Pol S head jerked up and he nearly dropped the boot in his hands. “He’s what?”
“You heard me.” Feylin’s arms were folded over her chest. “Maarken’s downstairs ordering Daniv to saddle his horse for him. And he won’t drink or eat a damned thing, just in case I’ve put something in it to make him sleep. Which I did, naturally,” she added. “Though I’m insulted to find a friend so untrusting.”
“With good reason for his suspicions! Damn!”
One boot on and the other clutched in his fist, he strode down the hall to the stairs, which he took two at a time. Maarken stood in the middle of the courtyard. What remained of his left arm was in a sling made from one of Ruala’s silk shawls. With his right, he pointed at the dapple-gray Radzyn stud tethered to a watering trough. Daniv faced him, just as angry, digging in his heels so literally that he looked rooted to the cobbles.
“No!” the young man exclaimed, probably for the tenth time. “And don’t try your ‘Battle Commander of the Desert’ line on me, either. I’m the ruling Prince of Syr, and—“
“Didn’t anyone ever tell you it’s vulgar to proclaim your titles at the top of your lungs?” Maarken snapped.
Unfazed, Daniv finished, “—and as such, there are only two people at Skybowl who outrank me. And you aren’t either of them!”
“But I am,” Pol said, putting a hand on Daniv’s shoulder to indicate approval before he addressed his cousin. “And I suppose no one ever told you how vulgar it is to yell at a prince?”
Maarken scowled. “Not when the prince—including you!—is behaving like an ass! I’m perfectly capable of sitting a horse!”
“Fine. Do so—in about ten days. Until then, go back to bed!”
“I may be missing one hand, but the other’s still here,” Maarken snarled.
“What’re you going to do with it, knock me down? Who’s being the ass now? Daniv, have the grooms put Cadona back in the stables.”
“Daniv, don’t you take a single step!”
“All right, then,” Pol said, “if you can saddle him, you can ride him.”
“You know very well I can’t cinch a girth with only one hand!”
“Daniv,” Pol began, then stopped. The sound of clapping hands made them all turn. Chadric stood nearby, applauding sardonically.
“Charming,” he observed. “I thought we’d taught you two better manners during your years at Graypearl, but it seems not.” He came forward, limping a little. “There’s only one person here whom I don’t outrank, but age lends privileges even when dealing with a High Prince. Daniv, you are excused from this display of bad taste. Pol, I suggest you close your mouth until you think of something useful to say. Maarken, get out of the sun. It’s obviously addling your wits.”
“You’ve got that right,” Pol muttered, then, childhood training dominant even now, tacked on, “—my lord.”
Chadric eyed him, saying, “A word with you, if you please,” and after a slight pause added, “your grace.”
Pol grimaced at the rebuke and accompanied the elderly prince back toward the main steps of the keep.
“Three things,” Chadric said, utterly serious now. “First, he’s not lying when he says he’s all right. Feylin told me he didn’t lose much blood. You saw to that by acting so quickly. Second, he needs to know he’s not a cripple.”
“His hand is gone, Chadric!”
“His brain isn’t. He’s still your Battle Commander— unless you plan to replace him?”
“Goddess, no!” The thought of doing the work himself appalled him.
“Point made,” Chadric said with a nod. “Also, please consider that two of his rings are gone as well. I’m told they mean quite a bit to you faradh’im. You’ll have to use him as both a warrior and as a Sunrunner over the next little while, or he may start believing he really is a cripple.”
“I—I hadn’t thought of it that way.” Was there any end to things he didn’t think of until they were written in dragon-high letters and shoved under his nose? “And the third thing, my lord?”
“He needs to touch his wife—and be touched by her.”
Pol swallowed hard and squeezed the old man’s arm. “Yes. You’re right, of course. I’ve been stupid again.”
“I wouldn’t presume to argue with the High Prince,” Chadric said slyly, then sobered again. “But think about it, Pol. If everyone treats him differently, he’ll start to think of himself differently. And the man you need is Maarken of Radzyn, not Maarken-who-has-only-one-hand.”
Pol nodded, considering. He glanced to where his cousin stood, a little off-balance, a little uncertain. Even a trained warrior’s muscular grace could not compensate for what was gone. Maarken would learn and adapt. It was Pol’s responsibility to make it easier. And now that Maarken wasn’t shouting, Pol could see how desperately he was trying to hide fear.
Clasping the old prince’s shoulder in thanks, Pol returned to his cousin, calling out, “Well? What are you standing around for? We’re leaving—just as soon as I get my other boot on.” He grinned, holding up the leather still crushed in his fist and shaking it in Maarken’s face. “If you’re very, very nice to me, maybe one day I’ll forgive you for making me look such a damned fool, hopping about in my stocking feet!”
“You don’t need my help for that,” Maarken re- sponded, laughing in his relief. “A fool, like a cactus, doesn’t need watering in order to grow.”
*
Sioned rose wearily from her knees. For a moment she stood looking down at the dead young face, then bent to draw the blanket up to cover him. Chayla, one row over and several pallets down in the infirmary, glimpsed the movement and came over to her.
“Another one,” Sioned murmured.
“I was hoping he’d pull through.”
“Head wounds are chancy.” She beckoned to a servant and told him to take the body outside for burning tonight. “First one today,” she said to Chayla.
“The only, if I have anything to say about it.”
Sioned stayed silent. The girl’s steely determination was no match for death. Goddess, what an occupation, pitting one’s mind and hands against the million things that could go wrong with a human body. And that was at the best of times. In war, physicians must go slightly mad.
“Did you know him?” Chayla asked.
“Not really. I recognized his name. He held two manors, one in Ossetia and one in Grib. We heard the case in Autumn—which princedom could claim him and his lands. We never did make a decision on it.” She gave a shrug as the man was carried out to be readied for burning tonight. “Proof that if only one waits long enough, every problem solves itself.”
Chayla frowned, not really understanding, then said, “Well, one thing that won’t solve itself is the supply of febrifuges. I need a good, wet meadow with lots of win-terberry and blue sword. At this time of year it’s impossible to find the really effective herbs, but if I brew the others strong enough we’ll be all right.”
“The children?”
“Yes. Most of them have come down with silk-eye,” Chayla reported glumly. “Between their needs and the wounded here, I’ll be out of everything in two or three days.”
“Ask Ruala where the nearest pickings are. And don’t go out alone.”
“I won’t.” Someone called her name several rows down, and she hurried off.
Sioned stretched from side to side, trying to work the kinks out of her aching back. Making herself useful— Pol’s angry demand echoed in her mind—was only marginally better than sitting all day in her room. Here, among the wounded, she was too busy to think. But when she grew too tired to work anymore, her thoughts were even darker.
No, there was nothing wrong with her memory. She’d been insane to think that even an ocean of wine would drown out his voice.
“... the demands of a civilized conscience that the sick, the crippled, and the dying be cared for. Not a few coins to an old blind woman, or once-a-year rounds by a physician who’d rather be lolling in our castle at our expense, but honest care.”
Men and women who had been whole and strong lay in neat rows, blankets flat where arms or legs should have been, or bulging where dressings were bound to wounds at breast or belly or thigh. What could be done to care for them? Next to nothing.
“... nurture children’s minds and hearts, help them become what they were meant to be. Teach by lesson and by example, and keep them safe while we make a world for them better than the one we were given.”
Dozens of children were upstairs in rooms very like this one with its rows of bedding on the floor and its confused smell of medicines. Other children, those who had not caught the sickness, wandered about the keep, calling for their parents or staring at nothing with huge, stunned eyes. Teach them? They were learning death and pain and war.
“... not because I want my praises sung or my name to live forever—after all, I’ll be long dead and won’t hear about it, will J? It’s because it’s right, Sioned. Of all the things that are wrong, surely I can make some of them right, or what’s the use of power?”
She whimpered softly and turned her face to the wall. But she couldn’t stop his voice in her mind. She had loved his voice and his words, and now she feared them because she had failed him.
“We can do it, Sioned. I’ve always wanted—Goddess, I’ve talked all night, telling you what I want! But until I saw you this Spring, I never really believed I could do it. With you here beside me, I can do anything. You and I, together—“
She fled the infirmary, climbing the courtyard steps to the sunswept battlements. There were memories here, too. Across stones just like these—right about here, in fact, at that other Feruche—lanthe had impatiently paced out her time as Pol grew inside her. Sioned had watched, coveting Rohan’s son, waiting for him to be born in a room high in a tower that no longer existed.
The Feruche around her now could be thought of as a symbol of what she and Rohan had done. New, strong, proud, beautiful ... filled with the maimed and the sick and the dying. She had filled it with Fire on a night long ago, when she’d taken a child that was not hers and claimed him as her own son. Oh, yes—a symbol of what she and Rohan had done: a shining new castle built on lies and filled with death.
The breeze tousled her shorn curls, dried the stinging tears on her face. Everything he had ever dreamed was in ruins around her. And she could feel him slipping away from her, almost forty years stealing out of her reach, and in a mere thirty days.
Rohan! I need you. I’m alone and I don’t believe in anything anymore. You’re not here to help me believe— oh, damn you, why did you leave me alone like this?
Angrily she swept the tears from her eyes. This was useless, dangerous, it served no purpose but to steal what little strength she still had. What she had told Pol was the truth. She had nothing left to give. No strength, no belief, no dreams. I can’t help him. I know I should but I can’t. Damn you, Rohan, why did you leave me and leave him in my keeping, when it’s you he needs? He doesn’t dream the way you did. I don’t know what he wants, except to have everything the way it was. Why can’t he see that’s impossible? What’s the good of going back to the way things were? We can’t go back, and he’ll break his heart if he tries.
I can’t make it all right for him. I can’t! Not by myself. It was only together that we could do anything, anything at all—
“Sioned? It’s freezing up here! Put this on your shoulders.”
Meath settled a warm woolen shawl around her. She looked up at him, at the gray so thick in his hair and the lines so deep around his eyes. But they were clear, quiet eyes, slate-blue made brighter by heavy black lashes, and in them shone the love and support of a warm and giving heart.
That’s it, though, isn’t it? she thought suddenly. To know how to give. All I’ve ever done is take. Andrade’s knowledge, Rohan’s power and position, lanthe’s son— the only person I ever really gave to was Rohan. He had everything of me. And he took everything with him—
No. He was never that selfish. He’s still here with me, in me. He gave me what he was. His dreams ... I can’t lose all of him. I must remember what it was like to believe. To know I could do anything for him...
For Pol, now. And for those people who believe because Rohan showed them how to dream.
She looked up at Meath, and saw time in his face. So many years. Forty-four since the first time she’d seen Rohan in Fire and Water. She’d plucked a hair from her head and floated it on the pool of clear water, and it had become his crown. Prince he would have been, with her or without her. But the kind of prince he dreamed of being—she had brought him that. Given him that.
I must give. If not of myself, then of what he left me.
And after this is done, and Pol is safe, I will have all the rest of my life to be alone.
She made her first gift a smile. So simple a thing, but
Meath returned it with startled pleasure. She stood close to him, watching the Desert. After a time she remembered that there was another woman who had the rest of her life to be alone in. A young woman, whose solitude was but eleven days old.
“Meath?”
“My lady?”
“Where’s Sionell?”
*
When Rohannon staggered as the ship plowed into another massive wave, Arlis steadied him and asked “Still all right?”
“Fine.” The boy chuckled softly. “In fact, I’m starting to like being at sea. Even when it’s rough like this.”
Arlis snorted. “This is nothing but a little chop. When we get past Kierst-Isel up to the Dark Water, then I’ll show you ‘rough.’ “
“Can’t wait,” he grimaced. “I just hope whatever it is that’s keeping me on my feet is still working.”
“Well, as long as it is, I’d like you to do something for me if you would.”
“Anything I can, my lord. You know that.”
“Yes—and it’s more than most squires are asked. I’m a bit preoccupied right now, but once Yarin is out of the way we’ll hold a celebration in the hall at Balarat for your knighting.”
“My—“
Arlis smiled at his astonishment. “I may have to elbow Laric aside for the privilege. But he and I can argue about that later. Right now I’d like to know what my little brother is doing. If the sky’s clear enough across Syr, could you—?”
“Of course, my lord.”
As often as Arlis had witnessed this, as many years as he had spent around faradh’im, the subtle differences never failed to intrigue him. Pol’s eyelids barely drooped when he worked. Hollis closed her eyes tightly and seemed to be holding her breath. The Sunrunner at New
Raetia during his childhood had always rested one hand casually on a chair in case she lost her balance. And Sioned, Arlis was firmly convinced, could go Sunrunning without anyone’s noticing at all.
Rohannon was like his mother: lashes squeezed shut, breathing stilled, although Hollis would never have worried her lower lip between her teeth the way her son did now. Arlis smiled, recalling how Sioned had teased Princess Tobin about that very habit, chiding her for destroying the dignity and mystery of their craft.
A mystery it surely was to Arlis, how one could see and speak down rays of light. But it was something his younger brother must learn to do, for Saumer was gifted and it was too valuable a talent to waste.
Rohannon’s eyes opened, their forest-green misted for a moment until he shook his head. “Sorry. It was a long way, my lord, and there was a lot to see. And I think I startled him. Or tickled his colors without his knowing what was going on.”
“I won’t even pretend I know what you’re talking about. Where is he?”
The ship crested another wave and slid down into its trough. Rohannon, who had remained steady as a rock while Sunrunning, nearly lost his balance again. Arlis steadied him.
“Whoops! Thank you, my lord. Prince Saumer is five measures outside Faolain Lowland—with the Vellant’im camped between him and it.”
Arlis paled. “The fool’s not going to attack!”
The boy shifted uncomfortably. “He was drawing maps in the dirt, my lord, first one strategy and then another.”
“Rohannon, go back. Talk to him. Stop him! Tell him that if he does this, when I catch up with him I’ll break both his arms and—“
“My lord ... I’m sorry, but I can’t.”
“What do you mean, you can’t? You found him, you’re both Sunrunners, talk to him!”
“It doesn’t work that way.” Rohannon rubbed his forehead. “The only person I can talk to on sunlight is my father, and only because he controls the weave. Nobody’s ever taught me how to do it myself.”
“But you can speak to your father?”
“It’s kind of complicated. I find him and wait for him to feel my colors, and then he does all the rest.”
Arlis paced a few steps, easily balanced to the pitch of the deck. Then he swung around. “Find Maarken. Now. What he does for you, he can do for Saumer.”
Rohannon frowned all over his wind-burned face. “I think I can do that. If I show him Saumer’s colors, and if Saumer stays in the sunlight long enough for my father to—“
“I don’t care what you have to do, just do it.”
*
“What made you change your mind?”
Pol glanced around from tying down his saddlebags. His blue-green eyes were clear, candid, utterly without guile. Maarken knew that look, and what it hid.
“About what?” He stroked AzhenePs glossy golden hide.
“Letting me ride with you. What did Chadric say?”
“Oh, he only reminded me that we’ve got a battle to plan. The last battle of this war, Goddess willing. What he asked me, and what I should have considered myself, was how could I do that without my Battle Commander?”
“My father held the title before me—and he’s forgotten more about war than any of us will ever know.”
“But he’s not a Sunrunner.” Pol finished the last knot, and turned. “We’ve got to use everything we have, Maarken. Everything.”
“So you need me.”
“Damned right I do.”
Maarken smiled at his cousin, thinking suddenly how like Rohan Pol could be. “I don’t believe you, but thank you anyway.”
“Believe what you like. It happens to be true.”
“Of course it is. But it’s not an argument our peaceful Chadric would have made.”
Pol laughed ruefully. “Caught! What he really said was embarrassing—that I need you to keep me from the consequences of my natural folly. I can see I’m going to have to work on the respect part of the High Prince’s job. When all I ruled was Princemarch, there were never so many people telling me what an idiot I am.”
“Well, you are,” Maarken said. “Let’s say our farewells and be off. We won’t make it to the first camp by evening if we don’t leave soon.”
They went into the keep, where Feylin was giving Kierun a satchel of medicines and Walvis was lecturing Kazander.
“—along the way to go Vellanti hunting, I’ll send word to your wives that a war wound has made you impotent and they’ll divorce you and marry other and better men before you can prove otherwise.”
Kazander moaned and clutched his chest. “The exalted athri, who already possesses the most wondrous of women for his own selfish pleasure, cannot be so cruel as to spread such lies!”
“Watch me,” grinned Walvis, then threw his arms around the young man and lifted him off his feet. “Have a care to yourself.”
“I will, if I can ever breathe again!” When he was released, he turned and bowed deeply to Feylin, giving her the salute of his people and a long, languishing look from merrily dancing black eyes. “This unworthy one begs a smile from your perfect lips, to hold in his heart that shatters each time we part. But one smile only, for your husband is a jealous and vengeful man whose frowns fill me with terror and—“
“Oh, hush up!” Feylin exclaimed, and took him by the ears and kissed him.
“I will faint,” Kazander avowed. “I cannot bear the honor or the joy!”
Maarken shook his head in amazement. Kazander was two parts warrior, two parts poet, and all parts madman, but he was nothing if not entertaining.
Farewells were said all around. Sethric and Daniv left for the courtyard to make sure everything was ready; Kazander bowed to Audrite, spoke a more subdued version of his usual outrageousness, and vanished out the door. Riyan gave a few last orders to his steward and sent the man on his way. Maarken then noticed Alleyn and Audran fidgeting by the stairs. Brother whispered to sister, received a reluctant nod, and at last they approached Pol as he started for the main doors.
“Your grace,” said Alleyn, “may we please talk with you for just a moment? It won’t take long.”
Pol smiled down at the children. “Something I should tell Meath when we get to Feruche?”
“Oh yes, please tell him we miss him, but this is something else. We—“
Audran, more direct than his sister, tugged at Pol’s gloved hand. “Come and look, your grace.”
“What is it? The mirror?” Pol stood with them before it. Maarken joined them, drawn by the adult intensity of the children’s faces. “It belonged to Lord Riyan’s mother, the lady for whom Jeni is Named. Beautiful, isn’t it?”
“Yes, but—“
Again Audran interrupted. “There’s somebody in it.”
Pol didn’t even blink. “Besides us,” he said, not quite a question.
“Yes, your grace—shut up, Audran, let me tell it!”
Maarken looked over his shoulder. Walvis, Feylin, Chadric, and Audrite watched in silence, stricken.
“... so Jeni didn’t see anything, but we did. It was a man, your grace. Audran and I saw him. Jeni said it was just a trick of the light or something, but we saw him.”
“Alleyn didn’t want to tell, but I made her,” Audran put in.
“You did not! I was waiting for when everybody wasn’t so busy, but there wasn’t any time before now and—“
“But this is important*.” Audran insisted.
“Yes,” Pol murmured. “I think it is. Very.”
Maarken took another step nearer, standing behind Alleyn. “Pol? What are you thinking?”
“That mirrors can be interesting objects.” Their gazes met in the ancient, smoky-gold glass of the mirror, and Maarken abruptly recalled that Camigwen had been diar-madhi. “Do me a favor and call up a fingerflame, please?”
He did, and saw nothing reflected by the little red-glow flame except himself, Pol, and the two children.
But behind him, Riyan gave a gasp of shock. Pol’s shoulders had stiffened. And Audran crowed triumphantly, “You see? There he is!”
“Maarken?” Pol asked softly, not looking at him, his eyes fixed on the mirror.
“I don’t see anything but us.”
Pol nodded once. “Where’s Jeni?”
“Still upstairs,” Feylin said, “sleeping off her talk with her dragon. What do you need her—“
Walvis interrupted. “Sunrunner.”
Pol still didn’t turn from the mirror. “Yes. Sunrunner.”
Chadric cleared his throat. “Umm ... I hate to sound stupid, but...”
“You don’t see anything, either?” When the old prince shook his head, Pol blew out a short sigh between tense lips. “Walvis can explain it to you later. For now, I think that with Riyan’s permission, we’ll take this mirror with us to Feruche.”
“I don’t understand.” Audrite walked forward until she, too, was reflected. “Maarken’s right, there’s nothing in the mirror but ourselves.”
“No, you wouldn’t see it,” Maarken said, confusing her further. He caught Pol’s eye in the mirror and looked meaningfully at the children. “It must come from Iliena.”
“Which means Lisiel and Yarin are, too.”
“Will you please tell me what you’re talking about?” Audrite exclaimed.
Pol hesitated, then shrugged. “Your grandchildren have certain gifts—like Riyan’s, and like my own.”
“Gifts that Jeni and I don’t share,” Maarken added. He doused the fingerflame and faced her, watching her understand.
She stared at him, then at the children, then turned to her husband and held out a supplicating hand. Chadric took it, holding tight.
Alleyn looked frightened. Maarken stroked her bright hair and began, “It’s all right, my dear. You and your brother—“
“We can be Sunrunners!” Audran cried. “I asked Meath and he said no, but we can, we can!”
“Yes, you can learn how to go Sunrunning,” Pol said, leaving it to their grandparents to explain the truth of it to them. “Just like Riyan, and just like me. Maarken, help me get this down from—“
When he stopped, Maarken flushed. “Maybe Riyan ought to do it,” he said quietly, and felt a sudden ache in a hand that was no longer there.
The mirror was hung on the wall with steel wires, not bolted to it, so they made quick work of taking it down. Feylin sent the children upstairs for a blanket to wrap it in. When they were safely out of earshot, she said, “That’s right, Pol, leave the explanations to the rest of us. Thanks so much.”
“Better you than me for explanations like that. Chadric, Audrite, I’m sorry about all this, but it was a shock for me, too. I don’t suppose you had any idea about this, Riyan?”
“Not a hint.” He was regarding the mirror in awe. “I’ve lived with this thing all my life, and I never even suspected—“
“Neither did your mother, I’ll wager,” Feylin said. “Where did she get it? Do you know any of its history?”
“All I know is that it belonged to her, and it’s very old. I don’t think Father knows much about it, either. Or Sioned.”
“I’ll ask,” Pol said. “But you’re probably right. You and Walvis wrap it tight and carry it outside. Maarken, let’s go figure out a way to keep it from breaking.”
He nodded, his mind already devising supports and cushioning. Some Battle Commander, he thought; all he was good for now was planning a war but not fighting in it, calling up a trickle of Fire, and playing nursemaid to a mirror that to his eyes was empty. But bitterness was not in his nature, much less self-pity, and so he shrugged and followed Pol out into the sunlight.
And was rocked back on his heels by the desperate force of his son’s colors.
“Maarken?” Pol had him by the upper arms. “What is it?”
“Rohannon,” he gasped. “Leave me alone, Pol!”
Gathering the boy to him, he heard a terrible cry: Papa—your hand!
Hush. It doesn’t hurt, and it doesn’t matter. Tell me what’s wrong. He paused, battered by his son’s anguish. It’s all right, I promise. There was a battle, I was injured, and now I’m all right.
Does—does Mother know?
That I’m safe? Of course.
I mean about—about your arm.
Not yet. He hadn’t found time to tell her on sunlight. No, not time; courage. Rohannon, you must tell me what brought you here.
Y-yes, I’m sorry. It came in a rush then, the words tumbling all over themselves in a flood of color. I’ve been waiting forever. I knew you were at Skybowl because I could see your battle flag, but I couldn’t find you and I have to tell you about Arlis and Saumer and—
But Maarken was suddenly uninterested in whatever news Rohannon had brought him. There was something about the wild intensity of color that scared him. Again he staggered physically, almost losing the weave. Remotely, he felt Pol holding him physically upright. You’ve taken dranath! I can feel it!
Yes, but how did you—
Your mother nearly died of it, he replied curtly. You stupid, stupid boy!
Rohannon wasn’t frightened; he was excited. So that’s the reason I’m not seasick! I’m with Prince Arlis, and we’re sailing past Kierst-Isel with Prince Laric to go kick Yarin out of Balarat, and I’m fine! It has to be the dranath!
Maarken’s thoughts whirled. The strength of his son’s drug-augmented powers made it difficult to control the weaving. But one thing screamed inside him. Yarin is diarmadhi. Whether he knows it or not, you have to assume he does and will use it. Don’t ask me how I know, I’ll explain it later. Rohannon, tell me why you’re here!
Yarin is—? Goddess! Prince Camanto was right! And so was I, about the sorcery used to kill him—
Rohannon! He got a firm mental grip on the boy; if he’d had him to hand, he would have shaken him until his teeth rattled.
Father, that hurts! What I have to tell you is that Prince Saumer is at Faolain Lowland and so are the Vellant’im, and Arlis wants you to order him not to attack. I can show you his colors so you can speak to him. I can’t, I don’t know how.
Goddess help us. Maarken made swift order of his thoughts, and as the ideas came swift and sure he knew that the loss of his hand made him no less the Battle Commander, and the missing rings no less the Sunrunner, and that he’d been a fool to think otherwise even for a moment.
Tell Arlis this: I’ll give Saumer’s colors to your mother, who learned from Myrdal every secret way into every keep in the Desert and some outside it. Lowland was built only thirty or so years ago, but it’s bound to have a few surprises just the same. She’ll tell Saumer how to get in, and share his colors with the Sunrunner there—Johlarian, he’s unimaginative but knows his work. When Saumer’s inside, I’ll find you and let you know.
Rohannon gave a mental whoop of triumph. Oh, how I wish I could watch!
Don’t, Maarken warned sternly. And if the next time we speak, I feel the least trace of dranath in you—
It’s a long way to Snowcoves, Father, I’d be half-dead of seasickness before we got there. I’ll be careful, I promise.
Careful!? You don’t know what you’re dealing with! Don’t you understand that enough of it, and if you’re deprived of it you’ll die? Your mother went through a hundred kinds of Hell because of that damned drug!
I’ve got to stay on my feet. I’m no use to Prince Arlis and Prince Laric if I’m moaning in a corner puking my guts up. I’ll only take a little, just enough to keep me from being sick. But I have to do it, Father.
Rohannon—
This is what Saumer looks like on sunlight. I know it’s not very precise, but you’ll be able to find him.
A pattern, not perfectly defined but more than adequate to the purpose, appeared in his thoughts: simple, straightforward tints of pale green emerald, black onyx, dark golden topaz. And then, with a strength that frightened Maarken, the boy raced back across the sunlight, and was gone.
He sagged against Pol, every breath clutching at his throat. He knew now that the several times since Autumn that he’d spoken with his son, the power was due to the dranath. Not as much as had been present today, or he would have recognized it sooner, yet there had been enough to lend Rohannon spurious strength. He remembered Hollis’ pain, and rocking her in his arms as she trembled, and his tears mingling with hers. That his son might endure the same thing—ah Goddess, so far from home, from his parents, his mother who knew what it was like—or, worse, that the dranath had such a stranglehold that weaning him from it was impossible—
“Maarken?”
Using his cousin’s broad chest as support, he pushed himself upright and straightened his spine. Terrifying, how he could feel Pol’s ribs against the stump of his left arm, and yet be convinced in his mind that he felt it with his hand as well.
“I’m all right,” he said thickly. Amazing, how often he had to repeat that these days to convince others. He wondered if this time he said it to convince himself. “So is Rohannon.” He knew that one for a lie. “It’s—complicated. I must find Hollis immediately.”
“Then sit down while you do it. You’re white as a dragon’s tooth.”
He did as suggested, seating himself on the steps of the keep. Everyone was in the courtyard, waiting while the mirror was lashed to a horse’s back with an arrangement of wooden struts and many blankets to keep it safe. Maarken wondered crazily what the man inside it must think at being taken without a by-your-leave from Skybowl, where he had lived so long without anyone’s knowing he was there.
I’m turning as mad as Kazander, he thought—and sought the sunlight, and Hollis, and sanity.
But he cursed his cowardice for not telling her that their son was taking dranath, and for keeping her from following him back to Skybowl so that she would not see his maimed arm.
*
It was less difficult than she’d anticipated, coaxing Sio-nell from the children’s sickbeds. There were nurses aplenty, and Chayla was due to look in on them soon. So when Sioned took her Namesake’s arm and pulled her gently but firmly from the room, Sionell went without too much protest.
They sat silently beside the fire in Sioned’s bedchamber. At first she thought the young woman might nod off to sleep, lulled by the warmth. When Sionell finally looked up, however, Sioned saw that nothing short of a powerful sleeping-draught or a Sunrunner’s weaving would make her close her eyes.
Sioned had been considering her words for some time now. They were simple, in the end: “It will grow worse before it grows easier. I know.”
“You’re the only one who does.” She wilted in her chair as if speaking exhausted her. But she who had been so silent for so many days about Tallain kept talking— calm, composed, explaining herself to herself more than to Sioned.
“I didn’t really believe it. I was still hazy from the drug they’d given me to get me out of Tiglath. I was about as alert as poor Rabisa. I didn’t understand. And then when the words made sense, I suppose I was in shock. I don’t remember much. I was thinking about the children, mainly. And all the people I’d brought with me, getting them fed, finding places for them to sleep. I think I resented Ruala, and how efficient she was about it all. I didn’t have anything to do.”
Sioned nodded. “Yes. Go on.”
Long fingers twisted the fringes of an embroidered pillow. “Other women have lost their husbands. They come to me and I listen to them and they cry, sometimes. But I can’t, Sioned. I can’t let them see me cry, but that’s only part of it. I keep thinking that I should, and when it does happen it’ll be so bad that I won’t be able to stop. But I try, and I can’t.”
“I didn’t bring you here for that.”
“I know you didn’t, and I’m grateful.” She sank deeper into the chair, long legs in battered riding leathers stretched out before her, one boot propped on the hearth’s iron fender. “It’s strange. I don’t dream about him. I don’t wake up and think I’ll find him beside me. It’s as if he’s visiting somewhere, or out hunting for a few days. I suppose that’s because I didn’t see him die.” Sionell met her gaze, blue eyes dark with compassion. “Not like you.”
Once again Sioned nodded.
“Do you dream about Rohan?”
“No.” She hesitated. “Not since the first night,” she added, remembering how she’d begged Meath to hold her. “But then, I don’t sleep much. When I do, it’s because I’m too tired or too drunk to do anything else. I recommend the former. Neither really works, but at least exhaustion is socially acceptable.”
“What do other people understand about this?”
“Not as much as can be any use to you, but more than you think. It hurts them to see you hurt. They want to help and know that they can’t, and so they’re both grateful and suspicious when you behave as if you’re coping with it on your own.”
“That’s exactly how it is,” Sionell said. “And you want them to leave you alone, but being alone is just as bad. And there’s so much to be done, so many people that have to be taken care of—there’s no time for it, Sioned.
No time to just sit and keep telling yourself it’s true until you really start believing it. That he’s gone and you’ll never—“ She stopped, biting her lip. “You’re the last person I should be saying this to. I’m sorry.”
“My darling,” Sioned murmured, “you’re the only person I can hear it from. Say what you need to say. I understand. He’s gone, and I’ll never see him again. I know what those words mean.”
“Yes,” she replied. “He’s gone. I’ll never see him again.”
And, having said the words, they said nothing else for a very long time.
*
It was the oddest sensation—like an invisible insect flitting around the edges of his thoughts—and it was happening again. For the second time that day Saumer twitched his shoulders and grimaced. Havadi, Prince Kostas’ captain-at-arms, stared at him.
“My lord? Are you feeling well?”
“Fine.” He wiped out the latest map by smoothing the dirt with his boot, then began drawing again with a long stick. “Maybe if we divide up into three groups instead of two it’d confuse them enough to get most of us past. They’re not very creative when it comes to tactics.” He sketched the river, the keep, and three flanking lines around the Vellanti position. The third line wavered and the stick broke as he flinched again.
“That’s it,” the older man stated. “We go nowhere and do nothing until you’ve had some sleep.”
“No, I’m fine, I—“
He never finished the protest. Havadi’s face, round and seamed as a sun-dried berry, vanished into a swirling mist of colors—deep reds, blues both dark and pale, shot through with luminous iridescent white. He felt himself drawn into them, with a feeling like a warm bath and a good wine and summer breeze—but the water tingled against his skin, the wine was like none he had ever tasted, and the wind smelled of colors he had never dreamed existed. The voice that accompanied that beautiful, frightening vision was softly reassuring but very firm.
Close your eyes, Saunter. There’s nothing to be afraid of. My name is Hollis. I’m Lord Maarken’s wife. No, don’t pull back, stay just as you are. That’s it. Can you see the pattern of my colors, Saunter? Here, and here— that’s right. You can see them because you are a Sunrunner too, young prince, like your Aunt Alasen—inheritor of the Kierstian faradhi gift if not the Kierstian green eyes.
He knew he had landed very hard on the ground, but the jar up his spine and the rock that dug into his palm seemed to be things felt by someone else.
You must trust me, Saumer. You felt something earlier today, didn’t you? That was my son Rohannon. But he didn’t know how to pattern your colors. I do. Look. This is you.
And against his closed eyelids he saw a marvel of green and black and dark gold, all curves, angles, crests, hollows, shining as if it had captured sunlight in its faceted depths.
“My lord! Saumer!”
Someone was shaking him by the shoulders. He opened his eyes and saw Havadi’s worried face. Frowning, he said, “Stop it, don’t distract me.”
“From what?” The man’s eyes were pale slits of fear.
“Sunrunning. Damn it, now I’ve lost her!”
“Lost—?”
“Lady Hollis.” He shut his eyes again, shrugging off the captain’s grip. “Where are you? Come back!”
I’m right here. And he was within the gentle rain of color again, and smiled. I heard you that time—not your voice, though I saw your lips moving. I heard you on sunlight. You’re very good at this, considering you didn’t even know you could do it until a moment ago.
You mean— He heard his own voice inside his head and gave a start.
Yes. I heard you repeat what you said with your thoughts. And now that you’re a little more comfortable, there are things I must tell you. The first of them is that you must not attack the Vellant’im.
But I have to get past them and— Once more he astonished himself. I really can do this, can’t I?
Yes, you really can.
Goddess.1 It’s fantastic!
I’m glad you like it, she replied wryly. But you must listen to me, Saumer. There’s another way to get into Lowland. Be silent, and I’ll tell you how.
It seemed a very long time before he opened his eyes again. Lady Hollis was gone, and the colors around him of blue sky and green grass and brown dirt were just colors. Havadi crouched beside him, fairly trembling.
“I’ll be damned,” Saumer mused, then laughed and sprang to his feet. “I’ll take your excellent suggestion, Havadi, and camp here again tonight. Tomorrow or the next night a rainstorm will blow up from the south, giving us enough cover to get inside Faolain Lowland.”
“M-my lord?”
“Goddess, I can’t wait to have a bath in hot water instead of a half-frozen creek, and sleep in a real bed, and—“ Laughing again at the total befuddlement scrawled across the man’s face, Saumer said, “It’s all right. Really. I know how to get in. Lady Hollis told me. I’m a Sunrunner, Havadi.”
“A— But you can’t be, my lord! I mean—“
“I know, I know. I never had a clue. Nobody did.” All at once he lost all impulse to humor. “But I wonder if Lord Andry—“
“If he did, would he say so and add another faradhi prince to the bunch? He has enough trouble, to his way of thinking, with the one who already knows what he is.”
“Pol? Mmm. Yes, I see.” When he smiled this time, it was with smug satisfaction. “I’m going to like being dangerous to the Vellant’im.”