Hall of the Mountain King

by Tarr, Judith

  “Wait, they tell me. Wait, and wait, and wait. So wise, they are. So very wise.” His lip curled; he began to pace again, hurling the words over his shoulder. “It will grow easier, they tell me. My people are testing me; they are proving my fitness. It is all a great testing. The judgments and the petitions; the lords with all their retinues, appearing unannounced with disputes that only the king can settle. The embassies from my royal and princely neighbors, demanding hospitality and courtesy, reminding me of alliances made and unmade and remade. The hordes of traders and mountebanks, each of whom must attract my august eye or spread abroad the tale of my niggardliness. And always—always that fire smoldering in the Marches. Wait, they tell me. Hold fast. Let my loyal lords and my own actions hold off the threat.”

  He stopped, spun. “Actions! What actions? I’ve not even left his castle since I took the throne. And when I flung that in their faces, they bowed and scraped and prayed my majesty’s pardon, but if an assassin could come to me here in my own stronghold, how much more perilous it would be for me to ride abroad. No, no, I am young, of course I chafe under the restraints of my rule, but only let me be patient and soon I will be strong upon my throne. Then I may do as I will. Yes, then, when Moranden is king of all but this castle.”

  Vadin started to turn away, sighed and stayed. Mirain still prowled, still muttered, still saw him only as a target for heated words. “Ah no, the exile will never come so far. Lord Yrian, Lord Cassin, Prince Kirlian, all the lords whose lands border on the Marches—they have sworn to bring him to me. Limb by limb. Surely I can trust them who always served King Raban well. Maybe I can even trust Moranden. But his mother—now there is an enemy to be afraid of. She would never have sent anyone as conspicuous as an assassin with a spear. She will have my life while I tarry, and never count the cost. And, Wait, my elders intone. Wait, sire. Wait and see.”

  Vadin said nothing. What were his little troubles to this great matter of war and rebellion? One silly fool of a girl was afraid of him because he had been killed and had come to life again and had walked away with only a fading scar. Ianon was about to tear itself apart, and he cried over a tuppenny whore.

  Mirain had come to his senses a little. He saw Vadin and knew him; his glare lightened to a scowl. “Your pardon, Vadin. I never meant to rage at you. But if I erupt in council, they all look gravely at one another and sigh, their wisdom sorely tried by my impetuous youth. I have to be cool, I have to be quiet, I have to try to reason with minds set in stone. They know, surely and absolutely, that I must not risk my precious neck in a war. Not even in a parley. Not even, gods forbid, in a royal progress. I must stay mewed up here while others do it all for me.”

  “Isn’t that what it is to be a king?”

  “Not you, too.” But Mirain’s rage had passed; he rubbed his eyes with tired fingers. “I’m getting so I can’t even think. I need to do something. Would you—” He broke off. “Aren’t you supposed to be at liberty?”

  “I . . . decided not to bother.” Vadin picked up Mirain’s mantle and folded it, laying it carefully in its chest. “Shall I fetch Ymin? Or would you prefer—”

  Mirain stood in front of him, hands on his shoulders. “Do I have to take the answer out of your mind?”

  Vadin wrenched away. “Don’t you—don’t you ever—Damn you, why didn’t you let me die?”

  “I couldn’t.” Mirain spoke very softly. “I couldn’t, Vadin.”

  The squire choked on bile. Mirain’s eyes were wide and full of pain, and he could see into them. He could hear the thoughts behind them. Love and grief, fear of loss, regret that it had led to this.

  “Regret!” Vadin cried. “Oh gods, you’ve even infected me with your magery. They can all see it. They’re terrified of me. I died. I died and I came back, and I’m not Vadin anymore. Demons take you, King of Ianon. May the goddess’ birds peck your bones.”

  There was a long throbbing silence. Vadin looked up at last, and Mirain stood still. His hands were fists at his sides. The god’s brand rent him with its agony.

  Vadin knew. He could feel it himself if he willed to.

  “We are bound,” Mirain said with perfect calm. “I went very far to call you back. I cannot loose you, nor can I alter what my people saw. But time can heal you somewhat. You died, you were healed, you have changed, but you are still Vadin. Those who love you will learn to see it, once their awe passes.”

  “You sound exactly like your council. Wait. Wait and see.”

  Mirain laughed, short and bitter. “Don’t I? Unfortunately it’s true.”

  “And what do I do while I wait? Study sorcery? It’s all I seem to be fit for.”

  “You can go and show Ledi that you’re still her favorite lover.”

  King or no king, Vadin would have struck him for that if he had been a shade less quick. “She hates me.”

  “She’s crying now because she let herself listen to all the tales, and because she let them frighten her, and because you went away. Go to her, Vadin. She needs you.”

  “So do you, damn it.”

  “Not now. Go on.”

  “Come with me.” Vadin’s tongue had said that. Not his brain.

  Mirain frowned, searching his mind, a touch like light fingers, or a warm breath, or a moth’s wing in the dark.

  He thought of outrage, but he could not find it. Memory came between: the world floating in night, and a strong voice calling.

  Between them they extricated Mirain from his state dress, unwound the king-braids and plaited his hair into the simplicity of priesthood, found a plain kilt and a plain dark mantle. Vadin wrapped himself in a dry cloak, swallowed the last of his regrets, and set his face toward the town.

  oOo

  This time no one seemed even to see Vadin, much less his companion. Ledi was not serving in the alehouse; the boy who waited on them did not know where she was, or care.

  They drank the ale he brought, Vadin tarrying out of fear, Mirain simply reveling in walls that were not the walls of his castle and voices that were not the voices of his council.

  The taut lines of his face had begun to ease. He looked younger, less hagridden.

  Dear gods, Vadin thought, he could not remember when last he had seen Mirain smile.

  He looked down into his dwindling ale, flushing a little with shame. He had been thinking that all this worship did not trouble Mirain; the Sunborn had been used to it from his birth.

  Maybe that made it worse. Vadin could go back in time to plain humanity, and he could hope that it would be soon. Mirain could never go back at all.

  Vadin tossed a coin on the table and stood. Mirain followed him through the crowd to the curtain with its painted lovers. The old harridan who stood guard took Vadin’s silver, tested it with her one remaining tooth, grinned and let them by.

  It was not easy, climbing those steep fetid steps with the King of Ianon behind him and Ledi somewhere ahead. Maybe she had taken a man to console her. Or two; she liked two, especially if they were Kav and Vadin. The other girls were busy, raw night that it was, providing warmth and comfort for a handful of copper.

  Ledi had one of the better rooms, the one at the top with a window which she kept open even in winter. It made the air sweet, she said. As if she needed anything but her own warm scent and the herbs she sprinkled on her pillow.

  Her door was shut, but no length of green ribbon hung from the latch; she was in but alone.

  Vadin’s heart hammered. She was going to be afraid, and she was going to submit as any woman must to a great lord, and he was an idiot for tormenting himself like this.

  He turned to face the shadow that was Mirain. “You can have her,” he said roughly. “I don’t want her.”

  Mirain did not say it aloud, but the word hung in the air. Coward.

  With a low growl Vadin spun back to the door. He raised his trembling fist, struck once and then twice and then once again.

  Nothing moved within. She would be huddled in her bed, praying that he would go awa
y. He stepped back, braced for flight.

  The latch grated. The door eased open. Lamplight brightened the stair and its landing; Ledi’s face peered out, all puffed with crying, and her hair was a tangle and she had on her worst rag of a dress, and she had never been less pretty or more beloved. “Ledi,” he said stupidly. “Ledi, I—”

  She drew herself up. “My lord.”

  “And what have I done,” he snapped with desperate temper, “to deserve that? Cold shoulder down below and cold words up here, and if it’s that I haven’t been coming so often lately, will you please remember that we’ve lost an old king and got a new one, and I’ve been caught in the middle?”

  “That’s not all you’ve been caught in,” she said, unbending. She stood as straight and cold and haughty as a queen, and she would never bend now, since he had forced her to remember her pride.

  “And can I help any of it?” he cried in a fine fire of rage. “Damn it, woman, don’t you turn on me, too!”

  She looked at him with great care, squinting a little for her eyes were not of the best, frowning as if he were a stranger whose face she must remember. He was almost in tears, which was a great shame, but he did not care.

  All at once she began to laugh, half weeping herself. She flung her arms about his neck and kissed him till he knew he would drown, and drew him through her door.

  Then she saw who stood with him. She stiffened again. Only a little at first, with surprise. “You didn’t say you’d brought a friend.”

  “He didn’t,” Mirain said. “I was only seeing to it that he didn’t turn tail before he saw you.”

  “Then I owe you thanks,” she said, letting Vadin go. It was a kiss she had in mind, with joy in it, and Mirain had both before she saw the light on his face and the sheen of his torque. She recoiled, dropping to her knees. “Majesty!”

  Mirain did not raise her. “Madam.” His voice was cold. “Since you know me, I trust that you will do as I command.”

  She bowed to the floor. “Yes, majesty.”

  “Very well. Get up and look at me, and do not bow to me again, nor ever call me by that unlovely title.”

  She rose; she made herself look into his stern face. “Now, madam. Look after my squire, who stands in sore need of it, and consider well. When I was a prince you would speak to me without fear or fawning. Now that I am a king, I need that more than ever.” The sternness softened; he held out his hands. “Can you forgive me, Ledi? I never meant to take your man away from you.”

  “Didn’t you?” But she took his hands a little gingerly and mustered a smile. “Very well. I forgive you.”

  He bowed low, to her consternation and delight, and set a kiss in each palm as if she had been a great lady. “Look after my friend,” he said.

  NINETEEN

  Vadin ate thornfruit and cream with new bread and honey and a mug of ale, and Ledi to sweeten it, combing and braiding his hair while he ate. Through the window he could hear the morning sounds of the town, feel the air cool on his face, bask in the fitful sunlight.

  It would rain again later, he suspected. The sky had that odd watery clarity it always had between storms, as if it had paused to rest before its new onslaught.

  Ledi clasped her arms about his middle, resting warm and bare against his back. He half turned. She claimed a kiss that tasted of cream and honey, and said, “You should be going. Your king will be needing you.”

  He sighed a little. “Half a thousand people who live to wait on him, and I’m the one he always seems to be needing.”

  “You’re his friend.”

  “I think I was born under a curse.” He reached for his kilt but did not move to put it on. “I’m not his friend. I’m something fated. Like a shadow, or a second self, or a brother of the same birth. I used to think I hated him, till I realized that I didn’t; I resented him. How dare he come out of nowhere and change the world?”

  “Your world,” she said. Very lightly, and for the first time, she touched the mark of the spear. “You’re different. You’re more like him. Like . . . someone who knows what the gods are.”

  “I don’t know anything.”

  His sullenness made her smile. “Go on. He’s waiting for you.”

  Let him wait! he would have cried if he had had any sense. He dressed instead, kissed her again, and then again for good measure, and went lightly enough down the stair.

  oOo

  There were one or two people in the common room drinking their breakfast, and one who neither ate nor drank but sat in a corner, unseen and unremarked by any but Vadin, to whom his presence was like a fire on the skin.

  “Have you been here all night?” Vadin demanded.

  “No.” Mirain rose. Under his cloak he was dressed for riding: a short leather kilt over boots almost tall enough to pass for leggings. “Rami is outside.”

  “Where are we going?”

  Mirain did not answer. He walked ahead of Vadin into the puddled courtyard.

  The Mad One was there, unsaddled, and Rami in saddle and bridle, nibbling a bit of weed. When Vadin had seen to her girth and mounted, Mirain was already at the gate.

  They rode in silence except for the thudding of hooves and the creaking of Vadin’s saddle, winding through the streets to the east gate, the Fieldgate that led to the open Vale.

  It was open, its guard snapping to attention as he recognized his king. Mirain laid him low with a smile and clapped heels to the Mad One’s sides. The stallion bucked and belled and sprang into a gallop.

  When at last they slowed, town and castle lay well behind them. The Vale rolled ahead of them, its green grass parched to gold with summer’s heat, lapping at the foot of the mountain wall.

  The Mad One snorted and shied at a stone; Rami bent a scornful ear at them both. She had no time to spare for nonsense. Piqued but subdued, the stallion settled into a swinging walk.

  His rider stroked his neck in wry sympathy. “Poor king. Neither of us has seen a sky without walls about it in an eon and an age.”

  “You’re not a prisoner, you know,” Vadin said.

  “Aren’t I?”

  “Only if you think you are. Yon old vultures of your council would have you locked in a single room, with servants to wipe your nose for you, and no sharp edges to threaten your priceless hide.”

  “And no common labor to sully my royal hands.”

  Vadin tried not to grin. “Went to fetch the seneldi yourself, did you?”

  “I did,” said Mirain, sharp with annoyance. “You’d have thought I was proposing to turn Avaryan’s temple into a brothel. What, his majesty of Ianon in the muck of the stable, touching brush and bridle with his sacred fingers?”

  “Appalling.” Vadin breathed deep, letting his head fall back, opening his eyes to the tumbled sky. A gust of laughter escaped him, not at Mirain, simply for gladness that he was alive and whole and riding in the wind.

  Rami halted and dropped her head to graze. After a moment the Mad One followed suit. “When your beauty comes into season,” Mirain said, “I should like to see a mating. Would you be willing?”

  “With the Mad One?” Vadin had been going to ask. To beg if need be. But he kept his voice cool and his eye critical. “He’s close to perfect to look at, if a little smaller than he should be; but she’s got height to spare. And the bloodlines on both sides are good. But aren’t you concerned that he’ll pass on his madness?”

  “He is not mad. He is a king who demands his due.”

  “Same thing,” Vadin said.

  “So then, we pray the gods for a foal with Rami’s good sense. And a little fire, Vadin. Surely you’ll allow that.”

  Vadin met Mirain’s mockery with a long stony stare; then he loosed a grin. “A little fire, my lord,” he conceded. “Meanwhile you’d better settle your kingdom before winter.”

  Mirain’s brow went up.

  “Because,” Vadin explained, “I won’t ride Rami once she’s in foal, and she’ll die before she’ll let anybody else carry me into bat
tle.”

  “For Rami’s sake, then, we must surely move soon.” Mirain was not laughing, not entirely. “This morning I sent out the hornsmen. I’m calling up my levies.”

  “You’re joking.” Mirain’s gaze was unwavering. Vadin drew his breath in sharply. “All of them?”

  “All within three days’ ride.”

  “Your vul—Your elders will have a thing or two to say.”

  “Indeed.”

  Somewhere behind the royal mask was a wide and wicked smile. Vadin snorted at it. “When is the weapontake?”

  “When Brightmoon comes to the full.”

  Vadin whooped, startling Rami into raising her head.

  Mirain’s smile broke free, bloomed into a grin. The Mad One bucked and spun and danced, tossing his head like a half-broken colt.

  Rami observed him in queenly disdain; gathered herself together; bound him in a circle of flawless curvets and caracoles, and leaped from the last into flight, swift and weightless and breathless-beautiful as none but a seneldi mare could be. With a cry half of joy and half of royal outrage, the Mad One sprang in pursuit.

  oOo

  They came in late and wet with rain, their bellies full of a farmwife’s good solid provender. She had been generous with it, and bursting with pride that the king himself had chosen her house to shelter in.

  Mirain left the farmstead even lighter of heart than he had entered it. Yet as he drew near to the castle his mood darkened. His face grew still, the youth frozen out of it, his eyes filling with strangeness. Vadin did not try to meet them.

  The rain had driven the market under cover and confined the less hardy souls of the court to the hall. There should have been wine and dicing and a smuggled girl or two, and from behind the ladies’ screens a whisper of harpsong.

  In its place was a low and steady murmur. People gathered in clusters in the corners of the hall as under the market awnings; the ladies’ music was silent, their voices rippling high over the rumble of the men.

  Under Mirain’s darkly brilliant gaze the murmur faltered. Eyes dropped or shifted toward the door behind the throne.

  He strode past them, swift enough to swirl his sodden cloak behind him. No one ventured to stand in his way.