Kings of the North (36 page)

Arcolin suspected that the son’s fee for this service would be almost as large, but it saved him having to appear in court. “Thank you,” he said. “And your son—is he here?”

“Not today, no. I sent him on business—but I will give him your thanks. I assume you will need a letter of credit to take north.”

“Yes,” Arcolin said. “I must attend Autumn Court, and I need court clothes.” He grinned at Kavarthin. “They tell me I cannot become formally Lord of the North Marches without a fancy robe edged in fur and a ruffled shirt.”

Kavarthin smiled back. “Well, Captain—my lord Captain, I suppose that will be next season—you may find you enjoy such clothes. I’m certain you will enjoy your new rank. Most men do.” He glanced at the sleeves of his traditional banker’s black gown, where four narrow rows of velvet decorated the black cloth.

Arcolin had not noticed them before and was moved to ask. “If it is not impertinent—and forgive my ignorance—what does that signify?”

Kavarthin smiled. “That I am of the first degree in the guild. And this—” He pointed to the ring on his finger. “—this says I am Guildmaster here in Valdaire. All members of the Moneychangers’ Guild answer to me.” His smile broadened. “At a certain profit to me, of course.”

Arcolin remembered the merchant stripped of his Guild membership in Cortes Vonja. “What happens to those you dismiss?”

Kavarthin shrugged. “It matters nothing to me. Of all the trades, my lord Captain, the trade of money itself must be most closely observed. It is too easy to cheat, too easy to shave a coin or pass false coinage, too easy to take as one’s own the money entrusted to us by others. We must be diligent, we must be honest, and we must be unfailingly harsh with those who lie to or steal from those who trust them. Else no one will trust any of us, and when that trust fails, we are all back to trading a cow for two pigs or a shirt for a loaf of bread. Commerce would cease; cities would fall; it would be worse chaos than Siniava’s War. And so I, and the other city Guildmasters, keep watch over our guild members.”

And who kept watch over the Guildmasters? Arcolin did not like to ask, but Kavarthin was already answering.

“You will wonder who watches over us—we also are men, and all are tempted at some time or other. At any time, members of my guild, or certain other guilds, may demand to go through our accounts, and even count what is in our vaults. If I were not honest, this would keep me so, for the penalty for a Guildmaster’s dishonesty is unpleasant in the extreme.” He paused, his nose wrinkling. “Public torture and death. It is that serious.”

Arcolin spent the rest of the day preparing for the cohort’s arrival and buying the few supplies he and Stammel would need on their ride to Vérella.

A
rcolin and Stammel rode away from Valdaire several days before the cohort was due to arrive. They made an early start and by midday were well above the city. The air was already crisper, and a cool breeze slid down the mountains toward them.

They switched to their spare mounts and rode on. That night they avoided the clutter of wagons and animals, the noise and smells of the one caravansary, and camped higher on the mountain slope, the pass itself looming above them. It was chilly but quiet, peaceful. When the horses had been grained and hobbled, Arcolin unrolled their blankets on a soft stretch of ground, and they ate supper looking back down the Vale of Valdaire.

“I can see it in my mind,” Stammel said. He had been quiet all afternoon. “We’re up above the road, around the bend from the noise … and that way is Valdaire … it’s getting dark; we’ll see—I’d see the lights soon, even from here.”

“D’ you remember the first time you saw it, Stammel?” Arcolin asked.

“Oh, yes.” Stammel smiled. “Just a lad I was then, a recruit who thought he knew more than he did. I’d seen Vérella and thought I knew all about cities. Mountains, too, I thought I knew. And then we came over the pass, and the Vale of Valdaire opened out below, all the way to the sea, it seemed, and a southern breeze came up with
smells I’d never imagined. I’ve seen it on their faces every year since, the northern recruits.”

“I saw it first from the west,” Arcolin said. “You know I came from the Westmounts. Very different view, walking in from Czardas. Lived there a year, off and on … but I never really knew it until I’d gone north and come back, over the pass.”

“I suppose … now … there’s no chance my sight will come back, is there, sir?” Stammel’s voice held no complaint, only resignation. He lay stretched out on the ground, hands behind his head.

“I don’t know,” Arcolin said. “There’s always a chance of healing.”

“If the gods choose,” Stammel said. “The Captain of Tir—I saw him in Cortes Vonja.” Arcolin waited. “He said Tir must be pleased with me, but he said, too, that I should face the reality: I was blind, and would always be blind.”

“Tir doesn’t heal eyes?” Arcolin asked.

“No, sir. Or, the Captain said, maybe if a Blademaster—closest thing Tirians have to paladins—but not the same, really.” Stammel turned on his side. “Captain, if I don’t—if I’m not ever going to see again—I can’t really be your senior sergeant. You need someone who can see what the troops are doing, in a battle. See if the merchant’s giving good weight, spot trouble in the street.”

“Like scare off forty or fifty enemies by standing there shooting them one by one without looking at them?”

“That—was different. I don’t know what that was.”

“
You
, Stammel. That was you and your years of experience. Think if our troops could use crossbows at night—shoot accurately at sounds.”

“It’s still not the same.” Stammel sat up and faced Arcolin directly. With the angle of light, Arcolin could see the cloudiness deep in his eyes, not the same as the film old men got. “And the Captain said I should tell you I want to quit, but—but I don’t want to. But I should. For the Company.”

“It’s not your Company,” Arcolin said. “It’s mine now.” Even as he said it, he knew that was wrong. It
was
Stammel’s Company—not his to command, but his in the same way it was Arcolin’s, by right of all those years. He couldn’t unsay it, so he went on. “And I think you are good for it, blind or not. There are things you can’t do—well,
there are things I can’t do, and one of them is hit a target with a crossbow with both eyes open, let alone blind. I can’t stop you from quitting—you’ve long since earned the right to retire, and a pension with it—but I don’t want you to retire. I think the Captain of Tir was wrong. You’ve had a hard time; you will have a hard time, but you are and always will be a soldier and of value here. Besides, there are other sources of healing. A Girdish paladin—”

“You’re Girdish, Captain.”

“Yes—so?”

“So maybe it’s different with Girdish, but I—I don’t think I should change allegiance, just for the hope of seeing again.” Despite the words, longing colored his voice.

“I can’t think of a better reason, if you wanted to,” Arcolin said. “There’s nothing dishonorable about wanting your sight back.” Stammel said nothing more that evening.

The rest of the trip went smoothly enough—always less rain at this time of year—and they reached Valdaire with several days to spare before the Autumn Evener.

As they rode up to the gates, one of the guards said, “There he is! Sir, a message for you.”

“For me?” Arcolin scowled.

“Yes, sir. Duke Verrakai asked if you would care to stay at Verrakai House. Said there’s a message from the king.”

Which king? Possibly Kieri, he thought. He had not heard from Kieri since writing to him about Stammel’s blindness.

“Where is it?” Arcolin asked. The guard gave directions and waved them on.

The streets seemed normally busy, the people in them not as tense as they had been before. When they came to Verrakai House, Arcolin realized he had seen it before but never noticed it, though it faced the palace walls, across a wide street. Plain, unremarkable, and always—now he thought of it—shuttered tightly. Now the upper-floor shutters stood open, though the day was cool. Blue-striped curtains hung at either side. As the horses came to a stop, the door opened. A man in Verrakai livery looked up at them.

“Yes?”

“Captain Arcolin to see Dorrin—the Duke,” Arcolin said.

The man smiled. “She was hoping you’d be here yesterday, sir.
Just let me get someone to take the horses—” He turned and yelled something into the house. Arcolin dismounted and held the reins of Stammel’s horse while he, too, dismounted. Soon they heard footsteps coming, hard heels on a tile or stone floor. First was a young man in Verrakai blue with the rose and white colors of Mahieran at his shoulder, clearly a squire.

“I’m Beclan Mahieran,” he said. “M’lord’s on the way but bade me make you welcome. I’ll take your horses.” He took the reins from Arcolin just as Dorrin appeared behind him.

Dorrin in blue and gray instead of maroon and white was still Dorrin, that familiar sharp-boned face, dark hair pulled back. “Arcolin! Falk’s Oath, I’ve missed you!” They clasped arms, and then she looked at Stammel. “Stammel—what happened?” A sharp glance at Arcolin.

“A tale best told in private,” Arcolin said.

When they were inside, sitting at ease in one of the ground-floor rooms, with refreshments spread on a low table, Dorrin said, “I see you’re blind, Sergeant—and yet I see no scars.” She had handed him a mug of sib.

Stammel answered as frankly as always. “I don’t understand it all, my lord. It started with that fellow Korryn—” He and Arcolin together told of the merchant’s capture, Stammel’s realization that one of the caravan guards was the man branded at the stronghold years before, the attack on those in the prison office, Stammel’s collapse.

“They tell me a demon invaded,” Stammel said, “but it didn’t—I don’t think that’s what a demon would feel like. It was just fire and a voice.”

“Tell me everything,” Dorrin said. Her expression was grim.

“Dorrin?” Arcolin had not expected that tone from her.

“Jandelir, I have learned things about my family I do not want to remember, but I must. This Korryn—I never met him either, but from what Stephi and Sejek said, he might have been a bush-relative of mine. Tall, dark—”

“Ugly,” Stammel said. “Not like you.”

“That’s kind, Sergeant Stammel, but hardly to the point. You say—both of you—that he boasted of having lent himself or given himself to someone better or more powerful.”

“Yes.”

“Some members of my family were able to transfer themselves—their minds, their souls—from one body to another. Typically, they weakened the victim—I think by slow poison—and then with another poison induced a fever. To those watching, it seemed a crisis, much like comes with lung-fever, and when the victim was near death, they could invade. I don’t know how, exactly. I only know it happened. The magery in our family is not merely inherited, Jandelir—it is continued, generation after generation, by those who put themselves in their children’s bodies. And others, as well. If Korryn
were
a Verrakai bastard—if he accepted, for some reason, a Verrakai invader—then what you faced was a fully trained adult magelord. Though I have not seen this before, he might have been powerful enough to attempt a transfer to Stammel, even as he died—living in Stammel, hoping to drive Stammel out.”

“He had a fever,” Arcolin said. “It started at once—when his eyes turned red. But I thought that was from the choking.”

“It could have been. I don’t know. Sergeant—” She turned to him. “You saved more than yourself when you fought that invader off. If you had been defeated, you would not have died—your body, at least—and you would have been a secret weapon. Against Arcolin, against Tsaia, and certainly against me. Look at me.”

Stammel faced Dorrin; she peered into his face, hers intent. “What are you looking for?” Arcolin asked.

“Any sign that some part of that being lurks inside. If it is there, and strong enough, Stammel could not tell us.”

“You mean—I could still be invaded?”

“Possibly,” Dorrin said. “Sergeant, I’ve known you for what, fifteen, sixteen years? I’ve seen you work with recruits, seen you train, seen you in battle. And there is something … different. Do you feel anything?”

“I’m blind,” Stammel said.

“And yet … you’re not blind the way other men are. I’ve seen blind soldiers—former soldiers—before. Leaving aside your ability to use a crossbow, there’s a difference. Your eyes are neither fixed nor wandering the way most blind men’s eyes are.”

“They wandered more at first,” Arcolin said.

“I want to try something,” Dorrin said. “Here—” She pulled the ducal chain over her head. “Put out your hand. Hold this.”

“What will it do to him?” Arcolin asked.

“Possibly nothing. Possibly—” She stopped, mouth open. Arcolin felt his skin crawl. Stammel had gone rigid; his hand trembled; his fingers twitched toward and then away from the jewel on his palm. Sweat burst from his forehead, ran down his face.

“Not—again—you—bastard!” Stammel said. “Take it, Captain—take it away!”

Arcolin snatched the jewel from his hand and gave it to Dorrin, but Stammel’s taut expression did not ease.