by Tarr, Judith
In the small solar behind the hall, the Council of Elders sat or stood in a rough circle. Vultures indeed, Vadin thought, hunched in their black robes, surrounding their prey: a thin and ragged figure spattered with mud, its hair a wild tangle. With a small shock Vadin realized that, although it wore armor and bore an empty scabbard at its side, the shape was a woman’s.
She raised her head to the newcomers. A deep wound, half healed, scored her cheek from temple to chin. “More of us?” she muttered hoarsely. “They come in better state than I.”
“Watch your tongue, woman!” snapped the steward of the council.
“Be silent,” Mirain said mildly. He knelt in front of the woman and took her cold hands.
She stared at him, dull-witted with exhaustion. “Give it up, young sir. Whether the king be god or demon, his council is a pack of mumbling fools. There is no help here for the likes of us.”
“Have you despaired, then?” he asked her.
She laughed short and harsh. “You are young. You look highborn. I was both once. A ruling lady, I was, mistress of Asan-Abaidan, that I held in fief to the Lord Yrian. That was before the old king died. We had a new one, they told me, no more than a boy but a legend already: half a god or half a demon, and bred in the south. Well for him, we thought in Abaidan; if he left us alone, what cared we for his name or his pedigree?
“Abaidan is a small fief, but prosperous enough, close to the eastern edge of Lord Yrian’s lands but not so close as to tempt his neighbors, and a hard day’s ride from the Marches. We heard of raiding in the north and west, a common enough thing, no cause for alarm. For comfort more than for safety, we armed our farmfolk and doubled the guard on our castle, but we did not look for undue trouble.
“When last Brightmoon waned, the raiders grew bolder. People began to appear on the roads, fleeing eastward. We took in such of those as asked for sanctuary. Our castle is fortunate; its wells are deep and never run dry, and we had laid in a good store of provisions. We had no need to turn suppliants away.”
She stopped. She no longer saw Mirain, or anything about her. After a time she began again, speaking steadily, her tale worn smooth with much telling. “In the dark of Brightmoon, with Greatmoon three days from the full, a rider brought me my lord’s summons. There was word that the raiding had ended. Many of our guests were glad, and made ready to return to their houses. But my lord Yrian was uneasy. He suspected that this was only a lull. He bade all his vassals gather to him, armed for battle.
“That was in the morning. By evening of the next day we were ready: myself; my son, who would not be left behind; my husband’s old master-at-arms, and as many men as we could muster without leaving Abaidan defenseless.
“The eastward trickle had slowed. Yet as we marched toward the setting sun we met a great mass of folk, all in flight, all too wild with terror to heed us. Even as our lord’s messengers set forth to summon the levies, an army had crossed the border. It was immense: all the tribes of the Marches had come together, laying aside their feuds and their quarrels. The border lords who ventured to resist had been overrun, yet those were terrifyingly few. The rest—all of them—had come to the enemy’s heel.
“Some of my people would have turned back then and run with the tide. I lashed them forward with my tongue, and when that failed, with my scabbarded sword. Now more than ever our lord had need of us. Should we turn craven and betray him?”
Vadin set a cup in her hand. She drank blindly, without thought, tasting none of the honeyed wine. “We marched,” she said. “Even after dark, with Greatmoon like a great swollen eye above us, we marched. I lost nine men out of my thirty. Maybe one or two of them indeed were too weak to keep the pace I set. By midnight five more were gone, lost in the dark, and we were close to the husting field. The roads had emptied. We were alone.
“And yet when we came in sight of the field we raised a shout. It was aglow with the fires of the army, and in its center they had raised our lord’s standard. Surely all of Yrian’s liege men had rallied to their lord.
“The closer we came, the greater grew our joy. For we saw other banners beside that of our lord. Lord Cassin was there, and Prince Kirlian, and more others than I could count. Looking to join a small but valiant company, we had come into a mighty army. Surely, I said to myself, however many the enemy might be, they could not hope to defeat such a force as this.
“Weary though I was, I held my head high. Perhaps even the king would come now and sweep his enemies away.” She bent her head over the cup that lay half forgotten in her hand. “I instructed my sergeant to find a camping place for our men, and taking my son set off at once for my lord’s tent. Late though it was, I knew he would wish to know that I had come. Lord Yrian pays heed to small things.
“As I had expected, he was awake still, and his tent was full to bursting with my fellow vassals. I saw Lord Cassin, and Prince Kirlian in his famous golden armor. And—” Her throat closed. She wrestled it open. “I saw the Prince Moranden.”
The air rang into stillness as after the striking of a great bell. That was the tale that had struck to the heart both market and hall.
The woman tossed back her hair. “I saw the Prince Moranden. He sat as a king, and he wore a king’s crowned helmet, and my lord Yrian bowed low at his feet.
“My eyes went blind. I had come to do battle with the rebel. Now, all too clearly, I was to follow him. Had not all the west already laid itself in his hand?
“I should have effaced myself, collected my men, and slipped away. But I have never been noted for my prudence. ‘My lord,’ I said to the one who held my oath, ‘have we lost another king, then?’
“Even then I might have escaped. I was close still to the opening of the tent. But my son had gone to greet a friend, a very young lord whose father, as fondly foolish as I, had brought him to the war. Close by them was an old enemy of mine. As soon as he heard my words, he seized my son and held him, and thus held me.
“Lord Yrian had turned when I spoke. Strange, I thought, he did not look like a traitor. ‘Ah, Lady Alidan!’ he called. ‘You come in a good hour. Behold, the king himself is here to lead us.’
“It struck my heart to hear my words so twisted against me, little though he knew it who did it. ‘I had heard that the king was a youth and a stranger,’ I said. ‘Is he dead? Have we a new lord?’
“‘This is your only true king,’ said my lord Yrian as reverently as if he had never sworn his oath to the boy in Han-Ianon.
“I looked at the one he bowed to. I knew the prince; we all did. I had even sighed after him once, when I was a new widow and he stood beside Yrian to hear my oath of fealty. Yet now he was exiled by a king whose justice had been famous, and he rebelled against the king’s chosen successor; and there was that in his eyes which I did not like, even though he smiled at me. ‘The true king,’ I said, to feel it on my tongue. ‘Maybe. I have not seen the other. Nor has he raised war against his own people.’
“‘Not war,’ he said, still smiling. Oh, he was a handsome man, and well he knew it. ‘The claiming of my right. You are beautiful, Lady Alidan. Will you ride beside me to take what is mine?’
“Now, mark you, even at my best, when I was a maid adorned for my bridal, I was never more than passable to look at. And that night I was clad as you see me now, and glowering besides. I was anything but beautiful.
“Thinking on this and looking into his face, I knew that he lied—if in this, then perhaps in everything. ‘I think,’ I said, ‘that I will pass by your offer. Surely there are handsomer women to be found. Women who do not object to treason.’ I did not bow. ‘Good night, Lord Yrian, my lords. I wish you well of what you have chosen.’
“I turned to leave. But my way was barred. Even hemmed in as I was, I tried to draw my sword. And I saw my enemy—may all the gods damn him to deepest hell!—I saw him draw his dagger across my son’s throat.
“My blade was out. I think I made a mark or two before it was wrenched from my hand. A knife sl
ashed my face; even as the blood began to flow, I grappled for the weapon. Perhaps I would have won it, or perhaps I would have died, had not the prince’s bellow driven my assailants back. They were reluctant but obedient, as hounds must always be. ‘Let her go,’ he commanded them. And when they protested, he sneered at them. ‘Do you fear her so much? She is but a woman. What can she do? Disarm her and let her go.’
“My sword of course was gone. They took my dagger from me. They would not let me near my son, nor would they suffer me to find my men or my mount. Alone and afoot, I turned my face eastward.
“I walked. Sometimes I slept. I drew level with the fugitives; I kept to their pace; I passed them. I took shelter where I might, when I must, speaking to no one. My only thought was to find the king.
“Once I found food and a bed in a barn. There was a senel there, old but sturdy. I stole her. She kept me ahead of pursuit and brought me here. At Han-Ianon’s gate I remembered how to speak.
“‘Moranden has crossed the borders,’ I said to the guards. ‘All the west has risen to follow him,’ I cried in the market. ‘Soon he will advance into the east,’ I said in the hall. ‘Arm yourselves and fight, if you love your king!’” She turned her head from side to side, eyes glittering in the ruined face. “And here in the king’s own council I hear naught but weaseling words stained with disbelief. Surely, I am told, my wits have deserted me. There is no army in the west. The lords have not turned against their king. I am deluded; I am lying; I am most presumptuous, and a scandal besides: a woman dressed as a man, riding a stolen senel with no more harness than a bit of rope. Only let me go and cease my ravings, that are not fit for royal ears to hear.”
“Are they not?” asked Mirain softly. The elders, opening their mouths to protest this outrage, choked on their words.
Her hands gripped his arm. “Maybe,” she said with sudden fierce hope, “maybe they will listen to you. You are a man; you look sane. Make them listen, or all Ianon is lost!”
“I have no need to compel them.” He met her eyes. “I am the king.” For a long moment her hands held. She had hardly seen him yet, had seen only her grief and wrath and her terrible urgency. She strained to focus her weary eyes, to make him real, not only her listener and her source of strength, but the king for whom she had lost all she possessed. “I sought you. I sought you all across your kingdom. To see . . . if . . .” Her voice died.
“To see if I was worth the life of your son.”
Her eyes closed in pain. Exhaustion held them so; she forced them to open. To her own dismay she began to laugh. Grimly she mastered herself. “Your majesty. I should have known.” She would have knelt at his feet; he held her to her chair. His strength surprised her. “My lord—”
“You are my guest; you owe me no homage. Come. You need food, and healing, and sleep.”
She braced her will against him. “I cannot. Until I know—Do you believe me?”
“I have called up my levies. When Brightmoon is full, we go to war.”
The elders gasped. Neither Mirain nor Alidan heeded them. She clasped his hands and kissed them one by one, and slowly, very slowly, let her body give way to its weariness. “You are my king,” she said, or thought, or wished to think.
Her last memory was of Mirain’s face, and his hand warm almost to burning on her torn cheek.
TWENTY
Even before the full of Brightmoon, the levies of Ianon began to fill the castle and the town.
“Three thousands,” Mirain reckoned them, standing at his grandfather’s old post on the battlements. Brightmoon hung above the eastern mountains, its orb as yet two days from the full. There was a tang of frost in the air, harbinger of the long northern winter. He shivered slightly and drew his mantle about him.
Ymin sat on the parapet, shaping an odd winding melody on her harp. Beyond her Vadin paced, restless with waiting. “Three thousands,” he said, echoing the king. “A fine brave number to look at. But there should have been twice as many.”
“Rumor gives Moranden more still,” said Mirain, “and has him marching slowly eastward, pillaging and burning as he advances. I can’t ask any lord to leave his lands unprotected.”
Vadin laughed sharp and hard. “Can’t you? They’re holding back. Moranden they know; not everyone loves him, but he’s famous for his strength. You may be the rightful king, but you’re untried, and you weren’t born here. This way, if you win, every petty baron can say he helped you; if you lose he can declare that you forced him, and point to all the men he kept home, and use them for a threat if anyone argues.”
“I will force no one to follow me.”
“When you use that tone,” murmured Ymin, “I know you long to be contradicted.”
Mirain laughed, but his words were somber. “I will not lead unwilling men to this battle. Better three thousand who are loyal than twenty who will turn against me at a word.”
“You’re a dreamer,” growled Vadin.
“Surely. But I’m a mage; I dream true.”
“A king can’t rule a country full of friends.”
“He can try. He can even be truly outrageous and dream of ruling a world of them.”
“Can any man do that?” Ymin asked, soft beneath the ripple of harpsong.
Mirain’s face was lost in shadow, but the moon caught the glitter of his eyes. “When I was begotten, my father laid a foretelling upon me. When I had won the throne ordained for me, I would come to a parting of my fate. Either I would die in early manhood and pass my throne to my slayer and be forgotten, or I would triumph over him and hold all the world in my hand.”
“You are doing what you can to choose the first.”
“I am doing what I can to be true to both my people and myself.”
“Mostly the latter.” She shrugged. “You are the king. You do as you will. The rest of us must live with it, or die trying.”
“You sound like my council. They’re horrified not simply that I should contemplate riding to war, but that I’ve called up my forces without consulting them. To silence them I had to invoke my kingship. Now they’re convinced that I’m a tyrant in the making, and quite mad.”
“I would not call you a tyrant. Nor would I call you mad. Not precisely.”
“My thanks,” he said dryly.
A fourth figure joined them. The moon limned the long pale scar on one cheek.
“Alidan,” said Mirain.
She bowed to him and moved toward the parapet, letting her cloak blow free about her. Given to choose, she had put on a woman’s gown but belted it with sword and dagger.
Both lords and commons looked askance at her; she had yet to acknowledge their existence, or indeed that of any but the three who stood with her now. “Look,” she said, “Greatmoon is rising.”
The Towers of the Dawn shimmered blue-pale as if through clear water; above them curved the great arc of the moon, a bow of ghostly blue, dimming the stars about it. At the full it was glorious; so close to its death it seemed a huge cancerous eye, glaring westward over the Vale of Ianon.
Alidan turned her back on it and her face to the wind. Mirain was close beside her. Without her willing it, her hand went to her cheek. “They say,” she said slowly, “they say, my lord, that you have powers. A power. That you know all that is hidden. That you can bring down fire from heaven. Why do you not simply blast all your enemies now and have done?”
A gleam drew her eyes downward. Greatmoon shone in his palm, the Sun turned to blue-white fire. Darkness covered it: his fingers, closing into a fist.
His voice came soft out of the night. Soft and strange, as if he were not truly there at all, but spoke from a great and dreaming distance. “What power I have, I have from my father, through his gift. Knowing and making and healing; ruling, perhaps. The fire is his own.”
She hardly heard him. “If you smote them now, you would preserve your kingdom and the lives of your people. Ianon would be free again.”
“Ianon would not be free. Ten thousand men w
ould be dead, and I would still have lost.”
Alidan strained to see his face. For all her efforts she gained only a blur of darker darkness, a suggestion of his profile. “It is a waste, all this war. You need not even destroy the enemy’s army, only the leaders. Surely you would shed more blood than that if you rode into battle against them.”
“I cannot use my power for destruction.”
“Cannot or will not?”
For a long while he was silent. Surely he remembered Umijan, and a man who had died, lured into the blade that had been meant for himself. At last he said, “It is an ancient war, this between my father and his sister. His victory is life. Hers is destruction. Were I to use his gifts to sweep away all my enemies, I would but serve his great enemy.”
“Death by fire, death by the sword: what difference is there? It is all death.”
“No,” Mirain said. “Against the fire nothing mortal can stand. And I am half mortal. I would vanquish my enemies, but I myself would fall, crumbling into ash, and my soul would belong to the goddess.” His voice turned wry, though still oddly remote. “So you see, beyond all the rest I think of my own safety. It’s my father’s law. For the works of light I may do whatever my will and my strength allow. But if I turn to the dark, I myself will be destroyed.”
“And if that befalls—”
“If that befalls, the Sunborn will be no more, and the goddess will have won this battle in the long war. For I am not only the god’s son whom he has made a king. I am also his weapon. The Sword of Avaryan, forged against the Dark.”
She shivered. Quiet though his voice was, the voice of a young man, a boy scarcely older than the son she had lost, its very quiet was terrible.
Her hand found his arm. Under the mantle it was rigid. “My lord. My poor king.”
“Poor?” It came from the depths of his throat, yet it comforted her. For the growl in it was wholly human, drawn back entirely from whatever cold distances had held him. “Poor, say you? Dare you pity me?”
