Hall of the Mountain King (26 page)

“Wait, they tell me. Wait, and wait, and wait. So wise, they
are. So very wise.” His lip curled; he began to pace again, hurling the words
over his shoulder. “It will grow easier, they tell me. My people are testing
me; they are proving my fitness. It is all a great testing. The judgments and
the petitions; the lords with all their retinues, appearing unannounced with
disputes that only the king can settle. The embassies from my royal and
princely neighbors, demanding hospitality and courtesy, reminding me of
alliances made and unmade and remade. The hordes of traders and mountebanks,
each of whom must attract my august eye or spread abroad the tale of my
niggardliness. And always—always that fire smoldering in the Marches. Wait,
they tell me. Hold fast. Let my loyal lords and my own actions hold off the
threat.”

He stopped, spun. “Actions! What actions? I’ve not even left
his castle since I took the throne. And when I flung that in their faces, they
bowed and scraped and prayed my majesty’s pardon, but if an assassin could come
to me here in my own stronghold, how much more perilous it would be for me to ride
abroad. No, no, I am young, of course I chafe under the restraints of my rule,
but only let me be patient and soon I will be strong upon my throne. Then I may
do as I will. Yes, then, when Moranden is king of all but this castle.”

Vadin started to turn away, sighed and stayed. Mirain still
prowled, still muttered, still saw him only as a target for heated words. “Ah
no, the exile will never come so far. Lord Yrian, Lord Cassin, Prince Kirlian,
all the lords whose lands border on the Marches—they have sworn to bring him to
me. Limb by limb. Surely I can trust them who always served King Raban well.
Maybe I can even trust Moranden. But his mother—now there is an enemy to be
afraid of. She would never have sent anyone as conspicuous as an assassin with
a spear. She will have my life while I tarry, and never count the cost. And,
Wait,
my elders intone.
Wait, sire. Wait and see.
”

Vadin said nothing. What were his little troubles to this
great matter of war and rebellion? One silly fool of a girl was afraid of him
because he had been killed and had come to life again and had walked away with
only a fading scar. Ianon was about to tear itself apart, and he cried over a
tuppenny whore.

Mirain had come to his senses a little. He saw Vadin and
knew him; his glare lightened to a scowl. “Your pardon, Vadin. I never meant to
rage at you. But if I erupt in council, they all look gravely at one another
and sigh, their wisdom sorely tried by my impetuous youth. I have to be cool, I
have to be quiet, I have to try to reason with minds set in stone. They know,
surely and absolutely, that I must not risk my precious neck in a war. Not even
in a parley. Not even, gods forbid, in a royal progress. I must stay mewed up
here while others do it all for me.”

“Isn’t that what it is to be a king?”

“Not you, too.” But Mirain’s rage had passed; he rubbed his
eyes with tired fingers. “I’m getting so I can’t even think. I need to do
something. Would you—” He broke off. “Aren’t you supposed to be at liberty?”

“I . . . decided not to bother.” Vadin picked up Mirain’s
mantle and folded it, laying it carefully in its chest. “Shall I fetch Ymin? Or
would you prefer—”

Mirain stood in front of him, hands on his shoulders. “Do I
have to take the answer out of your mind?”

Vadin wrenched away. “Don’t you—don’t you ever—Damn you, why
didn’t you let me die?”

“I couldn’t.” Mirain spoke very softly. “I couldn’t, Vadin.”

The squire choked on bile. Mirain’s eyes were wide and full
of pain, and he could see into them. He could hear the thoughts behind them. Love
and grief, fear of loss, regret that it had led to this.

“Regret!” Vadin cried. “Oh gods, you’ve even infected me
with your magery. They can all see it. They’re terrified of me. I died. I died
and I came back, and I’m not Vadin anymore. Demons take you, King of Ianon. May
the goddess’ birds peck your bones.”

There was a long throbbing silence. Vadin looked up at last,
and Mirain stood still. His hands were fists at his sides. The god’s brand rent
him with its agony.

Vadin knew. He could feel it himself if he willed to.

“We are bound,” Mirain said with perfect calm. “I went very
far to call you back. I cannot loose you, nor can I alter what my people saw.
But time can heal you somewhat. You died, you were healed, you have changed,
but you are still Vadin. Those who love you will learn to see it, once their
awe passes.”

“You sound exactly like your council.
Wait. Wait and see.
”

Mirain laughed, short and bitter. “Don’t I? Unfortunately
it’s true.”

“And what do I do while I wait? Study sorcery? It’s all I seem
to be fit for.”

“You can go and show Ledi that you’re still her favorite
lover.”

King or no king, Vadin would have struck him for that if he
had been a shade less quick. “She hates me.”

“She’s crying now because she let herself listen to all the
tales, and because she let them frighten her, and because you went away. Go to
her, Vadin. She needs you.”

“So do you, damn it.”

“Not now. Go on.”

“Come with me.” Vadin’s tongue had said that. Not his brain.

Mirain frowned, searching his mind, a touch like light fingers,
or a warm breath, or a moth’s wing in the dark.

He thought of outrage, but he could not find it. Memory came
between: the world floating in night, and a strong voice calling.

Between them they extricated Mirain from his state dress,
unwound the king-braids and plaited his hair into the simplicity of priesthood,
found a plain kilt and a plain dark mantle. Vadin wrapped himself in a dry
cloak, swallowed the last of his regrets, and set his face toward the town.

oOo

This time no one seemed even to see Vadin, much less his
companion. Ledi was not serving in the alehouse; the boy who waited on them did
not know where she was, or care.

They drank the ale he brought, Vadin tarrying out of fear,
Mirain simply reveling in walls that were not the walls of his castle and
voices that were not the voices of his council.

The taut lines of his face had begun to ease. He looked
younger, less hagridden.

Dear gods, Vadin thought, he could not remember when last he
had seen Mirain smile.

He looked down into his dwindling ale, flushing a little
with shame. He had been thinking that all this worship did not trouble Mirain;
the Sunborn had been used to it from his birth.

Maybe that made it worse. Vadin could go back in time to
plain humanity, and he could hope that it would be soon. Mirain could never go
back at all.

Vadin tossed a coin on the table and stood. Mirain followed
him through the crowd to the curtain with its painted lovers. The old harridan
who stood guard took Vadin’s silver, tested it with her one remaining tooth,
grinned and let them by.

It was not easy, climbing those steep fetid steps with the
King of Ianon behind him and Ledi somewhere ahead. Maybe she had taken a man to
console her. Or two; she liked two, especially if they were Kav and Vadin. The
other girls were busy, raw night that it was, providing warmth and comfort for
a handful of copper.

Ledi had one of the better rooms, the one at the top with a
window which she kept open even in winter. It made the air sweet, she said. As
if she needed anything but her own warm scent and the herbs she sprinkled on
her pillow.

Her door was shut, but no length of green ribbon hung from
the latch; she was in but alone.

Vadin’s heart hammered. She was going to be afraid, and she
was going to submit as any woman must to a great lord, and he was an idiot for
tormenting himself like this.

He turned to face the shadow that was Mirain. “You can have
her,” he said roughly. “I don’t want her.”

Mirain did not say it aloud, but the word hung in the air.
Coward
.

With a low growl Vadin spun back to the door. He raised his
trembling fist, struck once and then twice and then once again.

Nothing moved within. She would be huddled in her bed,
praying that he would go away. He stepped back, braced for flight.

The latch grated. The door eased open. Lamplight brightened
the stair and its landing; Ledi’s face peered out, all puffed with crying, and
her hair was a tangle and she had on her worst rag of a dress, and she had
never been less pretty or more beloved. “Ledi,” he said stupidly. “Ledi, I—”

She drew herself up. “My lord.”

“And what have I done,” he snapped with desperate temper,
“to deserve that? Cold shoulder down below and cold words up here, and if it’s
that I haven’t been coming so often lately, will you please remember that we’ve
lost an old king and got a new one, and I’ve been caught in the middle?”

“That’s not all you’ve been caught in,” she said, unbending.
She stood as straight and cold and haughty as a queen, and she would never bend
now, since he had forced her to remember her pride.

“And can I help any of it?” he cried in a fine fire of rage.
“Damn it, woman, don’t you turn on me, too!”

She looked at him with great care, squinting a little for
her eyes were not of the best, frowning as if he were a stranger whose face she
must remember. He was almost in tears, which was a great shame, but he did not
care.

All at once she began to laugh, half weeping herself. She
flung her arms about his neck and kissed him till he knew he would drown, and
drew him through her door.

Then she saw who stood with him. She stiffened again. Only a
little at first, with surprise. “You didn’t say you’d brought a friend.”

“He didn’t,” Mirain said. “I was only seeing to it that he
didn’t turn tail before he saw you.”

“Then I owe you thanks,” she said, letting Vadin go. It was
a kiss she had in mind, with joy in it, and Mirain had both before she saw the
light on his face and the sheen of his torque. She recoiled, dropping to her
knees. “Majesty!”

Mirain did not raise her. “Madam.” His voice was cold. “Since
you know me, I trust that you will do as I command.”

She bowed to the floor. “Yes, majesty.”

“Very well. Get up and look at me, and do not bow to me
again, nor ever call me by that unlovely title.”

She rose; she made herself look into his stern face. “Now,
madam. Look after my squire, who stands in sore need of it, and consider well.
When I was a prince you would speak to me without fear or fawning. Now that I
am a king, I need that more than ever.” The sternness softened; he held out his
hands. “Can you forgive me, Ledi? I never meant to take your man away from
you.”

“Didn’t you?” But she took his hands a little gingerly and
mustered a smile. “Very well. I forgive you.”

He bowed low, to her consternation and delight, and set a
kiss in each palm as if she had been a great lady. “Look after my friend,” he
said.

Vadin ate thornfruit and cream with new bread and honey and
a mug of ale, and Ledi to sweeten it, combing and braiding his hair while he
ate. Through the window he could hear the morning sounds of the town, feel the
air cool on his face, bask in the fitful sunlight.

It would rain again later, he suspected. The sky had that
odd watery clarity it always had between storms, as if it had paused to rest
before its new onslaught.

Ledi clasped her arms about his middle, resting warm and
bare against his back. He half turned. She claimed a kiss that tasted of cream
and honey, and said, “You should be going. Your king will be needing you.”

He sighed a little. “Half a thousand people who live to wait
on him, and I’m the one he always seems to be needing.”

“You’re his friend.”

“I think I was born under a curse.” He reached for his kilt
but did not move to put it on. “I’m not his friend. I’m something fated. Like a
shadow, or a second self, or a brother of the same birth. I used to think I
hated him, till I realized that I didn’t; I resented him. How dare he come out
of nowhere and change the world?”

“Your world,” she said. Very lightly, and for the first
time, she touched the mark of the spear. “You’re different. You’re more like
him. Like . . . someone who knows what the gods are.”

“I don’t know anything.”

His sullenness made her smile. “Go on. He’s waiting for
you.”

Let him wait!
he
would have cried if he had had any sense. He dressed instead, kissed her again,
and then again for good measure, and went lightly enough down the stair.

oOo

There were one or two people in the common room drinking
their breakfast, and one who neither ate nor drank but sat in a corner, unseen
and unremarked by any but Vadin, to whom his presence was like a fire on the
skin.

“Have you been here all night?” Vadin demanded.

“No.” Mirain rose. Under his cloak he was dressed for
riding: a short leather kilt over boots almost tall enough to pass for
leggings. “Rami is outside.”

“Where are we going?”

Mirain did not answer. He walked ahead of Vadin into the
puddled courtyard.

The Mad One was there, unsaddled, and Rami in saddle and
bridle, nibbling a bit of weed. When Vadin had seen to her girth and mounted,
Mirain was already at the gate.

They rode in silence except for the thudding of hooves and
the creaking of Vadin’s saddle, winding through the streets to the east gate,
the Fieldgate that led to the open Vale.

It was open, its guard snapping to attention as he
recognized his king. Mirain laid him low with a smile and clapped heels to the
Mad One’s sides. The stallion bucked and belled and sprang into a gallop.

When at last they slowed, town and castle lay well behind
them. The Vale rolled ahead of them, its green grass parched to gold with
summer’s heat, lapping at the foot of the mountain wall.