Chapter 136: War

There were nine thousand, eight hundred and twelve Kethran sailors in Westmere on Saturday morning, and Helena sent bread for all of them.

Not personally. Even Helena can't bake for ten thousand. But at four o'clock on Saturday morning the Hold gate opened from the Greykeep side, and through it came the first of the carts. Bread from Helena's ovens and every oven in Greykeep town. Bread from Lyradon's terraces, where Queen Mirelle had the bakers up all night. Bread from Concordia, from Io's palace kitchens and the lower town and the college refectory, where Master Ashby, Caitlin told me afterward, had been seen at midnight in an apron, kneading, very badly, and refusing to stop.

And every cart had a note on it in Helena's hand. The same note, copied out a hundred times by Mary and Melody and Caitlin and Mirelle, who's seven and a half and wrote hers in green ink with the letters going uphill.

Eat this first. Then ask for more.

* * *

I didn't see much of it. At five I was on the end of the north pier with Avarn and my father and Roderic, the way we'd been every morning that week, and I fell over twice, and my father didn't fall over at all, and Avarn said tomorrow.

Then he looked at the key on the bollard. The Lockwarden's key. Plain iron, black with age, small enough to hide in a fist. It had lain there all night in the frost, and nobody had touched it.

"Leave it," said Avarn, though nobody had moved toward it. "Some things you put down so they stay down."

* * *

The flagship was still out there.

All the long black ships were. Two hundred and forty of them, empty now, or nearly, sitting in the ice under the frozen curl of the wave like toys left out in the snow. And the ten tall ships with their opened towers, the glass gone soft and slumped like candle wax. And at the back of the line, the eleventh. The flagship. Three masts, bare. And on the mainmast, where the closed-hand banner had been, the gray cloth.

Not yet.

Nobody had come off it. A few hundred people still aboard the whole fleet, Caitlin said. The Chained, and the officers, and the ones too frightened to walk across the ice. And him.

Every so often, I'd see someone on the flagship's deck. A small figure, moving. Once I thought it was the Lockwarden, gray against the gray ice. Once I thought it was someone taller.

I tried not to look too often. It felt like looking in someone's window.

* * *

At eleven o'clock, Tamar's watch bell rang.

* * *

A single ship. Coming in from the west, from the open sea, fast. Not one of the long black ones. Smaller. Sleek and narrow, with a red hull and red sails and a closed hand painted on the mainsail in gold, so big you could see it with your bare eye from the top of the Hold.

It came straight in across the open water toward the ice. It didn't slow down. And just before it hit, it swung around, all at once, with every sail cracking, and stopped dead, broadside to the frozen sea, a quarter mile out beyond the last of the black ships. As if somebody had grabbed it and held it.

"Not Draum," said Brannoc, beside me on the harbor wall. "Draum's behind a door."

"No," said my father. "Someone else holding the water. Someone smaller." He narrowed his eyes. "Someone who wants us to watch him arrive."

* * *

A figure came up out of the red ship's hold and climbed to the very top of its bow.

Tall. Thin. In a long coat of red and gold that whipped around his legs in the wind off the open sea. He had something in his hand: a staff, or a rod, tipped with gold. He raised it. And when he spoke, his voice didn't carry across the water the way a voice does. It just arrived. All at once. Right beside you. As if he were standing at your elbow speaking into your ear.

I heard it on the harbor wall. Tamar heard it in her watch room. Goss heard it at the end of the pier, with his ledger on his knees. Nine thousand Kethran sailors heard it, in the harbor and the empty houses and the chandlery and the herring sheds, and every one of them went still.

"Hear the word of the Throne of Hands."

* * *

"Vellis," said Iselle.

She'd come out onto the harbor wall behind me without my hearing. Her face had gone white.

"The Herald," she said. "One of the Chained. He reads the proclamations in the golden city, from the steps of the palace. He's the voice that says the Emperor wills. His voice goes into every ear in the city at once. You can't not hear it. Even with your hands over your ears." She swallowed. "I used to put my head under the pillow. It didn't help."

* * *

"Hear the word of the Throne of Hands," said Vellis again. In every ear on the coast. "By order of the Regent of Kethra, who holds the throne in the name of His Radiance Malachar Ostrane, Emperor, Lord of the Ostrane Imperium, Son of the Unnamed God, Who Holds. His Radiance being unwell."

Out on the ice, on the deck of the flagship, a tall figure came out of the stern cabin and stood very still.

"The house of Grey has been asked twice by His Radiance," said Vellis. "Twice it has refused. Refusal of the Throne is insult. Insult to the Throne is war."

* * *

He said it the way you'd read out a price at market. Without any feeling at all.

"From this day, the Ostrane Imperium is at war with Greykeep. With Concordia. With Lyradon. With Havenreach and Westmere and every land and every god that sits in the Accord of Avarra. There will be no third asking. There will be no herald after me."

He lowered his gold-tipped staff a little. Then raised it again.

"The deserters on your shore are traitors to the Throne. They will be fetched. Every one. Their names are known."

All along the harbor, nine thousand Kethran sailors who'd walked across a mile of ice with their hands open went very, very quiet.

"And let it be known," said Vellis, "that the lady Cerys, mother of His Radiance, is safe and well in the keeping of the Regent. In her glass room. Where she will remain."

He paused.

"Kessavel holds her."

* * *

On the flagship, the tall figure on the deck moved.

Not toward the red ship. Not toward us. He just put out one hand and caught hold of the rail. The way you'd catch hold of something if the deck had suddenly tipped under your feet.

From a quarter of a mile, across the ice, I saw it.

So did my father.

* * *

"The Regent says," said Vellis, "come to the shore at sunset in three days and fight, or do not come, and burn. It is the same to him."

And he turned around, and went back down into the red ship's hold. And the red ship's sails filled with a wind that wasn't blowing anywhere else, and it swung around and went away west across the open sea, very fast, the way it had come.

And the voice in my ear stopped.

* * *

Nobody on the harbor wall said anything for a long time.

"His Radiance being unwell," said Iselle at last. Very quietly. "He isn't unwell. He's there." She pointed at the flagship. "He's right there. On the deck. Anyone can see him." Her voice cracked. "They've taken the city. While he was away. Kessavel's sitting in the Throne of Hands, and saying it's in his name, and he can't stop him, because he's a quarter of a mile from our harbor in a ship frozen in my— in Uriah's ice." She put both hands over her mouth. "And they've got Cerys."

"Kessavel," said my father slowly. "And behind Kessavel."

He didn't say the name. Nobody did.

But I thought of a fold in a black letter, sealed with gray wax. I will let the half keep his mother.

He'd meant it the other way around.

* * *

At twelve, Severin came across the ice.

Alone. On foot. Slowly, the way he does everything, in his salt-stained gray coat, with both hands raised and open in front of him. He stopped at the foot of the north pier steps, where the Lockwarden had stood, and looked up.

Tamar was at the top of the steps. She looked at him for a long moment.

"Leave to come ashore?" she said.

"I'm not asking to come ashore," said Severin. "I'm carrying a message. It isn't an asking. He doesn't ask a third time." He swallowed. "He asked me to say that clearly. This is not an asking."

"Then say it," said my father, from beside her.

* * *

Severin looked up at him.

"He says: That was not my voice," said Severin. "I did not send the Herald. I did not declare a war. I have never declared a war in three hundred years; I have only ever asked, and been answered." He paused. "He says: The Regent is not mine. Kessavel holds my throne, and Kessavel is not the one holding Kessavel."

He stopped. His hands were shaking.

"And he says," said Severin, very quietly, "My mother is in the glass room. She has never once been alone at midnight in three hundred years. Tonight she will be. I am going home."

* * *

Nobody said anything.

Out on the ice, the flagship sat locked in my father's frost, under the curl of the frozen wave. It couldn't move. None of them could. My father had frozen the sea a mile out, all down the coast, and every ship in it was held as fast as a fly in amber.

Malachar couldn't go home. Not unless someone let him.

* * *

Everybody looked at my father.

He stood at the top of the north pier steps in his shirt and his bare feet, very big, very tired, with the gray morning light on his face, and looked out across the ice at the flagship with its gray cloth for a long time.

"He's the enemy," said Thor, from the wall. Not angrily. Just saying it, so it had been said. "Uriah. He's the one who took her. Iselle. When she was twelve. He's the one who sent the Hushed up the stair. He's the one who held the storms for two hundred years and the Ilvane river and Selvane's harbors. He's the one who wanted Carol."

"Yes," said my father.

"If you let him out of the ice, he goes home and takes his throne back. And then he's the Emperor again. With a fleet, and gods, and everything."

"Yes," said my father.

"And if you don't, he's stuck here. In your frost. Till spring."

"Yes."

"So keep him," said Thor. "It's the sensible thing."

* * *

My father didn't answer.

He turned around. Not to Thor. To Iselle.

She was standing on the harbor wall with her hands over her mouth and her eyes very wide.

"Iselle," said my father. "He's your brother. Half. And he's the one who took you." He held out his hands, open. "You asked for him to be deposed. Not killed. Behind a door where he has to knock." He paused. "Somebody's just deposed him. Not us. Not kindly. And they've got his mother." His voice was very gentle. "What do you want?"

* * *

Iselle took her hands away from her mouth.

She looked out across the ice at the flagship. At the tall figure on the deck, still holding the rail.

"I want her to see her river," she said. "Cerys. In spring. She can't remember what color it is." Her voice shook. "She taught me to write. She's the only person in that whole palace who ever put her hand on anyone's head. She asks everyone who comes in if it's time yet." She swallowed. "And if he doesn't go home, she'll be alone at midnight. For the first time in three hundred years. In a glass room. With Kessavel." She looked at my father. "I don't want him to have his throne back. I don't. But I don't want her to be alone with Kessavel either. Not for one night." Her eyes filled. "Is that wrong?"

"No," said my father. "That's the rightest thing anybody's said all day."

He turned around.

"Garrick," he said.

* * *

I knew before he said it.

I'd been holding his winter all night on Thursday. I still had it. We keep what we borrow. It was in me now, deep down, cold with no bottom, the way his is. And I had Iselle's opening too. In my hands. Where I'd kept it since the college stair.

"A channel," said my father. "From the flagship. Out past the shoals. Under the curl of the wave. To open water." He looked at me. "Just wide enough for one ship. Not for the others. Just his."

"You could do it yourself."

"I could," said my father. "But I froze it. And you opened the towers." He put his hand on my shoulder. "It should be the one who opens."

* * *

I went down the north pier steps onto the ice.

It was very cold, and very hard, and white and gray and green underfoot, and it went on in front of me for a mile, out to the black ships and the frozen wave. I walked out across it with the little oak sword under my arm, blade back, hilt forward. Past the first line of long black ships, empty, creaking in the cold. Past the second. Past the tall ships with their slumped glass towers.

To the flagship.

* * *

He was still standing at the rail.

He looked down at me as I came up alongside, on the ice, below his deck. Very tall. Gold coming off him, but less than before. Much less. Like a fire that's been banked for the night. He looked older than he had on Thursday. He looked like a man who'd been told something that had taken all the years he'd been holding back and given them to him at once.

The Lockwarden was standing beside him. And Severin, who'd come back across the ice behind me.

Nobody said anything.

* * *

I took the oak sword out from under my arm.

Never in your hand unless you mean it.

I knelt down on the ice beside the flagship's frozen hull, and laid the flat of the wooden blade against it, and put my other hand flat on the ice, open. And let two things go out of me at once. My father's winter, which I'd kept, to tell the ice where to stay. And Iselle's opening, which I'd kept, to tell it where to go.

The ice opened.

* * *

Not melted. Opened. Like a door. A long straight crack ran out from the flagship's bow, west, across the frozen sea, and the two sides of it drew back, slowly, smoothly, the way curtains draw back from a window. And there was black water underneath. A channel. Just wide enough for one ship. Running straight out between the frozen black hulls, past the shoals, under the green curl of the frozen wave, which hung over it like the arch of a bridge, out to the open sea.

The ice on either side stayed exactly where it was. Hard and white and holding. Holding every other ship.

Just his.

* * *

I stood up.

Malachar was looking down at the channel. Then at me.

He opened his mouth. And shut it again. I think he was about to ask why. The way he had on Thursday, beside the last tower.

He didn't. He'd learned that already, I think. That's not how it works here. You don't get told why. You just get the door.

"Iselle asked," I said anyway. "For Cerys. So she won't be alone at midnight." I swallowed. "She said to tell you she still says your name."

Malachar closed his eyes.

* * *

He stood like that for a long time. With his hand on the rail and his eyes shut and the gold coming off him very faintly, like breath on a cold morning.

Then he opened his eyes, and looked past me. Back across the mile of ice. To the end of the north pier, where a big man in his shirt and bare feet was standing with his hands at his sides, open, watching.

And Malachar Ostrane, Emperor of Kethra, Lord of the Ostrane Imperium, Son of the Unnamed God, Who Holds, lifted one hand off the rail of his ship.

Open.

And held it up. Toward my father. Not a wave. Not a salute. Just a hand, held up, open, across a mile of frozen sea.

And on the end of the north pier, my father lifted his.

* * *

The flagship went out at one o'clock.

The sailors who were left aboard, the officers and the frightened ones, a few dozen, cast off from the ice and ran up a single sail, and she slid out down the black channel slowly, between the frozen hulls of her own fleet, under the arch of the frozen wave, toward the open sea. The gray cloth on her mast. The Lockwarden at the stern, beside the place where his lamp had been, looking back at the bollard where his key was. Severin at the bow.

And Malachar at the rail, alone, looking west. Toward home.

When she was past the wave and into open water, I closed the channel behind her. The ice came together again like a door shutting. Gently. Without a sound.

* * *

I walked back across the ice to the pier.

My father was waiting at the top of the steps. He didn't say anything. He just put his arm around my shoulders and turned me around, so we were both looking west, out past the frozen wave, at the one small sail getting smaller.

"We just let the Emperor of Kethra go home," I said.

"We did."

"With a war coming. And three days. And come to the shore at sunset and fight or burn."

"Yes."

"Thor's right. It wasn't sensible."

"No," said my father. "It wasn't." He was quiet for a while. "But in three days, whatever comes over that sea, it won't be him leading it. It'll be Kessavel. And whatever's behind Kessavel." He looked down at me. "And somewhere in the golden city, at midnight, an old woman with ink on her finger won't be on her own." He paused. "I'd rather fight Kessavel than be the reason she was."

* * *

That afternoon there was a war council. In the Council Hall at Greykeep. Forty chairs, and every god of the Accord standing along the walls.

I won't put it all down. Mary has it. It went on until midnight, and Lexander moved pieces on his king's-table board, and Brannoc took notes in his little leather book, and Thor banged her hammer on the floor twice and was asked to stop and didn't, and Avarn sat by the door the whole time with his staff across his knees and said nothing at all.

At the end of it, my father stood up behind his chair. The way he always does.

"Three days," he said. "At sunset. Westmere." He looked around the round hall. At the gods in the chairs and along the walls. Thor and Brannoc and Avarn. Merova of fighting withdrawals. Vaerun of hurricanes. Damar with his two chairs. Corra, Halemar, Ilyra, all of them. "They're coming to fight. So we'll be there."

He didn't call the hammer. He didn't need to.

"I'll stand in front," said my father. "Like I said. They'll have to come through me." He paused. "And my children will finish it."

He looked at me. Then at Carol, on the far side of the ring, beside Ignatius.

She looked back at me.

Heard, said her face.

* * *

Mary's book. Saturday night. Greykeep. She'd come home through the Hold gate at last, after three days, and slept two hours, and got up again.

Saturday. Westmere. 4 a.m.: bread through the Hold gate for 9,812. Helena's note: eat this first, then ask for more. Mirelle wrote hers in green.

11 a.m.: a red ship. Vellis the Herald, in every ear. The Regent of Kethra declares war on the Accord. His Radiance being unwell. Kessavel holds Cerys.

Noon: Severin across the ice. Malachar says: that was not my voice. I am going home.

Iselle asked that he go. For Cerys. Uriah asked Garrick. Garrick opened a channel in the ice with his father's winter and Iselle's opening. One ship. Then closed it.

Malachar held up his hand. Open. Uriah held up his.

War council, 4 p.m. to midnight. Three days. Sunset. Westmere.

And under that, in a small careful hand, a little shaky, every stroke going exactly the right way, the hand of a girl who was taught to write in a glass room:

Iselle. I asked for him to go home to her. I'd like it noted that I'm not sorry. And that I still say his name.