Treason's Shore (42 page)

“The horsetails call him Pirate,” Keth said with that carefully offhand importance meant to impress. “He started training them, but stopped. We used to sneak up on the rooftop and watch. Hoo, he’s fast. No one can whup him, the guards say. Some of the boys gave me lip on account of my name, and Honeyboy Tya-Vayir lipped the Harskialdna, you know, behind his back. ‘He’s a claphair! Talks old-fashioned, calls the stalls our pit, sounds stooopid!’ So I got into some dusts, but I won. Most,” he amended.

“You’ll win more if you get out to the yard,” Ndand hinted. “And get in some overdue practice.”

Keth started out, then paused, eying Fox again. “You a pirate?” he asked doubtfully.

“Yes.” Fox’s smile was white-edged, and Keth backed up a few more steps, uncertain, then beat a fast retreat to brag to the rest of the castle children.

Cama shut the door and engaged the lock-latch.

“Claphair?” Barend asked. “Kind of young for that.”

Cama snorted. “Changed meaning again, to what we called being a lick, in our day. Although I got word it’s changing again, coming to mean someone’s bullyboy. Inda’s just too tough to make a convincing lick.”

They all laughed at that, then Ndand said seriously, “Barend, Keth reminds me of something. This castle is full of orphans. The countryside is full of orphans. I’ve got at least three youngsters right here who want to go to sea. Parents used to be seafaring, before the pirates and the Venn put a stop to that. Can you take some of them on?”

Barend slid a look Fox’s way to receive a slight shrug. Fox wouldn’t say anything either way about taking Marlovans. “Sure. You know we might be heading toward battle.”

Cama snorted. Ndand opened her hand. “Can we promise there won’t be any more fighting here?”

No one had an answer to that, so Cama said, “Now, what’s this about gold?”

Barend gave him the details, and Cama—knowing how much Barend hated writing—said, “I’ll report to Evred. Why don’t you take Fox around the castle?” And then, to Fox, “I know who you are. Inda taught us some of your double-knife fighting on our way up to face the Venn.” As Ndand gave a small gasp of recognition, he asked, “Will you drill us before you leave? Inda kept saying you’re better than he is. I find that hard to believe.”

Fox just shrugged, and Barend said, “He is. Hand-to-hand, anyway. Ndand, how much are we interrupting your day? I remember my way around. I can give him a tour. But he wants to know about the battle, and I left before I’d heard everything.”

Ndand thought of her full day of tasks, weighing those against this unexpected encounter with Shendan Montredavan-An’s mysterious brother. Fox had been with Inda, who, everyone said, was as gabby as a rock about his pirate days. “I’ll take him around,” she offered. “Why don’t you stay with Cama. In case Evred has questions.”

“Good thinking.”

Evred’s ring brought him to the headmaster’s office door, and he paused at the sound of laughter coming from within, not just from Gand and Inda, but from many men. Ready anger burned through him and he slammed open the door, but there were no forbidden bottles during duty watch, there was no heady smell of ale or wine. Most of the masters were there, plus several instructors—the boys were all home by now. Evred then spied the chalkboards in everyone’s hands, and realized that they were quite properly tallying the end-year evaluations.

It was so unfamiliar, that laughter during duty time. But it couldn’t be wrong, because he could see that the work was getting done.

The men stood, saluting, smiles cooling to sobriety in all the faces, even Gand’s. Inda’s smile had faded to concern, then mute question.

“Carry on, Gand.” Evred opened his hand, wondering what they saw in his face. “Inda, a moment.”

Evred was speaking in that soft voice, the one Inda hadn’t heard since just before Tau came back. Inda rolled a glance toward Gand only to have his own question mirrored back.

Shufflings and throat clearings rustled in the room, the masters returning to duty as Inda followed Evred out. As soon as the door was shut he began, “Look, if you don’t like Tau running the Fox drills with your Runners, I can—”

Evred flat-handed his words aside. “I told you to do what you like.” His expression eased slightly. “I notice that just about all the training girls have joined in the last few days since you sent him down there. And most of the younger men have come back.”

Inda chuckled. “That’s what Tdor told me.”

Evred stopped in the middle of one of the practice courts, out of earshot of the sentries endlessly patrolling above. “Inda. What’s this about a treasure?”

Inda whistled. “Did Barend write?”

“He is with Cama. They have five ships filled with gold in Castle Andahi harbor.”

Inda flashed a wide grin. “It was meant to be a surprise.”

“It is. A surprise.”

Inda gazed into Evred’s face, puzzled by the intensity he could not define. He could feel it, but not define it. “We kept it a secret. Only F—a few of us knew. Barend and I weren’t sure if we could actually get any, so we didn’t want to add to the load of things you already had on your mind.”

Evred held out a thin strip of paper, covered with tiny handwriting. “Cama says here that Barend intends to unload one. The rest is going to Bren, along with barrels and barrels of island-grown coffee beans, to my mother, to be turned into credit. That is, if we agree.”

Thank you, Fox.
“You decide. The treasure is for you,” Inda said, hands spread. “And for the kingdom. What else is it good for?”

Evred realized at last what he’d been seeing so gradually over the past eight months: the atmosphere of friendship among the masters, the sense of fun among the boys in the academy. It was a mirror of their academy days in the scrub barracks, when Inda was their commander in all but name.

They are loyal to Inda.
Not a sworn loyalty, one demanded by honor and duty. It was another kind of loyalty, one freely given, perhaps even unaware. Just like when they were boys. Yet that bond had proved to be as strong as oath-bonds.

Evred struggled with far too many shocks. It had happened so gradually that only now could he see that the men were loyal to Inda in the way that Evred’s uncle had so wanted the armed forces of Iasca Leror to be loyal to him. Uncle Anderle had wanted it badly enough to expand the academy to include brothers, so everyone would come under his training. They had come out loyal to the kingdom, but not to him.

So . . . this new attitude was new, it was real, but was it a problem?

Evred looked down at the paper in his hands, but did not see the painstaking words.
The men are loyal to Inda, and he is loyal to me
. No king could have a better command chain. Ever.

Inda waited, scrutinizing Evred for a sign of reaction. Was he pleased? Displeased? How could he be displeased?

“It will fix many things,” Evred said slowly, thinking:
A king with such loyalty would be a fool not to use it to the kingdom’s advantage.
He hated the thought of Inda leaving; he’d made it impossible for Inda to return to Choraed Elgaer, but that was to protect Inda against the pain of divided allegiance. There was no such problem with the north, and who would be better to guard that gold, and to convince the Idayagans to settle down at last?
It would never occur to Inda to use the gold, and the men, and carve out a kingdom for himself
. Gratitude, tenderness, the prospect of a day without hearing Inda’s quick step, without seeing his rolling gait, without feeling the heat-spike of his sudden grin, hollowed him to the spine.

Once Inda had recoiled from his touch. “Many.” Evred whirled around and walked away, leaving Inda standing there puzzled.

Chapter Twenty-six

N
DAND and Fox toured the castle. At first she was carefully neutral as she gave a well-trained field report. But by the time she got to Liet-Jarlan’s orders sending her with Keth and the children, and what they’d found there, her voice had deepened with emotion. The damage in high ceilings, old storage rooms, and stairwells was an effective illustration.

Ndand herself was an ordinary Marlovan woman, fair-haired, strong, with the swinging stride that came of years of training. When she whisked herself through a narrow access and ran up the stairs Fox hung back to watch her move. The flare of attraction—awareness—made him laugh inwardly. Wasn’t
her
that stirred him. Had he been forming the younger women in the fleet to be Marlovans in all but speech and clothes? He knew the answer. How Inda would laugh!

At the end, they stood on the tower where the little girls had defended against the bungled Idayagan attack just weeks after the battle in the pass, and once again she spoke in a swift, detached manner.

Then crossed her arms. She’d been wondering how to introduce the subject of his sister, to ask if he wanted to send a letter home. She looked doubtfully into that hard, sardonic face, then decided if he wanted to write a letter, he was quite capable of asking for it to be sent. Meanwhile, there was that old treaty to think of. Weren’t the Montredavan-An men forbidden to step outside their border on pain of death? They could only go to sea.

But there was nothing to prevent her from writing to Shendan herself. “Fair trade?” she asked, smiling. “How about telling us some of the pirate stories Inda wouldn’t?”

“What would you like to hear?” he returned.

At the end of the tour, Cama and Barend were waiting upstairs in the Jarlan’s office.

Barend said, “Evred agrees. One ship offload, but we’re to keep it all here. Pay off the debts in Olara, Lindeth, and Idayago. But right now sit tight. He’s going to send Inda north with a force to protect the dispersal.”

Cama rubbed his jaw. He’d never thought Evred would let Inda out of his sight. Ever. “I like that. Hope he sends him with a few ridings of dragoons. Hills are full of fellows spouting about freedom, but what they want is a fight, and loot. Not work.”

Barend patted his chest, where the locket hung inside his clothing. “Evred knows that or he wouldn’t be sending Inda.”

Cama grunted. “The last holdouts of the Resistance will hate us paying up. It’s over money they keep trying to stir trouble. Bound to be a try for the source once we start handing it out.” He grinned, tapping the folded paper on the desk. “After Inda oversees the delivery of the gold, Evred wants him to spend the winter riding around looking dangerous.”

As the others signified agreement, Cama observed Fox listening in silence. Strange. Here in Castle Andahi was the mysterious Savarend Montredavan-An. No. That old treaty was precise about what would happen if a Montredavan-An set foot on Iascan land outside their border. So here was the second Elgar the Fox, who had a hand in defeating the pirates that had scourged Iasca Leror’s coast for so long.

Cama grinned. “Come on, Fox, let’s you and I roust up the guards’ lazy butts and give the boys in the hills a show.”

A Runner went to summon the off-duty men, and the two walked out to the expanse at the back of the castle, which was mostly grass, surrounded by the communal kitchen gardens.