Limits of Power (58 page)

“You may be right,” Doullan said. “I've never been out of Fin Panir, let alone Fintha. Marshal-General tells me people are different other places. It's just—growing up, we were told Luap was Gird's best friend and helper. And wrote down all the Code, when it was first made. I suppose that's why I identified with him.”

Arvid blinked. The old scribe, gentle and unassuming, was nothing like the man whose hunger for renown blazed through his writings. “I understand why you admire him,” he said, easing his shoulders. “If I had been born here—had become a scribe first—I'm sure I would, too.”

“You know they saw him—well, some kind of figure of him—out in the west,” Doullan went on. “Like a painting in smoke, is the way High Marshal described it, taller than a man … blue and white robes, the old-fashioned symbol on a chain, holding a sword.”

“A wraith? Phantom?”

“He wasn't sure. At least, he never said more about it. But they knew it was Luap, or a … something meant to be like Luap. And then it blew away on the wind and never came back.”

A
rvid could not quite settle to the routine; he was not used to the peace. Day after day, hands of days, passed with no apparent danger. Young Arvid throve, clearly happy here and finding friends in the grange. Arvid, too, began to find friends—friends of a kind he had never known, who were not potential rivals but just … friends.

He knew someone might still hunt him from Vérella or Valdaire. It would not be difficult to trace a man traveling with a boy … but would they bother? He would have bothered, given the assignment, but did they have someone that skilled? He could not count himself or the boy entirely safe, yet … and yet he found himself relaxing, though he continued his habit of listening to gossip in the city, watching for anything unusual, any sign that someone might be on their trail. The undercurrent of concern about magery he shrugged off as Girdish strictness. He was no mage, nor the boy, so it had nothing to do with him. Only the occasional mention of blood magery caught his attention, but he saw no indication that it existed here.

He even left off wearing his sword when he walked up the hill to the scribes' hall in the mornings. Few people in Fin Panir wore swords in the city. It was not against the Code, but it was just another burden to carry and awkward at his desk. He felt naked the first time he went out without it, but nothing happened. He still took it to drill nights, as he was now instructing yeomen who wanted to learn that weapon. His cloak, its many pockets full of blades and tools, he folded into a box and kept under his bed; it was, he told himself, too hot to wear in the late summer heat. Only the knife in its thin sheath under his heart-hand shirtsleeve and the useful dagger everyone wore remained.

Drill with his group in the grange kept him fit; what he was learning as a scribe and as a student of Girdish law satisfied his need to learn and understand. He still found the bluntness, the lack of elegance, a bit boring. But … it was also comforting, as his friendship with Regar had been. To be accepted by ordinary men and women—to be admired for what he knew but not feared—was pleasant indeed.

Ifoss, Aarenis

A
rcolin finished the day's report just as Burek came to his tent.

“Captain, there's a fellow out at the gate who says he knows you and must speak with you. From Horngard, he says.”

Arcolin's stomach lurched. “Horngard? Did he give a name?”

“No, Captain. That's why I made him wait outside the camp. Or I can bring him myself. He's armed, but not like us. A short thrusting spear and a short curved blade. Do you think he's one of Alured's men?”

“From Horngard? Unlikely.” Not even Siniava had attacked Horngard, though he had taken Pliuni and threatened that mountain kingdom. “I'll see him,” he said. “Bring him here.”

“Leave his weapons outside the gate, sir, or outside the command area?”

“Let him retain them.”

Burek gave him a startled glance, then turned and went back out. Arcolin grimaced, then went to the back of the tent, to his private room, and opened the little casket he had bought for his few treasures when he left Halveric Company to become Kieri Phelan's first captain. Gold gleamed in the light that came through the tent canvas: a heavy torc, a wide bracelet, earrings. He opened a small leather bag and shook a ring into his palm. Gold like the others, but with a dragon's head on one side. Arcolin put it on, just in case, but turned the dragon's head inward, also just in case. It could not be, but … just in case. He left the earrings, the torc, and the bracelet in the casket, then pulled out his dagger and stared at it a moment. His father's parting gift, it bore the family crest on the hilt, hidden under the thick leather wrapping he'd put over it.

Kieri had understood family troubles, estrangement, a flight in the night. He had never asked more than that. Arcolin felt sure Kieri had known there
was
more than that, but in all the years he'd never asked. “Somewhere in the Westmounts,” he'd told Kieri, as he'd told Aliam Halveric, and that was true. “Some little place you've never heard of,” he'd told Kieri, which was not true. His heart had twisted when he'd said that. It twisted now. It was hard to remember why he'd lied.

What to do. He must see the fellow, hear what he had to say. But he was Count of the North Marches now, a vassal of Tsaia's king, prince of a tribe of gnomes, and—not least—commander of Fox Company under contract to Foss Council.

Whatever the problem was, it could not be his problem.

He looked around his sleeping chamber again, pushing the casket a little more under his bed, and then went back to the front room of the tent.

“Captain,” Burek said from outside.

Arcolin squared his shoulders and came out. A travel-stained man in a kilt, a square-necked shirt, a wide belt, and low boots stood slightly behind Burek. He had the mountain face: long and bony, a prominent nose, a wide mouth now firmly closed. His hair—dark and streaked with gray—hung in a long braid over one shoulder; his gray eyes roamed over Arcolin as if looking for a sign and paused on his hands, but the plain gold band told nothing unless he could see through the finger. The Fox Company seal on the next finger told more. Arcolin did not recognize him.

“You are Jandelir Arcolin?” the man asked. His voice, unlike his face, was instantly recognizable: Samdal, his father's Chancellor's son, who had been his companion in many a mischief those years ago. “You have some of the look of him.”

“I'm Jandelir Arcolin,” Arcolin said, nodding. “And you're Samdal, are you not? Veldan's son?”

“Yes. It
is
you, then. We were not sure. We had heard of you over the years, but you were with that redheaded Tsaian duke, Phelan. And now you're the commander?” He looked around. “Where is Phelan?”

“He is king of Lyonya now, in the north,” Arcolin said. “I command this company, on contract to Foss Council. In the north, I'm titled Count of the North Marches, oathsworn to Mikeli, king of Tsaia.” He had a place and name, that meant; he fit into the loom of society like any other length of yarn. He would not mention gnomes to Samdal. Or dragons. Least of all dragons.

Samdal bowed low. “You have been gone too long, my lord. It is time for the son of the mountains to serve the mountains and the flame.” It sounded like a formula, but he had not heard it before.

“I am not a lord to you, 'Dal, and never have been. Surely you remember that.” The fact of his own bastardy stood between them; Samdal had been his playmate but also ranked above him.

“Before your father and your brothers died, that was true. But now, my lord, you are. Did you not know?”

“I knew my father had died, and my eldest brother. But not the others, and Galdalir had sons. I cannot be heir.” Not now, not after so many years. Not as a bastard. Surely his brothers had sired sons.

“My lord, misfortune followed your family as rain follows thunder, and washed them away. If you had not left—if you had sought word—”

“And why would I?” Arcolin asked, struggling to keep his voice even. “You know the circumstances of my leaving. I was not wanted, but as Perdal's servant.” The old bitterness dried his mouth. “Should I have stayed for that? And if I had, would you now think me anything but a servant, worn out in his service as I would have been?”

“You chose northern taint and a foreign god, Jandelir. You could have busied yourself in Aarenis at least. Valdaire, perhaps—”

“I have spent most of my working life in Aarenis—every campaign season and many winters—and no one ever came to me.” What he'd learned of his family had been merchants' gossip, scant enough. He had not expected better of them, but he had hoped.

“That may be true, my lord, but they thought you no longer cared. Should they seek a runaway?” In that Arcolin heard the same arrogance that had sent him away. “And besides,” Samdal went on, “I can see what they could not: the man you have become. You were Camwyn's child first, fire-begotten. Your father knew that; I know he gave you marks of heritage.” Another glance at the ring. “What is a northern dirt-farmer like Gird to such as you? Is not the scent of dragon on you even now?”

Arcolin tried not to shudder visibly. Samdal could not tell, he was sure, and yet Samdal was of the old blood in the Westmounts … and he himself certainly had touched a dragon. Legend had it that such things were possible; the dragon could have left its scent on him, and Samdal might have the Kingfinder's ability to detect it. He wondered if his gnome subjects could. “I am a mercenary and a peer in the north,” he said to Samdal. “That is who I am now.”

Samdal shook his head. “You do not understand, and I scarcely understand you. Please, my lord, listen to me and then answer.”

Arcolin sighed inwardly. He could not imagine himself returning to Horngard, but he did want to know what had happened. “Come into my tent, then,” he said. Inside, Samdal looked around at the furniture, the hangings, the rugs—all Kieri's originally. To the guard outside Arcolin said, “Ask the cook for a platter, and fetch a bottle of wine.” To Samdal he said, “Sit down; we will share bread and salt and wine. But understand: after all these hands of years, I have oaths and duties elsewhere. My king, Mikeli of Tsaia, depends on me to defend the realm at need. My former commander is now the king of Lyonya, as I said; he no longer holds my oath, but he holds my respect, and my king considers him an ally. This Company—three hundred strong in Aarenis with more in the north—is my responsibility as well. So whatever it is you want, beyond my well-wishing to you and to Horngard, it is too late.”

“Is that what you learned in foreign places?” Samdal glanced around once more, then sat where Arcolin had indicated, stiffly upright as a judge. “That duty long deferred is no longer duty? All this luxury, my lord, has softened you.”

Arcolin felt a rush of anger. He could scarcely believe that Samdal would insult him so. “If you think me soft, then you will agree I am unfit for the task you propose.”

“No. Merely in need of persuasion.” Samdal set his hands on his knees and began in the old tongue Arcolin had first learned as a child, in the cadence of one relating a legend. “In the days of your fathers, time and time before, Dragon granted your forefather Camwyn two boons. One was the high pass of Horngard for a stronghold, with the dwarf-delved caverns that made it defensible. One was the touch of Dragon to the King, tongue to tongue, that made Camwyn the man Camwyn Dragonsfriend, founder of the House of Dragon. This you were told: do you remember?”

Arcolin remembered, but had not thought of that legend when meeting the dragon himself. He
had
touched the dragon tongue to tongue—but surely that did not make him a king. Kieri and Kieri's betrothed—now his wife, no doubt—had done the same, and so had Stammel. And Mikeli of Tsaia and his brother the prince. “I do remember,” he said aloud, “but it is now many years since a dragon sealed that ancient bond. It is the tongue of the dragon statue in the King's Hall that my father touched with his, and my brothers as well, I presume.”