Karin tried to pull herself straighter, then gave up and slid from the horse. She winced as her bare feet touched the ground; they had been too swollen for her slippers. Valmar immediately dismounted in case she needed support, but she remained standing. “Your son behaved himself in perfect honor,” she said slowly, staring straight at the king. “He helped me and assisted me. Everything I asked he performed.”
And then, completely unexpectedly, Hadros smiled. “Well, you have changed your opinions quickly enough, little princess,” he said gruffly, but he sounded almost pleased. He gave Valmar a slap on the back that staggered him. “It is not what I would have recommended, but it may be for the best…”
Valmar, shocked, tried to deny what his father seemed to have assumed and found himself only sputtering. He stole a glance at Karin. There was the slightest amused twitch at the corner of her mouth.
“I told your father that after a tiring day of riding and exploring with Valmar you were spending the night in my tents,” said Hadros to Karin. “He seemed disturbed that you were not in the castle at the end of the day’s Gemot-nearly as disturbed as I was to find my son missing! But it seemed best not to reopen the war at the All-Gemot.” He smiled a little. “Shall I speak to him today of your portion?”
“No,” said Karin, weakly but determinedly, her eyes cast down. “Not today. Not until I tell you. Valmar is, after all, not yet of age.”
“He has my permission, of course,” said Hadros slowly. “Did you hope to hide from your father this shame until you are well wed?”
“I hope to hide this from everybody,” she said on the brink of tears. But then she pulled herself together with a visible effort, took the reins of both horses, and walked up toward the castle, leaving Hadros and his son looking after her.
Then the king turned, striding toward the corded circle where the Fifty Kings were gathering for the day’s decisions, taking Valmar with him.
He was still trying to work out why his father, whom he had expected to be livid at the shame of his having ridden off with Karin and not come back all night, instead seemed delighted at the thought of what might have taken place. Karin had misled Hadros deliberately, as though she had suddenly decided she wanted to marry Valmar. If he could see his big sister again before the All-Gemot finished, maybe she would let him know what she really intended.
In the meantime he remained silent as they walked, wishing himself invisible, but it still seemed, inexplicably, as though his father was pleased with him.
3
King Kardan was sitting on the side of Karin’s bed when she awoke. She sat up, pulling the sheet around her shoulders, and glanced toward the window. She still felt exhausted, almost as though she had been beaten, but from the angle of the sun she had slept the entire day.
“Is the All-Gemot finished?” she asked.
“There are still two more days of deliberations, but we have finished the most important business.” He smiled and patted her hand. “I can understand why you would be loath to part from the people with whom you have spent the last ten years-especially since, I can see now, you have even become friends with them. I can even see why you would want to reacquaint yourself with your kingdom by taking a long ride with Hadros’s heir. Perhaps I was too quick to assume you would be as happy to be home as I am to have you. There has not been a day since you left, Karin, that I have not thought of you. But I do wish you had told me you intended to stay with Hadros last night, so I had not worried.”
“Suppose- Suppose I told you I had met a Wanderer last night.” She spoke quietly, looking down, wondering how likely he was to believe her. She no longer felt she knew this man, and yet they had to learn to trust each other again.
“I would say I had not heard a story like that from you since-well, since you went away!” He tapped her lightly on the cheek. “Do not tell me they still believe in those little upcountry northern kingdoms that the Wanderers appear to ordinary mortals. And in the meantime,” with a smile, “could you warn me if you decide again to take a long ride with your friends?”
“It shall not happen again.” She looked him over, her head cocked at an angle. Gray hair, certainly, and somewhat of a paunch, but he appeared no more ready to die or to step down from the throne than did King Hadros. She might not become sovereign queen until many more years had passed. “It has been a strain,” she added apologetically, “learning about my brother, the journey here- But I shall come down to dinner. Do you think you could invite Queen Arane to the castle this evening?”
She sat with the queen on a window seat-the same place, in fact, where she had talked to Valmar the day before. Karin saw her childish book of old tales still lying there and quickly tucked it under a cushion. As Arane settled herself gracefully, Karin thought that she did not quite trust those wise eyes. The queen was ready to give advice, probably extremely good advice, but she would not help anyone else for a second if it stood in the way of her own plans.
But here Karin did not think her affairs would collide with the queen’s. “I need your counsel,” she said in low voice. “I may be forced into a marriage for which I am not ready.”
The queen lifted her eyebrows. “Two days ago you told me you did not think to marry soon.”
“And I still hope I shall not. But yesterday Valmar, King Hadros’s heir, and I went up the valley for a picnic, and we did not come home last night.”
“Who knows this?” asked Arane sharply.
Karin glanced quickly across the room, but there was no one within earshot. “No one knows. Or no one here. King Hadros does.”
“This is not the story you want told around the Gemot of the Fifty Kings, Karin!” said the queen with a mocking smile. “Could you not have been more discreet? If your father and Hadros cannot come to an agreement, your lover will at the worst be declared an outlaw for raping a highborn woman, and you at the best will start your rule with a reputation for wantonness. Not that you must always sleep alone!” raising a hand to forestall what she seemed to think was Karin’s objection. “But leave it all a guess for slanderous tongues, never sure knowledge.”
“You don’t understand,” said Karin, able to find a space for her own words at last. “Valmar and I could not have had purer relations if we had slept with a sword between us. We are to each other as brother and sister, and for all I know he is a virgin still.”
“And you are not,” said Arane, as though pleased with this discovery.
Karin had not meant to let that slip, but it was not important now. “But I fear that no one will believe us. My father and Hadros have only just concluded their hostilities toward each other. I did, I think, persuade Hadros that his son had not taken me by force, but he still thinks he took me willingly. And my father will not be concerned with such niceties.”
“So what would you have me advise you?”
“How to avoid marrying Valmar while keeping my honor intact.”
Queen Arane shook her head as though hard put to believe Karin’s naivete, then smiled and settled herself, preparing to map a battle strategy. “Do you have any men you could trust? Someone who could arrange for the boy to have a small accident? You need not harm him permanently or even badly, but a certain kind of wound, you understand, would mean the wedding would at least be postponed…”
“No!” Karin started to jump up, then remembered herself and sank again to the cushions. “I have no men of my own, none I could trust with a mission this delicate. And also,” she added defiantly, “I would certainly not wish such a wound on Valmar.”
“You need to acquire some trusty warriors as soon as you may,” said Arane thoughtfully. “Or perhaps, if you are squeamish, you could arrange for Valmar merely to be threatened. Does he have a rival for your affections, someone who would at a word from you make threats against the boy to frighten him away? Then Hadros’s wrath would turn against his son rather than against you. His temper is swift, as I know well, but he can also think clearly once his fury is past. If Valmar himself
shrank from the marriage, it would be in Hadros’s own self-interest to keep this matter quiet.”
Karin shook her head. “The only rival Valmar has for my affections is gone, and I do not know where he is.” She was certainly not going to tell the queen that Roric had left with someone awe-inspiring and terrifying, who still was not, it seemed, one of the Wanderers. But she did wonder if King Hadros would be content to hush this whole affair up if Valmar himself did not want to marry her, or if his rage against his heir would become murderous as it apparently had against Roric.
Queen Arane was silent for a moment, looking out the window at the twilight, a small smile on her lips. “What does young Valmar think of this?”
“He has had no idea, I think, that we might marry. As I said, we are to each other brother and sister.”
“So Hadros is your principal opponent here. He will take it as an insult to his honor, I judge, if you flatly refuse to take his son, especially in these circumstances.” She turned a jeweled ring thoughtfully on her finger. “Before you reject this marriage utterly, be certain there are not reasons why it would be beneficial. A young and malleable husband offers certain advantages, even if the advantages do not compare with those of being single.” The queen reached out to turn Karin’s face toward her. “For example-are you quite sure that you are not with child?”
Karin kept her eyes cast down. “Quite sure. There was a time, a few days ago, when I wondered- But no.” She did not look up, regretting bitterly now that she had asked the queen to come.
“You could try to win Hadros around with clever words,” said Arane. “I must believe that in the years you have lived in his court, a woman of your wit has found ways to do that. Tell him, for example, that you are already pledged to someone else, someone far away-perhaps even this rival you mentioned-and that you need the king’s help to cover your shame.”
“I think I already tried that,” said Karin gloomily. “It was of no use.” She did not dare add what she now thought fiercely, that with Roric she had hoped to be an equal, part of a couple who trusted each other and spoke openly to each other, and that even without Roric she did not want to be a woman who directed the men around her with wiles and manipulation and never affection.
“You are making it very difficult, Karin, for me to help you!” said Arane with an exasperated laugh. “You are sure you could not make the best of the situation at this point by marrying young Valmar?”
“I am sure.”
“How did you come to do something so heedless as spend the night with him?”
Karin wished again that she had not asked the queen for counsel. She had no more good ideas than she had had before, and another of the Fifty Kings now knew she had not spent last night peacefully sleeping in Hadros’s tent. “We had not so intended,” she said quietly, thinking now only how she could ease Arane away. “But dark overcame us before we could get down.” That, she commented to herself, was an understatement.
“You perhaps could tell King Hadros that you and Valmar spent the night with me,” suggested the queen, as though having been asked for advice she could not leave without finding some way to save the situation.
“No, although I thank you,” said Karin, shaking her head and keeping her eyes down. As she had asked herself all last night while pacing the rocky hilltop, and as she awoke today, she wondered where Roric could be if not with the Wanderers-and what they could now possibly want with her. “I think the only way this could easily be resolved would be if Hadros were to die.”
Queen Arane started back. “Karin, my dear! I know I counseled you not to be squeamish, and that you are feeling somewhat desperate, but- Do you not think this might be somewhat too drastic a step?”
Karin stared at the queen in horror. “I did not mean I planned to kill him! I was merely saying that while he is alive- I was just explaining that… He is almost my second father!”
“Then your first father had best beware,” said Arane briskly. She rose and gave Karin her hand. “I doubt we shall meet again before the end of the Gemot.”
A page appeared as she started across the hall to escort her out to where her bodyguard was waiting. Karin, looking after her, felt a laugh rising in her chest that was almost a sob. She had after all discovered a way to get rid of the queen.
4
“The Wanderers in your world bring death and life.”
They sat in an apple orchard, the fruit so thick overhead that the leaves were almost hidden. Roric had been surprised when they reached the orchard to see no green and no rotten fruit among the long grass under the trees. But several in their band had taken sticks and began beating the branches, and after the downed apples lay on the ground for several minutes the flesh softened and the skin split. Roric wiped a hand on the grass after accidentally leaning on an apple and getting his hand covered with sticky fermented pulp.
“Are you trying to tell me,” he asked slowly, “that in this world mortals bring death and life?”
The man did not answer. He only turned on Roric a face shadowed and without detail, then looked away.
They had paused in their riding, stopped for the night except that there was no night. But most of the band had eaten, traded a few songs and stories, and curled up under the trees to sleep. Now only Roric and this man, this being, were left sitting up, while the sun hovered low in a sky without a sunset.
Roric was not sure whether to believe anything he might say; but he still felt he had a better chance of getting a reliable answer out of him than any of the others. He wondered if this sense was only a result of having been in his company longer than any of the others’.
“If you will not tell me that,” Roric said after a few minutes of silence, “then perhaps you can tell me who constitutes the first two forces, since you say you are the third.”
This the man apparently thought he could answer. “The first are those you call the Wanderers. The second are those who oppose them.”
“But do you not oppose them yourselves? Who are you riding to war against if not the Wanderers?”
“We fight both sides.” The man suddenly drew his dagger and threw it, as though playfully, past Roric’s ear. It lodged in the trunk behind him.
He jumped involuntarily, then reached back as calmly as he could and pulled it out. He weighed it in his hand, then looked up with a forced smile. “Is this then your guest-gift to me?”
The man snatched it back. Too bad-it had what looked like gold inlay on the blade.
“The lords of voima, they call themselves,” said the man suddenly and in what Roric thought were bitter tones. “They are proud and self-righteous, roaming earth and sky, watching over mortals, shaping their own land in imitation of mortal lands- Men, they call themselves, yet I in the form of a stallion have begotten colts on all of them!”
“How do they treat you when they are not mares?” asked Roric carefully. This was an insult they used at home, and he could-he hoped-discount its validity, but he had never heard such an insult hurled at the Wanderers.
“They ignore us, scorn us, laugh at us, treat us as beneath their notice. They say they created us, but if we are their creation you would think they would show us more respect.”
No question about it. The man was feeling bitter.
“Did they not create all those who live here?” Roric asked carefully.
“Well, they shaped it all, as they put it. But we are all they have ever created completely: the third force, the only beings besides the two major forces to have individual thought and will.”
“And those who oppose the Wanderers?”
“They only wish to replace the old lords of voima with new ones-themselves.”
“And where does that leave you?” asked Roric, trying to sound sympathetic.
The whole situation had a quality of a dream, or of a story told about someone else. Somewhere in this beautiful and frustrating land there had to be glory for a fatherless man to seize, but it was rapidly growing harder to believe in i
t.
“We still have our own voima,” said the being, sounding crafty now. “And even your Wanderers are not fated to rule forever. We disrupt them whenever we can.”
“Including capturing a mortal,” provided Roric, “and sending him to attack the Wanderers. Will my steel overcome them when yours will not?”
“You were not captured, Roric No-man’s son. You came willingly.”
But I did not know where you were taking me, he thought-and still do not. If he now accompanied these beings willingly, it was because he had not seen an alternative since they arrived here.
He got no more useful answers out of the man. A short time later Roric lay down himself to sleep, under a different tree from everybody else.
Sleep did not come easily. He lay on his back, an arm across his eyes to shield them from the sun. He thought of Karin, picturing her going about her daily activities directing Hadros’s household, hoping she was not worried for him. Then he tried to picture a “third force” where he had always expected there to be only one.
There had always been creatures of voima abroad in the world, trolls, dragons, hollow beings without backs, faeys-although he had never seen any of these but trolls, unless the strange green light in the dell he had seen only once, when out walking in the evening, had indeed been faeys. There might well be more creatures of voima here in the Wanderers’ realm, beings who did not share in their full power although they were immortal themselves, creatures of spite or tricks or dangerous sullenness.
He rolled over sharply and looked toward the sleeping war band, half hidden in the grass. It had always been disquieting that he could not see them properly, even with his charm in his hand. They had been too timid, too foolish for him to fear them here, but at least one of them had terrified all of Hadros’s housecarls. What were they really like? Valmar had gasped out something about someone with no back, and although he had paid no attention at the time, he now wondered what the boy might have seen that he, expecting a Wanderer, had not.
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