"But they were the same sort. Magelords!" She made it a curseword. His magery growled within him, as if it could respond of itself to an insult. He fought it down, telling himself she was only saying what she had been taught.
"Are all peasants fair, kind people?" he asked instead. "Surely you've known some who cheated, who stole, who were unfair—?"
"Ye-esss . . ." She dragged that out, as if it came unwillingly. "But they've been cheated by the mageborn; it's not their fault." She eyed him, looking for a reaction. "The Marshal-General says most real thieves and brigands are part-mageborn anyway; that's why they're too lazy to work and be honest."
That's why he doesn't trust you, half-mage,
was as clear in her gaze as if written on parchment.
"You insufferable fool!" Luap's anger roared past his knowledge that losing his temper would only cause trouble. This time it was not Gird; this time it was not someone he respected; this time—this one time, maybe—he was wholly justified, completely right, and he was not going to pretend a subservience and shame he did not feel. He would wipe that smugness off Binis's face, that sly satisfaction in catching him off guard, that intolerable superiority. "The Marshal-General himself has mageborn blood—is
that
why he can't get up until midmorning? Does that make him dishonest enough to steal from the grange-sets honest peasants have sent in to buy himself fancy foods rather than eat porridge and stew with the rest? Or didn't you know any of that?" By her expression she had not known, and didn't believe. "Look it up in the archives," he said bitterly. "
If
you can read. His grandmother was raped by a magelord, just as my mother was. It's in the records, the great accounting Gird held after the war. His own mother reported it."
"You made that up," Binis said. "It can't be true. Besides, the Marshal-General's special: he has a right to sleep later and eat better food."
"Really! Gird didn't . . . but then you didn't know Gird, more's the pity." That rush of anger over, Luap felt the first twinge of fear. Lazy, selfish, and misguided the present Marshal-General might be, but he still had to work with him. So far the Council had sided with Luap on the larger issues, but he must not strain their patience by angering the Marshal-General on minor matters. He looked at Binis with more loathing than she perhaps deserved. She was the Marshal-General's tool, less culpable because she was both younger and subordinate. He hated her. If not for his oath to Gird, he would use his magery now, and compel her to agree. He toyed with that idea for another furlong or so, imagining sending her back to the Marshal-General as a spy, as a mageborn tool. If she had said anything more, he might have, but she had the prudence of the naturally sly, and said nothing.
So the rest of the day passed, in uncomfortable silence. She asked once, in late afternoon, what grange they would stay at that night, and he replied that they would camp. He managed not to add, with the sarcasm he felt, that she should have realized that from the supplies he'd bought in Cob's village. He attacked the jacks trench as if it were a buried enemy, raising another blister on his hand, and she watched sullenly. They ate their supper in silence, and in silence passed the night and the morning's rising. Binis filled in the trench without commenting.
Luap rode in morose silence all that morning, inquiring of all the gods he could think of—and Gird—what else he could have done. The explanations and excuses looked shabby, spread out in his mind; he knew that Gird would have swept them away. Yes, the woman was stupid, smug, and difficult: that was
her
problem. He had not made things better with his flare of temper. He found himself arguing that Gird, too, had lost his temper with a difficult woman named Binis, but it would not work, and he knew it. All at once he was plunged into internal darkness, a wave of despair. How could he think of leading his people to any good purpose? Everything he'd ever done wrong came back to him in vivid pictures; he hunched over the horse's neck, wishing he could spew it all out and die, have it all over. The Rosemage would lead his people better. Or Aris and Seri, in partnership.
He had no thought of food, and Binis finally said, plaintively, "Aren't we going to stop and eat?" Another stab of guilt—had he compounded anger and rudeness with cruelty?
"I'm sorry," he said. "I—lost track of time." He reined in and looked around. At least he wasn't lost; he still recognized the shapes of hill and field. Beneath him, his horse sighed and tugged the reins, wanting to graze the fresh spring grass. "Yes. We can stop here, or go on a bit to that creek." He pointed.
"You look sick," Binis said with her usual tact.
Luap shrugged. "I'm sorry," he said again. He thought of apologizing for yesterday's anger, but Binis was not one to inspire selflessness; she absorbed it as her due. He dismounted, and let his horse graze. Binis found a convenient rock and settled to her food; he had no appetite for his, but realized he should eat anyway. He choked down some mouthfuls of bread and cheese. This would not do; they had several more days of travel together, and he had to find some way to get along with this woman.
He tried asking questions about life in Fin Panir; Binis gave short answers, and made it clear that he should know the answers already. He tried telling her about the war, how it had been to march these very hills and river valleys with Gird's army. She listened to that, but her questions revealed no grasp of tactics—he became very tired of her "Why didn't Gird just—?" She seemed to think all battles were great set pieces, with armies lined up on either side; she was sure that any villagers who didn't support Gird's army must have been part mageborn.
"They were hungry and frightened," Luap tried to explain. "Someone had to stay and plant the fields, but if the magelords caught them sharing food with us, they'd be killed—worse than killed." He remembered the thin faces, the desperation, the bodies displayed on hillsides. "Look there," he said, pointing to an ox-team busy with spring ploughing. The farmer had made a grisly decoration of skulls turned up by the plough. Binis shuddered; Luap thought he might have pierced her determination to simplify the past. He hoped so.
By the time they reached the cave, in a misting rain, Luap felt her presence as a great weight on his neck. He made a last try. "We had several cohorts in here," he said. "Worse weather than this, but also early spring. Gird had a bad cold. Lots of us did."
"Which spring?" she asked. This time she took the shovel to dig the trench; he thought that was a good sign.
"The spring before Greenfields," he said. While she built a small fire in the familiar ring of stones, he dragged first one sack of soil, then another, back to the chamber. She did not offer to help. The feeling grew on him that this was the most significant of his visits to the cave: the season, the weather, and the sullen peasant were all the same. Binis could easily stand for some hundreds of her fellows.
He felt this even more when he discovered that she expected him to take the soil to his stronghold by the mageroad, then return and go back with her to Fin Panir to report to the Marshal-General. "That way I can be sure you don't return and steal more," she said. Luap wondered briefly if she had anything between her ears but malice and stubbornness.
"Binis, if I had wanted to disobey the Marshal-General and steal more earth, I could have come here in the first place and never travelled with you at all."
"You wouldn't have dared," she said. "You can't disobey the Marshal-General." She said it in the way she would have said that stones fall or water is wet, someone stating a natural law.
"
I
could," Luap said flippantly, and instantly wished he hadn't. He already knew Binis had no sense of humor. She was scowling now, as if he had insulted her. "Listen to me: I did what your Marshal-General asked because I swore an oath to Gird. Not an oath to obey his successor, an oath to support him, and do no harm with my magery to his people. I saw no reason to quarrel with the Marshal-General; I have fulfilled his requirements, and I am going back to my land."
To stay,
he almost said. But he would return, to continue his work with the archives, and he did not mean to cause more trouble than he had.
"I won't let you," Binis said. "You have to take the sacks there and return."
The sheer stupidity of it, her inability to see that she had no way to compel him, almost made him laugh. He thought of agreeing, and then not coming back, which might at least teach her something about the limits of her power, but in this place he could not lie to one of Gird's people, not even one he was sure Gird himself would have knocked in the head. Gently, as if speaking to a dull child, he said "Binis, I am going and I am not coming back. You have food, two horses and a pony, and a clear trail. You're a yeoman-marshal and it's peacetime. You will be perfectly safe travelling alone, and there's a grange not a day's ride away. Now sit down and eat your supper."
"You're not going to do it," she said. She moved over to block his way to the chamber. Luap felt again the anger he had felt at Gird—and she was no Gird; he lifted his fist, and she blinked but stood her ground. He could not hit her. He had sworn not to use magery in this land . . . but it was gentler. His power flowed out and around her like honey around an ant; she struggled, but could not move.
"Farewell, Binis," he said, stepping past her. He moved quickly past her, into the chamber, and laid a hand on either sack as he called on his power.
"What does the prince fear?" the black-cloaked lord asked his spy. "What does he love? These are the knots in which to bind him." He had sent many spies, over the years, and learned many things he expected to use in the future. But he had not yet decided on the exact way to approach the prince and use him to destroy the others.
"He is a king's bastard—not ever acknowledged," the spy said. "And like all such he doubts both his father's goodwill and the reality of his parentage. He fears ridicule—he fears disrespect—and he fears that he is not deserving of respect. He is beginning to fear age, as he sees those he respects dying or approaching death. He has a vision for his people, for this place, and he fears that as he ages he will lose control of them. That his vision will not survive."
"And he loves?" The tone was contemptuous; they did not believe that "love" existed, but they knew others claimed to be moved so.
The spy shrugged. "Insofar as he can, he thinks he loves his people. He believes they need his protection and wisdom; he takes pride in serving them. He is sure he knows best, and wants them to agree that he does. He loves his own will, but no more than many. He has a vision of himself as a great leader."
"Anything else?"
The spy smiled; he had been saving the best for last. "He was warned never to seek command, or take it; he was told he was unfit for it. Although he did not understand why he was considered unfit, he submitted to others. Now, having accepted the leadership here, he has broken an old oath. That is no consequence to us, but it bothers him: he will not let himself think of it, or admit that is what he has done." Others laughed; such self-blindness offered easy access for their enchantments.
The leader's brows rose. "Unfit for command? Not to our purpose. . . . I can scarcely imagine one I would rather see in his place. A bastard prince, a prince afraid of his own weakness, a prince afraid that age will erode his power, an oathbreaker . . . apt for our purposes, indeed! He should welcome our aid as eagerly as an overworked shepherd welcomes a well-trained sheepdog. So long as he does not see the wolf beneath the dog's fur, we shall prosper as he does. Let him think on his losses, and fear more: let him grasp—and we shall have something for him to hold."
Climbing up to the forested top of the mountain took longer than Luap would have expected. He was winded and sweaty when he finally made it over the rim and into the cool shade of the trees. It had been too long, he told himself, since he had climbed even as high as the terrace now below. The Rosemage looked almost as tired, but Seri and Aris were bubbling with energy.
"It's easy walking from here," Seri said. "And we marked our trail, the first time."
Luap nodded, still out of breath, and turned to look behind him, out over the rim. Now he could see much that had been hidden from the level below, while whole clefts and canyons had disappeared—they might have been only surface cracks in the rock. Others showed more clearly; be thought he could see a narrow green valley up the main canyon and then southward. Gird should have seen this, he thought. Northward a great gray angular mountain loomed, very unlike the red rock around them. Eastward, the higher mountains were white; he could not tell if it was rock or snow.
"We haven't explored all of this yet," Aris said. "Only toward the west, and only part of that. But we've found so many things . . . trees like this in places, and in others low round trees hardly larger than bushes. Grassy meadows, even a little creek right up here on top of the mountain."
"And game," Seri said. "Tame enough to touch, some of these animals."
"All right," he said, smiling at the Rosemage. "Let's see your marvels."
The two led them along the southern edge of the trees, where Luap could see between the trunks a plateau with similar trees across the canyon. It was, as they'd promised, much easier walking than the canyon itself; they reached the low end before the sun had moved three handspans on its way.
On this end of the mountain, no intermediate terrace broke its sheer cliffs. Luap crept cautiously to the dropoff and found himself staring down into a well of blue air, still shadowed by the cliff. Perhaps a bowshot away, a stone tower rose to a lesser height, partly eroded from the cliff behind. Below the steepest slopes, the hollow was filled with trees.
When he looked west, he saw across a lower cliff a vast low plain, with mountains rising from it in the distance. "Is that where you thought you saw a caravan?" he asked.