Liar's Oath

  “—Just before your dear father died,” Lady Dorhaniya said. “I don’t expect you remember it. They closed the summer palace, and I suppose you went somewhere else.”

  She could not know where “somewhere else” had been—to someone like her, the closing of one palace meant the opening of another. His mind, running ahead on its own track, tripped on the memory of “—your dear father died,” and came back to the present. “He died after that—not long after that?”

  “Yes, that’s what I was saying. Before Sunturning, it was, and then Lorthin took the throne, and sent my dear husband into exile for a time. So of course I wouldn’t have been to the summer palace even had it been open.”

  “What—” His mouth had dried; he swallowed and tried again. “Did you know my mother—I mean, her name?”

  “You don’t remember—? Oh—yes; they sent her away when you were just walking. Her name… no, I don’t… but she was a comely lass, never fear. Darker haired than your father, but with red in it; that’s where you got the red highlights in your hair, and your eyes are more like hers. Your face is his, brow, cheek and chin.”

  That didn’t help; she seemed to realize it, for she made one of the meaningless comforting sounds old ladies make, and reached to pat his knee. “There, young man—young prince, I should say, for you alone survive of the royal blood, though it won’t do you much good. You’ve nothing to fear in my memories of you…”

  But I do, he thought, feeling himself squeezed between intolerable and conflicting realities. Already I have much to fear from you, and I can’t even tell what it is . . but I feel it. “I… don’t remember much,” he said with difficulty. Even as he said it, details he had forgotten for years poured into his mind as pebbles from a sack, each distinct. Yet it was not a lie, for he could not remember what he most wanted to at the moment, what this old woman had looked like, which of the many noblewomen she had been. He could not remember what she remembered; he had nothing to share, no memories that would make sense to her.

  “I expect you remember more than you want, sometimes,” she said, surprising him again. He had scant experience of old women, and none of his own background; when he met her eyes, they seemed filled with secret laughter, not unkind. “Most men remember the bad things; my husband, to the day he died, remembered being thrashed for riding his father’s horse through a wheatfield near harvest. Yet in his family he had the reputation of being a rollicking lad no punishment could touch. You look now as you did then—sensitive enough to feel a word as much as a blow. That’s why I thought, perhaps, my memories could help you. Show you the way you seemed to others—”

  “No!” It got past his guard, in a choked whisper; then he clamped his lips tight. Tears stung his eyes. He swallowed, unlocked his jaw, and managed to speak in a voice nearly his own. “I’m sorry, Lady Dorhaniya, but—that’s over. It’s gone. I don’t—don’t think about it—”

  She sat upright, her lips pursed, her expression unreadable. Then, as if making a decision, she nodded gravely and went on. “Prince, you cannot put it aside that way. It’s true, the world has changed; you have no throne, and no royal family to sponsor you. But you must know your past, and make it your own, or you cannot become whatever Esea means for you.”

  The god’s name startled him; he started to say that he was no worshipper of the Sunlord, but stopped himself. Instead, he said, “I swore that I would give up all thought of kingship.”

  She nodded briskly. “Quite right, too. Pursuing such a claim could only bring trouble to the land and people. And you have had no training for kingship. But this does not mean that Esea has no path lighted for you.”

  Luap shrugged, easing tight shoulders. “As Gird’s chronicler, scribe, assistant… it seems clear to me that this is my task.” Listening to himself, even he could hear the lack of completion; he was not surprised when she shook her head.

  “For now, prince. For now, that is your task, and see that you do it in the Sun’s light! But you have more to do—and don’t laugh at an old woman, thinking me silly with age.” For an instant, she looked almost fierce, white hair and all, though he had not laughed, even inside. “You have a position no one else can share: you are the royal heir, though you have no throne. But you—and only you—can lead your own people—”

  “Which of my people?” Luap asked irritably. She was beginning to sound like the Autumn Rose, and he had a sudden vision of that dire lady in old age, still pursuing his irresolution with her own certainty.

  That got him a long straight stare; he could feel his face reddening. “That,” she said severely, “was unworthy of you. You know quite well I meant your father’s folk, the mageborn. I would have thought Arranha would have spoken to you…”

  “He has,” said Luap, suddenly as disgusted with himself as she seemed to be. “He and the Autumn Rose both. I am supposed to do something—but no one can tell me what, or how, or even more how to do it without breaking my oath to Gird—” And the gods. Sweat came out on him. What kind of leadership could he give, without using magery he had sworn not to use? What kind of leadership without usurping Gird’s authority?

  “Of course no one can tell you,” Lady Dorhaniya said tartly. “You are the prince; you inherited the royal magery—oh yes, I have heard that, too. As the prince, the Sunlord’s light is yours, do you choose to ask such guidance. Have you?”

  To such a question only a direct answer was possible. “No, lady,” said Luap, sweating. He had had a child’s knowledge of the gods when he was sent away; after that, among peasants, he could not have worshipped the Sunlord even if he’d wanted to. He had not wanted to; he had been abandoned by his father and his father’s god, and he would not pay homage to either of them.

  “Well, you should. Esea knows you had a poor enough childhood, with that prune-stuffed steward and whatever happened after your father died, but the fact remains that you are what you are, and unless you learn to be that, you’re as dangerous as a warsteed in the kitchen.” She looked around for her servant, and then hitched herself forward. Luap rose and offered his arm. “Yes—I must be going. I’ve said too much too soon, it may be. But your father, prince, had more sense than his brothers; somewhere in your head you have it. I suggest you ask the Sunlord’s aid, and soon.” Then she stopped again. “And who is this Autumn Rose you mentioned?” That he could answer. “A mageborn lady, a warrior from Tsaia, who joined Gird’s army after—”

  “Oh, her. The king-killer. Some nonsense about her having been involved with the king before his marriage.” Lady Dorhaniya sniffed. “She was a wild girl, willful, always storming off about this and that. It’s one thing to learn weaponlore, if you’ve the strength and stomach for it, and another to be starting quarrels just to have the chance of settling them. Not that the prince—later the king— wasn’t as bad, for he loved to watch her flare out at things. So she’s calling herself Autumn Rose, is she?” From her tone, that was just more foolishness.

  “Do you know her name from before?”

  The old lady’s eyes twinkled in mischief. “Of course I do, but if she hasn’t told even Gird, why should I tell you? I doubt she has much family left to be embarrassed, but it’s her business, silly as she is.” Luap could not imagine anyone thinking Autumn Rose silly. Dangerous and difficult, but not silly. “You might just tell her it sounds more like a title than a name.”

  Luap grinned. It had not occurred to him that the old lady would have known the Autumn Rose, or, knowing her, might disapprove. She sounded as she might about an errant granddaughter. “I think of her as Rosemage,” he said. “Some call her that.”

  Another sniff. “It would not hurt either of you to ask Esea’s guidance,” she said. “You’ve no time for foolishness, either of you, at your ages.” Then, with a last nod, she left, leaning only slightly on Eris’s arm. Luap followed silently to the outer door, then climbed the stairs to his office. He felt even more unsettled than usual. Everyone wanted something from him, but none of them agreed on what i
t was. All the decisions he’d made so firmly, in good faith, seemed to be coming apart, unravelling in his hands like rotting rope.

  Chapter Three

  Through the hottest days of summer, Luap kept to his work. Gird wanted copies of the newest version of the Code spread widely by late harvest; he asked no more about Luap’s real father, only about how the copying proceeded. Aside from the heat, the work suited Luap well. He could concentrate his mind on accuracy, on the precise flavor of a phrase, on Gird’s intention and its best expression. He had little time for memory, though he found forgotten courtesies creeping into his speech. “It’s that old lady, eh?” asked Gird. Luap agreed it probably was, or perhaps Arranha. He tried not to think about it, and claimed his work prevented visiting Dorhaniya until he’d finished the Code. It was safer not to think of it, to submerge himself in Gird’s plans, to become, if he could, the eldest son or younger brother that Gird so desperately needed.

  But at last the copying had been done, and in the cooler fall weather, he had more than an excuse to leave Fin Panir—he could best be spared to carry the copies to the larger granges, where more copies could be made to send elsewhere. So it was that on a dank autumn day he found himself peering along the bank of a stream for the overhanging rock and dark entrance to a certain cave.

  He did not let himself wonder why he chose not to stay overnight at Soldin, knowing he could not reach Graymere by sundown. When the chill autumn drizzle thickened to gusts of rain, he made for the cave directly. It was the only thing to do. It was logical, reasonable, and he did not have to manufacture an excuse.

  It bothered him slightly that he could think of making an excuse. He had legitimate business, Gird’s business, in Soldin and Graymere both. No one would have questioned his spending a night in the cave, even if anyone had seen him. The yeoman-marshal in Soldin had suggested that he stay the night there, but obviously saw nothing amiss in Gird’s luap choosing to press on, even in bad weather. Young and earnest, he expected such dedication in Gird’s personal staff.

  Luap had wondered if other travelers used the cave… surely they did. But on this dank, dripping evening no smoke oozed from the entrance, and no tethered mounts or draft teams snorted or stamped as he legged his own mount along the creek bank. A pile of blackened rocks marked a firepit, obviously in recent use—but not today. He would have it to himself, unless someone showed up later. He hoped no one would, but he was grateful to the previous users, who had stacked dry wood inside the entrance, out of the rain.

  He got his fire going, and went out to gather more wood to dry beside it. Someone had improved the path down to the creek, cutting steps and anchoring them with stone; the single plum he vaguely remembered had suckered into a thicket, now dropping their narrow leaves to the sodden ground. By the time he had found wood to replace what he expected to use, it was nearly dark.

  His wet cloak steamed as he set his traveling kettle to boil. So did his horse’s coat, and the smell of horse expanded, he thought, to fill the cave as well as his head. Wet wool, wet horse… almost as bad as the stench of their army, the last time. And then someone else had done the cooking. His head felt heavy, stuffed with thick smells and memories… including that final memory, of Gird’s fist against his skull. He ran his hands over his wet hair as if feeling for that old lump. There—it had been there, and another bruise on the other side, where he’d fallen against stone.

  He had eaten his soaked wheat and beans, and a lump of soggy bread that wrapping had not kept dry, had gone out into the fine rain to use the jacks he’d dug, and was back in the cave’s relative warmth and dryness, when he admitted to himself just why he had chosen that trail, that day, in that weather. Of course he didn’t expect anything to happen. He had had his revelation, first from the gods, and then from Gird: you are a king’s son, and (or but) you can’t be a king. One revelation to a lifetime, Gird had said after Greenfields, and would explain no more than that.

  But for Luap it had happened here, and he still did not understand it. As with the rest of his life, he had been shown something, a small glimpse of some mystery, and then it vanished. He had learned to hoard such glimpses, to keep them hidden deep in his mind, until he found another—and another—and could try to make them fit some pattern. He had learned, he realized, in all the ways Gird despised… that he himself despised, when he thought how he admired Gird… but ways he could not change. Not now. Gird had all the pieces of his pattern—had always had them. He had always known who he was, and what his place was, growing out of his own ground like a young tree. Luap had had sidelong looks, sly taunts, occasional brief phrases, whispers, suggestions, riddles. “Don’t you know, boy?” he remembered an older youth had asked once. “Only bastards don’t know who their fathers are.” The boy had been yanked away by someone in guards’ uniform, and disappeared; Luap never saw him again.

  He sat staring at the flames, ignoring the dancing shadows on the walls that shifted, bowed, straightened in answer to the flames’ movement. He had come back because… because he was going back in there, to the place where he got one straight answer, for once in his life, and might—no matter what Gird said—get another.

  But that means, one of his inner voices said, that you are not content to be Gird’s luap. Was that true? Alone in the cave, in the orange firelight, he let himself think about that. Feel about that. He did not resent Gird. Gird had won his heart, that first night, when he had had to confess his duplicity, when Gird had let him sob out the agony of loss. Gird had defended him against the other peasant leaders. And even the blow that felled him had been, he realized, justified. In the years since, he had come to believe that Gird, with all his peasant coarseness, all his human failings, had the intrinsic greatness of an ancient tree, or a mountain.

  Yet he did not want to be only a luap forever. He let himself remember, cautiously, his life before the war. His wife and children were long dead, their suffering ended. He would regret his treatment of them for the rest of his life… but that was in the past. Tonight… tonight, he would like to have had a woman beside him. A child leaning against his knee. A place where he, not Gird, was paramount. A kingdom, however small, in which to be king.

  Here, inside a whole mountain, on a black night of dripping rain, no one would see him use his power; no one could see his light. It could not be betrayal if no one knew. He felt his way to it cautiously, even here—a little light, just enough to see by—and his hands enclosed it, glowing. He felt the hairs rise on his arms. He could still do it; it had not vanished. Despite Arranha’s assurance that it would not, he had doubted. Around him, in the throat of the cave, the walls showed their stripes of gray and pink and brown. There was the ledge over which Gird had stumbled… there, the opening beyond.

  Gingerly, he edged toward it. The little chamber opened, then enclosed him, as if he completed it. Its walls held the same graved patterns he remembered, that Gird had traced with his thumb, that Luap had devoured with his eyes, trying to remember them. Spiral on spiral, coil in coil, lacing and interlacing. He turned, slowly, following the pattern… it felt strong, and meaningful, but he could not read it. A bad taste came into his mouth: another failure. On the chamber’s floor, curiously clean of dust, multicolored tesselations glowed in his light, inviting. A different pattern, in which color as well as line interacted, in which his eye was teased, frustrated, satisfied, and finally released with a snap that echoed in his head. He looked up. And up.

  He stood, not in the small bell-shaped chamber of the cave, but in a lofty hall, larger than the Lord’s Hall in Fin Panir, lit by unshadowed silverly light. He could see no windows, no source for the light. He stood on a pattern like that on which he began, but set on a raised dais large enough for a score to stand uncrowded. All his hair rose; cold chills shook him; his own pulse thundered in his ears.

  At last he could hear and see clearly again, only to find great silence and unmoving space about him. He did not want to speak, and risk waking whatever power held sway here,
but courtesy demanded some greeting. In his mind, he recited the opening phrases to the first ritual he remembered, something out of his childhood, the morning greeting to the Sunlord. Around him, unbroken silence changed its flavor from austerity to welcome. Was he imagining it? He took a slow, shuffling step forward, away from the pattern. Nothing. He was not sure what he half-expected, but he felt like a child exploring forbidden adult territory. For an instant, such a moment flashed before his eyes, a tower bedroom crowded with furniture, rich hangings, a bed piled with pillows, and the furious eyes, four of them, that glared at him before an angry voice rose and whirled him away on its own power.

  No. He was grown, and whoever that had been must have died in the war, if not before. He fought down the fear that trembled in his knees and walked forward, off the dais, across a pattern of black and white stones, to the high double arch that closed the end of the hall. Not truly closed, for he could see less brightly lit space beyond, but he didn’t want to walk under those arches. At the top of one, a harp and tree intertwined; on the other, a hammer and anvil. He shivered: he could not imagine a place where elves and dwarves would both choose to carve their holy symbols. He turned back.

  The dais, at that distance, seemed apt for a throne; he closed his eyes, and let himself imagine seeing one there, and himself— no, not on the throne, but walking up the hall toward it. His imagination peopled the hall with vivid colors, the richly dressed lords and ladies of his childhood. Music would fill the hall, harp and drum and pipe, and from that celebration no one would be sent away, solitary, to cry in the dark. His power prodded him from within, responding to some influence he could not directly sense.