Song of Unmaking

by Caitlin Brennan

  Neither of them seemed to notice. She slid deeper into sleep. As long as Kerrec was here, there were no nightmares that she remembered. She smiled and rested her head on her folded arms, falling the rest of the way into soft darkness.

  Valeria was sound asleep. Kerrec paused in answering another of his sister’s questions. “Do you think—”

  Briana beckoned to one of the servants who stood discreetly by the wall. The man bowed and lifted Valeria in his arms, carrying her to the next room, where there was a bed and servants to see to her comfort.

  “She’s worn out,” Briana said. “Have you been working her too hard?”

  Kerrec flushed. It was not work that left them both so short of sleep, but he was not about to tell his sister that.

  Briana paid no attention to his silence. “She’s terribly young. She’s so strong and can do so much—we all forget. But she’s hardly more than a child.”

  “She and her stallion.” Kerrec shook his head. “We need her so badly and use her so ruthlessly—we’d never do such a thing to one of the horses. I’m as guilty as any. But have you ever tried to stop her from doing something she felt obligated to do?”

  “The stallions can.”

  “They’re even more ruthless than the rest of us. Whatever they’re trying to do, she’s a key to it—and every door it opens is more disconcerting than the one before.”

  “Poor tormented rider,” Briana said with no perceptible sign of sympathy. “At least you value her. The others will learn in the end, I suppose. If they turn out to be difficult, send her back here. We can use her—and protect her, too.”

  “She belongs with me,” Kerrec said gently. “If she comes back, I come with her.”

  “You would be more than welcome.”

  Kerrec frowned into the wine he had barely touched. “Half of me wants to stay. There’s so much to do, and the center of it all is here. But the Mountain is calling us back. It sent us out to do what was needed. Now it needs us close again.”

  “Your heart needs to heal,” Briana said. “The Mountain can do that, now your body and your magic are whole.”

  He nodded. Rather unexpectedly, he smiled. “Have I ever told you how fortunate I am to be your brother?”

  “Never,” she said.

  He leaned across the table and kissed her on the forehead. “Don’t take undue advantage of it.”

  “But of course I will.” She grinned at him. It was a very comfortable moment amid so many uncomfortable ones.

  He relaxed into it. That was an art he was learning, slowly and painfully. Someday he might even be good at it.

  Fifty-Seven

  Valeria woke in a strange bed with Kerrec stretched out beside her. For a long few moments she could not imagine where she was. Then she recognized the carving and gilding of the ceiling.

  She was in the palace. She had fallen asleep, ignominiously, over dinner. Someone had undressed her and clothed her with a fine linen gown and put her to bed.

  Kerrec was still in the shirt and trousers he had worn the night before. He was sound asleep. She eased herself out from beside him and padded barefoot to the door.

  The dining room was directly outside. It was empty, lit with early sunlight. From somewhere she heard a bird singing, a sweet, mournful call that repeated over and over.

  Obviously they were not going to leave at dawn today. Valeria found her clothes neatly folded at the foot of the bed. They were clean and brushed, and her boots stood at attention on the floor, freshly and impeccably polished.

  She dressed quickly. Bright though the morning was, it was cold. Autumn was here for certain, and the autumn Dance was already past. She had fair hopes of being in the school for Midwinter Dance.

  As she perched on a stool and reached for the first boot, she felt Kerrec’s eyes on her. There were remnants of a dream in them, but he was more or less awake. He smiled, then frowned—which was perfectly like him.

  “Good morning,” she said.

  He sat up, yawning. “It’s late.”

  “The sun’s barely up,” she said. “We can be on the road in an hour.”

  “Two,” he said. He looked around for his coat and boots. She handed them to him. For thanks he gave her a preoccupied stare. “You wouldn’t wake up,” he said.

  He sounded only faintly aggrieved. “You could have had me carried home,” she said.

  “It was easier to wait,” he said. He pulled on his boots and shrugged into his coat. “Bath. Breakfast. Riders’ Hall.”

  “Yes, sir,” she said with a soldier’s salute.

  That won her a grim stare, but he kept the reprimand to himself. He was already halfway to the door. She had to run to catch him.

  Bath and breakfast were waiting in Riders’ Hall, in that order. Their bags were packed, and the stallions were brushed until they gleamed. Quintus was just bringing out the saddles when they came down to the stable.

  Valeria took Sabata’s saddle from him. He smiled and bowed. She smiled back. It did not seem necessary to say anything. She would see Quintus again—maybe not always in the way or time that she expected, but the patterns around him touched hers more than once down the passage of years.

  As she finished girthing up Sabata’s saddle and turned to retrieve the bridle from its hook, she found herself face-to-face with half a dozen silent and staring boys. She had not felt their coming. She had been focused too far away, on what might happen in a year or two or more.

  They had been coming to Riders’ Hall every day, even through the funeral. Kerrec, intent on his father’s death and his sister’s grief, had not seen or spoken to them. Nor had Valeria, what with leaving every day by sunup and not coming back until well after sundown.

  This morning they were early. From their expressions, that was deliberate. They had screwed up their courage to face the riders, and they were not going to let either of them go without saying what they had come to say.

  The door of Petra’s stall swung open. Kerrec came out leading his stallion, saddled and bridled and ready to ride. The boys flinched a little but stood their ground, blocking his way to the door.

  “Sir,” Maurus said, “we have to ask you something.”

  Kerrec’s brow arched. He looked impossibly haughty. “Ask,” he said.

  Maurus took a deep breath and let it out all at once. “Sir, are you coming back? Will you keep on teaching us?”

  “I am coming back,” Kerrec said, “but not likely until spring.”

  “How are we supposed to hold on that long?” Tatius demanded, then added belatedly, “sir.”

  “Quintus will keep on teaching you,” Kerrec said. “If you grow past him, ask the horses. They’re better teachers than any human.”

  “Horses can’t talk,” Darius said. “How can they teach us?”

  “Humans can listen,” Kerrec said.

  “But—” said Darius.

  Maurus cut him off with an elbow in the ribs. “We don’t understand, sir,” he said.

  “When you’re ready, you will.”

  “You always say that,” Vincentius said, but he was only whining a little.

  “Listen,” Kerrec said, “and learn. I’ll be looking for you to be much better riders when I see you again.”

  “That won’t be hard,” Maurus muttered.

  The others hushed him, not gently. He bared his teeth at them and said to Kerrec, “Sir, we’ll do our best. You won’t be disappointed.”

  “I don’t expect to be,” Kerrec said.

  They drew back like an honor guard. He saluted them without irony and led Petra past them, with Valeria close behind.

  For her there were smiles and grins and whispered goodbyes. She returned them as best she could, but Kerrec was moving too fast for her to stop. He was in the yard and mounted before she reached the stable door.

  The boys streamed out behind them and followed them into the street, running after them for some distance before Quintus’s bellow called them back. It was as grand a farewell a
s Valeria had ever needed.

  “I hope we do come back,” she said as she rode up beside Kerrec. The street was deserted—unusual at this hour. Apparently they were not the only people in Aurelia who had slept late this morning.

  Kerrec kept his eyes focused straight ahead, but he answered her amiably enough. “I do intend to come back and teach them,” he said, “or at the very least send someone who can take them past where Quintus leaves off. I took them up and then abandoned them. I owe them the best instruction I can find.”

  Valeria was not going to argue with his judgment of himself. It was a little harsh, but it was accurate.

  Sabata was fussing. He had been locked up for days—he was jumping out of his skin. She let him stretch his legs, even allowed a judicious buck or two, before a rising tide of passersby brought his exuberance to a dancing, snorting halt.

  The city was waking around them, stumbling out to greet the day. Merchants had set up shop and vendors opened their stalls in the markets. Most of the traffic was aiming toward the various gates, funeral guests and mourners leaving in a swelling flood.

  That was exactly what Kerrec had hoped to avoid, but he suffered in silence. It took them well over an hour to travel a distance that on other days would have taken a quarter of that. Then there was the crush at the east gate, with supply wagons coming in while what seemed like half the city tried to get out.

  If they had been on foot they might have given it up for fear of being trampled. With the stallions, they endured jostling and tedium but no danger to life or limb.

  Eventually—very eventually—they rode through the gate. The road beyond was crowded with foot traffic and wagons, but the greenway for riders was almost clear.

  Sabata was not the only one to take advantage of it. Petra showed him a fine pair of heels. They raced one another down the greenway, dodging the priest on his mule and the pair of nobles on extravagantly pretty but otherwise undistinguished horses. The nobles were offended, but the priest cheered them on.

  They ran neck and neck for the last few furlongs, away from the worst of the crush and toward the legions’ encampment. Gradually the stallions slowed to a canter, then to a walk. Sabata was still inclined to dance and fret, but Petra returned to his deceptively phlegmatic self, plodding down the greenway like a plowhorse coming in from the fields.

  Valeria had not faced the purpose of this particular errand yet today. Now she had no choice. The encampment loomed in front of her, with guards at the gates and along the top of the wall.

  They were expected. The guards saluted them as they came toward the gate, and an escort was waiting to take them to the commander. No one tried to separate them from the horses, which was well. Sabata was not in an obliging mood.

  Every legionary camp had quarters for the various cohorts, with tents laid out in a square. In the middle was the parade ground, a wide open space fronting on the commander’s tent.

  That space was full this morning, with all the cohorts standing in ranks. They wore full battle armor. Their shields were slung behind them and their spears were upright and grounded. The general and his staff stood in front of them.

  This was a full review. Valeria would have hung back and waited for it to be over, but Kerrec rode straight down the center toward Tibullus on his platform.

  As he rode, with Valeria hesitant behind him, the marching drums began to beat. Petra and then Sabata began to dance in time with the rhythm.

  Valeria could be terribly slow-witted, but once she caught sight of the white mule standing to one side, she understood. The mule was wearing a pack saddle and carrying the full armor, spear and shield of a legionary.

  Rodry’s legion was giving him full honors—general’s honors. The banner of the legion came down as Valeria approached, and the battle standard lowered. The standard-bearer wound the banner around the staff and held it until Sabata came to a halt in front of the platform. Then he laid it in Valeria’s hands.

  It was surprisingly heavy. The staff was a spear, and it was hung with badges of honor.

  Her throat had locked shut. She had been expecting Rodry’s shield and a salute from his cohort, and maybe a commendation from his general. This was beyond anything she would have dared to hope for.

  She did her best to commit it all to memory. The glitter of sunlight on helmets and the bristle of spears, the weight of the standard in her hands, Tibullus’s measured tones as he named Rodry and his cohort and his legion and then spoke of his commendations and his service, sank into her remembrance and set as if in amber.

  “At the end of his service,” Tibullus said, “he broke the emperor’s ban and crossed the river, guiding a pair of riders into the enemy’s country. For that he would be counted a deserter and so dishonored. But the gods had chosen him. Through him the enemy was destroyed and the battle won. He redeemed himself a hundred times over, and transformed dishonor into great honor. His name will be remembered among the great ones of the Valeria. Whenever the names of heroes are recited, his will come high among them. He served his empire well. He did honor to his legion.”

  Then he granted Rodry the salute, and every man of his legion followed his lead. The sound of stamping feet and clashing armor, multiplied almost five-thousandfold, rocked Valeria in the saddle and made her ears ring. Last of all they beat spears on shields, hammering out the rhythm that had made their enemies’ blood run cold since the first emperor led his armies into battle.

  With Kerrec leading the mule and Valeria still cradling the standard, they bowed their heads to the general and his legion. Then they rode slowly out of the camp. The sound of spear on shield followed them for a long way, until finally they had ridden out of its reach.

  Valeria had to stop then. The tears did not last long, and Kerrec did not reprimand her for them. His own cheeks were wet.

  “I never dreamed they would do so much,” she said. “I wish my father could have been there. I wish he could have seen it.”

  “He can,” Kerrec said. “There is a way.”

  Valeria stared at him. “What—”

  “It’s a kind of pattern magic,” he said.

  “Can you teach me?”

  “When you’re ready,” he said—damn him.

  Fifty-Eight

  They were three days on the road to Imbria. They could have done it in two without mortally offending the mule, but Valeria suffered a collapse of courage. The closer she came, the slower she rode, until Sabata dribbled unhappily to a halt.

  Kerrec very carefully said nothing. She was well aware that he was restraining himself. He rode in silence behind her, with the mule plodding alongside.

  If he had suggested they give it up, send the mule to Imbria with a courier and head straight for the Mountain, she would have hit him—and done just that. She would have hated herself for it and blamed Kerrec, but it would have been easier than facing her family and telling them Rodry was dead.

  Valeria had never taken the easy path in her life. That got her out of bed on the third morning, her stomach so knotted she lost last night’s supper and turned away disgusted from breakfast.

  The landlady of the posting inn was, rather surprisingly, un-offended. She insisted on wrapping up the uneaten bread and eggs and stewed apples and sending them with Valeria when she left. “You’ll be hungry soon enough,” she said. “Watch yourself on that horse, now.”

  “I will,” Valeria said. “Thank you.” It seemed rather strange, but some people were odd about stallions.

  It was no more than half a day’s slow ride from the inn at Bari to Imbria. Halfway there, the road divided. The wider way led to Mallia and eventually to the Mountain. The narrower road, rutted and unpaved, wound through hills and patches of woodland.

  The day had begun bright and almost warm, but by midmorning it had turned grey and cold. The wind had an edge that made Valeria think of snow. It was early in the year for it, but in these parts, not impossibly so.

  Out of sight of the main road, open country gave way to
fenced pastures and harvested fields. Away in the hollows, she could see the low shapes of farmsteads. If Kerrec had asked, which he did not, she could have named the farmers who held them. They were all old soldiers out here, retired legionaries who had taken the grant of farmland and a mule and gone to make something of it.

  Her father’s farm was farther off the northward road but closer to the village. The nearer she came to it, the slower she wanted to go. Everything here was familiar to the point of pain.

  She glanced back at Kerrec. He was wearing his favorite mask, the haughty, princely face that could make him seem so far above the rest of the world. There was no telling what he was thinking, and Petra was not in the mood to let her look behind the mask.

  Probably he was wondering what he had got himself into. Valeria’s first urge was to draw deeper into herself. Her second was to ride up beside him and slip her hand into his.

  His warm fingers closed around her cold ones. He raised her hand to his lips and kissed it.

  The tightness inside Valeria did not let go completely, but the worst of it opened up and poured away. She sat straighter in the saddle, to Sabata’s manifest approval.

  They rode on past familiar lanes and paths that led to houses she knew. Not long before noon, they came to the runepost that marked the boundary of her father’s farm. It was freshly painted and the wards newly set—her mother renewed them every year after the harvest was in. It was old habit from when she had been a centurion’s wife on frontier postings. Winter brought wolves, two-legged as well as four-legged, and sometimes things came in off the snow, seeking warmth and mortal blood.

  The wards prickled on Valeria’s skin, but they raised no alarm. They were set to recognize family. Petra sneezed as he passed them. Kerrec stiffened, then frowned.

  He should not have been surprised. Valeria had warned him about her mother.

  Sabata moved ahead of Petra, leading him down the hill and over the stream. As they rounded the bend, they paused.