Limits of Power

by Elizabeth Moon

  “Indeed, my lord,” Arcolin said with a bow.

  The widow Calla was not far to seek, though out of sight of Rahel. She had her child with her, as if to make clear her status as a widow, and a friend sat nearby. When she caught sight of Arcolin, she gestured to the friend, who glanced at Arcolin and then left. Calla gave him a wide smile. “My lord Duke, have you come to sit with me?”

  “Yes. And this is your child?”

  “This is Jamis, yes.” To the child she said. “Jamis, make your bow to Duke Arcolin.” The boy stood—a sturdy child of five or six winters, dark-haired and blue-eyed—and made an awkward bow. “M’lord,” he said. “Ark-lin?”

  “Good day, Jamis,” Arcolin said. He folded his legs and sat down.

  “I sense that you are narrowing your choices,” she said. “So the gossip goes, but the look on your face says you are still not completely certain.”

  “You read me well, sera,” Arcolin said.

  “Is it my gifts or my will that you question?” Here was no incipient flood of tears, whatever his answer; she was clear-eyed and steady.

  “Not your gifts—and not the strength of your will, but its direction.”

  “Ah. Then it is convention like a sword between us, my lord Duke. Though merchanters are less bound by rules than nobles—or our rules may simply be different—it is still true that women are taught not to declare first.”

  “Sera Calla, are you afraid of me?”

  “Afraid?” Her eyes widened. “Why should I be? Of your rank? A thief would frighten me, but not a duke. Of your history? You are a soldier, and as a soldier you have done much violence, I’m sure. Killed people, commanded others to do so. My brother is a soldier—I know what that means. But what I know of you, from others and from meeting you myself, gives me no reason to fear you.”

  “And you would not be afraid in the north, when I am on campaign and most or all around you are rough soldiers?”

  “Not at all. All around me in my father’s work—and in my husband’s when he was alive—were rough commoners, some of them soldiers. Soldiers are people, after all, before they are soldiers.” The look she gave him then softened something that had hardened year by year since Aesil’s refusal. “Are you that concerned about me, lord Duke? And not just about my qualifications? Then let me tell you—against society’s rules as it may be—that I like you well. Very well. Well enough to trust you with not only my life but my son’s. If that will not bring you to a decision, then—I will go. But I will regret it.”

  “You like me…” He could not hide the surprise in his voice.

  She nodded. “And respect you and esteem you for those qualities you have, which is to my mind the more important. I have met rogues in business whom I could not help liking though I knew they were rogues and not to be trusted—but I would never consider marrying such a one. You, I had heard of and admired from afar before I met you, and meeting you was like meeting an old friend. Trust, my lord Duke. That’s what I offer.”

  Joy boiled up through his former confusion. He realized he was grinning at her like a foolish boy. “Then, my lady, we should make this formal: Sera Calla, will you marry me?”

  “Indeed I will,” she said. She glanced at her child, now looking from one of their faces to the other in puzzlement.

  “Do I need to speak to your father?”

  “Oh, no. I’m a widow; I’m my own woman. We should tell him, but—no more. And you aren’t worried that marrying a merchant’s daughter will injure your prestige?”

  He laughed. “Kieri married a soldier. Besides—it doesn’t matter to me. Does a marriage soon suit you?”

  “Very well. We will want to be in the north as soon as possible, won’t we?”

  “We,” not “you.” He put out a hand to the boy. “Jamis, I am pleased to see you. We will be going on a journey together.”

  “Indeed so,” she said, when the boy looked at her, still puzzled. “You and I, lad, are going north—north beyond anything we’ve seen. It’s an adventure!”

  “Ad-venture? Like this picnic?”

  “That’s right. Only bigger. We won’t know what’s coming around the next turn of the trail. Isn’t that exciting?”

  “Leave Granna and Grandda?”

  “Yes. But we’ll visit sometimes. Now come, Jamis. We’re going to walk around with Duke Arcolin and make our manners before going back home to start planning the trip.” She turned to Arcolin. “I can ask Cyntha to watch him for a while, if you want.”

  “We’re not in a hurry,” Arcolin said. “I’ll walk slowly enough.” She took his arm and gave her other hand to her son. They strolled around; Arcolin saw—and was sure she saw—the knowing looks others cast at them. Duke Marrakai’s lady was the first to approach. “Duke Arcolin—and—”

  “Lady Calla,” Arcolin said. “She has consented to marry me. And her son, Jamis.”

  “I am happy for you both,” she said. “And hope you are both as happy as you look now, for the rest of your lives.”

  After that, it was greeting after greeting, but they stayed only so long as necessary; the king himself gave them leave to depart.

  Immediately after the wedding, the king called Arcolin in for a last conference. To his surprise, Dorrin was there, along with High Marshal Seklis and the Marshal-Judicar. Something about Beclan, he surmised.

  “No,” the king said. He leaned back in his chair and gave Arcolin a measuring look before continuing. “Duke Arcolin, Duke Serrostin has told me that you now know about the resurgence of magery in this kingdom. Did he also mention the situation in Fintha?”

  “No, sir king.”

  “Magery has appeared there, and though the Marshal-General convened a council to consider revising the Code, there has been … unrest.” He turned to High Marshal Seklis and nodded.

  “The Marshal-General is determined to change the Code,” Seklis said. “And that has not set well with some of the Marshals in Fintha and many of the people. To them the Code is Gird himself, his very words.”

  “Though we know it has been revised over the years,” the Marshal-Judicar said.

  “They’ve had children killed, in Fintha,” Seklis went on. “And one or two Marshals who were in favor of the change. There’ve been attempts on the Marshal-General herself, rioting in marketplaces. It is not quite a war there yet, but it may become one.”

  “Which would be a disgrace—Girdsmen against Girdsmen? I would have said unthinkable before this.”

  “What about here?” Arcolin said. “Tsaia’s as Girdish as Fintha.”

  “Not … quite,” Oktar said. “The Code as administered in Tsaia is not the same as in Fintha; that saved Duke Verrakai’s life, as well as that of Beclan and the prince.”

  “There has been very little open opposition to the king’s decree,” High Marshal Seklis said. “And that was not to change the Code—which he has no authority to do—but to defer all cases until a decision by the Marshal-General unless magery is used to commit another crime.”

  “What I want from you,” the king said, “is an accounting of anyone, child or adult, in your domain who shows mage powers and your best estimate if those powers are innate or imposed by someone else.”

  Arcolin could say nothing at first; the thought of near war, of trouble spreading east, filled his mind. “I have seen nothing I recognize as magery in my Company or on my way here,” he said at last.

  The king nodded. “We think it is very rare, showing itself mostly in children. We do not know why the gods have chosen to bring it back at this time. But we must prepare for more and prepare the people so they do not panic.”

  “That is the best we can do until Gird speaks to each of us,” the Marshal-Judicar said.

  “I know a man Gird speaks to,” Arcolin said, surprised to hear the words come out of his mouth. “I met him in Aarenis; I stood his sponsor to the Fellowship.”

  “A crazy man?” the Marshal-Judicar asked.

  “No.” Arcolin told them quickly abo
ut Arvid and his conversion, including Paks’s part in it, and that Arvid had left Aarenis with his son to go to Fin Panir.

  “Gird talks to a thief and not to Marshals?” The High Marshal sounded indignant.

  “Arvid would say you should not envy him,” Arcolin said. “I have never seen a man so shattered and then remade. If he made it to Fin Panir, he is one the Marshal-General should ask.”

  The High Marshal shook his head. “She might—but would the others listen? We have had glib-tongued thieves before in the Fellowship—and in fact the results of our expeditions to Kolobia now indicate that Luap himself was not the paragon we thought him. He twisted Gird’s own words to his use.”

  The Marshal-Judicar held up his hand. “But Seklis—consider. What do we know of the others of Gird’s day, but by stories and Luap’s writings? We know the Fellowship has changed, the Code has changed. Were all Gird’s followers perfect? I doubt it. Gird himself changed: that much we are sure of. Paksenarrion—and all honor to her now—changed from a soldier who was not Girdish, to a Girdish paladin-candidate, to a craven who nearly died, and finally to a paladin. How can we say a thief could not change? I met this Arvid when he was here in Vérella, and there was something about him … If any thief could change, he could.”

  The High Marshal scowled, then shrugged. “I suppose. But I still say most will not believe him.”

  “I daresay many people did not believe Gird at first.”

  Arcolin followed this argument with amazement—still shocked by the news that magery was recurring, and that the king’s own brother displayed it. The king now held up his hand, and both the Marshals subsided.

  “The point is, my lord Dukes, that we have a potential division we did not have before and one that has implications should we be invaded. You both have military experience—you best understand, I believe, what the stakes are, if this becomes known and the people rebel. How, then, could we withstand this southerner?”

  “You must not give him what he wants,” Arcolin said. “Sir king, that would be the worst—he himself has magery. Magery may not be inherently evil, but the Duke of Immer has chosen evil already.”

  “Help us decide, then, how best to handle this problem.”

  Arcolin glanced at Dorrin, who was staring at her hands as if deliberately not taking part.

  “Sir king, if it were up to me … I would find something that could be the cause of this resurgence.”

  “Duke Verrakai—” said the High Marshal.

  Arcolin shook his head. “No, High Marshal. Something else. Who was first to show magery here?”

  “She—”

  “No, sir king. Kieri Phelan. I was told that when he drew that elven sword in the Council chamber, light came and the Bells chimed.”

  “Yes, but that was elven magery—”

  “Was it? How did that happen? A paladin of Gird named him the heir and gave him the sword to try: even if the display was elven in kind, it came from a paladin’s act. Duke Verrakai, how did you come by magery at your age?”

  “It was blocked when I was at Falk’s Hall, but…” Her expression changed. “Paksenarrion released it.”

  “You see?” Arcolin said. “A paladin of Gird, under Gird’s guidance, brought magery back—first in King Kieri, his own innate elven magery—and then in Duke Verrakai, of a family of magelords.”

  “I suppose you could look at it that way,” the High Marshal said, looking at the Marshal-Judicar.

  “And if she influenced this thief,” the Marshal-Judicar said, “then his hearing Gird’s voice … but wait. What about the others? Had she met Beclan?” He looked at Dorrin, who shook her head.

  “If Gird wanted magery back in the land,” Arcolin said, “Paks may have been the one to bring it, but she might not be the only one. Or, once introduced, it might spread without that, at Gird’s will.”

  “That’s true.” The king looked around the room. “So—if we have a reason to think Gird brought the return of magery, will that help the people accept it? Would it work in Fintha?”

  “It might,” the High Marshal said. “And I suppose you think I should tell the Marshal-General about this thief?” He looked at Arcolin.

  “Yes, High Marshal, I do,” Arcolin said. “As you said, how often does Gird speak directly and clearly to any of us?”

  A hand of days later, Arcolin and his wife and her son rode north, a new wagon behind them, the gift of her father, wagon and team. It was half full of her things and half arranged for her and the boy to ride in when they tired. To Arcolin’s delight, Calla had continued to show the same combination of good sense and joy that he felt himself.

  “I could never be a soldier,” she said, halfway through that first morning of the trip. “I was not formed for that. But this—riding into something new and strange—this I did always dream of. The very idea of the north fascinated me as a child. Seeing your troops come through every year, marching from one unknown to another, made me restless at heart.”

  “Will you then want to visit Aarenis one day?” Arcolin asked.

  “Possibly,” she said. “Though I suspect one end of the unknown will be enough for me—there’s so much to learn. Your people, the land, how best I can help you … that will keep me busy a good while. And Jamis, of course.” She glanced at the boy, who rode perched on a sheepskin on a steady pony led by one of Arcolin’s troops. “He has asked for a pony many a time, but we had no place for him to ride in the city, and no one free to lead him about. Look how happy he is.”

  Just then the boy turned to wave at her and call out, “Mama—I’m not holding on!”

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  They arrived in Duke’s East by noon on the last day of their journey, the weather having cooperated. Everything looked as it should. Arcolin stopped and introduced Calla to Kolya and the mayor in Duke’s East. Calla admired everything, and he could tell that Kolya, often so reserved, was delighted with her. Arcolin arranged to hold Duke’s Court in two days’ time and sent a messenger to Duke’s West to let them know. From the town to the stronghold, the road had been tended—the crown smoothed, the ditches cleaned out. He could see recruits drilling off to the east.

  “Dattur, do you want to go directly to the new gnome hills?”

  “No, my prince. I would not delay your return to your home, and I think they will come to greet you here anyway. They have not seen me for three years. More.”

  “Very well.” Arcolin had not imagined the gnomes would come to the stronghold unless they needed something. He could, however, understand how a kteknik gnome might prefer to return to the group in the company of their prince, proof he was no longer kteknik.

  Everything was in perfect order in the stronghold itself. Young Jamis stared as the gates opened, soldiers saluted, and trumpets blew. Calla, now riding beside him, smiled, apparently delighted with the ceremony. Grooms were ready to hold their horses as they dismounted.

  “Is the captain here?” he asked the guard corporal.

  “No, my lord. He’s with the recruit cohort. They made a day-march today. I’ll send a messenger—”

  “Yes, do that. You may tell him I’m married now, and I will introduce my lady to him and the Company this evening.”

  He led Calla and Jamis through the entrance to the inner courtyard. “Our quarters are here,” he said. “Officers in residence also have quarters in this court and usually eat together.”

  “It’s huge,” Calla said. She looked around. “And our own well?”

  “Indeed. There’s no river here for water, but we have several wells both inside and outside the walls. Some of this is storage space—” He waved at the east side of the courtyard. “Let me show you to our quarters after I speak to the staff.” They were waiting by the door: steward, cook, others. He introduced Calla, “My wife, Lady Arcolin, and her son, Jamis,” and she greeted each by name. Then they went upstairs.

  “There was no time to send ahead and have the rooms prepared,” Arcolin said. The starkness of th
e rooms struck him as never before. No woman or child had lived here for tens of years, and that showed in the bare, cold, unwelcoming spaces.

  “No matter,” Calla said. “It will not take long to make them comfortable. Is there someone who can help me?”

  “Do you not need to rest and refresh yourself?”

  “I am not so old as that,” she said with a grin. “A bath later would be delightful, but now I want to get the new bedding out of the wagon and into this room. And for Jamis?”

  “Across the passage there’s a smaller room.” It had been a nursery when Kieri’s children were born. The smaller room, dustier than his own chamber, needed cleaning, furniture, and bedding. Soon servants bustled up and down the stairs, bringing items from the wagon. The cook sent a meal up to Arcolin’s office, as Calla wanted to be upstairs where she could direct where things were put.

  Faster than Arcolin expected, Calla announced that the two rooms were now ready. Jamis’s bed, reassembled, stood in the corner of his room with a quilted cover of Girdish blue; he had a chest for his clothes and a table and chair of his own. He whirled around and around, arms wide. “It’s big!” he said. “And I have a fireplace!”

  “Then put your clothes away,” Calla said. She led Arcolin to the room that had been Kieri’s, then his alone, and was now theirs. Despite the autumn chill, she had opened the shutters, and he could see that the room looked warm and welcoming: new mattress plumped up under the new bedclothes, bed curtains drawn back to the posts, striped curtains beside the window, the patterned rug he’d admired in Vérella now spread on the floor. Near the fireplace, she’d had servants put a tub, a towel rack, and ewers of hot water.

  He had just dressed again after bathing when Arneson came to report on the recruit progress. With him was Kaim, Count Halar’s son, who had served as Arneson’s squire this past campaign year. He looked at the boy, liking what he saw at first glance—a sturdy, bright-faced lad. After Arneson introduced them, Arcolin said, “I need to speak to Captain Arneson; wait for us downstairs.”

  “Yes, my lord,” Kaim said; he bowed and left.