Love and War

ONE

In Hospital, Palanthas

April, 353

Athelard to his brother Bayard, greetings,

I hear in a letter from our mother that you, too, have chosen the path of a father you do not remember, of the older brother who sends you this. That you have chosen, if indeed it was ever a choice, to take up the calling, to enter, as Mother has written, The ancient and holy Solamnic orders, now that the siege has been lifted, the armies of the enemy driven back once again from our land and from those things we are honor bound to defend by the measure and the code. As always, Mother's words are graceful, high-sounding. I hear them as I sit by a window that must face west, for I can feel the warmth on my face most deeply when the loudest bird song is passing, when the first crickets of what must be early spring begin that scrape and rattle that brings night to the ear. And since the handwriting in my letter no doubt will surprise you, I must tell you one thing more, that in this room sits a nurse, attentive and kind, who writes down the long words, the longer thoughts from brother to brother. Her voice is soft, muffled. Harder to hear than the sound of the birds or the crickets. I can only imagine she has turned away from me as she writes down what I have to say to you.

She asks me to continue, her voice louder now. As I have said, she is kind. She is attentive.

I wish that when I was younger I had paid more attention to bird song. My nurse has told me that the birds in the evening sing the names of those who will die in the night. I have no itch for prophecy, but I suppose that the song is subtle, that perhaps different birds sing at different times of the day, or that perhaps there is even a language among them — a sort of call and response, some quarrels I might understand had I listened earlier and more intently. It would be good to eavesdrop — something to pass the time in what the surgeons insist on calling this house of peace and healing. But it is the land now that is peaceful and healed, the hospital haunted with battle and pain and uneven memory.

Because that story you have heard about the blind is only true in part, that when sight goes, the other senses… sharpen? Intensify? Bayard, if this world were all poetry and justice and balance, and beauty no accident — if things took place because they were more beautiful or poetic or just — then the myths regarding the blind would be physical law: what war hath taken away, nature restoreth, or a similar poetry. But it is not like that. What you do in the blackness is pay more attention, and if cardinals and finches and larks all sound the same to you, it reminds you only that long ago there were some things you neglected.

But you cannot blame yourself for the oversights of childhood and of study, because any tale that is entirely and unarguably true, whether of blindness or of birds or of battle, or of something purely noble in any of these things, is the wildest tale of all, for none of these are purely understood until we sink into darkness, until we rise on thin and delicate wings, or until we carry a lance while the fire descends.

Our mother says you are «eager» for news of the siege, for accounts of heroism and high adventure, that you practice your swordplay in the parlor, much to her ill ease and at the mortal peril of her heirloom vases and silver. That you sing of "returning souls to Huma's breast" as your sword dances carelessly near cabinet or candle.

The words of the chant are "Return this soul to Huma's breast," Bayard. To be spoken over the fallen body of a comrade, not over the phantom draconians you fight amidst Mother's porcelain. The chant is more individual, more personal than you have imagined. But you were not there at the siege.

Do you know that sometimes the darkness seems more penetrable? That it shifts from a uniform blackness to a muddy or even rust-colored brown? Or it seems to shift to those colors I believe I still remember. Then, perhaps, it is only from the monotony of dark that I imagine the colors arising. Perhaps even dead eyes play tricks, as the living eye plays over the white on white of a blizzard and begins out of boredom or dazzlement to see impossible reds and greens in a snowfall.

For the snow, pure white on white and over white, began to fall as we were on the road to the tower, as we heard the footmen grumble about Now snow on top of everything else, Sir Heros grumbling back to me, now grumbling on top of snow, as I set his helmet and sword in front of me on the saddle so that the blanket I had wrapped about my shoulders would cover them, too, would keep them spotless and dry for the battle we knew was coming, inevitable as weather.

It was a mist at first, undecided between snow or rain, though you could guess it would decide as soon as the temperature dropped, the steam rising like mist from the horses, from the breath of the soldiers, until we rode through a fog and I could see no farther than Sir Heros in front of me. I followed his horse and assumed he followed the man in front of him, and he the man in front of him, and somehow I reasoned that whoever led our column had ridden out of the mist by now or at least had the wisdom to know where he was going. And the ground turned to mud beneath us — not that you could see it, but you could hear the hooves of the horses suck and spatter within it. Had I foresight I would have seen this as training for blindness. But foresight in this country was as dim as the horseman ahead of you.

And the footmen sang no songs about Huma's breast, about the kingfisher, crown, sword or rose, or about the high honor of battle, but a new drinking song picked up on the march — a song the knights had hushed before because it was an embarrassment to ladies, a song I suppose they figured was no longer embarrassing because there were no ladies among us. Perhaps you have heard it, the real song of the army:

Your one true love's a sailing ship

that anchors at our pier.

We lift her sails, we man her decks,

we scrub the portholes clear,

and yes, our lighthouse shines for her,

and yes, our shores are warm;

we steer her into harbor

any port in a storm.

The sailors stand upon the docks,

the sailors stand in line,

as thirsty as a dwarf for gold

or centaurs for cheap wine.

For all the sailors love her,

and flock to where she's moored,

each man hoping that he might

go down, all hands on board.

I trust you will not show this song to Mother, for I could almost hear the nurse blush as I sang it, she who has bathed me and dressed my wounds over many weeks. As I think further, perhaps it would be best to show none of this to Mother. The story becomes no more pleasant.

We were speaking of snow and the trip to the tower and the indecent singing of footmen. One of the knights — it might even have been Sturm Brightblade, whose name you have no doubt heard in the histories and will hear again and again in this story — took exception to the song, and raised his voice in the Huma chant of which you are, dear Bayard, so fond. It faded into the fog behind us, for few knights took it up, weighted down as they were by the drizzling cold, and the footmen were not about to join in, the only version of that chant I had heard pass their lips an immodest parody in which the breast is no longer Huma's, is a different and softer reward entirely for the warrior.

I keep forgetting that the nurse is here. The Measure is still new to me. And I forget where…

The snow, she says.

The snow. It was misery on horseback. I trust it was more miserable on foot, for boots were scarce, and most of the men had wrapped their feet in rags against frostbite and the sharp edges of ice. Breca, an old veteran among the foot soldiers, had bargained, begged, and finally threatened my boots from me on the road to the tower. And though I was angry at first, when I saw the boy to whom he gave the boots, saw the blisters and blackness about his ankles, the blood through the rags bright on the merciless road, the threats were unnecessary.

We passed the first night of the blizzard in marching. Breca returned the boots the next morning. Averted his eyes, said that the boy had no further need, that he rested with Huma now. Breca rejoined his column, and Sir Heros, uncomfortable but safe at least upon horseback, told me I had seen the dark side of war, that men die, boys die, laying down their lives for justice and for a higher cause. It was almost inscribed, surely a speech he must have prepared for this moment as a promise to our father, something that smacked of the song of Huma to reassure and hearten his squire, the son of his fallen comrade. As if I had no idea that men die, boys die, from the ambushes that had followed us for a week. Breca, among others, began to claim that we guided our march by ambush — that when we were waylaid, again the knights were assured that we headed in the right direction.

For draconians, Bayard, do not fight in the lists. The Dragon Highlords may show elegance, breeding, but the war has nothing to do with the Measure, with a stately dance of challenge and courtesy. Often a footman would drop at the rear of the column, a barbed black arrow sprouting in his back, a chorus of catcalls and sometimes hisses from the woods nearby. Indeed they have no love of the cold; their blood thickens and their movements slow. But there are humans among them, and even the draconians can survive such weather, wrapped in furs they do not bother to cure or tan, and they know we have no love of the cold either.

Two days from the tower they struck a final ambush, a flurry of arrows from a stand of vallen-woods, falling harmlessly short. We could see them through the mist and the snow and the bare branches, some recognizably human, all moving like spectres or shadows. A few of our archers returned fire, their arrows falling short, too, which was what the dragon-armies wanted, their own supplies virtually endless.

One of them called out, Footmen! Listen to the voice of the dragonarmies! Melodramatic, yes, but effective across the mist and the dead land. Our bowmen ceased fire, glancing at one another nervously.

Footmen ! the man shouted again. How do you like being fodder for the knights? An old trick, spreading dissension in the ranks, and indeed some of the knights — Lord Derek, Lord Alfred, our own Sir Heros — were outraged, Heros reaching back to me for his sword, Derek preparing to charge the stand of trees, alone if necessary, Sturm and his strange companions bristling in their wet saddles, until the loud voice of Breca stilled the bravery and muttering in the column.

I expect I could explain it better over here. Perhaps you could, the dragonsoldier shouted back. But answer me this: have you ever seen a dead solamnic knight?

It was as though the eyes of the world had refocused. We knew it was a lie, a base ignoble charge, as Heros would have said, and I thought of our father returned on his shield. I thought of the centuries since the Cataclysm, of the Code, the Kingfisher, the Crown the Sword and the Rose, of the sacrifices. But all of that meant nothing after such a question, do you understand? For it was Breca's answer, not Sturm's or Hero's or Derek's, we awaited, had to await.

The smell of oil in the room. My nurse has lit a lamp so she may continue to write. Bad for the eyes, my dear. They play tricks enough as it is. We shall continue this in the morning.