Limits of Power

by Elizabeth Moon

“What—oh. That.”

  She laughed aloud. “Your duty, sir king. Straightforward, obvious, and easily attained. Shall we begin?”

  CHAPTER SIX

  Vérella

  Prince Camwyn Mahieran had witnessed the expulsion of his cousin Beclan from the Mahieran family; his brother, King Mikeli, had explained all the reasons that lay behind that ruling, and he understood them—intellectually. Imaginatively, he felt unexpected sympathy for Beclan, whom he’d never really liked. How could Beclan be a Verrakaien now? Families were families: related by blood. If blood meant anything, how could someone be alienated from that relationship? He posed the question once to the Marshal-Judicar during a lesson on Girdish law, and the look he received from those frosty gray eyes stopped the rest of his protest in his throat. The Marshal-Judicar recited the relevant law and its reasoning, a process that at least relieved Camwyn of the need to discuss the day’s assignment, involving the kingdom’s economic base in relation to Gird’s beliefs about earned and unearned income. Camwyn knew that the royal household was not thought to earn its income, though with Mikeli spending most of every day on the realm’s business, why not?

  He nodded at the end of the lesson and escaped with relief to a session with the royal armsmaster. He was finally learning to use a real sword—real, that is, in being a longsword almost as long as his brother’s. He had grown much taller in the past year—an earlier growth spurt than Mikeli’s—and he lacked but a few fingerwidths of his brother’s height.

  The armsmaster greeted him with the familiar scowl. “What did you do to have the Marshal-Judicar hold you beyond your time?”

  “Asked him a question, sir,” Camwyn said. “He wished to make sure I understood it fully.”

  “And do you?”

  “Yes, sir,” Camwyn said, thinking meanwhile that understanding did not mean agreement.

  “Well, let’s see if you understand this.” The armsmaster handed him a hauk, not the blade he’d used in the last two practice sessions. “Do you know why?”

  “No, sir,” Camwyn said. He held the smooth wood, polished by many hands over the years.

  “Your parries are weak with the longsword,” the armsmaster said. “Your height is one thing; the strength of shoulder, arm, and wrist is another. You will build up strength before you pick up a long blade again. In the meantime, you will learn the moves with a reed-blade.”

  Camwyn opened his mouth to protest, then thought better of it. Armsmaster Fralorn won most arguments with his students, and Camwyn did not wish to invite a negative report to his brother.

  “Yes, sir,” he said.

  “I will show you the exercises I want you to use,” Fralorn said. “And if you can find a glass in your busy day to work on your own, I will see by your increasing strength whether you are following my instructions. Or, if you prefer, we can spend the next five tendays working with hauks in your weapons class.”

  “I will do it, sir,” Camwyn said.

  The armsmaster nodded. “I thought you would say that. If you wish, you may come here, or you may take hauks with you. If you wish to improve your friends’ fighting skills, invite them to join you.”

  For the next half-glass Camwyn worked with the hauk, the armsmaster insisting on correct form at every point. “Until I’m certain your body has learned the forms, we will spend a short time every session in review, but I will depend on you to do most of the work on your own,” the armsmaster said. “If you do not improve soon, we will do more of this here.”

  “Yes, sir,” Camwyn said, trying not to pant. His shirt was soaked with sweat.

  After that, he rose early each morning and put in the time with hauks. He was soon bored with the exercise; he knew the armsmaster expected him to give it up. Instead, he invited his friends in the palace to join him. Aris Marrakai, as he might have expected, was the most faithful of the others. Camwyn had long since understood the king’s reason for attainting his former friend Egan Verrakai and no longer blamed Aris Marrakai for taking Egan’s place. Aris was lively and mischievous, very much a kindred spirit.

  Yet it was Aris who raised the question of magery. “I do not understand how the king is so sure only Beclan has mage powers,” he said one morning as he tossed a hauk back to Camwyn, who caught it, twirled it, and tossed it back, this time to Aris’s heart-hand.

  “No one else has shown any,” Camwyn said.

  “But Beclan didn’t know he had it, so how does the king know someone else doesn’t? He might have it himself. You might.”

  “Duke Verrakai says we don’t.”

  “But she didn’t think Beclan had it, did she, until he used it? Does it just come when it’s ready, like beard hairs?”

  “I don’t think we should talk about this,” Camwyn said.

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t think Mikeli would like it.” He was sure Mikeli would not like it after the lecture he’d had from the Marshal-Judicar. He could see from Aris’s expression that the younger boy was about to ask why. “Besides … surely if I had it, I’d know.”

  “You had something that made that dragon give you a ride,” Aris said. Of all Camwyn’s friends, Aris had been the only one who seemed envious of that. The others had shuddered.

  “Nothing makes a dragon do anything,” Camwyn said. He was sure of that.

  “Then why did it choose you and not the king?”

  “I wanted to. I asked.”

  “Would it come if you called it?”

  “No,” Camwyn said. “And it’s ‘he,’ not ‘it.’ ”

  “I wish I could see it—him,” Aris said. He said nothing more for a time as they went into one of the armsmaster’s more complicated drills involving simultaneous cross-throws. Finally, one of Aris’s thrown hauks hit one of Camwyn’s with a clatter and bounced loudly on the stone floor of the Bells’ training hall, where Camwyn had permission to practice these early mornings. That brought a yeoman-marshal out of the Bells’ offices.

  “Oh—it’s you, prince. A little more careful if you please. I thought we had an invasion of orcs.”

  “We didn’t drop them on purpose,” Aris said.

  “With more purpose and attention, you would not drop them at all.” The yeoman-marshal, Camwyn knew, reported to the Knight-Commander of the Bells and was therefore no one to annoy.

  “Sorry, Yeoman-Marshal,” Camwyn said. “It is a new drill the armsmaster gave me but a tenday ago; this is the first time we’ve tried to speed it up.”

  “Slow it back down, then,” the yeoman-marshal said, and went back to the offices.

  “Something simple,” Camwyn said. “We can’t afford to anger him. I can’t.”

  “I think you should try it,” Aris said when they paused again, this time without any dropped hauks.

  “Try what?” Camwyn mopped his sweaty face with a towel.

  “Calling the dragon. Just to see if you can. You might need him someday.”

  Camwyn stared at him. “Aris, if I could call the dragon, that would be by magic, wouldn’t it? And that’s treason.”

  Aris scowled. “I never thought of that. I just thought—maybe if you’ve ridden with him, he listens for you, and then it would be his magic, wouldn’t it? I didn’t mean I wanted you to commit treason.”

  “That’s good,” Camwyn said, feeling much more mature than Aris. “Because if you did, I’d have to report you to the king, and then you’d be the one doing treason.”

  “I didn’t think of that, either,” Aris said. “But anyway, you’re not going to be king. Once the king marries and has children—”

  “I don’t want to be king,” Camwyn said. “It’s too much work being king.”

  “Will you be Knight-Commander of the Bells?”

  “I don’t know. I’ll be whatever the king wants me to be, and he hasn’t said. I don’t think he will until I’ve earned my knighthood.”

  “I wish I were your age. You’ll be two years ahead of me whatever I do.”

  “It matters less when
we’re grown,” Camwyn said. He punched Aris in the shoulder, not too hard. “We’d better get these hauks back to the salle. Have breakfast with me?”

  “I can’t,” Aris said. “Page duties. But I’ll be at riding, of course.”

  “Good—I’ll see you then.”

  Camwyn cleaned up and then went to breakfast with his brother the king—he had a standing invitation now whenever he wasn’t breakfasting with a friend. He had begun to understand Mikeli’s sense of urgency about his education since Beclan’s disgrace—or adventure, as he preferred to think of it.

  When Camwyn came into the king’s quarters, he found Mikeli staring at a parchment roll embellished with colored inks and gold leaf.

  “You should see this,” Mikeli said. “It’s from the king of Kostandan. He thinks I should marry his daughter Ganlin.”

  “I thought Rothlin was interested in her,” Camwyn said, reaching for a hot roll. “He said she seemed to like him.” Then he remembered he’d heard that via Aris, his sister Gwenno, and Beclan, which made it gossip. He stuffed the roll in his mouth.

  “Close to the throne isn’t the throne,” Mikeli said. He put the scroll down and picked up a tumbler of juice. “I hate this, you know. Girls are all very well, and I must have a wife, but I understand how Kieri Phelan felt when they pressured him. And now he’s married and happy with it. I suppose I will be.”

  “Will you marry this girl, then?” Camwyn tried to sound more adult and sensible than he felt. Girls—Aris’s sisters or the others he knew—were just people as far as he was concerned. Pretty or plain didn’t matter as much as whether they were lively or dull. He liked what he’d heard about Gwenno, Aris’s older sister, but he also liked Temris, a year younger than Aris.

  “I don’t know,” Mikeli said. “I am supposed to do what’s best for the realm. Kieri has advised me that I must marry someone who will sustain my interest and not be overwhelmed by dynastic considerations, but the Council want me to marry soon. Kieri has inspired them, it seems.”

  “Have you met her?”

  “Ganlin of Kostandan? No. Her father suggests a state visit similar to that on which she was sent to Tsaia—but you know what happened then.”

  “Will she finish at Falk’s Hall?”

  “I don’t know. From what Kieri’s told me, she’s eager to marry. She thought she wanted to run away with Elis of Pargun; now she thinks she wants a husband, as high ranking as possible. She’s still young—a few years younger than me—so who knows what she’ll want in another few years?”

  “Surely any woman would be happy to wed the king of Tsaia,” Camwyn said around a large wedge of ham roll.

  “It’s not the wedding but the time after I’m concerned about. Think of our uncle Mahieran, Cam. He loved Celbrin; he thought she loved him. Perhaps she did. But through her has come all this trouble with Beclan. And by the way … are you really questioning my decision?”

  “Um … no.”

  “It sounded like it to the Marshal-Judicar.”

  Tattletale, Camwyn thought, and then tried to unthink it. Mikeli was too good at reading faces.

  “And he should have told me,” Mikeli said, making it clear he had figured out what Camwyn was thinking.

  Was that magery? Or just an older brother’s understanding of a younger? Camwyn wasn’t sure. “I’m sorry,” he said. “It’s all this emphasis on bloodlines. If blood matters, then whatever you say, whatever the law says, Beclan’s still in our family. He’s Uncle’s true-son, not Duke Verrakai’s.”

  “Camwyn, you’re old enough to know that physical truth and legal truth aren’t always the same thing.”

  “They should be.”

  “In this instance, the physical truth would have required me to order Beclan’s execution when he broke his oath to me.”

  “But the law that demanded it is just the law—not the physical truth.”

  Mikeli shook his head with a rueful grin. “You are arguing with me, Brother. And here, in the privacy of my apartments, that’s legal. Just don’t upset our new Marshal-Judicar with it—or anyone else. You want the physical truth, but the most important truth is political. And we do not want it to become physical: we do not want a revolt against the Crown, bodies falling in the street, blood flowing. Enough of that right after the assassination attempt. The political truth is that the people do not want a magelord king, and we cannot afford to let them think the Crown’s bloodline is tainted with magery.” Camwyn started to speak, but Mikeli held up his hand. “You and I can talk about the details later, Cam, but I’m hungry and need my breakfast, and so do you. The armsmaster tells me you’re strengthening into your height—doing it on your own. I’m proud of you.”

  “My shirts are getting tight around the chest,” Camwyn said. “The shoulders and arms as well.”

  “I can see that. Tell me, Cam—what are you considering for your own future marriage?”

  “Me?” Camwyn felt his blood run cold. “You’re not thinking of that Kostandanyan princess, are you? She’s older than I am. And anyway…”

  “Time to start looking. Until I get an heir, you’re next in line. You’re doing better in your studies, I hear, and soon fathers will be trailing their eligible daughters past you.”

  “I like Aris’s sisters,” Camwyn said. “They ride really well.”

  Mikeli laughed aloud. “If you’re still thinking of girls in the context of how they ride or fence or draw a bow—”

  “Kieri Phelan did.”

  “That’s King Kieri of Lyonya to you, Cam, until it rolls off your tongue as easily.”

  “Yes, sir king,” Camwyn said, and quickly filled his mouth with another ham roll. Mikeli feinted a punch at him, and he dodged.

  “So … try to put your mind to more about girls than their athletic skills or your body will do it for you—very soon now, I think.”

  “Did that happen to you?”

  “Yes, of course. But I could not think of marriage until after my coronation. This—” He tapped the scroll still open on the table. “This must be answered one way or the other, and soon. And you, Brother, must not speak of it.”

  “I won’t.” Camwyn finished that roll and scooped a large spoonful of stirred eggs onto his platter. “But don’t you think it would be better to marry someone from here?”

  “The difficulty is what we were talking of earlier.” Mikeli set his elbows on the table and tented his fingers. “The Council and I have been looking into the bloodlines of all the great families and most minor ones. All have a magelord background; latent magery could be in any of them. We know it’s in ours because of Beclan. It’s likely that Celbrin never knew it and may not be able to manifest it herself. So marrying away from magelord bloodlines would be a good idea.”

  “You could marry someone not from the peerage,” Camwyn said.

  “Except that many such families also have a blood connection to the mageborn. We suspect it cropped out in Beclan—strong enough to be triggered by his ordeal—as a result of minor influences from both sides. That’s another thing you must not speak of.”

  “I won’t … So you think even you and I might have some?”

  “That’s not something I’m going to admit even to you, Cam, and you would be wise never to mention the possibility. We still have enemies; we think most of the Verrakaien traitors are gone, but we’re not sure. At any rate, there’s a reason to consider marrying outside this realm. Marrying into Kostandan joins the Seafolk and ourselves and might ensure lasting peace in the north, something we certainly want.”

  Camwyn nodded. “We want peace, I know. But if war comes, like that new ruler in Aarenis I’ve heard about?”

  “Then perhaps an ally.” Mikeli sighed. “But I could wish she had not set on our cousin first. He has seen that before. And I do not want a queen who is no more than a flirt.”

  “You think this princess is?”

  “I don’t know,” Mikeli admitted. “Not for certain. But both Duke Verrakai and Kieri say she was
clearly putting herself forward to Rothlin. If she was using my cousin just to get closer to me, that’s not the right kind of woman to be queen.”

  “She’s not the right kind of woman for Rothlin, either,” Camwyn said.

  “No, but that’s his choice, his and his father’s. If she stayed at Falk’s Hall and got her ruby, that would prove something of her character. But if I tell her father that I will only consider her if she is knighted—what if then I do not choose her? It would be considered an insult, and that would not be good at all.”

  “So—”

  “So I must think how to say ‘Not quite yet’ while I find out more about her. The Knight-Commander of Falk’s Hall will not tattle to me but might share something with Kieri, who might then think to mention it to Duke Verrakai, who might share it with her king.”

  “That’s not tattling?”

  “No. Everyone’s within a chain of obligation, loyal to an oath. Something to think about when you tell someone something—to whom might they feel obligated to tell it?”

  That day the riding instructor led them north of the city for a gallop in fields separated by hedges and patches of woodland. Rain two days before had left water in the furrows; they rode along the margins until the instructor found a drier pasture on higher ground. When the riders had completed their exercise and dismounted to walk the horses cool in the shade of a hedge, Camwyn stooped to look at some bright red mushrooms that had come up after the rain—unfamiliar to him, as were the trees they grew under. He touched them but knew better than to eat one without asking someone.

  When he came back into the palace, he did not expect to be taken immediately to his brother the king, who was in no good mood.

  “I thought you knew how to keep your mouth shut,” Mikeli said.

  “I didn’t tell anything,” Camwyn said. “What do you think—”

  “You didn’t tell anyone that we discussed Ganlin, that her father had written me?”

  “Of course not. You said not to, and anyway, who would I tell? I was out riding. What happened?”

  “Rothlin. He knows about the letter, and he knows you know. I thought you were the only one who could have told him, but someone else must have.” He sighed. “Roth was not pleased to find that Ganlin’s father had involved himself, though he said that he knew her brother was even more ambitious for her than a king’s cousin. He thinks Ganlin really likes him but would defer to her father’s wishes.” He rubbed his head. “It’s such a tangle. We need time to straighten things out here after Beclan; rushing into a marriage—either of us—is not the best plan.”