Limits of Power

by Elizabeth Moon

  He even left off wearing his sword when he walked up the hill to the scribes’ hall in the mornings. Few people in Fin Panir wore swords in the city. It was not against the Code, but it was just another burden to carry and awkward at his desk. He felt naked the first time he went out without it, but nothing happened. He still took it to drill nights, as he was now instructing yeomen who wanted to learn that weapon. His cloak, its many pockets full of blades and tools, he folded into a box and kept under his bed; it was, he told himself, too hot to wear in the late summer heat. Only the knife in its thin sheath under his heart-hand shirtsleeve and the useful dagger everyone wore remained.

  Drill with his group in the grange kept him fit; what he was learning as a scribe and as a student of Girdish law satisfied his need to learn and understand. He still found the bluntness, the lack of elegance, a bit boring. But … it was also comforting, as his friendship with Regar had been. To be accepted by ordinary men and women—to be admired for what he knew but not feared—was pleasant indeed.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  Ifoss, Aarenis

  Arcolin finished the day’s report just as Burek came to his tent.

  “Captain, there’s a fellow out at the gate who says he knows you and must speak with you. From Horngard, he says.”

  Arcolin’s stomach lurched. “Horngard? Did he give a name?”

  “No, Captain. That’s why I made him wait outside the camp. Or I can bring him myself. He’s armed, but not like us. A short thrusting spear and a short curved blade. Do you think he’s one of Alured’s men?”

  “From Horngard? Unlikely.” Not even Siniava had attacked Horngard, though he had taken Pliuni and threatened that mountain kingdom. “I’ll see him,” he said. “Bring him here.”

  “Leave his weapons outside the gate, sir, or outside the command area?”

  “Let him retain them.”

  Burek gave him a startled glance, then turned and went back out. Arcolin grimaced, then went to the back of the tent, to his private room, and opened the little casket he had bought for his few treasures when he left Halveric Company to become Kieri Phelan’s first captain. Gold gleamed in the light that came through the tent canvas: a heavy torc, a wide bracelet, earrings. He opened a small leather bag and shook a ring into his palm. Gold like the others, but with a dragon’s head on one side. Arcolin put it on, just in case, but turned the dragon’s head inward, also just in case. It could not be, but … just in case. He left the earrings, the torc, and the bracelet in the casket, then pulled out his dagger and stared at it a moment. His father’s parting gift, it bore the family crest on the hilt, hidden under the thick leather wrapping he’d put over it.

  Kieri had understood family troubles, estrangement, a flight in the night. He had never asked more than that. Arcolin felt sure Kieri had known there was more than that, but in all the years he’d never asked. “Somewhere in the Westmounts,” he’d told Kieri, as he’d told Aliam Halveric, and that was true. “Some little place you’ve never heard of,” he’d told Kieri, which was not true. His heart had twisted when he’d said that. It twisted now. It was hard to remember why he’d lied.

  What to do. He must see the fellow, hear what he had to say. But he was Count of the North Marches now, a vassal of Tsaia’s king, prince of a tribe of gnomes, and—not least—commander of Fox Company under contract to Foss Council.

  Whatever the problem was, it could not be his problem.

  He looked around his sleeping chamber again, pushing the casket a little more under his bed, and then went back to the front room of the tent.

  “Captain,” Burek said from outside.

  Arcolin squared his shoulders and came out. A travel-stained man in a kilt, a square-necked shirt, a wide belt, and low boots stood slightly behind Burek. He had the mountain face: long and bony, a prominent nose, a wide mouth now firmly closed. His hair—dark and streaked with gray—hung in a long braid over one shoulder; his gray eyes roamed over Arcolin as if looking for a sign and paused on his hands, but the plain gold band told nothing unless he could see through the finger. The Fox Company seal on the next finger told more. Arcolin did not recognize him.

  “You are Jandelir Arcolin?” the man asked. His voice, unlike his face, was instantly recognizable: Samdal, his father’s Chancellor’s son, who had been his companion in many a mischief those years ago. “You have some of the look of him.”

  “I’m Jandelir Arcolin,” Arcolin said, nodding. “And you’re Samdal, are you not? Veldan’s son?”

  “Yes. It is you, then. We were not sure. We had heard of you over the years, but you were with that redheaded Tsaian duke, Phelan. And now you’re the commander?” He looked around. “Where is Phelan?”

  “He is king of Lyonya now, in the north,” Arcolin said. “I command this company, on contract to Foss Council. In the north, I’m titled Count of the North Marches, oathsworn to Mikeli, king of Tsaia.” He had a place and name, that meant; he fit into the loom of society like any other length of yarn. He would not mention gnomes to Samdal. Or dragons. Least of all dragons.

  Samdal bowed low. “You have been gone too long, my lord. It is time for the son of the mountains to serve the mountains and the flame.” It sounded like a formula, but he had not heard it before.

  “I am not a lord to you, ’Dal, and never have been. Surely you remember that.” The fact of his own bastardy stood between them; Samdal had been his playmate but also ranked above him.

  “Before your father and your brothers died, that was true. But now, my lord, you are. Did you not know?”

  “I knew my father had died, and my eldest brother. But not the others, and Galdalir had sons. I cannot be heir.” Not now, not after so many years. Not as a bastard. Surely his brothers had sired sons.

  “My lord, misfortune followed your family as rain follows thunder, and washed them away. If you had not left—if you had sought word—”

  “And why would I?” Arcolin asked, struggling to keep his voice even. “You know the circumstances of my leaving. I was not wanted, but as Perdal’s servant.” The old bitterness dried his mouth. “Should I have stayed for that? And if I had, would you now think me anything but a servant, worn out in his service as I would have been?”

  “You chose northern taint and a foreign god, Jandelir. You could have busied yourself in Aarenis at least. Valdaire, perhaps—”

  “I have spent most of my working life in Aarenis—every campaign season and many winters—and no one ever came to me.” What he’d learned of his family had been merchants’ gossip, scant enough. He had not expected better of them, but he had hoped.

  “That may be true, my lord, but they thought you no longer cared. Should they seek a runaway?” In that Arcolin heard the same arrogance that had sent him away. “And besides,” Samdal went on, “I can see what they could not: the man you have become. You were Camwyn’s child first, fire-begotten. Your father knew that; I know he gave you marks of heritage.” Another glance at the ring. “What is a northern dirt-farmer like Gird to such as you? Is not the scent of dragon on you even now?”

  Arcolin tried not to shudder visibly. Samdal could not tell, he was sure, and yet Samdal was of the old blood in the Westmounts … and he himself certainly had touched a dragon. Legend had it that such things were possible; the dragon could have left its scent on him, and Samdal might have the Kingfinder’s ability to detect it. He wondered if his gnome subjects could. “I am a mercenary and a peer in the north,” he said to Samdal. “That is who I am now.”

  Samdal shook his head. “You do not understand, and I scarcely understand you. Please, my lord, listen to me and then answer.”

  Arcolin sighed inwardly. He could not imagine himself returning to Horngard, but he did want to know what had happened. “Come into my tent, then,” he said. Inside, Samdal looked around at the furniture, the hangings, the rugs—all Kieri’s originally. To the guard outside Arcolin said, “Ask the cook for a platter, and fetch a bottle of wine.” To Samdal he said, “Sit down; w
e will share bread and salt and wine. But understand: after all these hands of years, I have oaths and duties elsewhere. My king, Mikeli of Tsaia, depends on me to defend the realm at need. My former commander is now the king of Lyonya, as I said; he no longer holds my oath, but he holds my respect, and my king considers him an ally. This Company—three hundred strong in Aarenis with more in the north—is my responsibility as well. So whatever it is you want, beyond my well-wishing to you and to Horngard, it is too late.”

  “Is that what you learned in foreign places?” Samdal glanced around once more, then sat where Arcolin had indicated, stiffly upright as a judge. “That duty long deferred is no longer duty? All this luxury, my lord, has softened you.”

  Arcolin felt a rush of anger. He could scarcely believe that Samdal would insult him so. “If you think me soft, then you will agree I am unfit for the task you propose.”

  “No. Merely in need of persuasion.” Samdal set his hands on his knees and began in the old tongue Arcolin had first learned as a child, in the cadence of one relating a legend. “In the days of your fathers, time and time before, Dragon granted your forefather Camwyn two boons. One was the high pass of Horngard for a stronghold, with the dwarf-delved caverns that made it defensible. One was the touch of Dragon to the King, tongue to tongue, that made Camwyn the man Camwyn Dragonsfriend, founder of the House of Dragon. This you were told: do you remember?”

  Arcolin remembered, but had not thought of that legend when meeting the dragon himself. He had touched the dragon tongue to tongue—but surely that did not make him a king. Kieri and Kieri’s betrothed—now his wife, no doubt—had done the same, and so had Stammel. And Mikeli of Tsaia and his brother the prince. “I do remember,” he said aloud, “but it is now many years since a dragon sealed that ancient bond. It is the tongue of the dragon statue in the King’s Hall that my father touched with his, and my brothers as well, I presume.”

  “True. But that does not mean dragons will never return. And you—if you told me that you had touched Dragon himself, I would believe you.”

  “Why?” Arcolin asked.

  “There’s something. Your eyes. The scent—though I can see you have a forge here, it’s not forge fire I smell on you, but dragon-fire.”

  Arcolin’s hand clenched on the dragonhead of the ring he’d put on. “So … tell me what you must. I make no promises.”

  One of the men came in then with wine, pitcher, wooden cups, and another with a platter of bread, cheese, and sliced meat. They set them on the table and—at Arcolin’s nod—poured the wine. Then they left.

  The story Samdal told surprised Arcolin except for Perdal’s death: dying by someone’s blade in a quarrel over a gambling throw seemed appropriate for what he remembered of his least favorite half-brother.

  “He’d gone soft, you see,” Samdal said. “Been too long a prince, waiting … and he was not a man to thrive on idleness. Oh, he went to the fighting circle now and then, but he wouldn’t listen to his brothers and he always liked his table.”

  And his jug, as Arcolin remembered well. Perdal had been a heavy drinker by the time Arcolin left, though back then he had sweated out much of it in the circle and other active sports.

  “And now, my lord, Dragon’s come again.”

  “What?”

  “Yes, my lord. Been seen over the mountains. And Camwyn as well: the dragonfriend with the smell of Dragon on him.”

  Camwyn Dragonsfriend, or that shape-shifting Dragon himself? Arcolin motioned for Samdal to go on with his tale.

  “There’s none of Camwyn’s blood to do it but you,” Samdal said. “Dragon’s a sign that someone must come, must renew the bond. You’d have made a better prince than Perdal; everyone saw that, even back then. You’re a man full grown now, experienced in command and in ruling a domain. And descended from Camwyn himself…”

  “But I’m oathsworn elsewhere,” Arcolin said again. “I cannot make bond with the dragon and the people if I break my oath somewhere else.” He said it as if explaining it to Samdal and not to convince himself.

  Samdal’s expression did not alter. “None there is of the dragon’s house. What does it matter?”

  “It matters to me,” Arcolin said. “And to the gods, I’m sure, and to Camwyn Dragonsfriend, who was no oathbreaker. If—” He clamped his teeth on the rest of that. If they had come to him while he was still Kieri’s captain, hands of years ago, if he had asked Kieri’s advice, as he so often did, Kieri would have freed him from that oath. Kieri might have told him to go back to Horngard, and then—he would have gone.

  To return in triumph: was that not every exile’s dream? It had been his once. He would show them; he would prove himself; they would be sorry … and now they were, but now he was not a runaway with no name. Now he carried a title, lands of his own. He had his own bond with a dragon—a different dragon, maybe, though who could tell?

  He had to tell Samdal, he realized then. Only a dragon’s bond would convince the man. Maybe.

  “If,” Samdal said, picking up Arcolin’s last word. “If you were not oathbound to your king?”

  “And if I were not already oathbound to a dragon,” Arcolin said. Samdal’s jaw dropped; he shut it with a snap and said nothing. “You were right to say I had the smell of dragon on me,” Arcolin went on. “And yes, I have touched tongue to a dragon’s tongue—not a statue of a dragon, but a dragon himself. I do not know if it is the same dragon, and the dragon said nothing about my past, or about Horngard.”

  “But then—but you must be—”

  “The dragon came to me in my northern stronghold,” Arcolin said. “It was a matter of—” What could he say, how much could he reveal without risking secrets the dragon did not want known? “A matter of land,” he went on. “It demanded land which I held from the king of Tsaia.”

  “Why did it not come to us? We are the dragons’ kin, through Camwyn—”

  “I do not know,” Arcolin said. “You know the legends as well as I. We do not question dragons’ reasons, do we?”

  “No. No, of course not.”

  “It came to me because those lands were granted me by my king—part of my domain.” Arcolin skipped over everything about dragonspawn, gnomes, treachery. “And in return it granted me a boon. I asked its aid for one of my sergeants, who had been blinded in an attack by a—” He thought how to say it. Samdal would know nothing of Verrakaien—he hoped. “A demon,” he said finally. He could see the questions clustering in Samdal’s gaze and hurried on. “It was then it asked me to touch tongues with it, and I did.”

  “Have you seen it since?”

  “Once,” Arcolin said. “It came with word my sergeant wanted to retire, and it said it had found him a good place. It said nothing, either time, about my being heir to Horngard’s throne, or Horngard’s need of me, or that our bond related to that bond.” As Samdal opened his mouth to speak, Arcolin held up his hand to forestall him. “What we know of dragons—what our legends say of dragons—whether this was the same dragon you saw or not—it would have known, it would have told me, if it had been Dragon’s Will that I return to Horngard.” He realized, in that moment, a vanished hope hidden deep in his heart when the dragon revealed itself, that it had indeed come with such purpose, but he had not allowed himself to be aware of it then.

  And that—that alone—meant he lacked the kingliness he had once believed lay in himself. “And I know it touched tongue with others,” he told Samdal. “With the king of Lyonya and his queen, with my king, Mikeli of Tsaia, and his younger brother, the prince.” The prince … Camwyn … that thought flared in his mind. Was that just a coincidence? Or could it mean something more? Where had the Mahieran family come from when they came from the south?

  “But you—my lord, you are heir to a throne yourself; your king will surely release you, when he knows that. Did he not release your former duke? Then he will release you. You are our king. You must be.”

  “Should one who takes oaths be one who breaks them? Can an oathb
reaker hold oaths and give fealty back where it is given him? I tell you plainly, Samdal, I am not your king. There is a reason the gods placed me where they did.” Samdal’s hot eyes did not change expression. Arcolin went on. “This is not resentment, Samdal; this is not anger or pride. It is the truth of who I am: I am a soldier. That is all. I serve my king here, as I serve him in the north; my troops and my body will stand between any southern menace and Tsaia in the north. I will not break my oath, or ask for it to be released.”

  “But you must—there is no other—”

  “There is always another,” Arcolin said. He turned the ring on his finger so the dragon crest was outward, held it long enough for Samdal to see, then wrestled it off his finger. “You knew I had taken my father’s gift, the bastard’s ring he gave me in case of any need. I give it to you, to take to the Chancellor of Horngard; I have kept it from dishonor all these years. You will find a true king for Horngard; it is not my task. Though I might suggest some places to look.”

  “There are no more of your father’s get or your grandfather’s…”

  “There were the daughters—”

  “Women cannot be dragons’ get—”

  “Their sons—”

  “I tell you there are none!” Samdal shook his head at the offered ring. “Only you.”

  “There is Andressat,” Arcolin said. “He and his family follow Camwyn; he has good sons and grandsons.”