Sword of Jashan (Book 2) (13 page)

Yhallin nodded. “That is well,” she said. “You will need him.”
 

Chapter Eight

Sweat ran down Ander’s forehead into his eyes. He blinked. Gauging his distance, Ander swiped at his eyes with his left sleeve, trying to clear his vision before Lord Froman could come within sword’s reach again.

“My lord!” warned Shan-il’s voice from the rail surrounding the practice ring.

In the few seconds his sight was obscured, Froman moved. The blow that fell on Ander’s shield staggered him, sending him backward. The rail stopped his ungainly fall.

Someone laughed behind him.

Angry now, Ander reset his stance.

His opponent, Lord Froman, was a heavy-shouldered young
righ
, five or six years older than Ander, who moved with the grace of innate athletic ability and long training. Froman stood across the ring, a fine sheen of perspiration on his bare shoulders but otherwise showing no effects of the fight. Ander tried to remember Islarian’s lessons. He circled around to Froman’s right side, trying to make his opponent leave an opening in his formidable guard. The hard-packed dirt of the ring slipped under his feet.

Froman seized the opening in Ander’s guard at the same moment Ander realized he had dropped his shield hand. Froman leveled a strike that forced Ander to duck. The boy came up moving as fast as he could. He struck at Froman’s shoulder, but his opponent turned in a move as graceful as dance and met Ander’s blow with a solid shield.

The shock of the blocked strike reverberated up Ander’s arm. His fingers went numb. His opponent stepped back a little, and raised a muscled arm.

“Hold!” Someone ordered.

Froman instantly stopped and dropped his arm. His grin held more than a little mockery.

A
righ
whose name Ander did not know stood at ringside, his hand raised to stop the match. The man was lean and muscled, as if he had spent years in the field. His eyes stared into Ander’s. “Are you all right to continue, my lord?”

Ander nodded. The stifling heat made it hard to breathe, but he would finish this match, and acquit himself as well as he was able, if it killed him. Sharpeyes and his sycophants were looking on.

The unknown
righ
stepped back, ready to give the sign to continue. Another command stopped him.

“I think that is enough,” King Martan said. “Very instructive, Lord Froman. Approach me, Lord Ander.”

Ander stepped out of the ring. He wiped the sweat on his forehead with one forearm, and hurried to where His Majesty sat surrounded by courtiers.

“Your Majesty,” he gasped, still breathing hard from the workout.

“Lord Ander.” The King stared at him from the famous gray eyes, projecting a geniality that Ander could only assume was false. “You have acquitted yourself adequately, if not with grace.”

“Yes, Your Majesty.” Ander’s eyes traveled past the King to the men who stood near him: the scribe with his inkstained fingers; Mage Oron wearing his mage cloak with yellow patterns weaving their way across the fabric; and a third man, dressed in a tunic with a jeweled collar. He smiled at Ander and turned his hand in a gesture of greeting, the light catching rings on his slim fingers.

“I see you are interested in my companions,” Sharpeyes said. “This man is our scribe. He will acquaint you with the look of my seal, and tell you how to know, through your magery, if it has been tampered with.

“You know Mage Oron, of course.” Ander smiled at Mage Oron. He liked the old man, who had been teaching him the skill and art of color magery since he had first spent time in Sugetre.

“And this,” Martan continued, “is Hon Theodin, your father’s official representative from Northgard Province.”

“Hon Theodin,” Ander acknowledged.

“Remember them,” Sharpeyes said. “You will meet with Hon Theodin daily. He will be your instructor in the concerns of the regional lords, and will introduce you to the mysteries of trade. Also, the man you have not conquered in the ring this morning will instruct you further in the sword. You appear to need it. Hon Islarian should have seen more to your training.”

Ander could not bear to hear Islarian maligned. “Hon Islarian was a skilled swordsman, your Majesty. We honor his memory.”

Across the ring, he saw Shan-il nod. In spite of the queasiness in his stomach, Ander felt better.

“Yes, of course. I forgot the man died in that attack I have been told of. Your loyalty does you credit.” The King yawned. “Well, go on. That is all. Best acquaint yourself further with Lord Froman if you ever hope to best him.”

Ander bowed. He waited until the King left the ring, accompanied by the fuss and fidget of his courtiers. The other officials went with him. Shan-il bowed and walked away from the ring, giving Ander space now that the match was done. Theodin glanced back as they left the enclosure. His eyes glittered maliciously.

Froman tossed his practice sword to a servant. “Hon Islarian taught you?” he said.

“He was my instructor since I was a child.”

“I would have thought you’d be better, then.” Froman took Ander’s sword and tossed it to the same servant. They watched as the boy fumbled the wooden swords, trying to carry them along with the shields. One of the shields dropped to the dirt. “Curse you, idiot. Don’t drop the things!”

“They’re only wood, no harm done,” Ander said.

Froman stood with his legs braced and his arms crossed to show his impressive muscles. “I have been ordered to work with you in the ring, as if I were a common swordmaster. I owe that to my lord father, who has dreams of me being some sort of trusted King’s companion when you inherit the throne.”

Ander did not know what to say to that.

Froman sneered down at him. “Also, I think it is punishment, since I got his favorite maidservant with child. He will no longer be able to peer down her dress as she pours his tea.”

Ander turned his back on Froman and led the way back into the castle. If this was true—and he weighed the possibility it was not, since for all he knew Froman was as full of bluster as he was of muscles—the maidservant’s child would be killed. A half-
righ
was not allowed to live, for fear of cluttering the bloodlines and diluting the mage talent. He pitied the poor maidservant, who would lose her child and have her condition bragged about in the places young men like Froman frequented.

A servant waited at the door, offering water and damp cloths for the
righ
to clean the sweat from their faces before entering. An anteroom just inside held cold well water and sustaining bread and honey for those who had been exercising in the heat. The chill of the castle’s thick stone walls was a relief. The presence of two burly young men, Lord Froman’s friends, was not.

The men bowed to Ander, overtly respectful, and left the room. They met Froman in the hall as they left the anteroom. Their voices carried back into the anteroom.

“Heard you’re a wet-nurse now, Froman,” one of the men said.

“His Majesty’s command,” Froman said. “Wait for me, will you?”

He stuck his head into the anteroom. “Lord Ander, I will see you at midmorning tomorrow, then, in this same ring.”

Ander did not think about protesting. He could not make sense of Froman’s demeanor, which was mocking and respectful by turns. The servant gave Froman some bread and honey and his new sword-instructor left the room. Ander heard them loudly discussing the charms of the maidservant they passed in the hallway on their way out.

Ander looked after them, wondering how he was to assert any sort of authority over men like this. He felt very young. He sipped cold water and waited for Shan-il to come to claim him and tell him where he was needed next.

* * * * *

Dria Mar summoned Ander to her rooms before breakfast the next day. He was due to meet with Mage Oron in a candlemark to work on the concept behind the royal bindings—the magery that allowed the King to compel the allegiance of the color mages so they could not strike an active blow against him.

He bolted his breakfast and made his way to his mother’s rooms. He walked down the polished corridor, a guardsman silent behind him. When he reached her doors her maidservant ushered him inside.

Lady Dria Mar sat at her window table, eating toast and drinking milky tea. She wore a morning robe, and her hair was hidden under a turban. There was no hint of sleepiness in her eyes. Balan ran Gesset, clad incongruously in mail over his black tunic, stood nearby. There was a grimness in his face that made Ander come to mental alert.

“Sit,” she said, pointing to the chair across the table from her. “You may as well eat while we speak.”

Ander sat, but shook his head. His stomach felt a little odd, perhaps because he had eaten his own breakfast so fast. “I have eaten. What is so urgent, mother?”

Dria Mar waved at Balan. “Tell him.”

“My lord, there is news from Northgard this morning. Lord Zelan sends that all the bodies of the attackers have been examined, and any other evidence about their persons. He says there are no markings about them to show any affiliation with King Martan—or any other affiliation. In fact, he says that some of them show signs of living away from a lord’s holding for some time.”

Ander frowned. “How could he tell such a thing?”

“The condition of their arms and horses, their effects—” Balan shrugged. “I do not know. He writes there is no reason to believe they were sent by the King. It is the same with the prisoners we brought to Sugetre with us.”

“It is the Sword of Jashan,” Dria Mar said. She dabbed at her face with a napkin. “They grow ever bolder in their tactics against the
righ
, and we know they have a base somewhere in the east.”

“But, Balan, the King sent men against me on the Hunt as well, near Littleseed. My father and his Hunter confirmed what Chiss said—there was a man there who wore the raven badge, whom they knew in the city guard. He was one of the King’s men. That is why Lord Callo stayed so long with us, to make sure we were on guard, to warn us.”

Balan shrugged. “Easy enough to wear a badge, my lord.”

“You believe this badge was an attempt to lead us astray?”

“I do not know. I have always known Lord Callo to be an honorable man. But it is enough to cast doubt into this tale they have told you, that the King seeks your death so he may put his bastard nephew on the throne.”

Ander frowned. “I do not know what to believe. Perhaps I shall seek out Lord Callo and ask him.”

Dria Mar set her mug down so hard that the tea sloshed over the rim. “You will stay away from Lord Callo! He is a danger to you. Besides, he is half-mad from the magery. King Martan has ordered him imprisoned until that scarecrow Yhallin swears her drugs are working enough that he can be seen in public. I do not know why my brother-in-law has not slain the man.”

Ander stood. “I will see him, if Healer Kirian says it is safe. I like Lord Callo, Mother—he has never tried to do me any harm. I will take a guard with me if it soothes your fears. I know not why you are so obsessed with the supposed danger he presents. Balan has just told me the King is not my enemy, and has no reason to place Lord Callo above me. So, why am I to be so wary?”

“The man may be imprisoned, but he has friends in Sugetre. Even now he could be working against you.”

“Why?” Ander put his hand on his stomach to quell its grumbling. “I wish someone would explain why you are all so wary of him? There were many opportunities for him to slay me at Northgard, had he wished to.”

“Yes, and I would have had him killed before he removed his treasured sword from your body! And he knew it.”

Ander grimaced and said nothing.

She stared at him and then said abruptly: “Who is the next heir, should you die before your time?”

Ander said, “Lady Litha Sira Alkiran.”

“A female! Such has never been done.”

“There is no one else. It is why you have told me I must have heirs, as soon as I am wed. If this betrothal ever happens!”

Lady Dria Mar leaned forward. “You are complacent in the fact that you have always been the heir by birth. You have told me the Council would never put up with an accident of birth like Lord Callo becoming King. But remember, son, if you die there is no one else. The Council may kick and scream all it likes, but they would rather have a halfbreed ku’an on the throne than a woman who has been raised to do nothing but look pretty and have
righ
babies! Believe me, Lord Callo knows this.”

“Then why did you send him here?” Ander asked. “It was your doing. Why put him in the way of all this intrigue?”

Dria Mar sighed. She sat back and sipped more tea. “I was a fool. Yes, I made a mistake, Ander. I thought the King my brother-in-law bore him no good will. I remembered he seized Callo’s estate last year, and drove the man out of the country. I thought—yes, I thought I would deliver to Martan what was his, that he would be angry if I usurped his right to slay the man himself.” She looked at Balan. “What have you heard of Lord Callo?”

“My lady, as far as I know the King holds this matter close and speaks to no one about his plans, not even Lord Dionar. He has guardsmen at Lord Callo’s door always, and has warned the guards their lives are forfeit if the man escapes.” Balan shrugged. “But Lord Callo is treated well. His rooms are comfortable, according to his rank. And he has Magegard to nurse him. I do not know. To me it seems as if King Martan bides his time.”

“He watches.” Dria Mar sighed. “I know my brother-in-law well. I see him, now—watching. He says nothing of the matter, keeps the man in virtual prison, and has not spoken to Callo at all—but I think he is proud. It is incomprehensible why he would be proud of a bastard half-
righ
like that. But it changes everything. We must do something about Lord Callo.”

Ander, hearing a knock at the door, looked up. “That must be Shan-il. I must go; Mage Oron waits for me.”

Dria Mar said, “Go, then. But take one more word from me. You are fifteen now, a man full grown in the law. You are the future King of this land. You will rule over a land of powerful
righ
who have trouble recognizing any authority but their own, color mages who would just as soon not subject their power to any mundane government. You have a rebel organization in the east which would like to see the end of all the
righ.
You must learn to look beyond the end of your nose,
Lord
Ander, or your reign will fail. People are often more than the facade they present on first glance. Watch Lord Callo, and you will see what I speak of.”