“Someone—was it Mistress Vanna?—said that he deliberately allowed those two poor things to go to the Southland, to put them out of the reach of the old despot.”
Tomas nodded. “If so, it was a kindly act. Now—the little boy’s mother—Elwina of Eildon—they say she is capricious and spoiled. Didn’t you meet Kirris Paldo, Elwina’s brother, in the Burnt Lands?”
“Yes,” she said, “and he was a decent fellow.”
“I’ve heard—you’ll call it gossip—that the young royals and their friends are arrogant and clannish. They are impatient with the old king and his circle—eager for him to be out of their way.”
“Oh Goddess,” she sighed. “Gossip is worse than secrets. Now, has word come from the Chameln lands about our friend, the pretender? He was gone from Erinhall so many weeks before I left there.”
“Queen Tanit was gracious—she welcomed her lost brother. But there has been no public announcement as yet—Dannell Royl, though bastard born, is indeed King Sharn’s oldest child. There will be much work, documenting the legitimacy of Tanit’s own succession, before any public announcement can be made.”
Gael Maddoc came to the Palace Fortress in her finest clothes—although as New Tulach’s Chatelaine, she had chosen simple colors: brown and green, with a small yellow crest of a rising sun, and today all felt ill fitted, for the weight she had lost to her great sickness made all hang loose upon her. She raised no banner—the Krac’Duar was slung in its carrying straps; she did not flaunt it. In the bright light of day, its strange quality of absorbing light was less notable, and the broken gold tape wreathed round hardly marked it as a weapon of power—like the Star Kelch and the Fleece of Lien, it only showed its greatness when its power was called forth.
The ancient pile of the Duarings’ palace was a fortress still—the lower floors and terraces thronged with the warriors of Mel’Nir in all stages of their military career, their training. There were boys from the King’s Longhouse, in their grey and gold, alongside pensioned officers, white bearded, who had fought in the armies of King Ghanor. Mihal Carra, Brother Robard’s lord those months when he served as tutor at Carrahall, was one of Gol’s equerries, and it was this Carra, familiar to Gael from the tail end of her ride with the Malms, who had been sent to greet her. He met her at the gates, where she was looking back wistfully at that hilltop road where the Shee had honored her. He greeted her warmly, and they turned their horses toward the first ramp.
As they rode through the soldiery, she was suddenly recognized by a company of the Palace Guard, handsome fellows—she had no idea where they might have seen her.
“By the Gods, it is our own Far-Faring Maid!” boomed an ensign. “Cheer for the Wanderer, lads!”
And cheer they did, with the quick, ritual shouts of “Long Life! True Blades!”
She laughed aloud and doffed her hat to wave at them. A voice came out of the ranks: “Trust Captain Carra to find himself such a fine duty!”
“—to a scarecrow!” cried another, which drew friendly laughter and another salute. Gael was not offended; she recognized in the jape a warrior’s recognition for a proven comrade in arms.
When their horses were stabled about the third round of the mighty hill, they at last reached corridors that could properly be called a palace. Gael was led through the fine rooms of state and presented, as a guest, to guards and waiting women. In an anteroom to the present throne room, the young Lord Carra paused to show a famous artifact that stood behind a dark red arras.
The great throne, Azure, was built for giants: a huge construction of metal and dark wood, still with its upholstery of deer skin, its claw grips upon the heavy black metal arms. It told of the awful might, the lust for power that had ruled Ghanor Duaring, the so-called Great King. It suggested to Gael what it might have been like to have and to serve such a father.
“Legends,” she said to her companion. “I have heard that the small creature, Drey, who crept out from the King’s robe to kill with Sting, his dagger, lived for many years after Ghanor’s death.”
“Yes,” said Carra, unsmiling. “He may have been a deformed Kelshin—at any rate a midget. No one would put an end to him, for fear of some magic. He lived like a small, raging, twisted animal in a padded room, high up in the eastern tower. At the last, he took a fever, and Hagnild put an end to his sufferings.”
Yet now, after so much misery and bloodshed, here was the good king, Gol Duaring, in his eighty-fourth year, sitting in the sunshine with his third wife, fair Nimoné, in a pleasant room at the top of the Palace Fortress. The royal pair greeted Gael Maddoc with ease and gentleness—praised subtly the rescue of the Chameln princes, the discovery of Carel Am Zor—yes, they had heard of this matter—remarked upon that other rescue—the Malms brought out of Silverlode. They were familiar with the work of Tomas Giraud, described him as a leading scribe and archivist for Mel’Nir.
Then came a pause, and when the king spoke again, it was of deeper matters, closer to his private heart.
“I will pass on the crown,” said King Gol in his smooth deep voice. “My dear Queen and I would make a final progress along this southern shore of the Dannermere into the lands of the new Lord of the Eastmark, Degan Keddar. After that—I am ready to retire from this hard seat.” He patted the cushion of the soft settle on which he sitting at the moment, then smiled at his little joke. “Degan of Keddar. Very sound man, eh Carra?”
“Indeed, Sire!” said the young equerry.
“The new Lord of the Eastmark has found something for us,” smiled Nimoné. “The beautiful horse farm at Cloudhill, where Strett of Andine trained so many famous riders.”
“You must mean your stepson Knaar of Val’Nur, my Queen,” said Gael, catching the Queen’s eye. Nimoné, who had indeed been married to the great Valko Firehammer in the last years of that lord’s life, blithely smiled, her true thoughts masked by a bland expression.
“Yes—yes!” blustered King Gol. “You two bold gals are hinting at my true-born son, Yorath Duaring! Do not speak so slyly—today, it is his birthday, you must know, and a sad twenty years, almost to the day, since I have last seen him.”
Gael was surprised—she had not expected the king to speak of such manners so openly—and this before three pages, Mihal Carra, and herself.
But it seemed even a king must wax on, melancholy, on what would have been his son’s fifty-first birthday. “I cannot tell you how I miss him—but in truth, it is all my own fault; I never earned such a son. But I’ve heard rumor you’ve seen him, Captain Maddoc, in some scrying glass … ?” His ill-shuttered eagerness could only prompt Gael’s pity.
“Indeed, Sire,” she said. “He is a great wonder to behold, together with his son, Chawn Yorathson …”
“Tell me my grandson is born straight, without any of the crookedness that has plagued our ancient line!”
“Yes, Sire,” said Gael, with a good will, for speaking truth could not be a hardship. “Straight and tall together. A fine figure—a true man of Mel’Nir!”
The King closed his eyes for a moment, picturing this vision with manifest pleasure. Then he spoke of his sister, Princess Fadola, mother of Mel’Nir’s heir-apparent, Prince Rieth—her husband, the old vizier Baudril Sholt, had passed on, but she still lived very quietly in her own apartments.
Listening to him intently, Gael felt she understood what he was saying. The old king knew his son, the great Yorath, had made his choice: he would not come again to Mel’Nir; he would never rule it. “Good King Gol,” as all called him, had no choice but to look elsewhere for the passing of his kingly trust. He was tired, he wished to retire—yet he did not seem wholly settled in his mind that Fadola’s son must be his heir.
“Captain,” asked the old king, “are you an adept in magic?”
“No, Sire,” replied Gael. “I may have some aptitude from my Chyrian blood, and I have a large store of magic from the Shee and from others, but I am not a true adept.”
“The great Hagnild is gone,”
said King Gol, “and he was thought of mainly as a healer—but would it be valuable for a ruler to have a resident magician, a true adept at court? I ask this for my nephew and heir, for Prince Rieth.”
“I can only say yes,” replied Gael. “For one so Blessed by magic must hold even the notice of the Gods, I think. But finding a reliable adept, man or woman, is a difficult task, one for which I am not myself well suited.”
“In past times, Mel’Nir’s Kings were supported by great champions,” the old king said abruptly, his manner becoming a little sharp. “Do you think, Gael Maddoc, those days will come again?”
Gael looked down, did not know how to answer. The Krac’Duar felt slippery in her hands. Was this why she had been called here? To claim this old title, this ancient trust? “I heard story that Mel’Nir’s last champion died a treacherous death,” she said seriously. “It seems to me the times have passed when Hylor’s Kings believed in sharing power and honor so close to their thrones.”
King Gol blinked. He had never considered the matter in this light. “Perhaps that is true,” he allowed. “Then perhaps I must ask you only to accept of me a smaller honor, that you avoid drawing ‘jealous’ attention. A pledge of land …”
His gesture brought a young page smartly forward, and there was the deed to the ground of Tulach on the High Plateau and the empty hills around, half the way to Aird. “There can be no title to accompany this gift,” he sighed. “For there are those who would be displeased by that. But I thought this at least might bring you some precious privacy, some relief from intrusion …”
By tradition, there were no lords of the High Plateau, from respect to the Eilif Lords of the Shee, no parceling of the land there. Gael felt her heart sadden that she would be the first to be given ground there, yet she could not say no to such an offer.
So the old King and his Queen were well pleased—they all took a sup of exquisite wine from the vineyards of the Chyrian lands, below Coombe. Then Gael took her leave and wandered with the equerry Carra to another part of the palace. He brought her to a gallery, and from there she looked down upon a terrace, where the young royals were gathered.
There was Prince Rieth Duaring, Fadola’s son, a tall, handsome young man, whose red gold hair, from the Emyan picture of him as a lad, had darkened to a rich brown. He sat in an upright garden seat and laughed aloud. Some kind of contest was in progress between two of the courtiers—they had armed themselves with light bows and were taking turns shooting at brightly painted targets set about the lawn.
Princess Elwina, on a gilded garden bench, was a striking blond beauty, surrounded by ladies in whispering silk dresses. A nursemaid stood by, and now the Princess gave back her infant son, the little prince, Kirris. Gael saw that what Tomas had spoken of this child was all true: he was not yet ten months old, but already strong on his legs. As his mother set him on the grass, he ran off across the lawn and had to be chased by his nurse. There were ten or twelve young folk of the court taking their ease near the Prince and Princess, or waiting to take their turn at the archery targets, or simply walking hand in hand. Gael did not like the negligent ease with which these courtiers employed their arrows with the child so near, so ill attended.
“I will leave you to approach them,” said Mihal Carra.
“You’re cruel,” said Gael Maddoc. “Why do you do this?”
“I am not part of their court. I serve the Old King.” The young lord evenly met her gaze, and Gael saw suddenly that she must do this. Gol might have been put off by her talk of past champions betrayed—but truly, it seemed, he must know something of what she had brought to him in her carrying straps.
“I hope I am expected, at least,” she grumbled.
She pulled her brown green finery to rights, couched the Krac’Duar at the trail, and strode off down the steps, carrying her hat. No one seemed to watch her approaching; she came from the east, toward the Prince’s bench. Then she was roughly grasped and pinioned by two giant warriors in the livery of the Duarings. Gael remained very still and said nothing.
“Armed,” said the ensign on her right. “Making for his Highness the Prince!”
Still Gael did not speak.
“Declare yourself!” said the captain on her left.
Gael looked at Prince Rieth—he was looking at the guards and their prisoner, and so indeed were all the court—even the archers at the butts seemed to have paused. What would the next move be with an unexpected, armed intruder? She smiled at the captain and made as if to free her poor arm from his mighty grasp.
“Highness,” he called. “Prisoner won’t speak!”
“Oh, bring it here,” said Rieth impatiently.
The captain nodded to the ensign—already the spectacle of two huge men restraining one kedran seemed rather forced. “A scarecrow!” she heard in an undertone as they walked her forward. This time the word was not spoken with affection. The junior officer led her to stand before the prince, who nodded so that her arm was released. Rieth’s eyes were blue; if she had not known Blayn of Pfolben, Lord Auric of Chantry—Tomas Giraud of Lort!—she would have thought him a handsome man. Now she had learned to judge such things differently. He was only a handful of years older than herself. She recognized in his face an unpleasant teasing look that told her she had, in fact, been expected.
“Do you have a name, kedran?” he asked in a clear, amused voice. There was a hint of laughter from Princess Elwina and her ladies.
“I am Gael Maddoc, Highness,” she said. “I was sent to meet you by King Gol.”
“We expected a creature of legend,” said Rieth. “One who deals in magic, who flings open Tulach Hall and consults with dark folk and light, in every land under the sun!”
“The old King will quit his throne,” said Gael evenly. “I suppose he sent me here to look upon the man he expects to follow him onto that hard seat.”
Rieth was suddenly angry. “I will have nothing from you, Captain! Take your leave, or I will have you taken off by my guards!”
“Oh, the guards!” she said, smiling. Back so early as her journey to Queen Tanit’s wedding, she had learned how to use just the mere whiff of the Stillstand. She remembered, with nostalgic sadness, how it had knocked the fierce Durgashen warriors on their backs, the men who had attacked the young Fareo juggler, threatened an innocent boy. Now she did not even need to point her weapon—only to close her eyes, to concentrate. The guard captain and his ensign who were guarding her fell quite gently to the ground and lay on the greensward in ungainly attitudes. There were hoots of laughter from the court. Gael bowed low to Prince Rieth and wandered across the lawn, heading back to the western staircase to the gallery. But then, needing in her heart to salvage some small piece of dignity from all this foolish play, she paused and made a bow to the princess.
“My service to you, Highness,” she said, “and to your noble son!”
Elwina tossed her pretty head. “You must be that uncouth Chyrian wench, the one who made poor Lady Malm such a poor companion on the high ground.”
The jibe hit home. Gael had intended to mention her meeting with the cheerful Prince Kirris, Elwina’s brother, in the Burnt Lands. Now she swung away, stung—and there was the young prince, baby Kirris, right in under her feet.
Trying to protect him, to prevent injury to the child, she fell clumsily down on one knee, fumbling to keep hold of her weapon. Raucous laughter met her ears from every side—yet not a single voice raised for the safety of the child next in line but one to the old King’s throne. Perhaps they thought the Lance was too long, the point too far away, to do the child injury.
Gael knew otherwise—the weight of the Krac’Duar in her hand alone would be enough to give the child a grievous hurt—perhaps she was the only one who thought of that! From the kneel, taking a deep breath to steady herself, she stared at this precious royal child, his level, trusting gaze. She could not help a stab of guilt, thinking on young Guendolin of Grays, and all that had fallen on that child so that Gael could b
e saved. At least this innocent she had not harmed.
The child—the baby, with his fringe of red gold fuzz, his slate blue eyes—it was not possible to tell if they would stay that color, or darken when he became a little older—darted toward her. His nurse, appalled, would have seized him back, dragged him away, but already the little prince was too fast for her. He buried himself against Gael’s tunic, not at all afraid, for a child such as this must be very accustomed to towering “giant warriors.” He had come to her because he wished to touch the Krac’Duar—its cracked band of golden tape had attracted his interest.
“Fie, it’s dirty. Your Highness, come away.” The nurse cast her dagger glance on Gael as the child squirmed from the tall kedran’s arms and laid both hands upon the shaft of the Lance, bracing himself, chortling with childish pleasure as his pink fingers broke free a small cracked square of the shining stuff—
Gael did not know what to do. She felt strong magic shifting within the shaft of the great weapon—certainly there had been a passing—she looked down at the child, clutching the tiny square of broken tape in his little hands, turning again to Gael, to protect it from his nurse—
How had no one else sensed it? How had no one else felt the almost sick-making, strong spasm of power, only Gael?
She looked round at Prince Rieth, the obnoxious Princess Elwina—now all she could do was feel sorrow for them. Yes, they were full of arrogance and pretension—but none of that would ever be rewarded.
This had not been Gael’s doing: it had been fate.
“Tush, on your way,” she whispered warmly to little Kirris, laying her hand on his small skull, stroking briefly the soft bright hair. No one was close enough to hear; the child himself would not comprehend: “One day, you will make a good king for Mel’Nir; yes you will, perhaps even a great king, but not today, my bonnie boy.” She pushed him back toward his nurse.
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