The Reluctant Mage

by Karen Miller

  “When he’s nephew to the king? I think you do.”

  Hunching one shoulder—a sure sign of his discomfort—Tavin blew out a sharp breath. “It’s his eyes, boy. They sit too close together.”

  “His eyes?” If he’d not been holding Padrig he’d have struck his swordmaster a blow with one fist. “Condemn a man of my blood for where his eyes sit in his face, would you?”

  “No,” said Tavin, very quiet, after a moment.

  “Then talk straight with me, Tav. Don’t talk crooked like a thief.”

  Tavin’s age-softened jaw tightened. “You think to push me?”

  “Right into the pit if you don’t speak plain.”

  Shocked, Tavin turned to him. “With that jar in your arms?”

  “Yes, Tavin, with this jar! You think to push me on a morning like this, do you?”

  With the smoke of my burned brother in my throat? On my tongue? With my fingers remembering the dagger thrusting home?

  Scowling, Tavin dragged his callused fingers through his close-clipped badger hair. And then he sighed again, for he knew he could speak or he could walk away. And walking would be a thing of strife.

  “Your cousin’s eyes aren’t the point of it, and neither’s his blood,” he muttered. “I’d condemn any man who shouts the king down in his own Hall. Ivyn spits too many bold, foolish words, Ewen. He doesn’t think, he just spits them out. And when he knows he’s wrong will he suck them back? He won’t. No man like him can sit the king’s seat in his Hall. Not without spitting enough words to cause trouble.”

  True enough, his youngest cousin blustered. But was that cause to condemn him outright? “It’s you that’s harsh here, Tav,” he said, shaking his head. “There’s no harm in Ivyn. He gets that bluster from his father, he does. My mother was the same. I was small when their father died, but I remember the old man well. Blustery as his children, he was, and not a jot of malice to it.”

  “Your mother,” said Tavin, hot now, “never blustered a day in her sweet life, spirit see her. She spoke her mind straight to the king, as any good queen would. But she never blustered foolish at him nor overspoke him in his own Hall.”

  Ewen pulled a face. It was true Ivyn had done that, more than once. It was also true that, like Tavin, he didn’t care for Ivyn’s pushy ways. But no man’s wants could be placed above the wants of the man who wore Vharne’s crown.

  “You care for the king’s dignity, you do, and that’s a good thing. But Tav, if the king looks aside from Ivyn’s bluster who are you not to follow his glance?”

  “The king looks aside out of love for your mother,” said Tavin, still hot. “The best of her pack, she always was. Ivyn’s her blood, not his, like Nairn. Honours her, the king does, by excusing her family.” A grimace. “He thinks.”

  “And what the king thinks I think,” he retorted. “Ivyn’s my blood too, Tav.” He slapped a hand lightly to his swordmaster’s arm. Could easily have slapped harder, only that wouldn’t be clever. “If the king and I can bear Ivyn’s bluster then so can you, I say. Besides, you cranky old fox, I never was about to sit my cousin’s arse in the king’s seat. A spring lamb, am I, to make a green mistake like that?”

  “You’re lambish enough, Ewen,” said Tavin, unconvinced. “And this is a sunrise that sees you muddled with grief. That’s your brother in your arms, boy, and it was your brother you put down like the poor rotted soul he was.”

  He came close to making good on his threat to push Tavin into the pit, then. The swordmaster saw it and took a clever step backwards.

  “Now, now, Ewen—”

  Pointed finger jabbing, he took back the space of that one clever step. “Be silent. I’m talking, I am. I treat you like a man of my blood and you think that gives you leave to elbow me, do you? There is no leave, Swordmaster Tavin. There is no—”

  Tavin seized his shoulders between his callused swordsman’s hands. His eyes were full of a painful pity. “There’s leave, boy. What’s my life for but honing you to be an honest king?”

  “Honest?” he said, choking. “You say I need your help to be honest, do you? Tavin—”

  “Have you wept for him yet, boy, our poor rotted Padrig? The mischievous little brother with the eyes your mother gave him? Ewen, have you wept?”

  With a shrugging twist he forced Tavin’s hands to drop. “So it’s weeping makes me honest?”

  “It’s not hiding from the truth! No man can be a king if he can’t look at what he’s done!”

  “Swordmaster, I spent all night looking,” he spat. “I know what I did. Now tell me tears will bring Padrig back and I’ll weep to fill the Spate River, I will. But if they won’t, I’ll keep dry.”

  Stony silent, Tavin stared at him.

  “Tav, I grieve,” he insisted. “Every breath I take is a dagger through my lungs. But I can’t be womanish for him. Besides, if I weep myself empty now I might feel the lack of tears later.”

  It was the closest he could come to saying how much he feared for the king.

  In his busy life Vharne’s swordmaster had seen many sad and cruel things. He’d long since learned how to hide uncomfortable feelings—and he was hiding them now.

  Is that lying, Tav, is it? Or do you try to protect me? And on a morning like this is there any difference?

  “The king has my best barracks men with him, he does,” Tavin said, after a moment. “You hold to that, son. He has your cousin Ivyn’s two brothers and he has Ryne. I’d trust my Dirk in a skirmish as I trust myself. He’d not be my right hand else. Haven’t I trained him hard for five years? Haven’t I elbowed him over and over so he can take a harsh blow? I have. You’ve watched me.”

  But he wasn’t reassured. “And you’ve watched the king with Padrig, Tavin. You know his heart, you do. He was angry over that butchery in the Eastern Vale but will you tell me he’d let the sprig out of his sight? Do you say he’d let Padrig wander the rough if he could stop him?”

  The morning’s light, brightening, showed him tears in Tavin’s eyes. Showed him a bad night for the swordmaster. Showed him rivers full of grief.

  “Ewen—” said Tavin, breaking, and roughly turned away.

  Cradling Padrig’s death jar, Ewen followed Tavin onto the grassy hillside beyond the pit. Down in the Vale milch cows gathered in their pastures, anxious to be milked, and dogs danced in the green grass as sheep and goats were unpenned. Mist curled off the duck ponds. Dew dappled the ground, sparkling.

  A glorious autumn morning, it was… and here was the Vale without its king.

  “Tavin,” he said, and stood behind the swordmaster’s broad back. “Padrig was yesterday. It’s Vharne I have to think of today. It won’t be Ivyn’s arse in the king’s seat when I ride out of the Vale.”

  Slowly Tavin turned to look at him, his grey stubble glinting silver. Understanding dawned. His eyes widened and then squinted and a scowl tightened his scarred face.

  “Now that’s a horse with a thrown shoe, Highness. Do what you will, you’ll not get it to run, you won’t.”

  Which was just what he’d expected Tavin to say.

  “You’d defy your king?”

  “I’d go hunting for my king!”

  “And leave the Vale untended. Vharne ungoverned. That’s how you’d keep your oath, is it?”

  Tavin snarled. “My oath binds me to stand sword for the king. His danger’s mine, it is. Whoever spills his blood spills mine and that’s a crime to be paid for with death, it is.” He spat on the grass. “You say I call you lambish, boy. You take offence. I grasp that, I do. So you grasp my offence at being held an old man who can’t recall what oath he swore!”

  Ewen held his glare unflinching. “Whoever sits in the king’s seat stays true to his oath, I say.”

  “Then you sit in the king’s seat, Ewen, since you’re so keen to ruminate on oaths, and I’ll ride out to find the man whose arse that seat should be warming!”

  A good thing this was held a sacred place or they’d be brawling now. Tavin’s
face was mottled red with his temper, his bullish shoulders hunched.

  “Swordmaster, I can’t do that,” he said, and with an effort set aside his own temper. “It’s true you’re the king’s sword, but it’s his son, I am. Break my blood bond, should I, for the sake of your oath?”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Tavin let out a roar that woke the high hillside to echoes, then stamped towards the path leading down from the pit. But when his booted feet touched the beaten earth, he stopped.

  “Tavin…” Sighing, Ewen joined him. “Who else can I trust with the king’s seat? Who else can sit in the Hall and not shame it? Name me that man and I’ll listen, I will.”

  “I say you should sit there,” said Tavin, his shoulders slumping. “No other man in Vharne but you, I say.”

  “Tav, no other man but me can ride out,” he replied. “What’s the real flea in your shirt, old fox? I’m such a lamb, am I, I’ll be devoured by the first wolf I find?”

  Tavin turned. Resignation was in his face now, and bitterness in his eyes. “Leave me behind, and who will you take?”

  “Ivyn,” he said promptly. “Blustery or not, he knows how to hold a sword. And his brothers are out there, they are. It’s his right to seek them. Bryn of the Croft, I’d take. It’s a wily man, he is. A great tracker, and he knows the north-west. Noyce, with his dogs. A barracks man or three, if you can spare them.”

  “No more than that?”

  “It’s enough. Vharne’s served best if we don’t make a great fuss.”

  Tavin’s nod was reluctant, as though agreeing gave him a pain. “Where will you ride?”

  “In the king’s footsteps to Neem,” he said. “That’s where he was when he flew us his last message, remember. Bryn will pick up his tracks from there.”

  “If the king’s last message flew from Neem,” Tavin muttered. “Falcons eat pigeons, remember?”

  The swordmaster could be so contrary. “Well, Tav, unless I stumble across a pile of bloodied feathers and a ripped message to tell me otherwise, it’s the best plan, I say.”

  Tavin grunted. “And if the Crofter and my barracks men find no tracks?”

  He’d spent the long, hard night thinking of this. “Then I’ll follow the northern borders west to the coast, head south ’til I strike the Spate’s mouth then turn inland along the river ’til I reach the Vale. I’ll find the king in there, I will.”

  I hope.

  His leather coat creaking, Tavin folded his arms. “You should take more men, Ewen. That’s a lot of riding over empty land, that is. Plenty of shadows for brain-rotted wanderers—or worse—to hide in.”

  “Worse?” Ewen stared. “Beasts, you mean? Tav, those days are long behind us, they are.”

  “You say.” Tav hunched his shoulders again, stubborn. “But I say what I said before. The north is stirring. Vharne’s infected with brain-rot, it is. There could be beasts in the rough country, I say.”

  The sun was climbing. He should return to the Hall. While he and Tavin burned Padrig, Clovis was sending a private summons to Ivyn, to Bryn of the Croft and the dog-handler Noyce. They’d be at the castle by noon.

  I don’t have time for Tav to talk me in circles. Now I speak with the king’s voice, I think.

  “Is there proof of beasts, Swordmaster?” he snapped. “Bring me a man who’s seen one, or a horn, or a tail. A strip of bloodied hide. I’ll fright at shadows after proof, I will.” He stepped closer to Tavin then, Padrig’s ashes tight in his arms. “There’s folk like you in Vharne who remember the beast days, they do. I want the kingdom quiet, Tav, not frenzied with no proof.”

  Instead of blustering at that, Tavin only cocked his head. “What’s your memory of them? Beasts?”

  His memory? “Why?”

  “Just answer me, boy.”

  Rude, that was. Tavin, you try me. But he was leaving his swordmaster behind, so he let it go.

  “Fear,” he said. “Tusks and claws. Killing. And I remember they died, Tavin. Them and the sorcerer.”

  Tavin brooded across the Vale. “Know the haius blossom, do you? Falls fallow in autumn, it does. Sleeps all the cold winter. But when the earth warms it wakes, Ewen. Not all dead things stay dead.”

  His arms tightened round Padrig’s death jar. But most do. “Tavin, I need your answer. Do you sit in the king’s seat or do I choose again, against my will, and still ride from the Vale without you?”

  “I’ll sit in it,” said Tavin, surly. “Deny the duty, can I, with the king’s son demanding? And I’ll handpick barracks men to ride with you into the rough. I’ll do that for you, Ewen. And you do this for me, boy. Don’t let my words of warning slip through your fingers like soap in the bath.”

  Spirit be thanked. “I won’t. But I won’t startle at whispers, either. It’s cautious I’m being, Tav. Since when was that counted a fault?”

  “Stand in front of a man running at you with a bared blade, you can, and tell yourself you’re being cautious for not baring your own sword or leaping sideways,” Tavin retorted, still surly. “They’ll burn your cautious head and your cautious body in two fires, boy.”

  “That’s an opinion, it is,” he said, after a hard-breathing moment. “Tavin, you can keep it. I’ve got my own.”

  In reply, Tavin started down the steep beaten-earth path, his boots thudding hard. A sign of his distress, it was. As a rule he walked much lighter than that. Ewen stared at the swordmaster’s broad, retreating back, what remained of Padrig so heavy in his arms.

  We’re friends, we are. This will blow over.

  The swordmaster was halfway down the hill already. Resigned to being punished with silence, Ewen followed. When he caught Tavin he slowed and kept pace at his side.

  They returned to the castle without another word spoken.

  His cousin Ivyn blustered into the Hall not long before noon, next to arrive after Bryn of the Croft. Richly dressed, his brown hair long enough to make a king frown, he walked the castle’s stone floors as though he owned them.

  “Why am I sent for, cousin?” he demanded. “I’ve cares of my own not to be dropped willy-nilly.”

  Ignoring Clovis’s stiff-backed disapproval, and Bryn of the Croft’s stifled surprise, Ewen kissed his cousin on both cheeks, a familial greeting. “There’s news, Ivyn. Let’s take a moment in private.”

  Leaving Bryn to kick his heels in the Hall and Clovis to wait for Tavin and Noyce to arrive, he led the way to the castle’s spirit chamber. Ivyn knew the room. Straightaway he saw that Padrig’s death jar was moved from the wall of waiting to a niche in the spirit wall, with its flickering flame. His sallow face drained sickly, all the bluster blown out of him and his pock scars standing stark.

  “When?” he said hoarsely. “How?”

  “Yesterday,” said Ewen, pushing the chamber door closed. “A scouting party found him wandering, they did, and brought him home. Ivyn, he was brain-rotted.”

  Ivyn’s fingers became fists. “Van? Lem?”

  “There’s no word from the king.”

  “They’re all lost? Murdo and my brothers?”

  He clasped his hands behind him. “I say there’s no word.”

  A family’s spirit chamber was a sacred place, for memory and mourning. Heedless of that, Ivyn paced the flagstones as though he longed for someone to kick. Two years older, he was, and liked to flaunt it. More years meant more freedom to disregard what he disliked. That was Ivyn.

  “Padrig returned yesterday, you say?” he demanded. “Then yesterday is when you should have sent for me, Ewen. Concern for your own single brother and none for both of mine?” An angry glance, in passing. “I’m wounded.”

  Ivyn, you don’t know what wounded is. “There’s no proof the king or Van and Lem are dead.”

  Halting, Ivyn turned on him. “No proof but Padrig’s dead!”

  “More proof than that, I want,” he said. “But I’m not sleeping on this, Ivyn. That’s why you’re summoned, it is.”

  Turning back to Padrig’s bea
utiful blue jar, Ivyn looked at it in silence for some time. Then he sighed. “Was he dead when he got here? Or did he pay the price for brain-rot?”

  Oh, so now you think to ask me?

  “He died in my arms.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Ivyn, meaning it well enough. “You loved him.”

  And you didn’t. “Ivyn, there’s trouble stirring in Vharne.”

  “No,” said Ivyn, staring. “You’ve shocked me with that news, Ewen.”

  As much as he’d loved Padrig did he dislike this man, his youngest cousin. “Tomorrow you and I ride to find the king and your brothers. I’ve summoned useful men to maybe ride with us, Bryn of the Croft and a Vale man you might know—Iain Noyce. Swordmaster Tavin handpicks the barracks men who’ll guard our backs. The castle will provision you. Your horse is fit for hard riding, is it? I’ll find you another if it’s not.”

  “Listen to him barking orders,” said Ivyn, addressing Padrig’s jar. “Like a king, he sounds.”

  “I could tell you the same in the Hall with my arse in the king’s seat,” he said, not rising to Ivyn’s bait. “Would that chafe you less?”

  “I’d be less chafed if you’d sent for me yesterday,” snapped Ivyn, swinging round.

  “Yesterday I was busy, Ivyn, stabbing my brain-rotted brother to the heart!”

  “And that’s sad, and I’m sorry for it!” Ivyn shouted. “But in a day or two or three I could be stabbing both of mine! Am I a barracks man, to be called here and told what I’ll be doing, and when, and where, and who with? Piss on that, Ewen. I’ll provision myself, no need for charity from the castle. And you should have sent for me when those scouts brought Padrig home.”

  Sick of him, Ewen headed for the chamber door. “Sing yourself to sleep with that song, Ivyn. Yesterday is done with. If I could unwind the clock, would I waste that time on you?” He wrenched the door open. “Light Padrig a candle, cousin. It’s the family thing to do.”

  He returned to the Hall, where Bryn of the Croft still waited, contemplating his booted toes. “Highness,” he said, with a respectful nod. He’d not yet been told the reason for his summons, but he seemed content not to know.