The Misbegotten King

by Anne Kelleher Bush

  Amanander lay helpless as a newborn in Ahga, no longer a threat, and while Roderic might always need extra troops, her side of the bargain had been fulfilled with the fall of the fortress of Minnis Saul last summer. She knew she couldn’t expect Roderic to father a child when his attention was so taken up with the worst uprising in nearly twenty years, and she had decided it was better for all concerned if she went back to her own country to await him.

  When they reached Grenvill garrison, she would leave her troops under the command of her second, Grefith. And between Brand and Vere and Atland’s heir, Kye, who remained loyal to the Ridenau cause, and who would all continue to fight for peace in the South, Roderic had no need of her. She had fallen back into a half drowse when a shout went up from the troops riding just ahead. Brand half rose in his stirrups. “What is it?” he called, his voice terse and weary.

  “Soldiers, Captain. Coming this way.”

  “Can you see their colors?” Deirdre craned her neck. The approaching horses were lathered, and they stumbled over the even roadway with the shambling gait of exhaustion.

  “See there—” The scout pointed a long arm. “That blue, that green? That’s Atland’s colors—reversed. His heir comes to meet us.”

  Deirdre and Brand exchanged frowns. Brand held up his hand, and the company slowed to a halt. As the riders came closer, Deirdre saw that the men’s uniforms were stained with mud, torn and filthy, and all of them bore bloody bandages. The leader, his head wrapped in a piece of linen so dirty it hardly qualified as a bandage, reined his horse just a few paces from where they had halted.

  “Captain Brand?” His shoulders slumped in obvious relief, his mouth drooping. “Thank the One we met you. Grenvill garrison is no more.”

  ***

  In the light of the fitful fire, Deirdre watched the exhausted men accept bowls of stew from the hands of the cooks, dipping into them as though it were the first warm food they’d tasted in days. Which, she realized as she listened to their sorry tale, was exactly what it was.

  Kye, the eldest son of the ancient Senador of Atland, held out his goblet as she lifted up the wineskin. “My thanks,” he muttered, not quite looking at her. She was used to that reaction, although her lips twitched as she hid a smile.

  She took a place next to Brand. Kye was not as tall as he had appeared in the saddle, for his torso was disproportionately longer than his legs, and his arms and legs were thin, while his chest looked as though it belonged to a man who did hard labor for a living. But though his body appeared to be constructed from spare parts, there was a weary spark of intelligence in his light brown eyes. The gash across his forehead was deep, and more than once he cradled his head in one hand, eyes shut.

  Brand stared at a hide map, motioning his serving boy to hold the lamp first one way, then another. He wore a deep frown.

  Deirdre looked down at the map, at the black double lines which marked the roads, the circles which marked the hills, and the truth leapt at her like an arrow. “Betrayed,” she muttered. The ugly word dangled in the silence like a spider from a thread. She flung her thick braid over her shoulder and shifted on the low camp stool which was all that kept her out of the mud. She gave a soft snort and toyed with a loose thread in the sleeve of her tunic, meeting the stricken looks of the men with contempt. “Don’t tell me the thought hadn’t occurred to anyone else.”

  The men exchanged furtive glances, bulky shoulders shifting under heavy cloaks, for the wind whistled in the trees, and the night was cold. Spring in the Pulatchian Mountains was a long time coming.

  Finally Kye raised his head and looked her in the eye for the first time since their meeting. “I can’t believe that.”

  Brand said nothing, but the expression on his face did not change. Deirdre lowered her head and wondered why she wasted her time with these mainlanders, who refused to see treachery when it yanked them by the hair and stared them in the eyes. Then a vision of Roderic flashed before her, his gray-green gaze steady in the face of even the most calculated of risks. She swallowed hard and forced herself to speak calmly. “Do you think it was luck? Good fortune? How else could your brothers have known about our rendezvous at Grenvill garrison?” Impatiently, she shoved the map toward Kye, and the serving boy jumped. His lantern cast weird dancing shadows on the flimsy walls of the tent.

  “They have scouts, as well—” Kye began, but stopped when he realized the route Deirdre traced.

  She spread her hands flat on her knees, large hands, knuckles red and knotted, skin chapped and calloused as a man’s, and stretched her long legs out to the side. “There’s a traitor in your midst.”

  “You’re saying one of my men—?” Kye threw back his cloak, pushing it away to reveal the hilt of the dagger.

  Deirdre recognized the challenge and shook her head in disgust. “No, lord, I am not. But someone—somewhere, between here and Atland garrison—gave the enemy your precise route. It was more than luck that put the equivalent of two armies between your men and ours.” She raised her chin and met Brand’s steady eyes. “What say you, Captain Brand?”

  Brand nodded slowly. “I agree with you, M’Callaster. There is a traitor. But I’m afraid we have neither the time nor the resources to worry who he is. We have to plan what our next move will be. We can’t afford to wait until Roderic returns.”

  “And when will that be?” Kye asked, a bitter twist on his mouth.

  “As soon as his child is born,” Brand answered. The shadows flickered across his face as the serving boy dipped the lamp. “Careful, boy.” He looked up into the boy’s exhausted face and shook his head. “Get to bed, boy. And you, Kye—we’ll have time to talk of this in the morning. You look as if you’ll fall asleep where you sit.”

  With a grunt, Kye got to his feet. “In the morning, then. I need to check on my wounded.”

  Deirdre nodded, and Brand set the lantern down in the middle of the low table. He picked up the flask of mead at his feet. “More?”

  She nodded slowly, wetting her lips. This was as good an opportunity as she was likely to have, and it was better that Brand knew her intentions, before they met tomorrow. “I wanted to tell you, Captain,” she began, her words tumbling out in a rush, “that I will be leaving within the next two weeks to return to my estate. I don’t intend to withdraw my men. I will take only a squadron for an escort. The rest I will leave with you, under the command of my second, Grefith. I know he’ll serve the Prince’s cause as loyally as I.”

  “You’re leaving?” He jolted upright and slammed the empty flask down. The cork flew out and landed in the fire, sending up a shower of sparks. “Why?”

  The smoke stung her nostrils. “I have affairs of my own to tend, Captain. Not only Amanander lies sick in Ahga—Alexander is sick, as well. And without Alexander, there’s no strong hand to balance the opposing interests in the North. I’m not there to unify the Chiefs. And while the lords of Mondana were certainly no threat when I left, there is no doubt in my mind that they will harry my people soon enough.” She broke off, drawing her cloak closer across her shoulders as the damp air blew beneath the tent. “The winter’s over—I can cross the Saranevas at the Koralado Pass. There’s no need for me to stay.”

  She fixed her gaze on the fire and refused to look up. She heard the clatter as Brand’s goblet fell on its side. “M’Callaster—Deirdre, surely you understand we need you. I need you. There’s no one better at keeping hotheads cool, and keeping them off each other’s throats. Roderic himself relies upon you, upon your judgment. What will I tell him?”

  “The truth, as I shall,” she lied, feeling a hot blush sweep up her cheeks.

  He spread his hands and for a moment she felt sorry for him. Strong men always looked so helpless when at a loss. “M’Callaster, the spring campaign is barely underway—surely you could spare a month—two months? You could reach the Saranevas long before next winter will close the pass—”

  With a heavy sigh, Deirdre shifted once more and poured the dregs of t
he mead into her goblet. Her head ached, and not for the first time she wished that Roderic had not returned to Ahga. She thought with sudden longing of her lands in the Settle Islands, where the wild sea birds swooped over the craggy cliffs, where the sea pounded against the rocky shores and washed over the white beaches. “Captain, try to understand my position. According to the latest dispatches, it may be months before Alexander is recovered enough to return to his command of the garrison at Spogan. Without Alexander’s presence—” Her explanation was cut off in midsentence as shouts broke the exhausted stillness of the camp.

  With a curse, Brand was on his feet, sword already drawn. He was just about to grab the tent flap when it opened, bringing a gust of wind and Vere into the tent.

  “Send for Roderic immediately,” Vere said without greeting.

  “Why?” asked Brand.

  Vere acknowledged Deirdre’s presence with a glance and a nod. “One of the Mutens back there on the road—he wasn’t dead. He lived long enough to tell me that gravest danger is upon us.”

  “Us? Why? You said the Mutens did this—”

  “Listen to me, man.” Vere gripped Brand’s sword arm and stared his eldest brother in the eye, his jutting hawk nose so similar to Brand’s, they looked like twins in profile. “They had no mindskill—I haven’t time to explain what that means. But you know that only the ruling families have the use of the secondary arms?” He paused just long enough for Brand to nod. “Before the last poor wretch died, he lived long enough to write one word.” Vere fumbled in the pack at his waist and held out a crumpled piece of parchment. Together, Brand and Deirdre squinted over it in the dim light. Shaky black lines formed one word: FERAD.

  Brand looked away with a curse. “We’ve got more important problems than the murder of a passel of Mutens, Vere. Kye’s army was intercepted—Grenvill garrison destroyed. Deirdre informed me just before you came in that she’s planning to leave—”

  “Leave?” Vere frowned. He looked at her closely, and Deirdre felt the urge to squirm as those piercing eyes fell upon her. “Leave now? Why?”

  “I can get over the Saranevas.” She raised her chin, refusing to be intimidated by the probing gaze of the Ridenau sons. “I have concerns of my own, you know.”

  Brand swore beneath his breath. “I’ll send a messenger out tonight, Vere. You add anything you wish.” He glanced at Deirdre, disgust plain on his face. “And you, M’Callaster. If you’ve a message of your own for the Prince, I advise you to write it. But I can’t believe you’d do this.”

  He strode out of the tent.

  Deirdre glanced at Vere, who looked at her quizzically.

  “Why can’t he believe I’d leave?”

  “Because you haven’t told him the truth.”

  Deirdre jerked around. “How do you know what I told him?”

  Vere shrugged. “You gave him some story about the state of the Settle Islands. But I don’t believe that’s the real reason you want to go.”

  Deirdre tightened her jaw. “Then—”

  “Let me tell you a story.” Vere sat down before the fire and stretched out his hands over its heat. “Is there any food? I haven’t eaten since dawn.”

  She rummaged through her pack and held out a piece of dried salted beef and a package of leathery dried apples.

  He turned the food over in his hands, staring into the flames. “Many years ago, when I was young and lived in Ahga, I loved a woman.” He tore at the beef and raised his eyes to hers as he chewed and swallowed.

  A chill ran up her spine, for his words rang with the same authority as the tales of the Keepers of her people. What did Vere see with those shadowed eyes?

  “She was the most beautiful woman I have ever seen,” he continued, “and I am not the only one who thought so. Every man who saw her wanted her—every man who’d ever seen her would remember her. But she was more than beautiful—she was kind, and she knew more about Old Meriga than anyone I had ever met before. She talked to me as though what mattered to me mattered to her, too. No one else ever treated me like that. No one else so truly understood.”

  “What happened?” But Deirdre thought she could surmise the answer. This was a familiar story, after all.

  “I was a boy—fifteen years old. She was a woman: ten, twelve years my senior, or more. And she belonged to my father, to the King. Everyone knew it, even though when I was there, she did not share his bed. So I ran away because I could not bear to see them together. But her image is burned into my memory—I have carried it with me wherever I’ve gone, all these years, and I only need shut my eyes to see her again.”

  Deirdre picked up a long stick, reached into the heart of the flames, and poked at the burning logs. The wood split with a hiss and a loud crack; the better, she thought, to cover the voice of such naked need. “Why are you telling me this?”

  “Because the woman I loved was Nydia—the monster who saved us all from Amanander and his Magic last summer.”

  “The witch?” Deirdre whispered. The stick fell out of her hands into the fire.

  “Yes.” Vere looked back into the flames, his voice shaking with some suppressed emotion. “My father, Abelard, forced her to use the Magic for him—so that his Queen would conceive his son, Roderic. In consequence, Nydia became that horror. And from that day to this, I have wondered what my part in it was…”

  “What makes you think you had a part?”

  “Don’t you understand, Deirdre? We are all part of the pattern. All our actions impact upon the whole. If you leave here, because you love Roderic—” He held up his hand as she opened her mouth to protest, and the words died on her tongue. “If you desert him, now, at the hour of his need, because that love imposes too high a price, is that love at all?”

  Deirdre glanced down. Her worn, battle-scarred boots clung to the muscles of her thighs, hardened from long days spent on battlefields and in the saddle. The tunic she wore was patched and mended, as were the trousers beneath. Her knotted hands reminded her of other scars which marred the smooth muscles of her arms and legs, and the red, puckered line which was all that remained of her left breast. She was nothing like the woman Roderic loved.

  And yet he had agreed to the terms she had offered him, to father her a son in exchange for her men, even though he had seen her naked body one rain-soaked night in the course of those agonizing negotiations made necessary by Amanander’s mischief. Roderic’s nobility clung like a second skin; he could no more pretend not to be a Prince than she could pretend to be the soft, delicate woman who was his wife. But even then, she had wanted him. Even then.

  Deirdre raised her face to Vere and saw genuine sympathy in the deep lines of his weathered face, the look in his gentle eyes. “And if I stay?”

  “I won’t lie. If you stay, it will be hard. But look at what Roderic faces: Atland’s sons and Missiluse in full rebellion, the lesser lords throughout the South likely to rise to their support. The Harleyriders will surely see this as an opportunity to advance into the central plains. And now—” Vere patted the pouch where he had slipped the crumpled parchment, “—now, there is clear evidence that Ferad himself has surfaced. He’s finally made the move we’ve been waiting for. And he did not do it without much preparation—I promise you, right now, he holds all the cards. You know what the Magic can do. Brand scoffs, but he wasn’t at Minnis last summer when Nydia brought the siege to an end. You’ve seen the Magic work. Nydia’s dead. Now there’s no one who can use the Magic for Roderic. He needs every friend. Please, don’t make a mistake you might have your whole life to regret.”

  Deirdre took a deep breath and got to her feet. “All right. I’ll stay. But only until J’ly. I must be over the Saranevas by the first snow. Whatever I am, or am not, to Roderic, I am the M’Callaster to my people.”

  She pulled her plaid close, threw the end over her shoulder, and knew he watched her as she stalked away into the dark night.

  Chapter Two

  The gray afternoon had faded completely into
a dull twilight, and Roderic sighed surreptitiously, wondering whether to interrupt the First Lord of the Arkan Plains and call for someone to light the candles, or to wait for the inevitable summons to dinner to end Gredahl’s long monologue. Roderic fidgeted in the hard seat, torn by the demands of cramped limbs and those of the Senador whose tired voice held him as much a prisoner as the rigid wooden back of the chair.

  He glanced past Gredahl’s hulking shape to the window, where the fog obscured everything but a glimpse of the winking torches in the guardhouses on the crushed rubble walls of Ahga. The rain pelted down the glass with grim monotony, wearying as Gredahl’s voice. He wondered how his father had managed to control his restlessness, remembering all the hours Abelard had spent listening patiently to the ceaseless demands, petitions, and complaints of the Senadors who comprised the Congress, as well as those of the lesser lords of the various holdings of the Ridenau estates, the merchants, the traders, and the farmers who made up most of the population of Meriga. No voice was ever denied the King’s ear, no petitioner a chance of the King’s justice.

  He drew a deep breath, realizing abruptly that Gredahl had finished speaking and was looking at him curiously, waiting for a response. “Lord Prince?”

  He shifted once more in the chair, stifled another sigh, and thought quickly of how to answer Gredahl, who had been his father’s ally for more years than Roderic had been alive. “I understand your concerns about the Harleyriders—”

  “Concerns? You call these concerns? More than a hundred men and women died last month on my border—an entire harvest was destroyed or taken. I do all I can, but by the One, Lord Prince, who are we to look to?”

  “Lord Senador,” Roderic began again, weighing each word, “in all honesty, I have not the men right now to increase the garrisons in Arkan—even the garrison at Dlas has been dangerously depleted. All I can assure you is that the troops at Ithan are alerted and ready.”

  He was glad he could not see Gredahl’s face clearly in the gloom. The Senador’s huge shoulders heaved like an earthshake, the long gray curls spilling over his furs like a flood tide. “You know what you condemn my people to, boy?”