The White Mists of Power (34 page)

The retainer looked over Alma’s shoulders and saw Byron. The retainer made a quick bow to Alma and disappeared before Byron reached them. He extended his arm to Alma. “What was that?” he asked.

“Lord Kensington wanted to express his regrets,” she said, “but did not think he should approach you. I told his retainer that I would pass on the words.”

Byron nodded. The conversation had seemed too involved for that. And if Kensington had felt that way, he could have told Alma himself. Byron would investigate further when he was alone with her. “Ready?” he asked.

The guards pulled the doors open, and Byron and Alma made their entrance. They eased their way through the openings in the circles, greeting the gentry as they passed. Lord Dakin refused to return the greeting. Lord Kensington and Lady Kerry sat on opposite sides of the circle and ignored Byron’s nod.

Byron and Alma took their seats beside Byron’s mother. Dishes of cold soup were already in place. No one spoke, according to custom, and the hall filled with the sound of clanking dishes. Byron’s shoulders were tense. He could feel a headache building along his neck. He wanted to turn, to survey the guests, but knew that he couldn’t show any signs of nervousness. He ate the vegetable stew and mutton and dessert slowly, concentrating on his food. The hair on the back of his neck rose. He heard a movement behind him, and then his mother stood.

For a moment he didn’t understand what was happening. Then he realized that she was about to give her eulogy–tradition demanded that she go first. Byron was not allowed to speak about his predecessor, a way of preventing the new king from defining the old. Only the old king’s friends, relatives, staff, and council members could eulogize him.

His mother lifted the veil from her face. Her eyes seemed dull, as if the tears had washed the color away. “I have lost five sons and four daughters.” She spoke softly. Some of the gentry in the back circle leaned forward in order to hear. “And as one son returns to me from the dead, I lose the person who helped me go on living. I don’t plan to die soon, but I know I no longer have a life. Yet I will not speak of the past, but of the future–my son’s future and my future through him.

“When Adric was a child, his free-thinking ways frightened most of us. It’s clear that he continues to act for himself, that his survival has depended upon his quick mind. My son has survived against great odds, and I believe that he is the stronger for it.

“I have never spoken out on policy before, but it is my right as consort and as the new ruler’s mother to do so now. Kilot has not seen a war for hundreds of years. Our land’s island status has protected us from invaders, and we have had peace within. Emotions flared the night my consort died and Adric surprised all of us. That night could be forgotten and forgiven. If this split between the royal house is not mended, Kilot could be divided. The outer island circles will break off from us and we’ll lose our protection. I will urge now, while my consort’s body lies encircled on the bier, that you support this man who is my son.”

His mother pulled her veil over her face and sat down. Byron did not look at her. He stared straight ahead and listened to the silence that engulfed them. He had his mother’s support, and yet he felt the undercurrent of blame in her words. If he had kept silent about his identity, the kingdom would have remained at peace.

Loneliness encircled him like the flames encircled the bier. He wished Seymour could give him a potion to heal the melancholy that was filling him. But there were no herb-witch cures for his ailments. He had to struggle and fight on his own, alone, for a cause no one else seemed to believe in. He watched as a lord stood in the back to speak. All his life Byron had wanted to come back here, to sit in his rightful place, and to use the knowledge he had learned during the years of hardship. But nothing was as he had imagined it, and he wondered if happiness was as much a myth as the tale-tellers said Gerusha was.

ii

A whisper of smoke carried in the breeze. The whistle-woods moaned. Each cry was different, distinctive: one had a bass tone, another a touch of treble. Ikaner stood in the grove, reaching for the souls of the Old Ones. She was finding nothing against the ground except for a strange sense of nostalgia. She had seeded here, and in the caves the Enos had brought her to flower, before wiping her mind and tying her soul to her bluff. The training had settled well. She wanted to go home, to sit on the bluff, and feel the river wind touch her face, without hearing her ancestors cry from the trees that imprisoned them.

Yes?
The voice rose with the cry of the trees, and at first Ikaner wasn’t sure she heard it.

I have come to ask a question.
Her thoughts felt as if they echoed in silence, as if no one heard. She couldn’t project into a mind as she was used to, and the ground felt as if it forced the thoughts to bounce back, into the wind. Strands of her thinning hair brushed across her face, and she pushed them back.

Speak.

I have met the white mists. He has strengths.

He threatens the land with blood.

No.
Ikaner glanced around her. The trees appeared to be glowing, as if from an internal heat.
Humans have fought before. We threaten the land.

If the humans pollute the land with blood, we destroy the humans. It is our agreement from long past.

The winds rose, making the shrieks louder. Ikaner could barely hear her own thoughts.
But if we add human blood to the land, we too pollute the land.

We follow the prophecy.

She whirled in the wind, seeing if another Enos stood near her. She was alone in the trees. She shivered. The wind had become chill.
You make the prophecy.

She heard no response. The trees wailed and then the wind died. The silence pushed against her ears, making her feel as if a great pressure had left her body. She felt strange here. She wanted to go home to her bluff, and think about growing trees and directing sunlight. She wanted to be the bluff Enos again instead of Ikaner, one of many.

You make the prophecy,
she thought again, but the thoughts seemed to echo in her mind, trapped, as she imagined human thoughts to be. She stepped out of the grove into the sunlight, and knew she was alone.

iii

The laces on Byron’s shirt flapped against his chest. Seymour stood inside the door to the royal apartments as if he could go no farther. Byron leaned against a chair and rubbed a hand against his face. His skin smelled of Alma.

“I will do what I want,” he said, “and that’s the end of it.”

Seymour glanced at the door leading to the bedchamber where Alma still slept. “That’s not the end of it, Byron. When you die, we all die for supporting you. It’s not your life anymore, don’t you understand that?”

Byron grabbed the laces and finished threading them. “It never was my life,” he said.

“Kensington will kill you if you meet alone. At least put a guard in there with you.”

“Afeno will be behind the panel.” Byron had discovered the listening panel in the audience chamber, a place he suspected that Boton and Ewehl had used often.

The bedroom door opened and Alma leaned against it. Her long black hair flowed down her back. She had put on a white dressing gown that seemed to reveal more than it covered. “You’ll wake the entire kingdom.”

Seymour looked at her, then away. She crossed her arms over her chest. Byron smiled at her with a warmth he didn’t feel. “Good morning, Alma.”

“He asked for the meeting, and I’m going to give him another chance. The last thing I want to do is fight him.” Byron could feel the strain in his back and shoulders. If only he could relax. “I think fighting him would be worse than my death.”

“Well, I don’t,” Seymour said. “You’ll leave the kingdom to Kensington, who obviously cares for no one but himself–or it’ll go to the lady over here, who has shown her potential for abusing power as well. Or have you forgotten, now that you’re her lover, that she stole land from Lafa using the king’s seal?”

Alma stepped into the room. Her skirts swayed and she seemed to be taller. “What I did is none of your business.”

“Stop it,” Byron said. “I’m going to see Kensington, and that’s all there is to it.” He pushed past Seymour and let himself into the hallway, slamming the door behind him. The guards looked straight ahead, as if pretending that they heard nothing. Byron walked down the hall, hearing his footsteps ring out against the stone floor.

They were right. He was taking a risk by meeting Kensington alone in the audience chamber. But Byron wanted to see if he could prevent the kingdom from splitting further.

He passed the performer’s closets, passed the portraits of his ancestors, and climbed the stairs where Milo had died. The door to the audience chamber stood open, and inside, he saw Kensington sitting on the king’s chair. A little chill ran through Byron. Kensington was going to play power games.

The best way to win was to do the unexpected. Byron bounded down the stairs to a performer’s closet and grabbed a stool. Then he carried it into the audience chamber, and set the stool on the floor near the stairs. He swung his lute around from his back. The instrument made him feel whole. He tuned it, watching Kensington from the corner of his eyes.

The lord looked haggard. His face seemed even thinner and shadows dwelt beneath his eyes. He templed his fingers and tapped them against his chin. “We have a meeting,” he said.

Byron ignored him and finished the ballad that he had been playing. Then he rested one arm on his knee and the other on his lute. “Lord Kensington,” he said as if he were sitting on the royal chair instead of Kensington. “You wished to see me?”

“I’ve come to make a deal with you, bard.”

“A deal, milord?”

Kensington leaned back in the chair, trying to appear relaxed. “You know that your support from the gentry is weak. If I win even one battle, they will gather around me. I sense that neither of us wants a war. The Lady Constance made it clear that she didn’t either. And I think I know a way to prevent one.”

Byron did not move. “Go on.”

“Since the Enos confirmed you, there is no doubt that you have a right to the throne. But being an heir does not make you a good ruler. You have not been trained in the art of leading; your past makes you almost unworthy to deal in the courts of Kilot. The gentry know this and that is why their support of you is weak.”

Kensington’s analysis of the gentry was accurate. Most of them perceived Byron as Kensington did, a peasant who by accident of birth now ruled the kingdom. None of them knew about all the years of preparation under Lord Demythos.

“I propose this,” Kensington said. “I shall become regent–not king–and all of the affairs of state shall be in my hands. You will sit on the Council of Lords and retain your honorary title. Keep the Lady Jelwra as consort. She’s a good choice for you. Then when your eldest child comes of age, I will step aside. Although you will not rule, your child will. This plan will ensure gentry support and keep Kilot from dividing.”

Byron clutched the neck of the lute. The plan sounded good and if Byron and Kensington had had a different history, Byron might have considered it. But Kensington had tried to kill him, and none of Byron’s brothers and sisters had lived. He had no guarantees that his own children would live either.

But if he agreed to the plan, Kilot would remain at peace. He thought of the blue flame guttering out, and the sparks that flew, finally igniting the last circle. Alma was the key. And Seymour was right. She craved power as much as Kensington did. With Alma as his consort and Kensington as regent, Byron would probably die. Alma would do anything to ensure her position of power–even murder.

Kensington gripped the arms of the chair. He looked diminished there, as if the office were too big for him. “You aren’t going to agree, are you?”

“No.” Byron spoke softly, not taking his gaze from Kensington’s. “There are too many factors against me. I don’t know if Alma will remain my consort should I agree or if my children will live or whether I will live, for that matter.”

“And if I gave you my word?”

Byron twisted his ring, wondering if it had ever brought anyone luck. “You are right. The gentry is worried about my lack of experience. But I’m worried about yours.”

“Mine?” Kensington stood and walked around the chair. “I’ve been at the palace most of my life. I run a huge estate. I know more about these things than you ever could.”

“Perhaps,” Byron smiled. “But have you ever gone without food? Been beaten because you were unable to perform a simple task? Have you ever lived in a miserable one-room hovel full of lice and ticks and disease?”

“No.” Kensington grimaced. “And I can’t see that it matters.”

“It does matter. Although the gentry have the money in this kingdom, they do not have the numbers. Have you thought, milord, that for the third season the wheat crop has failed? The soothsayers predict another drought. People are starving. Healthy people will allow a ruler to ignore them. Dying people have nothing to lose. They will overthrow our system and throw the land into chaos. I think I could prevent an uprising and protect Kilot, while making the peasantry feel as if they are part of the government. Could you?”