Son of Avonar (9 page)

With no little unease, I watched Evard bind Tomas ever more closely to his fortunes. Evard told my brother that it was time he named his own military staff. As the lord of such a vast holding as Comigor, Tomas should replace the old Comigor captains who were beholden to our father with younger men who would be loyal to him alone. Evard even offered to loan him Captain Darzid.

To think of my father's loyal commanders thus dismissed, seven fierce and honorable warriors who had dandled me on their knees when I was small, who had taught me to shoot a bow and still brought me exotic gifts from their travels, was insupportable. In the past year, as Tomas and Evard had become more engrossed in their intrigues, I had spent a great deal of time with Captain Darzid. I enjoyed his wit and found his ever-sarcastic observations of Leiran courtiers amusing. So, on the night before the change of command, I sought him out at his townhouse and explained my feelings.

He pressed wine into my hands and, once done with his delightful renderings of my brother's shock and the scandalized court ladies' gossip at my secret venture into a bachelor's house, seemed sincerely interested in my pleas. “What would you have me do, my lady? I am ever at your command as you well know. But my refusing the post will not help the old curmudgeons. Nor should it. Duke Tomas is absolutely right; your own safety depends on his control of his troops.”

“You're clever, Darzid. I know you care for no one but yourself”—we had discussed this many times—“but for this once, bend your wit to a kindness. I'll think of something magnificent to reward you. I swear it.”

He promised to think about it, and indeed on the next day as the seven were forced to turn in their shields and strip the four guardian rings of Comigor from their sur-coats, he presented each man with a fine new sword, a new warhorse, and a document vouching for his valor and loyalty, so that he could get a new position with another house.

When I thanked Darzid for extending himself so generously and on such short notice, he looked at me in an oddly calculating way that left me feeling uncomfortably exposed. “I would have as soon seen them hanged, lady. But the prospect of a reward from you . . . that intrigued me enough to spend a small fortune and a night's work.”

By the time King Gevron gave in and joined his forefathers in the great tomb on Pythian Hill, Martin was first in line for the throne, and, after him, Evard. Tennice said it was only a matter of time until some accusation surfaced about Martin. Even after all I'd heard, I refused to believe that, either of Evard, who was almost certainly to be my husband, or of Tomas. But a few days before the Council of Lords was to announce the succession, the Council received a letter avowing that Martin, Earl of Gault, had sheltered a sorcerer. The letter named one Alfredo, a resident of Windham who had died the previous year.

I remembered Alfredo. The rumpled and absent-minded mathematician had once been Martin's tutor. Martin had offered the old man a home at Windham when he lost his last position due to failing hearing and other circumstances of age. Alfredo often forgot where he was, frequently misplaced his handkerchiefs and his books, and seldom dined with the rest of the household, ashamed of his trembling hands that could not hold a knife. But, despite his declining faculties, he remained extraordinarily good at chess, and with intense and exuberant joy he pursued his sole remaining purpose in life, designing complex chess problems in hopes of stumping Martin. One could not imagine Alfredo feeding his dark powers on blood, murdering children to use for depraved rites, raising demons to drive men to madness, twisting the beauties of nature into grotesque parodies, or carrying out any other of the evil works popularly attributed to sorcerers. And how could anyone believe that Martin, so wise and perceptive, would give shelter to an abominable heretic? The whole thing was absurd, yet the accusation could not be ignored. The extermination laws would not permit it.

Sorcery was a vile and wicked practice, the last dregs of the chaotic evil from the Beginnings, before the First God Arot had defeated the beasts of earth and the monsters of the deep and given dominion over the world to his twin sons, Annadis and Jerrat. In the past few years, I had learned that a number of intelligent and otherwise honorable Leirans looked skeptically on our sacred stories and rituals. But to countenance sorcery was to invite horror and chaos back into the world, denying the gods themselves—the very gods who stood beside our king and his soldiers on every battlefield.

The announcement of the succession was postponed, and the Council of Lords convened to hear the arguments. The principal witness was a chambermaid who had been dismissed from Windham the previous year. She had been assigned to take care of Alfredo's room, and a terrible burden it had been, she said. No one understood why the earl kept such a disgusting creature about. Alfredo was crude and had foul habits, just as she had always been taught about sorcerers. The old man marked papers with arcane symbols and patterns, and he cursed and murmured over them when she peeked through his door. He would always hide the papers from her and swear that she would never steal his secrets. He ate in his room, she said, not with proper company, and often she would spy him gnawing on meat that was just the size as would be a human baby. I had heard no more ridiculous accusations in my life. Knowing the old man and his preoccupations, every bit of these foolish accusations could be explained.

Despite the people's horror of the practice, and the priests' insistence that the merest taint of sorcery must be thoroughly investigated, Tennice was able to convince the Lords that there was no evidence to convict Martin of so much as discussing the dark arts, much less harboring one of the vile in his home. The Council ruled that Martin was not guilty of the accusations, but that since Alfredo himself could not be examined, it was impossible to determine whether the old man had truly been a sorcerer. That was enough. As long as any doubt remained, Martin would never be king. That was all Evard really wanted.

The afternoon of the verdict was dreary, the autumnal gloom deepened by a miserable downpour. Throughout the hearing, Tomas had sat beside me in the Council Hall, making sure I was seen nowhere near Martin or the others, but after the ruling he went off with Evard, abandoning me with servants to take me home. Instead, I traveled to Windham. Just the six of us were there: Martin, Karon, Julia, Tanager, Tennice, and me. We said we were going to celebrate, but the dinner was dismal. Martin left the dining room before the soup was taken away. The rest of us picked at the meal in silence. After an hour Tennice dismissed the servants, telling them to take the rest of the night as a holiday in honor of the earl's vindication. The five of us retired to the library.

Only two lamps were lit against the gloom. The dark leather of the furnishings and deep, rich reds of the rugs suited our mood very well. “I never thought he cared so much,” I said to Julia, who sat staring at the closed door of Martin's study, her eyes shining with unshed tears. “He always treated the throne as such a remote possibility, spoke of it so irreverently, that I thought—”

“It's what he wanted people to think,” she said, “to discourage any interest in him. But he lived for it. It's how he put up with all the foolishness and idiocy of court life. Frederic and Vennick had agreed to cede the throne to him if they were named. They'd won a clear majority on the Council to his support . . . until all of this stupidity. The whole world is askew, and he can see so clearly what needs to be done to set it right. It will drive him mad to be relegated to impotence once more, to see Evard in his place, destroying what remnants of civilization linger in Leire.”

While Martin remained closeted in his study and the others drank brandy and regaled each other with sporadic bursts of funereal humor, Karon asked if I would walk with him in the gardens. I was happy to get out. Sitting and thinking was the last thing I wanted at the moment.

We strolled down gravel paths that wound through manicured bowers of roses and lilacs and into wild gardens of foxtail and harebells and summerlace. Around every corner was a lovely surprise: a grassy grotto with a stone bench or perhaps a pool or fountain tucked amid the ferns and trees like the presents hidden about houses and gardens for children at the Feast of Vines in the spring.

The evening air smelled damp and earthy from the afternoon rain. After a while Karon lagged behind, and I glanced over my shoulder to see him standing in the middle of the path staring upward, watching the first star emerge from the deep blue of the clearing sky. He was forever dawdling when we walked out, stopping to examine the subtle shading of a primrose, or peer underneath a water lily to see the silver trout hiding there, or gaze for moments at a time at a raindrop poised at the edge of a leaf. I had never known anyone so entranced with nature, with people, with beauty—or so observant of them.

I had no heart for gardens or beauty. A message had arrived just before dinner. Tomas would be at Windham the next morning to escort me to the royal palace in Montevial. My time had run out. The knowledge that I might never return to Martin's house except as Evard's wife dissolved my resolution like frost in sunlight.

“You are extraordinarily quiet,” Karon said after a while. “Am I too distracted?”

“No. I wish I could do as you seem to do, take in all this to hazard against an uncertain future.”

“Ah.” We walked on.

The silence was too heavy. “Will you travel again soon?” I asked.

“Perhaps. I've stayed here much longer than I intended. I should go.”

“And where will you go? Whom will you study next?”

As always, his smile illuminated his face as if his inner being had taken fire. “I've heard of a land of flame-haired women—” He never finished the jest.

Tanager burst into the garden from the library doors. “Karon, Seri, come! It's Martin. The blasted fool has tried to kill himself.”

We ran through the gardens, up the steps, and through the doors that led into Martin's study. He was slumped in his chair by the fire, scarcely breathing, his lips a sickly blue, his eyes glazed, spittle stringing from the corner of his slack mouth. A glass of wine had fallen from his hand, and Julia knelt beside his chair, staring in horror at a silver vial in her hand. “Oh, my darling, you said this was only for the worst of times, and we weren't there yet. Not yet. How could you?”

Karon took the vial. “What is it?”

“I don't know the name,” said Julia, pressing one hand to her mouth and wrapping the other about her stomach. “Martin brought it from Valleor years ago. He said it was made by jonglers, a ‘diplomatic gift' he couldn't refuse. They told him it was painless, and that it was always good to have a way out of the worst of times. He joked about it. Never, ever, did I think . . .”

Karon did not hesitate. “Tanager, bring me a knife. Sharp and clean. Just do it! Don't ask questions.” He gave Tennice a plain white linen handkerchief. “Rip it into three strips and tie them together end to end. Tight.” Martin was limp as Karon lifted him to the floor; his eyes had rolled back in his head, and his tongue was swollen and discolored, threatening to choke off what little breath remained in him.

Hurriedly Karon removed his coat, loosened the left sleeve of his shirt at the wrist, and then knelt on the rug beside Martin. When Tanager returned, Karon took the knife, then glanced up at us hovering close about him. After an ever-so-slight nod of his head, he closed his eyes, opened his arms wide, and spoke with quiet intensity. “Life, hold! Stay your hand. Halt your foot ere it takes another step along the Way. Grace your son once more with your voice that whispers in the deeps, with your spirit that sings in the wind, with the fire that blazes in your gifts of joy and sorrow. Fill my soul with light, and let the darkness make no stand in this place.”

He gripped Martin's hand and with a flash of the knife made a deep and bloody gash in Martin's arm. Before any one of us could cry out or pull him away, he pushed up his left sleeve and did the same to himself. He had done it before. His arm was covered with scars. Hundreds of them.

“What in the name of all gods—?”

Karon ignored Tanager's outburst, holding out the knotted handkerchief. “Bind us together. Hurry, if you love him.” His command was tight and hard. Cradling Martin's head with his right hand to ease his choking, he positioned his wound over Martin's and had Tanager tie their bleeding arms together as tightly as possible. Tanager's hands were trembling. “Now, all of you stay back.” Eyes fixed on Martin's face, Karon whispered,
“J'den encour,”
in a language I did not know.

I sank onto a stool by the fire, stunned and speechless. This must be another of Martin's pageants. Surely in a moment he would pop up and say, “Good joke!” and Karon would show us how the knife was a trick and the blood was not real and nothing out of the ordinary was occurring here. But instead, Karon remained kneeling at Martin's side, the two of them bound together in this strange brotherhood. Karon's eyes were closed again, his head bowed, and for an hour he did not move. Nor did any of us, shocked and terrified as we were. I could feel a charge in the air like a veil of lightning, shimmering about us, ready to strike our hearts still at any moment.

The clocks in the Windham tower chimed a second hour. Just as I thought my chest must burst or my head split, Martin sighed and began to breathe easier, faint pink replacing the morbid blue of his lips. Karon was ashen, sweat pouring down his face. He swayed a bit, and Tanager moved to catch Martin before Karon could drop his head to the floor. But without moving or opening his eyes, Karon said hoarsely, “No! You must not. Only when I tell you.” Tanager paled and backed away, clasping his hands tight as if they'd been scorched.