Treason's Shore (11 page)

The oxen stopped, oblivious to the rain, and in silence Brun gathered the fine-woven folds of her black cloak about her, and then, with great ceremony, she picked up the small wooden box, carved with lovers’ knots, that had sat on the bench next to her.

Those watching would assume it carried her marriage band inside, plus any other jewelry her husband had given her.

She mounted the steep ramp let down by the deck crew and stalked along the companionway to the cabin at the back, the box held in her gloved hands before her.

Her husband, Stalna Hyarl Durasnir, commander of the South Fleet, stood before the whipstaff, awaiting her.

The few sailors on duty remained at a respectful distance. Durasnir opened the cabin door and stepped aside. She walked in, and he closed the door, shutting out the curious eyes around the deck, and those watching from mast and tower.

The outer cabin, with its enormous table, now bare walls, and ancillary desks, was empty. The door to his private cabin stood open, the light dim from the inward curving windows.

As soon as he shut the door behind her she cast the box onto the bed and whirled around, poised.

“No spiderwebs.” He smiled, the same pensive, almost shy smile that had caught her eye, and her heart, thirty years ago.

She flung herself into his arms. He crushed her close, his arms trembling. A sob shook her frame—their lips met in a hard, searching kiss that tasted of salt tears—and then they broke apart, breathing hard. Her throat ached.

He hugged her again, and said into her rain-dampened hair, “Fulk Ulaffa himself went over this cabin just this morning, on the pretext of delivering a letter requiring my full testimony before the council.”

“Ulaffa!” she exclaimed. He was not just one of the untouchable Yaga Krona, the king’s dags, he was the chief of Prince Rajnir’s circle.

“He is not Erkric’s man. He never was, actually, but duty forced them to work side by side until Abyarn constructed walls of distrust between all branches of the tree of service.”

So not just the military was fracturing. Not just the sea dags. The Yaga Krona itself! “I remember what you requested of me that day in Jaro. You said that Erkric might be spying on our scroll cases. And so, when I saw your code words after the invasion failed, I threw mine off a cliff as publicly as possible.”

Durasnir grinned, looking younger for a breathtaking moment. “Gossip about that got all the way back to us. As I’d hoped.”

Brun smiled grimly. “Should we be fighting?”

“Two of my ensigns are going to be drinking off duty tonight, each swearing friends to secrecy as they describe how you screamed at me about our stupid defeat by the Marlovans and hurled dishes when I attempted to defend myself.”

Her smile faded. “And so? I do not really comprehend why we must have a false parting. Say rather, how our false parting can make any difference in what you once dreaded might happen.”

“That my most loyal captains, with the best of intentions, would encourage me to take the throne? That has already happened, Brun. I will not have Venn murdering Venn in my name. In my heart I hear the skalt singing Slacfan’s Song.”

“Cracks in the Tree, Thor-hammer ambition, The winds of discord, bring the Tree down,”
she whispered. “But it is not
your
ambition at fault.”

“Does it matter whose? The loves we should have protected will still be dead.”

She grimaced faintly. “At my age, I feel foolish saying such a thing, but people are laughing at us, Fulla.” She was astonished when he grinned, reminding her of their son Vatta, dead at sixteen. It was a punch in the heart.

“I want them to,” he said.

She had to pause and breathe deeply, in order to school her emotions. “I just do not see how making us figures of mockery wards Rainorec—” She tipped her head. “No, not true. Is it this, if your hot-headed captains hear gossip making you a figure of fun, they cannot use you as a banner to rally behind? But why is such a thing happening at all? Why should the prince be blamed for the defeat when he was not in command? I wish you had told me more before you left Ymar.”

“But we were spied on so much. Then there was the . . . vagueness of my guesses. At the time, I just heard whispers about Rajnir’s foolishness in making friends with that repellent Count Wafri. His growing tastes for the frivolousness of Ymaran entertainments. I did not want our captains trying to force me into opposition to him—especially if something were to go amiss during our invasion.”

“You expected to be driven away by the Marlovans?”

“No. I thought we would succeed. But there were other aspects that disturbed me, and Brun, I was
right
. The truth is still not proved, but I fear it is worse, far worse, than I had ever guessed at the darkest moments.” He kissed her hard, then let her go. “Brun, much as I want you, and have every day since we sailed from Ymar to that accursed invasion, no one will believe you are casting me to the shore if they don’t see that door open as soon as my belongings are stowed below.”

“What is to be done?”

“For now, we have to maintain the pose of parting, while you demand explanations for the invasion’s failure—shout about how foolish our captains were to lose—get the women to make a noise, demanding accountings of all our captains. I trust by the time everyone is tired of it, we will know . . .” He frowned sightlessly at gilt carving around the bulkheads.

“Fulla! What?
Please
tell me.”

He attention snapped back to her. “When I know the truth, you will be the first. Speaking of trouble. I counted only ten Houses on the walls, the day of our arrival. And ten in the Hall for Frasadeng.”

“Loc and Hadna Houses tried to take the kingship. The bones of the young men lie atop Sinnaborc, picked clean after they endured the blood eagle. And the rest of the primary families are in thrall to First Tower until the new king is crowned and decides whether to show mercy or justice.”

“I thought I saw new ghosts.”

Her breath caught. Even in nearly thirty years of marriage, she had never quite accustomed herself to the casual ability Fulla Durasnir had to descry the mysteries. He could have been a dag, a skalt, or even a Seer, had he had the interest or training.

“If you cannot explain your concerns about Prince Rajnir, then at least tell me this before I go.” Her gaze searched his face, so familiar and so dear, furrowed more than she’d remembered, though he was nigh sixty. But his countenance was keen as ever, and his grip strong. “Is Dag Signi truly a traitor?”

Signi: a vivid mental picture of the small, plain, earnest dag who—despite being turned down at the very last before becoming one of the exalted hel dancers—moved with such amazing grace. Who, on being passed over, had been so grief-stricken that she’d turned for comfort to Fulla, whose female friendships in those younger days often flared to ardor.

This flare had occurred when Brun was struggling with the illness of her first pregnancy. Dag Signi had been one of the few of Fulla’s string of lovers to heed the old ways, and come to ask Brun’s permission to lie with him. Brun had been impressed, and ever after the affair burned itself out, brief as they all were, she’d retained a fondness for the quiet, hard-working dag.

“No,” he said. “She is not. I still don’t understand why she was there in Iasca Leror. Sea-Dag Chief Valda did not tell me, and I only saw Signi the once. She did act against Erkric’s doom-cursed meddling, in about as spectacular a way as any dag has contrived, probably for centuries. I was there, and it is known I was there, so I must witness.”

Brun signified acceptance. “Where is she now?”

Durasnir knew about Brit Valda’s great cause, but he had promised to tell no soul. That must include his wife. If Erkric thought Brun might know anything, he would find an excuse while Durasnir was gone on duty to tear her apart for information. “I don’t know,” he said. Which was true. Valda might have ordered Signi to leave the Marlovan kingdom for Sartor, or to remain there awaiting the signal that Sartor was no longer warded. But that quest was now a separate matter.

So he said, “This accusation is as much a surprise to me as it is to you. I had no idea it was coming. And I do not see what Erkric is about, but he has had months to put his plans in place—and it will be months, if not longer, before the Erama Krona’s Death Hunt will find her.”

Brun knew little about the inner workings of the Erama Krona. But one thing she had heard, they were forbidden to use magic on the Blood Hunt; they only used Destination transfers once they had secured their target. Like the hel dancers, their training was so secret, so consuming, no one—even Erkric—had yet corrupted them. They would refuse his offers of magical aid. Brun’s mother had talked of a ten-year Blood Hunt that occurred when she was a girl.

Brun looked up in doubt. “If the Blood Hunt goes through Iasca Leror to find her trail, will that not cause more trouble?”

Durasnir made a negating sign. “By the time they reach Halia they will know the language, and how to dress to blend when they must. But they move only at night; if any one of them draws notice, it brings on him severe penalty. The Marlovans don’t have our underground cities, with all the varieties of light that we do. Their kingdom is silent at night. No one will ever see the Blood Hunt—”

Three quick, light taps at his outer door. One of Erkric’s spies had been spotted. “Brun, listen and be watchful. Be prepared for anything.”

“What will you do?”

“Sit out here sulking until you forgive me.” A brief smile. “And readying my fleet. If I am right, Erkric—Rajnir—needs to keep us busy. I suspect we may be sailing to Goerael soon, to reinforce West Fleet.”

“His reasoning?” she asked swiftly as they walked into the main cabin.

“He has no reasoning.” Durasnir made the sign of warding, and then bent, and gave her the truth, though he had meant to wait on proof. He pressed his lips to her ears. “He has no mind. He has been reduced to the shadow of a man. Every word he speaks is put in his mouth by Erkric, who I suspect wants us busy and out of his way.”

Shock tingled painfully through her. But there was no time for questions. He opened the cabin’s outer door and she was forced to step outside, her heart colder than the outside air.

“Here.” Evred led the way into the series of rooms in the building perpendicular to the residence and the Great Hall. “This is where the herald-apprentices work. Each table is for the records of one Jarl, and the other old names are in the far room.”

On their entry everyone paused, saluting. Evred laid his hand over his heart. Belatedly Inda did as well. He had to remember these things, he reminded himself, as Evred opened his hand in the signal freeing everyone to return to work.

Inda took in the neat stacks of old papers and scrolls on each desk. “What work?”

“Didn’t I say? There’s so much to discuss! Hadand and I resolved to verify Convocation oaths after last winter. Going through all the records is turning up all kinds of surprises. And not only from the recent generations, while my family has ruled. No one’s ever read everything all the way back.” Evred touched a battered scroll waiting beside others on a tray. “I mean to familiarize myself with every record back to before Savarend Montredavan-An’s day.”

“I thought none of that was written down,” Inda exclaimed.

“Not here,” Evred said, smiling. “There was no ‘here’ yet. This city wasn’t ours. You Algara-Vayirs have early records from the days when you were just Algaras courting the Tenthens. The Cassads have the oldest records of all. Hadand discovered that the Cassadas queen who established the library—that is, she was a Dei, and only a Cassadas by marriage-adoption. Anyway, one of her projects was to send people to the old Marlovan skalts to write down the language, and what they sang to her to be written were the oath-songs. Since our forefathers had no script, that record is written in some kind of Sartoran dialect that was apparently adapted for communicating with the Venn over on Toar centuries ago. Ironic, yes?”

He touched the scroll again, then turned his thumb toward several fifteen- and sixteen-year-old girls from the queen’s training who worked at a table by themselves, a carefully opened age-darkened scroll between them. “The girls are much faster at deciphering that, so Hadand and I decided to abandon tradition and let the girls loose on it. If they like it, and haven’t a rank that requires them to go home, there’s no reason why we can’t go back to the old Iascan custom of having female and male heralds. It was my own ancestor, Anderle, who forbade female heralds, probably as a jab at the Cassads. All those quarrels are long gone and forgotten.”

When he and Inda had regained the tower that connected the government building, the Great Hall, and the residence, Inda said, “Buck and Cherry-Stripe told me about Horsebutt and the guild taxes.”

Evred snorted. “That’s just covering arrows before the charge. Horsebutt knows very well he won’t get anything revoked.”