Oath of Fealty

by Elizabeth Moon

  “You use the lamp,” Paks commented, “instead of your own light.”

  “I use magery as little as may be,” Dorrin said. “Aside from practice and at need.”

  “Does it want to be used?”

  Dorrin turned to her. “Every moment. It is like the pressure of a stream; once the Knight-Commander and you released it, it has been harder to contain than to use. When I arrived here, and my relatives used theirs against me, it swelled into a river. You and the Knight-Commander had said you thought I had great power. So it proved, enough power to hold them all motionless, silent, under my will.”

  “Was that frightening at first?” Paks asked.

  “Yes.” Dorrin shivered at the memory. “Most frightening was how I enjoyed it. I can understand—do not wish to understand but cannot help it—how my ancestors fell into evil, from the sheer joy of having such mastery. So I use lamps, and climb the stairs, and reach for things I might command with a word. Today, with the well, is the first time I have used magery so openly among my people. Those here saw me control my family, of course.”

  “That is wise,” Paks said.

  “But this is not all I wanted to show you,” Dorrin said. “Not only are there Verrakai abroad in others’ bodies, enemies of the realm, of the prince and king-to-be, but here is something I have not dared explore, when I was the only one here with power I could trust.”

  She led Paks to the far end of the study, where the vault door still gaped open a little on the bare patch of wall and the remains of the picture and its frame lay on the floor in front of it. Paks came alight.

  “That is blood magery—evil—!”

  “Yes. It was a portrait of one of our ancestors. It was there in my childhood; it had been there, I was told, for long ages, since the Verrakaien came north. When I first came into this room, it radiated evil; it called my magery; it threatened me.” She stared at the remnants on the floor. “It bled when I pierced it—bled like a man, Paksenarrion. It was not painted on wood or fabric, like most paintings, but on skin—I believe human skin. And the frame, which looked—you can see the upper part—like carved and painted wood, is actually made of bones, plastered over.”

  “That power is not all gone.”

  “No. I can feel that. The blood dried and vanished in a mist, and most of the power here went—somewhere. I prayed, Paksenarrion, that it might never return.”

  “What’s behind the door?”

  “I saw an urn filled with blood; the blood dried and vanished in mist like the rest. A casket of carved wood inlaid with colored patterns. There might be more. I have left it as I found it, the door slightly open so I could watch for new blood.”

  “Take it out,” Paks said. Dorrin glanced at her. Her clear paladin’s light filled the room, leaving no shadows. “Whatever it is, I know we must discover it.”

  Whatever it was, if a paladin told her to stick her hand in a hole and bring something out—she would. Dorrin opened the vault door wider and light filled the chamber. Paks’s light, like her own magery, revealed the traps she had not seen before. Paks came nearer.

  “Your ancestors trusted no one, did they?”

  “I can’t speak for all,” Dorrin said, “but no one so steeped in evil as my uncle and his followers trusts.”

  “Let me see if I can—” Paks pointed at the traps revealed, and one by one they withered. She turned to grin at Dorrin. “You’re right. It is fun to play with power—not something the gods grant often to paladins.”

  Inside the vault, the box gleamed in that light, its designs twisting, interlacing … moving? Behind it, Dorrin could just see something else, something wrapped in what looked like old gray leather. “I don’t remember that,” she said. “It may’ve been there, but hidden in the dark.”

  “First the urn,” Paks said. “Filled with magical blood, you said?”

  “Real blood, preserved by magery. I don’t know whose.” Dorrin touched it and felt a tingle up her arm. She jerked it back.

  “Magery?” Paks said.

  “Something.”

  Paks reached past her and took out the urn. Once clear of the vault, it changed in her hands to a goblet, jewel-encrusted.

  “Holy Falk,” Dorrin said. “Ward this house.”

  “Gird’s grace,” Paks said. “It has writing on it, but I can’t read it—”

  Around the rim, a script Dorrin had never seen before squirmed and reformed into something she could read. Who drinks from me without a right shall live for aye in endless night; the true king’s draught shall hold him hale until the day his magery fail. Dorrin recited this aloud to Paks.

  “What is it?” Paks asked. “What does that mean?”

  Dorrin felt cold all over. “It is—it must be—a coronation goblet for some king. From very long ago, and from whence I have no idea. Why it was a blood-filled urn I do not know either. Unless drinking blood was part of the coronation rite.”

  “Here,” Paks said. “You hold it.”

  “Just put it down on the table,” Dorrin said.

  “But if it made you feel something, maybe it has more to teach. Tammarion’s sword, that was the king’s—”

  “I can hold it later.” Dorrin fought her magery, that wanted to hold it now, fill it with wine now, drink from it now. “There’s more—we should get it all out, and somewhere safe.”

  Paks set the goblet on the table. “Do you want me to take the things out?”

  She did, but it was her own heritage. “I will,” Dorrin said. The box, when she touched it, sent the same thrill up her arm, but this time she did not flinch and the box did not change shape when she took it from the vault. It was heavier than it looked; she carried it to the table and set it down. She and Paks stared down at the designs on the upper surface.

  “It reminds me of the designs in Luap’s Stronghold, in Kolobia,” Paks said after a long moment. “Not just beautiful, but powerful.”

  “Yes,” Dorrin said. Her finger wanted to follow the lines, her thumb wanted to press there. She did not realize she had done so until the box opened, not like an ordinary box but like an intricately folded paper, flowerlike.

  Glittering in the clear light Paks gave were jewels—sapphires and diamonds—fashioned into pieces Dorrin instantly recognized as someone’s crown jewels … a ring like a ducal ring, only larger, a pair of earrings, broad bracelets large enough for a man’s wrists, a pin such as might hold a cloak to a shoulder, a belt clasp as large as her hand.

  Yours. The voice in her mind was clear as her own. At last. A tendril of light rose from the goblet, arced over, and touched a sapphire on the ring, big as a grape.

  “I didn’t do that,” Paks said mildly. “Did you?”

  “Not intentionally,” Dorrin said. “What—what have we found?”

  “What have your family kept hidden is the better question. A coronation goblet, jewels like these, whatever else is in there—have they been thieves or—or what?”

  “The stories—family stories—say we were once kings. I never believed them.”

  “When, in Gird’s day?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t want to know, Paks. I wanted to get away and never come back.”

  “The box opened to your touch. The urn changed—”

  “In your hands, not mine.” But it would have, she knew. “If it is true—if these are crown jewels from Old Aare—that doesn’t mean Verrakaien are royal. We might be thieves only. That would explain hiding them, wouldn’t it?” Dorrin looked at Paks, then at the open vault. “I begin to think I was foolish to start this in darkness, without a troop of Marshals, Captains, and another paladin or two.”

  Paks shook her head. “The gods sent me; they must think we can do it. Whatever it is.”

  Dorrin touched her ruby for luck and reached into the vault once more. The bundle that had been hidden behind the box felt stiff to the touch like old dried leather. She shuddered at the thought that it was also human skin, but as she drew it out, it changed into a cloth embr
oidered in brilliant blue, gold, and silver, soft and unworn, wrapped around something heavy—she knew without unwrapping what it must be.

  On the table, she unfolded the cloth. Centered on the cloth’s design, a many-pointed star, alternating gold and silver points against the blue, was an obvious crown, itself glittering with sapphires and diamonds but for one blank spot.

  Joy burst over Dorrin like a wave; the light in the room shimmered, and without her intent, the crown rose off the table and hung in the air before her.

  You are the one. At last I am free.

  “Not now,” Dorrin said aloud. Magery ran like fire through her veins; she could scarcely see Paks, though the silver circle on her brow burned brightly. Dorrin reached out, nonetheless, and took the crown in her hands, setting it back in its wrappings.

  “Was that what I—what was that?” Paks said. She did not sound alarmed, just interested. Her calmness steadied Dorrin.

  “It talked to me,” Dorrin said. “Did you hear it?”

  “No. What was it saying?”

  “From the first—the goblet—” Dorrin nodded at the goblet. “It said it was mine. And so did the crown.” She drew a long breath. “If—if my family heard such voices, and believed them, it would explain—”

  Nothing. The voice was implacable. They bound us with blood we did not want. You are different. We are yours. Dorrin shivered.

  “It said something else?” Paks said.

  “Yes. It said they—my family—bound these things with blood—blood it did not want. That I am different, and these things belong to me.”

  “There was more,” Paks said, looking at the jewels in the unfolded box. “See this space here?” She pointed to an empty space with the slight impression of something in the velvet lining. She looked at Dorrin, brow wrinkled around the circle. “I’ve seen something—somewhere—that’s like these. A necklace. I know—” She looked excited now. “Brewersbridge, when I was there before I went to Fin Panir. Arvid—that thief—gave it to me. I gave it to the Girdish treasury when they chose me for paladin’s training.”

  Dorrin smoothed the cloth that had been around the crown. Not a worn stitch, not a frayed edge. “I wish I knew what this meant.” She touched the star-figure inside the arc of the crown. “It must be symbolic, but—”

  “I saw it in Luap’s Stronghold,” Paks said. “A cloth something like this, but I don’t know what it means. It was in a small chamber, empty but for the cloth laid on the sleeping shelf. I wasn’t thinking about that, then. I was already falling into Achrya’s spell.”

  “Do you think these things are evil?” Dorrin’s own magery insisted NO but she did not trust it. “The voices from an evil spirit, tempting me?”

  Paks touched them one by one. “No. Whatever evil has been here has not corrupted them, not that I can tell. I felt evil in the room—the remnants of that picture and its frame among them—but not these things. Yet they have a power—”

  “That I do not understand,” Dorrin said. “Falk and the High Lord give us wisdom to understand what this means.”

  “And what we should do,” Paks said. She touched the jewels again. “I wonder why such jewels would be in Gird’s colors.”

  “I hadn’t thought of that.” Dorrin looked. The goblet alone bore jewels in other colors, not many; the crown and those in the unfolded box were all blue and white.

  “Could it mean Gird was crowned king at some point?” Paks asked. “There’s nothing about that at all in the legends.”

  “But in his colors. Would he have taken blue as his color because at the time it was a royal color?”

  “That’s not mentioned either. I admit, I was not that interested in the history they taught us in Fin Panir. Maybe the Marshal-General would know. She might be at the coronation: there’s another reason you must go. And take these with you.”

  “Take them—” Dorrin felt a weight land on her shoulders. “I can’t go; I told you. There’s no one—”

  “I’ll stay here,” Paks said.

  “You—is this your call?”

  “Yes,” Paks said, with utter certainty. “I understand it now. You must go, for all the reasons the prince gave and because of these—” She tipped her head to the goblet, crown, and jewels. “They’ve been at the heart of treachery for generations, though they themselves were not at fault. You must find out what they are, all that they are, and to whom they really belong.”

  Me. They belong to me. The thoughts came unbidden to Dorrin’s mind; her magery surged, wanting free, wanting to show Paks, everyone, what it could do. She fought that down, fought the desire to claim that regalia, and with it, whatever realm it offered.

  “But if there’s trouble here—I should be here.”

  “Leave me Phelan’s cohort. If anything goes amiss, I’ll send word. Selfer and the cohort will keep me out of trouble.”

  That was almost saucy; Dorrin found herself grinning. “Do paladins get into trouble?”

  “I imagine we can. I certainly ate too much at King Kieri’s coronation feast—they had mushrooms I’d never tasted before.”

  Dorrin shook her head. “I know you’re a paladin, Paks, but sometimes you are so like the girl you were.”

  “And still am, inside,” Paks said. “I know—it’s very strange. To me you’re still Captain Dorrin, who once terrified me—all you captains did. You knew everything I thought.”

  “You know our warts now—”

  “No, it’s not that. I know you’re now Duke Verrakai, someone more important—as far as rank goes—than a captain in the Duke’s Company. But the person I see is the same person, not the rank.” Her brow wrinkled again. “I don’t know why. I see people now a little differently than before, when I was with the Company those first three years. Gird, maybe, or maybe one of the gods, has let me see a little way inside.”

  “Or experience,” Dorrin said. “You are older; you have been through many things—”

  “Yes,” Paks said. “But more than that—the light we paladins are given to help us discern truth lets us see a little into the hearts of everyone we meet.”

  Dorrin had a moment of stark panic. What was deep in her Verrakai heart? But Paks was still talking.

  “I remember you as much like a fine blade—trustworthy, keen-edged, someone any of us soldiers could trust when our own captain was away, someone who never delighted in causing pain. Your own cohort respected you absolutely. When I met you again, last fall, you were the same, but now I could see the flame of life the Marshal-General told us all have. Yours burns clear and clean—it did then, and it does now.”

  “I—I am—I don’t know—I make mistakes—”

  Paks shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. Remember when you told the Knight-Commander you had once dreamed of being a paladin?”

  “Yes.” Dorrin felt the heat rise in her cheeks. “It was a foolish child’s dream—”

  “Was mine?” Paks asked. “Mine was much the same, barring the part about not wanting to spend my time weaving and shoveling dung. It is not foolish to want to be better, to spend a life helping others.”

  “But I was a Verrakai. To think I might be acceptable to Falk, to the gods—of course it could not be.” But even as she spoke, her magery surged again, yearning toward the crown she had put down.

  Paks snorted. “If the gods could accept a sheepfarmer’s daughter from the edge of nowhere why would they care about your family? They do not select paladins in family groups, but individually.”

  “And I was not fit.”

  “Captain—Lord Duke—”

  “Oh, just call me Dorrin,” Dorrin said. “We are past rank here.”

  “Dorrin, then. What you said that night of the torment you endured as a child—it was as bad for you as the torment the Liartians put me through in Vérella. Worse, for you had no experience of good, had you? And you but a child. I at least knew I’d been chosen. I had seen Gird and the others, when I was fully healed. When you came to the Company of Falk, you
were still unhealed, is that not so?”

  “Yes, but … what are you saying?” The old dream rose in her mind; her magery took it and held it fast.

  “I say to you what Master Oakhallow said to me, in different words: You are what you are, and the gods may have plans for you now that you were not able to fulfill then.”

  “It is too late to become a paladin,” Dorrin said, surprising herself as the words came out of her mouth.

  “I don’t know if that’s what the gods intend for you,” Paks said. “But consider what you did today. Removing the curse from a well is much like healing it, I would say. And you cannot have that—” She pointed at the table. “—for no reason. If they want you for a paladin, you will become one—after all, they made one of me, after so many thought me a useless coward.”

  “You were never that,” Dorrin said.

  “You were never a villainous Verrakai.”

  “Some were,” Dorrin said, looking at the crown again. “Paks, supposing I do go—why should I risk these treasures on the road? What of thieves and—for that matter—attack by my own kin? I should keep them safe, where they cannot be stolen—”

  Paks shook her head. “Think again. What are your relatives likely to tell the prince about you?”

  “That I’m vindictive and not wholly sane, not to be believed. They are innocent and loyal; I’m the family traitor and having broken troth with them am inherently unfaithful.”

  “They will expect you to have the jewels, and they will expect you to keep them. That is what they would do. If they reveal the jewels and you are found with a crown … what do you think the prince will think?”

  Dorrin scowled, then nodded. “That I am false, and planning to seize the throne. But I swear, Paks, it is not this throne the crown speaks of.”

  “It matters not. Your relatives will insist it is.”

  “And some will believe them, even though they distrust my relatives,” Dorrin said. “Just as some will always believe me false, because I am a Verrakai.”