Banner of the Damned (19 page)

That private smile, quicker than the flit of a butterfly’s wing, was enough:
rafalle
.

For the rest of that interminable night Carola moved about and smiled, talked, bowed, and used her fan, her control steel-hard. She was especially gracious to Isari, inviting her to an intimate gathering to interview a new musical consortium. She complimented Sharith on her slipshod hair arrangement, calling it charming and daring. She moved around every one of Lasthavais’s “roses,” as the older generation had begun
calling the young women around the princess. So disgusting. Carola was glad she’d never pandered to the princess by wearing her favorite rose.

At the very end, after she’d complimented each one of the roses, promising an intimate gathering later, Carola leaned down and murmured to Tatia’s avid face, “The princess was as ravishing as ever. I wonder if anyone wagers on how many men she collects to garland her mantel?”

I

I have summed up my early life and four years of serving as Lasva’s scribe in Colend’s capital.

Now it is time to introduce the fifth person, whose appearance changed all our lives.

The sixth—some might say the first, for that one is the most important of all—comes later.

“Road’s too quiet,” was Prince Ivandred Montredaun-An’s first comment that morning, as he, his second-cousin, his sister, and their company rode at a leisurely pace alongside the Fal River toward Remalna, where his sister Tharais would marry a king on New Year’s Day.

Prince Macael Elsarion, second-cousin to Ivandred and Tharais, shook his head. “Well, it’s hot enough today. Travelers’re probably all tucked up in inns, drinking cold beer and waiting for a breeze.”

Tharais looked at the broad, slow-moving river flowing peacefully along, then at the land on both sides. The countryside here was open, reminding her of the plains of home. A lot of the same plants grew at the other end of the continent: leddas along the riverbank, from which shoes
and belts and suchlike were made; away from the mud grew tangles of hemlock, white ash, and fragrant spicebush, the myriad wildflowers dotted with golden queensblossom and crimson tulips and pale blue starliss.

Ivandred ignored the plants. He sniffed the air for lingering traces of fire, of horse, any sign of trouble.

They’d been warned before they came down through the Adrani Mountains that the entire river valley, already known for constant upheaval, had been left unguarded due to a badly thought-out treaty. Three kingdoms all wanted the territory.

The terrible roads testified to neglect.

“Faleth is a byword for brigandage,” said the Queen of Enaeran, Tharais and Ivandred’s great-aunt, and Macael’s mother. “That’s if you get past the Adranis. Every second person in Old Faleth is a thief, and the first is a jumped-up noble whose father was a thief. I suggest you hire a ship.”

But once they were alone with Macael, Ivandred said, to Tharais’s relief, “No ships. The Adranis hate you Enaeraneth, not us. As for the sea, I get too sick.”

Tharais agreed fervently. “Can’t see standing up at all those parties waiting on us in Remalna when I’ve been heaving my guts out for weeks. Longer, if we get becalmed. At least on a horse, you can move, regardless of what the wind does.”

Macael had shrugged. He, like Ivandred, was in his mid-twenties, and though he, too, was a prince, he was a mere second son and so had few claims on his time. “My Elsarion cousins insist the Fals are mostly a lot of talk and sword-waving.”

Everyone laughed—except Ivandred, whose expression had not changed. Tharais’s worry escalated. She’d worked hard to get her brother away from Marloven Hesea and all the dangers there.

Hitherto the trip had been uneventful. The farther they got from home, the more Tharais relaxed and enjoyed herself. Now her brother wore that blank expression again, reminding her of home.

She looked around in the clear summer air, and found reassurance in the sight of her own entourage. Most were young women wearing the dark gray of skirmishers, bows slung at their saddles, who had been sent by their father as protection as well as for Tharais’s prestige. But there were also young men—a group of chattering young Enaeraneth nobles who’d obviously been bored at home and wanted any excuse to be out looking for adventure. Even as tame an adventure as escort duty to Prince Macael. Her uncle had sent them ostensibly to enhance his second
son’s prestige, but Tharais’s great-aunt had told her bluntly that the king was getting rid of them to give the Enaeraneth court a breather.

Riding behind the Enaeraneth lords, in strict paired columns, was Ivandred’s handpicked honor guard, academy trained and eager to be selected for the Marloven First Lancers. The young warriors looked superficially alike in their severely cut long skirted, old-fashioned gray coats, their hair braided back. They were silent, alert, riding aloof from all the rest on their beautiful Nelkereth horses, teardrop-shaped shields at one side of the saddle and, hanging at the other side, their steel helm. To the tops of these helms was affixed what looked like long hanks of horse hair. The Enaeraneth lords thought them absurd.

Tharais was thinking about that and smiling somewhat grimly at their happy ignorance—she hoped they would not find out the truth about those hanks of hair—when Cousin Macael gave a long, low whistle. “Anyone doesn’t know us would take us for a party of tutors with a lot of youngsters playing at riding shield.”

“Eh?” Ivandred said, slewing around.

“You Marlovens are too short to look intimidating,” Macael observed, from his scarcely two finger-breadth’s greater height.

Ivandred snorted. “I think we look like a party of toffs. It’s all that lace, Cousin. And that baggage of yours, Thar.”

Tharais sighed, thinking of the six great wagons trundling behind her brother’s remounts. Three of those wagons were full of her possessions, one belonged to the cooks Macael’s mother had sent along and the other two carried the personal effects of Macael’s friends, who, though they sought adventure, preferred to do it in comfort. Behind those wagons rode their palace-trained servants.

Tharais opened her hands. “What could I do? Father insisted I bring all my furnishings—as if no one else in the world knows how to make a proper sitting mat or table.” She also had a castle’s worth of sheets, quilts—heirlooms all—golden candlesticks, plate, clothing, and what she actually valued (knowing that all the foregoing would probably be jumbled up into an attic on her arrival): her horse gear. “Well, if some needy thieves happen along,” she said, “they can have most of it.”

Macael laughed. “And upset my boys, who will need their pretty clothes if they’re to properly impress your future subjects? Not likely!”

Scouts appeared, riding back at a canter. They halted before Ivandred, and one said, “Town ahead.”

“Maybe we can find out what local rumor says about these empty roads,” Macael suggested.

Ivandred opened a hand in affirmation. “And I could use a cold drink.” He gestured to his scouts to reconnoiter. The cavalcade passed slowly through their hanging dust, everyone longing for shade and something good to drink, preferably from a barrel kept in a nice cool cellar.

Round a couple of river bends they went, then over a little bridge that spanned a feeder stream, and they reached the town at last, finding mostly empty streets and shuttered low houses made of whitewashed stone and brick. From behind shutters faces peeped. The market square was entirely deserted, heat waves rising from slate tiles.

On the other side of the square was a rambling two-story inn. Ivandred tipped his head toward it, and they drew up before the barred doors.

Macael uttered a low whistle, shaking his head.

Ivandred nodded to his personal runner, who leaped from his horse and strode up to the iron-reinforced doors. He pulled a knife from his sleeve and used the hilt to rap loudly.

Nothing.

He rapped again.

A window opened above, and a heavy woman with untidy gray hair peered out. “We’re closed,” she said, in the flat-sounding Sartoran dialect common in these parts.

“Why?” Tharais called.

A man spoke in the background. The woman glanced back, then said swiftly, “Find shelter, girl, if you can. We’ve heard from three separate sources that Dandy Glamac has taken to the high road.”

“Dandy Glamac?” Tharais replied.

From behind the woman came a roar: “Shut the window, damn you. Who says they aren’t with the Dandy?”

Slam!

“Whoever he is, it would seem he’s not much liked, despite the merry nickname,” Macael observed. “What now?” he asked Ivandred. “I don’t think we’re going to get our beer, cold or hot.”

“Ride.”

Tharais watched her brother’s eyes widen, pale blue as the morning sky, as he gazed around the deserted square. She watched the way he smiled, motionless except for quick, minute movements, as if he sensed something out of sight or hearing. She’d seen that before, almost always before something violent happened.

“Camp somewhere,” Ivandred said. “We have enough to eat.”

She bent down to thumb her horse’s sweaty neck, to hide her uneasiness. “I suggest we water the animals first.”

Her brother flicked an approving look her way. “My thought as well.”

They rode on through the town to the feeder stream, fording it at a shallow place. The animals drank and splashed. The humans did not mind the splashing at all. It felt good.

After they crossed the stream, Ivandred called a halt as his Academy riders withdrew. When they started up again, he had changed their riding formation around Macael’s noble friends and their attendants. Tharais’s women still rode in pairs at points along the cavalcade, but their bows were now strung, their arrows within reach. The honor guard still rode in column, but their helms were on their heads, the hanks of various shades of hair swinging against their sturdy winter fighting blacks. They had thus made the mental transformation from Academy trainees to warriors.

Some of the Enaeraneth seemed amused to find these light-built mostly yellow-haired boys riding guard. Were they all boys? A couple of them had girlish faces. The more jovial made remarks, to be steadfastly ignored. They’d discovered that this honor guard interacted little with anyone else.

Tharais sighed to herself. So it had been during the entire trip, though she and Macael had both worked hard to blend the Marlovens and Enaeraneth. She was popular now, and the fellows seemed to genuinely like her, but she would never forget how horrible it was when she first came over the Pass from Marloven Hesea to stay with Macael Elsarion and his older brother, the heir to Enaeran. She was twelve at that time. Her antiquated Sartoran accent had filled them with as much mirth as the carefully made gowns that she discovered were two hundred years out of fashion. It had taken a couple of summer visits to Enaeran before her cousins and their friends stopped teasing her.

As the light slowly slanted west, shafts glowing golden between the trees in full summer leaf, only Tharais appreciated the sight and that only intermittently. She sensed that her brother was uneasy by the way he kept suggesting camping spots, each of which Macael and the other Enaeraneth turned down because it was too hot, not enough shade, too rocky.

Ivandred said, after the fourth such rejection, “Dandy Glamac and his band are sure to attack at full dark. I’d like to be camped with a perimeter in place.”

Macael waved that off. He was tall, well made, trained in the noble rules of dueling; his broad mouth was attractive as were his wide light eyes.

He sat back on his mount with the comfortable conviction that a brigand attack meant a lot of yelling, maybe showing off some horseriding skills before the brigands realized they were dealing with not one but two princes and scampered off with their tails tucked under. It had certainly been that way in Enaeran.

Before Ivandred could form an answer, his scouts galloped up, and reported a great many hoof prints “along the river,” and “beyond the ridge” that ran parallel to the water.

Macael only heard “river.” “Let’s make for the bank,” he suggested. “Won’t that feel good, the cold water, after this hot ride? Damn that innkeeper anyway for a coward and a fool.”

Ivandred stilled, frowning down at his hands. “We should camp here,” he said. He hated an unclear chain of command—but he had grown up with anomalies. His life had depended on not listening to what was said so much as what was unsaid.

What he heard now was,
It is my party
, from his cousin. The young nobles around Macael followed their prince’s lead.

Ivandred did not understand the ways of diplomacy outside of Marloven Hesea, but he had listened when Thar tried to explain them. So he said, trying to find a compromise, “If we ride fast, we might reach the river before sunset.”