Crown of Vengeance

Glorthiachiel was overfond of reminding him, if the enemy came to the field armored and weaponed, one did not bear away the victory by meeting them unarmed.

He prepared to unroll Elrinonion’s scroll, then reached for his wine instead. Inevitably it would be more of what he had heard at the beginning of Storm, and at the middle of Storm, and at the beginning of Rain. It was further inevitable that Glorthiachiel knew it already.

The powers that shape our fates mock us. We scoured Farcarinon because it had become a haven of bandits and arrogant mercenaries, thinking we plucked a weapon from the hands of Serenthon’s mad daughter. Instead she claims Oronviel—and makes of it a haven for every broken spur and gallowglass in the Fortunate Lands!

Bolecthindial had known since Midwinter that Vieliessar did not intend to simply lie quiet in Oronviel Keep and enjoy the freedom and luxury denied her at the Sanctuary of the Star. In the beginning he’d dismissed her ambitions. He’d laughed when he heard she sent her komen galloping to the eight corners of Oronviel in the dead of winter, certain it was a desperate attempt to keep them from rising against her. He’d assumed she would take decades to consolidate her rule, make a marriage alliance, and build up her armies before challenging any of the Hundred.

He’d found matters less amusing when he learned Oronviel and Ivrithir had settled their ancient quarrels. Elrinonion had sent spies into Oronviel and Ivrithir to learn more. From Ivrithir he learned Atholfol meant to support Oronviel’s claim to the Unicorn Throne. From Oronviel he learned nothing, because the agents he sent across her borders never reported back.

Bolecthindial drained his cup and reached for the pitcher to refill it. Peacebond or no, he wished they’d drowned Serenthon’s brat in her infancy. Farcarinon never does as it is ordered, and she is Farcarinon to the bone.

The silence from within Oronviel did not mean Bolecthindial or Elrinonion were in ignorance of her plans. From Great Sea Ocean to the Grand Windsward, the entire realm knew what Vieliessar was doing. The news from Oronviel was nearly enough to make the strange events at the Sanctuary dwindle into irrelevance. After all, it mattered only to the Lightborn who was Astromancer and for how long.…

But Ivrulion had sent news this morning through Mardioruin Lightbrother. At least Mardioruin is discreet, Bolecthindial thought blackly. Ivrulion knows better than to send me a message save by a Lightborn personally loyal to him—Carangil Lightbrother runs first to Glorthiachiel with everything, whether it is a scraped knee or the news that we are being invaded. And yet … there are things my son will wish no one to know until I have heard them, and so I know I have not yet heard the worst.

There was a preemptory rap upon his door, and it opened before the servant sitting beside it could ask who was there.

“It is as we thought.” Runacarendalur strode into the room, stripping off his gloves. He had come straight from the stables; his spurs and chain mail jingled as he crossed the floor. “The farmsteads upon our eastern border are deserted. Stripped.”

“How many?” Bolecthindial asked.

Runacarendalur laughed. “All of them! My troop and I rode the bounds for a sennight and saw no one, save in the border towers. And they saw nothing.”

He stopped before the desk and glanced at his father for permission before filling a second cup from the pitcher of wine. “They watch, of course. Do not think they shirk their duty to Caerthalien and to you. But they saw no smoke nor fire—nor have I ever hunted border raiders who strip a farm of every blanket and mattress. The Landbonds and their Farmholders are gone into Oronviel. Or should we call it Farcarinon now?”

Bolecthindial glared at him and did not reply.

“What news from the Sanctuary?” Runacarendalur asked with a sigh.

“Ivrulion says he has not been able to persuade Hamphuliadiel to end his term as Astromancer. He returns home at the end of the sennight.”

“That much is good to hear, at least,” Runacarendalur said.

“Is it?” his father snapped. “Then you will rejoice to learn all of Oronviel’s Postulants have vanished from the Sanctuary.”

“What?” Runacarendalur said, pausing in the act of drinking. “How? When?”

“Stop hovering.” Bolecthindial waved toward a chair, and Runacarendalur threw himself into it. “The message came through Mardioruin Lightbrother. Ivrulion could not say much. But his last letter—” Bolecthindial tapped the rolled scroll that lay on the corner of the table, its seal broken. “—said Hamphuliadiel keeps the Lightborn who have come to ask his mind all very close, offering them feasts and entertainment as if they guested in some great lord’s house. Ivrulion said he would make it his purpose to speak with our Postulants there, should he manage to contrive it so the meeting would look like mere chance.”

“’Rulion is a Prince of the Line,” Runacarendalur pointed out. “Why doesn’t he just order Hamphuliadiel to do what he wants?”

“And do what when the Astromancer refuses?” Bolecthindial asked, with heavy irony. “We cannot go to war against the Sanctuary of the Star!”

“I know.” Runacarendalur pulled his braid over his shoulder and tugged at it. “Mother wishes to see you. Before you ask, she’s seen Elrinonion’s latest report.”

Bolecthindial glanced toward the still-unopened scroll.

“I know not what Elrinonion says, but Mother says Oronviel is building up a peasant army to slaughter us all in our beds,” Runacarendalur added helpfully. “And after what I saw on the border … she might be right.”

* * *

On certain occasions, Lord Bolecthindial took his noon meal in his private rooms attended only by those whom he invited to share it. Today he dined with his wife and children, plus his Warlord and Swordmaster, as was only reasonable on the eve of War Season.

“When you sent your heir to scour Farcarinon clean of outlaws and landless mercenaries, my lord husband, I was certain that would be an end to our problems—not a beginning,” Ladyholder Glorthiachiel said with poisonous politeness. “How is it that any traitor knight and hedge bandit can enter Oronviel at will, and we must rely for information on the rumors that unnatural creature chooses to spread? She holds her throne by witchery, you know,” Glorthiachiel finished idly.

“Mother!” Thorogalas protested halfheartedly.

“Oh, I don’t mean Magery,” Ladyholder Glorthiachiel said, waving Thorogalas’s protests aside. “But there is bad blood in that Line. They are all sly and untrustworthy. Look at what her father did, after all.”

“It is nothing more than any of us would have done,” Domcariel said, and Runacarendalur glanced at his brother in surprise, for Dom was slow and deliberate off the battlefield as well as on it. “You would be the first to agree, Rune,” he added.

“I should be happy to become High King,” Runacarendalur said. “I think I would choose a different method, though.”

“It cannot possibly work,” Gimragiel said. As always, he took their mother’s part so thoroughly that he might as well have said nothing and left her to do all the talking. “But think of the disaster to the rest of us when she has lost. If Farcarinon was a refuge of outlaws, Oronviel will be a thousand times worse.”

“If I knew precisely what was happening in Oronviel, perhaps I would agree,” Lord Bolecthindial said, glaring meaningfully at his Swordmaster.

“You cannot know precisely, that is true, Lord Bolecthindial,” Elrinonion said reprovingly. “But it is widely known that no matter what the crime, to go before Oronviel’s War Prince and pledge fealty is to be pardoned. As my lord is aware, some insignificant fraction of the Free Companies escaped last year’s Harrowing of Farcarinon. They might—perhaps—be assets to an army. But the majority of outlaws are simple thieves who have no training in arms.”

“You didn’t get Foxhaven and Glasswall, Father,” Princess Angiothiel said, biting into a roast dove. “Doesn’t Glasswall winter on Sarmiorion land?”

“It doesn’t matter if they do,” Bolecthindial announced.

“And Foxhaven upon Nantirworiel, though that is even beyond Sarmiorion and the Uradabhur, so it hardly matters.” Angiothiel said, stretching out her arm to pluck a candied apricot from the tray in the center of the table.