Darkover: First Contact (52 page)

“We have,” Dom Rafael said, “and longer. But even if we conquer Serrais we will still have to face the Hasturs, for King Carolin claims that all these lands were once Hastur lands—”

“Geremy said something to that effect. I paid him little heed. But if Carolin is claiming that, we will simply have to teach him better.”

“But I will have to take oaths and make truces,” said Dom Rafael soberly. “It is still a matter of time; for time has run out for holding Geremy as hostage. Carolin has called our bluff and Varzil of Neskaya was sent to escort Geremy home. He brought your brother Alaric home to us.”

“I shall not be sorry to see Geremy go forth from this court,” said Bard, but he was aware that this represented a diplomatic loss for Dom Rafael. With a Hastur hostage, he had some leverage for diplomatic compromise with the Hasturs. Still, the return of Alaric was a gain to offset that loss.

“How is it with my brother?” Bard asked eagerly. “Is he well and happy; has Carolin used him well? For when Queen Ariel fled there, I have no doubt he was in Carolin’s hands and not hers.”

“I have not seen him as yet,” Dom Rafael said soberly. “He is still in the care of Varzil. The formal exchange will come later, for Varzil, I understand, is empowered with a message from Carolin, and has asked for formal audience in which to state his mission.”

Bard raised his eyebrows. So the Keeper of Neskaya had sunk to the level of a Hastur flunkey? Perhaps it was worse than he thought, perhaps all the lands from the Kilghard Hills to Thendara lay under the Hasturs! Would the next few years see Asturias among them?
Over my dead body!

And then he felt a small premonitory shudder. If it should indeed come about that way, well, it would certainly be over his dead body. But that was a soldier’s fate in any case! And whatever happened, he was not likely to escape it.

If Alaric were returned, that would at least give Dom Rafael excuse to hold a coronation; for Rafael still insisted he was not king, but regent for Alaric. Bard wondered what was the difference between one child king and another. But in any case, Alaric was here, not, like Valentine, fled to the protection of another kingdom. Then Bard realized that he had been thinking of Alaric as he had been almost seven years ago; a child, pleased at the thought of his brother’s outgrown toys. Now Alaric must be fourteen or fifteen, close to legal manhood. His own son Erlend was not so much younger than Alaric had been when they last parted!

Time. Time was the enemy of every man. He himself had lived longer than most men who earned their bread as mercenary soldiers. At least he should lose no time in marrying and getting himself some legitimate sons. He must make the kingdom secure for his brother, and then he must discover some way to attack the Island of Silence, even if it took a whole army of wizards, and regain Carlina.

While she lives, I shall marry no other woman!
It occurred to him, for the first time, that perhaps he had made a great mistake. If Carlina truly did not want him, perhaps there were other women who would. Again he thought of Melora . . . but no. Carlina was King Ardrin’s daughter, she was his handfasted wife, and if she did not want him, well, he would soon teach her where her duty lay. No woman ever wanted to refuse him a second time!

 

Rafael of Asturias released Dom Eiric of Serrais the next morning.

“But why
now,
Father?” Bard asked. “Certainly you could delay him a few tendays more!”

“A matter of protocol,” Dom Rafael said grimly. “Varzil of Neskaya, who is a Ridenow, wishes to interview him, but he cannot in courtesy do so until he has transacted his main business here, the exchange of hostages; and he cannot speak with my prisoner without my leave. So I will take oath from Dom Eiric and set him on his way,
before
Varzil is free to speak with him. I want no more Ridenow lords making allies of Hastur!”

Bard nodded, absorbing this. Once Dom Eiric had taken his oath not to work against Rafael of Asturias for half a year, he could not lawfully ally with any enemy of Asturias, either. Bard had all manner of knowledge of military tactics and strategies, but diplomacy was still new to him. But with his father’s knowledge of statecraft, and his own skill at war, perhaps they could hold all this countryside one day.

He found that he was curious to see this Varzil, who had allied with the Hasturs. Neskaya had been in Ridenow hands—though it lay far outside the Serrais lands proper—for more than two hundred years. In those days the Hasturs and the Ridenow had fought a prolonged war, and peace had been made in the reign of Allart of Thendara. Did the Hasturs still entertain dreams of reclaiming all the Serrais lands?

Bard was summoned to the council, as his father’s high commander; and Melisendra, too, for the setting of truthspell. As Bard watched her come into the presence chamber, in her thin unadorned gray dress and cape, the mark of a
leronis
present upon official duties, he realized that Melisendra, as his father’s chosen court sorceress, now had status and power in her own right, power that had nothing to do with her official position as the mother of the regent’s grandson. The thought made him vaguely angry; there were
laranzu’in
enough, why did his father not, in decency, choose one of them? Was his father trying to put Melisendra in a position where she could flout her lawful lord and the father of her son?

He hoped Alaric had some skill at arms. As Ardrin’s fosterling, he should have learned
something
. Bard himself was only one man; but if he had a knowledgeable military leader backing him up from the throne—and certainly a king should be able, like Ardrin, to lead his fighting men into battle—it augured well for Asturias in the years that would come.

Varzil of Neskaya was a small and slender man. In the gorgeous ceremonial dress he had worn at the wedding he had looked impressive, but now, in the green and gold of his House, he seemed small, narrow-shouldered; his features were lean, scholarly, and his hands, Bard noted with contempt, were as small and well-kept as a woman’s, with no callouses from sword or dagger, and no hair worn away at his temples from the facepiece of the helmet. Not a man of war, then, but a sandal-wearer, a dandy. And this was Hastur’s chosen embassy? Bard thought, with contempt,
I could break him with my two hands!

Even Geremy, stooped though he was, dragging his lame leg, was taller than Varzil. Geremy wore his customary sober dress, unweaponed save for a small ornamental dagger, the hilt set with firestones. Bard watched, standing in the paxman’s place, behind his father’s throne, as the formalities and the setting of truthspell took place.

“Geremy Hastur,” said Dom Rafael, “since my son is to be safely returned to me, I declare you free to return to your father’s kingdom, or wherever you choose to go, with your wife, who is my subject, and your son, and your vassals, and all that is yours. Furthermore, as a mark of the esteem in which my lady wife holds your lady, if your wife’s waiting-women wish to accompany the lady Ginevra to her new home, they are free to do so, if they have leave from their own fathers.”

Geremy bowed and made a short and courteous speech thanking Dom Rafael and reassuring him of his gratitude for his kind hospitality. The irony was heavy-handed enough so that the truthspell light faltered on his face, but it was not worth taking issue. Courtesy, Bard thought wryly, was mostly lies anyhow.

“Geremy, you are free, if you will, to leave your son to be fostered in my house. His mother’s father is my loyal man, and I give you my personal assurance that he will be brought up in all respects as my own son, and as a companion to my grandson.”

Geremy thanked him courteously and declined that his son was too young to be parted from his mother, being as yet unweaned, and that Ginevra had a fancy to nurse him herself.

Varzil stepped forward. “And I have come,” he said, “in the name of Carolin, High King at Thendara, guardian of Valentine di Asturien, rightful king of Asturias and overlord of all these lands, to return Alaric di Asturien, son of the Regent and Warden of Asturias, to his father. Alaric—?”

Bard drew in his breath, in audible shock. From behind Varzil, a slightly built boy limped forward; his uneven step and twisted shoulders were like a ghastly parody of Geremy’s own; and Bard could not contain himself.

“Father!” he cried out, stepping forward, “Will you let them mock us thus in our own halls? Look what they have done to my brother, in revenge for Geremy’s hurts! I will swear before truthspell that Geremy was hurt by mischance, not by design, and Alaric has not deserved this of Carolin!” He drew his dagger. “Now, by all the gods, Hastur spawn, defend yourself, for
this
time your life is forefeit and it will be no accident! I’ll make good what I should have done to you seven years ago—”

He grabbed Geremy’s shoulder and spun him around.

“Draw your dagger, or I strike you down where you stand!”

Varzil’s voice was not loud, but it made Bard loosen his grip and fall back from Geremy, pale and sweating. He had not heard command voice for many years from the lips of a trained
laranzu
. Varzil’s slender figure seemed to loom over him, menacing, as Bard’s dagger fell from nerveless fingers.

“Bard di Asturien,” Varzil said, “I do not war on children, nor does Carolin; your accusation is monstrous, and I stand here in the light of truthspell to give you the lie to your face. We told you nothing of Alaric’s ills for fear you would come to exactly this conclusion. We had no hand in Alaric’s laming. Five years ago he fell ill with the muscle fever which ravages so many children in the lake district, and although all of Ardrin’s healers did their best for him, and sent him to Neskaya for healing as soon as he was able to travel—which is why he was not left here to rejoin you when Queen Ariel fled the country, since he was in my care at Neskaya—despite all our best efforts, his leg withered, and his back is weakened. He can walk now with only a leg brace to help him, and he has recovered his powers of speech; so you may ask Alaric himself if he has anything to complain of from our treatment.”

Bard stared in dismay. So this poor cripple was the fine, strong, manly brother who would help him to lead his armies! He had the feeling that the gods were mocking him.

Dom Rafael held out his arms and Alaric limped forward, into his father’s embrace.

“My dear son!” he said in dismay and consternation, and the boy looked from his father to Varzil in distress.

“Dear Father,” he said. “Truly, what has happened is not the fault of my kinsman Ardrin, and certainly not of the Lord Varzil. When I fell ill, and for many years after, he, and his
leroni
, cared for me night and day. They have been so kind and good to me, neither you nor my mother could have done more.”

“Gods above!” groaned Dom Rafael. “And Ardrin sent me no word? Nor Ariel, when she fled into exile?”

“I had been sent to Neskaya years before,” Alaric retorted, “and since you never came to court, I did not think that you cared much what befell me! Certainly,” he added, in a detached, ironical way which convinced Bard that, if his brother’s body was crippled, there was certainly nothing wrong with his mind, “you were not so eager to have me back that you would contend very long with Carolin for me. I knew that you would hold your throne for me, at least until you saw me. After that, I was not sure whether you would care to ransom me at all.”

Dom Rafael said loyally, “You are my own dear son, and I welcome you back to the throne I have claimed for you,” but Bard heard the unspoken part of this,
if you can possibly hold it
, and was sure Alaric could hear it too.

Varzil’s face was composed and compassionate; his eyes lingered on Alaric and Dom Rafael as if he had no thought except for the child and his stricken father. But Bard knew that Varzil, in spite of a very genuine concern for young Alaric, had nevertheless held him back to produce at the moment when it would cause the most confusion and consternation. He had intended to show them all, and as publicly as possible, that the young claimant to the throne of Asturias was no more than a pitiful little cripple!

Bard felt despair and rage—was
this
the strong young warrior who would ride to battle at his side? Yet his heart ached for the little brother he had loved. Whatever his father’s disappointment and his own, Alaric must be feeling it more than either of them! It was inexcusable, to use the boy like this, to show forth the weakness of the Asturian throne! At this moment, had it not been for his knowledge of diplomatic immunity, he would willingly have strangled Varzil where he stood—yes, and Geremy too!

Yet—he thought, slowly coming to terms with this new knowledge—it could have been worse. Alaric was lamed, but otherwise he looked healthy and strong, and there was certainly nothing wrong with his mind! Geremy had a healthy son; there was no reason Alaric could not have a dozen. He would not, after all, be the first crippled king to hold a throne; and, after all, he had a loyal brother to command his armies.

I am not ambitious toward his throne,
Bard thought.
I have no wit, nor yet skill, to govern; I would rather be the king’s commander than the king!
He met Alaric’s eyes and smiled.

Dom Rafael too had recovered his equilibrium. He rose from his presence seat and said, “In token that I reigned here only as regent, my son, I yield this place to you as rightful King of Asturias. My son and my lord, I beg you to take this place.”

The boy’s cheeks stained with color, but he had been well trained in protocol. When his father knelt at his feet, proffering his sword, he said, “I beg you to rise, Father, and take back your sword, as regent and warden of this realm, until I have reached years of manhood.”

Dom Rafael rose, taking his place three steps behind the throne.

“My brother,” Alaric said, looking at Bard, “I have been told that you are commander of the armies of Asturias.”