The Sheening Of The Blades (Book 1) (19 page)

             
“Aye…except for that little detail about her being a
queen
, it’s ideal,” he agreed drolly.

             
The boys looked at him, wondering if he was going to expand on the infamous Merranic chauvinism.

             
“Now, don’t get me wrong,” he protested mildly, reading their minds.  “This has nothing to do with a woman’s being as good as a man, ‘twice as competent, half as distractible,’ which is probably what she’s thinking after King Kane got done with her.  But that’s not it at all.  There’ve been women leading the North for a thousand years…but not a one of them at the head of its armies.  A Kingsmeet is nothing more than a fancy war council, and women have never been war leaders.”

             
“I’m surprised,” Loren observed.  “With women like Cerise around…well, I’d run if I was the Enemy.”

             
Banion grunted.  “Times have changed.  We’ve the luxury now to think of things that never would have occurred to anyone, man or woman, born in the war years.  You’ve got to remember, the Enemy was
pervasive
, vicious, an unending tide of destruction.  No matter how many of them were killed, three more came to take each place.  Their greatest weapon wasn’t their steel or their skill—it was their numbers.  So, women were utterly precious to the Realms, more than money,” he added ironically, possibly for their sakes.  “More and more desperately we needed men, and women became much more than just objects of companionship or desire—they were the mothers of our warriors, the saviors of the Realms themselves.  No man in his right mind would ever countenance putting one of them at risk.”

             
The boys said nothing, minds on the troubled, violent heroics of the past.

             
There was more drilling that afternoon, and some of the knife-wrestling, as Loren called it, then after dinner everyone came back up on deck.  It was a perfect, starry night, moon-bright and warm, with just the right amount of breeze to freshen it.  One of the Fleetmen pulled out a set of pipes and the deck turned into a laughing, stomping dance floor.  The music was light and lively—nothing like the stately, measured symphonies of the North—and almost impossible to stand still to.  Merranics whirled and leaped and stamped in time, bare feet thudding in thundering unison on the wood planks, kicking out all at once in accompaniment to great lung-bursting shouts.  Ari, trying his own rough jig in the midst of them, was suddenly awash with euphoria, encircled by dancers hanging suspended for a second against the moonlit indigo of the Merranic sky, breastbone thrumming with the current of pulsing, ecstatic, heart-soaring life.

              Rodge, despite his predictions and fervent convictions to the contrary, refused to be seasick.  After two days of nothing but his own company and the relentless snores from the off-duty hammocks, he finally came out of the hold.

             
There was an awkward moment when he met up with Jaegor shortly afterwards.  Like the other Seawolves, Jaegor had been doing nothing but eating, sleeping, and drilling, and had lost about thirty pounds.  His big frame rippled like a Dra’s with defined muscle, but his thinned-down face was tired and his eyes empty of anything but determination.  He stared at Rodge for a minute as if trying to remember him from a far-distant past, and then he did something surprising.  He held out his big hand.

             
“I’m sorry for pushing you around in the Post.  Life’s too short to be angry, and I guess there’s more important things out there than my pride…”

             
Ari and Loren glanced at each other, shamed to the quick.  Rodge, cushioned from such inconvenient sentiment by his upbringing in Archemounte, answered, “Yeah, you were a little rough.”  Loren jabbed him ungently in the ribs.

             
Reluctantly, Northerner hand met Merranic.  “Don’t worry about it,” Rodge said awkwardly, taking his cue from his friends’ stony faces.  “You’re, uh, doing good things out there…”

             
“
You’re doing good things out there
?” Ari demanded in a hiss as Jaegor moved off.  “You can’t even lift one of their oars!”

             
“I can lift it,” Rodge said defensively.  “It was just heavier than I expected.”

             
It was heavier than Ari expected, too, a great, thick oaken thing that wouldn’t snap under the tremendous torque of Wolf strokes.  It wasn’t long before Ari and Loren learned how the Fleetmen stayed in such incredible condition.  The Master-at-arms caught them racing up the rigging one day, laughing because they were so clumsy, and threw them into the thick of the training.  It was a fantastic outlet for all the energy they were building up just sitting around eating the good food. 

             
The rigging races, which Ari got very fast at, his chest and shoulder muscles bigger than Loren’s, were only part of it.  There were boat races, both in the water and on deck.  The rowboats were loaded down with barrels of water and odd bits of iron and steel and heavy coils of rope, then lifted and raced down the length of the deck.  Ari’s legs were so sore after his first race that he could hardly climb up out of the hold the next morning.  There were swimming races and hull-scaling, where they used heavy dirks to leverage their way up the side of the ship, knife fighting, knife throwing, wrestling, sprinting.  They ate like they’d been starved for a week, crawled into their hammocks exhausted, and were happier than they’d been in all their long months at the University combined.

             
Rodge had no time for any of this.

             
“Can you
imagine
this life,” he drawled one afternoon after a very successful Wolfing.

             
“Yeah,” Ari and Loren breathed in unison, their eyes still bright and hearts pounding from all the recent excitement.

             
“Running around like idiots all day, every day, no purpose in sight, no intellectual stimulation ANYWHERE,” Rodge continued disparagingly, though he’d at least learned to keep his voice down.

             
“I think there’s probably a purpose,” Loren said.

             
Rodge rolled his eyes at them.  “The Wars are over.  I see all this activity has not increased blood flow to your brains.”

             
“It’s almost enough,” Loren said slowly, half to himself, “to make you wish they weren’t.”

             
“Well, you’ve turned into quite the logical thinker,” Rodge observed scathingly.  “Do
let’s
go back to loved ones being hacked to pieces, children tortured, friends and neighbors set on fire—do you realize the huge advancements we’ve made once we could do something with our minds besides plan the next battle?  The worst part about those primitive Ages was the absolute absence of any kind of culture, scientific sophistication, technological development.”

             
“Maybe not the worst thing,” Ari commented quietly.  “A couple people died, here and there.  I’ve heard.”

             
“In the big picture,” Rodge, who’d just spouted the tragedy of human suffering in his own argument, said, “that’s really pretty irrelevant.  People are going to die anyway, if you think about it.”

             
“Sounds like Imperial wisdom being spouted over here,” Banion rumbled, lumbering up behind them.  “I can smell it all the way aft.”  Loren and Ari grinned.  Banion was about their only connection with the old group anymore.  Kai, improbably voluble, and Melkin were almost constantly in quiet conversation with the Commodore or other high-ranking officers, and Cerise and Selah had hardly been seen since that first day.

             
“Why don’t you ever get in on this drilling?” Loren half-teased Banion, patently relieved at a chance to change the subject.

             
“What?  And haul all this muscle so far away from nice, solid decking?”  He grunted in good humor.  “I’m a Knight—no ropes and water for me.  Horseback’s my element.”

             
“We could tell,” Rodge said sarcastically.  “Were you ever awake when you were on horseback?”

             
“There was nothing that needed attending to,” Banion rumbled slyly, “just some baby-sitting that could be done with my eyes closed...”

             
Rodge gave him a smile overflowing with false mirth.

             
Ari asked hastily, “Why doesn’t the Mermaidon ever take the Wolfing?  The other Seawolves have to practice, too, right?”

             
“Oh, there’ll be plenty of practice, don’t worry.  The Sapphire Crown’s under repairs right now—that’s why Kraemoor’s always over here—and they’re never gonna Wolf a ship he’s on.”

             
“Kraemoor, Kilchern, Kane,” Rodge muttered.  “Can we get some Royal Line?”

             
Banion’s whiskers moved in what they’d come to interpret as a smile.  “The Northerners never were very hearty breeders,” he said indulgently.

             
“That’s because we have more important, and cerebral, things to do,” Rodge said.

             
Banion’s eyes went wide in affected surprise.  “More important than Duty?”

             
Rodge curled his lip and turned out to sea, there obviously being no answer to that.

             
“Royalty is both more respected and less pampered here than in the North,” Banion said expansively.  “Take Kraemoor, for instance.  You will not see more respect for anyone in the Realm, excepting the King.”

             
Privately, Ari thought that might have as much to do with the Commodore’s personal charisma as his rank.

             
“But, when he falls, his title goes to the man best able to replace him, not necessarily his son, or any of his family.”  Banion chewed his whiskers contentedly.  “Only the Stone Throne’s inherited.  His lands, now, the Castle of the Silver Hills, stay in his Line, just not the title.”

             
There was a thoughtful silence.  Loren was considering the strangeness of this—how disruptive it would be if the Archlordships of the North passed to a different noble every generation.  And how would you tell who was best at Archlording?  Rodge was thinking black thoughts best not put on paper, and Ari was thinking, irrationally, of the Commodore’s belt buckle and pennants.

             
“These three ships don’t belong to him, either?” he asked slowly.

             
“The Mermaidon’s his personal ship,” Banion allowed, “but she’ll no longer fly the Commodore flag.  The flags, the Commodore’s Belt, all these belong to the office.”

             
“The sword?” Loren asked in concern.

             
“Oh, nay, nay,” Banion said swiftly.  “No Merranic carries another’s sword—he alone has the right to pierce the silver lions.”

             
There was a short silence after this obscure statement, but before it could be clarified, the lookout’s cry floated down from above, “Land ho!”

             
The ship came alive with alertness, Fleetmen tensing up for the coming commands.  Ari could hear it in his head long before the Sailmaster bellowed, “Make sail!” and they hove to.

CHAPTER 10

             
It was as if they had sailed up into the Age of Legends.  The capital of Merrani perched on its solid, rocky headlands like a sprawling castle of old, an immense, forbidding town of heavy, dark granite, looming walls and gates, and sharp-eyed sentries.  On a bright summer day, Archemounte made your eyes squint.  Merrane made your head draw down between your shoulders and your voice drop.

             
Ari looked around with awe as they unloaded the horses on the big quay—roughly the same acreage as the entire town of Alene.  The huge, impregnable Black Sea Gates towered up nearby.  They were so tall they blocked the rest of the town from view, regardless of the fact that it took up quite a bit of ground all over a very steep hill.  Actually, the Gates themselves were open; it was the Sea
Walls
that were stretching reasonable vertical limits.  Horizontal limits, too—they literally spread as far as the eye could see in each direction, encircling the big Bay of Kaedmar that Merrane presided over.

             
The Northerners stayed close to Banion as he led them through the Gates, a passage that revealed Walls a man’s length deep, and up the immediate incline of the main thoroughfare.  Just like Alene, here the streets were all narrow, steadily rising, and of tight-fit stone.  But the bright clothes and profligate flags covered a much sterner local countenance than in Alene.  The boisterous bellowing was kept to a dull roar, the buffoonery replaced by a tad more scrutiny out of those bearded faces, and the scenery dominated by intimidating leagues of solid rock.  It rose around them in buildings, walled-off courtyards, tall sentry towers.  Mastercraftsman-quality ironwork decorated every structure in sight, so finely done, often melded so beautifully with the stone, that it seemed more like greenery or a delicate, swirling painting.  The designs were so intricate that even Cerise (frowning) slowed to inspect them.

             
“Kaedmar One-Eye!” Loren cried.  He pointed out a statue of the Lesser Hero, easily recognizable for the incomplete set of facial features, standing grandly in someone’s small forecourt.  Cerise grimaced at the, er, exquisite detail.

             
But they didn’t pause in their climb until they topped out in front of another enormous curtain wall, this one with stonework so fine it looked like it was dripping off the crenellations.  A big, open space of packed dirt fronted it, currently filled with a lowing, bleating, neighing, squealing, honking cacophony of livestock.  They paused there, but not to catch their breath from the climb, or even to admire the local sights—no, Cerise’s mare had seen an apparition of her death in the form of a big, fat grey goose waddling across the road, and was going wild.

             
“The Shield Walls,” Banion said proudly while they waited.  “And the Gates of the Lance.”  These were folded back to the outside like the Sea Gates, but were a deep, storm cloud grey.

             
“Stay away, you oaf!” Cerise shouted behind them, and a big Merranic shrugged and changed the course he’d been making to help her.

             
“You really have a way with the indigenous peoples,” Rodge observed in warm admiration.

             
“That might be easier to take from someone who didn’t just finish offending an entire
town
,” she snapped caustically.  “MOVE!” she shouted at Banion as it became clear her mare was practically seizuring at the sensory input from all the animal life.

             
On the other side of the Shield Walls, the neat cobblestoned street widened briefly and forked.  Straight on, level and easy going, lay the street into town.  You could see businesses and trades and marketing progressing along in a highly domestic and admirable rate.  Off to their left, narrow and twisting and steep, the road angled up to where the great Fortress of the Sea sat high and implacable on the horizon, and within its legendary walls, the King.

             
Melkin sighed.  “I suppose we have to see Kane?” 

             
Ari stood in the crossroads for a second as everyone started uphill, feeling strangely prescient.  Maybe it was all the stone and steel and reminders of fabled past, but it seemed like it was momentous, this moment, this choice of roads.

             
By the time they’d finished toiling up the long hill, everyone but Kai and Ari and Loren, arguably in the best shape of their lives after playing around with the Fleetmen for a week, was heaving for breath.  There was another large area of cleared ground out in front of the final Fortress curtain wall, and a beautifully-wrought lacy archway over the gate.  Stone and metal graced the Fortress itself in gorgeous detail, far more artistic than any they’d seen yet, and more fabulous if for no other reason than there was so
much
of it.  The place was huge—even more striking than the Imperial Palace.  There were no silly architectural tangents or foolish greenery to break up its massive lines...in fact, they hadn’t seen so much as a blade of grass in the whole town.

             
Feeling a little lost in all the intimidating immenseness of the forecourt, it was almost a relief for the party to step inside and get some walls around.  Except that the Hall was also cavernous, gigantic ceiling beams so far overhead they could hardly be seen in the dimness.  The Northerners felt like they’d wandered into a giant’s hall.  The floor was of huge flagstones, and the soaring walls of big boulder-sized rock slabs were graced with a delicate décor of enormous antlered heads and yards-large stretched pelts. Cerise was appalled—it was a woman’s decorating nightmare—and even the boys gaped open-mouthed.  Ari’s brilliant eyes almost started out of his head when he noticed the lion skin on the wall closest to him.  He nudged Loren.  Dove grey, as long as a Merranic, it hung with its stuffed head intact and its snarling mouth open in a roar.  Pale blue eyes stared fixedly at the floor and all around the fierce head flared a cloud of grey and white mane tipped with black.  They looked at each other in wonder:  a silver lion.

             
Out of the cavernous vastness came the sharp tap of boot heels, and they all looked up to see a neat man with a reddish beard approaching across the flagstones.  Anyone would look small silhouetted against that background, but still, he was the most modestly-sized Merranic they’d seen…almost akin to a normal human.

             
“Aronsen!” Banion cried.  Commoners and guards had been saluting and dipping their heads to him ever since they’d disembarked, but this was the first time he’d acknowledged anyone.

             
“Jarl Banion,” the man beamed when the echoes had died down.  “It’s good to have you back.”

             
“This is Aronsen, the Royal Steward,” Banion introduced them jovially.  The man bowed formally in his standard Merranic dark blue and grey, then apologized, “His Majesty is on the Bench today, but he should be finished shortly.   There are, of course, rooms for your refreshment and he will join you for dinner.  If you would lead your companions to the rooms next to yours, Jarl Banion, I shall escort the young ladies.”

             
He commenced to bestow a smile of such admiration and deference on Cerise that the cool planes of her face lightened a little.  “It’s nice to be around people who appreciate quality,” she tossed over her shoulder at Rodge, as Aronsen led her and Selah off.

             
“They should appreciate you,” Rodge remarked solemnly.  “It’s obvious they
love
cold stone.”

             
Ari sighed.  “Our mal-adjusted little family’s back together again.”

             
“Ari,” Rodge said in surprise.  “When did you develop a sense of humor?”

             
Banion led them off on an acres-long tour of the Fortress, up several flights of stairs, through leagues of hallways all decorated with weapons and trophies, until they finally reached—not their rooms, he pointed those out on the way—the baths.  Apparently not an option.

             
Ari, never overfond of bathing, had to admit that it had a whole different appeal Merranic-style.  The Northern boys looked around in wonder, slowly stripping off their raggy, worn clothes.  Great claw-footed tubs, steaming with heat and big enough to sit with your legs stretched out, were studded around the room.  Next to each tub sat a bench to hold belongings, tankards of ale (!) and condensation-beaded pitchers of icy water for personal temperature adjustment.

             
Northerners stood under a fall of water to clean themselves, an efficient, time-aware activity…after all, one didn’t earn tirna sitting on one’s bare bum.  But pure, indolent pleasure stole over Ari as he lowered himself up to his armpits in the hot water.  All his new, precocious muscles unknotted and relaxed, and with the last week’s combination of sleep deprivation and vigorous activity, he felt himself drifting into a haze of somnolent delight.

             
Life is a contented thing buried to the pits in a bath, and he considered with new-found equanimity that his problems really weren’t that bad.  With effort, and in blessed ignorance of the tortured road ahead of him, he decided naïvely that as much as he’d enjoyed the sea, he preferred dry land…the forest, the wild critters stirring around in the underbrush…

             
“According to Kraemoor, there’s a good chance of seeing Whiteblades at the Kingsmeet,” Melkin growled, forcing Ari’s drifting mind off its deep intellectual path.  “Cyrrh’s a big Realm to be searching directionless for ‘answers,’” he added snidely.  He didn’t seem quite as relaxed as Ari, who wasn’t sure he could move if the Fortress was being overrun by Enemy.

             
“I’m surprised you could get the Commodore to talk about the Swords of Light at all,” Banion remarked sleepily.  “He has less love for Illians than
I
do.”

             
“I’m surprised you can have an intelligent conversation with ANY of these people,” Rodge muttered, sounding wet and bitter.

             
Banion, in the tub right next to him, yawned and casually stretched out his long, meaty arms—smacking Rodge right in the mouth.  “And I never cease to be amazed,” the Merranic remarked conversationally, “that for such a bright, promising youngster, you don’t seem to have any ability to learn.”

             
“I ca fil ma fess,” Rodge said pitifully.

Ari cracked an eye open without much sympathy to make sure his friend wasn
’t bleeding.  Next to him, Banion looked asleep, hairy chest rising like a wet rug out of his bath.  Beyond him, Melkin sat staring intently into space, ignoring the nonsense and apparently cerebrally undeterred by the paralyzing heat.  At the end of the row, Kai, bathing like he fought—quick and efficient—was already getting out.  Completely divested of clothes or weapons, he still looked deadly as a panther on the prowl.

Ari
’s eyes drifted closed again.  The clouds of steam he’d last seen with them open merged into clouds of mist behind his lids.  They melted away in a bright morning sun and he was laughing and running away from someone calling him.  He fell to his chubby hands and knees, burrowing into the green, sun-dappled rabbit runs in his garden where only he could go.  His heart was full of happy mischief.  He’d left something in the middle of his private playworld, and he had to get it...a toy?  his favorite blanket?  He couldn’t quite remember what it was, but it was of the utmost importance, he was sure.

“
Ari!” Loren said again, nudging his shoulder.  His eyes popped open.  Everyone was getting out, drying, putting on the new clothes waiting for them.  Disoriented—it had been a potent dream for all of its briefness—he did the same.  They were having dinner with the King of Merrani, and here he was caught up in toddler memories.

He
’d never worn a silk shirt in his life, and his rope-rough fingers caught on the fine fabric as he gingerly tucked it in.  There were new leather breeches and soft boots in his favorite color of rich brown, and the velvet burgundy overtunic was cut so that it emphasized his swelling chest.  He grinned at Loren, in blue.  They looked like princes.

Their old clothes had disappeared in the convenient way of the upper classes, hopefully to be burned, Ari thought as they all trooped down the halls behind Banion.  Even Rodge looked good, in dark grey, and only Kai the same
, though his black leathers shone newly on his wiry length.

The girls were waiting for them around a corner indistinguishable from a dozen others, Cerise such a pale beauty in sky-blue that the boys goggled at her.  There was a year of passageways and chambers and then, finally, big double doors were opened and the King of Merrani
was rising to greet them.

“
Welcome to the Stone,” he rumbled in his Merranic bass.  Selah dropped instantly into a deep curtsy, legs dipping with a dancer’s grace, and Cerise stared at her in surprise.  They all did something deferential, though not as graceful, the boys nervously following Melkin’s lead. 

Kane was laughing, a booming chuckle, eyes caught by Selah. 
“These halls haven’t seen such graceful courtesy since the last Drama—Rise, Daughter,” he said in self-mocking theatrics, because she was still bent over, face to the floor.  “Who is this, Melkin?” he asked in that same rich voice, eyes resting on her pleasantly.  “You’ve added to your party since Sable’s sitting room.”  Cerise, ignored, glared at her servant.