Oath of Fealty (62 page)

“W
hat do you think?” Crown Prince Mikeli turned to his uncle and the other Council members after the younger boys had left.

“I think we’re damned lucky they’re alive, either of them,” Duke Mahieran said. “That was a close call this morning; Gird’s grace their instructor knew what to do.”

“I’m asking about Camwyn,” the crown prince said. “Is he what you’d expect—what we need?”

“Hard to tell what he’s really like, after something like this … he seemed quiet … a little stiff …”

“He’s lost his best friend,” Duke Marrakai said. “It can’t be easy, knowing the Verrakai boy’s in prison, under charge of attainder. Aris said Egan was always with him.”

“And I didn’t do anything,” the crown prince said. “I thought—if Cam liked him, that might ease the tension with the Verrakaien.”

“Egan didn’t like Aris,” Juris Marrakai said. “He didn’t want Camwyn and Aris to be friends. Though in all fairness, Aris didn’t like Egan either. I don’t know who started it.”

“I do,” Count Destvaorn said. “And unfortunately it fuels our suspicions of Egan Verrakai. He told tales of Aris, and some of them were not true. I heard him; I scolded him; he apologized. But later I heard through a friend’s son that he was spreading the same tales again. And tales of me, as a Marrakai friend who could not be trusted.”

“I worry that Cam’s loyalty to his friend could overcome his good sense,” Mikeli said, helping himself to a handful of shelled nuts.

“After the attack on you? And on himself today?”

“I hope not, but—I don’t know, my lords. This business today frightened me, I don’t mind admitting. We were warned some of
them could take other bodies, and to keep watch, but—a groom? A stableboy? How can we tell?”

“Dorrin Verrakai has some way to tell—she found some, she reported,” Duke Marrakai said.

“And we’ve heard nothing from her since—”

“Except reports from the Marshals in Harway and Darkon Edge that things are better. No specifics,” Destvaorn said.

“We could send someone to ask, but she’s surely coming to your coronation,” Duke Marrakai said.

“I am not sure,” Mikeli said. “If she’s battling renegades over there, she may not come.”

“I would send her a very clear invitation,” Duke Marrakai said. “A royal courier. We will all feel better if we see her again and can be sure of her loyalty, and you can also ask her advice.”

T
he prince’s courier cantered up to the house on a lathered horse at midafternoon. Dorrin, riding out of the stable yard at the same time to visit the nearest village, reined in.

“My lord Duke,” the courier said. He was a tough-looking middle-aged man with a courier’s tabard over his clothes, sweating heavily in the early summer heat.

“Be welcome,” Dorrin said. She had had no word from Vérella since hearing that the Verrakaien she’d first sent had all been executed. What now, she wondered? One of the stable hands who had followed her out to close the gate came running when she waved. “Maddes here will walk your horse cool; come inside and have something to drink. You will stay the night, of course.”

“I can’t stay that long,” he said. “If you could lend a horse … I should get back to Harway tonight.” He had dismounted, and now unbuckled one saddlebag, pulling out a velvet pouch. “This is for you, from the prince’s own hand.”

“I haven’t a horse that will make Harway tonight,” Dorrin said. “And you must not camp alone on the way. I cannot guarantee your safety.”

He looked at the house, where a servant was just visible coming out with a tray and the ritual bowl of water. “I’m supposed to hurry—”

“From the look of you and your horse, you did. But you could not
clear Verrakai lands by dark, and surely you know I am still hunting down errant kinsmen. You are a royal servant; you are owed my protection. Go in, rest, be welcome to what I can offer until I return. I must go now. Two legal matters await me, urgent ones that I promised to deal with today. My people will see you fed and rested; I will be back by dark.”

Dorrin rode off, along with a tensquad of Phelani. The cases were complex, a tangle of Tsaian law and traditional practice, some of it Verrakaien and some apparently local, from ancient times. She had discussed them with the village leaders but the people were adamant that only the Duke could settle matters and only in there, in the village.

It might even be an ambush attempt set up by her missing relatives, designed to lure her away from the house. She could not be sure. Nothing had been seen of the missing young men, nothing heard, according to what she’d been told. But she had promised to come and give judgment in the place the dispute had arisen, and her people needed her.

As she approached the village, a clump of villagers awaited her—more than she thought lived there. Dorrin reined in.

“Good afternoon, Lord Duke,” the eldest said.

“Good afternoon, Elder Sennet,” Dorrin said. “You have a case; I have come to hear it. May the High Lord grant me wisdom to see the truth and judge rightly. Falk’s grace on you and all here.”

“The case is …” The elder looked meaningfully at the oldest woman.

“Our lord Duke’s birthday,” the old woman said, grinning broadly and showing how few teeth she had left.

“What?” Dorrin looked from her to Sennet.

“We wanted to thank you, my lord,” Sennet said. “You sent us back our dead, back then, and you taken no more for the dark tower, not from any village we asked, and so we wanted to thank you.”

“And I knew it was your birthday,” the old woman said. “On account I was there when you was born, a-helping in the house, I was, and it was seven tendays and a hand after the Lady’s Evener, which it is this day, my lord. So I told Sennet, that’s the best day to thank the Duke, it’s the Duke’s Lady’s Day, it is.”

“Maerin!”

“Well, it is. ‘Tis no shame to say it.”

They looked frightened now. Dorrin understood: mention of the Lady of Peace, Alyanya, had been forbidden in her childhood and she supposed that had continued. She herself had left the villagers to what beliefs they chose, except that she had sent word to make no more sacrifices to Liart of the Horned Chain.

“Lady’s grace on you, Maerin,” Dorrin said. “For your kind thought, and on you, Sennet, and the rest of you.” Their faces relaxed and a murmur passed through the crowd. She dismounted; Sennet pushed a boy forward to hold her horse.

A lane opened in the little crowd: they had placed a board across two sections of tree trunk for a bench, and gathered flowers to decorate it. Dorrin sat down; the board tipped only a little.

“If you permit, my lord,” Sennet said. A little girl held a wreath of flowers and field herbs, some drooping already with the heat. “A Lady’s Day crown.”

Dorrin bent her head; the child, barefoot and with a strong smell of pig about her, put the crown on her head; Dorrin felt the stiff stems of wild rosemary prickle through her hair. “Thank you,” Dorrin said to the child. In that face, she saw no hint of Verrakai cunning; the girl smiled and stared until Sennet touched her shoulder and guided her back to her mother.

“And now,” Sennet said, “Cheers for our Duke and best wishes for her life—the Lady’s grace to her!” The crowd gave cheers, somewhat raggedly, and when that trailed away another child’s voice could be heard.

“Kin we eat
now
?”

“Hush, Larn! Be still. The Duke will speak.”

Without that cue, she would not have known what came next. “Sennet, Maerin, you have surprised me very well. You wanted to thank me for the very little I have done; I must thank you all, every one of you, for the great things you have done. You have done your work in the shadow of terror; you have welcomed one you had reason to fear. Who could do more? I shall try to be as good a duke to you as you deserve.” The faces of those nearest her were intent, hopeful.

From the back of the ground, the child’s voice came again. “But Ma … I’m
hungry
!”

Dorrin laughed. “And right now, you need your duke to say the best way to celebrate a Lady’s Day is with her bounty—let us eat!”

They had brought out their poor best for her; when she saw the little meant to feed them all, she felt ashamed to take one bite. She had seen them tending flocks and herds, these past tendays.

“Them’s
your
sheep, my lord,” Sennet said, when she asked. “Your sheep and cows. We didn’t have no right to take one of them.”

“Is it not Alyanya’s rule that guests and hosts share the wealth of both? Send someone, Sennet, and bring back a sheep, or two—enough to roast on the fire and give everyone enough and more.” She thought a moment. “And if there are fruit trees or berries, outside the house garden, that you thought reserved for my use—use them now.”

“Does the Duke want to choose the sheep?” Sennet asked. “The flock’s penned just outside there—” He pointed beyond the houses.

“Nay,” Dorrin said. “I trust you, as you trust me. Alyanya’s blessing on it, and be sure there is plenty. Let the children eat, meanwhile.”

Sennet nodded to several of the men, who slipped away toward the sheepfold, and to several women, who went the other direction, whether to garden or woods, Dorrin did not know. The others watched her as she waited.

Her magery nudged: she could enlarge the feast without even those sheep. She did not, knowing that all they had seen of magery meant death and torment for one of their own. As she looked around, she could not help comparing the village to others she’d seen, from Kieri’s domain to the Immerhoft Coast.

This was hers; she was responsible for this—these houses barely more than mounds of sticks, roofed in bundles of old grass, not even proper thatch. In this season she should have seen kitchen gardens bursting with flowers and vegetables, trees hung with ripening fruit. Instead, meager gardens whose plants looked stunted, much smaller than those at the big house. Only a few trees, and little fruit on them. Ragged, dirty children, ragged clothes—stream-washed, she guessed, to honor her, but—

“Where do you get your water?” she asked Sennet.

“There’s a well, but it’s … it doesn’t give good water now, not since—” He gulped and looked away. “We go to the stream—it’s a sunhand away. I know, my lord, I know we’re not as clean as they in the house—”

“Let me see your well,” Dorrin said.

He led her to the well; one side of the old stone coping was gone.
A few withered flowers lay on what remained and the ground around it. Sennet paled. “I’m sorry, my lord, the children will believe in the
merin
and put flowers …”

Dorrin could smell the stink of blood magic from where she stood, ten paces away. She went closer. “Someone cursed it.”

“It was—” Sennet gulped. “It was the old Duke, my lord. Said the likes of us had no right to water like that, said we was lazy. Please don’t be angry, my lord …”

Anger filled her as water filled a bucket. “It is not you I am angry with,” Dorrin said. “And those I am angry with are dead.” As they deserved.

“We tried to get the stones out,” Sennet went on. He still sounded scared. “But twice when we sent someone down with a rope, more stones fell and killed—and we did not want more to die.”

“You did not ask me for help with this,” Dorrin said. “I will ask you—will you permit me?”

“What can you do?” Sennet said.

What could she? She had no idea, but that the magery was tugging, shoving, telling her something. “I am not sure,” she said. “But will you let me try?”

“You are the Duke,” Sennet said. “I could hardly stop you.”

“True, but you are the elder here. If I can get the stones out, can you rebuild the wall?”

“If the Duke permits—but my lord, there was also—the blood.”

Naturally, there would have been blood.

“Did he sacrifice something here?”

“A—a woman, my lord. A woman with child, near her time.”

Dorrin shivered. Most potent sacrifice, she had been taught, for this kind of magery. “I must go down,” she said.

“No, my lord! No, we don’t want to lose you! We can do without the well.”