The Diamond Warriors. David Zindell

but my father had found few men in Mesh so skilled at leading a great many knights in wild but well-organized charges of steel-clad horses.

      ‘Lord Elahad!’ he called out to me in a strong, stately voice. ‘Welcome home to Mesh – and to my home. My castle is yours for as long as you need it. And my warriors and knights are yours to command, for as you must have been told, they have taken oaths to me, and it is my command that they should support you in becoming king.’

      This, I thought, was Lord Avijan’s way of apologizing for a thing that he had no need to apologize for. A proud and intelligent man with little vanity, he came from a long and honored line of warriors. His grandfather had married my great-grandfather’s youngest sister, and so we counted ourselves as kin. This distant tie of blood, however, formed no basis for his claim on Mesh’s throne. That came from his skill at arms, his coolness of head on the battlefield and his good judgment off it – and the way he inspired courage and loyalty in the men whom he led.

      ‘Thank you, Lord Avijan,’ I told him. I nudged Altaru closer to him so that I could clasp his hand. ‘But it is my wish that you release your warriors from their oaths. I would have them follow me, or not, according to their hearts. And then, if it is my fate to become king, they may make their oaths to me.’

      Lord Avijan bowed his head at this, and then so did the knights lined up in the tunnel of the tower behind him. They drew out their kalamas to salute me, then struck them against their shields in a great noise of steel against steel. And one of them – a knight I recognized as Tavish the Bold – cried out: ‘You will become king, and we will follow you to the end of all battles, oaths or no oaths!’

      Lord Avijan then invited all of us to a feast. After we had ridden into the castle and given our horses to the care of the stableboys, we settled into whatever rooms or quarters that Lord Avijan had appointed for us. Half an hour later, we gathered in Lord Avijan’s great hall, on the first floor of the keep. Many long tables laden with roasted joints of meat and hot breads filled this large space; many stands of candles had been set out to light it, and hundreds of little, flickering flames cast their fire into the air. The great wood beams high above us were blackened with generations of soot. A hundred knights and warriors joined us there, for word of my arrival had gone ahead of me. Many of these tall, powerful men I had known since my childhood. I paid my respects to a master knight named Sar Yulmar, and to Sar Vikan, whom I had led into battle at the Culhadosh Commons. Also to Lord Sharad, a very tall and lean man with hair as gray as steel, who had taken command of Asaru’s battalion after my brother had been killed. He had gained great renown at the Battle of Red Mountain against Waas, and fourteen years before that, at the Diamond River, where the Ishkans had practically murdered my grandfather. Despite his years, he had a gallant manner and didn’t mind taking risks in the heat of battle.

      We all filled our bellies with good food that night, and then it came time to fill our souls with good conversation. We might have hoped for many rounds of toasts, entertaining stories told and minstrels singing out the great, ancient tales. But as Lord Avijan’s grooms went around filling and refilling the warriors’ cups with thick, black beer, our talk turned toward serious matters. Soon it became clear that our gathering would be less a celebration than a council of war.

      After Lord Avijan’s young children had been sent off to bed, he and I came down off the dais at the front of the room where we had taken the table of honor. I insisted that all present should be honored equally that night, and so near the center of the hall I found a table littered with empty cups and spilled beer, and I leaned back against it. Lord Avijan, Lord Harsha and others gathered around informally, sitting on tables or the long benches nearby – or standing all crowded-in close. Atara sat on one side of me as if she were my queen, while Maram pressed his huge body up against my other side. Master Juwain and my other companions took their places at the other end of the table. More than a few of the warriors looking on must have thought it strange that we included Daj and Estrella in our discussion, but that was because they did not know these two remarkable children.

      ‘Let me say, first and last,’ I told the warriors gathered around me, ‘that you do me a great honor in coming forth for me after all that has happened – and in such perilous times. I will never forget this, and no matter what befalls, I will stand by you to my last breath.’

      ‘You will stand as king – that is what will befall!’ Sar Vikan barked out. He, himself, stood a good few inches shorter than most Valari, but what he lacked in height he made up in the power of his thickly muscled body. His square-cut face seemed animated with a rage of restlessness streaming through him. ‘When Lord Tanu and Lord Tomavar hear that you have returned, they will surely step aside.’

      ‘They will not step aside!’ Lord Sharad said. He leaned against the table opposite me, and pulled at one of the battle ribbons tied to his long, gray hair. ‘Let us, at least, be clear about that.’

      ‘Then we will make them step aside!’ Sar Vikan snapped as he grasped the hilt of his sword. ‘Just as we will make known the truth about Valashu Elahad – at last. Who, hearing this, will try to hold his warriors to oaths made under false knowledge and great duress?’

      ‘Well, lad, it is one thing to hear the truth,’ Lord Harsha said, ‘and another to take it to heart. Here’s the truth that I know: Lord Tanu has hardened his heart to the plight of our kingdom, and Lord Tomavar has lost his altogether – and his head!’

      Although he had not spoken with humorous intent, his words caused the fierce warriors standing around us to laugh. But any levity soon gave way to more serious passions as Lord Avijan said, ‘If we allow it, Lord Tanu and Lord Tomavar will tear the realm apart – that has been obvious from the first. But we must not allow it!’

      ‘But our choices,’ protested Sar Jessu, who was sitting next to him, ‘are growing fewer. And things between Lord Tomavar and Lord Tanu are only growing worse.’

      ‘Truly, they are,’ Lord Avijan said. ‘And all over mere matters of marriage.’

      These ‘mere’ matters, it seemed, had fairly exploded with pure vitriol. The first, and ostensibly the most trivial, concerned a brooch. Lord Tanu’s cousin, Manamar Tanu, was the father of Vareva, whom Lord Tanu had arranged to marry to Lord Tomavar in order to strengthen the bonds between these two prominent families. Now that more than a year had passed since Vareva’s abduction, according to our law, Manamar had declared Vareva dead. He had asked Lord Tomavar for the return of a beautiful diamond brooch that his wife, Dalia, had given to Vareva as a wedding gift. Manamar held that the marriage agreement called for the return of this brooch should Vareva either die or produce no issue. The brooch, he said, had passed down in Dalia’s family for generations, and Dalia now wished to give it to her second daughter, Ursa. But Lord Tomavar claimed that the law was vague concerning such declarations of decease, and said that in any case his beloved Vareva could not be dead. The brooch, he said, was dear to him, and he would not surrender it unless Manamar Tanu took it from him by the victor’s right in battle.

      ‘Lord Tomavar challenged Sar Manamar to a duel!’ Lord Avijan said. ‘In effect, he did. For the time being, Lord Tanu has forbidden Sar Manamar to go up against Lord Tomavar. But if he wishes for a cause of war, he has only to let his cousin impale himself on Lord Tomavar’s sword.’

      ‘And that, I fear,’ Lord Harsha said, ‘would be the result of such a duel. I was there at the tournament in Nar twenty years ago when Lord Tomavar won a third at the sword.’

      ‘Twenty years ago!’ Joshu Kadar called out from behind me.

      ‘Don’t let Lord Tomavar’s age fool you, lad. We old wolves might get longer in the tooth with the years, but some of us get longer in the reach of our swords, too. I’ve seen Lord Tomavar’s kalama at work, and there are few knights in all of Mesh who could stand up to him.’

      Here he looked at me, and so did Lord Avijan and everyone else. In Nar, only two years before, I had won a first at the sword and had been declared the tournament’s champion.

      ‘A brooch,’ I said, ‘a simple brooch.’

      It seemed