Limits of Power

by Elizabeth Moon

  Mikeli leaned forward, putting his face a mere handspan from Camwyn’s. “And just when, Brother, were you planning to tell me about that?”

  No use to pretend he didn’t know what “that” was.

  “And do not try to tell me this was the first time.”

  Camwyn had already rejected that excuse. “I hoped it would go away,” he said instead. “I asked Gird to stop it. I knew it was wrong—”

  “You weren’t trying to make it happen? Wanting to know if you had magery like Beclan?”

  “No! I wasn’t … but … I dreamed.”

  “Dreamed?”

  “Voices. And—maybe it was my fault.”

  “How?”

  Camwyn’s voice seemed stuck in his throat, but he got it out bit by bit.

  “The crown called you?” Mikeli’s face, in the dimmer light of the flickering candle, had seemed slightly less frightening, but now it hardened again. “Was that why you asked to see the treasury? Were you lying to your tutors and the steward as well as me?”

  “I wanted to see if I could … find it. I never saw the chest before; I didn’t know what it looked like. If I could find it, then … then maybe I could open it. It wants to be free, Mikeli—sir king.” He knew he was crying only when the tears dripped down his face.

  “And you blame the crown?”

  “No—not that—it’s my fault. I could have—could have stopped—”

  “Did you break into the treasury?”

  “No!”

  “Softly. Were you thinking about breaking into the treasury? Was that why you went up on the roof?”

  “Yes, sir king.”

  “Does anyone else know about this? Aris?”

  He saw now, when he knew he should have seen earlier, that truth was the only road open. “Yes, sir king. When we went out on the north roof—”

  “The time you fell.”

  “I … caught Aris. And I couldn’t have.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I was sitting on the ridge, kind of scooting along, and he slipped, behind me. It was my fault—he thought I was teasing him about being afraid, but really I told him to stay because I thought I’d be faster alone and I wouldn’t have to worry about him. So he stood up fast and he slipped, and I was facing the wrong way and all bent up, and when I tried to move—” His voice failed then; a sob wanted to burst out. He fought it back.

  “What happened?”

  “I—I caught him. And he said ‘You’re flying,’ and I saw I must have—none of me was touching the roof. Then I fell down onto it, but we didn’t slide off.” Camwyn swallowed and told the rest. “And then on the ladder my feet cramped and I nearly fell, and … my hand lit up so I could see where the rungs were.”

  “And Aris saw.”

  “Yes, and I asked him not to tell anyone about it, even you, because I would. But I was afraid—I know I’m supposed to be willing to die in your service, but … but I don’t want to. Yet. But I’m your brother, and if I have magery, you have to kill me—”

  “No, I don’t,” Mikeli said. He sat back a little, elbows on his knees. “Cam, think: I didn’t kill Beclan Mahieran, and he’s only my cousin. Even though many men—many good men—died because of him and his magery, I did not condemn him. You’re my brother. You’re right; your having magery is a problem—and it couldn’t happen at a worse time, with High Marshal Seklis in the next tent—but you’re my brother, and I’m not going to kill you. Not for that, anyway. I’d sooner kill you for lying. For that you will be punished.”

  Camwyn wanted to ask how but did not dare. “You sent Beclan away; you made him change his name.”

  “Yes. And I cannot do that to you without risking my own rule. Enough tongues wag already.” Mikeli heaved a sigh that seemed to rise from his bare feet. “I thought you’d lit a candle—a dozen candles—in there and were up to some mischief. That’s why I came to see. Tell me, does it happen more than once a night?”

  “Not … usually,” Camwyn said. “But I never know when or for how long.”

  “Can you light candles with it?”

  “Yes, and that helps it go away. Sometimes I light one over and over.”

  “Try.” Mikeli handed him an unlit candle.

  Camwyn put out his hand to the wick. One finger burst into brilliant light; a flame rose from the wick. His finger hardly dimmed.

  “I don’t suppose you can use it up by some other magery,” Mikeli said. “Flying, perhaps?”

  Camwyn hesitated before answering and realized he was now on a level with Mikeli, whose mouth dropped open. “I don’t know—” he began, and then he fell, bare feet thudding on the rug first, followed almost at once by the rest of him crumpling in a heap with a loud thump. His hand held no light now, and ached as if he’d plunged it into the winter river. He lay, too tired to move. The candle he’d lit went on burning.

  “Sorry,” Mikeli said. “I didn’t really think—”

  “Is everything all right, sir king?” came a soft voice from the passage, along with approaching footsteps.

  “Yes,” Mikeli said. “Prince Camwyn and I are just talking; I knocked over the stool. We were both restless. Don’t be surprised if I light another candle.”

  “Something to drink? Eat?”

  “No need,” Mikeli said. “Thank you.”

  The footsteps receded. Camwyn felt himself sinking into sleep; as the darkness closed over him, he felt his brother’s strong arms lifting him, settling him in a bed.

  When he woke, he was in Mikeli’s bed and Mikeli was nowhere in sight. His head ached. He rolled over. A pillow and blanket were on the rug … but across the passage, he heard a man’s snore and a boy’s lighter one in the chamber that had been his. Outside, he heard a horse neigh, and then another one. The camp was waking. Soon the horn would blow, and servants would come.

  Camwyn rolled out of the bed, tossed the blanket and pillow back atop it, and eased the curtain back. No one in the passage. Across to the other chamber … he moved the curtain back and forth. Mikeli’s snores stopped.

  “Cam?”

  “Yes. It’s morning.”

  “It feels like the middle of the night.” Now more noise from outside, muffled sounds from men and completely unmuffled sounds from the mules. “Let me get back to my side,” Mikeli said. “We’ll talk later.”

  Outside the sky was already light, the grass heavy with dew. Camwyn and Aris had their assigned chores, readying the tent’s contents for the wagons. Shaking out the bedclothes, folding them; folding up the beds, the tables, the stools and chairs; carrying the lighter things out to the assigned wagon.

  At breakfast in the open air—deliciously fresh and smelling of spring—Mikeli said, “You will not ride with me today, either of you. I believe you know why.”

  “Yes, sir king,” Camwyn said. Was he being sent back? He stuffed a bite of sausage and bread into his mouth to keep from pleading.

  “You will ride in the last supply wagon today, the next to last tomorrow, and so on. I expect a complete tally of everything in the wagon you’re in each night. You may use tally sticks, but you will write the tally neatly for me to read when we stop for the night. If you do this faithfully, you may ride with me again when we come to Harway.”

  Camwyn’s heart sank. Day after day in the hot wagons at the dusty end of the procession? And not even free to sit and watch the countryside pass by, but digging about in the wagon to note what was in it? And yet … at least he wasn’t being sent back to Vérella in disgrace.

  “Yes, sir king,” he said.

  “Go on, then,” Mikeli said as his own squires approached. “I see you’ve finished your breakfast.”

  On the way to the wagon, Aris said, “He knows?”

  “Yes. Last night. My hand again.”

  “Did you tell him all?”

  “Yes. But he’s more angry with me than with you. You but did what I told you.”

  “Well,” Aris said, “at least we’ll learn something about
supplying a company of this size traveling this distance.”

  It was not what Camwyn had wanted to learn, but he knew he must make the best of it. Sulking would only make things harder—and on Aris, too, who had not deserved it.

  The teamster for the last wagon had already heard he was transporting the prince and his attendant and what they were to do. He handed over a scroll with a set of tally marks, one for each type of cargo, and a sackful of blank tallies. “I won’t have you making a mess back there,” he said. “There’s naught in the bottom compartment, so don’t you be shoving things out of order to get to it.” Camwyn stared at him, wondering if it was some trick, but the man’s gaze was steady. “The load’s balanced as it is; things is labeled with the tally mark.”

  Camwyn scrambled into the back of the wagon, Aris right behind him. Far ahead, someone yelled; Camwyn thought it was the command to start. Nothing happened at first.

  “If we start at the back, maybe we can see out the front before day’s end,” Aris said.

  Camwyn nodded and looked at the first box with its mark. “Dried fruit,” he said. “It doesn’t say what kind. Or how many.” The box’s latch was firmly tied with an intricate knot. “I don’t think we’re supposed to open things, but … they do in the palace inventory.”

  “Then we should,” Aris said. “We can compare that knot to the ones on other boxes to get it right.”

  Inside the box were sacks, each labeled with the kind of fruit. Camwyn sniffed at them, then began cutting notches on the tally stick. Aris worked on the box beside him. “I got thirty-eight sacks,” Camwyn said. “Fourteen apple, sixteen peach, six cherry, and two plum.”

  “Mine had thirty-eight as well,” Aris said. “But twenty-two peach, five apple, and eleven plum. No cherry.”

  “We’ll have to check every box,” Camwyn said. “And without upsetting the teamster.” He retied the latchstring—at least all the knots looked the same—and counted down as far as he could reach. The boxes were stacked four high.

  The rest of that day was as miserable as he’d feared. Once the wagon was in motion and the troops at the rear of the procession moved out, dust rose in clouds, drifting in under the wagon cover. Moving the boxes one by one to open them and count through their contents took much longer than he’d hoped. Camwyn and Aris emerged at the noon break, covered with dust and thirsty, to find that they were supposed to eat with the supply train, not at the king’s table. “You’uns is too dirty, and it take too long to clean you up,” their teamster said. “Here’s water and bread and cheese and a hunk of hard sausage.”

  Nobody laughed at them or scolded them, but still … it was hot beside the road, and they had not finished half the wagon’s contents yet.

  By the time they halted for the day, they were still not finished, and the teamster pored over the interior of the wagon to be sure they left it neat. “No, you’uns can’t stay here by you’sefs. Gird only knows what mischief you’d get up to. What’s done is done; what’s not done there’s another day for. Get you gone.”

  Servants halted them at the entrance to the king’s campsite, brushed them down thoroughly, and then sent them to bathe and change. Camwyn felt bruised all over—the wagon’s ride had been rough, for all that this was the best road in the kingdom, and he and Aris had lurched into the hard-edged provisions boxes more than once. They bathed from the same bucket, changed, and Camwyn took the tallies they’d filled. He had the report to write before supper.

  Mikeli at supper seemed calm and pleasant, greeting them both and continuing his own conversation with Juris Marrakai while they ate. As the servants removed plates and offered dessert, he turned to Camwyn. “Your report, please.”

  Camwyn handed it over and eyed the dessert tray. Mikeli read, brows slightly furrowed. Camwyn took a pastry; Aris had already eaten two.

  “You didn’t finish even one wagon?” Mikeli said.

  “No, sir king.” Better to be completely formal. “We had to open every box—”

  “Why?” Mikeli asked.

  “Because, sir king, I remembered that when the palace cooks were doing inventory, they opened everything and counted it—”

  “The palace cooks … you were in the kitchens?”

  “Yes, sir king.”

  “For what reason?”

  Beside him, the crunch of pastry as Aris ate stopped.

  “I was snitching treats,” Camwyn said. “It was a dare.”

  “I see.” Mikeli turned over the scroll and read the back. “And I see you did a thorough job as far as you got. What about the bottom compartment?”

  “Sarnthol told us not to dig into it,” Camwyn said. “He wasn’t really happy we were moving boxes; he said it affected the load’s balance and the bottom compartment was empty.”

  “And you believed him?”

  Camwyn frowned. “He’s … he’s…” “Adult” would not be a good choice. Some adults did lie. “He’s your servant, sir king. He wears palace livery. I trusted him. Should I not?”

  “You should append to this report a note to the effect that he told you not to open the lower compartment. It is true that a teamster is in charge of his load, responsible for it. He has a right to say so, and you have a right to follow his orders, but it is something I need to know. Do you see that?”

  “I … I do now.”

  “Good. I trust you can finish the rest of this wagon by midday tomorrow and move to the next wagon for the afternoon.”

  The next several days passed in the same way: all day inside one swaying, jolting wagon after another, taking inventory in each. By the third day, the teamsters were friendlier, though it was clear that some form of “Prince Camwyn is in disgrace and this is punishment” had passed through the whole entourage. They did not ask what he had done, and their guesses were wide of the mark. To his surprise, his roof exploration back at the palace was widely known, along with earlier adventures.

  “Hangin’ about the kitchens takin’ treats—I don’t see as that’s so bad. There’s food enough; it’s not like you was takin’ from others.”

  “The Marshal said it was stealing,” Camwyn said, and bit off another hunk of the hard sausage. He liked it now.

  “So it was, and a good wallop is what it deserves, not diggin’ through wagons makin’ lists.” Tamnis, teamster from the first wagon in the train, drank deeply from a jug they hadn’t been offered and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Here’s what I think—it’s not fair to hide the prince away from those who want to see him—aye, lad, there’s folk who thought they’d see you and the king both.”

  “It’s not our business,” Sarnthol said. “They’ll see the prince later, and whatever the king says is fine enough for me. You’d best watch your tongue, Tam.”

  “What, you’re going to complain of me to the king, Sarn? You know better than that!”

  “Royal Guard’s not that far away, and if I can smell your jug, so might they. You know the rules.”

  “Pfaugh!” Tamnis said, and spat. But he put a plug in the jug, took up a waterskin, and drank heavily from that. Then he grinned at the boys and turned back to the others. “We’ve the pleasure of the prince’s company all to ourselves, I suppose. Nothing to complain of there. Was only thinkin’ of others.”

  By the time they had worked their way to the front wagon, Camwyn no longer thought the job quite as boring, or midday meals with the teamsters worse than lunch at the royal table. From the fourth day on, he and Aris had been allowed to exercise their mounts in the evening, riding up and down the road with four Royal Guards blocking either end. At night, Mikeli and Aris watched as Camwyn tried to bring his magery under some control. It was not hard to make his hand give light; Mikeli provided candle after candle for him to light and Aris to snuff. Sometimes he could rise off the stool or rug as high as the seat of Mikeli’s chair. And this exercise kept him from waking to an unexpected light later on.

  On the evening before they expected to make Harway, Mikeli relented. “Tomorro
w you will ride with me. I am pleased, both of you, with the way you accepted your punishment and performed your duties. But mark it well: there will be no more secrets from your king, Camwyn and Aris. Camwyn, your duty to me is as both brother and subject. Aris, your duty to me outweighs your duty of friendship to Camwyn. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, sir king,” Camwyn said. Aris followed.

  “And neither of you will speak of this without my command. Clear?”

  “Yes, sir king.”

  “Well, then. Tonight we will do our best to exhaust Camwyn and prevent any untoward displays of that power he must not have. Once we get to Duke Verrakai’s domain, we will consult her … that part of your plan, Cam, showed sense.”

  Once more a-horse, once more able to see everything they passed, Camwyn saw his position differently, as no doubt Mikeli had intended. The wagons were not merely a hindrance slowing them down, raising clouds of dust, but a necessity—the assurance that the entire party would have food, shelter, supplies for any emergency. The teamsters and servants were no longer faceless and nameless; he did not know all of them, but he knew enough to know the difference between the man willing to drink too much at midday and snore through the afternoon pretending to drive and the man who sat upright and alert the entire time. He knew he must not protect the drunk, because that risked everyone. The drunk drove the wagon with weapons and other supplies for the Royal Guard. He had told Mikeli, and the Royal Guard captain had “noticed” the jug and taken it away from Tamnis. Now one of the Royal Guard who had twisted a knee drove that wagon, and Tamnis was at the back of the train.

  The occasional farm family or shepherd running toward the road to wave and shout as the king rode by were now closer together. Closer yet. Now a continuous line—men, women, children, waving anything they could, throwing flowers at the king. A few landed on Camwyn; he remembered to smile to both sides and wave now and then. The horses, settled by days on the road, did not even jig.

  Harway, though smaller than Vérella, was the next largest town Camwyn had seen. It had a grange, a Field of Falk, a town hall several stories high, large inns, and cobbled streets lined with shops. The wagons peeled away to the south somewhere, and Mikeli rode with his guard to the Lyonyan border. There both his own border guard and the Lyonyans in russet and green saluted him. He gave a package—Camwyn had no idea what was in it—to one of the Lyonyans, who bowed and handed it to someone in a green tunic with a ruby in her ear. She mounted a horse at once and rode away. Then the Lyonyan guard handed a green velvet pouch to Mikeli.