Banner of the Damned (33 page)

“Oh, put it this way. By Martande Day, I’ll be stuck upstairs standing around in case Someone decides on impulse that this ribbon or that silk rose or the other embroidered lace is too ugly and has to be fixed on the instant,” she said sourly, looking out the window. She always did that when she revealed something she shouldn’t, as if by not looking at him she could pretend he didn’t hear it.

He knew better than to repeat it. “Well, here’s to the last days of freedom, or what passes for it here.” He raised his cup.

She raised hers, they drank, and she frowned. “It’s already cooling off.”

“That’s because my room is cold,” he agreed. “Better a cold room alone than a warm one working like a drudge, that’s what I always say. I sit here and work on my harnesses, and no one orders me about.”

“Orders! You don’t know what orders are until you’ve been under the tongue of the likes of Dessaf,” Torsu started, and went on to give a bitter description of her labors.

There wasn’t much about the princess’s rooms he didn’t know now: who worked when, who slept where, what everyone’s schedule was like, and where they would all be at any given time. Weaknesses, strengths, all of it winnowed out with flattery, sympathy, and pleasure.

When Torsu finished her wine, she sighed and rose. “I had better go,” she said. “Can you believe bed checks at midnight? It’s Dessaf being vindictive.”

“Of course, of course,” he soothed, giving her a lingering caress. “But you don’t want to be on the receiving end of another of her artistic chastisements.”

“Ah-ye, to be avoided.” With that, Torsu gathered her shawl close about her, and he walked her to the narrow stairway then leaned against
the door as she ran lightly down and sped over the path behind the vegetable garden.

Same way she had taken last visit—and the one before. He turned away, tsking to himself.

Habit was lethal in the spy business.

Marnda had been granted the evening off. I found her at the other end of the inn, dancing with some locals and staff who had free time. As soon as she saw me she made her way toward me, followed by her dancing partner. “What is it?”

I said, “The princess has a headache. She wants a scented bath and soft music, so that she can sleep.”

Marnda wiped her damp brow on her sleeve, her expression unchanging at our private code “headache” and “music”—which meant urgency and privacy. “I have to go,” she said to her partner.

Second valet to a baron from the north, he rolled his eyes. “I wouldn’t work for a princess for a gold piece a day and my own coach.”

Marnda followed me out the door, where the noise and music diminished. All I had to do was show her the golden case, and her brow lifted. Together we hurried to Lasva’s suite, where she told us the plan, finishing, “Marnda, you’ll carry on as if Emras is me, and give everyone to know I took cold in the rain today, and so I must regretfully decline any entertainments and dine in my chamber.”

We curtseyed.

Lasva twisted the ring she wore on her smallest finger, whispered her transfer code, and was wrenched out of the world then shoved back in again, stumbling on a Destination carpet in Hatahra’s inner chamber.

Lasva groped, found a chair, and sat down abruptly, to wait for the hideous reaction to magic transfer to pass. The ache in her bones passed swiftly, the dizziness dissipated, and she was left staring not at her sister, as expected, but at Lord Davaud, the consort. She stared at his jowly face, his intelligent gray eyes, as if she’d never seen them before. Slowly her wits returned.

He was dressed formally, his overvest velvet, not silk, his undervest gemmed brocade, meaning there had been a grand ball. “Would you like a glass of wine?” he offered.

“Thank you. I’m all right now.”

“Queen Hatahra is attending a play in her honor, but she should be here soon.”

“The babe is safe?”

“Everyone is safe,” he said. “Except, quite possibly, you.”

“Me?” Lasva looked surprised, and for a fleeting moment thought of the Marloven prince. But that made no sense, and she dismissed it impatiently. “The Chwahir, seen in the passes? So said her note. I’m having trouble understanding the connection.”

“We don’t know that there is one,” came Hatahra’s voice from the doorway, and both turned. “But I mislike the timing, so soon after Alian’s birth. When I put that together with Jurac Sonscarna’s attempt to bully me into a marriage treaty between you and him, and the fact that our ambassador fields far too many questions about you, I think—until we find out why Chwahir are swarming at the passes—the entire royal family will stay here in the palace, warded, and you shall stay hidden in your rooms. Let the world think you are traveling home for the Martande Day regatta.”

Lasva rose and curtseyed.

Hatahra sat down tiredly. “Have the heralds been sent?”

Her consort pointed at the big map on the table. “To each House within two weeks’ ride of the western and eastern passes, which is where the border magic has been crossed.”

“What about the middle pass?” Lasva brushed the mountains north of Alsais.

“Even the Chwahir are not mad enough to try that one.” Hatahra gave an ironic sniff. “To get an army through past the magic wards, they would have to slip them across one by one through what I am told is a very narrow passage. I assure you, the massing of hundreds of platter-faces would give cause for complaint by the people in Ymadan.” She snapped her fan open.

Davaud said to her, “To all the other northern Houses I sent a herald ordering them to be on the watch. And in your name, a suitable host to be raised against need.”

“Most of them will probably require the added time,” Hatahra said wryly. “The dukes will hate it and will inevitably cause a lot of unnecessary bustle.”

Davaud wondered where the bustle would begin. It was his place to command the defense of the city, something that until recently had meant overseeing orderly traffic, maintenance of roads, and peace in city
and on canals. Now, suddenly, his royal consort expected him to command the forces being raised and sent to the outer passes.

Hatahra broke into his thoughts. “Come, Lasva, and see your niece, who smiles all the time now, the innocent smiles of one who demands only love. She is a refreshment to the spirit.”

Lasva followed her sister to the baby’s adjoining suite, in the old nursery where once she had lived. There before the doors stood heralds wearing rapiers, something not seen at the palace in generations.

F

Their aggregate age was almost two hundred ten years, not a day of which had been spent in any military exercise. The Grand Herald had been digging through all the House Archives to read up on what was actually entailed in the “oaths of support” that each noble swore on accession.

The Grand Seneschal, who had been chosen by the old queen for his ability to smoothly organize and manage a royal palace, had no idea what the etiquette of defense could possibly be, with the result that he, too, had assigned a squadron of young scribes to go spelunking in dusty old archives, commiserating with them when they emerged day after day empty-handed.

“What can I tell her majesty today?” Davaud asked, as he always did.

The Grand Seneschal rubbed his age-spotted hands through his sparse hair. “No personal records, so far. Only scribal versions of old family stories. We’ve found two references to eyewitnesses at the Battle of Skya Lake. We will keep searching.”

“Thank you,” Davaud said. “If you require the aid of her scribes, her majesty bids me offer you their services.” In other words, keep digging.

The Grand Herald knew the ducal houses were already in a struggle with the queen over whose responsibility it was to maintain royal roads, the ducal houses united in asserting that royal roads should be the royal prerogative to maintain as well as to order built. He wondered how much trouble the ducal houses were going to make now or were already making. It cost good money to feed warriors and horses, furbish up old armor, and maybe scout out new swords—money that many thought wasted on such impedimenta. Life at court was expensive enough.

Davaud turned to the Grand Seneschal. “We’ll need more armed heralds, too, to keep order in the palace.”

The Grand Seneschal gazed back, appalled. “Has there been rumor of possible disorder?”

Davaud opened his hands. “Is disorder not part of an attack?” It was clear that no one had an answer, so Davaud went on. “The queen desires armed heralds in the private wings. And everyone accounted for, at all times.”

The two gray heads opposite bowed. “It shall be done,” they said, almost in unison, though they wondered how to arrange such a thing. Very few heralds trained at arms—when they had time. And where were they to get the weapons? The Grand Seneschal knew the barge men had some extra rapiers, the old-fashioned heavy ones, for there was sometimes trouble on the waters, but he also knew they wouldn’t relinquish them without fierce negotiation.

The Grand Herald, presuming on a lifetime of amity, said, “Ducal houses are balking, perhaps?”

They all thought back fourteen years, to when Thias Altan—then the ducal heir—had been abruptly, and without explanation, sent packing by the queen at the very height of the season. Now Altan was the leader of the dukes.

“All.” Davaud sat back, arms folded. “Except one—the newest duke: Kaidas of Alarcansa.”

“You are not happy,” Tatia Definian observed, linking arms with her cousin Carola, Duchess of Alarcansa, as they descended the staircase toward the dining room.

“
Melende
,” said the silver-tailed parrot riding on Carola’s shoulder.

Carola gently stroked the parrot’s head, a pucker between her brows. “Would you be happy after hearing that the wicked Chwahir might be coming to conquer us?”

“They won’t succeed.” Tatia giggled as she sent a complacent glance down the marble sweep of the staircase. Her ancestors had built this staircase two centuries before—and that had been to replace an older, narrower one. “They never have succeeded. They are stupid and uncouth. The queen will easily stop them, as her ancestor did.”

The parrot shook itself, lifted its tail, and made a dropping. Tatia watched the ensorcelled silk cloak over her cousin’s shoulders sparkle blue, and the dropping vanished. “
Melende
crowns Definian,” said the parrot.

“Master Nolan reported disturbing news yesterday.” Carola chirped, and the parrot obediently hopped down to her wrist, where she could more easily stroke it.

“Master Nolan?” Tatia watched the bird lean into the patient forefinger as she considered the astonishing turn of events. What had mages to do with prospective war? “There’s to be a… a magic battle of some kind? Oh, I trust not here, near
our
lands!”

“He received word from one of his people that the watch-wards on the pass were dissolved. That’s why it took so long to notice the massing of the Chwahir.” Carola glanced in the direction of the mountains, which were high and rocky, and the only three passes—one east, one west, one central—were narrow. Colend had kept it that way deliberately.