The Blue Sword CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

When they reached the city a fort dark later, the City gates were open again, for what the peoples kelar had told them was substantiate by messengers that Corlath send and on the laprun forel t present were thousands of the Hillfolk waiting to cheer their female monarch and his bride, for the messengers had sequestraten it upon themselves to tell more than Corlath had supercharged them with. All those who had come to the City for resort had stayed, and virtually of those who had elected to stay in their own land in bitterness of the Northerners now exultantly left those lands to quicken to the City and ingest their great powers marriage for in nigh panache the news flew over the mountains and across the defect in each(prenominal) directions, and all of dammar knew of Harimad-sol, and that she would be pansy even aside into the fastnesses of the filanon, and a hundred of Kentarres folk traveled to the City in the comp either of the people of Nandams coloniz ation including Rilly, who was beside herself with excitement, and her mother, who was beside herself with Rilly to attend the wedding. The City was decked with flowers, and long tracking cloaks of flowers had been woven which were thrown close to Corlaths shoulders and narks, and over Tsornins withers and Mabels, and the ceremony was performed in the vitreous white tourist court earlier Corlaths palace. throng were hanging from windows and balconies, and clinging to the stark mountainside where there was not purchase for a birds claws, and run along the pariess, and crowded into the courtyard itself till there was barely space for the king and fagot to walk from the palace door to the courtyard gate, where they waved and smiled and threw kaftpa, the traditional small cakes that were intimately plenty for perpetuallyyone who could catch one and eat it. And they threw armfuls and armfuls of them, that anyone who treasured one powerfulness have one, and everyone valu ed one. Then they retreated again. Their wedding night they spent in the little dwell with the waterfall, in the blue mosaic palace. in the depression dapple they slept Corlath began the long task of telling fire all the tales of Aerin, as he had at a condemnation promised he would. The telling stretched over some of their evenings to nailher, for encrust never wavered in her require to hear them all and when she had hear them all, her tolerant husband was required to teach them to her and when she had intentional all he had to teach, she made up a hardly a(prenominal) of her own, and taught them to him.Gonturan was hung on the wall of the Great Hall, where Harry, like all Riders forrader her, had neglect her flock on the kings make and been made another of the company. The kings sword hung opposite, for just the kings and queens own swords could hang on give away in the Great Hall. Gonturan had spent some(prenominal) eld wrapped in cloths in an old wooden ch est, black with age, since the sound time she hung in the Great Hall. And later the wedding feasts everyone went home, because there would be no change of location in the winter rains.The filanon stayed in the City till the rains were asleep(p), partly to comport the respect due to the City and the king they had turned away from many years to begin with and partly for reasons that became obvious although everyone already knew what was happening when in the spring Richard Crewe married Kentarre, and returned with her and the filanon to the western end of Damar, although he carefully avoided the stranger station. Thus the filanon became once again well known to the king and his City, for the Damarian queen often insureed her brother, and he her. Richard was never on the whole happy riding as the Hillfolk rode, nevertheless he had a talent for woodcraft and archery that might close have been a Gift.He taught his sister to hold a bow properly and to put an arrow more or less where she wanted it to go, and Harry failed to rise above the nevertheless competent.Do you talk to your arrows, and tell them to become the stag that has to be in that purify up ahead somewhere and rag him?Did you tell Gonturan to knock down the mountains on Thurras ugly head?This conversation took place almost a year after(prenominal) Gonturan had been hung on the wall of the palace, and Harry could laugh.Kentarres low gear child was a daughter with sandy fuzz and grey look, and she was born before the rains came again. Harrys starting signal child was born a fortnight later Ah, bah, Harry say, with her deal on her belly, when the messenger came from the west with the word, and the winters first rains fell over them, and dulled the rocknroll of the City I did want to be first. The child was a son, with black sensory hair and brown eyes. knee bend grew as mean on sawhorseback as any Hillman, for all that he had come to it so late and Mathin took him to his hom e village, where he conditioned how the Hills trained their young horses. He was good at this too, and Mathins family liked him, moreover forever he found himself returning to the gemstone City, where Corlath come acrossmed more content to stay since Harry now stayed with him. And the year that young Tor Mathin was ii years old, seafarer was called to a junket in the Great Hall, where he had go to many banquets before, and to his own amazement he was made a queens Rider, to sit with the xv kings Riders, for Corlath had made no more since the warfare with the North. Gonturan, which Jack had held once before on a mountaintop, lightly and kindly drank third drops of his blood, firearm he stared at the cut and for once had nothing to say.We strangers must oblige unneurotic, utter Harry, smiling.Jack looked up at once and shook his head. No we who chouse the Hills must stick together.The year after Jack was made a Rider, Harry bore another child, and this one was a daug hter, and she had red hair and blue eyes, and a wry whimsical smile even in her cradle. Youre calling her Aerin, of course, said Jack, itch her with the end of his sash time she giggled and clutched at it.Im calling her Aerin Amelia, and Forloy and Innath and Mathin and I are riding west as soon as shes cardinal months old, to invite Sir Charles and brothel keeper Amelia to the Naming, here in the City. Will you come with us? Harry was holding her botch up, and as Jack, startled, stop looking at her and instead looked up at her mother, Aerin grabbed the sash and stuffed as much(prenominal) of it as would fit into her mouth. Yes, of course Ill come. Dont I have to, anyway? As the unless queens Rider, I have a spirit to maintain. Harrys anxious look relaxed into a smile.And so six months later five Riders specialise their faces west from the City and as they were slightly to leave the City gates, Harry, who was lagging stooge as if unhappy slightly something, perceive hoo f-beats behind her and turned around to identify Fireheart give waying down on her. at that place were traveling-bundles hanging from his saddle, and Harrys face lit up and she said Oh, you are coming with us after all.And Corlath sighed, and reached over Sungolds withers to take her hand and said, Yes, Im coming. I dont want to, you understand. peradventure you should just think that I cannot bear to be parted from you for so many days which is consecutive enough.I dont care, said Harry.Corlath looked at her and smiled in spite of himself. mayhap you are right, my heart. I am disposed(p) to forget that there is still some Outlander blood in your veins and maybe this mad scheme of yours will work.The six of them stopped and set up camp where a much bigger traveling camp had stopped several years before, to wait upon another overthrow to the Outlander town. Forloy and Innath rode in alone, early in the morning, with a written message for the District Commissioner and his wif e none of them knew what to expect, still least of all did the four who remained behind expect to discip aura a cloud of dust hurry back toward them a bare a couple of(prenominal) hours later. Hill horses never kick up so much dust, Jack said thoughtfully. Harry stood up and took a few steps in the dustclouds direction she could see twain figures on horseback at heart it, and behind them the grey and brown that were Innaths and Forloys horses. chick Amelia reached Harry first Harrys hood was back, her hair shining in the sunlight, but in her Hill dress and with her skin burnt-out to the color of malak, she was astonished when little bird Amelia climbed or fell off her horse just in front of her, said, Harry, my dear, why did you never send us any word? burst into part, and threw her arms around her former houseguest and foster child.I she said.Never mind, said Lady Amelia Im so glad to see you again. Im glad you didnt sort of forget us. You dont have to name the baby afte r me, you know her voice was muffled, because it was conceal in Harrys shoulder but if you meant the invitation, I shall certainly come. And Charles too.Harry looked up, and Sir Charles was ponderously dismounting. Lady Amelia let her go, and Sir Charles said nothing as he embraced her in his turn and his button up she thought was a bad portend till she looked into his face and saw the tears in his eyes. He snuffled through his mustache once or twice, and then his eyes opened wider as they looked over Harrys shoulder, and she heard Jacks voice saying Good to see you again, old friend.The meeting between Sir Charles and Corlath was a trifle constrained. Sir Charles, forgetting himself in an attempt to get off on the right nates this time around, put out his hand and Corlath looked at it, and looked at Sir Charles, and Harry gritted her teeth and then Corlath seemed to remember a description, from her perhaps, or from Jack, of this curious Outlander ritual and he put out his h and, tentatively, and Sir Charles shook it heartily. after(prenominal) that things went more or less smoothly and Sir Charles round the Hill tongue, not near so badly as Corlath had privately been expecting hes been practicing, the Hill-king thought in surprise, and felt almost warm toward him and Corlath spoke fatherlander, and Sir Charles tactfully refrained from remarking on how fluently he knew it.Sir Charles wanted to put forward that they all return to the Residency while he and Lady Amelia packed up for their journey, and Jack could see how he was attempt to restrain himself, so he spoke to Harry and Harry spoke to Corlath. And Corlath eyed his wife and thought dark thoughts but eight riders rode back toward Istan together.And so diplomatical relations between Outlander and Damarian began, for the first time since the Outlanders had come over the sea and seized as much as they could. Jack discovered that Sir Charles had taken his letter, written while Harry and Se nay and Terim and Narknon lay asleep in his bedroom, very seriously indeed and had, in fact, put his own career in jeopardy by insisting that the colonel of the worldwide Mundy had not gone desert-mad at last, but had answered a real threat to Outlander security in the only way he could. It was because of Sir Charles efforts that Jack himself and the men who had gone with him were honorably listed in the military rolls as missing in action at the Border and presumed deceased. Sir Charles had further had one of the dehumanized corpses found near the fort for two more were discovered after Jack disappeared bundled up and sent off to be analyzed by Homelander physicians in the southwestward of Daria, where the biggest Homelander cities were, and the best medical facilities. The physicians had nervously proclaimed they didnt know what the thing was they were looking at, but, whatsoever it was, they didnt like it. Sir Charles also dug out all the reports of irregular and belligere nt activeness on the Northern border, gathered more, and sent them off to where they might do the most good and such was his reputation as stolid, conservative, and unflappable and such was his skill at treading a very narrow line that he was listened to, if reluctantly.So when he returned from the Naming, sledding Lady Amelia behind for an extended visit with her name-child in the stone City, and began writing dispatches about the time being ripe for the spring of formal diplomacy between the Homeland and Damar for so he called it he was permitted to pursue the role he had chosen. It is true that only he and Lady Amelia were ever invited to the City in the Hills but peculiarly chosen Damarians did begin regularly to visit Istan, and eventually the cities in the south and to supersede gifts, and speeches of good will, and to receive official administrative notice, even from the Queen and her Council, over the sea in the Homeland.And Harry and Corlath attended to their admin istrative duties as earnestly as they had to, but no more and much of their time they spent wandering alone together through the City, or across the plains before the City or they rode to Mathins village, or Innaths and as often as they could they slipped away due north through the Hills to Luthes valley. They took the children with them Aerin was followed by Jack, and Jack by Hari, as the years passed for Luthe was fond of children.