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Branid flushed with far more pleasure than the situation warranted; Tdor’s entire body tightened with resentment as he settled down, looking around with a smug, proprietary air at the room he’d been eating in all his life. “Why is everything so quiet? No one’s at work?”

  “They’re at work,” Whipstick said. “The Iofre asked people to make as little noise as they could. To let Inda sleep.”

  The mention of the Iofre caused Branid to abandon whatever he’d been intending to say. Instead, as he broke his biscuit, he turned Tdor’s way. “Inda needs sleep?” He grinned. “You wore him out, eh, Tdor?”

  Scalding anger burned through her, so hot it made her ears tingle. At the sight of her blush Branid laughed with a knowing air that made her want to fling her platter at him.

  But she controlled the urge, as she always had. She knew it was unfair, this reaction of hers: sexual jokes were common, even expected after weddings when the pair publicly go off together. She would even laugh if some of her friends among the guardswomen made the very same sort of joke later on. But somehow when Branid made them, with that insinuating tone, that leer, she felt as if worms had crawled into her clothes.

  Don’t make a fuss, she told herself. If you showed you were unsettled, or upset, he’d worry it like a castle cat with a trapped rat. So she pretended Whipstick had said it. “I did. Anyone want another biscuit?”

  Her voice came out with only one quiver. Tau’s brows lifted; Whipstick went on eating. Branid paid her no more attention, and then she realized what his real intent was.

  Her answer didn’t matter, it wouldn’t have had she indeed thrown her platter at him. Even dripping with egg, he would have got to what mattered the most, as he turned to Whipstick.

  He’s going to start issuing orders, Tdor thought, and hate fired through her. It was only right. The title was now Branid’s, after all these years. But she wouldn’t stay to listen to him ordering Whipstick around just to be giving orders that the Randael now had to obey.

  She whisked herself out, shook her half-eaten eggs into the pig pail, and walked out the other entrance, into the servants’ end of the castle, though she wasn’t swift enough to avoid Branid’s voice, thick with triumph, “Whipstick, I’m thinking we should change the schedule around, so we can . . .”

  Tdor broke into a run to avoid that voice, stupid as it was. She burst into the great hall, which was usually empty, so she could get control, then stumbled to a stop. She was not alone.

  The tall, fair-haired woman turned, and Dannor Tya-Vayir smiled. Tdor’s heat of anger died down to a cold rock of resentment. From one horrible person to another: Mudface Tya-Vayir, who had forced her company onto Inda after his triumph in the north. Dannor had done her very best to lure Inda into setting aside his lifetime betrothal to Tdor and marrying her instead.

  “How does it feel to be married?” Dannor’s tone was so cordial Tdor was taken aback.

  “Fine.” Tdor strove to hide her wariness. When they were girls in the queen’s training, Dannor had never once had anything good to say to Tdor. Ever.

  “Where’s Inda?” Dannor asked.

  “Still asleep.” Tdor pointed upstairs.

  Dannor smiled, one shoulder coming up. During their girlhood, Dannor had never taken defeat well. But Dannor made no remark about Inda or his marriage. “Is this hall always so bare?”

  Tdor flushed as she took in the holly and ivy garlands still hanging from the torch sconces, the ivy now drooping and withered. Except for the magnificent raptor chair on the dais at the far end, the hall really was very barren, though the previous night she’d thought the decorations festive.

  Even though Tenthen Castle was—strictly speaking—no longer her home, a lifetime of pride kept her reply short. “Yes.” And when Dannor turned her way, brows lifted, Tdor forced herself to smile, to be less abrupt. “We had a couple of old Iascan tapestries left over from the days when the Tenthens had the castle. Those tapestries were rotting, and we didn’t like them well enough to reweave them. The Algara-Vayirs had one tapestry that I hear was a good one, but it got burned by pirates when the Adaluin’s first family was killed. We’ve never had time or money to replace it.”

  “Why didn’t you just make a new one?” Dannor asked.

  Tdor sighed. “No one could agree on a design, then the tapestry weaver died of old age. No prentice, not after all the years of troubles. So the young weavers haven’t actually made one, though they all say they know how to set up the loom. But times being what they were, and no one good enough at drawing to make the design, it never happened.”

  “That would make a splendid gift for the Iofre, then, wouldn’t it?” Dannor asked. “I mean, if, say, Inda found himself wealthy in his new place as Harskialdna, and could fund one.”

  “That definitely won’t happen.” Tdor turned her back on the blank wall. It really did look bare, though she’d grown up used to bare walls. “Inda told me yesterday that the king says the treasury is empty.”

  Dannor waved a hand as though shooing insects. “Oh, they’ll fill it fast enough. You watch. Evred-Harvaldar will squeeze the Jarls at Convocation, after speeches about triumph and glory. Men are all the same.” She rocked back on her heels, and laughed. “But they look good in tapestries, if you know how to make them.”

  In their queen’s training days, Dannor had displayed an ability to draw. She’d done it seldom, as Tdor remembered. Dannor had been far too busy bossing people around. But once or twice she’d picked up a chalk, and with a few quick lines sketched a goose stretching up into flight. Or a horse running through a field of high grass, mane and tail flying.

  Tdor fought to overcome her dislike. Even Dannor’s stratagem with Inda—attaching herself to him and doing her best to sway him into marrying her instead of Tdor—could be explained, if you looked at it from Dannor’s point of view. Inda had not been home for almost ten years. For all anyone knew, Tdor would have been just as happy marrying Whipstick or even Branid.

  Meanwhile, until summer Dannor had been a Jarlan, head of the household. During the recent war with the Venn her husband was killed leading a desperate charge in Andahi Pass, far to the north. Dannor had no children, so she would not be senior woman of Yvana-Vayir. Dannor could either stay and be under the orders of the new Jarl’s wife or else go to her birth home, where she’d be under orders of her brother and his wife. No woman would want that unless she was fond of her family.

  So it was time to return Dannor’s generous acceptance of defeat with generosity. “Speaking of the king, you know Inda and I will have to leave soon. Probably even tomorrow. If you’d like an escort, you’d be welcome to come with us. We’ve extra tents.”

  Dannor smiled. “That is a kind offer. But I always liked drawing, and I’ve an idea for a tapestry. Why not sketch it out as a guest-gift for Inda’s mother? I’ll take a day or two to measure out the hall, then draw a design. As for travel, my Runner and I are used to moving fast. I get restless dawdling along the way you have to in cavalcade, dragging tents and gear.”

  “All right. Though if you change your mind, know that you are welcome.” Tdor studied the wall as if trying to envision a tapestry there someday, afraid her relief would show. “I’m sure the Iofre would like some kind of commemoration. Even if it might be a generation or two before we can actually make the tapestry.”

  Dannor laughed. Her intentions were clearly friendly, but that laugh was so sharp a reminder of their teen years, Tdor turned away to hide a wince she could not suppress.

  Tiredness was making her giddy, and anyway she needed to set about readying for departure and take some of the burden off her First Runner Noren, who she knew was grieving deeply at the prospect of leaving Whipstick behind. As Tdor bustled around a corner, she wondered if it would be better to talk to Noren, or to let her choose the time to talk—

  “Inda!” she exclaimed as she nearly stumbled into her new husband. His scarred face looked so tired, so . . . what was his expression? She always used to know what he was
thinking, but he seemed so remote now.

  “Overslept.” He gave her a sheepish grin, and she grinned back at him. That was her own Inda again. Joy refilled her being with light.

  Then he looked around. “Where’s Signi?”

  Her face must have changed; Inda’s smile faltered, and the biggest scar on his brow puckered as he stared at her, puzzled.

  She clapped her hands together, rejecting the hurt of jealousy with a ferocious act of will. There was no more useless, no more utterly despicable an emotion than jealousy! Now there are three of us, she thought. I have everything I want, just more of it.

  She smiled, and took his hand. “Let’s go find her together.”

  When the Iofre finished her rounds of the castle, she discovered Signi out beyond the pigs’ pen, whirling and dancing with slow precision. It looked a little like Tau’s knife warm-ups, only with no weapons, no threat: the small, plain Venn woman became light as a leaf, sinuous as a cat, full of grace.

  Signi spun to a stop and put her hands together.

  “I saw movement.” The Iofre opened her hands; Signi wondered if the Marlovans knew that this gesture was the old Venn sign of peace. “I did not mean to interrupt, or intrude.”

  “I am finished,” Signi replied, and in her unremarkable hazel gaze, the lift to her sandy brows Iofre saw question.

  “I asked everyone to let Inda sleep. He—I was shocked. He has changed so terribly. As if he’s been gone fifty years, not ten.”

  The Iofre’s voice was low. Signi saw her anguish in the tightness of her body.

  “He is—he was . . .” Signi pressed her fingertips together, reaching for the right words. “I do not have the formal healer training. I also do not have the words in your language.”

  “Tell me what you can,” the Iofre begged.

  “During the worst of the battle preparations. And its eve. He was . . . coming apart in pieces. It is the only way I can express it. But his friends, they did not see. They laughed when he goes like this.” Signi mimed rocking back and forth. “Or this.” She wagged her head back and forth, her lips loose. Then looked up. “Not in cruelty. They are used to it, they are fond of Inda and his oddities. He must have done that sometimes as a boy, yes?”

  “He did,” the Iofre whispered. “In the early days I was watchful. I had a great-aunt, you see, who had begun life that way. But she never talked, nor saw you, even if you looked into her face, I was told. She would just give you lists of numbers, often relating to dates in history. These were always correct, no matter how far back they reached in time.”

  “What happened to her?” Signi asked.

  “None of the healers could get her to hear them, so the family sent her to Sartor. To where they train the healer-mages. After ten years, she became a scribe. My grandmother was sent by the family to see her. My great-aunt had come into the world enough to know people. She had a good life. But Inda has always known us. The healers had told my grandmother if a child starts life like that, imprisoned inside her skull, only love brings her out. When Inda was small, and I thought I saw similar signs, I told my people to help his mind stay present, with us. My nephew Manther was somewhat similar. Both boys stayed . . . present.” Fareas closed her eyes, her old companions grief and regret seizing her in their merciless grip. Two mistakes she had made, she had decided after long, watchful nights: one, permitting Tanrid to thrash his brother into obedience just because everyone else did it. And her second mistake, permitting Tanrid to see Inda favored by everyone, and never telling him why.

  Signi observed the closed eyes, the tight expression of inheld pain, and mistook the cause. “Perhaps he will recover, given time.”

  Fareas shuttered the emotions away with the practice of years. She must concern herself with the now. “I can talk to Tdor—no I can’t. She is going to leave.” The Iofre hesitated. Inda had been granted the highest honor in the land. And Tdor as well. Tdor . . . “All these years she kept faith with her remembered friendship for Inda. I hesitate to say anything now, when she must get to know him as a man, and one with so strange an array of experiences—”

  “Mother?”

  Inda and Tdor stepped out of the kitchen door and into the truck garden. “Hold,” the Iofre called. “We will come to you.” She turned back to Signi, murmuring, “Evred-Harvaldar will surely look out for Inda’s welfare. They were fiercely loyal as boys. Is it not still true?”

  Signi’s expression was impossible to interpret. “Yes.”

  Whipstick finished his breakfast as Branid issued his long string of orders. Unlike the Algara-Vayirs (which now included Tdor), Whipstick had had plenty of time to think about what Inda’s promotion would mean to Castle Tenthen—and to talk it over with Noren, whom he would have married if she had not been a sworn First Runner.

  Of course Branid would ride roughshod over those now under his chain of command, glorying in finally gaining the prominence his malevolent grandmother had tried to wrest for him all his life. But he did care about Tenthen, and Choraed Elgaer, though he had strange ways of showing it. Whipstick had decided how to deal with Branid long before Branid got his lifelong wish.

  Let Branid strut. Order the men about. Whipstick would keep his temper and counsel the men to do the same, reminding them that Branid would all the sooner settle to the work that must be done. That was all that mattered, whoever gave the orders.

  He did make certain of one thing, though, before he got started. As soon as he was done eating, he took Cousin Flatfoot, his Runner, aside. “I’m sending you to take Tau to Parayid. I’ll give you my reports on what Inda told us about things up north to carry to my dad. He’ll want to know. Then you introduce Tau to my ma. Tell her who he is, but tell her Tau doesn’t want any fuss. She’ll make certain he gets a good boat.”

  Flatfoot chuckled. “Done.”

  Chapter Two

  AS soon as word traveled inward from the perimeter patrol outside Iasca Leror’s royal city that the king’s banner had been spotted, people put down tools and lined the main street behind the city gate. When low clouds rumbling overhead brought huge splats of rain, some ducked inside doorways, but no one returned to work or home.

  At last the tower and the now-visible outriders exchanged the thrilling trumpet chords announcing the return of the king. The Bell Runners enthusiastically plied the ropes, and people surged from under cover to line the streets and began to shout and pound on hand drums.

  “Evred-Harvaldar Sigun!”

  “Evred-Harvaldar Sigun!”

  “Evred-Harvaldar Sigun!”

  The rhythmic shout gained volume as their young king rode through the city gates, tall and straight, his red hair darkened to the shade of his father’s by the rain, color emphasizing his cheekbones. They cheered him and his men all the way to the castle gates, and only when he was inside did they go back to work in small clumps, everybody laughing and cheerful. Innkeepers promised to draw an ale for everyone (many knowing that that would begin an evening of festive largesse) to cheer the northern victory as they looked forward to the stories the returning warriors would tell.

  Inside the castle courtyard Evred slipped from his saddle, leaving his Runners to supervise as the last remnant of his army—the King’s Riders who guarded the city and castle—rode over to their barracks to dismount, unpack, and reunite with families for the promised liberty.

  The warm splatters of rain dotting brown circles on the honey-colored flagstones began to merge as the young queen appeared, short like Inda, her wide brown eyes and unruly brown curls so much like his. But where Inda was broad in chest and shoulder, Hadand-Gunvaer was broad in bosom and hip. She and Evred clasped hands, and the tower sentries—men and women—sent up a cheer.

  “Hadand-Gunvaer Deheldegarthe!”

  Deheldegarthe: a fighting queen, one who had by her own hand defended the kingdom. It, like Sigun for the king, was the highest accolade—one that must be given, it could never be asked for.

  The royal pair smiled upward, and as
the rain abruptly increased walked inside together; Hadand observed her beloved’s distant gaze and waited for him to return from wherever his thoughts had taken him.

  The air was motionless and warm inside the tower, assailing Evred with familiar smells, comfortable smells, which were now free from the power to harm; his uncle and brother had receded to occasional distorted voices in dreams.

  When he and Hadand reached his outer chamber, he discovered chilled wine-and-punch waiting. “Ah,” he said on a long outward breath. “How good it is to be home.”

  “Your last report via the magic case stated that all is well in the north.” Hadand dropped onto a waiting mat.

  Evred sat down next to her and cradled the broad, shallow wine cup in both hands. “It is as well as can be expected. Ndand Arveas is there in the pass, holding Castle Andahi while Cama rides back and forth from Idayago to Ghael. We’ll have to find someone to back her until Keth is grown, though she’s strong enough to hold it on her own.”

  Hadand’s lips parted. She longed to say, So why don’t you make her a Jarlan, and let her pick her own Jarl? Why can’t women command castles? It seemed so obvious—especially since it had been women who had held Castle Andahi in the teeth of the entire Venn invasion, down to the last one.

  But now was not the time for new ideas. She had learned through letters from women across the kingdom that most of the men who had gone north to fight (those who returned) longed to resume the old ways, the comfort of tradition.

  So she turned her attention to Evred even as he studied her. Out of a lifetime of habit, each tried to descry the inner workings of the other’s mind: as children they had shared everything, but time and experience had built personal boundaries that were difficult to surmount, despite their best intentions.

  “We’ll have to establish watches all along the north coast,” Evred continued, sounding tired. “Something like Flash’s beacon system, which would have worked had there not been treachery from within. But I’m keeping our best dragoon captains up there, headquartered at Ala Larkadhe, since my twin cousins want to swap off yearly as Jarls of Yvana-Vayir and commanders of the northern force.”