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An Education

Silence becomes the Son of a prince,
Brave in battle:
Merry and glad
Until the day of his death.

When they stopped for the night, it occurred to the King that he had no idea where he was to sleep or on or under what. He hesitantly put the question to Harald.

"Egil will pitch our tent; watch how he does it. I'm pairing you with Knute; his partner got hurt up north, staying with friends till he's safe to ride. Spare tent half, bedding, on my remount. Not exactly what you're used to."

Egil showed him how two squares of tightly woven wool, supported on three half-lances—the cats carried two-piece lances, ten feet of pole being a nuisance when not in use—went together to make a tiny tent, barely big enough for two people.

"What do you do if there's only one of you?"

"Hope it doesn't rain. Or make a half sized tent and knock it down every time you crawl in and out."

"We sleep on the ground?"

"Bedding under you. It's not so bad if you shape the ground to fit."

Caralla's voice behind them. "Cats like to wake up stiff and sore. It makes them fierce."

Egil didn't even look up. "Hammocks are fine in the woods. Out here, by the time you finish lashing the stand and staking and unlashing and unstaking, you've lost half the day."

By the time he had finished speaking, she was gone. He backed out of the tent, pointed to the shallow hollows he had scooped at hip height.

"Don't suppose you had an older sister?"

The King shook his head.

"Some folk have all the luck."

Around the fire with Harald's decade, the talk turned again to tents, the King conceding that the cats' version was considerably more portable than his.

"You think your pavilion is a pain to lug around, should have seen His Imperial Majesty's. Damn thing took its own pack train."

Faces turned to Harald. It was the King who asked the obvious question.

"How did you happen to get a look at the Emperor's pavilion?"

"He wasn't using it at the time."

The voice out of the dark was Caralla's.

"After the battle, Father talked one of the cacades into taking charge of it. Their remounts and the Emperor's pack mules lugged the thing over the pass. Took the whole family two days to get it set up in the back meadow."

"Just what every meadow needs." That was one of the cats; listeners, King included, responded appropriately.

"Don't laugh. Silk hangings, tent poles banded with gold. By the time the story spread a bit, every highborn in the Imperial army had gold tent poles and chests full of silver and jewels. Made it easy to raise troops the next time." Harald fell silent. Someone poked the fire.

The King's first chance to talk to Harald alone came the next day, when the column halted at noon to breathe the horses and feed the men. He took it.

"Why did Andrew's captain lie to him about the Lady Commander? There must have been a reason."

"How did he say she died?"

"He didn't." The King looked down. "I don't think I wanted to know."

"Close your eyes in a fight, might not open them."

"Everything was going wrong, sliding out of my hands. I might have swallowed my pride, taken your advice. But with her dead . . . You made it plain enough."

"Never in your hands. Emperor wasn't. I wasn't. Order wasn't. Your own lords aren't. Luck, things go right for a week. Life isn't a picture."

"I thought, if something went wrong, I could always put it back."

He looked down the long column of cats and Ladies, beginning to mount up, turned back to Harald.

"Last time, just before you showed me I didn't run the world, you said something about how you came by your broken arm. Afterwards . . . I wondered."

"Someone tried to kill me. I figured you for the most likely."

Harald whistled, the mare came, the King's horse followed. Both men mounted. The King spoke. "I was still hoping to put things back. Dead is dead."

He looked back at the column of Ladies.

"Mostly."

Five days later they drew rein; Harald pointed ahead.

"Fortified village. Sell us sheep, maybe oats. Want to come?"

The King gave a surprised look, nodded.

"Anyone asks, 'James.' "

The leader of the village welcomed Harald and his friend, pointed proudly to the sentry over the gate.

"Last fall, a big band came by, thought a wall meant something inside it. I figure the armor saved two, three lives. In your debt."

"You made it. We got a bed for the night, food—fair trade. Trouble since?"

"Wolf pack burned out two, three houses north of here. Not us."

When they left the village Harald was poorer by several gold pieces, richer by sacks of oats—some ground to meal—and a small flock of sheep. The next day was spent dealing with both. James—Knute had tired of addressing his tentmate as "Your Majesty" and the rest had followed his lead—was given brief instruction in converting oatmeal to oat cakes, spent much of the day at it while his companions handled the messier job.

James looked up from the fire to find Harald watching him, nibbling on a cake from the stack.

"Best warm."

"I think I've got it, but some of the ones I did first . . ."

"Always the horses."

There was a long pause, smells from the larger fires where meat was being prepared. James was the first to speak.

"Back home, they smoke meat for days, weeks sometime."

"Keep it for months, too. This'll be gone in a few days. Then beans if we can cook them, oat cakes, dried stuff while it lasts."

James hesitated a moment before speaking again:

"What should I have done? When I thought the Lady Commander was dead. It was wrong to hold you, but . . . you could come back with an army."

"Why didn't I?"

James looked over the busy scene, gave Harald a puzzled look.

"This isn't an army; could have brought ten times as many. Two thousand cats, near that many Ladies, good as anything you have, better than most. Me commanding. You can raise eight thousand—if everyone shows up. How long before some of your lords decide a king who tears the alliance apart, hires bandits to burn out their people, isn't what they want? Estfen, married to Estmount's sister, they move together. Or North Province, River. Once two go, balance swings, out of a job. Some might think they could do it better. Might be right. Way I saw it, you took my daughter's mother prisoner, maybe killed her, tried to kill me. Why didn't I come back with the host?"

James smelled something burning, turned three oatcakes, considered.

"Think, boy. Useful habit."

There was a long silence; finally James broke it.

"The Emperor."

"The Emperor. Doing his work for him. Told you back then. Every Lady you kill, every one of your people I kill, one less. Pretend war. South Keep, had to kill for real to get 'Nora out alive. Pulled some north, got a friend to spike a barrel of beer with nightbells, saved what I could. Next year, year after, I'll need them."

"It didn't work. Maybe it couldn't. But I'd talked with people from the wars. Heard stories. We needed cats, Ladies, you. How could I hold for a lifetime when the best third of my army could stay home if it felt like it?"

"Henry did it. Thirty years."

"Mother said . . ."

"Your mother had singers to sing pretty ballads about honor and glory to folk as hadn't seen a thousand lancers die on the legions' spears. Ballad, you just have to be brave. Seen a lot of brave men die. Killed some. War, do with what you have. Never did figure out how she thought he was going to hold the legions after he finished trying to conquer us. Sing ballads at 'em, maybe."

Harald turned, wandered off; James returned his attention to what he was doing. When he was done he sorted out the worst of the scorched cakes and went looking for horses.

The next morning they again headed north. A day south of the Borderflood they made camp. Harald sent out scouts, Leonora messengers. Two days later, one of them came back.

Early morning, a column of horsemen riding single file south, bows, quivers, leather armor. To their left, half a bowshot or less, the forest, right the plain, rolling in long waves to the western range dim in the distance. Two scouts ahead, one left near the forest edge, one right riding for the ridge top.

Out of the forest arrows, men and beasts falling, horses bolting for the plain, riders clinging to the side away from the attack. Over the ridge. On the far side, a hundred yards beyond, a line of cats. A storm of arrows.

Harald yelled out something in a language James had never heard before. Everything stopped. From behind a dead horse, one of the nomads stood up, bow in his left hand, right hand empty, yelled something back, turned, yelled something else to what was left of his force, most of them behind the bodies that provided such cover as there was on the flat plain. Those that could stood up; James noticed that the first had an arrow sticking out of the back of his right leg. The battle was over. Cats, dismounted, hurried over to do what they could for the wounded.

Later, while the cats were helping the few unwounded nomads deal with their dead and James, feeling useless, was watching, Harald brought over a pair of saddlebags.

"War leader had them, not Westkin work. Take a look."

The saddlebags were heavy. Each was half filled with leather bags. James opened one, spilled a handful into his palm, bright in the morning light. Most of the coins were new minted, the Emperor's face not yet blurred by wear.

When Harald returned, the gold was back in the saddlebag; James was looking at two scrolls, one still sealed. He unrolled the other; both bent over to read.

At the top, words, numbers:

60 boge. 30 e fur, 30 madn, 60

At the bottom, in a different hand:

Moondark, three days after. Meadow east of Sunsign house. Turlogh knows. Password: Strayed horses. Counter: Dappled?

Harald spoke.

"Read Tengu?"

James nodded. "Sixty bows, thirty emperors before, thirty meadow, sixty. But the rest is in our speech."

"Some of the Westkin learn it, mostly from us, speak it, read it. Probably their war leader did."

"Sixty bows. Is that how many men they had?"

Harald nodded.

"Thirty emperors in advance, thirty when they reached the meadow, sixty sometime later?"

Harald nodded again. "The Emperor is getting generous in his old age—two gold pieces each."

James looked up: "Where were they going?"

Harald pointed at the rest of the writing, stood up, went off to help with the funeral.

The mound finished, a fire was kindled above it. Harald and two of the surviving nomads gave long speeches of what sounded like poetry in the Westkin tongue. The survivors were sent off to a nearby village, some in horse litters, a decade of cats for escort. Weapons and gear of the fallen—what had not gone into the mound with the dead men and horses—was loaded on the surviving horses along with most of the nomads' supplies. The next day James looked up from his thoughts, saw a hill in the distance crowned with walls. They camped near its bottom. Harald set off for the gate—accompanied by Leonora and a king unsure whether to feel surprised.

Eyes followed Leonora; nobody gave any sign of recognizing James until they were alone with Stephen in one of the smaller buildings near the hall, a guard outside the closed door. The North Province lord embraced the Lady Commander, then turned to the King.

"How may I serve Your Majesty?"

"Tell me what has been happening."

"Your cousin sent word to me, I suppose others, that you had been taken prisoner by the Senior Paramount, feared dead. Word of you or him to the castle, or to one of his men staying at the Sun in Splendor, an inn south of here. I am to be ready to call out my levies upon a day's notice."

The King turned to Harald. "By your leave, I would send Andrew word that I am well, the Lady Commander alive and in authority over the Order."

"Your Majesty is free to do as you desire. I have no claims over you."

Leonora spoke: "And I postpone mine until a time better suited to deal with them."

James thought a moment, spoke slowly. "As to your claims against me, I give you self judgment—name what I owe and I will pay it, to the limit of what I have. My lord Stephen, you are witness. Find me foresworn and you are released from any duty you owe me.

"Best I bring word how matters stand to my cousin myself. Can you provide men to guide me?"

Stephen nodded. "Thorvald and his brother know the roads from here to the castle. The inns too."

Harald spoke:

"To Stephen's borders I will escort you, with your leave. Farther south risks misunderstandings. The Sun is a day's ride beyond. From there the castle is two days' more. By my council go quietly, eyes open."

"I will not travel in such state as to attract attention. Once in my castle, I am safe with my cousin and my own men."

"Safety is scarce, in castle or out."

The King turned back to Stephen.

"Before I depart, one matter more. The royal messengers are from this hour dissolved and without authority. I trust you to deal with the matter in your province, word to Brand in his. I will speak with the others."

Stephen nodded.

 

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