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‘Four months!’ Sar Jessu said. His thick black eyebrows pulled together. ‘That is a long time to lay siege. Lord Tanu might give up.’
‘He won’t give up,’ Lord Avijan said. ‘No knight in Mesh is more tenacious. You have fought under him, and should know that.’
‘Then even if he doesn’t, anything might happen in the meantime,’ Sar Jessu said. ‘Lord Tomavar might move against Lord Tanu. Or the Waashians might move against all of us.’
Here Sar Jessu turned toward me, and so did Lord Avijan, Lord Harsha and everyone else. And I told them, ‘We cannot afford to wait four months – not even one. Whatever we do, we cannot remain holed-up here behind these walls. That is what Lord Tanu wants.’
Sar Vikan, a fiery and impulsive man, called out to me, ‘But you have said that you don’t know his intentions!’
I looked at Atara, whose blindfolded face was like a clear glass giving sight of the future. I looked at Liljana, whose relentless gaze reminded me that I must always try to look into my enemies’ minds and try to think as they did – even as my father had taught me.
‘My apologies for misspeaking,’ I told Sar Vikan. ‘But surely, as Lord Harsha has said, Lord Tanu will not waste his men attacking the castle. Therefore his strategy must be to keep us immobilized here – and to divide Lord Avijan’s forces.’
‘Your forces, now, Lord Elahad,’ Lord Avijan said.
‘We shall see,’ I said, inclining my head to him. ‘Lord Tanu can encamp his army outside the castle and block the pass leading to it. He would keep the rest of your men from joining us. And threaten them. Would they then still keep their oath to you?’
‘Certainly they would!’ Lord Avijan said. ‘They are good men, with true hearts!’
Sar Vikan, who now finally saw the line of my argument, asked Lord Avijan, ‘But if you released them from their oaths, as you released us, in such circumstances, would they then pledge their swords to Lord Elahad?’
At this, Lord Avijan looked down at the table and said nothing – and so said everything.
‘Lord Tanu would divide us,’ Lord Manthanu said to me in his deep, gravely voice. ‘And that might be the end of your chances, Lord Valashu. In my district, many warriors remain unpledged to anyone – as it is throughout Mesh. They wait to see what you will do. A victory of any sort will encourage them. But a defeat …’
He did not finish his sentence, nor did I wish him to. I did not want to think in terms of victory over my own countrymen, if that meant driving them down with swords.
Lord Noldashan rubbed at his tired eyes and said to me with a deep anxiety, ‘If you won’t stand to be besieged, does that mean that you will take the field against Lord Tanu?’
‘If he does,’ Lord Sharad said boldly, ‘Lord Elahad will find a way to outmaneuver our enemy as it was at the Culhadosh Commons!’
‘We’ll cut down any of Lord Tanu’s men who stand against us!’ Sar Vikan called out.
At this, Lord Harsha banged his fist against the table and shouted, ‘Enemy! Cut down! Have none of you listened to what Lord Valashu has been saying these last days? We cannot weaken ourselves so!’
Both Lord Sharad and Sar Vikan looked down in shame. Then I said to them, ‘No one can blame you for letting such great spirit impel you toward battle. But this must not be against Lord Tanu, nor Lord Tomavar – not if we can help it. So long as I am alive, I will not see Meshian slaying Meshian.’
Lord Avijan, perhaps the most intelligent and purposeful of the warriors at the table, asked me, ‘If you won’t stand a siege nor take the field, what will you do?’
At this fundamental question, I noticed Master Juwain looking at me keenly – along with everyone else. And I said, simply, ‘I will talk with Lord Tanu. Tomorrow, I will ride down into the pass, and try to reason with him.’
All during our council, Maram had remained uncharacteristically quiet. I worried that his beer guzzling had finally addled his wits. But now he licked his lips as he looked at me and said, ‘But Lord Tanu will be bringing his whole damn army through that pass! You can’t ride down into that river of swords! It’s too dangerous!’
I smiled at this, and I said, ‘We shall fly a banner of truce, and Lord Tanu will have to respect that. In any case, Sar Maram, I have to know.’
‘Know what…Lord Elahad?’
‘I must know what Lord Tanu truly intends.’ I paused to draw in a breath and look around the table. ‘Is he willing that we should slay each other just so that he might become king?’
Much later, after we had eaten dinner and I finally had a chance to speak with my companions about the destruction of the Brotherhood school, Lord Avijan’s emissaries returned to the castle in the dead of night. They made report of Lord Tanu’s intentions – or rather, his stated purpose in marching toward Mount Eluru. Lord Tanu, they said, had taken it upon himself to ensure Mesh’s safety. And so on the morrow, he would arrive to inspect the soundness of Lord Avijan’s castle, with or without Lord Avijan’s leave.
The next morning, as I had promised, I made ready to go forth and speak with Lord Tanu. I asked my friends to accompany me. Although we would be riding under a banner of truce – along with Lord Avijan, Lord Harsha and the other knights who had become my war counselors – I did not want to chance the children’s safety in the midst of many angry men with quick and deadly swords. Daj protested my decision, reminding me of how he had slain the third droghul and taken far greater risks before: ‘Estrella and I rode with you all the way to Hesperu, and back, and you won’t allow us to ride a couple more miles?’
Estrella brushed the curls from her dark, liquid eyes, and she looked at me as if to tell me once more that our lives were bound together, and wherever I went, she must go as well. In her quiet, sweet way, she could be a very willful girl – now almost a young woman. Even so, I had to tell her that she must remain in the castle.
In the cool air blowing off the mountains, we rode out of the castle’s south gate and down the narrow road that cut through the green hills and meadows toward the pass. I took the lead, with Lord Avijan at my one side and Sar Vikan at my other. To this fierce knight, perhaps the most bellicose of all the men in my train, I had appointed the task of holding up the white banner of truce. Just behind him rode Sar Joshu Kadar, who had taken charge of the banner showing the silver swan and seven stars of the Elahads. Then came Lord Harsha, Lord Sharad, Lord Manthanu and Jessu the Lion-Heart – followed by Lord Noldashan and his son, Sar Jonavar. I had asked other five other young knights to join us, too: Sar Shivalad, Viku Aradam, Sar Kanshar, Siraj the Younger and Jurald Evar. My companions kept pace with them only a few yards behind, with Atara pushing her horse to an easy trot in the rear. Although we expected no attack from this direction, nor at all, Atara could whip about in her saddle and fire off an arrow at any pursuer in the blink of an eye.
Our course took us into a long taper of grassy land wedged between the Lake of the Ten Thousand Swans to our right and Mount Eluru to our left. As we moved further into the pass, this taper grew narrower and narrower. Finally, we came to that place where the road cut through a band of grass only ten yards wide. There we came to a halt. We had a nearly perfect day to wait for Lord Tanu and his army. The sky above us shone a deep and dazzling blue, with a few white clouds moving slowly along a cool breeze. This slight wind, however, failed to ripple the lake’s silvery waters, which had fallen as clear and still as a mirror. In its perfect sheen, I saw the reflection of Mount Eluru: a great and nearly symmetrical cone of green, tree-covered slopes, blue rock and white ice pushing straight up into the heavens.
After some time had passed and the sun rose over Mount Eluru’s eastern ridgeline, Maram rode forward to speak with me. As we had no privacy at the head of fourteen diamond-armored knights, we urged on our horses a few dozen more yards, and closer to the lake.
And then Maram held up his firestone to the glaring sunlight, and said, ‘Do you remember the Kul Moroth? A single blast from this, and I filled up that damn pass with enough rocks to stop an army.’
He looked up at the smooth, steep slopes of Mount Eluru above us; they were not so steep, however, that any of the few large rocks or boulders sticking out of the ground could easily be dislodged and rolled down into the pass.
‘I think I see the direction of your worries,’ I said to him.
‘Do you?’ he said, pointing his firestone down the road through the pass. ‘At Khaisham, I used this to set men on fire, like torches. But never again. I won’t use this against men, Val.’
‘You won’t have to,’ I said to him. ‘There will be no violence here today’
‘Oh, no? Why can’t I believe that? I have a bad feeling about you meeting Lord Tanu here.’
I waved my hand at this. ‘You have had other bad feelings before.’
‘Yes, I have,’ he said. ‘And most of them have proved out even worse than I had feared.’
‘It will be all right,’ I told him. ‘I have known Lord Tanu all my life, and he is a man I can reason with.’
‘Is this a day for reason, then?’ He shook his head then gazed at me. ‘I will not summon fire out of this stone, but ever since Liljana told you about Bemossed, you’re practically burning up with this rage to become king. That makes a bad situation urgent. And urgency, in my sad experience, too often leads to violence.’
I laid my hand on the diamonds encrusting his arm. ‘We have faced more urgent situations before.’
‘Perhaps,’ he said, ‘but one never knows about these things. A mole’s little hole can trip a horse and break a man’s neck. A single match can set a whole grassland on fire. What might a few ill-considered words do? It is all too much, do you see? Alphanderry told us, in effect, that we had until this fall to succeed or fail, once and for all. I’m telling you, Val, that I don’t have it in me to go on any longer than that, as we have gone through one hell after another these past three years.’
My hand tightened around his arm, and I smiled at him. ‘You say that? The man who crossed half the Red Desert by himself to save me?’
‘I do say that!’ he called out as he pulled away from me. He looked at the knights gathered behind us with the flag of truce barely rippling in the soft wind. ‘We could die here today, as easily as anywhere. Your Sar Vikan and Sar Jessu seem eager enough to draw swords.’
‘It will not be a day for swords’ I reassured him as I patted Alkaladur’s scabbard, slung on my back. Then I added, ‘At least, not kalamas.’
‘Well, if it is,’ he said, staring at Jessu the Lion-Heart, ‘I won’t be of much use. Not against Valari knights. And they know that.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean, your countrymen all see me as a complainer and a coward.’
‘No, you are wrong – it is just the opposite,’ I told him. ‘You have succeeded in two great quests. And taken a second in wrestling at the tournament and a third in archery. And above all, you slew half a dozen Ikurians at the Culhadosh Commons. To my people, you are a true Valari knight. They regard you as a hero, Maram.’
Maram thought about this as he studied Sar Shivalad, Sar Kanshar and Viku Aradam, who sat bunched together and looking back at him. And he muttered, ‘Well, if they don’t see me as a coward, they should. It can’t be long, you know. Today, or tomorrow, or at the next urgent situation, whatever it is, I’ll finally have had enough. I’ll turn my back and flee, as any sane man would, and then your people will finally see what Sar Maram Marshayk is made of.’
‘No, Maram, you are –’
‘It is too much!’ he said to me. ‘Do you understand? Too, too damn much! I don’t want to be anyone’s hero.’
And with that, he wheeled his horse about, and rode slowly back to rejoin the others.
Then I took my place again at the head of the column of knights jammed into the pass. After perhaps a half an hour, I caught sight of a sparkling light ahead of us. Soon the knights of Lord Tanu’s vanguard came closer, and the sun’s reflection off their diamond armor shone with an eye-burning brilliance. I could not, at this distance, make out Lord Tanu’s face, but I could see quite clearly his black, double-headed eagle banner held high and the same emblem emblazoned on his surcoat. As well I made out the charges of his two greatest captains: the red bull of Lord Eldru and Lord Ramjay’s white tiger. I estimated the number of knights riding behind him at three hundred, which accorded with our reports. And behind this mass of mounted men with their long lances and triangular shields marched the rest of Lord Tanu’s warriors, some four thousand strong. I could see practically the whole of the army, strung out around the curve of the lake like a mile-long strand of diamonds.
Lord Tanu, of course, had an equally good view of us. He must have seen Sar Vikan’s white banner clearly enough, for he made no move to deploy his warriors into a battle formation, nor did he change his slow and relentless march toward us. The silver bells tied to the boots of the thousands of warriors that he led sent a high-pitched jingling into the air. This eerie sound, tinkling out with a terrible beat, had often unnerved the enemies of the Valari. And sometimes the Valari themselves. I remembered hearing it before on the battlefield of the Red Mountain in Waas. I reminded myself that we faced no enemy, but only proud Meshian warriors who should be as brothers to us.
I could almost feel Maram sweating in his saddle behind me and the hearts of my companions beating more quickly as Lord Tanu rode forward. For a moment it seemed that he and his entire vanguard might keep on going and try to sweep us from the pass down into the lake. At the last moment, however, at a distance of only ten paces, he stopped his horse and held up his hand to call for a halt. The three hundred knights behind him ceased their march, as did the thousands of warriors behind them.
‘Lord Valashu Elahad,’ he called out to me formally in his sawlike voice, ‘we had heard that you had returned to Mesh, though we hoped you never would.’
Lord Tanu sat on a big horse as he regarded me with his small, black, deep-set eyes. At nearly sixty years of age, he still retained the suppleness and strength of a much younger warrior. Although not large in his body, his fighting spirit and skill at arms had almost always led him to prevail against his foes. He had a tight, sour face that did nothing to hide his irascible temperament. I had known this man all my life. I remembered my father telling me why he had chosen Lord Tanu as one of the two greatest captains of his army: because he was quick of mind and fearless in battle and as steady as a rock. My father also had counted on Lord Tanu always to tell him the blunt and painful truth.
‘It would have been better,’ he said to me, ‘if you had stayed in exile in whatever land you found to give you shelter. Your presence here is only a disturbance. And your purpose is vain – and in vain. We have heard of your call for men to gather to your standard. Promises to defeat the Red Dragon you have given, and people believe you. You remain a firebrand who incites impossible dreams.’
I could feel the knights near me waiting for me to gainsay him. But I did not wish to dispute him word for word and assertion with counter-assertion. And so I said to him, ‘My father always valued your counsel, Lord Tanu, hard though it sometimes might be to hear. But he would not have appreciated your claim to his throne.’
I sensed Lord Tanu’s face flushing with a hot surge of blood as he lowered his eyes in shame. Then, at his right side, Lord Eldru angrily shook his head. Long white hair flowed out from beneath his winged helm, and his stern, wrinkled face showed a great round scar where an enemy spear had pierced his jaw down through his throat and nearly killed him at the Culhadosh Commons. Finally, he spoke for Lord Tanu, saying, ‘Would your father have thought you more worthy of the crown? You, who deserted the castle in defiance of your father’s command?’
Next to him sat the iron-haired and iron-faced Lord Ramjay, and Sar Shagarth, a large master knight sporting a thick mustache and black beard rare among the Valari. They nodded their heads in agreement as Lord Eldru recited the same indictments that had been made against me after the Great Battle: that five years previously, in Waas, I had hesitated in slaying the enemy, and so could not be trusted to lead men. And that two years ago, in Tria, in a fit of wrath, I had slain the innocent Ravik Kirriland, who was not my enemy, and so I should be doubly mistrusted. And that on the Culhadosh Commons, my taking command of Lord Eldru’s reserve and waiting to attack had put the entire army at risk and should be taken as a proof of my recklessness.
‘A year ago,’ Lord Eldru said to me, ‘you left Mesh for lands unknown, and in that time, nothing has changed.’
Because I had previously defended my actions to these men, to little effect, I decided to let the past remain the past. But I must, I thought, at all costs speak for the future.
‘Everything has changed,’ I told them. ‘To begin with, we have found the Maitreya.’
Lord Tanu finally looked at me again as his harsh voice whipped out: ‘So you say, Lord Valashu. As you said once before when you claimed to be the Maitreya.’
‘Every man,’ I told him, ‘deserves a chance to be wrong once in his life. But I am not wrong about Bemossed.’
As I went on to tell of this man who had worked miracles of healing and other wonders, Lord Tanu listened intently. I held nothing back in my description of how Bemossed had given new life to a dying boy and had faced down Morjin’s ghul – and so overcame Morjin himself; I spoke with all the power and truthfulness that I could summon. My love for Bemossed, I thought, if not my words, touched something inside Lord Tanu and cracked open a hidden door. But he immediately tried to slam it shut again.
‘Maitreya or not,’ he said, ‘your claim for your latest quest has little to do with the problems that Mesh faces – nor does it help men to see the way clear to their solution.’
At this, Lord Avijan took umbrage, pointing at the knights behind Lord Tanu and calling out, ‘Is this, then, your solution to a divided realm? That you should march uninvited into my lands at the head of an army?’
‘If I had made request,’ Lord Tanu countered, ‘would you have made invitation?’
I felt the steel inside Lord Avijan heating up, as with a sword plunged into a bed of hot coals. He did not, however, let his anger cause him to misspeak. He merely stared at Lord Tanu and said with an icy calm, ‘You are always welcome in my castle, Lord Tanu. We will always try to keep a room open for you – though I’m sorry to say we cannot accommodate four thousand men.’
‘We heard that you accommodated a thousand easily enough, with more expected,’ Lord Tanu told him. ‘Such a gathering of warriors, so close to Waas, might cause King Sandarkan to worry that you are about to attack him. Indeed, my counselors worry that this might provoke him into attacking you.’
Here he nodded at Lord Eldru and Lord Ramjay, who nodded back.
Then Lord Avijan, forcing down a grim smile, said, ‘One would think that your four thousand warriors pose an even greater provocation.’
‘Perhaps they do. But at least if King Sandarkan is so provoked, we will have the strength to turn him back.’
‘I see,’ Lord Avijan said. ‘Then you marched here unheralded as a show of strength?’
Lord Tanu smiled sourly at this. ‘You understand, then. We must show King Sandarkan that Mesh’s warriors remain ready to march to any part of the realm at a moment’s notice and defend it. And we must know that our castles remain in good repair so that we can mount an effective defense, if need be. Your castle is critical to Mesh’s security.’
‘Then you have my assurance,’ Lord Avijan told him, ‘that my castle is in excellent repair. Her gates are strong, and we’ve plenty of oil to heat up and pour down upon attackers – plenty of arrows, too.’
Lord Tanu nodded at this as he pulled at one of the ribbons tied to his long hair. He looked at Lord Eldru, and then at Lord Ramjay and Sar Shagarth. Finally he turned back to Lord Avijan and told him, ‘Surely you can understand that we must see this for ourselves.’
His insistence angered Sar Vikan, who shook the white banner of truce at him, and shouted, ‘See for yourself then as you stand beneath the battlements and bathe in burning oil!’
I tried to keep my face stern and still as Lord Avijan held up his hand to quiet him. Then Lord Avijan told Lord Tanu: ‘You do not have the right to inspect my lands, or my leave to cross them. And you do not have the right to be king.’
A quiet fell over the knights gathered on the road, and the only sound to be heard was the flapping of a swan’s wings far out on the lake. Then Lord Avijan said that Mesh must have a king who could unite the whole of the realm and then gain victory over the other Valari kingdoms – or win an alliance with them – in order to oppose Morjin.
At this Lord Tanu nodded his head at Lord Avijan, and said, ‘Your arguments are good ones, but it is not Valashu Elahad who should be king. He will only divide the realm further, for the reasons that have already been stated. Also, he is too taken with heroics. And he is too young.’
Lord Harsha, from on top of his horse behind me, barked out, ‘You have known Lord Valashu all his life, and you still don’t know him. And you don’t know yourself, if you think you should be king in his stead.’
‘My failings are many,’ Lord Tanu fired back, ‘and thank you for reminding me. Even as I grieve King Shamesh’s death, I wish that Lord Asaru had lived to wear his father’s ring. Or any of his brothers, save Lord Valashu, I would have wished see as king rather than myself. But fate is fate, and the world turns on. What are we to do? Lord Tomavar, as we all know, is too proud to be king. Too quick to take insult, too eager for glory and he loves war too much. A fine tactician, yes, but he is weak in strategy, and he does not listen to others’ counsel, and so what hope have we that he will lead us to victory in the wars soon to come? And you, Lord Avijan, have too little support to be king. Other claimants have less. Therefore it is upon me to take up a mantle I never sought.’
As the wind rose and bent the grasses along the side of the road, I sensed that he was speaking the truth – at least the truth as he saw it. Lord Tanu had realized all his ambitions as one of Mesh’s most renowned warriors and greatest lords: commander of half of my father’s army. My father had always counted him among the most faithful of his knights. I thought that he had no deep, driving desire to become king. But he was one of those men who reasoned relentlessly and flawlessly from unquestioned premises to reach a perfectly logical result that was dead wrong.
‘Only one man,’ he said, looking at me, ‘can be Mesh’s king.’
Each time he uttered this word, I sensed, he added another iron bar to the prison that he was building for himself.
‘Only one,’ I agreed, gazing back at him. I felt within myself a great power to use the valarda simply to batter down the doors of his will and bend him to my purpose.
‘Don’t look at me like that, Lord Elahad!’ he said to me. ‘As I have the best claim, it is upon me to do whatever must be done to make Mesh safe.’
He shot me a hard, pugnacious look, but I felt a hint of fear burn through him as well. I finally turned my gaze away from him. Battering down doors, I remembered, was Morjin’s way, not mine.
‘Four thousand three hundred warriors,’ I said, pointing behind him, ‘follow you. But five thousand stood for me upon the Culhadosh Commons.’
‘My claim is not solely of numbers. Do not delude yourself into thinking the warriors wish you to be king. Go back into exile, and Mesh will be the better for it.’
‘You speak for the warriors,’ I said, ‘but they have voices of their own. And wills. Release them from their pledges to you, and let them stand for whomever they will, and we shall see who will be king.’
Lord Tanu’s face tightened at this, and he told me, ‘At the Culhadosh Commons, five thousand stood for you – and eight thousand against. They have stood, and that is the law. It is decided.’
‘No law prevents them from standing again.’
‘It is pointless, Lord Elahad.’
‘Let the warriors decide,’ I told him.
