Return of the Guardian-King (74 page)
It was an odd ceremony all around, in Abramm’s view; the Chesedhans’ acceptance of the Kiriathan regalia—and of himself as their king—contrasted ironically with the fact that Kiriath itself had driven him out.
But then Philip Meridon arrived as emissary from Kiriath, his own wife and baby girl at his side, come to see their uncle, aunt, and cousins, and bearing a letter for Abramm. The words were written in a shaky hand by Simon Kalladorne himself, asking formally for Abramm to return and take his rightful place on the throne of that land, as well. He named himself regent serving in Abramm’s stead, waiting only for him to return and take up what was his.
They need you, Abramm. My health is not good anymore, and I do
not think I am long for this world. If you do not come, they will bring
Gillard out of his prison and put him back on the throne. He is quite mad
now. A wreck of what he was. If they do that, he will ruin us. All that’s
been gained here because of what you did in Chesedh will be lost. We
want you back, Abramm. Some of us never wanted you to leave. . . .
Abramm’s heart was moved as he read the letter, for he felt his uncle’s anguish and understood his position. It shocked him to think that Simon might be ailing, for he had always been robust of health. Philip told them that the Gadrielites had caught him in the act of helping free convicted heretics, and that he’d been tried and convicted of treason himself. When he’d refused to swear allegiance to their Flames, he’d disappeared into the Holy Keep, where he’d been beaten and deliberately starved for over a year. The abuse was more than his aged body could take, and he had not recovered.
“He’s been bedridden for months now, sir.”
And so Abramm considered the request, asking Eidon’s counsel even before he went to the men on his cabinet. They spent the day in sometimesheated discussion, but by evening all were agreed that a union of the two realms would be acceptable.
The next day he went walking with his eldest son and daughter—Ian still refused to have anything to do with him—along the beach at the end of Fannath Rill’s island, where a small park had been built.
“You are going to leave again, aren’t you?” Simon asked reproachfully as they looked for slingstones from among the polished rocks on the beach.
Abramm regarded him with surprise. “I haven’t decided yet, Simon. Though I think perhaps I might have to.”
“I don’t want you to go.”
“And I don’t want to leave you either, my little man. Nor your brother and sister.”
Nor your mother, most of all. . . .
“But I think it is what I am supposed to do.”
Simon said nothing, head down, eyes on the ground. Behind him, little Abby toddled along a stretch of sand as a barge slid by on the current beyond the swell of the island behind her.
“Do you remember Kiriath at all?” he asked Simon. “It is where I was born. Where you and Ian were born. . . .”
“I remember my pony,” Simon said.
“Ah yes, little Warbanner.”
His son stopped and looked up at him, the river breeze lifting the straight blond hair that fell over his forehead. “Do you think he’s still there?”
“I don’t know. But I can look for him.” He bent down and picked up a white rock from among the gleaming tumble of stones, brushed away a few grains of sand, then held it out for Simon to examine. “This one would be good, don’t you think?”
His son rubbed a stubby, sand-encrusted finger along it, then looked up at him and nodded. “A perfect one, Papa.”
“I think Ian might like it, don’t you?”
Simon looked uncertain for a moment, and Abramm saw that he might like it himself, despite the fact Abramm had already given him an entire bag of perfect stones. But in the end his face cleared and he nodded with confidence. “Yes, I think he would.”
But when they returned to the nursery and Abramm presented the stone to his younger son, Ian would have none of it. Standing up against the play table with his thumb in his mouth, he only looked at the floor. So Abramm left it on the table, read a story to Abby and Simon, then took his leave. Just as he passed through the door, though, he saw Ian snatch the stone from off the table and run to the other side of the room to examine it.
Abramm closed the door and headed back to his own apartments feeling bittersweet. His heart leapt at the knowledge that Ian had taken the gift. But now here he was thinking about leaving again, and that would surely kill any seedlings of trust and warmth for him that might be sprouting finally in the boy’s heart.
When at last all the decisions and preparations had been made and the morning came for him to depart, his family gathered at the dock to see him off. He faced Simon, told him to be strong, to take care of his mother and his siblings, and shook the boy’s hand. Simon bore it stoically, reminding him weirdly of himself at that age. Then he squatted down before Ian, who for a wonder was no longer trying to hide from him behind someone else. He stood there and looked into his father’s eyes expressionlessly, his thumb in his mouth, as always.
Abramm set a gentle hand on his son’s shoulder, and the boy didn’t even flinch. “I never chose to leave, Ian. And I fought with all that’s in me to come back to you as soon as I could. During all that time, I never stopped thinking of you and Simon and your mother.”
Ian’s blue eyes strayed meaningfully to Abby, standing beside him, and Abramm smiled. “Well, I didn’t know about Abby while I was out there, or I surely would have thought of her, too.” He grinned at his daughter. “She is so sweet, I could never have stopped thinking of her had I known.”
His little girl jumped up on her toes and grinned back at him, then threw her arms about his neck, laughing in delight, too young to have any idea what he was talking about.
“You left!”
A thrill shot through him as he realized Ian had spoken. To him. Bitterly and reproachfully, but he had spoken. Abramm turned back to his son, handing Abby off to Maddie, who had stepped forward to receive her, alert as always to what was going on.
“I know I left,” Abramm said quietly, crouching down to face his son. “And I meant to come back much sooner. But I am only a man, Ian. And men don’t always get to do what they want. Only Eidon can do that.”
“You are going away again.”
“You know I do not want to.”
Ian wore his reproach on his face and simply stared.
“There are people in our homeland who need me right now. Just as they will need you one day. They have no king. They do not know what to do, and they are very scared and sad. If I do not go, bad men like the ones who came here might come and try to hurt them.”
“Does Father Eidon want you to go?”
Abramm held his son’s gaze. “Yes, Ian. I believe he does.”
“Then he will bring you back.”
The confidence in his little boy’s voice rocked him to his core. Then, to surprise him beyond anything he could even have imagined, Ian stepped toward him, staring at the scars on his face and finally putting his finger to his father’s brow. Transfixed, Abramm watched his son’s face as the boy drew his finger down the length of the scars, then met his gaze again and finally threw his arms around Abramm’s neck, bursting into tears. “I don’t want you to go, Papa.”
Abramm held him tightly and whispered, “I know, Ian.”
He gathered his son into his arms and stood, carrying him to the end of the dock where the gangplank waited. And when Ian’s outburst had ended, he said, “I have brought lots of pigeons with me, and I will send one every day, so you can look for that. If things go as I hope, it won’t be long before all of you can come join me there. Would that be all right?”
Ian nodded, and wiped the tears away with his chubby hands. When Abramm put him down, he stood stoutly next to Simon and his thumb stayed down by his side.
And then, at last, it was time to say good-bye to his wife.
He grabbed her and kissed her hard. “I hate this,” he said gruffly when he pulled free of her. “You know that, don’t you?”
“Well, you shouldn’t.” She smiled up at him. “It is what Eidon has called you to do, my love. You might as well learn to enjoy it.”
He cocked a brow at her. Then she rose up on tiptoe, pressed her hand against the back of his neck, and kissed him just as hard as he had kissed her. “I will miss you worse than ever,” she whispered. “Try to get your business done swiftly this time, all right?”
Then there was nothing left but to release her and step across the plank to the deck of the
New Mariner
. But it seemed that all the crewmen were in far too much of a hurry to set sail, and all too soon he was on his way. Back to Kiriath.
It was a bright spring day when King Abramm returned to Kiriath, the land of his heritage. His people turned out in a vast multitude to welcome him home, their vessels filling Kalladorne Bay. Banners of every color fluttered in the breeze beneath the wide blue sky, and as the
New Mariner
turned into the bay’s mouth, the fortress cannon on both headlands boomed a welcome.
Slowly his vessel nosed through the mat of boats floating gunwale to gunwale across the bay. People cheered and fluttered hats, cloaks, and even aprons as bands played from the decks. The city bells rang in the distance and fireworks shot off from the shore, exploding overhead in sparkling clouds of thunder. Abramm stood on the quarterdeck, waving and wondering wryly how long it would be before some of them were complaining about him again. Once the thought would have disturbed him. Now he merely recognized it as truth, comfortable in the fact that it wasn’t the people who wanted him or didn’t want him that had made him king over them again—it was the will of Eidon.
Two years of drought, fires, and flooding had so filled the harbor with silt that deep-drafted sailing ships like
New Mariner
could no longer approach the city itself. Thus the royal barge awaited him halfway, leaders of the interim government arrayed on its deck in their finery to greet him. He saw Seth Harker among them, and his old discipler, Belmir—hardly recognizable without his long Mataian braid and gray robes—but the rest of them were strangers. A new cadre of leaders had moved into the hole created by the loss of the old.
As the
New Mariner
drifted to a stop beside the barge and the crew scurried to make ready for his disembarkation, Abramm surveyed the great crowd that surrounded him on both water and shore. He took in the blackened ruin of Southdock, stark against the new spring greenery of the nicer neighborhoods on the hills above it, all of it overlooked by the royal palace of Whitehill, serene on its high cliffs. His home. Soon to be his kingdom, again, in addition to Chesedh. He had brought the regalia with him, kept safe in a strongbox in the royal cabin.
Eidon had brought it all back to him, just as he’d promised on the walls of Highmount. More than brought it back. And there were moments, like now, when the contemplation of that fact, and the power it had taken to do it, overwhelmed him. For Eidon hadn’t just transformed events to bring this about, he’d transformed Abramm himself, and that was the much harder work.
Gratitude flooded him.
Thank you, my Lord. For all that you have done.
For taking everything away and all you have shown me through the loss. For
making me wait. For all the ways you have protected and provided. . . .
His thoughts danced from wonder to wonder, kindness to kindness—each branching into multiples, and the multiples branching further. . . .
It took his breath away to think the one who could do such things loved him as a father loved a son. That the Creator’s very Light dwelt in Abramm’s flesh and, more and more now, in his heart.
You have taught me so much,
Father . . . and yet it seems I’ve only begun to know you
.
There was a chuckle.
Do you think it all ends here, then? That I will not
continue to teach you until the day that you die? And beyond?
The men who had lined up in flanking rows between Abramm and the opening in the gunwale now snapped to stiff attention in anticipation of his passage, and silence dropped around them. Beyond the gunwale, the kingdom of Kiriath awaited.
He grinned at Eidon’s question.
Of course you will, my Father
.
And with that, he strode through the gauntlet as the trumpets blared in fanfare, and all around the assembled multitude began to roar.
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