“If you are the old king’s son, born with his magery—
“They said not,” said Luap. “Like all bastards with no magic, I was fostered away—”
She laughed, this time ruefully. “Luap, they erred, as you must have known long since. You are his heir—in blood, and in magic— and the evidence is right here—in what just happened. Show this to any of the old blood, and you would inherit—
“Inherit!” For an instant his old dream sprang up, bright as ever, but anger tore it away. “Inherit a kingdom torn by war? Inherit the fame my father had, that made men glad to see him dead? Inherit his ways?”
Her voice lowered, mellowed, soothed him as honey soothes a raw throat. “You have thought of it, Luap; you must have. He was a proud man, a foolish man… even, in some ways, a cruel man. He should have had more sense than to foster you away. None of our people have done all we should. But you—you know better. You could be—”
“I could be dead,” said Luap. He wanted to hit her; he could feel her attempt to enchant him like a heavy weight of spring sunlight. It had been bad enough to go through this once. He shook his head at her. “If you had asked me two years ago, lady, I might have been foolish enough—I would have been foolish enough to agree. What my father did to me—the vengeance I wanted, the power I had always envied—yes. I would have. Even a year ago, maybe. But I’ve learned a bit, in this war. Even from you.”
“Even from me? You mean, because of me, you would not—?”
“Not you alone. But, lady, I can see what Gird sees now; I can see the cost of your counsel, down to the last dead baby, the last poisoned well—”
“We are not all evil!”
“No. But—you tell me, lady, what it is that made you angry this time? What sent you here to work behind Gird’s back?”
She whirled away from him; he let his own power flow out to her, and she turned back, unwilling, but obedient—recognizing even as she fought it the source of her compulsion. He released her, and she staggered. “He—he’s an idiot! He knows no more of governing than any village bully!”
Luap chuckled. “He is an idiot, that I’ll grant. But he’s far more than a village bully, and if you can’t see that, you’re not seeing him yet for what he is.”
“He lets those fools of merchants blather on, bickering about the market rules—”
“What should he do, crack their heads for them?”‘Luap could see she had thought of that, with relish. He shook his head at her. “Lady, Gird’s as likely to lose his temper and bash heads as any man I’ve ever known. If he lets them bicker on, wasting time as you’d say, then he has his reasons.”
“He claimed they would obey rules they made better than rules he gave—and yet he won’t let them make the rules they want to make. Insists that they and the farmers must agree what is a ripe plum, nonsense like that.”
“Nonsense like that matters, to those who grow the plums, or pay good coin for them.”
“And that brings up coin. D’you know he’s planning to call in and melt down all the old coinage? No more copper crabs and gold crowns, but stamped with wheat-ear and poppy. I tried to tell him what that would cost: the finesmiths don’t work for nothing. He wouldn’t listen. And he asks of me what he does not understand—”
“He wants you to give up your grievance, as he made me give up mine.”
“Your heritage, he’s made you give up.”
“One and the same. My grievance: being born of royal blood, and thrown out to live in a peasant’s world. Having the royal power, and being denied its use. The world, in short, not to my liking.”
“It’s more than that!”
“Not really.” Luap grinned sideways at her. “Lady, I’ve known peasant lads enough, furious because their father favored another brother, because the steward was unfair, because the world was. Grumbling, sour, envious, resentful, quick to take offense and seek vengeance for every slight. So was I, though I hid it, thinking myself too good to admit such feelings, though they burned in my heart.” He paused, to see how she would take this. She listened, though he suspected it was only because she knew he was a king’s son. He took a deep breath, hoping no one would interrupt them, or come close enough to overhear what only Gird, so far, knew of his past.
“When I married, lady, I loved my wife as a prince might love a scullery-maid: just so much, for her beauty and her skill. Our children: I saw them in my mind, clothed in royal gowns, and hated the reality of their broad peasant faces, their rough hands. You are unwed: you cannot imagine what this means of love foregone, of wasted years, when I might have been rich in hearts-ease. Then as Gird’s power grew, my master—who should, I knew, have been but a courtier at my court—commanded me to join the army, gain Gird’s confidence, and betray him. I would have done so, for the reward he promised, but he did not trust. He took my wife, my children—killed my son, to make his point, and held them captive against my behavior. The wife I had never loved as I could have, the daughter I thought too plain: I saw in their eyes, as the soldiers took them away, a trust I had never earned. Then I began to love them, but it was too late.” The old pain struck to his heart again, and tears blurred his vision. He blinked them away, and saw on the magelady’s face a curious expression. He hoped it was not contempt: he could feel rage rising in him like a dangerous spring; contempt from her would set a fire under it. She said nothing.
“So I came to Gird, as one driven into rebellion by injustice, but I meant to betray him, only he was gentle, that night, with my injuries, and something—I could not do it. I told him, about my family, and he cried: great tears running down his face, his nose turned red—I could not believe it.” He waited until she asked. “And then?”
“And then they died, as my master had promised, and I could do nothing. In the market square at Darrow, before a frightened crowd—someone told me about it later, not knowing whose wife it had been. And I—I hated Gird, almost as much as my master, for having done nothing—though there was nothing he could have done. When I discovered my powers, I had thoughts of claiming my own place, somehow. Making things better, being the king that should have been, in a land where no one suffered. A boy’s dream, after a beating. Crowns and palaces for all, meat and ale and honey on the loaf—”
“You could have—”
“I could not. Gird knocked me flat, when I tried my powers on him, and rightly so. I didn’t see that at the time. But if you’ve wondered why I have no command, that’s why. He could not trust me. The marshals still look at me sideways, but Gird knows I’m different now. So could you be, if you’d give up that old wound you cherish,”
“I do not cherish it! The ruin of my life—!”
“Only if you choose so. Lady, listen to me. You have lost something: who has not? It is what we make of what’s left that counts. I lost my wife, my children, lost them even before they were taken, in the blindness of my pride in blood. I lost a crown, the way you see it. You stayed away from this war; you have not seen what I have seen, or learned the lessons it taught. My loss is as important as any other, and no more important than any other. King’s son, bastard, widower, childless by war, a luap in every way: I have lost or renounced all command, being unfit for it.“
“And this is what you and Gird want me to do?”
Luap stretched his arms high over his head, easing the knot in his back. By her tone, she was at least thinking about it, no longer quite so sure of herself. “Gird wants you to quit thinking you’re a special case. I would have you consider the fruits of freedom: freedom from your past. What good is that old anger doing you now? What good is it doing any of us, when you would lure me into a conspiracy to undo what all these men and women have died to do? You, lady, best know whether you are as unfit for command as I was.”
Her expression shifted, from half petulant to something approaching respect. “I—never doubted my ability to command, when it should be time. Not until now—”
“Yet you never took the field. And why come here
, to your people’s enemies? And why stay?”
“I’m not sure.” She looked down, and away, and anywhere but his eyes. “I did not take the field… because the king did not call me, as he called other nobles. After I killed him, I thought… I knew that none of our people would accept me, the king’s murderer. Why should they? I’d broken my oath to him, why not join his enemies? My own act placed me there, it seemed.”
“And what did you think Gird would do, pat you on the head and tell you the king had treated you badly and deserved your vengeance?”
She flushed. “I didn’t know. I don’t suppose I was thinking clearly. As for why I stay… where would I go? Back to Tsaia to pick sides in that contention? Away from here, where some peasant terrified of magery is like to split my skull with an axe while I sleep?”
Now she met his eyes again, with an expression he had never seen on her face, honest bewilderment and the first glint of humor. “I set out to save the king, and killed him; after that, what could I dare intend, that would not go awry?”
Chapter Thirty-two
Gird had been right; Tsaia preferred lords to peasants, if peasants to mages. There the followers of cruel gods had all been magelords, or their close kin. When the bartons rose, some found their own lords with them, against those they most hated and feared. Duke Marrakai, though accused of treachery by Duke Verrakai, proved his loyalty in most men’s eyes by supporting a Mahieran for the throne. The Rosemage, as Gird called her, assured him that the candidate had no more magical ability than a river cobble. He was not sure he believed her, but he did believe Arranha, who said the same thing.
He was, as he had never expected to be, alive and a hero. Everyone knew the big blocky man in blue (it seemed simpler to keep wearing that color; when he didn’t, someone would give him a blue shirt “to remember by”) on the stocky gray—almost white now—horse. Children ran out to meet him on the way, calling to him, running beside the horse. If his route was known, there would be bits of blue tied to branches, blue yarn braided into women’s hair, blue flowers, in season, thrown before him. If he surprised a village, they would drop their tools and gather, beg for his blessing, bring all their problems for him to solve.
He found that they wanted him—his physical touch, his presence, his listening ear—far more than they wanted his ideas. They had each their local heroes—someone who had fought with him at Grahlin or Greenfields, Blackbone Hill or Brightwater. Every little ambush, each battle, had its heroes, and they had all gone home, if they lived, to tell the tale their own way. Gird heard with some astonishment that he had thrown a horse and rider “so far the crash was not heard when they landed” in one battle, and someone who had lost a leg and survived (Gird remembered the man clinging to his hand, begging for death) came hopping up without it to hug Gird and pound his back and show off his children.
But when he tried to speak to them of the future, only a few paid heed. The others were busy with their work, with lives deferred. They had won, and life was good; they feared nothing but the lords’ return, and needed nothing but Gird’s friendship.
Some were interested in the legal reforms he instituted. Merchants, craftsmen, and even a few former farmers—but their interest in abstract justice and perfect fairness gave way to factional argument far more often than Gird had hoped. Eventually, after hours and days and even seasons of wrangling, one group would agree on a particular rule, only to have those who had not attended the original conference refuse to follow it. Then everyone appealed to Gird, and he found himself making the very judgments he had called on others to make.
Most folk understood the need to have some armed force for protection, both locally, against brigands, and regionally, in case of invasion. But fewer wanted to support the barton and grange organization Gird envisioned, with adequate, uniform training for yeomen, yeoman-marshals, marshals, with regular drill for all yeomen even in times of peace.
He was troubled, as well, by the feeling that he had had since surviving the battle at Greenfields. He had been told that he could not see the peace he would bring, and here it was, all around him. Either the gods were wrong—and he could not believe that—or he had misunderstood. He didn’t believe that, either. Which meant that the peace he saw was somehow not real. Something was wrong with it, as something had been wrong after Norwalk Sheepfolds. He had asked then if it was his fault that he would not see true peace, and had had no answer. He asked himself the same question now: was the wrong here his fault? Had he failed in something he should have done, that would have brought true and lasting peace— had he withheld something he should have given?
His own memories reminded him of his mistakes; the victories others boasted of in his name seemed to him full of his miscalculations, deaths he’d caused by his stupidity or carelessness. That one fit of drunkenness, which left a legacy still; even now, even when everyone called him Father Gird, someone would take the mug from his hand with a kindly smile, when he’d had what they thought was enough. He had done what he set out to do—free the land of its bad rulers—but every time his gray horse ticked a hoof on a skull, or he saw the white end of a bone turned up as someone plowed a field, he shuddered.
He traveled widely, urged on by that vague but persistent uneasiness. Everywhere he went he seemed to see prosperity returning, as farms returned to burnt-over fields, as once-deserted villages hummed with life. His people had more flesh on their bones; foreign traders complained of their scant profits, but kept returning. So did wealthy craftsmen who had thought a peasant kingdom would have no need of their abilities. His new coinage, which the magelady had so complained about, circulated more freely than the old ever had. When Luap first mentioned what he saw as the problem, the continuing bitterness between former magelord landholders and tenants, Gird scoffed at him.
“They won’t hurt children,” he said. “The adults, maybe, but—”
“I’ve talked with Autumn Rose.” Luap said the name without embarrassment; Gird still thought it was silly. If she wanted to conceal her real name, she could have taken any simple one. She had changed, over the years, but she still had what he thought of as lordly arrogance. He let himself remember the first time she had laughed at herself, admitted that she could be as ridiculous as anyone. Was it then that she began to change, to give up her old grievance against the dead king. She had made, as Arranha had predicted, a good marshal when she finally quit dramatizing her lost love. He realized his mind had wandered, as it did more often now, and came back to find that Luap was watching him, patiently. Luap went on. “She thinks it will get worse. There are too many of the halfbred children, and sometimes the power sleeps a generation or so, cropping out unexpectedly. Besides, you said not all the adults were guilty, that if they wanted to live under your laws they would be safe.”
“So I did, and so they are.” He hated it when Luap was patient with him, as if he were a doddering old man; it made him grumpy. Luap shook his head. “If they come so far as your courts, they are. Many don’t. There was a man killed in the south, near Kelaive’s old domain—” The regions had not been renamed; Gird decided they needed to do that next. The very name Kelaive wakened old angers. “—a younger son, he could make light with his finger, enough to light a candle. Stoned, Gird, and no one will admit to having anything to do with it. You can lose your temper and stab someone in a rage, or bash his head with one rock, but stoning— that takes time, and many people.”
“What did they say he’d done?” He must have done something, to arouse that kind of anger.
“They don’t say, because no one admits to doing it. Cob’s your high marshal down there; you know he’s sensible.” He had always liked Cob, whose blunt, matter-of-fact approach to life had not changed through war or peace. He still limped, from the foot broken outside Grahlin, but never complained. “What does Cob say?”
Luap pulled out the message and read it aloud. “Tell Gird he must do something, perhaps send the mages away.”
“Away where? Where would
people trust me to send them? Those here don’t want to live in Tsaia, won’t go back to Aarenis— and they say there’s nothing left in Old Aare. Besides, if I send them away, that kind of folk will worry that they’re plotting together. I hear enough of that on the east side now, worrying that Tsaia will invade. It’ll wear itself out, in time; what takes years to grow can’t wither in a moment.”
He went back to the maps, determined to eliminate Kelaive’s name before the day was out. The old names, the folk names, belonged: Burry and Berryhedge (four families lived there now, in the ruins) and Three Springs. Get rid of the lords’ newfangled names; he would agree that some of their family members were innocent, but no need to honor a bad name by putting it on a map. He was uneasily aware that some bartons had indulged in more looting and destruction than he would have approved if he’d been there, but he was sure—he hoped he was sure—that that had been a single overreaction to years of oppression.
Another year went by, and another. He put on weight; his old belt gave way one day in the middle of a court session, to everyone’s delight. Someone ran to bring him a strip of blue leather; he insisted on paying for it (he was, after all, sitting as judge) and wore it thereafter. He still rode out from the city that had been Finyatha and was now Fin Panir, visiting villages and towns, following that old restlessness. He had to admit that Luap was right in one thing; it was taking much longer than he’d expected to reconcile the common folk to the continued presence of surviving mage-lords and their children. It would come, he was sure of it: at some point they would recognize what they lost in this continual picking at the past. Mali had told him that, all those long years ago, when he had held a grudge against Teris: all life soured if you held anger.
He was working by an open window one hot afternoon when he saw the furtive movement of those who know they’re about to do wrong. One, then another, slipped past beneath him, heading around the corner toward whatever lured them on. He was not really curious; it was too hot, and his feet hurt even in slippers. Then he heard children’s shrill voices, and someone yelled “I’ll tell Gird!” in the very tone in which one wrongdoer informs on another. Sighing, he pushed himself away from his desk, put his feet into his largest pair of boots, and was downstairs when the threatened information arrived. “Something” was going on “down the market way” that he wouldn’t like. The marshal, the barefoot child informed him “made no good of it.” Then the child was gone, with a flick of a smile that could mean anything from “I started it” to “I know you’ll fix it.” Both could be true.
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