Sartor (31 page)

“How is the planning going?” Lilah asked. “I’ve
barely seen you—those grownups keep talking to you.”

“I know. It’s like they are testing me about my
magic knowledge and my awareness of history. But plans? I don’t think
they know what to do any more than I do.”

“Hmm. Well, we’ve been practicing with Rel.”

“I saw that. He looks like he’s a good teacher.”

“Oh, he is! No swagger or boasting. Do you know he had
an adventure with Kessler last year, and he was rescued by girls my age?”
Lilah’s slanted eyes were wide with delight. “Girls who know magic!
He says they get into lots of adventures. Oh, wouldn’t it be wonderful to
meet them?”

The morvende began to sing.

It was a simple song with no counter-harmonies, but the
melody was so very old, reaching so far back into early memory that it caused
many throats to constrict and eyes to burn. It was the song of Thanksgiving,
brought apparently from another world entirely, and its melody had formed the
basis for much of the world’s musical patterns.

After it had been sung, the candles were set into
flower-shaped holders, and food was passed from hand to hand, everyone taking a
share. Lilah and Atan delighted in the soup with blossoms floating on top that were
actually edible herbs, five different kinds of nut-cakes, and vegetable dishes
made with savory sauces. The morvende, like their cousins the maulons—sometimes
called dawn-singers—did not eat fish and fowl.

When at last they shared cups of spiced cider, the music
began.

This time, everyone was enthralled, even those who had
little taste for song. So many voices wove complicated harmonies, telling vivid
stories through poetry.

Of course, there were songs that honored the Landis family,
but also songs that celebrated others who counted their ancestry as part of
their identity, and songs that praised all the branches of human endeavor, from
cooking to weaving.

Weaving was a frequent element, Atan noticed. This was not
surprising, as the deceptively plain tunics that the morvende all wore were
woven of natural fibers in fascinating patterns. Colors were so muted they were
more of a sheen, and because nothing was ever exposed to the elements, their
garments were made for softness and for draping well. Youth dressed like Hin
and Sin, in short tunics. Adults mostly wore them from knee to floor length.

The last song had ended, the echoes sounding like silver
bells as they faded, when the people took their candles and began to vanish in
many directions. The air was sweet with the scent of berry-wax and of cider. Already
many of the younger children had fallen peacefully asleep, Julian among them, undisturbed
by the quiet bare feet of passing morvende.

Tired as she was, Atan’s mind was too busy rehearing
melodic strains. Since the area that had been set aside for them was filling
with those who wanted to sleep, she rose and wandered away, with no particular
direction in mind, but when she recognized the tall figure separating from some
of the male morvende, she turned her steps that way.

Rel saw her and paused.

“I wished to thank you for sharing your skills with
the others,” she said. “Mendaen tells me you’re better than
any of our group.”

Rel opened his hands. “Anyone can improve. I promised
them I’ll do the best I can.”

“It’s good of you to make our cause your cause.”

“Why not? I’m came south to find a way to help.
Seems right now I’ve found one.” He fingered the sword at his side,
then gave a slight grimace. “Truth is, it makes me feel less bad about
stealing this from one of your benighted city people.”

“You can always take it back, if we are successful,”
she said. “And if we’re not, it will not matter.”

“True. I know the house and the street. I marked them
especially.”

She found that she’d led the way back up to the cozy
stone alcove the morvende had given her. She sank down onto the pillows with a
little sigh. It felt good to sit down.

Rel hesitated, then ducked under the archway giving onto the
alcove. He sat against the opposite wall. Atan observed with sleepy detachment
that he seemed to fill the little space, yet she did not feel crowded. His
hands automatically shifted the sword so he could sit, as if he was accustomed
to wearing one.

“I’m going to have that music running through my
dreams,” he remarked. “I hope it will be for a long time to come.”

Atan nodded. “You have not heard them previously,
then?”

“Not the ones down here so far south. North, yes.”

“Where have your wanderings taken you? Mendaen and
Lilah said that you encountered Kessler in another place.”

Rel’s eyes narrowed. “I was a prisoner. Refused
to join his and Dejain’s little project to murder every monarch they
could find and govern on their warped notions of merit. Then we met again, not
long ago.” He shook his head. “One of the reasons I came this way
was to seek some more training, because I didn’t do very well either
time. So I went to Khanerenth’s military school for a season. Then I
decided to come here. Get as far as I could.”

“We’ve been alone a long time, you see. You’re
the first new person our age. Surface person, I ought to say. The rest of the
kingdom is beginning to break free of the enchantment, but I don’t think
they’re entirely free yet.”

Rel clapped his hands on his knees. “I saw.”

His expression hadn’t changed, at least not overtly. But
she saw the subtle signs of reaction—of reluctance. “They are
emerging from the magic and remembering the war,” she observed.

Rel did not deny it. “It’s bad, some places,”
he admitted. “The grief is new, for a lot of those people in your city.”
He raised his dark eyes to meet her gaze. “Even if you manage to axe the
Norsunder magic, you’re not going to have it easy. Some of those people
are also desperately angry. Feel betrayed.”

“By the king, my father. Yes, Tsauderei prepared me
for that. I know that my poet of a father was a terrible war leader. No lack of
courage, but Tsauderei told me once that in times of danger a poet-king is
considered by some a luxury no one can afford.” She saw Rel’s faint
grimace, but he did not disagree. “If I do free us, that will, I hope,
help in some measure. But the reactions are going to happen.” She bit her
lip, then said, “If you don’t mind a question—”

Rel’s brows rose. “No, I’m not a prince in
disguise.”

Atan’s her face flooded with the heat of
embarrassment. “I was not going to ask that.”

Rel winced. “I’m sorry. I ought to have known
you
wouldn’t—” He shrugged again.

Atan had a strong suspicion that she knew who had been
asking such questions.

“I was going to ask if, in your travels, you have met
others my age who rule. Lilah hinted at something like it, earlier.”

“Yes, I have,” Rel said. “And they do
well.” He lifted one of his big, capable hands. “You also have a
lot of young people behind you in your own ancestry. Quite a number. But then
you know that—probably a whole lot more about ’em than I do.”
His eyes crinkled.

She said, “You want the truth? Sometimes my history
feels heavier than all this stone above us.” A sudden yawn pulled at her
jaws, and though she suppressed it, tears burned her eyelids. She was
desperately tired, but still she did not want him to go yet. He was interesting—he
was from the outside world. “I have my ancestors’ standards to live
up to, in addition to the expectations of those gathered here.” She
opened her hand toward the entryway.

“Yes, I can see that,” Rel said. And then, as if
in oblique apology, “I say that my father is a shepherd, but I don’t
really know. My guardian told me when I was small that he was a wanderer, and
the only people I’d seen who wandered were shepherds, so that’s how
I understood the word. However, I do know there are no crowns buried under my
straw mat.” Rel’s eyes narrowed again in amusement. “I’m
not only free to wander, but free of anyone else’s expectations. I have
to add, after what I’ve seen, if I did find a crown under my bedroll, I’d
chuck it into the nearest fishpond.”

Atan shook with silent laughter. “No established royal
family is likely to leave a crown lying about,” she said finally, when
she’d wiped her eyes. “Not unless there’d been a war like
ours. I was hidden, though I always knew who I was.” She considered. “Of
course, if there’d been a revolution, I guess it might be different.”

“A new government would make it their business to
track the ousted rulers, wouldn’t they? No one wants a prince boiling
about his denied inheritance suddenly riding up—especially with an army
at his back,” Rel said, again with his brief grin. “Especially
these days, when so many of the formerly prominent kingdoms are in trouble.”

“I believe I have some family—the Deis—and
I might try to find them,” Atan said. Then she added, for the first time
ever, “Though I might not. I—I have heard mixed things. About them.”

Rel’s dark gaze altered again, now serious. “My
guardian said my father was too restless to raise a son, and so he left. If I
want to find him some day, I can. But from hints over the years, I gathered
that both he and Raneseh, my foster-father, are actually from Everon.”

“Ah, a kingdom with a history more tragic even than
ours,” Atan murmured.

“Yes. I mean to go there next, now that I’ve
gotten a little more training and a little more experience, and see what’s
what.” She saw his jaw flex—and realized with an inner laugh that
he too was fighting yawns. “But I’ll help here first, as long as
I’m needed.”

“As long as you’re needed,” Atan repeated,
and the back of her neck heated. “You’re dropping hints, aren’t
you?”

Rel spread his hands. “This is your kingdom.”

“That’s no real answer. But what you said about
the angry people. The breaking spell. Even training... the waiting is over.
Should be over, is that it?”

Rel said soberly, “Is time working against you or for
you?”

“It was standing still in Shendoral,” Atan said.
“But it doesn’t, really?” She thought about the wisdom of
listening, of planning, but her gaze was on his averted eyes, and a new idea
occurred that made her prickle all over. “Is that what I’m doing? I’m
waiting for someone to come along and tell me what to do.”

Rel rubbed his jaw. “You’ve a lot of helpers.
All willing to do their bit. I’m among ’em.”

“But I’m the one Tsauderei has been training for
ten years to get the job done, and it has nothing to do with princesses and
commons, but magic and...”

“Guts,” Rel finished. He put up a hand, and his
eyes watered.

Atan caught the yawn anyway.

“Then I guess it’s time for me to stop
dithering, and do it. Go to sleep,” she said, hoping the words would set
her course, give her courage, direct things to the right end. “I’ll
talk to the mages about any magic they might know, and to the kids about how to
get into the city. If you’ll keep drilling them so they feel ready, even
if we can’t fight armies?”

“That I can do.” Rel got to his feet. “Sleep
well.”

He ducked out and moved away, his step, for so big a person,
light.

Atan stretched out on her pillows and closed her eyes.

o0o

“And you searched for bodies?”

“Four days,” Kessler said.

“Four days!” Dejain frowned. “They were
probably all killed.”

“Maybe.” Kessler’s voice was flat. “We
were snowbound for three. Fourth, we started the search. All I wanted for evidence
was one body. Nothing.”

Dejain started to speak, but he lifted a hand, one of those
quick, impatient gestures she remembered from the old days.

“In shifting some of the bigger stones, we set off
another landslide, lost two. Third badly hurt. We found all three of ours.”

Dejain’s impatience vanished, to be replaced by a
sense of threat. She’d been debating whether she was secure enough to
label Kessler’s thoroughness foolhardy. Now her perspective shifted. “Magic,”
she said. “But so many at once? It’s a very rare mage that can
manage that kind of transfer.”

Kessler said nothing. He was obviously not going to
speculate about magic.

“The ring.” She frowned. “Why didn’t
you or Zydes take it from her when she was here?”

Kessler had had four days to consider whether or not he
would report that he had gotten hold of the wrong child. He owed Dejain
nothing. In the disaster the year before, she had not betrayed him outright. She
would not be standing there alive if she had. But in the process of doing what
he had asked for in the way of magic, she’d secretly bound the spells
somehow into some kind of complicated magical feint against Zydes, who was at
that time commanding the occupation of Bereth Ferian. It was that feint that
had unexpectedly helped shape his own defeat. He’d found out only after Zydes’s
fall, and by accident.

So he had decided not to tell her that Yustnesveas Landis
had not been to the Norsunder base. Just as he had not told her that he was—on
his own, and whenever he could without being seen—studying magic.

He said, “She told us she’d lost it. Zydes did
not deem it important enough to put her to the search.”

“Fool,” she exclaimed.

Kessler did not ask whether she meant Zydes or himself. He
didn’t care either way.

Dejain eyed him, as always unsettled by Kessler’s flat
affect, his utter lack of reaction. There was no discerning what he was
thinking, much less what he wanted—that left her in the weaker position.
(She tried not to think about what Detlev had learned about her own weaknesses
when he’d asked outright—and she’d answered.)

Well, there was nothing for it. “If it’s true
she was trained by Tsauderei, it’s possible that the ring was in part a
transfer talisman. That would also explain how she and Irad managed to get away
so easily,” she added, keeping her words general. Kessler was not to know
about her part of that business. “So it’s possible that she did
manage to transfer them all to safety before the slide reached them. But where
would they have gone? Have you sent someone to Shendoral?”