Banner of the Damned (46 page)

Herald Martande.
How strange! I had forgotten that Birdy was named for the first king.

“Lord Davaud has discovered from his military reading something called a stalking-horse. You will be this. It’s inevitable that the Marloven king will be investigating us just as everyone else is investigating them. He will probably discover that you are really a herald, but with that discovery will be the fact that you are appointed by me, as a conduit of news about my sister. Let him surround you with spies, because you will be a good stable hand, and you will send me letters about Lasva that can be seen by many eyes. Steward Marnda will cooperate with you in this. My sigil on correspondence should protect you, as I’m certain they won’t want trouble with me any more than I want trouble with them. But mostly I want you writing letters meant for them to see. You and I will discuss code words anon.”

Birdy swallowed. I saw his neck knuckle go up and down.

“Now to you, Scribe Emras. Who bothers with a scribe, if she is not writing? Especially a little apple-faced thing like you? You will
not
report to me, in fact, you will get rid of your personal scrollcase, if you have one, so that no one thinks of you as a scribe. Let them think you a servant. You will be the closest to Lasva, so she is going to need your watchful eyes. I want you to learn everything about magic that you can. Discover if there is anything in these rumors, once you reach Marloven Hesea. Specifically, if there is a Norsunder threat to Lasva.” She frowned. “Question?”

“Do you wish me to listen to this Sigradir Andaun?”

“I want you to stay away from him! If he’s truly treating with Norsunder, then he is dangerous, perhaps the most dangerous man in their kingdom. But this I believe about great evil, which is our definition of Norsunder: it can’t be subtle. If you find evidence of Norsunder’s magic, then you tell Lasva, or Marnda, if Lasva is surrounded by spies. Marnda will know how to reach me, and if I have to, I can end the marriage treaty, though I hope and trust that none of it is true.” She paused to take a breath. “Right now, I do not plan to burden her with any of these vexing rumors and accusations, and anyway, you can be certain that when she arrives in her new kingdom, she will be surrounded by court flatterers who will hum whatever they think she wants to hear. But you scribes are trained to hear past the flattery.” She finished with her fan aslant in Life’s Ironies.

I made The Peace a third time.

Davaud moved to the door, then turned his gaze to the queen, who said, “Ah-ye! They come. We will meet later. You two may leave through that door there.”

We withdrew in proper order. I even waited until we got safely beyond the second door, to the public corridor beyond, before I exclaimed, “Birdy!”

“Yes. I’m back.” His ears stuck out as always, his hair was barely contained, and he was
tall.

“What happened?”

“We’re to say that our embassy is completed, but King Jurac couldn’t have pushed us through the door more thoroughly than if he’d done it with his own hands. We had to leave everything and use our transfer tokens! Ah-yedi.” He rubbed his forehead.

“You are all back?”

“All but the ambassador, who is still in Narad, with our trade agreement in the balance. I don’t envy him.” He fell in step beside me, even though his legs were so long and mine so short. “What happened here?”

I gave Birdy a quick summary, but my mind was on the past. Twice we had to defer, our backs to the marble walls as courtiers drifted across our path, but as we approached the eight-sided fountain chamber, I put out a hand.

He stopped. I stopped.

Then I gazed up at him, my being so filled with emotions I could not define that words failed me. He clenched his jaw against a yawn, but his eyes watered, betraying him, then he grinned ruefully. “Em?”

“I—I missed you,” I managed to say.

He chuckled. “I missed you, too. All of you.”

All of us.

I knew I should let him go, but the urge to explain was too overwhelming to suppress. “Before you left,” I began. “When I said—’Will you write to us?’ and you said ‘Us?’ and you sounded so sad… I didn’t know what you meant.”

His grin widened. “Emras. There were two of us not knowing what the other meant, that day. It’s past, and here we are again. Shall we begin where we left off, and pretend that particular conversation never happened?” Another yawn caught him. He hid it behind his hand, but his eyes watered again.

“Agreed. Have you slept at all?” I asked.

“There was no time for that.” He dashed his sleeve across his eyes, then said, “One thing I’m curious about is this book you apparently found in time to smooth the way for that Marloven prince. The Grand Herald gave me the briefest summary, and it seems they all think you have an eye to making money through Tiflis and the book sellers, but unless you’ve changed more than I expected, it doesn’t seem like you.”

“You’re the only one to say that. Even Halimas thought I wanted to make some money of my own. The queen called it laudable.”

“She called it laudable because of the laudable outcome,” Birdy said. “Ah, I am so tired. But we are here.” Birdy looked around the familiar anteroom to the staff dining area, plain cream-wash on the walls, arched accesses. He breathed in and smiled at me. “You have no idea how good it is to be home—”

He fell silent as a very new, young page scudded up to us with a breathless summons for me from Seneschal Marnda. I took my leave of Birdy, rejoicing in the knowledge that he was back, and not angry with me for my sixteen-year-old obliviousness, as I followed the little page back to the west wing.

From that my mind leapt to the astonishing nature of the queen’s
orders. I had agreed because what else does one do? But doubt and then dismay assailed me. How was I to learn what I must know?

“Did the queen speak with you, Scribe Emras?” I was startled by Seneschal Marnda’s voice.

I made a swift Peace, then said, “I am ordered by the queen to learn about magic. If Norsunder is truly allied in some way with the Marlovens, then I am to tell the princess or you. I remember one of the senior scribes saying that when the queen was young, she attempted the study of magic. Has she some books that I might borrow?”

Marnda rubbed the bridge of her nose. “The queen was only instructed in theory, I remember, for it was part of my duty to fetch and return the books the mage sent. She always commented about them before she sent them back.”

“How much magic did she learn?”

“None. They would not send a teacher unless she would give over more time than she was willing.”

“Why?”

Marnda opened her hands. “They said only that one must train the mind to the consequences of power as much as one is trained to use power. Even when a girl, the queen knew she was already learning those lessons. But the Mage Council was adamant: one must learn slowly and must be tested often by their methods, or not at all.”

I left, resolved to comb through the archive though without much hope. My studies had made them familiar to me, and I knew what they held.

So I turned to the one person I knew could help me, my brother. Even so, I had doubts, for I remembered what he had said about magic studies—corroborated by Marnda.

I hesitated over the wording, partly for this very reason. The queen did not entirely trust mages. My brother, once a scribe, was now a mage, and he’d made his loyalty clear. So I worded it generally, asking for referral to any text from which a scribe could learn about the presence of dark magic—and I said it was a research question asked on behalf of the princess.

To my surprise, I received an answer from Olnar as I was readying myself for Tiflis’s ceremony.

It was written in evident haste:

I could hear his voice, the fond exasperation, for he did not mean to patronize. But I had to find a way to follow my orders, or the queen might replace me. My position was already anomalous, with the princess leaving the kingdom.

I was in a sober mood as I picked up the net of golden lily blossoms I’d ordered and took a boat to the Crown Gate—or, rather, as close as I could get. All the book sellers seemed to be there. As the city carillons sounded the chords of Hour of the Harp, I tried to squeeze close to the rail to see Tiflis’s lily-decorated barge sail through—but so did everyone else. I only succeeded in glimpsing heads and shoulders. I flung my blossoms when everyone else did, and the shower of gold petals was lovely in the light of the glow globes, first glittering and tumbling in the air, then alighting on heads and shoulders and hands.

As the crowd broke up, most walking toward Alassa Canal, small children threaded among us and gathered lapfuls of petals to cherish or to shower over one another.

On Alassa Canal, every window in Pine House glowed with golden light. The double doors stood wide. I reflected everyone’s Peace as I entered, returning smile for smile until I found my cousin in the central place in the room at the owner’s right hand, resplendent in plum brocade over carnation and sea green panels.

Tiflis greeted me ecstatically, then presented me to the room. “Here is my cousin, Royal Scribe Emras, who was the finder for my mastery work.”

The entire circle finger-tapped their palms in approbation. Caught completely without a clue to the proper response, I made The Peace generally.

“What happened with the warriors?” the book seller asked.

“Was there really a pitched battle with the Chwahir?” someone else asked.

“Did they truly attack the palace itself?”

I began assembling words, but Tiflis forestalled me. “She will only say what the heralds cried in the streets at the Hour of the Bird. Even in the
family, you may as well be talking to a wall as to a Royal Scribe for real news.”

They laughed and returned to their small groups as Tiflis drew me toward the banquet table to press into my hands a gold-rimmed cup full of the best honeyflower wine. A pure white petal floated on the surface.

“I’m moving tomorrow,” she said, raising her own cup to me. “It’s not on Skya Canal, but—”

A tall young woman with hair dyed shades of flame slid her arm around Tif’s shoulders and bent to kiss the tip of her ear. Her robe featured a capelet of pointed layers in ruddy shades. Here was the fashion the queen had mentioned:
The fox’s ruff
.

“—but it’s a splendid little place,” this newcomer said, turning a smile to me. “And we have a fine view of Alassa Canal from the parlor.”

Tif caught up her lover’s hand and kissed it. “This is Kaura,” Tiflis said to me. “My artist partner, and my partner in art.” Her hands shaped the heart symbol on the word “art,” her manner and their immediate laughter making it plain that this was a standing joke between them.

Kaura’s brown eyes rounded. “I was the first to read the book. I could hardly believe they were real people! But Inda was a prince—they don’t lie, do they?”

“How can they,” Tif answered, “when all it takes is a herald to poke his beak into their portrait gallery, if not their archive?” She turned to me. “Kaura thought of that design,” she said proudly. “The Venn knots make the book!”

Kaura blushed. “If the chirps are true, and the princess is going to marry the Prince of Marloven Hesea, how will she manage in such a kingdom?”

Surprised, I said, “I do not know.”

Tiflis put her head back and sighed. “Em.
Everybody
is talking about the match. It’s hardly a secret!”

My cheeks burned. “I meant, I don’t know anything about his kingdom, except that that book is about a time four hundred years past. They must be more civilized now.”

Kaura said with a friendly smile, “I’m certain everything will settle out sooner or later. Right now, I want to thank you for thinking of Tif.”

“Yes,” my cousin said, setting down her cup. “We need to settle on our own part. You got my note, of course.”

Once again I found myself without a clue to expected behavior. From the way others gathered around, I surmised that this was the negotiation
Halimas had talked about—begun in Tif’s letter to me on the road—and further, that it was important to her. If I left the amount to Tif, would it be perceived as an insult, as if I was too superior to care? I said slowly, “Yes, I got it. I did not answer as my hand was still resting from all that copying I had done.”

Everyone exchanged a look, and I heard an “Ahhh,” behind me.

“All of which had to be corrected by us,” Tif said. “But I honor you for the excellence of your work.”

So like a court negotiation for place—establishing who must defer to whom. Now I knew how to respond. “And you were my first thought, as soon as I began reading the scroll that Prince Macael Elsarion loaned me,” I replied.

Tiflis flushed with pleasure. “To be the first choice of a Royal Scribe honors not just me but our House.”

After a few more complimentary exchanges like that, Tiflis referred to Kaura’s talent in designing the book to catch the eye, to which I answered that I’d had to translate the scroll from Sartoran to Kifelian. I expected that to be dismissed—translation in and out of Sartoran had been part of childhood training—but those gathered around acknowledged it with little signs, and soon Tiflis offered me a full finger—ten percent—of her earnings.

Once we sealed the agreement by finishing the honeyflower wine, her fellow book makers gradually closed into their own groups. Tif saluted me. “I’d hoped to negotiate you to a flit.” She lifted her little finger. “But when you mentioned that Prince Macael, I had to come up.” She lifted her longest finger. “He’s already got a reputation.
Everybody
on the canal will be chirping by morning. And long may the birdies sing.”