“Dom Rafael! Alaric!” Melisendra whispered, in horror. She began to weep. “The old man was always so kind to me. And the boy—his life had been so hard, poor little lad, and to die like this…”
Carlina’s face was set and implacable. She said, “I am sorry for your grief, Melisendra. But the usurper of the throne of Asturias is dead. And I cannot find it in me to grieve.”
Now, all through the gardens and grounds of Castle Asturias, men and women, courtiers and servants, nobles and kitchen girls and grooms, were emerging, yelling and shouting in confusion, crowding together to look in horror at the fallen wing. But even while one of the majordomos was calling out, telling everyone not to go near the still-quaking building, there was a terrific final explosion, the remainder of the stonework of that wing collapsed and crashed down, with a rising of stone dust and muffled cries, and silence descended.
In that stillness Paul heard Master Gareth shouting, “Are there any of the king’s leroni yet alive? To me! Quickly! We must find out who is attacking us!”
“I must go,” said Melisendra, and hurried away before Paul could catch at her hand, urge her to escape during the confusion. He stood beside Carlina, watching the sorcerers, not now in their gray robes, bat wearing everything from nightcaps and chamber robes to one, the young boy Rory, wrapped in a towel and evidently fresh from his bath, assembling beneath the flowering trees in the orchard. Master Gareth, hobbling on his bad leg gathered the leroni around him; two or three were missing, for some of them had been in the other wing in attendance on Dom Rafael and the king, but there were four women and two men besides the boy, and Master Gareth spoke to them in hushed tones. Paul, at this distance, could not hear what he said. The soldiers were rallying, trying to keep people away from the fallen walls. Paul went toward them—what had Bard said?
You are Lord General till I return. It has come a little sooner than we thought, that is all.
One of the men ran up to him and saluted. “Sir, you’ll be worrying about your son. He’s safe, one of the sergeants has him in charge, since his mother will be with the old wizard and all the other leroni. Come, sir, show yourself to him and let the little fellow know he’s still got a father and a mother.”
Yes, that was only fair. He saw Erlend, looking pale and shaken, clinging to a puppy with both hands.
“Your mother is safe, Erlend, she’s there with your grand-da,” said the soldier, “and look, chiyu, here’s the Lord General come to take you to mammy.”
Erlend raised his head. He said, “That’s not—” and for a panicky moment Paul knew the game was over already, before it began, that Erlend was about to say, That’s not my father, but he met Paul’s eyes for a split second, and said instead, “That’s not the way to talk to me, Corus, I’m not a baby.” He thrust the puppy into the soldier’s hands and said, ‘Take him to his mammy, he’s the one howling for milk! I should be with the leroni, some of us are dead; they will need every starstone.“
“He’s a one, he is, Lord General,” said the soldier. “Like wolf, like cub! Good lad!”
Paul said to Erlend, carefully and with dignity, “I do not think they will need you, Erlend, but you may go and inquire if they have need of you.”
“Thank you, sir.” Erlend walked at his side, steadily, but Paul could feel that the boy was shaking, and after a moment he held out his hand. The boy gripped it in his small sweaty one. When they were out of earshot he said fiercely to Paul, “Where is my father!”
“He—he rode away this morning.” After a moment he said, “I feared they would think he had deserted them in trouble, so I answered to his name when they thought I was your father.” He wondered why he bothered to explain to a child of six.
“Yes. He should be here,” Erlend said, and there was a shade of condemnation in his voice. It made Paul wonder, for the first time, if or when Bard would return!
“He said before he left, Until I return you are the Lord General.” and Erlend looked up at him, strangely. He said, “I saw him ride away. I did not know, then, what it meant,” and was silent. At last he said, “You must do as he told you.”
As the boy walked away toward the little group of leroni under the trees, Paul watched, disturbed. Carlina was still standing where he had left her. She said, “Is that Bard’s son?”
“Yes, lady.”
“He does not look at all like Bard. I suppose he is like Melisendra—certainly he has her hair and eyes.”
“I should go and see what the soldiers are doing,” Paul said, resuming what he had been intending before finding Erlend. Melisendra would be reassured by the sight of her son; but the army was like an anthill somebody had kicked over, without any kind of leader, milling restlessly. He bawled, “Form up, men! Sergeants, take muster, find out who was buried in the wreckage! Then we can find out if we’re under attack! Form up!”
There were shouts of, “It’s the Wolf! The Lord General’s here!”
Leadership reestablished, the men went about the business of forming up, taking muster, listening for the silences when a called name was not answered. Some of the men considered dead in that first random muster would later be found alive, absent for some reason or other from their post, off-duty and in the village for a drink, or a woman, one or two soundly asleep in barracks, to turn up later wondering what all the shouting was about. But at least they had some faint idea of who was there and who was not, the form of the army had been reestablished if not its totality.
And still it continued to be silent. There was no sign of any further explosion, no sign of any enemy or attack, no attacking force. Paul wondered who was the enemy. Serrais had surrendered, Hammerfell had not the strength, the Hasturs had sworn to the Compact, and while their armies were still on the road, they had sworn not to use laran weapons. Had the Altons or the Aldaran joined the war, and the news somehow failed to reach Paul while he was on his errand to the Island of Silence? Was it the little kingdom of Syrtis, long known for powerful laran? There had been, so far, no word from the leroni who were searching out the direction of the attack. Paul wondered if they had accepted Erlend’s offer to work with them. Later that afternoon, with two of the army engineers, he was going into the undamaged part of the building to see what was safe and what was not, and make sure that any fires caused by collapsing braziers or untended lamps had been put out. He saw Erlend trotting busily off, and the boy saluted him gravely and said that the leroni had put him to work running errands for them, having food brought to them, and wine, because they had no isolated place to work, and the presence of a non-telepath waiting on them would be disturbing. Paul wondered what tactful leronis had thought of this, and whether it was just a way to use the boy’s energy and keep him out of trouble. It might even be true—it sounded reasonable.
Inside, the castle was chaos. One wing, and the main part, were almost totally undamaged, and most of the main Keep had not suffered. Whatever the strike, it must have hit a little off center. Paul, searching the wreckage, found no debris that would indicate actual, physical bombs smuggled in, which had been his first thought. He was inclined to agree with the appraisal of the army engineer, that it had been a strike with laran.
“We won’t know that until we get Master Gareth, or Mistress Melisendra, or Mistress Lori, up here to make sure,” the man said. “They can sniff out whether it’s laran or not; but for now they’re busy elsewhere, and rightly so, I suppose, trying to find who hit us, and how to hit back! They may end up by putting a shield over the castle—don’t be surprised I know something of that, sir, my sister was a leronis in Hali Tower; she died when the Tower was fire-bombed. And my father died thirty years ago when Neskaya was burned. Some day, sir, they’ve got to get rid of the laran weapons. Nothing against your lady, Mistress Melisendra’s a good woman, but with respect, sir, the army’s no place for women, not even in a corps of wizards, and I’d like to see wars fought honestly with steel instead of witchcraft!”
Paul surprised himself by saying heartily, “So
would I! Believe me, man, so would I!”
“But as long as they’re sending laran weapons against us, I reckon that we’ll have to shield ourselves. Nothing evil about putting up a laran-proof shield, sir, that no sorcery can get through.”
“I’ll speak to them about it,” said Paul wryly, and the man said, “You do that, Lord General. And if the new king, whoever he is, wants to sign the Compact, sir, tell him the army’s all for it!”
Carlina, in her black mantle, was moving around among the few that had been dragged out of the rubble still alive, healing and supervising the healers. Paul saw that her very presence somehow inspired and comforted the sufferers. “Look, a priestess of Avarra, a woman from the Holy Isle has come to tend us!” The other healers did what they could, but reverent silences seemed to follow Carlina as she moved among the sufferers. No one knew or cared that she was, or had been, Ardrin’s daughter, the princess Carlina; it was the priestess of Avarra they cared about, and the few who recognized her did not speak of it—or if they did, there was no one to hear.
By nightfall, some semblance of order had been restored. The injured had been moved into the Great Hall, and were being cared for there. Carlina, looking around in a daze, realized that eight years ago she had been handfasted to Bard in this hall, and half a year later had heard him outlawed. It seemed like something in another life. It had been something in another life.
The body of King Alaric, crushed and pitiful, had been recovered from the ruin of the great stair in the far wing, and that of Dom Rafael, who had tried, apparently, to cover the boy with his own body as they fell. They were lying in state in the ancient chapel, watched over by old servants, among them old Gwynn. Paul took care not to go inside. He knew that his absence would be remarked—or rather, Bard’s absence would be remarked—but he did not trust old Gwynn’s sharp eyes.
But outside the chapel, Paul was accosted by two of the chief advisers.
“Lord General—we must speak with you.”
“Is this the time, with—” Paul drew a breath and said deliberately, “with my father and brother not yet laid to rest?” He had never seen Alaric; and of Dom Rafael he knew only that the man had brought him here by wizardry. He felt no grief and did not dare try to simulate it
“There is no more time,” said Dom Kendral of High Ridge, who Paul knew to be the chief Councillor of the Kingdom of Asturias, “Alaric of Asturias is dead, and his regent with him. That is the objective situation. Valentine, Ardrin’s son, is a child, and we’ll have no Hastur puppets here. The army’s with you, sir, and that’s the important thing. We stand ready to support your claim as king, Bard di Asturien.”
Paul could only stand and stammer, “Good Lord!”
It was sufficiently bizarre that the chief Councillors of the kingdom should stand ready to offer the crown to Bard mac Fianna, nedestro outlaw, the Kilghard Wolf.
It was unthinkable that they should offer it to Paul Harrell, exile, rebel, condemned criminal and murderer! Fugitive from the stasis box!
“Time’s the thing, sir. We’re at war, and you know what to do with the army; the army would never accept a child for king, not now. And you’re the Lord General.”
Where the hell, Paul wondered savagely, was Bard anyhow? What was he doing away at this juncture,
“We have to have a king, sir. If the Hasturs march in on us, there’s nothing we can do about it! We saw how you calmed down the soldiers this morning. You’re the only king I think the people would accept.”
Grimly, Paul knew he had no chance to refuse. Bard had gone, no one knew where, and everyone here believed he was Bard. Bard had said, often enough, that he did not want to be king; but Paul thought that if Bard had been here, in a ruined castle, with a leaderless army and a kingless country, he too would have succumbed to the logic of the situation.
“I suppose I have no choice.”
“That you don’t, sir. There’s really nobody else, you see.” Lord Kendral hesitated. “One thing more, sir. You were handfasted once to Ardrin’s younger daughter, but Adrin’s line isn’t popular right now. Not since Queen Ariel ran off that way. You’ll have to designate an heir, sir, and since you haven’t any brothers, none living, you’ll have to legitimize your son. Everybody knows who his mother is; it might be a good thing if you married Mistress MacAran—the Lady Melisendra, of course, I mean, vai dom. The army would like that.”
And so, by lamplight in the old presence chamber in the undamaged whig of the castle, Paul Harrell, rebel and condemned criminal from the stasis box, was crowned king, and married di catenas to Melisendra MacAran, leronis. Two thoughts were uppermost in his mind as Master Gareth linked their hands together above the ritual bracelets and said, “May you be forever one.”
One was gratitude for Erlend had been put to bed.
The other was a raging curiosity; just where in the hell was Bard di Asturien, and how would he feel when he found out that his double had usurped the throne… and presented him with a queen!
* * *
Chapter Eight
« ^ »
Varzil had had to delay most of the day to find someone who could carry on at Neskaya, and it was not till the next morning that they set out for Asturias. Melora, having her donkey saddled, warned Bard with a laugh that she was no better at riding than she had been years ago, on that faraway campaign. Watching her ride, Bard thought that she still sat her donkey like a sack of meal dumped into a saddle. Strange, Melisendra rode gracefully and well. Why was it that he had never had any interest in Melisendra, beyond her beautiful body, and this one meant so much to him?
Perhaps there was a time when I could have cared for Melisendra. But whenever I looked at her, afterward, I was ashamed, and I did not want to know what I had done to her; and so I could not bear to look at her. And was more cruel to her than ever….
I have destroyed everyone I loved. And I have destroyed my own life. And I cannot even die because there are things I must do. Bard rode through the fresh early-autumn beauty of the Kilghard Hills, but his eyes looked inward to a bleak and barren land, and the taste of ashes was cold in his mouth.
Somehow he must set Asturias in order. There was a war to be won, or at least a peace to be made. Since the burning of Hali, there had not, Bard thought, been much taste for the war remaining among the Hasturs, or anywhere else. He had touched Mirella’s mind for a moment, and Varzil’s, and Melora’s, when they spoke of the burning of Hali, and there was a sickness in him now, when he thought of that kind of strike, with clingfire, or the bonewater dust spread around the Venza mountains, and children dying with their blood thinned and pale… this was not war! This was nightmare. Bard resolved that at the very least he would dismiss his sorcerers and leroni; and if his father refused to swear the Compact, then he could find some other to command his armies.
He, Bard, had earned his porridge as a mercenary soldier, in exile, before this. He could do it again.
He thought, grimly, that if his father was resolved on a great general who would lay all these lands waste, and bring all of the Hundred Kingdoms under the lordship of Asturias, he could get Paul to do it for him.
Paul… Paul is as ruthless as I was. As I was until… gods above, was it only the night before last? I have lost count of the time. It seems that man lived centuries ago… .
Paul cannot even see the horrors of laran warfare, he is immune to the honors that get inside a man’s brain and mind and soul. …
He knew suddenly that he was prepared to kill Paul. Not as he had been, while they rode together on campaign, because eventually his dark twin would pose a threat to his own power and position; but because Paul was the man he himself had been until a day or two ago, and now he was prepared to kill Paul to save his people from the overlordship of the cruel and ruthless man he had been then. He knew it would hurt Melisendra, and he was prepared to try everything short of murder to persuade Paul to give up that ambition. But Paul had not had the experience he had had, and there was nothing in Pau
l to halt that pitiless ambition. Paul was still capable, as Bard had once been, of riding roughshod over anyone and anything—even Melisendra—to achieve power and pride.
I do not know that for sure. Maybe I have misjudged Paul as I misjudged everything and everyone else. Perhaps he can be brought to see reason. But if he cannot—I do not want to inflict any more pain on Melisendra—but I will not allow him to inflict any more harm. They must know, at the very least, that he is an imposter. I should not have left the command of the army in his hands; he could do infinite harm.
And then he realized that he had meddled—or rather, his father had meddled—in Paul’s life without reason, and anything Paul did to him in return was just retribution. It all came back to the old knowledge which, he now knew, had lain dormant within him since first he looked upon the face of his dark twin:
A day will come when I will have to kill him, or he will kill me first.
They followed the road west from Neskaya; but when the road turned north to Asturias, Varzil said, grimly, that they must leave the road for a time and continue west.
“Melora is still of child-bearing years, and so, Bard, are you. That land is blighted; any child born to either of you in after years could be damaged, cell-deep. Even coming this close—I am not even sure Neskaya is safe. We do not know everything, yet, about what that stuff does to the cells. The danger of Neskaya we must all bear, but I will not willingly expose either of you to more danger. At my age it does not matter so much. But you two will probably have children some day. Either of you could have, I mean,” he added, and then laughed, spreading his hands as if to say, That wasn’t what I meant … but Bard, looking at Melora in the bright morning, saw a smile as intimate as a kiss of welcome, a smile that warmed him all through. The death inside him. In all his life it had never occurred to him that a woman could look at him and smile at him that way.