Limits of Power

by Elizabeth Moon

  Dorrin frowned. “A pattern to open things?”

  “Yes. A door … or a way …? It might be different, of course. I wish now I had gone into the High Lord’s Hall in Fin Panir. The Girdish told me about a pattern there and another in Kolobia; the expedition returned using them. But I was so focused on Paks, I never took the time. Now I need to know: are those patterns like this one? And are there such patterns in Vérella?”

  “I hope not,” Dorrin said. “Assassins in the palace were bad enough: kuaknomi would be worse. If there are more of these—and in places we do not know, where none recognize them—” Verrakai House? She could not imagine elves as Verrakai allies, but … kuaknomi? The palace in Vérella … some parts of it were certainly old enough. “You must tell Duke Mahieran about the pattern,” she said.

  “I intend to,” Kieri said. “But what about the pattern on that box?”

  “I don’t think the pattern on the box is exactly the same,” Dorrin said. “But it’s complicated; I’d have to see them together to know for sure.”

  “You can take a drawing of this one with you,” Kieri said. “Compare it to that one if you have a chance.”

  “Anything more?” Dorrin asked.

  “No,” Kieri said. “Only remember, Dorrin Verrakai, that you have a friend in me whenever you need one.”

  “Thank you.” Dorrin took a deep breath and pushed away the wish that her duty, her lands, and her oath had been in Lyonya. “My oath is to Mikeli now, as you know—”

  “Yes. And you have never broken an oath; I know that as well. But I care about your welfare.”

  “And I about yours,” Dorrin said, making her tone as light as she could. She bowed. “I should go to Arian now and then check on my kirgan. He has learned much, but I am not sure packing my court clothes is a task within his competence.”

  “Go with my blessing,” Kieri said.

  Dorrin bowed again and walked out of the office without a glance at that pattern.

  She found Arian in the rose garden, pacing the paths. More roses had come into bloom, pink and gold and peach, with a blood-red one in a corner. Others were thickly covered with buds.

  “Duke Verrakai,” said one of Arian’s Squires near the garden entrance. Arian turned. Dorrin could see the marks of tears on her face, but otherwise her expression was calm.

  “I was thinking of my father,” Arian said before Dorrin could say anything. “And of the loss of the elvenhome … and our child.”

  “That would bring tears to anyone’s eyes,” Dorrin said. “But how are you feeling? Do you really want to travel now?”

  “I would if I were bearing,” Arian said. She sat down on a bench and gestured for Dorrin to sit with her. “Staying here will not bring my babe alive again or bring back my father or the Lady and the elvenhome. I have seen nothing but Lyonya—that brief visit to your steading hardly counts. I want to learn, and for that I must travel.” She leaned back, lifting her face to the mild sun. “But it is a long trip, and being away from Kieri so long means … well … the nights. And the chance for another child.”

  “Mmmm.” Dorrin put the pieces of conversation together. “I am allowed to know that if the inconvenient Duke Verrakai and her even more inconvenient kirgan can be persuaded to leave, then the queen’s Tsaian escort, the noble Duke Mahieran, might be persuaded to stay … until the queen has a chance to … catch a touch of baby?”

  Arian snorted. “You put that bluntly, but yes. I told Kieri I didn’t want to leave until I was bearing again, and the timing being what it is…” She looked at Dorrin. “It is discourteous to you.”

  “No, it is both practical and convenient. You know how it is with my kirgan and his natural father and brother. It’s become more awkward every day. It strains my oath to my king, as well. I would rather be on my way. I’m sure I’m needed at home, as I suspect Gwenno and Daryan have gotten into some mischief or other.”

  “You mean that?”

  “Arian, one of my besetting faults is that I do say what I mean, whether it is in order or not. Be sure I do mean what I said. I like you; Kieri is one of my oldest friends. But I have other responsibilities, and Kieri’s given me leave. We’re riding tomorrow morning.”

  “I’ll miss you,” Arian said. Dorrin heard the matter-of-fact tone and knew that Arian had, in spite of everything, made the adjustment to her new role and duties. She hoped the queen would find other friends here, women she could relax with. The Queen’s Squires might become such, but that would take time. “And did I ever thank you for what you said when I came to you before?” Arian asked.

  “No need,” Dorrin said, shaking her head. “We are both Knights of Falk, sisters of the ruby and the blade, who have fought evil together. Come visit me whenever you please. Though I must be at Midsummer Court and probably again at Autumn Court, you would be welcome any time.”

  “I will not be running from anything when I come,” Arian said, grinning. “And I hope you will visit here again.”

  Dorrin chuckled. “If Beclan had his way, I imagine we would be here many times a year. He has enjoyed the attention from Lyonyan girls, but the boy has much to learn before I approve betrothal. For myself, I like to know I have friends across the border. I will come back, be assured, and not just on Beclan’s behalf.”

  “I hope your problems with your king’s court are over,” Arian said.

  “As do I,” Dorrin said. “But I suspect suspicion will not die so quickly. And now, I really should go check on Beclan. He’s supposed to be packing for us.” Dorrin rose.

  “And you fear for that gorgeous formal robe?”

  “A little,” Dorrin said. “I’ll need it later.”

  “I’ll come in with you,” Arian said.

  Early the next morning, Dorrin checked the girth of her horse as Beclan held the reins.

  “A moment!”

  She looked at the palace entrance. To her surprise, Duke Mahieran was coming down the steps.

  “Yes, my lord?”

  “I wanted to say goodbye to your kirgan,” he said formally.

  “Of course,” Dorrin said. She nodded at Beclan, who had been holding her reins. “Go on, Kirgan.”

  “I will report to the king,” Duke Mahieran said, “your correct behavior in this situation. It pleases me and will please the king, who granted us leave to speak, that you have adhered to the restrictions. Your—my kirgan, Rothlin, wishes you to know that he admires how you have borne yourself throughout.”

  “Thank you,” Beclan said. His back straightened a little.

  “And you, Duke Verrakai, have … have done all you ought for the king’s honor and your kirgan’s welfare. I wish you well.”

  “And I, my lord, wish you and your family well, including the king. You should know that we do not ride to Harway, but along a trail the queen told me of—a more direct route to my domain.” He would realize by this that there would be no chance meeting along the way no matter when he chose to leave with Rothlin.

  “Go with Gird’s blessing,” Mahieran said.

  “I should mention,” Dorrin said, “that I propose sending my kirgan to Falk’s Hall, where I went, to take his knightly training. Will you inform the king and ask his permission?”

  “Of course,” Mahieran said. He bowed and turned away.

  “Well,” Dorrin said to Beclan when Mahieran was out of earshot. “That was … not expected. But now we ride. For now, you will take rear guard.” She mounted and turned her horse toward the gate without a backward look.

  They made good time through the springtime forest. Dorrin used the time to think about the mysterious pattern as well as about the equally mysterious patterns of power operating among the people of the Tsaian court and between the elves and humans in Lyonya. Would Duke Mahieran’s current attitude hold, and would it have any effect on lesser lords? While they were both gone, others would have attended the court at the Spring Evener in Vérella. Were any of them but Arcolin on her side? And would the elves decide to help Kier
i, or would they disappear somewhere, using those patterns of power?

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Six days after the elves left with the Lady’s body, Amrothlin returned to the palace in Chaya alone. Other elves, he said, were still singing the Lady’s life in the deep forest, though a few had come back to Chaya with him.

  “But I promised the king I would return swiftly, and here I am,” he said to Arian. “Do you know where he is?”

  “He rode out with Aliam Halveric this morning,” Arian said. He turned away, but she spoke again. “I have my own questions for you about those things my father promised to tell me later. Now he is dead, I will never know from him. You, however, know more of him than I do.”

  Amrothlin stiffened. “Arian—lady queen—you cannot ask me—”

  “I can and I do,” she said. “For the good of the realm, for the good of my future children, and for the good of Lyonya’s elves, I must know those things I am sure you know.”

  “You have no right—” His eyes flashed; he looked the same as before the Lady’s death, all arrogance. She felt the pressure of his glamour but resisted it.

  “I have every right,” Arian said. “As queen, as Dameroth’s daughter, and as one who was kept in ignorance far too long, I have the right. Your mother quarreled with my father, but that is no reason for you to continue that quarrel with me.”

  “For her memory—”

  “For her memory, explain why she made such tragic mistakes,” Arian said, scorn edging her voice. “She admitted one the day I freed you all from captivity underground. You cannot deny that; you were there.”

  Amrothlin passed a hand over his face as if to wipe that memory away. Tears glittered in his eyes. He nodded slowly. “It may be easier to tell you than the king,” he said. “What you choose to tell him after—I suppose you will not promise to withhold anything?”

  “Indeed not. It is his responsibility and mine to do the best for Lyonya, both taig and people, human and elven. I will not keep secrets from the king. So: why did the Lady hate my father? And why, if she did, did he stay here? Was he another of her children?”

  “No,” Amrothlin said. Arian waited. Finally he said, “He stayed because he was commanded to stay. By his father. And I cannot—must not—tell you who that is, not without his permission. I have no doubt you will meet him when he learns of your father’s death.”

  “I do not need more mysteries,” Arian said. She heard the anger in her voice and tried to soften it. “I need answers, Amrothlin. What was my father’s full name? For that matter, what did he name me?”

  “His name … Damerothlyarthefallibenterdyastinla.” He rolled it out quickly, the syllables blending together like water over stones, then looked at her for a reaction.

  Arian worked her way through the name even as she understood why he’d not told her before. “He was the son of an elvenlord? Son of someone who had founded an elvenhome?”

  “Yes.”

  “But he sired many children on humans … That is not common, is it?”

  “No.” For an instant, Amrothlin seemed angry, then his expression softened again. “It is not. An elf of his … rank … would usually mate with elven women, and that is what the Lady thought he would do when he came here. Instead, he dallied with one human after another.”

  “Why?” Arian asked. She watched Amrothlin flush again and kept her gaze hard on his. However much he might stop and start, she was determined to find out more about her father and more about the Lady from the one person who clearly knew.

  In the end it took hours to drag out what still seemed meager information, though far more than she’d known before. Amrothlin, still his mother’s loyal son, made every excuse he could for the Lady and laid every fault he could on others. Had Dameroth or his father really intended insult to the Lady by refusing to mate with one of her elves? Or had they some other reason?

  Some questions he would not answer at all; to others he professed not to know the answers, but instead went off into long explanations of relationships she did not understand at all.

  She did understand that he was still angry with Kieri’s mother for her choice of a human partner, for marrying Kieri’s father.

  “She was the heir and carried the seed of a new elvenhome; to mate with those who cannot possibly engender an elvenhome—to bring forth only children who cannot—is irresponsible, utter folly. If my sister had not chosen to marry a human, she could have revived the Ladysforest when the Lady died. As it is, her decision doomed us.”

  “I suppose she thought she would outlive Kieri’s father and could then mate with an elf,” Arian said. “It was her death that doomed the Ladysforest, not her first marriage.”

  “Chance comes to all,” Amrothlin said. “As events proved. Besides, she had sworn she would not. She doubted herself after—” He stopped abruptly. “I cannot say all. Not yet. You might as well know that she was determined to pass it to her son, but we knew that was impossible. She quarreled with the Lady about it, insisting she had done so.”

  Secrets indeed! Arian stared at him, silenced for a time as the new possibilities tumbled through her mind. Kieri’s mother had intended him to inherit the elvenhome gift? Why? And how? And … most important … had she done it or merely talked about it?

  “Do you think she—?” Arian began.

  Amrothlin interrupted. “It is impossible, I tell you.” He ranted on for another half-glass about the impossibility of such things, about Kieri’s mother’s rebellious foolhardy nature, about the elven estimate of Kieri’s own character when he had escaped from bondage and returned to Lyonya an abused waif.

  “It would have been better had he died; nothing was left of whatever the prince had been.”

  Arian’s own anger erupted. “Can you say that now, to the king’s face? Nothing left? He has taig-sense, he has the healing magery—”

  “He did not have it then.”

  “And you did nothing to help him! How could you leave any child to starve in the winter forest, let alone your sister’s son? How is that creating harmony and song?”

  “I did not,” Amrothlin said. “I was not the one who found him first. When I heard—” He closed his eyes a moment before going on. “I argued he should be taken to some human settlement, placed there. I went, in fact, to where he had been found, but he was gone.”

  “And how long did you search?” Arian asked.

  “The second time? Until I found bones,” Amrothlin said. “You do not understand. The first time—when he was taken—I found his mother’s—my sister’s—body. We never found his—we thought animals had scattered—we did not know he was taken.” He shuddered. “The second time—I found the bones of a child perhaps twelve or thirteen, clearly mangled by animals. I know now they were not his. At the time … I thought they were. A half-year, perhaps, later, someone reported a waif taken in by the Halverics. The Lady sent an elf to visit. He was not sure; there was no memory, no sign that this boy was certainly the prince. The boy was thriving in Halveric hands. Later still … from the description, it was clear who he was, but all reports had him too broken to be worthy of a throne.”

  “And yet he is,” Arian said. Amrothlin bowed assent.

  She started to ask again about her own father but stopped short. If her father had been his father’s heir, had inherited the ability to form an elvenhome, could he have transferred that to his half-elf children? To … to her? No, certainly not. On reflection, an elvenlord would not have sent his only heir so far away and forbidden him to mate with elven women. He had mated with human women precisely to prevent fathering a child who could receive the Lady’s elvenhome gift and continue the Lady’s domain. He—or his elvenlord father—had wanted it to fail.

  She asked instead about the length of time the other elves might be gone before returning to Chaya. What seemed to her like a simple question resulted in another half-glass explanation for uncertainty—and soon he took his leave, saying he would be back in the morning to talk to the kin
g. When Kieri rode in shortly before dark, she told him what Amrothlin had said.

  “Elves!” Kieri said, stripping off his gloves and tossing them on the table. “Why can’t they just tell us straight out? Why is everything so … so complicated?” Then he looked thoughtful. “Orlith … could that be why he was murdered?”

  “Because if you had such ability, he might know it? That suggests someone else already knew. Unless he found out and told someone else—” Arian frowned.

  “Orlith’s wounds could have been made by elven arrows. And we never heard more from the Lady about his death.”

  Arian stared at him, and he stared back. “If he told her—”

  “Or any elf. Any elf who was against us—against me—a traitor—” Kieri’s voice darkened. “My mother—”

  Arian reached out and touched his shoulder. “Kieri—the rest of it—” She told what she now knew about her father, little as it was. “Amrothlin says your mother tried to pass the elvenhome gift to you; I believe that even if she did so, my father’s choice to mate with human women had no such intent. I cannot imagine he was his father’s heir; he simply wanted to prevent the Lady’s use of him to engender a child to whom she could transfer it.”

  “But you don’t know for certain she could have done so.”

  “No. And nor do you, though I think in your case—despite Amrothlin’s belief—your mother might have succeeded. If you could create an elvenhome, then the elves would feel more at home here.”

  “I’m not an immortal,” Kieri said. “After I die, it would disappear again.”

  “Not if you could pass on the gift to a child—and that child to another.”

  “If I have the talent … which I don’t know and have no idea how to use…” He stood and moved around the room. “Another puzzle. Every time we drag an answer out of them, it leads to more questions. I would like just one thing I’m supposed to do to be straightforward and obvious.”

  “I can think of something,” Arian said, chuckling.