Return of the Guardian-King (19 page)

“Ye don’t b’lieve in dragons, and ye think the Esurhite army don’t exist?”

“Not one that means t’ conquer Kiriath and all the world!” Trinley declared hotly. He looked around at them, passion rising. “Aye, an’ I know plenty others who think the same. Men who’ve been t’ Springerlan. Men who’ve lived there fer years and never saw sign o’ this army, though we were ferever sendin’ off our gold and goods so our king could build his own army t’ fight ’em.”

“Daft, is what ye are!” Rolland sputtered. “The heights must’ve addled yer mind, man.”

“Ye think I’m addled? Well, tell me, then. Have any of ye here ever seen this army? This invadin’ Esurhite army?”

“
I’ve
seen it!” Rolland insisted. “Saw ’em try to take Kalladorne Bay with my own eyes six years ago. Saw their purple firebolts destroy the Hall of Kings in the blink of an eye. I even helped put out the fires it started.”

“You saw the actual attack?” Abramm asked in astonishment. “You were in Springerlan then?”

Still glaring at Trinley, Rolland said, “I saw the parade on the bay after Abramm took back the Gull Islands, too—all the galleys and soldiers they captured. . . . So don’t tell me there’s no army.”

Trinley scowled at him, suddenly suspicious. “I thought ye said ye were born and raised in Sterlen. That ye’d spent yer whole life there.”

Rolland gave a start. “I was . . . and I did . . . mostly. But fer a time we lived in Springerlan.” His ire vanished and his gaze dropped uneasily to his big hands, all but engulfing the crockery mug he held.

“Fer a time,” Cedric prodded.

“We came down when the kraggin held Kalladorne Bay, jest before Abramm returned t’ take the crown. When things were so bad up north. I’d had t’ shut down my forge. . . .”

“I can’t imagine things would’ve been better in Springerlan,” said Trinley.

“Oh, it worked out well, actually. I couldn’t afford to open my own place, but I found work at the . . . at a large stable.”

“Pox!” Trinley burst out. “Ye worked fer the king, didn’t ye? That’s why ye’ve always been so defensive about him.” He pushed back from the table. “Plagues! All this time ye’ve been a traitor in our midst.”

Rolland’s blue eyes flashed. “If anyone’s the traitor, it’s you, Oakes! With all yer ignorant and spiteful faultfinding of a man ye’ve never even met.”

“Oh, and ye have? Workin’ down at the stables . . . a lowly blacksmith? Aye, an’ I’m sure ye’ve had many a heart-to-heart talk with His Majesty.”

Rolland glanced at Daesi, who gave him a warning look he didn’t heed. His expression hardened. “I saw him from time t’ time, and he did speak t’ me on occasion. Just day-t’-day courtesies, but he always treated me kindly, like I was a person.”

Abramm stared at Rolland, aghast.
I spoke to him?
He wracked his brain, trying to recall the man. He’d had more than twenty groomsmen and ten blacksmiths working in his stables, and truth be told, he was as guilty as the next man of not seeing what he supposed did not matter.

“He kept a fine stable, too,” Rolland added.

Trinley snorted. “Now,
there’s
the measure of a king’s quality: He keeps a fine stable!”

“He was a good man, Oakes. He didn’t deserve to die like he did.”

“No? Then why did Eidon let him fall?”

Rolland frowned at him and said nothing.

“Some say it was so he might be tested,” Professor Laud remarked mildly. “So that all might see he did not serve Eidon for what he had received. That no matter what they did to him, he would not break.”

“Some say he did break,” Trinley said.

“He died with the shield on his chest. Everyone saw it. And they say that a number of the men involved in his torture have since taken the Star themselves.”

That was something Abramm had not known. Was old Belmir one of them?

The professor arched his brows at Trinley. “Why do you think men are forbidden to speak Abramm’s name in Kiriath these days?”

“ ’Cause he was cursed by Eidon,” Trinley said. “He lied to us, abandoned us, thought more of his foreign wife than of his own people and paid fer it. All that gold we sent t’ support his efforts to build his army, yet when the time came we really needed deliverance, where was he? Where were the forces that should’ve been there to throw back Rennalf and his barbarians? Why didn’t our great king at least come with his magical scepter to stop it all?!”

“Because he didn’t know,” said Rolland fiercely. “Ye’ve heard the tales as well as I have: He was betrayed. His scepter stolen and replaced by a powerless copy.”

And now, for a moment Abramm was back on that knoll outside Springerlan, reliving his hour of greatest need, when he’d swung the scepter over his head and nothing happened. He’d thought first that it was being contrary again, for he had never fully understood how it worked. Only when the Light had illumined all its length and still not stirred the slightest breeze had he stopped to examine it more closely. And realized it was not the real scepter, not made of Light but of gold, with a thick glass orb. The work of man and not of Eidon. Even now in recollection, he found it hard to breathe through that moment of terrible realization.

Trinley was speaking again. “. . . and if he’d never married her, it wouldn’t have happened. I say he got exactly what he deserved.”

“So then, we’re better off without ’im? Better off with
Gillard
and his Mataians?” Rolland shoved to his feet, the bench shrieking backward over the stone floor. “Ye’re a fool, Oakes. All caught up in yer bitterness and blame. Ye’re not the only one who’s lost things, ye know.”

He took his leave then. Trinley watched him go without comment, then snorted and fell into a silence no one else was willing to break. After a few moments the group began to disperse, going off to their various morning duties and pursuits. Abramm headed down toward the cleared-out stable where they practiced their stickwork, pondering the ramifications of the breakfast conversation.

His loss of the scepter had been a bitter blow, and for a time during his convalescence he had pondered who might have taken it. Blackwell was a known betrayer and could have taken it virtually any time. But Leyton Donavan had had motive, funds, and opportunity. He had asked to borrow it more than once—and had been refused—and Abramm wouldn’t put it past him to take it upon himself to borrow it without asking. He almost hoped it was Leyton, for at least that would mean Gillard didn’t have it.

But the mystery of who’d taken his scepter was not one he’d solve anytime soon, and so it did not interest him nearly so much as Rolland’s revelation that he had known Abramm when he was king. Never once in their journeys had he shown the slightest indication of recognition. True, Abramm had no recollection of Rolland, either, but he had been the king, and Rolland had obviously been impressed by the few times Abramm had spoken to him. One would think he might recall something—Abramm’s voice if nothing else. . . .

“You fight a losing battle. No one remembers him anymore.”

Were the rhu’ema somehow blinding these men to who he really was?

When he reached the stable, the big blacksmith was already there faced off with Galen and still grumbling about Trinley.

“Come on, Rollie,” Galen said as Abramm hesitated in the doorway. “Ye know how he is.”

“Aye. Blind and stubborn and can’t even hear how wild he sounds anymore. I could understand some high-hills shepherd holding to such beliefs, but Oakes was an alderman. Why can’t he just let it go about Abramm? The man is dead.”

“I don’t know, but . . . why does it matter? Ye barely knew him.”

“He was my king.” Rolland stood in silence a moment, then added in an anguished voice, “I watched him die, Galen.” He glanced at Abramm. “To my everlasting shame, I stood and watched him burn.”

Well,
Abramm thought,
that explains a lot. If he saw me die, he sure won’t
be expecting to find me in Caerna’tha, his traveling companion of many months.

Rolland pulled himself together and turned more fully to Abramm. “That’s why I want t’ learn t’ fight. Havin’ t’ stand there and watch it, knowin’ I could do nothing but get myself killed if I tried to stop it. I hated that.”

“Even if you’d known how, you couldn’t have stopped it,” Abramm said. “What was happening there was far bigger than one man.”

“You were there, too?”

“No.”

“Well, maybe I couldn’ta stopped it, but it don’t change how I feel. So I thank ye for trainin’ us with the sticks. I hope soon ye’ll teach us a bit of the sword.” He lifted his chin. “When we reach the southland and I get my family settled with Daesi’s uncle, I mean to find the queen and give her my allegiance. Or maybe little Prince Simon if he lives.”

When Abramm said nothing to this dismaying revelation, Rolland prodded him. “That’s what ye’re goin’ t’ do, isn’t it?”

And at that Abramm gave a long sigh. “Aye, that’s what I’ve planned. . . .”

“Don’t throw rocks at the fish, Simon,” Maddie called, watching her firstborn hesitate, small arm raised to send another missile splashing into the moss-lined pool at his feet. It was one of many here in Fannath Rill’s renowned waterpark, all of them stocked with Ronesca’s prized golden carp. Now Simon looked over his shoulder at his mother, a bright, mischievous grin on his face. Maddie saw the wheels of his mind turning, weighing the tradeoff of inevitable punishment with the pleasure of continuing on his chosen path. Beside him Ian crouched on chubby legs, squealing with excitement and pointing at the huge orange fish as they sidled through the dark water before him.

It was Eidonsday and they’d just finished Terstmeet. A month after the boys had been returned, and now, in the midst of a very rainy winter, they’d taken the opportunity of a clear day to come out for a late morning stroll with Carissa and Conal, the latter asleep in his carriage behind them under Prisina’s care. Captain Channon and Lieutenant Pipping also accompanied them as they meandered through the mostly deserted waterpark. Trap had gone off to a meeting in town and the rest of the court was still over in the Great Kirikhal, whose service would not conclude for at least another hour— which was why Maddie had agreed to come out here, being well advanced in her pregnancy now and supposedly confined to her apartments.

Now she stopped in her tracks and frowned at her son. His grin widened, and then he turned and flung the rock, not exactly at the fish but toward the side of the pool. It smacked the stone edge and raised a good splash, which Ian applauded with another squeal and a clapping of his chubby hands.

Carissa snickered as Maddie tightened her lips. With a sigh she waddled to her son’s side and seized his arm before he could flee, grunting with the effort of bending over. She felt as big as a river barge, and about as unwieldy.

“What did I just tell you, Simon?” She shook her son’s arm.

Unbelievably his grin was still there. “Not to throw rocks at the fish! And I didn’t, Mama. I threw it at the moss.”

She stared at him, befuddled anew by the fractured logic of a four-and-a-half-year-old. “I don’t want you to throw any more rocks at anything at all.”

“But Papa throws rocks. Why can’t I?”

“Your papa doesn’t throw rocks, Simon.”

“Yes he does. With his leather strap. He throws the little red stones. Him and Uncle Trap and Great Uncle Simon.”

She stared into his big blue eyes, astonished that he would remember that at all. That day when the three of them had taken it upon themselves to have another contest had to be more than a year ago. “Yes, well. Papa threw his stones with a sling, and you do not have a sling. And he did not throw them into your grandfather’s ponds or at your Auntie Ronesca’s golden fish. She would be very upset if she knew you had done that, Simon. What if you hurt them?”

“I wouldn’t hurt them, Mama. They always swim out of the way.”

“No more rocks, Simon, or you’ll go back to the apartments for a switching. Do you understand?”

Simon nodded contritely.

She turned her attention to Ian, who watched both of them with wide eyes. “And you aren’t to throw rocks at anything, either, Ian. Do you understand?” The little boy stared up at her, wordless as always, but finally he nodded.

She hesitated before sending them off, wondering what else she hadn’t thought to tell them not to do, then gave up trying. They ran around to one of the bridges and raced across it, back and forth, delighting in the booming echo of their footfalls.

Maddie left Lieutenant Pipping watching over them and strode on with Carissa, Conal’s carriage squeaking along behind them.

“See what you have to look forward to?” she muttered to her sister-inlaw.

Carissa laughed and shook her head. “Simon is so much like Abramm, it’s shocking sometimes.”

“I thought Abramm was sickly.”

“He was. But in between he was always into something. Never anything you would expect. Never anything anyone had thought to tell him not to do.

And he could argue rings around our nannies. Drove them crazy. Especially when he got older.”

They circled a great pond where swans glided. Overhead the sun shone down thinly from a clear, winter-blue sky, the air almost mild now at midday. Around them, streams chuckled, fountains sprayed and danced, and the waterwheels and buckets clanked and ground and whooshed as they raised the liquid high so it could flow beguilingly down its manmade courses. Palm trees lined the way, birds squawking and rustling in their fronds.