and resisted the urge to settle his right fist on the pommel of the sword sheathed at his belt. “Ban Errigal,” he returned, hating that his access would be determined by his family name, not his deeds.
The soldiers waved him through, stepping back from the brick landing that spread welcomingly off the bridge.
A blast of wind shoved Ban forward, and he nearly stumbled. Using the motion to turn, he asked the guard, “Do you know where I might find the Earl Errigal?”
“In the guest tower.”
Ban nodded his thanks, glancing at the scathing sun. He did not relish this meeting with his father. Errigal traveled to Aremoria every late spring to visit the Alsax cousins and to be Lear’s ambassador. He’d always lavished praise on Ban in front of others, awkwardly labeling his son a bastard at the same time.
Perhaps Ban could eschew the proper order of greeting, and ask instead where the ladies Lear would be this time of day. Six years ago he’d have found Elia with the goats. But it was impossible to imagine she hadn’t shifted her routine since childhood. He had changed; so must she have. Grown tall and bright as a daffodil, or worn and weathered like standing stones.
Ban squashed the thought of her hair and eyes, of her hands covered in green beetles. He suspected most of his memories were sweetened by time and brightened with longing, not accurate to what their relationship had truly been. She, the daughter of the king, and he, the bastard son of an earl, could not have been so close as he remembered. Probably the struggle and weariness of being fostered to a foreign army, the homesickness, the dread, the years of uncertainty, had built her into a shining memory no real girl could live up to. Especially one raised by a man like Lear. In his earliest years at war, Ban had thought of Elia to get himself through fear, but it had been a weakness, like the straw doll a baby clings to against nightmares.
Surely she would disdain him now because of the stars at his birth, just as the king had. If she remembered him at all. One more thing to lay at the feet of Lear.
Ban settled his hand on the pommel of his sword. He’d earned himself his own singular epithet. He was here at the Summer Seat not as a cast-off bastard, but as a man in his own right.
Turning a slow circle, Ban made himself change his eyes, to observe the Seat as the Fox.
Men, women, soldiers, and ladies swarmed in what he guessed was an unusual amount of activity. The castle itself was a fortress of rough black stones quarried centuries ago, when the bridge was less crumbled, less tenuous. It rose in a barbican here, spreading into the first wall, then an inner second wall taller than this first, with three central towers, one built against the inner keep. The king’s family and his retainers could fit inside for weeks, as well as his servants and the animals necessary to live: goats, pigs, poultry. Barracks, laundry, cliff-hanging privies, the yard, the armory, and the towers: Ban remembered it all from childhood. But it was ugly, old and black and asymmetrical. Built over generations instead of with a singular purpose in mind.
The Fox was impressed with how naturally fortified the promontory was, how difficult it would be to attack. But as he studied his environs, the Fox knew it would be easy to starve out. Surround it landside with an enemy camp, and seaside with boats, and it could be held under siege indefinitely with no more than, say, fifty men.
If one could locate the ancient channel through which spring water flowed onto the promontory, the siege would be mercifully brief. Were he the king of this castle, he’d order a fort built landside, to protect the approach, and use the promontory as a final stand only once all other hope had been lost.
Unless, perhaps, there were caves or unseen ways from the cliffs below where food could be brought in—and there must be. But an enemy could poison the water in the channel, instead of stopping it up. The besieged could not drink seawater. Was there a well inside? Not that Ban could recall from his youth, and it was surely less likely now. This place was a siege death trap, though winning such a battle would be symbolic only: if the Seat were under siege, the rest of the kingdom should already have fallen, and so what would the Seat be against all that?
Ban felt a twisted thrill at the idea of the king of Innis Lear having to make such choices. Better yet if his course here led directly to it.
He went along the main path through the open iron gates and into the inner yard where soldiers clustered and the squawking of chickens warred with hearty conversation, with the cries of gulls hunting for dropped food, the crackle of the yard-hearth where a slew of bakers and maids prepared a feast for the evening. Ban’s stomach reacted to the rich smell, but he didn’t stop. He strode quickly toward the inner keep, one hand on the pommel of his sword to balance it against his hip. Ban wondered if he could greet his father (he was fairly certain he remembered which was the guest tower) and then find a place to wash, in order to present himself in a fitter state than this: hair tangled from wind, horse-smelling jacket, worn britches, and muddy boots. He’d dumped his mail and armor in Errigal to make a faster showing astride the horse.
A familiar orange flag caught his attention: the royal insignia of Aremoria.
There was a good king. The sort of soldier who took his turn watching for signal lights all night long, digging his own privy pits and rotting his toes off. Who had suffered alongside his men and took his turn in the slops and at the dangerous front. Morimaros of Aremoria did not make choices based on nothing but prophecy.
Across the yard a maroon pennant flapped: the flag of the kingdom of Burgun. Ullo the Pretty. Also come to court Elia Lear, despite, or maybe because of, being trounced in battle.
Ban wondered what she thought of the two kings.
Beyond the second wall, the smell of people, sweat, and animals was crushing. The lower walls had no slits or windows, nothing to move air, and Ban longed to climb onto the parapets, or into the upper rooms built with cross-breezes in mind, because this was where court spent the months warm enough for it. From the parapets he’d be able to see the island’s trees, at least, if not hear them: the moss and skinny vines growing on this rock had not the will for speaking. Ban made for a stairway cut along the outside of the first, only to freeze at the base when his father appeared in the dark archway above.
Ban waited to be noticed.
Errigal had long mottled blond and brown hair, a rough dark beard, and the face of a handsome bull he used to his full advantage. His thick braids were wound with dark ribbons, and a fresh-looking blue tunic pulled across wide shoulders that his older son had not inherited. The earl’s boots were polished, his trousers new, his belt buckle dangling with carved bone and amber beads. Errigal stomped down the steps, a smile pulling at his teeth as he spoke to his companion, an almost-familiar man, also wearing the beaten copper chain of a Learish earl.
The other man was speaking, soft but clear, as they drew near. “He has always loved Astore rather more than Connley.” A worn, knowing fatigue had settled in the lines about the man’s clear-shaven mouth, though he was not old, yet. His black hair curled tight and short-cut, and his eyes were gray as river rocks against dark brown skin. That recalled his name to Ban: Kayo, the Oak Earl, whose family had been related to the late queen.
“So it always seemed, and rightly so in Connley’s father’s time,” Errigal agreed, coming to ground level with Ban. “But his growing unpredictability this last year has made it rather impossible to tell which he’ll prefer in dividing out his land when he finally names his heir. There is much to favor Connley and Regan now. Including my iron.”
Though the matter of their talk intrigued Ban, he kept his face neutral with the ease of years’ practice hiding thoughts.
Errigal clapped a heavy hand on Ban’s shoulder. “Son,” he said warmly, and Ban was relieved.
His companion lifted thin eyebrows. “This lad cannot be your son, too? He’s nothing like his brother.”
“Indeed!” Errigal said, shrugging and offering a conspiratorial smile. “This one was got in such a way I blushed to admit it in the past, but I’ve grown used to it by now. You know my legitimate son, Rory, just younger, born truly of