Two To Conquer ELF

by Marion Zimmer Bradley

  “The throne of Asturias,” Rafael said, “is not subject to Hastur. And that’s my last word on the subject. I have no intention of attacking Hasturs, but they cannot seek to rule here.”

  “Alaric,” Varzil said, “you are lord of Asturias. You are not of an age to make compacts, but I ask you nevertheless, out of kindness to kin, to ask your father to see reason in this matter.”

  “My son is not your prisoner now, Dom Varzil,” Rafael said, his chin jutting hard. “I do not know how much treason you may have taught him against his own people, but now—”

  “Father, that is unjust,” Alaric protested. “I ask you not to quarrel with my kinsman Varzil!”

  “For your sake, my son, I hold my peace. Yet I beg of you, Dom Varzil, set aside this foolish talk of surrendering the throne of Asturias to the Hasturs!”

  Varzil said, “Even now you are contemplating war against peaceful neighbors—not invaders! I know what you have done in Marenji. I am informed that in the spring you intend war against Serrais; and you intend to fortify the lands along the Kadarin—”

  “And what is that to you?” Bard asked with cold hostility. “The lands along the Kadarin are not Hastur lands!”

  “Neither are they the lands belonging to Asturias,” said Varzil, “and Carolin is sworn to make them safe against attack from land-greedy little kingdoms! Do what you will within your own realm; but I warn you, unless you are prepared to fight against all of those who give allegiance to Hastur and to the Compact, do not move outside them!”

  “Are you threatening me?”

  “I am,” Varzil said, “though I would rather not. I ask as envoy of Hastur, that you and your two sons take oath not to move against the Compact lands who have sworn to one another as equals, or we will have an army in the field within forty days, and we will take the Kingdom of Asturias and put it into the wardenship of someone who will hold it in peace among the com’ii under Hastur.”

  Bard heard this with a dreadful sinking. They were not, in fact, prepared to make war against the Hasturs; not with the men rising past the Kadarin, not with Serrais on the east! And if the Hasturs came against them now, Asturias could not stand.

  Dom Rafael clenched his fists with rage.

  “What oath do you require of us?”

  “I ask you to swear,” Varzil said, “not to me, but to Geremy Hastur for his kinsman Carolin, an oath of kinsmen, not to be broken without warning of half a year on either side; which pledges you not to move against any land under Hastur protection; and in return you will be a part of this peace which reigns under the Alliance.” He used the word comyn in a new way. “Will you swear?”

  There was a long silence; but the di Asturiens were at the disadvantage and knew it. They had no choice but to swear. They were grateful when Alaric spoke, so that neither of them must lose face.

  “Dom Varzil, I will swear the oath of kinsmen, although no oath to your Alliance. Will this suffice? I vow that I will not go to war against Carolin of Thendara unless half a year’s warning is given. But,” he added, and Bard saw the childish jaw clench, “this oath will endure only while my kinsman Carolin of Thendara leaves me in possession of the throne of Asturias; and on the day when he moves against the throne, on that same day I withdraw my oath and consider him my enemy!”

  Geremy said, “I accept your oath, cousin. I swear to see it honored by Carolin. But how will you hold your father and your brother to this oath? For you are not yet of legal age, and they are the powers which hold your throne.”

  Alaric said, “By the gods and by the honor of my family; Bard, my brother, will you abide my oath?”

  Bard said, “In the form the oath was given, my brother, I will.” He gripped his sword. “Zandru seize this sword and this heart if I prove false to your honor.”

  “And I,” said Dom Rafael, tight-lipped, closing his fingers on his dagger, “by the honor of Asturien, which no man can gainsay.”

  No, Bard thought, as Geremy and Varzil, with endless formalities, took their leave, they had no choice, not with a crippled child on the throne, instead of the strong young warrior they had foreseen. They needed time, and this oath was only a way to give them time. His father maintained the façade of calm until the Hastur embassage had ridden away and Alaric, dreadfully pale from the strain of long ceremonial, was taken away to his rooms, then Dom Rafael broke down.

  “My son! He is my son, I love him, I honor him, but in hell’s name, Bard, is he fit to reign in times like these? Would to all the gods that your mother had been my lawful wife!”

  “Father,” Bard entreated, “it is only his legs that are crippled; his mind and wit are sound. I am a soldier, not a statesman; Alaric will make a better king than I!”

  “But they look up to you, they call you Wolf and Commander, will they ever look up to my poor little lame lad that way?”

  “If I stand behind his throne,” Bard said, “they will.”

  “Alaric is blessed, then, in his brother! True is the old saying, bare is back without brother… But you are only one man, and you are sworn to Hastur, which cripples you. If we had time, or if Alaric had been strong and fit—”

  “If Queen Lorimel had worn trousers instead of skirts, she’d have been king and Thendara would never have fallen,” said Bard, curtly. “There is no point in talking about if, and would to all the gods, and such rubbish. We must cut our coat as we find the cloth laid! The gods know I love my brother, and I could have bawled like Geremy’s baby son to see him stand before us so bent and twisted, but what has come, has come; the world will go as it will. I am only one brother.”

  “It is the good fortune of the Hasturs that you were not born twins,” said Dom Rafael with a despairing laugh, “for with two like you, dear son, I could conquer all the Hundred Kingdoms.”

  And then he stopped. His laugh broke off in mid-gasp, and he stared at Bard with such intensity that Bard wondered if the shock of Alaric’s illness had turned the old man’s brain.

  “Two of you,” he said, “with two such as you, Wolf, I could conquer all this land from Dalereuth to the Hellers. Bard, suppose that there were two of you,” he said in a whisper, “that I had another son, just like you, with your skill at warfare and your genius for strategy and your fierce loyalty—two of you! And I know how to find another. Not another just like you—another you!”

  * * *

  Chapter Five

  « ^ »

  Bard stared at his father in dismay. The gods grant, he thought, that Alaric is mature enough to rule, for our father has suddenly lost his wits!

  But Dom Rafael did not look mad, and his voice and manner were so matter-of-fact that another, more rational explanation occurred to Bard.

  “You had not confided in me, sir; but do you mean that you have another bastard son, enough like to impersonate me when it should be necessary?”

  Dom Rafael shook his head. “No. And I am aware that what I have just said sounds like a madman’s raving, dear son, so you need not bother to humor me; I shall not begin to rave like a breeding woman in the Ghost Wind, nor chase butterflies in the snow. But what I must now suggest to you is very strange, and—” he glanced around the empty throne room—“in any case we cannot talk here.”

  In his father’s private apartments, Bard waited while his father sent the servants away, poured them both some wine.

  “Not too much,” he said dryly. “I do not want you to think me drunk, as you thought I was mad. I said, Bard, that with two like you, two generals with your sense of war and strategy—and this must have been born with you, since those who fostered you show no sign of it, and it is certainly not due to my teaching—with two of you, Bard, I could conquer all this realm. If the Hundred Kingdoms are to be united into a single realm—and I admit it is a sound idea, for why should all these lands be torn with war spring and fall—why should the Hasturs be overlords? There were men bearing the di Asturien name in these hills long before the Lord of Carthon gave his daughter to the Hastur kin. There
is laran in our line, too, but it is the laran of humankind, of true men, not of the chieri-folk; the Hasturs are chieri, or of chieri-kind, as you may see if you care to count their fingers, and too many of them are still born emmasca, neither man nor woman; Felix of Thendara was born so, a few hundred years ago, and so that dynasty came to an end.”

  “There are no people in these hills who have not some chieri blood, father.”

  “But only the Hastur kin sought to preserve that blood in their line with their breeding program,” Dom Rafael said, “and so many of the old families—Hastur, Aillard, Ardais, even the Aldarans and the Serrais, bear in their blood and heritage so many strange things that true men are wary of them! A child may be born who can kill with a thought, or see into the future as if time ran both ways, or cause fire to strike or the rivers to rise… There are two kinds of laran; the kind which all men have and may use, aided with a starstone, and the evil kind borne by the Hastur kin. Our line is not altogether free of it, and when you got that redheaded son upon your mother’s leronis, you brought the Hastur kin laran back into our folk. But what’s done is done, and Erlend may be useful to us one day. Have you gotten the girl with child again yet? Why not?” But he did not wait for Bard’s answer.

  “Still, I am sure you can see why I have no will to be ruled by the Hasturs; they are riddled through and through with the chieri blood, and their Gifts are not diluted by the normal humankind, but fixed into their line by that breeding program. I feel that humankind should rule, not wizard-folk!”

  “But,” said Bard, “why tell me all this now? Or are you saying that when Erlend is grown he will be near enough to their kin that he can claim their line?” He spoke sarcastically, and his father did not bother to reply.

  “What you do not know,” he said, “is that I studied laran craft when I was a young boy. I was not, as you know, reared to king-craft, for Ardrin was the eldest, but I did not have the stronghold of di Asturien either, for there were three brothers between us, and I had leisure for study and learning. I was a laranzu, and dwelt for a time in Dalereuth Tower, and learned something of their craft.”

  Bard had known that his father bore a starstone, but that was in no way uncommon, and not everyone who bore a starstone knew laran lore. He had not known that he had dwelt within a Tower.

  “Now there is a law in the use of the starstone,” Dom Rafael said. “I do not know who formulated it, or why it should be so, but it is so; that everything which exists, except for a starstone, exists in one, and only one, exact duplicate. Nothing is unique, except for a starstone, which has no duplicate. However, everything else—everything, every rabbithorn in the woods, every tree and flower, every rock in the fields—has its precise duplicate, and also every human being has one exact double somewhere, more like him than his own twin. And that tells me that somewhere, Bard, you have an exact double. He may dwell in the Dry towns, or in the unknown lands beyond the Wall Around the World, he may be the son of a peasant, or live beyond the uncrossable gulf of the Sea of Dalereuth which leads into the Unknown Sea. And he would be more like you than your own twin, even though he dwelt far beyond the Hundred Kingdoms. I hope it is not so, I hope he dwells in the Kilghard Hills; otherwise it would be hard to teach him our language and the manners of our people. But whatever he may be, he will have laran, even if he has never been taught to use it; and he will have your military genius, once again, though he may not know yet how to use it; and he will look so much like you that your own mother, if she were still alive, would not be able to tell you apart by looks alone. Do you see now, dear son, why this would be good to have?”

  Bard frowned. “I am beginning to see—”

  “And another thing. Your double would not be sworn to Hastur, nor bound to him by any oath. Understand me?”

  Bard saw. He saw indeed. “But where do we find this duplicate of myself?”

  “I told you that I had studied laran-craft,” Dom Rafael said, “and I know the whereabouts of a screen, a set of relay starstones constructed to bring these duplicates together. When I was a youth, we could, though it was difficult, bring men and women, other leroni, from one set of starstones to another. If we have one set of duplicates on the screen, we can bring your duplicate from wherever he may be living.”

  “But,” Bard asked, “when we have him, how do we know he will be willing to help us?”

  “He cannot help being what he is,” said Dom Rafael. “If he were already a great general, we would know about him. He may indeed be one of my own bastard sons, or of Ardrin’s, living in poverty without knowledge of war. But once we give him the chance of power and greatness—not to mention a chance to exercise the military genius which, if he is your duplicate, he will possess, if only as potential—then he will be grateful to us and willing to serve as our ally. Because, Bard, if he is your double—then he will be ambitious too!”

  Three days later, Alaric-Rafael, heir to Asturias, was solemnly crowned in the regency of his father. Bard repeated in public the oath he had sworn to his brother, and Alaric presented him with a beautifully worked heirloom sword— Bard knew it was one his father had kept for many years, hoping that his one legitimate son would bear it into battle one day. But it was abundantly clear that King Alaric, whatever kind of ruler he might be, would not be a great warrior; so Bard accepted the sword from his brother’s hands, and with it the command of all the armies of Asturias and all her subject kingdoms.

  At the moment, I am general of Asturias and Marenji, and no more. But that is only a beginning.

  A day will come when I will be general of all the Hundred Kingdoms, and they will all know and fear the Wolf of Asturias!

  And as general of Marenji, he thought, he was legally entitled to go into that country and deal with those damned women on the Island of Silence!

  I could declare them a treasonable assembly, and give them notice to quit the island! He was sure the people of Marenji would consider this a blasphemy, at present. But he asked Alaric to issue a proclamation that the people of Marenji were believed to be hiding the handfasted wife of Bard di Asturien; and that any person concealing the whereabouts of Carlina di Asturien would be considered a traitor and subjected to the extreme penalties of the law.

  Alaric issued the proclamation, but in private he expressed dismay to Bard.

  “Why do you want a woman who doesn’t want you? I think you ought to marry Melisendra. She’s very nice, and she’s the mother of your son, and Erlend ought to be legitimate, he’s a fine boy, and laran-gifted. Marry her, and I’ll give you a fine wedding.”

  Bard said firmly that his brother and his lord ought not to talk about things he would not understand until he was older.

  “Well, if I were ten years older, I’d marry Melisendra myself, so there,” Alaric said. “I like her. She’s good to me, she never makes me feel like a cripple.”

  “She had better not,” Bard growled. “If she dared to be rude to you, I’d break her neck, and she knows it!”

  “Well, I am a cripple, and I must learn to live with it,” said Alaric, “and Lady Hastur, the leronis who cared for me at Neskaya, who helped me to talk again, taught me that it does not matter if my body is lamed. And Geremy—he is crippled, and yet he is a fine man, strong and honorable—It will be very hard for me to learn to think of the Hasturs as enemies,” he added with a sigh. “I find it hard to understand politics, Bard. I wish there could be peace among all people, and then we could be friends with the Lord Varzil, who has been like a foster father to me. But I am used to being treated like a cripple, because I am, and I must have help to dress myself, and walk—but someone like Melisendra, she helps me not to mind so much, because she helps me to feel, even when she is helping to tie me into my leg brace, that I am no worse off than anyone else.”

  “You are the king,” Bard said, but Alaric sighed, a resigned sigh.

  “You don’t know what I mean at all, do you, Bard? You’re so strong, and you’ve never been really sick, or frightened, so how co
uld you know? Do you know what it’s like to be really scared, Bard? When I first had the fever, and I couldn’t even breathe… Geremy, and three of Ardrin’s healer-women, sat up with me all night with their starstones, for seven nights, just helping me to breathe when I couldn’t.”

  Bard thought against his will of the terror that had gripped him on the shores of the Lake of Silence when the eerie faces in the fog had drifted around him, turning his bowels to water… but even to his brother he would not confess that. “I was afraid when I rode first into battle,” he said. That he did not mind saying.

  Alaric sighed enviously.

  “You were no older than I am now, and you were made King Ardrin’s banner bearer! But it’s different, Bard; you had a sword, you could do something against your fear, and I could—could only lie there and wonder if I was going to die, and know I had no way to help it, one way or the other, I was wholly helpless. And after that you—you always know that it can happen again, that you can die, or be destroyed. No matter how brave I am, I know, now, that there will always be something I can’t fight,” Alaric said. “And with some people, I feel like that all the time, that poor, sick, paralyzed coward. And some, like Varzil, and Melisendra, remind me that I don’t have to be that way, that life is really not so terrible—do you know what I mean, Bard? Even a little?”

  Bard looked at the boy and sighed, knowing that his brother was pleading for understanding, and not knowing how to give it to him. He had seen soldiers like this, wounded almost to death, and when they lived, after all, something had happened within them that he did not understand. That had happened to Alaric, but it had happened to him before he was old enough to face it.

  “I think you are alone too much,” he said, “and it makes you fanciful. But I am glad Melisendra is kind to you.”

  Alaric sighed and held out his hand, small and white, to Bard, who engulfed it in his huge browned one. Bard, he thought, didn’t understand him at all, but he loved him, and that was just as good.