Fifty-Seven
High and low, east and west, wet and dry. In the beginning there was no division, and even now true enchantment lies in seeing the all in the all.
- Ollam Tashadagaye
YRRMARAYN
Ohean nodded to Anson who led them out of of the chamber. As he passed, something came over Sebastian, and he quickly bent to kiss the ringed hand of the King of Locrys, and was first to followed him.
Inark was last, and it was she who saw the tree’s silver rain cease and the branches fold. The chamber was darkening, and when she turned and followed them she could see that the glass walls on either side were dimming and their light lessening. The whole time they traveled, things slowly lost their light, but none knew fear till the walls began to shake and beyond they heard a rumbling.
Iffan laughed and grabbed Ohean’s wrist.
“This is a familiar event.”
They were shaken again, and Ohean said, “It’s not from the Howe. It’s from above.”
Iffan nodded, and now they quickened their pace. Ohean raised his staff and a gold light burned from its tip. Now Inark could see what they had not seen before, doors in the wall, and as they passed, these doors behind them opened up into dark passages. It was a labyrinth after all, but all this time they had been given the straight way to the tomb.
“I built this Howe for times of trouble,” Ohean said. “Only Iffan would be able to open the main way and find the straight path to the tomb. I thought he would return sooner. But the other parts were for men to flee into, and there are several openings. Through many invasions, the Howe has been a safe place.”
Now the glass stones were pulsing a very faint light and, ahead of them, even as there was another shaking, Sebastian could see the pinprick of daylight.
“Master,” he said to Ohean, “this Howe is… old.”
“Yes. And you marvel that I had the raising of it.”
Sebastian said nothing at first, but nodded.
“Well,” said Ohean. “I marvel too.”
And then they were out, blinking in the light of early morning, and Inark had caught Iffan’s hand, and wanted to call him Anson.
“Anson it will be as Anson it was,” said the King. “Iffan was my name an Iffan I will be. But Anson I am.
“You are hungry,” he looked over Sebastian.
“Sir, I can go without food.”
Anson reached into his bag and pulled out a hunk of bread. “There’s water for you, too. I’m afraid you’ll have to eat and trot. I know we are needed back in the city.”
And so they raced over the red brown road, and all about them the morning grass was a wet green. Under thudded horses’ hooves. The sun was rising in a weakly blue sky, but now and again there came the rumbling. As they rode their was an energy to the villages that declared something was wrong, and then the city came into light and the smells came to their noses and as they crested the top of the hill, Anson looked down and saw the black ships on the shore, and heard the clashing of arms. Out on the water, white masted ships with the Green Tree, and those masted with the Black Hand were in engaged. Shots fired from the city walls and off the sides of ships and by now it was easy to tell the Battle of Yrrmarayn had begun.
“To me! To me!” Anson shouted. He had no time to think. Those who saw him had no time to think of disobeying. There was the King on a white horse, with burning Callasyl upraised. And there was his wizard, and there was his squire and… whatever Inark was, and Ohean raised his horn, blowing long and loud.
At the sound of the horn all noise stopped, and then slowly a body formed behind Anson, and with him were many of the Black Riders of Gozen, and now he allowed himself a great smile seeing Kenneth, and beside him, Arvad.
“Lord,” Kenneth said, “if we can move through these crowds like and around and get straight to Phineas’s ship. That will be an end of this.”
“Can we do that?” Anson said to him.
“My Lord, I can.”
“How much time do you need to mobilize?”
“Lord King,” one of the Gold Stars approached him, “if we flank these untrained men on either side, and if you lead us, then Kenneth can do this feat as soon as you say so much as ‘Charge’. It will be like a knife through butter.”
Anson looked to Ohean, who nodded. Then Anson raised his sword, crying, “Fiacra!”
And it was like a knife through butter, but there was much butter, and the butter had swords. Now, alongside them, Anson saw the Tree Folk, and those who were the form and height of elms made quick work of Phineas’s men. Those who were on their side, in their own skirmishes, made way for the King.
There was a tug on Ohean’s cloak, and he looked down to see, on a fat horse, one of the elves with a small ring.
“This is Andvari’s ring.”
“Where are the Hill People?” Inark demanded. “They said they would be here.”
“King Andvari sends to tell my lord,” the small elf said, “that he and his folk are here already, and about to work a feat most wondrous.”
Ohean regarded him carefully, and then he smiled faintly, but just then there was a great shaking and quaking that made him catch his reigns and nearly fall from his horse.
There was a sudden blackness in the sky, and the battlefield was quiet. Ohean felt, despite their progress, the best thing to do would be turn his head for a moment, and see what was behind him. Inark had already shuddered.
Rising up from nowhere, stretching his black, smoky wings to blot out of the sun, eyes flashing like red storms and with a mouth that swallowed all light, came Mozhudak.
VAHAYAN HILL
The Woman, for she had given them no name, came out of the tent, the front of her robe stained pink, blood on her arms.
“More water,” she said, “and assafedeta.”
Wolf nodded and left, and Francis Pembroke stood beside Cedd, both men trembling.
“Queen Myrne said it is a bad birth,” Cedd said, at last.
“And so it is,” the Woman answered, turning to go back in.
Cedd clutched her wrist and she turned around.
“Will she live?”
“I am in charge of her birthing,” the Woman said, fiercely. “She will live.”
She disappeared into the tent where only Myrne and Eva were with Isobel. Ourside of the tent, white faced, Linalla sat beside Adrian who patted her hand as anxiously as if she were the one giving birth. When a scream came from the tent, Linalla fainted on the ground and Cedd growled, “Remove her.”
Teryn, who had been sitting with Cody, stood up, ashen faced and stopped in mid run for the tent, but Cedd grabbed him.
“We all just have to wait,” Cedd told him, squeezing his shoulder and leaving his hand there.
No noise came from the tent for a while and then came the sound of a slap and a baby crying.
“You have a son!” Anthony gripped Cedd’s hand.
“Or a daughter,” Francis said.
Cedd nodded.
“But do I have a wife?”
When more than enough time, or so Cedd thought, had passed, there was another slap and… it seemed, more crying, as if…
“Not possible,” Anthony murmured.
The tent opened and, weary, hair plastered to her face, Myrne said, “Come in, King Cedd. Isobel has given you twins.”
Cedd looked at Anthony in doubt, and Teryn was biting his fist and standing on his tiptoes.
“You know none of us will be able to go in there for a while,” Adrian told him while Linalla, blinking on the ground, tried to right herself.
Cedd went into the tent where the Woman and Myrne were sitting exhausted on either side of Isobel, who seemed almost ruined.
“She’ll need watching,” the Woman said. “And I will remain with her. She’s lost a great deal of blood, and she was really too exhausted for a single birth, let alone this.”
Myrne was putting away the soiled and bloodied bed sheets. Cedd gazed with equal delight and horror on his pale wife, curled on her side, who looked almost like a corpse in her makeshift bedpile. Bundled beside their bundled mother were two infants squalling, black haired like their parents, eyes shut tight.
“I will ride for the village,” the Woman said. “There is still strength in me. These girls must rest. I am going to find a wet nurse. The Queen is too exhausted for feeding them now. She is ill.”
“But she will recover?”
“Yes,” the Woman said, “and sooner than you think. But you have to ride west, to join your brother in defending your southwest border.”
“Damn Anson and damn the border.”
“But you are King,” the Woman said.
“Damn the Crown,” Cedd said.
“Remain if you must,” the Woman said, “but send your armies. I ride to town for a wet nurse. And perhaps a midwife.”
“What is it to you?” Cedd ask the black woman as she left, “what happens in Westrial or to Anson?”
“Or your wife for that matter?” the woman looked at him. “It matters a great deal to me. I am Senaye, and you are the King. For now. Be King.”
SOLAHN
Yesterday, they had ridden across the plains a day and a half, hoping to take the beach before Bellamy’s men arrived. Now, what Iokaste had seen from the back of her horse was Bellamy, his banners of black and green approaching the beach even as their armies were approaching. Long before the general or Prince Hektar rode up to tell her, she knew.
“We will fight them here. Our stand will be at Tauman Beach.”
Yarrow nodded.
“Are the men weary?” Iokaste asked her brother from the back of her horse.
“Weary, yes. But there is fight in them.”
“And how long have Bellamy’s men traveled?”
“As long as we,” the General said. “And they are just as worn out.”
“Save,” Hektar added, “they were traveling before that from Ennsalisa, and that is no close journey.”
No one spoke for a time, and then it was Yarrow who declared, “The Queen should say what is on her mind.”
“If we put down tents and they put down tents we are stalemated,” Iokaste said. “If we engage them right away, the battle is on, plain and simple. Evening is approaching. Wisdom says rest. But how do we know that Bellamy would rest? And see, they are coming closer and closer. I do not trust my husband’s brother to a truce. In sleep he killed my king.”
“Then you would engage them?” the general said, a predatory smile spreading across her face.
“I would have this done,” said the Queen.
“Then we engage,” General Gahr declared, and she raised her spear in one hand and the shield in the other. She beat them together like the ancient plainsmen. And then swords and spears were clattering and the woman said, “Fair Queen only give the word, and we shall engage!”
And with a nod, Iokaste gave the word, and then, clutching the reins of her horse, General Gahr bellowed: “Engage!”
As the night drew on they lit fires on the cliff above the beach.
“I am a queen,” she said to Yarrow, “and before that a princess. All of my life, all of my wealth, my family name, our nobility, is based on battles. On war.”
Iokaste drew her cloak tighter while she watched by torchlight the glint of armor, bodies striving, and heard the dull clanking of weapons, stifled and surprised shouts of pain.
“The truth is I never thought of that until now. The truth is,” she said, “until tonight I had no idea what battle was. Or that it could last so long.”
“The first clash was magnificent. I was terrified. I was filled with dread for sending young men into battle when I knew I would not die. But at the same time I felt what I had never felt, this exhilaration at seeing armies clash. When I was a girl,the women at our court talked of the splendor of battle, the might of warriors coming together. Even then I knew they were fools. I didn’t see anything splendid about it. I didn’t know how a mother could send her son to die, could revel in her husband or her brother waging war. But just for a minute I was one of them, one of those aristocratic second rate battle maidens who watches the blood of others shed and rejoices.
“And now it grows weary. When it began it seemed one side would fall back, another would triumph, but now there is just this weary stalemate, this weary and constant locking of bodies and see, there are their torches lighting the sky, and ours as well. And see, we need a victory. We need something. This is the first battle I have ever seen, and when I think how the history of the whole world is written in the blood of battles such as these, I wonder why we live, why breathe? Why go on?”
The wind carried smoke and the smell of blood, and the firelight played on Yarrow’s face. Her strong, slim hand touched Iokaste’s, and the Queen slipped her hand into that of the enchantress.
“Surely you know that I have seen many of the battle weary ages you yourself only remember from tales,” the enchantress spoke, at last.
“Year upon year, blood upon blood and violence upon violence. I… I will not tell you of the good things, of the lovely things. I will only say that we go on because we do. The violence of men in this world’s realm is surprisingly endless and without loss of energy. But these tire quickly compared to the power of endurance. And so we go on. We cannot help ourselves.”
Iokaste almost smiled, but there was a shout and a yelp of pain, and then both women heard running behind them and stood up, Iokaste a little stiffer from the old pain in her leg and the new pain in her hips. Hektar was coming with a young man who bore a telescope, its brass glinting in the night.
“Look, my lady, look!” he cried, and handed the telescope to her. “There. Right there on the horizon!”
The Queen raised the brass telescope to her eye and stretched it out. She was quiet a long while and then she murmured, putting it down.
“Ships.”
The time between when she put down the telescope and when the ships were plainly visible was a short one. Over and over, Iokaste turned her gaze from the boats to the battle, desiring her people see their Queen beholding them, and not lose courage.
“And still, no matter what,” Hektar said, “Solahnis die.”
But now the ships were close enough, and Iokaste could see the masts were black with the red, roaring heads of tigers, the symbols of Banthra.
“These are corsairs,” she murmured.
But they were waving. Or at least a few were waving from the deck, or jumping up and down, and they were not passing the beach but coming closer and closer.
“Hektar, give me the scope,” Yarrow said.
Yarrow raised it to her eye and then began laughing.
“Yarrow?” Iokaste said.
While the enchantress laughed with disbelief, she handed the telescope to the Queen who raised it and then, having focused, froze. She made no joyful noise, but was utterly still. Slowly she lowered the telescope, unable to believe.
“The one waving is that extraordinary kitchen girl. The Mehta,” Iokaste said, “and beside her, in pirate’s garb, is my son.”
