Fire in the Blood, page 43
Kallan chuckled. “A lot of us don’t, outside home. Do you know what clan he was in? Why he left?”
“No,” Brin said. Havilar had told him enough of what followed Mehen out of Djerad Thymar though. “It was something to do with his father. He left someone behind, someone I suspect he’s still tangled up on. So maybe it’s better if you don’t bother.”
“Thanks,” Kallan said, pushing the door to the High Helm open. “I’ll keep it in mind.”
Mehen sat alone at a table near the bar, beside two dishes of fish stew. A handful of patrons, including a fair number of halflings, held a scattering of the tables. A bored-looking keghand stood behind the door. Brin waved for an ale.
Kallan hesitated beside the table, then took the seat beside Mehen.
“They’ve got rooms to spare,” Mehen said. “Desima’s gone up to hers. Havi’s still out in the stables. Here’s one for you—” He passed Kallan a brass key, then looked to Brin. “I figured I’d wait and see if you and His Highness needed lodgings here.”
His Majesty, Brin thought. The keghand set down a flagon of dark ale that Brin suddenly didn’t want. “I’m going to go find Havi,” he said. “Be right back.”
“Take your time,” Kallan said.
As Brin turned, his eyes lit on a figure descending one of the High Helm’s many staircases, Constancia, pale and hollow-eyed, her tabard rumpled. Her shield arm hung in a sling.
She stood perfectly still, watching Brin for a moment. Then she rushed to him, pulling him close with her uninjured arm.
“You’re safe,” she said. “Ah, thank the gods, you’re safe. I have been praying and praying and praying. Trying to divine the right path. Asking for guidance.” She straightened and cupped his cheek. “I suppose the answer was patience. I should have known you’d come back.”
“Maybe that’s what made the difference,” Brin said. “We found him.”
“Irvel?” Constancia said.
Brin nodded. “He’s at Lord Santedul’s manor.”
Constancia stared at Brin as though he were a ghost. “You found him? With … that creature?”
“Four days,” Brin said. “He was sheltering in an old temple. The protections wouldn’t let the war wizards’ scrying in.”
“Well,” Constancia managed. “Well, I’m glad to know he’s well. You were right, Aubrin. I beg your forgiveness.”
“Don’t,” Brin said. “We’re fine.” He thought of Havilar and the resurrection and Foril, and swallowed. “I heard about King Foril.”
Constancia looked grave. “So much the better you’ve found the crown prince. We need to return, and soon.” She squeezed his shoulder. “I should have gone back for you.”
“It’s fine,” Brin said again. “I had Havi and Mehen with me.”
“Yes, of course,” Constancia said, dropping her hand.
“In fact,” Brin said, “I need to go talk to Havilar. I’ll be right back.”
Out in the rain, Brin’s panic bubbled up to the surface again, urging him to take to the road, to flee wherever he could reach. He pressed it down, steering himself to the stables. The smell of damp hay and manure laced the air, old and steady, but there were no horses stabled here. Havilar stood at the far end, her back to him. The hellhound was trying to follow her as she backed away from it.”
“I know,” Havilar said to the dog. “But you can’t come inside. You’re too big and you’ll scare everyone.” She rubbed the creature under the muzzle. “If I bring you a fish, will you eat it? Will that make you happy?” The dog whined and gave a short bark. Havilar sighed and sat back on her heels, looking at her fingers. “Fari, I think I got the better deal, but I wish I could speak hellhound. Ask Lorcan if he knows how to.” She paused, as if counting the last words of a sending. “I miss you.”
“I think you should give her the fish,” Brin called, startling her. “But maybe keep her muzzle on.” Havilar pursed her mouth and turned back to the dog.
“I was going to come in,” she said. “I just wanted to get her settled.”
“Can we talk about—”
“I don’t really want to talk about any of it,” Havilar said. “How was I supposed to know this wasn’t allowed? How was I supposed to stop Moriah from running off? How was I supposed to stop Asmodeus—”
“Hush.”
“No, you hush. I get it—I make things harder for you, but they are not exactly easy for me, all right? And now I’m stuck and I don’t even have Farideh, so I’m going to talk to Zoonie, if I like, which means, yes, she needs a name.” Her attention fluttered, agitated, from the floor to the straw to Brin. She sat down beside the hellhound, who licked her hand. “And honestly, I don’t want to make things hard for you. I don’t want you to … Maybe you’re better off without me.”
“Foril died,” Brin said. “Irvel should be king now.”
Her eyes went wide. “Oh gods. I’m sorry, Brin.”
An explanation of the changed crime was on his lips, a warning for how seriously she needed to take this—she could be executed. But it failed. What would it accomplish anyway? She already felt guilty and conflicted, and he knew in his heart of hearts he would do anything to make sure the worst didn’t come to pass. He sat down beside her.
“I am so stlarning scared for you,” he said. “For me, for us. These are problems that I can’t even fathom how to solve.”
“I don’t think you can,” Havilar said. “I don’t think anybody can, not just yet.” She sighed and scratched the dog behind the ear. “But maybe you’re right, it doesn’t help in the meantime. Maybe we are doomed.”
Brin’s heart squeezed as he put his arms around her, held her close. “Don’t decide, please. Not until we get back to Suzail.” He hesitated. “I’m not leaving you.”
“Yet,” Havilar said. “And you know that’s true.” The dog whined again and licked her hand, its eyes on Brin. “Be nice,” she said.
“Why’d you call it Zoonie?” Brin asked.
Havilar kept her eyes resolutely on the stall’s corner. “I don’t want to tell you. You’ll just get mad and think I’m being stupid.”
Brin laughed. “I would not. I can’t think of a name you would give it that could make me mad.” Havilar took a chapbook from her bag and handed it over to him wordlessly. The Secrets of the Obarskyrs.
“Oh ye gods,” he said. “Is Zoonie short for Azoun?”
“No,” Havilar said. Then, “Azoun is a boy’s name. I thought she could be Azounarella. But that’s too much to say.”
Brin smoothed the folded cover of the chapbook. “I like it. Just don’t tell Constancia. Who’s in the inn, by the way.”
Havilar sighed. “Well, I’m glad she’s all right, but that gives the stables a leg up over the inn room if you ask me.” She patted Zoonie’s side.
“Havi, tell me you’re going to be able to send her back when the time comes,” Brin said.
For a long moment, Havilar didn’t answer. “If I have to. But she’s done nothing bad, you know. And if she’s loyal to me, then she won’t. And I can keep the muzzle on her. It’s not fair to send her back to that place as if she’s doomed by her blood.” Brin said nothing, and after a moment, she sighed. “I won’t decide until we get to Suzail. And if she does anything that endangers us, I’ll send her back. Fair?”
Zoonie gave a pitiful whine and butted her head under Havilar’s arm. Havilar gave Brin a pointed look.
“Fair,” he said.
Suddenly, Zoonie leaped to her feet, to the edge of the chain’s reach, letting out a long, low growl. Something moved beyond one of the windows of the stable—a shambling shape, a rustle of brush. Havilar froze, reaching for the glaive beside her. Brin leaped up, sword in hand, and searched for the source among the growing shadows.
“Nothing,” Brin said. “Maybe some villager getting a peek.” He looked back at the hellhound, at Havilar’s drawn expression. “She’s part dire wolf,” he said. “We’ll say that.”
“I don’t think it was a villager,” Havilar said. “I have a very bad feeling that it wasn’t a villager.”
THE MORNING WAS late, but the sun did not make it through the heavy clouds as Raedra stood atop a dais erected in the Promenade, looking down at more people than she could count. In the carriage beyond, she had listened to the cacophony of so many men and women talking—wondering what this was all about. So many voices, she could not pick out a single statement.
They all bowed and fell silent as she stood before them.
“Make me look like a warrior and a queen,” she had told Nell. And so her purple gown was covered by a steel breastplate and gorget, her golden hair pulled high into a nest of braids. She was regent, so she wore no crown, but no one mistook her for another.
Oversword Greatgaunt had insisted that she write Raedra’s speech to them. Raedra had laid out what she intended to do, deflecting the war council’s initial arguments that it was too difficult, too disruptive, and was she even allowed? Eventually, when they had settled into it, smoothed out the rougher edges, only Greatgaunt remained uncertain and pleaded to write her words.
“My dearest subjects,” Raedra read, as the wind threatened to pluck the parchment from her hands. “Cormyr has come to dark times, like a child trapped in a nightmare, and we must care for it, guide it back into the light.”
One of the women in the front row whispered to her neighbor, a clear sneer on her face.
“You who are Cormyr’s hardiest and most trustworthy—” Servants. Raedra stared at the page. She actually meant to call farmers and woodcutters, miners and shepherds, servants? “Subjects,” she corrected, “must surely hear her cry for aid and rise up, heroes new-made …”
She searched the crowd. Furrowed brows. Folded arms.
Raedra folded the paper in quarters.
“These are very pretty words that someone has written for me,” she said, holding up the paper. “If you’d like to hear them, perhaps I can finish it after I say what I’ve come to say. Because I don’t think you need to hear poetry and fancy from me. You know what you’ve lost. You know what Shade has taken and what they seek to take—our land, our kingdom, our very selves.
“Some of you came here having lost your homes, your farms, your livelihood. You defended them, against all odds, until you had no choice but to flee. Some of you have sent your sons and daughters, your brothers and sisters, into the battlefields, and they haven’t returned. They might never return. Some of you may be wondering how I have the gall to stand before you and tell you that you have more to give to Cormyr. You are not Purple Dragons. You are not nobles. But it is you who will mark the difference between our success and our failure.”
They were silent now, the whispers fled. The woman in the front row watched Raedra, skeptical but listening now. Still stiff, still closed off. Listening, but not on her side, not yet.
“Shade would make us into Sembia, if we are fortunate, and the name of the Forest Kingdom would become as tainted as Sembia’s has become. We will fall into history, colluders and weaklings, the lapdogs of Netheril forever after.
“Such a fate would break my heart,” she told them, “but I will not be the one to suffer—Shade will kill me if they breach Suzail. It will be you, who the Shadovar overtake, and neither you nor I nor anyone truly of Cormyr can let that happen.”
They knew it—she hardly needed to say what would happen, but she saw in the way their expressions shifted, the way the whispering woman unfolded her arms, that they hadn’t heard the truth from someone of her status. Cormyr was in trouble.
“And so any person able to march and carry a weapon who comes to the Royal Court, beginning tomorrow, may swear their oath of fealty. If you do not have arms and armor, they will be given. You will ride the Way of the Manticore, scattering the Shadovar raiders and escorting refugees from their predations back to Suzail. You will be paid as Purple Dragons are paid, your families will be granted the same benefits in the event of your death. When the Shadovar threat is routed, your farms and your villages will be the first that the Crown sees to, and the powers of the war wizards will be given to your aid.”
“Fine talk, Your Highness!” a man shouted. “Take it to yon nobles and tell them to get off their arses!” A grumble of agreement rolled through the crowd. Raedra smiled.
“In a sense,” she called to the man, “that is why I am here. If the defense of your home does not move you, I offer you this:
“Whichever noble family does not do their duty to Cormyr in the efforts of our defense shall have their lands seized by the Crown,” she said, and knew they heard every word. “And those of the common class who take up arms, despite never having sworn oaths to do so, will be allotted a portion of those lands as reward. The finest farm and pasturelands in Cormyr. You will have earned them.”
A new cacophony of voices, but this time, the tone had changed—Raedra heard now the fear in the first commotion, by the lack of it in the second. She held up a hand and spoke once more.
“As my pretty words said: These are dark times. But they are not our darkest, and it is within our power to bring back the light. It is Cormyr who stopped the Tuigan Horde. It is Cormyr who halted the Shoon Imperium. We have weathered goblins and elves, orcs and pirates, dragons and the Blue Fire. And we have never fallen, we have never surrendered.
“Carry that news, if you please,” she said. “Carry it far and wide—right up to High Prince Telamont’s ears if need be, and let him realize that Cormyr is not a prize he can ever win, and I am not an Obarskyr he will ever frighten.”
A wild cheer rippled through the crowd, their fear overtaken by this promise of strength and action. Later, she thought, they will have questions. They will wonder about the amounts and the guarantees. People had to eat, after all. She’d had the overswords prepare for such things, and planned to hold court after highsunfeast.
The Purple Dragons ushered her back to the carriage. Ganrahast was sitting within it, and she knew better than to wonder where he had come from.
“That was quite stirring,” Ganrahast commented. “Did you practice it?”
“No,” Raedra said, suddenly flushing. “It was just true and so it all came out. Did it make sense at least?”
“A great deal of sense,” he said. “Hopefully it will aid you in this next trial: we must return to the palace.”
Raedra’s heart leaped. “Is it Baerovus?”
“No.” He dragged his fingers through his russet beard. “Let us say Lord Erzoured is not happy with his promotion.”
An understatement, to say the least. The moment Raedra stepped into the Hippogriff Chamber, the Baron Boldtree stormed toward her as if he meant to run her down like a charging bull. The Purple Dragons stepped in front of him, but he reached through them to shake a finger at her.
“You have gone too far!” he shouted. “This is nothing but a childish game to you!”
“I can think of a fair few people who make it more of a game, Cousin,” Raedra said. “And a fair few people who would be more pleased with being given the command of an army.”
“So give it to one of them!” he shouted. “Or is the chance to feed me to the gnolls too good to pass up?”
“No,” Raedra said. “It must be you.”
“A commoner to lead commoners,” Erzoured fumed. “Is that it?”
“No,” Raedra said. “An Obarskyr to lead commoners. You’re right—if I had another choice, I wouldn’t send you. Do you think I want you carried back on the shoulders of an army that doesn’t know what you’re capable of? But we are asking these people to risk their lives where we shouldn’t. If they are going to head into the fray, we must reassure them that they aren’t meant to feed the gnolls. And whether you and I like each other at this point is immaterial: everyone knows I do not have the luxury to waste heirs.” She folded her hands. “Nor ignore them.”
Erzoured grew very still. “A pity for you,” he said, but the venom had left his voice.
“I don’t matter at this juncture,” Raedra said. “Cormyr matters. They need an Obarskyr, so it’s you or it’s me and, Cousin, you have much better success convincing old soldiers you aren’t missing your embroidery and dresses.
“You’ll have a handful of Purple Dragons to help keep order, and Ganrahast can spare two war wizards. They’ll fit you with a bootstick, though be wise about its use. You’ll probably get some nobles, too, starting this afternoon—I’m hoping a fair few families buy their way out of this with horseflesh. It would be a great deal simpler.”
“I suppose you have a list of who should be given charge of what.”
“No,” Raedra said. “I leave that to you. I said you were in command; I must trust your judgment. But I will tell you this, Erzoured: If you use this opportunity to try and hurt me, if you use it to harm those in your care, I will be just as merciless with you as I’ve been to these derelict nobles. I don’t have the luxury to ignore heirs, and I don’t have the luxury to coddle conspirators and blackguards.” She smiled. “Now, if you don’t mind, I need to take highsunfeast. I would ask you to join me, but I suspect neither of us would enjoy that, and you have preparations to make.”
Erzoured regarded her for a long, furious moment, as if too many things were trying to fight their ways out of his mouth. Finally, he exhaled noisily. “You are an infuriating girl. Your Royal Highness,” he added.
“Yes, well,” Raedra said, with a cheek she felt she’d earned. “I never did claim we weren’t related.”
TEN DAYS LATER, the Dragon’s Jaws was shut up tight as the festival known as Chasing the King began. Dahl stood by the window of Vescaras’s room, watching for his return as much as the passage of the condemned prisoner playing Mad Boldovar Obarskyr, roaming the streets and trying to survive until sundown when he’d win his freedom. A herd of young children pelted down the Promenade shrieking, “Chase the King! Chase the King!”
Dahl wrinkled his nose. Barbaric practice.
Vescaras stumbled through the door, blood soaking his left shoulder.
“Gods’ books! What in the Hells happened to you?”
