Crown Duel

by Sherwood Smith

  He nodded.

  “And you even tried to warn me, though at the time I saw it as a threat, because—well, because.” I felt too sick inside to go on about that. Drawing a shaky breath, I said, “And again. At her party, when she took me into the conservatory. She tried again to get me to join her. Said I hadn’t kept my vows to Papa. So I summoned Azmus to help me find out what to do. The right thing. I know I can’t prove it,” I finished lamely.

  He pulled absently at the fingers of one glove, then looked down at it, and straightened it again. Unnecessary movements from him were so rare, I wondered if he, too, was fighting for clear thought.

  He lifted his gaze to me. “And now? You were riding to the border?”

  “No,” I said. “To Orbanith.”

  Again he showed surprise.

  “It’s the other thing that Azmus found out,” I said quickly. “I sent him to tell you as soon as I learned—but there’s no way for you to know that’s true. I realize it. Still, I did. I have to go because I know how to reach the Hill Folk.”

  “The Hill Folk?”

  “Yes,” I said, leaning forward. “The kinthus. The Merindars have it stowed in wagons, and they’re going to burn it up-slope. Carried on the winds, it can kill Hill Folk over a full day’s ride, all at once. That’s how they’re paying Denlieff, with our woods, not with money at all. They’re breaking our Covenant! I have to warn the Hill Folk!”

  “Orbanith. Why there, why this road?”

  “Mora and the servants told me this was the fastest way to Orbanith.”

  “Why did you not go southeast to Tlanth where you know the Hill Folk?”

  I shook my head impatiently. “You don’t know them. You can’t know them. They don’t have names, or if they do, they don’t tell them to us. They seem to be aware of each other’s concerns, for if you see one, then others will appear, all silent. And if they act, it’s at once. Some of the old songs say that they walk in one another’s dreams, which I think is a poetic way of saying they can speak mind to mind. I don’t know. I must get to the mountains to warn them, and the mountains that source the Piaum River are the closest to Remalna-city.”

  “And no one else knows of this?” he asked gently.

  I shook my head slowly, unable to remove my gaze from his face. “Azmus discovered it by accident. Rode two days to reach me. I did send him…”

  There was no point in saying it again. Either Shevraeth believed me, and—I swallowed painfully—I’d given him no particular reason to, or he didn’t. Begging, pleading, arguing, ranting—nothing would make any difference, except to make a horrible situation worse.

  I should have made amends from the beginning, and now it was too late.

  He took a deep breath. I couldn’t breathe, I stared at him, waiting, feeling sweat trickle beneath my already soggy clothing.

  Then he smiled a little. “Brace up. We’re not about to embark on a duel to the death over the dishes.” He paused, then said lightly, “Though most of our encounters until very recently have been unenviable exchanges, you have never lied to me. Eat. We’ll leave before the next time-change, and part ways at the crossroads.”

  No “You’ve never lied before.” No “If I can trust you.’’ No warnings or hedgings. He took all the responsibility—and the risk—himself. I didn’t know why, and to thank him for believing me would embarrass us both. So I said nothing, but my eyes prickled. I busied myself with smoothing out my mud-gritty, wet gloves.

  “Why don’t you set aside that cloak and eat something?”

  His voice was flat. I realized he probably felt even nastier about the situation than I did. I heard the scrape of a bowl on the table and the clink of a spoon. The ordinary sounds restored me somehow, and I untied my cloak and shrugged it off. At once a weight that seemed greater than my own left me. I made a surreptitious swipe at my eyes, straightened my shoulders, and did my best to assume nonchalance as I picked up my spoon.

  After a short time, he said, “Don’t you have any questions for me?”

  I glanced up, my spoon poised midway between my bowl and my mouth. “Of course,” I said. “But I thought—” I started to wave my hand, realizing too late it still held the spoon, and winced as stew spattered down the table. Somehow the ridiculousness of it released some of the tension. As I mopped at the mess with a corner of my cloak, I said, “Well, it doesn’t matter what I thought. So you knew about the plot all along?”

  “Pretty much from the beginning, though the timing is new. I surmised they would make their move in the fall, but something seems to have precipitated action. My first warning was from Elenet, who had found out a great deal from the duke’s servants. That was her real reason for coming to Court, to tell me herself.”

  “What about Flauvic?”

  “It would appear,” he said carefully, “that he disassociated with this plan of his mother’s.”

  “Was that the argument he alluded to?”

  He did not ask when. “Perhaps. Though that might have been for effect. I can believe it only because it is uncharacteristic for him to lend himself to so stupid and clumsy a plan.”

  “Finesse,” I drawled in a parody of a courtier’s voice. “He’d want finesse, and to make everyone else look foolish.”

  Shevraeth smiled slightly. “Am I to understand you were not favorably impressed with Lord Flauvic?”

  “As far as I’m concerned, he and Fialma are both thorns,” I said, “though admittedly he is very pretty to look at. More so than his sour pickle of a sister. Anyway, I hope you aren’t trusting him as far as you can lift a mountain, because I wouldn’t.”

  “His house is being watched. He can’t stir a step outside without half a riding being within earshot.”

  “And he probably knows it,” I said, grinning. “Last question, why are you riding alone? Wouldn’t things be more effective with your army?”

  “I move fastest alone,” he said. “And my own people are in place, and have been for some time.”

  I thought of Nessaren—and the fact that I hadn’t seen her around Athanarel for weeks.

  “When I want them,” he said, reaching into the pouch at his belt, “I will summon them with this.” And he held up something that glowed blue briefly: the summons-stone I had seen so long ago. “Each riding has one. At the appropriate moment, we will converge and, ah, convince the Marquise of Merindar and her allies to accompany us to Athanarel. It is the best way of avoiding bloodshed.”

  In the distance the time-change rang. “What about those Denlieff warriors?” I asked.

  “If their leaders are unable to give them orders, they will have to take orders from me.”

  I thought about the implied threat, then shook my head. “I’m glad I have the easy job,” I said. “Speaking of which…”

  He smiled. “There’s a room adjacent. I suggest you change your clothes and ride dry for a time.” Before I could say anything, he rose, stepped to the tapestry, and summoned the maid.

  Very soon I was in the little bedroom, struggling out of my soggy clothing. It felt good to get into dry things, though I knew I wouldn’t be dry long. There was no hope for my cloak, except to wring it out and put it on. But when I reached the dining chamber again I found myself alone. My cloak was gone, and in its place a long, black, waterproof one that I recognized at once.

  With very mixed feelings I pulled it on, gathering it up in my arms so it wouldn’t drag on the ground behind me. Then I settled my hat on my head, and very soon I was on the road north.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  I was very grateful for that cloak before my journey’s end.

  The weather steadily turned worse. I forbore hiring horses in favor of sturdy mountain ponies, on whose broad backs I could doze a little.

  For I did not dare to stop. The driving rain and the deep mud made a swift pace impossible. Halting only to change mounts and stuff some hasty bites of food into my mouth, I kept going, even in the dark, and hired a glowglobe to carry with me as I near
ed the mountains.

  The third morning I reached the foothills below Mount Toar. My road rounded a high cliff from which I could see the northwest road out of Grumareth. On this road I descried a long line of wagons trundling their way inexorably toward me. They were probably half a day’s journey behind me—and I knew that they wouldn’t have to go as high.

  This sight was enough to kindle my tired body into renewed effort.

  At the next inn, I mentioned the wagons to a friendly stablehand as I waited for my new mount. “Do you know anything about them?”

  The stable-girl gave me a quick grin. “Sure do,” she said cheerily. “Orders came straight from the Duke of Grumareth himself, I’m told. Those wagons are full of paving stones for the old castle up-mountain. Halt ‘em, get in the way, and you’re dead. Too bad! We wouldn’t mind pinching a few. Maybe next time they’ll think of us. Ever seen such a wet summer? Roads are like soup.”

  I thanked her and left, my spirits dampening again. So much for rousing the locals to stop those wagons. Of course they might be willing to fight for the Covenant despite the orders given the duke’s forces—but what if these were not the right wagons? And even if they were, sending unarmed villagers against warriors would be a slaughter. All I could think was that I had to solve this myself.

  I bought some bread and cheese, and was soon on my way, eating as I rode. Very soon the rain returned, splashing down at a slant. I pulled the edge of Shevraeth’s cloak up onto my head and my hat over it, then arranged the rest as a kind of tent around me, peering through the thin opening to see the road ahead. Not that I had to look, except for the occasional low branch, for the pony seemed to know its way.

  As we climbed, the air got colder. But when the woods closed around me at last, I forgot about the discomfort. I was breathing the scents of home again, the indefinable combination of loam and moss and wood and fern that I had loved all my life.

  And I sensed presence.

  The woods were quiet, except for the tapping of raindrops on leaves and, once or twice, the crash and scamper of hidden animals breaking cover and retreating. No birds, no great beasts. Yet I felt watchers.

  And so, tired as I was, I tipped back my head and began to sing.

  At the best of times I don’t have the kind of voice anyone would want to hear mangling their favorite songs. Now my throat was dry and scratchy, but I did what I could, singing wordlessly some of the old, strange patterns, not quite melodies, that I’d heard in my childhood. I sang my loudest, and at first echoes rang off stones and trees and down into hollows. After a time my voice dropped to a husky squeak, but as the light bent west and turned golden, I heard a rustle, and I was surrounded by Hill Folk, more of them than I had ever seen at once before.

  They did not speak. Somewhere in the distance I heard the breathy, slightly sinister cry of a reed pipe.

  I began to talk, not knowing if they understood words, such as “marquise” and “mercenary,” or if they somehow took the images from my thoughts. I told them about the Merindars, and Flauvic, and the Renselaeuses, ending with what Azmus had told me. I described the wagons on the road behind me. I finally exhorted them to go up into the eastern mountains and hide, and that we—Shevraeth and his people and I—would first get rid of the kinthus, then find a way to keep the Covenant.

  When I ran out of words, for a long painful pause there was that eerie stillness, so soundless yet full of presence. Then they moved, their barky hides dappling with shadows, until they disappeared with a rustling sound like wind through the trees.

  I was alone again, but I felt no sense of danger. My pony lifted her head and blinked at me. She hadn’t reacted at all to being surrounded by Hill Folk.

  “All right,” I said to her. “First thing, water. And then we have some wagons to try to halt. Or I do. I suppose your part will be to reappear at the inn as mute testimony to the fallen heroine.”

  We stopped at a stream. I drank deeply of the sweet, cold water and splashed my face until it was numb. Then we started on the long ride down. From time to time quick flutings of reed pipes echoed from peak to peak, and from very far away, the rich chordal hum of the distant windharps answered. These sounds lifted my tired spirits.

  I remained cheery, too, as if the universe had slipped into a kind of dream existence. I was by now far beyond mere tiredness, so that nothing seemed real. In fact, until I topped a rise and saw the twenty wagons stretched out in a formidable line directly below me, the worst reaction I had to rain, to stumbles, to my burning eyes, was a tendency to snicker.

  The wagons sobered me.

  I stayed where I was, squarely in the center of the muddy road, and waited for them to ascend my hill. I had plenty of time to count them, all twenty, as they rumbled slowly toward me, pulled by teams of draught horses. When I caught the quick gleam of metal on the hill beyond them—the glint of an errant ray of sun on helms and shields—my heart started a rapid tattoo inside my chest.

  But I stayed where I was. Twenty wagons. If the unknown riders were reinforcements to the enemy, I couldn’t be in worse trouble than I already was. But if they weren’t…

  “Halt,” I said, when the first wagon driver was in earshot.

  He’d already begun to pull up the horses, but I felt it sounded good to begin on an aggressive note.

  “Out of the way,” the man sitting next to the driver bawled. Despite their both being clad in the rough clothing of wagoneers, their bearing betrayed the fact that they were warriors.

  That and the long swords lying between them on the bench. “But your way lies up the mountain west of here,” I pointed.

  The second driver in line, a female, even bigger and tougher looking than the leader, had dismounted. She stood next to the first wagon, squinting up at me in a decidedly unfriendly manner. She and the leader exchanged looks, then she said, “We have a delivery to make in yon town.”

  “The road to the town lies that way,” I said, pointing. “You’re heading straight for the high mountains. There’s nothing up here.”

  They grinned. “That’s a matter for us and not for you. Be about your business, citizen, or we’ll have to send you on your way.”

  “And you won’t like the way we do the sending,” the woman added.

  They both laughed nastily.

  I crossed my arms. “You can drop the paving stones here if you wish, but you’ll have to take the kinthus back to Denlieff.”

  Their smiles disappeared.

  I glanced up…to see that the road behind the last wagon was empty. The mysterious helmed riders had disappeared. What did that mean?

  No time to find out.

  “Now, how did you know about that?” the man said. There was no mistaking the threat in his voice. He laid his hand significantly on his sword hilt.

  “It’s my business, as you said.” I tried my best to sound assured, waving my sodden arm airily in my best Court mode.

  The woman bowed with exaggerated politeness. “And who might you be, Your Royal Highness?” she asked loudly.

  The leader, and the third and fourth drivers who had just joined the merry group, guffawed.

  “I am Meliara Astiar, Countess of Tlanth,” I said.

  Again the smiles diminished, but not all the way. The leader eyed me speculatively for a long breath. “Well, then, you seem to have had mighty good skill in the past, if half the stories be true, but even if they are, what good’s your skill against forty of us?”

  “How do you know I don’t have eighty-one armed warriors waiting behind that rise over there?” I waved my other hand vaguely mountainward.

  They thought that was richly funny.

  “Because if you did,” the female said, “they’d be out here and we wouldn’t be jawin’. Come on, Kess, we’ve wasted enough time here. Let’s shift Her Majesty off our road and be on our way.”

  The man picked up his sword and vaulted down from his wagon. I yanked my short sword free and climbed down from my pony. When I reached the ground, the
world swayed, and I staggered against the animal, then righted myself with an effort.

  The man and woman stood before me with long swords gripped in big hands. They eyed me with an odd mixture of threat and puzzlement that made that weird, almost hysterical laughter bubble up inside my shaky innards. But I kept my lips shut and hefted my sword.

  “Well?” the woman said to her leader.

  They turned their attention to me again. I barely came up to the middle of the shortest one’s chest, and my blade was about half the length and heft of theirs.

  The man took a slow swing at me, which I easily parried. His brows went up slightly; he swung again, faster, and when I parried that he feinted toward my shoulder. Desperately, my heart now pounding in my ears, I blocked the next strike and the next, but barely. His blade whirled faster, harder, and that block shook me right down to my heels. The man dropped his point and said, “You’re the one that whupped Galdran Merindar?”

  Unbidden, Shevraeth’s voice spoke inside my head: “You have never lied to me…” I thought desperately, Better late than never! And for a heartbeat I envisioned myself snarling Yes, ha ha! And I minced fifty more like him, so you’d better run! Except it wasn’t going to stop them; I could see it in their determined gazes and in the way the woman gripped her sword.

  “No,” I said. “He knocked me off my horse. But I’d taken an oath, so I had to do my best.” I drew in a shaky breath. “I know I can’t fight forty of you, but I’m going to stand here and block you until you either go away or my arms fall off, because this, too, is an oath I took.”

  The woman muttered something in their home language. Her stance, her tone, made it almost clear it was “I don’t like this.”

  And he said something in a hard voice, his eyes narrowed. It had to mean “We have no choice. Better her than us.” And he took up a guard position again, his muscles tightening.

  My sweaty hand gripped my sword, and I raised it, gritting my teeth—

  And there came the beat of hooves on the ground. The three of us went still. Either this was reinforcements for them, in which case I was about to become a prisoner—or a ghost—or…