Crown of Renewal (Legend of Paksenarrion) (52 page)

Get up. Now
.

He stood up, tingling as if he’d been dipped in snow. Light shifted as he stood. Arianya still held the sword—and it was not the sword that gave light.

Someone cried out down the hall: “Magelord! Traitor! Kill him!”

Someone else said “No! It’s Gird’s light! He’s a paladin!”

The only thought in the chaos of his mind was
Gird, you bastard
.

In his own light—but it wasn’t his; it was Gird’s or the High Lord’s—he saw Paks, grinning at him. She winked and mouthed some greeting he could not, in his shock, understand. Beyond her, he saw the crowded hall as a mass of pale faces. Some … He stared at them. Some were touched with something he now felt was evil.

Yes. You will know. You have been where they are
.

He shuddered even as he accepted that judgment. He had indeed been that angry, that vengeful, that willing to do harm. And he knew himself capable of harm still.

All are. It is a choice. And not always easy
.

“I confirm you,” the Marshal-General said loud enough to be heard. “Marshal Arvid, be true to your oath.”

“I swear,” he said. In his head, he felt Gird’s response. He stepped aside to join the other confirmed Marshals, and the next, the fellow from the south, stepped forward. His light dimmed, but his awareness of those too fond of evil remained. Noise continued down the hall, rising and falling with each candidate confirmed.

When it was done, all the new Marshals were greeted first by Marshals, then knights and paladins, and then the other guests. Arvid noticed that aside from the Marshals and others from the citadel, the only people who came forward to greet him were from the two granges he knew best, those whose names he knew.

It was after the turn of night when the Hall emptied into the courtyard, very like the night of the riot back in autumn but for being barely cool, with a breeze smelling of the meadows to the west. From this point, the celebration reverted to the ancient rites of Midsummer. Arvid put his arm around Arvi’s shoulders.

“Want to go out to the bonfire in the meadows?”

“Da—those men who think you’re a magelord. You’re not, are you?”

“No, of course not. You know what I am: both my parents thieves—”

“But I heard that in Tsaia some magelords were in the Thieves’ Guild.”

“Who told you that? I don’t—” He stopped, remembering for the first time since he’d left Vérella the rumors about the Liartian who
was supposed to be a noble … and a magelord. “I don’t think so,” he said more slowly. “All the thieves I knew were common as ashes. My parents—” If they were his parents. That thought came to him for the first time. His mother—a street singer, she said, before losing her looks to a jealous rival’s knife. From her he’d gotten his voice, and she’d shaped it with exercises. His father—a thief from birth, from whom he’d learned knifework, wall climbing, silent movement, and poisons. He’d assumed all that was true. But … was it?

“I’m not a magelord,” he said. “I have no magery in myself. That light came from Gird.”

“That’s what I said,” Arvi said. “But the man next to me said Gird wouldn’t give paladin’s light to a dirty thief.”

“Um. What else?”

“He said the Marshal-General’s gone over to the magelords. He says you’re proof.”

Arvid felt a prickle down his back and turned. A few paces behind him, a man turned his back quickly.

“It’s Midsummer Eve,” he said. “Coming to dawn soon. Alyanya’s most sacred day. However unhappy someone is, surely he’ll have sense enough not to cause trouble today.” He hoped. But after all, what better time to cause trouble than on a day no one expected it? He looked around, then overhead. Here in the courtyard, he could not see the horizon, but the sky seemed murky, the stars that had burned earlier now dimmed.

“Come,” he said to Arvi. “Let’s get you something to eat.” And himself someone to tell, someone who could do something. He guided Arvi toward the side of the courtyard where tables were piled with food. Someone reached out as they passed and put a flower crown on Arvi’s head. Arvid turned and caught a glimpse of a woman handing out flower crowns to other children.

Arvi started in on a pastry stuffed with berries; Arvid chose a meat roll. He saw no one he knew around him now. He felt off balance, uncertain. And then he saw Paks coming, a flower crown lopsided on her head. As in the fall, in the riot, she came directly to him, a broad smile on her face and the silver circle that still made his skin raise up in bumps.

“Everyone’s told me about you and the children,” she said. “I knew Gird had a plan for you.”

“Did he tell you the plan?”

“No. That’s between you two.” She changed the subject abruptly. “I told the Marshal-General I found a Kuakgan, but he’s not here … I thought he would be.”

“I wish he were. I wish she’d go somewhere with more trees—they need trees, don’t they?”

“Yes. He said he’d find a tree to bring with him. But come—let’s go to the bonfire. We don’t have much longer.” She took his son’s hand; he put an arm around the boy’s shoulders, and they went out to the big field beyond the stable block. The scent of the night-blooming flowers starring the grass filled his nose. With the others they danced the old dances and sang the old songs … Arvid knew the thieves’ words to those tunes better … and watched the sun rise red over the eastern end of the world before walking back to the city.

Another Marshal met them as they came into the main courtyard. “A Kuakgan’s come,” she said to Paks. She sounded excited. “He says his name’s Sprucewind, and he asked for you. And he has a tree growing out of his arm.”

“Good,” Paks said. “I’ll come with you.” She turned to Arvid. “Good Midsummer to you, Marshal Arvid, and you, young Arvid. Gird’s grace—I’ll see you another time, I’m sure.” She went off with the other Marshal.

“A tree?” Arvi said.

“That’s what she said,” Arvid said. “Growing out of his arm. Do you think we drank too much spring wine?” Arvi giggled; they walked back to the inn together.

Marshal-General Arianya stared at the shutter pulled close in her window, wondering if it would not be better to die. No Kuakgan had come to help her, and she knew—hated knowing—that some iynisin magery still remained within her, sapping her strength and making her irritable. She was weakening—more and more she
felt absent from herself, distant from everything. Marshals and paladins had tried to heal her, and at first—for a time varying from one day to five—she felt better. But she no longer believed any of them could heal her finally. Prayer led to resignation, but resignation, she knew, would not accomplish what Gird wanted her to accomplish. Nor, she was also sure, would the grim stubbornness it now took to hold on each day, to fend off the grief for mistakes she had made that hurt others, to bear the load of guilt.

Down the hall came a patter of rapid footsteps. No doubt one of the juniors with some problem. She struggled to sit straighter behind her desk, to banish from her mind, and she hoped from her face, the exhaustion and impatience she felt.

“Marshal-General—there’s a Kuakgan come.”

For a moment the word made no sense … then the meaning appeared. A Kuakgan. Who might be able to help her.

“Thank you,” she said to the boy, who stood there, practically hopping from foot to foot with excitement. “See that he has refreshment, will you? When he has rested, I will seek him out.”

“But he’s here, Marshal-General! Right here!” The boy—she couldn’t think of his name—turned, and a man in a long green robe came to her door. Youngish, she thought. And—her breath caught. Just below the elbow of his left arm, a small tree jutted out. A small fir tree … Her mind lurched sideways. How awkward it must be to have a tree as long as your forearm sticking out like that …

“Marshal-General?” His voice was quiet, gentle. He took two steps closer, and she caught the clean sharp scent of the fir tree. “You were attacked by kuaknomi, I am told. You are not well.”

“Better … but not … well.”

“I am sorry it took such time to come here, but … there are so few trees.” He had stepped past her to the window and opened the shutter. “It took long to find one willing to share and near enough here.”

Arianya turned her head from the light pouring through the window; it felt abrasive, like blown sand. “Too bright,” she said.

“A tree needs light,” he said. “And you need a tree.” To the boy he said, “Can you find a pot, so high and so wide, and have someone
help you fill it with good soil?” The boy nodded and left at a run. “All my healing is from the taig,” he said to Arianya. “The life within all living things. You had a dream—a dream of a forest—”

“How did you know?”

“Dreams … wander. Your dream sought my aid before word came to me, but I did not know where you were.” He hummed a moment. To Arianya’s astonishment, a butterfly, scarlet and black, floated in the window and landed on the tree on his arm. “With your permission, I would touch your head.”

“Yes,” Arianya said, staring at the butterfly.

“Your healing will not be like Paksenarrion’s, for her injuries, and Master Oakhallow’s resources, in his own Grove, were both greater. Let me see …”

The scent of fir grew stronger; his hands—dry as bark—lay on her head without heat and stroked down to the back of her neck, to her shoulders. She closed her eyes.

When she opened them again, morning light no longer came through the window, and a great pot stood in the corner of her office, and Paksenarrion was there as well as the Kuakgan. “I must move this tree,” Sprucewind said. “At least for a time, it must live in the pot. Are you feeling better?”

“Yes,” Arianya said. Her office smelled fresh as a mountain grove.

“Good. This may be distressing to watch, but do not fear. This young fir and I are not … entirely … one yet.” As he spoke, he changed … The robe he wore seemed more and more like actual moss, and his arm, now draped in moss, more like a gnarled branch, in the hollow of which the smaller tree had taken root. He looked at Paks. “You, having been healed by the Tree, may hold this tree: have a care and do not tug. Like that—yes—and invite it to leave a small home for a larger one. I will urge the separation from within.”

Arianya was certain now that bark covered his arm … and his face had turned the exact brown she remembered from the spruce trees she had seen on her travels. Slowly, his arm lowered a little, even as needles sprang out of his fingertips … and as slowly, the seedling’s roots slid free of his arm, pale and glistening slightly. Arianya gulped and glanced at Paks. Her gaze was on the little tree, her
expression serious but serene. Had she known the tree was literally growing out of the man’s arm … or his limb? But now the last rootlets—spread wider than Arianya had imagined—hung loose in the air.

Sprucewind hummed; the rootlets quivered. “Now, hold it above the pot,” he said to Paks. “I will sing it in.” She did so. Arianya watched as the Kuakgan hummed and murmured words she did not know. The little tree’s rootlets reached for the soil and then sank into it, spreading, she could tell by the crumbs of soil displaced by the roots. Finally the seedling stood upright in the center of the pot. When Arianya looked at Sprucewind, his hands bore no needles, and his robe—the sleeve once more covering his arm—looked like dark green cloth. His face looked completely human once more.

The next hours confused Arianya at first. Sprucewind watered the tree, leaned out the window, and hummed. He touched her hands, her head. Meanwhile, the butterfly that had come first was joined by two others, small, with green wings and a few orange spots. A beetle flew in and landed on the tree’s tip. Sprucewind addressed a hiss at it, and it flew away. A bird—an ordinary little brown bird, Arianya thought—landed on the windowsill, then hopped down to the soil, lifted its tail, and deposited a dab of birdlime. Sprucewind held out a finger; the bird hopped on and—when Sprucewind lifted his hand—plucked a hair from his head and then flew away.

Finally, Sprucewind sat down in the room’s other chair. “You will forgive, I hope, my planting the fir and making it comfortable. It had traveled a long way with me, and we were not, as I said, wholly compatible. Spruce and fir are both conifers but distant cousins, not siblings.”

Arian had never thought of trees as having family relationships. “Where did you find a fir?” she asked. “We have none near here.”

“True, and that’s why it took me so long to come. I cannot sustain junipers—such as grow nearby—for even a few days’ travel. I had to find a tree I could carry close enough that I had sufficient sustenance for it. This one came from a speck of a vill northeast of here, across the river. It is near where Paksenarrion came from and is called Three Firs. That was nearest.” He cocked his head. “You offered me refreshment
before—would it be convenient to have bread, perhaps cheese—?”

With the tray of bread, cheese, hard sausage, and pickled redroots, the kitchen sent up both sib and water. Sprucewind took water. “And I advise you to drink the same while we discuss your healing. I will be using what this young tree provides, and it is not compatible with the tree foods usually used in sib.”