Valdemar 05 - [Vows & Honor 02] - Oathbreakers (23 page)

She turned her attention to Roald. He seemed to be both holding himself apart from the rest, and yet at the same time vitally concerned about all of them.
Goddess
—
even
us,
and he just met us a few hours ago
, Tarma realized with a start. And there was a knowledge coming from somewhere near where her Goddess-bond was seated that told her that this Herald was, as Warrl put it, someone to be trusted with more than one's life.
If Stefansen murdered Idra, he'd know, she thought slowly. I don't know how, but somehow he'd know. And I bet he wouldn't be sharing hearth and home with him. I can't see him giving hearth-rights to a murderer of any kind, much less a kin-slayer. Now I wonder—how much of his worry is for us two, and how much is about us?

After a long silence, Jadrek said: “This is not something I ever expected to hear myself saying, but whatever has happened to Idra, I fear her fate is going to have to take second place to what is happening to the Kingdom.” Jadrek turned to the Prince, slowly, and with evident pain. “Stefan, Raschar is a leech on the body of Rethwellan.” Tarma could see his eyes now, and the open challenge in them. “You never retracted your oath to your people as Crown Champion. You still have the responsibility of the safety of the Kingdom. So what are you going to do about the situation?”

“Jadrek, you never were one to pull a blow, were you?” The Prince smiled thinly. “And you're still as blunt as ever you were. Well, let me put it out for us all to stare at. Do you think I should try to overthrow Char?”

“You
know
that's what I think,” Jadrek replied, eyes glinting in the firelight. He looked alert and alive—and a candlemark ago Tarma would never have reckoned on his reviving so fast. “You'd be a thousand times better as a king than your brother, and I know that was the conclusion your sister came to after seeing him rule for six months.”

“Roald?”

“You've matured. You've truly matured a great deal in the time you've been here,” the Herald said thoughtfully. “I don't know if it was fatherhood, or my dubious example, but—you're not the witling rakehell you were, Stefan. The careless fool you were would have been a worse king than your brother, ultimately—but the man you are now could be a very good ruler.”

Stefansen turned to Mertis, and stopped dead at a strange, hair-raising humming. Tarma felt the tingling of a power akin to the Warrior's along her spine; she glanced sharply at Kethry in startlement, only to see that the mage wore an equally surprised expression. The humming seemed to be coming from the heap of saddlepacks and weaponry they'd dumped just inside the door, after Mertis had extracted their soiled, soaked clothing for cleaning.

Stefansen rose as if in a dream, as the rest of them remained frozen in their seats. He walked slowly to the shadowed pile, reached down, and took something in his hands.

A long, narrow something.

Bits of enshrouding darkness began peeling from it, and light gleamed where the pieces had fallen away. The thing he held was a sword—not hers, not Kethry‘s—a sword in a half-decayed sheath—

As the last of the rotten sheath flaked off of it, Tarma could see from the shape of it that it was the dead man's sword that they'd found—and no longer the lifeless, dull gray thing it had been. In Stefansen's hands it was keening a wild song and glowing white-hot, lighting up the entire room.

Stefansen stood with it in both hands, as frozen for a moment as the rest of them were. Then he dropped it—and as it hit the wooden floor with a dull thud, the light died, and the song with it.

“Mother of the gods!”
he exclaimed, staring at the blade at his feet. “What in hell is
that?”

 

Jadrek shook his head. “This is just not to be believed—Idra pretends to go haring off after the Sword That Sings—then we just happen to stumble on it on a remote trail, and just
happen
to bring it with us—”

“Archivist, I hate to disagree,” Tarma interrupted, “but it's not so much of a coincidence as you might think. Idra wanted an excuse to go north. If she'd wanted one to go south, I would bet you'd have found a different legend, but the Sword's legend says it was stolen and taken north, so that's the one you chose. There's only one real road through the Comb. No thief would take that, and no fugitive—well, that left this goat-track we followed. I
know
it's the closest path to the real road, and I'll bet it's one of the few that go all the way through. No great coincidence there. As for the coincidence of us finding the dead thief, and of Keth taking the sword—I'll bet he was found a good dozen times, or why were the goldwork and the gems gone from the sheath and the pommel? But nobody in their right mind would bother taking a blade that wouldn't cut butter. And we've been stopping in every likely sheltered spot, so it's small wonder that we ran across him and his booty. But I would be willing to stake Ironheart that no
mage
ever ran across the body. Mages can sense energies, even quiescent ones; right, Keth?”

“That's true,” Kethry corroborated. “I knew there was
something
about it, but I didn't have the strength to spare to deal with it right then. So I did what most mages would do—I packed it up to look into it later, if there
was
a later. Besides, knowing how these mage-purposed things work, I would say that the sword might well have known where it was going. It could well have ‘told' me to bring it here.”

“And the sword, once it sensed you were wavering on making a bid for the throne, made itself known,” Mertis concluded wryly.

“It appears,” Stefansen said ruefully, “that I don't have any choice.”

“No more than I did, my friend,” Roald replied with a chuckle, and a smile. “No more than I did.”

But Stefansen sagged, and his face took on an expression of despair. “This is utterly hopeless, you know,” he said. “Just
how
am I supposed to get back the crown when my only allies are a baby, an outlander, three women, a—forgive me, Jadrek—half-crippled scholar, an outsized beast, and a sword that's likely to betray me by glowing and singing every time I touch it?”

“I really don't see why you're already giving up,” Roald chided. “Thrones have been overturned with less. What do you really
need
for a successful rebellion?”

“For a start, you need someone who knows where each and every secret lies,” Jadrek said, sitting up straighter, his eyes shining with enthusiasm. “Someone who knows which person can be bought and what his price is, which person can be blackmailed, and who will serve out of either love or duty. I haven't been sitting in the corners of the Court being ignored all these years without learning more than a few of those things.”

“We
could infiltrate the capital disguised,” Kethry said, surprising her partner. “Magical disguises, if we have to. No one will know us then; Jadrek can tell me who are the ones he wants contacted; if we can get one of us into the Court itself, we could pass messages, arrange meetings. I
know
Tarma could go in as a man, with an absolute minimum of disguising, all physical.”

So we've thrown in with this lot, have we, she‘enedra? Is it the cause that attracts you, or the fact that it's Jadrek's cause?
But, since Kethry had added herself to the little conspiracy, Tarma added her own thought, in spite of her better judgment. “Huh, yes—
if
we can figure something that would put me into the Court without suspicion.”

“Challenge the current champion of the King's Guard to combat,” Mertis put in, surprising Tarma considerably. “That's
anyone's
right if they want to get in the Guard. Free swords do it all the time, there's nothing out of the ordinary about it. If you do well, you've got a place; if you
beat
him, you automatically become head of the Guard. That would put you at Raschar's side every day. You couldn't get any closer to the heart of the Court than that.”

Stefansen looked doubtfully at the lean swords woman. “Challenge the champion? Has she got a chance?”

But Mertis smiled, and Tarma sensed that the gentle-seeming lady had a good set of claws beneath her velvet. “If half the tales I've heard about the Shin‘a'in Swordsworn are true, she'll have his place before he can blink. And right at Raschar's side is the place we could best use you, Swordlady.”

It became evident to Tarma that guileless Mertis was no stranger to intrigue as the evening wore on, and the plan began to look more and more as if it had a strong chance of success. In fact, it was she who turned to Roald, and asked, bluntly, “And what is Valdemar prepared to grant us besides sanctuary ?”

Roald blinked once, and replied as swiftly, “What will Valdemar get in return?”

“Alliance in perpetuity if we succeed,” Stefansen said, “My word on that, and you know my word—”

“Is more than good.”

“Thank you for that. You know very well that you could use an ally that shares a border with Karse. You also know we've stayed neutral in that fight, and you know
damned
well that Char would never change that policy. I will; I'll ally with you, unconditionally. More—I'll pledge Valdemar favor for favor should you ever choose to call it in. And I'll swear it on the Sword—
that
will bind every legal heir to the pledge for as long as the Sword is used to choose rulers.”

Roald let out his breath, slowly, and raised his eyebrows. “Well, that's a lot more than I expected. But you know we don't dare do anything openly. So that means covert help ...” His brow wrinkled in thought for a moment. “What about this—every rebellion needs finances, and arms. Those I think I can promise.”

Kethry looked rather outraged; Tarma was just perplexed. Who exactly
was
this Herald?

Kethry took the question right out of her mouth.

“Just what power is
yours
that you can fulfill those promises?” Kethry asked with angry cynicism. “It's damned easy to promise things you know you won't have to supply just to get us off your backs and out of your kingdom!”

Stefansen looked as if Kethry had blasphemed the gods of his House. Mertis' jaw dropped.

I think Keth just put her foot in it
, Tarma thought, seeing their shocked reaction to what seemed to be a logical question.
Something tells me that “herald” means more than “royal mouthpiece” around here—

“He—Roald—is the heir to the throne of Valdemar,” Mertis managed to stammer. “Your Highness, I am sorry—”

Tarma nearly lost her own jaw, and Kethry turned pale. Insulting a member of a Royal House like that had been known to end with a summary execution. “It's
I
who should beg pardon,” Kethry said, shaken. “I—I've heard too many promises that weren't fulfilled lately, and I didn't want Jad—my friends, I mean, counting on something that wouldn't ever happen. Your Highness—”

“Oh, Bright Havens—” Roald interrupted her, looking profoundly embarrassed. “ ‘Highness,' my eye! How could I have been insulted by honesty? Besides, we aren't all that much sticklers about rank in the Heraldic Circle. Half the time I get worse insults than that! And how were
you
to know? You don't even know what a Herald of Valdemar is!” He shrugged, then grinned. “And I don't know what a Swordsworn is, so we're even! Look, the law of Valdemar is that every Monarch must also be a Herald; our Companions Choose us, rather like that musical sword of Stefan's. Both Father and Mother are Heralds, which makes them co-consorts, so until they seek the Havens—may that take decades! —I'm not all that important, and I act pretty much as any other Herald. The
only
difference is that I have a
few
more powers, like being able to make promises in the name of the throne to my friend, and know my parents will see that those promises are met. Now, about those arms—”

Tarma was profoundly troubled; Kethry had thrown herself in with these peole as if she had known them all her life, but it was the Shin‘a'in's way to be rather more suspicious than her oathsister—or at least more than Kethry was evidencing at the moment. She needed to think—alone, and undisturbed. And maybe ask for some advice.

She let the folds of the eiderdown fall to her sides, and stood up. Four sets of eyes gave her startled glances, Kethry's included.

“I need to clear my head,” she said, shortly. “If you'll excuse me, I think I'd like to go outside for a little.”

“In the
dark?
In a snowstorm?” Jadrek blurted, astounded. “Are you—” He subsided at a sharp look from Kethry.

“Swordlady,” the Herald said quietly, but looking distinctly troubled, “you and the others are guests in my home; you are free to do whatever you wish. You willl find a number of cloaks hanging in the entry. And I am certain an old campaigner like you needs no admonitions to take care in a storm.”

She followed the direction of his nod to the darkened end of the hall; past the door there, she found herself in an entryway lit by a single small lantern. As he had said, there were several cloaks hanging like the shadows of great wings from pegs near the outer door. She took the first one that came to her hand, one made of some kind of heavy, thick fur, and went out into the dark and cold.

Outside, the storm was dying; the snow was back to being a thin veil, and she could see the gleaming of the new moon faintly through the clouds. She was standing on some kind of sheltered, raised wooden porch; the snow had been swept from it, and there was an open clearing beyond it. She paced silently down the stairs and out into the untrampled snow, her footsteps making it creak underfoot, until she could no longer feel the lodge looming so closely at her back. Trees and bushes made black and white hummocks in front of her and to both sides; fitful moonlight on the snow and reflected through the clouds gave just enough light to see by. She felt unwatched, alone. This spot would do. And, by sheer stroke of fortune, “south” lay directly before her.