by Lori Martin
“Look, Carden, what in the gods’ names are you doing here? Why aren’t you off fighting with your father? I hear he’s finally made his bid for the Chair.”
“He wants me to do something,” he said sullenly.
“I suppose,” Temhas said with just the right amount of derision, “that he wants you to steal the scepter for him. Just in case the queen happens to win.”
Carden immediately fell into it; he hated being laughed at. “She’s lost already, if you want to know. So there!”
Temhas released him. “How do you know? Are you sure?”
“I saw it myself,” he said with sudden relish. “The First Squad was all ready for them. The Second and Third were almost in shock – they didn’t really want to fight, not against Lindahnes. But we’d had so many battles with the Mendales and the guards we didn’t care. So –”
“Oh, really? And how many did you kill?”
Carden kicked at the ground. “I don’t know. I don’t think I really got anybody. But anyway,” he said in defense, “I didn’t get killed, and that’s what counts. So the squad was winning, and then we captured the queen.”
“Is she dead?”
“No, I’m telling you. We captured her. She’s been treated very well. And everybody stopped fighting for a while. Father made a speech. He said he understood her grief, that he was grieving himself –”
“Please, Carden!”
“Well, he did! And that sometimes grieving people do things they don’t mean. He said he didn’t know how these terrible rumors got started, but he hoped no one could really believe them, and that he knew it must be hard for the queen to give up the Chair.”
“In other words, she’s either a widow gone mad, or a ruler refusing to give up power, or both. But in any case he made himself out the legitimate king. And where was the King’s Guard? How many of them were left?”
“I don’t know,” Carden said. “A lot of them got killed. I didn’t see any afterward.”
“And they believed this? They believed it?”
For a moment he thought Carden wasn’t going to answer. When he did he said, “The Mendales were getting ready to attack again.”
He could see it. Sillus was a persuasive, smooth talker – who knew it better? And he was the heir, a respected and powerful councilor, a royal picking up what his brother had left, in the Lindahne way. It wouldn’t be too hard, given all the recent troubles and the queen’s known hatred of him, to make it seem as if she had simply lost control of herself. And with the heretics breathing down their necks they needed to be united, to have a ruler, and Sillus was good in battle –
While he was thinking it out, Carden was trying to slip away. Temhas put a firm hand on his elbow.
“What’s going to be the next step?”
“What do you mean?”
“Don’t play with me, Carden! The queen sent word here, you know, before she went after him. Maybe he convinced the soldiers, but it’s going to be a little harder with the people here. This is the court – these people love the royals. You should have been here for the mourning for the king, and they haven’t been able to bury him yet! What’s Sillus going to do?”
“He’s the king now. Marlos-An belongs to him.”
“Does it? With the relas still here?”
“She’s not the heir. She wasn’t anyway after the truth-seeking, and she certainly can’t be now. If my father is king,” and this seemed to be a new idea, “then - then I’m the heir.”
Temhas laughed. “Congratulations!”
“Well, I am!”
“And who’s going to tell the Nialian locked up in her rooms?” he demanded. “If she’s here when Sillus comes riding up, with her father’s body and her own mother under guard –”
“But she won’t –” He broke off, literally clamping his teeth down on his tongue. A deep flush came up in his skin. Temhas stared at him. Then he looked down at the rope he still held.
Carden snatched it from his fingers and tried to run. In an instant Temhas tackled him to the ground, twisting his arm back. Carden yelped in pain. His face was in the dirt.
“But she won’t be here!” Temhas hissed in his ear, straddling him. “Is that what you were going to say? Because you’re supposed to kill her? Answer me!” He yanked on Carden’s arm. Carden shouted again.
“Is that what this rope’s for? What were you going to do? Strangle her?” He yanked again.
“Yes!” Carden screamed. “Yes, yes! Stop it! Stop it!’
What do I do with him? Temhas thought. What do I do? I should kill him.
An idea came to him. He studied Carden’s arm and shifted his grip, so that he had him above the wrist and behind the elbow.
“Let me up!’ Carden said into the ground. “What are you doing? You’re supposed to be with us!”
“Oh no,” Temhas said. “I’ve given it all up, my friend. Unfortunately for you.” He gave a quick, forceful jerk.
The break was clean; he could hear the bone snap a second before Carden started screaming again. He rolled off him. Carden doubled up, his knees to his chest, crying, the arm flung out at the wrong angle.
Temhas kicked the rope away contemptuously. “I really don’t think you’d have made much of an assassin,” he said. “I can’t believe he’d send someone as spineless as you to face the relas, of all people. That woman’s got fire, and you’re not someone to put it out. But I suppose there was no one else he could trust with it.”
Carden sat up, his face blotched with tears. He looked more than ever like an overgrown child. “You’ll be sorry. My father will get you!”
Temhas nodded. “I supposed so. But he’ll have to catch up with me first. Run home, little boy, and explain to him how you did everything wrong again, as usual.”
He walked off, in a swirl of cloak.
Carden sniffed.
Dalleena stared out of the window while he talked and talked. She never interrupted or asked a question.
“And Carden’s a fool,” Temhas finished. “But he belongs heart and soul – what little he has of either – to his father.”
The last word Marlos-An had received had been from the queen. The palace did not yet know of her defeat and Sillus’s proclamation. In the opinion of Temhas – and she agreed with him – Sillus was waiting, giving Carden enough time to carry out his orders and cover it up, with Nialia only knew what story. Probably a return of my illness, she thought. There wouldn’t have been any blood. When Sillus hears his plan has gone astray, what will he do? Wait again, I suppose. He’s never a man to jump too quickly. But what happens to me when he gets here?
Lilli was the one, strangely enough, who had urged her to give Temhas a hearing. Now that she saw him she almost felt inclined to believe him. “Your loyalties seem to have changed.” It was the first time she’d spoken.
“No, relas.”
She looked at him. So like, and yet not. He explained, “It’s only that before, I had no loyalties.”
“And now you do. To whom? To what?”
With dignity he said, “To my shame. And to my brother, whom I was never loyal to in life.”
Dalleena said, “I’m sorry about your father.”
“And I about yours, relas.”
Her face, carefully expressionless, seemed to tighten. Death, she thought bitterly. I’m so tired of death.
She had not permitted herself to cry. The double dose of grief, once released, would drive her past help; her sense of self-preservation forbade it. Within her chest it turned instead into a steady sour burning. There was no new outward sign. She had already changed her dress to brown – to mourning – for Rendell. “They’re blaming it on me,” she said. “Everything that’s happened. It’s my child, it’s my evil. First the Mendales and now the king. I wonder if anyone would have cared if Carden had succeeded.”
“You didn’t see them when you were sick,” Lilli said. She was standing behind Temhas.
“Think of it,” she said. “Think of the tongu
es chattering, the messages speeding along, the horses riding. Soldiers. Battles. The king is dead. The king has been murdered, the queen rides out. Tomorrow they’ll come again, and say the new king has won.”
“He’s still got the Mendales on his hands,” Temhas said. “It’ll give you enough time.”
“Time for what?”
“To leave. Relas, you have to go. You can’t stay here.”
“I’ve been telling her that for a half-moon,” Lilli put in. “And it’s urgent now.”
In all the upheaval no one had yet taken the responsibility to enforce her exile. “Are you aiming for a council seat, Temhas?”
She advanced on him Her eyes felt like needles piercing his skin. “So you’d like to push me out, too? You had something to do with the original order, if I recall correctly. Now you’ll no doubt suggest somewhere for me to go – and then sell Sillus the information!”
For a moment he could not speak. Her look was unwavering. “No. No, that’s not true.”
Lilli made a movement behind him and stilled it. She had told Dalleena of her encounter with him on the stairs.
Temhas could find no other words. His face only pleaded, Believe me.
“You’ve saved my life and risked your own now. Sillus will be after you.” Dalleena said. “You’ve saved my life.” She had accepted him.
“I owe it,” he managed to say, unknowing that he echoed his father. “But relas, you’re right about one thing. I do have a place to suggest for you.”
“Oh? Where is that?”
“My estate.”
She was silent. He added, “It’s away from the palace and the fighting. The servants – some of them left after Ren – after the truth-seeking. The others stayed out of loyalty to my father, but then most of them went to war and the rest fled after we heard what had happened. My sister’s alone there. She might be glad of your company. She – she isn’t speaking to me, but I’m all she has left.”
Rendell’s home. The burning in her chest flared stronger.
“I think that’s an excellent idea,” Lilli said. “It’s near the woodlands. We can keep to our original plans and get away from Sillus at the same time.”
“No,” she said. “I can’t go now. I can’t leave my mother. She needs help.”
Temhas turned his face to Lilli. This was something he could not deal with. Lilli shook her head. “There’s nothing you can do. Getting killed for her won’t help.”
“She’s alone now. I can’t leave her.”
“Dalleena.” There was nothing for it; she would have to say it. “If you stay you’ll only make it worse. They are blaming you. If you stand beside her you’ll bring her down completely. She’s stronger alone.”
She was becoming adept at mastering herself. After a few moments she said, “I suppose Seani will help her. And some of the others.”
“Of course they will. But we’ve got to think of you now.”
She nodded.
“I’ll pack,” Lilli said in relief, and flew to the clothes chest. She had done it already a dozen times in her head.
“Can you get horses?”
“I think so. I’ll meet you at dusk, near the valley road. It’ll be better if we travel in the dark.”
“All right. Temhas?”
He paused at the door.
“Thank you.”
He bowed. “Until then, relas.”
She called him again. He turned.
“The councilors took away my title quite some time ago. Please call me by my name.”
You may call me by my name, memory echoed. I’m very honored. Thank you. Thank you, Dalleena-relas.
Temhas bowed again, feeling the burden of guilt lighten just a little. With emotion he said, “Thank you, Dalleena.”
By evening they were riding along the track Lilli had so often taken alone to summon Rendell. Temhas had stolen two horses from the chaotic palace stables: Dalleena’s black had sickened and died a few days after the Watcher had left it, and to ask in any case for a royal mount would be to attract attention. Most of the animals and their keepers had gone to war, and how Temhas had gotten past the rest they did not ask. It had taken the combined efforts of Temhas and Lilli to get Dalleena onto her horse, and she rode in pain. One hand held the reins, while the other rested on her stomach. Beside her Temhas directed the other horse without any evidence of the reckless riding for which his brother had once chided him. Lilli was doubled up behind him in the saddle, her robe yanked up to her thighs. Her bare legs, exposed to the night chill, rested against Temhas’s leather boots. She rested her head against his shoulder for a moment and yawned. “Temhas, you’re shivering. Are you cold?”
“No,” he denied quickly. “But you must be. My cloak’s in the saddlebag.”
Lilli fumbled at the clasps and drew it out, wrapping it around so that it fell from her shoulders and covered their legs.
She was thankful that he did not ask anything of her. It saddened her to think of what this child-man could have been, if the gods had been kinder, or the currents of the world less difficult to navigate. But she could not return his love. He seemed to hope only for kindness, and that, she found, she could give.
As they turned toward the Third Hill they became aware of Dalleena’s quiet voice. She had been murmuring beneath her breath for some time, her soft sounds blending in with the sounds of the night.
“What’s she saying?”
“I’m not sure.” She strained to hear. Temhas brought the horse closer. Dalleena, intent on her purpose, did not notice.
Lilli realized suddenly, “It’s her offering for her father.”
“What?”
“Don’t you recognize it? It’s the Prayers for the Dead.”
The voice came clearly to him now, sweet and sad but somehow passionless. (Lilli did not say, “She said them for your brother.”) The rites for the dead were long, but Dalleena did not falter. Temhas’s memory was not as sharp, but he repeated what parts he knew with her. He also had a father to honor. If he felt no grief, he also felt no hatred. It had died with Boessus. As they came near to the estate Dalleena was nearing the end.
“Lay then thy heart to rest
And set thy spirit to roam free
Among the cloud-filled mansions of the gods
Pray
And sing thy songs
Thinking not of those left behind
Or the earthbound flowers that are strewn upon thy grave.
Depart, soul! And whisper in the heavens.
True light accept thee always.
Depart, depart,
Go in thy blessedness –”
She paused. Temhas and Lilli said the last lines with her.
“True light encompass thee,
And go then in thy blessedness.”
The estate was deserted, the house dark and still. Lilli said, “Are you sure your sister’s here?”
“Where else would she go?” With Lilli’s help he lifted Dalleena down. Tonight she would sleep in Rendell’s bed. They went up the graceful curving stairs and through the wide front doors. A musty smell came from the walls and floors. The darkness inside was total; the draperies were drawn tight against the moonlight.
Temhas fumbled in the corner and lit a wall torch. Taking it from its holder, he motioned down the passageway. “There’s a small back room – it’s the most comfortable.”
On the threshold Lilli tripped over a dog, which yelped its protest. The small fireplace was lit with high flames, giving off excessive heat and little light. Several more dogs rose from the hearth rugs to sniff at their hands, and settled back down. Temhas raised the torch. A small figure sat huddled in a velvet chair, eyes hidden.
“Pillyn, I’ve brought the re – I’ve brought Dalleena and her friend,” Temhas said. She did not move.
Lilli glanced at her curiously before moving to light several candles. “That’s better,” she said with satisfaction. She pulled a chair up to the fire and motioned for Dalleena to take it, bu
t she was looking at the girl. Her hands were on the small of her back, betraying the aching. “Sit down,” Lilli insisted.
Temhas pushed away two of the dogs and stretched out on the floor near Pillyn’s feet. “She finds it hard to acknowledge that I live and move and talk,” he informed them. “Which might be understandable when you consider she barely does any of those things herself these days. I thought,” he added over his shoulder, “you’d at least talk to them if you won’t talk to me.”
Pillyn stared into the fire, her face set.
“Who’s been looking after things?” Lilli asked.
“No one, and you’ll be able to see the results in the morning. When the kitchen’s stock runs out I don’t know what will happen.”
“I could do with a little stock right now. Is there anything?”
“Broth maybe. Or fish.”
“Broth will be better for Dalleena.”
Temhas stood up again and went to the door. “If we’re all eating, I can’t carry enough bowls.”
“Oh, all right.”
After they had left, Dalleena spoke for the first time. “I’m glad to see you again, Pillyn.”
The girl swallowed hard but did not turn her head. The flames seemed to have mesmerized her.
“Are you all right? I’ve often wondered how you were. When Rendell died, I –”
The blonde head shook a little, and hair fell in front of her face. Dalleena waited. Here was grief like her own, the grief of someone who had been close to Rendell. She thought, The day I met her she seemed such a shy and cheerful thing, setting off for Mendale.
“Why won’t you talk to me?”
“It’s your fault,” she whispered. “He threw his life away for you.”
I guess I should have expected it, she told herself. “I feel that too. Only he didn’t throw it away, he gave it. Pillyn,” she begged, “please. I loved him too.”
The girl leaped up from her chair, frightening the dogs. In the passage she collided with Lilli.
“Look out!” Lilli shouted, trying vainly to keep a hold on two bowls of broth. One slipped from her fingers and shattered on the floor. Without heed the girl ran up the main staircase. From above they heard the loud slam of her door in the darkness. The dogs lapped at the spillage.