Limits of Power

by Elizabeth Moon

  “Yes, Marshal-General,” he said.

  “Make sure he has a honey-cake at midmorning,” she said to Helfran. “Lad’s been on the road a long time, and he’s thin.”

  “ ’Course I will,” Helfran said. “Come along, lad, and I’ll show you how to harness a pony to th’ cart—we’ll need to haul all this out to the meadow.”

  Arvid followed the Marshal-General back through the stables and then through a maze of passages he hadn’t been in before, until they came to the kitchens and from there up the stairs to her office.

  “Sit there,” she said, pointing to a chair padded in leather near the window. She settled herself behind a wide table and set her elbows on it. “Start from where you were: you were taking vengeance on the Valdaire Guildmaster—”

  That seemed a lifetime away. Arvid took a breath and began. Gird’s light in the grange, in his hand. Gird’s voice telling him to save the child. More and more often, that voice, prodding, taunting, pushing him to do what he had not ever thought of doing.

  “He wouldn’t let me alone,” Arvid said at last. “I thought I was crazy as one of those beggars who wanders the street claiming his god tells him what will happen or that he’s supposed to be king of all. Was that how it happened to you?”

  “No,” the Marshal-General said. “In fact, I am not sure I have ever heard Gird’s voice that clear. I could envy you, Arvid.”

  “Don’t,” Arvid said. “You wouldn’t if it happened to you. There’s no—no privacy, in my head.”

  “So it’s all the time?”

  “No … but a sort of feeling that he’s there, even when he’s not talking.”

  “So … you hear Gird most in a crisis?”

  “Yes … but it’s his definition of a crisis.” Arvid grinned in spite of himself. “He’s … not what I thought he was. Nor the Fellowship, for that matter.”

  “I expect not.” She cocked her head. “Are you miserable with the change, Arvid? Is it difficult for you?”

  “It was at first, but now—not really. I missed the Guild at first—but it’s different, having friends who I’m sure aren’t going to stab me in the back.”

  She folded her hands, nodding. “Your situation’s unusual, as I expect your Marshal Porfur told you. Most Girdsmen never hear Gird’s voice; most do their best to follow the Code and obey the Marshal of their local grange. Marshals do their best to teach the Code and be good leaders, make good decisions. All that without hearing anything direct from Gird. It does happen; we know it’s not just crazy people who hear the gods’ voices. But it’s rare. Which means, Arvid, you’re rare, and Gird or another god has something in mind for you.”

  “It frightens me.”

  “I don’t doubt it. But you were brave and—in your way—honorable before this came to you, and I believe you will do whatever it is with the same courage and honor.”

  “A thief’s courage? A thief’s honor?”

  “No. Yours. Your innate qualities. A good horse can be used by an evil rider—it’s not the horse that’s evil. From what you tell me, something in you from childhood belonged more to good than evil.” She grinned. “And now you’re one of us. I’m happy for you, Arvid, and hope you aren’t grieving about what you lost.”

  “Not much … though I’m not sure how I’m going to support my son. If he is my son.”

  “Fatherhood is more than a squirt of spunk,” the Marshal-General said, shocking him out of any protest. “Whether or not you are his father by blood, you rescued him from horror and you’ve cared for him since. He seems a fine lad, much as you might have been.”

  “I want him to have a good life,” Arvid said, looking out the window. On this side, the old palace had a long drop to the street below, already heading down the hill.

  “So do all parents,” the Marshal-General said. “If you’re able, stay in Fin Panir. Let him attend the grange near the inn as a junior yeoman. He’ll gain skills and friends both. When he’s older, perhaps he’ll qualify for the school up here if he wants, or perhaps he’ll ’prentice to some craft or trade. You say he was on a farm for a while—did he seem to like that?”

  “Yes, though after what he endured in the Guildhouse, he would have liked anything.”

  “Can he read?”

  “Not much, though he’s learning.”

  “Granges offer basic reading skills—that will be Marshal Cedlin, near the inn. What about his fighting skills?”

  “None, so far as I know.”

  “Then the junior yeoman program will be good for him. I’ll write a note to Marshal Cedlin. Do you plan to keep him with you or foster him out?”

  “He wants to stay with me,” Arvid said.

  “That will do for now,” she said. “Now as to you—you’re still in your probationary year as a Girdsman, and that means you need a place to attend drill. Did you stop at any granges as you trav-eled?”

  Arvid felt himself flushing. “No. We spent only one night in Fiveway, and I was more concerned to avoid the thieves I knew infested it. And no more than one night in any town since.”

  “Gird said nothing to you about that?”

  “No.”

  “Well, now you’re in Fintha—and even more, in Fin Panir—you’ll need to attend drill regularly. For the time being, that’s at Marshal Cedlin’s grange; I’ll include that in my note to him. I want you to tell me—and him—about any instance that Gird speaks to you. Now, for employment—you write a fair hand, do you not?”

  “Yes,” Arvid said.

  “Good. I need someone to compile the notes I’ve made during recent meetings into a coherent report. Our scribes are overloaded. Will you accept that employment?”

  “Yes,” Arvid said, “though I do not want to be away from the boy all day.”

  “A half-day, mornings,” she said. “He can go to the grange for his schooling then. Will that suit?”

  “Yes,” Arvid said. He did not want to ask how much, but she was already answering that.

  “It will pay for your board at the inn, and we’ll take care of your mounts if you’ll agree to lend them—two of them, anyway—when we need them.”

  “Certainly. Use all of them, if you can.”

  “You’ll start tomorrow. I’ll write the note now, and you can take it as introduction to Marshal Cedlin.”

  Marshal Cedlin accepted both Arvid and the boy into the grange community without demur. Whatever the Marshal-General had written, she had, Arvid suspected, left out the part about his having been a Thieves’ Guild enforcer.

  “Certainly your son should spend his mornings here, at least until he’s caught up in his schooling,” Marshal Cedlin said. “He’s not too old and seems a bright lad; he should make good progress.” He turned to the boy. “Young Arvid, you’ll be working with my yeoman-marshal Geddes for the time being. The barton’s through that door; he’s teaching now. Just take him this note.”

  “Yes, Marshal,” the boy said, ducking his head, then went as he was bid.

  “And polite, too,” Marshal Cedlin said to Arvid. “It must have been a wrench to have him stolen away, and Gird’s own grace you found him again.”

  “Indeed it was,” Arvid said.

  “Well—and you a late convert and in your first year. The Marshal-General says you read and write well—and she’s hired you as a scribe, so that must be so. Then you’re ready to go beyond the Ten Fingers, I’m thinking, and should start learning the Code itself. You have your evenings free, but for drill nights; you can start on the first book, and we’ll see how you get on. Let’s trade blows, so I can assign you to a drill group.” He grinned at Arvid’s expression. “Small grange, was it, there in Ifoss? Most men aren’t Girdish there, I know. Here we’re full every night, and we have groups according to skill.”

  Cedlin was indeed more skilled with staff and blade than Porfur had been, though not Arvid’s equal with the long blade. “You say you practiced with the Duke’s Company—or whatever they call it now?”

  “Fox Co
mpany, Marshal,” Arvid said. “Count Arcolin’s taken the same insignia. But I did not practice with them all the time.”

  “You’re strong, agile, excellent with a long blade, but you need more practice with the staff and in formation,” Cedlin said. “I think you’ll fit into Yeoman-Marshal Vallan’s group, and you can meet him tonight. Your group will drill tomorrow. You’ll hear the bell; Pia complains sometimes that it knocks a flask off the bar in the Loaf.”

  Next morning, Arvid saw the boy dash across the street and into the grange—already greeting several other children also running in—and headed up the hill. Scribes had a long room with desks in rows. He was early, as he’d meant to be; a senior scribe greeted him, showed him his desk, and then went off to stand by the door. Arvid’s desk already had a stack of papers held down with a round stone, and another stack of fresh sheets, an inkstick, and a hollow stone with water already in it. He looked at the notes. They were arranged in order, the earliest on top.

  By midday, his fingers were cramped, his neck hurt, and he had worked his way through the first stack and a second one the senior scribe brought him. He also knew a lot more about the workings of the Fellowship of Gird. The Marshal-General—who wrote a crabbed, squarish hand—had taken notes at every meeting she attended. Conferences, they were called, on the education of junior yeoman, the education of non-Girdish children in grange programs, the correct order of business at grange meetings, the allocation of grange relief, the standardization of burial guild practices … and more. Legal issues relating to the appearance of mage powers in those not known to be of magelord blood. Mage powers? Had blood magery come to Fintha?

  He shook out his fingers, massaged his neck, and then approached the senior scribe. “To whom should I take the work I’ve finished?”

  “You are working for the Marshal-General—I can take them to her office for you, but you could take them yourself.”

  “I will, gladly,” Arvid said.

  She was not in her office—at some other meeting, he supposed—and he left two stacks on her desk: the notes and the report.

  Young Arvid was already in the inn and halfway through a hunk of cheese and bread when Arvid came in. Arvid paused in the door to look at him. Healthy, strong, lithe, and energetic. Happy, from the look on his face. When he caught sight of Arvid, he grinned around his mouthful of food. Arvid went to the table, and Pia immediately brought over another plate.

  “I can write my name!” the boy said. “Look!” He moved his finger on the table.

  “Very good,” Arvid said.

  “I can already say the Ten Fingers—I learned that back in Valdaire—but now I can learn to write them. And some of what we do is drill things, with hauks. They’re heavy.”

  “For a boy your size, yes.”

  “Geddes says I will get stronger fast with good food. And I met a boy named Brok; he has red hair, and his father is a farrier. I told him I had a horse—well, that you did—and he said if it needed shoes to come to his father. And a girl named Piri, she’s the fastest runner of all of us.” He gulped down a swallow of water. “How was your morning?”

  “Interesting,” Arvid said. “But I’m glad not to be doing scribe’s work all afternoon. Let’s explore the city, shall we? I have drill tonight, and I need to walk the kinks out of my back and legs.”

  That walk through the streets of Fin Panir—down to the river and the gate to the River Road through which he’d ridden more than a year ago—made clear to him how he’d changed. Fin Panir was smaller than Valdaire or Vérella and tidier than both. Most people wore something blue—shirts, aprons, head scarves, belts—but other colors also. The money changers in their Guildhouse, where Arvid went to change his remaining Aarenisian coins to Finthan, wore black gowns and stiff white collars, as they did everywhere, with only a blue band around one sleeve, but most merchants in the shops he explored wore shirt and trousers like everyone else.

  Those things were the same as before, but the looks people gave to a man in similar clothes, with a lad at his side, were very different from the looks he’d had when walking through the city alone, wearing thieves’ black; they saw no danger in him now. Once that would have bothered him; he’d liked being seen as mysterious and dangerous. Now he enjoyed the friendly smiles, the nods, the acceptance.

  It’s not so bad to have friends.

  He managed not to jerk. This was not a crisis … was it? No answer. In the next small market, fruit lay displayed in baskets: summer apples, cherries, plums, the late summer berries. Young Arvid’s eyes rounded at the sight. Arvid bought a handbasket of cherries for them; young Arvid ate four to Arvid’s one. Then it was time to climb back up the hill to their inn and supper.

  Drill here, so near the training hall for the Knights of Gird and paladins, was more advanced than in Fossnir. As he’d been warned, the grange was almost full—and this was only part of the grange membership. They began with a recitation of the Ten Fingers—even Marshal Porfur had done that once a tenday—but then Marshal Cedlin began asking one or another to give an example of that rule in real life. After that, drill with Yeoman-Marshal Vallan began.

  The yeomen were much more precise—and the drills more complicated—than those in Ifoss, more like the soldiers of Fox Company. Arvid’s arms trembled when they stopped; the next drill, he discovered, was a run in formation through the streets: down the hill to the River Road gate and back up, chanting as they went. Theirs was not the only such group, he saw as they went down the hill. He had no idea how many granges were in Fin Panir, but at least a half dozen groups were in the streets, running down, up, or around a market square.

  By the time his group made it back up the hill, he was winded and drenched in sweat. He wondered if he’d be able to keep up with this every few days. Vallan called him over. “You did well for your first drill,” he said. “Marshal says you rode up from Aarenis, so making that run surprised me, to be sure. You’re working as a scribe—if you’ll take my advice, you’ll spend two glasses a day, at least, in exercise.”

  “I … will…” Arvid said, still breathless. “We went today … up and down…”

  “Very good. Geddes wanted to speak to you about your son … he’s over there.”

  Geddes, his once-dark hair at least half gray, turned from the woman he’d been talking to and greeted Arvid. “That boy of yours is eager to learn and well mannered,” he said. “I wouldn’t waste paper on his scribbling now, but if you could manage a slate for him, he could practice.”

  “I’ll do that,” Arvid said.

  That set the pattern: mornings in the Marshal-General’s service as a scribe, afternoons with his son, evenings either at drill or studying the Code of Gird as Marshal Cedlin handed out one chapter after another. After he had copied out the Marshal-General’s notes from the meetings, she started him copying notes brought back from Luap’s Stronghold. Though he knew from the casual chat of other scribes that the conference on magery was still going on, he heard no more details. Whatever was written there did not come across his desk.

  To his surprise, Arvid found both the Code and the material from Kolobia fascinating. What he was learning about the history of the Fellowship, what he saw in the Code of Gird and the papers from the distant stronghold, all showed Gird the founder to be very different from the image he’d had in his mind for years. Not, for one thing, the insufferably perfect model farmer he’d been told about and not a dull clod, either, from the increasing sophistication of the Code of Gird. He learned that Luap’s version of Gird’s life hadn’t pleased some of his followers—including Gird’s daughter. Arvid hadn’t thought of Gird as having a daughter, and he wondered what she’d looked like. And Gird had had other children, who disappeared in the war that made him famous.

  Luap, Arvid decided after delving into his writings, was an idiot. He took that opinion to the senior scribe, Doullan. “Why did Gird put up with him?” he asked. “Look at this letter—”

  “I’ve seen it.” Doullan rubbed a hand
over his bald head. “Arvid, you write a beautiful hand, but you’re young in the Fellowship. Luap was revered for years—”

  “And he’s so hungry for power, I can smell it all these hundreds since.”

  “What makes you so sure?”

  What made him sure was a lifetime in the Thieves’ Guild, where ambition was controlled only by force … as his own had been and as he had controlled others. But the Marshal-General had asked him not to discuss his background. “Experience,” he said blandly. “I’ve run across that type before.”

  “You may be right,” Doullan said. “I’ve never been out of Fin Panir, let alone Fintha. Marshal-General tells me people are different other places. It’s just—growing up, we were told Luap was Gird’s best friend and helper. And wrote down all the Code, when it was first made. I suppose that’s why I identified with him.”

  Arvid blinked. The old scribe, gentle and unassuming, was nothing like the man whose hunger for renown blazed through his writings. “I understand why you admire him,” he said, easing his shoulders. “If I had been born here—had become a scribe first—I’m sure I would, too.”

  “You know they saw him—well, some kind of figure of him—out in the west,” Doullan went on. “Like a painting in smoke, is the way High Marshal described it, taller than a man … blue and white robes, the old-fashioned symbol on a chain, holding a sword.”

  “A wraith? Phantom?”

  “He wasn’t sure. At least, he never said more about it. But they knew it was Luap, or a … something meant to be like Luap. And then it blew away on the wind and never came back.”

  Arvid could not quite settle to the routine; he was not used to the peace. Day after day, hands of days, passed with no apparent danger. Young Arvid throve, clearly happy here and finding friends in the grange. Arvid, too, began to find friends—friends of a kind he had never known, who were not potential rivals but just … friends.

  He knew someone might still hunt him from Vérella or Valdaire. It would not be difficult to trace a man traveling with a boy … but would they bother? He would have bothered, given the assignment, but did they have someone that skilled? He could not count himself or the boy entirely safe, yet … and yet he found himself relaxing, though he continued his habit of listening to gossip in the city, watching for anything unusual, any sign that someone might be on their trail. The undercurrent of concern about magery he shrugged off as Girdish strictness. He was no mage, nor the boy, so it had nothing to do with him. Only the occasional mention of blood magery caught his attention, but he saw no indication that it existed here.