The Whirlpool

The Falcon's Children, Chapter 23

It was evening and cold in Padrec’s chambers. Dunkan asked why they didn’t move to his father’s apartments, and Arellwen said that should wait till after the coronation, and Gaddel was drinking while Aengiss and Paulus and Elbert and Borkji looked at maps together and Clava paced and Ethred prayed in an irritating monotone by the fire. Padrec stood at the window, tracing patterns in the frost, watching the stars come out, considering the possibilities.

They could flee southward, just him and a company of horsemen, along the lake and then the Mersana on horseback. The Falconguard would remain behind and delay Veruna as long as possible, and eventually he would reach the Guardian foothills and the lowlands and the Heart where he would probably find legions waiting for him to lead back upriver against the rebels. The birds had already gone out, to Valemark and Northmark and Fenmark and smaller fortresses; the rest of the empire would bestir itself, and the legions, the loyal legions, would march to save their emperor. Maybe Argosa would rise for Cresseda, once the news reached the southern duchy, but for now the Old Hound was alone against all of Narsil.

But the weather is chancy, and the roads are dangerous, and if anything went wrong Verna’s horsemen might catch up — and then he’d have you. And he'd take Rendale, and take the dukes and other nobles as his hostages, unless you tried to drag them with you. And those loyal legions waiting for you … well, the legions in Caldmark were supposed to be loyal, weren't they? The road south leads first to Aldermark, most of the birds we’ve sent out go through Aldermark, and how sure are we of Aldermark and its commander? Of any fortress and its commander? Sure enough stake your crown on it? Your life?

So he could go south with the Falconguard. The soldiers could fight rearguard actions use delaying tactics, and save his skin until they reached the Heart; the force at Aldermark wasn’t large enough to block them even if Captain Areth and his adjutant were traitors. That way there would be no danger of him being caught alone on the road, no danger of falling into the traitors’ hands — and once they were in the Heart Aengiss could gather up enough men to smash Veruna like kindling.

No danger? You'd be going more slowly with all those troops, and the Falconguard isn’t as battle-tested as the Old Hound’s men, and I don't care how good Aengiss is, he could lose, and you'd be beaten, and all the empire would see it — and even if you escaped, the Old Hound would be winning the war, Argosa would rise for him, the Brethons would rebel, Bryghala might attack …

Yes, above all, the traitors must not seem to be winning the war. This was a minor rebellion, nothing at all really, except that it was so close to Rendale, so it inconveniently threatened his person. So Veruna must not be allowed to occupy Rendale, certainly not be allowed to capture the dukes, absolutely not be allowed to free Cresseda or Maibhygon, let alone seize Padrec himself. The Old Hound had four thousand men, at the most — the rest of the empire had forty thousand legionnaires under arms. If they could just hold on until those numbers could be brought to bear, and not allow the rebels to win any stunning victories ...

And how do you propose to do that? You don't have enough men to hold the city walls, really, and the Castle hasn’t faced a siege in a century. Meanwhile, people will panic in the city … how will you deal with that?

There was a babble, soft and anxious, rising behind him.

“… if we had a thaw the Mersana could open to a boat …”

“ … flee into the mountains if need be …”

“… too late to reach the road to Ysan …”

“… if Aldermark betrays us we’re bottled in the valley …”

“ — maybe their plan all along …”

“ . . . he’s got more men, heaven favors the numbers …”

“ . . . battle-hardened men . . .”

“ … we have Aengiss …”

“Varelis bar Veruna is a fine general,” Aengiss said firmly. “He'll have at least two men, maybe three or four, for every Falconguardsman — good men, who know they'll hang for treason if they lose, although that probably hasn't quite sunk in yet. He won’t make obvious mistakes. If we face him in open battle he should win.”

“So what do we do?” Padrec said, turning from the window, feeling his control over his temper slipping.

“Is there nowhere along the road where we might hold him off?” Elbert asked. "No strong point, better suited for defense than this Castle?”

“There’s nothing strong enough,” Arellwen sighed. “You can find some places where we could hold the high ground, but no true strong points. There are the watchtowers and bird posts, but they’re built to defend against bandits, nothing more.”

“And that crumbling keep past the Shallows,” Clava said. “Not a defensible position anymore.”

“How can Rendale, of all places, not have more forts defending it?" Dunkan said in bewilderment.

“It had Caldmark," the chancellor said unhappily. “And all the borderforts further north, of course . . . but Caldmark has always been enough, for a hundred years. It was impregnable. A mouse couldn't get into the lake valleys without going through the fortress."

“Yes,” Borkji said, making a face of ghastly humor, “Caldmark protects Rendale. And does a damn fine job of it, this winter.”

“There are the towns,” Gaddel noted, gesturing at a map. “Snowed in, of course, like most of the north this time of year — Hercaster, Cedrec's Roost, Kirportage by the Shallows, Walderen over by one of the gold roads — they might be useful for something, if we had more men."

“I don’t think so,” Arellwen said. “Only Kirportage is larger than a village, and none of them are walled. We could put an advance guard in Dernbridge, I suppose, to try and slow them down . . . while his majesty flees.”

“Do you really think …” Elbert began, and then stopped. There was a deadly period of quiet.

It was so cold but Padrec could still feel sweat beading his forehead. They don't know what to do, they don't know what to do . . . my tools, Aengiss said, my instruments, but how can I use them? If they don't know how to deal with Veruna, I certainly don't …

“No one will flee,” Aengiss told them sharply, and when he spoke Padrec's anxiety diminished, and he realized that the silence had been a waiting time only — waiting for Aengiss to tell them what to do.

"Shall I tell you what we shall do?” the old warrior asked, almost gently.

“Yes, tell us,” Ethred the Archpriest said, his voice quavering, relieved.

Aengiss looked at a map for a long moment, and then reached out and took Lord Gaddel’s brandy from the Lord of the City’s startled hand. It was a clear glass bottle, and the general raised it, letting it sparkle a little in the firelight.

“Well?” Dunkan said.

“Veruna should win,” Aengiss answered him, returning the flask to its owner, “but he won’t. Because the angels favor the bold and brave, and we’ll be both. Because we’ll stay here, in Rendale, and wait for them to come. Because tomorrow we’ll send a party to negotiate — a task for your uncle Benfred, I think, but a task for Paulus especially. And that … negotiation, that will be just the beginning, and what we begin tomorrow will end with all of our enemies cold and dead.”

Padrec was about to speak but Paulus broke in first with a kind of barking cheer, a strange sound that turned them all toward him, to his beautiful face lit up by the fire, to his hand lifting a goblet almost in a toast, to a smile that suggested the strange sound had been a laugh.

“Is this funny to you, my lord?” Borkji said, the dislike heavy in his words.

“Not exactly,” Paulus returned, “but I think a little laughter is what we need right now. The angels will favor us, Aengiss said — well, I don’t know about that, but I know they’ve given us this cup to drink, and we might as well drain it all the way. We skulked, and skulked, and skulked some more … maybe it’s necessary that someone give you a fight for the throne, Padrec. Your majesty. To make you earn it, before you put it to use.”

He grinned, beautifully.

I thought I had earned it, the uncrowned Emperor of Narsil thought.

“You’re sure he was following the emperor?” Gavian said again. “You’re sure of it?”

They were in the princess’s own bedroom, somehow, with the inner and outer doors locked and the curtains drawn against the evening. While the narrow-faced young man called Aeden paced, the princess and her broken-nosed captain half-stood, half-leaned on the edge of the bed, staring intently at Fidelity. She was perched on the lip of a small, gold-scrolled chair, lower than her interrogators, veiled and humble, bent like a blessed receiving a revelation —

Except that here she was the one delivering the truth, with more clarity and determination than she had thought possible. Somehow the encounter with the princess, the sheer chance of it, brushing up together in a crowd, had been enough to give her the confidence that this was what she prayed for, this was what she was supposed to do.