Exile's Honor

'Then, when you have dropped back, the riders here at the front will all divide to either side of the road, let the wagon and the walkers pass, and fall in behind the last of the walkers, except for two Bards with muffled drums,' the Bard finished. 'Those will ride in front of the wagon.' He peered anxiously at her; he was not a young man, but he didn't seem to know Selenay very well. 'I hope that meets with your approval?'

:He's a specialist in this sort of thing,: Kantor confided. :Funeral dirges, memorial ballads, funerary rituals—rather a melancholy profession, I would think, but apparently it suits him. This is the first time he's had anything to do with the Royals, though, and he's nervous.:

'I think it is very fine,' she told him, and he smiled with relief. 'You must have worked terribly hard to come up with something this—appropriate—at such short notice.'

Now he blushed with pleasure, and murmured a disclaimer. She raised her head to assess the state of preparations even as he thanked her.

:We seem to be ready to move out,: Kantor told his Chosen.

'Would you sound a call for silence, please?' Selenay asked the Bard, who snatched up the trumpet at his saddle bow, and played a four-note flourish.

Silence fell immediately, and Selenay rode Caryo up onto the bank beside the road so that everyone could see her.

'This seems to be a moment that requires a speech,' she said, into the waiting silence. 'But a speech, to me, means something that has been prepared for the ears of strangers, and after all that we have been through together, I think that none of us are strangers now.' She paused and looked up and down the road, and Alberich knew that she was making certain each and every one of those in this cortege felt she lad made eye contact with him. 'Perhaps some day, when our losses are not so fresh, our wounds are not so raw, we will be able to look back on our victory as a victory, with more pride than sorrow. And we should. It was not only my father's sacrifice that won the day, it was the sacrifice of every single person who perished or was wounded, and every one of you who held a weapon, who wielded your Gifts, who tended a beast, kept us fed, or served any other task here. The victory belongs to all of you, and never, ever let anyone tell you differently.'

She took a breath, blinked hard, and continued. 'And even if the enemy had won here, he would never have taken Valdemar, for Valdemar is more than land; Valdemar is the people, and the spirit that lives in those people, and that spirit can never be conquered.' Now she looked at the sealed coffin, draped in black, and covered with a pall upon which the arms of Valdemar were embroidered—a pall that had once been Sendar and Selenay's battle banners, and which were still stained with blood. Not just Sendar's blood either, but that of all those who had been with him, whether wounded, or fallen. 'He knew that, and he trusted to that spirit to carry on, no matter what happened to him. You have shown that spirit is alive in all of you, and he could have no better tribute than that, nor would he have asked for anything more.' Another pause. 'And I do not ask for anything less.'

:Well said, my Queen,: he Mindspoke to her, and was rewarded by a brief flicker of her eyes in his direction.

'Now it is time for all of us to tender him our final service,' she finished. 'Now—let us bear him gently home.'

And she rode down the bank to her place at the head of the procession, and lifted her hand in signal.

Alberich took his place at her side, with Keren and Ylsa to the right and left. She dropped her hand, and they moved forward on the road to Haven.

And though there had not yet been a ceremony, or a coronation, everyone in that procession knew that this was the moment when the Heir truly took up the reins of power. And so, in silence but for the sound of hooves and feet and wheels on the road, the reign of King Sendar ended, and the reign of Queen Selenay began.

20

THE journey north accomplished for Selenay what the cleanup of the battlefield had done for everyone else; it allowed her to indulge in the full expression of her mourning—in public. Until the moment of departure, she had held her grief firmly in check, perhaps feeling that with so many others suffering, she should not further burden them with her own grief. If she wept, she did so only in private; everyone knew she mourned, but she did so quietly. But on his journey, her public duty was to mourn, to be the symbol of Valdemar's grief, and at last she could give free rein to all of the anguish she had held inside.

It seemed that everyone along their route wished to pay heir final respects to the King; farmers left their fields, shepherds their flocks, tradesmen their crafts. Villagers and townsfolk lined both sides of the road, and the road itself was carpeted with rushes, flowers and herbs whenever they entered a town, so much so that the wheels of the wagons were muffled and cushioned against bumps. People carrying baskets and great bouquets of blossoms, and even hand-woven garlands and blankets of flowers, brought them up and placed them on the wagon as it crept past them at a slow walk, until it overflowed with blooms and foliage, and nothing of the black-draped coffin could be seen. And they wept, which had the effect of freeing Selenay's tears.

It was exhausting for her, but at the same time, it was exactly what she needed. Alberich and Crathach saw