The Blue Sword CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

When they reached the urban center a fortnight later, the city furnish were open again, for what the peoples kelar had told them was confirmed by messengers that Corlath sent and on the laprun field on that point were thousands of the pitchers moundfolk waiting to cheer their mogul and his bride, for the messengers had taken it upon themselves to tell more than Corlath had aerated them with. All those who had come to the City for safety had balked, and most of those who had elected to stay in their own land in spite of the Federalers straight exultingly left those lands to hasten to the City and go through their kings marriage for somehow the word flew over the mountains and across the desert in each(prenominal) directions, and all of gum dammar knew of Harimad-sol, and that she would be queen even into the fastnesses of the filanon, and a hundred of Kentarres folk travelled to the City in the company of the people of Nandams village including Rilly, who was beside hers elf with excitement, and her mother, who was beside herself with Rilly to attend the hook up with. The City was decked with flowers, and long trailing cloaks of flowers had been woven which were thrown close to Corlaths shoulders and arouses, and over Tsornins wither and Mabels, and the ceremony was performed in the glassy white courtyard before Corlaths palace. people were hanging from windows and balconies, and clinging to the stark mountainside where there was not purchase for a birds claws, and lining the walls, and crowded into the courtyard itself till there was barely office for the king and queen to walk from the palace door to the courtyard gate, where they waved and smiled and threw kaftpa, the tralatitious small cakes that were strong luck for any nonpareil who could catch one and eat it. And they threw armfuls and armfuls of them, that anyone who precious one might absorb one, and everyone precious one. Then they retreated again. Their wedding night they spent in the little room with the waterfall, in the secular mosaic palace. Before they slept Corlath began the long task of telling elicit all the tales of Aerin, as he had at once promised he would. The telling stretched over umteen of their evenings together, for Harry never wavered in her desire to hear them all and when she had comprehend them all, her patient husband was required to teach them to her and when she had learned all he had to teach, she made up a few of her own, and taught them to him.Gonturan was hung on the wall of the considerable Hall, where Harry, like all Riders before her, had slash her helping hand on the kings marque and been made another of the company. The kings sword hung opposite, for only the kings and queens own swords could hang on display in the Great Hall. Gonturan had spent many twelvemonths engrossed in cloths in an old wooden chest, black with age, since the last clipping she hung in the Great Hall. And after the wedding feasts everyone w ent home, because there would be no traveling in the winter rains.The filanon stayed in the City till the rains were gone, part to pay the respect due to the City and the king they had moed past from many historic period before and partly for reasons that became obvious although everyone already knew what was fortuity when in the spring Richard Crewe married Kentarre, and returned with her and the filanon to the western end of Damar, although he cautiously avoided the outsider station. Thus the filanon became once again well known to the king and his City, for the Damarian queen often visited her brother, and he her. Richard was never entirely happy horseback riding as the Hillfolk rode, precisely he had a talent for woodcraft and archery that might about have been a Gift.He taught his sister to hold a turn away properly and to put an arrow more or less where she wanted it to go, just now Harry failed to rise above the merely competent.Do you talking to your arrows, and tell them to find the stag that has to be in that brush up ahead somewhere and incur him?Did you tell Gonturan to knock down the mountains on Thurras ugly head?This conversation took place almost a year after Gonturan had been hung on the wall of the palace, and Harry could laugh.Kentarres premier(prenominal) child was a daughter with blond hairs-breadth and grey eyes, and she was born before the rains came again. Harrys first child was born a fortnight later Ah, bah, Harry tell, with her hand on her belly, when the messenger came from the west with the word, and the winters first rains trim over them, and change the quarry of the City I did want to be first. The child was a son, with black hair and brown eyes. bull grew as skilled on horseback as any Hillman, for all that he had come to it so late and Mathin took him to his home village, where he learned how the Hills trained their young horses. He was earnest at this too, and Mathins family liked him, but always he asse mble himself returning to the stone City, where Corlath seemed more content to stay since Harry now stayed with him. And the year that young Tor Mathin was two years old, Jack was called to a paste in the Great Hall, where he had attended many banquets before, and to his own bewilderment he was made a queens Rider, to sit with the fifteen kings Riders, for Corlath had made no more since the war with the North. Gonturan, which Jack had held once before on a mountaintop, lightly and kindly drank three drops of his blood, while he stared at the cut and for once had nothing to say.We Outlanders must stick together, said Harry, smiling.Jack looked up at once and agitate his head. No we who love the Hills must stick together.The year after Jack was made a Rider, Harry practice another child, and this one was a daughter, 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, tickling her with the end of his sash while 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 sextuplet months old, to invite Sir Charles and peeress Amelia to the Naming, here in the City. Will you come with us? Harry was holding her baby, and as Jack, startled, stopped looking at her and sooner looked up at her mother, Aerin grabbed the sash and stuffed as a lot of it as would hold in into her mouth. Yes, of course Ill come. Dont I have to, anyway? As the only queens Rider, I have a reputation to maintain. Harrys anxious look relaxed into a smile.And so six months later five Riders set their searchs west from the City and as they were about to leave the City gates, Harry, who was lagging merchant ship as if sorrowful about something, hear hoof-beats behind her and turned around to see Fireheart rig down on her. There were traveling-bundles hanging from his saddle, and Harrys face lit up and she said Oh, you are coming with us a fter all.And Corlath sighed, and reached over Sungolds shrivel up to take her hand and said, Yes, Im coming. I dont want to, you understand. perchance you should just gestate that I cannot bear to be parted from you for so many long time which is true enough.I dont care, said Harry.Corlath looked at her and smiled in spite of himself. Perhaps you are right, my heart. I am inclined to forget that there is hitherto some Outlander blood in your veins and perhaps this mad turning away 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 visit to the Outlander town. Forloy and Innath rode in alone, early in the morning, with a written message for the District Commissioner and his wife none of them knew what to expect, but least of all did the four who remained behind expect to see a cloud of dust hurrying back toward them a bare few hours later. Hill horses never kick up so much dust, Ja ck said thoughtfully. Harry stood up and took a few steps in the dustclouds direction she could see two figures on horseback within it, and behind them the grey and brown that were Innaths and Forloys horses. maam Amelia reached Harry first Harrys hood was back, her hair shining in the sunlight, but in her Hill dress and with her fight burned to the color of malak, she was astonished when little brothel keeper 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 tears, 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 quite forget us. You dont have to name the baby after me, you know her voice was muffled, because it was buried 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 silence she thought was a bad omen 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 betwixt Sir Charles and Corlath was a trifle constrained. Sir Charles, forgetting himself in an attempt to get off on the right foot 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 hand, tentatively, and Sir Charles shook it heartily. After that things went more or less smoothly and Sir Charles spoke the Hill tongue, not nearly so badly as Corlath had privately been expecting hes been practicing, the Hill-king thought in surpri se, and felt almost warm toward him and Corlath spoke Homelander, and Sir Charles tactfully refrained from remarking on how fluently he knew it.Sir Charles wanted to insist that they all return to the compliance while he and Lady Amelia packed up for their journey, and Jack could see how he was trying 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 diplomatic 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 observed that Sir Charles had taken his letter, written while Harry and Senay and Terim and Narknon lay asleep in his bedroom, very seriously indeed and had, in fact, put his own career in jeopardy by press that the colonel of the General Mundy had not gone desert-mad at last, but had answered a objective 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 unhuman corpses found near the fort for two more were discovered after Jack disappeared bundled up and sent off to be analyze by Homelander physicians in the south of Daria, where the biggest Homelander cities were, and the best medical facilities. The physicians had nervously inform they didnt know what the thing was they were looking at, but, whatever it was, they didnt like it. Sir Charles also dig out all the reports of irregular and belligerent activity 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 N aming, leaving 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 opening of schematic 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 specially chosen Damarians did arrive regularly to visit Istan, and eventually the cities in the south and to exchange 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 administrative duties as earnestly as they had to, but no more and much of their time they spent drift 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 north through the Hills to Luthes valley. The y took the children with them Aerin was followed by Jack, and Jack by Hari, as the years passed for Luthe was sensitive of children.