The Heirs of Hammerfell (2 page)

Rascard paused for an unsteady breath. "Alaric was not a child; I could not deny him what he felt he must do. I asked him to take one or more of the laranzu'in with him, but he would not; he said he could deal with Storn with armed men alone. When they had not returned at twilight, I grew anxious―and found Markos alone escaped to bring

word; they were ambushed."

Erminie covered her face with her hands.

The old duke said, "You know what it is that I

need from you. How is it with your cousin, my girl? Can you see him?"

She said softly, "I will try," and brought out the pale blue stone from its hiding place at her throat. The duke caught a brief glimpse of the twisting lights in the stone and turned his eyes away; although he was an adequate telepath for one of his caste, he had never been trained to use a starstone for the higher levels of power, and like all half-trained telepaths, the shifting lights within the starstones made him feel vaguely ill.

He looked at the soft parting of Erminie's hair as she bent her head over the stone, her eyes serious and remote. Her features were so fresh, so young, untouched by any deep and lasting grief. Duke Rascard felt old and wearied and worn with the weight of the many years of feud, and the very thought of the clan of Storn who had taken from him grandfather and father, two elder brothers, and now his only surviving son.

But, please the Gods, Alaric is not dead and not lost to me forever. Not yet, and not ever.

... He said hoarsely, "I pray you look and give me word, child . . ." and his voice trembled.

After an unusually long time Erminie said, in a soft, wandering, unfocused voice,

"Alaric . . . cousin ..." and almost at once, Duke Rascard, dropping into rapport, saw what she saw, the face of his son; a younger version of his own, save that his son's hair was brilliant copper and curled all over his head. The boyish features were drawn with pain, and the front of his shirt was covered with bright blood. Erminie's face, too, was pale.

"He lives. But his wound is more serious than

Markos's," she said. "Markos will live if he is kept quiet; but Alaric . .. the bleeding still goes on within the lung. His breathing is very faint ... he has not yet recovered consciousness."

"Can you reach him? Is it possible to heal his wound at such a distance?" the duke demanded, recalling what she had done for Markos, but she sighed, tears flooding her eyes.

"Alas, no, Uncle; I would willingly try, but not even the Keeper of Tramontana could heal at such a distance."

"Then can you reach him and tell him that we

know where he is, that we will come to rescue him or

die in the attempt?"

"I am afraid to disturb him, Uncle. If he wakes and should move unwisely, he could tear his lung past healing."

"Yet if he wakes alone and knows himself in the hands of our enemies, could not that also prompt him to despair and death?"

"You are right. I will try to reach his mind without disturbing him," Erminie said, while the duke dropped his face in his hands, trying to see through the young girl's mind what she saw; the face of his son, pale and worn with pain. Although untrained in the healing arts, it seemed to him that he could see the mark of mortality on the young features. At the edge of his perceptions he could sense Erminie's face, tense and searching, and heard, not with his ears, the message she was trying to insinuate into a deep level of Alaric's mind.

Have no fear; we are with you. Rest and heal yourself ... again and again the soothing touch of warmth, trying to carry reassurance and love.

The intimate feel of Erminie's mind touched Rascard. I did not know how much she

loved him; I thought they were simply as brother and sister, children together; now I know it is more than that.

He became slowly aware of the young girl's blushes; he knew that she had overheard his thoughts.

I loved him even when we were children together, Uncle. I do not know if I am more to him than a kind foster-sister; but I love him much more than that. It does not. . . it does not make you angry?

If he had learned this any other way, Duke Rascard might indeed have been angered; for many years he had given much thought to a great marriage, perhaps even to some

lowland princess from the Hastur lands to the South; but now fear for his son was all he knew.

"When once he is safe again with us, my child, then if that is what you both wish, it shall be done," said the stern-faced duke, so gently that Erminie hardly recognized the gruff voice she knew so well. For a moment they sat silent, and then, to his great joy, Rascard felt another touch within the rapport, a touch he recognized; weak and faltering, but unmistakable; the mental touch of his son Alaric.

Father . . . Erminie . . . can it be you? Where am I? What happened? What of poor Markos. . . ? Where am I?

As gently as she could, Erminie tried to inform him what had happened; that he was wounded, and within the keep of Storn Heights.

And Markos will not die; rest and heal yourself, my son, and we shall ransom or rescue you or die in the attempt. Do not be troubled. Be at peace . . . peace . . . peace. ...

Abruptly into the soothing pattern of the rapport tore a great explosion of fury and the blue flare of a

starstone. It was like a blow struck into his heart, a physical pain.

You here, Rascard, you prying thief. . . what do you in my very stronghold1? As if before his eyes, Rascard of Hammerfell could see the scarred face, the fierce eyes, of his ancient enemy; Ardrin of Storn, lean and panther-fierce, ablaze with rage.

Can you ask? Give me back my son, wretch! Name your own ransom, and it shall be

paid to the last sekal, but harm one hair of his head and you will pay a hundredfold!

So you have threatened every moon for the past forty years, Rascard, but you now hold nothing I wish save for your wretched self; keep your wealth, and I will hang you beside your son from the highest tower of Storn Heights.

Rascard's first impulse was to strike full strength with laran; but Alaric was in his enemy's hands. He countered, trying to be calm, Will you not allow me to ransom my son? Name your own price and I swear it shall be yours without haggling.

He felt the glee of Ardrin of Storn; clearly his enemy had been waiting for just such a chance.

I will exchange him for you, was Ardrin's answer through the telepathic link. Come here and surrender yourself into my hands before tomorrow at sunset and Alaric―if he still lives, or his body if he does not―shall be handed over to your people.

Rascard knew he should have expected this. But Alaric was young; he himself had lived out a long life. Alaric could marry, rebuild the clan and kingdom. He answered after only a moment.

Agreed. But only if he lives; if he dies in your hands, I will burn Storn around your ears with clingfire.

Father, no! Not at that price! It was Alaric's voice crying out, I cannot live so long―nor will I have you die

for me. Rascard felt the voice strike through his son's weak defenses, felt the bursting blood as if in his own veins, then Alaric was gone, dropped from the rapport―dead or unconscious―he could not tell.

There was no sound in the conservatory but Erminie's quiet sobbing, and another

outburst of rage from the Lord of Storn.

Ah, you have cheated me of my revenge, Rascard, old enemy! It was not I who dealt him death. If you wish to change your life for his body, I shall honor the bargain―

Honor? How dare you speak that word, Storn?

Because I am not a Hammerfell! Now get out! Do not presume to come into Storn

again―even in spirit! Ardrin flung at him. Go! Get out!

Erminie threw herself to the rug and wept like the child she was still. Rascard of Hammerfell bowed his head. He was numb, empty, shattered. Had the feud ended, then, at this price?

2

The forty days of mourning wound slowly to an end. On the forty-first day, a caravan of strangers wound its way slowly up the winding rocky track toward Hammerfell Castle and when welcomed proved to be a relative of the duke's late wife along with his

retinue. Duke Rascard, more uncomfortable than he cared to admit in the presence of this sophisticated, finely dressed city-dweller, received him in his Great Hall, calling for wine and refreshments.

"My apologies for the insufficiency of this entertainment," he remarked, ushering him to a seat near the carved mantle which bore the crest of Hammerfell, "but until yesterday this was a house of mourning, and we have not returned to our normal state."

"I did not come for cakes and wine, kinsman," said Renato Leynier, a lowland cousin from the Hastur countries to the south. "Your mourning is all our family's mourning as well; Alaric was my kinsman,

too. But there is a purpose to our visit―I have come to reclaim my kinsman's daughter, the leronis Erminie."

Renato looked at the duke. If he had expected―as was the case--to see an old, broken man, ready to collapse at the death of his son and see Hammerfell fall into the hands of strangers, he was cheated. If anything, this man seemed to have grown stronger through his rage and pride; a vital man, still in command of those armies of Hammerfell through which he had marched for many days. Power spoke in the man's every small gesture and word; Rascard of Hammerfell was not young, but far from broken.

"But why do you seek to reclaim Erminie now?" Rascard asked, feeling the question like a stab of pain. "She is well in my household. This is her home. She is the last living link with my son. I would prefer to keep her as a daughter to my family."

"That is not possible," said Renato. "She is no longer a child, but a marriageable woman nearing twenty, and you are not so old as all that." (Until this very moment he had indeed thought of Rascard of Hammerfell as old enough to need no chaperone where a young woman was concerned.) "It is scandalous for you two to live alone together."

"Surely there is nothing so evil as the mind of a virtuous man, unless it is the mind of a virtuous woman," said Rascard indignantly, his face flushing with anger. In all truth this interpretation had never occurred to him. "Almost from infancy she was my son's playmate, and in all the years she has lived here, there has been no dearth of chaperones and duennas and companions and governesses. They will tell you that not twice in all these years have we been so much as alone in a room together, save when she

brought me news of my son's tragic death; and then, believe me, we both had other things on our minds."

"I doubt it not," Renato said smoothly, "but even so, Erminie is of an age to be married, and while she dwells beneath your roof, however innocently, she cannot be properly married to any man of her station; or do you design to degrade her by marrying her to some lowborn paxman or servant?"

"No such thing," the old duke retorted, "I had designed to wed her to my own son, had he-but lived long enough."

An awkward, and for Rascard, sad silence followed. But Renato would not back down.

"Would that it might have been so! But with due respect to your son, she cannot marry with the dead, more's the pity," Renato said, "and so she must return to her own kinfolk."

Rascard felt his eyes flooding with the tears he had been too proud to shed. He looked up at the dark coat of arms above the hearth and could no longer hide his bitter sorrow.

"Now I am indeed alone, for I have no other kinsman; those folk of Storn have had their triumph, for there is no living man or woman of the blood of Hammerfell besides myself anywhere in the Hundred Kingdoms."

"You are not yet an old man," Renato said, responding to the terrible loneliness in Rascard's voice. "You could yet marry again and raise up a dozen heirs."

And Rascard knew that what Renato said was true; yet his heart sank; to take a stranger into his home, and wait, wait for the birth of children, wait for them to grow to manhood, just to risk seeing this blood feud wipe them out again . . . no, he might not be all that old, but he was definitely too old for that.

Yet what was the alternative? To let the Storns' have their triumph, to know that when they followed the murder of his son with his own murder, there would be none to avenge him ... to know that Hammerfell itself would be in Storn hands, and no trace of the Morays of Hammerfell would remain anywhere in the Hundred Kingdoms.

"I will marry, then," he said in a moment of brazen desperation. "What bride-price do you ask for Erminie?"

Renato was shocked to his Core.

"I did not mean to suggest that, my lord. She is not of your station, she has been a common leronis in your household. It is not suitable."

"If I intended to marry her to my own son, how could I possibly claim she was not suitable for me? If I scorned her, I would never have thought of such a marriage,"

Rascard insisted.

"My lord―"

"She is of an age to bear children, and I have no reason to believe her other than virtuous. Once I married hoping for the great alliances a noble bride would bring; where are they, now that my son lies dead? At this point I wish only for a healthy young woman, and I am accustomed to her as my son's playmate. She will do well, better than most; and I will not need to accommodate myself to the ways of a stranger. Name her bride-price: I will give her parents whatever is customary and reasonable."

Lord Renato looked at him in dismay. He knew that he could not summarily refuse this marriage without making a formidable enemy. Hammerfell

was a small realm, but Renato was realizing how powerful it was; the Dukes of

Hammerfell had reigned long in this part of the world.

He could only temporize and hope that the old duke would think better of this latest whim while the •purely practical difficulties and delays were being dealt with.

"Well," he said slowly, at last, "if that is your wish, my lord, I will send a message to her guardians asking their permission for their ward to marry you. There may be difficulties; she may have been hand-fasted elsewhere as a child, or something of that sort."

"Her guardians? Why not her parents?"