Banner of the Damned (98 page)

Since my experiment had been successful (leaving me wondering if I had managed to learn something that the Herskalt did not know) I was curious enough to return the next morning. I had taken my place in the garden, the dyr bowl on my lap, as Kendred walked down to the castle and through the mossy stone archway between the great hall and the throne room, to the tall gate beyond which lay the mysterious Academy. He shivered with excitement, a little fear, and some impatience as he tried to tug his fingers free from Marnda’s tight grip. But she held on. At his right, his mother walked, her hand warm and gentle on his fingers, her thumb caressing the top of his hand.

When they reached the gate at which a tall boy stood straight and still, Lasva bent to kiss his hand then let go and stepped away. Kendred smiled up at his mother, warm with love, which vanished when he realized that Marnda still held his left hand.

“Marnda,” Lasva said.

“I will walk him through,” Marnda said. I could hear the fear and suspicion making her words quiver. Kendred only heard her strong Colendi accent, and a flush of embarrassment made him feel hot as he tried to free his hand. “I can go alone.”

“Gently, Kendred,” Lasva whispered.

Kendred covertly tugged against Marnda’s grip as he stood still, his gaze on the tall boy in the gray coat. Kendred longed to be that boy. He did not even look up when Marnda finally let go, though he heard her muffled sob.

When he stood alone, the tall boy spoke at last. There was no smile, no sign of friendship as he said formally, “Who presents himself at the gate?”

Kendred said proudly, “Kendred-Laef Montredaun-An of Marloven Hesea. I’m seven, but I am coming here anyway, because I have to learn to be a king.”

The gate opened wide enough to permit one small boy through. Wildly curious and excited, Kendred peered through the gap. All he saw was a sliver of dusty ground as the boy said, “Enter.”

Kendred walked proudly into a wide square of hard-packed dirt. That much he’d expected, after trying to stare over the walls from the upper rooms of the castle. At one end were archery targets, and along the side, a rail for horses. It was swept clean otherwise. In the distance he could make out children’s voices in cadence, and somewhere else, the deeper tones of oldsters like that gate boy. Kendred gave a little hop as he crossed the wide square to where a couple of men waited, one young and one old, before another gate between two buildings that had no windows on the square. He was really here and younger than anyone!

The older man said, “Montredaun-An?”

Just like in the military! Kendred grinned. “That’s me!”

In silence the younger man opened this new gate. Kendred marched through, and caught his first glimpse of others—walking in pairs, each on the same step, or carrying weapons. His grin widened—then blinding pain.

I recoiled, almost falling off my bench as Kendred hit the ground hard. “My” face throbbed and stung.

“Defend yourself,” the younger man said.

Kendred gasped, then scrambled up, though his arms and legs felt strange, like someone had put water inside him. He turned to the older man instinctively for protection, to see a hand come down and hit the side of his face. Again he fell. “Who are you going to call for help?” the older man asked.

“See? There is no help,” the young one said and kicked Kendred in the side.

“Defend yourself,” the old one said and reached down to slap Kendred again.

Kendred curled up, but when the slaps continued, he kicked out, hard, fiercely glad when his foot encountered something. The old man stepped back, and Kendred rolled to his hands and knees. His eyes, blurred with tears, made out another line of boys and girls, but they didn’t pause in their march, didn’t so much as look his way.

No one was going to help him.

I survived
. Kendred remembered what his father had said. That meant this was supposed to happen. Kendred got to his feet, dizzy, desolate, angry, and swung out as hard as he could at the nearest tormentor. His fist encountered air, and again someone hit him. Down he went.

“Who is going to defend you?” they asked. And again, “Who?”

Not Da. He wasn’t there. Ma couldn’t come in. No one!

“Are nice words going to save you?”

A kick against his back as he lay sobbing.

“Dancing and singing? Or telling everybody you’re a king’s son, is that going to save you?”

“
Who
is going to defend you?” came the inexorable voice.

You don’t just defend yourself, you defend the kingdom
, his Da said in memory, and after another hard slap, and the question, Kendred yelled, “Me! I’m gonna!”

The slaps and kicks stopped. A hand closed around his arm. He recoiled, crying hard, and no longer caring as snot pinked with blood dripped down onto his shirt. The hand lifted him up and set him on his feet.

“When you leave here,” the old man said, “no one can ever get you down again.”

“When you leave here,” the young one said, “you will win every fight. Against one or a thousand.”

Kendred gulped, trying to get control of his sobbing.

“You got in one kick,” the old man said. “That’s more than some manage, and they’re ten when they come.”

“But air-swings only hurt the passing fly,” the young one said.

Kendred eyed them, shoulders hunched. He was dizzy, and one eye was swelling. They were big and strong. Nobody could defeat
them
. That boy at the gate, he looked strong enough to fight anybody. “I wanna learn,” Kendred said. His voice was squeaky, but they didn’t laugh at him for it.

“Then follow me,” the young one said. “To your first lesson.”

I stayed with him a little longer, but his aches and pains, the stream of new terms and rules, and my own creeping fatigue, forced me out. I blinked around the timeless garden, my entire body throbbing with reflected pain from Kendred. The air was suffocating. I returned to Darchelde to recover.

When I returned to the royal palace, I avoided the queen’s rooms, and I worked at my wards. I resolved not to tell Lasva what I’d seen. I did not know what would disturb her more, the rough treatment of her child, or the way that Kendred said
I wanna learn
. All his careful teaching about civility, using words instead of fists, it all went away before violence.

And that led to my resolution: I had to hear about incipient violence first. So I would use this new skill to listen to the jarlans, and maybe the jarls (if they weren’t warded) and find a way to let the information get to those who could circumvent war. If I heard intimations of trouble before the trouble could begin, would that not be a deterrent?

It took less than one month to discover how foolish were my expectations.

I still could not find my way to strangers. It was like transfers. One needs a specific, either a face, or an event that gives one access to the participants. Once I learned how to work my way from one familiar person to someone they interacted with, I discovered that most people while away their days with inconsequential matters—sleeping or eating, or riding, dressing, or chatting. All the little vexations of daily life: annoyance, concealed (sometimes not well concealed) dislike of someone close, pique, greed, distrust, yearning, boredom, and always defense, war, strength, skill. It was a relief to hear laughter, even if I did not understand the joke, or to find them asleep. Occasionally I caught them in intimate moments,
and my physical sense of violation expelled me. Not once did I arrive to find someone plotting or holding a politically crucial conversation.

I could almost hear the Herskalt,
It’s human nature
.

One morning, in reaction to this inner mockery, I left Marloven Hesea entirely and returned to Colend for relief. And why not start at the summit? With a practiced ease that would have astounded me in years before, I reached for Queen Hatahra—to recoil at the blast of fury.

“Duels?
Duels?
” she exclaimed, glaring at Kaidas, who stood before her, resplendent to my eye after so many years of the Marlovens’ gray and black (except at New Year’s Convocation).

Faintly in the background I heard the carillon for Hour of the Harp as Kaidas bowed, rigid. “I beg your majesty to honor me with permission to repeat myself: I did not know. And the only defense that can be made against the two was that they agreed there would be no fighting to the death.”

“They should not be
fighting
at all,” the queen retorted. “Send these two hum-bumblers to me. I do not have the slightest interest in the cause, so spare your breath. They are both going to discover the delights of working on their home estates for the next ten years. Maybe twenty!”

Kaidas bowed again.

“My lord duke. I acquit you of blame in this matter. You are here in your martial capacity by my express desire, because we believed we had need at the time, but the
possible
has somehow become
probable
—and not from the Chwahir!”

Kaidas bowed again.

“In fact there has been no sign of trouble with that hummer Jurac for years, and there won’t be consequent to the new water treaty, so I believe it is time to retire our Defense with due honors. I am going to award you with a medal tomorrow at the Rising, and send you back to Alarcansa. You may remain for a peaceful New Year’s Week at home, and when you return in spring, it shall be as the duke, without sword. The practice hall will be restored, probably to a private theater, since performance is popular again among the courtiers.”

Kaidas bowed.

I shut my eyes, disengaging from the queen. From the garden, everything was so much easier, but I had to be careful, for if I stayed too long, that sense of suffocation gradually closed me in. Accelerated if I attempted to experiment with the ward magic.

I drew in a cautious breath and then reached for Kaidas. I found him striding away. The sight of the marble halls and soft carpets of the royal
palace struck my heart with such ache that I almost lost him. I had to suppress my own emotions as he paused twice to bow to curious courtiers, their beautiful clothes and graceful poses also sorely familiar. The styles had altered little, except for the fashion for short hair, garlanded with fresh flowers.

All wanted to know what was said in the queen’s chamber, that much was clear. But Kaidas was not talking. When he reached the beautiful Alarcansa suite, he let loose a laugh of relief.

Then came the memory, no more than a flicker, but I recovered enough to recognize young Darian of Ranflar, now about twenty, and a Gaszin cousin energetically plying their rapiers as they stood self-consciously, free hand poised in the correct position, faces flushed and startled when Kaidas appeared.

So much for the Defenders
, Kaidas thought.
If I’m fast, I can be home in time to see Vasande for New Year’s Firstday.

I completed Signi Sofar’s wards. The eleventh layer was simplistic by comparison—it was the first set of wards laid by the Marlovans after they had conquered the royal city. The personal wards were all against specific individuals, mostly Ivandred’s ancestors. I even saw the magical print of a ward against all that family, but it had been long since disassembled, though not removed, probably by the unknown hand who had laid the seventh layer.

The eleventh layer took me two days, but then I came to the most difficult of all: the wards laid by the Cassadas mages of Iasca Leror.

From here I began to count anew—that is, in descending order, because I was able to determine how many layers I had to go before I reached the fundament. These layers were all bound to one another. The evidence was clear that these mages had known a great deal more about magic than the Marlovans had. And, like Signi’s spells, they were carefully constructed, drawing magic so minimally that the wards were still quite strong all these hundreds of years later. To set a spell so that it would complement a later spell, that was elegant, used very little extra magic, and I was determined to learn how.

But added onto these wards, a much later mage had deftly intertwined personal wards. Think of it (you who do not practice magic) as a persistent ivy plant reaching its roots down into stone. Even if the plant is pulled away at the top, those roots are still alive down there.

I was so busy that at first I was only peripherally aware of the castle beginning preparation for New Year’s Convocation.

I did notice that Lasva was absent, her expression pensive, and I attributed this mood to the absence of her son. The queen’s rooms were certainly more quiet and orderly—no toys scattered about, no footprints to be swept away. Marnda’s querulous voice was absent, a relief that I did not question.

Lasva’s emotions were so intense, the pain and sadness and anger and hunger were so raw, that I looked at her less often. I tried Kendred one time, in hopes of finding him content, which I could then convey in some indirect way to Lasva. The result was excruciating physical shock: the boy lay in his bunk weeping, his body a snarl of pains and aches. Why didn’t Da save him, he was a king, and Ma couldn’t save him because she was too gentle.
No one
could save him! The echo of his wretchedness both physical and mental debilitated me so much that I was unable to transfer until my nerves and muscles—reacting to a beating I had never received—recovered the fact that they were undamaged.