She was as red-faced with exertion as the prince was with drink and her eyes were wide as a frightened horse’s, but when she had pushed herself back into her bodice she did her best to curtsey to Morgan. “Thank you, your Highness. I am Goda, and I only came here to tell these . . . men that Lord Jeremias said they were to have no more wine. As it is, he said, they have already drunk much of what was meant for the return journey.” Despite the angry force of her words she was near tears.
“It is a good thing that there will be mead in Hernysadharc, then.” Morgan waved permission for her to go. She lifted her skirts and almost ran from the tent.
“If they ever let us into the city.” Porto’s voice was doleful as a funeral bell. “Soon, we will die of thirst here in this field.”
“I must say, Highness,” Astrian said, “you look as though you’ve already found a bit of something to ease this sad journey. Did you bring it back to share with your brothers of the road?”
“Share?” Morgan shook his head. “I had to spend the longest evening of my life at the royal table with my grandmother and grandfather, having my sins . . . my sins and yours, that is . . . listed for me in exis . . . excu . . . exquisite detail. Then I tried to sleep, and . . .” He scowled and waved the idea away with his hand. “It matters not. I deserved every drop I could guzzle, and it was still nowhere near enough.” He sighed. “Still, if there’s nothing left to drink, we might as well gamble.” With the young woman now long gone, Morgan let himself slump, revealing what he truly was—a very young man who had drunk too much.
“So you bring us nothing, Highness?” asked Porto.
“I swallowed everything I could reach at my grandparents’ table. But it wasn’t enough. No, they all just kept talking. And it was about nothing—the bloody Hernystiri king, and the royal blacksmith’s need for scrap to turn into horse nails, and the complaints of the local Hernystiri farmers that their lands are being pillaged by the royal progress. And after putting up with that all evening, I am beginning to be sober again. I do not favor sobriety.” He looked to Astrian. “By the way, speaking of pillagers, I cannot help noticing a haunch of something on the spit over your fire. It looks rather like the remains of a fat farm pig.”
“No, no, a free wild boar of the hills, Highness,” Astrian said. “Isn’t that right, Porto? He led us a fierce chase.”
Porto looked more than a bit shamefaced. “Oh, aye, he did.”
“All over his pen, I have no doubt.” Morgan frowned. “God save us, the boredom!” But the prince looked more haunted than bored. “Oh, and there was a messenger arrived from Elvritshalla right in the middle of it all. The Rimmersmen beg us to make good speed after we leave Hernystir. It seems the duke is not dead yet.”
“But those are excellent tidings!” said Porto, sitting a little straighter. “Old Isgrimnur still lives? Excellent news.”
“Yes. Huzzah, I suppose.” Morgan gave Astrian a hard look. “Why are we not dicing, fellow? Why is my money still in your pocket?”
“My lord,” said Porto, “I do not mean to scold, but Duke Isgrimnur has been one of your grandparents’ greatest allies. I fought with him for the Hayholt more than thirty years ago, and again at the cursed Nakkiga Gate.”
“You still call it ‘fighting’?” Astrian smirked. “I believe the name for what you did was ‘hiding’.”
Porto scowled. “My dignity does not allow me to respond to such wretched untruths. Were you there, sir? No. You were a mere imp of a child then, vexing your nursemaid, while I was risking my life against the Norns.”
Astrian’s loud laugh was his only reply.
Porto struggled to his feet, scraping his head against the top of the tent. It was said that of all the knights who had ever fought to uphold the High Ward, only the great Camaris had been taller than Porto. However, that was where the comparison ceased. “What is this, then—laughter?” the old soldier demanded. “Shall I call you Sir Mockery? What is this?” He pulled a pendant out of his collar, a smooth female shape carved in rounded blue crystal. “Did I not take this from one of the fairies after I slew him? This is Norn stuff, the true article. Go ahead, mock—you have no such prize.”
Sir Olveris said, “I doubt not that you took it from one who was face-down and dying, old man. And then finished him off with your sword in his back.”
Prince Morgan jumped in surprise. “By the bloody Tree, Olveris, you are silent so long, then you speak from the shadows without warning. I thought for a moment we were haunted!”
The black-haired man did not reply. He had exhausted himself with such a long speech.
“Enough with tormenting Porto,” the prince said. “Come now, Astrian, is it to be Caster’s Call or Hyrka? I will not let this day end without some good result, and beggaring you would make me very happy. I have not had a good day with the bones since we crossed the border into Hernystir.”
“There are no borders out here,” said Astrian as he gave the prince’s dice a good, long look, weighing them on his palm and then letting his fingers probe the pips for boar’s bristles or painted lead. “These will do,” he said, handing them back.
“What do you mean by that nonsense?” the prince asked. “No borders?” He rolled his first number. “A ten, sir—two hands. You may bid as you explain your remark.”
“It is only this, Highness,” said Astrian. “We crossed into Hernystir days ago. Rimmersgard is still twenty leagues away. Who do you suppose lives in Ballydun, the walled city just to the east?”
Morgan shrugged, watching Astrian make his point with a six and a four. Everything the knight did had a compact grace to it, most definitely including his use of a sword, where his speed and nimbleness more than made up for his small stature. He was frequently named—and not least by himself—one of the best swordsmen in any land. “Hernystirmen, I suppose,” Morgan said. “Knights, nobles, peasants, all the regular sorts of people.”
“Rimmersmen, your Highness. They settled there after some war hundreds of years ago and never moved again. Most of the folk there are of northern blood.” Now it was Astrian’s turn, and he immediately rolled stones—“ballocks” as soldiers termed it, a pair of ones. He swept the small pot from the chest serving as a table. “I do like your dice, my prince. Now, did you notice that village we passed this morning? Not that you looked as if you were seeing much.”
“My head was pounding and ringing like your damn Nabbanai bells. Yes, I suppose I saw it. Some children and others came out to wave at us, yes?”
“Exactly. And do you know what language they speak there?”
“No, by the eternal Aedon, how would I know that?”
“They speak Hernystiri, of course—we are in Hernystir, after all.” Astrian grinned. “But their blood is that of Erkynland, just like yours, and there are many Erkynlandish words in their speech. Do you see?”
“Do I see what?” Morgan had lost the second throw as well, and his improved mood was beginning to fail again. “That nobody here seems to know what language they should speak? ‘S’bloody Tree, man, how is that my concern?”
“Because it shows that borders are nonsense, at least most of the time. There are a few—such as the boundaries between Northern Rimmersgard and the Nornfells—that mean something real, because they are fiercely defended on both sides. But here on the Frostmarch all are mixed up together—Hernystiri, Rimmersmen, Erkynlanders. The people here speak a jumble of different tongues. They remember feuds that go back hundreds of years, but they speak in a way that would make their ancestors see blood before their eyes.”
“Do not jest about the Nornfells,” said Sir Porto. “You were not there at Nakkiga. You did not see those . . . things, or hear them singing with voices like sweet children, even as they killed and died.”
“I do not jest at all,” said Astrian. “God grant the White Foxes stay in the north where they belong. But the rest of the peoples of Osten Ard are mixing like the wax of different colored candles, melted and swirled together. Soon there will be no difference between a Rimmersman and a Hernystirman, or between a Nabbanai lord and a Thrithings barbarian. That is the curse of peace.”
“Peace is no curse,” said old Porto.
“I would love to do some deeds worthy of a prince,” said Morgan sadly as he watched another pile of coins disappear into Astrian’s purse. “Not a large war, perhaps but it has been more than a score of years since we fought the Thrithings-men and I see no threat to hope for. It is a bad time to be young.”
“Porto would say it is never a bad time to be young,” said Olveris from the back of the tent. “He would also say it is never a good time to be old.”
“I can speak for myself, sir,” said the tall knight. “I am not so ancient, nor so drunk, that I must be interpreted like a Naraxi island-man.” His face drooped a little. “Nevertheless, Olveris is not wrong.”
“Will there ever be another war?” Morgan asked.
“Oh, I rather think so,” said Astrian. “Men do not manage well with too much peace. Someone will find a quarrel.”
“I can only pray that you’re right,” said Morgan. “Hah! Look at those beauties—a pair of ale wagons! This pot is mine.” He swept the coins toward him, but one slid off the chest and onto the dark ground. He got down on his knees to search for it.