Oath of Gold

by Elizabeth Moon

  He thought about that a moment, staring past her. "But you are a Gird's paladin?"

  "I am a Girdsman, and a paladin, and Gird was part of my choosing. But the High Lord, the Windsteed, and Alyanya were present."

  "Present!" The elf gaped. "You have seen—?"

  Paks bowed. For a long moment no one moved or spoke; Paks could hear faint noises from the kitchens, and the hollow sound of hooves on the courtyard paving.

  "Well." The elf looked at his companions for a moment and back at her. "If that is true—or you believe that to be true—then I must inform my Lady."

  "The—?" Aliam began.

  "The Lady of the Ladysforest." He eyed Paks doubtfully. "I find it hard to believe—"

  "So did I, at the time," said Paks. She smiled at him. "So did the Kuakgan of Brewersbridge, who was also there."

  "A Kuakgan! A Gird's paladin with a Kuakgan?"

  "Yes." Paks nearly burst into laughter at the look on his face. "I never claimed to be a common paladin," she said slyly. Everyone but the elf laughed then, and he finally smiled.

  "I fear," he said in a different tone, "that you will be hard to convince. So Amrothlin said, and so said Ardhiel, but—no matter. Will you come to the Ladysforest, then? I will swear no harm, and will guide you."

  Paks remembered her first enchantment by elves, when she might have come to the Halveric steading but for their interference, however well-meant. She had heard of men being lost for years in the elvenhomes, spending lifetimes there while seeming to enjoy only a few days of ease and delight. She shook her head. "I fear the turmoil of this realm without a ruler, sir elf. I must not delay."

  "But our Lady must speak to you—"

  One of the other elves spoke softly in elven; the spokesman stopped and turned to him. Heads were shaken. Paks took this chance to give her squires a reassuring look; Esceriel was still scowling.

  "It's all right," she said quietly. "I won't give up the sword, and I think he's decided not to fight."

  "He'd better," said Aliam grimly. "Sheepfarmer's child, indeed!"

  "Well, I am, my lord."

  "But that's not what matters! It's—" But the elf had turned back to them, his face now clean of all expression.

  "My lord Halveric, I wished to make this easier on you by withholding my name—permit me to explain that I am Serrothlin, cousin of Amrothlin whom your paladin met, and the Lady's nephew. My companion has made a suggestion, which might serve all our needs."

  "Oh?" Aliam did not sound enthusiastic.

  "I deem it necessary for our Lady to speak with you and with this paladin. The lost prince, such as he is, is her grandson. It is on her that his acts will reflect the most strongly. It was with her consent that her daughter married your human king. She must know for herself what you think mitigates his behavior."

  "I see." Aliam stared full at the elf, unmoving. "And so you propose what?"

  "If the paladin Paksenarrion refuses to come to the Ladysforest, it might be possible for the Lady to come here—"

  "But I thought she never left the elvenhome!" Estil broke in.

  "She does not. But the elvenhome—" He hummed a little tune, that Paks thought she remembered hearing from Ardhiel. "The elvenhome borders are other, as you know. Mortal lands in Lyonya are but clearings, as it were, in the fabric of the elven forests. If you granted your permission, Lord Halveric, she might be persuaded to come—to bring the Ladysforest with her."

  "She could do that?" Aliam stared.

  "Indeed, yes." The elf smiled. "We have not told humans all our powers." He looked around the hall. "But before you agree, my lord—if you agree—I must warn you. If you grant this permission, and if she comes, then for that space of time your steading will be part of the elvenhome. No human can enter or leave unguided, and none should wander about in it. For the ways of the elvenhome forests are as perilous as any grove of Kuakgan."

  "Hmm." Aliam looked down, then turned to Paks. "What do you think? I can see that the Lady has a claim to know what's going on."

  "I agree," said Paks. "My concern is time: I will not imperil the quest to enjoy the delights of elven enchantments."

  Serrothlin smiled. "Lady, I understand your fears. Indeed this might happen, but not without our will. Would you accept my word that we will not let it happen here?"

  "It happened to Ardhiel without his knowledge—can you prevent it?"

  "That was different. Have you never been in a trance of prayer? Even an elf can be enchanted by the gods. If you had not thought of the danger, I might indeed have been tempted to leave you ignorant of it, and solve this problem my own way. But although I dislike humans—as you may have surmised—I will not stoop to dishonesty. I will give my word that you will come from meeting our Lady no later than the time of conference demands."

  "Are there many," asked Paks, suddenly curious, "who regret the alliance?"

  "That number is growing," said Serrothlin, "as it has for some hundred years, as you measure time. It seems clear to some of us that humans have not abided by their word; others excuse them as too short of life to remember. But I remember when elves were most welcome in every hall, when all the forest was open to our hearts, and the heroes you call saints sat at our feet to learn wisdom. Now to be free in our forest we must draw in and in, leaving more of the realm to humans. And lately we have been unwelcome even at court, at the heart of the realm."

  "And what does your Lady say?"

  He frowned. "I do not speak for our Lady; no one does. You will hear for yourself."

  "If Lord Halveric permits." Paks looked at Aliam. "It is up to you, my lord, whether you will risk your steading this way. I believe his words; but it is your land."

  "Not all humans distrust elves, Serrothlin," said Aliam. "Not all humans deserve your distrust. I will tell my people to stay close. Will you ask the Lady if she pleases to come?"

  Serrothlin bowed and withdrew. Two of the elves in his party stayed, coming forward to greet Aliam and Paks.

  "My lord—lady—I am Esvinal, a friend of Ardhiel's," said one. "It is easier if one of us stays, to form the bridge by which our Lady will shift the borders."

  "Do you also dislike humans?" asked Aliam.

  "I like them less than Ardhiel does, and more than I did when we arrived, my lord," said the elf smoothly. Aliam snorted.

  "I'd best tell my people," he said. "If you'll excuse me—" and he left, taking his soldiers and Cal with him. Estil sent the others to warn those living in the hall to keep their places. The squires stayed by Paks. The elf met Paks's eyes.

  "I would not have known you from Ardhiel's last description, Lady Paksenarrion. You are not what he remembers."

  "I daresay not." Paks was surprised to find herself so calm about it. "Yet what he remembers is not the worst of it. Will you believe that if I can change so, the prince is not beyond hope?"

  "That is a hard saying. I saw him once myself." The elf looked quickly at the squires nearby, and Estil. "I—"

  "By your leave, I think we should not discuss his past until the Lady comes," said Paks. "Will it be long? How far is it?"

  Both elves laughed lightly. "Far? Far is a human word for distances humans travel. And long is a word for human time. No, Lady Paksenarrion, it will not be long, for it is not far as we elves can travel within our own lands."

  "Yet your friend Ardhiel rode and walked the same miles we did," said Paks.

  "Oh—to be courteous, when traveling with humans—I've no doubt he did so. And that was outside the elvenhome forests, where other travel is difficult and perilous."

  "As hard for you as travel in the elvenhome forest would be for humans?" countered Paks.

  "Perhaps," said one of them. "I had not thought of it that way."

  Estil came back to them. "Will the Lady stay for a meal, sirs? And what would be appropriate?"

  One shook his head; the other looked thoughtful. "I doubt she will stay longer than to listen to Paksenarrion, my lady. If the household can offer so
mething to drink—"

  "What season is it, in the Ladysforest?"

  "Ah—you are aware, then. It was late summer when we left, but the stretching may thin it."

  "I have a good wine for that," said Estil. Paks looked at her in surprise. She had had no idea that the seasons were any different in the elven lands. Estil grinned at Paks. "Some good comes at last, of the time I listened at my great-aunt's door when she spoke with an elven friend. I thought for years all I'd got from that was a whipping."

  * * *

  Estil was hardly out of the room on her way to the kitchen when Paks felt the change. It was as if the room filled suddenly with water, and yet she could breathe. Her blood tingled. The air smelled of late summer, with the first tang of fall apples still unripe. It wavered, then thickened; common objects on table and hearth took on the aspects of enchanted things of song. It would not have surprised her if the table had begun to dance, or the fire to speak.

  Paks looked at the squires; their eyes were bright. Suriya leaned forward slightly, her lips parted as if she saw an old friend. The door to the courtyard flew open. Instead of the gray winter sky they had ridden under, a soft golden light lay over the court. Paks heard birds singing, and the dripping chimes of snowmelt running off the roof. The elves in the room seemed unchanged in any detail. Yet Paks thought they moved with even more grace, and when they spoke the music of their voices pierced her heart.

  So beautiful was that music that for a moment she could not follow the meaning of the words, and stood bemused. They waited, then spoke again, and this time she realized what they wanted. The Lady of the Ladysforest waited beyond the gate, and called her out. Paks glanced again at the squires. Esceriel's eyes were almost frightened; she knew he feared that she would give up the quest, release the sword, under elven power. She shook her head silently, and went out into the light.

  Patterns of power. Paks remembered what Macenion had said about the elves and patterns—their love of them, the beauty, the strength of binding that they worked into them. Now the strange gold light of a late-summer evening seemed to accentuate the patterns of Aliam's steading. Stonework glowed, the joints making intricate branches up every wall. The arches of the stable cloister seemed ready to speak; Paks thought if they did they would sound like deep-voiced horns. The bare sticks of the kitchen garden, with its lumpy green heads of winter-kale poking from the snow, had sprouted a film of new green, lacy and vulnerable. Even as Paks looked, tendrils of redroot worked up the nearby wall.

  Yet the light was not all golden. Through the open gate came the silvery opalescent glow of elflight itself. And in that glow, silver in gold, was the Lady of the Ladysforest, in form so fair that Paks could never after bring that face to mind. She was tall, as all elves are, and graceful; she wore robes that shifted about her like mists around mountains. And she conveyed without gray hair or lined face an age greater than Paks could well imagine, and immense authority.

  Aliam Halveric bowed, welcoming, and the Lady inclined her head. She came through the gate, looked around, and crossed glances with Paks. Behind her Serrothlin and Amrothlin, not looking at one another, moved to stand beside Aliam.

  "Lord Halveric, we have known you from afar; it is our pleasure to know you in your own steading."

  Aliam bowed again. "Lady, you are most welcome here, as your kin have been and will be."

  "As for us, we shall hope that your friendship endures, Lord Halveric." She looked around. "You have not walled out the trees entirely," she said, noticing the fruit trees trained against one wall. Under her influence their winter buds had opened into leaves and snowy blossoms. "I will mend them," she said, "when we must leave; it would be ill grace to leave you with frost-killed bloom. May we greet your family?"

  "Of course, Lady." Aliam called them forward: Estil, then his children in order, and theirs. The Lady smiled at all, but Paks saw true joy in her face when one of the grandchildren reached out to her unbidden.

  "What, child? Would you come to me?" She held out her hand, and the baby, still unsteady, toddled forward and wrapped chubby fingers around it. "Can you say your name, littling?" She looked up at the mother, Hali's wife.

  "He doesn't say anything yet, Lady; his name's Kieri, for the Duke, Lord Aliam's friend."

  "A good name, a brave name; gods grant he grows into it. He's bold enough now." She laughed softly, for the baby had grabbed her robe, and was trying to stuff it into his mouth. "No, child, that's not food. Best go to your mother; she'll find something better for you." She picked the baby up and handed him over in one graceful move; the child's eyes followed her as his mother turned away.

  Then she turned to Paks. "And you must be Paksenarrion, who found the scrolls that Luap wrote long ago, and freed the elfane taig."

  "Yes, Lady."

  Her glance swept the courtyard, and cleared it without a word. The others moved quickly into the buildings; the two elves reappeared with seats, and she waited until they were placed. Paks felt the immense determination behind her courtesy, the weight of years and authority. With a fluid gesture, she sent her son and nephew away, and seated herself. With no less grace, the Lady set about to make her position clear.

  "My son and nephew," she began, "brought troubling word of you, Paksenarrion, and of your quest. I had hoped never to face this hour. My daughter was dearer to me than you can know, mortals with many children; when she died, and her son disappeared, my grief matched my love. Once that grieving eased, I laid their memories to rest, and hoped to find solace in her daughter. When first I heard of the boy again, it was that he had borne such injury as left him with no knowledge of himself, and none of his elven heritage. A lesser grief than his death, you might say, but not for me, nor for any who loved him. Patterns end; patterns mangled are constant pain. By the time we found him again, he was here, alive—" she glanced around the courtyard. "In this safe haven. If he could mend, it would be with such love as you gave. So I was told." Paks noticed that she neither gave Kieri Phelan's name, nor asked if they knew it.

  "But why didn't you—?" began Estil. Aliam squeezed her hand. The Lady frowned slightly.

  "The elf who brought word, Lady Estil, had it from a ranger first. Then he came himself: Haleron, a distant kinsman, much given to travel in mortal lands. The boy was badly damaged, he told me, in body and mind both. He found no trace of memory that he could use, only the physical signs that we elves read more easily than you. To be sure, he would have had to invade the boy's mind—a damaged mind—and risk more damage to it. As well as endure the pain of it himself." She turned away; Paks saw her throat move as if she swallowed.

  "Then it was you, who sent the elves all those times," said Aliam. "And we thought they liked us."

  The Lady met his gaze directly. "Lord Halveric, they—we—did. We do. You cared for a lost child, a hurt child, and one of our blood—healed him as well as you could. We are forever in your debt; do you think I would shift the borders of the Ladysforest to visit someone for whom I had no regard?"

  Aliam shook his head, speechless.

  "You ask, and rightly so, why we told you nothing and did nothing. First, for the boy himself. With such damage as Haleron believed he had suffered, we were as likely to harm as help, if we tried to stir his mind. I hear that Paksenarrion can attest to the truth of that—" She looked at Paks, who nodded. "And we judged it would not help him to know what he had lost if we could not restore it. We waited, watching him for some sign that he was healing in more than the body. If his memory returned, if any of his elven abilities came forth—"

  "Could they, without your guidance?" asked Paks.

  "Yes. Lord Halveric knew his sister, who without our aid came to her full powers. She was our second reason for saying nothing. You will remember: the year he came to you was the year his father died, of grief, we were told, for his dead wife and lost son. Already she had been brought up to bear the rule. Unless the prince showed that he was returned to himself, we would be unfair to her, and unfair as well t
o the realm, to champion a crippled prince over a princess of great ability. You thought that yourself, Lord Halveric, did you not? When you first suspected who he might be?"

  "Yes." Aliam looked down at his clasped hands. "I had no proof—and she was just coming to coronation that next year—But how did you know what I thought? I never told—"

  "You told the Knight-Commander of Falk. He is part-elven, one of my great-great grandsons."

  "Oh." Aliam looked stunned.

  "And of course he told me what he knew—which wasn't much. I wish you would tell me now why you thought Kieri Phelan was the prince."

  "He told me, finally, when he was my senior squire in Aarenis. I—don't want to go into all that happened, but he told me what little he remembered. Seeing him like that, looking older as men in pain often do, he had a look of the king . . . and his few memories made sense of it."

  "What did he remember? Haleron said there was nothing in his memories but pain and despair."

  "Well—" Aliam ran his hands over his bald head. "I'm not sure now I recall all he said. Little things, as a very small child might see them. A bowl he ate from, tall windows, a garden with roses and a puppy. A man who picked him up—I think that may have been the king, Lady; he remembered the green and gold colors, and a fair beard. He remembered riding with his mother, he said, and traveling in the woods—that's what caught me, you see—and being attacked."

  "That's more than I thought he had," said the Lady quietly. She smoothed her robe with one graceful hand. "Haleron caught none of that."

  "The older lords at court remember the puppy," said Paks.

  "Yes, it knocked him down, or some such. He remembered that, and being lectured for hitting it." Aliam cocked his head at the Lady. "Forgive me, but one thing still confuses me. If he is the prince, and half-elven, why doesn't he look like it? All the half-elves I've seen show their blood—it's one thing that made me think he couldn't be the prince after all."

  "A good question. Even then, there were humans who feared such strong elven influence, and so my daughter thought it would be easier for her children, if they looked more human. This is a choice we have, when we bear children to humans—how much the sinyi blood shows. As well, part of what you see in us is the practice of our abilities, as a swordsman's exercise with a sword shapes his arm and shoulder. Had the prince grown up with that training, he would show some of it—but he would still look more human than elven, as his mother chose." Aliam nodded, looking thoughtful.