Crown of Renewal (Legend of Paksenarrion) (8 page)

“Add to the list, then, a letter of thanks for his information and due respect, and say that I concur in the need for us to exchange information. I will also write to my captains in Aarenis and ask that he pass that letter to them, at his convenience. Will that do?”

“Yes, my prince.”

“Ask him to return, please.”

Faksutterk came in and bowed again.

“My hesktak came with word of the health and names, and here is the list,” Arcolin said in gnomish, handing it across the desk. “If it is that Lord Prince Aldon needs a copy, it would be my desire for my hesktak to make that copy for you. And I would ask that you take a letter to Lord Prince Aldon and carry one I am asking him to give to my captains in Valdaire, to do as he suggested.”

“It is marks here?” Faksutterk said. He used his right little finger to point.

“Those who came from where Dragon cast them out.”

“It is so few.”

“Yes.”

“It is that so many now means health,” Faksutterk said. “Lord Prince Aldon glad of copy.”

“Dattur—”

“It is done at command,” Dattur said, and then in Common, “If I may have use of paper, less time.”

“Of course. In the clerk’s office; you know where that is.” He turned to Faksutterk. “It is that Dattur will write list on paper from here. It is that you go with him.”

“Lord Prince, I go with him.” Faksutterk bowed, Dattur bowed, and both gnomes left the office.

While they were gone, Arcolin drafted a letter to Selfer, briefly
explaining what the gnome prince had told him and giving him authority to issue what orders seemed best until Arcolin returned. He sealed that with wax and his ducal seal, then mixed the ink he would need for the gnomish seal. When the gnomes returned, Dattur handed Arcolin the original and the copy of the list and a short letter in gnomish to the Aldonfulk prince. Arcolin looked them over carefully, then inked his seal and set it on the page with the list while he pricked his thumb with the stone knife used only for this purpose. He lifted the seal and squeezed one drop of blood onto the circle to one side of the seal design. As Dattur had taught him, he said in gnomish: “With this life under Law, it is done.” When the blood and ink dried, he handed the paper copy to Faksutterk, who bowed low. Then he did the same with the letter to the Aldonfulk prince and handed that and his letter to Captain Selfer to Faksutterk.

“Lord Prince, it is that I return to my prince now.”

“I offer welcome to Lord Prince Aldon’s envoy, Faksutterk,” Arcolin said. “Guesting as long as desired, and no exchange.”

“It is that I return quickly, my prince says, when I know. Now I know. Now I go.”

“It is that supplies for journey—”

The merest hint of a smile lit Faksutterk’s face. “It is not need, Lord Prince Arcolin. It is good offer. It is that this one excused?”

Arcolin nodded. “It is so. Travel in Law, arrive in Law, be held in Law.”

“It is Law,” Faksutterk said. Arcolin rose and went with Dattur to the inner courtyard gate while Faksutterk fetched whatever he had left in his guest quarters. When he came out, they all bowed, one to another, and Faksutterk headed back down the road to Duke’s East.

“You had things to tell me when you came,” Arcolin said to Dattur. “You wanted me to visit the stone-right, but it is too late in the day. Will you stay here overnight and we will go in the morning?”

Dattur bowed. “That is well, my prince.”

“Under stone, you may choose your chamber,” Arcolin said. “But for now, tell me more details of my kapristin.”

“My prince has names and ages—what more to know?”

He would have known how to ask another military commander whose company had been near-destroyed—indeed, people had asked him about his cohort’s recovery after Dwarfwatch. But he still had no idea how gnome society was organized and thus could not find the words for the questions. He tried to explain that to Dattur.

“I would understand more … more how you live, what tasks are appointed, and to whom. Not because I want to interfere but to find out so if the prince needs to aid, aid will be given in Law.”

Dattur nodded. “My prince asks about the paths of power. It is … like your army. For each task, one in command and those who obey commands.”

Arcolin opened his mouth to explain that the Company wasn’t organized like that but then listened instead.

“When a princedom is large enough, tasks change with seasons above: on the year turnings, the tasks change. When yet small, a
princedom must assign several tasks to each. The kapristinya delve—”

“But—they have childer—” Surely working rock was not compatible with bearing children.

“Kapristinya strong in rock … All have rock-power, but kapristinya have most. Though now no elder kapristin, so work goes more slowly.” Dattur paused; Arcolin said nothing, his mind stuck on the image of a grandmother gnome cutting rock. “Estvin as you say is local … captain. Those he tells do or tell others to do. Most spend time seeding new delvings with misiljit and making cloth. All now but childer have proper cloth. Until child speaks Law, no matter. And my prince named me hesktak, teacher of Law to prince.”

Dattur ate dinner that night with Arcolin, his family, and the resident captains before retiring to the cellar guest room. In the morning, he walked on top of the snow while Arcolin rode, and they reached the gnomes’ new home by midmorning.

Arcolin already knew gnomes worked hard and tirelessly—but the change to the hall entrance amazed him. Now the entire entrance bore an elaborate interlacing design of gnomish writing; he paused to read it, and Dattur murmured a translation he now scarcely needed:

Here Arcolinfulk dwell. Law is Law. Lord gives Law
.
Enter in Law, Dwell in Law, Depart in Law
.

His estvin and four other gnomes came into the light to greet him. The four carried a roll of cloth. The estvin bowed, then came forward to kiss Arcolin’s boots. “Lord Prince, welcome to your hall. We bring at last a prince’s robe for our prince, grown here for you. Will you accept it?”

“I will accept it,” he said. “It is in Law.”

Unrolled, the robe resembled in style, though not in size, the one worn by Lord Prince Aldon. The tribal name, Arcolinfulk, ran around the neck and down the front; on the back, the weavers had worked in his blazon, a foxhead, in a lighter, more silvery gray. Arcolin put off his winter cloak and thick tunic, then put on the robe. It felt more comfortable than he expected, cutting the chill wind better than his heavy cloak, though much lighter.

“It is very good,” he said, bowing to the estvin. He pulled his
stole out from under the robe and laid it around his shoulders. “Your prince is pleased and honored by this gift.”

The estvin led the way into the entrance hall and then to what would be, Arcolin learned, the hall of judgment, where the prince might receive visitors and give judgment on cases of Law. Arcolin could see that it had the same shape and style as that in the Aldonfulk hall: a carved screen, a dais with a throne in front of it, a broad floor on which visitors could wait and chairs might (or might not) be placed.

“Beyond the screen?” he asked.

The estvin bowed and led him onward through an entrance invisible until he was only a few paces away. Behind the screen was a shape like the inside of a shell, curved and arched, and facing it was a dais matching that on the other side, with another seat.

“So prince’s voice is heard,” the estvin said. “The prince would hear?”

“Yes,” Arcolin said.

“My prince will sit in his seat and speak Law. Any true Law.”

Arcolin climbed up and sat in the stone seat; it fit him perfectly. “The Lord spoke Law,” he said in gnomish, no louder than he would have said it to one beside him at a meal in a quiet place. His voice rang out, much louder, it seemed to him.

“Good work,” the estvin said. He did not smile in the human sense, but Arcolin could tell he was pleased. “We were not sure of height of human mouth.”

“Why this way?”

“Always this way. Prince speaks Law, not seen, as High Lord not seen speaks Law to prince.”

By the time Arcolin returned to the stronghold, he knew a lot more about gnome society, enough to know he was the most ignorant prince a gnome tribe ever had. He had met the gnome women—only they weren’t like any women he’d ever known, even leaving aside the gray skin and black beady eyes. They came to be
introduced, to kiss not his boots, like the male gnomes, but his forehead. The ritual kiss was dry, almost like the touch of a stick or, more likely, a rock.

They brought their children, from the tiny ones wrapped in a gray cocoon of the gnomish fabric to the ones able to walk, now for a time clothed in the maroon and brown of Fox Company wool. Those little faces, a gray so pale it almost looked white, filled Arcolin’s heart with gratitude for Gird’s guidance in saving them.

Then the women and children withdrew deeper into the stone-right, and the others showed him what was finished enough to show: halls and passages and rooms whose purpose he could not yet guess, though some were lined with misiljit. To Arcolin it looked like gray-blue moss, and it scented the air with a peculiar smell that made his nose itch. Certainly there was a lot of it.

One chamber had rows of narrow shelves packed on every wall with little round bundles and what looked like very complicated looms in the center. He looked up. Long threads hung from the ceiling. “Make clothing here,” Dattur said. He touched Arcolin’s robe. “This … grows. And see here—”

He led Arcolin across the room to a passage that glowed brighter than the rest. All over the walls and ceiling, moving lights edged along, a peculiar greenish yellow. Arcolin leaned closer to see what they were. Dattur pulled him back. “Stone-moth lights,” he said. “First egg, no use. Then lights, no use. But then … sleepers make thread for bed. We use thread from some, leave others to free stone-moth. Stone-moth lays eggs. Then we eat. Only us. Not kapristinya.”

After that, they led Arcolin back to the main reception area. Ten of the senior gnomes stayed as the others vanished into the corridors.

“Have questions for Prince Arcolin,” the estvin said. “Please to sit there.” He gestured to the dais with its seat.

Arcolin climbed up and sat. All ten gnomes bowed. He nodded back. In his formal robe and stole, sitting on an elevated throne, he knew he was indeed a gnome prince and had best speak like one.

“Your prince awaits to answer questions with words of Law,” he said.

“The stone-right pleases, Lord Prince. The stone-right is generous.
It is only … the near boundary is set and that to the south toward the running water, but no boundary set for north or west. If it please the Lord Prince, boundaries are Law.”

“Boundaries are Law,” Arcolin said. “When all questions asked, we will look at maps and define boundaries.”

Another bow, another nod.

“Westward are humans, Lord Prince. A long way westward, but … the hills go beyond. Houses and walls mean humans claim—is that within the Lord Prince’s gift?”

“No,” Arcolin said. The hills ran into the westernmost baronies in Tsaia on another tributary of the Honnorgat. Neither Kieri nor he had ever ridden that far to see if proper boundary stones had been set. That would be unthinkable to gnomes, for whom everything had a thick black line between categories: mine, yours, gnome, human, Law, and Lawlessness. “It is matter for king in Vérella,” he said. “Land grants of long ago. And beyond the king’s realm is Fintha, all Girdish.”

“This stone-right.” It was the estvin this time, eyes cast down. “Lord Prince, forgive, but perhaps the Lord Prince being human does not know how large a stone-right … usually … is …?”

“The estvin is correct. Is the stone-right too small?”

“We will look at maps.”

Maps were in the chamber set up as a library. He had not realized that the gnomes had saved and brought with them most of the records in their home. He had seen only that one map, showing only the area of their former stone-right and the land the dragon had said must be ceded. Now, on a stone table, they spread out another, larger, covering the whole table. As before, when he looked closely at any one area of the map, it enlarged, showing more detail. None of that detail to the west included human names or boundaries; the gnomes had not known them.