Robin McKinley - The Blue Sword

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THE BLUE SWORD
Robin McKinley
To Danny and Peachey, who first led me to Damar.
CHAPTER ONE
She scowled at her glass of orange juice. To think that she had been delighted when she first arrived
herewas it only three months ago?with the prospect of fresh orange juice every day. But she had been
eager to be delighted; this was to be her home, and she wanted badly to like it, to be grateful for itto
behave well, to make her brother proud of her and Sir Charles and Lady Amelia pleased with their
generosity.
Lady Amelia had explained that the orchards only a few days south and west of here were the finest
in the country, and many of the oranges she had seen at Home, before she came out here, had probably
come from those same orchards. It was hard to believe in orange groves as she looked out the window,
across the flat deserty plain beyond the Residency, unbroken by anything more vigorous than a few
patches of harsh grass and stunted sand-colored bushes until it disappeared at the feet of the black and
copper-brown mountains.
But there was fresh orange juice every day.
She was the first down to the table every morning, and was gently teased by Lady Amelia and Sir
Charles about her healthy young appetite; but it wasn't hunger that drove her out of bed so early. Since
her days were empty of purpose, she could not sleep when night came, and by dawn each morning she
was more than ready for the maid to enter her room, push back the curtains from the tall windows, and
hand her a cup of tea. She was often out of bed when the woman arrived, and dressed, sitting at her
window, for her bedroom window faced the same direction as the breakfast room, staring at the
mountains. The servants thought kindly of her, as she gave them little extra work; but a lady who rose
and dressed herself so early, and without assistance, was certainly a little eccentric. They knew of her
impoverished background; that explained a great deal; but she was in a fine house now, and her host and
hostess were only too willing to give her anything she might want, as they had no children of their own.
She might try a little harder to adapt to so pleasant an existence.
She did try. She knew what the thoughts behind the looks the servants gave her were; she had dealt
with servants before. But she was adapting to her new life as best as her energetic spirit could. She might
have screamed, and hammered on the walls with her fists, or jumped over the low windowsill in her
room, clambered to the ground by the ivy trellis (special ivy, bred to withstand the desert heat, carefully
watered by Sir Charles' gardener every day), and run off toward the mountains; but she was trying her
best to be good. So she was merely first to the breakfast table.
Sir Charles and Lady Amelia were all that was kind to her, and she was fond of them after a few
weeks in their company. They had, indeed, been far more than kind. When her father died a year ago,
Richard, a very junior military adjutant, had laid the difficulty of an unmarried sister and an entailed estate
before Sir Charles, and begged for advice. (She heard all this, to her acute embarrassment, from
Richard, who wanted to be sure she understood how much she had to be grateful for.) He and his wife
had said that they would be happy to offer her a home with them, and Richard, too relieved to think hard
about the propriety of such a godsend, had written to her and said, Come out. He had not specifically
said, Mind your manners, but she understood that too.
She hadn't any choice. She had known, because her father had told her five years ago when her
mother died, that she would have no inheritance; what money there was was tied up very strictly for the
eldest son. "Not that Dickie will mistreat you," their father had said, with the ghost of a smile, "but I feel
that, with your temperament, you had best have as long as possible a warning to resign yourself to it.
You'll like being dependent on your brother even less, I fancy, than you like being dependent on me." He
tapped his fingers on his desk. The thought that lay silent between them did not need to be spoken aloud:
that it was not likely she would marry. She was proud, and if she had not been, her parents would have
been proud for her. And there is little market for penniless bluebloods of no particular beautyespecially
when the blueness of the blood is suspected to have been diluted by a questionable great-grandmother
on the mother's side. What the questionableness exactly consisted of, Harry was not sure. With the
self-centeredness of childhood she had not thought to ask; and later, after she had realized that she did
not care for society nor society for her, she had no desire to ask.
The shipboard journey east on the Cecilia had been long but uneventful. She had found her sea legs
almost at once, and had made friends with a middle-aged lady, also traveling alone, who asked no
personal questions, and loaned her novels freely to her young companion, and discussed them with her
upon their return. She had let her own mind go numb, and had read the novels, and sat in the sun, and
strolled the decks, and not thought about the past or the future.
They docked at Stzara without mishap, and she found the earth heaved under her strangely when she
first set foot ashore. Richard had been granted a month's leave to meet her and escort her north to her
new home. He looked younger than she had expected; he had gone overseas three years ago, and had
not been Home again since. He was affectionate to her at their reunion, but wary; they seemed to have
little in common any more. I shouldn't be surprised, she thought; it's been a long time since we played
together every day, before Dickie was sent off to school. I'm an encumbrance now, and he has his career
to think of. But it would be nice to be friends, she thought wistfully. When she pressed him to give her
some idea of what she could expect of her new life, he shrugged and said: "You'll see. The people are
like Home, you know. You needn't have much to do with the natives. There are the servants, of course,
but they are all right. Don't worry about it." And he looked at her with so worried a face that she didn't
know whether to laugh or to shake him. She said, "I wish you would tell me what is worrying you."
Variations of this conversation occurred several times during the first days of their journey together. At
this point there would be a long silence.
Finally, as if he could bear it no more, he burst out: "You won't be able to go on as you did at home,
you know."
"But what do you mean?" She hadn't thought much about native servants, or her position, yet; and
obviously Richard knew her well enough of old to guess that now. She had written him letters, several
each year, since he had gone overseas, but he had rarely answered. She had not minded very much,
although she had thought occasionally, as when his six hastily scrawled lines at Christmas arrived, that it
would have been pleasant if he were a better correspondent; but it hadn't troubled her. It troubled her
now, for she felt that she was facing a strangera stranger who perhaps knew too much about her and her
accustomed way of life.
She blinked at him, and tried to rearrange her thoughts. She was excited, but she was frightened too,
and Richard was all she had. The memory of their father's funeral, and she the only family member
standing beside the minister, and of the small handful of servants and tenants whom she had known all her
life and who were far away from her now, was still raw and recent. She didn't want to think about her
new life; she wanted time to ease into it gradually. She wanted to pretend that she was a tourist.
"DickieDick, what do you mean?"
Richard must have seen the homesick bewilderment on her face. He looked back at her unhappily.
"Oherit's not your house, you know."
"Of course I know that!" she exclaimed. "I appreciate what the Greenoughs are doing for you and for
me byby taking me in." And she added carefully: "You explained all that to me in your letter."
He nodded.
"Do you think I don't know how to behave myself?" she said at last, goaded, and was rewarded by
another long silence while she felt the blood rising in her face.
"It's not that I don't think you know how," he said at last. She flinched, and he began: "An"
"Harry," she said firmly. "It's still Harry." He looked at her with dismay, and she realized that she was
confirming his fears about her, but she wasn't going to yield about that of all things. The realization that
she would insist on being called Harry seemed to silence him, because he did not try to reason with her
further, but withdrew into his corner seat and stared out the window.
She could tell by his voice that he did not want to hurt her, but that he was truly apprehensive. She
and Richard had been wild animals together as small children; but when Dickie had been packed off to
school, their mother had dragged her into the house, mostly by the ears or the nape of the neck, and
begun the long difficult process of reforming her into something resembling a young lady.
"I suppose I should have started years ago," she told her sulky daughter; "but you were having such a
good time, and I knew Dickie would be sent away soon. I thought it hardly fair that your lessons should
start sooner." This lifted the cloud a little from her daughter's brow, so she added with a smile, "And,
besides, I've always liked riding horses and climbing trees and falling into ponds better myself." After
such an open avowal of sympathy from the enemy, lessons could never be quite awful; on the other hand,
they were not perhaps as thorough as they might have been. On particularly beautiful days they often
packed a lunch and rode out together, mother and daughter, to inspire themselvesthe mother saidwith a
little fresh air; but the books as often as not stayed in the saddlebags all day. The daughter learned to love
books, particularly adventure novels where the hero rode a beautiful horse and ran all the villains through
with his silver sword, but her embroidery was never above passable; and she only learned to dance after
her mother pointed out that such grace and balance as she might learn on the dance floor would
doubtless stand her in good stead in the saddle. She learned the housekeeping necessary in an old
ramshackle country house well enough to take over the management of theirs successfully during her
mother's last illness; and the first horrible months after her mother's death were made easier by the fact
that she had something to do. As the first pain of loss wore away, she realized also that she liked being
useful.
In the shock five years later of her father's death, and with the knowledge that she must leave her
home, and leave it in the indifferent hands of a business manager, it had occurred to her to be relieved
that the little eastern station at the farthest-flung border of the Homelander empire where Richard had
been posted, and where she was about to join him, was as small and isolated as it was. Her mother had
escorted her to such small parties and various social occasions as their country neighborhood might offer,
and while she knew she had "conducted herself creditably" she had not enjoyed herself. For one thing,
she was simply too big: taller than all the women, taller than most of the men.
Harry could get nothing more useful out of her brother about his private misgivings as the small rickety
train carried them north. So she began to ask general questionsa tourist's questionsabout her new
country; and then she had better luck. Richard began visibly to thaw, for he recognized the sincerity of
her interest, and told her quite cheerfully that the town at the end of their journey, where Sir Charles and
Lady Amelia awaited them, was the only town of any size at all within three days of it. "There's a wireless
station out in the middle of nowhere where the train stopsit exists only for the train to have someplace to
stopand that's all." The town's name was Istan, after the natives' Ihistan, which was deemed too hard to
pronounce. Beyond Istan was a scattering of small depressed cottages in carefully irrigated fields where a
tough local tassel-headed grain called korf was grown. Istan had been a small village before the
Homelanders came, where the farmers and herders and nomads from the surrounding country came to
market every fortnight and a few pot-menders and rug-weavers kept shops. The Homelanders used it as
an outpost, and expanded it, although the native marketplace remained at its center; and built a fort at the
eastern edge of it, which was named the General Leonard Ernest Mundy.
Istan had lately become a place of some importance in the governmental network the Homelanders
had laid over the country they had conquered eighty years before. It was still an isolated spot, and no one
went there who didn't have to; for it was at the edge of the great northern desert of the peninsular
continent the Homelanders called Daria. But thirteen years ago the Aeel Mines had been discovered in
the Ramid Mountains to the northwest, and in the last eight years the Mines had been officially declared
the most profitable discovery on the entire Darian continent, and that was saying a great deal. The profits
on oranges alone paid the wages of half the civil servants in the Province.
"The Mines are awful to get to, though; the Ramids are very nasty going. Istan is on the only feasible
route to the Mines, and is the last town large enough to re-supply any caravan or company going that
way or coming back out again. That's why we got the railroad, finally. Before that we were the only
reason anyone would want to come so far, and our attractions are limited. But the Mines are the big thing
now. They may even figure out a way to dig a road through the Ramids. I wish them luck."
Istan also remained tactically important, for while south of it the boundary to Homelander territory
swung rapidly east, the Homelanders failed to push it back any nearer the mountains of the north and
east. The natives, perhaps from learning to cope with the desert to survive at all, had proved to be a
tougher breed than their southern cousins.
Some of this Harry had read at Home when she had first heard of Richard's posting three years
before. But she felt the reality of it now, with the western wind blowing down on her from the rich Aeel
Mines, and the odd greenish-bronze tint in the sky, and the brilliant red of the sunsets. She saw the dull
brown uniforms of the Homelander soldiers stationed here, with the red stripe vertically drawn over the
left breast that indicated they served in the Darian province of the Homelander sovereignty. There were
more soldiers, the farther they traveled. "It's still a sore point that Istan is the eastern frontier; we can't
seem to bear the idea that the border doesn't run straight, north to south, because we would like it to.
They keep threatening to mount new offensives, but Colonel Dedhamhe's in charge of the old Mundysays
that they won't do it. And who wants to own a lot of desert anyway? It's the farmland in the southand the
Minesthat make it worthwhile to be here."
She encouraged him to talk about Her Majesty's Government of the Royal Province of Daria, and if
she did not listen as closely as she might to the descriptions of the ranks and duties of the civil servants
Richard had the most contact with, she arrived at Istan at last with some small idea of how Homelanders
in general were expected to respond to Daria. And she had seen korf with her own eyes, and a band of
the wandering tinkers known as dilbadi, and the changing color of the earth underfoot, from the southern
red to central brown to northern yellow-grey. She knew a broad-leafed ilpin tree from the blue evergreen
torthuk, and when Lady Amelia met her with a corsage of the little rosy-pink pimchie flowers, she
greeted them by name.
Lady Amelia was a small round woman with big hazel eyes and curly grey hair and the wistful look of
the fading beauty. Her husband, Sir Charles, was as tall as Richard and much broader; he must ride
sixteen stone, Harry thought dispassionately as she shook his hand. He had a red face and white hair and
a magnificent mustache, and if his blue eyes were a little shallow, there were laugh lines generously
around them, and his smile was warm. She felt as if they had looked forward to her coming, and she
relaxed a little; there was none of the loftiness she was expecting toward a poor relationsomeone else's
poor relation at that. Sir Charles during the first evening gave her a complete history of Daria, its past, its
conquest by the Homelanders, its present, and its likely future, but most of it she was too tired to follow.
Lady Amelia's occasional quick comments, when her husband stopped to draw breath, about Harry's
present comfort were much more welcome, although she tried not to show it. But midway through the
evening, as Sir Charles was gesturing with his liqueur glass and even Richard was looking a bit
glassy-eyed, Lady Amelia caught her new charge's eye for a long moment. A look of patience and
affection passed between them; and Harry thought that perhaps all would be well, and she went up to
bed in good spirits.
For the first few days in Istan she unpacked, and looked around her, and only saw the newness of
everything. But the Homelanders of Istan were a small but thriving community, and she was the latest
addition to a society which looked forward to, and welcomed, and cross-examined, and talked about, its
additions.
She had always suffered from a vague restlessness, a longing for adventure that she told herself
severely was the result of reading too many novels when she was a small child. As she grew up, and
particularly after her mother died, she had learned to ignore that restlessness. She had nearly forgotten
about it, till now. She wondered sometimes if her brother felt that impatience of spirit too, if something
like it had had anything to do with his ending up at a small Border station, however tactically important,
although his prospects, when he graduated from university, had suggested something better. This was one
of the many things she did not ask him. Another question she did not ask was if he ever missed Home.
She set down her empty orange-juice glass, and sighed. They'd missed the orange groves, coming
north from Stzara, where her ship put her ashore. She picked up her fork from its shining white, neatly
folded linen napkin, and turned it so that the sunlight that had glittered through her orange juice now
caught in tiny star-bursts across its tines. Don't fidget, she told herself.
This morning she was to go riding with the two Misses Peterson, Cassie and Elizabeth. They were
near her own age, and the admitted beauties of the station; the entire 4th Cavalry, stationed at the
General Mundy, were in love with them. But they were also cheerful and open-hearted, and she was
fond of them. She had never much cared for beauty, although she was aware that she lacked it and that
her position might have been a little easier if she had not.
They would return from their ride by midmorning, because the sun would be growing too hot for
anyone to brave it for pleasure. She planned to ask Lady Amelia if they might all come back here for
lunch. She already knew what the answer would be: "Why, of course! We are always delighted to see
them. I am so pleased, my dear, that you should be so clever as to attach the two most charming girls we
have here to be your particular friends." Harry caught herself playing with her fork again, and laid it down
emphatically. This evening there was to be another dance. Richard had promised to escort her; she had
to acknowledge that, however little they found to say to one another now, he was very good about
escorting her to parties, and dancing with herwhich meant that there was at least one man present whom
she did not tower over. Her gratitude was not at all dimmed by the suspicion that he was nursing a secret
passion for Cassie, nor by the thought, not even a real suspicion, that he might not want himself made a
fool of by his sister's unpopularity. No, his kindness was real; he loved her, she thought, in his silent and
anxious way. Perhaps simply being a very junior military adjutant with an unmarried sister suddenly thrust
on one's hands inevitably made one a bit of a prig.
It never occurred to her to speculate whether any of the young men in their shining regimentals that
Dickie painstakingly introduced her to, and who then painstakingly asked her to dance, presented
themselves from any motive outside a willingness to do their friend Crewe a favor by standing up with his
oversized sister. It would have surprised her very much to learn of her two or three admirers, who so far
resisted the prevailing atmosphere of the barracks as to incline to an altar less populated than that of
either Miss Peterson. "But she's just like her brother," one of them complained to his best friend, who
listened with a friend's patience, although he was himself incapable of seeing the charms of any woman
other than Beth Peterson. "So damned polite. Oh, she's nice enough, you know. I don't suppose she
actually dislikes me," he continued, a bit uncertainly. "But I'm not at all sure she even recognizes me from
one day to the next, so it hardly counts."
"Well," said the friend good-humoredly, "Dick remembers you well enough."
The admirer threw a boot at his friendthe one he hadn't polished yet. "You know what I mean."
"I know what you mean," agreed the friend. "A cold fish." The admirer looked up from the
boot-blacking angrily and the friend held up the extra boot like a shield. "Dick's stiff with honor. I daresay
his sister's like that. You just don't know her well enough yet."
"Balls, dinner parties," moaned the admirer. "You know what they're like; it could take years." The
friend in silent sympathy (thinking of Beth) tossed the boot back, and he began moodily to black it.
The object of his affections, had she known of this conversation, would have agreed with him on the
subject of balls and dinner parties. In fact, she would have added the rider that she wasn't sure it could
be done at all, getting to know someone at any succession of such parties, however prolonged. And the
friend was right about Dick Crewe's powerful sense of honor. He knew well enough that at least two of
his friends were falling in love with his sister; but it never crossed his mind to say anything about them to
her. He could not compromise the privileged knowledge of friendship in such a way.
And Dick's sister, oblivious to the fact that she had won herself a place in the station hierarchy, chafed
and fidgeted.
Lady Amelia arrived at the breakfast table next. They had just settled the question of Cassie and Beth
coming to lunchin almost the precise words anticipatedwhen the door to Sir Charles' study, across the
hall from the breakfast room, opened; and Sir Charles and his secretary, Mr. Mortimer, entered to
breakfast. The two women looked at them in surprise; they had the unmistakable air of men who have
been awake several hours, working hard on nothing more than a cup or two of the dark heavy local
coffee, and who will rush through their meal now to get back to whatever they have been doing. Neither
of them looked very happy about their prospects.
"My dear," said Lady Amelia. "Whatever is wrong?" Sir Charles ran a hand through his white hair,
accepted a plate of eggs with his other hand, and sat down. He shook his head. Philip Mortimer glanced
at his employer but said nothing. "Richard's not here yet," said Sir Charles, as if his absence explained
everything.
"Richard?" said Lady Amelia faintly.
"Yes. And Colonel Dedham. I'm sorry, my dear," he said, a few mouthfuls of eggs seeming to restore
him. "The message came quite out of the blue, in the middle of the night," he explained through his
metaphors as well as his mouthful. "JackColonel Dedhamhas been out, trying to find out what he can, and
I told him to come to breakfast and tell us what he's learned. With Richardthat boy knows how to talk to
people. Blast them. Blast him. He'll be here in a few hours."
His wife stared at him in complete bewilderment, and his young guest averted her eyes when he
looked at her, as it was not her place to stare. He laid down his fork and laughed. "Melly, your face is a
study. Young Harry here is going to be a fine ambassador's wife someday, though: look at that poker
face! You really shouldn't look so much like your brother; it makes you too easy to read for those of us
who know him. Just now you're thinking: Is the old man gone at last? Humor him till we're sure; if he
calms down a bit, perhaps we'll get some sense out of him even now." Harry grinned back at him,
untroubled by his teasing, and he reached across the table, braving candlesticks and an artistically
arranged bowl of fruit, to tap her cheek with his fingers. "A general's wife, on second thought. You'd be
wasted on the diplomatic corps; we're all such dry paper-shufflers." He speared a piece of toast with his
fork, and Lady Amelia, whose manners with her own family were as punctilious as if she dined with
royalty, looked away. Sir Charles piled marmalade on his toast till it began to ooze off the edges, added
one more dollop for good measure, and ate it all in three gulps. "Melly, I know I've told you about the
difficulties we're having in the North, on this side of the mountains with our lot, and on the far side with
whatever it is they breed over therea very queer bunch, from all we can gatherand it's all begun to
escalate, this last year, at an alarming speed. Harry, Dick's told you something of this?"
She nodded.
"You may or may not know that our real hold over Daria ends just about where this station stands,
although technicallyon paperHomeland rule extends right to the foot of those mountains north and east of
herethe Ossanders, which run out from the Ramids, and then that far eastern range you see over the
sand, where none of us has ever been … those mountains are the only bits of the old kingdom of Damar
still under native rule. There used to be quite a lot of fighting along this bordersay, forty years ago. Since
then their kingoh yes, there's a kingmore or less ignores us, and we more or less ignore him. But odd
thingscall them odd things; Jack will tell you what he thinks they arestill happen on that plain, our
no-man's-land. So we have the 4th Cavalry here with us.
"Nothing too odd has happened since the current king took the throne around ten years ago, we
thinkthey don't bother to keep us up to date on such thingsbut it never does to be careless. Um." He
frowned and, while frowning, ate another piece of toast. "Everything has been quiet foroh, at least fifteen
years. Nearly as long as I've been here, and that's a long time. Ask Jack, though, for stories of what it
was like up and down the northern half of this border before that. He has plenty of them." He stood up
from the table, and went across the room to the row of windows. He lifted the curtain farther back as he
looked out across the desert, as if breadth of view might assist clarity of thought. It was obvious his mind
was not on the explanation he was giving; and for all his assumed cheerfulness, he was deeply worried.
"Damn! … Excuse me. Where is Jack? I expected he would have at least sent young Richard on ahead
before now." He spoke as if to himself, or perhaps to Philip Mortimer, who made soothing noises,
poured a cup of tea, and took it to Sir Charles where he stood squinting into the morning sunlight.
"Trouble?" said Lady Amelia gently. "More trouble?"
Sir Charles dropped the curtain and turned around. "Yes! More trouble." He looked down at his
hands, realized he was holding a cup of tea in one of them, and took a swallow from it with the air of a
man who does what is expected of him. "There may be war with the North. Jack thinks so. I'm not sure,
butI don't like the rumors. We must secure the passes through the mountainsparticularly Ritger's Gap,
which gives anybody coming through it almost a direct line to Istan, and then of course to the whole
Province. It may only be some tribal uproarbut it could be war, as real as it was eighty years ago. There
aren't many of the old Damarians leftthe Hillfolkbut we've been forced to have a pretty healthy respect
for them. And if King Corlath decides to throw his chances in with the Northerners"
There was a clatter in the street below. Sir Charles' head snapped around. "There they are at last," he
said, and bolted for the front door and threw it open himself, under the scandalized eye of the butler who
had emerged from his inner sanctum just too late. "Come in! I've been in high fidgets for the last hour,
wondering what's become of you. Have you found out anything that might be of use to us? I have been
trying to explain to the ladies what our problem is."
"Would you care for breakfast?" Lady Amelia asked without haste, and with her usual placid
courtesy. "Charles may be trying to explain, but so far he has not succeeded." In response to her gesture,
a maid laid two more places at the table. With a jingling of spurs the two newcomers entered, apologized
for their dirt, and were delighted to accept some breakfast. Richard dropped a perfunctory kiss on his
sister's cheek on his way to the eggs and ham. After a few minutes of tea-pouring and butter-passing,
while Sir Charles strode up and down the room with barely suppressed impatience, it was Lady Amelia
who spoke first. "We will leave you to your business, which I can see is very important, and we won't
pester you with demands for explanations. But would you answer just one question?"
Colonel Dedham said, "Of course, Melly. What is it?"
"What is it that has suddenly thrown you into this turmoil? Some unexpected visitor, I gather, from
what Charles said?"
Dedham stared at her. "He didn't tell you? Good God. It's Corlath himself. He's coming. He never
comes near here, you knownone of the real Hillfolk do if they can help it. At best, if we want badly
enough to talk to him, we can catch one of his men as they pass through the foothills northeast of here.
Sometimes."
"You see," broke in Sir Charles, "it makes us hope that perhaps he wishes to cooperate with usnot
the Northerners. Jack, did you find out anything?"
Dedham shrugged. "Not really. Nothing that we didn't already knowthat his coming here is
unprecedented, to say the leastand that it is in fact him. Nobody had any better guesses than ours about
why, suddenly, he decided to do so."
"But your guess would be" prompted Sir Charles.
Dedham shrugged again, and looked wry. "You know already what my guess would be. You just like
to hear me making an ass of myself. But I believe in the, um, curious things that happen out there" he
waved the sugar spoon"and I believe that Corlath must have had some sort of sign, to go to the length of
approaching us."
A silence fell; Harry could see that everyone else in the room was uncomfortable. "Sign?" she said
tentatively.
Dedham glanced up with his quick smile. "You haven't been here long enough to have heard any of
the queer stories about the old rulers of Damar?"
"No," she said.
"Well, they were sorcerersor so the story goes. Magicians. They could call the lightning down on the
heads of their enemies, that sort of thinguseful stuff for founding an empire."
Sir Charles snorted.
"No, you're quite right; all we had was matchlocks and enthusiasm. Even magic wanes, I suppose.
But I don't think it's waned quite away yet; there's some still living in those mountains out there. Corlath
can trace his bloodlines back to Aerin and Tor, who ruled Damar in its golden agewith or without magic,
depending on which version you prefer."
"If they weren't legends themselves," put in Sir Charles.
"Yes. But I believe they were real," said Jack Dedham. "I even believe they wielded something we
prosaic Homelanders would call magic."
Harry stared at him, fascinated, and his smile broadened. "I'm quite used to being taken for a fool
about this. It's doubtless part of the reason why I'm still a colonel, and still at the General Mundy. But
there are a number of us old soldiers whose memories go back to the Daria of thirty, forty years ago who
say the same thing."
"Oh, magic," said Sir Charles disgustedly, but there was a trace of uneasiness in his voice as well.
"Have you ever seen lightning come to heel like a dog?"
Dedham through his politeness looked a little stubborn. "No. I haven't. But it's true enough at least
that the men who have gone up against Corlath's father and grandfather were plagued by the most
astonishing bad luck. And you know the Queen and Council back Home would give their eyeteeth to
push our border back the way we've been saying we would for the last eighty years."
"Bad luck?" said Lady Amelia. "I've heard the stories, of coursesome of the old ballads are very
beautiful. Butwhat sort of bad luck?"
Dedham smiled again. "I admit it does begin to sound foolish when one tries to explain it. But things
like riflesor matchlocksmisfiring, or blowing up; not just a few, but manyyourself, and your neighbor, and
his neighbor. And their neighbors. A cavalry charge just as it reaches full stretch, the horses begin to trip
and fall down as if they've forgotten how to gallopall of them. Men mistake their orders. Supply wagons
lose their wheels. Half a company all suddenly get grit in their eyes simultaneously and can't see where
they're goingor where to shoot. The sort of little things that always happen, but carried far beyond
probability. Men get superstitious about such things, however much they scoff at elves and witches and
so on. And it's pretty appalling to see your cavalry crumple up like they're all drunk, while these madmen
with nothing but swords and axes and bits of leather armor are coming down on you from every
directionand nobody seems to be firing at them from your side. I assure you I've seen it."
Richard shifted in his chair. "And Corlath"
"Yes, Corlath," the colonel continued, sounding still as unruffled as when he thanked Lady Amelia for
his cup of tea, while Sir Charles' face was getting redder and redder and he whuffled through his
mustache. It was hard not to believe Dedham; his voice was too level, and it rang with sincerity. "They
say that in Corlath the old kings have come again. You know he's begun to reunite some of the outlying
tribesthe ones that don't seem to owe anyone any particular allegiance, and who live by a sort of
equal-handed brigandry on anyone within easy reach."
"Yes, I know," said Sir Charles.
"Then you may also have heard some of the other sort of stories they've begun to tell about him. I
imagine he can call lightning to heel if he feels like it."
"This is the man who's coming here today?" said Lady Amelia; and even she now sounded a little
startled.
"Yes, Amelia, I'm afraid so."
"If he's so blasted clever," muttered Sir Charles, "what does he want with us?"
Dedham laughed. "Come now, Charles. Don't be sulky. I don't suppose even a magician can make
half a million Northerners disappear like raindrops in the ocean. We certainly need him to keep the
passes through his mountains closed. And it may be that he has decided that he needs usto mop up the
leaks, perhaps."
Lady Amelia stood up, and Harry reluctantly followed her. "We will leave you to discuss it. Is thereis
there anything I could do, could arrange? I'm afraid I know very little about entertaining nativechieftains.
Do you suppose he will want lunch?" She spread her hands and looked around the table.
Harry suppressed a smile at the thought of proper little Lady Amelia offering sandwiches, with the
crusts neatly trimmed off, and lemonade to this barbarian king. What would he look like? She thought:
I've never even seen any of the Freemen, the Hillfolk. All the natives at the station, even the merchants
from away, look subdued and … a little wary.
"Oh, bosh," said Sir Charles. "I wish I knew what he wantedlunch or anything else. Part of what
makes all this so complicated is that we know the Free Hillfolk have a very complicated code of
honorbut we know almost nothing about what it consists of."
"Almost," murmured Dedham.
"We could offend them mortally and not even know it. I don't know if Corlath is coming alone, or
with a select band of his thousand best men, all armed to the teeth and carrying lightning bolts in their
back pockets."
"Now, Charles," Dedham said. "We've invited him here"
"because the fort is not built for receiving guests of honor," Dedham said easily as Sir Charles paused.
"And," Sir Charles added plaintively, "it doesn't look quite so warlike here." Dedham laughed. "But
four o'clock in the morning," Sir Charles said.
"I think we should be thankful that it occurred to him to give us any warning at all. I don't believe it's
the sort of thing he's accustomed to having to think of." The colonel stood up, and Richard promptly took
his place behind him. Sir Charles was still pacing about the room, cup in hand, as the ladies prepared to
leave. "My apologies for spoiling your morning to no purpose," said Colonel Dedham. "I daresay he will
arrive sometime and we will deal with him, but I don't think you need put yourselves out. His message
said merely that he desired an audience with the Homelander District Commissionernot quite his phrase,
but that's the ideaand the general in command of the fort. He'll have to make do with me, though; we
don't rate a general. The Hill-kings don't go in much for gold plate and red velvet anywayI think. I hope
this is a business meeting."
"I hope so too," murmured Sir Charles to his teacup. "Andat the momentwe can't do much more than
wait and see," said the colonel. "Have some more of this excellent tea, Charles. What's in your cup must
be quite cold by now."
CHAPTER TWO
Harry and Lady Amelia took their leave, and the older woman closed the breakfast-room doors with
a sigh. Harry smiled. Lady Amelia turned back to her in time to see the smile, and returned it ruefully.
"Very well. We will leave the men to do their uncomfortable waiting alone. I am going to visit Mrs.
McDonald, you are going to go riding with Beth and Cassie and bring them back here for luncheon."
"Perhaps under the circumstances" began Harry, but Lady Amelia shook her head.
"I see no reason why you should not. If he is here, those girls have very pretty manners, and are just
whom I would invite if we were to give a formal dinner. And" here her smile broadened and became as
mischievous as a girl's"if he has brought his thousand best men, we shall be terribly short of women, and
you know how I dislike an unbalanced table. I shall have to invite Mrs. McDonald as well. Have a
pleasant ride, dear."
Harry changed into her riding-clothes, mounted her placid pony, already bridled and saddled and held
for her by one of the Residency's many servants, and rode off in a thoughtful mood toward her meeting
with her two friends. She wondered first what and how much she should tell Cassie and Beth; and,
second, found herself hoping that this Corlath would stay at least long enough for her to see him. Would a
witch-king look any different than any other man?
The sun was already hot. She pushed her hat back long enough for a cautious squint at the sky. It was
more dun-colored than blue, as if it, like everything else near Istan, were faded by the fierceness of its
sun. It looked as hard as a curved shell overhead, and brittle, as if a thrown lance might pierce it. The
placid pony shuffled along, ears flopping, and she stared out over the sands. The woods to the west of
her father's house were old, hundreds of years old, tangled with vine and creeper. Ancient trees had died
and, not having room to fall, crumbled where they stood. No landlord had thought the old forest worth
clearing and the land put to use; but it had made a wonderful jungle for herself and Dickie as children, to
be bandits in, and hunt dragons through. Its twisted shadows had always been welcome to her; when she
grew older she liked the feeling of great age that the forest gave her, of age and of a vast complicated life
that had nothing to do with her and that she need not try to decipher.
The desert, with the black sharp-edged mountains around it, was as different from what she was
accustomed to as any landscape could be; yet she found after only a few weeks in Istan that she was
falling by degrees in love with it: with the harsh sand, the hot sun, the merciless gritty winds. And she
found that the desert lured her as her own green land never hadbut what discovery it lured her toward
she could not say.
It was an even greater shock to realize that she was no longer homesick. She missed her occupation;
and even more she missed her father. She had left so soon after the funeral that it was difficult to believe
that he was dead, that he was not still riding around his estate in his shabby coat, waiting for her to return.
Then she found that she remembered her parents together again; as if her mother had died recently, or
her father five years agoor as if the difference, which had been so important, no longer mattered. She
didn't dream of honeysuckle and lilac. She remembered them with affection, but she looked across the
swirled sand and small obstinate clumps of brush and was content with where she was. A small voice
whispered to her that she didn't even want to go Home again. She wanted to cross the desert and climb
into the mountains in the east, the mountains no Homelander had ever climbed.
She often speculated about how other people saw the land here. Her brother never mentioned it one
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eVersion1.0-clickforscannotesTHEBLUESWORDRobinMcKinleyToDannyandPeachey,whofirstledmetoDamar.CHAPTERONEShescowledatherglassoforangejuice.Tothinkthatshehadbeendelightedwhenshefirstarrivedherewasitonlythreemonthsago?withtheprospectoffreshorangejuiceeveryday.Butshehadbeeneagertobedelighted;thiswastobeh...

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