Kings of the North (28 page)

Arvid considered pointing out that he hadn’t “escaped” in the first place, and had been coming back on his own, but in view of the drawn swords held his peace.

“Very well,” the first man said, with bad grace. “Then get a march on, you, and don’t dawdle.”

“Considering that I’ve had no sleep, no food since yesterday, and have a wound, and my companion is not at full strength either, you may have to accept a slower pace than you, riding, would find reasonable,” Arvid said.

“A day’s fast never hurt anyone,” the man said, wheeling his horse discourteously close to Arvid.

“Pir—” one of the others said.

“I’ll go tell them we found him,” the man said, and spurred to a gallop. The others looked down at Arvid with less hostility.

“You could ride pillion,” one of them said.

“I don’t ride,” said the gnome.

“It would be quicker,” Arvid said to him, “but if you cannot ride, then I, too, will walk. My thanks,” he said to the rider who had offered. He took a few steps forward, but standing in the heat had affected his balance, and he nearly fell, his vision darkening.

“My lord!” The gnome was at his side, a hard-muscled shoulder under his arm, helping him. “You cannot go on.”

Arvid shook his head. “I can. It’s just the standing—”

“No,” said one of the Girdish. “It’s not right.” He dismounted and eased the reins over his mount’s ears. “I will help you mount, and I will lead my horse.”

“Torin, are you sure?”

“I am sure that it is not courteous to force a wounded man to walk such a distance in the heat, without food or water. And we must go at a foot-pace anyway, for the gnome’s sake.”

“Pir won’t like it.”

“Pir can—” The man swallowed whatever he might have said and offered Arvid his hands to mount. Arvid would have ignored that, but when he tried to raise his wounded arm to the saddle-bow, he could not. Mounted, he looked down at the gnome.

“I’m sorry—”

“It is nothing, my lord. I am quite able to walk.”

A
rvid draped his cloak over his head again. In such wise they made their way to the city faster than Arvid could have walked it, and neared the gate by late afternoon. He would have dismounted when they came to the gate, but his guide would have none of it.

“You do not need to exhaust yourself up the steep to the Hall.”

They found the forecourt in some confusion. The Marshal-General had just arrived, having been overtaken by a search party sent out on the river road to catch the fugitives; it had returned with her. Others, sent north and west, had not yet returned. As well, two students had gone missing. Clusters of Marshals, knights, and staff were huddled here and there, all talking against one another.

In this chaos, the arrival of another seven riders caused no notice at first but to bring grooms running out to take the horses. Arvid slid off, wrenching his arm in the process; the gnome moved up close to him.

“There they are!” Pir, spotting them across the court and pointing, had a voice that affected Arvid like a squealing saw. “We found this one at least!”

Faces turned toward Arvid, including the Marshal-General. She came toward him, the others shifting out of her way, and looked him up and down.

“Arvid—you look the worse for wear.”

“Yes, Marshal-General.”

“You don’t look like a man who successfully killed four Girdish knights and made off with a stolen necklace, a horse, and a pack.”

“No, Marshal-General.”

She glanced at the gnome and to Arvid’s astonishment said, “Greetings, rockbrother. Was it you who bound up this man’s wound?” in the gnome’s own language.

“Yes, Marshal-General,” the gnome said, eyes alight.

“And you were with him in this … situation?”

“Yes, Marshal-General.”

“An accomplice, I’ll warrant,” Pir said. “I’ll tell you what I think—”

“Later,” the Marshal-General said. “I will see Arvid, whom I invited and who is my guest, cared for first.”

“But—”

She turned her shoulder to him and spoke to the man leading the horse Arvid had ridden. “It was well done, Torin, to offer him a mount. I suppose the rockbrother refused?”

“Yes, Marshal-General.”

“Arvid, come with me, you and your friend. You will sleep in the main Hall tonight.” Arvid was not sure he could walk that far, but one of the Marshals offered him an arm, and he made it inside the cool entrance chamber of the Hall without disgracing himself. “You both need a chance to bathe and change,” the Marshal-General said. She spoke to a young man in gray. “We need a suit of clothes for this rockbrother and also for this man.”

They moved down a passage past a long room filled with tables and benches and turned left into one furnished with two beds and opening into a small chamber with a tub and spigot and a stool. A window in the bedchamber opened onto a walled garden.

“You will wish to stay together, I imagine,” the Marshal-General said. “You will be more comfortable here than in the School barracks, and anyway, there’s a disturbance over there right now.” She turned to the gnome and again spoke in that language. “Rockbrother, I honor your skill in wound care and do not doubt you have applied the best herbs you could find, but Arvid is a man, and I would ask that you permit one of our healers to see him. I am sure it will not lessen whatever ceremony of exchange you had with him.”

“He was wounded by my blade in another’s hand, and he saved me,” the gnome said. “The debt is mine; my life is his; do what you will.”

The Marshal-General glanced at Arvid; he opened his mouth to explain, but his vision darkened and he was hardly aware when he slumped, other than to think,
Oh, no
. He came to himself again in one of the beds. Snoring from the other bed proved to be his gnome companion, sound asleep. A dim lamp burned in the bath chamber. Outside, it was dark, as he could see between the slats of the shutters, now opened for a nonexistent breeze.

Beyond the closed door, he could hear footsteps and voices, but not what they said. Some passed … more silence … then immediately outside the door he heard voices again.

“I’ll just look,” one said. The door opened. The Marshal-General, in a simple blue shirt, sleeves rolled up, over gray trousers.

“I’m awake,” Arvid said. “But he’s not.”

“I’ll be brief. Do you remember waking once before?”

“No.” He hated the thought of that.

“You roused enough, after you were cleaned up, to drink a little soup. Your wound has been healed, though we can do nothing for the blood loss. If that bloody mess in your cloak pocket—and
dear
Arvid, I do not wish to think what purpose you find for all those pockets—is all your own blood, our healers think that is quite enough to explain what happened.”

Arvid squeezed his eyes shut a moment. So now the Marshal-General and doubtless all the other Marshals knew some of his secrets … and the cloak was the easiest of his tools to use, most times.

“I travel a lot,” he said, his voice coming out in a croak. He had never felt more like a rain-sodden rooster, tail feathers limp and dragging.

“Indeed you do. I will not worry you tonight, but if you are awake, the healers say more food would be a good idea.”

“And then?” Was this a last meal?

“And then a night’s sleep, and in the morning we shall talk.”

His stomach grumbled, and she wrinkled her nose at the sound. “I’ll have a bowl of beef broth and all-heal sent in, and some bread. And more water.”

“The door—”

“Is guarded. You have nothing to fear, Arvid.”

He wasn’t so sure, but as the gnome snored on, and a woman with a broad friendly face brought him the food, he ate and—snoring or no—slept. He woke to children’s voices in the garden outside; it was broad day already, and they had been sent, he gathered, to pick herbs for the kitchen.

The gnome’s bed was empty, but he could hear splashing from the bathing room. He lay, feeling less soreness in his shoulders and hands than he’d expected, even if his arm was healed … he looked, and the bandage was gone, but a clean white scar, thin as a string, outlined the slash.

Well. He sat up; his head spun for a moment. A cream-colored shirt embroidered with stars and flowers around the neckline and a pair of gray trousers were folded on the table. He glared at them.
He
wore black. He did not wear Girdish clothes, except he had no others, and he was not going to walk around bare-skinned. He put on the clothes—they smelled of sun and herbs and were pleasantly soft-rough on his skin—and tried standing. Yes, he could stand, but he felt weaker than he’d hoped.

The gnome came out of the bathing chamber, dressed now in a sleeveless brown jerkin and green trousers, both too wide for him and held on with a leather belt. “They had only dwarf things,” he said to Arvid. “It is not discourtesy. Our clothes will be clean and dry later today, they said.”

“Do you have others at the inn where we met?” Arvid asked.

“I do,” the gnome said. “But I am not sure—the dwarf may have hidden them, or perhaps he did not even pay the score. And he could have taken my money—”

“We have two gold pieces,” Arvid said. “Those were mine, from my own purse.” At least … he’d had them the day before. But there they were, on top of his folded cloak. His sword belt and sword, too, and all his other blades, neatly laid out. Either the Marshal-General wasn’t planning to kill him, or she hoped he’d give an excuse. He thought about that as he went in the bathing chamber, splashed water on his face and hands, and made use of the jacks-hole, here set in a raised platform and provided with an elaborately carved seat. Surely that wasn’t Gird’s idea … but he remembered this had been a palace before Gird’s time.

He was pulling on his boots over thick gray socks when a tap came at the door. It was, again, the Marshal-General.

“You look better,” she said. Her gaze flicked to the table. “Feel free to arm yourself if you wish. I was quite impressed, by the way.”

“If you were going to kill me, you had your chance,” Arvid said. The embroidered shirt soured his mood. Flowers!

“You’re my guest,” the Marshal-General said. “I don’t kill guests. You need breakfast, you and your companion.”

She led them to a small empty dining room off the vast kitchen, with a table just large enough for six, and then fetched breakfast herself. “For you, Arvid, meat to make up the blood you lost. For you, rockbrother, what I believe your folk prefer: fruit and seeds. If that is not to your taste, please tell me.” The gnome chose berries over stone fruits, and crunched away at the various seeds and nuts. Arvid ate steadily: the slice of ham, the eggs, the bread. When they had done, the Marshal-General carried the crockery out and came back.

“Rockbrother,” she said first, “I need to speak with Arvid awhile, him alone. Will you walk about the garden, or accept a guide around the Hall?”

The gnome looked at Arvid. Arvid shrugged. “Do what you will, rockbrother, while the Marshal-General and I have speech. I will be with you again later.”

“I would see your High Lord’s Hall,” the gnome said, to Arvid’s surprise. “I understand this is to you what our Giver of Law is to us.”

“That pleases me,” the Marshal-General said. “I will send for a guide, one who speaks some of your language, to answer any questions you may have.”

The gnome bowed; soon a young woman in a Marshal’s tabard appeared and greeted him in his language. “Rockbrother, you would see the High Lord’s Hall? May I be your guide?” And off they went together. The Marshal-General sat down across from Arvid.

“Well, now,” she said.

“Marshal-General,” Arvid said. He had not expected to feel anything in particular face-to-face with her—he who had been face-to-face with others in power—but her steady gaze quickened his pulse.

“You are not a stupid man, Arvid Semminson,” she said. “I do not believe you stole the necklace, nor did you entomb those Girdish knights. You would not commit such obvious crimes.”

“Thank you for your good opinion,” Arvid said, past a tight throat.

“So I will hear your story, in your own words, taking as long as you will, and as completely as you remember.” Her mouth twitched in the tiniest of smiles. “I imagine you understand me.”

“You have no scribe here to record—”

“No. If I decide a record is necessary, I can write it myself.”

“I begin with the showing of the regalia, then,” Arvid said. Without naming names, he explained how word of the regalia had passed to and through the Thieves’ Guild.

“Do you know the first date the crown was heard of?” the Marshal-General said.

“Before the coronation? No, only that there was rumor the new Duke Verrakai had a secret crown and would have another try at the prince, then or after he became king. As soon as word passed that Dorrin Verrakai would be the new duke, I would say. Certainly the rumors built in the last few tendays before the coronation itself.”

“I was surprised to find you had left Vérella when I came through.”

“My pardon, Marshal-General, if that was discourteous. I had not visited Fintha for years and thought I might familiarize myself with the land and the city.”