Limits of Power

by Elizabeth Moon

  “Everything?”

  “Yes. Change is come upon all of us—perhaps I feel it more because mine was so sudden—but if someone does not see the whole whirlwind, how can any of us survive?”

  “I don’t know,” the Marshal said. “But perhaps you will find out. Tell me, what do you think of elves?”

  Arvid shook his head. “I never knew any, but to recognize them as elves. We had a few part-elf thieves in the Guild, both in Tsaia and over the mountains; no full elves. We knew about the kuaknomi, of course. No one would work with them: can’t trust ’em. Other elves—I saw them on the roads sometimes, or in an inn, but had no reason to speak to them.”

  “But you watched them, didn’t you?”

  “If I had leisure.”

  “And you thought—?”

  “Arrogant, beautiful, and terrifying.”

  “Terrifying?”

  “The way they cast glamours … I hated seeing what it did to people and was afraid of being caught in it myself.”

  “You weren’t? Are you sure?”

  “Not that I know of. I could see the edge, like a faint silver line, and avoid it or … or shut myself up, some way, and move through quickly.”

  “Hmmm.” Marshal Cedlin did not move for four or five breaths, then nodded sharply. “I have a task for you, Arvid, and I’m going to suggest the Marshal-General consult you as well. Look for magery in Fin Panir. I know some of the children who have shown mage ability. I want you to go about the city, just as you do now, but concentrate on magery. See what you find. Notice the reactions to it, if you find it. And tell me.”

  In the next several afternoons, Arvid found fourteen people—eleven children, two youths, and one older woman selling fruit in the lower market—he was sure were mages. When he told Marshal Cedlin the next drill night, the Marshal nodded. “I thought you might be good at this. How could you tell? Did you see them all make light?”

  “No … it was more like the elves, though—I didn’t feel any pressure of a glamour. But I could—almost—see something. Different but … something about them.”

  The Marshal nodded again. “I thought you might be able to tell. Anything else?”

  “Yes. I didn’t tell you this before, but I started hearing talk about magery shortly after I moved here. Didn’t seem worth mentioning; I knew Girdish didn’t like magery, and people gossip most about what they don’t like. There’s been much more the last few hands of days. I didn’t know—I thought it might be something to do with the Evener coming, with casting-out rituals. But in the lower city especially, there’s fear. Rumors that the Marshal-General wants to bring magelords back. The Marshal-General’s going to die if—”

  “What!”

  “Marshal, everyone knows she’s defending magery, especially in children, and that she’s got you and the other city Marshals convinced—under her thumb is how people put it. There’s a lot of ’em don’t like the idea of magery at all and blame her for it coming back. They say she’s afraid of magery and that’s why she won’t stamp it out. Or that she’s a magelord herself and that’s why she sent the expedition to the west. That she’s too weak and too old to be Marshal-General. They want someone else—a man who’s against magery, specifically.” Arvid paused for breath. “I didn’t realize it before you sent me out to look, but—I’ve been through this m’self, sir. Someone’s stirring ’em up; someone wants to be where she is, just like my number two in the Vérella Guild did. There’s a revolt coming, Marshal. I don’t think they’ll wait for the Evener to cast her out. She’s dead, if she doesn’t take care.”

  “She had to kill a Marshal back in spring, before you got here,” the Marshal said. “He challenged her to a trial of arms in the High Lord’s Hall. That should have settled it.”

  “It didn’t. Talk is, she murdered him in cold blood.”

  “What! How did you—I’ve been up and down the city myself, and I haven’t heard this. Nor my yeoman-marshals.”

  “You’re known to be on her side, Marshal. People don’t know me as one of hers even though I work up the hill. They know I’m a newcomer who may not be in the Marshal-General’s camp.”

  “Are you?” The Marshal’s look was sharp, challenging.

  “I’m telling you this.” Arvid gave him the same look. “If I’d known before all I know now, I’d have told you earlier.”

  “Do you have any idea when something will happen?”

  “As I said, before the Evener. Or as soon as a day or two, perhaps. Even this night. That’s why I didn’t wait until after drill to tell you. Several of the angriest people today mentioned someone coming in from outside and meeting someone up the hill, ‘ready to give the signal,’ one of them said. Then he darted back into an alley. No names, though.”

  “There wouldn’t be, if they’re as serious as you say.” The Marshal chewed his lower lip a moment. “Arvid, go up there now. You’re excused from drill tonight. I’ll see your lad safe to the inn after his. If anyone asks on the way, it’s the truth: I gave you an errand to run for me. Here’s a paper—” He scrawled a few words on it, rolled it, slid it into a message tube, and handed it over. “You don’t know what’s in it; you were told to take it up the hill, is all. I’ll come after drill.”

  Arvid raised his brows, but the Marshal did not explain further. As Arvid passed through the grange, someone in his drill group asked where he was going. “Up the hill,” he said. “Marshal told me to carry a note.”

  At least he had his sword on and his cloak, bless the chill in the air. Striding along, he considered looking at the paper. Surely it was just an excuse—nothing important. But if he was carrying a real message, and it was snatched, he should know—but then, the good yeoman did not pry or sneak. But then, if he had not done a less obvious equivalent of prying and sneaking for the past days, he would not have known there was a conspiracy. As with strength, he told himself, prying and sneaking could be used for good as well as ill, and his intentions were entirely good. And it wasn’t quite dark. He broke stride and turned into a convenient alley.

  “Well! Looka what we got here. Fancy boy from t’grange, works for t’Marshal-General.” A dark shadow moved, reaching for him; another raised an arm, holding something that would surely hurt if it hit him.

  “Not exactly,” Arvid said. The one trying to yank the message tube out of his heart-hand yelped and staggered back, wrist spurting; the one with the club missed Arvid’s head by three fingers. Arvid spun that one around and smashed him face-first into the alley wall, kicking the other man in the knee as he turned. He slid the message tube into a pocket in his cloak, then let the knife in his sleeve fall into his hand.

  The man against the wall lurched backward, trying for room and chance; Arvid thrust the short knife through clothing. The tip grated on mail. “Not so smart,” the man said, turning; he had drawn a long knife or short sword.

  Arvid’s right hand moved with the turn, a draw cut to the neck; the man fell. The other one was squirming away down the alley, clenching his slashed wrist with his other hand and pushing with his one good leg. Arvid considered the possible advantages of gaining information—but heard boots coming up the other street, turning into the alley. He stamped hard on a sensitive area; the man curled around his pain, and Arvid sliced that throat as well.

  He made it to the entrance of the palace complex without hearing any alarm raised behind him. Interesting. The few people on the street had not seemed to notice as he stuffed his bloody gloves into another of the cloak’s pockets, wiped the knives on the lining, and replaced them, all with the practiced moves of someone who had killed and walked away many times before. He paused at a public fountain to clean his face and hands of the blood spatters. People noticed what they expected to notice. A man stopping for a drink, sneezing and blowing his nose—no one looked at what was on the cloth he used. Dusk was thickening, colors fading with the day.

  At the gate, he found only a single sentry, who recognized him and nodded him through. “I’ve a
message for the Marshal-General from Marshal Cedlin,” he said. Along with not being noticed when it wasn’t wise, being noticed when it was mattered. “Is she at supper?”

  “Don’t know,” the sentry said. “Might be, or might have finished. The Council meeting ended a glass earlier than usual.” He peered a little closer at Arvid. “Did you trip in the mud?”

  “Came through a dirty alley,” Arvid said. “Some people don’t sweep as they should.” Could he trust the sentry? Maybe—but it was more important to get his message to the Marshal-General.

  “True enough,” the sentry said, grinning. “Report it to the Marshal when you get back.”

  Arvid nodded and continued on to the familiar building. Indoors, with the lamps lit, someone might notice that the dark wetness on his cloak was red and not brown … and someone did.

  “Arvid! You’re wounded—” That was a knight he’d seen before, coming down the long lower passage, often deserted at this time.

  “It’s not my blood, sir,” Arvid said. “But I am on an errand for Marshal Cedlin and was beset on the way—”

  “Did you tell the Marshal?”

  “No, sir—I was more than halfway here, and he bade me hasten. I—did them some harm, sir; they may yet be in the alley, the first below the hill.”

  “I’ll send someone,” the knight said. He looked at Arvid more closely. “The Marshal-General said you always went armed.”

  “Not lately, but this evening, yes. Drill night and longsword practice.”

  “Ah, then. She’s in her office, up the stairs at the end and across the passage.”

  He met no one else on the lower floor and no one on the stairs, but heard voices in the upper passage as he climbed them. As he came onto the last flight, he saw brighter light above, a group around the Marshal-General’s door, all the gray legs and blue shirts. Voices rose as he climbed; he could hear them clearly.

  “You can’t say that!”

  “It’s wrong; it’s always been wrong. It can’t ever be right—”

  And then he heard the rasp of a blade being drawn and drew his own sword. He leapt up the last three steps, letting his small blade drop once more into his heart-hand.

  Heads turned; eyes widened. Good: the sight of blood and a naked blade often startled people into immobility.

  “Excuse me,” Arvid said. “I have a message for the Marshal-General.”

  “You’re—that’s blood on your cloak.”

  Arvid smiled. “Indeed,” he said. “But not mine. Is the Marshal-General within?”

  “She’s—you’re not a Marshal. We have business with her.”

  “As have I, Marshals,” Arvid said. He had sorted his memory: Marshals, all but one of whom he had seen before, usually hurrying through a passage or across the court. He did not know their names. No High Marshals, none of the resident paladins, no knights. The one who had drawn steel now let it slide back into the scabbard, as if wishing to pretend he had not. “A message from Marshal Cedlin. Your pardon, but I was told it was urgent.”

  “And did he tell you to draw your sword on Marshals?” asked the one who had done exactly the same.

  Arvid smiled a little wider, showing teeth. With just that smile he had faced other blusterers in his past, and it had the same effect now. The man leaned back a little. “I heard angry voices and drawn steel near the Marshal-General’s office as I came up the stairs,” he said. “Is it not the duty of a Girdish yeoman to be alert and to defend the Fellowship?”

  “And you think you are better qualified to do that than a group of Marshals?” said another, on the other side of the group.

  Arvid transferred the smile to him. “I think, Marshal, that someone who draws steel on the Marshal-General is not likely to be defending the Fellowship, but some private ambition of his own.”

  Faces reddened. Arvid stepped forward, well aware that if they rushed him, he needed room to maneuver lest he be dumped back down the stairs. Now he could see that the door to the Marshal-General’s office was closed. Was she all right in there? Arming herself? Or wounded? The group in front of him moved closer together … So … they were not as intimidated as he could have wished.

  “I wonder,” he said, stepping sideways as if to go around them, “what you would do should I cry alarm. There are those downstairs who would come.”

  Hands reached to sword hilts, and Arvid prepared himself—but at that moment the door opened, and the Marshal-General, sword and buckler in hand, mail coif on her head, appeared a sword’s length inside. Behind her was another, to Arvid’s relief. A Knight of Gird, also armed for combat.

  Arvid let his smile widen to a frank grin. “I believe, gentlemen, you are surrounded.”

  They broke, three rushing one way, four the other. Arvid tripped one who came near enough and thrust at another, wounding him but not stopping the man’s flight.

  “Hold, Arvid,” the Marshal-General said. “I know their names and purposes. I am unhurt. But you?”

  “Unhurt,” Arvid said. He put away the knife but did not put away his sword. “I do have a message from Marshal Cedlin.” He pulled the tube from his pocket and handed it to her.

  She unrolled the message, read it, nodded, and gestured to the knight. “Sir Piter, come with me—and you, Arvid, as well.” She started for the stairs; Piter moved quickly ahead of her; Arvid took the rear. Over her shoulder she said, “I see you are wearing another very useful cloak, if somewhat stained.”

  “Yes,” Arvid said. “I had intended to remove that which makes it interesting, but tonight—”

  She held up her hand; he fell silent. From the passage below, they heard boots and lowered voices. The knight moved silently down to the next landing. Then “Gird!” shouted several voices, and blades rang.

  Arvid drew his dagger and followed the Marshal-General down. The men below—two of them the same as he’d seen above, but with new companions—now seemed determined to fight. The Marshal-General’s group had the high ground, however. The clash of blades soon drew cries from somewhere down the passage to the kitchen and then from the far end of the lower passage. This time the newcomers were clearly on the Marshal-General’s side.

  “Once more,” Arvid said, “I believe you are surrounded.” The man in front of him hesitated, and Arvid thrust past the weak guard and into the belly. “Should’ve worn mail,” he said as the man’s eyes widened and his mouth gaped. He knocked the man’s sword loose with his dagger.

  When the brief fight ended, only two of the attackers were alive; the Marshal-General and the knight had accounted for three between them, and the newcomers had taken out four.

  “Marshal-General, there’s trouble in the city,” one of the knights said. “We were coming to let you know—”

  “Come with me,” she said. And to Arvid, “Quickly. Tell me what you came for.” She headed toward the forecourt.

  “What you see,” he said. “Conspiracy, based partly on truth and partly on lies. Someone’s raising fears that you’re secretly a magelord and want to return them to rule. Expedition to the west—”

  “Just a moment—” They had come out into the forecourt now. It had gone full dark; people were milling about, hard to see in the flickering light of torches that caught the glint of a few drawn weapons. Clusters of people talking, moving uneasily. Someone said, “It’s the Marshal-General—” and the groups converged, moving toward her.

  “This is the Fellowship of Gird!” the Marshal-General’s voice rang out; movement ceased. “Not a mob of untrained, frightened peasants. We are Gird’s people today, as we have been these hundreds of years.”

  “But there was an alarm—” someone began.

  “Yes,” the Marshal-General said. “Some Marshals attacked me, to my sorrow. We are Gird’s people; it is not right for us to kill each other. To pour poison in a mug … that is not something Gird would do. When we disagree, we argue. We bang on tables. We shout. That is how Gird’s people disagree. Not secretly plotting.”

  The s
ilence acquired an edge, as the listeners thought about that.

  Arvid, thinking of the things he’d read in the archives, knew she’d shaded the truth there. Some Marshal-Generals in the past had come to that position by plotting.

  “What if I don’t think you’re really Girdish? You defend magery.” A voice from the crowd; Arvid could not see who had spoken.

  “You tell me so, and we argue about it,” the Marshal-General said. “I would suggest you read the entire Code of Gird and its history, including the new material in the Scrolls of Luap beforehand, though, because I will refer to them in my responses.”

  “That … that would take years! I have work to do!”

  “It took me years,” the Marshal-General said, a hint of humor in her voice. “Much of it spent as a Marshal running a grange. But you’re welcome to argue with me, whenever you feel prepared.” Silence followed that.

  Arvid felt the tension leach out of the crowd. Most of these would be people who knew the Marshal-General, who lived or worked in the palace complex. They had reacted to an alarm. They would now—with no immediate danger in sight—accept her words. A few still held to another purpose; he could sense their tension. Could the Marshal-General? He glanced at her. She looked as calm as usual, standing poised but not tense, confident.

  “People of Gird,” she said, “remember what Gird stood for. Fairness, justice, protection of the defenseless. We are not a people of fear, but a people of courage. It is time to go about our business. We have deaths to mourn, and other deaths to prevent.”

  A low mutter, but no real resistance. A few turned to walk away toward one or another of the entrances to the forecourt. A clatter of hooves coming up the hill and the tramp of marching feet brought them to a halt; all turned toward the gate.

  Light bloomed suddenly, clear and white, a dome that covered the forecourt and the gateway. Riding through the gates, tall on her tall red horse, came someone Arvid had not expected to see again—certainly not there, that night. His last memory of her, immediately after he’d rescued her from torment, made him shudder. It seemed she looked straight at him for a moment, and then her gaze shifted.