“No, sir king. I have not seen them since they came south a year ago with Kieri Phelan; he left them at the south border of his land when he came to court. He released them from their oath to him after he arrived in Lyonya. Dorrin—Duke Verrakai—brought them back to Tsaia and hired them to help her carry out your commands.”
“And they pledged to her as their liege?” The king looked down at a paper on his desk.
“No,” Arcolin said again. Surely the king knew this already. “She considered them still part of Phelan’s estate, to be transferred to his successor. She contracted with Selfer, formerly her junior captain, on the same terms as any other employer, for their service. She and I discussed this at the Autumn Evener; I told her I would need that cohort this coming campaign season. She said she would send them on when she got back from Autumn Court; I went on north to confirm my new rank.” Arcolin paused there. Should he go on? Explain every decision that had taken Selfer and the cohort south instead of north for the winter?
“So … they had not given their oaths to you or to me.” The king sounded disapproving. Arcolin understood: the chain of fealty had a gap, and oathless soldiers were considered virtual outlaws, suspect at best.
“No, sir king, but Selfer is reliable, and I have no doubt that when I get to Valdaire they will.”
The king nodded but was still frowning at the paper in front of him. “Do you know whether any of those who stayed with Duke Verrakai were born Verrakai, bastard or other?”
“Not without reviewing the Company rolls, sir king. We have records of what each one swore when recruited, but those rolls are in the north. Should I send for them?”
The king stroked his beard. “I … am not sure. That is the problem. I am not sure, and my advisors and other lords are not sure. We trusted too much before; we must not trust too much again. There is something uncanny about Duke Verrakai.”
Remembering Dorrin with Stammel last autumn, Arcolin could not argue that. “What is it you fear, sir king?”
The king moved restlessly. “I don’t quite know. She saved my life, that I do know. And I saved hers in return. She is a Knight of Falk, which should mean a person of honor … but how do I know what it really means? A Knight of Gird would be guided by Marshals, who would recognize if … if one turned from Gird’s way to … to something evil. Who has authority over a Knight of Falk? Does that ruby they wear turn to a dull pebble if the Knight goes astray?”
“She said the Marshal-General had visited her and seemed content. And Paks.”
“Yes. In the summer.” The king shifted again in his chair. “I think … I wonder … if the Marshal-General can be … can be so surprised by any virtue in a Verrakai that she would overlook … could be fooled.”
“Paks wouldn’t,” Arcolin said. “What she sees is real; she has the gods’ own light to see it by.”
“I would like to believe Duke Verrakai as honest and loyal as you tell me she is,” the king said, meeting Arcolin’s gaze. “But you must know that some of the other nobles do not trust anyone of that family and do not trust someone who uses magery, as she does. Even the other dukes, who all supported her at my coronation.”
“But they sent their children as squires—”
“Squires, yes. And spies,” the king said. He shifted a little in his chair. “At least Beclan Mahieran was. His father, my uncle, suggested it to me. I agreed, and both his father and I gave the lad his assignment. Keep watch, take note of any use of magery and the circumstances of it. Any sign of honoring evil deities—we didn’t actually think she was Liartian, but in that environment, isolated on Verrakai domain, could some other evil influence her? Take note as well of the population, the way they behaved. The number of sound men: she claimed that most had been killed or injured in that battle with the Royal Guard and her cohort, but …”
Arcolin could not keep surprise out of his voice. “But you made her your Constable, to oversee Tsaia’s military readiness, to command in the field. If you didn’t trust her—”
“I did … to a point. And she was the only war-trained person of rank in the kingdom at the time; she had convinced me—and others—that we might face danger from Aarenis as well as from Pargun. You, you recall, were over the mountains, out of contact with us.” The king paused for a moment; Arcolin could think of nothing to say. “And the other thing is, she’s … a woman. A woman as duke … as war-leader …”
“But you’re Girdish,” Arcolin said. “The Marshal-General is a woman. Many Marshals are women.” That burst out before he could stop it, and no “sir king” to soften it.
“Yes. And the Marshal-General, when I mentioned one cause of a general distrust of Dorrin Verrakai, was displeased with what she called our intransigent aristocratic attitudes. But Gird himself allowed Tsaia to retain its monarchy and its aristocracy so long as we obeyed the Code. Which we do. It is only that her being Verrakai, and female, and using magery … that is a lot to swallow.”
“So you set a mere boy to spy on her and hoped that she would slip?”
“And hoped she would prove herself,” the king said. He sighed. “You cannot understand, Count Arcolin, all the pressures on a king. At any rate, at Autumn Court, Beclan reported to me. Reported nothing suspicious or dangerous, except … You yourself saw her perform magery, did you not?”
“Yes—my sergeant had been blinded and invaded by someone we now know was a Verrakai; he had not died, nor let the other take over, but had it still deep in his soul. She cast it out, destroyed it.”
“What did you think at the time?”
“I had not known he still had the demon or monster inside him; I was shocked when she called it out, relieved that Stammel survived, and saddened that this did not restore his sight.”
“And then came the Pargunese invasion of Lyonya. King Kieri and I established a courier service early in his reign, so I was aware of his concern about the Pargunese. He actually met the Pargunese king before the invasion—did you know that?”
“No, sir king.”
“Their king came to assassinate him because of some ridiculous notion he had about women soldiers and his daughter. However, they parted peacefully—it is a long story, and I do not yet have all of it because of the war. Very shortly after, a Lyonyan courier brought word that the Pargunese had crossed the river. Duke Verrakai’s first dispatch came a few days later—understandable, as she was then at home, two days from Harway. I trusted she would move at once to muster what Verrakai troops she could and proceed there to take command.”
“Did she not?” Arcolin said.
“Indeed. What I did not expect is that in those first chaotic days a royal courier would die on Verrakai lands, killed—she claims—by renegade Verrakaien she had not yet captured. Or that two of her squires would be attacked by more renegade Verrakaien. The youngest suffered crippling injuries and was healed by a Kuakgan, not a Marshal of Gird. There’s a twig where his thumb was, and it moves. His family’s appalled, of course. Now he’s refusing to obey his father and come home.” The king paused and pushed the papers on his desk around for a moment.
“My own cousin Beclan, fourth in succession,” the king continued, “patrolling her domain by her orders with an escort of her former soldiers and Verrakai militia, was caught in a Kuakkgani trap along with those Verrakaien renegades.” The king’s voice had risen; his hands closed into tight fists. “All died but him; he killed them because the Verrakaien took control of them and they would have killed him. Three Verrakaien men, a veteran sergeant of Phelan’s Company, and four Verrakai militia, killed them all. So he says—and there are no witnesses to gainsay him. But can a stripling, a squire, strike down so many by his own strength and skill?” Arcolin was speechless with shock. This was no rumor hatched by envious counts; the king would have searched out the facts as best he could.
“Holy Gird,” Arcolin murmured at last.
“You see how it looks,” the king said.
“Indeed.” He did not dare say what he was sur
e the king had thought: a boy Beclan’s age, no matter how talented with the sword, should not have been able to kill that many grown men, not without forbidden magery. And if magery—in the presence of Verrakaien renegades—then the likely explanation was that he had been invaded—against his will or with his cooperation. He was only a boy; he could not have withstood such an attack as that aimed at Stammel. He pushed aside the horror of a member of the royal family harboring a Verrakai magelord and brought up the next topic that came to mind. “Sir king, I had intended to ask the hospitality of Verrakai House; I know she told her house-wards I might stay any time I was in the city—”
“No,” the king said. “I will not risk you in that house, not now. If you trust her, you may house your escort and servants there, but you will stay in the palace.”
He would not be harmed in Dorrin’s house; he knew that. And yet … the king’s words were so very damning.
“We want another analysis of our military situation,” the king said. “You will need to present your ideas about our military situation to those of the Council who are present now. Can you be ready by the day after tomorrow, our next meeting?”
“Yes,” Arcolin said, “if someone has the current figures from the various domains.”
“I’ve had them sent to your chambers. We’ll meet again at dinner.”
Arcolin bowed; a servant led him to a pleasant apartment. A fire crackled on the hearth. He wrote a note to his escort and another to Dorrin’s house-wards.
Before dinner, he met Duke Serrostin and Duke Mahieran. “The king has told you about our concerns,” Mahieran said. “You should know that we had, initially, a favorable impression of Duke Verrakai. You told the king that she had had no contact with her family for years—”
“She had not, my lord,” Arcolin said.
“It was a delicate matter, granting her the title and the domain,” Mahieran went on. “We did not have time, after that assassination attempt, to ask Kieri Phelan about her character. The Council did, of course, send word to him, as well as to her, but we could not wait for the answer. None of us had ever met her. The king relied heavily on your advice.”
“I spoke the truth, my lord,” Arcolin said. “And I’m sure King Kieri said much the same when you did have word from him.”
“That’s so,” Mahieran said. “And so I believed when we did meet her. A very unusual woman, to be sure, with her experience. A bit … intimidating, perhaps, to some of the nobility. Yet frank and open with us, and I very willingly assented to the king’s pardon of her after she killed that Verrakaien who had invaded a groom.”
“I liked her,” Duke Serrostin said. “No question about that. And I did not think it a charm—though I am not sure of my judgment there. My wife, as well. Said she was odd but felt sound. M’wife’s a fine judge of horseflesh and hounds.”
What that had to do with judging people, Arcolin did not know.
“And the Marshal-General: I relied on her judgment,” Mahieran said. “Surely, as head of the whole Fellowship of Gird, she would sniff out any taint of evil.”
“And you think she did not?” Arcolin asked. “That Dorrin—Duke Verrakai—was so tainted?”
“No,” Mahieran said. “But I think she was wrong without being evil. A life spent as a soldier, with no experience at court … It was unfair; there were things she could not know.”
“And a Falkian,” Serrostin said. “I’ve heard they’re closer to Kuakkgani than the Girdish are.” He looked away for a moment, then back at Arcolin. “You know about my son?”
“Yes, I heard.”
“He would have been crippled—lame and thumbless—but now has two legs and one … twig. Was a twig, at least, though it now looks somewhat more like flesh. His heel-strings were mended with spruce needles and singing, Duke Verrakai said. She said, and my son confirmed, that the local Marshal, the Captain of Falk, and she herself all tried healing and were unsuccessful.”
“The witnesses agree,” Mahieran said.
“I asked if they tried healing while she was not there,” Serrostin said. “And they told me yes. She had a surgeon in as well, but he would do no more than dress the wounds.”
“It troubles you that a Kuakgan healed him?”
Serrostin scowled. “It troubles me that a Girdish Marshal could not, when our family has been Girdish for generations. The Marshal said only that the gods did not give the healing … but then they did give it to a Kuakgan. If it was the gods.”
“And it contaminates the boy with green blood,” Mahieran said. “Tell him the worst.”
“I talked to the Kuakgan myself,” Serrostin said. “He said he had not the strength to heal the other thumb at once, but that if the graft took, then the green blood might perceive the correct pattern for Daryan’s body and … and bud another thumb on his other hand. Bud!” He strode the length of the chamber and back. “I would not wish my son a cripple, of course. I am grateful, beyond words, to the gods for allowing his healing. But this—”
Arcolin could think of nothing to say, neither comforting nor useful. When the silence lengthened, he finally said, “Do you then blame Duke Verrakai for the Kuakgan’s healing?”
“Not … exactly. But how he was taken—” He went on with the same story Arcolin had heard from Valichi and the king. Before he could answer, Mahieran began.
“And she had been sending them out—all the squires—in command of small squads, to patrol her domain, take census of the vills, and so on. That is how my son was taken,” Mahieran said. “He was farthest away when the invasion began; she chose to go directly to Harway rather than await his return.”
“You know that was the king’s orders,” Serrostin muttered. He was staring out the window.
“Yes, but—yes, I know. And she sent word for him to return directly and bade him bring what troops he could raise.”
“What happened?” Arcolin asked.
“I don’t know exactly. I know what he’s said, but it seems … hard to believe. I’m sure the king told you as much as I know.” With that, Mahieran launched into a much longer account. Arcolin thought of the tall, handsome, confident squire he’d met the previous fall in Verrakai House. He could easily imagine that boy being excited at the onset of war, eager to prove himself, insisting on changing routes, insisting on splitting his force, pushing his authority as far as he could. Dorrin, he was sure, would have given Vossik guidelines that allowed her squires some independence—that was how squires learned. He hadn’t been surprised Vossik stayed with her or that she’d assigned him to Beclan. Vossik had been to her what Stammel was—had been—to him: utterly reliable in any crisis. He believed the boy’s version, that Vossik had killed himself rather than be taken over. Stammel would have done the same.
“Vossik was a nineteen-year veteran,” Arcolin said, nodding to show he had been listening. “Good man. I’m sure he did everything he could—”
“But he’s dead. And no witnesses to back up Beclan’s story.”
“He’s your son. Do you not believe him?” He could not keep the surprise out of his voice.
“Is he my son? That’s the question, Count Arcolin. We know now—we saw at Mikeli’s coronation—that evil magelords can take over others’ bodies or force them to obey. What I know for certain is that Beclan’s body came alive out of that cursed place. Whether it was his spirit … Was it really your sergeant with that—that evil spirit inside him?”
“Yes,” Arcolin said. “I have no doubt of that. How he acted after that—every detail—was the man himself, a man I’ve known for years. I would not have detected that evil inside.”
“But Duke Verrakai did.”
“Yes. She said only a man of his strength could have withstood it, forced it into hiding so long.”
“But she insisted it be expelled?”
“Yes, of course.” He saw from Mahieran’s expression that it was not “of course” to him. “My lord, no one would want such a thing inside—something that might, over long t
ime, find a way to attack again, seek control again. Stammel—my sergeant—had suffered enough. He was glad to have it out.”
“Are you sure there was something to come out?”
“Oh, yes.” Arcolin described what he’d seen that day and Stammel’s own description afterward, the sense of lightness, the end of bad dreams. “Have you had Duke Verrakai examine your son, my lord?”
“No.” Finality in that.
“Anyone? Marshals of Gird?”
“No. It is too dangerous to bring him here—even to our household. He is … in a safe place.”
Arcolin doubted that. “My lords, it is not my place, but if you will hear me, I have a suggestion.”
“Go ahead.”
“You surely know there are rumors abroad about both your sons. Nothing had reached me in the far north, but on the way here one of my captains reported gossip he’d heard from another count. About your son, Duke Serrostin, it was your displeasure with the means of his healing and his refusal to come home. But”—Arcolin turned to Duke Mahieran—“things are being said about yours that could bring evil upon him if he is not invaded, or loose more evil if he is. Both renegade Verrakaien and Bloodlord priests might seek him out. You must find out what his true condition is. I suggest a Marshal with a potent relic of Gird could be sent to test the truth of his tale. A Marshal might be fooled, but not one of the true relics.”
“Sonder, he’s right! Why didn’t we think of that? A Marshal—two, perhaps, a High Marshal, even the Marshal-General—relics—” Serrostin paced back and forth. “If we sent now, even in winter, the Marshal-General could be here in—”
“We can’t risk it, Parlan. If he is—if he took over a Marshal—Gird forbid the Marshal-General—think, man! It could be worse—we can’t let him contact anyone—”
“My lord, you can’t do nothing!” Arcolin started to say more, but Mahieran forestalled him.
“I know you’re Duke Verrakai’s friend—”
“This is not about Duke Verrakai,” Arcolin said. “It’s about your son. If you don’t find out, you put more than him at risk.”