“I know not of this Compact,” Bard said. “What means it?”
“Why, where the Compact is in force no man may attack another with any weapon save one that brings the wielder within arm’s reach of death…”
“I had not heard of it,” Bard said, “and I too would rather fight with honest sword and pike than with sorcery. I have no love for using leroni in battle, nor, I think, has any soldier. But I would not have leroni within my realm at all, unless they were sworn to fight with me, and protect my armies against the attack of wizardry. Tell me more.”
“Why, I have not been within my father’s realm since I was a boy, and I do not know much of it, except what my kinsman Varzil has told me.”
“You own a Ridenow of Serrais as kin?”
“We are all Hastur kin,” said Geremy, “and bear alike the blood of Hastur and Cassilda. Why should we be at strife?”
This sobered Bard and shocked him. If the Hastur and the Serrais were to make common cause, what would then become of the realm of Asturias? He wanted to rush off to his father with this new intelligence, but the minstrels had begun to play for dancing, and dancers were crowding onto the floor.
“Would you like to dance, Ginevra? You need not stay at my side because I am crippled; I am sure one of my kinsmen would lead you out.”
She smiled, briefly pressing his hand. “At my wedding, I shall dance with no man, since my husband cannot join me. I will wait for a woman’s ring dance and dance with my ladies.”
“You have a loyal wife,” Bard said, and Geremy shrugged. “Oh, Ginevra has always known that I should never win acclaim in the field of war, nor on the dancing floor.”
One of the Hastur kinsmen in his blue and silver came up to request a dance with the bride. Watching Ginevra’s gracious refusal, Bard began to realize why his kinsman had chosen this scrawny, dark, plain little thing. She had the charm and graciousness of a queen; she would, in spite of her unremarkable features, grace any court.
“But you must not do that,” protested the man. “Why, dancing with a bride is a powerful charm for any man who wishes to marry within the year! How can you have the heart to deprive us so, domna?”
Ginevra bantered gaily, “Why, I shall dance only with my unmarried ladies; that will help them to husbands, and since they must find some men to share the weddings, and so it will help the bachelors to find brides, too!” She signaled to the musicians, who began to play a ring dance. Taking Melisendra’s hands, Ginevra drew her away on to the dancing floor, and many women and young girls, too young for dancing with strangers, or women whose husbands or brothers were committed elsewhere, came crowding out behind them. Bard watched Melisendra’s green-clad form, weaving in and out of the patterns of the ring dance. Where, he wondered, was Melora now? Why did that memory haunt him so? The thought crossed his mind, and he knew it was insanity, that if he were tied to Melora like this, they would talk together, they could be friendly, close, in the way Geremy and Ginevra were. He remembered how Ginevra had pressed Geremy’s hand against her cheek. No woman had ever behaved so with him, and yet he could imagine Melora doing such a thing.
Nonsense; he could not marry Melora, she was not wellborn, and in any case she was committed to a Tower. That was not the way marriages were made. He had criticized Geremy in his mind for marrying Ginevra, who was, despite the old family and her gracious manners, considerably below him in rank. Only a fool would marry a woman who could not bring him some powerful alliance or rich dowry. He could not, for instance, resign himself to marrying Melisendra; she was the daughter of a humble laranzu… though what was it Geremy had said about Hastur kin and red hair? Melisendra could not be so low-born after all…
“I had believed,” said Geremy, “that we were soon to have the honor of dancing at your wedding, Bard. Could you not persuade Carlina to leave the hospitality of the Sisterhood of Avarra?”
“I had no opportunity to speak with her. The shores of the Island of Silence are guarded with sorcery. It will take a regiment of leroni to break those spells! But mark my words, it shall be done!”
Geremy made a gesture which mimicked pious horror.
“And you do not fear the wrath of Avarra?”
“I do not fear any group of foolish women who pretend that their will is the will of some goddess or other!” Bard growled.
“But can it be that your bride prefers chastity and good works to the pleasures that await her when she is wedded to you? Why, how can she be so foolish!” Geremy’s gray eyes flickered with malicious amusement, and Bard turned on his heel and walked away. He did not want to embarrass his father by quarreling at a great entertainment like this. Not even to himself did he admit that he had no wish to quarrel further with Geremy.
Later, while all the young people were dancing, he talked a little to his father about what he had done on the northern borders.
“It is not likely we shall be attacked from Serrais while we have Dom Eiric hostage,” he said, “but seeing us beset by the Hasturs, they may come down on us too. I have heard of a truce between Aldaran and Scathfell; if they come at us together we would be hard put to it to hold them off, with so many of our armies holding off any threat from Serrais. And there are some who would be glad to ally with the Hasturs. If Varzil of Serrais has made an alliance with Hastur, I think we must try to win over the MacAran, at El Haleine, to guard our southern borders, as Marenji stands between us on the north.”
“I do not think either the MacAran, or the people at Syrtis, would be willing to anger the Hasturs,” Dom Rafael said. “They say of Lord Colryn of Syrtis that he can stand atop his keep and look out over all of his small country, and while the mouse in the walls may look from afar at a cat, he does well not to go squeaking about it; and Dom Colryn has no wish to be mouse to King Carolin’s meowing! Carolin could gobble him up without blooding his whiskers!” He scowled. “And unless we return Dom Eiric to Serrais, all those who are allied with Serrais will come down on us before winter. Perhaps we must swear Dom Eiric to a truce and gain time. It is time we need!” He struck his knee with his open hand. “We may be forced to swear truce with the Hastur too!”
Bard said scornfully, “I will take the field against the Hasturs. I am not afraid of them! I held Scaravel with a handful of men, and I can do as much for Asturias!”
“But you are only one man,” Dom Rafael said, “and can lead only one army. With Serrais to the east, and the Hasturs to the west, and perhaps all those across the Kadarin ready to come down on us from the north, Asturias cannot stand!”
“We have some protection in Marenji,” Bard said, “for anyone who comes at us that way must fight, now, across their land; and I think perhaps we could raise mercenaries in the north, and in the Dry towns—they know my reputation and will fight under my command. And perhaps we can bind Dom Eiric to a truce; his sons are young and must keep from war for a time. If we bind him to truce for half a year—and a released hostage must expect that, at least—he cannot put an army against us in the field until spring thaw. And by spring perhaps we could have mercenaries, and even allies, enough that we could move against Serrais and reduce them to vassalage. Think of it, Father! To have all those lands to the east peaceful, without continual fighting! It seems we have been at war against Serrais since I was a babe in arms!”
“We have,” Dom Rafael said, “and longer. But even if we conquer Serrais we will still have to face the Hasturs, for King Carolin claims that all these lands were once Hastur lands—”
“Geremy said something to that effect. I paid him little heed. But if Carolin is claiming that, we will simply have to teach him better.”
“But I will have to take oaths and make truces,” said Dom Rafael soberly. “It is still a matter of time; for time has run out for holding Geremy as hostage. Carolin has called our bluff and Varzil of Neskaya was sent to escort Geremy home. He brought your brother Alaric home to us.”
“I shall not be sorry to see Geremy go forth from this court,” said Bard, bu
t he was aware that this represented a diplomatic loss for Dom Rafael. With a Hastur hostage, he had some leverage for diplomatic compromise with the Hasturs. Still, the return of Alaric was a gain to offset that loss.
“How is it with my brother?” Bard asked eagerly. “Is he well and happy; has Carolin used him well? For when Queen Ariel fled there, I have no doubt he was in Carotin’s hands and not hers.”
“I have not seen him as yet,” Dom Rafael said soberly. “He is still in the care of Varzil. The formal exchange will come later, for Varzil, I understand, is empowered with a message from Carolin, and has asked for formal audience in which to state his mission.”
Bard raised his eyebrows. So the Keeper of Neskaya had sunk to the level of a Hastur flunkey? Perhaps it was worse than he thought, perhaps all the lands from the Kilghard Hills to Thendara lay under the Hasturs! Would the next few years see Asturias among them? Over my dead body!
And then he felt a small premonitory shudder. If it should indeed come about that way, well, it would certainly be over his dead body. But that was a soldier’s fate in any case! And whatever happened, he was not likely to escape it.
If Alaric were returned, that would at least give Dom Rafael excuse to hold a coronation; for Rafael still insisted he was not king, but regent for Alaric. Bard wondered what was the difference between one child king and another. But in any case, Alaric was here, not, like Valentine, fled to the protection of another kingdom. Then Bard realized that he had been thinking of Alaric as he had been almost seven years ago; a child, pleased at the thought of his brother’s outgrown toys. Now Alaric must be fourteen or fifteen, close to legal manhood. His own son Erlend was not so much younger than Alaric had been when they last parted!
Time. Time was the enemy of every man. He himself had lived longer than most men who earned their bread as mercenary soldiers. At least he should lose no time in marrying and getting himself some legitimate sons. He must make the kingdom secure for his brother, and then he must discover some way to attack the Island of Silence, even if it took a whole army of wizards, and regain Carlina.
While she lives, I shall marry no other woman! It occurred to him, for the first time, that perhaps he had made a great mistake. If Carlina truly did not want him, perhaps there were other women who would. Again he thought of Melora… but no. Carlina was King Ardrin’s daughter, she was his handfasted wife, and if she did not want him, well, he would soon teach her where her duty lay. No woman ever wanted to refuse him a second time!
Rafael of Asturias released Dom Eiric of Serrais the next morning.
“But why now, Father?” Bard asked. “Certainly you could delay him a few tendays more!”
“A matter of protocol,” Dom Rafael said grimly. “Varzil of Neskaya, who is a Ridenow, wishes to interview him, but he cannot in courtesy do so until he has transacted his main business here, the exchange of hostages; and he cannot speak with my prisoner without my leave. So I will take oath from Dom Eiric and set him on his way, before Varzil is free to speak with him. I want no more Ridenow lords making allies of Hastur!”
Bard nodded, absorbing this. Once Dom Eiric had taken his oath not to work against Rafael of Asturias for half a year, he could not lawfully ally with any enemy of Asturias, either. Bard had all manner of knowledge of military tactics and strategies, but diplomacy was still new to him. But with his father’s knowledge of statecraft, and his own skill at war, perhaps they could hold all this countryside one day.
He found that he was curious to see this Varzil, who had allied with the Hasturs. Neskaya had been in Ridenow hands—though it lay far outside the Serrais lands proper— for more than two hundred years. In those days the Hasturs and the Ridenow had fought a prolonged war, and peace had been made in the reign of Allart of Thendara. Did the Hasturs still entertain dreams of reclaiming all the Serrais lands?
Bard was summoned to the council, as his father’s high commander; and Melisendra, too, for the setting of truthspell. As Bard watched her come into the presence chamber, in her thin unadorned gray dress and cape, the mark of a leronis present upon official duties, he realized that Melisendra, as his father’s chosen court sorceress, now had status and power in her own right, power that had nothing to do with her official position as the mother of the regent’s grandson. The thought made him vaguely angry; there were laranzu’in enough, why did his father not, in decency, choose one of them? Was his father trying to put Melisendra in a position where she could flout her lawful lord and the father of her son?
He hoped Alaric had some skill at arms. As Ardrin’s fosterling, he should have learned something. Bard himself was only one man; but if he had a knowledgeable military leader backing him up from the throne—and certainly a king should be able, like Ardrin, to lead his fighting men into battle—it augured well for Asturias in the years that would come.
Varzil of Neskaya was a small and slender man. In the gorgeous ceremonial dress he had worn at the wedding he had looked impressive, but now, in the green and gold of his House, he seemed small, narrow-shouldered; his features were lean, scholarly, and his hands, Bard noted with contempt, were as small and well-kept as a woman’s, with no callouses from sword or dagger, and no hair worn away at his temples from the facepiece of the helmet. Not a man of war, then, but a sandal wearer, a dandy. And this was Hastur’s chosen embassy? Bard thought, with contempt, I could break him with my two hands!
Even Geremy, stooped though he was, dragging his lame leg, was taller than Varzil. Geremy wore his customary sober dress, unweaponed save for a small ornamental dagger, the hilt set with firestones. Bard watched, standing in the paxman’s place behind his father’s throne, as the formalities and the setting of truthspell took place.
“Geremy Hastur,” said Dom Rafael, “since my son is to be safely returned to me, I declare you free to return to your father’s kingdom, or wherever you choose to go, with your wife, who is my subject, and your son, and your vassals, and all that is yours. Furthermore, as a mark of the esteem in which my lady wife holds your lady, if your wife’s waiting-women wish to accompany the lady Ginevra to her new home, they are free to do so, if they have leave from their own fathers.”
Geremy bowed and made a short and courteous speech thanking Dom Rafael and reassuring him of his gratitude for his kind hospitality. The irony was heavy-handed enough so that the truthspell light faltered on his face, but it was not worth taking issue. Courtesy, Bard thought wryly, was mostly lies anyhow.
“Geremy, you are free, if you will, to leave your son to be fostered in my house. His mother’s father is my loyal man, and I give you my personal assurance that he will be brought up in all respects as my own son, and as a companion to my grandson.”
Geremy thanked him courteously and declined that his son was too young to be parted from his mother, being as yet unweaned, and that Ginevra had a fancy to nurse him herself.
Varzil stepped forward. “And I have come,” he said, “in the name of Carolin, High King at Thendara, guardian of Valentine di Asturien, rightful king of Asturias and overlord of all these lands, to return Alaric di Asturien, son of the Regent and Warden of Asturias, to his father. Alaric—?”
Bard drew in his breath, in audible shock. From behind Varzil, a slightly built boy limped forward; his uneven step and twisted shoulders were like a ghastly parody of Geremy’s own; and Bard could not contain himself.
“Father!” he cried out, stepping forward, “Will you let them mock us thus in our own halls? Look what they have done to my brother, in revenge for Geremy’s hurts? I will swear before truthspell that Geremy was hurt by mischance, not by design, and Alaric has not deserved this of Carolin!” He drew his dagger. “Now, by all the gods, Hastur spawn, defend yourself, for this time your life is forefeit and it will be no accident! I’ll make good what I should have done to you seven years ago—”
He grabbed Geremy’s shoulder and spun him around.
“Draw your dagger, or I strike you down where you stand!”
“Cease!
I command it!”
Varzil’s voice was not loud, but it made Bard loosen his grip and fall back from Geremy, pale and sweating. He had not heard command voice for many years from the lips of a trained laranzu. Varzil’s slender figure seemed to loom over him, menacing, as Bard’s dagger fell from nerveless fingers.
“Bard di Asturien,” Varzil said, “I do not war on children, nor does Carolin; your accusation is monstrous, and I stand here in the light of truthspell to give you the lie to your face. We told you nothing of Alaric’s ills for fear you would come to exactly this conclusion. We had no hand in Alaric’s laming. Five years ago he fell ill with the muscle fever which ravages so many children in the lake district, and although all of Ardrin’s healers did their best for him, and sent him to Neskaya for healing as soon as he was able to travel—which is why he was not left here to rejoin you when Queen Ariel fled the country, since he was in my care at Neskaya—despite all our best efforts, his leg withered, and his back is weakened. He can walk now with only a leg brace to help him, and he has recovered his powers of speech; so you may ask Alaric himself if he has anything to complain of from our treatment.”
Bard stared in dismay. So this poor cripple was the fine, strong, manly brother who would help him to lead his armies! He had the feeling that the gods were mocking him.
Dom Rafael held out his arms and Alaric limped forward, into his father’s embrace.
“My dear son!” he said in dismay and consternation, and the boy looked from his father to Varzil in distress.