Crown of Renewal (Legend of Paksenarrion) (49 page)

“Aris, I need you.”

Aris gave the foal’s back a last gentle swipe with the soft brush and turned. “Yes, sir?”

His father nodded toward the foal. “Good job you’re doing there, lad, and I’m sorry to have to take you from it, at least for long enough to ride to Vérella and back. I need to get word to the king and to your brother Juris, and though I trust my couriers to carry letters, there are things that should be transferred tongue to tongue by a family member, and that means you. I must stay here to supervise reinforcing the border.”

“Yes, sir.” The foal nibbled at his sleeve; he pushed it back a little and scratched the ear that fell under his hand.

“You will ride with an escort—and you will ride fully armed, in my livery.” His father chewed his lip. “It’s not—I don’t think there will be trouble, Ari, but I’ll admit the incursion from Fintha worries me. I lack the troops to watch every armslength of the border. If someone slipped through—if several have and combine once they’re in Tsaia—well. Wear your mail. Wear your helmet, waking and sleeping, and sleep as little as you may on the road.”

“Yes, sir.”

“The letters are ready and sealed. Your escort has been told. Go change out of stable clothes; your mother has a pack ready for you and a meal. When you’re ready, come to my study.”

Bathing and changing took no time at all. Aris took a meat roll and two pastries from the pantry and went to his father’s office. There both parents awaited him, faces solemn—and to one side his younger sister Istilin, looking scared. A candle on the table beside her burned brightly, though daylight streamed in from outside.

“You see,” his father said, nodding toward the candle. “Night before last. And no magery on either side of the family since before Gird’s time. Whatever this is …”

“I don’t like it!” Istilin said. “I didn’t
ask—
!”

“This the king must know. It’s in his family. It’s in our family. It’s in the Verrakaien. It’s only a matter of time until it’s in every noble family and that makes us magelords in the old sense. You cannot assume, Aris, that you will not develop it; Beclan was older than you before he showed it. And we must not descend into that chaos again. I will not write this down: you tell him and tell Juris. No one else.”

Aris could think of nothing to say. He nodded instead. His mother led Istilin out of the study. His father cleared his throat, then said,

“Your foal.”

“Yes, sir?”

“I know it is unfair, your having to leave. You know I have his name—if you want, I will talk to him while you’re gone. We will need to bespeak him together.”

“Yes, sir. Let’s say goodbye to him.”

In the small paddock, the foal lifted his head and came to Aris. His father leaned over to stroke the neck, run his hand down the foal’s back. Into the foal’s ear, Aris spoke the name of bonding. His father spoke it into the foal’s other ear at the same time. Then, with a last caress for the foal, Aris walked out to the yard, where the men waited and a groom held one of the best horses, ready for him. He mounted, signaled his escort, and rode away.

Despite all concerns, nothing happened on the way to Vérella except the ordinary business of travel. He noticed that the trip was drier than usual, the grass already browning on the tips, the trees looking dusty and crops in the field not as full as they should be. The sky held no rain clouds he could see—but clear weather shortened the trip.

Aris could not be sure whether the tension he felt was entirely his or if the travelers they passed were in fact grimmer of face and more reserved than in previous years. They were certainly more sunburned.

Once near Vérella, he saw more Royal Guard patrols, but with the threat of invasion from Aarenis, that made sense. His Marrakai pennon and livery passed him through with hardly a pause. “Errand for my father the Duke” satisfied those who bothered to ask.

They rode into the city through blustery winds and blowing dust that turned the sky beige. Aris felt coated with dust when he rode up to the Marrakai city residence. He had planned to go to the palace as soon as he arrived, but he was too grimy. The housewards took one look at his tabard and flung the doors wide.

“The kirgan spends most nights at the palace,” the woman told him when he was inside and out of the wind, drinking the cup of sib she offered. “But the house is ready for the family any time. You may have the Duke’s rooms if you want.”

Aris could not imagine himself in his father’s bedroom, in the bed his parents shared. “I don’t expect to be here more than one or two nights. Which guest room is made up? I’ll take that. And I’ve been riding through the dust—I need a bath before I take the Duke’s letter to the palace.”

Entering the palace gates as a duke’s son with an urgent message from the Duke for the king was very different from entering as a page. Grooms came to hold his horse; he was addressed not as “Aris” or “lad” but as “Sagan Marrakai,” “second heir.” He was taken upstairs at once and waited only moments before being announced as “Aris, Sagan Marrakai.” Through the open door he saw his brother Juris, who had been at supper with the king, staring at him, wide-eyed.

“Not Father—” Juris said before the king could say anything.

“No, he’s in health,” Aris said. “Sir king, I carry messages from the Duke for you. In writing and by mouth.”

“That serious?” The king raised his brows. He looked tired, as he had ever since the iynisin intrusion that had resulted in the prince’s injuries.

“Yes, sir king.”

“Does your father send you here to resume your duties at Court?”

“No, sir king; I am to return as soon as I have delivered messages to you and to my brother Juris.”

“The same messages?”

A tricky point on which he wished his father could advise him, but the king’s question could not wait.

“Sir king, the messages to you are from a duke to a king, and those to Juris are from a father to his son and heir.”

“Ha!” The king grinned, and Aris relaxed a little. “This is not the scamp who first came here with a reputation as a blabmouth. You have learned courtiers’ wiles while in the pages’ hall, young Marrakai.”

Aris said nothing, merely waited until the king finished.

“Let me see the written word first,” the king said. Aris opened his pouch and handed it over; the king broke the seal and unrolled the letter. “Juris, why don’t you let your brother give you whatever message he has for you while I read, and I will take the message by mouth when I’m done.”

“Yes, sir king.” Juris got up from the table and led the way out of the room. Once they were in the hall, he said, “What’s going on, Aris? And I swear you’ve grown another inch.”

“I have a letter for you.” Aris handed it to him. “And word for your ear that must not be heard by anyone else.”

“Not here, then. There’s a safe chamber this way.” A short distance away, Juris opened a door into a small storage room lined with shelves stacked with spare crockery, table linens, and cleaning tools. “Tell me now.”

Aris told him first of their sister’s magery and then of the presence of mage-hunters on Marrakai land, well inside Tsaia. “Father thinks he’s killed them all—all of that band at least—but he expects trouble.”

“Istilin? But she’s—but we’ve never—and has he written the king about it? The king should know.”

“It’s the word for his ear. Not in the letter.”

“Good. I’m the king’s best friend as well as his oathsworn; I could
not keep such important news from him.” Juris shook his head as if to clear it. “What about those coming in from Fintha? Will Father let them stay or send them somewhere?”

“He was going to send them away until he saw them. He says now he will find room somehow for those who just came. I don’t know how many. And he will need more soldiers to guard the border.”

“Our border with Fintha is mostly thick forest. It would take an army—”

“We can’t have the mage-hunters coming in and killing our people.”

“No. We need to find some way—”

“Kirgan Marrakai!”

Juris opened the closet door. “Here I am, just chatting with my brother about things at home. Does the king want me?”

“Both of you.”

Aris delivered his father’s word to the king’s ear. Mikeli nodded, looking no grimmer than he had before.

“It’s everywhere now,” he said. “Fintha, Tsaia, mage families, nonmage families. Whatever’s started this seems determined to stir some magery into every family. I’ll have an answer for your father by tomorrow, Aris. I’m sure he wants you to return immediately.”

“Yes, sir king. He said no use to waste the time of a royal courier when I ride like one.”

The king laughed. “You do have an escort, though—he’s not sending you here and back alone—?”

“No, sir king. The escort is at Marrakai House, where I will stay this night.”

“And I, if you’ll permit,” Juris said.

“Of course.”

Ferran, Count Andressat, watched Aesil M’dierra ride across the inner courtyard to the foot of the palace steps. He had met her years before, when his father had contracted Golden Company for assistance during Siniava’s War. She dismounted, handed the reins of her chestnut stallion to her squire, hung her helmet on the saddle hooks, and came up the stairs more light-footed than he expected given her age. There were threads of silver in her dark hair now, and her brows seemed thinner, but the look from under those brows was as penetrating as ever.

“M’lord Count,” she said.

“Commander,” he said. “Be welcome.”

“I am sorry for your losses,” she said. “Your brother, sister, and father, all in one year.”

“Thank you,” he said. “Andressat survives.”

“As it has done, and we all hope will do, by Esea’s Light.”

That startled him. He had not realized anyone else maintained the Sunlord’s tradition as well as Camwyn’s worship.

“Light of the heart,” he said, testing.

“Light of the mind,” she said, answering. She smiled.

They walked inside, down the passage, and he led her to his father’s—now his—office. On the desk lay the papers to be signed and the ritual gold coin, though the payment had already been made. Papers signed, coin transferred to her, he offered refreshments in the loggia, and she accepted.

Over a plate of spiced pastries and goblets of Andressat wine and after they discussed what little she had not already known about Andressat’s military situation, using maps he had placed ready, Ferran changed the subject.

“You are a follower of Camwyn, aren’t you?” Ferran asked M’dierra, ignoring her earlier mention of Esea.

She gave him a sharp look, one he hoped he did not deserve, and did not move her finger from the map they’d been discussing. “Yes, as are you. Is this pertinent to the situation around Cortes Cilwan?”

“Possibly not,” Ferran said. No wonder the woman had never married, with a tongue as sharp as a blade. “I need to ask for your word of secrecy.” Her brows went up; her lips thinned. “For more than the usual; I need to tell you something only my brothers and I know.”

She folded her hands together and bowed. “My word on it; your secret remains with you alone.”

“You know how my brother Filis died. I believe my father wrote you of the way Filis had sent us word that our enemy was one of those inhabited by a demon.” She nodded, and Ferran went on. “Well, then. In the letter our enemy sent with the box made of Filis’s scalp and some of his skin, he described what he’d done—did my father tell you all?”

“No … but rumors came that he had also flayed your sister and her husband.”

“More than that,” Ferran said, and told her. He could not keep rage from showing in his voice as he said “rugs to walk on.” Her expression hardened, but she said nothing. “My father chose to commit what remains we had to the fire, to Camwyn, I thought. He asked Camwyn to burn with dragonfire any part of Filis left anywhere—”

M’dierra nodded, this time making the gesture of the Claw. “Did he end with ‘By the Claw and the dragon who bore it, and by the power of Camwyn and the dragon together’ …?”

“Yes—do you know that chant? He said more—‘I invoke—’ ”

She held up her hand, and he stopped short. “Never complete it for no reason,” she said. “It’s not a chant; it’s a curse. The Curse of Camwyn’s Claw. What happened then?”

“The flames shot up higher and higher, and then a streak of fire sped east and disappeared. And my father clutched at his chest and fell dead.”

“It’s a wonder Alured is still alive, if he is. Camwyn granted your father’s wish—”

“But Father died.”

“That is what happens. To invoke Camwyn’s Curse is to use one’s own death to cause another’s woe.” She looked thoughtful. “Or … that’s what I was told and what I once saw done. That it always happens I know only by hearsay and not my own knowledge. So far you have told me nothing unknown to others. If that is your secret, then I fear it is no secret.”

“There is more,” Ferran said. “And it is … we think … somewhat of Esea as well as Camwyn. On the night before we buried my father, there is a family ritual. We believe the spirit knows where it would go, and we give it a chance to speak that wish. And my father, who I believed had no magery as the northerners speak of … his spirit spoke to me and said he had left me his magery. And I do not know what it is.”