The Price of Blood and Honor

by Elizabeth Willey

  “Go, then, Prospero,” Freia said, “and you need never face this piece of failed work again. I would do anything to please you, and you never allowed it; you called yourself my father, but you are a sorcerer, without sorcery now, and no part a father. If I am a false copy it is because you made me so, an artificial thing like Caliban, neither human nor alive.”

  Prospero stared at the tumult before the tower, not seeing it, and coldness weighed his limbs and stopped his throat.

  “If you go, Prospero,” Freia said, “if you refuse to believe me, to let me come home, I promise you, Prospero, I shall leave you, you shall succeed in driving me from you as you never could before, and I shall leave this place and I swear I shall never return.”

  She went on, “You drove me away once, and I came back; and you would have left me in Landuc if Scudamor and Utrachet had not made you return for me; and if you will not believe I am here now, then you’re all sorcerer still, with no heart, and I have no reason to call you father, and you can stay here and perish with your Argylle! And good riddance to you and it both. You’d rather that I be dead than admit you’re wrong.”

  “I was never cruel to my daughter but once—” Prospero said in an undertone.

  “You told me nothing, nothing of Landuc, nothing of importance, nothing but what you wanted me to know, and you never listened to anything I said—” Freia pulled herself up short, took a trembling breath, and said, “Go ahead. Go, Prospero. I was a mistake, unreliable, weak, and badly made, and you’d rather forget me than live with me. Go. Go—and I’ll go.”

  Prospero’s blind gaze had fallen to the ground before him. Her words dinned in his ears. He grappled with them, made himself understand them, and with understanding came rage. He turned on her.

  “Insolent creature. What knowest thou of sorcery, of the Art that I mastered better than any? I captured a soul and pent it in a form of my making, that lived and breathed; what other hath done so since Primas’s day? Ungrateful and contrary thing, upraised from basest Elements to best, defiling them with bestial baseness!”

  They glared basilisk-glares a long moment, till Freia’s anger left her, the fire blown out by his fury. “I shouldn’t have come,” she said, and her shoulders slumped. “You are always right and I am wrong, and there is no place here for me because it is yours, and you don’t want a daughter who was a pile of dirt and sticks and I will never be anything else, anything better, anything real.”

  Prospero’s throat worked. No answer came.

  “Forget I was here,” Freia whispered, and she took two backward steps and turned away, walking toward the water.

  Dewar leaned on his staff and looked up at the high gate.

  “I said open it!” he roared. “What the hell are you afraid of, wood-elk?”

  “Not until after sunrise, by Lord Prospero’s command, do we open the gates,” a man shouted through a loup-hole.

  “Lord Dewar—” Scudamor said in an undertone.

  “Stand back. I’ll waste no more breath on this witling. What does he mean, locking gates in an empty country? When Freia comes home, will he leave her outside in the night? I want to talk to him now, not after sunrise.” Dewar had a long black staff he’d not been holding a moment before; bluish light trailed it as an afterimage when he twirled it in the air.

  Cledie Mulhoun took Scudamor’s arm and drew him aside. “It is not our affair,” she said, “but theirs.”

  “Lord Prospero will take it ill—”

  Dewar struck the gates with his staff. The gates boomed and an arrow buried itself in the ground at his feet. He swung the staff upward, muttering, and other arrows bounced away, striking an invisible barrier and rebounding. Scudamor and Cledie ducked, though the barrier protected them as well.

  “All right,” said Dewar, “the hard way, then.”

  He stood, eyes closed, holding the staff vertically between his hands, his lips moving soundlessly. All at once he spun on his heel and hit the gates again, and the gates tumbled down, shattering and rumbling, the tree-trunk timbers collapsing slowly inward. The arrows ceased falling.

  “Lord Prospero will take it ill,” Scudamor repeated, a mournful statement of fact.

  “A fine discourteous welcome, Castellan,” Dewar said to Utrachet, who stood across the wood-pile from him. “Are you at war? What do these closed gates mean?”

  “Prospero has ordered it so,” Utrachet said.

  “And he wonders why his Spring is recalcitrant?” Dewar asked the air above Utrachet’s head. “Accompany me to my lord father, friend Utrachet. There is a little matter I wish to discuss with him.”

  Utrachet glanced at Cledie and Scudamor; Cledie shrugged eloquently and stepped daintily through the wreckage, and Scudamor clambered over it far less gracefully and joined them. Utrachet’s guards moved back, aside; veterans of the war with Landuc, they had a great respect for what a sorcerer could do. Besides, he was the Castellan’s problem now.

  “Er—clear this lumber, here,” Utrachet told them, looking back, and they set to it. A small knot of spectators, attracted by the dispute, followed and grew as Dewar and the others made their way through the streets toward the bridge to the island, where stood the citadel, flat- and unreal-looking veiled in the mist of morning.

  Dewar said nothing more to anyone; he walked so swiftly that his companions had to half-run to keep up with him.

  At the skeletal bridge to the Citadel’s island there were six guards, and Utrachet had to command them to permit Lord Dewar to pass, despite Prospero’s past orders. He spoke with a feeling of reckless terror, knowing that Scudamor, who stood phlegmatically beside him, was condemned to die for countermanding Prospero’s will; yet there was a feeling of inevitability, too, for if he forbade Dewar to pass the bridge, Dewar would cross it anyway, and Utrachet’s heart felt that that was not, in itself, a bad thing, though something bad might follow the crossing.

  Prospero lunged after Freia, his body moving before a thought commanded it, and he caught her at the river’s stony edge.

  “Freia, stay, stay,” he said, holding her arms.

  She shook her head, not looking at him, twisting away, and they grappled until he took his cloak, one-handed, and threw it round her shoulders, and then put his arms around her.

  “Thou art my Freia, my daughter, thou’rt real. I do believe it. Shalt not depart so lightly.” He stared into her face, fearing now that she was a phantom.

  Freia, restricted by his cloak and arms, gazed back at him, still angry. “I’m not real,” she said. “I know. You don’t have to pretend anymore.”

  “Real? Thou’rt real. How not?”

  She said nothing, and the silence challenged him.

  Prospero now looked away, and said, “Well. Thou’rt more than dirt and sticks. Who hath told the elsewise?”

  “Dewar.”

  “Water-brained spratling! Whence had he the tale, I’d know. Thou’rt real, Freia, as real as he or I. Hast heart, mind, soul, indwelling in thy body; hast sensibility and sentiment, intelligence and instinct, compounded perfect and imperfect as any human creature’s.”

  “I’m a copy of a human creature. You said it yourself. I was never real and you never believed I was. You made me to show how powerful you were, not because you wanted me. If I were really your daughter, you wouldn’t hate me.”

  Again Prospero’s words were seized in his throat, choking him, and he clutched Freia the harder for the lack of reply. At last, he said hoarsely, “Did I hate thee, Freia, what were thy fate when thou wert hostage in Landuc? Did I hate thee, had I delivered myself to them, eviscerated my mind and indentured my soul to free thee? Did I hate thee, had I kept thee in my house, at my side, all the years we dwelt together? Did I hate thee, I must hate myself. Thou’rt mine own blood, Freia, my daughter as Dewar is my son, perhaps the more so for I chose thee, shaped thee, made thee purposely to live. So might’st thou say I shaped the other folk of Argylle: but they are not my blood, them I did not nurture season to season in my
heart as I did thee, and them I love, aye, but I love thee, my child, better, for thou’rt a piece of mine own life. That thy origin is in sorcery and not in some wench’s womb, let it not trouble thee: for ’tis all the same, earth and water cradling life, will-spark, and soul. O, thou’rt more than earth and water, wood, breath, and Art; thou’rt a true human creature, Freia, and let never a doubt otherwise assail thee. O’ that we need speak nevermore. The Spring bore thee, an thou wouldst, and thou’rt more near it than any other creature here. Here is thy place. Here is thy home. I have given it to thee in deed, and it is thine before any other’s. Stay.”

  Freia listened, not fighting him now, grave and intent on him, and when he stopped she regarded him a long time before she spoke.

  “Do you love me,” she asked.

  Prospero said, “I do love thee, Freia.”

  “You said, when you hit me …”

  “I—” and he stopped, remembering. He had struck her, he had ordered her begone from his sight, and there was a piece of him that wanted to mist over that and say it had not happened, that she had run from him willful and ungrateful, and yet his arm still remembered the blow and his eyes the horror of her face— “I struck thee in madness,” he whispered, looking down. “I beg thee forgive me. ’Twas blackest humor and foulest deed o’ my life, and I’ve lived my darkest hours since. Thou hast returned, perhaps canst not forget, but let me earn pardon, if pardon there can be.”

  Freia touched his cheek, making him look at her. “Landuc,” she said, “it is all Landuc, everything evil and murderous and ill comes from there, doesn’t it. Everything here was well enough until you went there, making war, and nothing has been right since.”

  “It is not so simple, Puss. There are parts of good and evil immixed in everything.”

  “The war was wholly bad, Papa. What good has come to us from it?”

  He began to speak, to argue with her, and the weight of mishap sunk the words before he framed them. In an instant of self-knowledge he hated himself and, meanly, her, but the feeling fled as soon as he knew it, and it left sad recognition of the truth of what she said. She was the Spring’s creature; the Spring moved her tongue, and the Spring’s truth was in her words. Prospero looked away again and said, “No good. Indeed, naught of good at all, and centuries of ill. Perhaps—perhaps you’ve the right of’t there. ’Twas unwisely done. Aye, and you did counsel ’gainst it; I cannot pretend not.”

  “I know I’m not clever like Dewar,” Freia said, barely louder than the river. “I’m never going to be as good as he is at anything, but—I try, Papa. I try so hard to do things, things for you. I know he’s more useful, better—but I want to do things too.”

  “Dewar is no better than you, Freia,” he said sharply. “Indeed—”

  “He wants to help,” she said, looking into Prospero’s eyes. “Please could you not be angry with him, please, Papa. I want him to come home here. He doesn’t have anyone to be home with. It’s bad to be so alone.”

  “Well, Puss. ’Tis not so simple, for he’s another kind of creature, different from you. We’ll speak of that anon.”

  She nodded.

  “Where have you been?” he asked.

  “So far away, and lost, and travelling,” said Freia, “and always, always I wanted to be home.”

  Prospero studied her face, the set of chin, the anxious line at the brow, the firm, determined gaze. Full human creature, this, no will-bound thing—he had wrought finer than he knew, surpassed his own ability. “Have you been long i’ the country,” he asked.

  “Not very long, but some days. Before that I was lost; until Trixie found me and brought me, I couldn’t find the way to come here.”

  “Time is, I taught you o’ that,” he admitted, thinking of the uncanny softening of the weather, the springlike renaissance around them: some days. “Come now; you’re wet, ’tis cold air though unseemly warm withal, let’s dry and warm you and find us breakfast too.”

  Blinking, Freia nodded again; it would be as it had always been, the two of them eating bread-and-honey and walking and talking, and she smiled and hugged Prospero’s neck. “I was afraid you wouldn’t want me back,” she whispered as the fear fell away from her.

  Prospero closed his eyes, embracing her, damp and solid in his cloak. “Nay, be welcome, Puss. Welcome home.”

  At the tower, Dewar stopped. In the open doorway stood the Black Countess, who had been seeking Prospero since he had left her bed. His arbitrary wandering had confounded her search, and she had returned to the tower as Dewar’s destruction of the gate thundered over the city. Knowing it for no natural sound, Odile had strained her dulled senses to perceive the sorcery and prepared herself for combat as well as she could.

  Utrachet took Cledie’s arm and drew her back, backing into the crowd and forcing them backward, his skin prickling, the hackles on his neck stiffening. He smelled a fight. Scudamor stayed where he was, seeming to compact and thicken, bracing himself. The onlookers whispered, hissing sounds; alien Odile was not liked, and Dewar was Prospero’s son.

  “Odile,” Dewar said softly. He had not forgotten her. Her gestures, her stance, her features, all were graven in his memory, and seeing her physically before him made his skin crawl with fear. He thought of Freia. Odile must be dealt with before Freia arrived: confined, crippled, stilled—kept from Freia, who was defenseless and inexperienced. Cost what it may, he must protect Freia.

  Odile, her face a mask without expression, gazed down on him from the tower’s steps. She had not laid eyes on him since he was a stripling boy. He had grown broad-shouldered and long-legged, and even though she could not work the Spring here she could feel the power he held, a smothering, cold pressure.

  “What do you seek here?” she asked; the crowd watched her and she must say something.

  Dewar gestured, nothing casual. Odile felt the force unseen in his hand pushing her back, and she recognized it and grabbed at it: he drew on the Stone! Here! How?

  Dewar laughed, a sharp note and triumphant, and before Odile could sap and shape the power he controlled, he withdrew it, and Odile stood with a hand outstretched clawing at nothing.

  “I dislike killing,” he said, “and though I may deplore my father’s taste, I honor his threshold and his house. I have come to see him, and I do not wish to see you. Move aside.”

  “You have come to murder him!” Odile cried, watching the people behind him.

  There were gasps and voices swelled.

  “You have stolen from him as you stole from me,” Odile went on, “and you are a sorcerer who would kill anyone for the power to be had here, as you killed your sister—”

  Cledie laughed, high and merry, and began whispering brilliant-eyed to Utrachet.

  “A lie!” shouted Scudamor.

  “I killed my sister?” Dewar repeated, incredulous. “Is that what you’ve been telling him?”

  “Water is his element,” Odile cried, not to him but to the crowd, “and water is his weapon; he drowned her to take the realm that was to be hers, destroyed your town by flood, and now he comes to murder Prospero!”

  “Odile, this tale is thinner than the air you make it of,” Dewar said. “Get out of my way. I’m here to see Prospero.”

  The third time would be the challenge, she knew and he knew, and Odile tried again to catch the crowd, who were whispering among themselves. Cledie was aloof and amused now, and Scudamor was speaking to a small group, gesturing.

  “Or have you murdered him already?” Odile demanded. “He haunts Prospero with evil dreams and punishes all Argylle with famine, flood, and storm! Where is Prospero now? He has been missing since last night! How can you let this bloodstained traitor stand among you? He is mortal, and for the murder of his sister alone he should die!”

  “Stop this senseless raving!” Dewar shouted over her last words, taking two steps forward, lifting his staff. “Stand aside, viper! If any here would kill Prospero it is you!”

  “There’s Lord Prospero,�
�� Cledie said, clearly, over the sudden roar of the crowd.

  They were silent. Craning necks, leaning, jumping, they followed Cledie’s pointing finger.

  Dewar stopped. He lowered his staff to the stone; its metal heel clinked. He waited.

  Prospero, bareheaded and in his shirt sleeves, was walking up the narrow stone-flagged path, and someone smaller was behind him, bundled in his long cloak against the dawn chill. The sun crept up, shining into the tower’s dooryard so that the stone glittered with the light, and the mist from the river was gold.

  “What manner of deputation’s this?” Prospero said, lifting his eyes from the path and seeing the people, surprised. His preoccupation had been so deep he had not noticed them until he was nearly among them.

  They drew back, aside.

  “Dewar,” Prospero said. He halted.

  “Did I not say, my lord, that he would come to murder thee?” Odile cried, leaving the door, stepping down a step or two. “Did I not warn thee?”

  Very softly, but quite perfectly audibly, someone said, “Lies.”

  Dewar heard it and recognized the voice and the speaker, soaking into Prospero’s fine silk cloak behind Prospero, and he twisted his mouth to keep from laughing with relief. She’d stolen a march on him, no more, no less.

  A long inhuman scream came from high above—a gryphon was on top of the tower. Odile saw heads go back, mouths drop; but she would not leave her position on the steps to see.

  “Gryphon,” said Utrachet, seeing the head against the sky.

  Others murmured the word too, agreeing. It was strange. Nesting, maybe? This strange weather had confused everything; if birds sought nests, why not gryphons? They looked back at Prospero.

  Prospero saw Scudamor now and Cledie beside him. “You dare return,” he said.

  “My lord, canst thou not perceive this plot?” Odile pressed on. “These creatures are Dewar’s!”

  “Nay, they are mine own,” Prospero said drily; “for I shaped them myself. Dewar, what would you here?”

  “I came to visit my father,” said Dewar, “and here I find a harpy whose old wounds would be best salved by his blood and mine. Blood-kin need be no curse, you once said to me, do you remember? But here’s cursed blood-kin, cursed and cursing, that would twist every natural bond to hatred and hang us with that rope.”