The Soldier King

by Violette Malan

  And patrols were already in these areas, and none of them had found Edmir, or the two Mercenary Brothers with him. Was it possible that they had left the country after Probic? And gone where?

  Avylos tapped his lips with his fingers. Perhaps he should also look at routes to Hellik. It would not be beyond the possible that Edmir would try to reach his relative, the Tarkin.

  His eye was caught by his own name magnified by the lens.

  “Avylos.” The Lady Prince Kera stood in the doorway. “I was told you were here.”

  And Avylos could guess who had told her. He’d passed that new Balnian page in the corridor. Evidently the blooded boy would babble about anything and everything.

  As Kera came no farther into the room, Avylos glanced up again. She must have come from attending her first Royal audience as Lady Prince. She was wearing her brother’s coronet, the circlet of twisted gold-and-silver wires almost disappearing in her red-gold hair. Avylos was surprised to note that Kera looked younger than usual, like a child dressed in grownup’s clothing. Was she finding it lonely, to be in her brother’s place? Could he turn that to his advantage?

  “Come,” he said, rising and moving one of the other chairs closer to his own seat. “Sit by me. There is something here I would like you to see.”

  He waited until Kera had sat down next to him before moving the lens once more over the place on the map he’d noted.

  “Do you see this writing?”

  Kera leaned forward. “It’s so tiny.”

  “It was made using a lens—no, not this one, another, suspended in a stand. This is your father’s writing.”

  Kera leaned still farther forward, this time with interest, not mere politeness, and touched the miniscule letters with her fingertip.

  “Your father was my best friend,” Avylos said. Kera looked up, blinking, as if seeing him for the first time. Avylos smiled inwardly.

  “People forget that, you know.” He frowned down at the map in front of them, and then glanced at her from under his brows. “My best friend. I was still a young man when I came here, unsure of my powers and untaught. Pursued by those who would use me for their own ends. Your father’s friendship and protection changed all that. He gave me a home, a place to belong, a quiet and safe place to study my art.”

  Avylos took a deep breath, and tapped the place on the right side of his blue tunic where the consort’s coronet was embroidered. “Now everyone sees this and forgets I was your father’s friend. No—” Kera had opened her mouth to speak, but Avylos held up his hand. “Even you and your brother forgot. Perhaps especially your brother. It occurs to no one that when your father died, my sanctuary died with my friend.”

  And so it had, in a way. Karyli had been the brother—the family— he should have had. Avylos had even come to feel that Karyli actually did not care whether he had power or not, whether his magics worked or not. The first person since . . . who had loved him for himself. Who took him seriously, trusted and understood him. Avylos came to feel that he, too, could trust his friend. So much so, that a desire began to form in Avylos’ heart, a desire to tell his friend, his brother, what it was he had done. Karyli would understand, Avylos had told himself. Karyli would agree that in the face of the resentment and oppression Avylos had suffered at the hands of his own people, Avylos had done the right thing, the only thing. Karyli would forgive him.

  Kera had lowered her eyes, her brow furrowing in thought. Her coloring was so much like her father’s. His eyebrow had wrinkled in just that way. Avylos risked a smile. It was working. She was considering what he’d said—what he’d lost, as well as what he’d gained. Kedneara’s affections were real, but they were volatile, capricious, especially since Karyli’s death—who would know that better than Kera herself? So perhaps Avylos’ gain wasn’t, after all, as great as it might appear. Kera was considering, perhaps for the first time, that he had pursued her mother the queen not for power, but for the protection of being the consort.

  Avylos took another deep breath, letting it out in a shaky sigh. “What I tell you now,” he said, “no one else knows. It was not only for myself that I became the consort. After all, I am the Blue Mage, and while my powers were not as great then as they are now . . .” He shrugged. “But your father’s last words to me were ‘Watch for Kera and Edmir, swear to me you will watch for the children.’ ”

  “I know both you and your brother blamed me for marrying your mother. And Edmir blamed her as well, I know this. But I assure you, Kera my Lady Prince I swear to you, I married your mother in order to fulfill my vow to your father. I could not risk that she would marry someone else, get other children, send me away from you as she sent so many others of your father’s circle.” He reached out with his left hand, stopping just short of touching her sleeve.

  Kera, her eyes still on her father’s handwriting, reached out her own hand with the Lady Prince’s seal ring on it, and patted Avylos’. There was compassion in her face.

  Again, he risked a smile. Kera was a good child, with a kind heart. She would take her father’s place and become his friend. And he would never make the mistake of telling her that his family, his Clan and Tribe, had betrayed him out of jealousy and greed, hiding his magic from him. Never tell her how he’d punished them by betraying them in turn to their enemies. That he’d watched them killed down to the last child, their tents burned, their herds taken or scattered.

  He would never have to tell Kera how her father Karyli had reacted not with love and understanding, but with horror and disgust. And had died, moments later, gasping for air.

  As he watched Lady Prince Kera leave the map room, Avylos trusted that she would never force him to deal with her as he had dealt with her father.

  Kera waited until she was well down the corridor, and even around a turn, before she wiped her hand off on the skirt of her overgown.

  “It’s not my guesthouse, you’ll understand.” Farmer Bar Wilseyeu, prosperous if her inglera wool tunic was anything to go by, opened the wooden door of the single-story stone structure that made up one of the four sides of the village square. On the other three sides were the farmer’s own house—two-storied—the mill, and a Jaldean Shrine featuring the sigils of the Three Planting Gods along with the more customary sign of the Sleeping God.

  “I keep it ready in the name of House Jarlkevo, for guests who might need it. Players are always welcome, of course, especially if, well, if there’s any chance of a performance.” She looked up from under the edge of her leather cap, a tentative smile on her face. Her rough palms rasped as she rubbed them together. “There’s time to send word to those who live nearby.”

  “Send it, my good lady, send it,” Parno said, with an actorly flourish of his embroidered gloves. “Give us a chance to wash off the dust of the road, and take a bite of supper, and we’ll be at your service.”

  “Well, as for that, it’s late to roast anything, but we’ve a goodly supply of sausages still, both kinds, and some of the winter hams are just now ready for trial. And there’s bacon, which I smoked myself. We’d be happy to have you join us.”

  “And we’d be happy to come,” Parno said. “And perhaps we’ve news to exchange as well.”

  “We’ve heard about Lord Prince Edmir.” The farmer’s face lost its jovial expression. “All the more need for us to find cheer where we can. The Sleeping God curse those blooded Nisveans—and those Mercenaries, too, if it’s true what’s being said, and they’re involved. Hard to believe it, but there it is. These are hard times.” She turned and spit on the ground, saluting the Planting Gods in the farmers’ way.

  “A true word, my friend, a true word. Has the news of Probic preceded us as well?”

  Farmer Wilseyeu turned back, her mouth hanging open a second before she shut it with a snap. “It’s not good news, that much I can see from your face. Save it, will you? Tell it but once. Come up to the house when you’re ready, and I’ll send round to the outliers to come in.”

  After more than ha
lf a moon on the road, even Edmir, not used to fending for himself, was finding the routine of unpacking familiar, and it took them much less time to sort themselves out, choose what they would perform for the local people, and put their hands on scenery and costumes than it had done when they were only a few days out of Probic.

  “If it’s cheering up they want, I’d say the comic scene from The Barber’s Wife,” Zania said, once they had carried their choices into the guesthouse. Dhulyn thought her voice sounded distant, and the girl was careful to direct her words and attention to Parno—as Edmir was careful to offer his help to Dhulyn.

  What has happened between these two? From the stiffness of her smile, and the way she kept her eyes lowered, Zania seemed about ready to cry. And she wasn’t the type to cry because Edmir had made advances— more likely, Dhulyn was careful to hide her smile, because he hadn’t. But now it seemed that something had made these two uncomfortable with each other—unless it was something else entirely. Zania could be excused almost any emotional behavior. Had she not lost all her family and Clan? It had been only, what . . . a moon? A few days more? Dhulyn’s own experience told her that these thoughts could never be far from the surface for Zania.

  “What about this?” Parno picked up the thick parchment scroll Edmir had just rolled shut, tying it tightly with a loop of leather, and tossed it into the air. He quickly followed it with a painted crown from the open property box in front of him, one of last year’s apples plucked from the bowl on the table next to the property box, and the knife he pulled from his own belt. His juggling was clumsy for the first few passes, as each item, different in shape and weight, fell and resisted the push of the air in a different way. In moments he had the feel of it, however, and the items flowed in a smooth stream.

  “Here,” Dhulyn called and tossed him a thick bracelet to add to the mix.

  “I didn’t know he could do that,” Zania said, her face brightening.

  “I’d forgotten myself,” Dhulyn said. “I think he once had younger siblings to amuse.”

  “You think?”

  Dhulyn turned to her, smiling. “Mercenary Brothers do not have lives before our Schooling began. We leave all that behind us.”

  For the first time, the little Cat did not flinch from Dhulyn’s wolf smile. “And does that work well?”

  “Sometimes better than others, but that is the Common Rule.”

  Parno tossed the bracelet back to Dhulyn, replaced the painted crown, tossed Edwin back his scroll, and with a flourish impaled the apple on his knife, taking a bite out of it before giving them a deep bow. “What do you think,” he said to Zania. “Start with a little juggling, The Barber’s Wife, and music for the rest?”

  “Nothing that would weigh too heavy on the heart. A sad song or two, just for flavoring,” Zania agreed. “Give them an opening for their grief to leave them. But for the most part, light and happy.”

  “But not the knife throwing, my little Cat.” Dhulyn made it a statement and not a question.

  The girl nodded, looking into the middle distance. “Too soon, I think,” she said. “We need to work out the patter a bit more.”

  “Dhulyn, what’s Pasillon?”

  Thank the Caids, Dhulyn thought. She preferred always to take care of the horses herself, and had sent away the boy the farmer had lent them. Edmir had followed her out and she’d been very much afraid that the prince would use this chance to unburden his soul about whatever had passed between him and the little Cat. Perhaps there had been nothing, after all.

  “Where did you hear about it?” She watched him over Warhammer’s back. Edmir had gone straight to untie Stumpy, without being asked. For a Lord Prince, Dhulyn thought, he made a decent stableman, which was more than she could say for many a son of a Noble House.

  “This morning, after the soldiers were gone, you said that there might have been Mercenary Brothers outlawed before Pasillon. I meant to ask you then, but,” he shrugged, “there were other things to think about.”

  Dhulyn ran her hand along Warhammer’s neck and flanks, taking comfort from the horse’s quiet strength. “Long ago,” she began, “after the time of the Caids, but long ago for all that, two city-states fought, and Mercenary Brothers carried arms on both sides.”

  “Fought against each other?” Edmir paused, his fingers on the buckles of the long traces.

  Dhulyn looked at him sideways. “ ‘In Battle or in Death,’ it is our greeting and farewell. We are all of us, all living things, walking on a path toward our deaths, and for a Mercenary Brother, to die at the hand of one of our own . . .” She shrugged. “What better way?” She led Warhammer out of the traces and into the first stall. “In any case, one party was victorious,” she said. “But at the cost of their prince’s life, and so, in their anger, and their grief, they spared no enemy soldier, cutting them down as they fled, killing them they as they lay wounded in the field.”

  “Like at Limona.” Edmir’s voice was hollow.

  “At Limona they took prisoners for slaves. At Pasillon there was not even that cold hope.” Dhulyn turned her attention to Bloodbone, caressing the mare’s long nose. “This would have had nothing to do with the Brotherhood, except that in their fury, and the heat of their blood, the victors saw no reason why a Mercenary badge should free anyone of the price they wished to take, and so they began to kill Mercenary Brothers as well.”

  “Oh, no.”

  “I see you know enough of our Common Rule to anticipate my story.” Dhulyn waited, her fingers working on a knot in Bloodbone’s mane. “Those of the Brotherhood who were of the winning faction ran to the aid of their Brothers, but they were outnumbered, and so they died.”

  “But not all?”

  “So the story goes. Against fearful numbers, they held their ground until nightfall, allowing three Brothers to escape. And after that night the victors began to die. Not everyone. Just those who had killed Mercenaries that day. The officers. The lords who gave the orders.” She accepted the coil of harness from Edmir and took it into the stable, the boy close on her heels.

  “So that’s why a request to outlaw a Mercenary Brother has to go through your own House.”

  “We take care of our own.” There was a flaw in the reins, as if the edge of a knife had scored it. She rubbed at it with her thumb. “Defend one another if we are in the right, punish one another if we are in the wrong. We cannot allow others to do it.”

  “But you can be outlawed.”

  Dhulyn nodded.

  “What a play it would make.” Whatever Dhulyn expected him to say, it wasn’t this. “The leader of the winning side—do you know which it was? His great grief, stained with his arrogance, bringing about his downfall. His growing awareness of the march of his own doom.”

  Edmir’s eyes had taken on that faraway look, the look that meant he was seeing the actors on the stage, hearing the words leaving their mouths. Dhulyn shook her head and left him there, going to join the others.

  The evening’s performance seemed at least to have restored some of the youngsters’ good spirits. Parno’s juggling had been warmly appreciated, with contributions from everyone in the audience, especially the children, and the comic scene from The Barber’s Wife, good physical humor, seemed to have helped release the tension she’d earlier sensed between Edmir and Zania. They came back into the travelers’ quarters still buoyant and smiling, even taking hands and dancing a short measure across the guesthouse’s dressed stone floor. This had been an audience of farmers and the like, and so the performance had been over earlier than it would have been at a House or even a Holding, where some at least would have stayed up reveling longer into the night. Dhulyn leaned back against the edge of the table and watched, wondering whether the twinges she was feeling in her lower back signaled the approach of her woman’s time, or just the unfamiliar exercise of dancing.

  “That was well done, very well done, all,” Zania said, spinning around to bless them all with her smile. “Only one thing I would say to be ca
reful of and that’s for you, Parno.” She stepped toward him and put her hand on his arm. “That place where you have delivered your speech to the Barber and you must step to the side, you were supposed to wait, and move at the same time Dhulyn did, so that her movement covered yours. You moved after her, during her speech, and so the audience’s eye stayed upon you, and so you drew off some of the effect of her speech. In the future, remember to wait, and move as she does, and you’ll be a help instead.”

  “Like an army in the field,” Parno said. “Each doing their part in support of the whole.”

  “We should have a signal,” Dhulyn said, trying to stretch out the muscles of her back, “as we do in the field, to set us right again when we stray. Something the audience will likely not know or recognize.”

  “Pasillon.” They all looked at Edmir. “Something to remind us that we work as a team, and not in conflict with one another.”

  Parno looked at Dhulyn and raised his right eyebrow. She smiled and shrugged. “Why not? In this endeavor, at least, we are as Brothers.”

  “Dhulyn, my Dhulyn,” Zania sang, dancing up to her and taking her hands. “I have had a great thought, a brilliant thought. I just can’t imagine why none of us have thought of this already. You’re a Seer, yes? So why don’t you See for us? See what we must do next?”

  Edmir looked back and forth between the two women. Satisfaction warred with curiosity on his face. Parno caught Dhulyn’s eye, his lips pursed in a silent whistle. Dreading the disappointed expectations, her immediate response was to refuse. It was one thing to See for herself and Parno, they both understood the limitations of her Mark. But when she looked at the eager faces of Zania, and Edmir . . .

  Had she not just said that they were as Brothers?

  “Not a bad idea in itself,” Dhulyn said, managing to release her hands from Zania’s without hurting the girl. “But let me warn you. Do not expect too much. The Visions are never clear, and even when I think I am directing them, they do not always show me what I ask to See.”