Crown of Renewal

by Elizabeth Moon

  In the treasury, Dorrin eyed the now-scorched chest with dismay. It looked a little smaller than it had been, but perhaps that was the effect of the charred surface.

  When she put her hand on it, the crown spoke to her: Take me.

  “I have come to take you home,” Dorrin said aloud. The box trembled under her hand; the wood groaned, then splintered—a more violent opening than ever before. The king flinched and jumped back. Not only the surface had charred; the black penetrated to within a finger’s thickness of the interior. The regalia, in the jeweled casket and various wrappings, floated into her hands.

  Dorrin glanced toward the door; she hoped the guards had not heard. How was she supposed to get all this out of the treasury and the palace and through the public streets of the city unseen? She could stuff her pockets with the smaller pieces in the casket, but the crown and chalice were too big for that. As well, the jewels of the casket might be important.

  Yes. Bring it.

  And what about the half-burnt chest? It looked as if thieves had hacked at it, splinters sticking out of the opening. Someone would surely notice that.

  The king raised his brows. “I should have thought of bringing a traveling container.”

  “If you want my taking it to be secret, we’ll need more than my cloak to wrap it in. But if the point is to end the threat of thieves coming here to steal them, why make it a secret that I’m taking them?”

  “I … thought only to make your departure with them less perilous for you. I was going to let it be known later that the jewels had been moved to someplace remote.”

  “Perhaps say for now that you asked me, as the only one who could, to remove the jewels from an insecure container, perhaps to find one more secure.”

  “I suppose.”

  “Or—what about a double switch? Think of something other than these I might take from here at your behest. Something your Constable would have reason to use. References relating to the Crown levies, for instance, or military engagements.”

  “The library,” he said. “I know just the thing. Duke Elorran’s reports from the time of the first to seventh dukes. The seventh was killed in the Girdish War. I’ve been looking at them because of their location.”

  “Good,” Dorrin said. “We’ll need a box or bag that can be left here, supposedly containing these … and then something to carry them—and those reports.”

  “I’ll send for them both,” the king said, and went to the door. Dorrin set the elements of the regalia down on the one table, unfolded her cloak, and set them on it. The crown rose a little; she pushed it down. “Patience,” she said to it. “Not long—we leave this place soon.”

  Light poured from the crown for an instant. She folded her cloak over it.

  The king came back to her. “I’ve sent for a box to rehouse the jewels,” he said, making no effort to lower his voice. “And while we wait, I sent to the librarians for those documents I spoke of. I’m particularly interested in your opinion of the archery formerly practiced here.”

  Just then the a palace functionary—the Seneschal’s assistant, she remembered—bustled in, holding a box, a small hammer, and a sack. “Sir king! You wanted a box? Is this the right size? And Duke Verrakai! You as well? Oh—the chest—! It’s open!”

  “Quietly,” the king said. “What are you doing here, Porchal?”

  “The Seneschal sent me. One of the guards came to him for a box, and the Seneschal sent me—” Porchal frowned. “I don’t understand—why is Duke Verrakai hiding something under her cloak? How did she open the chest? Was she stealing them back?”

  “No, she is not a thief,” the king said, his voice edged. “I brought her here. I felt those things were not safe in a damaged chest and asked her to open it for me, since no one here could.”

  Porchal still scowled. “Well, but—what will you do with them? She can’t take them away; they’re Crown property now.”

  “What do you think I needed a box for?” the king asked. “She will repack them. Meanwhile, I had also sent to the library for some documents I wish the Duke to take with her this evening and examine at length. Go to the library and find out the delay. Oh—and the Duke will need something to carry the documents in to and from her residence. Bring some of the large courier bags.”

  Porchal’s mouth hung open, then closed with a snap. “So … the box with the regalia will be kept here?”

  “Yes, of course,” the king said. “You are excused—I want those documents; the day wanes.”

  “Yes, sir king.” Porchal bustled away, reminding Dorrin of a beetle.

  “Now,” the king said. He opened the box Porchal had brought; it had hinges and a hasp for its lid. Inside the box was a lock with its key inserted. In the sack were nails.

  Quickly, he and Dorrin found another box—small and heavy—and put it in the one Porchal had brought. Dorrin nailed down the lid; the king snapped the lock into the hasp, and they carried it to a back corner, surrounded by boxes of exotic spices and woods. When Porchal returned with one of the librarians, both laden with documents and a courier bag, the regalia were tucked within a furl of rose brocade, and Dorrin’s cloak, clearly not hiding anything, was spread flat on the table to protect the documents.

  The king took one of the old books and opened it, turning a few pages until he found what he wanted. “Ah. Here. You’ll want to compare with your records, but see the troop components in the third duke’s time … That would be about a hundred years—maybe more—after the first duke was established.”

  Dorrin leaned over to look. Mikeli stepped back, then said to the librarian, “The duke will need to remove these from the palace tonight; she has other documents at Verrakai House. She will return them before leaving the city.”

  The librarian looked doubtful, but under the king’s gaze she said nothing and finally bowed and backed away.

  “Longbows,” Dorrin said, aware of Porchal still standing there watching. “That’s surprising.” Instead of writing, she saw a row of sketched figures, all with drawn bows. She hadn’t looked at other records that old except in Verrakai’s own archives. “I wonder what they used for bowstaves.”

  “Exactly,” Mikeli said. “Now here—in the next one—” He reached past her to close the volume she had just seen and opened another. Dorrin glanced over and saw that the librarian had already left the room. Porchal, however, was all too interested. She looked back at the book the king had opened. “This is a generation or two later. Crossbows, you see. That implies to me that Tsaia used to have a quantity of bow wood. Duke Arcolin told me the Aarenisians use only crossbows, so these would not have been made in the south and brought north. You’re sure you have no blackwood trees in your domain?”

  “I haven’t seen every single tree,” Dorrin said, “but I don’t know of any. And on the trail through western Lyonya that I’ve ridden, I saw no blackwood trees near the border.”

  The king looked at Porchal. “Are you still here? We have no more need of you, Porchal. Return to the Seneschal and your other duties.” He turned back to Dorrin. “We need more archers,” Mikeli said, “if an invasion comes. King Kieri has told me of the greater rate of fire of longbows. With that mess in Fintha—” He shook his head, making it easy for him to see Porchal, who was moving only slowly toward the door. “So I want you to compare your records and see if you can figure out what they used for longbow staves and if there’s enough to fit out a longbow unit.”

  “Do you have forestry reports from other domains?”

  “Yes. That’s how I got this from Elorran. You’re taking some of his excess farmers, aren’t you?”

  “Indeed. The first ones are already settled; I passed more on the way here.”

  “Good. And now I know you are road-weary, so I’ll let you take these things and get some rest. You said you had business in Vérella as well, so shall we say day after tomorrow? I don’t expect you to have answers by then, but we have other things to discuss.” He grinned at her; Porchal had start
ed down the stairs across the passage from the treasury.

  “Certainly, sir king,” Dorrin said. She retrieved the regalia from between the folds of brocade and slid them and the books into the leather bags. She put on her cloak and slung a courier bag from each shoulder. Mikeli led the way out and assigned one of his guard to escort her down to the palace entrance. “Carry that for you, m’lord?” the young man asked when the king had turned one way and they another.

  “No, thank you,” Dorrin said. “I’ve got them balanced now.” At the palace entrance, Dorrin tied the bags to her saddle, mounted, and rode out into the street.

  The cloudy day had darkened early; torches burned bright at the palace entrance and the gate to the street. Dorrin rode back to Verrakai House, but instead of going to the front door, where torches also burned, she turned down the dark, narrow lane to the stable gate. Once in the stableyard she could carry the bags into the house without being observed. Busy with her thoughts, she did not see the attackers until her horse flung up its head and snorted. One grabbed for the reins; the other tried to push her off the horse with a pole.

  Dorrin leaned back, shoved the pole upright with one hand, and drew her sword. Her horse, battle-trained, crouched and jumped forward; she heard the crack of a breaking bone and a cry as it landed. The one with the pole tried again, but Dorrin ducked, thrust under the pole, and the attacker dropped the pole and fell. She heard footsteps coming into the lane behind her; she lifted the reins, clucked, and her horse reared, turned, and charged toward the street, knocking down the third attacker.

  The noise had attracted a city watchman and two Royal Guardsmen riding back to their own stable from the palace. The watchman broke into a run, calling for aid; the Guardsmen reined their horses toward her. “Halt!” one of them cried. “Stop, thief!”

  “I’m Verrakai!” Dorrin said. “Give aid!”

  “My lord Duke! Pardon, my lord. What happened?”

  “I was attacked in that lane,” Dorrin said. “Three of them.”

  “Bring torches!” one of the Royal Guards called to the watch.

  Dorrin rode to her own front door, where her housewards and escort now peered out to see what was happening. “Secure the stableyard,” she said to her escort. “Who was on watch out there?”

  “Meldall, my lord.”

  “Find him. He may be hurt. And one of you hold my horse here until the lane is clear.” She dismounted. “What happened, my lord?”

  “Later.” She had the courier bags in her arms now. “I must get these upstairs; when the watch or the Royal Guard ask for me, tell them I’ll be down again shortly.”

  She paused on the upper landing of the stairs. Blood magery had been done in this house; despite having cleared out all the traps, all the signs of Liartian practice she knew about … could she have missed something? Would the regalia be safe?

  Yes.

  That was clear enough. She laid the bags on the worktable in what had been her uncle’s study, pulled the books out, and left the bags in an untidy pile with the regalia still inside.

  Downstairs, a Royal Guard officer awaited her. “My lord Duke, we need to inspect your stables—I know you have your own men there, but we found thief marks on the gate and signs of someone having been in the stable itself.”

  “The house door was locked, my lord, as you said it should always be,” one of her escort said. “We heard nothing inside.”

  “Did you find the thieves?” Dorrin asked the Guard captain.

  “Yes, my lord. One dead—your mount trampled him—and one near dead from a sword thrust and a third caught as he tried to run.”

  “My lord—” One of her people interrupted. “Meldall—we found him in the feed room—”

  “Alive?”

  “Yes, my lord. A big lump on his head, but he’s breathing, and since we soused him with cold water he’s waked.”

  At least none of her people had died. She clung to that through the turmoil of the Guard’s search of the stable and yard, the questions from watch and Guard captains, the arrival of a messenger from the king wanting to know if she was safe, and the questions from her own people.

  By the time she finally finished with the Guard captain, the city watch, her own escort … she was exhausted and hungry and very glad she’d left Gwenno at Marrakai House. She put the regalia in its bag under her bed that night and slept uneasily, waking every time a board creaked.

  Next day, Dorrin set about the legal formalities of transferring her property to her heir and releasing her two squires from the agreements that bound them. She was uneasily aware that doing so admitted more and more people to the very secret she and the king wanted to keep: that she was leaving the kingdom on a long journey.

  Of course her man of business was supposed to be discreet, but how discreet was he, really? Some of the necessary documents required witnesses. Then there was her banker. And her housewards and the servants. And the witnesses to the events of the previous evening. All the palace staff, for that matter. Once it became known she was leaving the kingdom, anyone with sense would suspect she had come for the crown and other jewels and was taking them somewhere.

  She sent a note to the Serrostin town house before going to meet with her man of business; a Serrostin servant came to her there with a note from the Duke. Dorrin looked at it and scribbled another, accepting an invitation to lunch with the Duke and his lady.

  “How is my scamp of a son?” Duke Serrostin asked as she came in the door. He had long since given over his anger about Daryan’s Kuakkgani healing.

  “He’s doing very well,” Dorrin said, handing her cloak to a servant. The Serrostin house was only a short distance from the Marrakai town residence. “He’s still growing.”

  Lady Serrostin appeared from a back passage. “Come all the way through, Duke Verrakai. We usually have lunch in the back garden in fine weather like this.”

  Once they were seated in the small back garden, Lady Serrostin said, “Galyan tells me you want to talk about Daryan’s squire contract. Is something wrong?”

  “The king has given me a task that requires me to be away from my domain for a considerable time,” Dorrin said. “I will not be able to fulfill my part of the contract. Daryan has done nothing wrong—he has, in fact, done everything asked of him.”

  “So—you think he should come home?”

  “I think he needs another year or two as a squire before he enters knightly training,” Dorrin said. “Though he has matured greatly since he came to me, he is still the youngest of the three and has not reached his full growth.”

  “Do you think he can make knight, with … with everything?” Serrostin asked.

  “In time, certainly. His sword-hand has strength now to manage a light blade and in time will be stronger. As I wrote, his left hand has grown a thumb, though it is still rather sticklike and not as strong as the other. He walks, rides, and dances with grace and no pain. He wants to continue his training.”

  “I don’t know,” Serrostin said. He looked at his wife.

  “I had an idea,” Dorrin said. “Duke Arcolin might agree to take a squire who could serve under his recruit captain in the north. Daryan’s not old enough to go to Aarenis—”

  “Certainly not!”

  “He could learn skills with Arcolin—or Arcolin’s recruit cohort—that will serve him well as both a knight-candidate and a lord.”

  “Duke Arcolin had a squire with him when his son was confirmed as his heir,” Serrostin said.

  “His son?”

  “His wife’s son, really. She was a widow, you know,” Lady Serrostin said. “Duke Arcolin adopted him and brought him down to be formally named his kirgan.”

  “So he has a squire already,” Serrostin said. “Will he want another?”

  “His lady might find one useful up at the stronghold,” Dorrin said. “You might ask. I will be glad to give Daryan a good name.”

  “I like the woman he married,” Lady Serrostin said. “Calla, her name is.
Very sensible, very sociable. I might write her.” She glanced at her husband.

  “I suppose the Marrakai girl will go home,” Serrostin said. “They’ll send an escort for her.”

  “I brought her with me when the king summoned me,” Dorrin said. “She is with her mother now; she wants to enter the Bells.”

  “Is she ready?”

  “I think so. It will be up to her parents, of course, to decide. If the Bells won’t take her, she could go to Fin Panir.”

  “Well,” Serrostin said, leaning back. “I’m glad to hear the problem wasn’t of Daryan’s making. I don’t suppose you can tell us what the king’s task is …”

  “Forgive me,” Dorrin said. “I don’t have his permission.”

  “Something to do with the war in Aarenis, no doubt,” Serrostin said. “I suppose you heard about the Kostandanyan soldiers marching through here on their way to Valdaire?”

  “No … I had not. Why did they want to come, and why did Mikeli let them?” And why had he not told her, his Constable? But it no longer mattered. She would not be Constable or duke by the time she left Vérella.

  “We have your friend Arcolin to thank for Mikeli letting them come, though his reasoning made sense to me.” Serrostin repeated what he had been told. “And now, it seems, Rothlin Mahieran and not the king will marry that Kostandanyan princess.”

  “Ganlin? She’s …” Dorrin searched for the right words. “Very attractive. I met her in Lyonya when I went to King Kieri’s wedding there.”

  “So I hear, through Roly. He says Roth talks about little else these days.” Serrostin leaned forward again, elbows on the table. “But what will you do about Beclan? He’ll need a guardian unless you’re coming back fairly quickly.”

  “The king advised me to find a guardian,” Dorrin said.

  “Hmm. The king’s given up that absurd notion of keeping Beclan from his family, hasn’t he?”

  “Yes. Though he doesn’t want him at court yet.” She hoped the king would change his mind on that, too.

  “Well, then, why not ask his father to be his guardian?”