“You might. He was the most senior officer in the Mirror Lancers from the time he left Cyador until he took a stipend. Your grandmother insisted I promote him to commander before that happened. I did, but everyone still calls him Majer Altyrn.”
“Why?”
“That was his request, because, until recently, we never have had as many Lancers as would have been commanded by more than a majer, not back in Cyador.”
“We have more than fifteen companies, you said. That’s close to two thousand Lancers, and that doesn’t count the trainees or those you could call up.”
Kiedron nods. “In Cyador, five companies comprised a battalion, and a battalion was usually commanded by a submajer, but sometimes by an overcaptain. Majers often commanded entire outposts patrolling hundreds of kays, sometimes over a thousand Lancers.”
“But wasn’t the Emperor Lorn only a majer when he ascended the Malachite Throne?” Lerial knows this to be true, but phrases it as a question.
“That was an unusual time. He was never even the second or third in command of the Mirror Lancers. He was named the heir to the throne by the Emperor Toziel. Toziel had no blood heirs.”
“What about Alyiakal?”
“He was captain-commander of the Mirror Lancers and took the throne when the previous Emperor and his entire family perished. That is why Toziel designated Lorn as heir. Cyador must always have an heir.”
Cyador must have an heir-not always had to have an heir. That puzzles Lerial, perhaps even more than the fact that Alyiakal has never been well regarded by the Magi’i, although Saltaryn has admitted to him that some histories had suggested Alyiakal could have been a magus, but that his talents lay more on the order side, and for that reason he followed his family tradition as a Mirror Lancer. Did he have a choice? Based on what has happened to himself already, Lerial has some doubts. But Alyiakal surmounted all that and ruled Cyador.
By a glass past midday, Lerial can see that the Lynaar is markedly narrower, showing a width of five yards, although the stream does look deeper than it was closer to the city. The fields do not stretch as far to the west as they did, and the grasses that are already beginning to brown are shorter than those to the north. Some of the land used for pasture bears the mark of having been overgrazed, as well, and that concerns Lerial, although, again, he does not make that observation to his father.
“Where will we be stopping tonight?” asks Lerial.
“We have another three glasses to go. Are you getting saddle sore?”
“No, ser. I just wondered, because you hadn’t said.”
“We’ll be stopping at Brehaal. There’s a Lancer post there. More of a way station for the dispatch riders, but there are bunks enough and officers’ quarters and a good spring. The town … well, you’ll see.”
Some three and a half glasses later, Lerial does indeed see.
Brehaal appears to consist of a score of dwellings, few of which he would call houses, and some of which are less than cots, scattered not quite randomly on a low flattened rise to the west of the river road. Several modestly large buildings are dug into the north side of the rise. All the buildings have lanes that join a road leading straight to the river road. Between at least two of the buildings is a smooth expanse of polished stone, and above the stone surface are what appear to be long lines of tables. Beyond the dwellings stretch short, almost scrubby trees, with ditches between them.
Lerial looks at the trees more closely, then realizes that there are two types. As they ride closer, he recognizes one kind, but not the other. Finally, he turns in the saddle. “Ser … I can see the apricot trees … but I don’t recognize the other.”
Kiedron’s laugh is almost kindly. “You wouldn’t. Those are young olive trees. It’s likely to be another ten years before those bear sufficient fruit.”
“But…?”
“Who would plant trees that take more than twenty years to mature? And why? Your grandmother. Olives are good to eat, and the oil is useful in many ways. It makes a bright lamp flame also.”
“Then these are your lands?”
Kiedron nods. “Someone has to plant for the future, and not just the present. You and Lephi and your children will benefit.”
As his father talks, Lerial realizes the tables set on the stone pavement must be drying tables for the apricots. “Is this where the apricots you sell to the Heldyan traders come from?”
“From here and from some lands near Narthyl.” Kiedron gestures ahead. “There’s the Lancer post.”
Past the dwellings and well past the fruit barns, on the south end of the rise at the right side of the road and facing the stream, is the outpost. Barely visible above a wall-likely mud brick covered with a white clay plaster-is a long structure with a single set of gates. The walls around the building and its courtyard look to be less than fifty yards on a side.
Lerial understands, now, what his father had meant when he’d said little about the town of Brehaal. That fills him with foreboding, since Teilyn is another half day’s ride and even farther from Cigoerne.
Teilyn
IX
Well before noon on twoday, Lerial’s legs and buttocks ache, even though they did not leave Brehaal until well after seventh glass, and his back twinges now and then, but he isn’t about to say anything. More time passes before he can make out the line of hills ahead that must be the Wooded Ridges. Directly before him, on his right, are fields with rows of some sort of green plants that are no more than waist-high. Cots are scattered here and there.
The column slows as they approach a narrow stone bridge, waiting for a horse-drawn cart to cross. When Lerial rides onto the short bridge, he looks down to see that it crosses an empty irrigation channel, although the mud at the bottom is still damp. He glances to his left, where a heavy wooden watergate, set in crude mortar and stone and similar to many they have passed on their journey, blocks the flow from the Lynaar. The channel continues for only fifty yards to the west, where it splits at a diversion gate that, in one position, sends the water to the northwest and in the other to the southwest, both heading toward orchards. Between the two orchards, which look to contain apricot trees, is another, one of olive trees, but no ditch leads to the olive orchard.
“There’s no water going to the olives,” he observes.
“They get enough from seepage,” replies Kiedron. “The trees won’t grow that fast, nor yield nearly so much when they mature, but there’s only so much water. For any lands away from the Swarth, water is a problem. You’ll learn more about that, I’m sure, from Majer Altyrn. Listen to him, because it’s something you’ll need to know.”
Know about water? Still, Lerial doesn’t question his father, because Kiedron, for all that he has upset Lerial, has never knowingly lied to him. That, Lerial could have sensed.
Barely visible beyond the fields ahead is Teilyn, which appears to have close to a hundred houses or other structures. To the west are more fields, and beyond them, sparse grasslands.
Lerial stifles a yawn. He’d not slept well the night before, even though he’d had a small sleeping chamber to himself-a chamber barely big enough for the narrow pallet bunk and a stool, with pegs on the wall. After seeing that his father and Undercaptain Helkhar occupied similar spaces and that the Lancers slept in crowded bunk rooms, he’d felt comparatively fortunate … and the pallet hadn’t been that hard. He just hadn’t slept well.
“How are you doing?” asks Kiedron.
“A little stiff, but fine.”
“Good. You’ll get over that.”
“Where is the majer’s … villa?” Lerial has to think for a moment about what his father had called the majer’s dwelling.
“It’s on the lower slopes south of town, not far beyond most of the other houses, a bit more than a kay out.”