The Fox (61 page)

Whispers from behind; people were coming.

And so Hadand said, “My first act as Gunvaer was meant to be far more benign. But necessity demands decision. You are
not
going to use your own jealousy as an excuse to stir up entire clans into feuds over imagined affronts. Because they
are
imagined. And every woman here knows the truth.”

She paused as Carleas and Mran turned their thumbs up.

“Therefore, Starand Ola-Vayir, you are herewith confined to Tya-Vayir for the extent of your life. You may guard its castle and its inhabitants as Randviar, and if your husband is selected by mine to serve somewhere else, you will go to guard that castle, but you will not stray from its bounds, and never again enter the royal city upon pain of death.”

Silence met these words. Starand, opening her mouth, saw no woman protest.

Nor did Cama, whom she saw standing above them on the wall, a row of men beside him.

Hadand added, “Tesar, appoint a suitable escort, and remand her to the custody of Imand Tlennen, Jarlan of Tya-Vayir. ”

Starand trembled, aghast. No one had defended her.
No one.
“Imand hates me!” she wailed.

“Everyone hates you,” Hadand said. “Because the only thing you have ever been consistent about since we were girls was making yourself hateful. Go.”

On the wall the young men backed away and approached the stairway more slowly. No one looked at Cama, though he could feel the sympathy of his friends.

The clatter of horse hooves echoed from the castle stable yard beyond the stone arch; Cama and the others dashed through the arch, where they found the women waiting.

Hadand led the way into the stable yard to greet the newcomers, pausing as the enormous cavalcade came to a halt on the rain-swept stones, hooves sending steaming puddles splashing.

At once the stable hands ran to the horses’ heads.

Evred himself appeared a moment later, having heard the horns and run down from the study. Like his friends he was dressed in his old gray academy coat. Busy as he was, he would greet the Algara-Vayirs in person.

Cama and the others closed behind him in shield position, and Hadand deferred, the other women waiting behind her. It was Evred’s place to speak the formal words of welcome to her mother, who rode at the front with her Runner on one side and the Algara-Vayir pennon in the hands of a young Rider on the other.

As he spoke, she looked past her mother. Behind her rode Joret—next to Branid? Hadand stared in surprise at the big, arrogant yellow-haired young man dressed in a formal green-and-silver House tunic, despite the rain and the long ride.

The formal welcome now over, Joret leaped down from her saddle and grabbed Hadand in a damp, convulsive hug.

“Branid?” Hadand whispered as Branid loudly claimed precedence over someone from a minor House who had arrived at the same time as the Algara-Vayirs.

Joret swiped back her dripping hair. “Your mother asked his escort. Better than leaving him home to cause trouble.”

Hadand’s lips parted as they glanced at Fareas-Iofre, who had dismounted and was overseeing the disposition of their party.

Hadand comprehended it all at once. The other family having already deferred, Branid harassed the stable hands and their own Riders with unnecessary orders. “I just got done deflecting Starand, who seems to want a war in her name. I don’t want
him
sparking off clan wars with people who don’t know he’s only a horse fart, but I cannot ask Evred to exile him to Choraed Elgar for being stupid.”

Joret’s rare smile dimpled her cheeks. “Get somebody you trust to shuttle him between the pleasure houses and the wineries, and he’ll be little trouble.”

Hadand began to laugh, but it died when Joret’s blue gaze shuttered and every muscle in her body tightened. Hadand knew she’d found Cama in that waiting crowd.

Evred said, “Welcome, Joret. My mother is above. She awaits your pleasure.”

Hadand stepped away, leaving Joret facing Evred, and so she had a perfect view of the young men ranged alongside one-eyed Cama, who looked impossibly dashing in that black eye patch with his long curling black hair. Cherry-Stripe and Noddy gazed at Joret in silent appreciation of her beautiful body in its clinging wet clothing, her stunning complexion glowing with rain-washed color. All of them transfixed, that is, except for Evred, whose hazel eyes were kind as he chatted easily with Joret about the journey.

And does that not sum up the irony of my life,
Hadand thought, her emotions swooping like summer starlings: her own Evred, nearly as handsome as Cama and the only love of her life since childhood, framed by his friends who were trying politely to veil their lusty appreciation for Joret’s beauty. But in Evred’s face there was only tranquil courtesy.

She shut her eyes.

Fareas, watching her daughter with the hunger of a mother long separated from her child’s life, saw with dismay a closed countenance where once there had been transparent openness.

As if she felt her mother’s stare, Hadand opened her eyes. She saw Fareas’ loving face—older, thinner, her unhidden worry—and they flung their arms around one another.

From over her shoulder she caught Evred’s gaze. He flicked his eyes in the direction of Branid, his brows faintly raised in question. Hadand made the briefest grimace, and responsibility transferred from one to the other in that instant, comprehended by both.

“Come, Branid-Dal. Join us in a glass of wine while you wait for the Runners to get dry clothes laid out,” Evred said, knowing who he was although they had never met. Hadand had brought home bitter stories about Branid after her Name Day visits ever since she was small.

No sign of that now as he smiled, opening his hand toward his friends, then led the way back inside.

Branid strutted after them, glancing backward to see who was aware of his being thus singled out by the future king. Finding he was not the center of attention, he started in with loud commentary in a mixture of flattery and bragging that would very soon wear on them all.

Hadand led her mother and Joret up to the queen’s chamber.

Queen Wisthia awaited the women in her empty parlor with exquisite silks covering the walls, now showing faded spots. The furniture that had stood there for decades was now on a wagon train plodding eastward. As soon as this last interview was done, the waiting servants would strip the walls, too, and begin shifting the new queen’s furnishings in, so Hadand would begin her first night as queen in the queen’s rooms.

Wisthia surveyed her rain-drenched guests. Joret smiled back, her color heightened. Fareas was thin, aging, care-worn, her brown gaze the direct and assessing expression that had become so familiar in Hadand.

“Thank you for bringing Joret,” Wisthia said, taking Fareas’ hands briefly.

Fareas looked at the queen’s eyes, saw a curious sadness, the intensity of need, and sensed there was some extra meaning intended. It would take time before she comprehended that Wisthia, having accepted her own failure as a mother, harbored hope that Evred might find a mother in the woman who had birthed Hadand and Inda.

Hadand escorted Fareas-Iofre and Joret to the guest chambers to change to dry clothes, then returned to her rooms for her splendid overdress of scarlet and gold. Montrei-Vayir colors—the kingdom’s colors. From now on, she belonged to others. That meant the needs of the kingdom must come before her own.

During the great dinner in the vast hall across from the throne room, Wisthia presided one last time, Hadand at her right hand, Fareas at her left, Evred at the far end. Down either side sat all the Jarls and Jarlans, save those who were prevented by trouble in the north or old age from the long ride. Everyone seemed determined to promote an atmosphere of good will, perhaps mindful of the violence of winter; at either end Evred and Hadand observed who was speaking to whom.

Midnight.

Torches burned along every wall.

Beyond the castle the plains, contours faintly reflecting back the golden glow, were empty. No enemy lurked within a month’s ride, but the vigilant sentries gripped weapons as the rumble of drums thumped in the summer air all around them.

Then, as the castle bell tolled midnight, the clangor was drowned in showers of shimmering brass glissades as trumpet after trumpet echoed from every tower in the city, playing the thrilling triple-chord fanfare of “The King’s Charge.”

Within the throne room the heat was exponentially more intense. All eyes turned to the massive double doors, hearts beating fast as the fanfare’s echoes died away. The drums high on the balcony above, six to a side, shifted to the galloping beat of “King’s Triumph,” first one side and then the other. In through the doors strode Evred Montrei-Vayir, horsetail swinging, light glinting richly off the long crimson-and-gold battle tunic of his ancestors, chain mail jingling, the ring of his boot heels slow and sustained, exactly on the beat. Four, five, six steps he took, and then without warning the great two-sided war drums—as tall as the pairs of strong young men playing them—thundered a counterpoint, and those closest saw Evred flush at the accolade.

As he walked the length of the long throne room, past all the gathered leaders, more drums joined from those hidden above, riding by riding, nine by nine, until there were eighty-one drums pounding the beat back and forth until the rolling rumble pulsed in blood and bone. Step, step, straight to the dais where Hadand waited, a sword in each hand, four armed men standing in a diamond shape behind her.

She raised the swords, points toward the sky.

A shout went up from all around: “Hadand-Gunvaer! Hadand-Gunvaer Deheldegarthe!”

She flushed then paled, for she too was given an unexpected accolade.

Evred smiled in pride and triumph; she was not just hailed as Gunvaer, war queen, but as Deheldegarthe, the protector of the kingdom.

Tears stung her eyes, but she braced herself, lifted her chin, then tossed both swords high into the air.

Wisthia closed her eyes.

Fareas watched those slowly turning blades, every nerve in her body singing.

Tesar held her breath, remembering the cuts Hadand had gotten the first two or three days she practiced the Sword Throw without gloves.

Down they came, spinning slowly. Hadand’s hands reached up—and she caught them by the crossguards, whirled them expertly down to her sides, arms clamping the flat blades against her waist, the hilts offered to her mate, her war king.

Another shout reverberated off the stones.

In peacetime she would have handed him the swords, and he would have held them point down as he listened to the Jarls, but a war king was expected to make war: his coronation must follow in the manner of long tradition.

He slammed the swords together over his head.

A blue spark arced away. Hadand stepped aside as Evred whirled around, striking at the man behind him. The Jarl of Ola-Vayir was still strong enough to meet that powerful swing. He whipped up his sword in an overhead block.
Crash!
Exactly on the beat two sparks glinted, and the Jarl stepped away and lowered his blade.

Evred whirled and swung.
Clang!
rang the blade of the Jarl of Jaya-Vayir from the south, for the third time striking a spark, and old men as well as young nodded and smiled.

Then he whirled and Hasta Marlo-Vayir, determined to hold up the reputation of the west, met Evred’s blade with such an enthusiastic strike the sparks shot upward, causing a cry of delight from the watching Jarls as, last, Evred stepped directly before the throne where his Shield Arm stood—his cousin Barend—and again a spark twinkled as Barend forced his healing arm up to meet that blow with his sword. But meet it he did.

And then the double blades crashed to the ground, one lying north-south, one east-west. Hands high, Evred began the war dance. The intricate steps spun him in and out of the squares, steel winking and glittering in the reflected torchlight.

On the second round the other four joined, throwing their blades down—north-south, east-west—at either side of the square made by the new king, and all five of them whirled and stepped in perfect time with the drums, the older men’s horsetails and long coat skirts swinging as briskly as the young men’s, for they, too, had practiced for months.

They stopped on the very same beat as the drums, the silence so sudden the echoes rang up the ancient stone.

Then a great shout reverberated, so loud and solid a body of sound that the watchers’ skulls buzzed.

For that moment they were one kingdom, united into one heart, one will. But fast as the echoes died individual minds returned from the sound-sustained center-point to their accustomed boundaries.
Heat—thirst—hunger— tiredness—how long until I can get free of this crowd—oh, yes, the Jarls have to come forward—where’s my place—

They shuffled forward in strict order of precedence, oldest titles in front—except for the Montredavan-Ans, exiled onto their own land.

But the first vows belonged to Hadand and Evred, he as guardian of the land and she as guardian of everything within the walls of the royal city and overseer of the women who guarded every castle in the land. Her shoulder bumped against Evred’s muscular bicep. He had grown so tall. Hearing his breathing, smelling his distinctive scent fired her belly with longing as they stared out at the torchlit faces and spoke their vows together, their cadences matching perfectly.

She forced her awareness away from him, an act of will since she could not control her body’s simple but insistent homing, direct as the return of a bird after winter.

An act of will to ignore the sound of his breathing, so that her breathing did not match its rhythm. An act of will so protracted that everything blurred, leaving only the vague memory of her face aching as each Jarl, new and old, stepped up to speak his vows with right hand laid flat over heart. She and Evred had worked out with care the concessions they would grant each speaker. He spoke well, though his voice grew rough and husky from thirst; hers was little better. Tired, distracted, she by his proximity and he by the reactions he saw in the faces before him, despite their private resolves to stay aware of everything, neither saw the glower, so like his daughter’s, in the eyes of the Ola-Vayir Jarl. They did not see Horsebutt Tya-Vayir’s calculation, or the glee in Branid Algara-Vayir’s face as he spoke for Jarend-Adaluin. They did not see some of the Jarls fade back to the periphery to exchange quick murmurs of conversation.