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  To greet his Harskialdna for his triumphal arrival at his new home, Evred-Harvaldar came all the way out to the castle gate, Hadand-Gunvaer at his side.

  Inda dismounted into his sister’s arms. “Well done, Inda. Well done,” Hadand whispered, blinking away tears of joy.

  “Welcome, Inda.” Evred smiled briefly, hands clasped behind him. “You are betimes.” And then, with oblique inquiry, “Do the Twins suit you, then?” He indicated the tall, thin, fair Runner behind Inda, and his partner, who was northern Iascan—short and dark.

  “I like ’em. Ramond Lith reminds me of our Lith.” A thumb indicated the tall one. “You know, when we were scrubs. Ramond Jaya is quiet, like my cousin Manther. They get along with everyone.”

  Evred had not got the answer he sought. “You did not bring personal Runners from Choraed Elgaer?”

  Inda shrugged. “Fiam never became a Runner, and Tau left the day before we did. So I was glad to have the Twins.”

  Tau left. Evred thrust away the sharp sting of disappointment. He’d also dreaded seeing Tau again. Now he need not think about that ambivalence. “Then the Twins shall be your personal Runners. Vedrid will get them a staff. Come upstairs. Let me show you everything before supper. We tend to eat quite late.”

  While he led Inda up the tower steps into the residence, his wife hugged Tdor with such strength Tdor’s bones crepitated, but she just laughed and shook herself as Hadand extended a welcoming hand to Signi. Tdor smiled her way. Signi’s light eyes flicked between the two, and her cheeks pinked. “It is good to see you again, Gunvaer-Edli.”

  “I understand I have you to thank for many healings and renewal spells.” Hadand started up the tower stairs.

  “I wish I were better trained in the healing.” Signi’s expression sobered. “There was so great a need.”

  Tdor grimaced, and Hadand caught herself up. The war between Marlovan and Venn. Yes. Shifting from that subject, Hadand said, “I sent orders for mulled wine and cider, soon as I show you where you’ll live.”

  They reached the top floor and Hadand led them past the empty, closed-off guest rooms along the outer residence wing. The air was cold, the hall dim, almost dark. This castle in winter felt oppressive to Signi, though the others appeared to notice nothing amiss; she sustained a pang so strong it almost hurt, how much she missed the airy tunnels of Twelve Towers, lit by crystal glowglobes of gathered summer sunlight, the walls bright with mosaic knotwork patterns. Or in the poorer tunnels, painting.

  Hadand took them to the center of the castle. “Here I am,” Hadand said, indicating the queen’s suite along the east wall, overlooking the inner courts. “Evred’s over there.” She swept a hand toward the western side, overlooking the academy, and beyond that the plains below the city walls. “This is the old schoolroom, which we use as a kind of catch-all. Those rooms opposite are for any royal children. And down here, opening onto the big tower, are the Harskialdna rooms.”

  The north end of the residence abutted the enormous north tower, ending at a strange right-angle jut: an older tower had been mostly obliterated when the tower and residence were enlarged, leaving an odd sort of cubby. Hadand led them around that corner to yet another hall, but that one was short. It held only the double doors to the Harskialdna suite. “You overlook the guard side from here,” Hadand said, waving northward.

  Tdor thought of the long, long walk between this end, the queen’s rooms, and the area adjacent to the guard compound where the girls lived for the queen’s training. “I’ll need a horse,” she exclaimed in laughing dismay.

  “That, my dear sister-in-marriage, is why we call these people Runners.” Hadand patted Tesar, her First Runner, on her shoulder.

  Tesar, a tall, tough woman with corn-colored braids, grinned as Hadand indicated the double doors. Tesar gestured to Noren, Tdor’s First Runner, and they vanished to see to the transfer of belongings.

  “These used to be the Harandviar’s workrooms,” Hadand went on, indicating the row of three doors opposite the double doors. “And my poor Aunt Ndara used them to do the queen’s work. But we’ve shut them off so we could use the furnishings elsewhere. No new wood; we have to account for even the smallest chair! There is lots of space in this suite, even if you only get one window in the main room. Which is right here.”

  She opened the double doors onto an oddly shaped room with a single slit-window set into an oval alcove up in the massive, thick wall. That alcove was at the end of a narrow corridor with doors to either side, so at best it let in a narrow shaft of light. “Bedrooms here, here, and here—that door goes down to the guard side—and behind this door is your own stairway to the private baths. Runner chambers off every bedroom, and a wardrobe connecting here—or anything you want to call it,” Hadand said, rapidly whirling them through a series of sparsely furnished stone rooms with doors that all seemed to bang into one another.

  When Hadand saw Tdor’s expression, she misinterpreted it. “Evred’s uncle was hardly ever here. He slept down behind his office at the guard headquarters most of the time.”

  Oh,” Tdor said, and went back to wondering if all three of them would have a bedroom, or if Inda had grown out of Marlovan custom and expected his own room and who would sleep there? Or would he have a bunk down in the guard area?

  And what would Evred want?

  These things raced through her mind as Hadand led her through the last bedroom to the main chamber again.

  There she stood, hands on hips. “Those last two rooms are good for babies. When your children get weaned, I hope they’ll spend their days in the schoolroom with mine. I love the thought of our children growing up together,” she said, with a faint, self-conscious blush, and Tdor remembered that Hadand had been trying for a year to have a baby before Evred had gone away to the war.

  The subject made Tdor uneasy. She was just getting used to the idea of being a wife. “So where is my office?”

  “Over in my territory. It’s not that far!” Hadand grinned. “Queen Wisthia, a dear and I’ll always treasure her memory, wasted so much space when she was queen. Imagine a breakfast room, a music room, a sewing room, a morning room, in addition to the formal dining room and the study room we knew so well! Why can’t you do all that in one or two rooms at most?”

  Because she was caged here, Tdor remembered Fareas-Iofre saying after her single visit to the royal castle. Queen Wisthia made an Adrani world within our Marlovan world, and found meaningful work, which probably made her feel less a hostage.

  Noise issued up from the stairway leading down to the guard compound, and a door banged open behind them. Evred and Inda entered.

  “And here’s where you live,” Evred said. “Your main room is this one. Private rooms behind all those doors.”

  Everyone watched Inda as he turned around, taking in the stone walls of the oddly shaped room with its single slant of light coming down the narrow corridor with the inset window, the plain flagged floor. The only furnishings were a low raptor-footed table, a neat stack of old mats covered with crimson wool, and a bench between a couple of the doors. Signi, lingering at the back, thought she’d seen more comfortable prisons.

  But Inda grinned as he turned around a second time, his coat skirts flaring out. “All this space! Hey-o, Tdor, come up in this alcove—there’s a bench built into it. We can sit here and look out at the parade court.”

  “During your many watches of free time,” Hadand said, and laughed.

  Inda shrugged, hands out. “I’d be fine with a hammock and enough air to swing it in.”

  Only Inda was oblivious to the subtle reactions in his auditors. He marched to the main bedroom, peered at the inset window, and turned around to exclaim, “We can see the academy roofs from here, too.”

  Hadand opened the double doors to the hallway. “The mulled wine will get cold soon.”

  Hadand had glimpsed Signi waiting purposefully just behind Evred, so she slid her hands round Tdor’s and Inda’s arms and marched them off, leaving th
e question of work, Tdor, Signi, and who would sleep where back in the Harskialdna suite.

  Evred checked at the sight of Signi the Venn waiting not two steps away, her face raised expectantly. Until now she’d deferred so expertly he’d scarcely noted her presence.

  He suppressed a pang of irritation, a reaction that had grown far milder since the first day she’d been forced into his life. “You wish to speak to me?”

  “Yes, Harvaldar-Dal.” Her accent was almost gone now. “With your permission, I would like to make a journey around your kingdom. Renew the bridge and water spells.”

  Gratitude flicked into suspicion. No. It was possible she would send observation reports to her homeland, but she could do that anyway. She was a mage. He could send an army after her, but they could catch her only if she willed it. And she had done nothing to indicate she was a spy.

  He waited until the reaction had cooled. “Did Inda request this service of you?”

  She turned to study him. In a way her wide gaze, so infrequently encountered, almost hurt as much as Inda’s, but for different reasons. But he sustained it as she said, “He did not. Perhaps you remember that I once explained how Inda found me: I was to go to Sartor for a greater purpose.”

  “To reveal the Venn system of navigation. I remember that. Has this changed?”

  Her hand passed across her face; she did not hide her perplexity. “I don’t think so. But I don’t know. The last I heard, Dag Erkric was preventing our access to Sartor, or rather, having it warded. Until I know for certain that I will not walk into a magical trap if I go, I await more definite orders. Until then, I perceive there is work needed, and it is the kind of work that I have the training to do.”

  Evred let out his breath. One of the first and most pressing of the demands on him as king was to try to negotiate a return of the mages that the Magic Council of Sartor had seen fit to deny Iasca Leror. Then he would have had to find some way to pay them. “Thank you, Dag Signi. Thank you. And yes, you have my permission to travel through my kingdom. With my good will and my gratitude. I will write an order to that effect, but will you not stay at least for the Restday drum?”

  She bowed her head in gratitude. The branches of the Tree connected to the great trunk of life, though individual leaves could not perceive their place in the whole. Here in this room had stood the only three people who carried a life passion for Inda. She would remove one of them for a time, so that the other two would the more easily discover an accommodation. In the meantime, she would do some good in the world.

  Chapter Five

  THE Venn had been gone a full month before the Idayagans finally emerged from their various retreats and poked their way tentatively into the ruined harbor below Trad Varadhe.

  One of the sailors was a squint-eyed, skinny fellow in a crimson knitted hat who claimed to be from Khanerenth by way of the Nob. He dressed like an east coast sailor. When cherished pieces of scouts, cutters, and even a couple of schooners began to appear from burial in gardens, hiding places in attics and basements and caves and stables, he pitched in to help in the rebuilding.

  The ships had to be finished out at sea. The harvest was in before the first schooner was ready to sail.

  “Maybe the damn Marlovans will stick to their word and let us go,” the captain of the schooner said to those gathered on the dock, as out on the water his sons and nephew led the work party in rattling down the shrouds.

  “Sure haven’t smelled them on the wind,” one of the other captains joked, which brought the expected guffaws and some spitting over the rail.

  “The One-Eyed Jarl is gone down south,” someone else reported in a knowing voice, though Camarend Tya-Vayir’s departure had hardly been a secret, and the subsequently increased patrols of his seemingly endless men underscored what would happen if Idayago tried any trouble while he was gone.

  “Well, I’m for Bren,” the captain declared, looking at those who’d brought their gear to the dock in hopes of being picked for the first ship out of harbor. “See what the rest of the world has been doing since the pirates tied us down. Right now there’s enough north in that east wind that we should raise the Bren Harbor by New Year’s if we sail on the tide. Now, who’s volunteering? Because there ain’t no pay this trip out.”

  No, but everyone with a hand up was hoping to make instant money buying long-needed goods and bringing them back to sell.

  The captain chose first among those who had helped work on the ship, one of whom was the squint-eyed fellow whose broad forehead and pointed chin reminded one of a rodent. He’d worked hard but kept to himself.

  They launched without the least trouble—not a whiff of a horse-tailed warrior or his mount riding down from the ruined castle or thundering over the hills above the harbor.

  As the ship beat out into the open sea, the captain went through his new crew himself, learning names and skills.

  When he came to the squint-eyed one, he said, “Don’t tell me. You’re a shipmaster. I saw the way you were runnin’ that crew with the standing rigging. So you want to take the deck o’ nights?”

  “Suits me fine.”

  “Name?”

  “Rat,” said Barend. “Everyone always calls me Rat.”

  Inda woke to the echo of a shout. Warning?

  He sat up, breathing hard. The room was cold. No, he was wet—salt spray?

  “Inda.” Tdor’s voice was hoarse, and he had a vague sense of repetition. “You are here, in the royal city. There are no pirates. There is nobody named Rig. Inda? Hear me?”

  “Tdor?” He caught himself before exclaiming, “What are you doing here?” He clawed a hand through his sweaty, tangled hair and mumbled, “Thought I was on Walic’s ship again.”

  “Go back to sleep. Dawn will be here soon enough.”

  He flopped back and after a time his breathing slowed. He was asleep. Tdor lay awake, wondering if he was missing Signi more than he admitted—maybe more than he knew.

  She hated the jealous feelings these questions stirred. Poor Signi is gone, probably because of me, and here I am putting her between Inda and me in spirit. She rolled out of bed; if her mind insisted on worrying at things it couldn’t fix, it might as well concentrate on real work.

  When Inda woke next it was from a vivid dream, so intense—the details so sharp, down to the color of the morning light stippling the stone walls of his room, and the smell of his green-dyed linsey-woolsey quilt when it first came out of the cedar chest in autumn—he believed he was in his bed at Tenthen. But the shapes and shadows in the lifting darkness confused him. He lurched toward what he thought was the stair to the baths below, slammed into a door he’d forgotten was there, and reeled back, a hand to his throbbing nose. He hadn’t had that dream about Tanrid since he was on board the Pim ships. And wasn’t there a worse one earlier?

  Before she left, Signi had renewed the glowglobes. He clapped, and there was his enormous bedroom with nothing in it but the bed, behind him two doors, and another door on the adjacent wall. Three days here, and he still wasn’t used to it yet!

  He scowled at each door. The first led down to the baths, the one next to it to the next room, and the adjacent door to the main room. He had to get accustomed to this. His life had changed again, but it was a good change, full of honor. He was Harskialdna, not Sponge’s uncle, and Sponge was the king.

  So why would he have dreams like these? He wrestled into his clothes, ran down to morning drill, then to the baths. When he emerged he discovered new clothes waiting for him. He was still wearing the boots Cherry-Stripe Marlo-Vayir had grown out of, though they’d probably be replaced soon, too. He was supposed to dress correctly now, something he hadn’t thought about since the days he was a scrub in the academy, lining up for inspection.

  The academy! His mood lightened. Evred had said they would talk about the academy today.

  While he walked rapidly down the hall, eating his breakfast on the way, Tdor found Hadand on the sentry walk above the court where the women
did their own morning warmups.

  Mistress Gand, wife of the academy headmaster, conducted the women’s drill in the mornings. This job she looked forward to resigning into Tdor’s hands as soon as the new Harandviar was ready.

  “Why aren’t we down there?” Tdor asked.

  “I wanted you to see how I conducted drills, when I had to do it. Mistress Gand thinks it looks pompous to drill ’em from up here,” Hadand said as the women whirled and leaped and posed below, knives glinting ruddy in the firelight. “But I like it up here. I see more. You being a Harandviar, you can be here, too, if you like.”

  “I’m used to drilling in your mother’s style,” Tdor admitted, watching the women sheath their knives and pick up their bows and thumb guards. “First in line, down in the court.”

  “Take aim,” Mistress Gand shouted.

  Hadand tipped her hand, frowned, and jerked an elbow; Mistress Gand bawled, “Get those elbows straight!”

  Tdor had thought them good enough, but women straightened spines, aligned shoulders, flexed muscles and their form improved in a blink, straight lines from arrowhead to back elbow.

  “Shoot!”

  Strong and sure, the women loosed their arrows straight into the mark. “I think I’d better practice with her before I take over,” Tdor said. “If I may?”

  Hadand’s brows lifted. “Hadn’t considered that. I always think Mother does everything perfect. But I can’t believe Tenthen women are sloppy.”

  “Not sloppy, exactly, just not as sharp as what I’m seeing. Maybe we’ve worsened since the old armsmistress died, and we didn’t notice.” She’d been about to say, I can take what I learn back and sharpen them up. She wouldn’t be going home again. Home was here.