The Legacy of Gird (69 page)

"You!" she said, in a voice that had some of Gird's bellow in it, though not so loud.

"Me?" He could not help noticing the hilt of her sword, her fine and reputedly magical sword. The jewel set in the pommel glinted, as if with internal fires. And every bit of metal she wore glittered, bright even beneath the cloth that shaded him from midday sun. Her eyes, when he met them again, seemed to glitter as well, fire-bright and angry. What could he have done? She had always seemed remote, but calm, when speaking to him.

"You," she said, very quietly now, "you have mageblood."

Luap shrugged, and looked away. "Common enough, lady; if you look closely, there's bastards aplenty in this army."

Her hand flipped this half-truth away. "Bastards in plenty, yes, but those in whom the mageblood
stirs
and wakes are few enough."

He stared at her, shocked almost into careless speech. But he caught the unspoken question back, and tried to school his face. He could see by her expression that she wasn't fooled, or maybe she could see his thoughts. She nodded at him, mouth tight.

"Yes. I do know. You have the magic, the light, and you know it. You could be what I am, were you not obedient to that—that
churl
out there!" Her arm waved. Luap felt a bubble of laughter tickle his throat. "That churl" must be Gird, whatever he'd done this time to anger the lady.

"It may be so," he said, trying to keep even the least of that laughter out of his voice. "There was a time I thought so, but truly, lady, I have no desire for it now."

She rested both fists on the little table and leaned close to him; he could smell her sweat, and the onion on her breath from dinner. It did nothing to diminish her beauty, or her power. "It has nothing to do with your desires, whatever your name really is. It is given to you, like the color of your eyes, the length of your arm: you cannot deny it." He said nothing, facing her with what calm he could muster. Her eyes looked away first, but she did not move. Then she straightened up, with a last bang of one fist that crumpled the supply roll. "No. You are more than just a bastard, and you must learn it."

Suddenly she was alight, blinding him at first, and then the heat came, scorching heat that blackened the edges of his scrolls. Without thought, he grabbed for power, and threw a shield before him, swept the scrolls to safety behind him.

"Stop that!" he said, furious and frightened at once. She laughed, a scornful laugh he remembered from his earliest childhood, the laugh of one whose power has never been overcome. Above his head, the fabric caught fire, the flames hardly visible against her brightness and the noonday sun.

"You have the power; you stop me!"

It was challenge, challenge he had never expected to face, that Gird would never have had him face. And he felt within a surge of that uncanny power, whose ways he had never learnt, never dared to explore. But as he had startled Gird, perhaps he could startle her, and so he let it out, in whatever form it might choose to come.

It came as a fiery globe, that raced at her; she slapped it away, first with a laugh and then, when it surged again against her hand, with a startled expression. She drew her sword, now glowing as brightly as she, and swiped at the globe. Luap would have been fascinated, if he had not also been involved. He could feel a vague connection between himself and the globe, as if he had a ball of pitch at the end of a long and supple reed.

With a final
pop
like a spark from sappy wood, her brilliance vanished. Luap blinked. Her shadow stood behind her, lean and black; the sun was overhead—he realized then that he was alight as she had been. She was staring at him, her first expression changing to respect, and then awe.

"You," she said, in a very different tone from her first approach.

"Yes?" Whatever was in his voice, it worked on her. Her mouth moved, but she said nothing. Finally she shook her head, and managed speech.

"Do you know
whose
bastard you are?" she asked. Luap kept his mouth shut tight; if
this
was where she was going, he was not going to help. But she nodded, slowly, as if this confirmed something she'd hardly dared imagine. "The king's," she said quietly. Calmly. "You have the royal magery; it could not be anyone else—and I think you knew, Luap. I think you chose your name of war precisely."

"And if I did?" he asked, relaxing slightly. The shadow behind her blurred, as if his light dimmed. He could not tell; his eyes still refused to answer all his questions.

"If you are the old king's son, born with his magery—"

"They said not," said Luap. "Like all bastards with no magic, I was fostered away—"

She laughed, this time ruefully. "Luap, they erred, as you must have known long since. You are his heir—in blood, and in magic—and the evidence is right here—in what just happened. Show this to any of the old blood, and you would inherit—"

"Inherit!" For an instant his old dream sprang up, bright as ever, but anger tore it away. "Inherit a kingdom torn by war? Inherit the fame my father had, that made men glad to see him dead? Inherit his ways?"

Her voice lowered, mellowed, soothed him as honey soothes a raw throat. "You have thought of it, Luap; you must have. He was a proud man, a foolish man . . . even, in some ways, a cruel man. He should have had more sense than to foster
you
away. None of our people have done all we should. But you—you know better. You could be—"

"I could be dead," said Luap. He wanted to hit her; he could feel her attempt to enchant him like a heavy weight of spring sunlight. It had been bad enough to go through this once. He shook his head at her. "If you had asked me two years ago, lady, I might have been foolish enough—I
would
have been foolish enough to agree. What my father did to me—the vengeance I wanted, the power I had always envied—yes. I would have. Even a year ago, maybe. But I've learned a bit, in this war. Even from you."

"
Even
from me? You mean, because of me, you would not—?"

"Not you alone. But, lady, I can see what Gird sees now; I can see the cost of your counsel, down to the last dead baby, the last poisoned well—"

"We are not
all
evil!"

"No. But—you tell me, lady, what it is that made you angry this time? What sent you here to work behind Gird's back?"

She whirled away from him; he let his own power flow out to her, and she turned back, unwilling, but obedient—recognizing even as she fought it the source of her compulsion. He released her, and she staggered. "He—he's an
idiot!
He knows no more of governing than any village bully!"

Luap chuckled. "He is an idiot, that I'll grant. But he's far more than a village bully, and if you can't see that, you're not seeing him yet for what he is."

"He lets those fools of merchants blather on, bickering about the market rules—"

"What should he do, crack their heads for them?" Luap could see she had thought of that, with relish. He shook his head at her. "Lady, Gird's as likely to lose his temper and bash heads as any man I've ever known. If he lets them bicker on, wasting time as you'd say, then he has his reasons."

"He claimed they would obey rules they made better than rules he gave—and yet he won't let them make the rules they
want
to make. Insists that they and the farmers must agree what is a ripe plum, nonsense like that."

"Nonsense like that matters, to those who grow the plums, or pay good coin for them."

"And that brings up coin. D'you know he's planning to call in and melt down all the old coinage? No more copper crabs and gold crowns, but stamped with wheat-ear and poppy. I tried to tell him what that would cost: the finesmiths don't work for nothing. He wouldn't listen. And he asks of me what he does not understand—"

"He wants you to give up your grievance, as he made me give up mine."

"Your heritage, he's made you give up."

"One and the same. My grievance: being born of royal blood, and thrown out to live in a peasant's world. Having the royal power, and being denied its use. The world, in short, not to my liking."

"It's more than that!"

"Not really." Luap grinned sideways at her. "Lady, I've known peasant lads enough, furious because their father favored another brother, because the steward was unfair, because the world was. Grumbling, sour, envious, resentful, quick to take offense and seek vengeance for every slight. So was I, though I hid it, thinking myself too good to admit such feelings, though they burned in my heart." He paused, to see how she would take this. She listened, though he suspected it was only because she knew he was a king's son. He took a deep breath, hoping no one would interrupt them, or come close enough to overhear what only Gird, so far, knew of his past.

"When I married, lady, I loved my wife as a prince might love a scullery-maid: just so much, for her beauty and her skill. Our children: I saw them in my mind, clothed in royal gowns, and hated the reality of their broad peasant faces, their rough hands. You are unwed: you cannot imagine what this means of love foregone, of wasted years, when I might have been rich in hearts-ease. Then as Gird's power grew, my master—who should, I knew, have been but a courtier at
my
court—commanded me to join the army, gain Gird's confidence, and betray him. I would have done so, for the reward he promised, but he did not trust. He took my wife, my children—killed my son, to make his point, and held them captive against my behavior. The wife I had never loved as I could have, the daughter I thought too plain: I saw in their eyes, as the soldiers took them away, a trust I had never earned.
Then
I began to love them, but it was too late." The old pain struck to his heart again, and tears blurred his vision. He blinked them away, and saw on the magelady's face a curious expression. He hoped it was not contempt: he could feel rage rising in him like a dangerous spring; contempt from her would set a fire under it. She said nothing.

"So I came to Gird, as one driven into rebellion by injustice, but I meant to betray him, only he was gentle, that night, with my injuries, and something—I could not do it. I told him, about my family, and he cried: great tears running down his face, his nose turned red—I could not believe it." He waited until she asked.

"And then?"

"And then they died, as my master had promised, and I could do nothing. In the market square at Darrow, before a frightened crowd—someone told me about it later, not knowing whose wife it had been. And I—I hated Gird, almost as much as my master, for having done nothing—though there was nothing he could have done. When I discovered my powers, I had thoughts of claiming my own place, somehow. Making things better, being the king that should have been, in a land where no one suffered. A boy's dream, after a beating. Crowns and palaces for all, meat and ale and honey on the loaf—"

"You could have—"

"I could
not
. Gird knocked me flat, when I tried my powers on him, and rightly so. I didn't see that at the time. But if you've wondered why I have no command, that's why. He could not trust me. The marshals still look at me sideways, but Gird knows I'm different now. So could you be, if you'd give up that old wound you cherish."

"I do not cherish it! The ruin of my life—!"

"Only if you choose so. Lady, listen to me. You have lost something: who has not? It is what we make of what's left that counts. I lost my wife, my children, lost them even before they were taken, in the blindness of my pride in blood. I lost a crown, the way you see it. You stayed away from this war; you have not seen what I have seen, or learned the lessons it taught. My loss is as important as any other, and no more important than any other. King's son, bastard, widower, childless by war, a luap in every way: I have lost or renounced all command, being unfit for it."

"And this is what you and Gird want me to do?"

Luap stretched his arms high over his head, easing the knot in his back. By her tone, she was at least thinking about it, no longer quite so sure of herself. "Gird wants you to quit thinking you're a special case. I would have you consider the fruits of freedom: freedom from your past. What good is that old anger doing you now? What good is it doing any of us, when you would lure me into a conspiracy to undo what all these men and women have died to do? You, lady, best know whether you are as unfit for command as I was."

Her expression shifted, from half petulant to something approaching respect. "I—never doubted my ability to command, when it should be time. Not until now—"

"Yet you never took the field. And why come here, to your people's enemies? And why stay?"

"I'm not sure." She looked down, and away, and anywhere but his eyes. "I did not take the field . . . because the king did not call me, as he called other nobles. After I killed him, I thought . . . I knew that none of our people would accept me, the king's murderer. Why should they? I'd broken my oath to him, why not join his enemies? My own act placed me there, it seemed."

"And what did you think Gird would do, pat you on the head and tell you the king had treated you badly and deserved your vengeance?"

She flushed. "I didn't know. I don't suppose I was thinking clearly. As for why I stay . . . where would I go? Back to Tsaia to pick sides in that contention? Away from here, where some peasant terrified of magery is like to split my skull with an axe while I sleep?"

Now she met his eyes again, with an expression he had never seen on her face, honest bewilderment and the first glint of humor. "I set out to save the king, and killed him; after that, what could I dare intend, that would not go awry?"

Gird had been right; Tsaia preferred lords to peasants, if peasants to mages. There the followers of cruel gods had all been magelords, or their close kin. When the bartons rose, some found their own lords with them, against those they most hated and feared. Duke Marrakai, though accused of treachery by Duke Verrakai, proved his loyalty in most men's eyes by supporting a Mahieran for the throne. The Rosemage, as Gird called her, assured him that the candidate had no more magical ability than a river cobble. He was not sure he believed her, but he did believe Arranha, who said the same thing.