The Hero and the Crown (6 page)

each other very well when Aerin, formal and smiling, offered her apologies and

regrets, and Galanna, formal and smiling, accepted them.

Tor had been busier since then, often away from the City, showing himself to

the Hillfolk who came rarely or never to the City, that they might one and all know

the face and voice of the man who would be their king someday; and it had also

been soon after Tor’s coming of age that Aerin had eaten the surka. While it lay

heavily on her she had not wished to see much of him even when he was at

home, though he had come often to sit by her when she was too sick to protest

and even, without her knowledge, put off one or two trips that he might stay near

her. But as she got enough better to be surly about not being well, and as his

absences of necessity increased, a barrier began to grow up between them, and

they were no longer quite the friends they had once been. She missed him, for

she had been accustomed to talking to him nearly every day, but she never said

she missed him, and she told herself that it was as well, since the surka had

proved Galanna three-quarters right about her, that the first sola not contaminate

himself with her company too often. When she did see him, she was painstakingly

bright and offhand.

A few days after Talat had trotted halfway round his pasture with Aerin on his

back, she asked Hornmar what had become of Talat’s tack. She knew that each of

the court horses had its own, and Kethtaz would never be insulted by wearing bits

of his predecessor’s gear; but she was afraid that Talat’s might have been

destroyed when his leg had doomed him. Hornmar, who had seen Talat jogging

around his field with Aerin at attention on his back, brought out saddle and girth

and bridle, for while he had thought they would never be used again, he had not

had the heart to get rid of them. If Aerin noticed that they appeared to have been

freshly cleaned and oiled, she said nothing but “Thank you.” The same day that

she carried Talat’s gear up to her room and hid it in her wardrobe (where Teka,

finding it later, also found that it had left oil spots on Aerin’s best court dress), she saw from her window Tor riding in from one of his rounds of political visits; and

she decided it was time to waylay him.

“Aerin,” he said, and hugged her gladly. “I have not seen you in weeks. Have

you your dress made yet for the wedding of the century? Who won, you or Teka?”

She pulled a face. “Teka has won more ground than I, but I refused to wear it in

yellow at all, so at least it’s going to be a sort of leaf green, and there’s less lace.

It’s still quite awful.”

Tor looked amused. When he looked amused she almost forgot she had

decided that it was better that they weren’t such good friends any more. “Have

supper with me,” he said. “I must have dinner in the hall—I suppose you are still

pleading ill health and dining peacefully with Teka? But supper I may have alone

in my rooms. Will you come?”

“Pleading ill health indeed,” she said. “Do you really want me to have a dizzy

moment and drop a full goblet of wine in the lap of the esteemed guest at my

right—or left? I’m less likely to cause civil war if I stay away.”

“Pleading ill health indeed,” she said. “Do you really want me to have a dizzy

moment and drop a full goblet of wine in the lap of the esteemed guest at my

right—or left? I’m less likely to cause civil war if I stay away.”

“Of course, if you’ll shut up long enough for me to accept.” She grinned at him.

He looked at her, feeling a twitch of surprise; in her smile for the first time he

saw that which was going to trouble his sleep very soon; something very unlike

the friendship they’d enjoyed all their lives thus far; something that would raise

the barrier between them much faster than anything else could; the barrier that

thus far Aerin alone saw growing.

“What’s wrong?” she said; some of the old familiarity still worked, and she saw

the shadow pass over his face, although she had no clue to what caused it.

“Nothing. I’ll see you tonight, then.”

She laughed when she saw the place settings for their supper: gold. The golden

goblets were fishes standing on their tails, their open mouths waiting for the wine

to be poured; the plates were encircled by leaping golden deer, the head of each

bowed over the quarters of the one before, and their flying tails made a scalloped

edge; the spoons and knives were golden birds, their long tails forming handles.

“Highly unbreakable. I can still spill the wine.”

“We’ll have to make do.”

“Where in Damar did you get these?”

Something like a flush crept up his face. “Four settings of the stuff was one of

my coming-of-age gifts; it’s from a town in the west known for its metalwork. I

only just brought it back, this trip.” It had been given him for his bride, the town’s

chief had told him.

Aerin looked at him, trying to decide about the flush; he was brown to begin

with, and copper-colored from sunburn, and it was hard to tell. “It must have

been a long and gaudy ceremony, and they covered you with glory you don’t feel

you’ve earned.”

Tor smiled. “Near enough.”

She didn’t spill anything that evening, and she and Tor reminded each other of

the most embarrassing childhood moments they could think of, and laughed.

Galanna and Perlith’s wedding was not mentioned once.

“Do you remember,” she said, “when I was very young, almost a baby still, and

you were first learning to handle a sword, how you used to show me what you’d

learned—”

“I remember,” he said, smiling, “that you followed me around and wheedled

and wept till I was forced to show you.”

“Wheedled, yes,” she said. “Wept, never. And you started it; I didn’t ask to get

put in a baby-sack while you leaped your horse over hurdles.”

“My own fault, I admit it.” He also remembered, though he said nothing of it,

how their friendship had begun. He had felt sorry for his young cousin, and had

sought her first out of dislike for those who wished to ostracize her, especially

Galanna, but soon for her own sake: for she was wry and funny even when she

could barely speak, and loved best to find things to be enthusiastic about; and did

not remind him that he was to grow up to be king. He had never quite learned to

believe that she was always shy in company, nor that the shyness was her best

attempt at a tactful acknowledgement of her precarious place in her father’s

court; nor that her defensive obstinacy was quite necessary.

It was to watch her take fire with enthusiasm that he had made a small wooden

sword for her, and shown her how to hold it; and later he taught her to ride a

horse, and let her ride his own tall mare when the first of her pretty, spoiled

ponies had made her wish to give up riding altogether. He had shown her how to

hold a bow, and to send an arrow or a spear where she wished it to go; how to

skin a rabbit or an oozog, and how best to fish in running streams and quiet pools.

The complete older brother, he thought now, and for the first time with a trace of

bitterness.

“Train you?” he said. He was afraid he knew where her thoughts were tending,

although he tried to tell himself that this was no worse than teaching her to fish.

He knew that even if he did grant her this it would do her no good; it didn’t

matter that she was already a good rider, that she was, for whatever inbred or

circumstantial reasons, less silly than any of the other court women; that he knew

from teaching her other things that he could probably teach her to be a fair

swordswoman. He knew that for her own sake he should not encourage her now.

The gods prevent her from asking me anything I must not give, he thought, and

said aloud, “Very well.”

Their eyes met, and Aerin’s dropped first.

The lessons had to be at infrequent intervals because of Tor’s ever increasing

round of duties as first sola; but lessons still Aerin had, as she wished, and after

several months’ time and practice she could make her teacher pant and sweat as

they danced around each other. Her lessons were only a foot soldier’s lessons;

horses were not mentioned, and she was wise enough, having gained so much,

not to protest.

She took pride, in a grim sort of way, in learning what Tor taught her; and he

need not know the hours of drill she put in, chopping at leaves and dust motes,

when he was not around. She made what she considered to be obligatory

protests about the regular hiatuses in her progress when Tor was sent off

somewhere, but in truth she was glad of them, for then she had the time to put

in, grinding the lessons into her slow, stupid, Giftless muscles. But she was always

eager for her next meeting with the first sola, and what he guessed about her

private practice sessions was not discussed, any more than the fact that he had

not fought unhorsed since he was a little boy and learning his first lessons in

swordplay. A sola always led cavalry. Aerin knew pretty well when the time came

that if she had been in real training she would have been put on a horse; but this

moment too passed in silence.

But there was one good thing that also passed in silence, for Aerin was too

proud, for different reasons, to mention it: the specific muscular control and

coordination of learning to wield a sword finally sweated the last of the surka out

of her system. It had been two years since her meeting with Galanna in the royal

garden.

Tor and Aerin’s meetings on the farthest edge of the least used of the practice

fields also gave them an excuse to be together, as they had always been together,

without having to acknowledge the new restraint between them, without

discovering that conversation between them was growing awkward.

Aerin knew that Tor was careful not to use his real strength when he forced her

back; but at least, as she learned, he had to be quick to keep her off; and

strength, she hoped, would come. She was growing like a weed; her seventeenth

birthday had come and gone, with the tiresome pomp necessary to a king’s

daughter, and the stiff courtesy inspired by an unsatisfactory king’s daughter, and

she was far too old to be suddenly growing taller. Not that she minded towering

over Galanna; Galanna’s perfect profile, when seen from above, seemed to beetle

slightly at the brows and narrow slightly around the eyes. Aerin also had hopes

that she would outgrow the revolting Kisha and be given a real horse.

A real horse. She began to have to close her lips tighter over her determination

not to mention horses to Tor. A mounted man’s strength was his horse—or a

mounted woman’s. But if she asked Tor to teach her to fight from horseback he

would have to admit to knowing how much it meant to her, that it was not only

an amusing private game she was playing; and she knew he was troubled about

what they were doing already. His curious silence on the cause of her eagerness

to learn told her that; and he could still read as many of her thoughts as she could

of his.

He moved off proudly and obeyed each command at once; and yet she found

the jingling of the various bits and buckles annoying, and the reins took up too

much of her hands and her concentration. “How does one deal with a sword and

these thrice-blasted reins?” she said to the small white ears. “There must also be

a way to hang the rotten thing so it doesn’t bang into you when you’re not using

it. I carry the reins in my teeth—and accidentally strangle myself in them—and

meanwhile I can’t shout blood-curdling war cries of Victory! and For Damar! to

bring terror into the hearts of my enemies, with my mouth full of reins.” As they

stood, she pulled the sword from its scabbard and swung it experimentally just as

Talat turned his head to snap at a fly on his shoulder, and the sword tangled itself

in the reins till Talat could not straighten his neck again, but remained with his

head bent around and one reproachful dark eye fixed on his rider, and the blunt

blade snuggled along his cheek.

“Ah, hells,” she said, and yanked the sword free. One rein parted. Talat stood,

either waiting for directions or afraid to move; the short end of the cut rein

dangled a few inches beneath his chin, and he ducked his head and grabbed it,

and chewed it thoughtfully.

“We did just fine without,” she said furiously, dismounted, tore the bridle off

and dumped it on the ground, holding her unwieldy sword in the other hand like a

marauding bandit. She remounted and dug her legs into Talat’s sides—harder

than she meant for the saddle skirts muddled her. Talat, delighted, set off on his

first gallop since the day he was wounded; and Aerin had wrought better than she

knew, for he had the strength and stamina now to gallop quite a distance.

He tore across his pasture. Aerin failing to collect either her wits or her

stomach, which seemed to be lying back on the ground with the bridle; and then

she discovered that just as the saddle had made her misjudge how hard to

squeeze, so now its bulk made it very easy for Talat to ignore her as she tried to

tell him to stop by sitting heavily on his back. The fence loomed up before them;