The crossing from the Albaric coast to the Aldren mainland took three days under skies so calm that the sailors grew uneasy. Rydric’s party had taken ship instead aboard a coast-hugging trader called the Sparrowhawk, a vessel too small for glory and too plain for songs. Her master had agreed to carry a king for double the usual fare, paid in coin, and he had asked no questions about the armed men travelling with him.
Rydric stood at the rail through most of the crossing. Triwels had thinned him. The sea air, which should have restored him, seemed instead to strip away what captivity had left. His beard was more grey than gold now, and his hands, resting on the worn rail, showed the knotted veins of a man who had spent his youth in armour and his middle years on campaign.
“You should eat,” Baudren said, coming to stand beside him on the second morning.
“I have eaten.”
“Bread soaked in wine is not eating.”
Rydric did not answer.
The Albaric coast had vanished behind them during the night. Ahead, somewhere beyond the haze, lay the mainland possessions his mother had brought to the Aldren crown: Aurenne with its rivers and vineyards, the scattered Sea-Land ports with their fishing fleets and salt-pans, the hill-forts and toll-bridges and abbey-lands that had been mortgaged, taxed, and legally nibbled by Felrian’s clerks while their king sat in an imperial fortress counting the months.
Father Aldemar appeared at the companionway, his dark habit making him look like a piece of shadow detached from belowdecks. He carried his star-beads in one hand and a small book of devotions in the other, the leather cracked from years of campaign weather.
“Will your Grace permit a prayer for safe landfall?”
“Pray if you wish,” Rydric said. “The sea does not listen, but captains seem comforted by the habit.”
Aldemar began the familiar words, his voice low and practiced, the High Vestimarian phrases running together like water over stones. Baudren bowed his head. Rydric did not. He kept his eyes on the haze ahead, where the mainland was hiding.
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It was one of the younger men-at-arms who began to sing. Hewin, the northern Esberian who had once lain wounded in the House of the Returning Light and accepted water from Sister Tamar with shame in his throat, had survived siege, pilgrimage, road, storm, and captivity. He had a rough voice, untrained but true and the song he chose was an old one.
The Lay of the Two Kings.
Two knight-kings rode beneath one banner in the Kedrayan lands, loving glory more than sleep, swearing before the High Luminary’s legate that they would take Solymer together or die on the same field. Every man who had sworn the holy expedition had heard some version of it at a harbour tavern, campfire, abbey yard, or departure feast.
Hewin sang in the old western mode, the words half High Vestimarian, half the rougher tongue of soldiers:
They rode beneath one Revealed Star,
Two kings, two brothers, bright with fear;
One bore the gold, one iron hard,
The bright heart watched and held them near...
Rydric listened.
Baudren saw his shoulders tighten and understood, a moment too late, what the song was doing. He turned to tell Hewin to stop, but the king lifted one hand without looking away from the sea.
“Let him finish the verse.”
The singer continued.
None knew which lord lay in her heart,
The road was east, the sea lay far,
And singers made the moon serve stars.
They crossed the foam in banners bright,
Their oars beat time beneath the cries;
The gulls wheeled white above the tide,
The priests sang Elyon’s name on high;
The poor men blessed them from the quays,
The proud men swore they would not die,
And every helm was full of light.
The first king laughed before the host,
His scarlet cloak was sewn with gold;
He gave his cup to men unknown,
He broke his bread with lords and poor;
His sword was named in every court,
His hand was fire, his oath was stone,
And no wall stood that he would not go.
The second king—
Rydric’s hand closed on the rail.
“Enough.”
Hewin stopped mid-phrase.
The silence that followed was worse than the song had been. He looked to Baudren for explanation, found none, and retreated toward the foredeck.
Father Aldemar, still holding his beads, said carefully, “The lay speaks of a blessed time, Your Grace. When the holy expedition was young, and the west was united in purpose.”
“The lay,” Rydric said, “speaks of a time when most of those singing it were not yet old enough to know what they were praising. The west was never united. We were young. That is not the same thing.”
He turned from the rail and went below without another word.
Baudren remained where he was. After a moment, Father Aldemar drifted away toward the stern. The sailors busied themselves with ropes and sails. The Sparrowhawk sailed on through the flat grey water, and no one sang again that day.