Banner of the Damned (72 page)

Storms are experienced differently, depending on where you are when the clouds roll overhead. For some, this storm had begun years ago. Perhaps even generations. For us Colendi, it began with the king’s summoning Lasva.

She set aside her ink and stippling pen, then cast me a look, her lips tight, her pupils huge. “Attend me, first runner?”

I set aside my yarns (for I was embroidering in the tiny details that cannot be woven) and followed her to the throne room.

Ah-ye! How I remember the sharp smell of male sweat on that heavy, cold air, the shifting eyes of the guards as we followed the king up onto the marble daïs. Before we could take our places, once again the cobblestone streets rumbled with hundreds of hooves.

The king paused, one step on the daïs. He swayed, then jerked his hand at the guards. “Alert,” he rasped, the single word sending him into a fit of coughing.

As some guards unsheathed weapons, moving closer to the throne, others ran to the doors to shut and bar them, staking position at either side with their spear-banners held at the ready. The king dropped heavily onto his cushioned throne, snorting in his breath.

Lasva sank with swift grace onto her cushion, head bowed, palms on her thighs. I took my place behind her, distracted by how purple the king’s huge ears looked, contrasting with the paleness of his hair. Why would I notice such things when I felt danger all around me? Perhaps my fleeing wits caught on any little thing they could comprehend, rather than be swept away entirely by my helplessness before the terrifying sense of imminent danger.

The king drank from the beaten gold wine cup waiting beside him and straightened up, then he beckoned Danrid forward. But before he could speak, a loud rapping on the door echoed through the vast stone chamber.

“Who hails?” one of the door guards called, with a quick glance toward the throne.

“Ivandred,” came the prince’s voice, clear in spite of the thick iron-reinforced wood.

“Let him in. But only—” the king began, then pawed at the air in the direction of the door as he began coughing again.

The doors were opened, Ivandred walked in, mud-splashed to the waist. He paused at a minor scuffle behind him as the guards labored to bar his men from following. Ivandred flicked his hand out behind him in the “halt” command, and the doors shut on his attendants.

“Father,” Ivandred said. He reached the throne in a few swift steps, then saluted, hand flat over his heart. “I rode myself to examine the terrain. Danrid’s charge is false. Olavair remained on their side of the river.”

“I protest this slur on my honor as Jarl of Yvanavar,” the tall man protested, coming forward. “I was well within my rights as defender of my—”

“Tuh…” the king tried to speak, but choked on the words, gagging and hurring.

Ivandred cut through. “It was entirely specious, a ruse intended for one purpose: to ruin Haldren Marlovair—”

“Tuh…” the king tried to shout, but only hacked wheezingly.

“Marlovair disobeyed an order!” Danrid shouted.

Neither Lasva nor I understood the politics, but one thing was clear: the conflict between Ivandred and Danrid had gone from covert to overt.

“Take him!” The king’s voice was so guttural he was almost incomprehensible.

Both Ivandred and Danrid stilled as the king pressed both fists to his chest. The noises he made were so horrible I found myself struggling to breathe for him. He lurched toward Lasva, pawed at her arm as he said, “Guard…” the next word was unintelligible, then he groaned and fell backward, his hands loose.

The guards looked at one another, hands gripping their weapons. Danrid’s eyes narrowed, but he had no weapon. Neither did Ivandred, as weapons were forbidden in the king’s presence. They looked at one another, then Ivandred lunged forward, kneeling down in spite of his mud, to lift his father’s head from the cold black marble of the throne arm.

The king’s mouth had gone slack, his breathing labored. The guards’ gazes shifted between the two men and Lasva, most frequently back to her. The guards’ own lives depended on what they did next. The king had said “take
him
,” but no one knew which “him” was meant.

So Lasva said, “We should get the king into his bed and summon the healer.”

The guards obeyed with such alacrity their relief was plain. The king had said nothing about “her” and the princess had given an order. Thus, at a moment most dire, there was a clear chain of command.

“Unlock the doors,” Lasva said briskly, and the door guards leapt to do that.

The ones around the throne worked together to make a kind of carry-all with their arms. They did so in an efficient manner that I would come
to recognize as part of their field training. Moving together, they lifted the king and bore him off.

Lasva said, “I will attend the king until the healer arrives. First runner, attend me, please.” This last to me, her tone urgent.

“I will go with you,” Danrid declared, with a glare Ivandred’s way. “To make certain nothing happens to the king. And that his orders are…”

Danrid’s personal guards had stepped up to either side of him.

“Heard.” Ivandred finished, as his glance flicked past Danrid to Lasva. I could not see her, but I sensed that some kind of signal went between them, quicker than a heartbeat, and then Ivandred shifted his attention to the angry jarl. “Do that. Do that, Danrid.”

The jarl’s cheeks reddened, and he made the barest flick of his fingers over his chest, a belated gesture that reminded me he ought to have saluted.

And so I slipped into the most disparate group of people I had ever experienced, as the guards followed Lasva down the corridor. She seemed to float, gliding swiftly ahead of the guards bobbing behind, their heavy boots clattering. Runners accumulated behind us. Counterpoint to them was Danrid, following me. His breathing stirred my hair, he was so close to my heels. At a corner I glanced back. Ivandred was nowhere in sight.

So there had definitely been a signal between Lasva and Ivandred.

The king’s rooms smelled musty and sour. “Open the windows,” Lasva ordered the servants.

“The king has not permitted the windows to open for ten years at least,” whispered the oldest servant, his hand at his breast.

The other said in a low voice, “He has forbidden the garrison healer to come near him. He… he feared poison.” The man looked away.

Lasva turned her palm up. “If he will not permit the healer here, then we must do our best for him ourselves. Fresh air might do him good, wouldn’t you agree? He is fighting so hard for breath. And steeped leaf. Perhaps we can talk him into sipping it.”

No one argued with that. One runner went to struggle with the nearest window, and another left, as the guards gently laid the king on the bed. The old servants fussed about, tugging the king’s tunic straight over his bony knees and his sleeves straight over the gnarled wrists, and then, hesitantly, began to tug the royal boots off. His knobby feet in their stockings looked abject to my eyes before they covered him with quilts.

The jarl gestured for his men to wait outside the chamber, then he took up a station at the window closest to the bed, where he could see everyone.

Lasva beckoned, and I joined her by the far window. The jarl looked our way, then back at the king as the old servants brought elderberry-ginger steep, more blankets, water, and a change of clothing.

A servant entered with something on a tray. The king groaned.

Lasva crossed the room quickly. Before she could speak, the oldest of the servants leaned over the bed, his low voice a rumble as he coaxed the king to waken and take a sip of the brew he held ready.

“You drink it first,” Danrid commanded Lasva, startling us all.

The old servant’s amazement altered to mottled anger.

Lasva said calmly, “I believe we are confusing the king’s runner’s perception of chain of command.”

The jarl glared from one to another of the servants, then pointed at me. “She can drink it. In case someone saw fit to send up poisoned steep.”

Lasva addressed me. “Scribe Emras, you may regard what you just heard as a request.”

The jarl stared at Lasva, and she gazed back. Now I understood why Danrid was with us. I’d thought he was going to attack the king, and Ivandred had signaled Lasva to be present to avoid that. He was waiting for the king to rouse himself, and complete an order for the guards to seize Ivandred. Danrid meant to witness the order, and see that it was carried out, and until then, protect the king from
us
.

There was so much tension in that room that I said to Lasva, “I do not mind heeding the jarl’s request, Lasva-Haranviar. I cannot believe the kitchens would send up poison.”

I took the cup from the hands of the old servant, turned the brim the way we do when we share Restday cup with family, and drank down the hot liquid, which was fresh and aromatic.

There was a besorcelled handkerchief on a side table. I wiped the rim and handed the cup back to the servant. In silence he poured another cup, then stood there with the cup in his hands as he stared down at the still figure on the bed.

The king had fallen asleep.

After a time, Lasva said to Danrid, “Shall I send for refreshment? Or you could send your own people, if you fear we conspire against you.”

Her smile was sweet, her voice warm. The man flushed and made that negating motion. “Send anyone you like. I think no one in this room is conspiring.” His high tone had dropped closer to normal.

The king’s second personal runner said, “I will order a meal.” He added with faint affront, not quite in Danrid’s direction, “And personally supervise its preparation.”

He went out, leaving another silence suspended in time.

When he returned with a row of tray-bearing servants, Lasva extended a hand to Danrid in invitation. He sat down stiffly across from her at the low table at the other end of the room, and Lasva drew Danrid by gradual degrees into speech. Too trivial to record here, it was an exercise in the Colendi arts of filling time with pleasant chat, and gradually Danrid’s short, abrupt responses lengthened into sentences. Encouraged by her, he described his land, and the horses raised on the northern studs, whose ancestors all came from the Nelkereth plains to the east.

Finally Danrid laughed, a short, husky bark. When he smiled, the fellow was handsome. Lasva met my eyes, and then flicked her gaze to the window. The king’s rooms were built along one of the outer walls, which were so thick that benches had been carved into either side of the window alcoves.

She wants me to witness
, I thought, as I slipped into the alcove and sat down gratefully on the stone bench.

Time passed, marked only by the gradual shifting of the shadows along the stone. Though I knew I was to be a witness, there was nothing to mark in the talk, which had shifted to riding, lessons in riding, carriages, and differing customs. Their voices blended pleasantly, Danrid’s acrimony having dissipated like morning mist. I shut out the difficult, rattling breathing of the king as I began reviewing my magic lessons.

The ochre rays of the sun had nearly reached the toes of my slippers when the old servant startled everyone by exclaiming in a low, pain-rent growl, “O my king…”

I leaped up. There were no swords, no threats. No one had moved from their places. The jarl and Lasva came together to the bedside. I stopped behind Lasva’s shoulder as we looked down at the still figure of the king. The slow, rattling breathing had stopped.

Lasva turned to me. “You must summon the prince,” she said.

The jarl stared from the king to her and then to me, his demeanor hardening to the tension I’d seen on our arrival. He yanked open the door, snapped his fingers at the two men who waited there with the king’s silent guards, and the three of them moved away so swiftly that they were gone when I reached the top of the stairs.

From the doorway behind me, Lasva said softly in Kifelian, “Before he does, if you can.”

I halted then went back to the silent guards at the door, who were staying at their post until ordered differently.

“Where is the prince?” I asked, half expecting them to ignore me.

“Guardhouse,” one said.

Because I am determined to tell the truth as I understand it, here I must admit that after that, I dashed along the halls, full of my own importance at bearing this epoch-changing news, my emotions untarnished by the slightest vestige of regret. But after I’d encountered four sets of guards who crossed their spears at my appearance before allowing me to pass, I noticed there were more guards than usual. Thereafter, I found a pair at every intersection—male and female—with young runners here and there, ready to sprint. Everyone’s eyes tracked me as I passed.

I approached the prison, deep within the garrison part of the castle. I had no wish to see the spectacle of a dungeon in reality, yet here I was, approaching the thick, iron-reinforced doors to its gates. Anticipatory horror tightened my nerves as I walked up to the guards. One pulled the huge door open.

“The prince is in the lower level,” the guard’s tone with the last two words conveyed meaning that I had not yet the experience to catch.

I stepped inside, instinctively fearing that I would never again emerge. There were no instruments of torture hung about in readiness for use. The stone walls were exactly like those elsewhere in the castle, save for the varied shapes of rusting iron bars outside the ancient, warped glass in the few window slits.

A tall boy emerged from a side room. “Are you the princess’s runner?” On my assent, “They just came up from below.” He opened his palm toward the first door along the hall.

From habit my steps were soundless as I walked through the empty outer chamber and approached the inner one. The only light was from a lantern hung on a hook high on the wall to my right. Ivandred and Haldren Marlovair sat together on a bench below the window in an otherwise bare, clean-swept cell.

I must describe this still-vivid image: the prince still mud-spattered from his long ride, the hilt of a knife visible at the top of one of his boots, his body leaning as the two sat forehead to forehead. The prince’s right hand braced the back of Haldren Marlovair’s head, the tendons in his fingers standing out. Haldren, too, was disheveled, but the grime in his skin and clothing and the smell of sweat were so stale they had to be days old. His profile was drawn, his eyes closed as Ivandred said in a low, husky voice rendered sharp and clear by the bare stone walls surrounding us, “You know he’s a liar, and I know he’s a liar, but I can’t accuse him before the Convocation without proof. That will be his excuse for civil war. It’s the law, Haldren. Everything according to law.”