It was a statement, but Lord Aram paused, waiting for an answer.
Marcus nodded. “I know that a horse can cover ten times the distance that a man can travel in a day, my lord – or more. Yes, I know this.”
Lord Aram’s gaze hardened again. “The forces of the throne are not mounted, and Lord Alvern states that they cannot reach the east of the province where the forces of your friends are massed before a month at least.” He leveled his forefinger at Marcus’ chest for emphasis. “You and Phagan and Huram may be at your friend Amund’s house in five or six days. Within ten or twelve days, two weeks at most, he and I may be discussing how best to rescue your friends from harm. Do you understand?”
The young prince’s eyes brightened with comprehension – and hope. “I do, my lord.”
“Then go.”
Marcus hesitated again. “Alone, my lord?” He spread his hands defensively. “It’s just that I’m not completely sure of the best way to go to Amund’s and – while I know that horses are good company, it would help to have a human companion.”
Aram studied him for a moment; then, “Where is Thom?”
“He encamps with the men of Derosa – Wamlak, Jonwood, and the others.”
“Have he and one of the horses teamed up?”
“He has,” Marcus affirmed. “Thom is mounted on a horse named Norgen.”
“Then get him and Norgen, Huram, and go. Take what supplies you need from the stores here in the fortress. I will send Alvern to watch over you and guide you on your way. Go – make haste.”
Nodding once, quickly, Marcus spun and went out.
Findaen watched him go and then turned to Aram. After watching his prince for a long moment, who had returned his attention to the map, he asked quietly, “So, we are going to war with Elam, my lord?”
Aram looked up at him and frowned. “Elam? – no, not with Elam. Marcus, and those in that land that feel as he does about things – they are Elam. We are going to war on their behalf – with Rahm Imrid.”
It was Findaen’s turn to frown. “But does not he control most of the power?”
The severe lines of Aram’s face hardened and grew even more severe as he gazed back at his brother-in-law. “Only until we show him – and them – what real power looks like, Fin. Then, I suspect, Rahm Imrid will find himself in serious want of allies.”
He returned his attention to the crude drawing of Elam for a moment and then looked up and moved toward the door. “I’m off to Derosa. Marcus will be gone at least ten days, more likely twelve or so – that should be just enough time. I’ll speak to Alvern now. Will you see Marcus away in the morning?”
Findaen nodded. “I will.” He frowned at Aram’s retreating back. “Enough time for what, my lord, if I may ask?”
Aram stopped, looked at the floor for a moment, and then turned toward him. “I must move Ka’en to Regamun Mediar,” he said.
Findaen’s eyes went wide. “Now? With everything that’s happening? Why?”
Aram shrugged. “Because she desires it,” he said simply. He sighed. “Believe me, I tried to talk her out of it, but she is determined. I even threatened to forbid it, but that only stiffened her resolve. She intends to give birth to our child there.”
The light of comprehension seeped into Findaen’s eyes and his frown faded. “Ah, because – yes, I see.” After another moment, he asked, “May I be of service?”
Aram laughed wryly. “Only if you think you can succeed where I failed – and talk her out of the notion.”
Findaen chuckled, shaking his head. “No – I’ve argued with her many times. And I’ve never won.”
Aram’s features went oddly pensive. “Well, I’ll see her settled. And I will need to alert every hawk in and near the valley, as well as the wolves.” He indicated the map on the table. “Depending how things go in the west, it may be some time before I am with her again.” The pensiveness deepened. “And I want to be with her for the birth of our child.”
Findaen smiled gently. “Go, my lord. I’ll see Marcus away, and send you word of his return.”
“Thank you, Fin,” Aram acknowledged, “but I intend to be here when he returns.” He turned to leave the room but Findaen checked him again.
“There are two things more, my lord.”
Aram pivoted back, looking at Findaen with raised eyebrows.
“The eagle from the south – Palus – brought word to Alvern that Eoarl and Dunna are on the plains north of Durck. They’ll be at Derosa in four days’ time.”
“But I thought them already here.” Aram frowned in puzzlement. “Four days more? Why so long? I sent horses with Erak to bring them as quickly as possible.”
Findaen grinned. “They’re coming in an oxcart with many of their possessions. Since Muray refuses to go to Lamont for his convalescence, they are evidently intent on relocating here, at least until he’s well enough to go home – or come back to his men.”
As he digested this information, Aram abruptly brightened. “Ka’en will be pleased, and maybe, with Dunna here –“
But he faltered as he saw Findaen shake his head.
Aram gazed down at the floor and sighed. “No, you’re right; she will not be dissuaded.” He looked up. “Can Muray be moved?”
“I think so. I’ll ask Bertrain, if you wish.”
“Yes, do so,” Aram said. “If he can be moved, then we might as well get him into an oxcart and take him to Derosa as well – put him in my old room in your father’s house.”
“I’ll see to it, my lord.”
Aram watched him narrowly. “And the other thing?”
“The men from Seneca are beginning to arrive at Durck, my lord,” Findaen answered. “How do we get them north and into camp?”
Aram considered. “I cannot spare Matibar – if we go west into Elam, I want him with me. Ask Andaran if he will consent to gathering enough willing horses to bring them here. I want you to go west with me as well, Fin, so Andaran cannot go to Durck. Have him choose a horse that can be trusted and send him and his people with Arthrus or Dane. How many men have arrived?”
“Several ships come in at a time, my lord,” Findaen replied. “More than a hundred are there now. They are staying aboard ship, and the ships cannot return to Seneca until these men are moved.”
“We need to free those ships,” Aram agreed. “Have Andaran choose two hundred horses, if he can find that many who have not chosen mounts, and start bringing them up. The Senecans will have supplies with them, if Andar has kept his word. As I said, either Arthrus or Dane will need to gather oxcarts and go get those supplies even as the horses move the men. Arthrus has other duties – I prefer Dane to go. Will you inform him?”
“Yes, my lord.”
Aram gazed at the floor and thought for a moment longer. “Yes, we must free up those ships so they may continue to bring Seneca to us.” He looked up. “Tell Andaran to send as many horses as we can spare. I want Dane to go with the oxcarts, but have Arthrus choose a mount and go with the horses. His armor-working can wait a bit. Those men must come up first, quickly, in order to free the ships and the supplies can follow. We have enough to feed them for some time, do we not?”
“We do,” Findaen affirmed.
“Thank you, Fin.”
“Don’t let any of this concern you, my lord – see to Ka’en.” Findaen said. “I will see all that you desire done, and I will move Muray.”
“Thank you, Fin,” Aram repeated. He gave his brother-in-law a grateful smile, and then he spun and headed for the stairs.
47.
Ka’en sat down upon the bed and stretched her back; then she massaged her mid-section and watched Aram, who was on his knees, arranging her things into packs. “If Huram has gone into Elam with Marcus – who will bear me to the valley?”
Aram stopped what he was doing and stared down for a minute or two before looking up at her. “I told you that Eoarl and Dunna arrive in a three or four days.”
She didn’t answer, but
her lovely eyes darkened with caution and her chin lifted as she looked back at him.
Aram shook his head in quiet exasperation and got to his feet. He stood silently for a moment, and then moved over to the window and looked out across the valley at the eastern hills. When she still did not speak, he looked at her. “I cannot stay with you, if you go to the valley,” he said. “Wouldn’t you rather stay here? Dunna would be a great help over these last few weeks before the child comes.”
She smiled tiredly but her chin remained up, her eyes bright and defiant. Then her gaze turned away from him and she looked out the window. After a moment, she shook her head. “It will be wonderful to see her, but no. I’m going to Regamun Mediar.”
Aram moved away from the window and sat in the chair. He drew in a deep breath and leaned toward her. “I may have an opportunity here, Ka’en – to do as Joktan suggested I do about Elam.” As he spoke, his right hand reflexively formed a fist and the expression on his face became an odd mixture of eagerness and regret. “I cannot stay with you. I must look to the west. What happens there is vital to all our futures – not just for you, me, and our child, but all the free peoples of the world. It might even lead to a shortening of the war with Manon. Could not you forgo what you want – just this once?”
She settled her eyes on him, and the defiant light in their topaz depths softened. “I knew what I was getting into when I married you, my love,” she said quietly.
Her answer seemed to bear no relationship to his question. He frowned at her. “What do you mean?”
Her eyes softened further and grew sad. “You work very hard, my love, at protecting me from the harshness of our situation. Because of that, you like to think that I don’t know much about the state of things in the world, but I do. I know that we all stand upon the edge of a precipice and that it is only your strength and your will – and that sword – that keeps us all from plunging over.” She smiled then but it seemed to Aram that her sense of sadness deepened. “You are my husband, but you are also a king.”
She rose, but instead of going to him, she went to the window. “When you first went west in the spring, I went down to the gates and watched you ride away, as I have done every time you leave me. This time, Hilgarn rode behind you with the standard of the ancient kings – of your fathers – flying above you as you went.”
She dropped her hands to her belly and rubbed at it gently. “I knew when we married that it would become my lot to watch you ride away, time after time, always to war and danger. And the time might come when –” Her voice faltered and caught for a moment and she turned her face further away.
Aram started to go to her but checked himself. “I will always come back to you,” he said. “Always. I gave you this promise and I mean to keep it.”
With her face still turned away, she replied. “I know that you mean it – and I pray daily that it will always be true.” She drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “When you rode away beneath the standard of your ancestors, I realized something then that I suppose I’ve really always known.”
She turned and looked at him. “You are my husband, but you don’t belong to me, my love – you belong to the world, and to your own special destiny.”
Aram stood, shaking his head in fierce disagreement. “Everything I do,” he protested, “I do so that you and I – and our children – might live in peace someday. I care nothing for ‘destiny’. I’ve never sought it.”
“I know,” she agreed softly, “and that is what makes it special.” She let her gaze rove over his face. “Findaen is right – the gods sent you to us, perhaps even the Maker sent you to us. And we would all be lost without you.”
He shook his head again in firm denial, alarmed at the course of the conversation. “No, not so, Ka’en. This is not about the world or anyone else in it. I mean – it is – but not this –” He moved his hand, indicating the two of them. “This is about us, and only us.”
She kept her eyes on his face as she once again placed a hand upon her middle. “Do you know who this child is, Aram?”
He stared at her in utter confusion. Frowning, he opened his mouth to reply and then shut it again without speaking.
“This child of ours,” she continued, “will be the first of the line of kings, since Joktan himself, to be born into freedom. If it is a boy, he will someday be king, as his fathers were before him. If a girl, then she, in her own right, will be Princess of Wallensia, as her mother was before her – but she will also be more than that.” Her countenance seemed to shine. “This child will be born of more than just the nobility of Wallensia, my love, for it is of your blood – the blood of ancient kings. Indeed, you stepped down to become a prince when you married me. You were born as something higher, and nobler.”
“I was born a slave,” he stated, too caustically, but he found that he was unable to stop himself. Her words and her demeanor made him anxious, as if space had suddenly grown wide between them, as if she believed that his stature in the world had somehow become an impediment to their happiness.
The expression on her face, however, did not change in response to his harsh outburst. Ignoring it, she continued in her soft, quiet voice. “You were born a king – in chains, yes, but a king nonetheless. And this, our child, is of your blood. He – or she – is of royal lineage.”
A smile came upon her features, firm and proud, and her chin lifted again. “This child,” she stated in a tone that brooked no argument, “will be born in Regamun Mediar, the city of kings, the city of his, or her, fathers, and nowhere else upon the earth.”
Aram sank back into the chair, watching her. Her beautiful face seemed to be lit with a strange glow. And there was no mistaking her steel-hard determination. The argument was lost in the influence of something that she undoubtedly believed was greater than them both, and he knew then that he must abide by her decision.
He sighed and rubbed one hand over his face. “At least your father will go with you?”
The smile faded from her face to be replaced by a look of sadness. “He still wants to go with me, but I’m unsure about it. He’s been very ill.”
Aram started at this knowledge, and came to his feet. “Lancer is ill?”
She nodded, her lovely face darkening, the expression of sadness deepening. “For a while now.”
Aram stiffened further. “What is it? What is wrong with him?”
Her eyes softened with moisture as she gazed at him. “The accumulation of years, my love, nothing more. He is old – and weary.” She brushed a strand of hair back from her face and wiped at her eyes as she sighed. “I think he is simply tired of life – and he misses my mother. I’m settled, Jena will marry Nikolus in the autumn, and you’re here to take care of his people. I think he is ready to go to his long home.”
The magical moment created by her pronouncement over their child had completely passed from her as her thoughts had turned to her father. She started crying.
Aram watched her, stricken, stunned by the abrupt change in her mood. Still, he was even more shocked by the news that his father-in-law was ailing, and that he had been utterly unaware of it. Gloom seemed to collect and thicken in the shadows and mingle with the silence in the room.
Lancer – possibly dying?
He went to her then and moved her to the bed where he sat down beside her, pulling her head onto his shoulder. After a while, he drew in a deep breath and said, “I’m sorry about your father, and I don’t want to start another argument, but if he is too ill, then – I can’t have you there without – I don’t want you to be alone in that valley.”
“But I won’t be alone.” Her face was pressed hard into his shoulder, and her voice was muffled, but her tone was insistent. “Florm and Ashal will be there, and you promised me Gorfang.”
“It’s just that – yes, I know.” He hesitated and cast about for a means of pressing his case but could find no way to do so without distressing her further. Instead, he turned to the other thing. “Tell me abo
ut your father? How serious is his illness?”
She straightened up and looked out the window at the eastern hills were evening was gathering in its purple robes. She wiped at her eyes and shook her head. “I don’t know. I don’t think he’s dying tomorrow or anytime soon. It’s just that – I don’t think he would survive a trip into the wild.”
He leaned back and looked at her. “And yet you will go – in your condition.”
She blinked the tears away and managed a smile. “My ‘condition’, as you call it, does not render me either helpless or weak. I am simply getting ready to bring a new life into the world.”
“In Regamun Mediar.”
At that, the tone of firmness re-entered her voice. “Yes.”
He sighed and pulled her close, and they sat for a time without speaking, as evening deepened toward twilight outside the window. With the warm softness of her snuggled up next to him, and the wildflower scent of her filling his senses, Aram’s eagerness to travel into Elam seeped away. Instead, he found a fervent longing for peace and quiet welling up inside him.
Eventually, the room darkened with the advent of night and he got up to light a candle.
“Thaniel will bear both of us,” he stated, in answer to her earlier question. “Yerba and Tristan will carry your things.”
As the light flared up, she rose and went to her dressing table, where she examined the articles on top of it carefully. “It is strange, but I cannot find one of my hair brushes,” she told him. “The one Arthrus brought me from Durck when I was a little girl.”
He looked at her curiously. “Did you misplace it in preparation for the move?”
She shook her head. “I discovered that it was gone the first day I began to gather my things.” She indicated an empty place on the top of the dresser with one slim, tapered finger. “I always keep it there.”
He looked and then pointed as an object caught his notice. “But there’s a brush right there, on the other side of the pitcher.”
Kelven's Riddle Book Four Page 37
