Limits of Power

by Elizabeth Moon

  On his way to Clart’s headquarters, Arcolin spotted Aesil M’dierra in the central market and hailed her.

  “I heard you’d arrived,” she said. “You know I’ve foisted my scamp of a nephew on your Captain Selfer—”

  “Only until the campaigns start, I understood,” Arcolin said. “Unless you want to sign him squire to one of us.”

  “Not yet,” she said, grinning. “He needs a year under his aunt’s wing, his mother says. I think he’d rather be with you.”

  They rode together up the street leading north from the market. Arcolin surprised himself by feeling nothing more than comradeship—here was an old friend, no more.

  “Captain Arcolin!” That came from a side street; Arcolin turned and saw a man in Marshal’s blue and white.

  “Yes?” he said. M’dierra waved and rode on.

  “If you have time, I need to speak with you about a matter of concern to the Fellowship.”

  Arcolin looked at the shadows on the street. Past midday but not long past, and he could see Clart another day. “Certainly,” he said. He dismounted and followed the Marshal to his grange.

  “I remember that you are Girdish,” the Marshal said.

  “Yes,” Arcolin said.

  “What do you know of a man called Arvid Semminson, a thief from the north?” The Marshal kept going toward the platform at the end of the grange.

  “Only what Paksenarrion told,” Arcolin said, and repeated what Paks had said.

  “Did she say much about him as a person?”

  “Not really. I haven’t talked to her myself for over a year, but I heard from Dorrin Verrakai that Paks suggested Gird might have plans for him and the Guild. Nothing more than that.” Arcolin wondered where this was leading. “I know my junior captains made some sort of agreement with him over the winter, but have not yet sorted that out—or even met the man. I know he was using a false name.”

  “Here is our relic,” the Marshal said, and reached into the niche. “It has been effective before in testing liars and scoundrels. Take it.”

  Arcolin lifted his brows. Did the Marshal think he was a liar or scoundrel? But he took the hand-polished length of wood. It felt as it looked: an old stick or branch, smoothed by use, and nothing more. He remembered the relic in the grange where he had first joined the Fellowship and the way that one had warmed under his hand.

  The Marshal took the relic and put it back in the niche. “As we both expected, the relic did nothing when you held it. But here is the extraordinary thing: when Arvid Semminson first set foot into this grange, the relic came alight—brighter than I have ever seen it. When he held it in his own hand, it did so again, so bright that we could see his bones through his flesh.”

  “Why did he come here?” Arcolin asked.

  “We saw a man dressed like a thief dragging along a boy who had obviously been abused; we challenged him. He showed a pass supposedly from the Marshal-General, and that made him my responsibility. I have never been so surprised, Captain Arcolin, as I was that day. A thief and murderer fresh from a kill—he admitted he had just killed the Valdaire Guildmaster—and yet the relic did not strike him down. None of us could believe his story at first, but the relic does not lie. Cannot lie.”

  “What do you want from me?” Arcolin asked.

  “You’re a northerner born and bred—” the Marshal began.

  Arcolin shook his head. “No, Marshal. I was born in the South, far from Valdaire, though I now have a home in the north.”

  “Good enough,” the Marshal said. “And you came through Vérella, I’ll warrant. Is it true, as Arvid has told me, that he was Guildmaster there this past year?”

  “I don’t know. I do know the Marshal-General called him to Fin Panir to give his account of Paksenarrion. The latest rumor at court had him missing. Run away or been killed, no one knew for certain.”

  “He nearly was killed by the Guild here in Valdaire, he told me.” The Marshal kicked at the floor. “My dilemma, as you can imagine, being a commander yourself, is that I am caught between what seems to be Gird’s clear interest in this man and the equally clear duty I have to this grange—to the Fellowship here in Valdaire—to protect Girdsmen from the kind of influence this man represents. A Guild enforcer: a killer by trade. I cannot but see him as a poisoned blade aimed at the heart of the Fellowship—and yet Gird’s relic says nay. And then there’s the boy he was dragging along.”

  Arcolin raised his brows. “Surely just an incidental to the Guildmaster’s murder?”

  “He may be Arvid’s son of the body,” the Marshal said. He sighed. “The boy tells the same tale as Arvid about the day Arvid rescued him from the Guildmaster. The boy says his mother named him Arvid for his father. That wouldn’t mean much, but his mother was a serving wench at an inn years back. The man Arvid admits to being in Valdaire at the right time, but didn’t know about a child. When the woman died, leaving the boy an orphan on the street, the Guild picked him up.”

  “And you have him now,” Arcolin said.

  “Yes. Fostered away from the city, but he’s in danger from the Guild. The boy is sure Arvid is his father and wants to live with him—natural enough for an orphan, but impossible. Arvid is in danger himself; besides, his … background.” The Marshal looked at Arcolin with an expression that begged for help without actually asking.

  Arcolin had no idea what he could say or do, but found words coming out of his mouth before he could think to stop them. “I need to talk with Arvid anyway, because of that agreement with my junior captains. I will—” What could he promise? “I will talk with you when I have.”

  “Thank you,” the Marshal said. “And—if you have no urgent errand—we might trade blows.”

  “Of course,” Arcolin said. In a moment they were on the platform, and Arcolin discovered that the Marshal had better skills than most of the Marshals he’d met in the north.

  “It’s having so many soldiers about,” the Marshal said when they were done. “At least a few Girdish in every decent Company, even M’dierra’s, and sparring with men who fight for a living forced me to improve past training peasants with hauks.”

  Arcolin put his offering in the basin and then pulled out two Guild League natas. “For the boy’s care, Marshal. I know your grange will do its part, but—I was orphaned myself, though not so young.”

  “Thank you,” the Marshal said. “I know you’re busy, but you’d be welcome at the grange any night. Any of your troops, too.”

  Arcolin rode back to the northeastern quarter of the city. As he neared the Dragon, he saw Selfer walking toward it and waved. He dismounted, gave his horse to one of the boys employed by the inn, and he and Selfer entered the common room together.

  At this hour, few customers were about. Selfer said, “Is he in his rooms?” to the barkeep, and the man nodded. Arcolin followed Selfer along a passage and down that to an open door. Inside, a lean, dark-haired, dark-eyed man put aside sharpening stone and rag and slid the sword he’d been sharpening into its scabbard.

  “My lord, this is Ser Burin, as he’s known here, whom I told you of. And this is Count Arcolin, Ser Burin.”

  Burin bowed, his eyes never leaving Arcolin’s face, as if confused. “I greet you, my lord.” He turned to Selfer. “Captain, Dattur has another three dozens of gloves ready; he has gone to fetch more glove leather.”

  “I brought payment,” Selfer said. To Arcolin he said, “Dattur is Ser Burin’s gnomish partner in business and an excellent glovier.”

  “You have just come from the north, my lord,” the man said. “Perhaps you have news from Vérella.”

  “Indeed,” Arcolin said. “But it is not for all ears. Selfer, shut the door…”

  Selfer complied; the man gestured at the chair and stool by the table, and himself sat on the nearest bed. Arcolin took the chair.

  “Selfer tells me your real name is Arvid Semminson, and you’re the thief enforcer who got Paks out of that mess alive,” Arcolin said.

 
“Yes,” the man said. His expression changed; he no longer looked slightly befuddled. “And you were her cohort commander.”

  Arcolin nodded. “So what news from the north do you want?”

  “All of it,” the man said. Arcolin looked at him. Ser Burin? Arvid? Merchant or thief? Spy? Or—as the Marshal had suggested—a man in spiritual torment?

  “That’s a long tale,” he said. “Do you have a specific interest?”

  Arvid—Arcolin settled on that, as it was how Paks had known the man—grimaced. “Indeed. I believe the man now heading the Thieves’ Guild in Vérella is of the Horned Chain. I was fool enough to believe he would change. He was my second when I headed the Guild; in my absence he spread word I was a traitor.”

  “Most Girdish in Vérella think you ran off with the Marshal-General’s gold.”

  Arvid slammed his fist into the bedding. “There’s no chance, is there?” he asked. “Both think I’m a traitor, then, and I might as well have died there in the wild.”

  Arcolin recognized desperation in Arvid’s voice and expression. “Surely not,” he said. “I heard you have a gnome companion whom you helped escape.”

  “If not for me, he would not have been in that peril,” Arvid said.

  “And the Marshal here in Valdaire tells me you saved a child from torment.”

  “A child whose very existence may be my fault,” Arvid said. “Again—if I did not exist—”

  “But you do,” Arcolin said. “And like all of us, your existence changes the world. For your acts in saving Paksenarrion, you have my thanks and admiration. Was that so wrong?”

  Arvid looked up, tears streaking his face. “I don’t … I can’t … she’s a … a paladin.”

  “And yet her life cost others,” Arcolin said. “Not just the scouring of the Thieves’ Guild in Vérella, but among my troops.” Should he tell? No, he decided; Arvid wasn’t ready for that. “A paladin is not harmless,” he said. “And neither are we.”

  Arvid said nothing, but his expression eased a little.

  “No one is,” Arcolin continued. “But equally, no one is incapable of doing good. You have done good, Arvid, in your life. At least once that I know of. Probably more times than that.”

  “Thieves are not known for doing good,” Arvid said. He twisted the polishing rag in his hands.

  “But do you think them all evil, you who have been one?”

  “No. Not all. And not all the time.” Though his voice was thick with tears, Arvid sounded less on the edge of some mental precipice.

  “So,” Arcolin said. “The people who said they thought you had stolen the Marshal-General’s money were wrong. I suppose, if you went back to Vérella and committed yourself to the Guild, you could manage to kill your rival and regain your power. If that is what you truly want.”

  “At first I did,” Arvid said. “Now—I am not sure. How could I trust any of them?”

  “Did you ever?”

  “Yes. Or thought I did.” Arvid sighed. “I am a shadow of myself here, a false person, and—”

  A knock came at the door. “Dattur?” Arvid said.

  “Yes,” came the answer.

  “We have men from Fox Company,” Arvid said. “Come in if you will.”

  Arcolin looked at the gnome who entered: dressed in colors, not a gnomish uniform, and thus kteknik. He summoned the gnomish he’d learned and greeted the gnome in that language. “Welcome, rockbrother, and forgive my errors in your tongue.”

  Bright black eyes looked back at him. “It is that you speak the words of Law?”

  “It is that those rockbrothers I know taught me it was more courteous to greet you in your language.”

  “No obligation,” the gnome said. Then, cocking his head to one side, he asked in Common, “What gnomes? What princedom?”

  “Their princedom fell,” Arcolin said, “and they are kteknik by the Law.”

  “They? But princes do not exile whole princedoms—” The gnome walked up to Arcolin and stared straight in his face.

  “I have the word of a dragon,” Arcolin said, “and the word of the estvin of the rockbrethren. The dragon thinks their prince betrayed a trust—”

  “A dragon’s trust?” the gnome said; his voice had weakened, and his skin paled. “They dared?”

  “Their estvin thinks the prince was captured, perhaps tortured … The princedom, he said, had been weakened by many attacks, and no one came to aid. When the final attacks came, those remaining were too weak to prevent what happened.”

  “You know what happened!”

  “Yes. The dragon’s—”

  “No! Do not say it. It is not to say, never. It is not Law for you to know, and you must not say!”

  “Dattur, what is it?” Arvid asked.

  Dattur glanced back at him and then stared again at Arcolin. His accent thickened as he spoke. “It is that a pact, a binding, made between dragon and rockfolk in old age. It is not to speak. It is not to fail. Hakken failed, being not of Law. Bad … bad came. Dragon gave task to us—to rockfolk of Law. Each princedom made binding.” His eyes closed; Arcolin felt the stones of the floor trembling against his boots.

  “Dattur, no!” Arvid said. Dattur’s eyes opened, but he did not look at Arvid.

  “It is must.”

  “No! As your master, Dattur, I command you. Do no rock magery here!”

  The stones quieted. Arcolin felt cold chills, a reaction to a threat he had not recognized. What had the gnome thought to do? And why had the gnome obeyed Arvid?

  “What happened to those?” Dattur asked Arcolin.

  “They were cast out of their stone-right by a dragon,” Arcolin said. “In winter. I took them in; by now they will have moved into new stone in my domain.”

  “You … you saved them?”

  “I was not,” Arcolin said, his voice roughening as it did every time he thought of those exiles, “going to see women and children starve and freeze in the snow.”

  “You are their prince,” Dattur said, as if he announced that apples grew on apple trees: simple fact.

  Arcolin stared. “Prince? No, I’m no prince. A peer of Tsaia, yes, but not a prince.”

  “Prince of new place,” Dattur said. “Who gives stone is prince.”

  “But—”

  “Is no question. It is that you are prince of … of Arcolinfulk.”

  The gnome appeared perfectly serious; gnomes always did.

  “But I’m not a gnome. And I don’t know your Law, only Girdish law.”

  “Is no question. It is that a princedom falls, a prince fails, the fulk kteknik … and if new stone-right, then new prince. Law.”

  “Oh,” Arcolin said. It was all he could think to say. Then, “I thought the estvin would become the new prince.”

  “No. Law. You.”

  “They didn’t tell me,” Arcolin said. Dattur’s expression made it clear that he thought Arcolin should have known, and probably the gnomes in the north thought the same.

  “I wish you luck,” Arvid said. He had a glint in his eye that suggested secret amusement. Dattur rounded on him.

  “Is no luck. Is Law.” He turned back to Arcolin. “It is necessary that the prince learn Law, to speak Law to the people.”

  “I cannot go north now,” Arcolin said. “I have duties here. Contracts.”

  Dattur considered for a moment, then nodded. “Contract is law under Law. Promise given must be kept. And you have king, is it not? Oath to king?”

  “Yes,” Arcolin said.

  “Oath is law under Law. Is right; you cannot go until fulfilled.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  I don’t know how I’m going to explain to the king that I’m now a gnome prince,” Arcolin said to Selfer after they were back in quarters. “It’s ridiculous. I can’t be a gnome; I don’t know their Law…”

  “I don’t see that you have a choice, my lord,” Selfer said. He wasn’t grinning, which was a mercy.

  “And defining a uniform for them—I ga
ve them the cloth we had, not gray. It’s all wrong. They didn’t tell me.”

  “You could order gray cloth, have it sent up.”

  “I could, but—I know it’s the details, and I don’t know anything about that.”

  “Dattur probably does.”

  “I suppose. But it’s one more thing…” He shook his head. “And that Arvid fellow: Marshal Steralt wants my opinion of him. What’s yours?”

  “He’s been honest with us, my lord. He’s passed on useful information. Fought off thieves at the inn, too, one night. Killed ’em. Jostin at the Dragon has only praise for him. He’s in danger now; I know that.”

  The next morning, Arcolin confirmed the proxy oaths, then rode across town to find Nasimir Clart. Clart was in the common room of his company’s lodgings, eating an early lunch.

  “Thank you for helping out,” Arcolin said. He waved a waiter over and ordered sib and the cheese crisps this inn was known for.

  “Ivats enjoyed his time with you, but you can’t have him. I hold his contract for another two years,” Clart said, grinning.

  “I’m not trying to poach,” Arcolin said. “Thought you might like the latest news from the north, firsthand.”

  “You’re prospering, I can see that,” Clart said. “Count, isn’t it? Should I bend the knee?”

  “Hardly,” Arcolin said, grinning. “You’ve heard about the war up there?”

  “Business?” Clart leaned forward.

  “No. War’s over. Pargun attacked Lyonya; they were repelled. Halveric won’t be coming south again for a long time, though—Phelan’s hired them as the core of a standing army. And they’re short—they lost nearly a cohort in the war.”

  “Tsaia?”

  “Worried about unrest in the South, but with Pargun out of contention, things are much calmer. I’ve told my king about Alured the Black.” Arcolin took a bite of the little triangular cheese pastries. “My king let me bring the whole Company south; last year he wouldn’t. I’m hoping to recruit more this year.”

  “Some strange rumors going around,” Clart said. “A mysterious treasure in the north—or treasure from the north.” He raised one eyebrow as he reached for his mug.