Banner of the Damned (50 page)

Tharais bit her lower lip, scanning rapidly. “He says, ‘another miserable, wet, befogged road just like the past four days.’”

A fresh fire burned on the grate, but it had not yet taken the chill off the room. “Go ahead,” he told her. “Read it, if you’ve a mind to.”

“There isn’t much.” Tharais fingered the tiny curl of paper.

“Uh oh. Trouble, I gather?”

“I don’t know.” Tharais offered the letter. “Here. Tell me what you think.”

Geral took it from her callused fingers.
“Your brother still goes off in the mornings, but he’s always back by dawn. Lasva the Rose doesn’t emerge from her tent.
Her tent?” Geral looked askance.

Tharais lifted a shoulder as she sank back on the silken cushion, her blond curls spreading around her. How she adored varieties in custom! In Marloven Hesea, you used cushions when you traveled but tables and chairs in your home. Here, cushions at home, tables and chairs if you traveled outside the borders of this small kingdom with its famous goldenwood trees, guarded, it was said, by tree-spirits.

“It’s not necessarily a problem,” she said slowly. “One thing I learned between Marloven Hesea and Enaeran, there are different notions of privacy. Tents are only private up here.” She touched her forehead. “They might sleep separate for her sake.”

“All right,” Geral said, and looked askance. “Are you sure you want to know what I think, when I don’t even seem to know how to read this thing? Your customs are as much a mystery to me as is your brother. Or for that matter, as is Princess Lasthavais the Rose. Frankly, I am astonished that she married him, given the number of princes who must have been crowding in to court her.”

“Fair enough.” Tharais’s capable fingers rolled the paper into a little ball as she stared out the window at the sleet plunking momentary craters in the light brown, soupy soil. The winter breakfast room faced north, where the faraway sun arced lower each day against the bleak gray sky. “Geral, I hope this makes sense, but until she married Van she wasn’t real to me. Now she is. I… I have to talk to her.”

“Because?”

Tharais turned her face toward the fire, knowing that it was impossible to hide her reaction to the memory of Van’s parting with Tdiran Marlovair. “Can we invite them here?” she asked.

He sank down beside her. “Is that wise?”

In spite of the color flooding her cheeks she looked unexpectedly like her brother as she said, “I think I need to tell her certain things that she had better know.”

When the carriages got stuck in the mud left from an earlier storm, Ivandred called an early stop. It was Restday—but there was no rest. We were not in sight of any civilization. The Marlovens pitched the tents with their usual speed, then vanished beyond a distant line of tall ash that must once have marked a border. Marnda marched all the dressers to the river to wash everything we had, to make full use of precious daylight. Birdy was busy with the animals and the carriages.

Macael invited Lasva to join him and his noble friends, as the remaining pair of Marlovens established the perimeter circle around us.

So I had the tent to myself. Oh, a precious moment alone!

I hung up my water-warded cloak to drip at the far end of the tent, plunged my hands to the bottom of my modest trunk, and yanked out my book of magic. I was deep into puzzling out patterns in the nonsensical phrases when quick footsteps outside the tent made me wrap the book and plunge it back into my trunk. The tent flap opened, sending in a draft of cold, clean air, droplets catching the lamplight like fireflies.

“Supper,” said the Prince of Marloven Hesea.

He left, moving between the light and me. So it always was, the Marlovens and Enaeraneth flashing shadows over us without the slightest gesture of politeness.
They don’t know anything
, so we kept saying, but the implied rudeness—they
should
know—was a continual source of irritation, like ill-fitting shoes that rubbed blisters on your feet. But hard on that was the unsettling surprise of a prince coming to fetch me. He could have been passing by, but in Colend, no royal would take a single step out of the way for that. That’s what pages were for.

But Marlovens didn’t seem to have pages. They had runners, whose purpose we couldn’t define.

I pulled my water-bespelled cloak around me and followed Ivandred to the other side of the camp, where the Enaeraneth had set up their row of tents. We found Lasva sitting neatly on her cushion, the way Colendi ate in formal company. My job was to serve her the way we Colendi liked to be served.

The rest lounged about on their cushions, careless of light and space, talking while Lasva sat and smiled.

“You’re late,” Macael observed, smiling lazily up at his cousin.

“Change of my outriders.” Ivandred sat down next to Lasva. “Short drill, as we’ll ride early tomorrow to make up the time. If you concur?” He turned to Lasva, who (as always) gestured Harmonious Agreement and smiled. Smiled. Smiled.

The Enaeraneth waited politely for me to fix Lasva’s plate, which she accepted with her smile already going absent. She formed a portion of the corn-meal and fish into a tiny ball in her fingers and passed it behind her lips, her movement small and neat and noiseless. She knew, as I knew, that it was not for the Enaeraneth or the Marlovens to adjust, but for us. Every day, every cold breath, was a reminder that we moved farther from Colend.

Ivandred leaned forward to tap a scroll lying on the table near the food. “This latest map must be a generation out of date. The road goes nowhere. I sent a pair to scout,” he said. “I’d rather we don’t encounter any more Dandy Glamacs lying in ambush.”

“To which I agree.” Macael spread his hands, rings glittering. He was friendly and was certainly pleasant to look at when he sat back on his cushion, his hair like corn silk, hanging long and loose over his open jacket, revealing a brocaded waistcoat and cambric shirt. His hands, negligently holding a half-eaten cabbage roll, were well-made. “Do you think we were sold an old map as a setup for ambush?”

“Possible,” Ivandred conceded. “If so, they will learn their mistake.” His teeth showed. “Though I’d rather not lose the time.”

“Speaking of travel. Your sister wrote to me moments ago. She wants us to come to Remalna. She promises a proper bride party for Lasthavais.” Macael made a graceful bow in her direction. “You can take ship from there. I smell winter on the wind.”

“Lasva?” Ivandred turned her way.

Lasva said, “I will leave that to you. I know so little of the terrain past our border.”

The lords and Macael heroically kept up a three-way conversation about hunting customs across the continent: in the east they chased and garlanded deer, but deer were rare in the western plains, where they hunted the trained fox, and hunted to kill the marauding wolf. In the case of the trained creatures, animals that often won were prized so that stud fees might cost as much as a castle, and they compared the prices of fast horses against what they’d heard about fast deer in our part of the world.

The meal ended at last, and we picked our way over the muddy turf back to our tent, where I discovered the scrollcase full of notes. Of course it was—today was Restday, the courtiers’ favorite day for writing letters to those far away, and for some of the letters in the scrollcase, a week had passed.

Mindful of my promise to Marnda, I did not tell Lasva, nor did Lasva ask.

From Isari:

From Ananda:

From Darva, the Countess of Oleff, and from the look of it, more worries about Ladies Lissais and Farava, and Lord Rontande of Altan:

I scanned to the next page.

As always, I avoided the use of the word “I” and answered on precious strips of lily-paper. For Darva I described the slate shade of a slow moving river framed by red mud, a gnarled, ancient hawthorn from which a flight of brilliant crimson tzilis burst, plumage streaming as they flew skyward. For Isari I described how handsome the Marlovens looked, riding in their orderly columns, banners at the front, snapping in the wind. For Ananda, I described Haldren Marlovair’s striking profile, and how the Marlovens’ braids stayed neat over days, so they did not have to tidy their hair twice a day like we did. I never responded to any mention of the Duke of Alarcansa.

Lasva retired behind her screen, and the other dressers returned with clothes to hang over every available surface in hopes they would dry sufficiently
overnight, aided by the heat from the brazier, to be packed at dawn.

I was on the last letter when Ivandred himself arrived, just as I was describing those droplets gleaming on his pale braids. He acknowledged me by a lifted index finger then said, “Lasva?”

Marlovens, I had discovered, were strict about the hangings, as if they were real walls. To Lasva it was just more damp cloth. She flung it aside so we could see her and said as sweetly as always, “Please join me.”

“I wrote to my sister.” Ivandred ducked inside and sat next to her, but he did not touch the hanging. It was for her to decide the degree of privacy.

To her, there was no privacy.

He said, “We will take a ship from Mardgar. That will quicken the journey.”

Lasva tried to use his open-handed gesture as one of gratitude and politeness, but he saw it as a beckon, a come-hither.

Color ridged his cheekbones, then he took her by the shoulders and pulled her close. When she raised her hands to his face he bent his head and kissed her. I watched the shock of the kiss go through Lasva’s body, as though the tension—the difficult emotions one sensed leashed within him—struck through her.

She groped toward the hanging. I brought it down, then took up my cloak and stumbled over the uneven ground into the darkness outside the tent. I knew that nothing would happen in there. Lasva could not bear the idea of intimacy heard by all—her own private space in Colend had been beyond three sets of doors. So he would leave soon, but before then I had a little time to myself, which I always needed to shed the residue of guilt from my trespass against the First Rule.

Ten steps outside the tent, I tripped over an unseen root and landed full length on the rough turf. I’d paid no heed to where I was going. Then I was startled when hands reached under my armpits and hauled me to my feet.

“You are a little thing,” the dresser Pelis exclaimed as she brushed mud off me. She glanced around, laughed softly, then said, “I love the way you’ve south-gated Belimas, but I hope you know that with Anhar you are stroking the wrong plumage.”

“I am doing what?” I responded, completely surprised.

Then I became aware of the way she was holding my hand as her fingers caressed the dirt from mine. It was gentle but insistent in a way that caused me to stiffen.

She freed my fingers, chuckling. “And so am I, it seems!” She fluttered her fingers mockingly and walked off.

Thoroughly unsettled, I walked randomly in the other direction. There beyond a tangle of trees was the campfire of the Marlovens. They sounded like ordinary folk from a distance, talking, even laughing. Then I recognized a familiar voice among those laughing: Birdy!

The voices were clear on the night air. He was trying to speak their language, and they seemed to find his attempts funny. I turned away, groping so I wouldn’t smash into a tree, for their firelight had dazzled my vision. I couldn’t bear the idea of them making game of Birdy, and I stumbled away.

I hadn’t gone far when Birdy himself appeared out of the darkness, arms moving, elbows poking…

He was juggling again. “Emras?” he whispered. “That
was
you! Did you get lost?”

“Merely walking about.” When he dropped one of those silk bags, I said, “I thought you gave that up.”