Crown of Renewal

by Elizabeth Moon

  She stepped out, holding the box, and almost stumbled as she discovered that she was dry, clothed in brown like Falk, with comfortable boots on her feet. Falk smiled at her. “Let me have the box, Daughter.”

  She handed him the box and stepped back; it opened in his hands, expanding as it did, and he took from it a red belt, a red length of ribbon, and a stone that flashed in the sunlight.

  “Come here, Daughter.”

  Dorrin took a step toward him; he took the ruby and pressed it to her forehead. “No one can take it from you,” he said. “And now—let us eat.” He sat down and took from the box a loaf of bread, a round of cheese, an onion, a length of sausage, and a plain-hilted dagger in its sheath. “Every wanderer needs a knife,” he said, handing it to her. Then he took out a mug, heavy pottery glazed green, and set it between them. By this time Dorrin was not surprised to see that it held liquid.

  She cut rounds from the sausage and wedges from the cheese while he broke the loaf of bread. They ate, sharing the watered wine in the mug, passing it back and forth. As they did, the shadows lengthened; though midday had seemed to last a long time, now the sun moved quickly. Falk pulled a blanket from the box. Dorrin was past wondering what else the box might yield—a sword and full suit of armor? a horse?—and took the blanket he handed her.

  “It is safe to sleep here, Daughter, and you are tired. Take your rest.”

  Darkness fell even as she wrapped herself in the blanket, and she slid into sleep. In the morning, she woke refreshed to find the green mug full of water beside her, along with a fresh loaf of bread. Falk was nowhere to be seen, but she heard a deep voice singing over in the trees.

  That day they talked again. “You might have died,” Falk said, “but you did not. I might have died, and I did not. What I did changed me, as you are changed, and I had to find a way to live different than both my lives before, my early life as a prince and my life as a slave. So you must find a way to live that fits who you are now, not who you were.”

  “You think I should not go back to Verrakai domain? Even to Tsaia?”

  He shrugged. “Maybe … or maybe not. What matters now is that you are true to your real self, the self you are now, that grew out of the self you were. Can a gold ring go back to being specks of gold in ore?”

  “It can be melted into a lump.”

  He laughed. “So it can, Daughter, so it can. And one thing the same with you is that sharp mind. But can it put itself as a vein or as specks back into the mountain from which it came?”

  “No,” Dorrin said. “I see … but I am no gold ring, all one kind of stuff.”

  “You are human stuff,” Falk said. “Not half elf or half dwarf or half anything. All human.”

  “And human stuff is …?” she asked, grinning now herself.

  “Capable of choice,” he said. “For among humans is the greatest diversity. The Elders were made each for mastery of one suite of arts, but among humans are minstrels and bards for song, smiths for working metal, masons for working rock, farmers for nurturing plants and animals.” He smiled at her. “And that, Daughter, is why I offer you choice—the gift given humans of which arts to choose. You may choose to go back to the life you had—or as much as you can salvage after your time away—or choose a different one. I am here, among other reasons, to help you find the choice you want most.”

  Dorrin nodded, staring at the grass. What she wanted … she wanted to hear children laughing again. She wanted to come into Farin Cook’s kitchen and see that formidable woman kneading dough. She wanted to see Kieri again, and Arian, and the twins. She wanted to see King Mikeli when he was not frightened and worried. But … she also wanted no more of those sidelong looks, those tightly clamped mouths when she walked in the palace in Vérella. She could do without the court dress, without the women staring at her in the short puffed trews and stockings … not that she wanted to wear their dresses, but that was the problem.

  “What I want,” she said finally, “is not possible.”

  “Not as you now think, perhaps. But you are still young, Daughter—”

  “Young! My hair is gray now, and I am past fifty winters!”

  “And my hair is gray and has been for twenty times fifty winters, yet here I am. Still young.”

  Dorrin blinked. Young? He didn’t look young … but he did sound and act like someone who had plenty of time left for … whatever it was embodied saints did. Which brought up another thought.

  “Are you sure I’m not dead? And … just embodied?”

  “You’re not dead,” Falk said. “Or I would not have said you had the choice of returning to Tsaia. When you leave this place, you will be as you were: alive, in your own form. Though with gray hair which may—or may not—grow in dark again. At your age gray hair suits. So, let us consider your future. What is the one thing, or one person, you would most like to see again?”

  Images flickered through her mind: the front of Verrakai House, Farin, Mikeli, the children, Beclan her heir, Daryan and Gwenno, her squires, and most of all … Kieri and Arcolin, so long her companions and friends. She let herself imagine not seeing them ever, one by one, and one by one the images faded until only those two were left. Kieri, her commander and oath-holder. Arcolin, fellow captain and faithful friend. She said their names.

  Falk nodded. “I think you may see them again whatever path you choose though it may be later. Even much later. And the others … will go their own ways, remembering their time with you, and it may be one or another will cross paths. You have helped shape them into what they become. And you have shaped yourself, but, Daughter, you do not know who you are. You know your name and your family but not yourself. And until you do, your choices will turn you aside from your own path.”

  “I am Dorrin Verrakai,” Dorrin said. “Outcast of the family. Knight of Falk. Mercenary. Duke by appointment of a king too young to understand why that may have been a bad decision.”

  “Was it? I disagree. You saved his life, risking your own and your honor to do so. You saved his cousin. You exposed, by your right use of magery, the depth of suspicion against it that could have ruined his realm. Do you not realize that your use of magery—though it frightened and confused him, though he was swayed by others for a time—prepared him to fight for justice for those who later developed it?”

  “I … am afraid it was my use of magery that caused more to emerge.”

  “No. Not that. Though your freeing the regalia from the evil captivity your ancestors created was part of it. Magery in humans is a talent, like singing or weaving or farming: it must be used, and used rightly, or it vanishes. The regalia, freed, sought their necessary use, to which you finally brought them.”

  “If I had known earlier—if I had gone earlier—then would magery have come again?”

  “Yes. Other forces also acted to restore it, and not all were bad. There may be worlds where humans do not have and do not need magery, but here … they do. So many things brought it back, and you made it more likely that children would not die for having a hand light up.”

  Dorrin thought about that. “Then it was not my fault.”

  “No, it was not your fault. Any more than your family was your fault. Now, free your mind from that … You worked hard to redeem your family’s name, both when estranged and later as duke, but their name is their name—it was not your life’s work to redeem it.”

  “I thought it was,” Dorrin said. “The Knight-Commander said—”

  “Even Knight-Commanders can make mistakes, though new-made knights may not recognize it. Did you not learn, in my Hall, that each cleans his own shield?”

  “Yes, though—”

  “Though you also help one another. Yes. But the shield, representing your honor: that is yours to clean. Those members of your family who did dishonorable things—their shields are theirs to clean.”

  Dorrin started to say, “But they’re dead,” but stopped.

  Falk nodded as if she’d said it. “You understand,” he sai
d. “It is not your task; it is not your honor. Your honor is unstained—whatever others think, I know—and the High Lord knows, by whatever name the high gods are called—that your honor is unstained. And that is all you need. Except … what do you really want?”

  A quiet life. At least not a life where—though Falk said her honor was unstained—others still doubted her.

  “So you need to start again. A new name—are you willing to give up Verrakai?”

  She had been willing to give up Verrakai at fourteen, when she ran away; she had not used it for years. But she had begun to make it honorable … but Beclan could do that. She could—maybe—shed Verrakai and its associations like taking off a dirty cloak. “Yes,” she said to Falk’s patient face. “Yes. But what name would I have? Dorrin … something …?”

  “Dorrin was enough for you once. Falk has been enough for me. Or you may find another name you like better.”

  That night she slept again under the stars and, if she dreamed, did not remember it when she got up. She woke to the clonking of sheep bells and the smell of sheep. She rolled over, unwrapping the blanket, and two sheep shied away, baaing. Half the flock was already at the water, drinking, along with a shaggy dog. Staring at her from the other side of the flock was someone in a long shirt with a patched cape over it, bare-legged. Falk was nowhere in sight, and she knew he would not return. The box she had fetched from the bottom of the pool lay beside her, tied with three leather thongs.

  Dorrin rolled her blanket, tied it, and picked up the box; it felt heavy again. She hung the blanket over her shoulder and moved slowly through the sheep; the dog, she saw, had returned to the shepherd. Half the pool’s margin had no sheep near it; Dorrin dipped her mug into the clear water, then walked a distance from the pool and sat again. She opened the box. Bread, cheese, sausage.

  “I have food,” she said in Common, hoping the shepherd knew it. “Will you come?” She made the gesture she knew. The other stared for what seemed a long time, then spoke to the dog, which moved off toward the flock. Then the other—Dorrin still wasn’t sure if man or woman—came closer, slowly.

  “Thought you dead.” The voice was high for a man, heavily accented, and closer Dorrin could see a vague female shape under the big loose shirt. Her face was tanned and grimy, smeared with what looked like charcoal. “Share.” The woman—or girl?—pulled a small leather bag from somewhere in the cloak. “Salt.”

  “Share,” Dorrin said, setting out the loaf, the cheese, the sausage.

  “Meat!” A sudden grin flashed white in that dirty face, and by the teeth Dorrin decided she was young, no more than fifteen summers. “You share meat?”

  “Share,” Dorrin said again. She sliced off a hunk of sausage, a thick slab of bread, and set the sausage on the bread.

  The girl sat down; this close Dorrin could see the smooth skin of youth under the dirt. Dorrin set the bread and sausage between them and cut a serving for herself. The girl held out the leather bag. “Salt,” she said again. “You put.” She pointed at the bread.

  Dorrin took the leather bag—greasy and smelling of sheep and dirt—and opened it. Grainy, gray, but—probably—salt. She took a pinch and sprinkled it on her bread and sausage. The girl nodded, snatched up the bread and sausage as if afraid Dorrin would take them back, and bit into the sausage, watching Dorrin closely.

  Dorrin ate her own too-salty bread and sausage more slowly, then pointed to the cheese. “Share?”

  The girl shook her head and pointed to the sheep. “No need.” She looked around. “Much water. No water last time come. You bring?”

  “Water came,” Dorrin said.

  The girl peered at Dorrin’s face, leaning close. “You … strange.”

  That was probably true, Dorrin thought, suppressing a desire to laugh. This girl, living in this remote wherever it was—might never have seen a woman soldier—though at the moment she wasn’t a woman soldier.

  “Red. There.” The girl’s dirty finger pointed at Dorrin’s forehead.

  “Bumped head,” Dorrin said, though she didn’t remember bumping her head.

  “Not hit. Thing. Red thing face.”

  Before Dorrin could answer, the dog barked and charged back up the slope across the pool: barking and barking. Dorrin looked … four riders on small rough-coated horses coming down the slope. One of the riders yelled something Dorrin couldn’t understand; the girl waved. “Friend,” she said to Dorrin. Dorrin stood up; the riders reined their mounts to a halt, staring at her.

  “Water,” said one.

  In that other language, whatever it was, they spoke to the girl; she whistled to the dog, and soon the sheep, the girl, and the men started up the slope, away from the water.

  “Come. Come we!” the girl called. Dorrin took a step, then stopped. Falk had said she could be what she wanted. Did she want to be a curiosity to a herd girl and some strangers with flocks of sheep? No. She had—she knew she had—helped bring water here. She owed them no more.

  She turned, gesturing another way, and began her own trek toward the unknown.

  For days, Dorrin walked alone in a land apparently empty of people or their works. She had seen no one since leaving the sheep and the girl behind and for the last two days had seen no signs of familiar animals—no tracks of sheep, cattle, or horses. The hills among which she walked were covered with short grass and scrubby bushes. She had found water easily—dry as the hills looked, every hollow in them held at least a spring and a pool. In the first pool, she had looked at the reflection of her own face: there in the center of her forehead was a gleaming drop of red: Falk’s ruby. Part of her now, just like Paks’s silver ring … but it couldn’t mean the same thing. She didn’t want to think about what it could mean, but she had little else to think about. Her memory of the flight to Aare and what she had done returned, one scene after another. Her memory of Falk—she had seen Falk himself, the Falk of legend, and he himself had pressed that ruby into her forehead. She felt it: a smooth bump to her fingers, as if it had grown there all her life. And Falk had told her to think about who she was now … what life she wanted as she was now and not as she had been.

  She found the walking easy enough. She went whatever way seemed most interesting and did not hurry, taking time to notice flowers and interesting stones in the clear little creeks, to listen to the birds, to watch lizards panting on a rock in the sun and interesting beetles scurrying across game trails. So many things she had not really seen before, not heard or smelled, focused as she had been on her duties. Arian had taught her about the taig, but she had still thought of everything in terms of threat or not-threat, her duty to protect.

  What Falk had said about humans came back to her: what she had been—a soldier, a duke—did not determine what else she could be. Yet she did not want to forget what she had been or the people she had known. She wanted … she wanted to find another use for those skills she had already, and she wanted to try out new things, including this careful attention to what she had ignored so long, from beetles to birds.

  On the eighth day, she decided to spend the hot afternoon in the shade of a clump of small trees circling a spring-fed pool rather than walk through the hot afternoon facing into the sun, at least until the sun dipped behind the shoulder of the next hill sunsetting. With no idea where she was going and no duties to perform, she need not, she decided, force herself to endure the heat. She could rest if she wanted to. She had eaten a hunk of sausage and bread when she heard the hoofbeats.

  Looking out between the trees, she saw across the little valley a black horse trotting—head high and proud, mane and tail flowing like dark water. She felt an instant stab of longing. She had ridden many horses in her life—good military horses trained to war, the Marrakai-bred mare she’d taken to Kieri—but she had never ridden or even seen a horse like this. It looked like a smaller, more agile version of a Pargunese Black—nothing ponderous about it as it seemed to float two handspans above the ground.

  As if the horse heard a
command in her thought, it stopped short. Ears pricked, head turned to her. Then an echoing whinny, and the horse broke into a gallop, running straight toward her clump of trees. Dorrin scrambled to her feet and moved out into the open. If the horse ran at her, she could dodge … but she didn’t want to dodge.

  Nearer. Nearer still … and it slowed to that same high-stepping, airy trot and finally halted just out of her reach. Nostrils flared; it uttered a sound more like a human mutter than a horse. Dorrin took a step forward. “You …” she said. Her voice sounded strange after the days of silence. “You are beautiful,” she said. “Where are you from? Whose are you?”

  The horse yawned, showing a mouthful of big yellowish teeth, then walked the rest of the way to her and put its head against her chest. Her hands moved naturally to caress the cheeks, rub the poll, scratch behind those alert ears. The horse pulled its head from between her hands and reached over her shoulder, then pulled—a hug, she realized. It sighed, a big gusty horse sigh. Then it released her, walked around her, and went to drink at the pool. Dorrin followed, her mind in a whirl of confusion.

  When the horse had drunk its fill, it pushed among the trees to where she’d left the box, picked it up in that very large mouth, and came back to her. She reached out; it bumped her hand with its nose and—as suddenly as it had appeared—dropped the box, bent the near foreleg, and bowed. Did she want to mount? Of course … but the box? She picked up the box; the horse turned to look at her and snorted. She put it back down; she could come back for it later. Maybe.

  She clambered on, awkward without the familiar aid of a stirrup. The horse stood, then reached down to nose the box. It disappeared in that instant, and Dorrin found herself sitting in a saddle, saddlebags behind her and her rolled blanket tied in front of them, her boots resting in stirrups. “Falk?” she said. No answer but a toss of the horse’s head, and then it set off at a trot, angling across the sun’s light … north, she thought. It must be Falk.