Limits of Power

by Elizabeth Moon

  Not far ahead, he saw Lady Tolmaric waiting for him beside the road at a new clearing in the forest. Here on her own land, with the time between to get past the worst horrors of Sier Tolmaric’s death, Lady Tolmaric seemed like any solid, competent countrywoman. Now she smiled at him less shyly than before.

  “We have something to show you, sir king,” she said.

  “I can see already you have made progress,” he said, looking around the clearing. He followed her down a lane, expecting to see a farmstead under construction—perhaps even a barn and house completed. Instead, he saw a building as large as a barn but laid out very differently. Stone below, timber above, it looked like … like an inn. Stone steps up to the entrance with a wider door than any farmhouse. Windows to either side. The width, he judged, would allow for a sizable downstairs common room and kitchen. Several chimneys poked out of the tall roof; a streamer of pale smoke drifted from one. A wall of upright timbers to either side, with a gate to the right. The farmer and his family stood before it, bowing.

  “We are partway from Chaya to the new port,” Lady Tolmaric said. “I thought—I thought travelers would want somewhere to stop on the way. Some, anyway. It isn’t finished…” She looked at him again, clearly worried that he might disapprove. “And right now, Jermys’s cows are in what will be the stableyard…”

  “It’s—it’s remarkable,” Kieri said. Most remarkable that she had thought of it and had gained confidence to do it without asking permission. “You’re absolutely right: when the ships come, and merchants are busy on this road, they will need a place to stop overnight. An excellent idea.”

  “Then … would the king consider … staying here this night instead of at the old place? No one has slept inside yet, and it would be an honor…” She bowed; the farmer and his family all bowed.

  “Of course I will,” Kieri said. “But you must also come inside and rest there as well. How did you manage to clear the land and build all this in so short a time?”

  “I brought both families here,” Lady Tolmaric said, following Kieri into the building. The flush of embarrassment faded from her face, and her voice steadied. “They had been neighbors before; they did not mind settling together.”

  “So … this will be the common room,” Kieri said, looking at the large room. It was bare, just a big empty space, but well lit with its large windows. Doors opened from it—one, no doubt, to the kitchen; something there smelled delicious.

  “Yes, sir king,” Lady Tolmaric said. “The kitchen is in use already … the two families together number three full hands. The rest of the furniture will be made by the time there’s traffic on the road. Will you come upstairs to see the chamber we prepared for you?”

  “Gladly,” Kieri said. He wondered who had designed this building. He had not suspected Lady Tolmaric of such talent—nor the Tolmaric farmers, either.

  “You may remember,” Lady Tolmaric said, “that while we were in Chaya, before … before my husband died, we were living in a house we rented. But my husband bade me visit several inns, just to see how they were made. He had already thought of building an inn along the road in case of travelers, if you granted him the right to take new forest land. ‘See what they’ve got,’ he told me. ‘Especially the kitchen and suchlike, and the stabling, too.’ So I did.” She was breathless, climbing the stairs. “And then we built it.”

  The stairs were broad, well pitched; the rooms on the first floor above opened off a passage that ran the depth of the building, where another stair led upward. Most doors were open, the rooms bare as the common room below. The room she led Kieri to was at the back, with windows open to the yard below. It had a well-made bed with an obviously new-woven blanket and pillows, a table, several chairs, rows of pegs on one wall, and a cabinet with doors and drawers both on the other. It smelled of herbs and beeswax. On the table was a somewhat battered tray with a pitcher and three mugs and a vase with a bouquet of wildflowers.

  “It’s lovely,” Kieri said. “What a pleasant place! I will rest well here, Lady Tolmaric. Thank you.”

  She flushed again. “There’s plenty of room for your Squires and all … but we only have the one bed made up.”

  “That’s fine. This is so much better than what we expected to sleep in.” He moved to the window and looked out. The yard was a long rectangle, amply wide enough for wagons to enter and turn around. At present, posts marked out what would eventually be all the accouterments of a successful inn: the smithy, the stable, storage for fodder, and so on. Already stone walls supported a bracken thatch in one corner, where a gate led out the far end.

  “Cow byre,” Lady Tolmaric said, pointing. “Smith’s still working outside, but we’ll have a roof on by winter. Set all the posts now—they’re mostly set—and we can enclose more of the outbuildings.”

  “You need a mill,” Kieri said. “Both for grain and for lumber. Is there a swift stream nearby?”

  “Yes, sir king. And we’ve a plan but no time yet to build it.”

  “I don’t think you need my advice, but I’d make the mill next after you get a roof—even a simple one—on those outbuildings.”

  “We want to, sir king, but right now they’re building mills near the port. I couldn’t find someone who knew how to set up the mill to turn a stone or move a saw.”

  “Perhaps I can help with that,” Kieri said. “Do you have a name for your inn yet?”

  She flushed again, and tears rose in her eyes. “I wanted to name it for Salvon, but it didn’t sound right: Salvon’s Inn. Travelers won’t know who he is.”

  “Your innkeeper could tell them,” Kieri said. “But why not Salvon’s Hope? He wanted to build an inn, didn’t he?”

  “Yes … yes, that’s right. Thank you, sir king!”

  At the next meal, Kieri met the whole group of them—Lady Tolmaric, the eldest Tolmaric son and daughter, the two farm families. The kitchen was big enough to cook for a small army; they ate around the worktables, silently at first and then talking more freely as they became used to Kieri and his Squires. Only Lady Tolmaric and her daughter had been as far from home as a river town; her account of city life was the only one they knew. Kieri told them of Vérella and Valdaire and Fin Panir—legends to them.

  “This will seem a poor place, then,” Lady Tolmaric said, waving her hand at the room.

  “Not at all,” Kieri said. “It’s going to be a very successful inn, I’m sure, and you will make improvements as you have time and income. Your plan is excellent; right now you lack materials and workers to do more than the good start you’ve given it.”

  “We’re thinkin’ we can provision it from the farm, sir king,” said one of the men.

  “You probably can,” Kieri said.

  “How many people will we need to run the inn?” Lady Tolmaric asked. “The inns in Chaya were so full, they said they had extra staff, and they didn’t really have time to talk to me.”

  “Minimum,” Kieri said, thinking of the little inn far away in Duke’s East, “you need cooking staff: a good cook and at least two helpers. You need common room staff—if it’s not busy, cook’s helpers can serve customers food there, but if it gets busy, you’ll need some just for that. Someone at the bar—you’ll have drunks to deal with, so that one must be strong and steady. You’ll need a guard or two, as well, once you start filling up. Upstairs—someone to clean the rooms, light fires in those rooms with fireplaces. Someone to wash linens. Stable staff to care for your animals and those of travelers and keep them from stealing all the fodder.”

  “They would?” Lady Tolmaric asked.

  “They do,” Kieri said. “Most travelers are honest enough, but every inn attracts thieves as well. They’ll make off with whatever they can carry, and without paying if they can. Collect the money first, and guard it closely. Make sure the blankets are still on the beds, the mugs—” He gestured at the table. “—still in the rooms. Better yet, let them use their own in the rooms or come down to eat and drink. Travelers often carry their
own.”

  “We don’t want thieves and such,” one of the men said.

  “Of course not, but you can’t have an inn and not have some of them. Be firm and fair from the very first and you’ll have less trouble.” He fished in his belt pouch and laid a gold coin on the table. “Even the king should pay his way: I will set the example. You have stated no price, but this would cover the room and board for me and my Squires and our horses overnight. Will that suit?”

  “You mustn’t,” Lady Tolmaric said, going red and teary-eyed again. “You’ve done so much—”

  “The inn must pay its way,” Kieri said. “Let it start now, with the king’s gold Tree.” He smiled at them all. “I am pleased with all of you for your initiative and your work; I want this inn to succeed. So I will pay, and you will allow it.”

  Mutters of “Yes, sir king” and “As the king wills” went around the table. Two fat tears ran down Lady Tolmaric’s red cheeks; she wiped them away with her sleeve and nodded. “I cannot thank you enough—”

  “Except by thriving,” Kieri said.

  He slept well that night, and the next day they rode on, taking Lady Tolmaric with them, to see what progress had been made at the port.

  It looked, in fact, like a huge muddy mess. A great swathe of forest cut down, a broad ditch of muddy water leading out to the river, and rows of tree trunks sticking out of the muck that remained.

  “But those aren’t trees,” a foreman explained to Kieri. He was a Pargunese Kieri had hired with Torfinn’s help, a man who had helped maintain the Pargunese port and sailed around to Aarenis on Pargunese ships. He spoke Common with a strong accent but was understandable. “They’re sections of tree, pounded in as deep as we can make ’em. That’s to put the buildings above the spring floods. Might be better if we had stones enough, but we don’t. Wood quays will do for now. Had to make it wide enough for ships to pass, and we’d really like a turning basin—but if we want any kind of port by next trade season, that’ll have to wait.”

  “How’s the port over on your side?” Kieri asked.

  “They’re working on it.” The man spat into the mud. “Fire didn’t hurt the structure itself but took ships and buildings. We had stone, y’ see.” He looked out at the construction site. “Two ports won’t hurt trade at all, my lord. It doesn’t at the Immer mouth, does it? More room for ships, more ships come. We don’t have the ships now, so it’ll be waiting for others to come to us.”

  “Are you also a shipwright?”

  “No. I’ve a straight eye, not one for wave-shapes.” He looked around. “This won’t look such a mess by freeze-up, sir king. And come spring break-up, you’ll have a place for ships.”

  When he left the port site, Kieri traveled on to the Honnorgat and then up it, along the rough track that ran from river village to river village. Riverwash, upstream, had grown again, with trade coming in from Tsaia. It looked raw and unfinished, but the stone foundations of some buildings had survived the scathefire, and those already bore new structures atop. Here he intercepted a Royal Courier from Tsaia with a letter from Arcolin and another from the Marshal-General, as well as a long one from Mikeli.

  Arcolin’s letter was much as he’d expected: Alured the Black almost certainly had the missing necklace and was believed to have captured one of Andressat’s sons. Unrest was growing in the south, and Arcolin thought a move might be made along the north road.

  The Marshal-General’s came as a surprise. Elves in Fin Panir? Demanding that enchanted magelords in the far west be removed? He recalled something about them, but not any details. The appearance of magery in the peasantry was not as surprising. He had half expected news of this sort since Beclan had shown magery. The Marshal-General had convened a special council to discuss this—well, that made sense.

  Mikeli revealed that his brother was now showing magery—he had waited to tell his neighbor king only, he said, because he had awaited the Marshal-General’s ruling on it—but he had not yet told his Council. He wrote at length about the steps he’d taken to keep Camwyn’s magery secret and why, and without actually asking for advice, he hinted that he would be glad of it.

  Kieri determined to find Amrothlin and ask him about the western elves—perhaps he knew something about the magelords in their cave or whatever it was.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  If that pirate could sail up the river,” Arian said, “could he not march inland across Prealíth or even come over the mountains here—you said there were other passes—instead of at Valdaire? Without the Lady—without the elvenhome—who will watch the borders east and south?”

  Kieri scratched his head, sweaty from an extra session in the salle. “He could indeed. I’ve been thinking about that, too. We need more rangers; I can take some from the north and west, since Pargun and Tsaia aren’t a problem now, but not all of them.”

  “I’ve always wondered what it was like, the deep elvenhome we couldn’t enter. The elves claimed it was the most beautiful, but the forest near here is beautiful.”

  “We should go look,” Kieri said. “I don’t even know where the border with Fintha is or what kind of border watch the Sea-Prince keeps. I wish I’d had more time to talk with him when he came for the wedding.”

  “He didn’t seem eager for that,” Arian said. “He left the very next day after the wedding, you recall.”

  “Yes, but I thought that was because his elven escort wanted to get him back through the Ladysforest.” He sighed. “I just can’t believe it’s gone, after all the ages the elves lived there and nourished it. The taig here feels no different. We should go look, Arian. I want to preserve as much as possible, and I can’t do that if I don’t know what it is.”

  “I agree,” she said. “But we can’t both leave; if trouble comes to Tsaia, one of us must be here. You should go; I had my long trip earlier, and I’d just as soon stay here.” She set her hands over the bulge of her pregnancy, now clear to see.

  The transition from the forest open to humans to the formerly closed Ladysforest was immediately obvious as Kieri crossed that line. Though Kieri had thought the Lyonyan forest astonishing when he first saw it, the Ladysforest, even without the Lady, had a magical quality. The taig here had additional layers of complexity, a rich confidence, that he had not felt before.

  As he rode on, the enchantment grew. Here was beauty such as he had never imagined let alone seen. Nothing at all like the clipped and tended gardens of men … no obvious design … except that everywhere he looked the forest seemed both completely natural and artfully designed, every detail perfect. The trees rose around him, boles as heavy as the inner ring of the King’s Grove but even taller. Sunlight pierced the canopy in flickering shafts, each picking out a detail: a leaf here, a flower there, a tiny perfect mushroom growing from the bole of a great tree, a frond of fern poised gracefully at the verge of a tiny waterfall. He felt the immensity of its age and the freshness of each leaf and flower. Everything made a pattern … patterns in patterns, and all the patterns made beauty. Yet he saw no sign of artifice. Nothing needed trimming; there was never too much of this or too little of that.

  It came to him that this had been achieved not by the tools of men, by steel or stone … but by song alone. This was the work of the Sinyi, their proper work. Every living thing here throve, fully healthy; every living thing achieved its full beauty. Surely this was still the elvenhome as it had been. He wondered why the elves didn’t recognize it.

  Ahead, through the trees, he could see more light and rode toward it, noticing as he did how the trees formed a colonnade and framed a view as he came near enough to see it. A glade, open to the sky, spangled with flowers, the air alive with wings—butterflies, orange and red and gold and white. In the center, a small pool reflected the sky, fed—he saw as he neared it—by a spring below. A single flowering tree arched over it, fragrant white blossoms glowing in the sun. One petal, then another drifted down to the water and sailed slowly across and then along the rivulet that ran out the
other side.

  Kieri’s throat felt tight. The beauty was overwhelming, as the Lady’s had been when he first saw her. Beyond mortal … and yet surely the trees died, and the ferns … or had the elves sung them into immortality? He did not know … He felt he wanted to breathe in forever, taking the beauty into himself, and then exhale a song to sustain it.

  He rode on across the glade and into the forest again … the forest ever changing with the rise and fall of the ground, the different trees, the variation in the lower growth. He came upon streams gurgling gently over gravel or rushing loudly down rapids. Sorrow came upon him after a time, that his mother and grandmother were not there so he could thank them for this beauty.

  When the light faded, he stopped; his Squires, respecting his mood, made their simple camp in silence. When they would have lit a fire, he shook his head. They ate cold rations. He dreaded the need to dig … but found that the ground opened a little of itself to receive their waste and then closed over again. He wondered at that—if the elvenhome was truly gone, how could that happen?

  They were several days into the journey when he stopped suddenly. His throat closed; his sight dimmed; pain tightened his chest. He struggled to see past the darkness … The way here descended gently through trees more widely spaced. Ahead was another glade. He dragged a breath in, and as his sight cleared, he knew.

  “It was here,” he said aloud, startling himself with his voice.

  “Sir king?”

  He could not answer. He could not move. Memory rushed over him, powerful as a river. As if in a dream, he was that child again, delighted in the beauty they rode through, unaware of danger—until his mother cried out. He had turned in the saddle to look at her—she had snatched him from his mount to hers. That instant’s delay in drawing her sword … his adult self saw what his child self could not, that he had hindered her even after she dragged him over the saddle bow.