Guardians of the Keep

by Carol Berg

  “Tell me, Philomena, have you considered getting some friend of Tomas’s to foster Gerick?”

  “Well, of course. Not that anyone I know would put up with him. One would think someone might offer out of sympathy, but only the captain has said he’d do it. He’s such a nosy.”

  “The captain?”

  “You know him. Tomas’s trained dog. Captain Darzid.”

  Hatred bubbled up from my depths for the immaculately groomed courtier who had stood in every dark place of my life. Karon’s arrest and trial. My son’s murder. Darzid had hunted the sorcerer prince who had come to me at midsummer, and I believed he had lured Tomas to his death, making him a pawn in the long war between Karon’s people and the three sorcerers who called themselves the Lords of Zhev’Na. “Darzid has offered to train Gerick?”

  “Of course, I would never consider him.” Philomena fanned herself with a flat of stiff, painted paper cut in the outline of a rose. “He’s no more than a common soldier really, not even knighted. Not at all suitable for a duke’s companion.”

  “Very true. How perceptive of you to see that a relationship with your son would be only to Darzid’s advantage and not Gerick’s at all.”

  “Gerick loathes him. He’d probably kill the man if forced to be with him. I told the captain not even to think of it.”

  I almost patted Philomena’s head that evening. I read to her for an extra hour, which put her quite to sleep. “Your snobbery has served you well for once,” I whispered as I blew out her lamp.

  Common sense told me to waste no more time trying to befriend a child who so clearly wanted nothing to do with me, but somehow that answer was no longer acceptable. I could not shake the image of his red-brown hair blowing wildly in the wind on the roof of the northwest tower. Whatever was troubling Gerick had cut him off from the most basic human contact. No child should be so alone.

  One morning in late fall, Allard, the head stableman, came to me with an odd story. Two days previous, a boy had come to the stables asking for work. Being unknown to anyone, he was sent away. “An ordinary kind of boy,” said Allard. “But yestermorn, that same boy was at the kitchen door, asking cook for work. Cook sent him away, too, though she gave him a morsel of food as he looked so forlorn. I hope that’s all right, ma’am, as I wouldn’t want to get cook in trouble.”

  “Of course, that’s all right,” I said.

  “Then last night late,” said the stableman, “I woke with the feeling that all was not right with the horses. When I went to the stable, I found that boy again! I thought to take a whip to him, but he started talking about how Quicksilver was getting a twist in his gut that was hurting him terrible, and how Slewfoot had a crack in his hoof and would soon go lame if it weren’t fixed, and about how Marigold was going to foal a fine colt, but we needed to keep her quiet as she was delicate. . . .”

  I almost burst out laughing. Paulo! No other boy in the Four Realms had a feel for horses like Paulo. It was hard to let Allard talk his worries out.

  “. . . and he sounded so true, that I took a look and Quicksilver was tender in the belly just as the boy said. All the rest was right, too. The boy is lame, which some would hold against him, but I could see as he was a natural with the horses, far past any lad in the stable. But I didn’t want to take him on without your say. I thought there might be something odd, as he was asking if this was where ‘the lady called Seri was set up to run things.’ ”

  “Allard, would it make you feel better if I were to speak to this boy before you took him on?”

  Relief poured out of the man like summer ale from a barrel. “Aye, my lady. That would be just what I was thinking.”

  “Send him to me in the housekeeper’s room.”

  The old man touched his forehead in respect and looked relieved to have shed the burden of the extraordinary. I hurried to Nellia’s sitting room and shooed her away, saying I was to interview a new lad for Allard. When Allard brought Paulo to the door, the boy grinned shyly.

  “You can go, Allard,” I said. “No need to interrupt your work. Come in, young man.”

  Paulo limped in, his twisting gait the result of one leg misshapen since birth. The old man bowed and closed the door. The boy grinned shyly at me and touched his brow.

  Only the certainty that Paulo would be mortified with embarrassment kept me from embracing him. I offered my hand instead. “What in the name of the stars are you doing here, Paulo?”

  “Sheriff sent me.”

  Graeme Rowan, Sheriff of Dunfarrie, had sheltered the homeless thirteen-year-old since our adventures of the summer. Rowan, Paulo, and Kellea, an untrained young sorceress from Valleor, had become valuable, if unexpected, allies, as I helped the mysterious Prince of Avonar evade pursuit and accomplish his mission in our world.

  “Is anything wrong?”

  “Nope. Just checking on things. Not heard from you in a while. Sheriff thought you might want one of us about to take letters or help out or whatever. Easiest if it was me.”

  “I’ve just been a bit busy. I’ll write a letter to send back, but before you go, I want to hear all the news from Dunfarrie.”

  Paulo’s brown hand twisted the tail of his tunic, and his eyes roamed everywhere in the room except my face. “Course, I don’t need to go back. You got horses here need a good hand.”

  “I’d be delighted to have you here, but don’t you think the sheriff would worry?”

  “Time I was getting me a job. Don’t want to be a burden. He and Kellea are . . . well, you know. Don’t need me about all the time.”

  I knew that the courageous sheriff, bound by his office to hunt down sorcerers and burn them, had lost his heart to a talented, short-tempered young woman who was probably the last living Dar’Nethi sorcerer born in the Four Realms. But I also knew that neither of them begrudged Paulo a home. “It’s not that Graeme’s making you work at your lessons?”

  It wasn’t easy to make Paulo blush, but a spring radish would have paled in comparison. “Horses don’t care if a man can read.”

  “I’ll give you a job in the stables. Allard needs the help. But later this winter, we might have to work on your schooling a bit.”

  I returned Paulo to Allard, who was waiting in the kitchen, and said I could find no fault with the boy except that he needed a bath even more than he needed a meal. Paulo scowled and followed the old man back to the stables.

  Paulo and I seldom had occasion to speak. But as I made my rounds of the estate with Giorge or rode out for pleasure, I saw him limping about the place. He always grinned before he ducked his head and touched his brow. Allard swore that Paulo had been born in a stable, perhaps of equine parentage. Soon I couldn’t go into the yard without seeing the two of them, heads together.

  I never told anyone that I had known Paulo in my former life, though I could not have explained why. I was certainly not ashamed of him. He was a good and talented boy who had been my companion in adventure, brave and steady in circumstances that would daunt many grown men. It just felt good to have a private friend.

  Seille came, the midwinter season when we observed the longest night of the year and the ten days until the new year. Seille and Long Night were celebrations bound up with the legend of a wounded god brought from despair by the generous offering of food, entertainment, and gifts from the poorest of his subjects. I found the truths of sorcery, two worlds, and the magical Bridge that somehow linked them and kept them in balance more fascinating than any Long Night myth. But I had always loved the trappings of Seille: gifts bound with silk ribbons, storytelling, pageants, pastries, evergreen boughs, hot cider fragrant with cinnamon and cloves, and splurging with hundreds of scented candles to brighten the long nights.

  With the holidays came the first evidence of real progress with my nephew. I was surprised and pleased to find Gerick in Philomena’s room when I went to her for our nightly hour on the Feast of Long Night. It had seemed a bleak holiday having no family gathering to parallel the festivity in the servants’
hall, so I had asked the maids to garland Philomena’s mantel with evergreen, ordered a special supper for the duchess, and invited Gerick to join us. Though matters between the boy and me had been more detached than hostile of late, I had never expected him to come. But he was dressed in a fine suit and had already lit the candles that Nellia had sent on the tray, adding their perfume to the scent of balsam that filled the air.

  “A joyous Long Night, Philomena,” I said, “and to you, Gerick.”

  Philomena sighed. Gerick bowed politely, but didn’t say anything. One couldn’t expect too much.

  Gerick sat on the edge of his mother’s bed while I pulled up a chair. I poured the wine and shared around the roasted duck, sugared oranges, and cinnamon cakes. There was no conversation, but no hostility either. When we were finished eating, Gerick and I moved the table out of the way. Philomena frowned and said, “Aren’t you planning to read tonight?”

  “On the contrary . . .” From my pockets I pulled two wrapped parcels and gave one to each of them. I had ordered the two books from a shop in Montevial. Philomena’s was an exotic Isker romance, and she insisted I begin it immediately. Gerick’s was a manuscript about Kerotean sword-making, so beautifully illustrated that I had hesitated to give it to him. I hated the thought that he might destroy it because it came from me. But while I read to Philomena, he sat cross-legged on her bed turning every page. His cheeks glowed in the candlelight.

  When he closed the book at last, he jumped off the bed. I paused in my reading while he pecked his mother on the cheek. “Excuse me, Mama. I’m off to bed.” Then, his eyes not quite settling on me, he made a small gesture with the book. “It’s fine. Thank you.” Tucking the book securely under his arm, he ran off, leaving me feeling inordinately happy. Even Philomena’s gleeful report on his most recent demand that I be sent away did not spoil it.

  A mere two days before the turning of the year and Covenant Day, I took my afternoon walk on the south battlement, forced to confine myself to the castle because of a snowstorm that had raged throughout the day. The wild whirling snow made me dizzy, and a sudden gust sent me stumbling toward the crumbling southernmost cornice. As I grabbed the cold iron ring embedded in the stone, thanking the ancient guardian warriors for protecting the daughter of Comigor yet again, I began to feel a burning sensation in the region of my heart. I thought I had frosted my lungs or developed a sudden fever in them, or perhaps something I’d eaten was bothering my digestion.

  Before going back inside, I pulled on the silver chain about my neck as was my custom when I was alone, drawing Dassine’s talisman from my bodice, expecting to find it cold and dull as always. But, as the storm wind whipped my hair into my face, the snow swirled about me in a rose-colored frenzy, picking up a soft glow from the translucent stone, banishing all thoughts of storms or loneliness or difficult children. I wrapped my cold fingers about the stone until my hand gleamed with its pink radiance, and I relished every moment of that burning, for I had been assured that when the stone grew warm and glowed with its own light, Karon would arrive with the next dawn to visit me.

  CHAPTER 4

  I could not remember feeling so anxious in all my life, not when I was first presented at court, not on the day I was married. I knew so much of this man who was coming, all those things that had drawn me to him even when I believed him a stranger. Yet I was not foolish enough to think a man could die in agony, be held captive for ten years as a disembodied soul, and be brought back to life in another person’s body without being profoundly changed. So much less difficult had been my own lot, and I was not the same person I had been. He was my beloved, and he was alive beyond all hope, but I was very much afraid.

  What would he be like? Though his soul was unquestionably my husband’s, Dassine had said that D’Natheil would always be a part of him as well. I had seen the conflict between Karon’s nature and the instincts and proclivities of the violent, amoral Prince of Avonar that remained in that body. How would the balance between the two have settled out after four months of Dassine’s care? Perhaps he would seem more like Aeren again, the half-mad stranger I’d found in the forest six months before who was somehow both of them.

  First I had to decide where we would meet. Large as it was, Comigor Castle provided few places where I could receive visitors unobserved. Privacy was a rare commodity in a great house. I had only just persuaded Nellia not to come walking through my bedchamber door at any hour as she had when I was a little girl. But my bedchamber was hardly suitable. I wasn’t sure whether Karon would even remember me as yet. Dassine had said he would have to “take him back to the beginning” to restore his memories. It was all so strange!

  I considered the battlements. No one went there but me, fair weather or foul, but despite the emerging stars’ promise of fair skies, the bitter wind still howled from the wild northlands as fiercely as the wolf packs of famine years. And the snow lay deep on the surrounding countryside, so I couldn’t ride out.

  One other place came to mind. Located on the eastern flank of the keep, where morning sun could warm the stone, was a walled garden, wild, neglected, locked by my father on the day my mother succumbed to her long illness. Once the garden had been thick with flowers and herbs native to the far southeastern corner of Leire whence my mother had come at seventeen to wed the Duke of Comigor. The customs of Comigor, a strictly traditional warrior house, allowed a bride to bring only one of her father’s retainers to her new home, and my mother had chosen, not her personal maid or some other girlish companion, but a gardener. The poor man had spent eleven years fighting Comigor’s bitter winters and hot summers to reproduce the blooms and fragrances of his lady’s balmy homeland, only to be sent away when she died because my father could not bear the reminder of her.

  For many years after her death, I had climbed over the wall to read and dream in the peaceful enclosure, watching the carefully nurtured plants grow wild and die away like a fading echo of my young girl’s grief. Now I held the keys to the house, and with them the key to my mother’s garden, a place deserted, secluded, and most importantly, invisible from any vantage point within the castle.

  Unable to sleep for my anticipation, I wrapped myself in a cloak, let myself through the garden gate, and strolled among the bare trees and shrubs and the sagging latticework of the arbors. The Great Arch of the stars still lit the darkness like a reflection of D’Arnath’s enchanted Bridge.

  I didn’t question that they would come. “At the sun’s next rising,” Dassine had said, “at whatever place you are.” If I’d told anyone in the world what it was that I anticipated so anxiously as I awaited dawn in my mother’s garden, that person would have thrown me in an asylum. I wrapped my hand tightly about the pink stone, allowing its heat to warm my freezing fingers.

  The sun shot over the garden wall, causing me to blink just as a streak of white fire pierced the rosy brilliance. Squinting into the glare, I spied a short, muscular man, who leaned on a stick as he hobbled toward me along the gravel path. His white robe flapped in the breeze, revealing a rumpled shirt, knee breeches, and sagging hose. Dassine. Alone. Bitter disappointment welled up in my throat. But when the sorcerer raised his hand in greeting, I glimpsed another figure. That one remained at the far end of the path, almost lost in the fiery brightness. Tall, broad in back and shoulder, he too wore a white robe. A white hood hid his face.

  “Good morning, my lady,” said Dassine, his breath curling from his mottled beard like smoke rings. Though tired lines surrounded them, his blue eyes sparkled. Gray-streaked brown hair and beard framed his ageless face like a striped corona. “Am I never to find you in a warm place? This weather makes my bones brittle. One snapped limb and you will never be rid of me!”

  “There aren’t many private places here.”

  He craned his neck to survey the pile of ancient rock that was my home. “Indeed. I am astounded to discover where you have settled yourself. Is that not your brother’s pennant?”

  “It’s a long story.”r />
  “And you’re not particularly interested in dwelling on such trivialities while my companion stands at the far end of the path alone. Am I correct?”

  I was near bursting. “How is he? Does he remember—?”

  “Patience! I told you it would take time. Do you remember my condition for bringing him?”

  “That I must follow your instructions exactly.”

  “And you still agree to it?”

  “Whatever is best for him.”

  “Precisely that. Sit down with me for a moment.” He plopped himself heavily on a stone bench. I sat beside him, but my eyes did not stray from the distant, still figure in white.

  “You are not a prisoner here?” said Dassine.

  “I’m here of my own will and have full freedom of the house.”

  “Your brother’s house seems an odd place to welcome the very one who caused the black flag to fly over these battlements. Is it safe?”

  “Safe enough. I’d never endanger either one of you. Only one old woman here causes me any discomfort, and I can deal with her. I’m only here because I came upon an opportunity to repay my brother for all that happened.”

  “Just so. Well, then . . . we have made progress. Over the past four months I have given the Prince the memories of his youth—both of them. He remembers his life as D’Natheil up to his twelfth birthday, when he was sent to the Bridge the first time. I don’t think I can take him farther than that, for as I told you, the disaster on the Bridge left little soul in D’Natheil. It’s as well. Karon doesn’t need to know more of what D’Natheil became in those next ten years. Sufficient that he knows of D’Natheil’s family—his family—and Avonar, and most importantly, he knows of the Lords and the Zhid, the Bridge, and his duty as the Heir of D’Arnath. I think he will be able to pass examination if it comes.”