Summerblood (7 page)

“Haggyn,” he said quietly. “I know of these concerns, and whether you believe it or not, I share them. They are also concerns far too large for a morning's work before the Council. Therefore, I have determined that a council to address these particular questions must and will be assembled. But since the traditional business of Midsummer court is itself bound by ritual, into which frame an issue as large as this cannot be effectively fitted, I have set the time for this council as an eighth from now: halfway between Midsummer and Sundeath. This will allow us all more time to prepare. And if, in the interim, The Eight make Their will known in this matter, you may rest assured that I will make Their pronouncements known in a timely manner.”

Haggyn started to reply, then looked around him. A few muttered words were exchanged, whereupon he set his mouth and spoke again.

“This is not what we desired when we came before this Council, Majesty, but it is what we expected. If nothing else, we have named what has not been named and thereby made it real. And real things cannot easily be dispersed. We will abide by your word—for now. But we will be watching and listening— carefully. And, Sire, Common Clan do not like liars.”

“I am no liar,” Avall replied calmly. “Nor ever have been. Now, if you have no more business, I would ask that you withdraw so that other business might be heard.”

Haggyn sketched a bow—all that Law required—turned, and pushed his way through his comrades, who then followed him from the Hall. One remained behind: Kayvvin—Chief of Common Clan.

The old woman looked very serious indeed—and deeply troubled. “Kayvvin?” Avall prompted.

“Majesty,” she began, with quiet dignity, “you have heard one concern of Common Clan already—the one that is uppermost
among all our minds. But we have another almost as serious, and perhaps doubly serious, now that you have told us of this council you have proposed.” She paused, straightened her shoulders, then went on. “Perhaps this council of yours will succeed, perhaps it will not. In any case, whatever decisions are reached—if any there be, which I doubt, given that these matters have occupied our thoughts since we came here to Eron”— she cleared her throat—“whatever decisions are reached will depend for their implementation on who sits the Stone when those decisions are reached. Therefore, I ask you clearly either to dispel or confirm the rumors we have heard: that you plan to abdicate at Sundeath—and, if the latter, to name who your successor might be.”

Avall had not sat down since his interchange with Haggyn, nor did he do so now, but he relaxed ever so slightly, if for no other reason than because Kayvvin had finally voiced what
had
been uppermost in his thoughts—and countless private discussions with his friends—since the throne had been thrust upon him two eighths back. Nor had he any illusions that his obvious reluctance had not been discussed—probably by everyone on the Council, if not in all of Eron.

Yet it was Tryffon syn Ferr who spoke, preempting Avall's right to first reply. Which was typical of Tryffon: bluff and protective as he was, by turns. “Of course he will retain the throne,” the Chief of Warcraft cried. “We all saw him at the Battle of Storms. The Eight favored him that day, as They have never favored another King of Eron. They favored him in his craft— for the helm, sword, and shield were either of his making or his augmenting. Nay, They favored him before that, by allowing him to find the gems that ensured our victory. He—”

“Anyone could have found those gems,” someone from Beast shouted. “If any clan has a right to them, it is Gem, not Smith.”

“Smith did not seek them, however,” came a woman's voice from closer in. “They were found in Smith's vein at Gem-Hold, and—so far as we know—in no other.”

Avall gasped.
Strynn
had said that, which he hadn't expected—though why not, he had no idea. In any case, she was continuing. “So far as we know,” she repeated. “If one wants to open up the entire affair and engage in valid, if incendiary speculation, one might well ask if
other
clans might not have found something similar in their veins and withheld that knowledge entirely. Certainly Gem-Hold should know to a mote of dust what the earth beneath it contains, in kind if not in number. And as has been noted, these gems such as Avall and his counselors have found, should not, in theory, be uniquely the province of that one vein.” She did not continue, but fixed Priest-Clan with a pointed stare.

“Which has nothing to do with Avall's abdication,” Kayvvin replied, “save, perhaps as he has knowledge of these gems. But even so, such knowledge would be the province of Gem or Lore, not of the Sovereignty. And the gems are themselves the property of the Crown not only by virtue of being incorporated into masterworks, which all who have seen them freely admit; but also by being part of the royal regalia, which likewise belongs to the Crown. Which
could
, in theory, be placed on the head of someone of Common Clan.”

A general uproar ensued.

Avall started to reply, to cut through that hubbub by symbolically raising the sword. But just as he shifted his grip upon it, a tap on his shoulder from Lykkon drew his attention to the back of the hall. Merryn had entered, in full Royal Guardsman kit. But she was not alone. Someone stood beside her, clad in Argen's colors beneath the tabard of a Royal Herald. Avall didn't have to look twice to know that it was Lykkon's younger brother, Bingg. Nor would Bingg have entered had the news he conveyed been less than dire. And there was very little that was important enough to interrupt the first royal court of Midsummer.

Only one thing, in fact. “Hold!” Avall cried, thereby silencing the debate. Then, ignoring a veritable choir of protests: “Herald, come forward.”

To his credit, Bingg didn't flinch as he strode down the aisle, for all he was only thirteen and legally too young for such a role. Still, his eyes had begun to tear by the time he reached the dais, and Avall knew then, with absolute conviction, the news his young cousin carried.

Somehow, he maintained a semblance of decorum as he spoke the ritual words. “Herald, have you news for this Council, or for the King's ears alone?”

Bingg's handsome young face was as grim as someone thrice his age as he replied. “What I would say will be common knowledge in Tir-Eron in half a hand anyway, and affects all on this Council in some way, but I would still say it first to you alone, if I may approach to whisper it.”

Avall nodded and gestured his cousin forward. It was all he could do not to reach out to embrace his kinsman, yet the King kept the youth at arm's length as he heard the words pronounced.

“Majesty—and Avall syn Argen-a—it is with sadness beyond knowing that I tell you both alike that, at a finger past sunrise, Eellon syn Argen-a, Chief of all three septs of Clan Argen, took one long breath which was not followed by another. They … they thought he would last out the day,” he blurted abruptly, all pretense of decorum fled. “Avall, I'm sorry. I know you wanted to be there, but the healers misjudged.”

Avall didn't hear the rest, if there was any, for here, before all the assembled Chiefs of Eron, the High King of them all was crying.

“There will be time for debate, later,” he heard himself say to the silent Council. “Argument can bear fruit anytime; mourning has a shorter season.”

Kylin syn Omyrr, comfortably ensconced on a padded stool in the cedar-paneled splendor of his clan's best common hall, had been playing the ancient harp tune called “Winterqueen's Lament” for what seemed to be a very appreciative audience of one. It was one of the Hold-Warden's favorites, he knew, as it was likewise one of Strynn's. Two very different women, but linked by the bond of music. Then again, music
was
a bond: a force for unity and harmony—which could well be why he loved it. Of course, he was also objective enough to realize that he might love it simply because it was one of the few crafts at which he could actually excel. He
was
blind, after all—since he was three. But he'd also been born into the clan that controlled music, which he liked to think implied at least marginal involvement by Fate.

As for music's power to soothe—was that something he desired intrinsically, or merely another function of his blindness? A reaction to the fact that in chaotic times it was people like him who suffered most? Not that he didn't have effective patrons: Crim here, and the King and his comrades back in Tir-Eron. But he was already wondering whether it had been a
mistake to return here, even to retrieve his chief-harp. Div had tried to argue him out of it when he'd first broached the notion of a journey west, and Strynn had added her own protests. Avall had remained silent, which might mean something and might not, given that the High King knew that he and Strynn were, in all but the physical act, lovers.

In any case, he was here, and Div, who had no use for the place, had abandoned him for the time being in favor of her own hold in the Wild, several days away. In fact, this was his second time playing for Crim. The first had gone well, though she'd had a headache then. This time she seemed … edgy.

He concluded the song with a plaintive “ping, ping … ping,” and let his hands fall to his thighs, where he wiped his fingers on scarlet sylk house-hose and the hem of a purple velvet short-tunic, their textured fabrics chosen to please one sense in the absence of another. Across from him, Crim sighed happily, then took a sip from a goblet of wine she'd lately filled from the frosted carafe beside her. A
metal
goblet, he knew, because of the way it had sounded being filled. A sip, because he heard the sound her lips made on the rim and the soft gulp of the ensuing swallow.

“Do you have anything new?” Crim asked a little too casually, though Kylin caught the subtlety of the inflection. “That's my favorite tune—as you very well knew, wicked boy—but surely you picked up something new in Tir-Eron. Some ballad about Avall, perhaps? And that magic sword of his?”

Kylin felt a shiver of alarm. This was exactly what he'd feared. He was the person in the entire hold closest to the happenings last spring, and to those who had effected them—and Crim would want to know those things, since they affected her as well. Which knowing was her responsibility as Hold-Warden, if not her right as, so he'd supposed, his friend.

“They're mostly whistle tunes, Lady, or tunes for the lute,” he replied offhand. “I haven't taken time to transpose them for the harp.”

“You could, though,” Crim replied with more of that studied
nonchalance that put Kylin so on guard. “It would be as easy for you as breathing.”

“The tunes aren't that interesting, challenging, or original.” He tried to sound as indifferent as she, absently removing his black-sylk blindfold and retying it around his long black hair.

“I'm not interested in the tunes. In cases like that, it's the words that matter.”

“I didn't know you were interested in ballads at all—and that's what one mostly hears, never mind that one only hears the newest in the South Bank taverns, and I haven't
been
to South Bank.”

Another sip. Carefully, as though she were watching him intently. “Avall won't let you go?”

He shook his head. “Avall denies me nothing—but South Bank is no place for a blind man.”

“You can't mean that!”—her surprise sounded sincere— “No one would dare harm you. For what you are to the King, never mind that you're High Clan.”

“That last isn't the shield you might suppose,” Kylin retorted, trying to shift the conversation in a less controversial direction while still appearing naively informative. And hoping along the way to learn how Crim felt about certain notions.

“It isn't?”

“I assumed you knew. I wasn't the first to come here since the war.”

A deep breath. “You've always been honest with me, Kylin. I'd appreciate you telling me what you can—what you feel, or suspect, more importantly. I won't ask you to violate any vows or confidences.”

Because it would cost your position
, he thought grimly. “I understand,” he continued aloud. “The problem is simply that some of Common Clan—and clanless, more to the point— have found themselves at odds with the Crown and the King.” He shifted listlessly. “Maybe not so much at odds,” he corrected. “Conflicted. The King saved the country, but the King
has also roused the ire of Priest-Clan, and the people don't want to have to choose between them.”

“Will they
have
to?”

“Not if Avall can help it.”

“Avall,” Crim murmured after another sip. “It all comes back to him, doesn't it? I wish I'd had a chance to get to know him better when he was here.”

Kyril relaxed a little. “He's not a bad man, Lady, nor a happy one.”

“You wrote a song about him, didn't you?”

Kylin's heart skipped a beat, even as confusion invaded him. “I … Lady, I did not!”

“For his wife, then. ‘The Dreaming Jewel’?”