Arcolin stopped short. “Jamis. It’s true I don’t have to make you my heir. But I want to make you my heir. And the king will not mind, and you will make a fine duke someday.”
“But if I’m not a good enough soldier? Captains have to be better than other soldiers, don’t they? And commanders better than captains?”
“There’s no reason to think you won’t be, and even so—by then the dukedom may be able to support itself in other ways than by war in the south.” He started to say “Don’t worry about it,” but the boy was already worrying about it, and he knew from experience that a boy Jamis’s age could not stop worrying by trying.
When they reached the horse and pony, Arcolin picked Jamis up and set him in the saddle, then mounted. “When I was your age,” he said as they rode out the gate, “I did not think about heirs and things—and I should have, perhaps. I spent my time with half brothers and others like me—bastards.”
Jamis frowned. “No fathers?”
“No. Our mothers were not married to our father. He was a king. My half brothers included both princes of the realm and other bastards. We were … security.” Jamis merely looked thoughtful, so Arcolin went on. “If the princes got sick, or were killed, or even died later, one of us might be made a prince and then a king. But when we were very young, we didn’t know that. We all lived together in the boys’ hall and trained together in the salle and the soldiers’ court. We all thought—we young ones—that we were princes, all alike.”
“When did you find out?”
“When I was a few years older than you. I had a brother, as I thought—a half brother, in reality a true prince—who began ordering me about and hitting me. I complained about it to the boys’ hall steward, who gave me a smack that near knocked me down. He told me what I was and that I would be the other’s servant as I grew up and it was time I learned my place and stayed in it.”
“What did your father say?”
“I knew better than to complain to the king. I saw then that some of the others were clearly like me and some were not. Some became friends with those they served—not all the princes were as mean as mine. It was my destiny, as everyone there saw it, to come to manhood as the other’s servant, to do his work, endure his mistreatment. So … when I was old enough … I left.”
“Did they chase you?”
“No. By then I knew enough of the king to tell him I was leaving and make no complaint. He was not a bad man; he wished me well and gave me a ring—a royal ring—to wear if ever I wished to return or to show if they came searching for me, to prove who I was. Enough money for a start. ‘You might still be king someday,’ he said.”
“Do you still have the ring?”
“No,” Arcolin said. “I gave it to the dragon.”
“What did you do after you left?”
“Went to Valdaire—well, I started for Pliuni, the nearest city, but I met people on the road who said Valdaire was the place for a youth who knew what to do with a sword. And there I was lucky enough to join Halveric Company, and from there I was able to join the Guard in Tsaia and then this company. I’d met Kieri Phelan when he was with Halveric.”
“My … how do I know what to call my first father?”
“First father sounds good to me. Or first-da.”
“He was from Vérella and never anywhere else. Wasn’t it hard, leaving home by yourself?”
“Yes … but not as hard as staying would have been.”
Arcolin finished his business with the mayor and walked over to Kolya’s house. He had visited often since her illness; she seemed to have recovered completely. He found her supervising two of the town boys, who were digging her garden.
“I’m not supposed to do heavy work yet,” she said to Arcolin.
“Can I help?” Jamis asked.
“We can’t stay long,” Arcolin said. “Don’t get too muddy.”
“Tell you what,” Kolya said to Jamis, leaning down. “I need more kindling in the front room: These boys stacked branches beside the woodpile—could you take two armloads inside for me? They’re busy.”
“Yes, sera,” Jamis said.
When he was far enough away, Kolya said, “That’s a good lad you have there. Very good.”
“He’s supposed to be on best behavior in town,” Arcolin said. “But I promise you, there’s a little mischief from time to time out at the stronghold.”
“He’d make a good heir, unless Calla bears a son—”
“She’s expecting—just told me. But he’s my heir anyway; they’re coming with me to Vérella, and I’ll make it formal with the king.”
“Good.” She nodded. “I was hoping you would. So are others.”
“Need anything from Vérella? Or—do you want to come down with the troops and witness the ceremony for the council? You could come back with Calla and her escort. And it would give her a woman companion to chat with when Jamis is riding with me.”
She looked surprised, then nodded slowly. “I could do that. Belan took over the pruning for me; we’d be back in plenty of time to thin the fruit. Thank you.” She looked at the boys now making furrows in her garden. “I wish it would rain. We haven’t had that much since the half-Evener storm. And last summer was drier than usual.”
Arcolin remembered reading that in the year rolls, but the harvest had been down only a little. “As long as it rains this year,” he said. “I expect it will.”
On the ride to Duke’s West, Arcolin told Jamis what to expect in the ceremony. “You won’t need court clothes at your age, but your best clothes certainly. Your mother will probably insist on a lace collar—”
“Lace is itchy.”
“Yes, but this is at the king’s court, where everyone wears lace and itchy clothes. It helps us remember we’re in a special place, very formal. I will wear lace, too, and so will your mother.” Jamis nodded. “Now,” Arcolin went on, “our king here in Tsaia isn’t an old man, as my father was, but a young man. Older than you but scarcely half my age. His younger brother, Camwyn, is his heir. The king isn’t married yet and has no son to follow him.”
“But he must marry, mustn’t he?”
“He will, I’m sure. When you meet him, you must bow very low—I’ll show you when we get back this evening so you can practice. And you say ‘Yes, sir king,’ and ‘No, sir king.’ ”
When they returned to the stronghold, they found Calla already packing and also planning Jamis’s clothes for the ceremony. “We don’t have the right cloth here,” she said. “It’s all good wool, but for this he will need velvet in your colors, and he will need new shoes. We can get those in Vérella, but it will take me several days to have his clothes made up. I’m sure it will take several days to set up the audience, so that should not be a problem.”
“I’m sending a courier to the king to ask him to arrange it as soon as possible after we arrive; the courier will be in Vérella at least three days before we are, more if we get much rain on the way. You could send word to your parents to prepare clothes, couldn’t you?”
“Indeed I could. I’ll just measure him—Jamis, come here. By the time you’ve written your letter, Jandelir, I’ll have mine ready.” She pulled a length of cord from her pocket
Arcolin went to his study to write the king about both his new-named heir and the gnomes’ questions about boundaries, then letters to the barons whose lands bordered his to the west. He had met Dortlin once at court, a tall man, younger than himself, with thinning hair and a thick north-country accent, the southern of the two. Kieri had mentioned Masagar, whose very small holding was north of Dortlin’s. Arcolin had never met him and had no idea how far north he claimed.
Next morning the couriers set out, and the day after, Arcolin, Captain Arneson, and Captain Garralt led out the recruit cohort and the supply wagons. Jamis rode beside Arcolin’s roan ambler.
The journey to Vérella, so familiar to Arcolin, was exciting to Jamis. Arcolin was glad to see that his new status as Arcolin’s heir had not change
d his behavior for the worse. Calla asked that he spend part of each day in the wagon with her “for company,” she said, but Arcolin knew it was to keep the boy from exhausting himself or bothering the captains and his stepfather with his endless questions.
When they came to the border with Halar’s lands, the Count waited there, his tent set up so they had a dry place (it was one of the rainy days) to talk and then sign Kaim’s squire contract. Jamis came, too, watching the proceedings with obvious interest. Count Halar, Arcolin noticed, did not protest his son’s decision or show much emotion; it was evident only in the glitter of tears in the man’s eyes at the end, when he gave his son a man’s arm clasp and a thump on the shoulder. He looked past Kaim at Arcolin, a long measuring look that said everything he felt about sending his son into battle.
Arcolin bowed. “As my own son, I will care for him.”
“That is your wife’s son, is it not?”
“He is my son and my heir now,” Arcolin said. “We go to the king when we reach Vérella.”
“Ah. Then you understand.” Halar’s expression softened, and he bowed.
As they came into the city, Jamis wrinkled his nose. “I didn’t know it smelled like this when I lived here.”
Arcolin laughed. “Cities do smell very different from open land,” he said. “You lived in it all your life; of course you wouldn’t notice. But remember when you came north last fall, you told me about the smells on the way, and when we got to the stronghold?”
“Yes … I like some of the smells here. More bakers. When will we see Grandda and Gramma?”
“Very soon now. Your mother wants to visit them before coming to the palace. You’ll go with her; I must report to the king first, and then I’ll join you.”
Arcolin spoke to Captain Gerralt, then turned his horse aside on the broad street that led to the palace gates; behind him, he heard the steady tread of the recruits continue across the city. Calla, he knew, would turn the wagon down the street leading to her parents’ house.
Mikeli greeted him at the palace entrance; he was just in from a ride, Arcolin could see by his boots. “So—your courier says you’re ready to declare your heir. He looked a fine boy last fall, but are you sure he is old enough?”
“Not really, but it’s the right time for other reasons.” Arcolin explained the situation on the way to the king’s office.
Mikeli nodded. “That’s a good decision. We arranged a time day after tomorrow, when Marrakai and Serrostin would both be back in the city. The way things are, with the trouble in Fintha, I’d like to see every succession settled as soon as possible and without regard to magery—your lad hasn’t shown it, has he?”
“Not a bit, but it doesn’t always show at his age, as you know. We’ve three in my domain that I know of. A girl of ten winters and boys of five winters and eleven. Came suddenly in the past winter, without warning, in families—veterans’ families—with no known mage blood.”
“Any trouble?”
“No, and I think that’s because my people are mostly veterans. First, they’re not all Girdish. Second, they’ve seen more on campaigns, and they don’t think magery is inherently evil even if some magelords were. Are you having trouble elsewhere?”
“Not as much as Fintha, but some. A few Marshals don’t want to obey my prohibition against punishing children for it; they seem to think I’ve influenced the Marshal-Judicar and even the Marshal-General. Clearly they don’t know Oktar … or the Marshal-General. High Marshal Seklis mutters about their attitude but hasn’t been able to change it yet. Have you heard about Gird’s Cow?”
“Gird’s Cow? What cow?”
Mikeli chuckled. “It seems some Girdish farmer in Fintha got the idea that a stuffed cow would convince those most angry at magery to change their minds. So he draped a cowhide over a framework of wood, put it on a cart, and dragged it all the way to Fin Panir, gathering some followers—and many hecklers—along the way.” His expression hardened. “It’s not funny, really. The situation worsens with every tale I hear; Fintha is coming apart, and I don’t know what to do. We’ve had people coming in—mostly to escape the mage-hunters, but a few hunting mages here. I sent those packing with a stern warning. Marrakai’s taking the brunt of that, but all the barons on the border north of the river have had some incursions. They’re letting the fugitives stay, with my permission. I can’t see sending children back to be killed.”
“I should talk to those barons,” Arcolin said. “I’m not even sure of my western border … and I didn’t give the gnomes a map. I didn’t think …”
“Dortlin’s domain would border the southern third of yours. Masagar’s, north of that, but he doesn’t claim all the way to horse nomad country. How far did you tell the gnomes they could have?”
“The hills west of the stronghold—but I didn’t tell them who owned beyond that. I need maps, sir king—”
“Indeed you do. I’ll tell the librarian to have them copied for you. I’m surprised Kieri didn’t have some. But on another topic … I need your advice and Duke Verrakai’s on how best to secure our west border. We’ve had no serious trouble there since Gird’s War, but I fear that with trouble in the South, we might also face more trouble there.”
“We might indeed,” Arcolin said. “I’m certain the Marshal-General won’t mount an attack as long as she’s in control, but if the Fellowship in Fintha splits or if the other faction takes control, then Tsaia’s stand on magery will be seen as a threat.”
“And we could be attacked on two fronts.”
“We could … but I don’t see any alliance between our southern enemies and the Finthans.”
“Does it matter whether they’re allied or not? Either way, it splits our forces, doesn’t it?”
“You’re right, sir king, though I have trouble believing that Fintha will attack—that the unrest will go that far. A few border skirmishes, maybe, but—”
“You have not heard the latest news,” the king said. “Yesterday’s courier—so you could not have heard it. The Marshal-General was badly wounded in an attempt to unseat a Marshal who had supported killing any and all with mage talent, and they believe the weapon used was of kuaknom manufacture. Cursed to kill slowly while infecting the mind, like Paksenarrion’s wounds in Kolobia.”
“Kuaknomi—” Arcolin’s mind raced. “We had a band of them not three hands of days past, up near the border of nomad country. It was a shock; I thought they had been driven out long since.”
“So I was told as a child.” The king sighed and pushed papers around. “Many changes have come upon us, upsetting what I was told then—and you, too, I have no doubt. Magery manifesting in those who never had it before, a dragon seen in these lands—even in Gird’s day no one had seen a dragon—treachery in the heart of every one of the Eight Kingdoms whose stories we know, treachery even among elves.”
“And gnomes,” Arcolin said before he could stop himself, remembering Dattur’s story. “But that was corruption spread by Achrya, or so I believe.”
“And Achrya, too, is supposed to be vanquished, by the dragon, but the treachery did not disappear with one evil power. King Kieri has informed me that an elf of the far west has demanded that he wake the sleeping magelords Paksenarrion told of—a tale confirmed from Fintha. Supposedly that is necessary to stem a great evil arising from Luap’s Stronghold. The Marshal-General had a similar visit seasons before, with the same demand, but insisted she lacked the ability to do so. It makes no sense to me: Why would enchanted magelords spawn evil? But that, King Kieri tells me, is supposed to be the origin of the kuaknomi’s return to these lands.”
“Are the western baronies seeing them?”
“There are suggestions—night-walkers, poisoned wells, dead trees. But few sightings that I’m sure are kuaknomi. People—including the worst of Fintha—are moving, some begging refuge from the mage-haters and some threatening to test children. That we cannot allow. I wanted to ask your advice about moving some of the Royal Guard west to
assist the smaller domains. Marrakai assures me he has troops enough to guard his.”
“Yes,” Arcolin said. “There are enough troops—mine included—in the northwest of Aarenis to slow down any attack that might head over the pass, and I have the Aldonfulk prince’s assurance that a large force will not be able to penetrate the gnome rockways. You—or Duke Verrakai—would have ample time to move troops back to this side of the pass from the Finthan border if Immer’s troops invade from the south.”
“Duke Verrakai.” Mikeli tapped the pen on his desk. “I do not doubt her loyalty, but … the regalia still troubles me. I almost wish—she would take it home with her. Get it out of here.”
“Have you told her that?”
“No. Do you think she would?”
“Sir king, I think she will do whatever you command. But although I know Immer wants that crown, I don’t think sending it away will keep him from attempting the north. From what Andressat wrote me, I believe he is inhabited—the way some Verrakaien took over others, including that groom at your coronation. And the ambitions of whoever inhabits him seem fixed on the North. Kieri has had warning from Kostandan.”
“I wish you were not leaving the realm this season. If anything happens—if she must leave—I have no experienced military commander for our defense.”
Arcolin bit his tongue. He knew Dorrin had tried to push the peers to do better training—and to improve their own skills in warfare. But not even the king’s uncle had done more than individual weapons practice. The peers with an interest in military matters still studied the battles Kieri had been involved in a generation before without really understanding them. Most thought they were doing well if they led a few hands of yeomen up and down a road twice a year and ended with a mock battle between—at most—eight hands of them.
“I suppose you must go …” the king said.
“I must, yes, but I will be near enough the pass to return quickly if you need me. Having my force there ensures at least a delaying action, with time to send word to you. Dorrin—”