XXIII. April 784
"In the light of the Divine Sun," began Enjele Ennis, and, true to her heritage, Lady Susan, just turned thirteen, missed the rest of the invocation. She fingered the ancient medallion around her neck and thought of her mother and the spectacular events that had unfolded in the forests of Farlain. She thought of Ellean and Sir Francis, of the Emperor in Avigon, of her unknown grandfather Count Edmund, of her mother's hero Countess Tereza. She thought of Annie, messing around in the attic with Patricia, and of her best friend Eliza, who was probably curled up on her bed reading, with the elderly Simone curled up against her. Suzy entertained a predictable wish to be elsewhere than in a meeting, for instance, curled up with Eliza and Simone reading the diaries of Countess Tereza, or in her mother's company, charging through the forests of Farlain chasing down panicked Imperial Guardsmen. No, no, she thought, this is what a Countess does most of the time, so I'd better learn to put up with it.
"This being," said Enjele Ennis, "the eighty-third day of the seventeenth regnal year of her ladyship Vivian, daughter of Edmund, seventeenth Countess of Clane and rightful ruler of Vonnis, this second day of April of the year 784, the Lady Susan presides."
"My lady," said Sir Rogier, "shall I?"
"Sure, yeah," said Susan.
"Well, the latest dispatch from our peripatetic Countess came in yesterday evening, borne by my own younger daughter. The Lady Susan and I have read it, but it's addressed to all of us here. Scribe Atgate, would you care to--?"
"Of course, Sir Rogier." The tiny, coal-haired Anne Atgate rose and cleared her throat. "Somewhere in southern Intror, 27 March 784, Countess Vivian, by her own hand. My dear Council, and especially my lady Susan and my good Minister of State, may the Sun warm you. We have seen nothing of the enemy since we left him sitting in front of Sand Point Inn. Now Sir Francis and the Cataphracts and Duke Frenerac and his rebels have accompanied me back into what is rightfully Clane, continuing our efforts to either attract more armies to rout or to further disrupt the supplies of those armies that won't face us. So far, nothing in the former category, but as to the latter, the Farlain wine is somewhat disappointing these days. Duke Frenerac agrees with me that it is no match for what he brought to Vonnis in my first year. The weather could also be better. We have become accustomed to moisture everywhere, so that I don't know how we will react when we are faced again with dry blankets and clothes. I look forward to the challenge."
"Even Count Edmund did not spend nearly so much time sleeping on the ground," Sir Rogier interjected. "But please continue."
"You will understand, my lords," the scribe went on,"if I do not fill in our itinerary just yet. Suffice it to say that by the time you read this we will be up to further hijinks at the expense of those who currently control the province of Intror. The local country folk know their Countess, I am glad to say, and rumor of me has gone forth into Delyan town, where I would like to think it causes some discomfort. That symptom will soon be aggravated, may the Sun continue to burn. Not to weigh down poor Annie de Clatu with too much weight of ink, I will close by reminding my daughters both to continue their studies, and to do as I bid them before. Suzy, I love you and I wish I were with you now; your father feels the same and sends his greetings too. I know you're doing a good job. Tell my little Annie that her dad and I long to give her big hugs. Sir Rogier, Lady Mirabel, I do hope that my daughters are causing you at least as many headaches as I would if I were there."
"At least," said Sir Rogier.
"Oh, right," said Susan.
"I wish you all well, may the Sun shine on you and on all of Clane, and may some of that sunshine come to Intror very soon! Not to mention Vonnis. I remain, your faithful Countess, Vivian, daughter of Edmund."
"Well, that's very nice," said Lady Mirabel. "But I'd rather be here than there, no matter what headaches the heiress may give us."
"Oh, really?" said Susan. "How many headaches have I given you?"
"My lady," said Sir Rogier, "you are no trouble, really, especially compared to your mother when she was new. And please don't tell her I said so."
"It's between us," said Susan. "I just hope everything's all right out there still. Can you, um, fill me in a bit? Um, like, how many of the enemy are there in Intror?"
"Well," said Thane Sigrith, "the last we had, from Siglind and Martin, was that there were five thousand in occupied Clane, mostly Farlainers, split among their three major holds, with two thousand at Angren, two thousand at Vonnis and around a thousand at Delyan. They've probably shuffled things a bit owing to the news from the south. I'd guess Delyan has two thousand and Vonnis a thousand by now. But fear not, my lady, they have not enough to beat the Countess and also hold Angren."
"Um, can we, you know, make sure of that? Like, I think Mom would want to, you know, put pressure on, um--"
"Angren? We think the same way. Over a thousand Rukh under Egon and Frak sit on their hands at Tarnhold; if we add to them the Vonnis Swords and Bows and a bit of the Westdubbik pikes that are here for training, then we should be able to keep the Farlainers' weakling minds off of the Countess."
"That sounds great. Order it that way, then. If it's all right." She looked around. The council members smiled at her. "What's wrong?"
"My lady," said Sir Rogier, "we're not used to hearing 'if it's all right' from the person occupying that chair and wearing that bit of jewelry. Not that we mind."
"I know things haven't been going so good of late," Thane Karlan of Intror was saying to three of his larger landowners and three of his military guests from Farlain, "with this nasty business of the rebels from down south, but we'll get it all sorted out and--"
"Not so good of late?" mocked Lord Begrin de Loos. "There's what, some number of thousand of them abroad in the province, stealing our livestock and inflaming our peasants, and the Imperial Guard itself scared of them?"
"Overfed pig!" cried Sir Mallon de Mayol, the Farlainer commandant of the Imperial Guard unit in Delyan, a veteran whose service in Clane went back to Duke Maladar's original invasion. "I should slit your throat, rather than hear such as you utter the words 'imperial' and 'scared' in the same breath."
"Tell me it isn't so, then," Lord Begrin coolly replied. "Deny any one thing I just said."
The other two Intror noblemen nodded; the other Farlain officers looked uncomfortable. Sir Mallon shook a finger at Lord Begrin. "We're waiting for orders," he said, "from the Highest, mind you, and when He gets around to this business, you'll be sorry you doubted."
"I'm sorry for a lot of things," said Lord Begrin. "For instance, I hear the Countess is in the hills with these rebels. And I hear the Cataphracts are there as well. You come in here and lord it over us all, but have you and your Imperial Guard ever beaten the Cataphracts?"
"They're just another cavalry," said Sir Mallon. "They had luck on their side, and the forest as well, last month down south. We'll get them out in the open and the knights of Farlain will finish them off quick."
"Quick, I'll believe," said Lord Begrin.
"And I'd like to know which side you're on, maggot!"
"Give me a minute, I'm thinking."
"My friends," said Thane Karlan, "can we possibly stop arguing and pointing fingers, and remember, perhaps, that we are all on the same side?" Both men fell back into defensive positions. "Now we all serve the Emperor, may He rule a century in peace once things are all settled. And we all are threatened by this unlawful rebellion, and by the stubbornness of those rebels that still hold out, after all these years, in the snowy reaches of the west of Clane, and we will only win through to the peace we all want and deserve by holding together against them, and by trusting in the Empire. It was here a long time before this brat of Count Edmund."
"Hear, hear," said Sir Daniel de Plamac. The local lords shrugged as one.
"So," said Thane Karlan, "let's try and stay on task here."
There was a noise from the kitchen. A soldier in Farlain livery entered from that direction, backwards, and fell on the floor. They all looked up, and there in the doorway were two women, not very tall, in dark grey cloaks stained by mud and rain, with dark hair falling to their shoulders. One bore a bow, while the other seemed unarmed.
"By the Sun," said the Thane, "it can't be--"
"I'm glad you remember me, Thane Karlan," said the apparently unarmed one. She swept the others with a look that made them all want to sit quietly. "I actually recall the day when you renewed your oath to me. It was only what, sixteen years ago? 'To you and your line,' you said. I don't think you put in any conditions."
"Is it her?" Sir Daniel whispered to Captain Garibald de Koy.
"Yes, it's her, you moron," muttered Thane Karlan. He tried his sweetest voice. "My lady, when I swore, I did not know that an Emperor--"
"Enough." He stopped in mid-sentence. "Karlan, you have committed treason against me and against the oath you swore--against the people you promised to protect. So, go ahead, take another breath of the sweet air, and I hope you enjoy it, because it's your last."
He gulped. She watched him, and everyone else watched her. He took a deep breath, about to say something more. She seized him by the eyes and held him until he exhaled. Then she reached in, took his brainstem firmly in her spirit hands and yanked it out with full force. He stood a moment, gasped, blood at his nostrils. He fell to the floor with a thump.
Vivian looked around at the other men in the room. "Gentlemen of Clane," she said, "I'm leaving, but I'll be back. Now is the time to decide which way you lean: to the doomed Empire or to your homeland. As for you, Sir Whatsit of Farlain, you have just met Countess Vivian, that extraordinary tactical genius. I will offer you some sage military counsel, and you may heed it or not, as you wish: now is an opportune moment for a strategic withdrawal."
She turned and went back into the kitchen. Sir Mallon jumped up and reached for a bell strap that hung behind the Thane's chair. With a short whine, an arrow caught his hand and pinned it to the wall. "That's for Edwy Sallier," said Ellean Rain. She turned and hurried after her Countess, as the Farlain captains jumped up to pull the arrow out.
"She should be back soon," said Willd. He was drunk, on this still cool night after a day of rain, and he took another pull on the flask and handed it to Weaver.
"I'm sure she'll be fine," said Weaver. "She'll be all right. If it were anyone else but her, I'd've said it was foolish. I don't know. What do you think?"
"I don't know," said Willd. "I've seen her through a lot. She can handle whatever comes up." He reached for the flask again. "I just hope she's all right."
"Me too," said Weaver. "I don't know what we'd do without her."
"I'd be lost without her."
"Hey," said Weaver, "everything'll be fine."
"Yeah," said Willd. They sat another few minutes in silence. Every time they heard horses, they looked up, then back at the ground. Each of them took a half dozen more swigs. Weaver smiled. A darkness fell over Willd's eyes.
"Guess who," said a voice behind him. Drunk though he was, Willd leapt up and turned and seized his Vivian in his arms, lifting her off the ground. They kissed quickly, then longer, and finally he set her down. "You've been drinking," she said. "Did you miss me?" He answered by picking her up again and hugging her like a stuffed toy.
"How about me?" asked Ellean. "Did you miss me that way?"
"I was worried," Willd said sheepishly. "I should have known better."
"No," said Vivian. "Now you know how I feel whenever I send you on a mission."
"How'd it go, my lady?" asked Weaver.
"Our message was received," said Vivian, "and if it was the last thing Karlan wanted to hear, then he got his way."
"So is--are you saying he's dead?"
"Um, well--"
"Let me guess," said Willd. "Brain hemorrhage."
"Could be," said Vivian. "Didn't stick around to check. Do we have to stand out here and freeze in order to get a drink?"
"Oh, no, not at all," said Weaver. "Are you going to tell us what really happened? In that case, let's go inside."
"I thought you'd never ask. Ell, go get Valerie and Frenerac and Tylon and, um, Kalos and the rest. We might as well have a council."
"Sure," said Ellean, "and I'll see that they bring out another cask of the wine."
Somehow, when Vivian told her story, the Thane seemed to have died because of Ellean's arrow. They laughed at Ellean's addendum to the tale, on the subject of Sir Mallon de Mayol's hand, even though most of them flatly disbelieved it. "I didn't see that part myself," said Vivian.
"I will say," put in Willd, "I've seen her in action, and I doubt not that Ellean could hit a man square in the palm from across the room."
"Well, thank you, Sir William," said Ellean.
"And the kitchen guard," asked Kalos, "died of a fright on seeing you, Countess?"
"I don't think so," said Vivian quickly. "He just fainted."
"Yeah," said Ellean, "he was in there having a taste of the Thane's brandy when we pushed the window open. Here's the bottle, by the way: mostly full. A little souvenir."
Willd sniffed it, took a sip and passed it to the Farlain captain beside him. "Not bad, and quite strong," Kalos pronounced. "No wonder he fainted so easily."
"When we climbed in that window, he probably thought he was seeing things."
"I'm sure he hoped he was," said Weaver, "but when he saw that you were real, and not just his hot-blooded fantasy, he decided to play dead. Now, if I may, my lady, what's next?"
"Well, I've put our foot into the ant hill," said Vivian. "Let's see what the ants do."
So they camped in the woods for most of a week, fifteen miles west of Delyan, making no move except to scout the town and accept food from the small farmers around. The newly-constructed and already very successful little army continued to develop, as the differences between the rebels and the Cataphracts became harder and harder to detect.
Even if the Imperial Guard's Delyan garrison had known where the rebels were, they were in no state to do anything about it. This Vivian learned when, on the tenth of April, none other than Lord Begrin de Loos accompanied the local farmers to the camp. The farmers clearly didn't trust the lord, nor did Vivian, but her attitude was softened by two large wagons of food and wine and a half dozen nice fat pigs. She sat down with the repentant lord holder, along with two of the farmers and Frenerac, Weaver, Willd and Kalos.
"It's a nuthouse," said Begrin, of the town of Delyan, capital of Intror. "No one's in charge. Sir Mallon de Mayol has about fifteen hundred men there, but they've holed up in the Thane's Hall, and I've heard they're getting ready to pull out."
"Have you been inside?"
"No, my lady, they'd slit my throat, I'm sure. You know, when Karlan was alive, he could persuade everyone that we were all Farlainers. But now that he's dead, even the townspeople of Delyan are rising up in revolt, and the Farlainers don't trust anyone with a Clanish accent."
"In revolt?" Vivian repeated with a slight smile.
"Open revolt," said Lord Begrin. "Well, now you say it that way--maybe what they're doing is answering the call of duty, like I am, at last."
"And now that the persuasive Thane Karlan's out of the picture, you can see clearly again, or maybe you haven't any excuse for remaining, as you say, in revolt."
He bowed his head. "Yes, my lady." He glanced up at her, then looked away. "You know, you wouldn't be wrong to have my head off, my lady. I should have taken my family and gone over the hills to Westdubbik, but I stayed and supported my Thane, though this Emperor fellow means nothing to me. So if you want my head, take it, I haven't been using it much up till now."
Vivian fixed him with a smiling stare. He raised his eyes and was held, but gently. She prompted him, "I swear upon--"
"I swear upon," said Lord Begrin, "I swear upon my mother's ashes, and by the Sun that blesses the day, that I will serve the Countess of Clane and no other. The rightful Countess of Clane, that is, meaning you, my lady."
"I accept your oath and I promise you my protection. Still, if I were you, I'd stay on my estate for a month or two. Good men," she said to the farmers, "I appreciate your unfailing support, but you have to go against your better judgement and not burn Lord Begrin's house or anything."
"Yes, my lady," said the two farmers. One of them added, "I wasn't going to do that, not that there aren't others about who might."
"Well, no one's to harm Lord Begrin. It's Sir Mallon de Mayol that needs to be harmed."
That evening, Martin and Siglind arrived with letters from Sir Rogier, Angeline, Mirabel and Susan. There was no earthshaking news, but plenty of nagging about safety. Vivian, having taken some of it to heart, sat up with her scouts to discuss things.
"I'm going to need a lot of information," she told them.
"That's why we get paid the big money," said Martin.
"What?" Ellean put in. "She pays you?"
"We are your servants," said Willd, "even those of us not in it for the money."
"I like the travel," said Siglind, "and the company." She gave Martin a lewd look.
"Anyway," he said.
"A little sore, after a few days riding with Siglind?" asked Vivian. "I'd forgotten what you scouts were like, all together. Thank goodness Sir Rogier's daughter isn't here as well, or I'd have her to worry about too."
"She's scouting for Lady Susan, over into Amari," said Siglind.
"Hey," said Vivian, "are you pregnant again?" Siglind only smiled. "Well," Vivian went on, "It won't keep me from sending you into danger. But let's see. I need news from Delyan, Martin? I think you can go it alone. Willd, you'll have work presently, I'm sure. I need a couple of people to go south to watch for the Emperor. How about Ell and Siglind?"
"Watching for army movements?" Ellean replied. "Can't you just look?"
"When you get a County of your own, my dear, you can do things your way."
That night Vivian sat down in her tent with her cup and book and candles and cards, and her Eye went out into the night. She inspected Delyan, where Farlain soldiers controlled only the Thane's Hall and the central plaza and thugs roamed the streets, and most people stayed inside. There was looting, arson, murder in the daylight. She had to remind herself that, in the middle of occupation and war, even a Clanish town might start looking a little like Avigon--complete with corpses rotting in the alleys. She turned away in disgust, turned north and found Passaya, where a small Farlain garrison was all but besieged in a town suddenly full of grey cat flags. Onward she floated to Vonnis, where supplies were piled up and the occupiers looked nervously out in all directions. Nowhere did she sense the Emperor's eye watching.
On the lightest breeze of a whim, she turned again and navigated the night air across the leagues of Westdubbik, and found like a tiny candle in a huge dark room under a ceiling full of stars the castle town of Nikolad, capital de facto of Clane. Far down she plunged toward the keep overlooking the bridge, and then she was flying through the halls, past Jen and Mirabel sitting in the dining room knitting, past the sainted nurse Abigail and the young refugee Eliza entertaining a dozen or so of the nobility's little kids, past Vivian's bedroom, its door open a crack. She turned and peered in: someone was inside. Sleeping on the bed, in fact: it was Simone, sixteen pounds and eighteen years old, sprawled out like a deep fur rug. Smiling to herself, Vivian let her eye move on, up through the quiet halls and stairs to the little library.
There inside were two young women sitting across from each other with the candles burning between them, and Countess Tereza's neat and angular pictograms looking up from under a card--it was the Queen, she who rules from the heart. The girls sat stock still, looking across the book into one another's eyes. They were looking afar, just as Vivian was, but where? There was no way to tell. So, blowing a kiss upon them, their mother turned away to fly on into the night.
Then she stopped. What was that in the shadow?
Vivian concentrated herself in the room. The girls did not flinch. There he was, waiting or watching--for what, Vivian did not care to know. Get out! she screamed at him in his mind. Get away from my daughters! He glared back at her, his eyes glittering.
You've been away too long, his cold voice sounded in her head. Then he blew away on the slightest of breezes.
She turned to her daughters. They sat there still. She rushed down upon them, probing and poking as well as she could from afar. There was no movement, no breath, not a heartbeat in their cooling bodies.
Far away in her tent, Vivian's own heart stopped, and something in her wanted a year or two to lie on her bed and wail. But her anger rose up and would not be denied by the miles. Across the mountains came her spirit flying, and she descended on them like a mother bird. She dove into the deep cold still pools of her daughters' souls. Somewhere down inside of Susan she found a tiny bubble of answering spirit. She prodded it and shook it and then, suddenly, with a deafening roar, the girl's heart pumped again. A long breath sounded in the halls of her lungs. Life came back to her, as she struggled to the surface from the deep empty waters.
A minute later, Suzy and Annie, still gasping, sat looking at each other across the book. One candle was still lit. The card on top now was the High Priestess. They stared at it and at each other as they grabbed breath upon breath, and finally their bodies had slaked their thirst for the sweet air. "What was that?" asked Annie.
"He was here," said Suzy. "I think he tried to kill us."
"Mom's card," said Annie, still panting.
"Yes," said Suzy, "I think she saved our lives."
Meanwhile, exhausted from her effort, Vivian returned to herself, but all that night and all the next, in dream or in trance, she kept at least one eye on Nikolad.
On the rainy evening of 12 April, Martin of Auzel rode into camp and reported to the Countess, who was having dinner in the mess tent with Willd and two hundred of her best friends. "Is it so important as to delay eating?" she asked.
"You can judge for yourself, my lady. The Farlainers have pulled out of Delyan."
"Oh. That's interesting. Go get yourself some stew and sit down and tell us the rest. Brego, could you fill Master Martin's cup? And mine too, while you're up."
Soon, Martin was seated across from the Countess and Willd, and Frenerac, Weaver, Kalos, Valerie and several other captains had pulled rank to get seats nearby. "I went up there today," said the scout, "and they were heading north with everything they could carry."
"Why would they do that?" asked Captain Marius of the Tarnver cataphracts. "I'd've thought the town would be defensible, if nothing else. Just the Thane's hall would be defensible."
"I don't trust it," said one of the Farlain rebel commanders.
"What's the condition of Delyan?" asked Vivian.
"Uh, it's a shambles, actually," said Martin. "There's no authority. I saw some looting, and four or five bodies. I think they're starting to hang people they don't like."
"Well," said Vivian, "in that case we have to go in."
The others were unsure of the wisdom of this, but even if any of them had the inclination to offer argument, they were interrupted by the entrance of Siglind and Ellean.
"I'm glad to see you," said Vivian. "What's the news from the south?"
"Just this," said Ellean. "The Emperor's Elite is on its way."
At noon on 13 April 784, the Countess of Clane entered the city of Delyan with fourteen hundred cavalry. People of all sorts were in the streets, shouting and waving--and several dozen were hanging above, by the neck, from improvised gibbets. There were a number of bodies lying about, that either had not merited the effort of hanging, or had fallen in the night due to weight, wind or hasty carpentry. Being Clanish, neither Vivian nor her Cataphracts could really comprehend such a program of executions, or behavior that might inspire it.
They rode in at the south gate of Delyan, on the River Road, and followed its unerring line to the plaza in the center of town, flanked by the Thane's Hall and the Sun House. There, where there would normally be a farmer's market in progress, they found a large crowd of citizens, many of them waving grey pennants--and at least two dozen more men and women strung up. Vivian and her scouts dismounted and climbed up onto a long, sturdy table, joined by Weaver, Valerie, several cavalrymen and a couple of Delyanese toughs. Willd and Ellean, on either side of the Countess, scanned the crowd for threats and found none, although there was no shortage of weapons. The cheering of the crowd was louder than anything Vivian had heard outside of a battlefield since Annie's birth. Tradesmen were there with their apprentices and their sharpest tools, women held babies in their arms, children ran loose, dogs barked, old folks shouted and waved. There was a bloodthirstiness in them that Vivian had to admit answered something in herself. She held up her hand and they presently became somewhat quiet. She shouted to them in her highest voice.
"My people of Delyan!" A few fistfights continued, but everyone else seemed to be paying attention. "I, Countess Vivian, daughter of Edmund, now reclaim Delyan and all of Intror." A tremendous and undisciplined cheer. She held up her hand again. "My people! Listen to me!" Near silence fell at last. "Greed and evil have felled your Thane. We will presently choose a new one for you, but for now I'll have to assume the Thane's responsibilities myself." They were stunned. It was all hardly a surprise, but they had never seen such a day as this. Three men at the edge of the crowd stopped beating a fourth man and gawked. "Now as my first act in reclaiming this province, I thank all of you here who rose up against Farlain, if only in your hearts. And I forgive all who might have been seduced by this Emperor from the south, or his Duke, just as I hope you will forgive me for having neglected you for so long." She stopped an incipient cheer with her raised hand. "In the near future I may call upon you all to defend your city against the Emperor himself, and if we fail, we may all perish: he has destroyed towns this size before in Rahavon and Orzali. But you are strong, my people, we are strong, and I promise you, this year it'll be over, one way or the other!" There was a loud but more disciplined cheer. She said aside to Willd and Ellean, "Just watch the Imperial agents slip out of town to report that."
Turning back to the crowd, she said in her loudest, lowest voice, "As to my second official act, no one is to be hanged until further notice. I assert my right as final judge in all executions. These vigilante hangings are no less than murder. So stop it, understand? Stop it. Honestly." There was a mixed cheer and grumble.
She raised her hand again. "And my third act is to call upon my soldiers, and you people of Delyan, to look to the town walls. They once were strong, but they haven't been needed much the past two hundred years. They are now needed. Did you all hear me?" There was utter silence, and then a rising cheer for the Countess. She rode out the shouting and singing and horn-blowing and held up her hand one more time. The people grew somewhat quiet, and she concluded, "Now I'm going to see what the Farlainers left us to eat, if someone will taste the stuff first. Maybe this afternoon I can hear from the burghers, those you haven't strung up. I thank you again."
She got down from the table, helped by one of the surviving burghers, the elderly Kirth Goldsmith. "It was a fine speech, my lady," he said. "And thank you, my lady, for the--"
"My lady," said Sir Francis, "it seemed good to put two soldiers in front of the goldsmith's shop, considering the mood of the mob."
"Good job, Sir Francis! I guess we'd better raise the Delyan militia and set them to fighting the Emperor instead of the artisans and merchants. But first, lunch: this Countessing is hungry work." They mounted back up and were led by two young women of the town to the Thane's stables, which were completely empty. Horses were the one thing the Farlainers had bothered to loot, beyond what they had looted over the previous fourteen years.
Over the next few days, Vivian set about taking complete personal control of the capital of Intror. An officer of the Cataphracts by the name of Lamorak de Frenna, the only knight of a tiny village in the hills on the Intror side of the Westdubbik border, was found willing to assume the duties of Thane, and burghers and mob alike were relatively enthusiastic, considering that they had never heard of him before. Thane Lamorak, a low-key fellow of thirty-five with a rural accent, set about raising and training the Delyan militia, while the burgher Nat Stoner, who was of course a stonemason, started in on the walls, with help from the Cataphracts and the Farlain rebels. Vivian studied and heard appeals and gave judgements and imprisoned several dozen of her least loyal subjects, but no one was executed.
Her nightly watching continued: sure enough, a force of a couple of thousand cavalry came up the road, and in their midst was a mind-bending vortex of power. The Elite was on its way. She also dreamt, and the same story seemed to play itself out a little further each night. In the early hours of the fifteenth, the dream reached its full extent.
She stood in a little house by a big river, and she looked out into its unkempt yard and found herself in an out-of-the-way riverside neighborhood of a provincial town. The house was empty at first, although as she went among its three or four rooms, she kept coming out into the central room with its fireplace and finding more objects lying about: books on the shelf, many candles, a cup and a flask of wine. Then there was the body of an old man, lying peacefully on the floor dead. She looked out the window and a young man and woman came, with a pale darkness pursuing them, and then there was a son. She looked back at the body, and it was the young man grown old. A few flames grew in the corners like gathering cat-hair or cobwebs. She looked out the window and found herself face to face with the Emperor, staring in with eyes black with memory. She looked back inside, and the flames had grown out along the walls of the room. Out the window, she saw now a young man with fiery eyes walking away. The flames were engulfing the house. There were men outside watching it burn. The fire seemed to be all around her--but then she found a back door and rushed out through it into the yard.
In the road, she saw another young woman, very pregnant, and an old couple with a half-dozen horses. They were the slim brown steeds of the uplands of Selac. The woman was helped into the saddle and they rode away into the hills. Vivian turned back to the shack and found that it was just collapsing into embers. On the other side of it, revealed by the fall of the last wall, was the Emperor.
Vivian startled awake. His eye was near. It was the hour before dawn. She sank back into trance: there he was, watching from a little way off. She challenged him and he fled. She thought of the pregnant young woman, and could not help feeling that she had given the woman cover to escape the pursuit of the Emperor's gaze.
Then Vivian rose and sought tea and breakfast, and when her beloved joined her an hour later she was poring over the books of the town of Delyan from the previous century.
In the fourth hour of morning on 15 April, Vivian, Willd, Martin and Ellean were sitting around in the Thane's hall with piles of records, a plate of pastries and more tea, when Ellean cried out, not for the first time that morning, "Ah ha! How about this?"
"This better be good," said Vivian.
"If you don't want my help, say so, but look at this. It's from the 688 book."
"Hmm. Fire destroyed the house of Basil the Farlainer, who was killed, 9 August 688. Wife Mildrid, with child, not found, declared dead. Son Tarun, eighteen, seen fleeing. Okay, it fits, sort of. Where was this? Chandler's Road?"
"That's by the river," said Martin. "Lower part of town."
"Well, that fits too," said Vivian. "Do you suppose it was the son who set the fire?"
"Maybe it just broke out. Chandlers have a lot of fires, my lady."
"Yes," said Vivian absently. "Eighteen in 688. Who's got the 670 book?"
"Me," said Willd. He leafed through, while Ellean and Martin looked over his shoulder and Vivian grabbed up another volume and began devouring it.
"Say?" said Martin, stopping Willd at a page. "How about right there? The fifth of June, 670. A son named Tarun registered born to one Basil the Chandler. Oh, and his mother died in childbirth."
"Is that all it says about it?" asked Ellean.
"That's all they ever write," said Martin, "except, this being Delyan, it's not that common that they know who the father is."
"Ha ha," said Vivian. "Do they refer to him as from Farlain?"
"Yes, they put that in," said Willd. "His wife, the boy's mother, was someone named Adrenna. Nothing else about her."
"I bet poor old Basil never did fit in here. Well, that's interesting in itself." She leafed through the book before her while they watched. Back and forth she moved through it, rechecking and dog-earing. "Here," she said at last, "28 September 649. Basil the Farlainer, apprenticed to Henry the Chandler. No other reference to him or his parents."
"So," said Ellean, "what does it all mean?"
"I've really no idea. Another dead end, I guess. Adrenna you said?"
"No idea?" Ellean repeated. "Oh, sure, like any of us is going to believe that."
"Well, actually, I'm thinking that maybe it was just a dream."
"My lady," said Willd, "you said there is no such thing as 'just a dream' of the Emperor."
"All right," she replied with a sigh, "look. I'll tell you what I think it means. You are all bound by oath. Right, Martin?"
"Yes, my lady. I don't care to know what a brain hemorrhage feels like."
"I honestly don't know why people are so scared of me," said Vivian.
"I'm not," Ellean put in.
"Good. But listen, since you asked." She shut the book and leaned forward, and in a whisper said, "Adrenna and Basil. Tereza names them both, in her diary, among many others."
"Names them?"
"They were children who lived at Arrenuim." The other three looked at each other. "Arrenuim, the house in the Farlain woods--the house that the Emperor destroyed in what, 649? The year Basil arrived in Delyan," she explained in a whisper. "They survived the downfall of Arrenuim," said Vivian, only a little louder. "There was a whole list: half a dozen of the youngest generation got away." She looked around at them and resumed her low whisper. "Anyway, I think I know the name of the Last Emperor."
"Name?" replied Ellean. "No Emperor had a name."
"Well, this one did. Most of the later ones did, before they were Emperors. Maybe it was a sign of weakness--but I believe he was once called Tarun."
The Emperor's Elite moved much more quickly than the Imperial Guard. They had left Avigon around 11 April and by 16 April were in northern Farlain. There they camped and scouted, and were scouted in return: they numbered twenty companies of a hundred each, and the Countess would have the same number counting the Delyan militias. The Emperor and the Countess also scouted one another each night, but Vivian took the precaution of joining her far-away daughters in trance. He did not challenge them together.
The town walls were significantly reinforced on both the south, facing the Emperor, and the north, facing Sir Mallon de Mayol at Passaya. The Farlain troops in Clane, now four and a half thousand in number, were split between Passaya, Vonnis and the somewhat refortified Angren, and the last was lightly beset by Sigfrinda and Egon and twenty-five hundred Siret, Selac and Westdubbik infantry. In Vonnis, the Viscount Neil and his counselors fretted under their white and blue flags. Vivian did not know if the Emperor and his Elite were nervous; she supposed that his men, at least, were sublimely confident. The same could not be said for either Countess or cavalry. No one on her side could see beyond the coming fight. Yet they had fought many such battles, at Nikolad and Hvanar and Tarnhold. The Clanish troops had long since ceased to need any tactical reason to hope for victory.
Lying awake in the early morning of 20 April, Vivian let her half-entranced mind feel out past the warmth of Willd until she found the mind of a dozing Farlain rebel soldier. She brushed gently across its surface, and found again the picture of the Imperial Elite cutting the Farlain insurgents to pieces while the Emperor's voice froze them in helpless fear. But now there was another picture, more vivid and more recent: the rebels and the Cataphracts were the cutters and the pieces belonged to the Imperial Guard, and almost hidden in the background of the forest stood a lady clad in grey.
Farther off the Countess gazed on the night of 22 April. It was three nights before the full moon, but Vivian and her daughters, many miles apart, rose from their beds at moonset, a couple of hours before first light, and looked out. Their gaze roamed across the old Empire, and they found it twitching and convulsing in a dozen little ways. Karaghur Khan, having taken half of Inzil, now prepared to pound the life out of the Imperial lackey Duke of Allor before turning to the destruction of Count Hakeen of Shadewind. Samarran pirates ransacked the coast and sank every ship in the harbor of Dukesfal. The Greyhead Range between Orzali, Tithean and Vendrezu seethed with rebel cells. Bandit raiders bedeviled the white-frocked troops in Rahavon and Amari. But the Emperor could ignore such irritations for a while: there would be time. He could no longer ignore Clane. Even now an army of ten thousand or more was gathering in Avigon: Imperial guards, Farlain knights, Avars of Shadewind. Before them, their undefeated vanguard, the Emperor's Elite camped on the border of Clane.
Among this vanguard there was a vortex of force, but it was concentrated on itself now, reading out the signs of some ancient lore. Vivian couldn't tell what passed there--only that great effort was being expended and great powers called upon.
Vivian's heart beat faster. She blew kisses at her daughters and hurtled back to Delyan. There she sat before the candles as the left one guttered, and opened her spirit's ears. What was that sickening din? She jumped up and headed for the door of her bedroom in the Thane's house. She stopped and looked back at Willd, who had dozed off in his clothes. With a brief touch she found that unknown lake of his strength and drew a sword from it.
She dashed out into the hall following the unheard sound of death. A man hit the ground, his spirit flown, then another. One gasped for breath. She broke into a run, turned a corner and then another. Far down the hall a man and a woman walked away. She charged after them.
Major Kalos and Valerie de Nikolad turned at the last moment, just outside the door of the room he shared with three other Farlain rebel officers. Vivian pushed past them and ran into the room. Before her a man lay where he had fallen from a bunk, another slumped in a chair. A woman struggled on her bed, and her life trembled on the edge just as she saw Vivian.
The pale figure looked up and hissed. Vivian raised her weapon against him and he fell back. The Emperor fled even as she chased him with the word: Coward.
"My lady," said Valerie, "are you all right?"
"I am," she replied, "these officers aren't. I got here in time to save your lives, anyway, and the woman's--but I'm sure it was Kalos he wanted. Instead, these poor heroes." She sighed. It was not her doing. "Well, I'll sleep no more tonight, but our people will have peace." And Vivian stayed up until dawn, studying and pondering and watching her foe.
On the twenty-third of April, in the brilliant sun of a warm afternoon, the Imperial Elite advanced across the farmlands south of Delyan. They came to within two hundred yards of the ramshackle stone wall and dike, and paused. The Cataphracts and Frenerac's rebel cavalry gathered in their companies along the inland, righthand end of the half-ruined, half-repaired fortification, which was manned by the six hundred most hotheaded residents of the town.
A moaning gasp passed over the two armies as a figure in white on horseback emerged from a grove of trees along the line of the Imperial Elite. Most of the Clanish force had never seen a living Emperor before, and he did not disappoint. He raised a cold deep voice and began to declaim, in a language whose spoken form was indecipherable to Vivian, but she could guess at the sort of thing he was saying: "Ghafyu zal ghafayri, ahn hyai gulissartu..." It went on and on, line upon line, and as she listened, Vivian felt a dark anxiety creep across her heart. Victory against the tide was fleeting. Blood would be spilled for each defiance of the true order. She looked around and knew that her followers were more affected than she was. But she would have her say. Watching with a detached expression, she let him speak for a few minutes, and the moment he paused, she filled the air with her high clear voice.
"Warriors of Clane and Farlain," she called out in a tone that could not be more different from the Emperor's, "beyond these walls you see approach you what may seem to be a great and dignified enemy, but it is not so. Look again, my friends. It is no army but a rabble led by a brigand that appears before the gates of the honored city of Delyan this day. Let them lay on, then, and before this bloody afternoon is over, there will be no man left who will be proud to say that he was of the so-called Imperial Elite."
There was a boisterous cheer. The Emperor, enraged, added something of his own, and his own men's hearts were buoyed, but the defenders laughed at them and chanted obscene insults. Vivian had thought of more to add to her oration, but she was well pleased with the effect already, and merely smiled at her foe across the field.
Then with a magnificent horn salute, the Elite charged. Their aim was to meet the enemy, first rank against first rank, with their archers setting up immediately behind to pour arrows into their demoralized opponents, whom they would then ride down as the panicked defenders fled. But the enemy was not demoralized, and as the front of the Elite came within ten yards of the partial barricade and shallow dike, they were met with a withering volley of arrows. A hundred of the first line went down, and the next hundred wavered. There was a momentary pause, as the Elite tried to gather to resume their charge and the defenders readied their next volley.
The Emperor's voice rose, but Vivian was much closer, standing at the join between the Delyan militia and the Cataphracts. "That's right, Southrons," she shouted to the stalled attackers, "we haven't forgotten our hearts or our arrows, even if your omnipotent leader seems to have lost his power of speech!"
I have not lost my power! he shouted in her face. Suddenly there was only the Emperor in the whole world, and Vivian, and a blue sky around them, and green earth far below.
I know you, Tarun of Delyan, she said to him, and you really are no greater than me. You must stoop to assassination to thwart me, and still you fail. At last you are on my soil again, stalking my soldiers, my officers--my daughters. Just be glad you aren't facing Tereza: she would've crushed you like a bug. Like a bug, doubt it not! But I am just her weak and helpless descendant.
You are weak and helpless before me, he replied, and you need to be reminded which of us is stronger. Blows rained down out of space upon her. She reeled back. He got her in a hold and began pounding her. He did not try to kill her, but beat her in the head with his mental fists until she was bloody and bruised and incapable of fighting back. She was conscious only of the pulverizing thrashing she was taking. She struggled at first, then just waited for it to stop.
Then it did. From far over the mountains, a new strength came to her, and her enemy pulled back. She listened: there were many distant noises, but near at hand the sound of laughter, her daughters' laughter in her mind's ear. She opened her eyes and saw him, opening his eyes at the same time, seated on his horse two hundred yards away before a dark grove.
It was only a quarter of an hour since he had attacked her, but the battle was over. Hundreds of men and horses lay dead: the cream of the Emperor's Elite. Now Valerie de Nikolad, hooting and shouting, led two companies of cataphracts after a retreating scramble of former Elite, and several hundred of the Delyan militia walked the battlefield slaying the imperial wounded.
"My lady," said Sir Francis, as the Emperor disappeared into the grove with a last stormy look. The horse marshal stood with Willd and several captains on the ground beside her horse. "They could hardly even fight without his voice to lead them, and we cut them to pieces. Again, and thanks to you, I think, we have lost very few. My lady! We have defeated the Emperor's elite!"
"We won?"
"Yes, my lady," said Willd, standing beside Francis. Their horses were calmly chomping on the winter wheat still standing in the battlefield.
"That's nice," said the Countess. She closed her eyes and swooned from the saddle, and Weaver and Willd caught her gently. Willd carried his lady to the Thane's Hall and a bed, and there she slept straight through the next eighteen hours.
Vivian was herself again in a couple of days, enough so to join her daughters in the garden on the other side. The Lady joined them for a long walk about the maze of aisles near the mansion. They saw no shadowy figures. When they sat before the door of the mansion, on a stone bench overhung with lilac in bloom, Vivian asked her tutor: Were you there, at Arrenuim?
The Lady smiled shyly. You'll know, she replied. You'll figure out who you are.
Who I am? Vivian asked. What's who I am to do with this?
You'll know, was the reply.
On the twenty-seventh of April, Siglind reported to her Countess, the Horse Marshal and the Thane of Delyan that the Emperor had gathered his latest army at Sand Point Inn. "They number thirteen thousand," she said, "Avars and knights and Imperial Guards, and no militia. Duke Salvar is with them, and Count Chalris has even come with a thousand of his own knights. This army has been some months in preparing, even as the Elite came on."
"Then he did not expect to win here," said Sir Francis.
"I think he expected to beat us," said Vivian, "but by now he'd at least have a Plan B."
"I have to admit," said Thane Lamorak of Intror, "I also considered the possibility of defeat, but evidently the Elite were overrated."
"Only because the advantage that He gave them was so great. Our Cataphracts can at least fight on their own. But now our foe knows what we have always known: that the next defeat is final. Neither Clane nor the Empire can afford to lose even one battle. If we lose, we will be destroyed. It's been that way all along for us. But if he loses, now, then his Imperial dream is lost forever."
"Then," said Weaver, "let us drink to the memory of the Last Emperor."
They raised their glasses and took small sips. Ellean gave the Countess a worried look. "Vivian," she said, "what did he do to you, while our cavalry was demoralizing the famous Imperial Elite? You looked like you'd pretty much had the stuffings beaten out of you."
"That's a good description," replied the Countess. "But he couldn't hurt me, not that way. We did what we needed to: we lured him into Clane, and we defeated his precious Elite. One more army, my friends, one more battle, and we will avenge all the wounds he has given us undeserved." They thought of the burning of blameless Vonnis, of the massacre at Fugad, of the arrow in flight at Dubkarin, of the death of Edwy Sallier, of two Farlain officers murdered in Delyan, of the many, the many outrages, but in Vivian's mind a jeweled knife gleamed. Her son would never laugh, never hug her, never walk, never speak--never wield that knife. No, it was she who waited with doom in her eyes in the square at Angren.