The War, page 18
Jedediah Crayes rose and stretched, and beckoned Mordred to move on again.
“We’re on the run from the law—so to speak,” he remarked, a glitter of excitement lingering in his eyes. “Isn’t it fun?”
“There is no law in war.” The phrase came back to Mordred, a phrase he had heard or read somewhere, and he uttered it aloud.
“That’s not true,” said Jedediah Crayes sharply, with unexpected rebuke. “Don’t you ever say that. There is always law, in war just as there is in peace, and the one who abides by the law just the same is the one whom the men in future years will hold up to their sons and say, ‘Be like him.’ The ones who don’t abide by it—well, they’re the kind that start wars like this in the first place.” He strode on, his eyes glinting moodily under the black V of his brows.
As the first warm hints of the dayspring touched the mountains, they glimpsed Mianu in the distance, her white turrets sparkling as they found the light.
“She’s free, anyhow,” Jedediah Crayes said, somewhat cynically. “Thanks to your game of touch-and-go with that prig of a Runnicoran Paraki. Do you know what a horrific risk your tactics were?”
Mordred wondered idly how Jedediah Crayes was so well acquainted with his actions. He only said, aloud, “I am sure you devote yourself to avoiding risk, Jedediah Crayes.”
Jedediah Crayes sputtered, his mouth opening and shutting in inarticulate outrage. “You—you—how dare you, you saucy—”
“I suppose I shan’t have to be Sinethar any more,” said Mordred, the realization breaking on him.
Jedediah Crayes tossed a look of quick scrutiny his way. “Well, that’s good news, because it looks like you don’t have much disguise left on you.”
Mordred laughed outright. “I guessed it was wearing off, and I planned to ask Igurst to touch it up last night, but that never happened after all . . . and I suppose Lord Mirden managed to slap away what little was left.”
“The little . . . ” Jedediah Crayes paused and whatever epithet he had been going to assign Lord Mirden remained forever unknown. “Whatever he hit you for, I daresay you provoked him to it, you unspeakable brat.”
Mordred tossed his head with a disrespectful grin. “It’s very hard to say nothing to stupid people.”
At the gate, Jedediah Crayes fidgeted in impatience as he waited for the guards to come. “The-stars-shine-in-a-circle-and-the-mountains-are-red,” he gabbled rapidly, and when the loosing of the bolts seemed to take too long for him, he nipped a small pendant out from around his neck and dangled it in the guards’ faces.
“What is that?” Mordred asked as they walked into the city, motioning to the coppery object.
Jedediah Crayes slipped the chain over his head and handed it to Mordred. “This? Just a medallion, engraved with a tree. Serves to identify members of the Legean Association. We use it as proof of our authority when necessary.”
Mordred handed it back. “Did you really have to show it to them for them to let you through?” he asked, a suggestion of teasing in his tone.
Jedediah Crayes harrumphed and said nothing.
“Not seeing the general yet?” he observed after a time.
Mordred looked at him questioning.
“I notice you’re heading for the barracks.”
Mordred nodded. “Unless they were moved, my division is here. I’m going to ask after Sergeant Garin.”
“You still consider yourself part of that division?” Jedediah Crayes barked with laughter. “You’re not even in the army right now.”
“My brother is there,” said Mordred. And there was so much in those words, so much that could barely spill over into speech, and so he repeated them, his heart bursting with love and longing. “My brother is there.”
A short time later he approached the building where he had been directed, Jedediah Crayes still trailing behind him. He came towards the door, but before he even reached it Marcus came at a run towards him, his face shocked, exclaiming, “Mordred!”
“Yes, I’m back.” Mordred could not manage a smile for Marcus. He suddenly felt strangely, deathly tired.
“Mordred!” Marcus still stared at him. “Mordred, Kenneth’s dead.”
He understood, perfectly. “Kenneth is—dead,” said a voice that must have been his own, but the words made no sense. All the balance in the world seemed suddenly, completely gone—
~
Jedediah Crayes snatched Mordred as he pitched forward. “Look, I don’t know who you are, or who Kenneth is, but it strikes me you could have found a slightly more appropriate time to bless our ears with the information. The stupid boy doesn’t know how to take care of himself and he’s half dead on his feet. Get him to a bed before he passes completely out.”
He really ought to let the general know that the little fool was back safe and sound. And, furthermore, start thinking of possible ways to explain himself when he got back to the Runnicoran camp. Jedediah Crayes directed his steps toward the tower Mithissa. He wondered momentarily what Mordred’s other brother was like.
CHAPTER 17
“MORDRED, WHERE WERE YOU?”
Mordred stared doggedly at the stew on his knees and ignored Marcus’ honest, curious question. He knew, if he ignored the questions long enough, they would stop asking them. But that did not make it any easier to ignore them while they lasted.
He felt betrayed inside. He had yearned so to come back, to have the companionship of the people he loved, and he had not anticipated the crushing blow that met him, that destroyed all the joy of the reunion. Nor had he thought of the silence he still must keep, and the strain that put between him and them. For he still was in service as spy—as far as he yet knew—and it remained a danger for the truth to leak out to anyone’s ears.
“What happened last night? And who was that man with you?”
“Marcus, let me alone,” he said tightly.
“Marcus.” Bardrick got up, and drew his brother away.
Mordred stared at his bowl of stew and let it slip disinterestedly to the floor, leaning forward to rest his arms on his knees. He wished he had never come back—never, never. It was all wrong, it was no use, nothing was the same anymore.
“Mordred, eat.” It was Braegon who came up to him and retrieved the discarded bowl to set it gently on Mordred’s lap again.
“I cannot.” He loathed the stiffness in his words, yet it was all he had to keep his pain from spilling over.
“Why?”
“Do not speak to me!” Mordred cried in agony, and hurled the bowl away as hard as he could. “Do not hound me with your questions!”
He sprang to his feet. “Where is Therelane?” he demanded accusingly, his pain and desperation forming themselves into an anger that needed to lash out. Not wanting to hear the answer that he knew already, he spun around and fled the barracks.
When he stopped running, his legs were like water under him and he panted fitfully. He looked up at the tall, smooth pillars that ornamented the front of the hospice building, and after a time walked forward and went inside, and asked after Therelane Grey.
It was quite some time before he could find anyone who recognized the name; and more time before anyone could direct him to the right ward. But at last he approached the cot where the figure of Irene’s young brother was lying.
Therelane’s eyes were shut, but his mouth was set in a way that indicated wakefulness. His cheeks seemed sunken in, his hair sweat-matted and rough.
“Therelane,” said Mordred gently.
The eyes snapped open, fixing on him. “Mordred?” He sounded astonished, disbelieving.
“Has no one else come to see you?”
Therelane’s look of surprise faded into listlessness and he gazed dully into the distance. “Irene has not let anyone come before now. She said I was too ill.”
“Irene, your sister?” Mordred was surprised now. “She is here?”
“Yes.”
Something in Mordred cringed at the horrible flat indifference in Therelane’s voice. It was—it was like the way he had been once, when nothing seemed to matter, but only because there was so much pain far beneath . . .
He knelt by the bed, casting aside the empty surface inquiries. “Therelane, let me see.”
Therelane’s wall of lifelessness snapped. “Look then,” he said quickly, roughly, almost sullenly, and turned his face into the bed.
Mordred turned back the blanket. Therelane’s left sleeve was a chewed mess; out of it emerged a scarred, bloodied, swollen stump that looked as repulsive as the ruined hand itself had been. Burns seared across it where they had pressed an iron to stop the bleeding. It was not a sight at which one wanted to look for long.
Mordred looked. He forced himself to look at it as long as he could bear, and longer.
“I’m sorry, Therelane,” he said quietly.
A convulse shuddered Therelane’s rigid body and he began to weep, the tears running in a silent stream down his half-hidden face.
Mordred caught Therelane’s one hand in his own, and held it, steadily, fiercely, clasping as though his grip could transfer vitality and comfort by its strength. He did not let go all the while that the tears flowed, and even when they stopped, still he held fast.
“I missed you, Therelane,” he said.
Therelane stirred, and turned his head. “Me?”
“You and everyone.”
The soft, light eyes studied him, clouded with weariness and but no longer void of life. “Mordred, you look—you look like you ought to eat something.”
Startled, Mordred stared at him and shrugged it off with a quick smile. “I’m all right.”
Therelane’s face cracked into a weak, shaky laugh. “Mordred, d-don’t be ridiculous.”
Mordred tossed his head. “Well, I’m sure I can’t look worse than you do.”
“Mordred!” Therelane sputtered into another laugh.
“You’re grinning like a sheep again,” declared Mordred smugly.
They looked at one another for a short while, and Mordred was aware that the thought of going back to the barracks did not seem half so bad anymore, now that Therelane was all right.
“Mordred,” said Therelane slowly, “one more thing, if you would not mind.”
“Yes, Therelane?”
“Would you let go of my hand?” Therelane wiggled his fingers feebly in Mordred’s crushing grasp.
Mordred glanced down and loosened his fingers, realizing they ached. “Is it all right?” he asked, with a slight feeling of foolishness.
“A little numb.” Therelane flexed his hand with that reassuring, silly sheep-grin.
“I have been away a long time.” Mordred got up. “You know I’ll come back, Therelane, as soon as I can.”
“Aye, Mordred.”
~
Braegon feared and worried for Mordred all the time that he was away from the barracks. He had not seen him so truculent and unstable since Fenris’ scar and illness. But when Mordred returned, there was a measure of peace in his face.
He helped himself to a portion of stew, and ate three bowls of it straight without a pause. A small, contented smile lifted ever and anon the edges of his mouth. And when Fenris approached him, he did not avoid him as he had done before, but clasped him in a tight, loving hug.
~
“Come,” said Irene briskly, “let me see it.” She whipped the blanket away from Therelane’s arm, and Therelane, who had been relaxing rapturously in an unwonted lack of self-consciousness about his injury, felt his chest tighten and the twisting dread return.
His sister’s capable fingers seemed like they must belong to someone else, a stranger who did not care about him, as they painfully probed the stump. “There’s no dangerous infection—not yet. To all appearances, you’re making a proper recovery. That doesn’t mean it hasn’t the potential to turn foul, of course.”
If only Mordred had not gone, he thought wistfully, shutting his eyes, waiting for Irene to finish and leave him alone. If only—
Then a coldness as sharp as Irene’s voice checked him. It was selfish, very selfish of him, to fret because Mordred could not stay.
It’s not. I am lonely, and I want to be happy. His self was quick to retaliate against his conscience.
To sulk because you want something you cannot have? To ask the world to bend every way for your own wants? It is selfish enough. You know the resentment in your heart. Prove rather that you can be patient and enduring without every wish met. Bear yourself like a man.
He saw his innate selfishness a little more clearly than he ever had, and it was not pleasant; it made him defensive, and frightened him. But he refused to hide from it or cover it up again.
~
Mordred was back the next morning, with a ready-springing smile, and was quick to tease Therelane that he needed to wash his face.
“Well—you look like you need to sleep,” said Therelane. He meant it. Mordred seemed cheerful, but there were unusually dark shadows under his eyes.
Mordred shrugged it off with his usual, “I’m fine.”
Therelane gave up. It was never any use to argue with Mordred.
He wanted to ask if Mordred had been in Mianu the day the troll had injured him. He thought he had a memory of seeing Mordred’s face right before the mace fell. But he half suspected it was a false memory, or a delirious dream, and he did not want to ask and be disappointed.
“Therelane.” Mordred’s voice broke in, clear and suddenly grave. “I’m leaving Mianu again.”
“Oh.” Therelane took this in silently. “Is everyone else going back to Orden City?”
“I’m not going with them. I have to go—away.”
“Why?” Therelane was bewildered, more bewildered than he was sad. “You just came back to us.”
“I—have to.” Mordred’s voice and face were strangely tight, as though he were stifling what he wanted to say. His eyes seemed to be looking on a world of things that Therelane could not see. “I need to.” He sighed and looked back at Therelane. “I wish I could stay. I will come back.”
And with that swift, pleading promise he rose and strode out of the ward.
~
“Men, we’re leaving,” said Sergeant Garin, entering the barracks. “Get together your belongings and form ranks.”
A scattered response of “Aye, Sergeant” murmured throughout the room, and men bestirred themselves.
“Where are we going?” asked someone.
“With the city safe for now, the general’s orders are for half the troops to be withdrawn again to Orden City,” answered the sergeant.
They were a more organized group than they had been a fortnight ago; it was a bare quarter of an hour later that they marched out of the barracks quarter and through the city’s streets.
Fenris’ mind was not on the road under him, or the sheer walls of the pass on either side. He was lost in the painful, tearing memory of last night.
“You will be all right without me, Fenris? You must.” A strange strain had lain upon Mordred’s face; it seemed sharp and hollow. He had not slept the previous night, Fenris knew. He had seemed content at first after seeing Therelane, but an unexpected restlessness soon swallowed up the peace, and he had been distracted and ill at ease.
“Are they making you go, Mordred?”
“Fenris, you mustn’t ask me that question. Nay—no-one is making me do anything.”
“But you want to stay.”
“I can’t.” And Mordred would say no more.
“Where are you going?” Fenris asked in one last, desperate plea, so puzzled and helpless that he felt as if he would break.
Mordred shook his head, caught Fenris firmly in his arms, and whispered, “Goodbye.”
And Fenris watched his older brother walk away, the one he loved more than anyone else in the world, and though he did not understand Mordred’s departure, he knew that Mordred was hurting. And he knew why.
~
It was the second day before the soldiers reached Orden City, Captain Murray at their head. As they passed by Mitheren, a horseman rode out and intercepted them, bringing the march to a halt.
“Captain Rhodes?” said Captain Murray with a stony incredulity.
“I was watching for your return,” said Captain Rhodes. “Is there a word from the general for me?”
“Aye. There is report that the Runnicorans are moving up towards the Thesta, and he is riding northward. He wishes you to take command of Mianu.”
“Very well.” Captain Rhodes wheeled his horse aside.
“What lies between them?” muttered Braegon as the column began to move again.
Golin overheard him. “Aye, the captains? Well, the whole story is anyone’s guess, but at least one root of the problem lies in their backgrounds. Finley Rhodes acquired his position as captain the way our general did, by the hereditary office. But Captain Murray came of poorer stock. He worked his way to where he is now, and as far as anyone can see he resents Captain Rhodes, because though Rhodes seems to have great favor in the general’s eyes, Murray sees him as a stripling not worthy of his place. They’re rivals, really.”
“Rivals over what?” Braegon shook his head in wonder.
“Over the general’s favor, of course. They both see him like a father—do not we all? But they are the youngest of the captains right now, and he oversaw their training, so—” Golin shrugged. “They have more reason to look up to him than many.”
Braegon nodded slowly. “It is foolish.”
“So it is.” Golin laughed shortly. “Men of high degree can afford to be foolish like that. Would that I had the luxury of fighting over the general’s approval with another!”
Braegon did not laugh at the jest. “They are no children,” he said. “They must be closer to thirty than twenty. They should not be making such childish enmity.”
“Watch your tongue,” said Golin with raised eyebrows. “Not but that I and many others wouldn’t agree with you, but it’s hardly wise for a private to voice such words.”
