Inda (83 page)

Evred, hating the necessity of a lie, wrote both letters by his own hand instead of dictating them to a scribe. He told the truth in describing how bravely Tanrid had fought before he died. That much he could do to honor Tanrid and his family. The real message—about Inda—had taken careful thought and many burned pieces of the imported heavy linen paper only used for important communications, expensive and limited as it was.

What he finally settled on was a tribute in the form of verses of an Old Sartoran ballad about the long-sought, beloved son who had sailed west to unknown lands. To that he added a line in the same rhyme and meter that described in typically convoluted Sartoran symbolism how watchful eyes sought him still.

Evred trusted that Inda’s mother, whom he’d never met but whose three children he had come to know well, would be able to tease out his real intention. And find a measure of comfort.

But his mood was bleak as he folded Tanrid’s hair clasp into his own letter, sealed it, then handed it to the grim-faced young man in blue with the owl over his heart and a black sash round his waist.

The sight of Tanrid’s personal Runner in his black sash dashing tiredly into the courtyard of Tenthan Castle two months later, seen from her upper window, was a shock of ice to Fareas-Iofre’s spirit. At first she did not even notice the herald at his side as the dogs in the kennel began to howl, first one, then all of them, hoarse with misery. The hairs on her arms and the back of her neck prickled; then grief struck hard, a knife straight through flesh and ribs to the heart: Tanrid was dead.

How could the dogs possibly know?
she wondered, walking to the window, her eyes burning with pain. The same way they had known the day before Tanrid returned from the academy each year, and afterward, from his long rides either for the Shield Arm or at his father’s command.
What world exists side by side with ours, yet unperceived by us, for the animals with whom we share our homes, our lands, our lives?

She had time to prepare herself, to hide shaky hands in her sleeves, as Evred’s royal herald and Tanrid’s Runner were both brought upstairs to her formal room. The herald handed her the official letter, which she laid aside; then he stepped back with a courteous salute, leaving the Runner to give her the bulky personal letter.

She unsealed it and the heavy silver hair clasp fell into her lap: Tanrid’s grandfather’s clasp, and no son to hand it to. Grief struck again, harder, and her fingers closed con vulsively around the cold metal. She drew in a painful breath, forced herself to read the words written there, and then handed the letter to Joret.

“Please go downstairs, refresh yourselves,” she said to the two men. “This is to be delivered at the funeral fire?” She touched the official scroll, and when the herald saluted again, she gave it back to him unread.

To Tanrid’s Runner she said, “Were you there?”

A shake of the head, and a spasm of pain, and helpless anger. “He left me with orders to see to the horses. We’d just arrived, you see. He took fresh ones—” He stopped, swallowing.

“We shall speak later,” she murmured. “Rest now. You have had a hard ride.”

They left without further speech.

When the door had shut behind them Joret looked up, her face blanched, her body still as death for two, three long breaths. “The verses?” she said finally, and handed the letter to Tdor, who stood behind her chair. “He means Inda, doesn’t he?”

The Iofre pressed the palms of her hands against her eyes. “I believe it means he intends to continue the search.” Fareas dropped her hands. “Evred-Varlaef honors us by writing to us himself. That is no scribal hand. Yet there is that in his wording that makes me wonder what it is he does not say. Brigands.”

“With no more identification or explanation.” Grief made Joret feel cold all over. Tdor looked on in silent compassion. Tanrid had been a part of Joret’s life, as much a part as the castle, as the seasons. The prospect of life with him, while not exciting, had given her purpose.

Joret, still in the icy grip of shock, couldn’t believe she would never see him again, until she looked into Fareas’ face and saw the anguish there.

 

 

 

Jared-Adaluin arrived home a day later, and knew as soon as he saw his black-sashed Riders on the castle wall what must have happened.

He felt his age as he trod up the stairs. He was alone now, so he could let the tears fall, but they did not come. Pain, braced against ever since he married the second time, was just as steely a knife as the first time. He had kept his sons by his second marriage at a distance so he would never again suffer like that and all it meant was that the pain was worsened by regret. He had just begun in recent years to know Tanrid, to speak freely to him, and listen to his words. Just a year or two of knowing one another, after all that enforced distance, and now he was gone.
Dead.

Fareas-Iofre found him on the first landing, leaning against the wall with one trembling hand, rocking slightly back and forth, his breath coming in quick rasps.

“Come,” she murmured, touching his gaunt cheek. “Come. They are laying the bonfire. We must decide what we will say.”

He saw the red rims to her eyes, the bruised skin beneath. Together they entered their son’s rooms, so still, and stood amid the splendid old furnishings that Jarend-Adaluin’s father, the Tanrid for whom Jarend had named his son, had inherited from his own grandfather.

“I have something to show you,” Fareas-Iofre said, relieved that at last, after all this time, she had a reason to bring up Inda’s name without betraying Ndara-Harandviar.

He held out shaking fingers, and she laid Evred’s letter into his hands. He looked at it without comprehension, and she pointed out the verses at the end. “There, in Sartoran, he repeats an old song, but what it means is that he knows where Inda is. He’s at sea. He’s
alive
.”

Jarend-Adaluin stared at the meaningless letters in confusion; then he looked up, frowning. He was about to ask why the prince wrote in so strange a fashion, but then he remembered the conference in the king’s room, and Jened Sindan promising to take Inda away somewhere.

Jarend crushed the paper against him and recalled that day, which seemed so remote in memory but so immediate in emotion. He still did not know why Inda had been singled out for disgrace, only that, somehow, the Sierandael had been behind it. But he could not make that kind of treasonous accusation without proof, unless he wanted civil war as a direct result. Jarend therefore had not spoken, contenting himself with Sindan’s assurance that Inda, though surely going to some kind of exile, at least would be safe.

That decision he had regarded as an act of prudence as well as of loyalty, but now, with his heir dead, he wondered if he had been a coward not to force the issue, even at the cost of his long friendship with the king.
Except that Anderle-Sierandael surely wanted just that
. . .

He rubbed his stinging eyes with the back of his free hand. Then he turned to his wife, who waited, patient and quiet, her hands hidden in her sleeves. “What think you?” he asked.

“That we declare Inda the heir, and we await his return. It is enough to avow he lives.” She gestured toward the stairway. “We can tell the Noth boy the truth.”

“He’s a quiet one,” the Adaluin said, nodding once. “I find him as trustworthy as his father has always been. Yet my aunt’s side of the family will be expecting Branid to be named.”

Fareas hesitated. Branid, as descendant of Jarend’s uncle, had a claim, though a distant one, as custom seldom acknowledged entitlement older than a generation. But the Randviar previous to Jarend’s first wife was still alive, a hateful woman still angry at being forced out of her position by the deaths of her husband and the old prince and her replacement by Jarend nearly forty years ago. She was correspondingly jealous of every prerogative for her direct descendants.

For a moment both of them pictured Branid as prince, Jarend trying to envision him commanding the Riders, and Fareas seeing Joret forced to marry him, to endure his interference in home defense and regulation—his manner of rule the terrible combination of threat, wheedling and spying that he had always used on the other boys in his struggle for precedence, and that he now used on the Riders. Branid as prince would destroy the Algara-Vayirs, and they both knew it.

“We shall say,” Jarend murmured as he studied the owl rug, still bright, lying there on the floor, “that Indevan is alive and travels to learn. I have never disowned him, so unless the king requires that of me—and he would have to give a reason—I can therefore make him my heir.”

Fareas felt a spurt of joy, so intense that fear immediately followed it. Inda. Home again. Somehow, she must get word to him. To her husband she said only, “It is good.”

And so they walked down to the great court a little later, as the sun sank in the west. The bonfire was already lit. They joined the waiting circle, and the Hymn to the Fallen rose skyward with the smoke.

After that Evred’s herald read out in a slow, formal voice the letter that the future Shield Arm had written attesting to Tanrid-Laef’s loyalty and courage, and all the while Joret felt Branid’s hungry gaze on her, and Tdor watched, feeling sick and apprehensive by turns.

Joret looked away so that she would not have to see Branid’s unhidden desire. She was a Marlovan, adopted into the Algara-Vayir family, and unless she was sent elsewhere her duty was to marry the heir, a duty she had accepted, but which now closed in like a threat of death, as they all waited for Jarend-Adaluin to come forward and name his new heir. Joret stared into the fire, not thinking about Tanrid, who was now beyond pain or care, but about the bleakness ahead for those remaining; she was jolted, but not surprised, when once again a black-haired, blue-eyed face emerged from the flames, and her Aunt Joret stepped out, flames shimmering through the blue of her gown.

Joret turned her head, and yes, there was Jarend-Adaluin, staring, so silent his people stopped their murmuring and watched, no sound rising but the crackling of the flames.

Many saw the ghost that time. The old kennel master, for he sobbed aloud, and once again the dogs began howling in the distance. The Adaluin. Joret herself. The cook, the old arms mistress, several of the grizzled Riders with whom she’d dallied thirty years ago, though afterward many claimed to have seen her ghost, Branid loudest of all.

The ghost drifted toward the house, her ethereal blue gown blowing in a wind distant in time from this warm, still summer night. Heads turned, watching, and others watched the watchers, until she blended with the golden-lit stone walls of the castle and vanished.

It was at that moment conviction gripped Joret by the heart, a grip cold and icy as death, and she knew why her aunt haunted this castle: she had died as the result of treachery, and was bound to Tenthen until such treachery was expiated. Her message now, or warning, or the mysterious power that gave her the strength to appear was the fact that Tanrid had also died as a result of treachery.

So the question was, should she speak, and risk touching off a civil war? Because there was only one person who could have arranged that death.

The Adaluin’s voice was strained. “We shall await the homecoming of Indevan-Dal, who shall be named henceforth Indevan-Laef, my heir.” He walked inside next to his wife.

Joret turned to Tdor, both keeping their faces still, but seeing their relief in each other’s breathing and stance: no Branid. That much, at least, they were spared. They would talk as soon as they were in a safe room.

Joret followed the prince and princess inside, still second in rank, now betrothed to someone she had not seen since he was a little boy.

Branid Algara-Vayir, on the other side of the fire, glared, looking for a victim, and everyone except his grandmother avoided his gaze as they dispersed. She walked beside him to their wing, whispering in a low, venomous voice.

Whipstick Noth waited for Tdor, who stared at the fire, her hands pressed together. They’d gotten to know one another on the ride home from the royal city; each had found the other quiet but direct, concerned with duty. But he had a sense of humor that reminded Tdor so much of Inda he in turn sparked her own sense of the ridiculous, far too long suppressed. They swiftly developed an easy friendship, and they had talked about every aspect of life in Tenthen. Right down to Joret’s ghost.

Finally Tdor looked up, her hands still locked together. “Did you see anything? Something happened. Too many of them looked shocked. Including the Adaluin. Did you watch their eyes?”

Whipstick said, “Has to be that ghost of Joret’s. Look, here’s what I’m thinking. If we see the Sierlaef here before long, I’ll know who was really behind Tanrid’s death.”

Tdor breathed slowly. “So you think Sponge was hinting at something? Was it not brigands, then?”