Limits of Power (49 page)

“Nor I. I need to talk to those who knew my mother, see if there's any record of it. And even more mysterious than that … are these.” He pulled out the enameled box and spilled the tiles onto her bed. “I remember the name, selani. She told me it was a game, but they have another use. Divination.”

Arian stirred the tiles, then laid all of one color together. “My father had a set of these. He let me play with them, but did not teach me anything like a game. He would say, ‘Which do you feel calling you?' and I would hold my hand over them and one would feel right.”

“Do you know the meanings of the runes?”

“Not all of them. He would only tell me the ones that I said called me. Do you know them?”

“Linne knew the runes but not how to use them. I began to learn, I think.”

“A king to wake the mountains, Amrothlin told me once you might have been. I think waking the taig is enough.” Her smile was luminous.

“And so do I,” Kieri said. “But how to use it well … I am still uncertain.”

“You will learn,” Arian said. “Because that is what you do. And now our enemy is dead, our children are safe.”

“
One
enemy is dead,” Kieri said. “I would not say all are; we know one iynisin escaped alive.”

“True,” Arian said. “But for this night, I will feel safe, for you are here and the elvenhome is with us again.”

Ifoss, Aarenis

A
rvid Semminson found the soldiers far more willing to learn tricks of swordplay from him than the Ifoss Girdish, distrustful as they were of “thief tricks.” For his part, he watched the Company weapons practice with interest. He had not paid attention to soldiers before meeting Paks other than to consider how they might be vulnerable to thieves. Her command of that little group in Brewersbridge impressed him more than he had admitted. Now he saw where she learned the skills—and skills they were. When the weaponsmaster offered to let him drill with them, he did so, taking his lumps without complaint. As Midsummer neared, he felt more and more at home with the soldiers.

It was different at the grange.

“We don't need such,” one of the senior yeomen said. He was a master mason with his own yard, Arvid's height but more heavily built, his shoulders thick with muscle. “We fight honest, as Girdish should.” Beyond the man, Arvid could see one of the soldiers roll his eyes.

Arvid said nothing, and when Marshal Porfur asked him to trade blows, he picked up the staff, not a sword. “Are you giving up the sword, then?” the same yeoman asked.

“Regar,” the Marshal said. “A man's entitled to choose his weapon.”

“I just thought—” Regar began, but subsided at the Marshal's glare.

Arvid held the staff and stepped up on the platform. As a new yeoman, trading blows was a regular part of his drill night attendance, and the Marshal had begun to assign others to the ceremony with him. Tonight, the Marshal called on Regar. Though the exchange of blows was supposed to be only a test of willingness, Arvid suspected Regar had something else in mind.

As the Marshal gave the starting signal, Regar lunged forward, aiming a swing at Arvid's head that would have knocked him flat if he'd been in its way. Arvid sidestepped and rammed the end of his staff into Regar's gut. Regar turned an unlovely color and collapsed, gasping.

“You … thief…” he managed.

“A fair blow,” the Marshal said. “You moved first, Regar.”

“He's a thief!” Regar said.

“He's a yeoman of Gird now, and that's that,” the Marshal said. He looked at Arvid next; Arvid was careful not to smirk. “You don't have to like each other, but you will not start trouble, either of you. Is that clear?”

“Yes, Marshal,” Arvid said. Regar was a beat behind him; Arvid figured he had a sore belly.

After drill, the Marshal called them both to stay behind. Regar glared at Arvid; Arvid looked past him. This could end very badly, he realized, and he hoped the Marshal understood that. Regar was a bully, but a popular bully, and local. Arvid was the stranger—the handsome stranger. Always before he'd used that to his advantage, and this time, trying to be honest …

“I fault you both,” the Marshal said, looking from one to the other. “Regar, you're local, and everyone knows you. Knows the quality of wall you build and the strength of your arm. You've taken advantage of that, gathering that little gang around you. As a local leader, welcoming visitors is part of your job—”

“You didn't appoint me yeoman-marshal,” Regar said.

“No, and if you want to know why, come ask me and I'll tell you. But your way with strangers is part of it, I'll say that. A yeoman-marshal's job includes recruiting new yeomen.”

“I could've gotten you a dozen—”

“If I'd asked and promised something in return. That's not how it goes.”

“You'll take a stranger, a thief born and bred—”

“I'll take any man who learns and follows the Code, recites the Ten Fingers, and shows respect to every other yeoman in the grange. People change. Gird changed; that's the heart of the story. He was a farmer who became something else.”

“A farmer, yes. But a thief? Gird was never a thief!”

“Regar, your head's harder than granite—”

“Excuse me,” Arvid said. “Marshal—Regar's right. Not that I'm a thief now, but that I was one—as you know—and that he cannot trust a former thief. We all have something impossible to us.”

Regar turned on him, glowering. “Don't you play the judicar with me, thief. I don't want your help.”

“And yet someday you may need it,” Arvid said. “There's trouble coming—everyone knows that—and if yeomen cannot stand together, things will be worse.”

“That was
my
speech,” the Marshal said. “And you are not a Marshal, Arvid. Yet, and most likely never. Be silent and listen. I have a proposition for you both.” He looked from face to face and then went on. “There's an old way of breaking in a young ox or dray horse, you know. Hitch it together with an older trained one and give the pair a load to pull. I can't have the two of you dividing the grange's loyalties. So if you want to remain here, either of you, you're going to work together. And it starts tonight.” He turned and took the relic out of its niche.

Arvid shot a glance at Regar, whose glance was equally brief and alarmed.

“You will be hitched—under an oath sworn on this relic—as if by a rope to work side by side at your trades—”

“How can we do that?” Regar said. “I have a commission to build—”

“One day the two of you will work at your trade, Regar, and then the next at Arvid's. He is not a mason, and you are not a merchant: you will each serve the other as assistant. You will eat together from the same dish and sleep together—”

“No!” they both said.

“—in the same room,” the Marshal went on, unperturbed. “I expect you both snore and neither wants to admit it. You will do this for the next tenday, and after that we will see.”

“What about my wife?” Regar asked. “My children?”

“You can stay at the soldiers' camp with Arvid, or your wife can put up with the two of you. Take your pick. On the night before your day's work, the one whose work it is will choose where to sleep. Since tomorrow will be Arvid's day and you will assist him, he will decide where you sleep this night.”

Regar glared, but Marshal Porfur simply looked at him. Regar's shoulders finally slumped. Arvid bowed slightly to the Marshal.

“As you command, Marshal,” he said.

“I have to tell my wife,” Regar said.

“Go with him, Arvid,” the Marshal said. And as they turned away, “And don't make me actually shackle you together—if any sees you more than an armslength apart, I surely will.”

In silence they left the grange and in silence headed for the main street of Ifoss, trailed at a little distance by the soldiers who had come with Arvid to drill night. He assumed they'd listened at the door.

“I suppose you're happy about this,” Regar said. “Seein' as old Porfur thinks I'm worse than you.”

“I don't think he does,” Arvid said. “And it's no joy to me to be linked to you.”

“It won't be on my day to choose your work,” Regar said. “You'll learn what work is, and you'll be howling for mercy before the noontide.” He walked on a few strides. “Which you won't get, any more than I did when I was a 'prentice.” A few more strides. “I'm not having you in my house, let alone my bedroom. You'll have to find me a bed.”

“Suits me,” Arvid said.

“Ten days,” Regar said. “Lia will kill me.”

Regar lived down a twisty lane, a house on the north margin of Ifoss, adjacent to a walled yard. A tall, stout woman stood in the door, watching them come.

“You're late,” she said. “Been to the tavern again?”

“No, Lia,” Regar said. His tone with her was almost pleading. “Marshal bade me stay behind. On account of this fellow.”

Her gaze went over Arvid like a scrystone. “You're the thief he talks about, aren't you?”

“I'm the new yeoman of Gird, yes,” Arvid said.

Her lips thinned, and she looked at Regar. “Why did you bring this man here?”

“Marshal said. There was a quarrel—”

“Who started it?”

A long pause during which Regar slowly turned red. The woman nodded before he said anything. “You did, then. And you with a good contract at last, and children who need food on the table, and something tells me the Marshal's solution is going to leave them hungry. Am I right?”

Silence from Regar. Arvid said, “He bade us stay no more than an armslength from each other for the next tenday.”

“Day
and
night?” Her brows were up, but she sounded more resigned than surprised.

“Yes. And each day we must work together, alternating days. He assigned tomorrow to my work as a merchant.”

“Much good you'll be as a mason's assistant,” the woman said, lip curling. She looked at Regar again. “If you lose this contract, Regar, I swear I'm going back to my family. It's the best you've had in a hand of years.”

“I won't,” he said. “I swear—”

“And you,” she said to Arvid. “
You
don't have a wife or children, I'll wager.”

“I have a son,” he said. “In Valdaire. His mother died of fever, years back.”

Her brows went up. “Well, then. You know children must eat.” A noise in the house behind her; she turned her head just as two children tried to squeeze past her in the doorway. One escaped and launched himself at Regar; the other, the woman caught by the arm and held fast.

“Da! Supper's ready. I'm hungry!” The boy wasn't even hip high on Regar and skinny as Arvid's own son. He wore a ragged shirt that hung to his knees. The girl the woman held back wore the same, but with a patched vest and skirt as well.

“We've not enough for the both of you,” the woman said, eyeing Arvid. “If you must eat together, let him feed you. And what are you going to tell Invarr, when he comes in the morning to see your progress?”

“I'll go there now and tell him,” Regar said.

“Do, then. Come, Carn, don't be making a scene in the street.” She turned away; the boy hugged Regar and ran after her into the house.

“There's an inn—” Arvid began.

Regar shook his head. “I must find Invarr; she's right. He comes once a hand of days, and tomorrow's his day. I must not lose this contract.”

“How many children do you have?” Arvid asked.

“Seven,” Regar said. “Two from my first wife, one of them 'prenticed out. Five of Lia's.”

They had crossed back to the main street and now came to a much larger house in the area Arvid recognized as wealthy. Regar tapped on a door; a servant opened it. “What do you want?”

“I need to speak to Invarr,” Regar said. His hand moved toward his waist, where his purse hung.

The servant wrinkled his nose. “About what?”

“About a matter concerning Invarr,” Arvid said. “Pray inform him.”

“Who are you?”

Arvid said, “Arvid Burin, a merchant associated with Fox Company and with Mason Regar.”

The servant withdrew, shutting the door.

“Why'd you interfere?” Regar said.

“Because he's playing you,” Arvid said. “You were going to bribe him, weren't you? Just to do what he's hired for: tell this Invarr you need to speak to him.”

“It's not a bribe,” Regar said. “Exactly…”

“It
is
a bribe exactly. You're a master craftsman in good standing, right? And a Girdish yeoman? You deserve respect; you don't have to bribe another man's servants.”

Regar chewed that over for a moment. “You think I deserve respect?”