The Swordbearer - By Glen Cook Page 0,3

all. Except for Aarant, they don't have many lessons for us. The Immortal Twins, and Grellner and Aarant, and to a secondary extent, Theis Rogala, are the ones who left a significant legacy. They made the mistakes from which we should learn."

Gathrid shook his head. Same old thing. Over and over and over again. Learn from the mistakes of the past. That was stupid. Only fools lived in the past. His father had said so.

"Pay attention, Gathrid. It's important that you two learn. Nudge Anyeck, please. She's sleeping with her eyes open. Heavens! What am I going to do? They're cretins, and I'm supposed to have them ready in time for . . . "

A chill crept down Gathrid's spine. There was something grim about Plauen's muttering. "In time for what, Brother?" he demanded.

"Nothing. Adulthood, I suppose. I'm sorry. You're exasperating me. I've never dealt with such stubborn students."

Gathrid became mildly embarrassed. That surprised him. Plauen's tactics usually irritated him. Maybe it was the implication of deliberate ignorance colliding with his knowledge that he had been sabotaging the sessions.

"We don't know what Aarant, Grellner and their contemporaries were really like," Plauen said, resuming his lesson. "The stories we have now were shaped by a thousand retellings, and it's in those retellings that they've acquired their significance for us today. The characters we associate with the Brothers' War have become archetypes. Grellner brought Temptation into the Paradise of Anderle. The Immortal Twins lost Innocence . . . . "

Gathrid had heard the line of reasoning before. He knew it by heart. Yet Plauen kept returning, as if there were a point he and Anyeck kept missing.

"The real ambiguities of the age surround Tureck Aarant and Theis Rogala. Was Aarant a hero? Not by the usual standards. Was Rogala his servant or master? Did Aarant's weapon, the Great Sword, control him instead of the reverse? Think about those questions. You'll be facing similar, though less symbolic, situations all your lives. We'll be examining them all next week."

The session ended. Gathrid and Anyeck climbed to the parapet of the tower at Kacalief's southeast corner.

"I don't see anything," Anyeck said. "Can you? Your eyes are better."

Gathrid searched the east. "I don't see anything, either." His gaze followed the road that looped round the marsh and headed south toward Hartog and the Dolvin. Their father had long since disappeared. He turned slowly, scanning the marsh itself, the vineyards, the wild rolling hills to the north. They were the Savards, from which the March took its name. He and his brothers hunted there occasionally. He said, "The hills look dry. Be dangerous if there's a fire."

"Everything is dry. We need rain. They say the marsh is drying up."

They passed an hour speaking of nothing, afraid to talk about what was on their minds.

Ventimiglia seemed to weigh on their brothers, too. Their efforts on the practice field were decidedly feeble.

The Safire was gone a week. When he returned, he announced, "The King himself was there. Things may not be as bad as we feared. The Brotherhood knows about Grevening. The Fray Magister, the Emperor and Kimach, King of Bilgoraj, have called for a conference at Torun."

Bilgoraj, one of the west's leading kingdoms, was Gudermuth's neighbor to the west. Its capital, Torun, was one of the great cities of the day, and Kimach Faulstich was sometimes called one of the great Kings.

The Safire continued, "They're going to form an Alliance of all the western states and Brotherhood Orders. The King says the Alliance's protection will include Gudermuth, so we won't stand alone. Ahlert won't dare attack. Not unless he wants to fight the whole west at once."

Gathrid had never heard his father make a longer speech. He hoped it was all true.

"He sounds like he's whistling in the dark," Anyeck whispered.

"What? Why?"

"He doesn't believe in this Alliance. He's just trying to make us feel safer."

The fighting in Grevening washed against the border next day. Gathrid woke to alarms. The Safire's men-at-arms had exchanged arrows with Ventimiglians who had strayed over the line. He rushed to the east wall.

Smoke obscured the dawn, catching bloody fire from the rising sun. Below, just across the frontier, one of the Mindak's patrols was passing. He watched for a few minutes. His father came up, stood beside him. After a time, he said, "Gathrid, go have your breakfast, then start your lesson."

"Yes, Sir." He had given up arguing.

He tried to keep his mind on his studies. He could not. There was skirmishing going