Hall of the Mountain King

by Tarr, Judith

  This was a mounted company, drab in the rain. There were four of them. No banner floated over them; whatever badges they bore lay hidden under dark cloaks. Their mounts moved swiftly enough, but the beasts’ necks were low with weariness.

  The foremost was glistening black in the rain, and it alone seemed to run easily. It wore no bridle.

  The king had already reached the stair to the gate.

  The riders clattered under the carven arch. One by one, wearily, they dismounted to give reverence to the king.

  He ignored them. Mirain was slowest to leave his senel’s back, yet he seemed less worn than the rest. He even smiled a little as he came to his grandfather’s embrace, standing back when the king would let him and saying, “Why, you are as wet as I! Grandfather, have you been waiting for me?”

  “Yes.” The king held him at arm’s length. “Where is Moranden?”

  Mirain’s face did not change. “Behind me. He had matters to settle.”

  “Such as the war?”

  “The war is over.” Mirain shivered and sneezed. “Grandfather, by your leave, may I dismiss my escort?”

  If the king recognized the evasion, he saw the truth in it. “You also. I shall speak with you when you are dry and rested.”

  oOo

  There was a fire on the hearth in the king’s chamber and spiced wine warming over it, and in front of it the king, with Ymin on the stool beside him.

  Mirain sat by them without a word, accepting the cup the singer handed him. He had bathed; his hair was clean and loose and beginning to dry, and he had on a long soft robe. His face in firelight was still, almost a mask, his mouth set in a grimmer line than perhaps he knew of.

  The king stirred. “Tell me,” he said simply.

  For a long moment Mirain was silent, staring down at his untouched wine. At length he said, “The war is over. Not that it was much of one, in the end. It was all a trick. Ustaren of Umijan played a large part in it. He is dead. I am here. Moranden will follow when he has settled his fief.”

  Again there was a silence. When Mirain showed no sign of continuing, the king said, “You left him early and all but alone. Why?”

  “There was nothing for me to do.”

  “You could have remained to rule in my name. You are my heir, and will be king.”

  “Moranden is Lord of the Western Marches.”

  The king regarded him long and deeply. “Perhaps,” he said, “you fled.”

  Mirain flung up his head. “Are you accusing me of cowardice?”

  “I am saying what others will say. Are you prepared to defend yourself?”

  “In that part of Ianon,” Mirain said, “my parentage is not a thing to boast of. Lacking a war to fight in, I judged it best to return here.”

  “How did Ustaren die?”

  If the question had been meant to take Mirain off guard, it failed. “He fell at the hands of one of his kin, a priestess of the goddess. She was quite mad. She was aiming,” he added, “at me.”

  The king’s face drew taut. “No one moved to defend you?”

  “My uncle tried, as did my squire. They were prevented. Ustaren died. I did not.”

  “And you left.”

  “Before any others could die for me. It is not time yet to teach the Marches the error of their religion.”

  The king bowed his head as if suddenly it had grown too heavy to lift. In his eyes was a horror, a vision of Mirain dead with a black dagger in his heart.

  Mirain knelt in front of him and laid his hands on the gnarled knees. “Grandfather,” he said with an undertone of urgency, “I am safe. See; I am here, and alive, and unhurt. I will not die and leave you alone. By my father’s hand I swear it.”

  “Your father’s hand.” The king lifted Mirain’s own, touching with a fingertip the sun of gold. Briefly, painfully, he smiled. “Go to bed, child. You look to be in need of it.”

  Mirain hesitated, then rose and kissed his brow. “Good night, Grandfather.”

  “Good night,” the king said, almost too softly to be heard.

  oOo

  Ymin eased the door shut behind her. The chamber was dim, the nightlamp burning with its shaded flame, flickering in a waft of air.

  The lad from Imehen surged up in his niche, eyes glittering, his body a shadow of alarm. She sang a Word; he subsided slowly.

  Mirain was in bed but not asleep. He did not move as Ymin came to stand beside him. Nor did he glance at her, although he brought one arm up, bending it, pillowing his head on it.

  He was not wearing his torque. He looked odd without it, younger, strangely defenseless.

  That, she knew, was an illusion. Even at his lowest ebb, Mirain never lacked for defenses. He had only to raise his hand.

  He spoke softly, coolly, without greeting. “You have great skill with the Voice.”

  “If I did not, I would not be the king’s singer.”

  He turned his eyes upon her then. Perhaps he was amused. Certainly he was holding something at bay. “I cannot be so enchanted. Even,” he said, “when I yearn to be.”

  She sat on the bed beside him. “Have you proved that?”

  “My initiation into the priesthood was . . . hampered. One of the priests was young and strong and impatient. He tried force.” Mirain paused for a heartbeat. The thing in his eyes, the surging darkness, the sudden light, came almost near enough to name. “He lived. He healed, after a fashion.”

  “You won your torque.”

  “Avaryan’s priests would not refuse it to Avaryan’s son. Even though he could not submit that last fraction of his will. Even though he had come within a breath of murder. Even though he could not master the power that was a deadly danger to them all.”

  “Perhaps,” she said, “the power has its own laws, and your soul knows them but your mind does not. The rite of the torque was made for simple mortal folk, to teach them submission, to wake them to the might of the god. As his son you have need of neither.”

  “I have more need than any.” He was quiet still, but she was beginning to understand. The darkness was wrath, and grief, and hatred of himself. The light was Sun-fire crying to be set free.

  “Tell me,” she bade him gently, yet with a tang of iron. “Tell me what you are hiding from the king.”

  His eyes hooded. “What is there to hide?”

  Suddenly she had no patience at all. “Must we play at truth-and- falsehood like a pair of children? The king suffers it; he longs to spare you pain. I have no such scruples. You left Umijan because Moranden tried to kill you. Did you not?”

  “Not Moranden. Ustaren, through a kinswoman of his, a priestess of the Dark One. Moranden gave me what aid he could.”

  “It was not enough.”

  “It was more than he needed to give.”

  “And that galls you.”

  Abruptly he rolled onto his face. The coverlet slipped; he made no effort to regain it.

  She looked with pleasure at his smooth-skinned compact body; saw the healing scars and knew them for what they were; yielded to temptation, running a light hand down his back.

  He shivered under it, but his voice was clear and unshaken. “It gladdens me. Moranden may have meant betrayal; he may have meant to challenge me. But in extremity he came to my aid. He may yet become my ally.”

  “Why then did you abandon him? Why did you not remain to press your advantage? Now he is in the Marches among his own people; he will forget alliance and remember only enmity, until he raises the folk against you. Why did you set him free to betray you?”

  He moved all at once with blurring speed, half rising, seizing her hand in a grip she could not break.

  She met his wide dark stare. His nostrils flared; his lips drew back. “I did not set him free. I had no say in the matter. For I was threatened, and the power came, and it did as it chose. It lured Ustaren to his death. It laid the priestess low. It flung the Marches in Moranden’s face and drove me back to this my kennel, where I may be safe and warm and protected from
all harm.”

  As suddenly as he had seized her he let her go, drawing into a knot of rage and misery. “The power did all these things, and now it sleeps. And I wake to face what I have done. Murder, madness, cowardice—”

  “Wisdom.”

  She had silenced him.

  “Yes, wisdom. I spoke ill before; I did not think. You were best away once your power had revealed itself, and Moranden will not turn against you yet. Not he. He will challenge you in the open before all Ianon. So much your power knew when it sent you back to us.”

  “My power did more than defend me. It killed. And I—I exulted. I gave blood to the goddess, and the god flamed in me, and it was sweeter than wine, sweeter than honey, sweeter even than desire.” His voice broke on the last word; he coiled tighter, rocking, face hidden in his heavy hair. “I wonder, singer. Are these vows of mine a dire mistake? Perhaps if—I—” He laughed with a catch in it. “Maybe it’s all perfectly simple. I only need do what any man does when the need is on him, and the power will see how sweet it is and forget the delights of slaughter.”

  Her foolish brain wondered if he had had more wine than was good for him. But her nose caught no scent but his own faint, distinct, male musk; and her eyes saw that his own were clear, if troubled; and her heart knew that he was only being himself. Begotten of a god, branded with it, laden with a destiny and compelled to pursue it, yet he was also a man, a very young one, a boy half grown given powers and burdens that would stagger a man in full prime.

  She felt him in her mind, drawn into it, walking the paths of her thoughts. His face was set hard against pity.

  She felt none, which shocked him into himself. She watched him begin to be angry, realize how ridiculous it was, try to swallow mirth.

  He looked his proper age then. Before he could laugh she silenced him, laying her hand on his lips. They were very warm.

  She drew back carefully.

  His eyes were his own again. Grief and guilt would linger, anger would return, but the great storm had passed. Now he was regarding her, and for a Sun-priest raised in Han-Gilen he was astoundingly free of shame; he did not try to hide his body’s tribute.

  “You had better go,” he said steadily, with only the faintest hint of breathlessness.

  Ymin did not move. “Would you like me to sing you to sleep?”

  He stiffened, stung. “Do I seem so very much a child?”

  “You seem very much a man. Who has sworn oaths that only death or a throne may break; who has done deeds to sing of, and suffered for them, and begun to find peace. You are the king who will be, and I am the king’s singer. Shall I sing for you?”

  The moment was gone, the danger faded. He lay on his side and drew up the coverlet, not quickly, not as if he would hide anything, but with a certain finality.

  Then he smiled with all the sweetness in the world, and she could have killed him, for now that he had mastered himself he had robbed her of all her lofty detachment. And he did not even know what he had done. “Sing for me,” he said, simple as a child.

  She drew a long breath and obeyed.

  TWELVE

  When Vadin woke from a dream of songs and magic, he could have sung himself. Mirain was up and bathing and trying not to growl at the servants, and when Vadin came into the bathing-room he greeted his squire with a mixture of glare and grin that was almost painful, so long had he been locked away with his wrath and his god.

  “Come in here,” he said, “and give these busybodies an excuse to flutter about elsewhere.”

  They were not even insulted, let alone deterred. They were bursting with joy to have their wild young lord back again; to have him waging his daily battle with them, which always had the same ending. He bathed and dressed and fed himself, but they drew his water and set the cleansing foam where he could reach it, held the towels for him, laid out his clothing and served him at table. In Vadin’s mind, they won the war by a hair.

  As usual, Mirain shared bath and breakfast with Vadin. As usual, Vadin protested to the last.

  It was all perfectly as usual. After days in the saddle and nights in a tent and never a word except for the most dire necessity, it was an honest miracle.

  And yet, when the old fey look came back, Vadin was not surprised. It was less staring-mad than it had been, and it did not last long. Only long enough for Mirain to look Vadin up and down, purse his lips, and say, “Put on your earrings. All of them. And the copper collar, I think. And your armlets, and the belt you keep for festivals.”

  Vadin’s brows went up. “Where am I going? Whoring?”

  A smile touched the comer of Mirain’s mouth. “In a manner of speaking. I want you to look like the lord you are.”

  “Then I’d better take off your livery, my lord.”

  “No.” The refusal was absolute. “Jayan, Ashirai, I give this victim to you. He is my squire. He is also the heir of Geitan. Make him the epitome of both.”

  The young servant and the old one, free Asanian and captive easterner, fell upon him with undisguised pleasure. He suffered it somewhat more graciously than Mirain ever did, which he took time to be proud of. It crowded out anxiety. Mirain’s expression boded ill for someone, he dared not think whom.

  The servants took Vadin’s hair out of its squire’s braids, combed it, braided it anew as befit the heir of a lord. They trimmed the ragged edges of his beard and plaited it with copper, and arranged his livery to perfection, and decked him as Mirain had commanded. They even did what he never troubled to do except for the very highest festivals: painted the sigil of his house between his brows, the red lion crouched to spring upon a crescent moon. And at the last they set him in front of the tall mirror, and a stranger stared back at him. Rather a handsome young fellow if truth be told, and lordly enough in his finery.

  Royalty came to stand beside him, and it did not diminish him. It made him look more than ever the Ianyn nobleman; never Mirain’s equal, but lofty enough in his own right. He could hold his head the higher for knowing that there was one to whom he would gladly bow it.

  Mirain’s reflection grinned at his own. “You, my friend, are frankly beautiful. Beautiful enough to call on a lady.”

  Vadin turned to face his prince. The anxiety was gathering into a knot in his middle. Mirain was a sworn priest; he could not send a go-between to one he fancied as a bride. Still less could he contemplate an alliance of plain pleasure. Which left—

  “I have a gift,” Mirain said, “for a great lady. I cannot, of course, insult her by presenting it with my own hands. Nor can I demean her by sending a servant. Will you bear it for me?”

  Vadin’s eyes narrowed. The request was so simple, so devoid of compulsion, that it was ominous. “Who is this lady? Or shouldn’t I ask?”

  “You should,” Mirain said willingly. “It is the Lady Odiya. Will you go to her, Vadin?”

  Dread mounted. Outrage drove it back. “Damn it, you don’t have to play the courtesan with me! Why not give me my orders and have done with it?”

  Mirain’s head tilted. “I don’t want to command you. Will you go of your own will?”

  “Didn’t I just tell you I would?” Now Mirain was laughing, and that was maddening, but it was better than anything that had come before. “You want—whatever it is—given from my hand to hers?”

  “Yes.” Mirain set it in his hand: a small box much longer than it was wide, carved of some fragrant southern wood and inlaid with gold. “You are to entrust it to no one else, and see that no one hinders you.”

  That would not be easy, if the rumors were true. Vadin traced a curve of the inlay. “Do I linger for a response?”

  “See that she opens the box. Say that I am returning what belongs to her.” Mirain’s teeth bared. It was not a smile. “You’ll be in no danger. I assure you of that.”

  Vadin could think of any number of replies. None of them was wise with Mirain in this mood. He chose silence and a very low bow and a swift departure.

  oOo

  Imeheni
women were raised to be modest, but they were not cloistered, and they certainly were not guarded by eunuchs. That was an affectation for barbarians and for Marchers.

  Vadin, face to face with Odiya’s unmanned guard, found himself briefly bereft of words. The creature was as tall as himself and even more elongated, and his face was too smooth and his hair was too rich and his eyes were too deadly flat. They took in the young lord in his festival clothes and his vaunting maleness, and gave nothing back.

  Vadin drove his voice at that mask of a face. “I come in the name of the throne prince. I would speak with the Lady Odiya. Let me pass.”

  The eyes shifted minutely. Vadin gathered himself for a second assault. The guard raised his lowered spear and stepped aside.

  Vadin’s spine crawled. He was admitted. So easily. As if he were expected.

  This was an alien world, this eunuch-warded fastness, full of strange scents, a-murmur with high voices. Not only Odiya dwelt here. Others of the king’s ladies held each a room or a suite or a whole court, and most of those were free to come and go; Vadin had seen them sometimes in hall or about the castle, elderly ladies as a rule, mingling with kindred and courtiers.

  There were nine of them altogether, highborn and low, beautiful and not, chosen by custom and by the king’s favor, that in his union with them he should make the kingdom strong. But the tenth was First Lady of the Palace. However exalted the others might be, however noble their lineage and their titles, it was she who ruled here, and she ruled absolutely.

  Vadin, let into her domain, might have wandered for a long while without guidance. But he was a hunter, and hunters learned wisdom: to stop when lost, and to wait. In a little while one came, another eunuch, very old and withered, with eyes as bright as the other’s had been dull. “Come,” he said, and his voice was almost deep enough to be a man’s.

  Vadin went. He felt as if he were caught in a dream, and yet he was intensely alert, aware of every flicker of sound or movement. The box, light in his hand, held the weight of worlds.

  People passed him, coming and going. Servants, a lady or two, once a pretty page who stopped to stare.