Stormqueen! (41 page)

The child’s voice, sweet and mournful, began an old song of the far hills:

“Where are you now?

Where does my love wander?”

Allart thought such a song of hopeless love and longing ill placed on the lips of a young maiden, but he was entranced by the loveliness of the voice. Dorilys had grown considerably that autumn; she was taller, and her breasts, though small, were already well formed under her childish smock, the young body nicely rounded. She was still long-legged, awkward - she would be a tall woman. Already she was taller than Renata.

Dom Mikhail said as she finished her song, “Indeed, my darling, it seems you have inherited your mother’s superb voice. Will you sing me something less mournful?”

“Gladly.” Dorilys took the
rryl
from Lady Elisa. She adjusted the tuning slightly, then began to strum it casually and sing a comical ballad from the hills. Allart had heard it often at Nevarsin, though not in the monastery; a rowdy song about a monk who carried, in his pockets, as a good monk should, all the possessions he was allowed to own.

“In the pockets, the pockets,

Fro’ Domenick’s pockets.

Those wonderful pockets he wore round his waist.

The pockets he stuffed every morning in haste;

Whatever he owned at the start of the day,

He stuffed in his pockets and went on his way.”

The audience was chuckling before long at the ever-increasing and ridiculous catalog of the possessions borne in the legendary monk’s pockets.

“Whatever he owned at the start of the day,

He stuffed in his pockets and went on his way.

A bowl and a spoon and a book for his prayers,

A blanket to shield him against the cold airs,

A pencase to write down his prayers and his letters.

A warm cozy kneepad to kneel to his betters,

A nutcracker handled in copper and gold…”

Dorilys herself was struggling to keep her face straight as her audience began to chuckle, or giggle, or in the case of her father, throw back his head and guffaw with laughter at the absurdity of some of the contents of:

“The pockets, the pockets, Fro’ Domenick’s pockets…”

She had reached the verse which detailed:

“A saddle and bridle, some spurs and a rein

In case he was given a riding
chervine
,

A gold-handled basin, a razor of - “

Dorilys broke off, uncertainly, as the door opened, and Lord Aldaran turned in anger on his paxman, who had entered with such lack of ceremony.

“Varlet, how dare you break into the room of your young mistress this way!”

“I beg the young lady’s pardon, but the matter is extremely urgent. Lord Scathfell - “

“Come, come,” Aldaran said irritably. “Even if he were at our gates with a hundred armed warriors, my man, it would not excuse such a lack of courtesy!”

“He has sent you a message. His messenger speaks of a demand, my lord.”

After a moment Mikhail of Aldaran rose. He bowed to Lady Elisa and to his daughter with as much courtesy as if Dorilys’s little schoolroom had been a presence-chamber.

“Ladies, forgive me. I would not willingly have interrupted your music. But I fear I must ask permission to withdraw, daughter.”

For a moment Dorilys gaped; he asked
her
permission to come and go? It was clearly the first time he had extended this grown-up formal politeness; but then the beautiful manners in which Margali and Renata had schooled her came to her aid. She dropped him so deep a curtsy that she nearly sank to her knees.

“You are welcome to come and go at your own occasions, sir, but I beg you to return when you are free.”

He bent over her hand. “I shall indeed, my daughter. Ladies, my apologies.” he added, extending the bow to Margali and Renata, then he said curtly, “Donal, attend me,” and Donal rose and hurried after him.

When they had gone, Dorilys tried to resume her song, but the heart had gone out of the occasion and after a little it broke up. Allart went down into the courtyard where the riding animals were stabled, and the escort of the diplomatic mission from Scathfell was tethered. Among them he could see other badges of different mountain clans, that armed men came and went in the courts, but they shifted like water and were not there when he looked again. He knew that his
laran
painted hallucinations for him of things that might never be. He tried to thread his way through them, to see into time, but he was not calm enough, and what he sensed - he was not consciously reading the minds of those who had brought Scathfell’s demand, but they, too, were broadcasting their emotions all over the landscape - was not conducive to calm.

War? Here? He felt a pang of grief for the long beautiful summer, so irrevocably shattered.
How could I sit at peace when my people are at war and my brother prepares to strive for a crown? What have I done to deserve this peace, when even my beloved wife faces danger and terror
? He went to his room and tried to calm himself with the Nevarsin breathing disciplines, but he could not concentrate with the visions of war, storms, and riots crowding eyes and brain, and he was grateful when, after a considerable time, he was summoned to Aldaran’s presence-chamber.

He had expected to confront the embassy from Scathfell, as he had seen them so often in his vision, but no one was there except Aldaran himself, staring gloomily at the floor in front of his high seat, and Donal, pacing nervously back and forth.

As Allart came in Donal gave him a quick look of gratitude and entreaty mingled.

“Come in, cousin,” Dom Mikhail said. “Now indeed do we need the advice of kinsmen. Will you sit?”

Allart would have preferred to stand, or to pace like Donal, but he took the seat Dom Mikhail indicated. The old man sat with his chin in his hands, brooding. At last he said, “Do you sit, too, Donal! You drive me mad pacing there like a berserker possessed by a raging wolf,” and waited for his foster-son to seat himself beside Allart. “Rakhal of Scathfell - for I will not yield him the name of brother - has sent me an envoy with demands so outrageous that I can no longer bear them in calm. He sees fit to demand that I shall choose without delay, preferably before midwinter, one of his younger sons - I suppose I should be honored that he leaves it up to me to choose which of his damned whelps I will have - to be formally adopted as my heir, since I have no legitimate son, nor, he says, am I likely to have one at my age.” He picked up a piece of paper lying on the seat where he cast it, and crumpled it again in his fist. “He says I should invite all men to witness what I have done in declaring a son of Scathfell my heir, and then - will you listen to the insolence of the man! - he says,
then you may live out your few remaining years in such peace as your other deeds allow
.” He clenched the offending letter in his fist as if it were his brother’s neck.

“Tell me, cousin. What am I to do with that man?”

Allart stared, appalled.
In the name of all the gods
, he thought,
what does he mean by asking me? Does he think seriously that I am capable of advising him on such a matter
?

Aldaran added, more gently, and also more urgently, “Allart, you were schooled at Nevarsin; you know all our history, and all the law. Tell me, cousin. Is there no way at all that I can keep my brother of Scathfell from grasping my estate even before my bones are cold in my grave?”

“My lord, I do not see how they can compel you to adopt your brother’s son. But I do not know how you can keep Lord Scathfell’s sons from inheriting after you; the law is not clear about female children.”
And if it were
, he thought almost in despair,
is Dorilys truly fit to rule
? “When a female heir is given leave to inherit, it is usually because all concerned feel that her husband will make a suitable overlord. No one will deny you the right to leave Aldaran to Dorilys’s husband.”

“And yet,” Aldaran said, with painstaking fingers smoothing out the crumpled letter, “look - the seals of Storn, and Sain Scarp, and even of Lord Darriel, hung about this letter, as if to lend their strength to this - this ultimatum he has sent. No wonder Lord Storn made me no reply when I sought his son for Dorilys. Each of them is afraid to ally himself with me lest he alienate all the others. Now, indeed, do I wish the Ridenow were not entangled in this war against your kin, or I should offer Dorilys
there
.” He was silent a moment, brooding. “I have sworn I will burn Aldaran over my own head ere it goes to my brother. Help me find a way, Allart.”

The first thought that flashed into Allan’s mind - and later, he was grateful that he had had sense enough to barricade it so that Aldaran could not read it - was this:
My brother Damon-Rafael has but lately lost his wife
. But the very thought filled his mind with erupting visions of dread and disaster. The effort to control them kept him silent in consternation, while he remembered Damon-Rafael’s prediction that had sent him here: “I fear a day when all our world from Dalereuth to the Hellers will bow before the might of Aldaran.”

Noting his silence, Dom Mikhail said, “It is a thousand pities
you
are wed, cousin. I would offer my daughter to
you
. … But you know my will. Tell me, Allart. Is there no way at all in which I can declare Donal my heir? It is he who has always been the true son of my heart.”

“Father,” Donal entreated, “don’t quarrel with your kinsmen about me. Why set the land aflame in a useless war? When you have gone to join your forefathers - may that day be far from you, dear foster-father - what will it matter to you, then, who holds Aldaran?”

“It matters,” said the old man, his face set like a mask in stone. “Allart, in all your knowledge of the law, is there no single loophole through which I might bring Donal into this inheritance?”

Allart set his mind to consider this. He said at last, “None, I think, that you could use, but these laws about blood inheritance are not yet so strong as all that. As recently as seven or eight generations ago, you and your brothers and all your wives would have dwelt together, and the eldest among you, or your chosen leader, would have chosen for heir the son who looked most likely and capable, not the eldest son of the eldest brother, but the
best
. It is custom, not law, that has foisted this rule of primogeniture and known fathering on the mountains. Yet if you simply proclaim that you have chosen Donal by the old law and not the new, then there will be war, my lord. Every eldest son in the mountains will know his position threatened, and his younger brother or his remote kinsmen more his enemy than now.”

“It would be simpler,” said Aldaran with great bitterness, “if Donal were a waif or an orphan, and not the son of my beloved Aliciane. Then could I wed him to Dorilys, and see my daughter protected and my estate in the hands of the one who knows it best and is best fitted to care for it.”

Allart said, “That could still be done, my lord. It would be a legal fiction - as when the lady Bruna Leynier, sister of the heir who had been killed in battle, took her brother’s widow and his unborn child under her protection in freemate marriage, so that no other marriage could be forced upon the widow and the child’s rights set aside. They say that she commanded the guards, too, in her brother’s place.”

Aldaran laughed. “I thought that only a jesting tale.”

“No,” said Allart. “It happened, indeed. The women dwelt together for twenty years, until the unborn child was grown to manhood and could claim his rights. Folly, perhaps, but the laws could not forbid it. Such a marriage has a legal status at least - a half-brother and half-sister can marry if they will. Renata has told me it is best for Dorilys to bear no children, and Donal could father a
nedestro
heir to succeed him.”

He was thinking of Renata, but Mikhail of Aldaran raised his head with a quick, decisive movement. “Legal fiction be damned,” he said. “That is our answer, then, Donal. Allart is mistaken in what Renata said. I remember it well! She said Dorilys should not bear a
daughter
, but it would be safe for her to bear a son. And she has Aldaran blood, which would mean that Donal’s son would be an Aldaran heir, and thus entitled to inherit after them. Every breeder of animals knows this is the best way to fix a desired trait in the line, to breed back with the same genetic materials. So that Dorilys will bear to her half-brother the son Aliciane should have given me - Renata will know how to make sure of that - and the fire-control and lightning-control talents redoubled. We must be careful for a few generations not to allow any daughters to be born, but so much the better, so that the line will flourish.”