Limits of Power (9 page)

“His name … Damerothlyarthefallibenterdyastinla.” He rolled it out quickly, the syllables blending together like water over stones, then looked at her for a reaction.

Arian worked her way through the name even as she understood why he'd not told her before. “He was the son of an elvenlord? Son of someone who had founded an elvenhome?”

“Yes.”

“But he sired many children on humans … That is not common, is it?”

“No.” For an instant, Amrothlin seemed angry, then his expression softened again. “It is not. An elf of his … rank … would usually mate with elven women, and that is what the Lady thought he would do when he came here. Instead, he dallied with one human after another.”

“Why?” Arian asked. She watched Amrothlin flush again and kept her gaze hard on his. However much he might stop and start, she was determined to find out more about her father and more about the Lady from the one person who clearly knew.

In the end it took hours to drag out what still seemed meager information, though far more than she'd known before. Amrothlin, still his mother's loyal son, made every excuse he could for the Lady and laid every fault he could on others. Had Dameroth or his father really intended insult to the Lady by refusing to mate with one of her elves? Or had they some other reason?

Some questions he would not answer at all; to others he professed not to know the answers, but instead went off into long explanations of relationships she did not understand at all.

She did understand that he was still angry with Kieri's mother for her choice of a human partner, for marrying Kieri's father.

“She was the heir and carried the seed of a new elvenhome; to mate with those who cannot possibly engender an elvenhome—to bring forth only children who cannot—is irresponsible, utter folly. If my sister had not chosen to marry a human, she could have revived the Ladysforest when the Lady died. As it is, her decision doomed us.”

“I suppose she thought she would outlive Kieri's father and could then mate with an elf,” Arian said. “It was her death that doomed the Ladysforest, not her first marriage.”

“Chance comes to all,” Amrothlin said. “As events proved. Besides, she had sworn she would not. She doubted herself after—” He stopped abruptly. “I cannot say all. Not yet. You might as well know that she was determined to pass it to her son, but
we
knew that was impossible. She quarreled with the Lady about it, insisting she had done so.”

Secrets indeed! Arian stared at him, silenced for a time as the new possibilities tumbled through her mind. Kieri's mother had intended him to inherit the elvenhome gift? Why? And how? And … most important … had she done it or merely talked about it?

“Do you think she—?” Arian began.

Amrothlin interrupted. “It is impossible, I tell you.” He ranted on for another half-glass about the impossibility of such things, about Kieri's mother's rebellious foolhardy nature, about the elven estimate of Kieri's own character when he had escaped from bondage and returned to Lyonya an abused waif.

“It would have been better had he died; nothing was left of whatever the prince had been.”

Arian's own anger erupted. “Can you say that now, to the king's face?
Nothing
left? He has taig-sense, he has the healing magery—”

“He did not have it then.”

“And you did nothing to help him! How could you leave any child to starve in the winter forest, let alone your sister's son? How is
that
creating harmony and song?”

“I did not,” Amrothlin said. “I was not the one who found him first. When I heard—” He closed his eyes a moment before going on. “I argued he should be taken to some human settlement, placed there. I went, in fact, to where he had been found, but he was gone.”

“And how long did you search?” Arian asked.

“The second time? Until I found bones,” Amrothlin said. “You do not understand. The first time—when he was taken—I found his mother's—my sister's—body. We never found his—we thought animals had scattered—we did not know he was taken.” He shuddered. “The second time—I found the bones of a child perhaps twelve or thirteen, clearly mangled by animals. I know now they were not his. At the time … I thought they were. A half-year, perhaps, later, someone reported a waif taken in by the Halverics. The Lady sent an elf to visit. He was not sure; there was no memory, no sign that this boy was certainly the prince. The boy was thriving in Halveric hands. Later still … from the description, it was clear who he was, but all reports had him too broken to be worthy of a throne.”

“And yet he is,” Arian said. Amrothlin bowed assent.

She started to ask again about her own father but stopped short. If her father had been his father's heir, had inherited the ability to form an elvenhome, could he have transferred that to his half-elf children? To … to
her
? No, certainly not. On reflection, an elvenlord would not have sent his only heir so far away and forbidden him to mate with elven women. He had mated with human women precisely to prevent fathering a child who could receive the Lady's elvenhome gift and continue the Lady's domain. He—or his elvenlord father—had wanted it to fail.

She asked instead about the length of time the other elves might be gone before returning to Chaya. What seemed to her like a simple question resulted in another half-glass explanation for uncertainty—and soon he took his leave, saying he would be back in the morning to talk to the king. When Kieri rode in shortly before dark, she told him what Amrothlin had said.

“Elves!” Kieri said, stripping off his gloves and tossing them on the table. “Why can't they just tell us straight out? Why is everything so … so complicated?” Then he looked thoughtful. “Orlith … could that be why he was murdered?”

“Because if you had such ability, he might know it? That suggests someone else already knew. Unless he found out and told someone else—” Arian frowned.

“Orlith's wounds could have been made by elven arrows. And we never heard more from the Lady about his death.”

Arian stared at him, and he stared back. “If he told her—”

“Or any elf. Any elf who was against us—against me—a traitor—” Kieri's voice darkened. “My mother—”

Arian reached out and touched his shoulder. “Kieri—the rest of it—” She told what she now knew about her father, little as it was. “Amrothlin says your mother tried to pass the elvenhome gift to you; I believe that even if
she
did so, my father's choice to mate with human women had no such intent. I cannot imagine he was his father's heir; he simply wanted to prevent the Lady's use of him to engender a child to whom she could transfer it.”

“But you don't know for certain she could have done so.”

“No. And nor do you, though I think in your case—despite Amrothlin's belief—your mother might have succeeded. If you
could
create an elvenhome, then the elves would feel more at home here.”

“I'm not an immortal,” Kieri said. “After I die, it would disappear again.”

“Not if you could pass on the gift to a child—and that child to another.”

“If I have the talent … which I don't know and have no idea how to use…” He stood and moved around the room. “Another puzzle. Every time we drag an answer out of them, it leads to more questions. I would like just one thing I'm supposed to do to be straightforward and obvious.”

“I can think of something,” Arian said, chuckling.

“What—oh.
That.
”

She laughed aloud. “Your duty, sir king. Straightforward, obvious, and easily attained. Shall we begin?”

Vérella

P
rince Camwyn Mahieran had witnessed the expulsion of his cousin Beclan from the Mahieran family; his brother, King Mikeli, had explained all the reasons that lay behind that ruling, and he understood them—intellectually. Imaginatively, he felt unexpected sympathy for Beclan, whom he'd never really liked. How could Beclan be a Verrakaien now? Families were families: related by blood. If blood meant anything, how could someone be alienated from that relationship? He posed the question once to the Marshal-Judicar during a lesson on Girdish law, and the look he received from those frosty gray eyes stopped the rest of his protest in his throat. The Marshal-Judicar recited the relevant law and its reasoning, a process that at least relieved Camwyn of the need to discuss the day's assignment, involving the kingdom's economic base in relation to Gird's beliefs about earned and unearned income. Camwyn knew that the royal household was not thought to earn its income, though with Mikeli spending most of every day on the realm's business, why not?

He nodded at the end of the lesson and escaped with relief to a session with the royal armsmaster. He was finally learning to use a real sword—real, that is, in being a longsword almost as long as his brother's. He had grown much taller in the past year—an earlier growth spurt than Mikeli's—and he lacked but a few fingerwidths of his brother's height.

The armsmaster greeted him with the familiar scowl. “What did you do to have the Marshal-Judicar hold you beyond your time?”

“Asked him a question, sir,” Camwyn said. “He wished to make sure I understood it fully.”

“And do you?”

“Yes, sir,” Camwyn said, thinking meanwhile that understanding did not mean agreement.

“Well, let's see if you understand this.” The armsmaster handed him a hauk, not the blade he'd used in the last two practice sessions. “Do you know why?”

“No, sir,” Camwyn said. He held the smooth wood, polished by many hands over the years.

“Your parries are weak with the longsword,” the armsmaster said. “Your height is one thing; the strength of shoulder, arm, and wrist is another. You will build up strength before you pick up a long blade again. In the meantime, you will learn the moves with a reed-blade.”

Camwyn opened his mouth to protest, then thought better of it. Armsmaster Fralorn won most arguments with his students, and Camwyn did not wish to invite a negative report to his brother.

“Yes, sir,” he said.

“I will show you the exercises I want you to use,” Fralorn said. “And if you can find a glass in your busy day to work on your own, I will see by your increasing strength whether you are following my instructions. Or, if you prefer, we can spend the next five tendays working with hauks in your weapons class.”

“I will do it, sir,” Camwyn said.

The armsmaster nodded. “I thought you would say that. If you wish, you may come here, or you may take hauks with you. If you wish to improve your friends' fighting skills, invite them to join you.”

For the next half-glass Camwyn worked with the hauk, the armsmaster insisting on correct form at every point. “Until I'm certain your body has learned the forms, we will spend a short time every session in review, but I will depend on you to do most of the work on your own,” the armsmaster said. “If you do not improve soon, we will do more of this here.”

“Yes, sir,” Camwyn said, trying not to pant. His shirt was soaked with sweat.

After that, he rose early each morning and put in the time with hauks. He was soon bored with the exercise; he knew the armsmaster expected him to give it up. Instead, he invited his friends in the palace to join him. Aris Marrakai, as he might have expected, was the most faithful of the others. Camwyn had long since understood the king's reason for attainting his former friend Egan Verrakai and no longer blamed Aris Marrakai for taking Egan's place. Aris was lively and mischievous, very much a kindred spirit.

Yet it was Aris who raised the question of magery. “I do not understand how the king is so sure only Beclan has mage powers,” he said one morning as he tossed a hauk back to Camwyn, who caught it, twirled it, and tossed it back, this time to Aris's heart-hand.

“No one else has shown any,” Camwyn said.

“But Beclan didn't know he had it, so how does the king know someone else doesn't? He might have it himself. You might.”

“Duke Verrakai says we don't.”

“But she didn't think Beclan had it, did she, until he used it? Does it just come when it's ready, like beard hairs?”

“I don't think we should talk about this,” Camwyn said.

“Why not?”

“I don't think Mikeli would like it.” He was sure Mikeli would not like it after the lecture he'd had from the Marshal-Judicar. He could see from Aris's expression that the younger boy was about to ask why. “Besides … surely if I had it, I'd know.”

“You had something that made that dragon give you a ride,” Aris said. Of all Camwyn's friends, Aris had been the only one who seemed envious of that. The others had shuddered.

“Nothing makes a dragon do anything,” Camwyn said. He was sure of that.