Oath of Fealty

by Elizabeth Moon

  “Nothing to be sorry about. You saved us both,” Juris said. “I couldn’t even move.” He sounded angry; he was usually the leader in their activities, a stronger fighter than Roly.

  “Nor I,” Mikeli said. “Sit down, Roly—” It was easier to be calm, he noted, when he was taking care of someone else; his hands weren’t shaking now.

  “I’ll get blood on the chair,” Rolyan said.

  “No matter,” Mikeli said. “Ah—here’s the sergeant with some clothes.” The man laid a stack of clothes and towels on the scribe’s table.

  “We’ll get this off you,” Juris said. He rolled up his own sleeves; Mikeli followed his lead and in moments they’d removed Rolyan’s dinner capelet, unlaced his doublet, then his shirt, while Juris rolled up the bloody sleeve, then the clean one, and pulled the shirt over his head. With the tail and back of the shirt wetted in the can of water Juris had brought along, they cleaned the blood from him.

  “I can’t wear his—” Rolyan began, as Juris handed him an undershirt.

  Mikeli took his hand. “You can’t walk about the palace half-naked, Roly. We need you. And my uncle Beclan would want you to have them. Now get dressed. It’s going to be a long night.”

  Rolyan managed a shaky parody of his usual grin. “At once, your royalness.”

  That sounded more like the real Roly. Mikeli turned to the sergeant. “We’ll need those plans and things Roly brought. They’re on the floor in there—”

  “At once, my lord.” The sergeant bowed and went back to the inner room. More palace guards arrived, with litters for the bodies, and a servant appeared with a jug of sib and a plate of pastries.

  “My lord Marrakai said to bring this—” he said. Mikeli gestured to the table; the servant set it down.

  “We can’t just eat,” Juris said.

  “If your father meant us to,” the prince said, “we had better. Come now—we were interrupted at dinner. I doubt we’ll see a bed tonight; we need something.”

  Food and sib restored Rolyan’s normal coloring even as a distant clamor rose, nearing as Knights of the Bells gathered in their hall.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Vérella, two days later

  As they came in sight of Vérella, Arcolin saw what he had not seen for years—a Royal Guard blockade on the road. He trotted ahead of the cohort and then halted at the blockade. “What is it?”

  “Who are you?” demanded a man with officer’s knots on his shoulder.

  “Arcolin, Duke Phelan’s captain, with a cohort bound for Aarenis—surely you had word. Our employers preceded us.”

  “They’re all in Phelan’s colors, Captain,” one of the troop said. “It’s got to be him.”

  “Do you have proof of your identity?” the captain asked, a shade less truculent now.

  “I have the Duke’s ring and a letter,” Arcolin said, fishing the ring out of his pocket and handing it over.

  “It’s the Fox’s, all right,” the captain said, handing it back. “I suppose you know about the trouble?”

  “The Duke wrote that he had been proclaimed king of Lyonya,” Arcolin said. “That he was on his way to Lyonya. Is that the trouble?” He did not want to ask about Paks, not from a stranger.

  “Nay. Worse. Treason and rebellion. Two nights agone, Duke Verrakai tried to kill the crown prince—did kill his uncle, Knight-Commander of the Bells, and Marshal Donag, the Marshal-Judicar of Gird. All the Verrakaien are under attainder, but it’s thought many will try to pretend they’re someone else, and they have magery.”

  “Magery?” Arcolin stared. “If you mean the old lords’ magery, that’s all gone—been gone since Gird’s day. It’s all wizard-work now.”

  “So we thought, but it’s not. Anyway, Captain Arcolin, now I know it’s really you and not some Verrakai putting a glamour on me, you’re wanted in the palace. You’re to go there at once. Your cohort can stay in palace barracks, if you like—”

  “We usually march through,” Arcolin said.

  “Aye, but things are different now. You’ll be here at least a day and a night, I daresay. The gate guards will know where your soldiers should go.”

  A night in someone else’s barracks would at least not lighten his purse. Behind him, he heard the marching feet come to a final stamped halt. He turned in the saddle.

  “Change of plans, Sergeant Stammel. I’m wanted in the palace; we’ll be staying in Vérella overnight; the cohort will be housed in royal barracks.”

  “Very good, sir,” Stammel said. He eyed the Royal Guard and asked no questions.

  “There’s been some trouble. We don’t want more.”

  “No, sir.” Stammel would need no more hint than that to keep the cohort—especially the young ones—on a tight leash.

  As they went on from the roadblock toward the city, Arcolin told Stammel what he’d been told. “I suspect there’s a lot more to it, and the city either roiling or too quiet. I don’t know what the prince wants with me; I don’t know if our employers are still here, or have gone on. I will need to contact the Duke’s bankers, and see about finances, too, so we might be here even two nights, if the prince’s conferences last a long time.”

  “Verrakai attacked the prince and killed his uncle? Why? Surely he didn’t hope to take over the kingdom? And why now, just when the Duke’s gone to Lyonya?”

  “My guess would be that Verrakai tried to attack the Duke first. He’d always hated him as baseborn, you know.” Stammel snorted, a very Stammel snort, and Arcolin went on. “If he did that, and attacked the escort of Royal Guard the prince sent with him, then that’s already treason. Then he might think his only chance would be to assassinate the prince and try to hide the facts until—I can’t believe he thought he could pull it off, though. But that Royal Guard captain said he used magery.”

  “He used a Liart priest, I’ll wager,” Stammel said. “Not magery—that’s all been lost for hundreds of years.”

  “That’s what I told him, but he thinks not,” Arcolin said. “He thinks the Verrakaien have it. That’s why they’re all under attainder.”

  “Good thing Dorrin’s with the Duke in Lyonya, then,” Stammel said. “It’ll be hard for her to come back through.”

  Arcolin felt a jolt. He had forgotten that Dorrin was a Verrakai.

  “They wouldn’t include her; she’s not even in the family book,” he said.

  “They know, I would bet on it,” Stammel said. “Proper mess, it sounds like. So—we need to smarten up, before we come into the city?” Under the circumstances, he meant. Before they went into a royal barracks.

  “Good idea,” Arcolin said, and raised his hand. Stammel halted the cohort. He and Devlin and their new corporals went through, checking equipment, sharpening the troops up, and then they started off again. Arcolin took the opportunity to check his own gear, stuffing his winter hat into one saddlebag and the scarf around his throat into the other, putting on his helmet. Stammel came back to the front of the cohort, gave Arcolin a nod, and again they set off, now near enough to see the guard at the first gates.

  The palace guards, more alert than Arcolin had ever seen them, insisted he disarm before he came into the palace itself.

  “One of us will bring your arms, sir,” the taller guard said. “Under the circumstances no one can carry arms save with the prince’s express permission.”

  “That’s quite all right,” Arcolin said, unbelting his sword and dagger. “I have a small boot knife, as well.”

  “That also, if you please.”

  Arcolin removed it, and watched as the guard wrapped them all carefully then put the bundle under his arm.

  “This way, Captain,” the shorter guard said, and led the way; the taller followed with Arcolin’s weapons.

  He had been in the palace many times, carrying messages from the Duke to the Council and even to the crown prince as he grew older and more active in the government. He sensed at once the change in atmosphere, the tension showing in the way servants, guards, and nobl
es moved, the glances cast at him.

  A young man in Marrakai red and green with the shoulder knot of the kirgan stopped him. “Sir—aren’t you one of Phelan’s captains? Is there news of him?”

  “I’m Arcolin, his senior captain, yes—but I’m just in from the north and only now learning what has happened. I’ve had no news from the Duke—the king—since before he left here.”

  The kirgan gave a short nod. “Thank you. I believe my father has met you before. I wondered why you were here—”

  “The prince asked for him,” said Arcolin’s escort. “And we had best be going there, by your leave, Kirgan.”

  “Certainly, certainly.” The kirgan bowed. “I beg your pardon, sir.”

  Arcolin smiled, returned the bow, and went on, following his escort. The Marrakaien had always been Kieri’s particular friends, and Arcolin had seen the young Marrakai before. He’d then appeared to be one of the prince’s friends content to leave Council business to his elders. Now he, too, looked different.

  The crown prince was in his office, with armed guards at the door and inside both. Though it had been almost two years since Arcolin had seen him, Arcolin had not expected to find him looking so much more a king. Arcolin bowed.

  “My lord prince.”

  “Captain Arcolin! I’m glad to see you arrived safely. Did you have any trouble on the road?”

  “No, my lord. But then, I traveled with a full cohort. When I left the Duke’s stronghold, I knew only that he had been proclaimed king of Lyonya.”

  “You know about the assassinations?”

  “Only what your Royal Guard told me.”

  “You will need to know all of it; please sit down.” He looked at the guard carrying Arcolin’s weapons. “Return Captain Arcolin’s weapons to him; I know him personally and he is not a threat.”

  Arcolin sensed the guard’s reluctance and ventured a suggestion. “Perhaps you would prefer that my sword, at least, be in custody?”

  “No, no,” the prince said. “If we had not been armed, we would have died. You are known to me, and I will be happier when I see that sword on your hip.”

  Arcolin belted it back on, rearranged his other weapons, and sat down where the prince indicated.

  “My Council would agree to my coronation being advanced,” the prince said. “But I have chosen to wait until Midsummer, as is traditional. However, I have taken over additional powers in this time of emergency. Let me brief you on what happened.”

  Arcolin listened, horrified but fascinated, as the prince explained everything from Duke Phelan’s arrival at court, having been summoned by the Regency Council, to the present. And all while he, Arcolin, had been up at the stronghold, unaware.

  “Did you, did anyone in his Company, have any idea of his parentage?” the prince asked, finally.

  “No, my lord,” Arcolin said. “I was with him twenty years and more; we all thought him remarkable, but as for this—born to a throne and half-elven—it’s hardly believable.”

  “If I had not seen the sword come alight in his hands, I would not have believed it myself. I cannot—I cannot comprehend the years he was lost, or how he was found, and once found, not recognized.”

  “Nor I, my lord.”

  “Well. You know most of what has happened here. To complete the story, we discovered lairs of Liart’s worshippers in the Thieves’ Guild, and with the help of the city granges, these were exposed. Certain of the Thieves’ Guild have cooperated with the Crown … not all were happy to have overlords of any kind. That appears to be mostly through Paksenarrion’s influence with a thief—or Thieves’ Guild enforcer—she met in Brewersbridge years back.”

  “That would’ve been after she left us,” Arcolin said.

  “Yes. He’s the one who got her out after … well, after what happened.”

  “I don’t understand how she survived.” He wanted to hear that, not what had been done to her.

  For the first time the prince’s face relaxed into a smile. “Nor does anyone else except Gird and the High Lord’s favor. Witnesses say her wounds healed, slowly enough to watch and fast enough that in minutes she was whole again, broken bones mended, bleeding wounds but scars—or in some cases, no scars at all. It terrified those watching; they fled. She had been branded on the brow: she now bears a silver circle, the High Lord’s mark.”

  Arcolin felt hollow … he had known Paks from her first year in the Company, and though he had recognized her basic good character and her fighting ability, he’d never seen that potential in her. How had he missed so much—the Duke’s real nature, Paks’s real nature? What else had he missed?

  “You are an experienced soldier,” the prince said. “And you have known many realms. More than I have, who have visited only within Tsaia. You must recognize how unbalanced Tsaia is now, with two domains vacated … if this were the South, what would you say about it?”

  “A dangerous situation, my lord prince. Your eastern border, from north of the Honnorgat halfway down to the mountains, and your northern border all at risk.”

  “What would you do?”

  Arcolin stared. “My lord—that is for you and your Council to say.”

  “But you know Tsaia—you have lived here how long? And you have studied military history, our history, haven’t you?”

  Arcolin tried to calm himself. “You need strong, loyal lords in both places. Not the same for each—that’s too much, too big, for one to rule well and it would unbalance the realm. Verrakai—I know nothing about its resources, its people, even its terrain, but I would expect it’s more thickly settled, and thus potentially more difficult than the North Marches. Though at least, with Kieri Phelan ruling Lyonya you should have no problems from over the border.”

  “Pargunese soldiers were also in that attack. It’s believed they crossed into either Verrakai’s lands directly or through Lyonya.”

  “Lyonya had a weak king.”

  “A dead king by then, but yes. I’m sure Kieri Phelan won’t let that happen again, though what resources he will have I don’t yet know.”

  “The northeast and north is your most vulnerable,” Arcolin said. “We fought off the orcs this last winter—destroyed their base and the Achryan priest supporting them. They should be little trouble for a while. The Pargunese, though, test the border off and on—we keep constant patrols out for that.”

  “Who’s commanding there?”

  “Cracolnya—he has been senior captain of the mixed cohort for years. Experienced, a good tactician, good manager, too. When Captain Dorrin comes back—” He paused at the look on the prince’s face and felt his heart sink. “She didn’t—in that attack—?”

  “No, no. She survived; her arrival with the paladin just saved the day, I understand. I would like your assessment of her. You do know she’s a Verrakai?”

  “Of course,” Arcolin said. “She’s never made a secret of it, or of her estrangement from her family.”

  “Do you believe that estrangement complete? Have you known her to contact her family?”

  “No, my lord, never. I know she asked the Duke—the king—not to assign her to duties here, where she might meet Duke Verrakai. She and the Verrakaien both considered her no longer part of the family.” He hoped to convince the prince Dorrin was not a traitor.

  “Birth matters, in spite of choice,” the prince said, a bit grimly. “It made your duke a king; it will make Dorrin Verrakai a duke, if she accepts my offer.”

  Arcolin stared. “Dorrin? You can’t mean—I beg pardon, but—you want her to take over as Duke Verrakai? Of Verrakai?” He imagined Dorrin’s reaction to the thought; she had spoken of her family only with revulsion.

  “She’s the only adult Verrakai I can exempt from the Order of Attainder, precisely because she was estranged and was said to be blotted from their records. Not every Verrakai is evil—I know that—but at present I cannot take risks. The innocent will clear themselves at trial, in time, but I dare not leave Verrakaien loose on the land that lo
ng. We have evidence they’ve colluded with Liart’s priests—it’s a danger to both.”

  “But—” Arcolin could not imagine the Duke’s Company without Dorrin any more than he could imagine it without the Duke. He shook his head to clear it. “We were expecting her to return—the Duke said her cohort had been sent for, as escort, but are they staying?”

  “I don’t know yet. They went with him into Lyonya; if she takes up my offer—which is contingent on her gaining control of Verrakai and sending those resident at Verrakai House to Vérella—she may well want to keep them with her and I’m assuming the king or his successor as duke will agree to a contract with her.”

  Arcolin considered the situation back north … were two cohorts enough to protect the dukedom and Tsaia’s borders? Probably. It had worked that way for years, with even fewer at the stronghold during the fighting season.

  “I’m pleased to hear your opinion of Dorrin Verrakai,” the prince said. “It accords with everything Phelan ever said about her, and I see her as the best hope to make Verrakai a healthy, sound, and loyal steading. There’s a young man in another branch—whom I personally believe is loyal and not involved—who, after his trial, should be a good possibility as her successor, as she has no children and is unlikely to breed.”

  “Likely not,” Arcolin said, almost choking at the casual use of a term that, applied to Dorrin, made her nothing but a prize cow.

  “And that leaves the problem of Phelan’s domain,” the prince said. “For my part, I would let it stay in his name awhile, and consult with him on a successor, but the Council is concerned. They do not wish so large a domain to be under the control of Lyonya’s king, more especially as it adjoins Pargun.”

  “I understand,” Arcolin said, when a pause seemed longer than necessary.

  “Tell me,” the prince said. “I know he sent word to you—what were his orders?”

  “Before he came south, to prepare the troops for a contract; he was hoping to get your approval to take some of the Company south again. Then this—” Arcolin handed the prince Kieri’s letter. “I have a one-cohort contract with Vonja, if the Council approves.”