“A blood feud against the whole Impire?”
“It is a good excuse. He almost carried it last year. Now, with Guwush and Urgaxox lying naked, not a voice will rise against it.”
Shandie sat down on the hatchcovers, feeling ill. My people! Goblins, dwarves—and now gnomes and jotnar, also? The millennium come in blood? He tried to speak, cleared his throat and tried again. “I don’t suppose that slimebrained cousin of mine weakened the garrison at Ollion by any unlucky chance?”
“I’m told he did,” the thane said.
So the caliph had his chance, also? Goblins, dwarves, gnomes, jotnar, and then djinns? And could the elves and fauns ever turn down the chance to join in?
“What is Zinixo doing? “ Shandie howled. “He has stolen the Impire—will he now destroy it?”
No one answered.
Finally it was Inos who spoke. “Ambassador, you are saying that none of us should go to the moot?”
He flushed scarlet above the edges of his beard. “That is my view, ma’am. Not because of the danger, you understand! Please believe that! I should be your champion most willingly, and honored to serve a noble kinswoman so. But you see, Drakkor will have the votes for war. I saw a war moot once, when I was young. It was as if the very air reeked of blood. Not a man but was shouting at the top of his lungs. Your message will not be heard!”
Jotunn bloodlust was notorious. Shandie could imagine what it would do to an assembly of thanes, the killers’ killers—or at least he thought he could imagine it. He could imagine it as much as he wanted to.
“You make sense, Excellency,” he muttered. “They will have no time for improbable tales of sorcery.”
“I’m not arguing,” Raspnex growled.
The ambassador sighed and visibly relaxed. “Maybe next year.”
If there was a next year.
“I am so sorry,” Inos said fretfully, “that you will not be able to settle the insolent Drakkor for me. It seems, then, that we must press on to Guwush and preach to the gnomes.”
“I bid you good fortune,” Kragthong murmured. “I wish I could have been of service.”
Meanwhile was he going to scuttle home to his lair in Dwanish? Perchance even jotnar found wisdom in their old age! Shandie refrained from comment.
Certainly there could be no thought of going to Nintor now. Quite apart from both the Covin and Drakkor lurking in the background, the thanes themselves would be ravening maniacs. Shandie was ashamed to feel a life-giving sense of relief. The moot would have been a great opportunity, but a very dangerous one. Now it was clearly out of reach and really not worth bothering about anyway, since Nordland had no sorcerers.
“Guwush indeed,” he said, wondering if that were any less dangerous for him. “We three head inland by coach, and send the others around the coast by ship? Has anyone got any ideas how one gets in touch with rebel—”
Kragthong let out a cry. Shandie looked up and saw that the others were all staring at the river. He sprang to his feet. A longship was going by, heading downstream. Riding the current, the low shape streaked through the water, its banked oars moving in perfect symmetry. With every stroke it surged forward, its dragon prow lifting, deadly and beautiful as a hunting shark. Beside the helmsman at the steering oar, two boys were jumping up and down waving. Their shouts drifted faintly to the watchers. One of them had red hair.
Inos rushed over to the rail and waved in reply, and then the raider had vanished beyond the end of the next pier. Shandie looked at the warlock’s glare, and then at the thane, who stood aghast, his face as white as his beard. For a long moment no one spoke at all.
“Nothing will catch them,” Shandie muttered. Raspnex shook his head.
The thane must know whose longship that was, for his dismayed expression mourned a lost son.
Inos was still at the rail, staring downriver, perhaps waiting for a distant glimpse as the vessel rounded the first bend.
Shandie walked over and put an arm around her. “Inos, I am truly sorry! It is partly my fault. I suppose they think it’s a great joke to beat us to Nintor. This morning Gath asked me how important it was to get the word to the thanes and—”
“This morning Gath avoided me,” she said quietly, not turning. ”Don’t blame yourself. When he spoke to you he must have known even the name of the ship he would go on. He knows we are not going and has taken our place.”
“How can he possibly—”
She sighed. “I don’t know, but I am certain. Gath does not play jokes. He never has. It is my fault. I should have told him of the God’s prophecy.” Her voice was calm and steady. She did not even sound bitter. ”But how could I tell him?”
How could she be taking this so serenely? Shandie felt completely out of his depth. He removed his arm. “What has that to do with it?”
Now Inos did turn to look at him. Her eyes seemed a brighter green than usual, but there was no trace of tears in them. “Strange that a warning that sounded so awful at first should now be a comfort, isn’t it? Don’t you see? Gath fears that his father is dead. But the God gave the message to Rap, that he must lose a child, and that makes no sense if Rap is never to know what happened to his children. I should have told Gath of that.”
Shandie groped for words. Her courage bewildered him. It seemed so cold, and yet he knew she was not cold. She smiled quirkily. “You expected hysterics, Sire? A woman need not be pureblood jotunn to feel pride in a brave son. He seeks to honor his father’s memory, and this is exactly the sort of thing his father might do.” Suddenly her eyes sparkled like crystal and she turned away. Shandie had underestimated her again. “You do not want to go after him?”
Inos shook her head. “I could not help. I would probably make things much worse. He may just possibly escape the Covin’s attention, unless he actually gets to stand up and address the moot and announce who he is. That may be what he’s planning, but it isn’t very likely, is it?” She sighed. ”His grandfather was a raider, you know—Rap’s father, Grossnuk.”
“Oh, come! Gath is not going to turn into one of those!”
“No, of, course not. So what do they do with him? Set him working in the fields? I’m more worried that he’ll run into that Drakkor man without realizing the danger.”
Whose longship was that?
“Drakkor?” Shandie repeated. “Even he won’t harm a child, surely?”
Inos smiled pityingly. “A Nordland thane? Scruples? Perhaps you don’t remember Kalkor, his father?”
“But what quarrel—”
“Kalkor did not recognize my right to succeed my father as thane of Krasnegar. So Drakkor won’t. So who is the present thane of Krasnegar?”
“Gath?”
“Gath,” she said sadly. “Holindarn’s grandson. And Drakkor will challenge him to a reckoning for it. Or just kill him to settle the blood feud—Gath’s father killed his father. I’m not sure if Gath knows that.”
We happy few:
. . . from this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remembered;
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers . . .
— Shakespeare, Henry V, IV, iii
EIGHT
Afterwards remember
1
Thaile was walking the way with Teal, the Master of Novices. He was a long-winded man of middle years whose only notable eccentricity was a devotion to the color blue. He invariably dressed in blue—usually a pale sky blue when he was relaxing, a conservative ultramarine for business, and navy blue or indigo on solemn occasions, but always one blue or another. This curious idiosyncrasy did nobody any harm. He was patient and even-tempered, and he commanded respect. He was a great improvement upon his predecessor, the muddy-eyed Mistress Mearn. Thaile had never discovered what had happened to Mearn; she had vanished completely, and was never spoken of. No one seemed to mourn her absence, least of all the novices.
“These are known as the Central Hills,” Teal remarked, unable to resist a chance to lecture. “We are in almost the exact center of Thume here. You might mistake them for the foothills of the boundary ranges, but you will observe that there are no true mountains in sight.”
“It is a pleasant spot,” Thaile commented respectfully, carefully not asking how she could observe what was not there. She was very weary of classes and studying, and glad of a chance to walk in such pleasant woods. A younger and less talkative companion would be an improvement; no one at all would be even better. There must be some reason for this excursion, but Teal had not yet explained and she had not asked.