The Price of Blood and Honor

by Elizabeth Willey

  Father and son gazed at one another. “What tale is this?” Prospero asked in a voice dangerous by its mildness.

  Dewar lifted an eyebrow. “Odile,” he said, “did you not just assure these people that I drowned my sister and that I am here to murder Prospero?”

  “What?” Freia tossed her head; the cloak-hood fell back and she moved up past Prospero. Her hair was drying, but still ten-drilled with the wet; the sun caught in it, sparked in it, warmed her face to deep-gold. She shrugged the cloak from her shoulders.

  The crowd sighed her name, a single gust.

  “It is a plot, Prospero! Canst thou not see past the deceit?” Odile cried, coming forward again. “Thy folk are turned against thee, and this is some shape-molded spirit Dewar hath set to snare thy trust and betray thee!”

  “Who are you?” Freia demanded, although she knew.

  “She is Odile,” Prospero said, his gaze moving from one to the other, Freia, Dewar, Odile, opposing forces he could not facilely balance.

  The gryphon on the citadel screamed again; this time the folk who glanced up shouted and jostled, trying to get out of the open area. Prospero looked up too and saw the gryphon diving, as on prey, brilliant in the fresh day’s light, bronze legs outstretched and dark claws reaching, and he had time to think that the beast was mad before it spread its wings and broke its fall into the dooryard.

  “Trixie!” Freia exclaimed. “You came back!”

  Trixie made a low crooning noise and folded her wings. Her expression was jaunty and smug.

  “Welcome home,” Dewar said, smiling, for Freia had worried about her runaway Trixie.

  Freia ran to the gryphon, and Trixie crouched and warbled, lashed her tail cubbishly and, very gently, preened Freia’s back once with her deadly beak, as Freia stroked her feathers and scratched her chest.

  Odile had backed to the door as the gryphon plummeted, but now she moved again a few steps from it, and her tone and face were disdainful as she said, “Prospero, art so beguiled by thy doting memory that thou canst not penetrate this sham?”

  “Nay,” Prospero said, “no seeming, no spirit bound and tutored could this be. Thy love for me prompts thee to extremes, madame, and I beg thee to let go thy dread and rejoice, for here is my daughter home again, and all this world from the sun to the earth revived must welcome her as its very mistress.”

  Odile shook her head. “Oh, my friend, thou seest thy death before thee and fearest it not? Is this not the sorcerer who arranged thy downfall and stole thine Art from thee, who sapped thy Spring and slew thy daughter? My lord, thou knowest well thy daughter’s dead; her bones are in the sea-bed of Landuc! This cannot be she! Dewar hath stalked thee and hath now come to complete thy death, and wilt thou not believe me? He is a sorcerer!”

  “And a Prince’s son,” Dewar said coldly, “a gentleman.”

  “I never heard such nonsense in my life,” Freia said, leaving Trixie to confront Odile. “When did Papa wish for a story-teller to bother him with imaginary plots? I met Scudamor and Cledie in Threshwood and they told me what you did, twisting the truth into a rope, and I hardly credited it.” She shook her head at Odile. “Do you believe this woman?” Freia turned and stared at Prospero, expectant.

  Prospero frowned at Freia. “She’s heedful of my safety, and she speaks out of love for me; over-careful, but not false—”

  “False! She said Dewar drowned me! I assure you that’s not true! Do you believe her?”

  “Dewar is a sorcerer,” Prospero said measuredly, with a feeling that he walked hoodwinked in a maze, “and a sorcerer’s life is power—”

  “Papa, this is Dewar we’re talking about. Dewar. Judge others by yourself, or by her—she is a sorceress and surely she is here for the power herself—but I know my brother, and he is not here to kill you or anyone. If he wanted to you’d be dead already. You cannot believe her lies.”

  “He toys with thee, Prospero, and his puppet seeks to cloud thy thought,” Odile said.

  “She lies,” Freia said flatly. “Are we going to stand out here all day? You said we would eat something, Papa.” And she tipped her head to one side and regarded him, beseeching.

  “Let us go within,” Prospero said, “and break fast, for truth is easier found on a full belly.” He started toward the door; Freia was behind him, and Odile beside her watching her sidelong coldly from half-lidded eyes, and there was a scuffle.

  “See!” Odile cried.

  Prospero whirled.

  A knife: in two hands, Freia’s and Odile’s, pushed this way and that, its blade flashing blankly.

  “She sought to stab thee!” Odile said.

  “You lying viper!” Dewar shouted.

  “Unhand me, creature!” Odile wrenched her hand, and Freia’s grip broke, and Odile’s hand with the knife struck quick, inward—

  Freia twisted; Dewar jumped forward, staff raised, and in that instant Trixie sprang between him and Odile, her beak wide, her claws extended and swinging, and Odile’s hand with knife grazed Freia’s arm and thigh as Dewar’s staff—too fast for him to halt himself—smote the gryphon’s head as the gryphon’s clawed foot and beak raked at Odile, Odile contorting, leaping away.

  “No!” Dewar shouted. Freia yelled wordlessly, staggered. “Hold!” Prospero bellowed, seizing Dewar’s arm too late. “My lord, help me!” Odile shrieked at Prospero. Trixie screamed and jerked and convulsed, falling on Freia and Odile. The gryphon shuddered, her beak gaping, and her head thudded to the ground.

  “Freia!” Dewar yelled, and he shoved the dead gryphon’s soft-feathered forequarters off Odile, off Freia. Freia stared up at Prospero and Dewar, dazed.

  “Ouch,” Freia whispered. The knife was buried hilt-deep in her thigh. She gripped Dewar’s arm and tried not to faint. Odile. He had warned her about Odile. “Keep her here, don’t let her go,” Freia said, as loudly as she could, and more softly, almost a moan, “Oh, Dewar.” He moved her away from Trixie, supporting her against his body.

  “O Prospero, do not be fooled! That spirit and the beast will murder thee!” cried Odile.

  People were rushing forward now, the instant of horror past. Insistent voices, hands, movement tugged Prospero’s attention from Odile. Someone seized her arms, pulling her away. Scudamor was helping him to stand, and Utrachet; Cledie knelt beside Dewar and Freia with Hicha the record-keeper. Freia looked up at her father; his eyes met hers, and he felt sick, shamed. He had let this play itself out before him. He was not sure what had happened—he felt dizzy, off-balance—but Freia was hurt, and should not have been hurt, and he had been not an arm’s length from her when it happened.

  “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Dewar was saying again and again, holding Freia, “I’m sorry, it was too fast, I couldn’t stop, I’m sorry—” until she turned her face and pressed her cheek to his, hard. Then he buried his face in her hair for a moment.

  “Trixie,” Freia said in a tiny voice. “Papa, Trixie.”

  Prospero lowered his head, lowered his eyes. “Forgive me,” he begged her in an undertone. Had Freia, the gryphon, the staff moved slightly differently—he closed his eyes.

  “Lord, come, come sit down, sit,” Scudamor was saying.

  He shook his head, shook the Seneschal off, and knelt again, taking Freia’s hands from her brother’s arm and holding her cold fingers in his that were just as cold. “Forgive me,” he asked her again.

  Freia’s face was white with shock. She swallowed and took a trembling breath. “Papa, it hurts,” she said.

  Prospero nodded and focused on her: flesh wounds, bleeding but not gushing, and she weakened with cold and not eating and the anguish of the gryphon’s loss. Sorcery was the best surgeon, rapid and sure. “Your brother shall aid you. Dewar,” he said, “Dewar! Know you the way of binding blood?”

  “Of course,” Dewar snapped, and, with cloth and words touched by the Spring, he stanched the gashes, drew the knife out, and soothed the damaged flesh. Blood flowed, slowed, stopped. Freia sat stoic, e
yes closed, breathing slowly, her free hand gripping Prospero’s until his fingers whitened. “Better,” said Dewar after but minutes, though it seemed longer. “It needs a proper bandage, though.”

  “Help me up,” Freia said, rising to her feet, leaning on Prospero, steadying herself on Dewar’s shoulder.

  “Careful,” murmured Dewar.

  “Come, let us go in and—” began Prospero.

  “No,” Freia said, and she released them both to stand alone, looking at Odile. Prospero turned and stopped himself from contradicting her. There was purpose in her face, an intensity he hadn’t seen before. What would she do?

  “Prospero,” said Freia, still looking at Odile, who was mask-faced and unreadable, “you gave Argylle to me, you said.”

  “Said and did.” He glanced at Dewar, but Dewar looked puzzled too; not some idea of his, then, but her own. “ ’Tis yours, as much as it could be anyone’s.”

  “What do you mean, Freia?” Dewar said, swallowing. “If it’s hers—” he looked at Prospero. “Landuc’s by treaty, but hers by gift …”

  Prospero nodded to Freia. “Then, albeit without oath of fealty, she’s ruler here, and I daresay th’ Emperor could find no other, nor impose his own will on the place. ’Tis mine inas I founded it, but I did give it to her, entailed with conditions of Landuc’s making.” He felt the cold claws of fear closing on him. What did she mean to do?

  “Then it is mine.” Freia stood, her hands closed in fists, breathing quickly. “I will not have this person here,” she said.

  Dewar’s eyes flicked from Prospero to Freia.

  “She is my guest—” Prospero protested.

  “She’s an outsider!” Freia said. “She doesn’t belong here.”

  “No more doth Dewar!” retorted Prospero. “The lady is my guest.”

  “She has said nothing but lies in my hearing,” Freia said, “she has just tried to kill me, she is an alien sorceress with no loyalty to us or Argylle, and you would keep her as a guest?”

  “Yet wouldst thou keep yon parasite about thee,” said Odile, “that hath made it his habit to prey on his hosts everywhere, across the worlds?”

  Freia turned her face toward Dewar, over her shoulder and up, and they exchanged a long look, reading one another’s features it seemed, and she smiled at him, a small movement that came and went. Then Freia looked again at Odile, and shook her head. “This,” she said firmly, “is Dewar’s home.”

  “A sorcerer hath no—” began Odile.

  “You do not hear me, I think,” Freia said, cutting her off and gesturing sharply with her right hand. “Dewar is my brother, and Argylle is his home. Here may he dwell when he pleases, and here we will always welcome him. You, however, have done nothing to recommend you to me as a guest. I’ll not have you here.”

  “I came here under thy father’s protection,” said Odile contemptuously. “I pity him, that thou shouldst so little honor him as to overthrow his will in so minor a matter.”

  “My father’s will must I respect,” Freia said coldly, drawing herself up very straight despite her wounded leg. “You I do not. Hold your tongue. You have spoken not one true word today, and such a false creature does not belong here among us. You have not behaved as a guest should, and there is no reason for us to treat you as one.”

  Prospero’s jaw tightened, and he said nothing. He thought he knew what must come now: Freia, jealous, injured, new-come to heady power—

  “I don’t like killing people,” Freia said, as if she knew his thought. “Hateful though some of them are, I don’t like killing them. There has been too much death. I don’t want to be like those people in Landuc. She came from somewhere,” Freia half-asked, turning again toward Dewar.

  “Aië,” said Dewar softly.

  Odile’s eyes were on Prospero, her expression supplicating.

  “Let her go back there,” Freia said, “and, Prospero, if you desire her company so much, this Odile who lies and murders and says poisonous things about everyone, you can go visit her there in Aië; it must be as foul as Landuc, or worse. She shall not remain here.”

  “If ’tis true that you’d respect my will,” Prospero said then, slowly, with a rumble of storm-anger in his voice, “my guest shall stay, and yon sorcerer, yon dishonorable hyena come to pick my bones, shall go.”

  Shocked, Freia stared at Prospero, who regarded her unrelenting, his face hard. Odile was silent; perhaps a trace of a smile was on her lips. No one moved or spoke; the very air was stilled. Freia looked from her father, to her brother, to her father, and again at Dewar: suddenly, painfully wrenched.

  “Freia,” said Dewar, not loudly, “I have promised I will serve you in any way I can, and to divide you again from your father would serve you badly. I’ll leave.”

  Freia trembled on her injured leg. She seemed unable to speak.

  Cledie Mulhoun darted forward, took Freia’s arm on hers. Cledie shook her head at Dewar. “That’s not the Lady’s will!” she said.

  A murmur went around the gathered Argyllines, agreeing. It was not the Lady’s will.

  “No,” said Scudamor, slowly, thinking aloud. “She said, you may dwell here, Lord Dewar, and we shall make you welcome.”

  “And she said, this one must go,” said Utrachet, gesturing at Odile with a jerk of his chin.

  It suddenly seemed to Prospero that he was surrounded by eyes: the eyes of the crowd, Scudamor’s impenetrably dark, Utrachet’s narrowed, Cledie’s adamant and unwavering.

  “Lord Dewar’s home is with us, so the Lady has said,” stated Cledie. “Lord Prospero, why do you not agree?”

  Prospero held himself stiff, aloof, meeting Cledie’s regard though he was conscious of a sinking, cold feeling in his heart.

  “Lady,” said Scudamor, “you did say you respect Lord Prospero’s will, and so do we—but your will must we obey.”

  “I don’t want—” Freia cried, protesting.

  “You belong here,” Cledie interrupted her, “and you are ours, as we are yours, Lady. Lord Prospero declared it so.”

  “Lady,” said Hicha, who had only watched thus far, “what is your will?”

  Freia swayed slightly, putting more weight on Cledie’s arm, and her eyes met Cledie’s. Beyond Cledie stood Dewar, withdrawing, ready to depart in a moment. “Dewar, please stay,” she said then, nearly whispering, and she held her hand out to him. Dewar hesitated, then crossed and took her hand, kissed it, bowing to her, saying some words too soft for any to hear. Freia’s voice gained strength as she turned to Prospero to continue: “And Odile must go: she is his enemy, and there’ll be no peace if she stays here. I—I will not have it so.”

  Prospero looked at his daughter, leaning on fair Cledie’s arm, Dewar poised beside her, and he heard the unspoken corollary: If Odile remained, Freia would not. And he knew he could not risk losing Freia again, for this time he would lose all, for all.

  “This is hasty judgement,” he said.

  “Trixie would have killed her,” said Freia.

  Prospero held her gaze, tried to, had to glance down. “The gryphon’s a blood-minded beast,” he said. And his daughter was not: made of better matter.

  “Dewar,” Freia said, turning to her brother again. “Will you, can you, banish her from here, send her where she came from?”

  “I can.” Dewar spoke very softly.

  “And she won’t be able to return.”

  He shook his head. “Only if someone were to bring her.”

  “I don’t like killing people,” Freia said again, earnestly, as if trying to explain something to him.

  He smiled a little and nodded. “Nor do I. It’s wasteful and difficult to undo.”

  Freia nodded, too. They agreed on this, Prospero saw, and he wondered what other agreements they had forged, leaguing themselves together.

  “I’ll do as you ask at once,” said Dewar, and he glanced at Prospero with pity in his face.

  “Prospero, Papa,” Freia said, and she waited until he looked
at her. “Let’s go in and break fast? And you can tell me about this tithe we’re bound to send Landuc and all that’s happened here.”

  “Aye,” Prospero said, and slowly bowed his head, consenting, to her will.

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  Also by Elizabeth Willey

  The Well-Favored Man (1993)

  A Sorcerer and a Gentleman (1995)

  The Price of Blood and Honor (1996)

  Acknowledgements

  THE AUTHOR IS THANKFUL FOR THE patience of Deborah Manning, Betsy Perry, Mary Hopkins, Greer Gilman, Patrick Sobalvarro, and Delia Sherman, all rich with insight and generous with criticism and encouragement. The edifice of the Palace of Landuc and its furnishings was constructed from plans (modified) provided by Barbara Ninde Byfield. Valerie Smith performed the remarkable feat of being both a buttress and a fire wall. The author’s husband provided all those vital things without which not a word would have been written.

  Elizabeth Willey (1960- )

  Elizabeth Willey was nominated for the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer in 1994 after the 1993 publication of The Well-Favored Man, her first novel. Using her collection of vintage guidebooks, she travels in real and imaginary places.

  Copyright

  A Gollancz eBook

  Copyright © Elizabeth Willey 1996

  All rights reserved.

  The right of Elizabeth Willey to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.