Inheritance (33 page)

Who knows
, she mused to herself,
he might even be foolish enough to send his sappers under my walls
.

“Now the game is reduced to its essential,” Sendarus continued. “One player striving to breach the last barrier between him and his heart’s desire.”

“Your metaphor strains like a constipated old man,” she told him without looking up. “I forgo a move.”

“That is your last pass, your Majesty.” Sendarus rolled the numbered knuckle bones. “I count five.”

“That is a four. That bone is on its side.”

“Four, then.” He reached for one of his sappers and placed it under Areava’s parapets. Areava removed an ivory shield to reveal her neat row of waiting swordsmen. “Your piece is taken.” Sendarus blinked in surprise. “Swallowed whole like so much bait.”

“You played the whole time for defense!” Sendarus protested. “You never had any intention of attacking my city!”

“And now that your last offensive piece is devoured, I am left with all the high points. My game.”

Sendarus rested back in his chair and laughed. “You played me for a fool.”

“Not at all. I played you like a fish.”

Sendarus laughed even harder. Areava beamed.

“You fought hard, though,” she conceded. “I was not sure if you had started the game with the sapper or the battering ram. I could not have stopped the latter.”

“You can always stop me, your Majesty.” He caught her gaze. “And I will always surrender.”

She blushed, and stood quickly to hide it. “This has been a pleasant diversion, my lord, but I have business to attend to.” She pulled a bell cord near her desk.

“A diversion? Is that all I am?” He asked the question lightly enough, but his expression was tense.

Areava gently placed a hand against one of his cheeks.

“There is no other diversion like you in my kingdom,” she said.

He reached for her hand, but at that moment the door opened and Harnan bustled in, his arms filled with papers and scrolls.

Areava withdrew from Sendarus; he took the hint and stood, placing his hands behind his back. “I will see you later?” he whispered.

“Perhaps,” she said, but not unkindly.

He bowed to her and left, nodding to Harnan, who tried to bow and hold onto his papers at the same time.

“We have much to get through, your Majesty,” Harnan told Areava, and dumped his load on her desk.

“There is never a day when we don’t,” she said dryly.

“The life of a monarch has little pleasure, I know, your Majesty.”

The corners of her mouth curved into the slightest of smiles. “Oh, I don’t know about that.”

“You will not say your farewells to Sendarus?” Orkid asked.

Amemun shook his head and mounted the horse Orkid was holding for him. “We talked last night. There is no need for further words between us. Nothing I could say would make him fall more in love with your queen.”

“Our queen,” Orkid said.

“Yes, of course,” he said absently.

“That is the whole point of this exercise,” Orkid persisted. “If she had no legitimacy in our eyes, then there would be no value in bringing her and Sendarus together, and any progeny from them would have no more right to claim our fealty than a child from a whore.”

“It is not her legitimacy that concerns me, my friend. It is you.”

Orkid’s eyes opened wide in surprise. “What do you mean?”

“Marin had no choice but to send you here. He knew you agreed with his plan wholeheartedly and would never waver from our country’s cause. And though your years here have not blunted your love for Aman, they have given you time to learn to love this city and its rulers.”

“And why not, Amemun? It will soon be as much Aman’s kingdom as it is Kendra’s. But we must never forget the kingdom was built by those who came from here, not by our own people.”

Amemun nodded. “I don’t dispute any of this. But if things go wrong and do not turn out the way we have planned, then a time may come when you have to choose between your loyalties.”

“Aman need never doubt me,” Orkid said passionately. “I long for the day when I may return to my home.”

Amemun patted the chancellor’s hand, something no one had done since Orkid was a child. “I know. Keep your patience and your own counsel. The time will come, I am sure of it.”

“Praise God,” Orkid said.

“Praise the Lord of the Mountain,” Amemun replied, not entirely in jest. “Goodbye, Orkid. Keep our prince safe!” He spurred his horse into a canter and left the palace for the docks where a ship waited to return him to Aman.

“Journey well,” Orkid said quietly after him, and wondered when he would see his old friend again.

They were tired and hungry, but Lynan and his companions walked without stopping across yellow meadows and slowly undulating hills under a bright clear sky until the Forest of Silona was nothing but a green border on the southern horizon. For the first time in over a week they felt free, more at ease than at any time since their flight from Kendra. They all wore smiles like badges of distinction.

The sun was low in the west before Kumul called a halt. They were on a low hill that gave them a good view over a wide, shallow valley stretching some ten leagues north to south and half that east to west. Along its middle ribboned a blue stream, partnered by a wide dirt road. From their vantage point it looked as if most of the valley was under cultivation, divided into small squares of various shades, the pattern broken occasionally by small hamlets of twenty or so houses and one large town not far from their position.

“Mostly orchards,” Ager observed. “This must be the Arran Valley. That means we’re seventy leagues from Sparro, about a week’s journey.”

“I remember this place from one of my geography lessons,” Lynan said. “This valley is famous for its peaches.”

“And its wine,” Ager added, licking his lips.

“And its archers,” Kumul warned them. “They can put an arrow through the eye of a raven at a hundred paces, so let’s stay alert. If anybody asks any questions, we spin the same yarn we gave the foresters.”

“You don’t think they believed us, do you?” Jenrosa asked.

“The point is, it’s a story we know, and if we continue to use it, we’ll get better at telling it. Just don’t get imaginative. Keep it plain, and if you have to invent anything, let the rest of us know so we can speak the same lie.”

“We’ll need new names,” Jenrosa said. “We can’t go around declaring ourselves to be Lynan, Kumul, Ager, and Jenrosa, poor peasants whose names and looks happen to exactly match those of four outlaws from Kendra.” The others agreed. “Then I’ll be Analis,” she said. “It was my grandmother’s name, so it will be easy to remember.”

“Then I will take my father’s name,” Ager said. “Nimen.”

“Well, I had no mother or father to speak of,” Kumul said, “so I’ll be Exener, the name of the village I came from.” He turned to Lynan. “You could you could take your father’s name. Elynd is common enough, and many boys born around the same time as you were named after the General.”

Lynan shook his head. “I wouldn’t feel right about it.”

“What about Pirem?” Ager said.

“No,” Lynan said quickly. “Never again.”

“Migam,” Jenrosa suggested.

“What?”

“Migam. It’s a nice name and it’s easy to remember.”

Kumul and Ager were looking at Lynan impatiently. “Yes, all right,” he conceded. “Who was Migam, anyway?”

“My mother’s pig,” she replied, smiling.

Kumul and Ager burst out laughing, and in the end even Lynan joined in. “I hope he was a noble animal.”

“He was small and hairy and he farted a lot, but he had his winning ways.”

Against the continued guffaws of the two men, Lynan decided to change the subject. “Shall we camp here tonight?”

“I don’t know about you, but I’m starving,” Ager said. “Let’s make for the town and see if we can’t get some food and shelter. There’s bound to be an inn or hostel there.”

“What do you suggest we use for payment?” Jenrosa asked.

“We can work for it. Places like this always need seasonal labor, especially in autumn. Besides, it might also be a good way for us to get information about recent developments.”

The others agreed, and less than an hour later they were walking down the town’s main street where they found they had three inns to choose from. “This is a market town,” Ager told them. “Some weeks the population here must treble.”

They went to the largest inn and were immediately met by a burly man no taller than Lynan, with a red face impaled by a generous nose. Watery blue eyes stared out beneath a well-furrowed brow, and thin lips barely protruded from a forest of whiskers.

“Lady an‘ gents, welcome to the Good Harvest. You’ll be wantin’ board? We have a wide selection of rooms for you to choose from—”

“We have no money to speak of, landlord,” Lynan said quickly. “But we would appreciate shelter and food for a night in exchange for any work you have.”

“Food and shelter for work, eh?”

“Only for one night. We are on a mission for our village to the capital and must depart tomorrow morning.”

“And what makes you think I have any work for you?”

“If you don’t, we’ll try one of the other inns,” Kumul said bluntly.

The man regarded the giant for a second, then Ager and his crookback. Eventually he put his hands up. “Not so quickly now! Yran did not
say
he had nothin‘ for you to do!” He rubbed his chin with one hand. “In fact, I’ve got wood that needs cuttin’, an‘ a beast in the outshed ready for dressin’.” He pointed a finger at Lynan. “You ever dressed a beast before?”

Lynan blinked. Was the man serious? And what kind of beast? Before he could open his mouth, Ager stepped forward. “I’ve carved up sheep and goats,” the crookback said.

Yran nodded. “Well, then, close enough to a steer, I expect. If you an‘ the big fellow do the dressin’, an‘ the boy an’ girl reckon they can cut all the wood into cords before it gets too busy tonight, you’ll have a good meal, a comfortable bed, an‘ I’ll even throw in a few ales in front of the big fire. If I’m in a good mood tomorrow mornin’, you might even get breakfast out of it.”

The companions accepted the offer, and Yran took them out back. There was a large pile of uncut wood against the rear wall, and nearby was the outshed. “You’ll find the tools you need in the shed, includin‘ an ax an’ a whetstone. Call me when you’ve finished.”

The ax was made for someone with bigger muscles than Lynan or Jenrosa, so Kumul agreed to do the wood cutting in exchange for Lynan helping Ager with the carcass. At first, Lynan thought he had the better of the deal, but when he walked into the outshed he started having doubts. The steer had been slaughtered recently, and its hide still smelled of blood and shit. Its cut throat grinned obscenely at him, and dried gore matted the animal’s fur. Seeing the massive weight hanging from a huge iron hook on the traverse beam, he realized how big a job lay ahead of them.

“I don’t think we’ll get this done in time,” he muttered.

Ager ignored him. He opened the back of the shed and half-pulled, half-dragged the carcass along the traverse beam until it was outside.

“Bring me the slop buckets and butchering knives,” he told Lynan, and pointed to two wooden buckets in one corner with three different-sized knives in them—a heavy-bladed straight edged chopper and more finely bladed but wickedly sharp carvers. The buckets were black with grime and gore. Lynan felt like gagging, but brought the equipment with him, together with dirty white aprons he found hanging from the shed wall. The aprons covered them from neck to knee.

Ager, with a carver in one hand, walked around the beast a couple of times then nodded to himself. “Not too different,” he said and stabbed the knife into the steer’s groin. Lynan could not help flinching. With all his strength Ager pulled the blade down toward the neck until it met with the gash, then made quick cuts at the base of each of the limbs.

“Right, now comes the hard part,” he told Lynan, and indicated he should take hold of the hide on one side of the long cut. Lynan did so, and on Ager’s word they both pulled away from each other. The hide slowly, tortuously, separated from the flesh for about a hand’s span. Ager then punched at the tegument connecting hide to muscle until it loosened and started peeling again; Lynan copied him on his side of the beast. Eventually the hide was taken off completely, revealing white tendon over pink muscle and ribbons of veins and arteries.

“This is what we all look like inside,” Ager told Lynan merrily. “During the war I came across the remains of our scouts the Slavers had captured and skinned. They looked something like this.” He patted the prince on the back. “And now comes the fun part.” He used the knife again, carefully cutting around the intestines and other internal organs. The stench was overbearingly warm, as if the steer was still alive and breathing. The organs fell out together in one great glistening movement and slopped to the ground.

With great effort they unhooked the beast from the beam, and then with something like relish Ager cut off its head and quartered the body using the chopper. Then they worked at the internal organs, putting the ones that could be used for food into one bucket and discarding the others.

When day’s last light evaporated, Yran came out with torches so they could continue their work. He quickly checked on their progress, seemed happy enough with it, then disappeared back into his inn, taking with him some of the offal and one of the quarters slung over his back.

An hour later, Ager, covered in sweat and flecks of fat and dried blood, finally stood up and stretched his arms. “Well, that’s as good a job as Yran would manage, I dare say,” he told Lynan. “We’ll put this lot in the safe box and then help the others stack the cords.” Lynan found the safe box tethered high in a nearby headseed tree and let it down. They loaded in the remaining quarters and offal, closed the mesh, and hauled it back up again.

“Just in time,” Ager said, pointing to a mangy looking dog and one very fat porker that had come around to investigate the discarded organs.

By the time both tasks were finished, Yran had filled an old iron basin in one of the bedrooms he assigned them with hot water and next to it placed scented fatblocks and clean washers. Ager and Lynan let Kumul and Jenrosa clean first, then deliriously enjoyed wiping the gore off their own faces and hands. All the time they could smell the night’s meals being prepared, and their stomachs rumbled in hunger.