Kings Of The North Part 27

Estil Halveric and one of her daughters-in-law mixed the dough for sweetcakes in a flurry of activity that did nothing to ease Estil's mind about Aliam. Less than a year ago he had been the same vigorous, joyful companion she'd known for so many years. Balder, grayer, a little more stooped, perhaps, but by no means old, nor had he thought himself old. Just as she could outwork most of her daughters and her sons' wives, Aliam could outwork his sons and his daughters' husbands.

But lately...not just lately, but since that visit, and more since Kieri's coronation, Aliam had changed. He had less energy, spent more time resting by the fireside or sitting under a tree. She'd worried that he was sick, but he showed no signs of illness, just a strange la.s.situde. She'd thought perhaps he missed campaigning, missed the yearly trip to the south. For years he'd gone south every summer with his company to fight, and then, with no explanation, he'd stayed north the summer before, and this one.

She'd had no idea he blamed himself so harshly, so unfairly, for the deaths of Kieri's wife and children, for the delay in Kieri's restoration. And yet, day by day he did less, ate less, grew more and more remote...

It wouldn't do. It wouldn't do at all. Estil pinched off bits of dough, shaped them with practiced hands, sprinkled them with figan, and set them to bake, still thinking hard. It had started with that paladin, or with the Lady, and it had been about Kieri. One of them, surely, would help her. People could grieve to death; she knew that, but it was not going to happen to Aliam. Not while she lived.

The cakes were just out of the oven when she heard the sentry's warning call. "I must go," she said.

"Your ap.r.o.n! Your head scarf!" her daughter-in-law said. Estil looked and saw that more than her ap.r.o.n had smudges and streaks of flour from baking.

She dashed for the stairs; Aliam was on his way down. "I have to change," she said. "I'll be quick."

The rain had finally stopped, and late-afternoon light pierced the forest canopy. Somewhere ahead, more light suggested an opening. The Count of Andressat booted his tired horse onward. Probably some peasant's hut, or another miserable village, though if he were lucky...

Beyond the trees, a swath of green, vivid in the golden light, and a sizable stone keep, not a village...the count looked at it appraisingly. More than a bowshot from the forest wall, neat fences divided grazing land from plow. Cattle in this enclosure, horses in that. An orchard of what must be fruit trees. The keep itself looked nothing like his...but it was stone-built, to its credit, and the roofs were slate, not straw thatch.

A horn call rang out; he had been seen. Not recognized, of course; they would not know who he was until he announced himself. A small troop of men on horseback rode out the gates, keeping a disciplined order he approved. A pennant flew from a pole one of them carried-Halveric's colors.

As they neared, he saw that the man in the lead was Halveric himself. "My lord Count!" Halveric said. "Be welcome here!"

"You expected me today?" Jeddrin's brows rose. He had not seen anyone all day, or heard any horn signals.

"Your envoy gave us warning days ago, and one of my outguards sent word more than a gla.s.s since."

Andressat relaxed. A properly managed estate, then, and secure enough that he need not fear, as he had feared every day after leaving home, attack by brigands or other enemies.

"You will be tired from your journey," Halveric went on. "And I see the rain caught you this afternoon."

"It has rained every day since I came over the mountains," Andressat said. "It's a wonder the whole land isn't a sea." He looked more closely at Halveric. The man seemed much older than a few years would account for; he sat his horse stiffly, as if in pain. What had happened? Halveric was younger than he himself...he had always seemed so vigorous. "Your country house looks very comfortable."

An odd expression crossed Halveric's face. "Thank you," he said. "Come on in; Estil's ready to welcome you."

Estil. A brother? Surely not his wife...but in a few minutes he saw an outrageously tall woman, dark hair streaked silver, poised at the entrance to the hall. Halveric called her over, even as a servant held the count's horse. Northerners. Even Halveric, who had seemed so urbane and civilized in Andressat.

The count smoothed his mustaches and bowed over the lady's hand. "The honor is mine," he said. She had powdered her hand with something like flour; he wondered why.

After a hot bath and shave and haircut from Halveric's barber, Jeddrin Count of Andressat felt much better. Everyone here knew his name, though he didn't know all of them, and Halveric had welcomed him with appropriate ceremony. His a.s.signed suite was large, graciously furnished, items from the south laid out to lend familiarity. Even, when he came out from his bath, a basket of warm spiced cakes-dusted with his favorite figan-waiting on the table in his bedchamber. True, out the window were northern fields and that forbidding forest, but his host had done his best.

And his host's wife. He had no way to address women who bore no t.i.tle and yet were not servants...he could not just use her name, no matter that Halveric had suggested it. Traveling as he had been, he'd not met any lords' wives; the townswomen he'd seen had looked, to his eye, like ordinary people, just dressed differently.

Estil Halveric was taller than her husband, straight-backed where he was stooped, with an easy smile that yet had no hint of flirtatiousness. She looked strong, as if she instead of her husband could captain a troop. She moved briskly, yet with grace...he was used to women of position moving more slowly, languidly, yet perhaps that was the difference in climate.

He had already seen the hall where they would dine, the tables set in the same pattern they might have been at home, had it been a formal banquet. Halveric had asked if he preferred a quiet meal alone, but his curiosity was aroused. How would a northern lordling set out a banquet? How would they come in? Halveric had eaten with him, but only informally.

At the high table, he and Halveric and Halveric's wife and the two eldest sons and their wives...down the side tables, the other sons and daughters and spouses.

"It is the growing season," Halveric said. "We do not travel much then-and I was not sure you wished many to know of your errand, so I did not try to gather a large party. It was in no disrespect of your honor, my lord Count."

Andressat relaxed. No insult intended; a family meal merely. That was comfortable, and for a family meal, nicely laid out. Solid, good-quality dishes, southern ware, painted with flowers and birds, heavy silver, fine blown goblets and flagons, all laid on sun-bleached linen cloths. Herbs and flowers strewn the length of the tables. And the fare...he could hardly believe the northern lands produced such bounty. Platters of sliced meats, small birds spitted between unfamiliar vegetables on thin rods, roast fowl, fish, tureens of soup, bowls of vegetables, baskets of bread in three colors, small dishes of oilberries...all served at once, instead of discrete courses. Southern wines, white and red. Halveric had explained that as a courtesy to a guest who had traveled all day.

"What fish are these?" he asked Halveric. He had expected salted fish, if any, so far from the sea, but these were fresh.

"Our own," Halveric said. "Netted from the stream this morning. We call them speck-sides." He smiled. "I remembered your fondness for river-fish. Ours are smaller, but I thought you might like them."

"They're delicious." Andressat accepted another serving. "And those meats?" He pointed with his little finger, politely.

"Beef, mutton, roast pork. The birds are ground-chucks and of course chickens."

"And you raise all this here, yourself?"

"Estil does," Halveric said, gesturing to his wife. Andressat had to turn, and meet that broad smile.

"Aliam's been gone so much," she said. "He's left it to me, you see."

He didn't see, not completely. "I did not see any goats," he said. "Do you not have goats here?"

"Not here," she said. "Steadings closer to the mountains do. They are not happy in thicker forest."

He understood that. At home, goats throve on hillsides too steep or barren for cattle. "But you have sheep."

"Only in fenced pastures," she said. "They are too hard to find, if they get loose in the forest. We keep enough sheep for wool, and eat some mutton, but we depend more on cattle for meat, though we also hunt."

It had been long in Andressat since hunting could provide reliable food for table. "What game?" he said, turning to Halveric.

"Deer, mostly," Halveric said. "Wild boar, on occasion. And then birds...the ground-chuck, rather like your quail in the south, and a bird we call the toris, like your hill-pheasant, only much larger. Toris are rare; I don't hunt them anymore. They're quite beautiful."

Andressat tasted a little of each dish-all quite good. The wines were good, too; he recognized his own product, and remembered that Halveric had always bought directly from his factor. That was a nice compliment.

He watched the demeanor of those at the lower tables, pleasantly surprised to see more civilized behavior than he expected, completely unlike the common rooms of inns where he'd stayed on his journey. True, men and women sat together, but there was no unseemliness, and they all seemed courteous.

He had eaten as much as he wanted; he glanced along the high table to see how the others were doing, and Halveric immediately turned to him. "If you would care for a stroll and then dessert in private-"

"Yes, thank you."

Halveric rose; the others all rose with him, and Andressat followed Halveric out into the courtyard and into a garden enclosure he had not noticed with a suitable facility at one end.

"I will understand," Halveric said, "if you do not wish to tell me why you travel so far in such haste and incognito, but if I can be of a.s.sistance..."

Andressat looked up and around. No one in hearing, but the danger lay not only in humans, he knew. "It is a matter of grave import-"

"Of course," Halveric said. "You would not travel so far without great need."

"I find it amazing that you would leave so pleasant a home each year to risk danger in the south," Andressat said, waving a hand at the espaliered fruit trees. "You are a man of breeding, of family-if you had stayed here-"

"I would not have this land," Halveric said. "Lyonya is not like the south. You do know about the duality of sovereignty?"

"Of course," Andressat said. "But not how it forced you into the south."

"I wasn't forced, exactly," Halveric said. He sighed. Once more Andressat noticed how old he looked, his broad shoulders stooped. "By agreement with our elders, not only the elves but also the other elder races, human holdings in Lyonya may not increase. This is all of Halveric Holding, or Halveric Gift, as the elves prefer to call it. It would have gone to my elder brother, had he not preferred a life at court. But in dividing the heritance, he gave up the land to gain the wealth allowing him to live in Chaya. I could not support this-" He gestured broadly. "-by trading farm goods. And as a young man, I knew I had military ability. That skill was salable, once I had a reputation over the mountains."

"Will you return?"

"Me? No...I'm too old." Halveric sighed heavily. "My sons, maybe. Cal might. We have to do something; my people deserve it and they aren't all suited to this life."

Andressat looked around again. No visible eyes or ears; this little walled s.p.a.ce should be secure. He hoped. "I am going to ask your king for aid," he said. "You remember that Alured the Black-"

"Yes," Halveric said, with a look of distaste.

"Now he styles himself Visla Vaskronin, Duke of Immer, and the new Duke of Fall confirms him-"

"Vaskronin? Where did he get that?"

"He claims from an ancestor." Andressat paused, trying to order his thoughts. "My archives are, I believe, the oldest and most complete in Aarenis. Those of Fall and Immer once contained records as old, but war and mischance befell them. Fall asked me, when first Alured-Vaskronin claimed Immer, for copies of my archives, to see if they agreed with Alured's claims. In the search for any that might be of use, I found...I found things I had not known." He glanced sideways. Halveric was leaning to look at something on the limb of one of the espaliered pears.

"I'm listening," Halveric said. He reached out and pinched something from the limb. "I listen better when my hands are busy."

"Well, then...I should have known everything in there, but I didn't. And the oldest were written long enough ago that the writing and the words are both difficult. It is no proper excuse, but my life has been busy; I never looked back more than a few hundred years until recently."

Halveric nodded, his gaze now fixed on a row of herbs. He rolled a fragrant leaf in his fingers.

"The earliest-" Andressat swallowed. He still found it hard to frame the words to describe what he'd read, the horror he'd felt, the urgency of his concern. "-the earliest are from Old Aare itself. I had no idea we had anything that old. There's a little gla.s.s pitcher supposedly from Old Aare, and a small tapestry hanging that was in my mother's room, but I always thought that was a fabrication. Nothing could last so long."

"Jeddrin," Halveric said, looking him in the eye. "Just tell me."

Andressat stiffened. But Halveric was right; he had been dancing around the core of it. "I found scrolls from Old Aare, describing what happened there, why people left-fled-to Aarenis and, more than that, across the Eastern Sea. Evil came to Aarenis before them; more came with them, and lingered even to this present day. The elder peoples left Aarenis, as that evil invaded and took over their own powers. I do not know how-whoever wrote that scroll does not know how-only that some weakness, some division, among them made it possible."

"Lingers even now?" Halveric said, facing him once more, his face furrowed. "Are you sure?"

Andressat spread his hands. "How else explain that once rid of Siniava, we have one who is, I swear to you, just as evil. How explain the constant warfare, the constant draining of our resources?"

"Evil G.o.ds are everywhere," Halveric said, making the avert sign with his heart-hand.

"Everywhere, but not with the same power everywhere," Andressat said. "As water flows downhill and gathers in hollows, so evil finds ways and places where it can gather and then...then flow out, to poison the world. By supporting Alured, you and your king opened such a conduit, I believe, and I see no one who can save Aarenis-not just my land of Andressat, but all of Aarenis-but he."

Halveric scowled. "You want Kieri Kieri to come back to Aarenis? And do what? He's our king now; he can't just leave." to come back to Aarenis? And do what? He's our king now; he can't just leave."

"I don't know what he can do, but he must at least know what is wrong," Andressat said. "If he cannot come himself-and I understand he has responsibilities here-he can send his former Company, perhaps."

"Over whom he has no command, now," Halveric said. "And I will tell you this, as well. Kieri knew he had erred in Aarenis, in the end. He regretted that he had not recognized Alured's nature, but he could not think of any way to restrain Alured that would not make things worse-lead to more protracted war, more damage for people who had done no wrong."

"And is that why he did not return the following year?"

"No, not entirely. The Royal Council in Tsaia were most unhappy with him for taking his reserves south, and forbade him travel the next season. The Duke of Verrakai-you may not know the Verrakais, I suppose."

Andressat shrugged.

"One of the most powerful families in Tsaia-or they were. Very-" Halveric paused, looked slightly embarra.s.sed. "-very proud of their purity of blood," he said finally. "Magelords from before Gird's time, they claimed. They had long hated Kieri for rising to the rank of n.o.bility, thinking him but a b.a.s.t.a.r.d, and also because one of his captains was their close relative. Dorrin, whom you met, was Dorrin Verrakai until her family disowned her for becoming a Knight of Falk."

"Magelords...that's part of the problem I must bring to your king." Andressat was surprised that Halveric would still call his king by the familiar name.

"My point is," Halveric went on, "that Verrakai hated Kieri, and even after the paladin proved Kieri's birthright, and the Council granted him royal protection and an escort to Lyonya, Verrakai raised a force against him. Imported Pargunese troops as well."

"Are they not enemies of Tsaia?" Andressat asked.

"Quite so," Halveric said. "And then the Verrakai attacked the royal family, and were put under attainder, all but Dorrin Verrakai-Kieri's former captain-who is now the new Duke."

And so, Andressat realized, the new king would have much to occupy him besides trouble he probably thought he had left behind in the south. It would be hard to convince him-and yet, he must try. He glanced aside at Halveric. The man was staring at the path this time. He had hoped to win Halveric to his own view of the urgency before tackling the king-Halveric had been the king's friend so long-but the tired, beaten old man Halveric had become would be no strong ally. He would simply have to convince the king himself.

The next morning, he walked out with his host and saw more evidence that Halveric was not what he had been. His servants, his soldiers, even his family, eyed him with concern as Halveric led him from house to gardens to barns to fields. Everything was in order, well-organized and well-kept, but Andressat felt something missing. Halveric talked of plans made, but now abandoned...of people who left and none replacing them, as they had in the past, attracted by a living, growing holding.

Yet fields were tended, animals healthy, fences in repair, buildings mended and clean. Andressat sensed no loss of energy in the others; Halveric's tall wife bustled about the place as if twenty years younger, keeping the household staff at work. His own room, when he returned to it before lunch, had been freshened. Only Halveric himself seemed faded, weakened by something...and yet essential characteristics lingered.

"I will travel tomorrow," Andressat said at last. "My mount has recovered."

"We will provide an escort," Halveric said. "And supplies, of course. There are few settlements between here and Chaya; this is a quiet corner of Lyonya."

"You need not," Andressat began, but Halveric's wife, entering at that moment, spoke out.

"Of course we must. You are our guest, and moreover a stranger from afar; even if you were not an old friend of Aliam's, you must have the best we can offer and safe pa.s.sage. If your courier has reached court, the king will probably have sent King's Squires to lead you in."

That seemed incredible. He was only a count; kings did not send escorts for mere counts. Not unless they wanted to imprison them...he s.h.i.+vered, remembering Alured's threats.

"Are you all right?" Aliam's wife asked.

"I'm fine," Andressat said. She said nothing more, for which he was glad, soon leaving the room to do whatever women's work she did. Aliam excused himself shortly after.

After dinner, when he returned to his room, twilight still lay on the fields. Andressat stood by the window, watching a line of cattle move across a pasture, heads nodding in rhythm; behind them a young person-boy or girl, he could not distinguish-swung a stick and whistled tunelessly.

A tap at the door caught his attention; he turned, expecting Aliam, but instead his wife stood there, hands folded over something hidden in her skirts.

"I have a favor to ask," she said. "I apologize, as it is a favor with a sting to it."

"Madam?" He could think of nothing else to say.

"You are going to see the king. You have a message for him; I have one as well...one that Aliam does not know about." She looked at him, her face dim in the dying light. When he said nothing, she went on. "I can't go," Aliam's wife said. "But you can carry this to the king." She held up a folded sheet, wax-sealed.

Andressat blinked. Women of his family did not approach male guests and ask them to carry secret messages. It was...unseemly, except that Estil Halveric was clearly not attempting an a.s.signation. She was a woman of power; he could feel that even as he thought how odd it was.

"Kieri's his closest friend," the woman went on. "Close as a brother. He needs to know that something's wrong with Aliam-"

"But what can he do?" Andressat said. Immediately he realized how that must sound: he intended to ask the king to intervene in Aarenis, and she was merely asking the king to help a friend. And she was right; something was wrong with Aliam Halveric. Still, Andressat felt uneasy, alone with his host's wife, despite the open door, the voices of others in the pa.s.sage. And yet it was unthinkable that what he was thinking could ever be, with this woman, in this household. She was not like the women of the south, was the best way he could define it. His own wife would never have done such a thing, but his own wife never wore a servant's ap.r.o.n, never made bread with her own hands, never-as he had seen this woman do earlier that day-taught a grandchild to milk a cow by milking it herself.