L. Modesitt - Arms-Commander

“Is everything set?” Saryn looked to Hryessa.

While Saryn would have liked to have checked every guard’s gear personally, she knew that doing so would have undermined her subordinate-unnecessarily, since Hryessa was every bit as meticulous as Saryn herself. The arms-commander glanced back at the wagons waiting behind fourth squad. Both were in far better condition than when she had brought them back to Westwind, as were the two drays pulling them.

“Yes, ser. We’re ready to head out. We made the transfers you approved for the two with small children, and that took care of anyone who shouldn’t really be going to Lornth.”

Saryn nodded. She’d told the guard captain that they might end up stuck in Lornth over the winter if things did not go well. “How does Daryn feel about your going to Lornth?”

“He hasn’t said. He doesn’t have to. He doesn’t like it. I can tell.” Hryessa shrugged. “I told him you needed me, and the Marshal said so. That means he has to stay and take care of Elaya and Ryntyr. He’s good with them. That’s not a problem. He’s tended some of the other young ones, too, when it was necessary. He’s a good man.”

Saryn looked across the causeway. Standing just outside the door to Tower Black was a small group of people, among them Daryn and Hryessa’s son and daughter, and four other familiar figures-the three silver-haired girls and Dealdron. Ryba was not among those seeing the detachment off, but Saryn would not have expected that of the Marshal.

Elaya and Ryntyr waved to their mother, and Hryessa blew them each a kiss, then flicked the reins of her mount. “Company! Forward!”

Saryn took a last glance at Tower Black and the handful of people standing before it on the causeway.

Dealdron looked at Saryn, his gaze steady, but she could not sense what lay behind his eyes, only that it was not hatred or anything like it. Wistfulness? Why would he be wistful? She offered a pleasant smile, then eased the chestnut gelding forward, wondering how long it might be before she saw the tower again.

Unlike her last travels, when she returned from the battle with the Gallosians, Saryn found the descent from the Roof of the World to the hills of eastern Lornth both quick and uneventful. Less than five days later, she and her detachment rode into Henspa just before sunset. Essin the innkeeper was waiting on the porch of the Black Bull.

“I thought we’d not be seeing you again so soon, Angel.”

“I didn’t think so, either. How is your mother?” Saryn asked Essin.

“Much better, and I thank you for that. She would like to talk to you, I’m certain, once you’ve seen to your guards.”

“I’d be happy to.”

“And she’d be pleased. There are not that many who come to Henspa these days.”

“Have you seen any more Suthyans?” asked Saryn.

“Not a one, and only a sole Jeranyi trader, taking the long way back, telling tales of how the Great Forest grows vaster day and night, swallowing up whole towns, but leaving a village here and a village there.”

“Why was he there?”

“Like all Jeranyi, he was a thief. Like as not, he hoped to glean riches from the ruins, and two fine wagons he had. Jersen said that he had a pair of cupridium blades.”

“Cupridium?” Saryn had never heard that word.

“Silvery metal harder than cold iron and more flexible than copper. That’s what the old Mirror Lancers used, back in the time of Lorn the Mighty and his son, Kerial.”

“Lorn the Mighty? Was Lornth named after him?”

“So they say. Anyway, Marleu wouldn’t let her father even think of purchasing the blades. Said cupridium belonged to the past and wouldn’t stand up to the black iron of the angels. Smart woman she is.” Essin shook his head.

“I’d best tend to my mount,” Saryn said. “Then I’ll be back to talk to your mother.”

She flicked the reins and rode slowly past the inn and up the narrow lane into the rear courtyard and the stables. More than half a glass passed before she’d finished grooming the gelding and going over matters with Hryessa and could make her way back through the inn to put her gear in the room she’d share with the guard captain.

When she came down the steps, Essin was waiting in the foyer. “Ma’s on the front porch. She says it’s cooler there.”

The white-haired Jennyleu turned her head as Saryn stepped out onto the covered porch. “You’ve changed, Angel.”

“Not that much,” demurred Saryn.

“Your eyes are silver, like they’d reflect what’s inside folk, and there’s a seriousness there. Why did you come back?” A smile lingered on the old woman’s face as she shifted her weight on the chair beside the bench in the twilight.

“The regents requested that I return,” Saryn said, settling onto the bench, facing Jennyleu.

“The Lady Zeldyan needs you, as does her sire, but all the other lord-holders will fear you. Especially the Lord of Duevek.”

“We will take the longer route to Lornth and avoid Duevek. I do not wish to create more problems for the regents.”

“Ah…but you will. Even an old woman such as I can see that.”

Saryn laughed gently. “You see it because you are a woman of much experience.”

The white-haired woman snorted. “Doesn’t take much experience to see that the old lord-holders’d be looking for a ruler who’d let them line their own purses. Young Nesslek like as not would be following his mother and his grandsire once he becomes overlord, or he’d be questioning the lord-holders as to why he shouldn’t. Neither would they like.”

Saryn nodded, although she wasn’t that certain about young Nesslek’s integrity, particularly if he were flattered and promised great glory. “How did it come to that?”

“Generations back, Lornth was a province of Cyador. You knew that, did you not? Then, the Mirror Lancers withdrew to the west and south, but the Protector of the Steps to Paradise still demanded his tariffs, and they were not light, and many that were levied were not paid. Before long, one of the officers of the Mirror Lancers and his company returned. He took over the town of Lornth, then others, until all acknowledged his superiority. Then he proposed a treaty with Cyador where but a quarter portion of the tariffs went to the emperor in Cyad, and half went to him. The other quarter he returned to the holders. Any holder who complained was killed and his family thrown off their lands, and those lands were awarded to a follower of the Lord of Lornth.” Jennyleu smiled enigmatically.

“And that was how the house of Lornth was founded?”

“That has also been how it has maintained its position, by power alone. When the black and flame angel destroyed Cyador, they destroyed any fear the holders had of the great and ancient kingdom. They also weakened the house of Lornth so that the regents had not the golds nor the armsmen to put down the stronger holders who did not pay their tariffs.”

“Such as the Lord of Duevek?”

“He is one of those, but only one, Angel.”

“You know all of this because of your daughter in Lornth?”

“My niece, Haelora.”

“The one who has the inn there? I never had a chance to meet her.”

“It’s right off the square…the Square Platter. She says you can’t miss it. I couldn’t say. We never got so far as to Lornth. You know, Vernt staked her and her consort.”

“I remember. You told me, and she writes good letters.”

“Ah, yes. Letters.” For a moment, Jennyleu’s eyes twinkled. “Tell me about Westwind, Angel.”

“What would you like to know?”

“What ever you care to tell me.”

Saryn nodded. “Westwind sits in a small valley on the Roof of the World…where the Marshal and the guards live is in Tower Black…and every stone in it was cut from the rock in a single year by Nylan, the black mage you met…”