Kings of the North

by Elizabeth Moon

  “To you, who are immortal. To me, to my realm, it is more than long enough. You know they want me to marry and give them an heir. You said you wanted the same, back in the spring.”

  “I do, but—”

  “Did you not have Orlith tell me I should marry part elven?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “And Arian is half-elven.”

  “Of the wrong heritage,” the Lady said. “She will be faithless, like her father—”

  “Why not faithful, like my mother, who never considered marrying anyone after my father left?” Arian asked. Anger edged her voice. “I was reared in her house; do you think I learned nothing there?”

  “Not courtesy, that is certain,” the Lady said.

  Kieri stepped between them. “It is not your decision,” he said to the Lady. “As for courtesy, I could trust Arian, like all my Squires, to remain courteous with Pargunese; if she is angry now, it is because you insult her.”

  “I do not—”

  “You call us here, before you and her father, to berate her, accuse her of stalking me like prey, and tell her she is unworthy—and you think she is discourteous?”

  “Grandson—!”

  “I am ashamed of you,” Kieri said. All his suspicions rose like ghosts around him, all his frustrations with her treatment of him. “I trusted that you would at least give us a fair hearing, and instead—”

  The air shimmered; the ground trembled as the taig reacted to the anger of King and Lady. Arian and her father cried “No!” at the same moment; both knelt, hands on the ground.

  “The taig cries,” Arian said to Kieri. “I will not—I cannot—” Tears ran down her face. “I will not destroy the kingdom because of you—if it means that, then I will go away—”

  Kieri heard her father speaking, but not what he said; he stared at Arian, then looked at his grandmother’s angry face. The taig trembled around him; he reached to soothe it, as he had been taught. It shivered from the touch of his mind, then gradually relaxed; a glamour spread from the Lady, a spell of stillness and calm he could both see and feel.

  “You see, grandson,” she said, this time in a quieter voice. “You see what it would mean.”

  “Only because you are opposed,” Kieri said, struggling for the same calm. “If you were not—”

  “I will go,” Arian said suddenly. “I will go far away and you will find someone else.”

  “No!”

  “My lord—Sir King—I cannot be the reason this kingdom fails. You are what we need; you must be here, and king, and that means you and the Lady must sustain the taig.”

  The Lady nodded. “She is right, grandson. If we quarrel, the taig will fray.”

  “I did not start the quarrel,” Kieri said. “You—”

  “But I will end it,” Arian said. “I told you truly, Sir King. If our marriage cannot be—if it would harm the kingdom—I will go and make a life for myself somewhere else.”

  “No,” Kieri said again. “You must not—”

  “We must,” Arian said. “For duty. For the kingdom’s sake.”

  “That cannot be right,” Kieri said. He looked at the Lady. “Last night I had a—a vision.”

  She frowned a little. “Vision?”

  “We had just come back from the north—it was a difficult trip—”

  “The king of Pargun was stabbed by a traitor, and my lord king healed him,” Arian said. Her voice too had steadied; Kieri felt hope.

  “You healed?” the Lady said.

  “Apparently,” Kieri said. “But to last night—”

  “But that—but Orlith has told me you are not yet trained—” The Lady sounded more worried than amazed.

  “I had to try something,” Kieri said, “or all my efforts would have failed and ensured a Pargunese attack.”

  “It was a poisoned dagger,” Arian put in. “Nothing else but the king’s magic would have saved him.”

  “How did you know—?” the Lady asked.

  “I was stabbed much the same way,” Kieri said, “and the paladin Paksenarrion saved me. I tried to do what she did. But that was days ago. Last night—I was thinking of Tammarion—thinking of the women I’d met so far this year—most of them too young, I thought, judging them by looks.” He glanced aside at Arian. “And then she came to me. Came as she has never come before.”

  “Who? Arian?” the Lady asked.

  “Tammarion,” Arian breathed.

  “Yes,” Kieri said. “Tammarion. It was … it was not like I had ever imagined, the times I used to wish for it. Gentle. Calm. She bade me withhold nothing from my future wife. And she said whom else could I love but a woman with a sword.”

  “A soldier?” the Lady asked; she grimaced.

  “A companion,” Kieri said. “An equal, as Tamar was. A woman who could accept all my past—who would not be frightened or repelled by the scars on my body or in my mind, the violence in which I lived so long, the need a king has to defend, if need be with his own body, his realm. A woman of courage. And then I went to bed, and while asleep dreamed, a true dream. Alyanya came to me, and Torre of the Necklace, Falk, and Gird, and Camwyn … I woke refreshed and awed and then slept again. So when I went down to practice in the salle, I was still somewhat bemused.”

  “And there was Arian ready to snare you,” the Lady said. “I blame you not, grandson, after a dream like that, but—”

  “She did not snare me. Well, she did ambush me, in the salle, but that was at Carlion’s command because I was not attentive. She dropped me like a stone. He also asked if I was thinking about a wife—everyone does, except perhaps you—and I said then I would wed a woman of Lyonya, a woman with a sword, and that if my Squires were not too young—and it was after that I learned they were not.”

  “And you chose the first at hand.”

  Kieri shook his head. “No, Grandmother. I told you. I had loved her before; I was pulled that way by the same force that pulled me to Tammarion.”

  “And yet,” the Lady said, “the impediment remains. Her father had charms to entangle many women; I’ve no doubt she has charms to entangle men, whether she knows it or not. Tell me—” she said suddenly to Arian. “Have you had lovers?”

  Kieri opened his mouth to protest, but Arian answered calmly. “Many years ago, I twice shared a bed with a young man. We were both, I believe, about twenty-four and had just won our rubies. He was killed by a daskdraudigs the next year.”

  “And would you have married him? Been faithful to him?”

  “I do not know,” Arian said. Her expression was thoughtful but remote. “That was half my lifetime ago, and he never asked. I doubt he would have; he had told me before that his family wanted him to marry in the old human lines, not half-elven. We celebrated our knighthood as many did—the king knows—” She looked at Kieri, who nodded.

  “And that is all?” the Lady asked, with a glance at Arian’s father.

  “Enough,” Kieri said. “I do not see that these questions concern you, if I do not choose to ask them.”

  The Lady raised her brows. “She knows you had a wife; surely you should know if she had … liaisons.”

  “That is between her and me. And if she did, what matter?”

  “If you truly cannot see what the matter is, then you do need my guidance and my questions,” the Lady said.

  “What I see is that you are using her to punish her father,” Kieri said. “You are willing to risk the future of the realm to satisfy an old quarrel.”

  “You are wrong,” the Lady said. “But you are not in a mood for reason. Will you at least delay until your blood cools?” Kieri felt another nudge from her glamour but resisted it.

  “I have said I will leave,” Arian said. “I meant it.” She pulled her hand from Kieri’s. “Sir King, you know the realm must come first. I will not be the cause of a quarrel that harms it. I cannot be. And it will be harder later.” She looked at the Lady. “My Lady, you are wrong: I did not trap your grandson, and I am not like my fathe
r. It is indeed true love I bear for him. If you come to realize that, before he finds another, I am sure your taig-sense will find me.”

  Kieri reached for her, but she evaded him. “Arian, please—”

  “No. War may be brewing with Pargun—we know that. The taig is in peril from without; it must not be in peril from within as well. Fix your mind on your kingdom, Kieri …” Her voice trembled on his name, the first time she had said it to him. “We have both been alone a long time; we are not children who must have their pleasures now or howl for them.” With that she turned on her heel and ran down the hill’s slope, vanishing into the path that led back to the palace.

  “She is more a queen than you,” Kieri said to the Lady. He could scarce keep his voice steady for the pain that pierced him like a blade, the anger below it that threatened to break loose again. “She thought first of the realm.” He turned and ran down the hill, anger lending him speed. Where the other Squires waited, he ran past them without a word. He heard their voices, their footsteps, but ignored them.

  When he reached the palace, Arian was nowhere to be found. Winded, Kieri checked the stables, in case she had taken a mount, and found her Squire’s tabard hung neatly on the door of an empty stall. No other trace remained of her; she had taken her own mount and the travel pack all the Squires kept ready.

  “We should follow her?” asked Kaelith.

  “No,” Kieri said. He could scarcely speak to anyone for the storm of emotions he felt. “It was her choice to leave; it will be her choice to return when she is ready.” He could feel the taig’s distress and struggled to calm himself. He didn’t want to be calm; he wanted to smack his grandmother sideways, force her to accept his choice.

  Orlith appeared in the forecourt. “Sir King, the taig—”

  “Is not nearly as upset as I am,” Kieri said. “I’m going to the rose garden.”

  “Do you want me to—”

  “I want you to talk sense to the Lady,” Kieri said. The year’s frustrations edged his voice. “If you can.”

  Orlith’s expression stiffened for a moment. “Oh,” he said finally. “You have quarreled with her … about Arian?”

  “Yes,” Kieri said between clenched teeth.

  “Where is Arian?”

  “She left,” Kieri said, “for the sake of the taig, she said.”

  “Oh,” Orlith said again. “Oh … dear.”

  “If you can tell that … that person anything,” Kieri said, “tell her—” But he could not say it, not to Orlith.

  “May the First Singer grant you harmony,” Orlith said.

  “May the gods grant my grandmother sense,” Kieri said, and stalked off. He knew his anger swirled around him like a cape; he knew it roiled the taig; for the moment he did not care. The taig should be upset; the taig should carry to his grandmother how he felt about her interference. All the year long she had failed him, refusing to help when he asked her, and now interfering when he needed only her acquiescence.

  Doubt tickled his mind as he came into the rose garden, its bareness filled with the silvery chill light of winter. Not even a faint scent from the fallen petals this long after their bloom, nothing to soothe him but a quiet sadness. Was it really love he felt? Could he have come to love so soon?

  He recognized the quality of light as enchantment and burst out, “Do not try that with me! I will not have it, I tell you!” The taig recoiled; the very rose stems seemed to twitch away from him. Kieri tried to reach out to the taig without encountering his grandmother’s glamour; it was like reaching through water to take a pebble from the stream, but he felt the taig open to him a little. To the taig alone, he murmured. “I began to love her earlier, but tried not to, for her sake, for what I thought I knew. We are root and branch, fern and sapling, the moss and the bark … we have grown together all the seasons since I first saw her, that day in the riding hall, and for me that is time enough.”

  The glamour pushed doubt at him, but he pushed back, refusing. Finally it withdrew, but only a short distance. He thought he sensed his grandmother nearby, wrapped in the elvenhome kingdom, invisible but present.

  “Sir King—?”

  Garris. He didn’t want to talk to Garris, or anyone, but Garris had to know something, to understand Arian’s disappearance.

  “Sit down,” Kieri said, waving to the bench he sat on.

  “What … happened?”

  “The Lady did not approve. Arian left.”

  Garris stared. “You sent her—”

  “No, not me.” Kieri sighed. “I argued with my grandmother; the taig was upset. Arian left, she said for the good of the realm. It is not good for the realm, if I do not marry. And I will marry Arian, or no one.”

  “Oh.” Garris locked his thumbs one way, then the other. “You’re sure—”

  “I’m sure that Arian has gone. I’m sure I will marry no one else. I’m sure my grandmother thinks I will change my mind. And I’m sure it’s a complication none of us needed.” He hoped the Lady was listening, but his sense of her presence had faded.

  “Maybe she’ll change her mind—”

  “Who? Arian or my grandmother?”

  “Either. Both. Maybe even you.”

  Kieri looked at him until Garris looked down and away. “Garris, you’ve known me how long?”

  “Long enough to know you don’t change your mind easily. All right. But—happy as I was to think of you and Arian—she’s not the only—”

  “She is for me.”

  “There are other half-elf Squires. And rangers.”

  “They aren’t Arian.” Kieri sighed again. “Garris, I’m not a youth. I’ve loved before; I’ve been married before. I know my own mind and heart. This is not some hasty infatuation, as my grandmother thinks. Nor some plot of Arian’s. And I see no reason why I should not have the wife I want—the wife I already love. Her reasons—the Lady’s reasons, I mean—amount to blaming Arian for her father’s behavior. He sired her; he didn’t infect her with whatever the Lady thinks is wrong with him.”

  “Um. People do inherit—”

  “Garris, I don’t want to be angry with you.”

  “And I don’t want you angry with me. But as a friend, and as your subject, and as captain of your Squires: consider carefully. Maybe Arian has the right of it. If the Lady does not change her mind, and if your quarrel with the Lady imperils the taig, can you in good conscience continue that quarrel for the sake of a woman you have not yet married? As the king, healing and preserving the taig’s health are your primary responsibilities.”

  Kieri shook his head. “If it were only convenience, or calculation, or mere affection, Garris, I could leave it—with regret, but I could. This is not the same. I know it must be Arian because—besides my own feeling—the taig itself told me. I felt it.”

  “You felt the taig more than the Lady did?”

  “I don’t know what the Lady felt, but I felt the taig rejoicing when Arian and I knew—”

  “You were—very emotional—”

  “I could not mistake one for the other, Garris, any more than I could mistake redroots for clotted cream.”

  “Well … what do you want me to do? Is there anything?”

  “I would like to be alone for a while,” Kieri said. “I don’t—I can’t—meet the Council right now. I need time to calm myself down, and try to calm the taig, just that.”

  “I will place Squires to guard your privacy, then,” Garris said.

  Kieri listened to his footsteps on the garden paths, then the gentle thump of a door, and stared at the falling water. He tried techniques Orlith had taught him, slipping his mind into the water. Cold water, winter water, ice-edged wherever it slowed down; he shivered, thinking of Arian off somewhere in the winter woods, alone.

  “She would be very angry if she knew I had done this,” a voice said. As beautiful as harp music, a gentle melancholy in it … Kieri looked aside and saw Arian’s father sitting on the next bench.

  “What—how did you
—?”

  The elf made a gesture with his hands, and a pattern of light formed. “The Lady’s quarrel with me goes beyond my predilection for human women,” he said. “We elves have gifts in different measure, as do you humans, and in my case—my sensing of the taig is greater than hers.”

  “How can that be?” Kieri asked. “She’s the queen, isn’t she?”

  “She is the Lady of the Ladysforest,” the elf said gravely. “She has great power—greater than mine, in many ways, but not in all. I honor her, but she resents that the taig tells me more than it tells her.”

  “If you know the taig so well, you know it rejoiced when Arian and I came together.”

  The elf said nothing.

  “I do not know your name,” Kieri said. “She did not introduce us.”

  “She did not intend us to know each other,” the elf said. “My name is long and difficult in human speech, but Dameroth will do.”

  “Well, Dameroth, why have you come to me? And against the Lady’s wishes?” Kieri had not known any elf to cross the Lady before.

  “I want you to understand my daughter. Of all my children—and all are half-elven, as I sired no full elves—one of the Lady’s complaints—Arian inherited most my sensitivity to the taig. It was her taig-sense, that and her mother—”

  “Her mother?”

  “Her mother had a strong sense of duty, and brought her up to the same. Put those together—” Dameroth placed his long-fingered hands palm to palm, then interlaced his fingers. “—the taig-sense and the duty, and she could do no other than leave.”

  “She could have trusted me—” The pain and humiliation he’d felt when Arian turned and ran down the hill stabbed him again.

  “It was not lack of trust in you, Sir King,” Dameroth said. “I know her well; I knew her as a child—and a stubborn little fireball she was, too. She befriended the taig early, and as a ranger bent her whole attention on the taig. She cannot ignore its distress any more than she could ignore a splinter in her eye. The taig and this realm have been her whole life. Her love for you has grown out of that, root and leaf and flower, and to live and flourish must remain so. She cannot sever that connection; the flower would wither and fade.”