Limits of Power

by Elizabeth Moon

  If the Marshal knew, he could be made to tell it. Arvid hoped that did not show on his face. Ale arrived, and a platter of warm bread and a bowl of honey. He poured ale for both of them and buried his face in his mug.

  “The thing is,” the Marshal said after a long swallow of ale, “you’re a grown man and an expert in your own way. So it is not easy for you to take direction, and you have worked hard to learn to work with other yeomen. But what you cannot see, that is clear to me or any Marshal, is how thin a layer of Girdishness is laid over what you were.”

  “Gird seems deep enough in my head for me,” Arvid said, around a mouthful of bread dipped in honey.

  “Gird needs to be here—” The Marshal pointed at his midsection. “Not just here.” He tapped his head.

  True.

  Arvid shivered. Not here; not now.

  “You are in more danger than I am,” the Marshal went on. “In danger of more than a knife in the ribs from your former friends. Gird has chosen you for something; we do not yet know what. But when Gird or a god has chosen you for a task, then you must do it. Such tasks are not given lightly, for the gods’ amusement, you know.”

  “I never thought about it,” Arvid said. He was suddenly hungry; the bread and honey suited him exactly. He swallowed a large lump and washed it down with ale. “What, exactly, is more dangerous than a knife in the ribs?”

  Marshal Porfur sighed. “There, you see, is your problem and that of most novice yeomen. Think back, Arvid: did you not see worse than death in what happened to Paksenarrion?”

  His jaw seized; he blinked and felt hot tears on his cheeks. He could not answer.

  “Yes—you did. I see that you know it. But you don’t hold it in mind—”

  Who could hold that in mind? Arvid glared at the Marshal, who gazed peacefully back at him and sipped from his mug.

  “Gird has some plan for you,” Marshal Porfur said.

  “Paks said maybe he had a plan for the Thieves’ Guild, not for me,” Arvid muttered, when he could speak.

  “Or maybe both,” Marshal Porfur said. “Paladins don’t know all. You might be Gird’s instrument to reform the Guild, or those might be two different things. But right now, you need to learn how to listen to Gird—”

  As if Gird himself weren’t already talking to him. Arvid hunched his shoulders, hiding his expression in his mug.

  “And for that, my lad, you need an experienced Marshal to guide you. You can’t expect Gird to speak as clearly as a man, inside your head.”

  “He does,” Arvid muttered, even more softly, into the ale. He reached for another hunk of bread without looking up, only to have Marshal Porfur clamp his hand to the table.

  “What did you say?”

  “Umm…” Lying to the Marshal was against the Code.

  “You hear voices in your head? How long?”

  “I don’t remember,” Arvid said. He tried to laugh, but Marshal Porfur’s expression stopped it behind his teeth.

  “Before you met Paksenarrion?”

  “No.” He was sure of that.

  “Before her trials?”

  “No … I don’t think so…”

  “You hear Gird?”

  “I…”

  The face: a challenging expression. The voice: Well?

  “Sometimes,” Arvid said, staring at the grain of the table. He could feel the heat in his face and ears; he could not look the Marshal in the eye.

  Marshal Porfur let go of his hand and sighed gustily. Arvid dipped a piece of bread in honey and stuffed it in his mouth.

  “That changes things,” Marshal Porfur said.

  Arvid chewed, swallowed, nearly choked, then got it all down. “How? If it … if he … if there’s something I’m supposed to do, I could still be wrong. Hearing it wrong.”

  The snort of contempt in his head should have been audible to Marshal Porfur, but Porfur’s expression didn’t change.

  “You’re not stupid, Arvid,” Marshal Porfur said. “That’s one of the things that’s worried me, how smart you are. Intelligent men think up ways to get themselves in tangles a stupid man would never imagine. But if you’re hearing voices—and more, if you’re really hearing Gird…” He shook his head. “You said you called on Gird today: tell me about that.”

  “He told me to,” Arvid said. He told the rest, including his impatient reaction. “But I knew I wouldn’t get to the children in time. So I asked—”

  Told.

  “I guess it was more like … told him … to do something.”

  “You would,” Marshal Porfur said. He was not laughing. “Arvid … if indeed Gird speaks so to you, then you are beyond my guidance. No—” He held up his hand as if Arvid had spoken. “You are not yet ready to make all your own interpretations, but you are beyond my guidance. You need to be instructed by a High Marshal, at least. Perhaps the Marshal-General. I think you should go to Fin Panir.”

  “Go—but—” You just told me to stay, he almost said, but managed to shut it off.

  “The difficulty will be getting you past Valdaire, I’m sure—”

  “But—go now—?”

  “You wanted to leave now anyway, didn’t you?”

  “There’s … there’s my … he may be my … son.”

  Marshal Porfur nodded. “You’ll want him safe with you. Where is he now?”

  “Marshal Steralt in Valdaire found him a place.”

  “I’ll send word to him for you. I’ll need to talk to your—to Count Arcolin. I should think the trouble’s done for today, don’t you?”

  “Yes, Marshal.”

  “Then come along to the grange; we’ll have our service of thanks. I’ll go with you to see the Count afterward.”

  It seemed everyone involved and their families were packed into the grange that hot midafternoon: Regar and his whole family, the other men, even the mule team’s owner, who had stopped grumbling about the damage to his wagon when the Marshal pulled him aside on the way to the grange. Someone must have run to the camp, because a squad of Fox Company soldiers and Count Arcolin were there, too, at the last moment.

  He would have scoffed at Marshal Porfur’s words a season ago. Porfur pounded his points home with repetition: this was the Fellowship’s duty, to respond to threats to the community, and they should remember this day whenever trouble came. By standing together … and so on. Now it seemed much less fussy and overblown. Now he had seen for himself what it meant, and he stood silent and sweating with the others, listening to Porfur, feeling a kinship with those he’d despised.

  When it was over and the crowd had edged out of the crowded grange, dispersing into clumps and obviously reliving their actions, Marshal Porfur called Arcolin and Arvid into his private office and shut the door. It was stuffy, and Arvid wondered why he didn’t at least open the separate outside door.

  “What is it, Marshal?” Arcolin asked. “Do you want to ask Ifoss Council to authorize a squad of my men to help the city militia?”

  “No,” Marshal Porfur said. “It’s Arvid. He’s told me he hears the voice of Gird in his head.”

  “Um.” Arcolin looked at Arvid and back at the Marshal. “And why are you telling me?”

  “I’m not telling everyone, you notice. You, because you brought him here and stood sponsor for him. Has he acted strangely since you met him in Valdaire?”

  “Other than being a thief trying to turn honest? No, I wouldn’t say so.”

  “I think the same,” Marshal Porfur said. “But—you do not hear Gird’s voice in your head, do you?”

  “Not commonly,” Arcolin said. “I mean—there’s a sense, sometimes a strong one, of what I should do, but it’s not … not someone else.”

  “So. Madmen hear voices—you’ve seen those poor souls, I expect, convinced that some god told them to eat pebbles or go about naked or stand on one foot until they fell over—”

  “Or pick up a sword and stab the next person wearing green—yes, Marshal. Pitiable, mostly; dangerous, sometimes. Arvid,
as I’ve said, is nothing like that. I knew back in Valdaire that he was distressed—that he felt he’d changed in some way since he rescued Paks, but I thought of that as her influence, perhaps, turning him away from evil and toward the good.”

  “From Paksenarrion to Gird is a short stride,” Marshal Porfur said. “Arvid tells me Paks said Gird might have a use for the Thieves’ Guild—but Gird might also have a use for Arvid himself—and be guiding him directly.”

  “And you do not want others to know,” Arcolin said. He glanced at Arvid again, then turned back to the Marshal. “Madmen generally tell everyone about the voices they hear—they are eager for others to know. Arvid has not.”

  “Yes. I am not saying he is mad, Count Arcolin. I think he does hear Gird’s voice. I could wish for that—”

  “No, you don’t,” Arvid said. “It’s not what you think—”

  “I think nothing,” said Marshal Porfur, “because I have never heard it.”

  “It’s not … comfortable,” Arvid said.

  “I wouldn’t expect it to be for someone with a great change to make,” Marshal Porfur said. Arvid said nothing, and after waiting, Porfur nodded. “Well, then,” he went on. “You’re willing to listen to Gird; you even began listening to me after a while. You can be taught. And the place for you to learn is not here.”

  “Surely, Marshal—” Arcolin began.

  Marshal Porfur shook his head. “I’m a competent Marshal for the grange of a small city that’s not more than one-quarter Girdish,” he said. “Arvid’s been good for me—good for the grange—but I’m not what he needs now. I know that. We’re taught, we Marshals, to recognize someone who needs special training and send them to get it. That’s what I’m doing, same as you’d send a promising squire to take training for knighthood.”

  “But I don’t know if I—” Arvid began. He stopped as both the others stared at him.

  “If you’re not a madman,” Arcolin said, “then you really hear Gird’s voice. And if you really hear Gird’s voice, then there’s a reason. And the reason is that Gird needs you to do Gird’s work somewhere.”

  “But I’m not…” Arvid felt tears stinging his eyes again and blinked them back. He would not cry, not again. What good did the tears do? “I was a thief,” he said, his voice hoarse with the unshed tears. “I was an enforcer for the Guild. I—I threatened people, scared people, hurt people. Killed people. I was … bad. Why would Gird want me?”

  “I don’t know,” Marshal Porfur said. “But the word sent from Valdaire was that Gird’s relic lighted the moment you came into the grange there … lighted in your hand without burning you. You hear his voice. I cannot answer your question, but I can send you to those who will help you answer it.”

  “You have been of service to me,” Arcolin said. “I have found you to be sensible, honest, and hardworking—and a good dinner companion those times we’ve shared a meal. But for all you make a reasonable minor merchant, I don’t think that’s why Gird is talking to you. There are plenty of Girdish merchants already. Possibly only one former Guild enforcer.”

  “I knew I had to change,” Arvid said in a more normal voice as his throat relaxed. “But not to know where the change ends—”

  “Nobody knows where change ends,” Arcolin said. Arvid looked at him, remembering the look on Arcolin’s face when Dattur prostrated himself and called Arcolin “prince.”

  “Indeed,” Marshal Porfur said. “Count, can you do anything to get Arvid safely through Valdaire?”

  “Possibly. I send my people to Valdaire on errands; he could go with them. Beyond—I am not sure; I would have to ask.”

  “If you say I must go that way,” Arvid said, “then if I can buy a couple of good horses in Valdaire, I will be fine on the road—”

  “Or not,” Arcolin said. “I will be sending a letter to the king in a few days—I am still compiling the information he should have—and beyond Valdaire you could ride with the courier.”

  Entering Tsaia again as Ser Burin, in colorful clothes and riding with Fox Company, he should go unrecognized if he stayed away from Vérella. “Thank you,” he said. “And my son?”

  “I will send word today,” Marshal Porfur said. “If you’re leaving a few days from now, Marshal Steralt will have time to bring him to the grange.”

  The journey to Valdaire went smoothly: a tensquad of Fox Company soldiers, several pack animals, Arvid, and two small traders who had begged to travel with them. Arcolin checked their references, especially the one claiming to be from Cilwan, and thought they were safe enough. They separated in Valdaire, the two traders peeling off inside the gates and Arvid heading for the grange on the far side of the city.

  “Sure you don’t want an escort, sir?” asked the corporal in charge of the escort.

  “No, thanks. I’ll be back at your quarters in the morning, if not before.” He wore clothes bought in Foss’s market—more southern even than the ones he’d bought in Valdaire before—and he wouldn’t go near the Dragon, where someone might recognize his name and call it out.

  At the grange, Marshal Steralt greeted him warmly. “I have Porfur’s word—you’re different, you know. And the lad is fine. Some effort was made to find him, but my yeomen don’t chatter—not when I tell them nay.”

  “Where—should I go alone or—”

  “He’s here. Where are you staying? The Dragon?”

  “Too obvious,” Arvid said. “I can stay in the Fox Company quarters.”

  “Not a good idea, making an extra trip across the city. Stay overnight here, why don’t you, or I’ll house you with one of the yeomen in this district.”

  “I don’t want to bring trouble…”

  Marshal Steralt shook his head. “You won’t. If anything, you’ll bring an opportunity for someone to use what he’s been taught. Come in, see the lad. He’s grown already.”

  The boy turned from the table in the Marshal’s room, where he’d been scratching letters on a wax tablet; his face lit up, and he launched himself at Arvid.

  “You came back! You came back!”

  Arvid looked over his head at Marshal Steralt.

  “I didn’t tell him everything in case you had trouble on the road,” Marshal Steralt said. “It’s for you to tell him what you will, now.”

  “Sit down,” Arvid said to the boy. The boy had filled out, no longer scrawny-skinny though still lean, and now brown-faced from being outside somewhere. A farm, he supposed. He wore a Girdish-blue shirt embroidered with yellow stars and red circles around the neck; his trousers were too big for him but rolled up neatly at the ankle, and he wore shoes. Against the wall, Arvid saw a rolled blanket tied with thongs.

  He sat down opposite the boy; Marshal Steralt left the room and closed the door, surprising Arvid. He had not been so trustful before. “How have you been?” he asked.

  “Marshal sent me to a farm, a day and a half journey from the city,” the boy said promptly. “It was a family. There was a girl my age and an older boy and two younger, girl and boy. They have four cows … well, one’s only last year’s calf, really. Three had calves. Chickens, too. All the eggs anyone wanted, eggs every day at breakfast. And sheep—they have sheep, and they shear them, and the lady spins the wool and they have a loom and they all know how to knit, all but the youngest. I can knit now, too. And they grow grain and vegetables, and they fed me so much, I could hardly finish it, and the lady made me this shirt and trousers to grow into, she said. And the Marshal bought me these shoes.”

  “Did you like being on the farm?” Arvid asked.

  “Yes—it’s busier some ways than the Guildhouse—everyone works at something all day—but it’s not all hard work. I learned to go out with the geese first, and then the sheep, though not alone. They had dogs, too, and pigs—”

  It must have been a rich farm, Arvid thought.

  “And you could drink right from the stream; it was so clear you could see the bottom, and it smelled good, like herbs and mint, not like the stream here
in the city.”

  “Would you like to stay on that farm?” Arvid asked, keeping his voice neutral. “Be part of that family, learn to be a farmer?”

  The boy’s face shifted expression. “I … I’m not ungrateful, sir, but … but I thought, if you came, we would be together.”

  Arvid leaned across the table and put his hand over the boy’s hands where they were clenched together. “I do not truly know if you are the son of my body or not, young Arvid, but I care about you as if you were. If you will, you may come with me. I am going a long journey, over the pass to the north, and then west to Fintha, the land Gird came from, to Fin Panir where the Marshal-General lives. Do you want to come, or stay in this familiar land with folk you already know?”

  Now joy spread across that young face. “Oh, please—I want to come with you!” he said.

  “How well do you ride?” Arvid asked.

  “Ride? A horse? You’ll let me ride a horse?”

  That answered one question. “I have to buy one for you first.” And it would have to be that hardest to find of horses: suitable for a novice, calm in temperament, well trained, but with the soundness and endurance to handle a long season on the road.

  “May I— Please, may I call you ‘Da’?” the boy asked.

  Arvid’s heart turned over. For a moment he hesitated: how could he be ready for this? The boy’s expression stiffened; Arvid smiled. “If you want,” he said. “I would be glad.”

  “Da,” the boy said, tasting it, the word he’d never been able to say. “Thank you!”

  “Bide here with Marshal Steralt while I go find us horses for the trip,” Arvid said.

  Outside, in the main part of the grange, Marshal Steralt was talking softly with his yeoman-marshal. His brows went up.

  “He’s coming with me,” Arvid said. “And I’m going to Fin Panir.” Steralt’s expression was still challenging. “He wants to call me Da.”

  “Then be that,” Steralt said with emphasis. “And Gird guide your heart.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  Two mornings later, Arvid, the boy, and Arcolin’s courier rode out of Valdaire, headed for the pass as soon as light allowed. The Guild League ran to the boundary of the gnome princedom claiming the foothills, so the road continued a Guild League road, stone-paved, wide enough for two-way wagon traffic, with pedestrian and mounted travel to either side. A storm overnight had laid the dust, and even this early they passed a northbound caravan that must have started while it was still too dark to see. In this season, the road would have traffic all the way north. Once free of the city, the air smelled of rock and grass and something of the mountains—aromatic shrubs, the upland trees. To Arvid, it promised the north, his own country.