Brotherhood of the Wolf Part 35

Erin began to back away, to give the healer room to work, but Celinor clutched at her cloak.

"Please," Celinor said. "I don't know if I can go on with you to Fleeds tomorrow. You must stop my father. Have your mother issue a statement about your patronage--even if she must lie to do so."

Erin patted Celinor's chest rea.s.suringly. "I'll be back in a wee bit, to check on you."

Erin covered him with a blanket while the healer blew opium smoke into Celinor's face. Then Erin walked down through the portcullis and stared up at the night sky. The sun had set an hour past, and all of the day's clouds had drifted off. Only a few high cirrus clouds still hung in the night sky, a veil for the stars. It would be a warm night, and it was too late in the year for mosquitoes. Celinor would be comfortable if she left him alone for a bit.

Knights were still surging into the castle by the hundreds. Erin stepped aside to let some men pa.s.s, and the crier at the gate behind her shouted again, "Eat your fill, gentlemen!"

She looked down over the castle walls to the city below, Groverman's domain.

d.a.m.n King Anders, Erin thought. But she had to wonder. Why does he need me?

After all, if Anders wanted to argue that Gaborn was no king at all, had earned his crown only by murder and deceit, he only needed to allege murder. He didn't need to provide Erin as an alternate heir to Mystarria's throne.

Perhaps, she thought, Anders is afraid that if he kills Gaborn, the people of Mystarria will rise in war against him. By providing an alternate heir, King Anders might well hope to a.s.suage such a war.

But that didn't seem right. If Gaborn died, and if indeed he had won his crown through murder, then the kings.h.i.+p would, rightly fall to Duke Paladane.

Paladane the Huntsman. Paladane the schemer and tactician. Paladane, her true father.

Of course, Anders would fear him. Paladane would easily pierce any subterfuge that Anders might devise. And he would demand satisfaction. Paladane's reputation was such that no king in all of Rofehavan would want to match wits with him.

No, Anders wouldn't want the kings.h.i.+p to fall to Paladane after Gaborn's death, so perhaps he hoped to offer Erin as a suitable heir to old King Orden. But what would happen then?

Anders might hope that Erin Connal and Duke Paladane would squabble over the kings.h.i.+p of Mystarria, possibly starting a civil war.

Or perhaps Anders hoped that Paladane would strike at Fleeds itself, crus.h.i.+ng her poor nation.

That seemed possible. In fact, after Gaborn was dead and Fleeds lay in ruins, Anders might even imagine that he could wash his hands of the mess by claiming that Erin had deceived him Whatever his plot, Anders was bound to be surprised when the truth came out.

Or maybe not. What if King Anders had guessed whom her father really was? What if he planned to kill Paladane so that she really would inherit Mystarria's throne?

Would Erin dare take it?

d.a.m.n my mother for choosing Paladane, Erin though She should have known better. At the time, it had seemed improbable that Paladane would himself ever be in line for the throne, and her mother had thought Paladane the best man in Mystarria--the best lord in all of Rofehavan. But a dozen a.s.sa.s.sinations later, now Erin stood in direct line for Mystarria's crown.

Of course, the political situation in Rofehavan had been thrown into upheaval today, now that the Blue Tower was destroyed. Mystarria's strength had easily been halved.

But that was something Anders couldn't have foreseen.

He couldn't have known that Raj Ahten would destroy the Blue Tower.

Unless Anders was in Raj Ahten's hire.

No, Erin decided, now I'm thinking nonsense.

Erin knew she was missing something. Perhaps Anders didn't have a fully developed scheme for disposing of Gaborn--or perhaps she could not see all of it.

When Erin was a child, her mother sometimes made her perform an odd exercise. Mother and daughter played chess together with a curtain placed across the board, so that each one saw only her own half of the board Thus she always had to be protected from players that might strike out of the darkness, and Erin had to learn to pin down opponents she couldn't see. It was an exercise in futility.

She suddenly wished that she'd played chess with King Anders. How many moves ahead could he plot? Four, eight, twelve?

She was only looking ahead four moves, at best And Anders had thrown up a screen of secrecy that could not easily be pierced d.a.m.n, she thought. Erin needed to consult with her mother. Once Queen Herin learned of Anders's plot, she could help unravel it. King Anders had better beware!

Erin had to see her mother immediately. She needed to find a fast horse.

Castle Groverman smelled. deliciously of horses and gra.s.s out on the heather. Here on the plains beside the Wind River, Groverman raised most of the horses and much of the beef cattle that supplied Heredon. Tolfest, the time when cattle were slaughtered for the winter, was just a few weeks away. Already the cattle were penned outside the city and soon they would be driven to various castles and villages in the north.

Now that Hostenfest was past, much of the real work for the hors.e.m.e.n was ending: Hundreds of wild horses had been gathered over the past weeks and penned in stalls with the finest domesticated mounts available. These domestic mounts were warhorses, trained for combat, or horses for the use of messengers, quick beasts that could outrace the wind.

The domestic mounts all had an endowment or two of strength or stamina or wit, and now were in the process of establis.h.i.+ng their dominance by fighting with the wild herd leaders. It was a brutal thing to do to a common horse, to pen it in together with a force horse, but vital nonetheless. Once the wild horses accepted the domestic animals as their leaders, Groverman's facilitators could take the forcibles among the wild herds and siphon off attributes for the domestics, creating force horses of tremendous worth.

With so many lords going to battle and with so many mounts now ready to take endowments, Erin knew that she would find it hard to get a decent mount. Even in a good year, force horses were hard to come by.

She headed toward the stables north of the castle, began her search for something suitable.

In the stables she found at least a hundred lords stalking about, demanding that the stableboys show them the horse's teeth by torchlight and engaging in other forms of silliness..

Erin simply went directly to the stablemaster. A stableboy had recognized her accent and told her that his master was a fine old horseman of Fleeds, a man by the name of Bullings.

She found him in the Dedicate stables, where the horses that granted endowments to others were housed. These were weak horses that had given their brawn to others, mounts that were sickly after having given an endowment of stamina. The Dedicate stables consisted of an enormous building in a walled part of the city. Here some three thousand horses were cared for, blind horses and deaf, horses kept in slings because they could not stand. Some horses that had given an endowment of grace had to be fed on oat mash because the guts of their intestines could not stretch properly to push food into their stomachs for digestion. These mounts were difficult to tend, for they suffered from bloat and therefore required frequent ma.s.sage.

"Sirrah Bullings? I'll be wanting a horse to take to war," she said "You know your mounts. Which is your best?"

"For a horsewoman of Fleeds he asked, as if unsure. She'd never met him before. By the way he spoke, regardless of the fact that they both hailed from Fleeds, Erin knew that he would hold back, sell her a lesser horse.

The stable door opened behind her, and Erin heard heavy footsteps, the ching of ring mail. Other knights in search of good mounts were obviously coming to speak to the stablemaster. She knew she'd not hold his attention long.

"Aye, a horse for a woman of Fleeds," she answered.

"Any mount will be appreciated, so long as it can get me home tomorrow."

Behind her, the Earth King himself spoke. "Not just any mount will do," he said. "This horsewoman is the daughter of Queen Herin the Red, and today she saved the life of a prince of South Crowthen."

Erin turned. She'd not told Gaborn that she'd saved Celinor, had not reported it to anyone, but, apparently already tongues were wagging. Both she and Celinor had been forced to ride double with other lords.

"Your Highness," Bullings said, dropping to one knee. The stablemaster kept his floors so clean that he need not worry about soiling his leather trousers.

Gaborn looked pale, weak. Erin wanted to tell him what she'd discovered about King Anders's schemes, but one glance warned her that she shouldn't. He looked as if he needed nothing more than to fall into bed, and her news might keep him awake for hours.

Besides, Erin thought, I can handle it "What is the best mount you've got? The very best," Gaborn asked the stablemaster.

Bullings stammered, "I--I've a fine warhorse, Your Highness. It's well trained, has a good heart, with fifteen endowments to its credit"

"A fine mount," Gaborn said "It should do for a horsewoman of Fleeds, don't you think?"

"But Your Highness--" Bullings objected. "I can't be doing that. The Duke will skin my hide and sell it cheap to the tanners! That mount was to be a gift from our Duke Groverman to you!"

"If it is freely given," Gaborn said, "then I shall give it to whomever I want."

"Your Highness," Erin begged in embarra.s.sment, "I could never be accepting such a horse!" She spoke honestly, for such a horse was a kingly mount. She dared not take a beast that rightfully belonged to the Earth King. "I'll not have it!"

Gaborn smiled playfully. "Well, if you decline, then I'm sure that the stablemaster here will find something suitable."

"Aye, Your Highness," Bullings said in a bl.u.s.ter, leaping at the opportunity. "I've a fine mare, with a personality so sociable I'd marry her if I could! I'll bring her at once." As if forgetting all other duties, he raced to the back of the stables and hurried out a door.

Erin stared at Gaborn in surprise. "You knew he wouldn't sell me a decent horse!"

"I'm sorry he wasn't more accommodating," Gaborn answered. "Good horses are going to be hard to come by here in Heredon. My father killed most of Raj Ahten's warhorses, so Raj Ahten stole what he could from Sylvarresta.

"Now we've plenty of forcibles to create some good mounts and replenish our supply, but King Sylvarresta only had a few hundred warhorses in training: Duke Groverman and I have been doing our best to address the shortage. But even by granting endowments to some half-trained warhorses that shouldn't be getting endowments until next year, we'll only add four or five hundred good new mounts to take into battle. So of course Groverman will be loath to sell a decent horse at any price. In fact, he wouldn't have sold you one."

Those were grim tidings, but Erin was relieved to see that Gaborn had been considering such matters. Erin herself was unused to thinking about the economics of war.

Without a decent cavalry, Heredon would be forced to rely on infantry and archers to defend themselves. Over the past couple of days, she'd been watching his troops practice. The fields south of Castle Sylvarresta had been filled with thousands of boys with bows, while west of the castle, thousands more had been learning to use pole-arms. Even with Heredon's vast resources in the way of smithies, however, it would take months for Gaborn to properly outfit an infantry with helms and armor. But while riding through the villages today, she'd been rea.s.sured by the ring of hammers upon anvils.

It occurred to her that the weight upon Gaborn must be tremendous. No, she would not burden him now with tales of possible treachery. As she considered, she even began to wonder if she might have been overreacting. Could Anders really be plotting Gaborn's demise? She had little evidence of it, beyond Celinor's suspicions.

She wanted more proof; and besides, Gaborn would be better equipped to contend with such matters when he was rested She'd never really considered what duties an Earth King might have to perform in organizing a war effort. Many a lord with a good understanding of battle tactics found that he floundered once he was faced with issues of logistics.

Gaborn would have to deal with all of the complexities of war, with the problems of supplying and training his armies, while maintaining his defenses. Add to what will be concerns over strategies and tactics, and the normal duties of maintaining justice along with fulfilling his other obligations seemed overwhelming.

Yet Gaborn's responsibilities went further than that. She'd heard his Voice in her mind today, heard him warn her of danger personally, and she knew for a fact that he'd done the same for thousands of other people. He did not merely rule in the manner of a common monarch. He was intimately connected to and concerned with each of his va.s.sals.

The powers of an Earth King seemed awesome, and the burden even greater. "Milord?" she asked, hoping to test him. "Have you been thinking about how you will get the feathers to fletch your arrows?"

"I've commanded every lord in Heredon to have every child who plucks a goose or duck or grouse or pigeon to give the wing and tail feathers into the King's service."

"But you've barely had time for such niggling details," she said. "When did you make such a command?"

"Most of the lords of Heredon presented themselves to me on the day that I reached Castle Sylvarresta, after the battle of Longmot," he answered wearily. "I spoke into the minds of my Chosen, just as I spoke to you today, and told them to tend to the matters of their own defense."

"And you asked them to save feathers?"

"And nails for horses, and I warned them to make good winter cloaks that a man might sleep under as well as wear, and to store food and healing herbs, and of course to tend to a thousand other matters."

Now as she thought about it, she'd seen it. She'd seen the people of Heredon working as she'd ridden north, had noted the intensity with which the millers ground their flour and the weavers spun their cloth. She'd seen masons working on every fortress wall.

"What would you be having me do?" Erin asked, for when others were making such heroic efforts, her own small part in this war suddenly seemed insignificant.

"Follow me," Gaborn said. "You listened to my Voice today; and because of it, you lived. Keep listening."

At that moment, the stablemaster threw open a door, brought in a fine-looking black warhorse, a tall mare with a spirited air, a mount with nine endowments: one each. of brawn, grace, stamina, wit, sight, and smell, and three of metabolism. It was among the most n.o.ble-looking beasts she'd ever seen, almost a king's mount.

"I'll listen to you, Your Highness," Erin promised. "Can you be riding with me tomorrow? I have a matter we need to discuss."

"I look forward to it," Gaborn said. "But as I will warn the others shortly, we must ride before dawn. We must reach Carris ahead of schedule. You'll have a couple of hours' rest, but come moonrise, we will ride as best we can."

"How soon are you hoping to reach Carris?" Erin asked.

"For those mounts that can make it, I hope to be there by night fall tomorrow."

Over six hundred miles. It was a long journey for any horse, even a fine force horse like the one he'd just given her. And riding by moonlight would be dangerous. Erin nodded, but she could only wonder.

Some of the knights in this company might be able to reach Carris tomorrow at nightfall, but in doing so, they would run their horses into the ground. Even the finest knight could not fight from the back of a dead horse.

Perhaps Gaborn might excel in matters of logistics, but she had to worry at his skill as a strategist.

CHAPTER 29.

DOVE'S Pa.s.s.

The facilitators had been singing in the Palace of the Concubines when Saffira left, but Sir Borenson did not hear them.

Exhausted by days of work, and deprived of the great endowments of stamina that had let him withstand the natural frailties of man, he fell asleep in the sunlight, waiting by the fountain for Saffira to return. Someone unlocked his manacles as he slept When at last Pashtuk and Saffira's bodyguards helped the big man into his saddle, Borenson clung to it by nature and needed no one to lash him down.

Thus he slept in the saddle for hours as Pashtuk led the group back north into Deyazz, then west past the sacred ruins of the Mountains of the Doves.

Borenson woke for a bit on that mountainous trail, looked up to the sheer white cliffs. There, four thousand feet up the mountain slopes, altars and ancient domed temples leaned precariously over the precipices. Thousands of years ago, devotees were said to have leapt to the plain, thus giving their lives to the Air.

If the devotee's act was sanctified, then the devotee might be given the power of flight. But if the Air powers rejected him, he'd fall to his death.

In this manner, it was said that even children had gained the power to fly. Yet at the base of the cliff, in the Vale of Skulls, lay ample evidence that the Air had seldom accepted the ancients' sacrifices.

Few people were crazed enough to try such things nowadays, and Borenson had never heard of anyone besides the Sky Lords who had gained powers over Air. Still, every once in a while someone would walk out the door of his home and simply follow the wind, letting it blow him toward whatever destination it would. Invariably the "drifting ones," or "wind followers" as they were sometimes called, would turn to thievery and other mischief in an effort to support themselves.

Saffira's guards rode beside her, two mountainous men named Ha'Pim, and Mahket. She covered her face as she traveled, wearing veils of silk so that no one would see her face. Yet no veil could cover the l.u.s.ter of her eyes or mask the translucence of her skin.

Though she said not a word, her very posture in the saddle attracted the gaze of everyone she pa.s.sed.

From moment to moment, she grew more beautiful, for the Palace of the Concubines at Obran was home to hundreds of women, each of whom had many endowments of glamour.

Now, one by one, the facilitators gathered the glamour from Raj Ahten's concubines and funneled it into Saffira through Dedicates who acted as Vectors.

She of course did not need to be present in Obran to receive endowments, for when a person gave an endowment, it opened a magical link between him and his lord, a link that could be broken only when either the lord or the Dedicate died.

Thus if a woman gave an endowment of glamour, all of her glamour was funneled to her lord. If that same Dedicate later took an endowment of glamour from another, the Dedicate did not gain any glamour. Instead it immediately transferred to her lord.

A Dedicate who acted as a link to a lord in this manner was called a Vector. So the women who already served as Saffira's Dedicates were now taking endowments from others. Those who had given Saffira an endowment of glamour were taking glamour on Saffira's behalf; those who had given Voice received Voice, and so on.

In this manner Saffira made good use of the Earth King's gift of forcibles. When she pleaded with Raj Ahten for a truce between nations that had been too long at war, she hoped to have not merely hundreds of endowments of glamour; but thousands.