The War, page 11
“Well, well. A turn it gave me, I’ll own; and I wasn’t sure he wouldn’t recognize me under all my guise for a moment there. But it all smoothed out, and you acquitted yourself splendidly, so let’s try to keep it that way.”
~
Mordred leaned drearily against a tent pole.
In one morning he had discovered that there was nothing for a soldier to do, save an odd task here and there, and to hobnob with fellow soldiers.
How untrained they must be!
Nay, they were quite well trained—so much so, in fact, that they needed only to drill once every three days.
Still then, ’twas the ideal situation for a spy.
Aye, the ideal situation, thought Mordred bitterly, if that spy but spoke the language! He must have roamed half the camp by now. Everywhere it was the same.
They despised him.
In different degrees, in different ways, they all scorned his failing, from open derision to genuine pity; and though they understood him perfectly, speak to him they would not. Nor was Jedediah Crayes at hand; Mordred had not seen him since the early dawn, when he had departed on some mission of his own among the labyrinth of dull-colored tents. So the hurt of loneliness, and the hurt of rejection, and the hurt of failure, with his weariness from last night, all weighed upon his spirits. Tired and despondent, he slid to the damp new grass and slept.
When he woke, a voice was speaking in his ear, low but distinct.“ . . . so that they maintain order in the . . . ”
Startled, he sat up.
The sun was nearing noon; he had been asleep for some two hours. Staring all around, he saw and heard no one; and when he pressed his ear against the rough tent canvas, nothing more fell on his ears than a light babble, a mere susurration. He sat up again and frowned down at the place where his head had lain. And then he saw it: a small rip close to the base where a corner of the heavy fabric had been torn away. He held it with his fingers, guided his ear to it, and the words jumped out at him with startling clarity.
“So. What have you to say?”
Mordred knew that implacable voice from the red-patterned tent last night, and the image of a dark, sunless sea swam into his mind. But the unpleasantly smooth one which answered was a stranger.
“It pleases me well, Paraki. As you say, I have done work for you in Orden before, and no man can find an accent in my words to betray me. Naturally it is different under actual warfare, but considering the heightened danger I go into, as well as the long years of service behind me, the wage might be raised . . . by a third again?” The question tailed off suggestively.
“Your price is the same as all the other spies I employ, Blackthorn,” replied the leader with a peculiarly chilling dryness. “And you will take it if you wish to continue with your ‘long years of service’.”
“Aye, Paraki,” the man called Blackthorn muttered.
“You have always been an apt learner, Blackthorn. I commend you for it.”
Silence fell for a while, and then the leader spoke again.
“Do you understand your directions, then?”
“I slip into the refuge city Mianu, disguised as an outlying farmer driven from my home, and from there travel to Orden City and present myself as another straggler joining the army.”
“Precisely. Save that . . . ”
“Save that I bring with me a recommendation from a lord suggesting to promote me at once to lieutenant.”
“Not ‘a’ lord. Lord Archlas of Grinaz Hall. Men bringing testimonials from lords of high standing are not vague.”
“Lord Archlas of Grinaz Hall,” amended Blackthorn sulkily.
“Speed is crucial. With every day that passes, fewer will grow the recruits and greater will suspicion be on the remainder. Take a horse and ride speedily; you may sleep in Mianu tonight if you depart at once.”
“I hasten, Paraki,” returned the other.
Two sets of footsteps walked across the tent.
Mordred sprang to his feet and ran, afraid with a blind and unreasoning terror lest one of them should come around and find him there. His heart flailed like a wild thing trapped within his breast, its thundering driving out his thoughts. He dodged around one—two tents, ran past several more, rounded another, and found himself facing the broad, placid Dirion River with its ceaseless flowing waters. The nightmarish feel of being hunted faded.
He could think again, and he was thinking, with a quick, shaken process, but quite rationally.
Where was Jedediah Crayes? No, there was no time to look for him. The leader had spoken in ignorance, or else sarcasm, when he said that the man might sleep in Mianu tonight; it was scarce twenty miles from the place, and he might be well on his way to Orden City by sundown if his plan unfolded well.
With purposeful strides Mordred made his way to Captain Alétun’s tent. He buckled on his sword, and picked up the small Runnicoran crossbow by his bed. He led his saddled and bridled horse until the camp was long out of sight.
~
Mianu, called the Refuge City, had been built in older days by Thireler the Conqueror, when the threat of werevultures was great and the inner parts of Orden were still rife with evil things, and it was from the inside that the attack was feared. Adun Cerien had not been a walled city then but a squat tower, garrisoned to fend off and hinder attacks on that city. Now, on the west side of the Elerien Mountains, with all her fair towers facing the old threat to the east, Mianu was the most vulnerable point in Orden’s defense, and the one at which any enemy would throw his most concentrated force. The leader had already tried once to open the passage from within, by way of Adun Cerien and Lord Mirden’s treacherous assault. So Mianu’s inhabitants were chary of those whom they let within their walls.
The guards on the rampart first saw the rider when he crested a hillock and came galloping over the plain. They watched him drawing near, reining in his horse and hammering on the gates. The sun was not far past its zenith; as he tilted up his face to look at them, they saw that his garb and equipment were as a soldier of Runnicor.
The wind bore his words up to them.
“Gatekeepers! Have you no entry for a traveler in haste?”
One man strode to the edge, cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted back. “Who are you, Bold-tongue, who come to us arrayed as one of the enemy? We are not such fools! Try the West Gate of Orden, where they will shoot you for your pains!”
The rider swayed in the saddle, and remained there a moment with his head bowed. Then he raised it again and called, “Will you not come down and hear me face-to-face? Surely there is a hatch in this gate that may be opened. See, I am taking off sword and bow, and my knife as well. I will meet you unarmed.”
So several went down and opened a barred hatch in the wood of the gate. The man, having dismounted, came swiftly over and gripped the iron rods in his hands.
“I am no Runnicoran,” he pleaded, “nor yet a deserter from Orden. My name is Mordred Kenhelm, and it is the general’s business I am on. I beg of you, let me in!”
“Business of the general, aye,” one of them muttered. “Maybe the business of stabbing him in the back!”
“Peace, Ceth,” commanded the sergeant. “Look you, boy. You have given us no explanation of how, if not a soldier of the enemy, you come to appear as one of them.”
The young man’s face became grimmer. “Look then, sergeant. If I am not of Runnicor, nor one who has joined them, then what am I?”
The sergeant’s face changed. “There is . . . another thing you might be,” he said cautiously. “But you should have given us a password, if you are—that.”
The man’s dark head dropped, pressing wearily against the bars. “Jedediah Crayes meant to teach me last night, but we had no time,” he murmured. “Fool that I was to forget . . . ” Suddenly, proudly, he lifted his countenance. “Now you will not let me pass. But I tell you I mean to pass all the same.”
“Nay, nay!” The sergeant held up a hand. “I tell you truly, sir, that if you are what you say I do not wish to hinder you. But answer me this: if you have seen Jedediah Crayes, how is he in appearance?”
“He is about two inches below my own height, sir, and of lean build. His hair is black, as are his eyes, and his nose is thin and curved, so that his aspect reminds one of a hawk. In his face there always seems to be an eagerness, or perhaps it is better called a hunger.”
“And his manner?”
“That is difficult to say, sir, for it is constantly changing. He is terribly short-tempered, but can regain his cool in the blink of an eye. He has an enormous vanity and makes allusions often, though sometimes veiled, to his own intelligence. He can be irritable, pleasant, angry, sarcastic and smug in the space of a minute. Some people, I daresay, find him unbearable; but he is quite amusing really, and not bad when you get to know him.”
The sergeant whistled and moved to undo the heavy chains. “’Tis as good as a password for me; though I’ll own I never heard any call him amusing. Maybe he has mellowed in the last six months.”
The young man, Mordred Kenhelm, retrieved his weapons and led the horse through. “Thank you, sir. Is there one of high authority in this town?”
“Captain Rhodes took charge of the defense preparations yesterday. You can find him in the tower Mithissa, which is that way, along the Street of the Nobles. Anyone can direct you to it.”
“Again, I thank you.” He swung up into the saddle. “One thing more—have you let anyone else through the gate today?”
“One man, an aging farmer whose lands the enemy took and burned. That is all.”
“Was he riding?”
“Aye, he was riding a horse. Tired, it was, but finely bred.”
“Ah.” The young man’s face was tense with a hidden strain as he nudged the horse’s side and trotted down the street.
~
“I must send to the general immediately,” said Captain Rhodes as soon as he had heard the news. But he frowned and something plainly troubled him.
“What is it, Captain Rhodes?”
“It is . . . it is that I cannot go myself, and I know of none I can trust enough with the message.”
Mordred took a pace so that he stood directly before the captain. “Send me.”
Whatever protest the captain was going to make he stifled, and finally he said, “As you wish. You will need a steed of swiftness. Take one of the dragons from the runs in the southern quarter.”
Mordred’s eyes shone with an eagerness he could not conceal. “I? A dragon?”
“A dragon,” Captain Rhodes assented.
“How would I—is it hard? Should I know aught?”
“Nay, save that being much like a horse in handling, they are still bigger than the biggest horse, and thus more dangerous. Other than that, it is not hard. The beast must know you are the master, that is common sense. It has a harness to fit over its head, and will be trained in steering with a bridle like any land-bound mount. The motion is different, to be sure, from the gait of a horse, but it is far from uncomfortable. Nay, you can have no difficulty with a dragon.”
Half an hour later, Mordred sat in a leather saddle cinched to a black dragon’s back between the stubs of two spikes. Behind him was the warm interior of the building where they had found and harnessed it, above him a dimly blue and ever-dimming sky.
“Nudge her with your heel,” said the stableman.
Mordred dug a heel tentatively into the hard, leathery skin of the creature, so different from the soft flank of a horse. Against his calves and underneath him he felt a powerful surge of muscle, and suddenly the ground and the dragon run and the stableman were all below, and there was only the vault of darkening sky about him and the world spread out like a living map beneath. He felt the beat of the great wings on either side, the steady rhythm of the toiling muscles, the stream of air in his face.
To ride a dragon, he realized, is a glorious thing.
And he was glad. It would be a pity, he thought, to ride and not to realize.
~
The stars had not yet come out when he landed in the courtyard of Mitheren. He hastened inside, and by a miracle was able to see the general almost immediately. Quickly he outlined to him the message.
“He will most likely come here directly after his arrival; he may be calling himself Blackthorn, but perhaps not. I know not what he looks like. You will know him by his letter, which purports to be from Lord Archlas of—I cannot remember the name.”
“Grinaz Hall?”
“Grinaz Hall, that is it. It will contain a recommendation that he be promoted to lieutenant.”
The general nodded. “Aye, he is a well-known man and a trustworthy friend of mine. I would have accepted any request of his. Well, ’twill be but a simple matter to check the seal, and if they have managed to get that aright we may put several questions to him. Sooner or later we shall trip him up. You expect him to arrive tonight?”
“Very early tomorrow at the latest,” Mordred answered.
“You shall testify as well, then, before you leave. You did not see him; but you would recognize his voice, I hope?”
“I would recognize it, my general.”
“Good.” The general smiled and clapped Mordred on the back. “Well done, Mordred Kenhelm. Two days and you have already foiled one plan of this leader’s. You must be careful, or Jedediah Crayes will begin to grow jealous.”
Mordred laughed. “We shall see.”
~
The sun of early afternoon glanced across a distant bank of trees folded around Mianu’s white turreted gleam, striking some with golden-green fire and leaving others to linger in a sober contrast of dark grey-green. Ahead, in the direction that the horse was steadily cantering, the Dirion River shimmered a deep, royal blue, and its surface glitter was like a starry crown.
Yet the mounted patrol hurtling towards him as an arrow to the mark seemed to have naught to do with the beauty of the day, with the trees or river.
Mordred reined in, and waited for them.
~
Flanked by soldiers, his weapons confiscated, Mordred walked behind a stiff-faced Captain Alétun into a small tent distinguished as the private quarters of an officer by the scarlet pennant affixed to its ridgepole.
The man seated within looked up—a stout individual with deep-set, narrow eyes. “This is the one, Captain?”
Captain Alétun jerked his head in a nod. “Aye, Lieutenant.” He wheeled and stood to the side.
The lieutenant stood. “Give your name, boy.”
“Private Gerald Richardson,” Mordred answered distantly, tilting his head in a deliberately provoking manner and wondering with a detached part of himself if he could be the same person whom the general had smiled at in the warm rush-lit room in Mitheren.
The man frowned. “And what have you to say, Private Richardson, concerning this breach of conduct? Your captain accuses you of an entire day’s absence when he had given you no leave.”
Mordred lifted his shoulders in an insolent shrug and pointed to his bow which another soldier was holding. “Are your men not allowed to hunt for their own pleasure?”
The officer’s cheeks reddened. He sucked in a slow breath, and the yell he gave made even Captain Alétun wince. Most of what he said, Mordred could not understand, as it was at least half in Runnicoran, but none of it sounded complimentary in the least.
And I would be appalled, too, he thought with that distant, cool part of himself, if I had been just sassed by an absolute prig a third of my age.
Knowing it would do no good, he said simply, “My apologies, sir.”
The lieutenant glared wildly at him. “Your apologies!” he roared. “Captain Alétun!”
“Aye, Lieutenant.”
“Five lashes for unsanctioned departure, and ten for insubordination.” His chest swelled angrily, the red spreading down his neck. “Now get this werevulture out of my sight!”
~
Jedediah Crayes glanced in all directions and stepped into the silent tent, pacing noiselessly as a cat over the matted grass.
Mordred was lying on his stomach, head pillowed on his arms; his shirt was stained dark across the shoulders. His blanket lay carelessly half across him. “Little fool,” muttered Jedediah Crayes.
He bent down on one knee. “Little fool. I could have talked myself out of it.”
He tapped him on the arm and Mordred’s eyes flickered open. “It’s all right, there’s no one in here; they’re all out at the drill. By the time they’re done, I shall be back with them. Now tell me, what on earth was that for?”
“Insubordination,” said Mordred and winced involuntarily.
Jedediah Crayes waved his arms in disgust. “I know why you were flogged. I even managed to hear an account of your conversation with that lieutenant, and it’s a wonder you didn’t kill him with an apoplectic fit. I am Jedediah Crayes. What I want to know is why you left!”
“It was . . . a spy. The leader sent a spy into Orden.”
“A spy. And you just up and left? For pity’s sake, why didn’t you let me know? I could have made up a perfectly good excuse for you to be gone. I could have gone myself—I should have gone myself!”
“There wasn’t time.”
“Huh. And what about getting in? I didn’t teach you a single password yet! Don’t tell me they let you in without one!”
Mordred smiled faintly. “They did.”
“Really! How about you do some—never mind. Did you actually manage to succeed in this rash endeavor?”
“Aye.”
“Well . . . that’s good, I suppose,” said Jedediah Crayes with a grudging note of praise. “You did well, all things considered. But did you have to sass the lieutenant?”
“I knew they would ask me straight away why I was gone, and I dared not give them the chance to press me. There’s a great deal in a tone. If I had said, ‘I was hunting, sir,’ in an ordinary respectful way, it would have looked queer to them, especially because I was gone for so very long a time. And they would have remembered I am Ordenian, and the game would be all but up. At the very least they would be suspicious, and there would have been questions and more questions. But if a man is insulted, he might not stop to think of those little things. So I—I used my newness to the army to my advantage instead, and played the role of a stupid lord’s son who has known nothing but having his own way. And it worked; I am rather good at acting proud.” Mordred gave a slight, wry smile.
