Crown of Renewal

by Elizabeth Moon

  “It would scare them,” Aris said. Inspiration hit. “What about this? Two of the village children—not too big—and those sheep in the pen and one of the dogs. It will look like children and sheep—”

  “You’re getting tall for that.”

  “I’m the older brother.” He liked that thought; he’d been the youngest brother for so long.

  They started out along a lane that led between the village fields to southern grazing lands that stretched to where the forest curved around. Aris, who had not worked sheep before, had to be reminded how to position himself. He watched the dog, carefully not looking toward the forest to the west and remembering to hold the shepherd’s crook so he wouldn’t bang it with his sword.

  “They’re looking at us,” one of the smaller boys said.

  “Are they going into the forest?”

  “No. Just looking at us.”

  “Good. Don’t look, then look again in twenty paces. Then you can grab my arm and try to get me to look.” Aris looked the other way, pointed to the child on that side as if giving him directions, and the boy ran off to the side, pretended to pick something up, and ran back. Then the other boy grabbed Aris’s arm and shook it, pointing toward the intruders.

  As if to assist, all the sheep stopped and looked, too. One baaed. Then another. The distant sheep baaed. Suddenly, all the sheep—both groups—started toward each other, the nearer flock turning off the lane and into a field of redroots. Aris said “No!” but the sheep had no intention of listening to him. He tried stopping one with the crook, and it lunged forward, yanking the crook out of his hand. He and the boys ran, trying to get ahead of the sheep; the dog ran faster, then started barking. Across the field, the people with the small flock were trying to stop theirs with the same lack of success.

  The sheep won, the flocks flowing into each other before the humans, breathless and sweaty, could get to the scene. The dog, completely abandoning its supposed sheep-handling role, had thrown itself at the feet of the stranger children and rolled onto its back; one of them was petting it.

  The adult had moved into the combined flock, trying to separate out some of the sheep, but without help or any place to pen them, the sheep moved right back into the mass of woolly backs.

  “Why did you bring your sheep out when you didn’t have enough dogs to control them?” the adult—now obviously an older woman—said to Aris. She had not run as far and was not out of breath.

  “Me?” Aris said. “Why did you bring your sheep to our vill?”

  “I could have passed your vill without a problem if only you—” She stopped and looked intently at his chest. “That’s … is that a Marrakai mark?”

  “Yes,” Aris said. “It is. This is Marrakai land.”

  “Blessed Gird!” she said. Now she smiled. “We’re safe, children. We made it.”

  “Made it?”

  “The mage-hunters would have killed them,” she said, waving at the children. “I brought them out—we were chased—there are mage-hunters after us—”

  The dog leapt up, bristling, teeth bared. Aris looked where it did—and saw two men on horseback galloping toward them. For an instant he thought they were his father’s men, but these men wore blue, not red and green, and both had crossbows spanned—one shot even as he watched. The bolt narrowly missed the woman and thunked into the ground, vibrating.

  And he was out here alone, with no support and no helmet. “Get in the sheep and lie down,” he said to the children. The woman already had her bow spanned; Aris drew his sword.

  “You can’t fight horsemen on foot with a sword,” she said. “Take my crook … knock one off as he passes.”

  But the horsemen drew rein out of reach.

  Aris drew himself up. “You are on Marrakai lands,” he said. “You have no rights here. Go back where you came from.”

  “Marrakai! Magelords! All Tsaia’s infested with magelord vermin. You don’t need to die for a filthy magelord, boy! Free yourself from their tyranny.”

  He could think of nothing to say. Tell them he was Marrakaien himself? That would do nothing but get him killed. He tightened his grip on the sword in his right hand and the shepherd’s crook in his left.

  Then, from the forest, came the crashing sound of horses—many horses—forcing their way through undergrowth, and the first of his father’s mounted men charged out, yelling. His father, riding flat-out, mouth open … his horse surging ahead of the others. Aris had never seen his father look like that. The intruders turned to face this challenge, raising their crossbows.

  Aris ran forward, desperate to keep his father from being shot. Without thinking of the horses at all, he slashed the one to his right with the sword and jabbed the other in the flank with the shepherd’s crook. Both jerked; one bolted, and the other bucked, bucked again, and its rider flew off. His father rode on to attack the fallen man as he stood up. His sword cut deep into the man’s shoulder; the man screamed and fell. Aris stared as his father slid out of the saddle and finished the man, one thrust to the throat.

  “Get them all back to the vill,” he said to Aris, then mounted and rode off in pursuit of the other man, whose horse was throwing bucks as it ran.

  Aris went back to the woman. “We’ve got to get to the vill,” he said.

  She didn’t move at first. “Was that Marrakai himself?”

  “Yes. My father. Come—he wants everyone safe in the vill.”

  With five children, an experienced shepherd, and a dog, it did not take long to move the sheep into the center of the vill. On the way he learned the names of the strangers and that the vill’s sheepdog had been traded for across the border—it knew the shepherd and the children. Soon his father and the others rode in, all the horses lathered and two dead men lashed over the saddles of their mounts.

  Aris looked at his father. The dark brows were up, the mouth tight.

  “I’m sorry I cut the horse,” he said. “But I thought I had to.”

  “You did right,” his father said. He tapped his head. “Except … where is your helmet?”

  “I thought it would scare them away,” Aris said. “The newcomers, I mean, not the mage-hunters.”

  “Mmm. We’ll discuss that later. Let’s get the horses cared for, and then I need to talk to all the adults in the vill.”

  They stayed in Pickoak another night. The three children did indeed have mage-powers—or at least made light with a finger, as Camwyn had before he gained other powers. The woman had a frightening tale to tell.

  “They was up the vale, one vill at a time. Timos from our vill saw what happened—they burned Claybank to the ground for refusin’ to let ’em in. Old Tower, they sent their children to us, but we saw smoke rise that day. I knew … my sister’s grandchilder, all three, had it. Their mother’s expectin’, so I said I’d take ’em. Two childer from Old Tower. Esker took them. We left that night hidin’ as best we could, and Esker went another way. We each took some sheep, hopin’ from a distance someone would just think it was a shepherd.

  “They had ridin’ horses; we didn’t. I thought we’d got away, but just as I was comin’ to the forest, Peri said she saw horses behind us. I hoped they hadn’t seen. We been hidin’ in the trees, tryin’ to get away from ’em. They shot one of the sheep and stopped to eat it … we been hungry awhile …”

  Aris looked at his father, who looked back, then sighed heavily.

  “You’re welcome to stay, Sanits, but not in this vill. Come with us tomorrow; settle closer to the center of my land, where they’re less likely to find you. We’ll find you a home.”

  The children had been eating as fast as they could. Now they stopped, staring at Sanits. Her eyes filled with tears. “Gird’s grace on you,” she said. “I don’t reckon you’re Girdish—”

  “But we are,” Aris said. “Da’s da’s da, back in Gird’s day, knew Gird.”

  “Then Gird’s hand was in all this,” she said. “But are there no mage-hunters here?”

  “There’ve be
en those who tried,” Marrakai said. “But the king’s command is that no new-known mages be killed, unless they commit crimes, and no child under twelve winters, without his express command.”

  “Is your king Girdish?”

  “Yes … Is that not known in Fintha?”

  She looked down. “Folk says this, and folk says that, and how’s a body from a vill a day’s walk from another to know who says truth?”

  “Tsaia is Girdish. You will find welcome here in the grange on my land or another. For now, though, do not worry about that.”

  “I worry about my sister’s daughter … what if she …” She closed her eyes briefly, shook her head, and said, “Never mind that. What’s done is done, whatever it is. You saved my life, you and your son, and you saved these childer, and we’re all grateful.”

  In the morning, they rode back to the house, the children each riding with someone and the woman on the mage-hunter’s uninjured horse. Aris, with the oldest child gripping his belt behind, had no thought of Camwyn that day.

  “Aris, I need you.”

  Aris gave the foal’s back a last gentle swipe with the soft brush and turned. “Yes, sir?”

  His father nodded toward the foal. “Good job you’re doing there, lad, and I’m sorry to have to take you from it, at least for long enough to ride to Vérella and back. I need to get word to the king and to your brother Juris, and though I trust my couriers to carry letters, there are things that should be transferred tongue to tongue by a family member, and that means you. I must stay here to supervise reinforcing the border.”

  “Yes, sir.” The foal nibbled at his sleeve; he pushed it back a little and scratched the ear that fell under his hand.

  “You will ride with an escort—and you will ride fully armed, in my livery.” His father chewed his lip. “It’s not—I don’t think there will be trouble, Ari, but I’ll admit the incursion from Fintha worries me. I lack the troops to watch every armslength of the border. If someone slipped through—if several have and combine once they’re in Tsaia—well. Wear your mail. Wear your helmet, waking and sleeping, and sleep as little as you may on the road.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “The letters are ready and sealed. Your escort has been told. Go change out of stable clothes; your mother has a pack ready for you and a meal. When you’re ready, come to my study.”

  Bathing and changing took no time at all. Aris took a meat roll and two pastries from the pantry and went to his father’s office. There both parents awaited him, faces solemn—and to one side his younger sister Istilin, looking scared. A candle on the table beside her burned brightly, though daylight streamed in from outside.

  “You see,” his father said, nodding toward the candle. “Night before last. And no magery on either side of the family since before Gird’s time. Whatever this is …”

  “I don’t like it!” Istilin said. “I didn’t ask—!”

  “This the king must know. It’s in his family. It’s in our family. It’s in the Verrakaien. It’s only a matter of time until it’s in every noble family and that makes us magelords in the old sense. You cannot assume, Aris, that you will not develop it; Beclan was older than you before he showed it. And we must not descend into that chaos again. I will not write this down: you tell him and tell Juris. No one else.”

  Aris could think of nothing to say. He nodded instead. His mother led Istilin out of the study. His father cleared his throat, then said,

  “Your foal.”

  “Yes, sir?”

  “I know it is unfair, your having to leave. You know I have his name—if you want, I will talk to him while you’re gone. We will need to bespeak him together.”

  “Yes, sir. Let’s say goodbye to him.”

  In the small paddock, the foal lifted his head and came to Aris. His father leaned over to stroke the neck, run his hand down the foal’s back. Into the foal’s ear, Aris spoke the name of bonding. His father spoke it into the foal’s other ear at the same time. Then, with a last caress for the foal, Aris walked out to the yard, where the men waited and a groom held one of the best horses, ready for him. He mounted, signaled his escort, and rode away.

  Despite all concerns, nothing happened on the way to Vérella except the ordinary business of travel. He noticed that the trip was drier than usual, the grass already browning on the tips, the trees looking dusty and crops in the field not as full as they should be. The sky held no rain clouds he could see—but clear weather shortened the trip.

  Aris could not be sure whether the tension he felt was entirely his or if the travelers they passed were in fact grimmer of face and more reserved than in previous years. They were certainly more sunburned.

  Once near Vérella, he saw more Royal Guard patrols, but with the threat of invasion from Aarenis, that made sense. His Marrakai pennon and livery passed him through with hardly a pause. “Errand for my father the Duke” satisfied those who bothered to ask.

  They rode into the city through blustery winds and blowing dust that turned the sky beige. Aris felt coated with dust when he rode up to the Marrakai city residence. He had planned to go to the palace as soon as he arrived, but he was too grimy. The housewards took one look at his tabard and flung the doors wide.

  “The kirgan spends most nights at the palace,” the woman told him when he was inside and out of the wind, drinking the cup of sib she offered. “But the house is ready for the family any time. You may have the Duke’s rooms if you want.”

  Aris could not imagine himself in his father’s bedroom, in the bed his parents shared. “I don’t expect to be here more than one or two nights. Which guest room is made up? I’ll take that. And I’ve been riding through the dust—I need a bath before I take the Duke’s letter to the palace.”

  Entering the palace gates as a duke’s son with an urgent message from the Duke for the king was very different from entering as a page. Grooms came to hold his horse; he was addressed not as “Aris” or “lad” but as “Sagan Marrakai,” “second heir.” He was taken upstairs at once and waited only moments before being announced as “Aris, Sagan Marrakai.” Through the open door he saw his brother Juris, who had been at supper with the king, staring at him, wide-eyed.

  “Not Father—” Juris said before the king could say anything.

  “No, he’s in health,” Aris said. “Sir king, I carry messages from the Duke for you. In writing and by mouth.”

  “That serious?” The king raised his brows. He looked tired, as he had ever since the iynisin intrusion that had resulted in the prince’s injuries.

  “Yes, sir king.”

  “Does your father send you here to resume your duties at Court?”

  “No, sir king; I am to return as soon as I have delivered messages to you and to my brother Juris.”

  “The same messages?”

  A tricky point on which he wished his father could advise him, but the king’s question could not wait.

  “Sir king, the messages to you are from a duke to a king, and those to Juris are from a father to his son and heir.”

  “Ha!” The king grinned, and Aris relaxed a little. “This is not the scamp who first came here with a reputation as a blabmouth. You have learned courtiers’ wiles while in the pages’ hall, young Marrakai.”

  Aris said nothing, merely waited until the king finished.

  “Let me see the written word first,” the king said. Aris opened his pouch and handed it over; the king broke the seal and unrolled the letter. “Juris, why don’t you let your brother give you whatever message he has for you while I read, and I will take the message by mouth when I’m done.”

  “Yes, sir king.” Juris got up from the table and led the way out of the room. Once they were in the hall, he said, “What’s going on, Aris? And I swear you’ve grown another inch.”

  “I have a letter for you.” Aris handed it to him. “And word for your ear that must not be heard by anyone else.”

  “Not here, then. There’s a safe chamber this way.” A short
distance away, Juris opened a door into a small storage room lined with shelves stacked with spare crockery, table linens, and cleaning tools. “Tell me now.”

  Aris told him first of their sister’s magery and then of the presence of mage-hunters on Marrakai land, well inside Tsaia. “Father thinks he’s killed them all—all of that band at least—but he expects trouble.”

  “Istilin? But she’s—but we’ve never—and has he written the king about it? The king should know.”

  “It’s the word for his ear. Not in the letter.”

  “Good. I’m the king’s best friend as well as his oathsworn; I could not keep such important news from him.” Juris shook his head as if to clear it. “What about those coming in from Fintha? Will Father let them stay or send them somewhere?”

  “He was going to send them away until he saw them. He says now he will find room somehow for those who just came. I don’t know how many. And he will need more soldiers to guard the border.”

  “Our border with Fintha is mostly thick forest. It would take an army—”

  “We can’t have the mage-hunters coming in and killing our people.”

  “No. We need to find some way—”

  “Kirgan Marrakai!”

  Juris opened the closet door. “Here I am, just chatting with my brother about things at home. Does the king want me?”

  “Both of you.”

  Aris delivered his father’s word to the king’s ear. Mikeli nodded, looking no grimmer than he had before.

  “It’s everywhere now,” he said. “Fintha, Tsaia, mage families, nonmage families. Whatever’s started this seems determined to stir some magery into every family. I’ll have an answer for your father by tomorrow, Aris. I’m sure he wants you to return immediately.”

  “Yes, sir king. He said no use to waste the time of a royal courier when I ride like one.”

  The king laughed. “You do have an escort, though—he’s not sending you here and back alone—?”

  “No, sir king. The escort is at Marrakai House, where I will stay this night.”

  “And I, if you’ll permit,” Juris said.