Limits of Power

  “Except, apparently, about the monetary policy of Tsaia,” Mikeli said, grinning now. “Master Danthur blames it on your being an overindulged prince who’s never had to learn the value of money, but he says he’s very glad you’re not in line to succeed unless I fail of siring an heir.”

  “I try,” Camwyn said, feeling sulky all at once. “And I do know the value of money. I know what my allowance covers and how much I can spend, and I haven’t overspent in a long time … at least a half-year, and that was only to get presents for my friends.”

  “I know you’re learning, Cam. I’m not scolding you. But until I do get an heir, the more you know…”

  “The better. I know. I’m trying, really I am. But all that about exchange rates … if they stayed the same, I could understand it, but not when it changes. Market law is easier. Fair weights, fair measures: that makes sense. Master Danthur says it’s not enough.”

  “It’s not,” Mikeli said. “But I know you’re trying, Cam. I wish it weren’t so hard for you. You know the Lyonyan queen is coming to visit; you will meet her. You’ll want to impress her, I’m sure.”

  Camwyn felt a telltale warmth in his hand, and he was trying more than anything else to keep that hand hidden under the table. Was the finger glowing now? Right here? Where Mikeli might see it? He did not dare look.

  “Are you dining with Council tonight?” he asked.

  “Yes. Since word got out—and I believe what you said, that you weren’t the source—I need to talk it over with them. Some of them. You?”

  “I’m fine,” Camwyn said, sticking both hands deep in his pockets as he stood. The right didn’t feel any hotter than the left, actually. “I’ll try again with the exchange rates. After supper, maybe.”

  “Don’t stint your sleep,” Mikeli said. “It’s not that serious.”

  Maybe. Or maybe it was. He could not put thoughts of the strange regalia out of his mind … and as soon as he lay down that night, the image of the crown he’d never seen appeared. Blue stones, white stones … well, clear, but sparkling. It was a beautiful crown … and the ring … the bracelet …

  Let us go. Let us go home again. Let us free.

  The voice—how could a crown have a voice?—seemed to ripple in his mind like water chuckling in a stream. Camwyn felt less frightened than he thought he should. The crown had spoken to Mikeli: why would it not speak to a prince?

  Our sister is held captive by evil.

  Sister? The crown had a sister? How could a crown have a sister? Another crown, a crown for a queen? Camwyn was puzzling over that when another image came into his mind: not a crown but a necklace, star-bright in the darkness of his chamber.

  Torre’s necklace, it must be.

  No. Our sister, of the same making.

  Camwyn wondered if he thought he saw these things only because Mikeli had spoken of them. He’d never seen the regalia himself. Only Mikeli, the Marshal-Judicar, and his uncle Mahieran—and Duke Verrakai, of course—had that he knew of. He lay still, trying to convince himself it was his imagination, that same imagination he’d always been told would get him into trouble. But he knew there was such a crown, a real one. And a necklace, now he thought of it: the one stolen from Fin Panir. So if there could be a real crown, a real necklace … and a dragon in the world, which he knew absolutely to be true … was it just imagination?

  Without any warning, his entire hand lit up like a candelabra, making the room bright enough to see clearly from end to end.

  Such magic would open the chest.

  He shoved his hand under a pillow, blinking against the afterimage of light, before the words sank in. Open … the chest? The sealed chest that no one but Duke Verrakai had been able to open? That not even the paladin had been able to move?

  The voice had not sounded like the crown’s voice, but it was clear as if spoken in his ear. He could not have made it up. He would not have made up something like that. He pulled his hand partway from under the pillow. No light. It had gone out. Thank Gird. He put his head down on the pillow and then sat up again. The pillow smelled scorched. He lay awake, sweating and trembling, thinking.

  Guards patrolled the palace all night. Someone was stationed at the door of the treasury all the time, day and night. There was no way he could get in there unseen … and he had no legitimate reason to go there at all. He tried to imagine the steward’s reaction if he asked to see the treasury. The man would want to know why, and whether his brother the king had sent him, and if he’d asked …

  Another thought came unbidden. He was supposed to learn about exchange rates and values of things … perhaps Master Danthur would want him to see … whatever was there. Perhaps if he asked the right questions … the answers would be in the treasury.

  On that thought he fell asleep and did not wake until morning.

  The Lyonyan queen’s coming visit had already begun to upset the usual routine. Even his instructors seemed less alert than usual, and he found he could gain both information and time. Judicious questioning about counterfeiting and the difficulty of distinguishing counterfeit coinage and false jewels led to Master Danthur suggesting a trip to the treasury.

  Camwyn approached the treasury doors with vivid curiosity but, once inside, found the great room boring. Windowless now, it had once been a ballroom with a portico overlooking the street far below, catching the cooler breezes. Now it was stuffy and smelled like any storeroom. Soft light filled it; Camwyn looked up and found a skylight far overhead.

  “Two full stories up, inside,” the steward said. “Was a gallery up there one time, but they tore it down when they blocked up the windows. Outside now it’s a sheer drop, four stories at least, and not a ledge or nub to cling to.”

  Camwyn remembered looking up as he rode down that street; the wall here was far higher than on the other sides of the palace complex, and there was, he knew, a long blank stretch between windows. Still … surely the best thieves could climb up to the roof. From another part of the wall?

  “You’re not here to gape,” Master Danthur said. “Pay attention.”

  Camwyn looked around again. Nothing but boxes, chests, shelves of smaller boxes and chests, cabinets … The steward and his tutor joined in opening boxes filled with sacks of coins old and new, counterfeit and true. The castle’s own expert, Master Junnar of the Money-changers’ Guild, arrived to show him how to test coins for gold or silver, how to use fine scales and displacement to determine whether a coin had the right amount of a precious metal.

  Camwyn found that part moderately interesting, though he was tempted to ask why Master Junnar didn’t just smell the coins. To him, each had a distinct odor, and he saw no reason for the tests. He did not ask, suspecting that this was yet another sign that he was developing powers he should not.

  He did learn more about the Tsaian coinage than he’d known before, and his ability to pick out the counterfeits impressed Master Junnar, but it was not until near the end of the lesson, when he walked about the treasury and asked what was in this or that box or chest, that he found the one containing the regalia.

  The closer he got to it, in fact, the more he wanted to approach. It was a plain box—not finely finished, carved, or inlaid—and its only distinguishing feature was a lack of any: no hinges, no hasp, no discernible line where lid met body.

  “What is this?” he asked, though he already knew. “A box without any opening?”

  “It’s a puzzle,” the steward said. “It houses the gifts Duke Verrakai gave the king at his coronation.”

  “It’s none of your concern, Prince Camwyn,” Master Danthur said. Master Junnar nodded. “Such a thing, even if it could be seen, would have no place in your education.”

  That was too much. “Surely, sir, a foreign crown in our treasury—one that has both affected our history and is like to affect our future—should be part of my education. The king—” He stopped, thinking how to say anything useful without breaking Mikeli’s prohibitions. “Any king,” he said, “or any ki
ng’s advisor, must understand the implications of such a thing, should he not?”

  Master Danthur looked down his nose, more difficult as Camwyn was now his height. “Well, prince, you certainly are showing more interest in foreign affairs than you were a few days past.”

  “Mikeli—the king—explained to me why it was important, especially with the Lyonyan queen visiting,” Camwyn said, attempting a mix of naivete and humility and seeing from his tutor’s face that he’d failed.

  “Hmpf. And I see you apply that advice to what interests the boy you are, not to what may be needed by the man you might become. Explain to me, then, what you see as the ‘implications,’ as you call them, of these objects.”

  That he could do, having thought about them since Duke Verrakai first brought them. “Possession of them must have affected Verrakai policy,” he said. “If only in keeping them secret so long. We do not have all the records of Tsaia during the Girdish war, but I would guess—”

  “Guessing is not history, Prince.”

  “I know that, sir, but it’s all we have. The Verrakaien had these things and might well have thought to be kings when the old king fell in the war—only they weren’t allowed. They would resent that; anyone would. They kept the things secret and used blood magery to bind them—”

  “And no blood magery binds them now—so why are they bound?” asked the steward, coming nearer.

  “They bound themselves,” Camwyn said. “At least that’s what I heard—” And his sources, he knew, would be dismissed by his tutor as mere gossip.

  “So it seems,” the steward said. “But why? Was it part of a Verrakai plot to move their influence here, into the heart of the realm?”

  “I doubt it,” Camwyn said before his tutor could get a word in. “If we stipulate—” A word his tutors used often; he was proud of himself for using it now. “—that the former Verrakaien were hostile to the Crown, they were doing their best to keep the regalia and knowledge of it secret. I think the king thinks that keeping it secret was treasonous and handing it over was not.”

  “True,” his tutor said. “But that does not explain how the box sealed itself. Or why.”

  “To keep anyone but Duke Verrakai from opening it,” Camwyn said. “And—there’s that necklace people talk about, the one stolen from Fin Panir. If the magicks in this box—” He patted it and felt his hand tingle. Oh, please, don’t let it light up! He rushed on. “If the magicks in this box somehow know that the necklace was stolen—if the regalia have a will and want to be together—then it might fear having pieces stolen here.”

  “But it’s in the treasury,” the steward said. “It’s safe here.”

  “The Marshal-General thought the necklace was safe in the treasury in Fin Panir,” Camwyn said.

  Silence for a moment; they all looked at him as if they could see his thoughts. He hoped they couldn’t.

  “I did wonder if it was Duke Verrakai’s magery,” the steward said. “That she did not trust me—or the king—and wanted it to open only in her presence. But she said it talked to her—I heard her say so.”

  Camwyn held himself still with an effort. If it talked to her, and to Mikeli, and to him … that had to be its own magery somehow. “If the other Verrakai held it bound in blood magery—then they weren’t listening to it.”

  “That doesn’t necessarily follow,” his tutor said. “Maybe they forced it to talk.”

  “Duke Verrakai could ask it,” Camwyn said. They all stared at him again; he felt his face heating. “She could,” he said. “Why not?”

  So could you. The voice was so clear in his head he expected to see them all react to it, but no one did.

  “What was that?” his tutor asked.

  “Um?”

  “You looked as if you’d sat on a hot horseshoe nail.”

  “I just thought—if it can talk to Duke Verrakai, whom else can it talk to?”

  “What, do you think it would talk to you? Isn’t it more likely to talk to the king, if anyone other than the Duke?”

  Camwyn felt the heat on his face.

  “Now don’t sulk,” Master Danthur said. “You surely realize the king is more important than you are—you may be a prince, but you’re only a boy. Did you really, seriously, think a magical item would prefer to talk to you?”

  “No,” Camwyn muttered. The men all stared at him; he felt himself going redder by the instant. He would have to say something more to divert them but couldn’t think of anything that wouldn’t make things worse. “I just … I just worry that if it can talk to one person, it could talk to another. What if it did talk to the king? We don’t know whose it was or what its purpose is. Is it even safe to have it here?”

  “That’s what I said,” the steward said. “Granted it’s not a Verrakai plot. But just that it’s here … If it started talking to the king—or the prince—or you or me—and no one else could hear it, that would be a foreign influence.”

  All the men were staring at the box now, not at him; Camwyn edged toward the door but made only two careful steps before being noticed. “Where do you think you’re going?” Master Danthur asked.

  “I’m hungry,” he said. “And I thought I heard the gong.”

  “You’re always hungry,” Master Danthur said. “But enough of this time wasting. Back to the schoolroom with you this instant.”

  Camwyn didn’t argue. He now knew the way to the treasury and the order in which its locks must be unlocked. He had seen the keys for each lock; he had seen them hooked back onto the steward’s belt. The guards didn’t have keys; no use befriending them. The treasury had no windows, of course … but it did have, high overhead, what looked to him like a skylight. Lucky the dragon hadn’t landed there, Camwyn thought.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Arian arrived in Vérella after a journey far different from what she had expected; the forest she was used to dwindled quickly to strips of woods, giving long views of cultivated land. But nothing compared to Vérella. At Westbells, where they paused to greet Marshal Torin, Arian first heard the faint sound of bells.

  “Yes, those are the bells the elves gave,” Marshal Torin said when she asked. “You will hear them all the way to the city, I expect.”

  “Then we had better ride on,” Duke Mahieran said, “or the whole city will go deaf.”

  As they rode, more and more people stood by the road to watch and shout greetings.

  “Look there—you can see the walls now. And the bridge.”

  Arian stared at the looming gray shape. Walls, towers, more towers, the tops of buildings just visible. She could not even guess how tall the walls were, or the towers within them. She saw buildings outside the walls on the downstream side—ramshackle structures, part stone and part wood, petering out into mere hovels. Her nose wrinkled at the stench of filth draining into the river, something no elf-born could ignore or tolerate.

  A bridge, massive as the walls, spanned the Honnorgat, which ran deep and swift. Buildings clustered around its near end as well and stretched along the road south. Kieri had told her about that road to the Dwarfmounts that led over the pass to Valdaire and Aarenis. As they came between the buildings—inns and taverns and shops crammed together—the lines of people watching them pass thickened. The air smelled of people and cooked food and more animals.

  Most had flowers to throw in her path; others waved flowering branches. Arian had never seen so many people at once in her life. Their cheers and the sound of the bells together were deafening; she could not tell what they were shouting for the noise. As they neared the bridge, Arian saw a party riding toward them, escorted by more of the Royal Guard, one in the lead bearing a great banner.

  “It’s the king,” Mahieran said, shouting in her ear. “He’s come to welcome you.”

  The heavy white horses Kieri had told her about, the Tsaian Grays, pranced over the bridge. Arian’s mount trembled; she soothed it as she watched the others come nearer. The king’s party stopped when the king had cleared the bridge
. Someone—Arian could not see who—bellowed, and the crowd nearest them fell silent. Overhead the bell chime continued, sweet and inexorable. The king wore the Mahieran colors, with a long crimson cloak, its silver embroidery glittering in the sun, draped back over his horse’s rump.

  Two mounted trumpeters blew fanfares, and the king rode forward another two lengths. Beside Arian, Duke Mahieran bowed almost to his horse’s crest. Arian merely inclined her head as Kieri had advised.

  For a moment, all was still. King Mikeli looked at her, and she at him; she was sure he was making the same assessment she was. He was young—very young—and the family resemblance to Duke Mahieran and both Beclan and Rothlin was strong. He had darker hair and eyes than his cousins but the same bone structure, the same nose. And when he smiled, which he did then, the same smile.

  “Be welcome here, Arian, Lyonya’s queen,” he said then. “We greet you in all honor and wish you all joy of your visit.”

  Arian had her first speech memorized, formal and full of praise for Tsaia and the courtesy of her escort. She delivered it smoothly, and the crowd cheered.

  “If it pleases you to ride with me to the palace,” the king said, “my escort and yours will join together.”

  “Thank you, sir king,” Arian said. She nudged her mount closer; the king wheeled and came up on her heart-side. The rest rearranged themselves; Arian noticed that the king looked straight ahead. “King Kieri sends his greetings,” she said. “He wishes you every health and joy.”

  He glanced at her from the corner of his eye. “Things are more difficult without him,” he said.

  “It is a difficult time,” Arian said.

  “I understand that you are also half-elven,” he said.

  “Yes. My father was an elf; he died not long ago.”

  The king turned to look at her. “Died? I thought elves never died.”