Banner of the Damned (57 page)

The Marlovens’ idea of “on the road before dawn” meant waking just after the Hour of Reeds—three hours before Daybreak—so that everyone could be fed and the horses prepared, while the lancers went off in small groups to do whatever it was that they did each morning before we rode, and each evening after we halted. Hitherto, we’d taken horse around the Hour of the Bird, when the sun was at least a finger above the horizon. That, we discovered, was a rare luxury.

Lasva shared a horse with Fnor or one of her women, riding next to Ivandred. Each day’s ride ended with silence, her face tight with tension. But she would not complain, or request an easier pace. One night, I was approaching our tent with dragging steps, after forcing myself to practice my spells on the pretext of fetching water, when I heard low, choked sobs from red-haired Nifta, then Marnda’s angry whisper.

I already knew that Belimas longed to return to Colend, in spite of the disgrace that had sent her, Pelis, and Nifta on this journey. Now there were two of them. When they emerged to get their share of the never-changing rye panbreads with fried fish and cheese, one look at those lowered, reddened eyes, the compressed lips, and I knew they would have left if they’d dared. But even more terrible than this journey was the image of being alone without coin or even a common language. It
was Adamas Dei, who had lived in this very same part of the world, who had written long ago,
Nobody wants a beggar to stay
. They had Colendi skills, but who in this horrible part of the world would want those?

That next morning, when Birdy brought a lantern to our tent to waken us, Nifta put out a hand to halt Anhar in the act of rolling her bedding in the tight form the Marlovens required. “Anhar. You actually were there for our war, last summer. We three were in herb-sleep because of the spy. What was the war like?”

Anhar flushed, obviously pleased to be the expert, yet she was too honest to parade a knowledge she did not have. “I saw nothing,” she admitted. “Just the princess when she returned, all mud-covered, and her hand bleeding. No one actually saw the war.”

“Lnand says it was not a war,” Pelis said as she swiftly braided up her rope of brown hair—for those with longer hair had adopted the Marloven style, which was simpler to achieve and maintain than our more complicated loops and twists. “She said it was a brief skirmish.”

“Skirmish?” Belimas said, tossing her head. “What is that?”

“A very small war, I believe,” I said. And when all the faces turned my way, I added, “I saw the word in that record about Prince Ivandred’s ancestor, Elgar the Fox. There were many assumptions in the record, things the Marloven writer thought everyone knew, so I can’t define it further, except it seems that it takes many many skirmishes to make up a war.”

“But two people were
killed!
” Belimas spread her hands, fingers stiff.

“War is when the entire kingdom is fighting another kingdom,” Pelis said. “At least, I gather so. Yet Lnand also said that no kingdom has ever attacked their capital, which is ringed with great walls and has many guards. So we will be safe.”

Belimas snapped her hand northward toward Thorn Gate. “What is to stop them from fighting each other within those walls? We’ve all seen the blood.”

We looked at one another for answers that none could give, then Pelis shrugged. “Why frighten yourself with what-if? The point is, these very same Marlovens won our war, or skirmish, so they’re sure to win whatever it is they think might be waiting.”

“Ah-yedi!” Nifta flickered her fingers in the petals-in-the-wind gesture, meaning a flirt. “You just want to see that Lnand Dunrend riding about with a lance in her arms. So barbaric!” She pressed her fingers to her eyes. “How I hate this,” she whispered.

“This what?” Pelis lifted her shoulders. “We’re going to a barbaric
kingdom. If we wish to find someone besides one another for rompery, then we must adjust our discrimination.”

Pelis had been eyeing Lnand? Had Lnand returned her interest? Of course she had. Now I understood at least some of the motivation for our writing lessons. As Nifta and Belimas (who never ceased weeping, it seemed) gave each other, then Pelis, resentful looks, I walked to the stream wondering what else I’d missed—and saw Anhar had slipped away before I had. She was over by the horses, one hand fingering burrs out of a horse’s mane as she talked to Birdy.

I’d assumed that the famous lances had been thrown away after the war—that is, the
skirmish
—with the Chwahir, for I hadn’t seen any great sticks on the ride. I discovered the next day that the lances disassembled and then reassembled.

When Tesar and I climbed onto the horse (and I could get up by myself now, though still without much grace) she seemed larger and harder. She was wearing chain mail beneath her black coat and carried a number of weapons close at hand.

Fully armed also meant bows slung at their saddles. Bows! The forbidden weapon! But the Marlovens had not agreed to the Compact.

“Are you going to… shoot arrows at persons?” I asked, my heartbeat thrumming.

“Not unless ordered,” she replied soberly.

Once again, though we traveled so thoroughly together that our bodies touched on horseback, Marloven and Colendi were as if separated. I could see Lasva’s fear in her wide gaze, in the tight grip of her hands. The Marlovens talked past us to one another, short, quick conversations.

When we camped, we found two riders waiting.

Once the fires were built and the tents set up, Ivandred drew Lasva as usual to the command tent. The rest of us could hear her sweet, polite voice and his deeper clipped one as we lined up for the excruciatingly predictable heavy bread, thick and stale, studded with nuts, the flavor a horrible mix of cloying honey, dates, and raisins, that mixed discordantly with the bitterness of their ubiquitous rye.

After we’d eaten, Lasva summoned us.

All her staff crowded into the main tent. Damp heat rose off us, pervading the air with the pungent aroma of grimy human beings as we
tried to fold inward and make ourselves inconspicuous, so strong was a lifetime’s habit.

Then Lasva said, “Prince Ivandred has some troubling news. It appears that there might be…” She hesitated, hands clasping together.

I stared at her. How could I not have noticed how thin
she
had become? It was because of the shrouding of warm clothing we usually wore. But now she stood there in silk shirt and an overrobe the dressers had shortened and made into a tunic, and long riding trousers. These clothes had fit her when we commenced riding, but hung now from her straight-backed form.

“Trouble,” Ivandred said, when the pause had lengthened into silence. “We believe trouble awaits. Treaty breakers. There might be fighting before we cross the border, which is a day or two ahead.”

My heart rapped against my ribs. Nifta’s breath hissed in. Belimas covered her face briefly with her hands.

“Belimas,” Lasva murmured.

The dresser yanked her fingers down, her body trembling.

Lasva clasped Belimas’s stiff fingers. “Prince Ivandred has two transfer tokens that can get two people safely to Darchelde, his family’s castle. From there, his aunt can send you to their capital.” She glanced over her shoulder at him, and on his slight nod, said, “It seems that further transfers are risky, as they could be warded. I do not know exactly what that means.”

But I did
. I understood those spells—though I would never have dared put them together. I also knew the difference between a general transfer, and the safer, specific transfers bound into the expensive tokens. They were difficult to make, for each must be unique. But they could get the user past wards placed to prevent transfer, or the far nastier ones that forced one to shift to another Destination.

Belimas shuddered, and Nifta said in a strange voice, subdued, but anger sharpened the sibilants, “Are we here for you to choose whom to take with you, your highness?”

“I am not transferring,” Lasva said. “I hoped you would decide among you who will avail themselves of this opportunity.”

As her gaze touched each of us, my instinctive reaction was to encourage her to look Anhar’s way. This impulse caught me by surprise. Of all the staff, I liked Anhar and Pelis the most. But I was aware of an unworthy feeling of jealousy when Lasva asked Anhar to read, and the rare times I was able to speak to Birdy — however briefly — Anhar always seemed to be there.

Marnda stated in an angry, trembling voice, “At least
I
know my duty, if no one else does. I will stay by the Princess’s side, whatever happens.”

Belimas was startled by Lasva’s statement. “But if there is danger—
you
must be kept safe, your highness.”

Lasva smiled at her. “Thank you, Belimas. Thank you for your generous thought. But I believe my place is at Prince Ivandred’s side. Though there is little I can do to help—in fact, nothing—
melende
requires me to stay and learn what must be learned.

“I’ve made my choice,” Lasva said. “There would be no blame.”

Belimas wept silently. Nifta’s gaze flickered between us all, angrily, warily.

Lasva extended her hands, one to Belimas, the other to Nifta. “Once my things are sent to the capital. I will not need a hair dresser on this ride, nor someone to choose fabrics for my wardrobe. May I rely on you two to unpack and make my new chambers ready for our arrival?”

“Yes,” Nifta whispered, fingering her ruddy braid with grimy fingernails—she who had always been so fastidious, even fussy.

Belimas bowed, still too overcome for speech. Lasva had given them escape and purpose. Marnda looked on, her head held high, bitterness crimping her mouth to a pucker.

Pelis, Anhar, and I helped the chosen two with a last sort-and-pack. They each clutched a transfer token tightly to their chests and vanished, along with another load of the princess’s things; the magic transfer rippled through the air, blue-gold at the edges of vision, smelling faintly of burnt paper, feeling like the touch of metal before a thunderstorm.

Pelis made the Thorn Gate gesture after them, dropping her hand quickly to her side when she saw Lasva coming toward us.

“The prince wishes to explain our situation.”

We crowded back into that stuffy tent where we were joined by Prince Ivandred.

He always seemed so cool, so distant, as if a film of ice existed between him and the rest of the world. But now the ice was gone, his manner hurried. He snapped open a map and knelt down to spread it on the low table, his pale braid silvery against his black coat in the lantern light.

“Here is Halia,” he said. “Halia,” to us, had always been the oddly shaped acorn on the map, stuck to the left side of the great southern continent that spread halfway around the world. “We used to be united under one peaceful government.”

His gaze shifted from Lasva to me, his pupils so huge his eyes looked black, reflecting the lantern lights. “You saw it, in my ancestor’s record.
It did not last.” His callused fingers bisected the map with quick, slashing lines. “There were a couple of centuries of bad government under the Olavairs, who now claim their own kingdom up in the north. My great-grandfather reunited the heartland of Hesea with lands here in the south, the most important being Jayad Hesea. ‘Jayad’ means plains, you understand, so we usually say, ‘the Jayad.’ It is where the Jevairs hail from. Telyer Heyas was once a part of our kingdom but is currently an ally. There are some who would like to see either domain turn against us, and it is those ill-wishers we may have to face at the border, which is just beyond the Or Arei.”

Or
was
river
, we translated to ourselves.

“The only way into our territory is across a great bridge. If there is trouble, we will find it there,” he said.