King's Shield (83 page)

 

 

 

Dannor was standing beside her brother in fine new robes, her hair brushed to a burnished gold and braided in a complicated pattern when the king’s party rode up the curving road to Tya-Vayir Castle. The long columns of the Marlo-Vayir, Sindan-An, Khani-Vayir, and Cassad warriors snaked behind, led by what was left of the Riders who’d accompanied Hawkeye when he took the command at Ala Larkadhe.

The road was bordered with a low stone wall, and behind that tall, beautiful silver-leaved argan trees from somewhere east, planted by the first Jarlan’s hands. It was the most impressive of all the Vayir castle roads, leading to the castle built along the highest of the gentle hills surrounding a small lake.

As soon as word had reached the Tya-Vayirs that the war was over, Imand-Jarlan had ordered the entire castle into a frenzy of cleaning. Stalgrid had sent a couple ridings of Runners out to his own allies, requesting them to come back with him. He did not say what for.

When a second Runner arrived with the news that Cama had gone north as the new Jarl of Idayago, Starand had wandered about wailing and moaning, “I caaaaan’t live in Idayago! There’s nothing up there! Nobody! Just horrible people, they all haaaate us!”

Inured to her eternal whining, no one paid her the least heed. That is, until Dannor arrived a day later—having been abandoned at the border by the twins, who said they’d been invited to Tlennen.

So she’d come home alone after all. After enduring half a morning of Starand’s wailing and whining, she’d shoved past Imand, caught Starand by the shoulder, and swung her around. “Why don’t you end the marriage, then, and go home to Ola-Vayir?”

Stupid Starand! She just stood there with her mouth open. Dannor could have come up with three return jabs by the time she’d drawn a breath, and one would even have been true.

Then it was her turn to be whirled around. Imand was much smaller and lighter in build than Dannor, but she was strong from daily drill, and from handling a castle full of difficult personalities.

“That was fair.” She dipped her chin. “But don’t think that makes you welcome to stay here making trouble. If you’re moving back in, you’re going to work, and I am going to ride you every watch to see that you do it.”

Dannor flushed. She’d loathed Imand ever since they were girls. How she missed the days when she was ten and Imand only seven, and Dannor could sit on her and slap her silly—as long as Imand’s shadow Hibern wasn’t around. “Don’t worry, Imand. I’ll be out of here as soon as I can. So you just do your own work.”

“See that you are.” Imand pushed on by.

So here she stood at Stalgrid’s side, where she had been since the king’s outriders arrived to give them advance notice of imminent arrival.

Stalgrid’s temper, always bad, had been foul all day. His only ally present was Hali-Vayir, who everyone knew licked whoever’s boots were nearest. Marth-Davan was dead, probably out of spite, and Stalgrid’s other allies had all sent excuses—harvest, shortage of men or money for travel. He knew they were all wary of the king who’d driven off the Venn, and they were afraid to cross the pirate Harskialdna who couldn’t be beaten on land or sea.

Dannor peered at the lead riders. She was infuriated to see Badger and Beaver riding with a clump of Sindan-An, Tlen, and Tlennen men who’d joined Tuft Sindan-An’s warriors. They must have ridden cross-country to join the returning warriors as soon as they abandoned her.

Everyone in the king’s party wore their House colors, no helms or chain mail. Their shields were slung at the saddles. The new Harskialdna (only medium height, and look at those disgusting scars) wore the green-and-silver of the Algara-Vayirs instead of the royal colors. There were two spaces for riders in the middle of the Sier Danas to honor the two fallen captains.

Everything done exactly right, to honor their host. There was no hint of a kingly mailed fist coming down hard on Stalgrid, which would have been obvious if they’d ridden in war gear, weapons clanking. The two Tya-Vayirs felt the fist anyhow. As did old Hali-Vayir, standing slightly behind Stalgrid, fingering his sash.

The unsmiling king dismounted, inclined his head so that the host could speak first.

Stalgrid said stiffly, “You honor our House, Evred-Harvaldar.”

“Your House,” Evred stated softly with just the faintest emphasis, “honors me.”

Dannor watched him from under her lashes as he turned to formally name everyone. Again, everything according to form—the old way of making promotions known.

She ignored the male jabber. During her days in the queen’s city, what little had been said about Evred, then just a second son, was that he was awkward, preferring old poetry to war games. That had clearly changed. There was no use in intriguing him—they said he was like his father in preferring men. Hmm, could that possibly mean he’d mated up with that scar-faced Harskialdna? Time for a bit of investigation.

She smiled, knowing that she had the same dimpled smile as her younger brother, Cama. As the Runners took away the horses, she fell in step beside Indevan-Harskialdna. His eyes were just below the level of her own. “I hope you will have the time to sit with me and tell me about Hawkeye.” She did her best to appear sad, when—it was strange—she couldn’t recall ever feeling sad in her life. Angry, yes, but sad, no.

Indevan’s eyes were wide set, an unremarkable brown, his expression hard to interpret past all those scars. Was he simpleminded?

“You were his wife?” he asked.

“I am Dannor Tya-Vayir,” she said gravely. “And yes, I was married to Hawkeye.”

“I did not see exactly what happened to him.” Indevan had one of those deep, resonant voices you get with chesty men. It was unexpectedly attractive. “Not many with him survived, but there are a few. I can point them out to you.” And he actually craned his neck around, the fool.

Dannor looked past him at the small woman walking on his other side. She wore a plain linen robe, with a blue cotton under-robe beneath. “Did I miss hearing who you are?”

Evred turned away from Stalgrid and the cluster of Sindan-Ans and Tlennens. He regarded her out of cold hazel eyes, reminding her unexpectedly and unpleasantly of his older brother. “This is Dag Signi. She aided us as a healer.”

The woman was plain as a potato, and old. Dannor relaxed, dismissing Dag Signi as no threat. “Come along inside,” she said to Indevan-Harskialdna. “I’ll show you to your room. I know Imand is busy—”

“No, she is not,” came Imand’s calm voice from behind, tall blue-eyed Hibern, her mate, at her shoulder.

Inda turned around, relieved. Dannor was standing too close to him—she made him uncomfortable. This new woman was shorter than he, with the pale blond hair of most of the Tlennen family, wide-spaced eyes with a Sartoran tilt to them.

“I am Imand-Jarlan,” she said to Inda, and smiled past him to Signi. “Welcome to Tya-Vayir.” Then, lifting her voice, “Welcome to you all. Stalgrid-Jarl will see that the men are properly settled. Evred-Harvaldar, if you and your Sier Danas will come inside with me, I will show you around.”

It was pretty much the same as other castles: public and workrooms downstairs, living space upstairs, and an enormous stable with a barracks over it.

The room Imand opened for Inda was plain, clean, with a comfortable bed big enough for two. “Here you are.” Imand’s smile included Signi as well as Inda. “We’ll have biscuits and ale laid out just off the kitchens. Follow your nose if you’re lost.” She shut the door.

Vedrid had already gotten a Runner to bring Inda’s gear up. Signi had carried her own small bag, which contained just a change of clothing and a comb. She set this down on the bedside table, one of those peculiar ones with the raptor feet as legs and thin, horizontal stylized wings curving from armrests up to the back.

Signi regarded Inda, who stood in the middle of the room staring at his bag. She waited in patience until he regained the present world, and his place in it. “I hope Evred doesn’t make us stay here long.” He ran his hand over his hair, a sure sign he was disturbed about something. “Though I like Imand.”

Signi considered. While Hawkeye’s wife had been talking to Inda, Stalgrid-Jarl had said with a strange, enforced sort of heartiness, “And so we stand ready to give you a triumph tonight. Say the word, Evred-Harvaldar.”

“The word can wait until we have rested,” Evred had said.

Signi knew she missed significance here, some kind of silent, private struggle between Evred and this tall, strongly built, ferocious-looking Jarl. Stalgrid’s Venn ancestry was very much obvious in his stature and frost-pale hair.

Inda said abruptly, “I feel like I’m in one of Tau’s plays. I wish he was here.”

He sank onto the bed, elbows on his knees. Signi sat next to him, stretching an arm across his broad back. She hugged him to her. “Can you tell me?”

“Oh, it’s more Marlovan thinking. Barend told me just before he left that I was going to have to get used to politics. What
is
that? I’m still trying to get used to there being no threat. Not just the Venn, but pirates.” He gave her that slightly guilty, mostly uneasy look that he always did when he mentioned the Venn. “I feel like I’m becalmed. No wind, no sail. I’m here in Cama’s house, but he’s not here, and there’s Horsebutt—Stalgrid, that is—with that pinched face, he’s probably thirty but he looks old. Jowls. Then I think of Noddy.” Inda shook his head slowly. A tear slid along the scar on one cheek as he stared at his hands. “I sent Noddy to that death, Signi. Don’t say I didn’t because I did. I sent a lot of people to their deaths. I killed a lot of people with my own hands. But a friend . . . oh, I wish I knew what I promised him.”

“Did he die comforted?”

Inda closed his eyes and dropped his head back. A couple more tears escaped from under his lashes. Finally he drew in a deep breath, opened his eyes and swiped them with his sleeve. “Yes. Yes he did.”

“And he went to the light. I saw them go.”

“You saw Noddy?”

“No. There were too many.” It was her turn for the throat-tightening, eye-burning pain of memory, and its spring of grief. “But they are all gone.”

He took her hands. “All? Including Dun?”

“Yes.”

“I thought so,” he whispered. “Why can’t the rest of us see that?”

“I don’t know. But I did. Please take comfort in that.”

“Noddy—and Dun.” Inda kissed her hand again, and stood up. “Noddy left behind a son. He has my name. And I’m going to be teaching him in the academy as part of my duties. Isn’t that strange? But I’m going to do it right, oh, such a good job, I promise Noddy that. Even though he can’t hear it.” He wiped his eyes again, and held out his hand. “May as well go find the others and do whatever a Harskialdna is supposed to be doing. Want to come?”

“No. You go be with your friends. Laugh, and give them comfort. Nightingale needs cheering. And Buck. As for me, this castle, the magics are fading, like in so many others. I think I will attend to that.”

Chapter Thirty-three

STALGRID was worried about the magic as well. The baths under the castle drew water off the lake, but since winter it had begun to smell slightly dank under there, and the water had been gradually getting more and more chill. During the hottest part of summer they had not minded. They’d begun using the ensorcelled buckets to wash first, and the baths for a cooling soak once their bodies were clean. Less magic was used that way.

Now he was worried about what would happen to the last of the water magic with all these people using the baths. Even worse was the thought of that damned Evred forcing one more day’s stay on them, with all those mouths champing at his harvest stores.

Stalgrid had risen early, determined to do his absolute best to bootlick Evred into making an end to this nightmare—lick until he choked on the words.

But. He would be on the watch for Evred’s weakness while the fellow was camped in Stalgrid’s best room, eating all his food. Only justice.

The first test would be this surprising Harskialdna. Dannor had sat next to him at dinner the night before. From what Stalgrid could see, the fellow just leaned over his food and shoveled it in, never saying more than a word or two. After dinner, Stalgrid had asked Dannor what he was like, to get a furious whisper, “He’s an idiot.”

“You say that about everyone,” he grumped.

Her lip curled. “I’m wrong?”

He snorted. “No.”

So . . . was the pirate just a claphair? That would be prime, if so! Challenge him and you’ve got the king by the short hairs.

It was with the king’s short hairs in mind he’d gotten up as soon as the man placed on watch reported the Harskialdna going down to the baths.

Stalgrid hurried down the stairs, and was distracted by steam. What had happened? The hot end was hot again? He sniffed—no dankness!

Relief—gratitude—then suspicion. Magic did not just happen. Was this some kind of oblique threat? Just what kind of stuff had that damned Evred been reading in those old archives, anyway?

“. . . but Janden saw it, I tell you! Go ask him!”

“I heard the same thing.”

The voices echoing up the access stair distracted Stalgrid. The latter one was one of his own Rider captains.

“They said it was plain as plain could be. Everyone was yelling IN-DA! IN-DA! The Venn commander was right up on the mountain with the Pirate—tall as a house, wings on his helm—and threw down his weapons, just like the old days! Right at the Pirate’s feet!”

“And they just ran? Like that?”

“Gone quicker’n you could spit.”

Stalgrid entered then, and his own two captains instantly moved down to the cooler end of the water, leaving the hot end for him. The other captains gave him an uneasy look—they knew who he was.

He did not invite them to stay, so they moved, too, and by the time he had taken off his robe and eased into the hottest end of the water—no bucket, not if the magic was back!—they were all gone. Good.