The Deed of Paksenarrion

by Elizabeth Moon

  “We welcome these new knights to the Order of the Bells, and ask Gird’s grace and the wisdom of Luap to guide them in their service. At this time, any outside challenge may be offered: is it so?”

  “Challenge!” A voice called from the far end of the Hall, near the outside door. A startled silence broke into confusion; the High Marshal stilled it with a gesture.

  “Name your challenge,” he said.

  A figure in plate armor with a visored helm stepped into view; at the same time, someone in Verrakai colors stood in the seats.

  “High Marshal, I call challenge on Duke Kieri Phelan. My champion is below: a veteran soldier from his Company.”

  Again the hubbub, stilled only when the High Marshal shouted them down. By then Phelan was on the floor, surrounded by the King’s Squires and his own companions. Paks recognized Captain Dorrin and Selfer, the Duke’s squire.

  “Phelan?” said the High Marshal. “How say you?”

  “For what cause do you call challenge, Verrakai?” The Duke’s voice was calm.

  “For your treachery to the crown of Tsaia,” he yelled back.

  “I protest,” said the crown prince, from his place. “This is not the occasion; the matter has not been settled by the Council.”

  “It is my right.”

  “You are not the Duke,” said the crown prince. “Where is he?”

  “He was indisposed, your highness, and could not attend.”

  “Do you claim to speak for him?”

  “He would agree with my judgment of Phelan,” said the other. “As for challenge, and this challenger, that is my own act.”

  “Then may it rest on you,” said the prince. “I will not permit Phelan to take up this challenge.”

  “Your highness—”

  “No, Duke Phelan. As long as you are a vassal of this court—” Paks saw the Duke’s reaction to that; he had not missed the prince’s emphasis, “—you will obey. You may not take it up. You may, however, name a champion.”

  Paks was moving before any of the others. “If my lord Duke permits, I will—”

  “A paladin?” asked the Verrakai. “You would champion this Duke—but I forget—you also are his veteran, aren’t you?”

  “And nothing more,” said the other fighter. Paks wondered who it was; she did not quite recognize the voice.

  The Duke bowed stiffly to the prince, and the challenger. “I would be honored, Lady, by your service in this matter. Yet all know you came on quest; I would not interfere.”

  The Verrakai and his attendants had also climbed down to the floor, and now stood opposite the Duke. Paks and the mysterious fighter advanced to the space between them. She noted that the other matched her height, but seemed to move a little awkwardly in armor, as if unused to it. The High Marshal raised his arm to signal them. When it fell, Paks and the stranger fell to blows at once.

  The stranger was strong: Paks felt the first clash all the way to her shoulder. Paks circled, trying the stranger’s balance. It was good. She tested the stranger’s defense on one side, then the other. It seemed weaker to the left, where a formation fighter would depend on shield and shield partner. Perhaps the stranger was not as experienced in longsword—Paks tried a favorite trick, and took a hard blow in return. So the stranger had fenced against longsword—and that trick—before. She tried another, as quickly countered. The stranger attacked vigorously, using things Paks knew could have been learned in the Company. Paks countered them easily. She had no advantage of reach, against this opponent, and less weight, for she had chosen a light blade (as the High Marshal requested) to test the candidates.

  They circled first one way, then the other, blades crashing together. Paks still fought cautiously, feeling her way with both opponent and the unfamiliar sword in her hand. She could feel its strain, and tried to counter each blow as lightly as possible, reserving its strength for attack. Suddenly the stranger speeded up the attack, raining blow after blow on Paks’s blade. Paks got one stroke in past the other’s guard, then took a hard strike on the flat of her blade. This time the sound changed, ringing a half-pitch higher. Warned by this, Paks danced backwards, catching the next near the tip, which flew wide in a whirling arc. She parried another blow with the broken blade, and then dropped it as it shattered, and backed again from a sweep that nearly caught her in the waist.

  “Wait!” shouted the High Marshal, but the stranger did not stop. Paks knew Lieth had her second blade ready, but she was backed against the far side of the space. Dagger in hand, she deflected a downward sweep that still drove the chainmail into her shoulder.

  The stranger laughed. “You are no paladin. You had the chances, that’s all—”

  This time Paks recognized the voice. “Barra!” At that, another laugh, and the stranger raised her visor to show that familiar angry face.

  “Aye. I always said I could take you—” Again the sword came up for a downward blow.

  But Paks moved first. As fast as Barra was, she had the edge of initiative, and slipped under the stroke. Her fingers dug into Barra’s wrist, and she hooked her shoulder under Barra’s arm, flipping her over. Barra landed flat on her back, sprawling and half-stunned. Paks had her own sword’s tip at her throat before she could move. For an instant, rage and excitement nearly blinded her; she could have killed Barra then. But her control returned before she did more than prick her throat. When she could hear over the thunder of her own pulse, the High Marshal was speaking.

  “Your challenge of arms, Lord Verrakai, is defeated.”

  With ill grace, the Verrakai bowed. “So I see. My pardon, lord Duke.”

  Duke Phelan bowed, silent, and waited while the Verrakai turned to go. Then the Verrakai turned back. “I should have known better, “he said, “than to believe one of your veterans. Are they all such liars, lord Duke—and if so, can we believe this paladin of yours?”

  Phelan paled, but did not move, and the Verrakai shrugged and walked out. Then Phelan looked at the High Marshal. “Sir Marshal, my defense is proved by arms, but at the cost, it seems, of something I hold more dear—the good opinion of my veterans.”

  “Or one of them, lord Duke. It is a rare commander who has not one bitter veteran. And you were defended by one.”

  “Yes.” The Duke came to where Paks still held Barra at sword’s point. “Lady, if you will, permit her to rise.”

  Paks bowed, and stood back a pace, still holding Barra’s sword. The Duke offered a hand, which Barra refused, scrambling up on her own, instead. She scowled at him.

  “Will you say, Barra, why you chose to serve my enemy?”

  “I think you’re crazy,” said Barra loudly. Someone laughed, in the tiers overhead, and she glared upward, then back at the Duke. “You could have been rich—you could have done more, but you let others take the credit. And I was as good as Paks, but you gave her all the praise. She got all the chances—”

  “That’s not true.” Dorrin strode across the floor to her side. She gave a quick glance at the tiers and went on. “You and Paks were recruits together—true. And back then, that first year, you were probably her equal in swordfighting. But in nothing else, Barranyi, and after the first year not in that.”

  “I was—you just—”

  “You were not. Falk’s oath, Barra, I’m your captain; I know you inside out. You made trouble every way you could without breaking rules. You quarreled with everyone. Paks didn’t—”

  “That mealy-mouth—”

  “Mealy-mouth!” That was Suriya, across the floor.

  Barra turned dark red. “Damned, sniveling, sweet-tongued prig! Everyone on her side! Everyone—”

  “Barra.” Something in Paks’s voice stopped her. “Barra, you do yourself an injustice here.”

  “I? Do myself an injustice? No, Paks: you did that. Make a fool out of me in front of your fancy friends. Think you’re such an example—” Barra jerked off the helmet and threw it at Paks, who dodged easily. “I’ll show you yet, Paksenarrion—you sheepfarmer�
��s daughter. I know about you. You’re a coward underneath, that’s what—or you’d have had the guts to kill me. Why don’t you, eh? You’ve got the sword now. Go on—kill me.” She threw her arms out, and laughed. “Gird and Falk together, none of you have any guts. Well, chance changes with the time, yellow-hair, and I’ll have my day yet.” She turned away; Paks said nothing, and waved the guards away when they would have stopped her.

  “Well,” said the crown prince into the horrified silence that followed her exit, “if that’s the best witness Verrakai can find against you, Duke Phelan, I think your defense in Council is well assured. That’s her own heart’s poison brewed there, and none of your doing.” An approving murmur followed this. Duke Phelan smiled at the prince.

  “I thank you, your highness, for your sentiments. Indeed, I hope nothing I have done has provided food for that—but I will think on it.” Then he turned to Paks. “And you, again, have served me well. Paksenarrion—”

  “Lord Duke, in this I am serving my gods, and not you; I am no longer your soldier, though I will always be your veteran. I pray you, remember that: although you have done me the honor to treat me almost as a daughter, I am not. I am Gird’s soldier now.”

  * * *

  Although the trouble had come, and apparently gone, without actual danger to the Duke, Paks was still uneasy that night. When the Duke finally retired to his chamber, she held a quick conference with the King’s Squires. On no account must the Duke go anywhere—anywhere—without their protection. If she was not available, they must all attend him.

  “But Paks, what is it you fear?”

  “The malice Barra feels, directed with more skill,” said Paks, frowning. “Companions, we have not crowned our king yet; until then trust nothing and no one.” When she returned to her own chamber, with Lieth, she found it hard to sleep, despite her fatigue.

  Yet in the morning she found nothing amiss. After breakfast in the Duke’s chambers, they went to the Council meeting together. Paks noticed, as they came in, that Duke Verrakai was present, and his brother absent. The two elves were there, sitting lower down, this time. She wondered what they had thought of last night’s events; they would have to agree that the Duke had kept his temper under trying circumstances.

  “I asked for this special session,” began the crown prince, “at the request of Lady Paksenarrion, whom you met yesterday. You are aware that she is on quest, searching for the true king of Lyonya. She believes she has found him, and asked that you witness the elf-blade’s test of his identity.”

  “And who is it, your highness?” asked Duke Verrakai.

  “I will let the paladin speak for herself.” The crown prince waved for Paks to begin.

  “Lords, I will give you my reasons briefly, and then the prince’s name.” She repeated her reasoning, now so familiar, from the elves’ claim that the prince had forgotten his past, to the meaning of the message they sent Aliam Halveric about the sword. “As well, when Aliam Halveric gave the sword to Kieri Phelan, to give his wife, the elves replied that the gift was satisfactory. That seemed, to me, to mean that the prince was someone with whom Kieri Phelan, as well as Aliam Halveric, came into contact. Then Garris, one of the King’s Squires who accompanied me on quest, told me of his own boyhood times with Aliam Halveric, when Kieri Phelan was Halveric’s senior squire.” She saw comprehension dawn on several faces around the table, and turned to Duke Phelan before anyone else could speak.

  “Yesterday, lord Duke, I spoke openly to you of this reasoning, and of your past; now, before the King’s Squires of Lyonya, and the Regency Council of Tsaia and heir to the throne, I declare that I believe you are the rightful heir to Lyonya’s throne, the only son of King Falkieri, and half-elven by your mother’s blood.” She turned to Lieth, who had carried in the elven blade, and took the sheathed sword from her. “If it is true, then this blade was forged for you by the elves, and sealed to you with tokens sent by your mother. When you draw it, it will declare your heritage. Is it true that you have never laid hands on this sword to draw it?”

  “It is true,” said Duke Phelan steadily. “I swore to my wife that I would never draw her blade, when I gave it to her, and until you took it from the wall to kill Achrya’s agent, she alone drew it.”

  “I ask you to draw it now,” said Paks, “in the High Lord’s name, and for the test of your birth.”

  Duke Phelan’s gray eyes met hers for a long look, then he reached out and took the sword’s grip in his hand. His expression changed at once, and at the same time a subtle hum, complex as music, shook the air. In one smooth move, he drew the sword free of the scabbard. Light flared from it, far brighter than Paks had ever seen, more silver than blue. The blade chimed. Outside, the Bells of Vérella burst into a loud clamor, echoing that chime until the very walls rang with it. Phelan gripped it with both hands, raising it high overhead. Light danced around the chamber, liquid as reflection from water. As Paks watched, the blade seemed to lengthen and widen slightly, fitting itself to the Duke’s reach. Then the light still blazing from the blade condensed, seeming to sink into the blade without fading, and the runes glowed brilliant silver, like liquid fire. The green jewel in the pommel glowed, full of light. Phelan lowered the sword, resting the blade gently in his left palm. When he met Paks’s eyes again, his own were alight with something she had never seen there. When he spoke, his voice held new resonance.

  “Lady, you were right. This is my sword, and I daresay no one will dispute it.” A ripple of amusement softened his voice there. “Indeed, I had never thought of such a thing. What an irony this is—so many years it hung on my wall, and I did not know of it.”

  “Sir king.” The crown prince had risen; with him, the rest of the Council stood. “This is—” Abruptly his mannered courtesy deserted him, and he looked the boy his years made him. “It’s like one of the old songs, sir, like a harper’s tale—” The prince’s eyes sparkled with delight.

  “As yet, your highness, I am not king. But your congratulations are welcome—if it means that you do not object.”

  “Object! I am hardly likely to quarrel with the gods about this. It is like a story in a song, that you should be a king without knowing it, and have on your wall for years the sword that would prove you.”

  “But—but—he’s just a mercenary—” Clannaeth burst into speech. The High Marshal and the crown prince glared at him.

  “Gird’s right arm,” said the prince crisply, “if you’d been stolen away as an infant, how would you have earned your bread? As a pig farmer?”

  “I didn’t mean that,” began Clannaeth, but no one listened.

  Paks, watching the Duke’s face, was heartened at the transformation. She had feared his lingering doubt, but he obviously had none. Whatever the sword had done for him, it had given him the certainty of his birth. So he listened calmly to the short clutter of sound that followed Clannaeth’s comment, until the High Marshal hushed them. Then he addressed the Council.

  “Lords, when our prince’s father first gave me the grant I now hold, I told him I had no plans for independent rulership. That was true. But now I find I have another land, a land which needs me—yet for many years, as you know, I have given my life and work to my steading in Tsaia. I cannot expect that you would allow the king of a neighboring land to hold land from this crown, but I do ask that you let me keep it for a short while, and that you let me have some influence over its bestowing. Your northern border—for so long, my northern border—is still a perilous one. It will need a strong hand, and good management, for many years yet if the rest of Tsaia is to be safe. Now I must travel to Chaya, and relieve the fears of my kingdom, but my senior captains can manage well enough in the north, with your permission.”

  The crown prince and the High Marshal approved this, and the others agreed—Paks thought by surprise as much as anything.

  She looked at the elves. Their faces were as always hard to read, but she did not see the scorn or refusal she had feared. One of them caught h
er eye, and made a small hand signal she had learned from the rangers: approval, the game is in sight.

  “Do you remember any more now?” asked the High Marshal. Phelan nodded.

  “A little—and better than that, it makes sense. I had memories of my father—a tall, red-haired man with a golden beard, wearing a green velvet shirt embroidered with gold. Now I know that the embroidery was the crest of our house. And the court I remember, planted with roses—that will be at Chaya, and I daresay I can lead the way to it.”

  “Your name?” asked Verrakai.

  “I am not sure. Your highness, your father once asked me of my heritage, and then swore never to speak of it. But now, with my birthright in my hand, I will speak willingly. My earliest memories are those I have just mentioned. Then, as you know, the prince—I—was stolen away while traveling with the queen. After that, for many years, I was held captive far away by a man who called himself Baron Sekkady. He was, your highness, a cruel master; I remember more than I would wish of those years.”

  “What did he—” began one of the lords. Phelan turned toward him.

  “What did he do? What did he not do, that an evil and cruel man could think of! Imagine your small sons, my lords, in the hands of such a man—hungry, tired, beaten daily, and worse than beaten. He would have trained me to the practice of his own cruelties if he could.”

  “Did he know who you were?”

  “I believe so. He used to display me to visitors. After one such banquet, the visitor seemed to recognize me, and the Baron put silence on him.”