Treason's Shore (17 page)

Inda’s toes ached. He forced himself upright again. His place as Harskialdna was to the left of the throne, sword at hand. Purely symbolic, Evred had said: in the unlikelihood of an argument turning violent, the Guards would take care of it. But he wanted Inda there, a Harskialdna Sigun for all to see.

Inda was used to long watches on deck, though there he could keep moving. The problem was how intent he got in following the swift interchanges of debate. He kept unconsciously leaning forward until his toes cramped.

Branid, as heir to a prince, sat on the front bench next to Cassad, who was first in rank among the Jarls, with the quiet, anxious Yvana-Vayir twins on his other side. Branid had been so perfectly behaved that Inda’d scarcely been aware of him since his arrival two days before Convocation.

Branid stirred, looking uneasy, and Inda shifted his glance away. Weird, that, how you’d just feel someone staring at you even if you couldn’t see who.

There was Cherry-Stripe on the Marlo-Vayir bench, arms crossed, a wicked scowl on his face that made him look older than Buck. None of the Jarls had made any fuss at all about the new oaths and their requirements. Hadand had said that the word about the oath project surely had spread all over the country. Tdor thought that the victory in the north was responsible. So debt day passed with each Jarl accepting his new responsibilities, and not a murmur.

But today?

Convocation’s judgment day had begun with four judgment calls against Marlo-Vayir, three of them entered by Horsebutt Tya-Vayir. That had set off a shouting match of accusations of Tya-Vayir against Marlo-Vayir for owed horses, men, gear, damages—the accusations measured in the swing of the Yvana-Vayir twins’ faces from side to side as they watched the older men brangle. Inda had stopped listening to them hectoring one another, waving papers from old archives, while Runners ran out and came back with corroborative (or corrective) papers from the project room, and Evred sat on the throne with his shuttered expression.

Tau set Inda’s letter down on the wardroom table and rubbed his aching eyes. The ship was pitching at every angle, sending the lantern swinging, which would make reading even good handwriting difficult.

Maybe he had better wait for daylight, when Inda’s rapidly disintegrating handwriting could be read on deck. The light would be stable, even if the ship wasn’t. But Tau wanted to get it all read, so he could take the intervening time to compose an answer intended for two.

Did Inda perceive that he was acting as a conduit for messages to Evred?
Laughing is good
. . .

The watch bell tinged, and the off crew thumped down the ladder into the wardroom, stamping and shedding snowy slush in all directions. Tau rolled up the letter and slipped along the companionway to his tiny cabin.

Tau threw himself in his hammock, wondering whether Evred was depending on Inda to send oblique messages back. Very oblique. Maybe it was Tau being too oblique? Evred probably didn’t give Tau a second thought. “Want me to add anything? I’m writing to Tau,” Inda would say. And Evred would say, just to please Inda, “Tell him the description of the green and purple lightning in that storm was interesting . . .”

Tau laughed, his breath freezing and falling. He knew better than to ascribe his own emotions to anyone else. But he’d taken a lot more interest in this almost nightly exchange of letters—answering Inda’s scrawls with amusing letters he mentally composed all day—just to get back the gratifying message that
Your note made Evred laugh.

By the fourth day, tempers were snappish. The throne room was bitterly cold, impossible to warm. Inda wondered if Convocation was deliberately held in winter. Sartoran tradition had established New Year’s Week in winter, but who said Convocation had to be at New Year’s Week?

Evred had said,
They all talk about how I should get chairs, or even mats, but I give them the bran gas about tradition. The truth? I found it in the one existing record written by Savarend Montredavan-An before my ancestor stabbed him in the back. He said making them sit on hard benches in the cold would get ’em through the business faster. It’s certainly why we have benches in the boys’ mess down in the academy.

Cama Tya-Vayir, now Camarend Idayago-Vayir, Jarl of Idayago, had come south for three purposes.

First, to make his vows. That had been done. Second, to bring Radran before the king, so that he could give the queen the banner and tell its story as Ndand Arveas had requested—and apparently promised all the women in the kingdom. That he had also done.

His third purpose was not spoken to anyone. He watched his brother as the days passed. He talked with everyone, observed everything, making little comment except when his old friends pulled him into late-night reminiscence, and once, when Inda wanted to talk over some training ideas.

He kept silence during the brangles of Judgment Day, watching the Jarls’ alliances form, split, and reform with Horsebutt trying desperately to gather an opposition to the king. Just to be doing it. Cama said nothing about that, either.

Then came the day of departure, and Cama would not be back for five years, unless something happened that required him to present himself before the king. He made the rounds of his friends, saying his farewells, but when the Tya-Vayir procession departed (for Horsebutt did not see fit to talk to his brother at all, much less bid him farewell), Cama rode out behind them, a sword strapped across his back, another at his saddle, and knives in sleeves, boots, and sash. He was alone except for two picked Runners flanking him, each as tough as he was.

The line of Runners behind Horsebutt Tya-Vayir shifted when Cama trotted past the column, looking fierce.

Stalgrid “Horsebutt” Tya-Vayir was in a furious mood. What an abysmal week. Every plan ruined, every coward running, just because that young fool Evred had that scar-faced pirate at his side—

A confusion of horse hooves behind him caused him to look round just as his brother rode up.

Cama flicked up a hand at the banner man. “Halt.”

Horsebutt said furiously, “How dare you give orders to my men?”

Cama said, “You want this conversation in front of them?”

Horsebutt glared at his brother. Cama was alone, except for his two Runners, and Horsebutt had the maximum permitted Honor Guard, two flights.

But they were in sight of the castle walls, where no doubt that scar-faced pirate was watching.

Horsebutt struck his hand out in the flat-handed signal to stay, and urged his horse alongside Cama’s, the snow crunching and squeaking under the animals’ hooves, everyone’s breath clouding.

Then Cama stopped. His voice was low and harsher even than their father’s had been before he died, unmourned, in a duel with the Jarl of Tlennen just after the two led, and lost, a battle against pirates.

“I am now a Jarl. I am not your Randael. I am not under your orders, Stalgrid. We are equals, so I will say this once. If you make any more trouble for Evred Montrei-Vayir, then I will ride back down here and challenge you before the Jarls. You’ll wish you were Buck Marlo-Vayir before I am done with you.”

Cama turned away, kneed his horse, and thundered back to the royal city to fetch young Radran. And smiled: his three purposes were complete.

Stalgrid stared after Cama until he became aware of whispering behind him. He slewed in his saddle, glaring.

His personal Runner, used to his ways, urged his horse forward. “Message? Problem?”

“Nothing,” Stalgrid said, hating Camarend, hating the pirate up there with the king. Hating himself. Because he knew he would never dare challenge Camarend, who he used to kick into hopeless tears just because he could. “Nothing at all,” he said bitterly. “Ride on.”

From the towers the horns blew again, and the Tlen-Sindan-An and Tlennen Jarls rode out, now that Horsebutt was safely ahead. They looked splendid from above, banners bright against the smooth white-blue expanses of a heavy snowfall.

Inda was tired. His days had jerked between eternities of intense boredom while he stood motionless, and short bouts of angry, low-voiced arguing over minutiae between the Jarls, most of it started by Horsebutt. The evenings had been filled with banquets and too much wine.

The horns blew the chords for a prince’s heir. It was his turn for relief as he watched Branid ride away.

Evred’s head pounded from the effort it had taken to balance between all the demands: the individual Jarls as well as Jarls in group; the war reparations and the future; the constant friction of too many people interrupting the regular rhythm of the castle’s life as they pursued their own concerns; and above all, above all, the long watches while he sat on that throne trying not to be distracted by the sound of Inda’s breathing, the rustle of his clothing, the shift of a foot.

When the last banner had vanished beyond the snow-smooth hills Evred turned away abruptly. Inda waited, receiving no beckon or word. Evred sometimes did that, and Inda figured he was lost inside his head, reviewing the endless list of tasks that had been laid aside. He took off the other way, mentally sorting his own list of undone tasks.

Evred appeared again just before midnight as Inda was about to end his day with his sentry walk around the walls and towers. “Your observations?”

Inda had been thinking about them all along. In part, his letters to Tau had been practice in organizing his thoughts. He held up his gloved fingers, folding one down on each point. “Branid was as confused as I was. The others were taught things about treaties and laws we weren’t. Cherry-Stripe isn’t an heir, but it sounds like Buck has been having him share Jarl business for the past year.”

“It’s true.”

“Took me about three days to catch up, figure out what they were talking about. Branid seemed quicker, but Cassad and the others taught him over breakfast, Cama told me.”

“Go on.”

“Well, overall everything seemed fine. No one yelped about the oaths. Everything got resolved, except those two questions of Horsebutt’s from the first day, about who gets the foals from the animals they had to loan the army according to treaty, and him insisting that the Marlo-Vayirs owe him sixty-some animals. They kept postponing deciding on that from day to day, and then agreed to wait for next year. Even Horsebutt. Though I think that was because Cherry-Stripe and Cama had . . . had . . .” Inda frowned, flicking his earring with his fingers.