The Misbegotten King (3 page)

“And when will that be?” Kye asked, a bitter twist on his mouth.

“As soon as his child is born,” Brand answered. The shadows flickered across his face as the serving boy dipped the lamp.
“Careful, boy.” He looked up into the boy’s exhausted face and shook his head. “Get to bed, boy. And you, Kye—we’ll have time
to talk of this in the morning. You look as if you’ll fall asleep where you sit.”

With a grunt, Kye got to his feet. “In the morning, then. I need to check on my wounded.”

Deirdre nodded, and Brand set the lantern down in the middle of the low table. He picked up the flask of mead at his feet.
“More?”

She nodded slowly, wetting her lips. This was as good an opportunity as she was likely to have, and it was better that Brand
knew her intentions, before they met tomorrow. “I wanted to tell you, Captain,” she began, her words tumbling out in a rush,
“that I will be leaving within the next two weeks to return to my estate. I don’t intend to withdraw my men. I will take only
a squadron
for an escort. The rest I will leave with you, under the command of my second, Grefith. I know he’ll serve the Prince’s cause
as loyally as I.”

“You’re leaving?” He jolted upright and slammed the empty flask down. The cork flew out and landed in the fire, sending up
a shower of sparks. “Why?”

The smoke stung her nostrils. “I have affairs of my own to tend, Captain. Not only Amanander lies sick in Ahga—Alexander is
sick, as well. And without Alexander, there’s no strong hand to balance the opposing interests in the North. I’m not there
to unify the Chiefs. And while the lords of Mondana were certainly no threat when I left, there is no doubt in my mind that
they will harry my people soon enough.” She broke off, drawing her cloak closer across her shoulders as the damp air blew
beneath the tent. “The winter’s over—I can cross the Saranevas at the Koralado Pass. There’s no need for me to stay.”

She fixed her gaze on the fire and refused to look up. She heard the clatter as Brand’s goblet fell on its side. “M’Callaster—Deirdre,
surely you understand we need you. I need you. There’s no one better at keeping hotheads cool, and keeping them off each other’s
throats. Roderic himself relies upon you, upon your judgment. What will I tell him?”

“The truth, as I shall,” she lied, feeling a hot blush sweep up her cheeks.

He spread his hands and for a moment she felt sorry for him. Strong men always looked so helpless when at a loss. “M’Callaster,
the spring campaign is barely underway—surely you could spare a month—two months?
You could reach the Saranevas long before next winter will close the pass—”

With a heavy sigh, Deirdre shifted once more and poured the dregs of the mead into her goblet. Her head ached, and not for
the first time she wished that Roderic had not returned to Ahga. She thought with sudden longing of her lands in the Settle
Islands, where the wild sea birds swooped over the craggy cliffs, where the sea pounded against the rocky shores and washed
over the white beaches. “Captain, try to understand my position. According to the latest dispatches, it may be months before
Alexander is recovered enough to return to his command of the garrison at Spogan. Without Alexander’s presence—” Her explanation
was cut off in midsentence as shouts broke the exhausted stillness of the camp.

With a curse, Brand was on his feet, sword already drawn. He was just about to grab the tent flap when it opened, bringing
a gust of wind and Vere into the tent.

“Send for Roderic immediately,” Vere said without greeting.

“Why?” asked Brand.

Vere acknowledged Deirdre’s presence with a glance and a nod. “One of the Mutens back there on the road—he wasn’t dead. He
lived long enough to tell me that gravest danger is upon us.”

“Us? Why? You said the Mutens did this—”

“Listen to me, man.” Vere gripped Brand’s sword arm and stared his eldest brother in the eye, his jutting hawk nose so similar
to Brand’s, they looked like twins in profile. “They had no mindskill—I haven’t time to explain
what that means. But you know that only the ruling families have the use of the secondary arms?” He paused just long enough
for Brand to nod. “Before the last poor wretch died, he lived long enough to write one word.” Vere fumbled in the pack at
his waist and held out a crumpled piece of parchment. Together, Brand and Deirdre squinted over it in the dim light. Shaky
black lines formed one word: FERAD.

Brand looked away with a curse. “We’ve got more important problems than the murder of a passel of Mutens, Vere. Kye’s army
was intercepted—Grenvill garrison destroyed. Deirdre informed me just before you came in that she’s planning to leave—”

“Leave?” Vere frowned. He looked at her closely, and Deirdre felt the urge to squirm as those piercing eyes fell upon her.
“Leave now? Why?”

“I can get over the Saranevas.” She raised her chin, refusing to be intimidated by the probing gaze of the Ridenau sons. “I
have concerns of my own, you know.”

Brand swore beneath his breath. “I’ll send a messenger out tonight, Vere. You add anything you wish.” He glanced at Deirdre,
disgust plain on his face. “And you, M’Callaster. If you’ve a message of your own for the Prince, I advise you to write it.
But I can’t believe you’d do this.”

He strode out of the tent.

Deirdre glanced at Vere, who looked at her quizzically.

“Why can’t he believe I’d leave?”

“Because you haven’t told him the truth.”

Deirdre jerked around. “How do you know what I told him?”

Vere shrugged. “You gave him some story about the state of the Settle Islands. But I don’t believe that’s the real reason
you want to go.”

Deirdre tightened her jaw. “Then—”

“Let me tell you a story.” Vere sat down before the fire and stretched out his hands over its heat. “Is there any food? I
haven’t eaten since dawn.”

She rummaged through her pack and held out a piece of dried salted beef and a package of leathery dried apples.

He turned the food over in his hands, staring into the flames. “Many years ago, when I was young and lived in Ahga, I loved
a woman.” He tore at the beef and raised his eyes to hers as he chewed and swallowed.

A chill ran up her spine, for his words rang with the same authority as the tales of the Keepers of her people. What did Vere
see with those shadowed eyes?

“She was the most beautiful woman I have ever seen,” he continued, “and I am not the only one who thought so. Every man who
saw her wanted her—every man who’d ever seen her would remember her. But she was more than beautiful—she was kind, and she
knew more about Old Meriga than anyone I had ever met before. She talked to me as though what mattered to me mattered to her,
too. No one else ever treated me like that. No one else so truly understood.”

“What happened?” But Deirdre thought she could surmise the answer. This was a familiar story, after all.

“I was a boy—fifteen years old. She was a woman: ten, twelve years my senior, or more. And she belonged to my father, to the
King. Everyone knew it, even though
when I was there, she did not share his bed. So I ran away because I could not bear to see them together. But her image is
burned into my memory—I have carried it with me wherever I’ve gone, all these years, and I only need shut my eyes to see her
again.”

Deirdre picked up a long stick, reached into the heart of the flames, and poked at the burning logs. The wood split with a
hiss and a loud crack; the better, she thought, to cover the voice of such naked need. “Why are you telling me this?”

“Because the woman I loved was Nydia—the monster who saved us all from Amanander and his Magic last summer.”

“The witch?” Deirdre whispered. The stick fell out of her hands into the fire.

“Yes.” Vere looked back into the flames, his voice shaking with some suppressed emotion. “My father, Abelard, forced her to
use the Magic for him—so that his Queen would conceive his son, Roderic. In consequence, Nydia became that horror. And from
that day to this, I have wondered what my part in it was…”

“What makes you think you had a part?”

“Don’t you understand, Deirdre? We are all part of the pattern. All our actions impact upon the whole. If you leave here,
because you love Roderic—” He held up his hand as she opened her mouth to protest, and the words died on her tongue. “If you
desert him, now, at the hour of his need, because that love imposes too high a price, is that love at all?”

Deirdre glanced down. Her worn, battle-scarred boots clung to the muscles of her thighs, hardened from long
days spent on battlefields and in the saddle. The tunic she wore was patched and mended, as were the trousers beneath. Her
knotted hands reminded her of other scars which marred the smooth muscles of her arms and legs, and the red, puckered line
which was all that remained of her left breast. She was nothing like the woman Roderic loved.

And yet he had agreed to the terms she had offered him, to father her a son in exchange for her men, even though he had seen
her naked body one rain-soaked night in the course of those agonizing negotiations made necessary by Amanander’s mischief.
Roderic’s nobility clung like a second skin; he could no more pretend not to be a Prince than she could pretend to be the
soft, delicate woman who was his wife. But even then, she had wanted him. Even then.

Deirdre raised her face to Vere and saw genuine sympathy in the deep lines of his weathered face, the look in his gentle eyes.
“And if I stay?”

“I won’t lie. If you stay, it will be hard. But look at what Roderic faces: Atland’s sons and Missiluse in full rebellion,
the lesser lords throughout the South likely to rise to their support. The Harleyriders will surely see this as an opportunity
to advance into the central plains. And now—” Vere patted the pouch where he had slipped the crumpled parchment, “—now, there
is clear evidence that Ferad himself has surfaced. He’s finally made the move we’ve been waiting for. And he did not do it
without much preparation—I promise you, right now, he holds all the cards. You know what the Magic can do. Brand scoffs, but
he wasn’t at Minnis last summer when
Nydia brought the siege to an end. You’ve seen the Magic work. Nydia’s dead. Now there’s no one who can use the Magic for
Roderic. He needs every friend. Please, don’t make a mistake you might have your whole life to regret.”

Deirdre took a deep breath and got to her feet. “All right. I’ll stay. But only until J’ly. I must be over the Saranevas by
the first snow. Whatever I am, or am not, to Roderic, I am the M’Callaster to my people.”

She pulled her plaid close, threw the end over her shoulder, and knew he watched her as she stalked away into the dark night.

T
he gray afternoon had faded completely into a dull twilight, and Roderic sighed surreptitiously, wondering whether to interrupt
the First Lord of the Arkan Plains and call for someone to light the candles, or to wait for the inevitable summons to dinner
to end Gredahl’s long monologue. Roderic fidgeted in the hard seat, torn by the demands of cramped limbs and those of the
Senador whose tired voice held him as much a prisoner as the rigid wooden back of the chair.

He glanced past Gredahl’s hulking shape to the window, where the fog obscured everything but a glimpse of the winking torches
in the guardhouses on the crushed rubble walls of Ahga. The rain pelted down the glass with grim monotony, wearying as Gredahl’s
voice. He wondered how his father had managed to control his restlessness, remembering all the hours Abelard had spent listening
patiently to the ceaseless demands, petitions, and complaints of the Senadors who comprised the Congress, as well as those
of the lesser lords of the various holdings of the Ridenau estates, the merchants, the traders, and the farmers who made up
most of the population of Meriga. No voice
was ever denied the King’s ear, no petitioner a chance of the King’s justice.

He drew a deep breath, realizing abruptly that Gredahl had finished speaking and was looking at him curiously, waiting for
a response. “Lord Prince?”

He shifted once more in the chair, stifled another sigh, and thought quickly of how to answer Gredahl, who had been his father’s
ally for more years than Roderic had been alive. “I understand your concerns about the Harleyriders—”

“Concerns? You call these concerns? More than a hundred men and women died last month on my border—an entire harvest was destroyed
or taken. I do all I can, but by the One, Lord Prince, who are we to look to?”

“Lord Senador,” Roderic began again, weighing each word, “in all honesty, I have not the men right now to increase the garrisons
in Arkan—even the garrison at Dlas has been dangerously depleted. All I can assure you is that the troops at Ithan are alerted
and ready.”

He was glad he could not see Gredahl’s face clearly in the gloom. The Senador’s huge shoulders heaved like an earthshake,
the long gray curls spilling over his furs like a flood tide. “You know what you condemn my people to, boy?”

Roderic fought the impulse to hang his head. The two years of his regency had taught him more about men and leadership than
he had ever thought possible to learn. He spread his hands flat on the tabletop of smooth glass which protected the ancient
maps flattened beneath it. “Lord Senador—” He stopped, wet his lips and began again. “I understand your fear. And while I
don’t discount
what you say, I can assure you that the scouts report no more activity south of Loma than is usual in the spring, when the
Harleys leave their winter camps.” He drew a slow line down one ancient border. What he said was the truth. It might not be
sufficient to allay the fears of the Arkan lords, who had lived with the threat of the Harleys for generations, but it was
the truth. So far, there was no evidence at all that the Harleys planned to take advantage of the dangerously chaotic situation
to the east.