Rowan stood outside the door to his father’s chamber and tried to brush some of the travel dust from his clothes. He had not been given time to change and make himself presentable. He had been told that Thal insisted upon seeing him immediately, that he would wait for nothing.
Upon reflection, Rowan doubted if his dusty clothes would matter much to Thal after having seen the squalor of his house. Rowan kicked a gnawed bone from under his feet, straightened his shoulders, and pushed the heavy oak door open. The room was very dim and it took his eyes a moment to adjust. His father seemed content not to speak as he studied his son and thus allowed Rowan time to look at his father.
Thal lay on a pile of furs, long-haired, rough-looking furs that perfectly suited him, for he was a rough-looking man. He was extraordinarily tall, at least four inches taller than Rowan, but unlike Rowan, he was lean, without Rowan’s thickness. Perhaps his face had once been handsome, but now it was covered with too many scars from too many battles. Rowan could easily imagine this man atop a charging stallion, brandishing a sword above his head and leading a thousand men into a battle that he would win.
“Come to me, son,” Thal whispered in a deep voice that told of the pain he was in. “Come sit by me.”
Rowan went to sit on the edge of the bed by his father and used every bit of training he had to conceal the anxiety he felt. He had worked for years to make his tutor’s reports to Thal as good as possible. He had always wanted to please this man he had never met and to live up to what was expected of him. Now, looking at Thal’s dark harshness, he felt the man would be disappointed in his blond, pale son. But Rowan let none of these feelings show.
Thal put up a scarred hand, still strong, and touched his son’s cheek. His old, dark eyes softened with unshed tears. “You look like her. You look like my beautiful Anne.” He ran his hand down Rowan’s arm. “And you have the size of the men in her family.” His eyes and lips smiled. “But you have the height of a Lanconian. At least you got something from me, for I see no other resemblance. And that hair! That’s Anne’s hair.”
Thal nearly laughed but it turned into a cough. Rowan sensed that his father would not want comfort, so Rowan sat still until the spasm was over.
“There is something eating my insides away. I’ve known it for a long time but I put death off until I had seen you. Did William treat you well?”
“Very well,” Rowan said softly. “I couldn’t have asked for better.”
Thal smiled and closed his eyes a moment. “I knew he would. He always did love you. From the day you were born he loved you. After Anne died…” He paused and swallowed. “Death brings back memories. I am praying to see your mother again soon. After my dear Anne’s death I would have given you to William to raise if he had asked, but he attacked my men and me; he tried to take you.”
Thal coughed again but soon controlled the spasm.
“You could have sent for me,” Rowan said gently. “I would have come.”
Thal smiled and seemed to be comforted by this. “Yes, but I wanted you to grow up with the English. Anne showed me peace.” He took Rowan’s hand. “No one has conquered Lanconians, boy. We have survived the Huns, the Slavs, the Avars, the Romans, and Charlemagne.” He paused and smiled. “We didn’t survive the priests, though. They made Christians of us. But we fought off the invaders. We Lanconians can outfight anyone—except ourselves,” he added sadly.
“The tribes fight each other,” Rowan said. “I have seen it myself.”
Thal squeezed Rowan’s hand. “I heard you walked against the Zernas alone, that you faced Brocain himself.”
“The Zernas are Lanconian.”
“Yes,” Thal said forcefully, and Rowan waited while he controlled another coughing fit. “When I went to England, when I met Anne, I saw then how a country could have one king. I am called the King of Lanconia but I am actually the king of the Irials only. No Zerna or Vatell will call me king. We will always be a divided nation of tribes. But if we are not united, Lanconia will die.”
Rowan was beginning to understand what his father was asking of him. “You want me to unite the Lanconians?” He did not fully keep the horror from his voice. He had not realized how separate the tribes were until he came to Lanconia. Because he had stood up to three young boys and an old man did not mean he could conquer a whole country.
“I left you to be raised outside of my country,” Thal continued. “You are not Irial, and perhaps because you are half English the other tribes will accept you.”
“I see,” Rowan said, and for a moment his eyes closed. He had known for days that there must be peace in Lanconia and, as king, he’d hoped he could stave off war between the tribes. But unite them? He was being asked to make old Brocain and the arrogant Xante friends! Could one man do this in one lifetime? Now they believed, because he’d opened some old rusty gate, that he was meant to be king, but Rowan didn’t think their belief in him would last. All he had to do was one English-seeming thing and again he’d be the outsider, the foreigner. “I was chosen over Geralt because I am English,” he said softly. “The Lanconians believe my half-brother should be king.”
Thal’s expression changed to anger. “Geralt is Irial. He hates anyone not Irial. I hear you have Brocain’s son with you. Protect him. Geralt will kill him if he can. Geralt dreams of a Lanconia peopled only by Irials.”
“And the other tribes dream of owning Lanconia also?” Rowan said tiredly.
“Yes,” Thal said. “In my father’s father’s time we had outsiders to fight and we were happy. War is in our blood, but now we have no invaders, so we attack each other.” He held up his scarred hands. “I have killed too many of my own people with these hands. I could not stop, for I am Irial.”
He clutched Rowan’s hand and his eyes were pleading. “I am leaving Lanconia to you and you must save it. You can. You opened Saint Helen’s Gate.”
Rowan smiled at his dying father but inside he was remembering an heiress who had been offered to him and he had refused her. If he had accepted her, he could now be sitting by a fire, a hound at his feet, a child or two in his lap. “It’s a wonder the wind didn’t knock those gates down twenty years ago.” Because of a boy, and an old man, and some rusty gates, he was believed to be capable of anything. Part of him wanted to jump on a horse and ride out of Lanconia as fast as possible. But the scar on his leg began to twitch.
Thal smiled and lay back against the pillows. “You have Anne’s modesty and, I hear, her sweet temper also. Were my Lanconians hard on you on the journey here?”
“Fearful,” Rowan said, smiling genuinely. “They don’t have a high opinion of Englishmen.”
“Lanconians believe only in Lanconians.” He looked at Rowan as if trying to memorize Rowan’s blond hair and blue eyes. “But you will change that. You will do what I could not. Perhaps if Anne had lived, I could have done something to bring about peace, but I lost my spirit when she died. Lanconians will kill each other off if the tribes are not united. We will be so busy fighting each other we won’t see the next invading horde that comes over the mountains. I’m putting my faith in you, boy.”
Thal closed his eyes, as if trying to gather his strength, while Rowan considered the enormity of what his father was asking of him. Because Thal had fallen in love with a beautiful woman, he believed the son of that union capable of great feats. Rowan wished he had half as much faith in himself as his father did. The thought of what was ahead of him, dealing with the hardheaded Lanconians, trying to change the way they had thought for centuries, seemed like more than he could bear. Again, he wanted to run away. Home to England, home to safety. But then he remembered Jura. Jura was the one Lanconian he could understand. Perhaps, with Jura beside him, he could indeed conquer a country.
“Father,” Rowan said softly, “is it true that you mean for me to marry Cilean?”
Thal opened his tired eyes. “I chose her when she was just a child. She reminds me of Anne, so calm and kind, yet strong inside. She is the captai
n of the Women’s Guard. She is as strong as she is wise and beautiful. She will make you an excellent wife.”
“Yes, I’m sure she would but—” Rowan broke off at Thal’s glare. The old man’s body might be dying but his mind was perfectly healthy.
“You have not married an Englishwoman, have you? Your children would be more English than Lanconian.”
“There is no other English woman,” Rowan said pointedly, and his father waited, his eyes piercing into Rowan’s, making Rowan shift on the seat. He had felt less fear of Brocain than he did of this old man when he looked like that. No wonder he had ruled for so long. “There is another woman. I believe she is also of the guard and eligible for my wife. Her name is Jura.”
Thal dropped his head back on the furs as if in agony. “How strong are your feelings for her?”
Rowan felt somewhat embarrassed but he tried to control the blood rushing to his face. He wanted Jura enough to risk disappointing this father whom he had always lived for. “Strong,” he managed to say, and in that one word he told of his lust and desire and need for her. He hoped his father would understand that he was willing to fight for Jura.
Thal lifted his head again and looked hard into his son’s eyes. There was strength there, the strength of generations of Lanconian kings. “When I wanted Anne, I wanted her. I would have stolen her in the night if the English king had denied me her. Does Jura feel the same as you?”
Rowan could remember the passion with which she returned his kisses. “Yes,” he said. “It is the same.”
“I don’t want to hear how you met her. She was, no doubt, where she should not have been, which is like Jura. Oh, my son, why couldn’t you have loved Cilean? Jura is a problem. She is as hotheaded as her brother, and as angry as her mother. The girl’s mother tried to threaten me into marrying her after she gave birth to Geralt. To punish me she married my most loyal man, Johst, and made his life hell.”
Thal paused, resting his voice and his mind. “If I give Jura to you, it will cause many problems. Cilean will become your enemy, and the Irials love Cilean and they would hate you for dishonoring this beloved woman. And Jura is promised in marriage to—”
“Promised?” Rowan gasped.
“Yes,” Thal answered. “She is to marry the son of Brita who is the leader of the Vatells. It would not do to anger Brita.”
Rowan’s mouth dropped open. “A woman is the leader of a tribe?” He was to conquer a woman? Did these Lanconians expect him to meet her in hand-to-hand combat?
Thal smiled at his son. “She uses her brain where we men use our backs. She has been the leader since her husband was killed. Brita already hates the Irials, me and my issue in particular, and it would not do to further enrage her. You are going to have a difficult enough time with the people who support Geralt. Cannot you reconsider and marry Cilean? Or someone else perhaps? Jura is—”
“The one I want,” Rowan said flatly, his jaw set rigid.
Thal gave a deep sigh. “There is a way.”
“I will take it.”
“She might lose. You might lose both Jura and Cilean.”
“If it is a fight, I will meet the challenge.”
“It will not be your fight but Jura’s,” Thal said, then began to explain. “Lanconian women have always been strong. They protect their men’s backs in battle. They protect themselves when the men are away. It has always been good to have a strong wife, and at one time a man could choose a wife through an Honorium.”
“Which is?” Rowan asked.
“It’s rather like your English tournament, only the women are the participants.”
“The women joust?” Rowan asked, incredulous.
“No, they have contests of skill, shooting, javelin tossing, running, leaping a bar, wrestling, there are many contests. The winner wins the man who has called the Honorium.”
Before Rowan could speak, Thal took his son’s hand. “An invitation must go out to all the tribes when the king is involved. Jura is young and has never been in a battle. You do not know how she will react in a contest. She could very well lose.” He paused. “As could Cilean.”
“It is a chance I will have to take.”
“You do not understand. Most of our guardswomen are beautiful, but the other tribes, to show their contempt for the Irial king, will send women who are beasts.” Thal’s lip curled. “You have never seen an Ulten woman. They are filthy creatures who are sly and dishonest. They will steal your hair while you sleep if they can find a buyer. And Brocain will send someone hideous, no doubt. I have oxen smaller and better looking than Zerna women. Think what you are doing, boy, and take Cilean. She is beautiful and—”
“Would you have dared an Honorium to win my mother?”
“Yes,” Thal said softly. “I would have dared anything when I was young and my blood was boiling at the sight of her.”
“My blood boils for Jura,” Rowan answered firmly. “Call the Honorium.”
Thal nodded. “It will be done, but stay away from her. Let no one know of your intention to win her. You do not know what anger you will stir up if you slight Brita’s son. I will say the Honorium is to show your intention of being fair to all the tribes. All the tribes will have a chance to put a queen on the throne. Now, you must go. Send Siomun to me so that I may announce the Honorium.”
“I thought perhaps you would like to see your daughter and your grandson.”
Thal’s eyes widened. “Lora? The infant girl I left behind? She is with you?”
“Yes, and she brought her son Phillip. He’s a clever child.”
“Not as clever as you were as a child, I’ll wager,” Thal said, smiling. “Yes, do send them in. I just pray Lora wants no unsuitable man.”
Rowan smiled. “I don’t think so, although she seems somewhat taken with Xante.”
Thal laughed until he began to cough. “That ol’ war horse? Ah, that would be a good match. He has never been married and it would take a woman of great fire to melt his old heart.”
“Lora can do it if anyone can.” Rowan rose, then on impulse lifted his father’s hand and kissed it. “I regret…I regret that—”
“No!” Thal said sharply. “No regrets. You are what I prayed every night you would be: you are of no tribe. You are a Lanconian king who has loyalty to no particular tribe. You can unite the country. I just hope the wife by your side—No, no regrets. Send my daughter to me, and the boy.”
“Yes, my father,” Rowan said, and started to leave the room.
“Son,” Thal called, “get Siomun to give you some proper clothes so you won’t look like an Englishman.”
Rowan nodded and left the room.
Outside Thal’s room, Rowan leaned against the dark stone wall and closed his eyes, feeling the enormity of the burden of faith his father was placing on him. He had always thought he was to be king of a single country, but now he found he was to unite six tribes who hated each other, six tribes who stole from each other, killed each other without guilt. He took a moment to pray for guidance from God. He would do the best he could and rely on God for help. And Jura, he thought, opening his eyes. Jura would be there to help him too. He made his way through the dark corridor and stopped when he heard Lora’s voice raised in anger, followed by Xante’s deep chuckle.
“If I may interrupt,” Rowan said, “our father would like to see you and Phillip and, Xante, could you find someone named Siomun for me?”
“Yes, my lord,” Xante said reverently, and walked away.
“First Siomun,” Rowan whispered, “then Jura.” He followed Xante, whistling.
Jura left the training field with regret but the young man who had come to her said she was needed urgently. It seemed odd that she was needed in the stables, but lately everything had been odd. Ever since Thal had sent for his English son, her world had turned upside down. She would go now and find out who wanted her, then she would find Geralt and offer him what comfort she could.
The stables were dark and empty of people
. She thought with disgust that now the Zerna could attack and win because of the disorganization of the Irial.
“Hello?” she called but no one answered. She drew her knife as her suspicions rose and began to creep slowly along the hall, her back to the horses’ stalls.
As cautious as she was, she was not prepared for the hand that shot out and clamped about her mouth. Another strong arm knocked the knife from her hand and she was pulled back into the darkness of a horse stall.
She began to struggle but, as if her strength were nothing, the man turned her about in his arms and clutched her body to his. Even though she couldn’t see his face in the darkness, her body told her it was him.
When his mouth swooped down on hers, she responded with all the passion she felt. Since yesterday she had told herself that her reaction to this handsome stranger was a fluke, something that could not happen again. It had been the time and the place. She had been lonely for Daire, and, too, when she saw the man, both of them had been half naked. It was no wonder she had reacted as she did. She had also minimized the passion she had felt. It was natural to feel so good at the kiss of such a good-looking man.
But Jura had forgotten her feelings by half. She had not remembered the way she felt in this man’s arms, the way her body weakened and quivered at his touch.
When he lifted his head, her arms were about his neck, her fingers entangled in his hair—and she wanted more of him.
“Jura,” he whispered, and his voice seemed to penetrate her. “We will be together now,” he murmured against her lips.
She opened her mouth against his, like a flower opening to a bee, wanting her pollen to be taken. Together meant making love, and she was ready for him. She did not think of the consequences or where they were. For all she cared, they could be in the midst of a banquet hall.
She opened her legs a bit, pressed her hips against his, and let him hold her upright as he supported her weight.