Brotherhood of the Wolf (19 page)

“Damn,” Borenson whispered. He glanced back. Myrrima and the horsewoman were close enough to have heard everything the High Marshal had said.

“My mother says that if ever an Earth King were to rise in our day, he would come out of House Orden,” Horsewoman
Connal said. “She's asked me to verify whether Gaborn is the Earth King, and if he is, to offer the clans to back him up.”

“As will I,” the High Marshal said, “if he is the Earth King.”

“He
is,”
Myrrima said forcefully. “Ten thousand men at Longmot saw the ghost of Erden Geboren crown him. And I myself have heard Gaborn shout his commands into my mind.”

“I met him this morning,” Erin told Skalbairn, “and learned the truth of it. I'll be backing him.”

“Yet King Anders ridicules the tale of his coronation as the babbling of a spooked army,” High Marshal Skalbairn objected. “He points out that the Earth Warden Binnesman was present, and that the old wizard may have had a hand in some fakery.”

“That's a vile thing to say,” Myrrima objected.

“Yet Anders may believe it is true,” Skalbairn said. “He points out that his own line is every bit as true as Orden's, and that the Earth King could as easily come from his own loins.”

“He would name Prince Celinor the Earth King?” Horsesister Connal said. “Celinor the sot? I've heard too many sad tales about him.”

“Of course not,” the High Marshal whispered. “Why should Anders bother to put his son forward, when he so loves himself?”

Borenson laughed scornfully.

“I think,” the High Marshal said, “that his son is no more than a pawn. The boy has come ostensibly to pledge his sword into the King's Guard, like some petty lord's son. But he talks more like a spy, on his father's errand. Just listen to him when he returns!”

“So, tell me,” Borenson asked the High Marshal. “If the Earth King summoned your men to battle, how many could you bring?”

The High Marshal grunted, and his flinty eyes flickered. “If we brought everyone? Our numbers are down. The
Righteous Horde numbers some thousand mounted cavalry, and another eight thousand archers, six thousand lancers, five hundred artillery men, and of course another fifty thousand squires and camp followers.”

In giving these numbers, the High Marshal did not bother to mention the quality of his troops. His thousand cavalry were worth more than any ten thousand mounted by any other lord, while many of his “archers” were seasoned assassins who often went into dangerous territory to ambush whole armies.

“Shhh …” Myrrima whispered.

Prince Celinor led his mount near, while his Days followed a few paces behind. Though his was a force horse, the beast had drooping ears and looked as if it would need a good meal in the king's stables after riding a hundred and fifty miles since daybreak.

Prince Celinor smiled innocently. “Shall we go?” he asked. Borenson began to lead them all through the throng. The streets were crowded this evening, with peasants from the camps all going from one table or tournament to another. Celinor weaved through the crowd deftly, but with rubbery legs. He seemed pretty far into his cups.

No one spoke, leaving Prince Celinor to fill the clumsy silence, which he accomplished quite handily by babbling, “I find all of this incredible. I mean, I
knew
Gaborn. I went with him to the House of Understanding, but I did not speak to him much. I seldom saw him. He did not spend much time in the alehouses—”

Horsewoman Connal said, “And of course we couldn't expect you to truly befriend someone who doesn't spend all his spare time in alehouses.”

Celinor ignored the jibe. “I meant that he was an odd lad. Since he studied in the Room of Faces and in the Room of the Heart, he did not study arms or tactics. So of course I did not know him well.”

“Perhaps you speak poorly of him because you are jealous,” Connal said.

“Jealous?” Celinor asked. “I could never be the Earth
King. And I mean no disrespect toward Orden. But when I was a child, I sometimes dreamed that an Earth King would be born in my lifetime. And I always imagined someone bigger than me, and older—someone with a look of profound wisdom dripping from his brow, with the strength of a whole army bulging in his chest, someone of legendary stature. But what do I get? Gaborn Val Orden!”

Myrrima had to wonder at Prince Celinor's words. The young man sounded innocent enough, like a carefree lad just babbling. But was it innocent babble? Everything he said seemed calculated to engender doubt in others.

“Gaborn serves his people,” Borenson told Celinor. “He serves them more truly than anyone I've ever met. Perhaps that is why the Earth has chosen Gaborn, made him our supreme defender.”

“Perhaps,” Celinor said. He smiled in a cold, superior way, and inclined his head to the side as if in thought.

When Borenson reached the Great Hall, with Prince Celinor, High Marshal Skalbairn, and Horsewoman Connal in tow, dozens of lords and barons were busily feasting around tables that circled the room. At the center of the tables, minstrels sat on cushions and played softly, while serving children scurried back and forth between the kitchen and buttery, bringing food and drink as it was wanted, then clearing the tables.

At the far end of the Great Hall, Gaborn smiled and stood in greeting as Borenson entered the doorway, with the others crowding behind him.

Gaborn called “Sir Borenson, Lady Borenson, Prince Celinor, and Lady Connal, welcome. Let the servants bring you chairs and plates.” Then he looked up at the High Marshal and asked, “And who do we have here?”

The minstrels left off at playing their lutes, tambours, and drums. Gaborn stared hard at Skalbairn.

“Your Highness, may I present High Marshal Skalbairn, Master of the Knights Equitable.”

Borenson expected Skalbairn to nod curtly and study Gaborn
from afar. Instead, the High Marshal acted without hesitation. He said gruffly, “Milord, some claim that you are the Earth King. Is it true?”

The question astonished Borenson, for he'd thought the man convinced. But he realized belatedly that the High Marshal had only been convinced that Borenson believed Gaborn to be the Earth King.

“I am,” Gaborn said.

The High Marshall said, “It is said that Erden Geboren looked into the hearts of men and named some to be his protectors. If you have that power, then I beg you, look into my heart and choose me, for I would serve the Earth King with my life. I bring with me the Righteous Horde of the Knights Equitable, thousands of warriors who fight beside me.”

He drew his sword and stepped forward to the King's table, then knelt and drove the blade into the floor, resting his hands upon the hilt.

Borenson immediately felt embarrassed. This was not an honor that one demanded of the Earth King in public. But Gaborn did not seem taken aback by the High Marshal's blunt manners.

Around the King's tables, lords began to murmur in astonishment. Some questioned the man's upbringing, but the High Marshal was a renowned warrior, one of the greatest in all Rofehavan, and they knew he could bring tens of thousands of warriors to swell the Earth King's armies. This would be a great boon. So no one dared to criticize openly.

Moreover, no High Marshal had ever offered to swear fealty to a king.

Until now.

Gaborn leaned forward across the table, placing his hands on either side of his silver platter, and looked down steadily into the High Marshal's eyes for a long moment.

High Marshal Skalbairn stared back with eyes as black as obsidian.

Gaborn's face went slack, as it did when he performed
the Choosing. He gazed deeply into the High Marshal's eyes and raised his left arm to the square, as if to perform the ceremony.

Then he dropped his hand and stared in shock, trembling.

“Get out!” Gaborn said, his face going pale. “Get out, you foul … thing! Get out of my castle. Get away from my lands!”

Shocked, Borenson recalled the people Gaborn had Chosen this past week: paupers and fools and old women who couldn't bear a dagger in their own defense, much less a sword.

Now one of the greatest warriors of the age knelt before him, and Gaborn wanted to cast the man away!

The High Marshal smiled in secret triumph. “Why, my lord?” he asked casually. “Why would you send me away?”

“Must I speak it?” Gaborn asked. “I see your guilt written in your heart. Must I speak it, to your eternal shame?”

“Please do,” the High Marshal answered. “Name my sin, and I will know that you are the Earth King.”

“No, I will not speak it,” Gaborn raged, as if the very notion sickened him. “There are women present, and we are feasting. I'll not speak of it now—or ever. But I refuse your service. Begone.”

“Only the
true
Earth King would know that I am unworthy to live,” the High Marshal said, “and only a true gentleman would refuse to name my sin. My offer still stands. I give myself into your service.”

“And I reject you still,” Gaborn answered.

“If I cannot live in your service,” Skalbairn said, “then still I will die in your service.”

“Perhaps that is best,” Gaborn said.

High Marshal Skalbairn stood and sheathed his sword. “You know of course that Raj Ahten is driving south, into the heart of your own Mystarria. You will have to engage him—and soon. Your enemies would like to see him defeat you.”

“I know,” Gaborn said.

“The Righteous Horde is moving south. I will fight beside them, though you hate me.”

There was utter silence in the crowded room as the High Marshal turned and strode from Heredon.

Borenson marked the look upon Prince Celinor's face. The Prince only cocked his head to the side, watching the whole spectacle with a calculating gaze.

Borenson noted that young Celinor did not dare to offer his own sword in public.

8
THE GREEN WOMAN

As Averan flew, she kept watching behind her, gazing in the distance toward the fortress and the beast master Brand for any sign that things might have changed. She expected to see the smoke of burning buildings or to hear the peal of doom.

But the fortress merely gleamed in the morning sun, the white stone of its towers sparkling as always, until it receded from her view, its few towers becoming a distant speck on the horizon. Then it was swallowed completely as the clouds began to rise from lowlands. Even if Averan had had the eyes of a far-seer, she'd have lost the castle in the mist.

She remained aloft for hours. The world flowed beneath the wings of her mount. Cool air beat upon her face, and the sun warmed her side and back. As the clouds continued to rise from the lowlands, some of them extended up into the air, became crystalline pillars, weird sculptures. Flying into them was always a mistake, Averan knew. They were filled with fragments of windblown ice, and the air currents around them could be dangerous.

Even to get close to them was to feel their cold bite.
Averan wished that she still had her leather riding gloves to keep her hands warm.

She hunched low to the neck of her mount, to feel the heat of Leatherneck's body and to listen to the subtle rhythms of his breathing so that she could learn when he began to tire.

Twice during the day, she let Leatherneck drop below the mists and rest for short times on the ground. He was an old graak, old and easily tired. She feared that if she rode him too hard, his heart would give out.

As they traveled, the mountains of Alcair receded from sight until they were lost in a haze. The mountains of Brace rose up from the clouds off to her left and spurred to a point ahead. Averan knew every peak by name. She was rapidly approaching Carris just beyond a saddleback ridge seventy miles ahead. She doubted that she'd reach the city by dark, and hoped only that the cloud cover was thin enough so that she could see the city's lights from above.

So it was that in the near dusk, Averan rode with stomach tight from hunger, her mouth dry from thirst. She had not stopped to eat or drink, not wanting to make her mount bear any more than he was able. She was lying against his neck, listening to the steady thump-ump, thump-ump, thump-ump, of his heart, wondering if she should let him rest again.