Crown of Renewal (Legend of Paksenarrion) (3 page)

Narits finished first. “You’ll want just one braid, won’t you, Father?” he asked.

“Yes—we’ll have to comb it all.”

Narits took up the comb. “There’s blood,” he said.

“Of course there is,” Tamir said. Next to Filis, he had been the hothead of the sons. “What did you expect—”

“The hair’s clean,” Narits said. “They must have washed it, or this didn’t bleed much—” He had parted the hair and was peering closely at the scalp. “It looks … almost like … fingernails dug in. Not scratches.”

The others had finished now and leaned over to look.

“Let me finish,” Narits said. “I think there are more marks …”

“Of pain,” Tamir said, turning away. “What does it matter?”

Narits ignored him and ran the comb through the hair, parting it every half fingerwidth to look for marks. “It’s code,” he said finally. “Like the old scrolls. Father, can you read it?”

Andressat looked. “Not like this. Can you copy it, Narits, one mark at a time, onto paper?”

“Yes, Father.”

When he had done that, it was clear that the marks—each a slightly curved line—formed a definite design. “Alured’s work,” Tamir said. “Maybe an evil spell?”

“No,” Andressat said. “No, it’s Filis’s.” His voice wavered. “He … managed to give us warning. He must have known—” He cleared his throat and went on. “Filis knew what was coming. With only his fingernails
to use—knowing Alured was going to send me his skin—he used them where Alured would not see. Under his hair. Perhaps Alured told him he would leave the hair to make sure we recognized him. This—in the old language of Aare, the old writing—tells us that Alured is controlled by a demon inside him, a demon who looks out his eyes at times and has a different voice. That is like the stories from the north of the Verrakaien who stole bodies.”

He looked around at his family and his most trusted servants. “Think on this, any of you who thought Filis might be a traitor. Captive, alone, tormented, yet he thought of us—of saving us—and tore his own skin to warn us. Think what courage that took.” He bent down and kissed the hair, then the forehead, and finally the lips. “My son, you deserve every honor that we can bestow on you. You will be remembered as long as our lives endure. And you will not go under the earth but be borne aloft in Camwyn’s Fire, as if with a dragon for your mount. From Esea came all life; back to Esea you shall go.”

“By Camwyn’s Claw,” everyone responded. “It shall be done.”

“Though first I must write to the north,” Andressat said. “Lord Arcolin must know of this, and his king. Perhaps his captains in Valdaire can get word to the north even in winter.”

Two days later, the funeral pyre stood ready on the cliff just outside the walls of Cortes Andres. On it lay the box, now drenched in oil, and in the box was Filis’s badge. “If it is Camwyn’s will that this fire may send every bit of Filis left below, wherever it may be, on the same smoke rising to the sky, then I invoke Camwyn’s Curse,” Andressat said. “By the Claw and the dragon who bore it, and by the power of Camwyn and the dragon together, I invoke it.”

When they lit the fire, the flames roared up to the sky as if drawn by the air itself and burned the pyre completely; white ash lifted and swirled like snowflakes. Then far, far above, a white line of fire raced across the sky, from above Cortes Andres to the east, and vanished.

“Camwyn consented,” Andressat said. He felt hollow of a sudden, and then a pain as if a horse had kicked him in the chest took all his breath, and he knew he was falling.

Cortes Immer

A servant’s screams brought the Duke of Immer from his study to his bedroom to find the bedside rug—patched together of skin from Filis Andressat, the Count of Cilwan, Cilwan’s wife, and several other people he’d had flayed—in flames, flames that quickly spread to the bedclothes. More servants ran in with pitchers of water, but the flames could not be stopped until every flammable thing in the room had burnt to ash: stinking, black, oily ash that clung to and dirtied whatever it touched.

“How did you start the fire?” he asked the servant.

“I—I didn’t, lord. I swear—I was sweeping when it—it burst into flames. Then I screamed.”

“Nonsense. Leather doesn’t burst into flames by itself. You dropped a lighted spill if you didn’t start it by intention. And the way the bed burned—what did you do, splash oil on the bed?”

“No! I didn’t!”

He made a gesture, and one of the guards ran her through. Even as she fell, a commotion broke out in the courtyard below. Immer looked out the window to see a fire in the kennels. He looked back at the guards. “It seems we have more than one firestarter. See to it.”

Some time later the guard reported that the dogs in question had been seen to burst into flame while in the dog yard. Nothing burned but the dogs … and not all the dogs. Only the dogs that had been fed human flesh. Immer shrugged. Someone had thrown a curse at him, clearly. Given the time of year—could it have been the old man, Andressat? He hadn’t thought the man had that much power—any power at all, in fact. He’d never been spoken of as a mage. But he claimed to be bred of Old Aare, a true line, so perhaps—perhaps he had been hiding it all these years.

Ferran Andressat, heir to the title, stood watch over his father’s body turn and turn with the others. No attack had come after all, and he had called Meddthal in from his guard post for the mourning.
They must all be there; in the absence of a king to confirm any of them in the title, they used a ceremony passed down in the family for generations. But that would come after placing Jeddrin’s body in the appointed cave. Until then … they stood watch.

While he watched, each of his brothers had other chores to complete. Narits received visitors, then ushered them one by one into the chamber where Jeddrin’s body lay. Meddthal organized the household for the reception that would follow the funeral, and Tamir organized the funeral itself. Ferran had given them those assignments. No one had argued.

As the day wore on and he took his turn at his own assignment—reviewing the status of his father’s governance—servants brought meals he ate, out of necessity, but did not really taste. He knew his father had insisted on the need for nobles to work, but he had not realized how much of the work of managing Andressat and its outlying lands his father had done personally.

He ate the last meal of the day with his brothers in the room where the body lay—it could not be left alone—and nodded his approval of what they had accomplished. “We are ready for the burial, then, thanks to you. How one manages alone—how our father managed—I do not know.”

“And how stands Andressat as a whole?” asked Narits. “I know he had been concerned about the costs of governing the South Marches.”

“Solvent and whole, thanks to him, and may we do as well now that it is up to us.”

“Indeed,” Narits said.

“Do you remember, Ferran, the time you told him you were not going to spend one more morning in the library? You must have been ten or so.”

Ferran grinned. “I do indeed. As I recall, I spent that entire day copying lists and wishing I could do it standing up.”

“I was in awe,” Meddthal said. “Arguing with
him
? Amazing. But seeing the result saved me the trouble of trying it myself.”

They shared memories for a while … times with their father, with their mother, with both. The candles around Jeddrin’s body burned
bright, flames standing up straight, without a flutter. At last Ferran said, “I need to stay with him tonight—go, sleep, and I’ll sleep tomorrow, after—after it’s done.”

When they had left, he sat by the body and began the old Song of Death his father had taught him. It was in the language of Aare, which he had been forced to learn, as had they all, though none could speak it but themselves.

The candle flames stirred. He sang on, the near drone of the song fitting his mood, fitting death itself.

The cloth over his father’s body quivered like the quivering candle flames. It lifted over his mouth, and Ferran quickly folded back the cloth. Out of Jeddrin’s mouth came the spirit, a pale wraith of Jeddrin, shivering, trembling … and then it steadied.

“Son?” The voice was softer than a whisper, the merest touch of sound on Ferran’s ear.

“Ferran, Father. Death came suddenly, but not from an enemy.”

“I choose light.” The wraith leaned to a candle flame, and at once the candle burned brighter, a clear white light bright as summer sun,
and the wraith was gone. But in the silence, inside Ferran’s head, his father’s voice said one more thing:

“I leave you my magery.”

“What magery?”

No answer came.

Aesil M’dierra’s nephew Poldin, beginning his second year as a squire in that company, rode over to the Fox Company winter quarters at least thrice in a fiveday. Everyone in Valdaire knew the boy had spent more than a quarter year with Fox Company. Golden Company and Fox Company had long been strong supporters of the Mercenary Guild Agreement, and their commanders were friends. This explained the trips back and forth.

So though the omnipresent spies noted the boy making yet another trip to Fox Company, this time on one of his aunt’s chargers, it meant nothing more to any of them than that Aesil M’dierra’s horse needed exercise and the boy was thought skilled enough to ride it in city traffic. Poldin, for his part, paid attention to other horsemen and pedestrians both, alert for someone who might want to grab a rein or cut it. He found the potential for danger exciting.

“Morning, Squire,” the Fox Company gate guard said. “That’s your commander’s horse, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” Poldin said. “It’s the first time I’ve ridden him in the city. Is Captain Selfer here?” The stallion fidgeted under him.

“Yes, he is.” The guard turned his head. “Tamis, hold the squire’s mount while he speaks with our captain. Walk him up and down in the courtyard.”

Poldin dismounted and handed the reins to the soldier who had come to take them.

“I swear you’ve grown a hand this quarter,” the guard said.

Poldin grinned. “That’s what my aunt—Commander M’dierra says. She threatened to put a rock on my head and hold me down.”

“Well, you know where the captain’s office is.”

Poldin nodded and jogged quickly along the near side of the courtyard. He felt relieved to be in this safe place again, though when it had become “safe” he could not determine. Valdaire itself was more dangerous than when he’d first arrived, his aunt insisted. He could see some signs of that himself.