the land ahead of their path and in interpreting certain troubled dreams he has suffered.
I have written back by fastest rider to beg Orrin to dismiss the heathen immediately. I would have written “hang” for “dismiss” but Orrin is too…even handed for that.
June 23rd, Year 102 Interregnum
I tried to visit Orrin’s dreams as I have done every night since I discovered the capacity for it. Tonight I could find no trace of him, just a space in the dreamscape where I sought him, just blankness and the memory of the spice, the coriander seed that the heathen seems to breathe.
In desperation I sought out Egan in his sleep but found no trace of him either. The others in Orrin’s retinue I haven’t enough familiarity with to find among the hundreds of thousands who shape the dream-stuff.
I’ve a new physician, a dirty little man from the Slav steppes, but his infusions calm my head. He’s older than old and what words he has of Empire Tongue are oddly shaped. Even so, Lord Malas makes good report of him and his medicines work.
June 26th, Year 102 Interregnum
I found Orrin dreaming! I couldn’t walk in his dream, a golden thing of many layers, but it seemed to me that he has fought off whatever attempts Sageous has made to control him. Maybe he was right about being the one to hold the strings. It troubles me though that I am kept out. Perhaps it is a barrier fashioned by the heathen, or a defence of Orrin’s own making, whether by conscious will or natural resistance to direction.
Where Jorg kept me out with thorns and lightning, Orrin used a calm and simple refusal. I hope he has sent Sageous scampering back to Olidan Ancrath in the Tall Castle.
July 12th, Year 102 Interregnum
Arrow. Greenite Palace. Ballroom.
This palace has stood for almost two years and no one has danced in the ballroom. Orrin would host a ball to please me, have his lords and ladies descend upon the palace in their carriages. Hundreds would come in satin and lace. He would dance with the precision and grace that amazed his tutors, be attentive to my needs, compliment the musicians. And all the time I would know that behind his eyes grander thoughts were circulating, plans, philosophies, letters being written, and that when the last revellers had been taken home dead drunk across their carriage seats, Orrin would be found in the library scribbling notes in the margins of some weighty tome.
Egan has written to me from the celebrations after the capture of Orlanth’s last castle. I say it is Egan but I have never seen his hand before. It would surprise me if he has ever written a letter until now. Perhaps a scribe set it down for him, for the characters are formed with practised skill, but the voice is Egan’s. He wrote:
Katherine,
We have Orlanth from the western plains to the borders of the Ken Marshes. Orrin concerns himself with plans for Baron Kennick. He will play politic, offer terms, massage the old man’s ego. We should just roll through there without pause and leave it smoking in our wake.
Orrin has sent me to Castle Traliegh in Conaught, it stands in the middle of nowhere. After the excesses of East Haven he says he worries for me. He says I need rest.
I need rest like I need poison. What I require is to be tempered in the forge of war and to pitch exhausted into dreamless sleep each night.
Conaught is a haunted place. I dream such dreams here. I stare at the walls and fear the night. Even though I dream of you. They are not good dreams.
I don’t know what to do. Orrin will hear no wrong of his brother. I have seen it before. Somehow he always finds an angle from which Egan’s deeds can be viewed as excusable.
I’ve never done anything to encourage this passion, this obsession, in Egan. I favoured Orrin from the start. If I had wanted a savage I could have smiled on Jorg of Ancrath, and what a creature I would have been tied to then.
Orrin needs to send Egan away, to give him some castle on a disputed border, some war to occupy him. It can’t be that he needs his brother always at his side. One blade can’t turn a battle, surely, no matter how skilled.
July 18th, Year 102 Interregnum
I have searched for Egan in the dreamscape and he is still hidden from me. The messages I send go unreplied. I don’t even know if the riders are reaching Orrin’s army. Report has it that he is closing on the Renar Highlands. Part of me wonders if Sageous is Jorg Ancrath’s tool. Has he unleashed his father’s pet upon my husband?
October 28th, Year 102 Interregnum
I found Egan’s dreams but they were dark and closed to me. I sensed the heathen’s handiwork and worry at his plans. Has Orrin proved too difficult to steer? Egan would be easier, like a bull goaded this way and that by the fluttering of rags. It’s maddening to be closeted in this palace with all that matters unfolding three hundred miles away.
October 29th, Year 102 Interregnum
Still no word from Orrin or from Egan, but reports come in of tens of thousands on the move, men under arms, all converging on the Highlands, and of Jorg Ancrath skulking in his single castle with less than a twentieth part of that force.
And still I worry. For Orrin with his cleverness and strength and patience and wisdom. Even for Egan with his fire and his skill. Because I remember Jorg of Ancrath and the look in his eye, and the scars he carries, and the echoes of his deeds that still vibrate through the dreamscape. I remember him, and I would worry if Orrin had ten times the number and Jorg stood alone.
November 1st, Year 102 Interregnum
I made a dream, a thing of light and shadows, and set it dancing in the head of Marcus Gohal, captain of the palace guard. It made it easier for him to agree with me when I demanded that he assemble a suitable force to guard me on my journey to my husband’s side. It made him forget all thoughts of arguing. Instead he nodded, clicked his heels in the way the men of Arrow do, and gathered four hundred lancers to escort me south.
We set off early, before the dawn stole shadow from the sky, and we rode out at a gentle pace, the horses’ breath puffing in clouds before them, the leaves golden and crimson on the trees as the first light found them.
And I felt watched, as if someone on high were paying close attention.
Brother Gog I miss. There is no sound more annoying than the chatter of a child, and none more sad than the silence they leave when they are gone.
48
Wedding day
“This is madness, Jorg. God made the Prince of Arrow to stand behind a sword. That’s what everyone says about him. He’s not like other men, not with a blade in hand. He’s not human.” Makin stood before the throne now, as if he were going to block my way.
“And it will turn out that he was born to die behind one too,” I said.
“I’ve seen him fight.” Makin shook his head. “I hope you’ve got something up your sleeve, Jorg.”
“Of course,” I said.
Makin’s shoulders fell as he relaxed a touch. Uncle Robert smiled.
“The best damn sword arm in history is what I’ve got up my sleeve.”
The protests started immediately, a chorus of them, as if my court had filled with disgruntled geese.
“Gentlemen!” I stood from my throne. “Your lack of faith dismays me. And you wouldn’t like me when I’m dismayed. If the Prince of Arrow accepts my challenge I will meet him on the field and find victory there.”
I pushed past Makin. “You!” I pointed to a random knight. “Get my herald here.” I felt reasonably sure I had a herald. I turned and looked Makin in the eye. “I did tell you that I fought Sword-master Shimon, didn’t I?”
“A thousand times.” He sighed and glanced at Lord Robert.
“Shimon said you were good, Jorg,” Uncle Robert said. “One of the best he’s seen in forty years.”
“You see!” I cried. “You see?”
