"Will he let grooms care for him? Or should I warn them off?"
Paks laid a hand on the warm red shoulder. "He hasn't caused any trouble yet—but if he doesn't want to be groomed, he'll push the brush away. Don't argue. And don't let anyone try to tie him."
"No. I'll tell them." Aliam went off to speak to the grooms, who were putting the squires' horses in nearby stalls. Paks looked down the wide aisle, well-lit by windows set high in the inner walls. The red horse nudged her, and she poured the grain Aliam had given her into his box. Then she followed Aliam back across the courtyard into his Hall.
At the door, Estil met them. Paks saw a woman as tall as herself, dark hair streaked with silver, broad shouldered and lithe. She glanced at Aliam, as if for confirmation—he was grinning again, still a head shorter, his hands thrust into his belt.
"It surprises everyone," he said cheerfully. "Estil, this is Paksenarrion. She's a paladin now, you know."
"I know." Estil smiled, and gave Paks her hand. It was a strong hand, hard with work. "Come in to the fire; if you're not cold you should be. We have sib ready."
Paks saw Suriya and Garris already by the great fireplace on one side of the Hall. Garris was talking with one of Aliam's sons; a dozen other people scurried around, bringing food to the tables.
"It's a long way from our first meeting," said Aliam as they came to the fire. "By Falk, I remember you at Dwarfwatch, when you had to give up your sword. Thanks, Cal." He sipped at his mug of sib; Paks found another in her hand. Her eyes followed Cal Halveric as he moved away and joined Garris and the other Halveric son. He looked perfectly at ease, as if he had never been injured. Meanwhile, Aliam looked around at the others, gathering their attention. "She was in her first term of service then, and like all the young hotbloods. I was half afraid that when that sword came out, she'd use it—but Phelan's troops always had discipline. Then when the others dropped theirs, she stooped and laid hers down. Very carefully." He shook his head. "I've seen many things in my years of war, but that—that stuck with me. Damned cocky young idiot—and then I had to coax her into giving parole."
Paks felt herself blushing as she hadn't for some time. "My lord—"
"I'm not taking anything from you—just that you were already headed somewhere else than a sergeant's rank in that company. Or any other." He shook his head again and glanced sideways at her. "I'll wager it'd be a different matter if I tried to take your sword from you now."
In the little silence that followed, Paks pushed back her cloak, and shifted the hilt of Tamarrion's sword forward. Aliam's eyes followed that movement. Paks smiled. "My lord, I will hand you this sword if you can explain how you got it."
His face paled. "Gods above! That's—that's—Tamarrion's—"
"No," said Paks quietly. "This sword was given to her—but it was made for another, for the prince this realm lost many years ago, and the prince we go to seek."
Aliam sat abruptly, paler than before. "It can't be."
"It is. Old men at court recognized it; elves confirmed its forging."
"But it—but they—no one told me." His color had begun to come back; now he sounded annoyed. "I asked the elves, blast them, and they said nothing of a prince—"
"No. So they told us. They told you nothing, and told no one else, either. Until a few days ago, when the king lay dying."
"I don't—Paksenarrion, will you swear to me that this is truth?"
Paks stared at him, surprised. "My lord, I am a paladin; I cannot lie. I swear to you that what I say is what I know, or have been told by those I speak of."
"I must believe you." For an instant, his head sank into his hands, then he looked around for Estil; their eyes met and conveyed something Paks could not read. He looked around at the others, whose interest was clear. "Enough for now. This is a grave word you have brought me; we will take close counsel, Lady Paksenarrion. But first you will eat, and we will speak of other things, less close than this, if you will."
Still a little confused, Paks nodded. "As you wish, my lord—but I may not delay long."
"No. I understand that. When we have eaten together, then—but come to the table now, and let us have this time together."
The meal was what she would have expected from the Halverics—generous, hearty, and far less formal than the Hall implied. A score of soldiers ate at the lower tables—the current watch, Aliam explained. They looked like the Halveric troops Paks remembered: solid, disciplined, experienced fighters. From time to time a glance met hers, and shifted politely away. The King's Squires had insisted, gently but firmly, on serving the high table—the younger lads, banished to the low, watched with relief and envy mixed. Paks, seated between Aliam and Estil, found the pair a fascinating combination. The tall woman kept up an effortless flow of conversation, while directing service and working her way through a plate piled with food.
"You were with the rangers, weren't you?" asked Estil. "Then you use a longbow. I keep telling Aliam what a marvelous weapon it is—"
"For women with long arms, yes," said Aliam a little sourly. "Just because I'm short, she—"
"Nonsense. You shoot well, love, and anyway—"
"I don't want a cohort of bowmen. No. I've said it before. Just because Kieri has one—"
"You see?" Estil smiled at Paks. "He almost started one, years ago, but when he found Kieri had one, he wouldn't."
"Had to let the lad do something I didn't do first." Aliam speared a slice of meat, and went on talking around it. "He'd have burst himself if I'd turned up with the kind of bowmen Estil would train."
"Aliam! I never said I'd train your bowmen." But her eyes were sparkling with delight. Paks eyed her broad shoulders and strong wrists: she could be a bowman. Certainly she was strong enough, and tall.
"And who else? Me? Gods forbid. I'm a swordsman who can shoot a bow when my sword breaks in half."
"I hadn't realized that the Duke—that Phelan—was with you so long," said Paks. "Garris was saying—"
Aliam broke into a laugh. "Oh, that brings back tales. Yes, indeed, Garris was a squire here—"
"And always glad to return, my lord," said Garris, passing by with a tankard of ale.
"Garris, you've been calling me Aliam to my face for twenty years, ever since you were knighted—don't start lording me now."
"It's being here like this—"
"Then sit down. We've nearly more squires than eaters—and we're all nearly full anyway. Sit down, all of you—this is no royal banquet. You've all been riding in the cold. Eat." He waited until they had all found a seat, then turned back to Paks. "Garris, Lady, was the most hare-brained, witless, hopeless lad I've ever tried to turn into a warrior."
"My lord!"
"Until you call me Aliam I can't hear you, Garris. I nearly sent the boy home a dozen times, Paksenarrion. He was willing enough—generous—never a bit of meanness to him. But he couldn't keep his mind on anything—he'd fall over a stick in the courtyard, and then stumble on, not even picking it up."
Aliam turned to Garris, who managed to look like a chidden boy despite his gray hair. "Not to say that you haven't turned out a fine man, either—I was young then myself, and had less skill at training boys than I thought. I was so damnably sure I knew what I was doing—of course I had to be sure. Any of them—boys or men—would have scented it if I hadn't, and the whole thing would have fallen apart." Aliam paused to pour himself ale, offered it to Paks, and then resumed.
"Anyway, there was Garris, amiable as a young pup and falling over his own feet, and there was Kieri, a few years older and made for war as a sword is." He ate silently for a few moments, then went on. "They made friends, of course. Actually it surprised me. Kieri made friends hardly, in those days; he kept to himself a good deal. Some of the lads I had were court-bred, and full of blood-pride until I sweated it out of them. But Garris followed him around, and followed him around, and in sheer self-defense Kieri began to teach him what I could not." He looked down the table. "I suppose you told
her about Hakkenarsk Pass?"
"Yes, my—Aliam. What I could remember."
"Garris, I'd wager you remember every miserable step of that trail. I do, save where the knock on my head shook it loose. That's the trip that changed you, I believe, though you had grown so much that summer already—"
"I had?" Paks was sure Garris hadn't meant to say that aloud, or in such a tone.
"Indeed yes. Boys don't always know when they're changing, Garris, but I saw it. You surprised me all that summer—and so less in the crisis than you might have supposed." Paks noticed that Garris sat a bit straighter, with a curious expression. Aliam went on. "I had planned to ask your father if you could stay with me until you were ready for the Knights of Falk; after Hakkenarsk, of course, your father insisted that you come away at once."
"Sir—I always thought you sent me away—I thought—"
"Good heavens, no! Where did you get that idea? Didn't he tell you?" Aliam shook his head. "I wish I'd known—no, he thought it was too risky, letting you fight in Aarenis any more. I'd have been glad to have you."
"He said that," Garris said. "But I didn't believe him . . . my brothers saw combat as squires, after all. I thought you had finally tired of me . . ." He stopped short, embarrassed, and stuffed meat into his mouth.
"It startled me," said Paks into the silence that followed, "to hear Garris speak of Duke Phelan as your squire. I think I knew it—the Duke mentioned it this winter—but it didn't seem real to me. I never imagined him anywhere but in his own place or in Aarenis with the Company."
"It's always hard," said Aliam, "to realize that older people have had other lives before you met them. I remember an elf I knew once, who told me one rainy afternoon about seeing my grandmother picking flowers as a child. I was never able to relax with him after that." He sipped his ale. "Even though he said she was beautiful."
Paks opened her mouth, and shut it again. Twice she had tried to get Aliam talking about the young Phelan, as a safe topic they both knew, and twice he had evaded it neatly. She looked sideways at Estil, to find a worried look on that lady's face. Estil looked quickly along the table, and called to the kitchen for more sweet pies. Paks ate steadily.
* * *
As soon as the meal was over, Aliam and Estil led Paks to Aliam's study. She wondered if he would still hedge about, but as soon as the door was shut, and they were all seated around a table hastily cleared of map scrolls, he began.
"You carry the sword I gave Kieri to give Tamarrion at their wedding, the sword they found on her body after her death. And you tell me now that sword was forged for the prince that disappeared over forty years ago. And that the elves concealed this from me. Is there more?"
Paks told him the story she had pieced together, and ended with the elves' revelation that the prince had not only survived the attack, but was still alive.
"The true heir to Falkieri's throne, if he lives—and the elves say he's alive." Aliam looked down at his locked hands. "Did they say who he was, or where?"
"No, my lord."
"You, too, may call me Aliam. Kieri wrote me some of your story; I've heard more; you are not so young as your years."
"I would prefer—"
"Very well. Why didn't the elves tell me? Why didn't the elves tell anyone about the prince? Did they deign to say even that much?"
"Yes. They say that whatever damaged the prince made him unfit to rule."
"Umph. What do they mean by unfit?"
"They didn't say that."
"I suppose they wouldn't." Aliam got up and moved restlessly around the room. "And you are convinced this is the same sword?"
"My lord, your uncle and several other older men at court recognized it—could describe the runes on the blade without seeing them. Also the elf, Amrothlin, whose sister was the queen, and the prince's mother—"
"I never told Jeris about finding the sword," mused Aliam. "I should have thought of that—but it never occurred to me that he might know anything. He's been at court most of his life, and—"
"The elves said they—desired you not to speak to your uncle about it."
"Blast them," said Aliam, not sounding as angry as Paks would have thought. "They're always so clever. I've said often enough you can be too clever sometimes—clever enough to tie your own bootstrings together. And they are sure the prince lived?"
"So they say. But they will not say where or who. That is what I am to find out."
"You're sure that is your quest?" asked Estil. "How do you know?"
Paks shook her head. "My lady, the king, as he was dying, asked that I take the throne, because I had brought this sword, and was a paladin. Others agreed. But a paladin is not a ruler; I was not called to rule, but to save the realm by returning its rightful king. I am as sure of this as I am of the call I received in the first place, but I cannot tell you how."
Estil opened her mouth, but Aliam spoke first. "How do you hope to find him? And what do you think he will be like, after all these years?"
Paks recited the guesses they had come to in Chaya: age, hair color, eyes, and so on. That he had been a servant, and according to the elves had forgotten his past, even his name. "But so many men could fit that description," she said. "So I thought to trace this sword back, as I could. The elves reported that you had found it, and tried to return it to them."
"That's so," said Aliam, facing her again. "I found it near the bodies of three elves and many orcs. I sent word to the Ladysforest, by the rangers, and got back the message that I should give it to the one for whom it was made."
"And you had no idea who that was."
"No. All I knew of the sword was that it was elven."
"You hadn't seen it at court?"
"No." Aliam answered slowly. "I had not been at court yet, when the queen disappeared. I was a page at my uncle's, along with the king's younger brothers—the old king's, that is: they were kings themselves later."
"Did you know of any such sword?" Aliam shook his head. "Then what did you think, when they told you that?"
Aliam frowned. "I thought it was typical elven arrogance, to be honest. They knew something I didn't, and were having a joke at my expense. I saw nothing on the scabbard, and then I saw the runes on the blade. It looked like a woman's blade, and from the runes I judged her name might have been elven. None of the runes fit Estil, or my daughters, and none of them wanted the sword, with that message hanging over it. I wouldn't sell it, of course, or send it out of my own hall without telling the elves. I daresay they knew that. I thought I'd be left with it until some elven lady walked in to claim it. Then Kieri Phelan came to tell me of his wedding—and his wife's name was Tamarrion Mistiannyi. Two of the runes—light or fire, and mountains. I thought of that at once, and offered it to him as a wedding gift. Then I told the elves where I'd bestowed it, and they said it was well enough."
"Yes," said Paks, "but was it? Sir, this is what I've been thinking of. The elves think this sword, once held by its true master, will proclaim him and give him some powers he must have. They told you to give it to him—to the one it was made for. Doesn't that mean that you could have? That you knew the man who was actually the prince?"
She did not miss the sharp glance that sped between Aliam and Estil. "What would you have done, my lord, if you had known what sword it was? Would you have had any idea where to bestow it?"
"I—I am not sure." Aliam sat heavily across the table from her. "Paksenarrion, you have brought what you feel is great hope to our kingdom—the hope of finding our lost prince, our true king. But I believe you have brought great danger as well. What if the elves are right? What if this man—now near fifty years, as you said, and without practice at kingcraft—what if he is indeed unfit to rule?"
"My lord, only a year ago, no one would have thought me fit to be a paladin. Not you—not Duke Phelan—not even myself. Least of all myself." For a moment she moved into those bitter memories, and returned with an effort. "Yet here I am, my lord, a true paladin, healed of all
those injuries, and granted powers I had scarcely dreamed of." She called her light for an instant, and saw the last doubts vanish from Aliam's eyes. "The gods have given me this quest, to find your king. I do not think they would send me on a vain search. If he is unfit, the gods can cure him."
Aliam nodded slowly. "You may be right. I pray you are. Do you think the others—the Council and all—will agree to accept him? Assuming you do find him?"
"They have sworn to do so, my lord, and Amrothlin says the elves will at least consider it."
"Was the Knight-Commander of Falk there? What did he say?"
"He?" Paks considered a moment. She had not paid that much attention to him. "I think, my lord, that he was unhappy that the gods had not chosen a paladin of Falk for this quest."
Estil laughed. "That's probably true. But did he give any clues?"
"No—could he?" Neither of them answered, and Paks sighed. "I think, my lord and lady, that you know something you haven't told me yet."
"That's so." Aliam got up yet again. "Let me put it to you like this, Paksenarrion. If I once met someone who awoke in me a suspicion that he might be the missing prince—let's say I did—I had then no proof at all. Only that a boy was the right age, with the right color hair, and a face much the same shape as the old king's. Remember that I had never seen the prince myself; I don't even remember what his name was—"
"Falkieri Amrothlin Artfielan . . ." said Paks, watching him closely.
Aliam's hand dropped to his side. "Whatever," he said and waited a moment. "No evidence," he went on. "None from the boy—who remembered nothing to any purpose—none otherwise. The princess was alive and well then, but an orphan. I could not see—I thought—" He stopped, breathing hard. Paks waited. "Gods above, Paksenarrion, I did what I thought wise at the time—what else can a man do? He might have been—might not—I couldn't tell. He didn't know. I didn't tell him—how could I? I was not ready to back his claim against his sister: she was well-known, secure, growing into rule, loved by her people, capable—She was my princess—would be my queen. When I was granted this steading, I had sworn allegiance to her father. What evidence did I have? He might have been a royal bastard—or a noble's bastard—or nothing at all. On the chance, I did what I could for him, kept him in my service, arranged his training, but—"