“Lords and ladies of the realm, elves of the kingdom—I was honored beyond my due by your king’s offer. But paladins are bound to the gods they follow. I came here on quest; I am on quest still. After long prayer I believe I now know what that quest is,” She paused; the room was utterly silent. Even the fire on the hearth burned without sound.
“It is not to be your queen.” At that, an outbreak of sound, rustlings and murmurs. Paks ignored this and went on. “I thought long on this—I would have been glad to take it—but it is not my quest, and I may not turn aside.” Now they were quiet again. “But your kingdom’s peril, Councillors, is my task, and I believe the gods wish me to find your ruler—the one who should be here, in the place you offered me. I think it was for this that this sword came into my hand. For this that it responds to me—” Now she drew the sword, and its blue glow lit the room. “Not that I rule myself,” she said, slipping it back into the scabbard, “but that I find its lawful master.”
“But he’s dead,” said Sier Belvarin. “It was made for Falkieri’s son, and he’s dead.”
“Is he?” asked Paks. Heads turned; she saw the uncertain glances. She looked past them out the tall windows. “I am a stranger here; perhaps I heard things new that you are too familiar with. You think he is dead—but what is the proof of that?”
“They searched—”
“Bodies—”
“—the queen—”
Paks stilled the gabble with a gesture. “They were attacked; the queen was killed. So much is clear. But the prince? His body was never found. What if he lived?”
“If he lived, then why did we never hear of him?” asked one of the others. “And how could a child like that live, alone in the forest?”
“I do not know how he lived, or where he is, or why no one ever heard,” said Paks. “But I believe he was not killed. Last night much of this was new to me. So I listened to everyone—and heard what was said, not what I expected to hear.” She turned to Amrothlin. “What did you say was the message sent to Aliam Halveric, when he offered to return this elven blade to elves?”
The elf’s eyes flashed at her. “He was told to return it to the one for whom it was made.”
“But—” Sier Halveric stopped in midsentence, and stared. “You—you knew the prince was alive? You knew?”
“The elves would know,” said Paks, “if anyone would.” She saw the mouths open, the start of an uprising, and spoke quickly. “You all assumed the prince had died in the attack; you all assumed the elves’ message meant something or someone else. But if the prince were alive then—and that was how many years ago?—then the elves may have meant exactly what they said.”
“Was he alive then?” asked Sier Halveric. Amrothlin nodded.
“He was,” he said without any emphasis.
“Why didn’t you tell us? Why—why it could have saved—”
Amrothlin interrupted. “My lords and ladies, it could not be. At first we too thought he was dead; we could not sense his taig. When at last one of us saw him again, he was—” He stopped, and looked around the room before going on. “He was no longer a prince.”
Silence filled the room. Then Sier Belvarin broke it. “What do you mean by that? Born a prince, he would always be—”
“No. He had changed. We judged he might never be fit to rule.”
“You judged! How dared you—!”
“You forget, sir, that he was my sister’s child!” This time Amrothlin’s voice was edged with all the cold fury that elves could show. “My own mother’s grandson, a flower of the Ladysforest as much as an heir to your throne—you know, or should remember, how rarely we elves bear children, and how we delight in them. We judged, yes—we, who loved his mother through such ages as you humans call infinite, we judged him. Had you seen him then, sir, you would have judged him too—and perhaps more harshly than we, for you would never have known him for his father’s son. Or his mother’s.”
“What had happened?” asked Paks into the horrified silence.
Amrothlin, still angry, turned to her, speaking with delicate precision. “Lady, we do not know. He bore scars of body and mind, as if he had been enslaved to a cruel master. Far away, I would say, since we had not sensed his taig. Within was fear, but with a core of bitter anger.”
Paks turned to the others. “So at one time in the past your prince still lived—years after you thought him dead. Perhaps he lived long enough to father heirs of his own.” She looked back at the elf. “Is he still alive, Amrothlin?”
“Do you do well to ask, paladin of Gird?”
“Amrothlin, I ask what I ask by the bidding of the High Lord, if my prayers be true. Not for myself, but for this kingdom.”
“As you will, Lady. Then I will say he is alive.”
“Do you know where? Do you know his name?”
“I cannot help you,” said Amrothlin. “You have not asked yet why he himself never claimed his inheritance. He has no memory of it; it was destroyed. If only—” Amrothlin looked down for an instant, then met Paks’s eyes again. “We elves like not that phrase, but in this case, had the attack happened on the way home, the prince could not have been damaged as he was. The wakening of his elven powers would have warded him somewhat. But as it was, he knows not his own name or title. When he returned to the Eight Kingdoms, the man who took him in as a servant eventually guessed who he might be. But he saw no future for him at this court; he concealed what he guessed, and told the boy nothing.”
“Who was that?” asked Sier Halveric quickly. “In Lyonya? In Prealith?”
“I cannot help you,” said Amrothlin again.
“Cannot, or will not?” asked Paks.
“Lady, I have done what I can. We are not convinced he is fit to rule; he has had the chance to show such ability, and has turned away.”
“Why didn’t you heal him?” asked Belvarin suddenly. “Couldn’t you have done that when you first met him again?”
Amrothlin put up his hand. “We could not heal—or attempt to heal—without risking great harm, both to him and to the kingdom. If we had restored, say, his memory of his name—and not been able to restore the taig of his spirit, would that have been well done? We judged not. Sometimes time itself heals what no magics can, elven or other. We waited. We watched from afar. We did not see the sign of growth we could foster; we did not wish to do more destruction to one who had been so harmed already.” He waited until everyone was quiet again, then went on. “As for succession, we do not advise—but we will not help you find someone we think is too flawed to rule. If you find him yourself, against our recommendation, then we will see.”
Paks, following all this, began to have a curious feeling that she had already what clues she needed—if only she had the peace and quiet to put them together. But for the next hour no one had peace and quiet. The Council roiled with excitement. They calculated how old the prince must be; they tried to guess who and where, and surprise the elf into an answer. Paks stood aside, listening, trying to think, trying to fix every word that had been said in her memory. Finally, when the same people began to repeat the same words, she raised her hand. They fell silent.
“Lords and ladies, high elves, Councillors: I say again that this is my quest. To find your prince, and restore the rightful king to your throne. I cannot make this quest without your support, for you must agree to accept the king I bring you—” She was surprised to find herself saying this, but went on; the gods surely knew what they did when they took over her tongue. “I will return with your true king, or his heirs. Is this agreeable?”
They argued a while longer; some thought they’d rather have a paladin already there than a mysterious lost prince who, according to the elves, wasn’t worth finding anyway. But Paks insisted that she would not take the crown, and finally they agreed. Amrothlin looked long in her eyes before nodding at last.
“If you find him, and if you can show us that his anger will not break the kingdom to bits, we will accept him. And if we ca
n, we will restore his elven powers.”
“As the High Lord wills, and Gird gives grace, Amrothlin. I believe the prince will be found, and found able to rule, else this quest would not be laid on me.”
“May it be so,” said Amrothlin gravely. “May it be so indeed, that the powers of evil find their plots spoiled, and the House of the Fountain break forth in joy.”
“I will ask questions,” said Paks, “that you would be wise to answer.”
His eyebrows went up, and a mocking smile touched his mouth. “You would teach wisdom to elves, paladin? Well, it may come to that, but we shall see. I will answer as I can, for our honor and his.”
Chapter Nineteen
“Since you insist your quest is to find our prince,” began the Knight-Commander of Falk, “we can only try to help you as we can.”
Paks smiled at his expression. “Do you know Marshal-General Arianya, sir?”
His nose twitched. “Yes; I met her in Vérella one time. A remarkable woman.”
“She might enlighten you about my past,” Paks suggested.
“Oh—” Under direct challenge, he seemed to deflate. “Ward of Falk,” he said then. “I’ve no reason to doubt you’re who or what you say—and I know a paladin cannot lie. To be honest, I suppose it galls a bit that the High Lord chose a paladin of Gird for this, when I would have thought a Falkian could do as much.”
“Save that someone born and brought up here would have assumed the prince’s death, sir. It is that ignorance, perhaps, which makes me suitable.”
“I would have expected such reasoning from a kuakgannir, Lady, not a Girdsman. Emptiness calls fulfillment—is that what you mean?”
Paks shook her head. “Not precisely, though as you should know if you do not, the final healing of my wounds came from a Kuakgan. What I meant was that a commander new to a company can see what custom has hidden.”
“Oh.”
“Where will you begin looking, Paksenarrion? There are many men in the Eight Kingdoms of the right age—and many still when you leave out the black-haired, dark-eyed ones who cannot be the prince.” Sier Halveric poured out mugs of sib as he spoke. They had gathered in the queen’s chambers, the older lords who remembered the queen and prince, and the Knight-Commander. The elves had withdrawn, to pay their respects to the dead king in their own way, but promised to return if Paks called.
She thought a long moment, trying to feel her way into the gods’ will. “I think,” she said, “that I must begin with this sword’s history. I must talk to your nephew Aliam—see the place where he found it, and hear from him the exact wording of every message the elves sent. They told him once to give it to the one for whom it was made—as if at that time he could have done so, and it would have been right. Surely if he had, the sword would have proclaimed the prince’s identity. But he did not know who the prince was—how could he? Nor did he know the power of the sword—or so Amrothlin implied. I must ask him directly. In the meantime, tell me what you remember of the young prince—Joriam, you begin.”
“Well, Lady, I was young myself then—I may have forgot—but I remember him as a lively little lad. Going on four or five he was then, a little scrap of a boy. Had reddish golden hair, much like his father’s, but lighter, as a child’s often is.”
“Any marks you’d know him by?”
“No, Lady. I never tended him, ye see. Just saw him about. I remember once he climbed out on a window ledge and knocked off a pot of flowers—”
“I remember that,” broke in Sier Hammarrin, chuckling. “By Falk, that little rascal had nerve—always loved to climb things. Down the flowers came, nearly hitting old Fersin, rest his soul, and shattered on the courtyard. He couldn’t have been over three at the time.”
“They sent you after him, didn’t they, Joriam?” asked Sier Halveric. “I remember something—”
Joriam nodded, blushing. “Yes, my lord, they did. I was the closest, and lightweight too—I’ve always been small—they feared the ledge might go; it was before that section was repointed. And so I started out, and I was feared, Lady, of the height, and he saw it and said ‘never mind, Joriam; I’ll come in myself’ and crawled right to me. Steady as a cat on a limb, he was.”
“What else?” asked Paks.
“You mustn’t think he was spoiled,” said Sier Calvary, a bald old man with gray eyes. “Not more than any prince is. He was loved and wanted by both his parents—the pride of the palace—but his father insisted he be courteous. And he was, for such a little sprite.”
“Not so little, really,” said Sier Halveric. “For his age he was well-grown. He seemed like to grow into a tall man. But I agree, he was mannerly. Do you remember when his father gave him the gray hound puppy, Calvary?”
Calvary shook his head, but Hammarrin began chuckling again. “I do. I certainly do. That dog was the worst nuisance . . . pick of the litter, indeed! Pick of mischief! He nipped everyone, and must have chewed half the harness in the stables.”
“It made your stableboys keep the reins off the floor,” said Sier Halveric. “But what I was thinking of was the boy—you know how boys are with dogs; he took a stick to it one day, and I came in on the end of that lecture. Two days later, I found him giving it word for word to some commoner’s child outside the walls, who was tormenting a kitten. Word for word, his father’s tone of voice, everything: ‘It is not the act of a man or a prince to abuse helpless things, nor the justice of kings to give pain when it can be avoided.’ It sounded funny enough, from that little mouth—and yet—”
“It sounds as if he would have been a good ruler,” put in Paks. “If nothing had happened.”
“I believe so.” Sier Calvary nodded. “We had no doubts of it. Falkieri and his wife were mature; the boy showed every sign of ability. He did what normal boys do, mischief and all, but there was no meanness in him. And brought up to it, with good examples and good sense, there was no reason for him to go wrong.”
“Look at his sister—the young queen—” said Hammarrin. “She did well, even without her mother, with her father dying early, and all that. The same blood: brave, generous, intelligent—”
“I can’t believe, whatever has happened, that if Falki lives he is completely unfit to rule.” Sier Halveric took another sip of his drink. “The gods know people change, but he had such promise—how could it all be lost, without killing him?”
Paks thought she knew, but hoped it was not true. They had no need to know; she pushed her memories down below the surface. It hurt her to think of a child enduring anything like she had endured, a child living on with the hopelessness she had suffered for less than a year.
“What was his name?” she asked, distracting herself.
“The prince? The same as his father. We called him Falki. His parents had their own pet name for him, of course. His other names—let’s see—Amrothlin, I just realized—that’s for his mother’s brother. Artfielan—for an uncle, wasn’t it? Falkieri’s mother’s brother? And something else—we’ll have to look it up. It’s too far back for me.” Sier Hammarrin shook his head.
“How many names do princes have?” asked Paks.
“Oh, it depends. Usually four or five. You want to please all the families, you know. But the names won’t help: every Falkian family has a Falkieri or two, it’s one of the commonest names in Lyonya. Artfielan—I’ve a son named that, a grandson and a nephew. Besides, the elves said he doesn’t remember his name, and we don’t know what name he’s using.”
“So,” she began again to organize her thoughts. “You say he would be about fifty years old, with red or yellow hair—”
“I expect reddish,” said Sier Halveric. “His was still reddish when he disappeared, and his father’s had darkened.”
“Tall, you think? And what color eyes?”
This began another argument. Paks found it hard to believe that no one had noticed the color of his eyes until she realized that she couldn’t name the color of her own brothers’ eyes either. Finally t
hey agreed that they weren’t green, gold, or dark. Blue or gray or something in between.
But this left almost nothing to go on. A tallish man of late middle age with reddish hair and blue or gray eyes—unless his hair had turned gray already, or he’d gone bald. Paks had trouble imagining a bald prince, but after all, he was old enough to be her father. According to the elves, he had been someone’s servant once. She assumed that meant in the Eight Kingdoms, but it might not. He might be a woodchopper somewhere (Paks thought of Mal in Brewersbridge, but of course he was too young) or a farmer. He might be a merchant, a craftsman, almost anything. Paks thought of the number of red-haired men she’d seen in the north and felt depressed. Not only that, he might have gone to Aarenis. Or across the ocean. She found she was making circles on the table with one finger. Everyone had fallen silent; she could tell by the glum faces that they, too, had realized the size of her task.
“Unless the elves change their minds,” said Sier Halveric, “I don’t see how you can hope to find him in time to do us any good. There are too many—”
“It would help,” said Paks, “if they would give me details—what he looked like when they saw him, and so on. But remember, sirs, that the gods have sent me this quest. If the High Lord wants your prince on the throne, can even an elf hide him from me?”
At this they cheered up, and Paks felt herself that somewhere in this she had learned something useful—if only she knew what.
The old king’s funeral ceremonies took from sunrise to long after sunset. When it was over, Paks went to her chambers to pick up her gear, packed ready. There she found Esceriel, Lieth, and the other King’s Squires waiting.
“You are not the queen,” said Esceriel, “but we have no ruler to squire. By your leave, Lady, we will ride with you on this quest. It may be that you will have need of us—or when you find our king, we can serve him well.”
Paks looked at him searchingly. She had seen nothing of Esceriel until now; the others had taken their turns in her chambers. But she felt nothing evil in him, and none of them seemed likely to put a knife in her back.
The Deed of Paksenarrion Page 131