Valdemar 06 - [Exile 01] - Exile’s Honor (51 page)

“Please,” said Selenay in an exasperated tone of voice, “Do
think
this through! Do any of you
want
to keep this army together, spending the treasury dry to feed them and keep them in wages, just to frighten the locals by riding over their fields and interrogating anyone who looks the least bit out of place? And how do you propose to tell one of these Tedrels from—oh, say a hillman out of Rethwellan looking for work? Or a poor brute of a Karsite who's taken advantage of this to cross into Valdemar for sanctuary? Or
are
you actually proposing, as Alberich said, to string up every man with a foreign accent from the nearest tree?”

“I repeat, begin with me, you would have to,” Alberich pointed out gently.

There were some embarrassed coughs.

“I won't even
begin
to point out how my father would have responded to such an idea,” she continued, looking at all of them and making a point of staring each in the eyes until he either dropped his gaze or met hers with agreement. “It is so totally foreign to
everything
Valdemar has always stood for! I agree with Alberich; if anyone
has
crossed to our side of the Border, the likeliest thing is that they'll try to get over to Rethwellan and be of no concern to us. If any stay, they will either settle and fit in, or
not
and break the law, and we can deal with them on that basis.”

“Well, Majesty—” Lord Orthallen began.

But he was interrupted.

“Dammit, I
will
see Her Majesty!” snapped a querulous, aged, female voice that he knew and had
not
expected to hear. And a moment later, the owner of that voice, someone he knew—as well as he knew himself—

—pushed her way in past everyone.

He
should
know Herald Laika, though he'd last seen her just before she left to infiltrate the Tedrels in her guise of an old washerwoman. After all, he'd helped form half of the “memories” that now made her what she was.

:And given that fact, you shouldn't be surprised that she's as stubborn as a mule and as intractable as a goat,:
Kantor put in, as she bullied her way right past the Lord Marshal, made a pretense at a courtly curtsy, then stood glaring at Selenay with her hands on her hips.

Selenay stared at her blankly and without recognition; well, she
wouldn't
recognize Laika, though she might know the name, for as far as Alberich knew, neither she nor Caryo would have seen Laika before.

“Herald Laika, Majesty,” Alberich said carefully. “One of our four Herald-agents, behind Tedrel lines, she was. Within the camp; infiltrated, was she, as a washerwoman. And very valuable.”

“Damn right,” the old woman grunted. “And that's why I'm here. I want to know what the
hell
you're going to do about the children?”

Selenay blinked. “I beg your pardon, Herald Laika, but we do already have people—Healers and others—out trying to find the children whose parents were killed by the Tedrel cav—”

“Not
those
children!” Laika exclaimed. “Not the children of
Valdemar!
I'm talking about the Tedrel children! What are you going to do about the
Tedrel
children?”

“W
HAT Tedrel children?” Selenay asked, blankly.

Alberich was going to explain, but Laika saved him the effort. “This wasn't just a mercenary company, this was a
nation,
” she said, with the irritation of a teacher whose student hasn't studied her subject sufficiently. “Granted, they'd made a vow never to wed or have families until they had a land of their own again, but that sure as hellfires didn't stop them from
breeding.
”

Selenay's eyes widened, and her mouth made a silent, “O” shape.

“What's more, they used to pick up every stray boy-chick they could get their hands on and throw him in with the rest!” Laika continued. “Not to mention the ones they kidnapped, not a few of 'em from our own people. They didn't have much use for girls until they were of breeding age, but boys—oh, my, yes!
That's
why they were taking such pains to keep
our
littles alive, so they could turn
them
into Tedrels. Now you've got a camp full of orphans and other youngsters over there that the Karsites are
not
going to want. You've killed off their fathers and protectors, if they even
have
mothers, their mothers are probably halfway to Rethwellan by now and might not have waited about for them, and what are you going to do about it?”

“Won't the Karsites just take them?” Selenay asked, looking to Alberich.

“Probably—no,” he said, reluctantly. “Karse needs no extra mouths that come not with hands that can work. And—they are heretics, and the children of heretics, and what is more, even their own blood, to the Sunpriests' eyes, they are
not
—or no longer are—Karsite.”

He did not elaborate on what that meant, but there was something very unpleasant stirring in the back of his mind; something like a—protovision. An intimation, not of what
would
be or what was
about
to be, but what
might
be.

A vision of the Fires of Cleansing. And the fuel that fed them.

“I don't want to sound utterly callous and hardhearted, Herald, but—not to put too fine a point upon it, what
can
we do?” the Lord Marshal asked. “They're on Karsite land, in Karsite hands.”

She looked at him as if he was an idiot. “And this stopped Vanyel? This stopped Lavan Firestorm?”

The Lord Marshal wasn't about to back down. “That was in another situation entirely,” he retorted. “And if you're referring to the ‘Demonsbane' legend, Vanyel was on
Hardorn
land, not Karsite.”

Alberich cleared his throat. “Ah—Herald Laika—a question. Suppose I must, that
you
have these children been among. Think you, they can
be
anything but Tedrel?”

“Most of 'em aren't now,” she replied, and shook her head. “Some of 'em, in fact, a lot of 'em, are Karsite orphans—some of 'em are camp followers' children. And, dare I repeat myself,
some
of 'em are ours, grabbed every time they hit Valdemar in the past three years! But like I said, they don't have much use for girls that aren't breeding age, so they don't pay any attention to 'em, and boys aren't useful until they're thirteen and old enough to take into a Tedrel lodge for training, so they're all right up until then. Basically, they're not Tedrel, they're not Karsite, they're not anything, really. When I was in there, they had a lot of the camp followers that were tending to all of them, and most of
those
were girls out of Rethwellan, Seejay, and Ruvan, with a couple of Karsites. So that's what they've been raised as.”

“Raised as nothing, then,” Selenay ventured.

“Pretty much. A pretty weird mix, they all speak a kind of Tedrel-pidgin with words from all over. The girls don't
ever
get taught pure Tedrel tongue; that's a man's mystery. The kiddies have got some little religious cult they've made up on their own that isn't like anything I've ever heard of. Like I said, they aren't Tedrel, they aren't anything.” She sighed. “What they are, is dead needy for adult attention. Even an old hag like me, they swarmed over.”

“But babies—without mothers—” someone put in doubtfully.

“Babes in arms—” she shrugged. “That little, the Tedrels don't take. The ones born to the camp followers, well, they may be whores, but they're still mothers; the ones that'll bolt, they'll take the children they can manage to carry and run for Rethwellan. That leaves the orphans, or ones whose mothers don't care, and there's a couple hundred, anyway, of an age we
could
rescue. No more than a thousand. . . .”

Selenay glanced at Alberich, who was thinking furiously. “Karse—I think
might
be busy—elsewhere—”

Elsewhere hunting down all the escapees on
their
side of the Border and either conscripting them as bound slaves or making sure no one else ever does—

“—and,” he continued, “If the rescue and evacuation were made quickly, might not know it had been entered at all.”

“And a thousand children?” Selenay gulped.

“It's not an
unmanageable
number,” the Lord Marshal put in. “It's not as if it would be a thousand captives; most of them couldn't run far.”

Laika snorted. “Show 'em food and smiles, and most of 'em won't run at all. And don't forget—
some of them are ours.
And if word gets out that we left
Valdemaran
children to starve or hope for the mercy of the Sunpriests. . . .” she let that particular statement sink in without elaborating. “What's more, they aren't more than a day's march inside Karse! When the Tedrels moved this time, they were preparing the full-on invasion, remember. They thought we were going to go over with just a push, and they had everything and everyone set to move straight across the Border.”

“Surely not,” Lord Orthallen said skeptically. “Surely they were not going to put all of
that
so close to the battle lines.”

Laika smiled grimly. “And what makes you think they were unaware that the moment the fighters left the base camp, the Karsites were likely to grab everything? Believe me, that was the talk all over the camp—everyone wanted to be sure that
they
didn't get left behind. The last camp they made would be where they left all the non-combatants and the baggage and all. In fact, there was talk about setting it less than a half-day's march from the Border, figuring that the closer it was to Valdemar, the less likely it was that the Karsites would come calling. The campfire glow we saw in the farther sky last night was probably from their
full
camp, not their battle camp.”

“I thought they looked rather too well-rested,” murmured the Lord Marshal.

“Then that means we won't have to break the Border so much as—bend it a little,” Selenay said speculatively. “I suppose one
could
consider what is in that camp to be legitimate war loot?”

Now it was the Lord Marshal's turn to smile grimly. “One could, Majesty,” the Lord Marshal said, “And in fact, one
should.
Why, after all, should the Karsites have the benefit of this—war booty—when it is Valdemar that suffered?”

Alberich merely raised an eyebrow. “How can we, calling ourselves civilized, leave children to suffer? And welcome in Karse, they will
not
be.”

Now Selenay looked to the rest of her advisers and commanders. “I—honestly, gentlemen, ladies—I think we should do this. I know we
can;
I think we should.”

“Bringing life out of death?” asked the Chief Healer. “I don't think there is any doubt.
Sendar
would.”

Selenay smiled wanly. “My father would have been at the head of the expedition,” she said softly.

That seemed to decide them all, and the prospect of having a positive task to organize also seemed to galvanize them, lifting them somewhat out of the slough of depression that most of the encampment had sunk into.

The mood in the tent suddenly lifted, and even Selenay's voice took on more life than it had held since before the battle.

“We'll need wagons to carry the children, won't we?” she asked, breathlessly. “How many? Where will we get them?”

“We already have them, Majesty,” said the Chief Healer, catching fire from her enthusiasm. “We were going to send some of the wounded north—leg injuries, not so serious, but needing some recovery—but they'll gladly wait for a little to save these children! The horses are harnessed right now, the wagons are provisioned, we haven't loaded the wounded yet—why, we can be ready to go on the instant!”

She turned to Alberich. “Would—you—”

“Of course he would!” the Lord Marshal exclaimed. “Great good gods, who else! You used to patrol here, didn't you, man? And you won't be doing without him for more than a day or two—”

“What about us?” Laika interjected. “Oh, good gods, not as leaders, but we know the Karsite language and we came across here to get out, and the children know
me,
at least.”

“Give me a moment, and I'll send a messenger about the wagons,” the Chief Healer put in, and they were off with the bit between their teeth. Alberich simply stood there, while all the decisions were made for him. They seemed to accept without question that Alberich should serve as the leader, and that Laika and the other three spies should be in the rescue party, and that it would consist of Heralds, Healers, and wagons. Heralds to act as eyes, ears, and if need be, guards, Healers to soothe the children, and wagons to carry them. The decision to go was made so swiftly that if—as Laika asserted, the camp was no farther than a half-day's march away—Alberich reckoned that they
might
get there and back by this same time on the morrow.

And it slowly dawned on him that no one, no one at all, even
thought
about the question of his loyalty.
Of course
he would lead the rescue; he was the best person for the job.
Of course
he would bring these children—some of them Karsite—back to Valdemar. And
of course
he wouldn't even consider taking the opportunity to defect back to his homeland. He was a Herald, wasn't he? Divided loyalties didn't even come into it.

Perhaps there were a few who thought differently, but there always would be. There would have been had he come from Hardorn, or Menmellith, or Rethwellan, or anywhere else other than Valdemar.