The River King's Road

by Merciel, Liane

  The girl nodded. Her head stayed bowed, and her shoulders hunched in; she looked like a servant cringing before a clout. Her arms drew the baby closer to her chest, shielding it within the curl of her body. Leferic realized, with a twinge of uneasy surprise, that the girl was crying. The sobs were nearly silent, but the ragged catch in her breathing gave them away all the same.

  He hadn’t expected her to become so emotional over a stranger’s child. Neither had he expected his thoughts to be so clear to her. If she already knew what he meant to do, then neither she nor Wistan could live. Regrettable, but unavoidable.

  Leferic’s voice softened, almost without his willing it, as he asked the final, fatal question. “And you saved that child, didn’t you? You brought Wistan here.”

  The girl shook her head mutely. She brought her face up, red and shiny with tears, and in her wide brown eyes there was nothing but anguished shame. “No.”

  He couldn’t have heard her correctly. “What?”

  Laughter was his answer. It was a bleak, awful sound, the laughter of a criminal reprieved from the gallows only to be sent to the Thorns. It did not come from the girl.

  Brys Tarnell was awake. And laughing. The mercenary sat up against his pillow, his face pale as death but his green eyes burning bright. At last his black mirth trailed off and he gave Leferic a wolfish grin, little more than a baring of teeth. “She isn’t lying. Though she should be, if she had half the sense the gods gave turnips.”

  Leferic shook his head. “I don’t understand.”

  “I’m sorry.” Tears ran freely down the girl’s cheeks, dripping from her chin and vanishing into her blouse. The baby whimpered toward wakefulness as her tears spattered onto his blankets. “I tried—I tried so hard,” she whispered. “But he died. It’s my fault, I should have done more. I’m so sorry.”

  “But you’re holding him,” Leferic said blankly.

  “No. We were going to—I would have told you this was Wistan, and let you raise him for your own, but I can’t lie to you, my lord. I’m sorry. I can’t. This is my son. Aubry.” She wiped at her eyes, keeping her gaze averted from Brys’. Leferic gave her a bandage from a basket on the shelf and she blew her nose into it loudly. It seemed to calm her a little, and she managed a weak smile. “Thank you.”

  He brushed off her thanks with a wave. “Begin again. What happened to Wistan?”

  The girl twisted the sodden bandage around her fingers, dabbing alternately at her eyes and nose. “He was—I think he was hurt in Willowfield, I don’t know how, but he was weak from the first time I saw him. We went to Tarne Crossing, hoping to find the Blessed, but she was gone. I would have waited for her to come back, truly, but …”

  “But what?”

  “But he was so weak, and … and there was a dead man.” Her eyes darted up to meet his and away again; she made an uneasy try at a laugh that came out as a sob. “I know how ridiculous that sounds. I do. But it’s true.”

  “It is true,” Brys said flatly. “The same Thorn who killed Willowfield used one of the men murdered there as her puppet. Caedric Alsarring. You might remember him: he served your father and your brother. She turned him into a monster and sent him to hunt Wistan.”

  “I believe you,” Leferic said. The mercenary’s expression did not change in the slightest, but those three simple words seemed to relax the girl more than anything else Leferic had done or said. She gave him a grateful glance and went on, wringing the scrap of cloth unconsciously as she spoke.

  “We had to leave Tarne Crossing so she wouldn’t find him. We went with the Vis Sestani. I tried to find a healer among them, but … I couldn’t, my lord, and he died. I left him in the snow with a candle. I know it wasn’t right, but we didn’t have time for a proper pyre. I’m sorry, my lord. I hope it was enough for his soul to find its way home.”

  “Then who is the child you carry? Tell me again.”

  “Aubry. He’s my own.” She said it fiercely, twisting the bandage until her fingers went white in the knotted linen. “His father died in Willowfield. I’m all he has, and he’s all I have.”

  “But you were going to pass him off as Wistan? Is that it?”

  “More money in it.” Brys made the admission bluntly, without shame. “Yes. I was going to say he was your brother’s child and hope for some reward. It was my idea, so if you’re going to get angry about it, get angry with me, not her.”

  “No,” the girl protested, “no, that’s not true. I mean, it is … but I agreed to it. I thought—I thought it could be a chance for my son to become someone important. If everyone thought he was Wistan. That’s why I agreed. But I can’t do it. I can’t lie, my lord. I’m sorry we ever had the idea. You saved us and brought us here and had the Blessed heal us, and I was going to lie to you. I’m sorry.”

  “You needn’t be sorry for that.” Leferic said the words absently, not really hearing them, for the implications of their plot had finally sunk in and they left him thunderstruck.

  His first reaction had, indeed, been anger—but that was foolish. Wasteful. Why should he be angry that they’d considered deceiving him? They hadn’t done it. By confessing the deception and throwing themselves on his mercy, they’d presented him with a gods-sent gift.

  Adopting “Wistan” was the perfect solution. The simplicity of the idea was staggering. Leferic cursed his own stupidity in failing to think of it earlier. He’d never considered that Wistan could or should survive, but adopting his brother’s son as his heir would solve so many problems. In one fell swoop he could legitimize his own rule, remove a rallying figure from any would-be rebels, and bind Galefrid’s loyalists more tightly to his own side. News of “Wistan’s” survival might even pry loose from Maritya’s parents the money that Bulls’ March so desperately needed.

  And if the child should ever become a threat, why, then he could drag out the girl and put her before a Blessed to confess the truth of how she had deceived him by substituting her own son for the realm’s true heir.

  Leferic turned the idea over in his mind and could see no flaws. Certainly none that compared with the pitfalls of his current predicament. Both the child’s parents were dead, so there would be no one to say whether the boy looked like them. The peasant girl had roughly Maritya’s coloring, if none of her delicate grace. The resemblance might be close enough to pass.

  Oh, perhaps someday the boy might come to believe that he was ready to rule in his own name, but it would be fifteen years or more before he reached his majority. By then Leferic expected to have Bulls’ March firmly in his grasp. If he couldn’t hold Wistan off by that time, he didn’t deserve to rule at all. Besides, the boy might grow up to be a fair ruler in his own right, someday. Especially if he had a wise regent to teach him from the cradle …

  Leferic realized the girl was crying again. He touched her shoulder lightly and gave her a smile that he hoped was kind. “Is there any reason, outside your own honesty, that you would not want your son raised this way?”

  “No, my lord.” Her voice was hoarse from all that sobbing, but that could not hide the heartfelt honesty in her words. “I’d give anything for Aubry to have a chance at greatness.”

  “Then he will.”

  “My lord?” She blinked at him in confusion, her lashes wet and eyes puffy with tears.

  “I am going to leave you to your rest. I will forget everything we discussed tonight.”

  “But … then …”

  “Then I will come back in the morning with Blessed Andalya and you will tell me that you and Brys Tarnell rescued Wistan from the massacre of Willowfield and I will believe you. And I will make your son my heir. Do you understand? I accept the lie. I am giving you your chance. Will you take it?”

  Her jaw worked as she struggled with the idea; Leferic marveled at the peasant girl’s unworldliness. But in the end she nodded, gazing at the child in her arms. “In the morning I’ll … I’ll tell you that he’s Wistan. But, my lord … can I stay near him, even when he is?”


  “Of course,” Leferic said, with all the graciousness of a man handing a cup of sweetly poisoned wine to his rival. He needed her near, in the event that he ever needed to unmask “Wistan” as a fraud. “The child has no mother. He’ll need a nursemaid to raise him. I assume you are willing to serve in the castle?”

  “Yes. Oh, yes—”

  “I’m not,” Brys interrupted.

  “No. Nor would I ask you to.” Leferic weighed the man. He needed the girl so that he’d have someone to blame if the secret ever came out, but he only needed one scapegoat and Brys Tarnell was unlikely to be a safe choice for that role. Moreover, while he was fairly certain he could keep the girl muzzled—exposing the truth would expose her son, and a mother as softhearted as this one would never do that—he had no such control over the sellsword. Better if he was gone. Better still if he were dead, but Leferic had had enough of killing for a while.

  Maybe that made him weak … but he didn’t think so. The coward and the tyrant call the headsman at any provocation, and fall to him the same, Inaglione had written. Those who were too quick to execute their enemies always seemed to find more of them, somehow, closer and closer to home. A wise ruler used that solution sparingly, and only where it was needed.

  It wasn’t needed here. Leferic was sure of that. If Brys tried to threaten him with revelations of Wistan’s true identity, he’d name the man as a blackmailing fraud and have him whipped out of the castle. The sellsword had neither friends nor allies, and no credibility in court; he didn’t pose any serious threat. Even so, it would be safest for them both if he was gone. Brys was probably intelligent enough to realize that himself. The lord of Bulls’ March could always change his mind, after all, and a man alone died easily.

  “I think,” Leferic said carefully, “that it would be best if you were honored for your service to Bulls’ March and rewarded for your loyalty to my brother. And if, following that, you found that grief made it impossible for you to continue your service here. I’m sure your skills are in great demand outside the Sunfallen Kingdoms.”

  “Cailan,” Brys suggested. “Was thinking of going there anyway once this was done.”

  “That would do splendidly,” Leferic agreed. He turned back to the girl. “I will see you in the morning. Have your story well rehearsed. And when we are properly introduced, perhaps you might begin by giving me your name.” He made a last bow in parting and left her in the sickroom, her eyes shining with something more than tears.

  Outside the night was well past freezing but Leferic hardly noticed. Excitement wrapped him in a warmth that no wind could pierce. He crossed the courtyard without feeling the cobbles under his thin-soled boots or smelling the manure from the stables nearby. Only the faraway gleam of the stars and a thin fringe of torches lit his way across the icy stones, but he had never felt so sure-footed in his life. He gave thanks to Celestia for her mercy, to the peasant girl for her naive honesty, and to Albric’s shade for his courage.

  Then he went up to his library to place his stakes upon this gamble.

  For the rest of the night Leferic wrote letters until his ink-stained fingers cramped around the quill and the words blurred together and stung his eyes. He wrote to King Raharic, acknowledging the herald’s arrival and announcing his own intentions to abide by Langmyr’s suggested peace, now that his liegeman’s treachery had been uncovered and the baby Wistan delivered safely by one of his brother’s surviving knights. He wrote the same message to the lords of Breakwall and Blackbough and all the other castles of Oakharn, both on the border and deep in the heartlands.

  Lastly, and most carefully, he wrote to Maritya’s parents in Seawatch. To Reinbern and Alta de Marst, whose names were a byword for wealth in a realm where merchants made princes look like paupers, Leferic sent polite expressions of grief, then piety, then joy: for, he told them, through the infinite beneficence of the Bright Lady, their grandson had been saved. He invited them to visit for Wistan’s first birthday, and promised at that celebration to formally declare the child his heir.

  By the time he sealed the last letter and set it aside for the morning’s messengers, it was near dawn. Blue shadows crept along the windows’ ledges; the sky was paling through their thick glass. Leferic rubbed his grainy eyes and stretched to ease the ache in his back. He hadn’t seen a sunrise since Galefrid’s funeral vigil.

  Standing before the largest and clearest of his library’s windows, Leferic watched the night-tide recede. Dawn came slowly, for the sun was hazy behind a veil of clouds that drew its light off into long ribbons of amethyst and gray and pearling gold. The sky brightened from black to a deep luminous blue that put sapphires to shame. No longer dark, not fully light, the cloudy radiance of the early morning promised a gentle day ahead.

  Leferic watched the dawn come to his winter castle, and then he called his messengers to make that promise real.

  EPILOGUE

  The thrushes came back early that year.

  Among the commonfolk this was taken as a good omen. It meant the spring would be mild, the summer long and fruitful; autumn would bring a rich harvest. Around the castle town, people made a game of strolling through the woods and listening for the flutelike, repeating whistles of the thrushes’ song. The last crusts of snow, flecked brown with dirt and pitted by raindrops, still clung to the land, but people talked and laughed as if spring were already blooming on every bough.

  Odosse was glad to join them. She wasn’t familiar with the folklore of thrushes; in Willowfield they’d never treated that bird as a herald of spring. But even if there wasn’t a grain of truth to the legend, she thought this year’s harvest had a better chance than most of overflowing their granaries.

  For this year, unlike any other she could recall, the border was peaceful. The bridges of Tarne Crossing stood wide open; the shallows of Seivern Ford were unblocked. Soldiers on both sides of the river, many from other domains and untouched by the old grievances of Verehart and Bulls’ March and Cleavehill, were under strict orders to keep the peace—and they were obeying.

  It wasn’t perfect, of course. Nothing Celestia’s children did on their mortal earth could be. But there hadn’t been any major clashes since Albric’s confession became known. No lord, Langmyrne or Oakharne, wanted to be the one whose weakness allowed the Thorns’ plots to take root. Fear of the Maimed Witches made allies of old enemies, and from that grudging beginning calmer heads could work toward something more lasting.

  Yes, this spring carried a rare promise. Even Odosse, at the periphery of a border court, could see that. And someday—someday, if all went well—her son, Wistan Auberand Galefring of Bulls’ March, might inherit a more prosperous throne than either his real father or his named one could have imagined.

  She wished Brys could have seen him. The sellsword was gone, though: as soon as he was well enough to walk, he’d taken a purse of silver solis and struck out eastward, searching for something he wouldn’t name. He hadn’t told her what he sought, and she hadn’t asked. They’d been strangers chance met on a road, no more. Now that the road had come to an end, so had their loyalties to one another. She’d expected nothing else.

  Still, Odosse wished her son could have met the man when he was old enough to understand that he owed his life and lands to a mercenary. She wished, too, that Wistan could have learned a little swordcraft at his side.

  No matter. If Celestia willed, their paths might cross again. If not, Cadarn could teach him that, as the new swordmaster of Bulls’ March, or maybe Ulvrar Wolfheart, who had saved his life on the road. There were so many other things Wistan needed to learn, and people he needed to know. His grandparents would visit soon: Reinbern and Alta de Marst had sent word that they would come as soon as they saw their spring ships off to the sea. Leferic said those ships traveled on the same warm winds as the thrushes, so they might arrive any week.

  They would love him. Odosse was confident of that. They would love him as she did.

  “They will. And you’ll learn
your letters and your numbers and you will be a great man,” she whispered to the baby on her back, as she had whispered in the woods a full lifetime ago. He burbled his agreement, and she laughed and spun him around, because now she could make those promises come true. She could.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Many people helped, directly and indirectly, with the making of this book. Without their assistance and guidance, it would have remained a sad, shapeless puddle of virtual words. Here is where I get to say thanks to them! Which is not nearly adequate repayment, but it’s the best I can do in a page.

  I’d like to thank Jennifer Heddle, my editor, for her enthusiasm, skill in shepherding this manuscript to a finished book, and patience with a clueless noob. I also owe great thanks to Marlene Stringer, my agent, for her persistence, unflagging good cheer, and almost terrifying competence in all matters agently. None of this would have been possible without them, and I am deeply grateful.

  I’m indebted to the early readers who were generous enough to read various drafts and offer their comments: Dan Andress, Nathan Andress, Robert Davis, Stacy Hague-Hill, Ian Hardy, Cliff Moore and Dustin Tkachuk. Thanks for helping to dig out the good bits and remove the bad ones. Any remaining flaws and errors are entirely mine.

  Finally, thanks to Zig and Andy Carota for their generosity and support (and for letting us waste entire weekends blowing up geth on the XBox instead of, you know, being productive), and to my parents for putting up with near thirty years’ nerdage (teach a kid to read with dinosaurs and hobbits, and this is what you get).

  And to Peter, of course. But you knew that.