Softly she said, “You must first learn to forgive yourself.”
True to his name, Varqelle the Cowled wore a dark robe this night, its hood pulled up to shade his deep-set eyes. He stood at the barred window of his room and let gusts of wind ripple over his face. They had imprisoned him in an upper room of the Starlight Wing, one well appointed with heavy gold drapes and gilded furniture upholstered in wine-red brocade. Chandeliers glittered above, and urns painted with geometric patterns held sprays of ferns. An echo-dove harp with gold strings stood in one corner.
It was still a cell.
The door rattled behind him. He turned to see its ornate gold knob turn. The door opened, leaving a tall, dark-haired man with a scar on his neck framed in its archway.
Jarid. The mad king.
He walked into the room, the gusts from the window molding his violet shirt to his muscular torso. Six guards came with him, a hexagon. He stopped a few paces from Varqelle and they stood taking each other’s measure, both of them the same height, their gazes level.
Varqelle pushed back his hood, letting the wind pull at the gray-streaked hair he had tied in a warrior’s knot on his neck. He felt darkness closing around him. Soon he would die. But he would go to his execution with his pride intact.
His gaze remained firm. “My greetings, Your Majesty.”
“And to you, Your Majesty,” Jarid rumbled.
Varqelle had no desire to exchange pleasantries with his captor. “Then it is time for the execution?”
For a long moment Jarid watched him. Finally he spoke in a dusky voice. “My men will take you to a holding in the Barrens. You will spend your life as a prisoner there.”
He knew then that Jarid Dawnfield truly was mad. But he said only, “You are generous.”
“Perhaps,” Jarid said. “If you give me cause to reconsider, you will die.”
“I shall give you no such reason,” Varqelle lied. Jarid seemed painfully young.
The king inclined his head. “Good eve, Your Majesty.”
“And to you, Your Majesty.”
After Jarid took his leave, Varqelle went to the window and resumed studying the countryside around Aronsdale. For the first time since yesterday morning, when Jarid had brought down the castle towers with the sheer force of his mage power, he felt hope.
Varqelle had wrestled with escape plans, but none had offered any realistic chance of success. Now Jarid had changed all that. The boy was compassionate, yes. He was also a fool. Compassion weakened a person. Varqelle would never have let his enemy live. He had no doubt he would be imprisoned and well guarded, with no means of escape, especially in the desolate reaches of the northern Barrens.
But nothing was impossible, not as long as he lived.
He put his hand on the bars of his prison. Someday, somehow, even if it took decades, he would regain Harsdown, if not for himself, then for his son.
The morning of the memorial service dawned cold and gray. Chime and Muller stood at the peak of Mount Sky with Jarid, Iris, the King’s Advisors, Chime’s maids, Aria and Reed, and Muller’s valet, Sam. King Varqelle stood in the midst of eight guards, his face somber.
They had waited ten days for the emissaries to return from Stonce. Anvil’s parents came with them, an elderly couple. They did have a relation to the Dawnfield line, though they hadn’t known; the names on their family tree suggested Anvil’s great-grandfather had been the brother of Jarid’s great-grandmother. The man had dallied with a girl in Stonce and a child came of that union. The mother knew too little about the father to find him, but they had recorded him in their family scroll, Seaborn Knoll, a name rare enough in landlocked Aronsdale to have been Jarid’s forbearer. Mage gifts could remain latent for decades, even centuries, before they manifested again.
Anvil’s parents had searched for years, praying they would find him or that he would return. Mercifully none of their other children had suffered as Anvil. Several showed signs of mage ability, but no full-fledged gifts.
Muller had unlocked the spell binding the ashes, and now Anvil’s father held the urn that housed them. They wept for his loss, but Chime also felt their closure; finally, after twenty years, they knew what had happened and could properly mourn their son.
When the service ended, Chime had a sense of release. They had survived this war. The recovery wouldn’t be easy. She couldn’t imagine governing Harsdown, but Jarid’s confidence buoyed her. Even more startling, his advisors agreed with him that she and Muller should go to Harsdown.
So much had changed in her life. Yet she regretted none of it. The morning had come.
39
Epilogue
Chime sat at an octagonal table on the veranda of her home, going over the newly inked scrolls with Quill, her Pyramid-Secretary. She practiced the words of her speech. “Creating Guilds here, as we have in Aronsdale, will help establish more reasonable wages for everyone.”
“They surely need some standard,” Quill said. “They pay almost as much in taxes as they earn.”
“Aye. They must be lowered.” They couldn’t keep taxing the people at this rate, but the treasury was empty, drained by the war. “All these changes will take time.”
“I do think so.” Quill continued working on the parchment, inking the words Chime had given her. This evening, Chime would go over the speech, preparing for her meeting tomorrow with leaders from the surrounding towns.
She gazed past the porch columns to the gardens and beyond those to the orchards. Two sphere-lieutenants patrolled the gardens; another stood at the other end of the veranda, tall and strong in his uniform. She was becoming used to them. Before going to Suncroft, she had never realized how much privacy a sovereign relinquished.
Had someone asked the carefree girl dashing through the orchard a few years ago if she could imagine herself leading a country, Chime would have laughed and run on her way. She missed those days; they warmed her memories like sun on a field of wheat. She had enjoyed her childhood—but now she wanted purpose to her life. She wouldn’t give up this life. Even more astonishing, she was finding resources within herself to achieve goals she had once believed far beyond her abilities.
A door creaked behind her. She turned to see Muller walk out onto the veranda, carrying Melody, their daughter. The baby was fast asleep, snug in a white gown and knitted white socks with blue ribbons. Muller settled on the wicker swing and beckoned to his wife.
Glancing up, Quill saw Muller. She smiled at Chime. “It will take me a while to copy your report.”
“Thank you, Quill.” Chime went to Muller, settling next to him on the swing. As it rocked back and forth, he handed her the sleeping baby, who was barely five months old. Melody stirred in her arms, her eyes closed, her face turning toward her mother. She rubbed her lips against Chime’s tunic, searching out her breast.
“Little beauty,” Chime cooed as she opened her tunic and began to nurse. She drew her scarf around over her arms, veiling the suckling baby.
“Her mother is a beauty, too,” Muller murmured. “But you look pensive today.”
“We so rarely get to rest.” She cradled Melody. “Times like these are precious.”
He touched the baby’s head with that tenderness he showed only her and their child. “Yes.”
For a while they sat, enjoying the moment. They had moved their household to Harsdown three months ago, two months after the birth of their daughter, a girl with wisps of gold hair. Neither Chime nor Muller had wished to live in the stark halls of Castle Escar; instead, they had come here, to a southern estate with farmlands and orchards.
Aided by advisors and assistants, they spent their days learning Harsdown. It caught Chime by surprise when Varqelle’s staff began to help them. She had expected resentment, even hatred. And some reacted that way. But Varqelle had been a hard master, unforgiving and unrelenting in his ruthless drive, a king who followed the ways of his predecessors, driving the country further into poverty. Some of his staff welcomed the change.
>
They were establishing a program to help farmers improve crop yields. Muller was training and recruiting a new army, one led by Aronsdale officers. Chime would establish Guilds and schools. So much had to be done.
But for these few moments, they could relax.
Muller pulled out the cord with the dented ring from under his vest. “We must visit your family so I can return this to Drummer.”
“Knowing it saved your life has meant so much to him.” Chime thought fondly of her brothers and grinned. “Apparently he hasn’t let Hunter hear the end of it.”
“You don’t think it bothers them to know I am a mage?”
“Not at all.”
“Perhaps someday I will become used to it.” He paused. “I started a fire in the hearth today.”
Chime recognized his hesitation. “Was that what you intended?”
He reddened. “Actually, no. I wanted light. But at least this time I didn’t damage anything.”
“I’m glad.”
“So was Skylark. Relieved, anyway.” His lashes lowered halfway as he regarded her. “You look lovely, sitting there.”
“So do you.” She did truly enjoy the sight of him, dapper in gold and russet silk, his long legs clad in fine leggings, his white silk shirt covered by a brocaded gold vest. Sam Threadman had come with them, as dedicated as ever to fussing over Muller. Her husband had changed a great deal, but he was still the best dressed man she knew.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” he asked.
“Like what?”
“As if I am a delectable morsel you plan to eat.”
Chime laughed softly. “Ah, Muller, you do truly fill my days full of charmed light.”
His face gentled. “And you heal my shapes, love.”
So they sat together. The future they faced wouldn’t be easy, setting a course for a restive, impoverished country. But whatever labors lay ahead, their intertwined lives and love would make it worthwhile.
THE CHARMED SPHERE
ISBN: 978-1-4268-0618-6
Copyright © 2004 by Catherine Asaro
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Catherine Asaro, The Charmed Sphere
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