Two To Conquer ELF

by Marion Zimmer Bradley

  “Dear Father,” he said. “Truly, what has happened is not the fault of my kinsman Ardrin, and certainly not of the Lord Varzil. When I fell ill, and for many years after, he, and his leroni, cared for me night and day. They have been so kind and good to me, neither you nor my mother could have done more.”

  “Gods above!” groaned Dom Rafael. “And Ardrin sent me no word? Nor Ariel, when she fled into exile?”

  “I had been sent to Neskaya years before,” Alaric retorted, “and since you never came to court, I did not think that you cared much what befell me! Certainly,” he added, in a detached, ironical way which convinced Bard that, if his brother’s body was crippled, there was certainly nothing wrong with his mind, “you were not so eager to have me back that you would contend very long with Carolin for me. I knew that you would hold your throne for me, at least until you saw me. After that, I was not sure whether you would care to ransom me at all.”

  Dom Rafael said loyally, “You are my own dear son, and I welcome you back to the throne I have claimed for you,” but Bard heard the unspoken part of this, If you can possibly hold it, and was sure Alaric could hear it too.

  Varzil’s face was composed and compassionate; his eyes lingered on Alaric and Dom Rafael as if he had no thought except for the child and his stricken father. But Bard knew that Varzil, in spite of a very genuine concern for young Alaric, had nevertheless held him back to produce at the moment when it would cause the most confusion and consternation. He had intended to show them all, and as publicly as possible, that the young claimant to the throne of Asturias was no more than a pitiful little cripple!

  Bard felt despair and rage—was this the strong young warrior who would ride to battle at his side? Yet his heart ached for the little brother he had loved. Whatever his father’s disappointment and his own, Alaric must be feeling it more than either of them! It was inexcusable, to use the boy like this, to show forth the weakness of the Asturian throne! At this moment, had it not been for his knowledge of diplomatic immunity, he would willingly have strangled Varzil where he stood—yes, and Geremy too!

  Yet—he thought, slowly coming to terms with this new knowledge—it could have been worse. Alaric was lamed, but otherwise he looked healthy and strong, and there was certainly nothing wrong with his mind! Geremy had a healthy son; there was no reason Alaric could not have a dozen. He would not, after all, be the first crippled king to hold a throne; and, after all, he had a loyal brother to command his armies.

  I am not ambitious toward his throne, Bard thought. I have no wit, nor yet skill, to govern; I would rather be the king’s commander than the king! He met Alaric’s eyes and smiled.

  Dom Rafael too had recovered his equilibrium. He rose from his presence seat and said, “In token that I reigned here only as regent, my son, I yield this place to you as rightful King of Asturias. My son and my lord, I beg you to take this place.”

  The boy’s cheeks stained with color, but he had been well trained in protocol. When his father knelt at his feet, proffering his sword, he said, “I beg you to rise, Father, and take your sword, as regent and warden of this realm, until I have reached years of manhood.”

  Dom Rafael rose, taking his place three steps behind the throne.

  “My brother,” Alaric said, looking at Bard, “I have been told that you are commander of the armies of Asturias.”

  Bard bent the knee before the boy and said, “I am here to serve you, my brother and my lord.”

  Alaric smiled, for the first time since he had stepped out from behind Varzil, and the smile was like a sun coming out and warming Bard’s heart.

  “I do not ask you for your sword, dear brother. I beg you to keep it in defense of this realm; may it be drawn only against my enemies. I name you first man in this realm after our father the Lord Regent, and I will think soon of some way to reward you.”

  Bard said briefly that his brother’s favor was reward enough. He had hated this kind of ceremony, ever since he had been a boy in the king’s house; he stepped back, grateful that at least he had not made a fool out of himself by tripping over something.

  Alaric said, “And now, kinsman Varzil, I know you were entrusted with a diplomatic mission which, quite rightly, you did not confide to a child. Will you now reveal it to the throne of Asturias, and to my father and Regent?”

  Dom Rafael seconded the request. “I welcome Carolin’s embassy,” he said, “but would it be possible to hold it in a room more suited to this conference than this throne room where we must all stand about in ceremonial attitudes, waiting upon formalities?”

  “I should be honored,” Varzil said, “and I am willing to dispense with truthspell if you are; the matters to be discussed are not facts, but attitudes, claims, opinions and ethical considerations. Truthspell has no validity over honest differences of opinion where each side believes itself in the right.”

  Dom Rafael said ceremoniously, “This is true. By your leave, then, cousin, we will dismiss the leronis and her work, and meet again within the hour in my private drawing room, if that is not too informal for you, cousin. I offer more comfort, not any intended slight of the importance of your mission.”

  “I shall welcome informality and privacy,” Varzil said. When the Hastur embassage had temporarily withdrawn, Dom Rafael and his sons delayed for a moment before leaving the presence chamber.

  “Alaric, my son, you need not sit through the conference if it would weary you!”

  “Father, by your leave, I will stay,” Alaric said. “You are my regent and guardian, and I will defer to your judgment till I am declared a man, and after, too, no doubt, for many years. But I am old enough to understand these matters, and if I am to govern one day, I had better know what statecraft you intend.”

  Bard and Dom Rafael exchanged glances of approval.

  “Stay by all means, your highness.” Dom Rafael used the very formal phrase va‘ Altezu, used only to a superior and one very near the throne. Bard knew that his father was acknowledging the boy as an adult, though he had not— quite—arrived at the age for legal manhood. Alaric might look like a sick child, but there was little question in either mind that he had the maturity to take his place as a man.

  In Dom Rafael’s private study they gathered again, around a table, and Dom Rafael sent for a servant to pour wine for them all. When the servant had withdrawn again Varzil said, “By your leave, Dom Rafael, and you, Highness,” he added formally to Alaric, his tone quite in contrast to the affectionate informality he had shown Alaric before, “I am entrusted by Carolin of Thendara with a mission. I had intended to bring a Voice, that you might hear Carolin’s very words. But, by your leave, I will dispense with this. I am Carolin’s ally and his friend; I am Keeper of Neskaya Tower. And I have signed with him, for Neskaya, the Compact we now ask you to keep. As you know, Neskaya was destroyed by fire-bombing, a generation ago; and when Carolin Hastur had it rebuilt, we agreed upon the Compact. He did not require it of me as a sovereign lord, but requested it of me as a man of reason, and I was glad to do so.”

  “What is this Compact of which you speak?” asked Dom Rafael.

  Varzil did not answer directly. Instead he said, “The Hundred Kingdoms are torn apart, every year, by foolish and fratricidal wars; your strife with Queen Ariel for the throne of Asturias is only one. Carolin of Thendara is willing to recognize the house of Rafael di Asturien as rightfully warden of this realm, and Queen Ariel stands ready to withdraw, for herself and her son, any claim to this throne, if you sign the Compact.”

  “I grant the generosity of the concession,” Dom Rafael said, “but I have no wish for Durraman’s bargain, when he bought the donkey. I must know the precise nature of this Compact, cousin, before I agree to it.”

  “The Compact states that we will use no weapons of sorcery in war,” Varzil said. “Perhaps war is inevitable among men; I confess that I do not know. Carolin and I are working for a day when all these lands will be united in peace. Meanwhile, we ask you to unite with us in a
sacred pledge that fighting shall be done honorably by soldiers who go into battle and risk their own lives, not by coward’s weapons to fling sorcery and chaos upon women and children, to burn forests and ravage towns and farmlands. We ask that you outlaw, within your realm, all weapons which go beyond the arm’s reach of the man who wields them, so that fighting may be honorable and equal, and not endanger the innocent with evil weapons which strike from afar.”

  Dom Rafael said, “You cannot possibly be serious!” He stared at Varzil in disbelief. “What insanity is this? Are we to march to war with swordsmen alone, while our enemies fall upon us with arrows and clingfire, bombs and sorcery? Dom Varzil, I am reluctant to think you a madman, but do you truly think war is a game of castles, played by women and children with dice for cakes or pennies? Do you truly think that any sane man would listen for a moment to such an idea?”

  Varzil’s calm, handsome face was wholly serious. “I give you my word, in all honesty. I mean what I say, and there are many small kingdoms that have already signed the Compact with King Carolin and the Hasturs. Coward’s weapons, and laran warfare, are to be completely outlawed. We cannot prevent war, not in the present state of our world. But we can keep it within bounds, keep war from destroying croplands and forests, prevent such weapons as the evil that ravaged Hali nine years ago, where children swelled and sickened of the disease that turns their blood to water, because they had played in forests where the leaves had been destroyed with bonewater dust… The lands there are still unlivable, Dom Rafael, and may be so in the times of young Alaric’s grandchildren! War is a contest, Dom Rafael. It could, indeed, be settled by a throw of the dice, or a game of castles. The rules of warfare are not decreed by the gods, that we must go on to greater and greater weapons which will destroy all of us one day, victor and vanquished alike. Before that day comes, why not limit it to such weapons as can be used with honor for all?”

  “As to that,” said Dom Rafael, “my people would never agree. I am no tyrant, to take away their weapons, and leave them defenseless against those unscrupulous people who would always refuse to give up their weapons. Perhaps, when I am sure that all our enemies have already done this… but I do not think so.”

  “Bard di Asturien,” Varzil said, surprisingly turned to him, “you are a soldier; most soldiers are men of reason. You are commander of your father’s armies. Would you not willingly see these atrocious weapons outlawed? Have you not seen a village burned with clingfire, or little children dying of the bonewater sickness?”

  Bard felt an inward wrench, remembering just such a village near Scaravel; the endless screaming and crying of children burned by clingfire. It seemed to go on for days, until one by one they had died, all of them, and then the silence seemed even more terrible, as if he could still hear their screams somewhere in his mind… He would not, himself, use clingfire; but why was Varzil asking him? He was only a soldier, his father’s loyal man who must follow orders.

  He said, “Dom Varzil, I would gladly fight with swords and shields alone, if others could be brought to do likewise. But I am a soldier, and my business is to win battles. I cannot win battles when I lead men armed with swords against an army who bear clingfire, or set demons of sorcery and fear against my men, to raise wind and water and storms and earthquakes against me.”

  “It would not be asked of you,” Varzil said. “But would you agree that if laran is not used against you, you will not be the first to use it, and especially not to use it against non-combatants?”

  Bard began to say that it sounded reasonable, but Dom Rafael broke in angrily, “No! War is not a game!”

  Varzil said in contempt, “If it is not a game, what is it? Surely it is for those who make war to set the rules as they wish!”

  Dom Rafael said with a scornful twist of his mouth, “Why, then, why not carry your policy all the way? Suggest that in future all our wars shall be settled by a game of football—or even leapfrog? Send our old gaffers to settle the war by a game of king’s-man on a squared board, or our little girls for a game of jump rope, to settle our disputes?”

  Varzil said, “The subject of most wars is a matter which would be better settled by reasonable debate among reasonable men. When reason cannot bring about a settlement, it could be as well settled by a game of catch-ball among the children, as by these endless campaigns which prove only that the gods seem to love those who have the better trained soldiers!” He sounded immeasurably bitter.

  “You speak like a coward,” Dom Rafael said. “War may be disturbing to the squeamish, but you can’t argue with facts, and since men aren’t reasonable—and why should they settle for reason instead of what they want?—all arguments are, in the long run, going to be settled in favor of the one who can enforce settlement with the strongest hand. You cannot change the nature of mankind, and that’s simply the knowledge we have from all the years of man. If a man isn’t satisfied by the answer he gets, no matter how reasonable and right it may seem to others, he is going to go out and fight for what he wants. Otherwise we would all be born without hands or arms or the brains to use weapons. None but a coward would say otherwise; though I would expect it of a sandal wearer, a laranzu.”

  Varzil said, “Hard words break no bones, sir. I am not so much afraid of being called coward that I would fight a war to avoid it, like schoolboys blacking each other’s eyes over the cry of whoreson or sixfathered! Are you telling me that if soldiers come against you armed only with swords, you will burn them with clingfire?”

  “Yes, of course, if I have the clingfire. I do not make the evil stuff, but if it is used against me, I must have it, and I must use it before it can be used against me. Do you really think anyone will keep this Compact, unless he is assured of victory already?”

  “And you will fight this way, even when you know it means your own lands will be poisoned with bonewater dust, or the new poison which brings out black sores on every man, woman and child who breathes it, so that they now call it the masking sickness? I had thought you a merciful and reasonable man!”

  “Why, so I am,” Dom Rafael said, “but not so reasonable that I will lay down my arms and resign myself to surrendering my country, and my people, to live in slavery to some other country! In my mind, anything which gives a quick and decisive victory is a merciful and reasonable weapon. A war fought with swords, like a tournament, may drag on for years—we have been fighting the Serrais for most of my life-time—while sensible men will think twice before carrying on a war against such weapons as I can bring against them. No, Dom Varzil, your words sound reasonable on the surface, but under them lurks insanity; men would enjoy your kind of war too much, and prolong it like a game, knowing they could play at warfare without being seriously hurt. You may go back to Carolin and tell him that I despise his Compact and I will never honor it. If he comes against me, he will find me prepared with every weapon my leroni can devise, and on his own head be it if he chooses to arm his men with swords and shields alone; for all I care he may arm them with tennis balls, and make my work easier; or tell them to surrender at once. Is this nonsense of Compact all you were sent to tell me, Dom Varzil?”

  “No,” said Varzil.

  “What more is there? I do not want war with the Hasturs. I would prefer a truce.”

  “And so would I,” Varzil said, “and so would King Carolin. I was sent and empowered to take your oath to abstain from war against us. You are a reasonable man, you say; why, then, should this land be torn apart with fighting?”

  “I have no wish to fight,” said Dom Rafael, “but I will not surrender to the Hasturs where di Asturiens have reigned since time out of mind.”

  “That is not true,” said Varzil. “Written records in Nevarsin and Hali—which are perhaps more reliable than the patriotic legends and folk tales you use to rally your men—would reassure you that less than two hundred years ago this land was all ruled by Hasturs; but after an invasion of catmen, Lord Hastur gave the di Asturiens the task of guarding it, no more. And no
w all these lands have split up into little kingdoms, each one claiming an immemorial right to be independent and sovereign over its own people. This is chaos. Why not have peace again?”

  “Peace? Tyranny, you mean,” Dom Rafael said. “Why should the free people of Asturias bow their heads to the Hasturs?”

  “Why, then, should they bow it to the di Asturiens, for that matter? Peace is bought at the cost of giving up some local autonomy. Suppose each of your farmsteaders insisted that he was a free man, and had a right to absolute individual self-rule, refusing any other man the right to cross his borders without paying tribute, and owing loyalty to nothing but his own whim?”

  “That,” said Dom Rafael, “would be foolish.”

  “Then why is it not foolish to say that El Haleine and Asturias and Marenji are all kingdoms, each with separate king and government and each cut off from others? Why not make peace under the sons of Hastur, and have freedom to move about, and trade, without armed men everywhere? You will be free in your own realm, you simply pledge not to meddle with any other free and independent realm, but to cooperate with your fellow lords as friends and equals—”

  Rafael di Asturien shook his head. “My ancestors won this land. Ardrin’s son Valentine forfeited his right to it when he fled to King Carolin with his traitor mother. But I shall keep it for my sons, and if Hasturs want it, they will have to come and take it if they can.” He spoke bravely, but Bard knew that his father was remembering their conversation the night of Geremy’s wedding.

  Serrais to the east Aldaran and Scathfell to the north. Hasturs to the west and all their allies, and no doubt, someday people from the Plains of Valeron to the south.

  “Then,” said Varzil, “you will not swear allegiance to Hastur, even though all he asks is a pledge that you will not take up arms against Hali or Carcosa or Castle Hastur or Neskaya which is under his protection?”