'But you told me that you were bom with that scar!' Maram said, turning to me.
'Yes.' I said. 'That's right.'
Truly, I had been. My mother's labor in bringing me into the world was so hard and long that everyone had said I wanted to remain inside her in darkness. And sor finally, the midwife had had to use tongs to pull me out. The tongs had cut me, and the wound had healed raggedly, in the shape of a lightning bolt.
The bear,' Asaru explained 'opened up the scar again and cut it deeper.'
'Be was lucky the bear didn't break his skull,'' Lord Harsha said to Maram. 'And both of them were lucky that my son, may he abide in peace, was walking through the woods that day. He found these lads half-dead in the moss and killed the bear with his spear before it could kill them.'
Andaru Harsha – I knew the name of my rescuer very well. At the Battle of Red Mountain, I had taken a wound in my thigh protect-ing him from the Waashians' spears. And later, at the same battle I had frozen up and been unable to kill one of our enemy who stood shieldless and helpless before me. Because of my hesitation many still whispered that I was a coward. But Asaru never called me that.
'Then your son saved their lives,' Maram said to Lord Harsha.
'He always said it was the best thing he ever did.'
Maram came up to me and grabbed my arm. 'And you think to repay the courage of this man's son by going back into these woods?'
'Yes, that's right,' I said.
'Ah.' he said, looking at me with his soft brown eyes. 'I see.'
And he did see, which was why I loved him. Without being told, he understood that I had come back to these woods today not to seek vengeance by shooting arrows in some strange bear, but only because there are other monsters that must be faced.
'Well, then.' Lord Harsha said. 'Enough of bear stories. Would you like a bite to eat before your hunt?'
Due to Maram's peccadilloes, we had missed lunch and we were all of us hungry. Of course, that wouldn't have dismayed Asaru, but rejecting Lord Harsha's hospitality would. And so Asaru, speaking for all of us as if he were already king, bowed his head and said, 'We'd be honored.'
While Lord Harsha opened his horse's saddlebags, our horses stamped the earth impatiently and bent their heads to munch the sweet green grass growing between the field's stone wall and the forest. I glanced off across the field to study Lord Asaru's house. I liked its square lines and size and the cedar-shingled roof, which was almost as steeply gabled as the chalets you see higher in the mountains. It was built of oak and stone: austere, clean, quietly beautiful – very Valari. I remembered Andaru Harsha bringing me to this house, where I had lain in delirium for half a day while his father tended my wound.
'Here, now.' Lord Harsha said as he laid a cloth on the wall. 'Sit with me, and let's talk about the war.'
While we took our places along the wall he set out two loaves of black, barley bread, a tub of goat cheese and some freshly pulled green onions. We cut the bread for sandwiches and ate them. I liked the tang of the onions against the saltiness of the cheese; I liked it even more when Lord Harsha drew out four silver goblets and filled them with brown beer that he poured from a small wooden cask.
'This was brewed last fall,' Lord Harsha said. In turn, he handed goblets to Asaru, me and Joshu. Then he picked up his own goblet. 'It was a good harvest, and a better brew. Shall we make a toast?'
I saw Maram licking his lips as if he'd been stricken dumb with grief, and I said,
'Lord Harsha, you've forgotten Maram.'
'Indeed,' he said, smiling. 'But you said he's with the Brothers – hasn't he taken vows?'
'Ah, well yes, I have,' Maram admitted. ' I've forsworn wine, women and war.'
'Well, then?'
'I never vowed not to drink beer.'
'You quibble, Prince Maram.'
Yes, I do, don't I? But only when vital matters are at stake.'
'Such as the drinking of beer?'
'Such as the drinking of Meshian beer, which is known to be the finest in all of Ea'
'This compliment proved too much for Lord Harsha, who laughed and magically produced another goblet from the saddlebags. He picked up the cask and poured forth a stream of beer.
'Let's drink to the king,' he said, raising his goblet. 'May he abide in the One and find the wisdom to decide on peace or war.'
We all clinked goblets and drank the frothy beer. It tasted of barley and hops and roasted nuts of the talaru tree that grows only in the forests near Mount Arakel.
Maram, of course, was the first to finish his beer. He gulped it down like a hound does milk. Then he held out his goblet for Lord Harsha to fill it again and said, 'Now I would like to propose a toast. To the lords and knights of Mesh who have fought faithfully for their king.'
'Excellent,' Lord Harsha said, once more filling Maram's goblet 'Let's drink to that indeed.'
Again Maram drained his cup. He licked the froth from his mustache. He held the empty cup out yet again and said 'And now, ah, to the courage and prowess of the warriors – how do you say it? To flawlessness and fearlessness.'
But Lord Harsha stoppered the cask with a cork, and said, ''No, that''s enough if you're going hunting today – we can't have you young princes shooting arrows at each other, can we?'
'But Lord Harsha,' Maram protested, 'I was only going to suggest that the courage of your Meshian warriors is an inspiration to those of us who can only hope to -'
'You're quite the diplomat,' Lord Harsha said, laughing as he cut Maram off.
'Perhaps you should reason with the Ishkans. Perhaps you could talk them out of this war as easily as you talked me out of my beer.' 'I don't understand why there has to be a war at all,' Maram said. 'Well there's bad blood between us,' Lord Harsha said simply. 'But it's the same blood, isn't it? You're all Valari, aren't you?' 'Yes, the same blood,' Lord Harsha said, slowly sipping from-his-goblet. Then he looked at me sadly. 'But the Ishkans shed it in ways shameful to any Valari. The way they killed Valashu's grandfather.'
'But he died in battle, didn't he? Ah, the Battle of the Diamond River?'
Now Lord Harsha swallowed the last of his beer as if someone had forced him to drink blood. He tapped his eye-patch and said, 'Yes, it was at the Diamond. Twelve years ago now. That's where the Ishkans took this eye. That's where the Ishkans sacrificed five companies just to close with King Elkamesh and kill him.'
'But that's war, isn't it?' Maram asked.
'No, that's dueling. The Ishkans hated King Elkamesh because when he was a young man such as yourself, he killed Lord Dorje in a duel. And so they used the battle as a duel to take their revenge.'
'Lord Dorje,' I explained, looking at Maram, 'was King Hadaru's oldest brother.'
'I see,' Maram said. 'And this duel took place, ah, fifty years ago? You Valari wait a long time to take your revenge.'
I looked north toward the dark clouds moving in from Ishka's mountains, and I lost myself in memories of wrongs and hurts that went back more than a hundred times fifty years.
'Please do not say 'we Valari,'' Lord Harsha told Maram. He rubbed his broken knee and said, 'Sar Lensu of Waas caught me here with his mace, and that's war.
There's no vengeance to be taken. They understand that in Waas. They would never have tried to kill King Elkamesh as the Ishkans did.'
While Lord Harsha rose abruptly and shook out the cloth of its crumbs for the sparrows to eat, I clenched my teeth together. And then I said, 'There was more to it than vengeance.'
At this, Asaru shot me a quick look as if warning me not to divulge family secrets in front of stranger. But I spoke not only for Maram's benefit, but for Asaru's and Lord Harsha's and my own.
'My grandfather,' I said, 'had a dream. He would have united all the Valari against Morjin.' At the mention of. this name, dreadful and ancient. Lord Harsha froze motionless while Joshu Kadar turned to stare at me. I felt fear fluttering in Maram's belly like a blackbird's wings. In the sky, the dark, distant clouds seemed to grow even darker.
And then Asaru's voice grew as cold as steel as it always did when he was angry at me. 'The Ishkans,' he said, 'don't want the Valari united under our banner. No one does, Val.'
I looked up to see a few crows circling the field in search of carrion or other easy feasts. I said nothing. 'You
