Star of the Morning

  There were times she suspected she should have.

  An older lad, one who looked as if he spent far more time thinking about heroic tales than determining how he might become a part of them by some time spent in the lists, stopped by the door and turned back to Nicholas.

  “I know the prophecy, my lord,” he said quietly.

  Nicholas remained seated in his chair, resting his chin on his steepled fingers. “The prophecy?”

  “Queen Mehar’s prophecy about the Sword of Angesand.”

  “I imagine you do, lad.”

  “I can recite it for you—”

  Morgan was about to tell him not to bother, but Nicholas beat her to it.

  “Not tonight, my son. I’ve a guest, don’t you see, and you need to be abed.”

  “I could speculate,” the lad offered.

  Nicholas rose slowly and walked over to stand by the door. “In the end, my son, unless you are intimately involved in either the doing of the deeds or the making of the tales, it is naught but speculation. And since we are neither, we should leave the speculating to others and retire to our beds before our nerves are overworked.” He held the door open pointedly. “Good night, Harding’s son. Have a peaceful sleep.”

  “And to you, my lord,” the lad said, then unwillingly made his way from the chamber.

  Nicholas closed the door and turned to look at Morgan. “You came.”

  Morgan rose and looked at him narrowly. “Your missive said to hurry. I feared you were dying.”

  Nicholas laughed merrily and enveloped Morgan in a fatherly embrace. “Ah, Morgan,” he said, pulling back, kissing her soundly on both cheeks, then drawing her across to sit upon his exceptionally comfortable settee, “I’m not dead yet. What a pleasure to see you.”

  Morgan scowled at him as she sat. “You asked me to come.”

  “Did I?” he said, sinking down into an equally comfortable chair.

  “It sounded as if your trouble required my immediate attention.”

  “And so it does,” he said with a smile. “But not tonight. Tonight you will eat, then go to your rest. We’ll speak of other things tomorrow.”

  “My lord—”

  “Tomorrow, my girl.”

  She frowned fiercely at him. “I made great haste away from a very lucrative bit of business, simply because you called. I’ve hardly slept in a se’nnight for worry that I might arrive too late and find you dead. I daresay I deserve to at least know why you wanted me here!”

  He smiled. “Is it not enough for an old man to simply wish to see the daughter of his heart?”

  Morgan felt a sudden and very uncomfortable burning begin behind her eyes. She rubbed them to ease the stinging and to give herself time to recapture her frown. She was better off in a pitched battle. She did not do well with these kinds of sentimental utterings.

  “A pleasant visit does not seem a good reason to me,” she managed finally.

  “Doesn’t it?” he asked kindly. “A pleasant visit, a se’nnight of comfort, a chance for me to make sure you’re still alive?”

  “I suppose,” she conceded, but she wasn’t sure she agreed. She did not need the luxurious surroundings she found herself in. She did not need the affection of a man who had taken her in as a scraggly, snarling, uncivilized lass who had been accustomed to sleeping with a dagger under her pillow and holding her own against men three times her age. She did not ever dwell with pleasure on those many years in Nicholas’s care when he taught her of letters and numbers and the quiet beauty of the seasons changing from year to year.

  She also did not think on him each time she drew the sword at her side, the glorious sword he’d had made for her and adorned with gems from his own personal treasury.

  “Morgan?”

  “Aye, my lord?”

  “What were you thinking on?”

  She sighed deeply. “I was contemplating my condition as an appallingly ungrateful wretch.”

  Nicholas laughed. “I daresay not. There is a chapel nearby, my dear, which you may use on the morrow for your penance. For now, fill this old man’s ears with your adventures. We’ll speak about other business tomorrow.”

  Morgan lifted her eyebrows. “Other business? Is that why you sent for me, in truth?”

  “Tomorrow.”

  Morgan shot him a final, disgruntled look that he completely ignored, then she relented, and sat back against his dreadfully comfortable couch to give him the tales he wanted.

  She told him of her travels, leaving out the more unsavory encounters. She told him of the places on the island she’d seen, the wonders she’d seen come in on ships at port, the tidy sums she’d earned.

  “Obviously not of late,” Nicholas said dryly, casting a look at her clothes. “A rough year so far, I’d say.”

  “Not the most profitable,” Morgan agreed.

  “I told you the last time you were here, my child, to marry one of Harding’s sons, not fight the man’s battles for him. He is notoriously stingy.”

  “Only because you’ve coerced so many donations out of him, my lord.”

  “Goodness,” Nicholas said with a laugh, “you’ve been too many years out of polite company. Although it is all too true about the funds, we usually don’t like to bring it up. Now you realize I have Harding’s youngest here. He’s a handsome lad.”

  “He’s likely half my age.”

  “But he is rich.”

  “Was rich,” she corrected. “I hazard a guess he will be less rich still once you’re through with him—”

  A discreet knock prevented her from discussing with Nicholas his extortionary techniques. Soon she found herself with a hearty repast sitting atop a table before her. Nicholas invited her to help herself, which she did without hesitation. It had been, after all, a rather lean autumn. Nicholas watched her thoughtfully as she ate.

  “You know,” he said casually, “there are richer prizes farther afield.”

  Morgan stopped chewing and looked at him. “What?”

  “There are nine kingdoms, Morgan, my dear. The last time I checked, those nine kingdoms contained at least nine kings. I would imagine that any of them would be more than happy to pay you quite handsomely to raise your sword in his defense.”

  Morgan continued to chew. When she thought she could swallow successfully, she applied herself to her goblet of wine. “I don’t fancy traveling,” she said with conviction—the conviction of one who truly did not enjoy traveling.

  “A pity,” Nicholas said, admiring his own wine in the hand-blown glass goblet. “Gold, silver, renown. Glorious deeds.” He looked at her placidly. “Hard to resist.”

  “And yet I manage,” she said. “What are you about in truth, old man? I’ve resigned myself to a decent meal and pleasant conversation, but I only find one of the two here.”

  Nicholas smiled. “Finish your meal, my dear, then get yourself to bed. We’ll speak on other things tomorrow. You’ll stay for a bit, won’t you?”

  “Perhaps,” she said, but she knew she didn’t dare. Too many nights with her head on a soft goose-feather pillow and the rest of her under an equally soft goose-feather duvet would completely ruin her for hard labor.

  “However long you can manage will be long enough,” he said enigmatically. “Eat some more, Morgan. You’re too thin.”

  She ate her fill, ate a bit more just in case, then sat back with a cup of the orphanage’s finest and savored polite conversation for a bit. She and Nicholas spoke of the weather, of the harvest, of his garden that still produced a very fine grape even past the hard frost. Morgan learned of new lads who had come to be sheltered and of older lads who had come to study, then gone on to make their way in the world. All of it perfectly normal; all of it unremarkable and secure. It eased her heart.

  All but the part of her heart that knew such peace was not to be hers for long.

  She thanked Nicholas for the meal, bid him a good night, and walked with him to the door. He put his hands on her shoulders, then kissed both h
er cheeks. “A good sleep to you, daughter. You’ll need it before you start your next journey.”

  “My next journey?” she asked blankly.

  “Aren’t you going on a journey?”

  Ah, so this was where it lay, apparently. “I don’t know. Am I, my lord?”

  “An assumption, my dear,” Nicholas said easily. “Sleep in peace tonight.”

  Morgan wondered if he had lost his wits, or it was that a decent meal and promise of a gloriously comfortable bed had robbed her of hers. She frowned at him, thanked him again kindly for his hospitality, then escaped his chambers before he could say anything else unsettling.

  She had hardly made it ten steps from his solar when she was accosted by a voice from the shadows.

  “My lady.”

  Morgan stopped and sighed. “I’m not your lady. I’m just Morgan.”

  “My lady Morgan.” The lad from Nicholas’s solar stepped out from the shadows.

  He stood there, Harding’s youngest son, squirming uncomfortably until he finally gained control enough of his gangly limbs to stop and look at her. Morgan was not given to shifting, having earned her own measure of self-control on the other side of Melksham Island where self-control was a particularly important subject to learn, but there was something about the moment that left her with an almost uncontrollable urge to rub her arms.

  She managed not to. “Aye, lad?” she asked.

  “Lord Nicholas won’t speak to me about it,” the young man whispered, “but I’ve heard rumors.”

  “Rumors are dangerous.”

  Apparently not dangerous enough to deter him. He leaned closer to her. “I heard,” he whispered conspiratorially, “that the king of Neroche has lost his power.”

  She felt her eyebrows go up of their own accord. “Indeed. And where did you hear that?”

  “I eavesdropped on Lord Nicholas while he was discussing it.”

  Morgan waved aside his words. “He worries overmuch.”

  “I don’t think so. ’Tis rumored the king also searches for a warrior of mighty stature to wield a sword for him.” He paused, looked about him as if an enemy might be listening in, then leaned closer to her. “The Sword of Angesand,” he whispered.

  She blinked in surprise. “The what?”

  “The Sword of Angesand. It was fashioned by Mehar of Angesand, who wove into it—”

  “Aye, I know all about it,” Morgan interrupted. That was all she needed, to have to listen to another of Nicholas’s romantic and completely unsuitable tales while outside his solar. At least inside she had a warm fire to distract her. Here she only had a skinny, trembling lad who couldn’t have been more than ten-and-two, who was making her cold just by looking at him.

  “Go to bed,” she ordered, “and forget what you’ve heard. The king is well. Indeed, all is well. I would say that listening to too many of Nicholas’s stories has worked a foul work upon you.”

  The lad hesitated.

  Morgan nodded firmly toward the dormitories. The lad nodded in unison with her, looking only slightly less miserable than before. He cast her one last desperate look before he turned and disappeared into the darkness.

  Morgan snorted to herself. Rumor and hearsay. The lad was confusing fact with the stuff of Nicholas’s evening’s entertainment.

  She put the matter out of her mind and sought her chamber, finding it just as she had left it two years earlier. Indeed, it looked just as it had for the six years she’d called it her own. She hadn’t used it very often since going on to make her way to other places, but each time she’d returned, she had found it thusly prepared for her. She leaped into her bed with a guilty abandon she would regret in a se’nnight’s time when she was reduced to rough blankets near a weak fire. She closed her eyes and promised herself a good, long march through bitter chill at some point in the future as penance.

  But not tonight.

  The king has lost his magic.

  It couldn’t be true. Morgan rolled over and pulled the covers up over her ears. The king of Neroche was as full of vile magic as ever, the Nine Kingdoms were safe, and she was indulging in a guilty pleasure she rarely allowed herself.

  Surely all was well.

  Two

  The next morning found Morgan not in her warm, deliciously soft bed under an equally delightful goose-down duvet, nor banging on Nicholas’s door demanding answers as she had briefly contemplated, but in a cold, drafty chamber of scrolls where a sharp-eyed, suspicious man made noises of disapproval each time she unrolled a scroll or turned a leaf. He complained even more bitterly each time she dared ask for something else.

  And it was barely dawn.

  After a terrible night’s sleep passed dreaming of swords and darkness and skirmishes against things one did not normally find on the field of battle, she had descended into the bowels of the university where she had hoped to find something to ease her mind about the state of affairs in the kingdom of Neroche.

  She realized, with a start, that she was resting her chin on her fist and staring at the shelves of manuscripts without really seeing them. She shook her head to clear it, then rose and wandered about the chamber until she found herself standing before a large book. It had been set in a place apparently built exactly for it, for it fit in its niche with neither too much nor too little room.

  Morgan looked at the keeper of records. He was beginning to wheeze, which she took as a sign she might be standing near something quite interesting. She raised one eyebrow in challenge.

  “You cannot,” he squawked, finally.

  “Master Dominicus, I am only taking it over to the table to read it. I am not putting it in my pack to then sell off to the highest bidder the moment I can escape through the front gates.”

  He hopped down off his stool and strode over to her. He frowned fiercely. “I, at least, will carry it to your place. Have you washed your hands?”

  “I haven’t eaten anything to dirty them.”

  “Then perhaps you should—and return later.”

  “I’ll manage without, thank you.”

  He frowned a bit more, then carefully and with great ceremony removed the book from its place and carried it over to the table. He set it down reverently, then he spun around and glared at her.

  “Do not tear the pages.”

  “I wouldn’t dare.”

  He watched her as she sat, then hovered over her until she slowly drew a dagger from her belt and very carefully set it down next to her. Then she looked up at him pointedly. He scowled, but retreated to his seat with all the dignity he could likely muster, under the circumstances.

  Morgan looked at the book before her, then carefully and with a terrible sense of inevitability, opened the cover and turned over the first leaf.

  The Tale of the Two Swords.

  She should have known.

  She sighed and began to read it again. But this time, however, she found herself reading the tale of Queen Mehar and King Gilraehen with a new eye, ignoring the romance that seemed to be slathered all over the story at every opportunity, and finding that there were several details she had missed.

  She’d known that Mehar had forged her sword with her own hands and laid upon it many enchantments. That the queen had possessed the wherewithal to make such a thing left Morgan with warm feelings toward her; that she apparently knew how to use it as well was another thing to like about her. Mehar had been rumored to be a spectacular horsewoman as well as a lover of all things bright and sharp. Morgan supposed she could even forgive the woman her dabblings in magic for those two things.

  Morgan hadn’t remembered, however, that Mehar had possessed the magic of Camanaë. Even she had heard enough of Nicholas’s tales over the years to know that Camanaë was a powerful matriarchal magic—one that Lothar had been from the beginning determined to eradicate. If that was the magic that Mehar had bound into her sword, it was powerful indeed.

  Morgan was half surprised that the blade still existed. One would have thought Lothar would have mad
e a special effort to find that sword, or steal it or destroy it.

  She mused about that possibility for several moments. What would happen, she wondered, if the sword were destroyed? Would Neroche cease to be or would it merely limp on in a crippled fashion?

  She wasn’t sure she wanted to know.

  She continued to read about Harold the Brave, Uisdean the Wise, Edan the Fearless. She continued on through the years, finishing with King Anghmar and his lady wife Queen Desdhemar. It was his son, Adhémar, who sat the throne at present. The line of kings had always retained some bit of magic, some more, some less, but always enough to keep Lothar at bay.

  Where the current king stood on matters of magic, she couldn’t have said. She knew nothing of him save his name, and that only because she could not be in a battle where she did not either fight alongside or against half a dozen men whose parents had obviously thought his name to be a good one for their own sons. But of the king himself, she knew little. She had troubles enough of her own without adding to them things he should have been seeing to himself.

  She sat back and sighed, wondering if she had the stomach to read through any more histories of any of the other kingdoms who were so dependent on the strength of Neroche. Watching the world unfold before her eyes was wearying.

  She turned the leaves back toward the beginning, glancing idly at pieces of history, wondering how it had been for those who had gone before and done such glorious deeds—The Wielders of the Sword of Angesand will come, out of magic, out of obscurity, and out of darkness . . .

  Morgan went still. That was part of Mehar’s prophecy, but what could it mean? That there were three poor, unfortunate souls predestined to carry a sword so magical that all sensible souls would flee from it? She pitied any who found themselves so burdened. At least she would never find herself in such terrible straits.

  She closed the manuscript before it could trouble her further, rose, and nodded politely to Master Dominicus. “I will be on my way now,” she announced.