The War, page 9
“Your aid is accepted with thanks,” said Captain Murray, but it was plain that he was angered.
“I did not seek to be chosen,” said Captain Rhodes sharply, between his teeth.
“Nor did I say aught against your coming.”
They looked at each other in silence, dark eyes challenging dim ones, holding, flickering, dropping, returning.
“We have retaken the city,” said Captain Rhodes at last, twitching the silent contest of will behind them. “It was a simple matter; they had turned out nearly all their men upon you, as it seems.”
Captain Murray’s lip lifted in something like a sneer. “Truly you leave a trail of success behind you.”
Captain Rhodes made no answer to this. His gaze, sweeping away, suddenly lit on Mordred and that bright, boyish smile flared out. “Mordred Kenhelm!” he exclaimed.
Mordred answered the smile, with the sense of coming out of sleep. The wind beat on his brow, stirred his hair. The sun was sinking toward the west. So much was in the world that he seemed to have never felt, or had forgotten from the time he was a child of two or three. He lived, and lived unscathed at that.
But others—Mordred remembered Lanerad, remembered piercingly now, the blood falling all over, everywhere, and the mangled neck and shoulder, and Fenris—where was Fenris?
As Captain Rhodes wheeled his horse toward the city, Mordred turned and sped over the dull, bloodied ground.
“Fenris!” he called, raising his voice higher, louder. “Fenris—Fenris!”
It echoed lonely and answerless off the mountains.
“Fenris—” he cried, again and again, crossing and recrossing the gruesome field.
And then a slim figure was moving in the distance, calling back to him, and Mordred had leapt across the space and was clasping his brother close, holding him back to look for injuries, drawing him close and tight again.
Fenris was safe and whole. For the present, all other fears faded and the world was still.
CHAPTER 9
QUIET WAS THE CAMP AT nightfall. Men had taken lives, seen lives taken, many that day for the first time; silence and sobriety reigned over each one in his tent. Into one of those tents Captain Rhodes came unnoticed, and strode across to a young soldier who sat kneeling on the ground and staring intently at his sword drawn before him on the stones.
“Mordred.”
Mordred started and looked up, and rose to his feet. “Captain Rhodes?” he said softly, the statement framed as a question.
The captain hesitated, uncertain or unwilling to speak whatever was on his mind. “The general . . . the general said to me, before I left Mitheren, that spies are being chosen to go among the leader’s army. Jedediah Crayes is to be one, of course. He did not say it in so many words, but I believe, Mordred, he had you in mind.”
Silence hovered between them, for the time it might take a man to draw a breath.
“Only if you are willing,” Captain Rhodes said quickly. “You need not, Mordred. The danger is terrible. If they should catch you, it is torture . . . ”
The word hung, ugly, twisted, in the air.
“ . . . and at the last it will be death—no matter what you tell them it will be death, for it is always death for spies. None will think the less of you if you should choose against such danger; warriors of long seasons tremble at the thought of it.”
“I do not fear danger,” said Mordred.
And it was true. He was young, strong, and quick in mind and body. And while he had no delusions about war, and hated passionately its wastage and cruelty, at Captain Rhodes’ words his heart stirred, his pulse quickened, and a strange excitement gripped him. “I do not fear danger, Captain Rhodes. Tell me what I must do.”
Captain Rhodes surveyed him. And fearless he looked as he stood there: young and tall, his head high, his grey eyes gleaming proudly. “A swift horse you must have; it is near forty miles from the pass to Orden City, and you will do best to see the general before another day is past. And, Mordred—” But the captain broke off short, and the two men’s eyes met.
“I can tell no one,” Mordred finished quietly. “Is that not what you were about to say, Captain Rhodes? Very well; I can bear that, too.”
Presently he continued, “I should leave now, then, before Fenris senses anything amiss. Find me this horse, Captain Rhodes, and I will depart.”
Captain Rhodes put a hand on his shoulder in concern. “You are willing to go immediately? I confess, I had hoped you would be, but are you certain?”
Mordred looked away sharply. “I am certain,” he said. “Let us go.”
Several men looked up as Mordred left the tent with Captain Rhodes, but none marked it as important. He will come back soon, they thought.
But he did not come back.
~
Jedediah Crayes was sitting on a handsomely carved wooden chair, its back padded with cushions and hung with fine damask velvet. That is, if sitting is the word for reclining at an outrageous angle, with one’s right foot on the floor and one’s left leg draped over the armrest. Jedediah Crayes’ black brows had met over his eyes in a scowling V, and he was tapping his fingers on a small table at his side. “A nuisance,” he muttered. “A perfect nuisance.”
What exactly was a nuisance he left to any possible eavesdropper to try to fathom.
In fact, the nuisance was presently that the general wished the man of the military council’s choosing to accompany him in his spy work. Who this man was, however, and when he would turn up, nobody would inform him. As if he needed an assistant! As if he had the time to sit about waiting for the Runnicorans to knock the Elerien Mountains down and ask for a cup of tea! As if any of these refined, over-cautious little Ordenian lordlings had the time. What an absolute, blithering nuisance.
Another nuisance, now that he was thinking about them, was this police officer from Delgrass. Plainly the fellow had heard of Jedediah Crayes, and whatever he had heard, it had not been of the down-to-earth variety. He treated Jedediah Crayes with a nervous awe that almost amounted to servility, and Jedediah Crayes, who despite the soothing touch on his vanity despised people making fools of themselves, was deeply vexed.
Grumbling under his breath, he rose lightly, paced to the window, and turned to walk the room with the quick, coiled strides of a caged lion. His mind had moved on to the council last night.
“Defense will not win the fight,” the general had said. “But for now, it is our only path. Though defense may not secure us victory, attack will lose us the war before we know what has come upon us.”
“And you’ll all be running around like chickens with their heads chopped off,” Jedediah Crayes had put in, and sat back savoring the startled, sidelong looks that he usually received upon his rare contributions to the councils.
A pleasant memory, but an all-too-likely scenario. The more reason for him to be on his way to the Runnicoran army in short order, eh? Jedediah Crayes repeated his question peevishly to the room in general, settled himself by the window, and tapped his boot against the floor.
It was several minutes later that he heard hooves, and glancing out beheld a lathered horse flying over the stones two stories below, slowing to a stop beside the stables. The rider dismounted and led it in, reappearing shortly and heading with long, graceful strides for the tower. He was tall and dark-haired, and easily marked out as an infantryman by the leather jerkin he wore—scant protection, but stamped with the insignia of Orden’s flag.
Interesting, thought Jedediah Crayes.
He got up and left the room.
~
“A Mordred Kenhelm, footsoldier, General,” said the servant.
The general’s head jerked up, and he nodded slightly. “Admit him.” He stepped aside from the table and greeted Mordred as he entered.
But Mordred crossed the room swiftly at once, and drawing his sword knelt before the general. “You have my service, my general, in whatever way you choose to use it.”
The general bade him rise, and searched his face deeply. “Captain Rhodes has told you, I see,” he said at last. “Your presence alone shows that. Tell me, have I forced your decision in any way? I do not desire that you enter into this against your will.”
Mordred lifted his head in an unconscious, proud gesture. “I chose it, my general, and I do not wish to turn back.”
The older man nodded. “So be it. Now I had thought thus, if you came, that I would assign—”
He broke off short. Mordred stared at him curiously.
“Jedediah Crayes,” said the general, “you may join us if you wish.”
Mordred followed the general’s gaze, and one eyebrow shot up his forehead. For either the person reclining negligently against the wall had been in the room before, unnoticed, or he had entered and shut the door with no noise whatsoever. “Well met, Jedediah Crayes,” he offered, courteously enough. “I have heard something of you recently, I think; it is evident you are highly thought of. Who are you, and what do you do?”
The general’s eyes widened.
Those of the man called Jedediah Crayes started half out of his head. He inhaled between his teeth and took a deliberate pace forward. “I am,” he said menacingly, “the greatest person in the world.”
Mordred’s eyebrow soared again; his lips twitched. “The greatest person in the world,” he murmured with an utter lack of expression. “I see.”
Jedediah Crayes’ mouth opened soundlessly, his face reddening. After several failed, seething attempts at speech, he resumed in tones carefully articulate and trembling with indignation, “Many people in my life, nay, a great many, have failed to recognize me, but I have had yet to meet a grown man of twenty ignorant of my existence. What kind of brass impertinence—”
“I am sorry, as you must be well-known indeed,” Mordred replied, the amusement running through his voice plain to hear. “However, I am not from Orden; I have only lived here for a few months.”
“Orden!” shouted Jedediah Crayes.
“Mordred,” the general interposed quietly, “the name of Jedediah Crayes is renowned throughout Legea. Suppose you tell us how he is unknown to you.”
There was no rebuke in the general’s words; Mordred nodded in quiet compliance. “Renowned throughout Legea? Maybe so, but the orphanage is a place where toil comes first and news second, if at all. It is possible that I heard his name before; but I thought nothing of it, and he certainly was not widely noised. Besides”—his tone stirred with an edge of scorn—“it is not often that the people of Rehirne take a care for the things they do not know, still less what they dislike. And I doubt they would have liked you.” And suddenly Mordred turned a smile on Jedediah Crayes—a wide, impulsive grin, wholly genuine. And the general looked at him in wonder, thinking, I have not seen him smile so before.
“Rehirne!” Jedediah Crayes demanded like a kingfisher diving for its prey. “That’s the wreck where you grew up?”
“Aye,” Mordred acknowledged, the traces of the smile lurking suspiciously about his serious face.
“Bah! Rehirnish.” Jedediah Crayes waved his hand dismissively. “Idiots, the lot of them. ‘Let’s lock up all the orphans and make them do the dirty work!’ But good grief, I didn’t know they’d taken to raising them in perfect ignorance! ‘Let’s lock up all the orphans and make them do all the dirty work and pretend Jedediah Crayes doesn’t exist!’”
He pulled up short and fixed Mordred with a shrewd stare. “But if you’re Rehirnish, I’m the daughter of the Man in the Moon.”
Mordred returned his gaze with an almost mocking light in his eye. “And supposing I were Rehirnish?”
Jedediah Crayes, once again, sputtered.
But the general spoke now. “Jedediah Crayes, it is good that you came. This young man, Mordred Kenhelm, I would have be your fellow spy if you are so willing. He is possessed of integrity and great courage, and is moreover intelligent, quick-witted, and in all ways highly suitable for . . . ”
“What?” Jedediah Crayes howled. “This impudent rascal, this arrogant brat—this disrespectful beggar boy—my partner? My assistant? You must be mad! I won’t put up with this—I won’t, I tell you—and that’s that!”
Mordred winced as the door slammed violently behind his lithe figure. “Well, that is rejection for you. A pity; I think I should have enjoyed working with him.”
“I must get you food and lodgings for the night,” the general murmured, bending over his desk a moment, “that you may rest; for you must be sorely wearied and Jedediah Crayes will want to leave at first light.”
“Leave . . . ” Mordred stared at him. “But I will not . . . ”
The general shook his head. “I cannot say that I know Jedediah Crayes well, Mordred Kenhelm—I think there are none who do—nonetheless, I should be much surprised if he has truly rejected you.”
~
Jedediah Crayes barged into Mordred’s room as night was drawing near.
“I suppose you have nothing to pack,” he said unceremoniously. “Well, what are you sitting around in here for? What possessed the general to slap you off to the nether regions of the castle instead of to me, who is, I might add, supposed to be instructing you in the ways of this job? It would be one matter if you were experienced in espionage! But no, they saddle me with a country brat of eighteen who knows next to nothing, and, in the bargain, hasn’t got a civil tongue in his head . . . ”
Mordred noticed that Jedediah Crayes had mentioned his age correctly this time; but he made no comment on it, only remarked, swinging his legs over the bed and following Jedediah Crayes from the room, “I shall soon be nineteen.”
“Indeed,” Jedediah Crayes returned with a shocking degree of civility mellowing his tone. “And what is ‘soon’?” The sarcasm returned.
“The seventh of May.”
“That is soon,” Jedediah Crayes conceded grudgingly. And then, “Oh, drat.”
It was Inspector Dickson coming down the corridor toward them. At first he had eyes only for Jedediah Crayes, whom he gave a wide and respectful berth, but in so doing he came straight by Mordred, and when he saw him pulled up short.
“What are you doing here?” he asked.
Mordred tilted his chin, the anger surging up like poison into a festering hurt. “I have not heard that I need answer to you for all my comings and goings, Inspector Wilhelm Dickson.”
Inspector Dickson’s lips tightened. “I only thought that your garrison was gone away to Adun Cerien,” he said in a low, angry voice.
Mordred shrugged insolently. “They were,” he said. And he brushed past Inspector Dickson down the hall.
In Jedediah Crayes’ quarters, Mordred watched the other man wander in an exceedingly aimless fashion around the room, kicking furniture in and out of place and muttering to himself. Suddenly he rounded on Mordred. “Too much, I suppose, to hope that you can read and write?”
Mordred made no attempt to conceal his amusement. “Is it too much to ask why you consider me an unlearned barbarian?”
Jedediah Crayes glowered at him. “I take that to mean you can.”
After a minute he muttered defensively, “I can’t be too careful, you know. Don’t have a high opinion of these Rehirnish orphanages.” Abruptly and completely switching tone and manner to that of amiable inquiry: “Speaking of that, if you aren’t Rehirnish, what are you?” In a menacing parenthesis: “None of your sauce, either. I know you aren’t.”
Mordred’s mouth quirked slowly in a wry, laughing look. “I believe my family’s descent is in the old houses of Thiredanian nobility.”
“Oho! Now that’s a fine tale to fleece on me. Nice try, Mordred Kenhelm.”
“Oh, I assure you it is far more credible than the other half of the truth.”
“Tell away,” said Jedediah Crayes, looking amused in his turn.
Mordred shook his head.
~
Jedediah Crayes narrowly studied the young man across the room. A prettier enigma he’d never seen. Those grey eyes, laughing at him so infuriatingly a moment before, were suddenly cold and closed. Who was this absurd creature? He looked—and acted—the part of a penniless young lord, had supposedly grown up in Rehirne and those ridiculous orphanages, possessed more than a nodding acquaintance with the General of Orden, and on top of the lot claimed to have never heard of Jedediah Crayes. Certainly he spoke more audaciously than anyone had spoken to him in years, and that included peasants, who were too awed, and lords, who were too dignified.
Now he was refusing to give the ‘other half’ of this half-cooked tale of noble heritage. When you came right down to it, they all were the same, these poor young men: they wanted to impress. But no, Jedediah Crayes was not impressed. Look at him, the fine young actor! Showing an appropriate level of hesitancy, proud but fearing not to be believed, and obviously itching all the while to let it out. “Go on,” Jedediah Crayes invited. “Go on; give up the other half like a good boy.”
“No,” said Mordred, with a quiet, final stubbornness.
Jedediah Crayes’ short temper ran out. “Why not!” he shouted.
“Because you will assuredly laugh at me, and I don’t care to be laughed at.” Mordred’s voice remained cold and quiet.
Jedediah Crayes looked at him again, somewhat taken aback. The statement had less the ring of a youth who realizes his bluffing has gone too far than one who has told more than he wishes and intends to tell no more. “I see,” he said. “No, I won’t laugh at you; but now I should truly like to know what is this your family history.”
“So be it,” said Mordred, his chin lifted arrogantly into the air. “You may inquire into it if you have doubts, for he is in Mitheren now. I am brother to the king of Dirion.”
Jedediah Crayes stopped himself in time from whistling, from snorting, from laughing, from any number of things that he wanted and had promised not to do. Mordred was correct; he could verify it whenever he desired because Ahearn of Dirion had come to Orden City with a thousand horses to the aid of his sister country. Now, he leaned forward and scrutinized the young face.
