Banner of the Damned by Sherwood Smith

duke’s permission to address his scribe in public, and then, as several listened, the two began a long discourse on Sartoran poetry during the Symbolist Period—sometimes considered the most obscure poetry ever written. Few would have claimed that Kaidas knew anything about poetry, and Rontande drawled that he hadn’t known any Lassiter could read.
    For several days afterward Kaidas amused himself with quoting poetry to anyone who came near—especially certain among his old friends and lovers. The effect was to encourage them to find other pursuits with as much haste as would not be unseemly.
    While he was intent on rerouting curious courtiers, the entire court left the river Eth and began the journey along the Margren River, toward the transfer point. The inn at Arvin is an enormous structure but not a palace—that is, not a great building whose grand design uses space, fine materials, and artistry to impress as well as to please the eye. This inn had been added to over many centuries. Children saw the place as a labyrinth or challenge and ran from garden to garden or above our heads across bridge-ways that linked the many wings. They pounded along halls, shrieking and chasing in an uninhibited way that I never had.
    Here, at the second-to-the-last stop before transfer, Colend’s court found themselves among people from all over the eastern part of the continent; as I followed a servant along a wickerwork bridge built over a stream that tumbled between two buildings, I counted five languages.
    Sauntering in the crowd behind us was Kaidas Lassiter, who couldn’t afford a carriage. Not that he told anyone that. Famed for his riding, it was a tribute to his style that he was admired for the freedom withwhich he could trot from carriage to carriage at whim. If anyone got too speculative about why he made this journey, he pulled scrolls of obscure Sartoran poetry from his sleeve pockets and favored them with choice pieces. None of the courtiers knew he thus observed Lasva from afar.
    Lasva travelled with half her household. When he comprehended the extent of the inn, with its private wings and tree-shadowed balconies, Kaidas Lassiter followed us.
    We found the rooms of our suite warm and stuffy. Most courtiers retreated to the parlors at the front, which were cooled by magic, but Lasva surprised us by remaining as the servants labored to make things comfortable.
    As Marnda and Dessaf supervised the duty housemaids, Lasva and I moved at her desire to the narrow wickerwork balcony, which was shaded by the balcony of the rooms above. The waterfall splashed into a pool below. Layers of leafy trees rustled in the air, moving slowly above the falls, giving us a semblance of coolness.
    “What did you see today?” Lasva asked me, as had become habit.
    I strove always to have something to say, and so I offered my observation about the running children and their freedom from constraint.
    She perched on the edge of a table carved in the shape of a tree that framed the glass top. “Time,” she said. “Here it seems suspended. And my childhood the blink of an eye.” She rubbed at her forehead.
    As if reading her thoughts, Marnda appeared behind us. “Your highness. Shall I send a page for refreshment?”
    “Thank you, just send the hair dresser, please.”
    I caught Marnda’s look of surprise as she turned away. Though she was in a sense Lasva’s
hlaras
—heart’s mother—she could not question orders.
    “Go on, Emras.”
    “I don’t know if my thought is worth the effort of speech in this hot air. Merely, I wonder if I should be sad or glad that childhood slipped away without my notice. We remember dramatic things—contrasts in emotion, as all the poets say.”
    “And dramatic contrasts in scenery,” Lasva added as she untied the ribbon of her hat. She tipped her head. “You’ve heard Isari. What do you think lies behind all these hints about how tiresome it is to attend to the color of our hair while we