The Wanderer's Mark: Book Three of Imirillia (The Books of Imirillia 3) (17 page)

“Eleanor has told me nothing.” Thayne pushed himself up on his elbow. “Your mother was very dear to me, young man. I have loved her better than I have loved almost any soul of this world.” Thayne’s voice bore the truth of the statement. “We wrote often, especially in the early days after her departure. That line was a bit of a letter I sent when she was content but regretting her distance from home and kinsman.”

Basaal moved his fingers across the gold and diamond Safeeraah his mother had given him. “What is the point of this conversation, again?” he said tartly.

“That perhaps you can choose!” Thayne said, his voice rising with impatience. “Is stubbornness your inheritance, boy? There are choices you can make without dishonoring the covenants you have made to your god and, perhaps, even to Imirillia. Quit damning yourself, and spend some time deciding if this is a path you may
want
to take. It is set before you. Be willing to ask the question. Did you not say that your father had ceased to consider the true welfare of the empire in his new bloodletting crusade?”

“I thought you said my coming here was fate?” Basaal replied, ignoring Thayne’s question. “And now, you say that I have a choice in the matter?”

“Fate and choice.” Thayne sighed. “It’s time you learned, Basaal, that just because a pathway has opened up to you, that even if it is the exact course your life is meant to take, you still have to choose it. As the sun follows the course of his day, you must choose the way you will follow—be it ordained by a God or otherwise.”

“And, has your experience been identical to mine, cousin?” Basaal asked, emphasizing this last word.

“No,” Thayne said. “It has not.”

“Then let me decide what my own course requires,” Basaal said. “I’ll thank you if we can get some sleep now.”

“Had you time to consider Aemogen’s plan to attack the Imirillian encampment?” Thayne asked, ignoring Basaal’s irritated request.

Basaal stared at the stars above him and rolled his head to the side. “Yes.”

He had considered Aemogen’s plan.

“And?”

“It’s terrifying.”

***

Danth, now the youngest fen lord in Aemogen, showed no real emotion when he asked Basaal for help planting the final field before dark.

“It won’t be long,” Danth said. “And, as the men and women here have been working at it a lot longer than you, I figured I’d ask you to give it a go.”

Basaal nodded, grabbing an edge of hard bread and pulling himself up to the wagon Danth was driving.

“I see they’ve given you the heel,” Danth said after some time.

Basaal chewed the difficult bread and swallowed. “Yes,” he said. “With almost every meal, they give me the small, hard end of the loaf, even when there are other pieces to be had. I’m beginning to take the hint.”

Danth was slow in responding, but when he did, it was with quiet words, and none of the brashness he’d shown in their first meeting almost a year ago, when they’d fought before the fen. “In Common Field,” he said, “the end of the bread is for luck.”

Basaal was taken aback. “Luck?”

“Tradition holds that it signifies you’ve a hard road and may there be luck in it. Or something of the sort.”

“And here I’ve been, grumbling about it for the last four days,” Basaal said, his face flushing.

“Don’t feel the badger,” Danth replied, and he actually smiled. “I’ve made more mistakes as fen lord than there ever was on the earth, and they still go chancing on me.”

“How has it been?” Basaal approached carefully.

“Whoa,” Danth said slowly to the horse as it took a misstep and jerked away. “At first, I kept feeling angry and sayin’ to myself, ‘This isn’t how it’s supposed to go, is it?’” Danth pulled up to the freshly plowed field, spoke a word to the horses, and then dropped the reins, Basaal waited for him to continue. “But it took me about as long as it took to say the words for me to realize that saying them did me no good. There was a new place for me in this world, and, if I was going to take it right, I had to let it be what it was and try to find some peace about it.”

“Do you mean you forgave?” Basaal asked.

Danth looked towards Basaal a long moment. “It means I forgave you.”

Basaal did not know what to say. Danth seemed no more comfortable with the words than the prince, and so he motioned to the bags of seed in the wagon. “If we’re to get any work done before dark, we’d best get started.”

***

Even with Basaal gone, Eleanor’s nights of wakefulness did not disappear. More and more, she lay awake, thinking, wondering. But in her loss of sleep she found solitude. Her days were not restful—they had too much to accomplish before the attack—but at night, despite the exhaustion, she felt a hint of clarity through the fog, like the moonlight that invaded and illuminated the dark castle corridors.

It was in the throne room, where Eleanor found herself sitting for hours at a time. Though dark and deep, the shadows did not bother Eleanor. Here, she could spread each mental thread out—like ribbons across the floor—and sit and stare and think. If Hastian was aware of her wanderings, he did not interfere, and he did not follow. Still, she did not feel alone. The memory of the dead accompanied these wakeful hours.

One night, she saw Doughlas or thought she did. A movement or a feeling had caught her attention, and Eleanor had looked up to see her fen rider, walking from one side of the throne room to the other as if he were on some pressing business. She lifted her hand and was about to call out his name but said nothing. He turned and looked right to where Eleanor sat. His puckish grin spread quickly across his face, and he acknowledged the queen with a nod, though his manner was not as a subject to his queen but as an equal.

Then he was gone.

***

It must have been Hastian who told Basaal, upon the prince’s return to Ainsley Rise, how Eleanor was spending the long hours of the night.

“So, this is why you are losing color and form, dropping weight, your cheeks wan, and eyes tired,” Basaal exaggerated as he walked toward Eleanor across the late hour of the night. It was the first time he had entered the throne room since the day of his trial. “Had I returned from Common Field sooner, I should have pestered Hastian more quickly,” he added, “forced him to give up your secret.”

Basaal let himself down, leaning against the leg of her throne to the left of Eleanor’s feet, while his own feet fell down the steps. What she could see of him looked tussled and tired. He wore no shoes. “It’s the only thing he has ever given up, you know, about you,” Basaal said. “But I think Hastian was relieved to have someone else know.”

“I do manage a few hours of sleep,” Eleanor said, finding herself actually pleased to see he had returned. “The fighting at the pass keeps me up, the names of the dead, the preparations, the ghosts.”

“You and your ghosts,” Basaal said and then yawned, sounding more himself. “I’m never quite sure what to make of them all.”

Eleanor shifted her head in agreement.

“You are what, ten, eleven days from marching out? On the seven stars—” He blew the air from his lungs. “Crispin says you will ride before the army and watch the battle from Colun Tir?”

“Yes,” she said, leaning back, her fingers playing with loose locks of her own hair.

They sat in the silence, Basaal adjusting himself occasionally. Finally, he spoke again. “Eleanor, you need to sleep. Come.” He stood and offered her his hand, which she took because she would have been too tired to stand up on her own.

They walked together, through the corridors and stairwells, back to Eleanor’s apartments. Eleanor noticed that Hastian followed silently. Her Queen’s Own took up his position by the door as Basaal walked Eleanor, his arm around her waist, to her bedchamber. He helped her lay down, adjusting her covers about her—just as he had those nights in Zarbadast, when they had been more honest, more brave with one another.

Afterward, instead of going down the long spiral staircase to his dungeon cell, Basaal lay down before the fire in Eleanor’s audience chamber and fell asleep.

***

He woke early to the sound of someone moving about the room. Basaal turned his head to see Miya rushing silently past him. When he yawned and sat up, she turned, her face showing a fierce blush.

“Begging your pardon, Prince,” Miya said. “I did not see you there at first, but I’m going now.”

“No,” Basaal said. He stood and rubbed his eyes before running his fingers through his hair. “I should be up. Go about your business, and pay me no mind.”

“Yes, Your Majesty,” she said and then curtsied and left anyway.

Basaal half laughed then walked towards Eleanor’s partially open door. He knocked softly and, when there came no answer, peeked his head in. Sleeping deeply, Eleanor appeared to have not moved from the moment he had lain her down onto her bed. At the familiarity of the scene, Basaal felt one side of his mouth playing with a smile. He shut the door carefully before taking the stairs down into the dungeon to find his boots and cloak. He was going out this morning.

The sun had not yet broken into the day as Basaal walked down to the river north of the Ainsley Rise. There was a small spit of sand with a clump of cattails growing to one side. It was here he began the motions of ritual prayer, moving into a kneeling position before prostrating himself on the ground as he repeated the words of honor to the Illuminating God.

The sand felt cold against his knees, but Basaal didn’t mind. It had been hard to pray in Aemogen; his anger had created a wall between him and his meditations. Thayne had been right when he had taken Basaal to work in Common Field. He’d needed the exertion. He had needed, Basaal was forced to admit, to think of others before himself. Now, as his body moved in the patterns of worship, a balance was beginning to return, and his heart felt almost calm.

Finishing the rituals, Basaal reached down into the cold sand and moved it through his fingers, feeling the grains—gritty, smooth, perfect. Now came the time for him to call upon the Illuminating God with his own words. Perhaps pour out the heartache of turning his back on his own people. He placed his hands over his heart and began to offer whatever was before his mind. More than he asked for help, he asked for understanding and guidance. The sun broke out across the east, and Basaal could feel its warmth catching in his cloak and on his back. He continued to pray.

“Thy way through sand and stone,” he repeated aloud several times. “Thy way through sand and—” But, before Basaal could end his oblations, a feeling surged across his shoulders, a feeling of recognition, of familiarity. Then the feeling gave way to the briefest glimpse of an image: Basaal, standing with Aedon and Crispin, his sword in hand. He blinked and opened his eyes. He shook his head and stared towards the river. His own mind, surely, had conjured up the image. The picture was gone now, but it had felt so real that Basaal looked down at his hand to make sure he was not actually gripping his sword.

***

It did not take long for the clatter and clamor of training to slow to a stop when Basaal stepped onto the field. He felt like a stone thrown into a thick, muddy pond, its repercussion an ungraceful intrusion. Perhaps he should not have come.

“Prince Basaal,” Crispin said as he came through the crowd, his cheeks red from training. As he approached, the war leader bowed his head in an articulate nod but did not bend at the waist. “How can I be of service to you?” Crispin seemed too tired to be calculably dismissive, but there was no warmth in his words.

A furtive glance at the men told Basaal their conflicting feelings about him were still bright.

“I had written my thoughts regarding your plans,” Basaal said, “before I left for Common Field.”

“I received them,” Crispin replied.

“Good.” Basaal looked about at the faces of the men, who were watching the exchange. “I think you may have a solid chance at it.”

The war leader did not respond until Basaal’s silence forced him to. “Was there anything else, Prince?”

“I’m too idle,” Basaal said and then paused, his fingers pressed against the hilt of his sword. “And, it would please me to keep my training fresh. Might I join in with you for this morning’s exercises?”

Crispin rubbed his chin and stepped closer. “I’m certain you
might
do anything you would wish, Prince. Although, I cannot say if it is really
best
for the men—or yourself.”

“I can cover my own back, as you well know,” Basaal said as he stared Crispin in the eye. Then, lowering his voice so that only the young war leader could hear his words, Basaal added, “Unless it makes you nervous to have me here, witnessing your training, worried that I’ll run back to the emperor with all your secrets.” Basaal looked down at his left forearm as he checked to see if his Safeeraah was secure. “Well, rest your fears. My honor now binds me here, and I will not leave Aemogen before the battle is complete.”

“Before?” Crispin replied sternly. “And after?”

Like a warhorse under the threat of demotion, Basaal pulled his chin up sharply and narrowed his eyes at the young war leader.

“You step beyond your mark,” Basaal hissed. “What goes on between the queen and myself does not concern you. Don’t let it happen again.”