Treason's Shore (8 page)

Inda chuckled, deep in his chest. “We call them madmen—or Cassads.”

A couple of the listening Riders and Runners laughed, and someone swatted one of the Twins, who was connected to the Cassads.

Signi smiled. “Some of our people also regard Seers as mad. But most respect them, when the Seeing sheds light on the mysteries. You must remember that within our living history, as we call it—we have actual records, though few—the Venn crossed in their ships from one world to another. How can such a thing be possible? The questions are so vast!”

From there the talk ventured to perception, meaning, words shared across languages. Tdor schooled the riot of questions in her head, and introduced the topic of translation, and how words can appear to share meanings, but actually signify different things. Thus the bad moment passed.

Despite the unspoken cooperation of the two women, Inda was still troubled. His dreams had been uneasy for years; numbering among his familiar nightmares was a new one in which his canoe, running faster and faster over a widening river, pitched out into the air above a cataract. He’d wake up gasping and bathed in sweat, his body still tingling from the sensation of falling.

Two weeks into the journey, they camped early one afternoon as pounding rain washed across the countryside. Inda helped with the horse pickets, leaving Signi and Tdor alone in the tent the Runners had just set up.

Tdor spread out the sitting mats as Signi laid the Fire Sticks and made the sign to start the flame. When she straightened up, she discovered Tdor watching her with an uneasy hesitance.

“What is wrong?” Signi asked. “Have I done aught amiss?”

Her own quick dismay forced Tdor into speech. “I—no. I, well, as it happens I don’t have a lot of experience. With men. Never wanted it, really, though I had my chances, same as anyone. The thing is this. Inda has nightmares—we’ve all heard them. But more with me than with you.” Her face burned. “Am I—”

“No, no! He has them with me, too, it’s just that I know a trick for warding them when he first begins to stir. Let me show you,” Signi exclaimed. “It is a healers’ trick, taught me when I was a sea dag. If he becomes restless and wakens you, soothe him like this.” She demonstrated in the air in front of her own chest, a stroking motion over the breastbone. “If you can catch him before the nightmare turns violent, you can sometimes send him back to sleep.” Her expression was humorous and rueful. “It is also said to be effective in the comfort of babes.”

The tent flap lifted, sending in cold, wet air to swirl and hiss in the fire. Inda entered, beads of rain on his head and coat. He smiled from one to the other, then plopped down on his mat. “What babe are you comforting?”

“You,” Signi said, smiling. “Nightmares.”

Inda grimaced. “I can’t stop yelling out when I sleep. I finally figured out that’s why no one wanted me down in the crew’s quarters on the
Death,
when we had you as a prisoner. The fellows yapped about me ruining their sleep just before the battle. Camping in the mountains.” He scratched his head, and raindrops flew off, hissing in the fire. “At least my memory is coming back. D’you know, I’m not mad at Dannor for sticking herself on us when we left Tya-Vayir, because I remember being angry at her. Otherwise I don’t think I’d remember a single day of that journey. I can’t remember the half of this year. Am I going mad?”

His joking tone did not hide his anxiety.

Tdor had slid her hands into the sleeves of her robe, and she gripped her knife handles. “In the Old Sartoran texts, it was often said that the truly mad often think they are the only sane ones.”

Signi made a sign of agreement, her small fingers graceful in the ruddy firelight. “To that I will add that war leaves wounds that are not visible, as well as those in flesh and bone. You are still recovering.”

“I hope I recover fast. I have to be learning politics. Me! Isn’t that a joke?”

“It will be if you don’t review your history,” Tdor said, hiding her fears for Inda. She knew from his childhood that Inda would hate smothering. He wanted a solution. If there was one. If there wasn’t, well, better pretend there was. “So let’s begin. We’ll review some history.”

That set the tone for the remainder of the journey. Inda was troubled by the gaps in his memory. He could not recover a single day from the long ride between Ala Larkadhe and Tya-Vayir, where they held the triumph, so he set himself to notice everything around him.

He was thankful when he recognized landmarks he’d seen as a boy traveling this road. During the evenings, after they’d named kings and battles, heroes and villains of history, the talk ranged freely over languages, ships, travel, and other kingdoms and customs.

Despite the steadily worsening weather, it was a calm, friendly journey, characterized by active good will. By its end, as expectations gradually fell into patterns, less often did Tdor have to make herself enumerate the reasons to be grateful, especially when Signi’s trick of massage often calmed Inda back into sleep without him being aware.

At last the outriders came galloping back on a late afternoon under a lowering sky that, from the smell of the air, promised a possible first snow.

Inda turned to the others, grinning like a boy. “We can make it to the royal city if we take the remounts.”

So they divided up. Inda, Signi, Tdor, their Runners and half the Riders galloped ahead, leaving the other half to accompany the servants with the camping gear and horses.

The sun made a brief, pale appearance just above the western horizon as they topped the hill before the royal city. The light was strange, the undersides of the clouds dramatically lit. They’d waved to the perimeter Riders, so it wasn’t as if they expected to surprise anyone. A trumpet call at the main gate was their due, and the Marlovans straightened up in expectation.

To their astonishment, not one but all the towers rippled with brassy intensity the racing chords heralding a Harskialdna.

Inda flushed to the tips of his ears. The Marlovans all grinned in shared pride. Signi’s emotions swooped. She could not blame them for martial ardor. She knew the very same was felt in her homeland.

Tdor and Inda guided their mounts into position behind the standard bearers, and everyone else assumed rank order. Signi dropped to the back as they galloped the last distance down the road and through the open gates.

People lined the walls to catch a glimpse of the famous Harskialdna, once a pirate and an exile, returned just in time to lead the Marlovans to victory. At his side rode his new wife, who would help the queen command the castle women. On the walls, on the streets, from the backs of head-tossing horses, men and women thumped fists to chests. The women were saluting Tdor, whose face flushed with a mixture of pride and embarrassment.

In all those cheering faces, in the trumpet calls and the salutes, Tdor saw herself reflected back as a Harandviar. This new rank, like her status as a wife, had become real. Had Inda felt real only after others believed he was real when he became a ship captain and then a commander? She could ask. Inda was home again, riding at her side, and they could talk to each other, instead of imagining conversations—something he’d admitted he’d done, too! Oh, could anyone be happier?

To greet his Harskialdna for his triumphal arrival at his new home, Evred-Harvaldar came all the way out to the castle gate, Hadand-Gunvaer at his side.

Inda dismounted into his sister’s arms. “Well done, Inda.
Well
done,” Hadand whispered, blinking away tears of joy.

“Welcome, Inda.” Evred smiled briefly, hands clasped behind him. “You are betimes.” And then, with oblique inquiry, “Do the Twins suit you, then?” He indicated the tall, thin, fair Runner behind Inda, and his partner, who was northern Iascan—short and dark.

“I like ’em. Ramond Lith reminds me of our Lith.” A thumb indicated the tall one. “You know, when we were scrubs. Ramond Jaya is quiet, like my cousin Manther. They get along with everyone.”

Evred had not got the answer he sought. “You did not bring personal Runners from Choraed Elgaer?”

Inda shrugged. “Fiam never became a Runner, and Tau left the day before we did. So I was glad to have the Twins.”

Tau left
. Evred thrust away the sharp sting of disappointment. He’d also dreaded seeing Tau again. Now he need not think about that ambivalence. “Then the Twins shall be your personal Runners. Vedrid will get them a staff. Come upstairs. Let me show you everything before supper. We tend to eat quite late.”

While he led Inda up the tower steps into the residence, his wife hugged Tdor with such strength Tdor’s bones crepitated, but she just laughed and shook herself as Hadand extended a welcoming hand to Signi. Tdor smiled her way. Signi’s light eyes flicked between the two, and her cheeks pinked. “It is good to see you again, Gunvaer-Edli.”

“I understand I have you to thank for many healings and renewal spells.” Hadand started up the tower stairs.

“I wish I were better trained in the healing.” Signi’s expression sobered. “There was so great a need.”

Tdor grimaced, and Hadand caught herself up. The war between Marlovan and Venn. Yes. Shifting from that subject, Hadand said, “I sent orders for mulled wine and cider, soon as I show you where you’ll live.”

They reached the top floor and Hadand led them past the empty, closed-off guest rooms along the outer residence wing. The air was cold, the hall dim, almost dark. This castle in winter felt oppressive to Signi, though the others appeared to notice nothing amiss; she sustained a pang so strong it almost hurt, how much she missed the airy tunnels of Twelve Towers, lit by crystal glowglobes of gathered summer sunlight, the walls bright with mosaic knotwork patterns. Or in the poorer tunnels, painting.

Hadand took them to the center of the castle. “Here I am,” Hadand said, indicating the queen’s suite along the east wall, overlooking the inner courts. “Evred’s over there.” She swept a hand toward the western side, overlooking the academy, and beyond that the plains below the city walls. “This is the old schoolroom, which we use as a kind of catch-all. Those rooms opposite are for any royal children. And down here, opening onto the big tower, are the Harskialdna rooms.”

The north end of the residence abutted the enormous north tower, ending at a strange right-angle jut: an older tower had been mostly obliterated when the tower and residence were enlarged, leaving an odd sort of cubby. Hadand led them around that corner to yet another hall, but that one was short. It held only the double doors to the Harskialdna suite. “You overlook the guard side from here,” Hadand said, waving northward.

Tdor thought of the long, long walk between this end, the queen’s rooms, and the area adjacent to the guard compound where the girls lived for the queen’s training. “I’ll need a horse,” she exclaimed in laughing dismay.

“That, my dear sister-in-marriage, is why we call these people Runners.” Hadand patted Tesar, her First Runner, on her shoulder.

Tesar, a tall, tough woman with corn-colored braids, grinned as Hadand indicated the double doors. Tesar gestured to Noren, Tdor’s First Runner, and they vanished to see to the transfer of belongings.

“These used to be the Harandviar’s workrooms,” Hadand went on, indicating the row of three doors opposite the double doors. “And my poor Aunt Ndara used them to do the queen’s work. But we’ve shut them off so we could use the furnishings elsewhere. No new wood; we have to account for even the smallest chair! There is lots of space in this suite, even if you only get one window in the main room. Which is right here.”

She opened the double doors onto an oddly shaped room with a single slit-window set into an oval alcove up in the massive, thick wall. That alcove was at the end of a narrow corridor with doors to either side, so at best it let in a narrow shaft of light. “Bedrooms here, here, and here—that door goes down to the guard side—and behind this door is your own stairway to the private baths. Runner chambers off every bedroom, and a wardrobe connecting here—or anything you want to call it,” Hadand said, rapidly whirling them through a series of sparsely furnished stone rooms with doors that all seemed to bang into one another.

When Hadand saw Tdor’s expression, she misinterpreted it. “Evred’s uncle was hardly ever here. He slept down behind his office at the guard headquarters most of the time.”

Oh,” Tdor said, and went back to wondering if all three of them would have a bedroom, or if Inda had grown out of Marlovan custom and expected his own room and who would sleep there? Or would he have a bunk down in the guard area?

And what would Evred want?

These things raced through her mind as Hadand led her through the last bedroom to the main chamber again.

There she stood, hands on hips. “Those last two rooms are good for babies. When your children get weaned, I hope they’ll spend their days in the schoolroom with mine. I love the thought of our children growing up together,” she said, with a faint, self-conscious blush, and Tdor remembered that Hadand had been trying for a year to have a baby before Evred had gone away to the war.