A Shore Too Far - By Kevin Manus-Pennings Page 0,18

any. Assemble your honor guard at first light, Prince Eglanna. You and your brother will present yourselves to Prince Eric’s court at his earliest convenience, or you may reboard your ships, disease and all, and leave our shores untroubled by your childish games.”

I turned on my heel and left the Kullobrini standing beneath the tent. I could hear Gonnaban hurrying to follow.

“Well, now we know what they guard that is so precious,” Gonnaban whispered behind me.

“No,” I said, “now we know less than we did before.”

We walked the quarter mile to my tent, and I returned the salutes of my guards as we neared. A moment later, we stood around my war table and gazed out at the tents glowing in the night.

“Begging your pardon, but two of their sovereigns would seem pretty valuable,” Gonnaban said. “If we had to put ashore somewhere with illness or the like, I might counsel you to lie about your bloodline.”

“Do you think my career, my life at war, has changed me?” I asked.

“I’m sorry, Highness, what? Changed you? Well, I don’t—”

“Prince Eric and my father, they have been worried about me, worried that my life defending the kingdom has affected me, has changed how I view the world, people…everything, I would guess.”

Gonnaban looked at me as though in a stupor. Then he turned to the war table and ran a finger down one of its many scars. His gaze followed one furrow after another until he met my eyes.

“What we do, Highness, it has to leave a mark, eh?” Gonnaban said carefully. “When I took that arrow at Cheergate, I was out for weeks healing, but did you know I still woke every morning at dawn? Still put on my uniform? Still did a turn around the healer’s house? My fever raging, the healers yelling at me.” He shrugged. “Maybe it’s like that too for how we think.”

I would be lying if I said his words did not chill me, and I found my eyes, like his, tracing wooden scars in the battered table.

“But begging your pardon again,” Gonnaban said, “I have never known anyone to see so clearly when there’s a fight, to see the weaknesses of a strategy or war plan. You’re the most feared person in a hundred leagues, and not a person doubts that they have to go through you to get to the kingdom.”

In the distance, Eglanna, Eldrazz, and their entourage were riding back into a city of cloth and light. I could make out Esmir’s jaunty frame bouncing lightly in the saddle. As they entered, Kannafen and Eldrazz turned to look across the distance to my tent.

“Eldrazz nurses some hurt to his pride,” I said, as the princes reentered the tent city.

“Well, you did spoil their deception,” Gonnaban said.

“No,” I responded, “there was a bitterness to him at our first meeting.”

“Aye, that’s true,” Gonnaban began. “But, you said, miss, that we know less now.…”

I turned back to face Gonnaban and looked fondly at my master-at-arms. I was shocked at how much he’d aged since we had first served together. The wrinkles at his brow and mouth were as deep as those scars in the table, and a sick feeling grew in me that I hadn’t noticed those changes until now.

“Suppose, Gonnaban,” I said, “I were to order you to gather a fleet of ships and 20,000 soldiers, including cavalry, that I would command. What would you think? What do you call it when a sovereign lands on foreign land with 20,000 men?”

He laughed for a moment and then realized there was no joke.

“Well,” he said. “I guess that—”

“Come, Gonnaban, what do you call it?”

“Well, an invasion,” he said slowly, “but we’ve had that thought already.”

“Yes,” I answered. “But apparently Kullobrini invasions involve children.”

“But you’re assuming they’re lying about the colony,” Gonnaban replied.

“Yes, I am. Trust me, Gonnaban. We know nothing. Send word to Prince Eric about the deception and the arrangements I have made for his meeting with the princes Ujor. I’m going to have a word with our healers to make sure they can help us diagnose both the illness and the mystery of the Kullobrini.”

Gonnaban nodded, bowed, and left.

I headed for the healers’ camps and found myself thinking whether or not Gonnaban had any family. I found I could not remember.

***** ***** *****

The next morning, beautiful, strange notes sounded from the Kullobrini tents and rolled across sea and land. The ships in the harbor answered with notes of their own, and a powerful salute to