Kings of the North (38 page)

He could not help but notice another factor: barons, counts, and even dukes introducing their families to him, particularly those families including daughters of marriageable age and sons who might benefit from a few years as someone else’s squire. He was careful to give no immediate encouragement, but thinking ahead—Kieri had had squires, and they had been helpful. Dorrin had squires now, all dukes’ children. He would need squires. A wife, though … he was not ready to consider that. Though the girls, in their best court dress, were certainly lovely, he could not imagine any of them being content in the north while he was away in the south every year. As well,
he did not yet grasp the undercurrents within the court; a hasty alliance could be disastrous for him and for his land.

His land
. He thought that now without hesitation, automatically. His land, his people, his Company … his king, in that palace. He wondered when Kieri had felt it normal for the first time … Kieri had been younger and perhaps had imagined it before, as he himself had not. And how was Kieri coming to grips with a change every bit as great as his own? Had Kieri chosen a wife?

In the next few days, Arcolin dealt with the necessary business: the banker, the judicar, a courier to ride south and tell Burek what had happened and where he was going, another to ride north at least as far as the Duke’s—no,
his
—south border and let his people know he was on the way. He and Stammel paid their visit to Tamis’s grange; it was packed full that evening, and Stammel’s story brought gasps and tears to many.

Finally, Arcolin and Stammel rode north, carrying with them the royal warrants of Arcolin’s title. At Burningmeed, his subjects gathered to hear the proclamation of his title in the grange; they cheered him loudly. Vestin paraded the southern cohort for his inspection. The veterans stared at Stammel, but said nothing, and cheered Arcolin after the inspection.

The next day the two rode on into lowering clouds, a miserable cold drizzle sifting through the trees. Sodden leaves quieted the horses’ hooves, and the bare fields of farmsteads, with cattle huddled together but still steadily grazing, suggested endurance more than abundance. Arcolin looked at each, noting the soundness of the buildings, the condition of fences, the apparent management of fields and orchards, the condition of the road itself. Here and there it was clear the cohort had done roadwork; and in some places he could see where work needed to be done. He let himself imagine how it could be in two hands of years … four … as he continued the work Kieri had begun. Sound roads, passable in all seasons. Sturdy houses, ample barns filled with grain and fodder, fat cattle, heavy-fleeced sheep, trees loaded with fruit or nuts … his horse stumbled a little and jolted him back to the present.

“Sir?” Stammel asked. He had heard the horse stumble, no doubt. He was sitting his horse upright as always and had no doubt felt the downward slope Arcolin had missed by daydreaming.

“I was thinking,” Arcolin said, “when I should have been watching the road. We should reach Duke’s East later today.”

A
s he came in sight of Duke’s East, he reined in. A sharp wind blew from the north through trees bare but for a few stubborn leaves. They had ridden through heavier cold rain earlier, but those clouds were behind them now. Ahead was the hard blue of a winter sky.

“We’re close, aren’t we?” Stammel asked.

“Yes. Looking down at Duke’s East—I can see Kolya’s orchard—leafless now—her cottage—the bridge over the stream—” He glanced over at Stammel, who looked gray and pinched. “Are you all right?”

“I can see it in my mind,” Stammel said. “But what I see is not what other men see.” He cleared his throat. “Does it look different, now that it’s yours?”

“I was thinking how familiar it was,” Arcolin said. “A comfort to come back and see this shape of land, those trees, the village … but yes, in a way it does look different.” It had been Kieri’s worry, and now it was his.

“It will always look the same to me, if … sorry, sir. Let’s get on.”

They rode down the slope. Kolya’s cottage had a plume of smoke out the chimney, and several people gleaning late apples in her orchard turned to look at the riders. Waving, they ran toward the lane; Arcolin reined in.

Kolya was first to speak. “Sir, we heard you were the new duke—is it true?”

“Not duke,” Arcolin said. “Count only, at this time.”

“Did you see—” She stopped abruptly, staring at Stammel. He sat his horse with the same composure he had shown from the beginning. Someone else started to speak; Kolya’s gesture was emphatic and hushed them all.

“We need to get out to the stronghold,” Arcolin said. “I’ll want to meet with the Councils of both Duke’s East and Duke’s West tomorrow; you need to see the new warrants, and we’ll talk then. If you could let Mayor Fontaine know, and send a messenger to Duke’s
West. Right now—we’re still damp from the past few days and could use a hot fire and dry clothes.”

“Yes, sir. Of course.” Her eyes never left Stammel’s face; his expression never changed. “Welcome home, both of you.”

Stammel nodded at that, then legged his horse into a quick walk. Arcolin caught up with him and led the way over the bridge, through the village—waving at those who waved, but not slowing.

He heard the trumpet’s call borne on the north wind when they were in sight of the stronghold; he could just see the sun glinting from helmets. He was home … his home now. He looked around at the wide, windswept fields, the distant line of scrubby trees, the hills to the north and west. He would ride in, and someone would take his horse, and when he walked into the inner court … it was all his now. For one last instant, panic swept over him—he could not do it all, he could never be as good a lord as Kieri had been. Then it blew away on the crisp winter wind, on the memory of that summer’s campaign, when he had done what he thought right. He was Count of the North Marches. It was enough.
He
was enough.

Lyonya, near Halveric Steading

M
any days on the road had confirmed Jeddrin Count Andressat’s opinion that he did not like travel. He took no pleasure in novelty of place or person, and he was all too aware of duties he was not performing while he was gone. A ruler should stay at home, with his own people.

His thoughts ran on familiar lines. Foreigners were ill-bred; travel obliged one to mingle with such people, even traveling with one’s own servants and guards. He had never, in his entire life, been over the mountains to the north, a place of barbarians and those who gave themselves ridiculous titles. Only a few in the north held titles for which he had any regard; he knew their lineage as he knew his own. The new king of Tsaia—well enough, the best they could do, all things considered. But Fintha, with no nobility—ridiculous. Three of the Eight Kingdoms—Pargun and Kostandan and Dzordanya—had kings, but of no lineage that meant anything. He found no trace of ancient blood in them, no indication that their authority came from Old Aare.

He could respect, he had told himself, an honest merchant, if such existed, or a mercenary captain like Aliam Halveric or Jandelir Arcolin. Such men had expertise, and if they did not presume to consider themselves equals of their betters, he gave them the respect they deserved. That was the duty and responsibility of a noble, after all: to recognize worth and reward it.

But necessity demanded that he travel, and travel incognito at that. He must seek aid from someone he had misjudged as—to be honest—he had misjudged himself. He had bowed and scraped like any commoner—which, he reminded himself yet again, he was. He had slept in ordinary inns—hideous places in which he’d been forced to show coin before every mug of ale, let alone a bed for the night. Even in Valdaire, where, had he used his own name, the bowing and scraping would have gone the other way.

He huddled in his cloak as another autumn rain blew down from the mountains, roaring in the trees overhead. A horrible country, worse even than the pass over the mountains. Too many trees, blocking the view in every direction, closing him in. Mud and not rock under his horse’s hooves, storms in the air that could not be seen until they were upon him. Only a few villages and fields—unfamiliar crops in the fields, unfamiliar fruit trees instead of the neat terraces of vines and oilberries on his own land. Green everywhere, too much green.

If not for the vision of his own land and its fields and vineyards, his own people toiling there, the smell of the herbs strong under the sun, the clatter of goats’ hooves on the rocks … if not to save them, who had done no wrong and deserved no harm … he would not have stirred from Andressat, from those golden hills, those rocky bastions, summer’s heat that dried the creeks, winter rain that filled them. He ached in every bone and cursed the day he’d first heard the name of Duke Kieri Phelan.

A
liam Halveric listened to the rain drumming on the stable roof, breathed in the fragrance of horses, good hay, oiled leather, and a hint of ripening fruit from the trees trained along the inner court wall, and wondered when it was he’d become an old man. Estil insisted he wasn’t old, and she didn’t seem old—barring the silver strands in her dark hair—but he
felt
old, joints aching, responsibilities almost too heavy to bear. His grandchildren sprouted day by day, it seemed, rising up around him like saplings around an old storm-blasted tree.

And now he had to deal with the Count of Andressat, whose
envoy had announced the count’s intention to visit on his way to Chaya to see the king. The king. Kieri. Once his servant, his squire, dear to him as a son or brother. His rival, at times, but always that bond of friendship. And now king, but king so much later than he should have been, because of Aliam. That still hurt, hurt enough that he sagged onto a chest, leaning on the wall and staring out at the water streaming on the courtyard stones. Kieri had forgiven him; he knew Kieri bore no grudge. But he could not forgive himself. He had known, and he had done nothing. Oh, he’d had reason enough to do nothing, but no reasons seemed enough now, when Aliam laid out for the thousandth time the consequences of old decisions.

He shivered, as a chill breeze blew damply into the barn, and rubbed hands no longer as callused and hard as the summer before, the summer he had still trained daily with his soldiers. He could not sit here all day. He had work to do; Andressat would be here today or tomorrow.

Across the courtyard, where rain now fell more gently, a girl peeked from the main keep door and then, apron flung over her head, dashed to the stables. “Grandfather! Grandmother wants you!” Aliam sighed and pushed himself up. He remembered the birth of this child’s mother, and now the child of that child ran light-footed to his side, throwing her wet arms around him, grinning up with Estil’s grin. Pain stabbed him. He was old, too old, and what would he leave this child?

In the main hall, tables had been laid. Estil smiled at his expression. “You said he was proud, Aliam. And he’s been traveling incognito; his pride will be rubbed raw. We shall guest him as he feels he deserves, and he will reach Kieri in a better mood.”