Stronghold Page 6

  He had spotted a few likely candidates in this year’s collection of young blades, but two had been promised manors on their return home and one was needed to succeed his brother, who had died that summer without an heir. But Lord Sethric of Grib, youngest son of Prince Velden’s youngest brother, was showing himself an effective leader today. Remagev had taught him he had much of value to offer; he might make a very effective Medri.

  Currently he was rallying troops to the red banner. He took them into a retreat, regrouped, and charged. The blue forces split neatly down the middle—neat not because of any tactical plan, but because Sethric’s riders sliced through them like a knife through a ripe apple. The reds pivoted in good order, trapped the blues, and pushed them across the field in a frantic retreat.

  “Nicely done,” Feylin said. “But I’ll be busy tonight stitching up their foolish hides.”

  “Do try to be a little sweeter to them, my love,” he urged, laughing. “They have their pride, after all.”

  “I’m very sweet to them. I rate their scars on a scale of probable allurement to young ladies.”

  “How comforting. They get no sympathy from Chayla, either.”

  “She’s perfectly nice to them—as long as they don’t flirt too much,” Feylin laughed. “And she’s an excellent pupil. Maarken and Hollis will have a hard time deciding whether to send her to Goddess Keep or Gilad.”

  Chayla was fifteen, and had been renewing memories of her great-grandmother Princess Milar’s golden loveliness practically since her cradle. Her mother was tawny as a topaz, but Chayla was all the colors of dawn, like Milar: pale gold, soft blue, rose pink, cream white. Her beauty was matched by her instinctive feel for medicine—and her faradhi gifts. Her Sunrunner parents had acceded to her plea to spend this year learning the basics of healing from Feylin. But a decision would have to be made soon about her future. Goddess Keep, for training as Sunrunner and physician? Stronghold, to learn faradhi skills from Sioned as Pol had done, and then Gilad for medical schooling? It hinged on Maarken’s evaluation of Andry’s intent.

  Being unable to trust his only living brother rent Maarken’s soul. He’d spoken of it when he brought Chayla to Remagev this spring, and from certain clues, Walvis guessed that Maarken would send her to Andry if only to prove that his fears were unfounded. After all, had not Andry given his eldest daughter Tobren into Maarken’s care at this year’s Rialla? Surely this was a sign of love and trust between them. Surely that was what it meant—to anyone who did not know him.

  It was Maarken’s undeserved Hell that he must always doubt his own brother. Walvis gave grateful thanks that his own loyalties were so simple. He had been Rohan’s man all his life and would be until one of them died.

  Sethric was about to claim victory for the reds over the blues. Walvis chuckled as his horse blew out a long sigh; Pashtul fretted when not allowed to join in the fun. Grandson of Rohan’s own great war stallion out of one of Chay’s best mares, Pashtul liked nothing better than to show off his training by lashing out with hooves and teeth in the annual mock war. Tomorrow he might get his chance when Walvis experimented with Feylin’s new tactic.

  All at once the stallion bellowed a challenge. Walvis hung on hard to keep Pashtul from bolting down into the cloud of sand on the field. A second cloud rose in the north, a charge accompanied by the most bloodcurdling howls this side of a battle between dragonsires.

  Walvis laughed so hard he nearly fell from his saddle. Feylin whooped with glee beside him as fifty men mounted on fifty identical gray horses swept across the sand and surrounded the thunderstruck young warriors as easily as a wedding necklet clasps the throat of a happy bride. When red and blue banners had been confiscated to the accompaniment of more savage shrieks, one of the gray horses galloped up to where the Lord and Lady of Remagev were trying without success to regain their composure.

  The young man was tall and lean, his brown eyes snapping with excitement in a sun-darkened face, his white teeth gleaming in a broad grin beneath a hawk’s beak of a nose and a fierce black mustache. His head was covered by a white cloth held in place by a band of beaten gold set with white jade, and a white cloak billowed back from broad shoulders. He reined in ten paces from Walvis, planted red and blue banners in the sand, and touched the fingers of his right hand to his eyelids, his lips, and his heart.

  “I have the honor to spit in your face after my great victory, once-mighty athri, former lord of all you survey!” he announced.

  “Kazander! You simpering goat-footed idiot!” Feylin laughed in delight. “Trust you to make a grand entrance!”

  “And scare those poor children out of a year’s growth,” Walvis added. “I didn’t expect you until tomorrow evening. Rude as usual, coming early when the wine hasn’t been poisoned for you yet! Not that anything could possibly be more lethal than that sheep-piss you had the gall to serve me. How are you?”

  “Refreshed by my victory, renewed by your regard, and resentful at the sight of the Lady Feylin’s loveliness.” He grinned. “She has not yet seen fit to leave you, you pathetic excuse for a goat’s backside, for the obvious charms of my person.”

  “Stop flirting with my wife, or I’ll tell the three you already have,” Walvis chided. “You didn’t bring the lovely ladies with you, by any chance?”

  “So that you might seduce them? May the Goddess in her wisdom dry up my seed if I was ever so foolish as that!” He settled into his saddle, pleased with the exchange of insults, and looked mournful. “But my heart is wounded, I may die of it. You are holding a war and didn’t invite me!”

  “A thousand apologies, Kazander. Would you like to play tomorrow? My eighty against your fifty. You always said one of your warriors unarmed is worth two of mine with sword and bow, so the odds are in your favor.”

  Kazander’s dark eyes narrowed. “Your words are silk covering a stinking corpse. What are you planning to shame me with now, mighty athri?”

  “Don’t ask me, ask my lady wife. It was her idea.”

  The man moaned and rolled his eyes skyward. “Goddess witness it, a woman with a brain is more dangerous than a whole army!” He waggled a long finger at Feylin. “And it is your fault I have wives with more between their ears than praises of my name! Association with you in my boyhood caused me to value women with wits. Why did I never realize that when that sort of woman belongs to another man, she is a delight—but when she is your own, you live in misery?”

  Feylin gave him her sweetest smile. “Oh, yes, you seem desperately miserable, Kazander—complacent as a dragonsire watching his get, and looking as if you’d said farewell to your wives so fondly that you rubbed all the skin off your—”

  “Feylin!” Walvis exclaimed.

  Kazander was roaring with laughter. “I adore you! Come away with me, Lady of the Dragons, I will make you first among my wives!”

  “Make me the only one and I’ll consider it.”

  “But what would I do with the others?” he wailed. “They would surely die if deprived of my presence!”

  “That’s the bargain, you honey-tongued devil,” she purred. “You think it over while you sleep in the stables tonight. You really are the most inconvenient and inconsiderate guest,” she went on in disgruntled tones. “There’s nothing ready for you yet.” This was a bald-faced lie and they all knew it. Remagev was ready at all times for visitors, and twice the fifty Kazander had brought could be housed in luxurious comfort.

  “To be within seeing distance of your splendor, even the korrus would sleep in a dung heap,” Kazander replied, hand once more over his heart.

  Feylin gave an appreciative giggle, then resumed her role. “It offends me to honor you with even that much. You’ve deliberately shamed me, and for the insult you’ll bed down with your horse tonight.”

  Walvis grinned. “That’s no hardship, Feylin—he prefers his horse.”

  He rode down the hill to reorganize his troops before Kazander could frame a reply. He greeted those among the Isulk’im he kne
w, told his fuming young warriors to escort their guests back to Remagev, and waited for Feylin and Kazander to join him.

  Walvis always looked forward to these encounters with the young man he’d fostered during boyhood. The same age as Walvis’ son Jahnavi, Kazander was the korrus—“battle leader”—of the agglomeration of Desert nomads known as the Isulk’im. Although Zehava’s line had sprung from them and fifteen generations ago they had seized Stronghold and made it their capital, the original prince’s brother had had no taste for politics and settled living. He had taken those of their people who longed for the old life and returned to the vast wastes of the Long Sand, there to herd goats and relish their freedom. They were, as Walvis’ teasing implied, mad about horses, some of which looked very like certain Radzyn stallions that had vanished mysteriously over the years. Isulki raiders sometimes stole a particularly fine stud from Chay’s very stables and then, once their own mares had been serviced, sent the stallion home. They were never caught; the name did not mean “swift ones” for nothing. But neither was there any retaliation for these occasional thieveries; it was longstanding tradition that Radzyn supplied its ruling family with the finest horses, and the Isulk’im were only claiming their share.

  Inevitably, the Isulki population had split into factions as it grew. With equal inevitability, they warred over who had rights to which endless ranks of sand dunes. But ever since 695, when Zehava had been helped by his distant kin to victory over the Merida, they had organized into a loose confederation of tribes. Kazander’s great-grandsire had become their korrus. Though formally submitting to Zehava’s leadership and sovereignty, he and his people kept to themselves in the vastness of the Long Sand, an isolation that had spared them the Plague of 701. They sent several warriors to fight with Rohan against Roelstra in 704, and every so often an emissary arrived at Stronghold or Radzyn or Remagev with a gift of gorgeous blankets or carved jade.

  “Just to let the High Prince know we’re still out here,” Kazander’s father had said once, blithely, when presenting Walvis with a fabulous necklace for Feylin in celebration of Jahnavi’s birth. “I have a new son myself, by my favorite wife. She is as wild as a she-dragon, so I worry about the boy’s capacity for civilization. Perhaps when he is of an age for it and has learned what manners I can beat into him, you might consent to receive him here.”

  Thus, casually, they had agreed to Kazander’s sojourn at Remagev. He had arrived ten winters ago, a lanky, wide-eyed boy of sixteen who had learned to ride before he had learned to walk. In him were embodied the things Walvis liked best about the Isulk’im: their mastery of the affectionate insult, their fierce pride, and their humor. To that list Feylin always added their love of dragons and their hatred of the Merida. She was from the north, where the descendants of the assassins’ league were more familiar enemies than here in the south. But her undying loathing paled beside the rage mere mention of the Merida could excite in the Isulk’im. Their songs and tales told of shocking atrocities and it was the sworn duty of the tribes to butcher any Merida unlucky enough to encounter them.

  Kazander had stayed at Remagev through the autumn of 729, and despite his youth had insisted on being trained in the ways of battle. The annual little war had seen him fight all day long with a broken collarbone and two cracked ribs; Walvis had been given undeniable proof that claims of Isulki valor were not in the least exaggerated. Since then, Kazander had appeared at Remagev every so often, sometimes alone and sometimes, as now, with an escort—just to let the High Prince know the Isulk’im were still out there.

  He had succeeded his father two years ago. Walvis had not seen him since that time, though he received news occasionally. As they rode back to the castle, he looked the young man over and nodded to himself. “Marriage and new fatherhood agree with you,” he commented.

  “How did you know I am a father again?”

  “Because if you didn’t keep fathering children, you wouldn’t still be korrus,” Walvis replied with irrefutable logic. “How many is it now?”

  “Three sons, two daughters,” came the proud answer. “Another will be born next spring.”

  “However do you manage it?” Feylin asked indelicately, then made a face as Kazander gave her a long, slow smile. “I didn’t mean that! And don’t you dare offer to teach me, you wicked boy. I meant, why is it that your women bear so many children? I can’t think of anyone who’s had more than four.”

  “The late unlamented Lady Palila birthed six,” Walvis reminded her.

  “One of whom inflicts herself on us as Princess of Meadowlord,” she agreed. “But she only has two.”

  “It’s quite simple,” Kazander said. “Our women have more children because our men prove the strength of their siring. The more children, the more wives—if he earns them in battle and in bed. Sometimes I wonder which can be the most dangerous.” Then he grinned. “But I have a special secret. My girls are twins!”

  Twins were uncommon among the Isulk’im. Walvis congratulated his young friend warmly. “Tell my wife you named one of them after her or she’ll be heartbroken.”

  “One? Both! Feylani and Feylina I called them, and alike as dragons hatched from the same shell.” Kazander shook his head sadly. “If I cannot have you, then at least I can torment my soul with hearing the echoes of your name.”

  “I truly am honored, Kazander,” she said sincerely. “And for that, you’ll get a decent bed after all. How old are they now? And what about the boys?”

  Discussion of his growing family took them all the way to the walls of Remagev. As ever, Walvis felt his heart lift at the sight. He had first come here in the spring of 704 with Rohan. That royal progress had ended near Skybowl when Ianthe’s men had kidnapped the prince to Feruche. But before the horror of Rohan’s imprisonment, they had spent several days with his distant cousin Hadaan—a fiery old warrior whose many battles with the Merida had cost him an eye. Hadaan had no children, and although Walvis had not known it at the time, the old man had a mind to making him the heir. In early 705 Walvis had been named the future Lord of Remagev and, once it had been made clear to him that he was going to marry Feylin, had done just that and taken up residence.

  The keep had been built in days long past by Zehava’s ancestors. It was one of what had once been a string of castles reaching all the way to the Sunrise Water. The encroaching Desert had gradually made all of them but Remagev insupportable. But it had been in terrible shape, for Hadaan was more warrior than athri.

  “I’m no good at peace,” Hadaan had said frankly. “Give me a sword and I’m a happy man, but this business of glass and smelters—bah! Rohan’s taught you the trick of it, and welcome. You’re athri here from this moment on, boy. Just send your pretty wife to flirt with me sometimes, and otherwise forget I’m here.”

  They had done no such thing—though Feylin flirted with great enjoyment. For all his professed lack of interest in peaceful pursuits, what Hadaan didn’t know about Remagev and the surrounding sands wasn’t worth knowing. In the years remaining to him he involved himself in rebuilding the keep, supervising improvements, cheerfully harassing everyone, and watching proudly with his one good eye as Remagev turned into a thriving castle. His death, when Sionell was six and Jahnavi three, had been deeply mourned.

  Remagev was and always would be only a minor keep on the fringes of Desert civilization. It had no fine, proud towers like Radzyn, no bustling town like Tiglath, no elegance of design like Feruche. It was a squat, square defensive castle, hunkered atop one rocky hill and abutting another like a huge sandy dragon. But it belonged to Walvis, and he loved it fiercely.

  His eighty men and Kazander’s fifty lined the road to the main gates, each faction taking one side, to honor the two lords and the lady who rode past. Walvis met his guards commander at the gate and gave instructions for the comfort and housing of their guests. Feylin promised to make short work of tending the wounds acquired in today’s battle and join them later.

  Remagev did boast one architect
ural excellence. The double staircase branching up from the main hall was a miracle of grace in this otherwise undistinguished keep. Steps rose in wide arcs that met on a broad landing, whence five more steps led to the second floor. Walvis and Kazander mounted the right-hand stairs just as a girl ran down the left side, frantically pinning up her long golden braids. Walvis grinned as his guest frankly stared.

  “Gentle Goddess, Mother of Dragons,” Kazander whispered as he turned to watch the girl vanish through the main doors.

  “I see the Lady Chayla has supplanted my wife in your affections,” Walvis murmured.

  “The Lady Chayla would blind a sighted man and cause the sightless to see! Who is she? Who is her father? When may I beg him for her hand?”

  “You don’t change, do you? Even at sixteen years old you tried to seduce every woman within a hundred measures! Don’t waste your time with this one, my friend. She’s the daughter of Lord Maarken, the granddaughter of Lord Chaynal, and the great-granddaughter of Prince Zehava. Not to mention the niece of the Lord of Goddess Keep and the grand-niece of the High Prince himself.”

  Kazander’s face grew longer with each addition to the list of Chayla’s exalted kin. “I obey, mighty athri. I will not touch. I would not dare! But you wouldn’t be so cruel as to forbid me to look, would you?”

  “Go right ahead. Not that she’ll notice you looking. Come, let’s take our ease in Feylin’s chambers. I recently had a shipment of a rather good mossberry wine from the High Princess’ own home of River Run.”

  “You are planning to poison me!”

  Soon they were alone in the solar, with full goblets and a selection of fruit and cheese to hand. Kazander complained for a few moments about gutless Syrene wines, but Walvis saw that his heart wasn’t in it. And suddenly the young man became too serious for Walvis’ peace of mind.

  “There are signs,” he said in answer to Walvis’ inquiry, “and though I know you hold little with magic other than that of Sunrunners, I know you will hear me. A three-legged goat was born at New Year. It bleated three times and died. A cloud was seen like a sail over the Sunrise Water, all afire. It advanced over the cliffs and swallowed them up in flames. From Dorval came a great gust of wind that blew down a hundred tents, killing eight people. Shimmer-visions in the Desert have been not of the usual water or green grass, but of blood.”