Interlude: Fall 771
On a gorgeous day in the middle of September, Vivian was sitting out on the balcony of her room, nursing her daughter and watching the everyday business of the courtyard of Nikolad. It was warm, but a cool fresh air that smelled of snow came sneaking down from the blue peaks that edged her vista north, west and south. The past week's rains sang below in the high waters of the Glass River, and the slopes of broken old Mount Nikolad echoed with small rills. Jen sat beside her, drinking tea and refilling Vivian's cup, and all the talk they made was very small. There had been a council meeting that morning, full of news and speculation and analysis, with a sprinkling of hand-wringing as well. Now it all seemed like another life--the continuing decay of the Empire, the ambitions of Khan and Warlord and Duke, the stratagem and finesse and calculation: the sweep of history. Even the strange deceptive chronicle of the Counts of Clane seemed of an unrelated world. Vivian brushed a blond hair from Susan's face and heaved a sigh.
"What's wrong, my lady?"
"Nothing. Really. I'm so happy here, that's all. It's so beautiful, and even the winter wasn't as scary as people said it was going to be, and there's Susan, and all my best friends--you, and Ellean and Angeline, and Sir Rogier, and Miranda, and Mirabel, and I have my Willd, and--well, why should I go back?"
"My lady?"
"I shouldn't say it. I feel terrible saying it. But it's true. I'm happy here. It's just as well, because it doesn't look as if I'll have a choice in the matter, at least not any time soon."
The Clanish remnant was more than surviving in the year 771. The Tarn Valley and the uplands of Westdubbik were enjoying one of the best years in agricultural memory, the Rugians were fighting among themselves, and Farlain's eyes were elsewhere. The latest news was that Duke Maladar's army had finally overcome the old Duke of Amari, who had killed himself before his capital, Syrud, surrendered. Now, according to the latest rumor, Prince Frenerac had been installed as Duke of Amari, swearing fealty to his father. It gave Duke Maladar the excuse to call himself Grand Duke, and why shouldn't he? All the Imperial rules were being broken, so why be coy about titles? His army was the biggest in the Empire now. What other title could he want, save Emperor?
Of course the taking of titles unearned was supposed to invite retribution from the fates, which perhaps explained the visitation of the Avar plague upon Shadewind. The Count was dead, in battle, trying to avenge his dead sons, and the northern half of the County was now the abode of the nomads; to the south they raided, and the city of Marchwind, capital of Shadewind, had been sacked thoroughly. Six months ago the So-Called Duke of Shadewind had been showing off his finery and his pride at Avigon, and now there was no claimant to his title--whichever title.
Meanwhile the Countess had finally met the formidable Sigrith, along the mountain trail to Hvanar. Vivian had expected as little as possible. Sigrith's English was good, her manners could have been worse, and her sympathy for the battered rights of the Countess seemed sincere. The huge half-naked orange-haired barbarian appeared to be more bothered by Vivian's situation than Vivian herself was.
Jen took a long look at her mistress, but kept her ideas to herself. Her feelings, at least, matched Vivian's: their lives were simple and orderly and content. Jen patted Vivian's shoulder and smiled. "Susan is beautiful, my lady."
"And very hungry today, aren't you, baby-cakes? You'd think she'd done all the work." They both leaned over and cooed at the baby, who ignored them in her single-minded attention to Vivian's nipple. "When are you going to have one of your own, Jen?"
"My lady," said Jen, "I have no plans."
"Hmm. Neither did I, really. Oh well. Plans make themselves."
"Jen tells me you don't see us getting back to Vonnis anytime soon," said Ellean. "What about it?"
Vivian rolled her eyes. She and Ellean and Angeline and Miranda the Brewer were sitting in Angeline's room drinking ale. "I can't tell just one of you anything," she said with a sigh.
"We're roommates," said Ellean. "We talk. Now what about it? Are you giving up or what?"
"Or what," said Vivian. "I'm not giving up anything. I just said I was happy here. And I think I said it was a good thing, because realistically, there doesn't seem much chance we'll be returning to our former residences anytime soon."
"And we've got to put up with having Farlain officers soiling Rain Hall with their muddy boots," said Angeline.
"Ah, so now you, of all people, think we should take our fifteen hundred or two thousand troops up against five thousand Farlainers in entrenched positions, with eight thousand Rugians at our backs, just to save your mansion from the dirty boots of cavalrymen. I wonder if Francis ever left muddy footprints leading up to your bedroom?"
"Francis? He's neat. Ellean did more mud-tracking than Francis."
"Well, I think you're giving up, Vivie," said Ellean. "That's what I think. It's not right."
"So what if I am?" Vivian challenged her. "What chance is there? Unless things change a lot. I mean really--we're like bugs on the floor to these big armies all around us. Nikolad is a crack we're hiding in." She sighed. "Not that I'm complaining. You couldn't wish for a nicer crack."
"Well," said Miranda, "I think there's no point in trying to change the Countess's mind. She'll change it herself, in time."
And so the autumn passed, with Vivian telling someone new every week that she was sick of war, that she was happy in Nikolad, that the giants in the earth could fight all they wanted over the great cities and the history of the Empire, just so they left her alone in her comfortable, reduced Clane. Sir Rogier gave a weak smile; Lady Mirabel said she was flattered that Vivian liked Nikolad; Francis Weaver opened his mouth to argue, then shut it; William Willd just smiled. Even the Lady of the Fountain, in Vivian's visits to the Other Side, looked sympathetic.
And then, on the fourteenth of October, a gorgeous day when the valleys that surround Nikolad were aflame with the red of sugar maples and the gold of birches, a dozen riders came down the road that followed the Little Glass River north out of the mountains of the Amarian frontier. They bore the flag of Amari, a silver hawk in flight upon an Imperial white sky. From afar, only the hawk could be seen; closer, it appeared that they rode under a surrender flag.
The riding was not greeted warmly at Nikolad. It was led by "Duke" Frenerac's intimate associate, the handsome knight Sir Tylon. The rest of the company consisted of various of Frenerac's young friends from Calway, and three elderly men, two of whom were Amarian minor nobles. They had ridden over the rugged trails of the mountains that separate Clane from Amari, they had endured five days of camping and hard journeying, and now they were viewed with suspicion by everyone from the junior sentry up to Lady Mirabel de Nikolad and Countess Vivian.
When the Countess appeared at the gate to express her reservations, Sir Tylon nodded sympathetically and then brought forward the third old man in the riding. He was heavily cloaked and obviously not well, and yet he looked familiar. Before Vivian could peel away the wrinkles and inflate the cheeks to picture what he might have looked like once upon a time, he raised his thin voice to speak.
"My lady," he said in an accent straight from Angren, "surely you do not intend to make an old man, who once did you some service and is now weak from the effects of age and illness and imprisonment, camp outside your walls this night, for I do not intend to return the way we have come." It was Sir Everard.
An hour later, they were all sitting around in Lady Mirabel's drawing room: the Countess, Sir Tylon, Sir Everard, Sir Rogier, Lady Mirabel and Miranda the Brewer, along with Jen and Angeline and Ellean and Willd.
"You're not doing so badly up here," said Sir Everard. He was swathed in blankets, sipping a pint of coppery ale. At close range he was obviously very sick, but the ale was bringing the color back to his cheeks.
"I can't tell you how relieved I am to see you," said Sir Rogier. "We thought they had you in chains in Vonnis, or worse."
"On that score," said Sir Everard, "I'll let Tylon here fill you in. He knows more than I do of how this came to be."
Vivian turned to the knight. "Sir Tylon?"
"This honored gentleman," said Sir Tylon, whose preciousness was tempered now by a few years of war and exertion, "was indeed mistreated, and Duke Frenerac feels very badly about it. Thus it was that as soon as he could arrange it, he obtained from his father possession of Sir Everard and sends him to you in gesture of friendship, and to let you know, dear Countess, that the Duke does not agree with all that has been done."
"Well, that's nice," said Vivian. "So what has been done? Start at the beginning."
"Of course, my lady. Sir Everard was as you know captured on the day that Lord Sperrin de Faal took control of Vonnis. He was imprisoned, along with the scribe and the high priest."
"What of them?"
"Scribe Edgar was fine last I saw him, my lady," said Sir Everard. "That'd be three months back. We weren't chained, just stuck down there in the dungeons. At least we missed the fire."
"Oh yes. The fire. I saw that, from the top of Bald."
"I'm sure there's a story there," said Sir Everard. "My lady, High Priest Trofim is dead."
"Dead?"
"Oh, yes, happened the first winter. You know, it was so dark down there. He just withered. Every time I saw him, which was maybe once a week, he had a little less life in him, down there in the darkness. He needed the sun. It was just as bad as if they had starved him."
Vivian's eyes flashed. "This is a great crime," she said to Sir Tylon. "The authors of this are guilty of murder and sacrilege. It will not go unpunished."
"I know it, my lady," the young knight replied.
"And his ashes?"
"I believe they were scattered in the garden of the citadel," said Sir Tylon. "I think those who knew were not proud of it, and they sought to hide this death as best they could. I did not know, but I am but a knight. Duke Frenerac himself did not know. There are many things he knows not."
"That's well for him, if so," said Vivian. She took a long breath. "Go on; you were telling us how Sir Everard came to be here."
"Yes, my lady. I believe that your scribe remains in Vonnis dungeon, but last spring, Grand Duke Maladar decided to bring Sir Everard to Calway, perhaps thinking to press him to help with strategy. However, Sir Everard proved to be of little use, and indeed showed signs of increasing illness. I think that he too was suffering from the effects of imprisonment."
"I certainly was," put in Sir Everard. "And am. Edgar's strong and young, he could sit in that cell for twenty years, but I'm not made for that. It was damp and cold and--well, I have some sympathy for criminals, that I lacked before, my lady."
"I will remember that, when I sentence Neil."
"Please don't let my experience cloud your judgement when that treasonous brigand comes before you for condemnation. Except that his stay in the dungeon could be shortened by a quick visit to the gallows." Sir Everard would have said more, but was interrupted by a fit of coughing, cured only by a voluminous draught of ale.
"As I was saying," Sir Tylon continued, "this past June, Prince Frenerac won a boon from his father upon his assumption of the title of Duke of Amari: to bring Sir Everard to Syrud. Ostensibly, we would give him an upland house in which to recuperate and then use his knowledge to benefit our cause."
"And what is your cause?"
"My lady, I am not entirely sure, but in any case, that is how this estimable gentleman came to be in northern Amari; thence, it was a small step to bring him to you, though it may have seemed quite an exertion to him."
"Indeed," said Sir Everard.
"And Duke Frenerac, who already felt sympathy due to the troubles through which this honorable man has been put, was moved to action by the statements of several of our best doctors, that Sir Everard is dying."
All the Clanishfolk in the room blanched, except for Sir Everard, whose complexion could hardly get paler. "I knew it before they told me," he injected into the silence.
"Oh, Everard," said Vivian, "it's more than my heart can bear, such joy at seeing you after so long, and then to hear--!"
"Never mind, never mind. I had no interest in living forever. I'm happy to return to your company before I die." He looked at Sir Tylon. "And I am grateful to this young knight, and to Frenerac, for they risk much to bring me here, both from you and from the so-called Grand Duke. Thank you, sir."
"It is no more than my duty under the code of chivalry," said Sir Tylon.
"You never hear that sort of talk anymore," said Sir Everard. "Not that it meant much to me before. I was proud to hear of how the Clanish horsemen were flouting the rules, shooting from the brush and running from fair fights, oh, it made these Farlainers mad, and that made my heart swell with pride. Now I have to say I'm sorry for all the bad things I thought about Sir Tylon and his friends."
"No," said Sir Tylon, "you saw us in a certain light, but not a false light."
"But you're with us," said the Countess, "that's what matters."
"Yes," said Sir Everard, yawning. "And I think I can hold out for a few more weeks at least. The trees are quite beautiful here in the fall: almost as good as Vonnis. I fear I shall not see much of the winter, much less the spring. Well, I have seen many springs, they're all pretty much the same." He looked around, challenging them all with his smile. "But I will not be back in Vonnis, I think."
"Sir Everard," Vivian chided him.
"No, it is enough to know," he said, slipping down the slope toward slumber, "that the Countess Vivian will return thither, before this child you hold grows up and misses it: the most beautiful city in the world. Especially in the spring."
He was asleep. Vivian looked up from his face and met Sir Rogier's eyes.
"Well," she said after a moment, "I guess we're going back to Vonnis."