’s arm by the wrist and hold her hand flat. With his other hand, Elan placed something into Mira’s opened palm. He squeezed her fingers over the item and she hid it within her cloak.
When she turned, Tahn thought he saw genuine gladness to see him. Mira came to his side, out of earshot of the others.
As she helped him check his saddle and tack, she said, “You speak in your sleep. It is a dangerous flaw.”
He could not read the look on her face. It seemed an odd thing to find fault with, especially since he was sure she hadn’t meant to sleep anyway.
“And just why is that?” he asked.
“Because you tend also to answer when someone speaks to you.”
They stared a long moment at each other before Mira smiled. Tahn forgot to breathe, and grinned as he fought an expression of shock.
“What did I say?” Tahn finally managed.
Her smile held a moment more, then fell. “Never mind, Archer,” she said. She was about to go, then leaned back in and whispered, “Oh, and it’s not wise to sleep naked. You never know when you’re going to have to get up in a hurry.”
She ducked away before Tahn could laugh or blush.
“My scouts returned this morning and reported no sign of Quietgiven in the valley,” King Elan was saying to Vendanj. “But the Soliel is not an easy place to hide. I’d rest little until you reach the Saeculorum. Even the Quiet may think twice before following you; such are the dreadful secrets that lay hidden there.
“Your packs are full, and your skins refreshed.” Elan cast his careful gaze over their mounts. “We’ve seen to your horses. They’ll be in need of little besides water until you pass beyond the Stretches.” His brows lifted a question. “Tillinghast?”
Vendanj only nodded.
“We are come to the fabric of the Charter and the Tract, then. I pray what is restored to you there is the necessary sum of your First Inheritance, my friends.” Elan swept them with a glance much as he had their horses. He seemed to linger a moment on Tahn. “Be watchful. Resolve weakens when one nears a goal’s completion. The Saeculorum will likely see to that. And if it does not, Tillinghast will.”
Tahn looked down at the Far king. A wave of doubt stole through him.
“Thank you, Elan,” Vendanj said, and took his saddle.
The others stepped into their stirrups in a riot of creaking leather. It reminded Tahn of the moment in the Kottel Rhine when men took to their plow horses to partake in the ritual hunt. A thrill raced through him. Sutter’s face was a perfect mirror to the emotion; Nails had never looked so enthused. Tahn thought his friend sat taller in his saddle at the prospect of what they were about to do. Braethen sat his horse, reading, one fist filled with reins, the other holding a book.
The Far had prepared a horse for Penit. Wendra drew even with him, put a hand on his arm, and gave it a squeeze.
Grant rode up to Tahn and fixed him with a steady gaze. Tahn thought the exile looked wistful, an expression that couldn’t possibly seem any more incongruous on the man’s face. Then Grant held a daypack out to Tahn. Tahn took the pack.
“You were late coming down to endfast, so I put some things aside for you,” Grant explained.
“Thank you,” Tahn said, confused.
“It is time,” Vendanj said, looking straight at Tahn. He kicked his mount into motion.
“Woodchuck, I don’t know what you did to earn that man’s adoration, but I think I’d prefer a nest of angry hornets down the front of my pants to the strange bond he seems to have with you.”
A single chuckle escaped Grant. When Sutter and Tahn turned quizzical stares on him, the exile only pointed toward the yard gates, prompting them to get moving. Mira heeled Solus without looking back and led them from the stable yard.
In the light of the sun, shale sparkled. They rode for eight straight hours, taking only brief breaks to rest their horses.
Late in the day, shale gave way to russet earth broken by an occasional oasis of long green grass around pools of water. Thorny flowers grew across the earth, crawling over the ground in a huge network of interconnected creepers. Stout trees with long thin leaves dotted the land, their shade giving rise to bloodred ferns and yellowed bushes with leaves that rustled together like dim rattles.
Ahead, the mountains loomed closer, reaching up with suddenness from the basin as though thrust into the sky in a violent quaking of the land. The nearer they drew, the less friendly the crags and sheer ravines appeared. Still Vendanj never slowed. It was as though he fled something yet unseen, though he never looked back.
Behind them, the sun began to set, aureate hues fading to russet and finally to the muted blues of twilight. With the passing of the light, they finally stopped to rest. Mira strung a tether line near another pool and tied Solus to it. The others did likewise, unlashing bedrolls from their saddles.
Sutter sat gingerly, grimacing against the pain in his thighs and buttocks. Once down, he promptly pulled a hunk of salted meat from his daypack and took a large bite. Around it he said, “No need to stop just yet. I still have feeling in my ass.”
Tahn sat beside him and drank deeply from his water skin. When he was done, he said, “It’s a lie, you’ve never felt a thing below your neck.”
Braethen and Wendra laughed weakly, and found patches of ground on which to lay out their bedrolls. Braethen managed the fire. Vendanj strode to the center of their makeshift circle. “Eat and get to sleep quickly. We will move before it is light. Are any of you in undue pain?”
Even Sutter was silent.
But then he slapped Tahn’s leg to call him from his thoughts. “Let’s have a story,” he said. “Penit, come over and give us one of your fancies. I’m paying.” Sutter tossed a rock in the semblance of a coin into the center of the circle they’d formed. “And spare not the wit.”
Tahn had noticed Sutter seemed to feel a kind of fatherly affection for Penit that surprised him.
Penit came as bidden, and smiled in embarrassment. Grant perched on a rock, his back to them, watching the southern horizon where stars flickered into view against the spread of dark.
“What story do you wish?” Penit asked.
“Anything,” Wendra said. “Something stirring. Something familiar, perhaps. Oh, you choose.”
Penit eyed the back of the exile and cleared his throat. Braethen had just finished readying wood for a fire, and struck it alight as Penit began.
Grant shifted a quarter turn, though not far enough to watch the boy spin his tale.
Penit raised his chin as Tahn had seen him do atop his stage-wagon in Myrr, and the words began to take a familiar form, scripted by a gifted author no doubt.
“Years ago, the great court of Recityv convened to rule on the life of a man condemned, the people said, because he held no regard for life.” Penit paced once toward the growing fire, adopting an orator’s pose.
Sutter chuckled enthusiastically. Tahn smiled at the words so eloquently fashioned as they came from the boy’s youthful lips. The fire licked higher, casting shadows around them. At the far edge of their circle, Vendanj came, peering on with little interest.
“Go on,” Wendra enthused.
With another tilt of his head, Penit resumed, this time raising an open hand to dramatize the tale. “Our man in this tale stood beneath the weight of his accusation while the gentry, the ruling seats, and the merchant classes all looked on.” Penit lowered his voice to a whisper. “And the words he spoke are said to reverberate still in the great court of Recityv.
“And so it goes,” Penit said, as if ready to tell one of the greatest rhea-fols he knew.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-THREE
Rhea-fol: The Dissent
“And so it goes,” Penit said again, and turned a circle where he stood. When he’d made one full round he wore a grave expression and tightly folded arms, his eyes stern and turned earthward toward the fire. The flicker of the flames lent much to the look of condemnation
the boy wore.
“You are accused here of high treason, Denolan SeFeery,” Penit said with a surprisingly authoritative voice.
Braethen had looked wistful. Now his face fell into a doleful frown.
Penit went on. “You are aware of the crimes that bring you here?”
He turned a circle—a character change—and stared upward into the starry night, defiance clear in the set of his chin. “I know why you have brought me here, my Lady,” Penit said with firm resolve and a second adopted voice, this one calm but implacable. “But it is your arrogance and ignorance that call my actions crimes. Stop these proceedings before you condemn yourselves in your haste to place blame. I am not a traitor.”
Penit whirled, again with arms folded. “Enough!” The vehemence of the command caught Tahn off guard. “You will answer as you are asked, and nothing more.” Penit pointed an accusatory finger toward the fire, disgust curling his upper lip.
“There is ample evidence that I might wish to forgo these … pleasantries … but I will obey the law of the land before all else.”
Penit sneered. “Blessed be Will and Sky that we are civilized here, or you’d be well acquainted with your earth by now. I’ve no ear to listen to what defense you intend to make, SeFeery. Still, we will proceed as with every dissent brought to the Halls at Solath Mahnus. And you will uphold the standard of citizenship throughout. Counselor, lead on.”
Penit turned again, swirling plumes of dust at his feet drawn into the stream of heat now rising from the fire. He spun to a new stance two paces from where he’d been, a calm, calculating expression in his features—the Counselor. “Two nights ago our good and noble regent brought forth her child from the womb. Trumpets heralded the arrival, and songs came in chorus. Celebrations began at the announcement … though a secret remained strictly held by the regent’s closest servants.” Penit paused, his eyes narrowing farther. “The child arrived without breath.”
Penit spun in one long turn back to the place of the accused. With an upturned face and the poise of one beyond his years, he said, “These words weave a deception that hopes to demonize me, my Lady. No such jubilation existed in the city. The regent’s child is not heir to her seat, and many suspect the timing of the child’s birth—”
Penit shuffled in a tight spin to his first position. “Silence!” Clear hatred shot from Penit’s eyes toward the fire. “You have been warned about violating the dignity of our procedure here. Now, go on, Counselor.”
Again Penit turned, the cool, intelligent gaze returning. “Yes,” he began, confident. “The child had no birthright to rule. That is not our way. But it is not the threat of losing a monarch that brings you to us today.” Penit grinned with malice, and shook his head. “Rather, you must answer why you felt it your place to stop the restitution of that child’s life by the benevolent abilities of the Order of Sheason. I might add, trying to stop the Sheason from saving the child is not so different from murder. For to take life and to prevent its reclamation are close cousins, are they not?” A snide look passed over Penit’s face.
In the darkness, Vendanj appeared to scowl, his own arms crossed in front of him as he looked on at Penit’s dramatic telling of the tale.
Penit again performed his circular dance, and landed in the guise of the accused. “Though framed as a question, sir, I take it you did not mean it so. I’ll leave the question to its own destruction through every man’s wisdom.”
Once more the boy twisted around to the place of prosecutor, a thin haze of dust floating in the circle around his feet near the fire. “Very well. A semantic discussion for another time.” Penit paced back and forth a few steps before cocking his head and staring inquisitively into the fire. “How is it that you knew where the ceremony would take place?”
Penit turned, this time more slowly, his form casting shadows. As a defendant he spoke toward the sky. “I was taken into the regent’s trust as a special aid and protector. First to teach and inform as a benefit of my years in tutelage to Julian A’sa. Second to vouchsafe for her in special circumstances when the regent’s guard were too conspicuous. I am Emerit.”
Penit turned. “I see.” His eyes shone as a child’s who had captured something with which to play. “Then by her confidence, you knew when and where the stewards of the Will would minister to the child to give it a chance at life. And with this knowledge you undertook not only to deny that chance, but to contravene the wishes of the regent. Is that,” Penit said, raising a dubious brow, “also a weave of deception? Or have I fairly described the circumstance and your intentions in its regard?”
Penit stepped much more deliberately in his slow arcing circle. Tahn watched the change in expression take place as the boy came to the position of the accused. A calm shaped his mouth, as again he seemed to speak toward the spray of stars. “It is … incomplete. It is true that there is little I did not know about the affairs of the regent. And with time, she came to trust my judgment.”
Penit shifted his focus, as if turning from his inquisitor to view the unseen judge presiding over the dissent. “I became perhaps the only one able … or willing,” Penit said in a sudden burst of anger, as he looked back to where his questioner might be standing, “to tell her she was wrong.”
Wendra and Sutter let out a gasp, so thoroughly engrossed in the tale that they felt the shock of the seditious words in the Court of Judicature. Tahn found himself unwittingly looking in the direction Penit did when addressing the judge, attempting to see the object of Penit’s fancy. Braethen nodded knowingly.
For a long moment Penit let the words hang over the fire and his rapt listeners. When Tahn spied Vendanj again, the Sheason had not moved, shadow playing across his darkened features as the fire spat and surged, glinting dully over his three-ringed pendant. He undoubtedly knew the story; the recognition of it was clear in his eyes. But something more rested there, something inexorable like floodwater in a spring of heavy rains.
The boy then stepped twice, gracefully completing his turn to change his guise back to the counselor. A thin smile spread on Penit’s lips. “‘Tell her she was wrong,’ you say. With an adversary like you, SeFeery, I hardly need to present evidence here. Your arrogance about my Lady’s trust in you is hardly the indemnification you might hope it to be.” Penit let his grin fall. “And in any case, wide is the gulf between the liberty to provide strong counsel and taking measures to inhibit the actions or choice of the regent. In the instance of the latter, we have witnesses who attest to your treason. Do you wish to hear their testimony, or will you concede their words as truth?”
Penit twisted back and raised his eyes in calm compliance. “I’ve read their written testimonies. They are true accounts of what they saw.” One eyebrow rose as Penit said, “But I admonish the Court of Judicature on this point. Each of the documents varies in detail; each is given with a level of dislike or affinity for me. They are of no use in determining whether my actions were right.”
With a short step and a quick turn, Penit returned to his first position, a harsh glare on his face. “Quiet!” The shrill cry caused Grant to turn in full profile to the fire. Heavy creases in his tawny skin held the shadow of night. “We do not assemble to determine if you believe in the correctness of your own actions. What zealous insanity could be produced as defense here if we ignored the law in exchange for a criminal’s earnest belief that he was justified in his crime?” Penit approached the fire and bent close. He glared down with disdain. “You, fellow, would likely be a handful of coins in an assassin’s purse if I offered pardon for the vengeance that killed you, feeling justified in my actions.”
“It was her child,” Wendra whispered in realization. “The judge is the regent herself, and it is her child the man tried to kill.” She looked over at Tahn, all slack jaw and wide eyes.
“The particulars are irrelevant,” Penit continued. “By your own words you admit to speaking in open defiance to our Lady. You are well known to be privy to the most delicate information in the
realm. You accept as truth the testimony of witnesses that describe your actions as contrary to our Lady’s wishes. And you arrive today prepared to place your ethics above the law of this Court of Judicature and the tradition of Recityv since the Craven Season.” Penit waved a hand as though to erase the insufferable image of the defendant, and stood up slowly from his slight crouch. “We could well be done now. Your head aches for the rope. Do you deny any of this?”
Penit rounded deliberately, his face slackening to near tranquility. “Yes.”
Again Wendra and Sutter gasped. Braethen looked up at Penit, his attention newly won.
“This chamber has not been house to safe, peaceful traditions since the dark seasons which followed the Tabernacle of the Sky. Solath Mahnus is a monument to possibilities, but today the chairs of many sit vacant in the council rooms, where they remain abandoned since the Second Promise. Bloodlines of families as far back as the War of the First Promise today run diluted with the cowardice of civility. We are now only several nations loosely acquainted across a wide land, but our vaunted speech might make it seem that we are greater than we are.” Penit widened his stance and looked heavenward, even more defiant. “We are men, women, and children. We are hopeful and able. We are grown in our understanding of much and have enjoyed peace for generations.” Penit stopped. His eyes seemed to gather the light of stars. His voice softened, deepened. “But we are not gods.”
A chill ran down Tahn’s spine. Penit stood resolute, maintaining his fiction, eyes peering up at a judge no one could see.
A scowl rose on the Sheason’s face.
Penit then whirled violently, his feet throwing rocks and dirt in a shower as he forced himself to a stop. “Such impudence! Such disrespect! How dare you say such things to she who is the sovereign authority, the great leader of our land! You are a mule. You desecrate the very nobility this chamber was built to honor. Such an accusation! You are not here to cast petty judgment on our regent. I will have you bound—”
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