Knights of the Rose

Prologue

The onshore breeze made the breakers foam high over the bar, but the slim-hulled green ship with the three red sails easily rode over them. For one moment, her prow was pointed at the blue sky; for the next, her rudder was clear of the water.

Momentum, and skilled hands on the sheets and tiller, carried her through. Soon she was tacking out into the calm, deep water beyond the bar. The three sails became five-two square ones on each of the two foremost masts, and a triangular one in solitary splendor on the third.

Watching the ship from the balcony of her villa, Lady Eskaia told herself it was only the breeze that made her eyes water. She wiped the tears away with the back of her hand. Doubtless her maid would have preferred her to use a silk handkerchief, “as befits your station, my lady.”

What did a maid-who had never seen the open sea before she entered Eskaia’s service-know about her mistress’s true station? Eskaia was the daughter of a man who had sailed in his own ships when he was young, when the fortune of House Encuintras was yet building. She was the mother of two sailors-a son, apprenticed aboard that slim ship bound seaward, and a daughter, whose gift for archery had won her a spot in the armed guard of a merchantman of House Bulus.

Eskaia was also the wife of Jemar the Fair, a chief among the sea barbarians, adept as a merchant, shipmaster, warrior, counselor, lover-

Eskaia closed her eyes. She would not call herself “widow.” To her, Jemar lived yet, even though it had been years since as much as a bit of wreckage from Windsword had washed ashore. Law, men-even the gods might call her widow, but she would not take the name, any more than she would allow Jemar’s chamber to go unattended or dismiss his old manservants.

Doubtless his body was gone, and he would sire no more children for her. But his spirit remained close, and would until she came to him, and they once more journeyed together, as they had during the seventeen years they shared their lives.

This was not an orthodox belief, and Eskaia therefore kept it to herself. Who could say where the kingpriest had eyes and ears these days?

After meeting Jemar, she had learned to fight. Little comes to those not ready to fight, even if they do so with pen or tongue instead of steel. So she had given notice to the world, the kingpriest, and even the gods that it took more than Jemar’s temporary absence to end her fighting days.

By now, five wind-fattened sails were rapidly carrying the ship out to sea. Torvik would have finished the work of setting the sails and be at his next task, probably seeing that the ballast had not shifted in the passage over the bar. Kilmygos was a careful captain as well as a shrewd trader; he would be a good teacher for any youth with a gift for the sea.

Eskaia stepped forward on the villa’s balcony, until she could see from one end of the harbor to the other; likewise the town nestled beside it and the terraced hills above. A gust of wind moaned around her; she drew the walrus-ivory combs from her hair and let it fly free. It was still long, past the middle of her back, and more black than silver. She was proud of it even now, when there were no fingers running through it abed at night.

The town was called Vuinlod and almost deserved the name of city. Indeed, it had nestled by this harbor in northern Solamnia since before the land bore that name. In a chronicle from the time of Vinas Solamnus himself, there was mention of his armies buying fish and enlisting fishermen from a village on this very harbor. One could not match the description with any other harbor on the north coast of what in due course became Solamnia.

Vuinlod had had every sort of craftsman needed to keep ships and houses in order. Rarely did Lady Eskaia send outside town for anything to keep afloat the ships she had inherited from Jemar, which she would one day pass on to Torvik and her other children.

At the same time, Vuinlod was small enough and far enough from any of the teeming cities of Istar’s domain that a stranger was quickly noticed, and quickly thereafter asked his business. As well it should be. Eskaia wished to live out her years untroubled by minions of the kingpriest, whose reach grew longer each year despite occasional victories for justice. After all, the kingpriest had no cause to think well of Lady Eskaia, once of House Encuintras, in Istar.

It might have gone very ill with her after Josclyn Encuintras died: much of the power of his merchant house died with him. But within months of Josclyn’s death, the old kingpriest also died, and his successor was a man with more justice in his soul, or perhaps only more sloth in his body. Certainly he did not promote injustice as zealously as his predecessor.

So, while Eskaia and the other heirs of Josclyn Encuintras fought a discreet but ruthless campaign for their shares, the menace of the kingpriest seemed to recede. The Servants of Silence remained outlawed, or at least silent; few in Istar and fewer elsewhere thought it was good to guard virtue with bands of assassins. The priests of Zeboim did not under the new kingpriest regain the position they had lost under the old one. (They were too few, in any case; perhaps half of the Istarian servants of the terrible sea goddess had died in a certain battle off the northern shore.)

Yet if the new kingpriest did not wield his power as a weapon against his enemies, there were more than a few grudge-holding servants of the old kingpriest. Also, there were many in Istar who sought ways of serving the kingpriest, whether he wished to be served or not, in the hope of future favor.

Last and perhaps worst were those in Istar and in many other lands who thought virtue, whatever it might be, lay more in humans than in other folk. Each of these-who to Eskaia’s mind truly deserved the name “barbarian”-hated one nonhuman race more than the others. None were prepared to live in peace with nonhumans if they could hope for victory over them in war.

Vuinlod harbored few such barbarians, the gods be thanked. That was another virtue of the town. This tolerance had drawn kender, dwarves, and Qualinesti elves and half-elves to settle in Vuinlod. More than any human, these settlers were vigilant against hostile visitors.

Now, if certain of Eskaia’s friends could be persuaded to be less lost in their own concerns, or to pursue their business from Vuinlod instead of from deep within Istar’s borders-

“My lady,” came the voice of the undermaid. “Your bath is ready.”

“Thank you,” Eskaia said. “Have writing materials and a cup of wine brought to the chamber.”

It was the chief maid who spoke-or rather, whined. The gods had made her voice that way; the whine was not her fault. But it was Eskaia’s fate to listen to it daily, or else turn her and her numerous family out to starve in the street.

“My lady, we cannot send in a scribe while you bathe. It is not-”

“Proper?” Eskaia finished. “But how is it improper if I write the letter myself?”

Neither maid said anything. She hoped their silence would last, and that the older was too surprised and the younger too naive to wonder why a lady would insist that no eyes but hers see a letter.

The chair creaked under Sir Marod of Ellersford as he shifted his weight. He had always been tall and lean, and was still less stooped than most men of seventy. His leanness, however, had departed not long after the riding accident that permanently stiffened one knee and weakened one ankle.

Or at least that was the story he had put about. He had done this with less than an easy conscience; a Knight of Solamnia was oathbound not to lie. A Knight of the Rose was bound yet more strictly; a knight Sir Marod’s age most of all. Except that those who conceived the Oath in the days of Vinas Solamnus had not anticipated that a knight like Sir Marod would need to deceive enemies from within the very ranks of the knights.

Sir Marod wished he could be certain whether the man before him was a friend to be trusted, an enemy to be deceived, or merely a neutral party in whose presence to be discreet, without actually lying. He had prayed for knowledge, but received none. Now he prayed only that if Sir Lewin of Trenfar was an enemy, the gods would send the older knight the strength to bear learning of his pupil’s betrayal.

“A man has lived too long if he buries his sons,” was a saying in some lands. Sir Marod thought it could be translated: “A knight has lived too long when he sees dishonor among his pupils.”

Sir Lewin frowned, and the older knight realized he had given the appearance, or worse, of not listening. His position could survive stiffness of joints, but not stiffness of wits.

“Your pardon, Sir Lewin,” the elder knight said. “I was trying to calculate how far our friend Sir Pirvan and his company will have come by now.”

“Within reach of the desert barbarians, unless they have been delayed by weather or accident,” Sir Lewin replied. “I find myself forced to wonder if we are not sending good people into a bad business-and therefore needless danger.”

“How so?” Sir Marod asked.

Sir Lewin frowned again. Two frowns in such a short time meant that the younger knight had some weighty matter on his mind. Moreover, it was most likely to be something that even Marod would consider worth sober discussion.

Sir Lewin’s loyalty and honor might be somewhat in question. His intelligence was not. If he was a friend, he deserved respect and answers; if a foe, he still deserved respect, if not answers.

“I suppose it is a question of what legal claims Istar has on the Silvanesti,” Lewin said. He raised a hand as Marod opened his mouth. “Please, hear me out. I know that the language of the treaties and compacts is reasonably explicit as to the amount of taxes Istar may collect in Silvanesti. At least compared to what is written down about collecting taxes from the kender.”

Both knights smiled. Few human authorities ever worried about collecting anything from kender that the kender did not offer freely. Most did not even mention kender in their tax laws. Those who did usually wrote down, for the discouragement of overzealous petty officials, advice that could be summarized: Don’t even think about taxing kender. It only wastes your time and annoys the kender.

“So we are agreed that the Silvanesti elves are not kender, neither in fact nor in law,” Marod said. “I suppose your concern turns on what they are.”

Lewin flushed as though he were still a young Knight of the Crown, reproached by the elder he most respected. Marod vowed to keep the sarcasm out of his voice, but knew it would be a futile vow, short of cutting his vocal cords, if Lewin continued to ramble.

Whatever was unsettling him to this extent must at least seem cataclysmic.

“The Silvanesti are obligated to render certain payments,” Lewin went on, assuming his lecture-hall tone. “They are to be collected internally and handed over to Istarian officials at four points on the agreed-on borders.

“However, these past ten years, the Silvanesti have withdrawn more and more from contact with humans. This withdrawal has included abandoning the border tax posts, in plain violation of the laws. Payments, when made at all, are simply left by night. If the Istarians notice them before the outlaws do, so much the better. If not-”

“Yes,” Marod said, trying to keep from his voice the slightest note of impatience. “We are agreed on that. Also that the taxes are somewhat in arrears.”

“The Istarian Treasury claims arrearages of nearly three million silver towers. This is apart from what is owed to the kingpriest’s purse.”

“What is considered to be owed to the kingpriest,” Marod reproved gently. “Remember the reasons the Silvanesti gave for withdrawing from dealings with humans. The kingpriest’s leadership in the hostility to nonhumans was one.”

“The obligation is still part of the law.”

“The obligation to the kingpriest may be paid in kind or service, as well as coin,” Marod pointed out. “I admit that it would be easier to calculate if it were required in coin. But the Silvanesti have the right to do otherwise, and it is the kingpriest’s obligation to accept such payments if offered.”

“We are beginning to sound like law counselors arguing a dubious case,” Lewin said irritably.

Marod decided not to remind the other that it was he who had first raised the legal questions. “Are you suggesting a solution to the problem that has not occurred to anyone else? If you have such a thing, Oath, Measure, the gods, and common sense demand that you speak at once.”

Lewin took a deep breath. “I am suggesting that the Silvanesti have grievously broken the law. As long as they honored it, Istar abided by its agreement to have all taxes collected by public officers and to send no tax collectors into Silvanesti itself.

“By riding south to investigate the rumors of ‘tax soldiers’ gathering on the borders, is Pirvan interfering with Istar’s right to collect its own? Is he not in fact taking the side of the thief against the property owner? Is this the proper course for the Knights of Solamnia?”

Marod thought briefly that he had wished too hard for Lewin to speak swiftly. As a masterpiece of reducing to simple slogans complex issues with justice delicately balanced on either side, Lewin’s speech was worthy of a street-corner rabble-rouser.

It was tempting to say as much, and ask if inciting riot was a proper course for a Knight of Solamnia. However, there was a great deal in the Measure about resisting temptation in all dealings, whether with kings or with gully dwarves.

Also, Marod had no intention of turning Lewin into an enemy before the younger man made himself one.

“You are not, I trust, suggesting that the knights ride with the mercenary ‘tax soldiers?’ I admit that we have fought Istar’s battles against barbarians before, but the Silvanesti are not barbarians. Ask any man who has tried to pry them out of their native forest in the face of their woodscraft and archery. If you can find one alive, that is.”

Lewin shook his head. “The mercenaries certainly will need discipline, and I suppose the knights could provide it. But Istar also has men of its regular host on the border, under Gildas Aurhinius.”

Lewin said the name of the Istarian general as though it would be news to Marod. The older knight only nodded.

“So I have heard. A good man, although some call his post on the borders a demotion.”

“It might well be one,” Lewin said. “And suppose it is, for his failure in Waydol’s War?”

“If so, it would be a very belated punishment from the lords of Istar, seeing how long it has been since that minotaur’s body slipped into the sea. Long enough for him to have reached home by now, I suspect.”

Lewin could not conceal what was doubtless impatience with an old man’s ramblings-or, perhaps, eagerness rising from suspicions that Sir Marod would soon yield both wits and power to the advance of time.…

Be sure the owlbear is dead before you string his claws on your belt, young hunter.

“All this could well be true,” Marod said briskly. “But Sir Pirvan is nearly the best man we have for learning what is true and what is not. Even his contending with Aurhinius in Waydol’s War gives him a particular knowledge of the man.”

“It also gives Aurhinius cause to hate Sir Pirvan,” Lewin said. He seemed almost pleading. “Whatever Sir Pirvan may learn, will he and his companions live to tell us?”

You do not know the half of what Pirvan and Haimya have survived, Marod considered. Not to mention their companions, in this case including Knight of the Sword Sir Darin-the minotaur’s heir and as stout a fighter as ever swore the Oath-and a double handful of other seasoned warriors.

“I cannot urge the Grand Master to embattle the knights on behalf of Istar’s tax-gathering expedition,” Marod said briskly. “But you may well be right, that we need two parties watching what goes on in Silvanesti.

“Pirvan and his companions are riding in from the north, across the desert. It might be wise for you to lead a band, equally well chosen and fitted to fight or spy, in from the south or west.”

“Landing on the coast would have us lost in days and arrow-riddled within weeks, without learning any secrets, elven or Istarian,” Lewin said. “Your pardon if this seems a lack of courage, but I think our aim is to have one or even both parties return with what they have learned.”

“Exactly so.”

“Then I can ride to Bloten Keep with a few companions, take on more volunteers and supplies there by your command, and march onward into Silvanesti. That far south, the mountains offer ways other than the defended passes.”

Known only to local guides, thought Marod, most of whom were half-elven and wholly on the side of the Silvanesti, of course. But learning that would be a part of Lewin’s education, even if it was hardly knowledge required by the Oath and Measure.

“I can order up men, mounts, and supplies in ample quantities without question,” Marod said, rising cautiously and wincing as his weight came on the bad leg. “Let me know by nightfall what you will require, and you can be on the road at dawn of the day after tomorrow.”

“You are generous, Sir Marod. I only hope I can repay this in some way.”

“Add to your own reputation and brighten the honor of the knights, and that will be enough.” They gripped hands, and Lewin was gone.

Even better, thought Marod, prove that I did not misjudge you many years ago, and that you have not gone over to those who see the Silvanesti as sheep to be sheared.

Sir Marod knew that he was fighting that rearguard battle against the years that every man, knight or no, eventually loses. But he wanted to close his eyes for the last time without too many thoughts of how great a fool he had been.

Lady Eskaia’s soap was perfumed; her bathwater was not. The house could still afford the best soap; it could not afford perfume by the jug.

The mirror above the bath-one of Jemar’s surprise gifts to her-showed a woman who could have claimed many fewer years than her actual forty. The silver in her hair was coming in with such dignity that she allowed it free rein, but otherwise the years and five children had taken only a light toll on her.

Eskaia twisted a knob; the soapy water gurgled down the drain, and an amazing amount of muzzy-headedness seemed to go with it. She pulled the chain and let sun-warmed rainwater wash her clean, combing her fingers through her long hair to be sure the water reached her scalp.

At last she was clean and the tub refilled. She wrapped her hair in one towel, dried her hands and forearms on another, and pulled the bath tray toward her. It held a pen in a gilded holder, a crystal pot of ink, and several sheets of the lightest parchment.

Eskaia dipped the pen and began to write.

Dear Friends,

It is too long since I have written, and without the excuse of any grief or trouble that has left me no time to write. We are all well. Indeed, I just saw Torvik sail off on what I believe is his tenth voyage. Soon there will be a seasoned sailor where once stood the boy I remember falling asleep on Haimya’s lap.

I will force the affairs of House Jemar to let me write more often. However, I despair of ever finding time to travel all the way to Tirabot, particularly with the children whom you have not seen in, I think, some three years.

I hope the knights and your manor will prove more lenient. I would much like to see Gerik and my namesake before he vanishes into the maw of the knights and she chooses husband or sword-or, if she is as lucky as her mother, both. Also, there is Rubina, whom I doubt I would recognize now-I remember what the years between seven and ten did to my own children.

Eskaia blinked away tears; one thing those years had done was take her son Roskas. The trees around his grave were tall enough to shade it now, but the memory of the day they brought him from the pond was still painful, like an old wound scarred over on the outside but unhealed within.

Now would come the harder part of the letter, not to mention the words more dangerous for strange eyes to see.

I would also like to speak to you privately of how matters fare in Istar. Istar may only call itself the world, but when Istar sneezes, very surely the world reaches for a handkerchief.

Is it true that the present kingpriest is himself honorable and virtuous, but hemmed round by the servants of his predecessor? One preserves silence, even in a letter, about some matters. But nonhuman folk who have found safer homes in Vuinlod than elsewhere say that hatred of nonhumans yet grows with each passing month.

Is that the reason behind this rumor of a campaign in Silvanesti, or do the elves really owe Istar more than the lords of the Mighty City can afford to ignore? Here in Vuinlod we seem to be both far from truth and far from danger.

Indeed, it has been so long since we needed defense against pirates from the sea or bandits from the land that the watch is all middle-aged folk, some fat and lazy, and few of them finished fighters. In even a short time, Pirvan, Haimya, or Darin-even Gerik or Eskaia-could teach them much that they have either forgotten or never learned.

Eskaia looked back at the last three paragraphs and sighed. She wished that she could be more explicit, that she could say, “Bare is a brotherless back, and with you here in Vuinlod, we could guard each other’s.”

But the old sea barbarian saying was only half of the truth. Pirvan and Haimya did not need much guarding by her, but they did need to be farther from Istar, from its intrigues and ambitious lords, and from kingpriests who might not do evil themselves but could not restrain it in others.

They needed this. One day the Swordsheath Scroll would not be enough to keep the peace between Istar and Solamnia. Istar would, in time, issue a dishonorable command, and the knights would have to either refuse and ignite conflict, or yield, lose honor, and find that all of Istar’s enemies were theirs.

Pirvan would have enough trouble in the first case, he and any knight within reach of Istar’s army. Tirabot was a fortified manor, not a keep; it would not take siege engines to break in and reduce it to ghost-haunted ruins, like the old castle.

In the second case, Pirvan would be a walking dead man. Even a command from the knights would not turn him to dishonor or evil. Then he would have blood enemies among his own comrades.

Haimya and Darin would never desert him; likewise Gerik. The four would be doomed. But Eskaia, Rubina, the household-they deserved a hope of safety.

But how did one tell a Knight of Solamnia to turn his back on his enemies even long enough for that?

One did not tell; one hinted-and prayed.

Eskaia read the letter again. She had done enough hinting, and she would pray later, at night, in her chambers. For now-

She rang the bell for the maids, and called, “I need wax and a message pouch.”

Then she wrote hastily:

If you cannot find the time to indulge your curiosity about Vuinlod, I may yet make time to indulge mine about Tirabot. May it and you fare well in the gods’ keeping until that time comes.

Eskaia

She had just time to blot and fold the parchments before the maids stampeded in.