Kings of the North (16 page)

Not the daughter of a devious, cruel king, whom he had long suspected of collusion with those who had killed Tammarion and their children, a king who had sent troops into Lyonya to kill him before he could even be crowned.

Before his Council could say anything, he went on. “Sier Belvarin, I trust you will locate suitable accommodation for the visitors. It would be discourteous to house the princesses anywhere but here, and their escorts or chaperons of rank, of course, but with the delegation from Prealíth—” diplomatic, not accompanied by any more marriageable girls, he hoped “—we must be sure we don’t end up with no room to move.” Dzordanya, that mysterious land, had as yet sent no one.

“Sire.” As he stood, they all stood.

“And don’t forget, we ride to hunt this morning. With so many visitors, we must have game.” He saw the looks they gave one another. Huntsmen could provide game—did, during the closed season—but could not accomplish his larger aim: reconciling humans and elves to one another. Even at informal breakfasts, and more in the formal councils, elves and humans were proving a difficult team to harness. The euphoria of finding a suitable king and crowning him had evaporated since his coronation, and years of distrust and bickering had formed habits he must, somehow, break.

B
y noon, Kieri was ready to smack heads together. His hope that good sport would overcome prejudice had proven too optimistic. The two groups of nobles, elves and men, mingled only when his eye was on them, and then only formally. When the red-and-black hounds scented game, the pale hounds were called off by the elven huntsman on the grounds that it was not the proper day for scenting: this was a day for gaze hunting only. They had said nothing about that upon setting out, and from their expressions were looking for an excuse to resent any questions he might ask. He did not ask.

When the pale hounds took off shortly after that, the red-and-black
hounds lay down instead of following. Kieri whirled to see the repeated signal by their huntsman.

“Whyfor?” Humans might resent his questions, but not so lethally as the elves.

“The pale hounds riot, my lord. My Cherry gave no tongue. I would not have them taught bad manners.”

“They saw something …”

“So
they
say.” The look the huntsman flashed toward the elf nobles who waited politely for the king to lead the chase was poisonous. “No
proper
hound can both scent and gaze.”

“Bide here, then, until I return,” Kieri said. The huntsman opened his mouth, but the look Kieri gave him shut it again. Kieri lifted his reins. “Come, gentlefolk,” he said in the pleasantest tone he could manage, and Oak broke to a gallop. Behind him, the soft thunder of hooves indicated that they’d all followed. They’d better, he thought. He would deal with the huntsman later.

Still, after the first stag fell to his arrow and the hunt settled to business, he felt it had not been a useless endeavor. Both packs of hounds ended up working together; some of the men and elves exchanged near-friendly banter along with compliments on a good shot or a handsome mount. The hunting party returned in late afternoon, followed by the pack ponies laden with enough game for what he was already calling—in his own mind only—“A Feast of Princesses.”

What mattered more than princesses were the two packs of hounds now trotting along side by side, the set of their ears and tails suggesting the kind of cooperation he’d hoped for. He glanced around. Though the bulk of the elves still rode to the left, the heart-side, and the bulk of the men still rode to the right, the sword-side, he saw man and elf chatting peaceably in the middle, both individuals and small groups. He hoped his father and sister would have approved.

O
nce back at the palace, he was immediately besieged by the Pargunese princess’s guardian, a sour-faced woman who declared herself Countess Settik. Complaint after complaint, starting with the baths.

“Barbaric,” she said. “
Tubs
, as if we were piles of dirty clothes! And so small. And dirty bits of weed thrown in!”

“Herbs,” Kieri said. “To scent the water.”

“At home,” she said, “we have
proper
baths. We don’t have to climb up steps and into cramped little tubs—we step down into heated pools where the water moves and is always fresh. It is an insult to guests to make them use what is nothing more than an oversized bucket. You must grant us the use of your bath. If you are ashamed to be seen as the gods made you, we can bathe at a different time, but I will not—not, I tell you—fold myself into that—that
article
again.”

“I use one,” Kieri said.

She sniffed. “I don’t believe you. No king would.”

“I do not know what your baths are like,” Kieri said firmly, “but everyone here uses a tub. If you insist, you may inspect my bathing room—”

He had not believed she would be so rude, but she did insist, complaining all the way to and from it of other indignities: being lodged across the hall from the princess instead of in an adjoining room, having no separate kitchen where food could be prepared under her own eyes. Kieri declined to inflict her on his own cooks. Nor did she approve of the King’s Squires Kieri had assigned to the princess Elis—all, he insisted, honorable women.

“They wear trousers,” the woman said. “And they bow instead of curtsy. It is unnatural.”

“It is required, when they are on duty,” Kieri said. The last of his patience vanished. “You must excuse me; I have urgent business.” She glared but let him go. He wondered if her husband was as difficult and suspected he was. It would take a difficult man to survive her.

Two princesses would take up the time of at least four King’s Squires each, day and night: two-thirds of the women on the list of Squires. He’d have to pull some in from other tasks—riding courier, for instance. He went into Garris’s office and found him scowling at the chart he’d made of King’s Squires and their assignments.

“It’s going to take eight King’s Squires, minimum, to keep a guard on both princesses.”

“I know,” Kieri said. “Plus mine—you’re sure you can’t cut that back?”

“You may be one of the two best blades in the kingdom, Kieri, but I’m not risking your life. Not until you’re married and your heir is shoulder-high.”

Kieri shook his head but didn’t argue. “So we’re tying up half the King’s Squires on palace duty … well, maybe the princesses won’t stay long once they figure out I’m not going to marry them. Her. Either one.”

“You might,” Garris said. “If you did, it might seal a peace with whichever—”

“And make an enemy of the other. No. Anyway, they’re just girls. Who’s where?”

“Of the women? Aulin’s been on duty with the Pargunese—her name is Elis—today. She says the girl’s very tense and frightened of something, so she asked to stay on tonight. She’ll need help tomorrow. Arian’s somewhere between Riverwash and here; she left three days ago with a message to the river guard. Binir should be on the way back from Prealíth. Lieth’s here, of course, and I can substitute men for the women in your rotation if that’s acceptable.”

“Certainly,” Kieri said. “At least for a while.” Once more he thought how comfortable he found the women Squires, with their easy competence. A pity they were all so young; he put that out of his mind, watching as Garris wrote out a new chart. “Do you need a clerk assistant, Garris?”

“No—not yet. When you get up to fifty Squires, then I will.”

“If more princesses show up at one time, it may come to that. When you’ve finished, come have supper with me—somewhere far away from the Pargunese girl’s dragon guardian. That woman is nothing like Hanlin at the coronation and much more like what I thought of as Pargunese.”

“Thank you,” Garris said. “A turn of the glass, maybe one and a half. How did the hunt go?”

“Very well. Ample game for a banquet tomorrow, and at least some of the hounds and people were mingling.”

“You can’t hurry things here, Kieri,” Garris said. Then, with a sly wink, “Except perhaps your finding a wife and getting an heir.”

Kieri rolled his eyes and made his way back to his bathing room. There, relaxing in his steaming tub of herb-scented water, he wondered about the Pargunese baths. How did they have hot pools
in winter? Did they have hot springs near the palace? But hot springs usually stank—surely they didn’t bathe in water that smelled like rotten eggs. Though that might explain their sour attitude.

He heaved himself up and submitted to Joriam’s pitcher of rinse water, then dried himself with towels warmed by the fire. His bath was fine enough—more luxurious than he’d had for most of his life. He did not need whatever it was the Pargunese woman thought better.

Though the evening began quietly enough eating supper with Garris, after supper he had to decide where the Kostandanyan princess and her retinue should be housed, and that meant conferences with half a dozen servitors. Twice the steward brought him demands from Countess Settik and once from the count, who wanted his horse moved to a different stall and all the Pargunese mounts fed only the oats carried on the Pargunese pack horses. Kieri called in the Master of Horse.

“We just put those oats in the bins—I can scoop out the top layer, but—”

“Put some oats in a separate barrel for the beasts and tell him those were his oats,” Kieri said. “Sprinkle a little salt on them, and the horses won’t know the difference. Neither will he.”

By then it was time to make his way upstairs and inspect the guest suite for the Kostandanyan princess—he’d decided to put her as far from the Pargunese as possible—and then he slipped out for a few minutes into the rose garden, now lushly perfumed with both the roses and night-blooming flowers. He sat on his favorite bench and breathed in the mingled scents, sweet and spicy, trying to regain the sense of peace and confidence his elven tutor insisted he needed to connect most powerfully with the taig.

In the near-dark, with the water gurgling and splashing as it ran through the garden, he relaxed slowly, touching first the garden’s taig and then that to which it was connected. Outside the palace enclosure, just across the way, the trees on the margin of the King’s Grove … and then, as his taig-sense expanded, the King’s Grove itself, every tree distinct in its identity, its history … He sank slowly into a trance, now more familiar than the first time it happened, touching and being touched by the trees and through them other trees and all that “tree” meant—past, present, future, from the root-clutched
rock below to the creatures that lived on and or visited it. He roused only when the clamor of another arrival in the palace courtyard broke through the reverie.

He took a last stroll around the paths in the garden and went up to his own rooms, not risking confrontation with another group of angry foreigners. His Squires could tell him what the Kostandanyan girl was like.

Shortly, the steward came to tell him that the Kostandanyan princess, by name Ganlin, seemed to have been injured on the way—she limped at least—and might be too fatigued to attend a banquet the next night. Kieri considered the likelihood that Count and Countess Settik would be angered by delay—probably, but he was not inclined to coddle them—and reset the date.