A Time of Exile

by Katharine Kerr

  “Your Highness,” Aderyn whispered, “please don’t make a decision in fury. My prince, that goes for you, too.”

  Then he fainted dead away. He seemed to be standing in a swirling dark void, flecked with gold light like fish scales. In the midst of a rushy hiss of noise, he heard someone call his name, and Nananna came striding out of the mists. Here on the inner planes, her image was young and beautiful, her stance that of a warrior.

  “What have they done to you? Does the banadar still live?”

  “He does. I just fainted, that’s all. The lad who hurt me has been arrested.”

  Although Aderyn tried to tell her more, he began floating away, swimming up from the bottom of a dark gold-flecked river. The rushy hiss grew louder and louder; then suddenly he broke the surface and found himself awake, lying on a feather bed. A heavyset man with a blond mustache was bandaging his splinted fingers. Aderyn smelled the clean sharp scent of bruised comfrey root packed in his wound.

  “Should heal up fine,” the chirurgeon was saying over his shoulder. “A superficial slice. These things cut a lot of minor blood vessels, looks like the third hell, but nothing dangerous. Now, as for the fingers, he’s got two broken, but it’s a clean fracture.”

  “Just so,” Aderyn gasped out. “I need water to restore my humors, too.”

  “Aha, you’re awake, are you? They told me you were a physician of sorts.”

  The chirurgeon gave him a friendly pat on the shoulder and stood up to make room for Halaberiel, who brought Aderyn water in a silver goblet. He sat down on the bed, slipped one arm under Aderyn’s shoulders, and helped him drink.

  “You took the cut intended for me. I’ll never forget this. You’re a friend of the People now and forever.”

  “Most welcome.” Aderyn was still too groggy to appreciate the force of that promise. “What did you and the prince determine?”

  “Naught yet.” Addryc himself stepped forward. “Prince Halaberiel and I decided to take the last bit of wise advice you gave us. Lord Dovyn is shut up in a chamber under house arrest. His father gave me a personal pledge of security for him. Here, Aderyn, Melaudd is a good man, and he’s truly shattered by his son’s arrogance.”

  “No doubt,” Aderyn said. “My heart aches for any father with a son like that.”

  Aderyn drank several goblets of water, then lay back exhausted on the pillows. He was in Halaberiel’s luxurious chamber, he realized, and it was full of people. Over by the unglazed windows the other elves were sitting on the floor in grim silence. Two of the prince’s guard were standing in the doorway to wait upon their liege’s orders. At the polished wood table, the chirurgeon was packing up his gear and talking quietly to his young apprentice.

  “I’ll make a decision about young Dovyn tonight,” Addryc said. “The chirurgeon tells me you’d better rest for a while, and I want you there to testify as the victim of this outrage.”

  “Well and good, Your Highness, but what about the land?”

  The prince turned to Halaberiel, who merely shrugged.

  “If naught else,” Addryc ventured, “my decree about the sacred burial ground will stand in all perpetuity.”

  “Indeed?” Halaberiel turned to Aderyn. “I’ll consider the matter later.”

  Addryc nodded in defeat. For a few moments he hovered there uneasily, then took his leave with a gracious bow and a few muttered words about letting Aderyn rest. Once the chirurgeon was gone, too, the other elves got up and moved closer to Aderyn’s bedside, all twenty of them in a disorderly circle.

  “I say we ride out of here and go burn Melaudd’s dun,” Calonderiel said. “That blow was intended for the banadar.”

  There was a muttered chorus of agreement.

  “Oh, hold your tongue, Cal!” Halaberiel snapped. “Since when do we visit the son’s crime on the mother? And there’s more than one woman in that dun.”

  “Well, true, but it would have been satisfying, somehow, to see his tents go up in flames.”

  “We should just move to the west and let them have the rotten land,” Jezryaladar put in. “Who wants a cursed thing to do with men like this?”

  “What?” Albaral snarled. “And let the horse turds win?”

  Eight or nine men began talking and arguing at once. Halaberiel shouted them into silence.

  “Now listen, I’m minded two ways. It depends on what Addryc does to atone for Dovyn’s crime. If he offers me fair justice, well, then, I say we take the compromise. We’re not doing this just for ourselves. The People need the merchants and their iron and grain, and we have to be able to guard that death-ground. There’s a lot more of the Round-ears than there are of us. They can afford a wretched war a lot better than we can.”

  Calonderiel started to speak, then thought better of it. Everyone else nodded in agreement as Halaberiel went on.

  “But what we do next depends on what happens with young Dovyn. If I decide to take the compromise, think of it this way: if we control the Gwynaver, we control one of their main routes north. If they want to ride up our river, we can say no and have their prince behind us.”

  “That river turns west a ways up north,” Calonderiel expanded the thought. “If we can block a main route west, so much the better.”

  “Good, Cal. Now that’s thinking.” He glanced at Aderyn. “You’re dead pale, Councillor.”

  “I need to sleep. Take the lads away, will you, but please, by the gods of both our peoples, keep them out of trouble.”

  Close to sunset, Aderyn woke from the pain of his wound. He found strong wine in a flagon by his bed, drank some to ease the ache, then lay quiet for a while, watching the late golden sun cast long shadows across the Bardek rugs on the polished floor. He was just considering getting up and trying to light some candles when there was a timid knock at the door.

  “Come in.”

  Much to his surprise, Cinvan the Bearsman hurried into the room and knelt beside the bed in sincere humility. As he looked down into Cinvan’s hard young face, Aderyn was remembering looking up at this same soul in another body—Tanyc as a seemingly giant young man, and him a small boy of seven. It was a shock to run across Tanyc’s soul at all, and even more of one to find him reborn so soon.

  “And what can I do for you, lad?” Aderyn said.

  “Well, I don’t truly know. I shouldn’t be here at all, I suppose. Am I tiring you? I can just go away.”

  “If you’re troubled enough to come here, then I’ll certainly listen. I take it the news of what happened in the chamber of justice has gotten itself spread around.”

  “Just that, but I’ll wager you don’t know the half of it yet. Garedd said I shouldn’t be bothering you like this. Garedd’s somewhat of a friend of mine, you see, and he usually does the thinking for the pair of us, but I had to come ask you. You see, they say Addryc’s as mad as mad at Lord Dovyn, and he wants to have him flogged like a common rider for drawing on you.”

  “You’re right—I hadn’t heard that.”

  “So, well, you see, our young lord saved me from getting flogged once, and so I thought, well, maybe, you being a councillor and all, you’d see things a bit different than most, and speak up for mercy, like.”

  “I usually speak up for mercy whenever I can, so you can put your heart at rest about that. But I’m afraid that the matter’s likely to be out of my hands.”

  Cinvan nodded, thinking this over. He was much like Tanyc, Aderyn decided, probably as arrogant in normal circumstances. Yet Aderyn was touched that he would break all protocol to plead for mercy for his young lord.

  “How’s that cut?” Cinvan said. “From what I hear it’ll heal up clean, but it ached my heart, to think of my lord dishonoring himself by hurting an unarmed councillor. Uh, well, I mean, I’m sorry you’re hurt, too.”

  “My thanks.” Aderyn began to see why this Garedd generally did the thinking for Cinvan. “Well, maybe the prince will think differently about flogging your lord tonight, when his rage has had a chance to cool. He’s no
t going to want to offend Lord Melaudd, after all.”

  And yet it turned that this reasonable statement was overly optimistic. After the evening meal, the prince called a meeting in his chamber of justice. By candlelight they assembled, Aderyn and Halaberiel, Melaudd and Dovyn, the grave gray councillors, the priest of Bel, the nervous young scribe. Addryc laid the ceremonial sword of Aberwyn onto the writing table to open the court. Candlelight sparked on the golden blade and glittered on the jeweled hilt and the hand guard, formed into a dragon shape. Addryc sat down behind the table and motioned to Dovyn to kneel in front of him, a harsh gesture that made Melaudd wince.

  “We are here to consider what to do with you, Lord Dovyn. Let me remind you of your fault. Just when the victory you desired was within your grasp, you turned it to defeat. You insulted a man of royal blood. You broke every law of order by drawing your sword in my presence and my dun. In your clumsiness, you wounded not your target, which would have been grave enough, but an unarmed man who had no chance to defend himself. You spilled blood in the prince’s chamber of justice. You have brought a grave shame to your father’s heart. You have disgraced your kin and clan. If your father were to pronounce you exiled, I would put my seal on his decree without a moment’s thought.”

  Dovyn slumped almost to the floor, his head bowed, his face drained of all color.

  “Do you have anything to say in your own defense?” Addryc said.

  “Naught, Your Highness,” Dovyn whispered.

  “So I thought. Tieryn Melaudd, do you have aught to say for your own son?”

  “Naught, Your Highness, except that I love the young cub.” He paused, honestly baffled, staring around the chamber as if he still couldn’t believe that he was here to witness his son’s disgrace. “Truly, I’ve tried to raise him right. I feel his shame as mine. Freely will I offer to pay the prince the full blood-price for his councillor, just as if my son had killed the man, not just wounded him.”

  “You what, my lord?” Halaberiel sat straight up in his chair. “Is it the custom of your country to buy justice, then?”

  “My prince, please,” Aderyn said. “You don’t understand the laws of Eldidd. He’s not trying to buy justice, but to fulfill it. Every man has his lwdd, his blood-price. If he’s killed or maimed, the criminal’s kin must pay that price to his clan. Melaudd is being incredibly generous to offer so much without even waiting for the prince’s decree.”

  “I see.” Halaberiel turned to Melaudd. “Then my apologies, my lord, for my misunderstanding.”

  Melaudd only nodded as if he no longer cared what the prince might or might not do. A faint look of disgust lingered around Halaberiel’s mouth, as if he’d bitten into rotten fruit.

  “You’re truly fortunate, my prince,” Addryc said, “to have such a wise man of our people to advise you. But in my heart I agree with you. The lwdd is indeed fit recompense for the wrong done Councillor Aderyn, and in his name, I accept it from you, Melaudd.” He jerked his head at the scribe, who began writing. “But there remains the fact, Lord Dovyn, that you broke geis by drawing steel in my dun. If this offense had happened in the great hall, when you and the prince had been drinking mead, well, then, I’d be minded to mercy. But in cold blood, in perfect sobriety, you drew a blade in the very chamber of justice, and you did so in front of your outraged father’s very eyes.”

  Dovyn was slumped so low that his forehead almost touched the floor. Melaudd leaned back in his chair, his hands twisted together, the broad knuckles bloodless.

  “Therefore,” Addryc went on, “I demand a recompense for this fault beyond the wounding of Councillor Aderyn. The laws have no lwdd to pay for their bleeding, Tieryn Melaudd. The penalty for this offense is twenty-five lashes in the public ward.”

  “Your Highness.” Melaudd rose and flung himself down beside his son in the same smooth motion. “I’ll beg of you, if ever I’ve served you, to spare him the shame of it. Not the lashes so much, Your Highness, but the shame—strung up in the ward like a common rider.”

  “I fear he’s comported himself like a common rider, Tieryn Melaudd.”

  “Your Highness?” Aderyn rose and bowed. “I, too, will beg for mercy. The lad is very young.”

  “Old enough to know the laws. This injury doesn’t concern you, good councillor.”

  “Your Highness?” Halaberiel rose and bowed. “Never would I question the wisdom of your judgment, but may I ask one thing?”

  “You may, my prince.”

  “Is the penalty for this offense death?”

  “It’s not.”

  “But the lad’s young and might well die from so many lashes.”

  “Just so,” Addryc said with a nod. “Very well. I hereby lower the penalty to fifteen. Dovyn, raise your head and look at the man you thought your enemy. He’s brought you mercy.”

  Slowly Lord Dovyn raised his head and turned Halaberiel’s way, but his cornflower-blue eyes, blackish in the candlelight, burned with hatred.

  Prince Addryc picked up the ceremonial sword and flipped it point upward, holding it high.

  “Hear then my decree,” Addryc said. “Tieryn Melaudd will pay the full lwdd for Councillor Aderyn’s wound. Lord Dovyn will receive fifteen lashes in the public ward from my executioner tomorrow at dawn.” He lowered the sword and rapped the pommel three times on the table. “So be it.”

  Melaudd began to weep, a little sob under his breath, the rusty tears of a man who hasn’t wept since he was a little lad. At Addryc’s call, two guards stepped in, hauled Dovyn to his feet and marched him out, with Melaudd trailing after. Halaberiel caught Aderyn’s elbow and helped him bow to the prince; then they left Addryc alone with his righteous rage.

  “How do you feel, Ado? Well enough to come to my suite for a goblet of mead?”

  “I’m not a drinking man, but tonight I will. But I have to go down to the great hall first—there’s someone I need to see.”

  In the great hall, they found the various human warbands drinking quietly, free of elven presence, as Halaberiel had told the men of the Westfolk to stay up in their own quarters. Off to one side Aderyn found Cinvan sitting with a beefy blond lad whom he introduced as Garedd.

  “I’m sorry, lad,” Aderyn said. “I tried to speak for mercy, but the prince judged otherwise. I’m afraid they’re going to flog your lord tomorrow.”

  “So we heard. The guards came out and told us the news. It aches my heart, but I’m no man to question a prince.”

  “It aches mine, too,” Garedd said. “Here, sir, is it true that your prince spoke for mercy?”

  “It is. It’s thanks to him that the lad will get only fifteen strokes.”

  On the morrow, Aderyn stayed in his chamber when the prince’s justice met Dovyn’s bare back. From his refuge up in the main broch, he heard the distant noise of the various warbands being marched out to witness what happened to a man who broke the prince’s discipline. Then there was a deadly silence. Once he heard a faint sound that might have been a scream. Aderyn did his best to think of other things until he heard the crowd breaking up down below. In a few minutes, Halaberiel and the rest of the elves came up and crowded into his chamber.

  “I’ve never seen such a barbarous thing,” Halaberiel said.

  Jezryaladar untied a skin of mead, took a long swallow, and passed it to the prince, who downed a good bit of it before he passed it on. Halaberiel began pacing back and forth in silence. The skin of mead went round till it was empty.

  Late that morning, a page came, asking the prince and his councillor to attend upon Addryc. Aderyn and Halaberiel followed the lad into the prince’s private chambers in one of the secondary towers. This was a comfortable room, furnished with carpets and tapestries, carved chairs set by a small hearth of pink sandstone, and windows open to a view of a garden. Goblet of mead in hand, Addryc was standing by the hearth, and Melaudd was sitting slumped in one of the chairs. Addryc had the page serve Halaberiel and Aderyn mead, then sent the lad away. During all of this, Melaudd
never moved or took his eyes from the floor.

  “I see no reason to drag this discussion into open court,” Addryc said. “Now, as far as I’m concerned, Lord Dovyn has paid the price the law demands, and that matter is over and done with. Do you and your councillor agree, my prince?”

  “We do,” Halaberiel said. “Tieryn Melaudd, you have my honest sympathy.”

  Melaudd turned his way slack-eyed. He seemed to have aged ten years in this single morning.

  “I suppose I should thank you, but I can’t find it in my heart.”

  Addryc went tense and stepped forward.

  “Well, by the hells! What am I supposed to do—mince and grovel before the cause of my son’s shame? Before this prince rode in, everything was as smooth as cream, but now I see the man I serve twisted this way and that by a foreigner!”

  “Tieryn Melaudd.” Addryc’s voice was silky. “You forget yourself.”

  Melaudd opened his mouth to reply, thought better of it, and rose to bow to the prince.

  “Now, here, my lord,” Aderyn said to Melaudd. “We still need to reach accommodation over the matter of the land.”

  “Perhaps. But I wonder in my heart why I should be forced to accommodate.”

  “Do you?” Halaberiel snapped. “Now you listen to me! That land is ours, not yours, not the prince’s, not any man in Eldidd’s. Do you understand me, Melaudd? The only claim you have is the one I allow you to have.”

  “Oh, is it now? For years and years I haven’t seen one man or woman either on that land. It’s been lying there going to waste—”

  “Melaudd!” Addryc took another step forward. “We determined the question of use in the malover.”

  Melaudd swallowed his words with a dagger glance at both princes. Halaberiel nodded Addryc’s way, then went on.