Valdemar 06 - [Exile 01] - Exile’s Honor Page 39

  “More about these children, tell me,” he asked of Laika, when they were on the move again and a comfortable sort of fatigue began to set in. The moon, silvering the grass around them, turned the landscape into a strange sculpture of ebony and argent; with hoofbeats muffled by the soft earth and grass, they seemed to be moving in a dream, and he asked the question more to hear a human voice than for the information itself.

  “You’ll find they’re a funny lot,” she replied. “You’d think, being mostly not taught anything, that they’d be wild. But—well, once they got out of babyhood, they pretty much had to teach themselves and take care of each other, and by the gods, that’s what they do. Maybe it was because so many of ’em lost their whole families, but they’ve got a kind of motto—nobody left behind—and they stick to it. The older ones see that the little ones get fed and clothed, the little ones do what they can to help the older ones. I think they’re the next thing to illiterate, but they’ll drink up anything you teach them like thirsty ground. They all found out that the Tedrels themselves may not do anything for them, but if they made themselves useful, they got rewards beyond whatever the Tedrels dumped in their section of the camp, so that’s another thing they learned to do, how to make themselves useful. Then when that Kantis child showed up, he really organized them. Of course—I didn’t get to see much of that, since I was an adult.” She coughed. “Very secret, that cult was. No grownups were to hear about it.”

  “So—when into our camp we bring them, they will helpful be?” he hazarded.

  “I would be greatly amazed if they didn’t swarm the place, doing all sorts of little chores. Anybody expecting a bunch of terrified, wild little beasts is going to get a shock. Having ’em around is a lot like having a tribe of those little house sprites some old stories talk about; they can’t do heavy labor, but by the gods, when they get determined to do something, it gets done. I had to fish more of ’em out of my wash tubs than I care to think about.” She chuckled a little, then sobered. “Listen, you have the Queen’s ear; make sure no one breaks them up into little groups right away—let ’em sort themselves out. They’ve made up little family groups of their own, and it’s all they’ve got. Make sure none of us take that away from them.”

  “I shall,” he promised. It wasn’t a difficult promise to make.

  The caravan moved on, ghosting through the darkness. And even at the slow pace, they reached the Border again a little after sunrise.

  The children were awake by then, and peering eagerly ahead. Alberich had elected to come into the camp, not from the south directly, but indirectly from the west, saving the children the sight of the battlefield. They might have run tame in the Tedrel camp for most of their lives, and they might be inured to the aftermath of battle, but he didn’t think they had ever seen a battlefield. Even now, there would still be much of horror about it. The result of so great a conflict was not cleaned up in a day or two . . . and it was no sight for these little ones.

  So they actually made a detour upcountry, leaving the trampled “road” that the Tedrels had left until they struck an old track that crossed the Border at a ford, and joined up with one of the Valdemaran roads used by Border patrols. The old track showed some wear, so someone was still using it; it was rutted and gave the teamsters some hard times, but they took it in good part, knowing they were nearly home. Whenever a wagon got stuck, the children (if it was one that was carrying children) all piled out and the largest children mobbed it, put their young shoulders to it, and helped in the front by hauling on the horse’s harness. No wagon remained stuck for long, with that kind of help.

  For Alberich, crossing the Border brought on a mood of melancholy and depression. Not despair—but his heart sank with every pace they came nearer the camp. For a little, he had been allowed to forget, but only for a little and now—

  They had all lost so much . . . so much.

  And yet, just as they approached the camp with what seemed like half the inhabitants waiting for them, and in the very moment that the blackest depression descended on him, the children changed the complexion of everything.

  They had been clinging to the sides of the wagons, peering over and around each other, trying to see ahead—when they saw the lines of white-clad Heralds and Companions, they could not hold themselves back. They boiled out of the wagons, spilled over the sides, tumbled to the ground, laughing and shouting, and ran to those who waited. “White Riders! White Riders!” they shouted (virtually the only Karsite they knew), pouring into the camp and running up to anyone who looked even halfway friendly, as if these were not strangers, but friends and beloved relations.

  There were a great many of these children, he realized, as more of them spilled out of the wagons and carts. More than the “thousand” that Laika had promised. But no one seemed to mind. Certainly no one called him or Selenay to account for it, not then, and not at any time thereafter.

  And in the days following, as the bodies were burned or buried, as the wounded were taken north, as the encampment was disassembled and troop after troop of fighters sent north again, it was the children who kept them all sane. They were everywhere, poking their noses into everything, trying to learn Valdemaran, trying to help where they could, and just being children, some for the first time in their short lives.

  Not even Selenay was proof against their sheer exuberance at being here, a place that they seemed to consider an earthly paradise, and before long she had “adopted” a half dozen (or they adopted her), making them her pages and promising that they would be allowed to join her Royal Household in that capacity once they all reached Haven. Nor was she the only one; every wagon going north seemed to hold a handful of children going to a new home. Fighters, teamsters, Heralds—servants and highborn—everyone who could take in two, three, or four children did so.

  “I never would have believed it, no matter who had told me, if anyone had claimed that bringing these children here was the best thing we could have done,” Selenay told him on the third afternoon of the return, watching a child dash away with a message to be given to the next dispatch rider going out of the camp. Her eyes were still shadowed with sorrow, but her lips curved in a faint, fond smile. “I thought that it was something that had to be done, but truth to tell, I was dreading the mess they’d make for us.”

  They’d taken down the black felt linings for the tents, and the painted canvas glowed with afternoon light. That, too, was a mixed blessing. More light raised the spirit a little—but the black felt had gone for use as shrouds. . . .

  “And I,” he agreed. “Most unnaturally helpful, they seem.”

  She had to smile at that, just a little. “You don’t see them at their worst. They’re still children, they still fight, and get into things they shouldn’t and have tantrums. But for all of that, I’m afraid that in years to come, they’re going to be held up as the good examples that every naughty child in Valdemar should behave like.”

  “Or perhaps, as children being, a year from now and they will no better nor worse than others become,” Alberich suggested.

  She flicked a fly away with the feather end of her quill. “Perhaps.” She put pen to paper, and signed another order. “Who knows? I’m no ForeSeer.”

  “And I—See not that far, when I See at all,” he admitted ruefully. If I had been, could I have changed any of this? Or was it all too big for any one man to change?

  “Speaking of the children, I’ve given some thought to what to do with them, the ones that haven’t managed to get themselves adopted already, that is,” she said, looking up at him. “And I wanted to ask you what you think.”

  “Keeping them to their own—ah—‘families,’ you are?” he asked, a little anxiously, because he had seen, just as Laika had told him, how they sorted themselves out into their own little “families,” and stayed together. It had been the smallest of those groups of two, three, or four children that were the ones that found homes first.

  “Of course,” she replied. “It doesn’t
take an Empath to realize we shouldn’t tear apart what few bonds they have! But that’s where the problem lies, you see; there aren’t too many families or even childless couples prepared to take in six or a dozen children at once, much less ones that don’t even speak our language. So my first thought was to—well—send them to school.” She folded both hands over the papers on her little desk and looked anxiously at him to see what his reply would be.

  He nodded; that made perfect sense. “Like—the Academy?” he hazarded.

  She nodded. “Or the Collegia. Oh, obviously, they can’t actually go to the Collegia, we haven’t nearly enough room for them, but something like the Collegia. And there are a lot of Valdemaran orphans to deal with, too—though those are having to go to the Houses of Healing, I’m afraid; they need MindHealers right now, not schooling. . . .”

  Her face darkened for a moment, but she took a deep breath and went on. “So I’ve written to all of the major temples, the ones with both day- and boarding-schools, and asked if they would take in some of the ‘families’ for a year, teach them Valdemaran and some basic reading and writing, until I’ve got these orphan collegia built.” She waited for his response. He pondered what she had told him. “Your project, this is?”

  She nodded. “If I have to,” she said, with some of the same mulish stubbornness of her father, “I’ll pay for it out of my own household budget—”

  He raised an eyebrow. “Doubt do I, with the current mood of the Council, you will have to.”

  And now she had the good grace to blush. “Then better to push it through now than wait,” she said, raising her chin. “Given that the booty from the Tedrels has furnished the means to restore all the damage they did down here, there isn’t a great deal for the Council to complain about.”

  That was certainly true. Laika had been correct about that, as well.

  “So build housing for these children—but homes?” he prompted.

  “I’m going to look for childless couples, and ask them to serve as surrogate parents,” she said, warming to her subject. “More than one couple, of course, for each house! It will probably take a year to get that all sorted out, find couples that like each other enough to share that kind of responsibility, get the houses built. But then we can keep them all together, we can probably even put Valdemaran children in with them—”

  “That,” he interjected, “a most good idea is. Help each other, they can. And good it would be, for Valdemaran children to know, Tedrel children are no different than they.”

  She sighed deeply. “I was hoping you would say that. Then it’s settled; I’ll put it up to the Council, first thing. Maybe they won’t think it’s as important as some of their other business, but I do.”

  So the “prophecy” is going to come true after all, that the children of the Tedrels were going to have real homes, though they would share “mothers and fathers.” Once again, he wondered about that mysterious child called Kantis; since arriving back in camp, he’d been too busy to look any further for him.

  And by now, he could be gone.

  “Well, this will be the last one of these that I sign here,” Selenay said, signing the last of the papers waiting for her signature and seal, and putting it in the pile of completed work. She closed her eyes for a moment, and it cost him to see how worn and tired she looked. “I won’t miss this place.”

  “Nor I.” He could not wait to be gone, truth to tell. If this had been Karse, rather than Valdemar, the aftermath would have been left for the locals to clean up. But it wasn’t. So now there was a neat cemetery with rows of wooden markers out there where the churned-up ground had been—and a pit full of ashes where everything that wasn’t Valdemaran had been disposed of. There had been too many burials for single ceremonies; each day at sunset had ended with a mass ceremony at which the names of the interred fallen for that day had been read. He had come to hate sunset, as each sunset brought fresh pain or the renewal of old, as names of those he hadn’t known were gone, and those he had known were dead, were read out. He woke each morning, it seemed, with the scent of death in his nostrils, and went to sleep at night with a heart too heavy for tears.

  Only Sendar and a few of the highborn were going north to find burial. It was too bad, but there were not many who could afford the expense to bring their loved ones home—and the horror of transporting that many bodies, stacked in the beds of wagons like so much cargo—and in the heat of summer—did not bear thinking about. There wasn’t a teamster in the country who could be induced to use his wagon and team for that. But that was always the case in war. . . .

  The highborn had already been taken north in their expensive, sealed coffins, by the family retainers, in black-felt-draped wagons bedecked with family crests. Only the King was left, to make his final journey in the company of his daughter and those who had known him best.

  It would be an honor guard, and it was an honor to be included in it. And here was the one factor that leavened, just a little, the sadness of the journey for Alberich. No one, not one person, had objected to his presence at Selenay’s side. Talamir had already been sent north with the wounded, and there was no Queen’s Own to ride with her. But she wouldn’t need the Queen’s Own on the journey, only bodyguards. The Council had gone on ahead, and now that the most urgent needs had been answered, all decisions were being held until Selenay reached Haven. So when it came down to it, Selenay only needed her bodyguards, not Alberich.

  Yet no one said a word when she posted the final list of who was to accompany her, and chief on the list was “Herald Alberich, acting Queen’s Own.”

  “Are we on schedule?” she asked, packing up her writing case with greater care than the simple task warranted.

  “Ahead, a little,” he told her. “In readiness, all will be, for leaving at dawn.”

  She closed and locked the case, then sighed. “I suppose I’ll be expected to make a speech.”

  “Yes.” He did not elaborate on that; he felt horribly sorry for her, but it was her duty, and she knew it. But there was another aspect to this journey of grief that he didn’t think she had considered. Not only the army mourned its King, but the country. “It is wondered, Majesty, if pausing you will be at each village?” They’d left it to him to ask that delicate question, that and any others that might come up. He was acting Queen’s Own, after all; delicate questions, it seemed, were a part of the job.

  “At each village?” she asked, looking blank.

  “A speech to make?” he elaborated.

  She frowned, and looked as if she had suddenly developed a headache. “Oh, gods. I don’t want to . . . but people are going to want to pay their respects, aren’t they? But each time we stop, it’s just going to make this whole thing drag out longer, and—” The frown turned into a look of despair, and he sensed that if he told her she should make all those stops, she’d do it, but it might break her.

  He racked his brain for an answer, and finally thought he had a compromise. “Majesty—perhaps not a stop, and not a speech. But—spectacle. Something for memory and showing honor. A Herald sent ahead to warn each place that we come, then . . . drop pace to a slow walk? With—ah—muffled drums? Lowered banners? Through each place’s center, though a detour we make? No speech, but—” he sought for the word, desperately, “—on your part, to be the icon of grief? You need speak not, only mourn, publicly—”

  She looked as if he had taken a huge burden off of her shoulders. “The very thing—would you go see to it for me, get it all organized?”

  She must be near the breaking point, or she wouldn’t delegate that to me. “At once, Majesty,” he promised. “Please—be eating would you? Little have you had since morning.”

  That got a thin ghost of a smile from her. “Except for the accent, you sound like Talamir. Or my old nurse. All right, Nanny Alberich, I’ll go get something to eat, and I promise I’ll get some sleep, too. Maybe I’ll have Crathach give me something to make me sleep, and go to bed early.”

  “Tha
t, most wise would be,” he said. “And eat you must. Too thin, you are. How are you to get a husband, so thin you are?”

  She stared at him for a moment in utter silence as he kept his face completely expressionless. Then, weakly, she began to laugh.

  He allowed himself a smile.

  She wiped away a tear, but he could see that some of the lines of grief and worry around her eyes had eased. “And they say you have no sense of humor,” she said.

  “Nor do I. All know this,” he assured her. “Go now, and something impossible demand of the cooks.”

  “Impossible?” That caught her off guard. “Why?”

  “First, that a reason they will have, at last to complain. Cooks must complain; in their nature, it is. Second, that injured their pride has been, that you have asked for nothing. Their pride is in that their masters demand much of them. Third, concerned they have been, that you have asked for nothing. They fear you need them not. Fourth, they worry for you.” He raised an eyebrow. “But be certain, though impossible, it is something you want. Suspect I do, that they will create it.”

  “Ah.” She blinked. “Do you know everything that is going on around here?”

  He shook his head at that. “Not I. But Kantor I have, as Caryo you have. Our Companions know much, and what they know not, generally, they can discover. Sendar made use of that, often and often.”

  “I’d better get used to doing the same, then.” This time her smile was a little stronger, as she picked up her writing case and stood up. “And I’ll think about impossible things to eat on the way to my tent. Can you find Crathach and send him to me, while you’re doing all the other things I’ve asked you to?”

  “Without difficulty.” He returned her smile. “Ask Kantor, I shall.”

  They left the tent together. She picked up her escort of Ylsa and Keren at the door of the command tent, and went her own way in the golden light of another perfect evening, while Alberich started off on the last of the errands she had set him.