Crown Duel

by Sherwood Smith

  Vidanric couldn’t bear questions, either his own or his father’s, so he went out in spite of the cold rain washing across the region and took a fast ride to clear his head. It didn’t; the headache that had begun that morning was throbbing by now, but he ignored it. He took a long soak in the hot bath while reading reports, then slept. Badly.

  The Astiars departed directly after breakfast.

  Vidanric followed his father into the study, and because he’d woken with a scratchy throat, ordered more hot chocolate. “I’ve failed,” he said. It wasn’t a question.

  The prince replied after a considered pause, “There are two observations I wish to make. The first is that you would do well, if you can, to make friends of those two. As we noted before, Branaric is that rarity, a thoroughly honest man who is oblivious to artful or dissembling converse. He has no ambition, and nothing to hide: if you ask his opinion, you will hear it, whether you become king or choose to take up the plow. Few people achieve so precious a luxury as an honest friend. For kings it is an especial rarity.”

  Vidanric had read as much. He made the sign of uncontested agreement. “And his sister?”

  “Well, she is a different matter. She sees the artificiality that necessarily shrouds the jostling for position that is part of a court. She has been raised to distrust it, even despise it.” He paused to pour out hot chocolate, and Vidanric recognized delicacy in his hesitation, his concentration on the homely task: he would not go on without invitation.

  In other words, Vidanric had betrayed himself. “Do you think I’m a fool?”

  The prince smiled, leaning back with the gold edged porcelain cup in his long fingers. “In my experience, people only ask that question to be assured they are not fools.”

  “Deflection with intent?” Vidanric asked, gesturing a feint as in dueling.

  “With mercy. If you do gain—let us say—her friendship, you will know that it would be for you yourself, not your position, and you would always hear the truth. She’s like her mother in that. But like her mother, she despises everything about a court, Unlike her mother, she’s never seen one, so she has the worst possible image in mind, rather than the mix of good and bad that makes up any group of people. She will distrust every motivation, every intention. Especially yours, because she’s so confused in her emotions she seems to feel that if she rejects herself first, then you can’t do it, which worsens the humiliation.”

  “What have I done? It’s true we began badly, but ever since I have tried to make amends—I even saved her life, though I would not mention that to anyone but you. I don’t want that held against her in some moral accounting—I would have done it for anyone caught in Debegri’s claws.”

  “I know. Think, son. No, perhaps this exercise would gain you a measure of clarity: review every encounter, every word exchanged with her, but in your place, put Galdran.”

  “What? Why? Are not Galdran and I opposites in every way that matters?”

  “Not,” the prince said gently, “in Meliara’s eyes. In her view, you are Galdran. In fact, we took a great deal of trouble these past years to build you that reputation. We always knew that your mask was potentially dangerous, and here is why: because you find yourself dealing with two people who never wear masks, who would never wear masks—and who furthermore have been raised to distrust the falsity in mask-wearing.”

  Vidanric studied his hands.

  The prince said, “She has the courage to face down Galdran, and she has the courage to face down one she thinks is Galdran’s creature.”

  Vidanric met his father’s steady gaze. ”How can I possibly make amends if everything I do, or say, is understood as evil in intent?”

  The prince set the cup down and opened his hands. ”My second observation is related. You will have to find a way for the two of you to get to know one another as individuals, and not as . . . failed contestant for a crown against courtly replacement for a very bad king.”

  “How can I possibly do that?”

  “I don’t know. But there are my observations. As for—” He turned his head; they heard the sound of arriving horse hooves in the courtyard below. Messenger.

  Vidanric begged his father’s pardon and departed to see to business, which would not wait.

  They did not meet again until evening, when the prince encountered his son on the upper level. Vidanric said, “I think I’m going to have to ride after the Astiars. My scouts report troubling sightings.”

  His father indicated the object Vidanric was turning over in his hands. “Why do you have Aunt Northa’s old candlestick?”

  “I was going to put it in my study.”

  “Do we need to purchase more glowglobes?”

  Vidanric looked down at the heavy, ornate silver object. “I think—I believe this is all I need.”

  “Ah,” said the prince. “Ah.”

  THE EVIDENCE

  “ . . . it won’t harm them to spend a little time in their own dungeon.”

  Vidanric’s voice was completely gone by now, his words further muffled by his having to hold his besorcelled handkerchief over his streaming nose.

  In spite of the desperate and dangerous events of the past day and a half he couldn’t help an inward laugh at the way his Rider captains all leaned in to hear him, most mopping their own streaming eyes and noses.

  The king’s funeral fire had been held at dawn, with all the prisoners there ostensibly to pay their final respects to King Galdran, but mostly to see for themselves that everything would be done properly, with no more concealment and secrecy. Immediately thereafter Vidanric got a couple trusted runners to take Branaric Astiar back to the hut they used as a field HQ and put to bed before he passed out on his feet.

  The second order of business had been to disperse the prisoners to be dealt with

  later. Vidanric had expected more trouble—he was prepared to ride along with whatever group seemed to require his presence. To his surprise, the tough warriors who had so recently been marauding about the countryside with Debegri’s permission (if not his orders) had regarded him soberly, even fearfully.

  The two of his captains he’d just charged with the last set of prisoners saluted and turned away, muttering as they worked out how to get a hundred warriors to Chovilun under the swords of twenty. The neat pile of weapons being loaded by young Renselaeus cadets onto carts made resistance more difficult, but Vidanric had begun to suspect that the biggest aid was the most unexplainable: the fact that these bowmen had seen their arrows—their illegal arrows, ordered by King Galdran—sprout into leafing tendrils as they flew.

  “They think you did the magic,” said Wing Commander Dharec, whose thoughts were apparently galloping parallel to his. Dharec pulled off his helm to scratch his head, then jammed it on again as he smiled sourly. “Seems Falshalith spread that around before he ran off.”

  Vidanric whispered, “Covering his backside. Seems to be working for us.”

  Dharec’s gray brows furrowed his forehead. “Should I confirm it if the prisoners ask?”

  Vidanric sighed, enjoying then letting go the image of himself being perceived as a mighty sorcerer-king. He would not begin this kingship business on a lie—a lie that all too soon would so easily be disproved. “No.” Practicality as well as the persistent, weird flutter of humor prompted him to add, “But don’t offer any denial either, at least until you’ve got them all safely gated.”

  Debegri’s warriors were on their way to Vesingrui, and the king’s to Chovilun, where they could be housed and fed on the dreadful fare they used to force on their own prisoners, until they could be dealt with. Let them stew in those dank cells and think a while about how they used to deal with the populace, Vidanric thought. They can wonder if they’re going to receive the same summary treatment. Though they won’t, maybe they’ll be sobered enough to appreciate it when we do bring ‘em out.

  Dharec, again matching step, snorted a laugh. “Their own fears ought to be better than any threats we could concoct.
”

  “Fears and guilt.” Vidanric grimaced. Not only was his voice gone, it felt like his throat had taken a few sword scrapes. “And indifference.” He waved the papers in his hands.

  He wouldn’t have to ride another long, soggy day in the rain, but there was no respite from work. He looked down at the packet of close-written papers in his hand. If you accept that crown, his mother had said recently, your time will never again be your own. He grimaced again, mopping his nose.

  Rest for the men who’d sat in the rain for a day and a half as lookouts, rest for his Riders, who had done so well against Galdran’s greater force—rest even for the prisoners, once they finished a long march in either direction. But as for him? He had to write to the families of all these men who had been killed. Whether they were villains or merely fellows doing a job, and not questioning beyond that, they had families, and those families would receive a letter. There would be no more unexplained disappearances in Remalna.

  Dharec stopped him. “Give me half that list.”

  Vidanric hesitated. “You earned your liberty. You’ve been in the saddle longer than I have.”

  “Yes, but I don’t have to ride to Remalna-city and face all them nobles,” Dharec retorted. “Give me half.”

  Dharec had none to write: the blues’ captains insisted on writing letters for their own fallen (very few, everyone had been glad to discover). The captured captains of the browns had all refused to write for their men. Vidanric and his leaders knew that this was an effect of Galdran’s bad policy of frequently breaking ridings so that captains and men did not know one another. This, the conspiracy-fearing king had reasoned, would keep everyone loyal not to their own captains, but to the crown.

  Vidanric knew Dharec would be scrupulous about the letters. He relinquished half, feeling half the tension gripping his neck loosen.

  Before he could speak his thanks, Dharec saluted and turned off at the trail marker leading to the tent city the blues’ captains had built downstream from the old wood-gatherer’s hut that served as command post.

  Vidanric fought back a sneeze (they made his ears hurt) and paced round the back of the hut, away from the stable-hands he’d attached to the HQ. It was an instinctive, unexplained detour—he could as easily have gone through the stable shed. Maybe he wanted one more uninterrupted moment before he bent to this next task. Whatever the motivation, when he glanced at the tiny window of the room he’d taken as his, and saw color move beyond it, he stopped.

  Who would be in his room? Mentally he reviewed that flicker. No blue of Renselaeus, no warrior size—oh, why analyze clues when he knew it was Meliara?

  He knew it was Meliara. He seemed to have developed a lamentable knack that way, sensing her proximity half a heartbeat before he saw her, or heard her voice.

  He utterly despised the thought of lurking about to spy on her. So he turned away, gazing up the slope into the green, misty haze. Just visible were two magnificent bluewood trees, at least a couple of centuries old, and rare this far down the mountains.

  Hill-folk; arrows; Meliara.

  Meliara. How Russav would laugh if he knew how often the stubborn little countess—so unlike anyone Vidanric had ever met—trampled her determined, well-meaning way not only over his plans, but his thoughts. An image of Yora Nessaren’s deeply ironic smile superimposed over that misty hillside, after his well-meant but disastrous attempt to house the Astiars safely while they planned.

  He’d asked Nessaren what he’d thought was an indirect enough question—How was the ride?—to which she’d responded with an answer to the real question—The only one she’s rude to is you.

  The sound of horse hooves broke the reverie, slamming him back into his aching body, stinging nose, raw throat.

  He stepped to the corner of the hut just in time to see haul Meliara herself up on the back of a fresh mount. Knowing how much she hated their Renselaeus colors, he’d asked for the smallest clothes among his Riders—and a dozen had willingly offered outfits. She was lost inside them even so, her profile not angry, as he’d so often seen, or embarrassed as again he’d so often seen. Never furtive, or smirking, or triumphant—a vivid image of her having set fire to his papers, after earnestly talking herself into believing it the right thing to do presented itself as a torturous possibility—but no, that profile that he’d studied covertly so often, as he strove to figure out what was going inside her head, was sober and pensive.

  She settled into the saddle and rode up the trail, vanishing beyond the trees.

  He let himself in the back way, entering his room cautiously. He scanned first, without touching anything: there were his maps, perfectly safe, just where he left them. So too were the task reports, letters from the city, and supply lists. He laid his list of dead carefully on that pile and knelt to study the two papers that were not familiar, placed neatly beside his riding gloves.

  One paper was much folded and creased, and a quick glance revealed Debegri’s familiar hand. The other paper contained only a few words, written with painstaking care, in slightly wavering, childish letters: You’ll probably need this to convince Galdran’s allies.

  What did that mean? Obviously that she had given up her claim to the throne, one he knew she had stuck to only because she’d promised that stubborn old count on his deathbed. Did it mean anything else?

  He thought back over the past couple of days. Painful days, in so many ways, the worst being when the Astiars had both insisted (as he’d feared they would) on coming along to face Galdran. He’d done his very best to get them to stay behind, but as always they were as gallant as they were hapless, and so he could not deny them, though they were his two weak points. He’d hoped Galdran wouldn’t see that—but of course he had, probably within two or three heartbeats. Galdran’s strategy had always been to attack the weak, and scrag the strong from behind.

  Vidanric sat back on his heels. Would he ever regret giving in to temper at last, and killing the king instead of disarming him?

  The memory of Meliara falling bonelessly from her horse to land in the mud (which at least had cushioned her fall) was still too painful. Galdran’s deliberate, petty cruelty against Meliara who had fought so desperately to protect her brother had pushed Vidanric past reason at the final moment. No trial now, though he’d spent days discussing rational arguments about kingship. No bloodless transfer of power, which his parents had wanted to see. Yet he couldn’t regret Galdran being dead, even if the Marquise of Merindar would now be determined to make him regret his actions. Not that she had cared for her obnoxious brother.

  But it would no doubt further her ambitions to make a pretense at grief; and if Vidanric didn’t want yet more war, he would have to pretend to belief her grief, he would have to apologize, and finally to negotiate some sort of ‘compensation’.

  He sighed, picking up the pen and running the feather through his fingers. The marquise . . . an angry populace . . . marauders still not rounded up . . . judgments—nobles—false and true promises. These letters about the fallen to their families. It all awaited him.

  He should feel triumph, for he’d won the civil war. He was probably going to become king, as his parents had long planned. But there was no triumph, only a sense of regret, and an awareness of just how much work lay ahead.

  In truth, what made him feel lowest was entirely personal. It would be so easy, now that he was defacto king, to give Meliara clothes that would fit her, a beautiful home to live in instead of a half-tumbled-down barrack of an old castle; he could give her jewels, and safety. He could give her friends. He could even give her a mother, by sharing his own, who had dearly loved the Countess of Tlanth during their girlhood. She had once offered to adopt Meliara, just to be brusquely refused by that bitter, selfish old man.

  But the truth was, he knew that Meliara wouldn’t take any gift, no matter how much she might want the ease it would grant, simply because he was the giver.

  THE WAGER

  Vidanric Renselaeus, Marquis of Shevraeth
, had learned the dangers of acting on impulse by the time he was fifteen, when he was sent away for training. Since then he’d regarded impulse as a luxury far too dangerous to indulge. His life was made up of a series of considered decisions. That is, until last year, when a small, determined countess crashed her way into his carefully constructed existence, trampling every aspect of his life with her high-minded but lethally misguided notions of honor, and what was due to the kingdom.

  Every single time he tried to re-erect his orderly structure (both external and internal) whack! Down she’d smash it again, her wistful confusion, hopeless gallantry in impossible situations, and her well-meaning but mule-stubborn sticking to principles at least as destructive as her ready temper—of late aimed at him personally. She’d accepted—rationally—his place in politics. Or had she?

  So when, after all these years of vigilant care, he spoke impulsively—”How about a wager?”—he shocked himself as much as he did the Countess Meliara. Shock swiftly faded to dismay, and then to bleak humor. Yet again he’d set himself up for another good smack.

  But instead of the disgust she readily showed—for example, at the name Galdran—she stilled, as if sniffing for predators on the wind. Then said warily, “A wager?”

  The impulse had arisen from his wish to avoid a long, uncomfortable amble next to a determinedly silent riding partner, while Bran and Nee had the coach to themselves for a long, cozy interlude. As always, Bran had failed to see that his desire to ride with Nee (with whom he’d shortly be spending the rest of his life) had upset the careful travel plans. But then Bran in his own way could be as blindly destructive of delicately balanced social illusions as his sister was of political ones. And emotional ones.

  “Yes,” he said. Now he had to go through with it. Ah, well, what’s another candlestick thrown at his head? At least this one would be metaphorical. “Who reaches Jeriab’s Broken Shield in Lumm first.”