Yesterday's Kings (37 page)

They strolled beside the river, where the water babbled merrily and fat trout jumped at dancing, unwary flies. Abra looked about her and saw what he meant: this was a green and pleasant land, where folk lived in accord with the terrain. Save for the halls’ rivalries.

“Shall your father and brother accept Cullyn’s ruling?”

Lofantyl nodded. “All well.”

“You sound doubtful, my love.”

Lofantyl brought her to a place where willows draped massive limbs over the benches of the river. They were so large their central trunks had split to drape the great branches to the ground, providing comfortable seating. They took places on a down-swinging limb and watched the water go by. A blur of bright color that was a kingfisher flashed by, chased by another as if the birds gamed, or flew some avian ballet.

Then Lofantyl chuckled, shrugging, and added: “I do not much trust my father or my brother.” He laughed. “I never got on with either of them, much.”

“But Cullyn’s sworn them to peace, no?”

“Perhaps …” He turned his eyes toward the river. “I hope it be so, but is it not …” He looked at her, fear and honesty in his gaze. “If it is not, what shall you choose?”

“To stay with you.”

“Even does it come to war with your father?”

Abra swung toward him, cradled by the willow’s branch and his knees, his hands on her shoulders, and said, “Yes. I pray it does not come to that, but if I must make a choice, then it shall be to stay with you. I love you.”

Lofantyl said, fervently, “Thank you.”

“S
HALL IT WORK?
Can it work?”

Cullyn held Lyandra close as they stared out over the river, unaware that Lofantyl and Abra did the same. The sun was setting now, fading like some vast smiling face toward the horizon, the sky painted all red where the smile decorated the clouds and the blue that announced the rising of the moon. To the east, past the forest beyond which lay Kandar, it was a velvet blue, a sickle moon lofting, accompanied by courtier stars. A breeze blew fresh, but warm, and he felt Lyandra’s body heated against his. A squadron of geese beat westward toward the setting sun, its honking musical as the instruments that played in the Durrym encampment. He watched as the V-shaped flight westered, and in a way wished he might join them—to fly away careless. But Lyandra’s hand was warm in his, and her body soft as his grew hard, so he watched the geese fly away and kissed her cheek.

“You’re syn’qui,” she said, “so I suppose it shall.”

“Peace between Ky’atha and Kash’ma; between Kandar and Coim’na Dhru?”

“Perhaps, if you govern it.”

“Govern it?” he stuttered. “What can I govern?”

“The world’s fate,” she answered. “Now kiss me, eh?”

There were times, he thought, that it was best to obey.

“W
HAT IN THE GODS’ NAMES
is going on?” Laurens asked Eben. “We came here to fetch Abra back. I understood that, but now …? What are we—emissaries or prisoners?”

Eben grinned at the soldier, settling himself more comfortably on the couch. “Do you really want to go back?”

Laurens frowned.

“Back to your barracks in Lyth? Is the food better there, the wine? Is that cold keep warmer than this tent?” Eben gestured at their confines. “Is your bed softer? Is the company so fine?”

Laurens shook his head, grunting as he filled a glass. “I’m sworn to Lord Bartram’s service. What’s comfort to do with it?”

“Much, I think.” Eben stretched his legs down the length of his own couch and fell back against the pillows. “In Kandar I lived as an outcast. You know what happened to my cottage, and likely Cullyn’s, too.”

“Even so,” Laurens grumbled.

“Even so,” Eben answered, “consider the advantages. Cullyn is to wed Lyandra, and we are, in a way, his liege men. Lofantyl shall wed Abra, and Kash’ma and Ky’atha Halls swear peace. Perhaps even Kandar and Coim’na Drhu, does the syn’qui succeed.”

“He’s but a lad,” Laurens returned, “and I’m a soldier.”

“Would you see peace forged?”

Laurens nodded.

“Then trust me,” Eben said. “And him. He knows not what he does, but the power’s in him, and I place my trust in that.”

“And Per Fendur?”

“Shall be defeated.”

“And even if he is, then shall the Church not send another?”

“Perhaps, but if the Zheit and the Shahn can be brought to peace, then perhaps so can Kandar and Coim’na Drhu. It’s at least a start.”

“Perhaps.” Laurens sighed and poured himself more wine. “I leave these ponderings to such as you. I’m only a simple soldier.”

Eben chuckled. “You’re hardly simple, my friend.”

“Where is he, anyway?” Laurens wondered.

“Walking with his love,” Eben replied. “What else would a young man do on his wedding eve?”

Laurens laughed obscenely.

I
T WAS A CURIOUSLY SIMPLE
ceremony for a folk so given to display.

Pyris himself came to Cullyn’s tent and asked, formally, for permission to enter. That granted, he asked if Cullyn was ready—would he attend in a hour? The suitor was—for the last few hours, nervously. He was dressed in the outfit Pyris had gifted him: a shirt of soft white linen with golden embroidery about the collar and cuffs, surmounted with a tunic of green dark as oak leaves in high summer, and all stitched with silver thread around the edgings. Breeches of dark blue fit almost embarrassingly snug, and slid into knee-high boots of white deerskin. A leather belt was chased with gold and silver, and equipped with an ornate sheath for his shattered lyn’-nha’thall. Servants had come to shave him and dress his hair, and he had never felt so much the popinjay.

Or been so much laughed at, for Eben and Laurens had taken much pleasure in commenting on his outfit, albeit they were little less splendid. Eben’s ancient robe had been washed and mended, restitched where cabalistic symbols had disappeared under the weight of time. He had even allowed his beard to be trimmed and his own hair washed, so that now he looked like a true wizard. Almost, Cullyn thought, regal.

And Laurens had shaved himself and let a servant crop his hair even shorter. He had accepted a white linen shirt and a blue tunic, breeches of matching blue, and boots like Cullyn’s. He wore a weaponless belt, and seemed uncomfortable for the absence.

“In the names of all the gods,” he grunted when the barbers were done, “I smell like a whore.”

It was true that perfumes had been washed into their hair and unguents applied to their skin, but Cullyn wondered if they did not smell better than any time since leaving Ky’atha Hall. Nonetheless, he paced the confines of the tent plucking at his finery, aware that in his wake he left a trail of scent unlike his usual smell of must and leaf mold.

Eben said, “It shan’t last long. Before the day’s out you’ll stink of wine. And then”—with a sidelong glance at Laurens—“we’ll be on the road again and you’ll smell as usual.”

“Do I smell?” Laurens filled a goblet with the rich Durrym wine.

“Do horses drop road apples?” Eben extended a goblet that Laurens filled.

“When shall we leave?” Cullyn asked.

“In due course.” Eben stroked his fresh-washed beard as if he could not quite believe it so clean. “The Durrym have less sense of time than you—they’ll likely celebrate for a week or more. This is a momentous event.”

“It’s my wedding,” Cullyn muttered, wondering if his breeches were indecently tight.

“It’s the marriage of Garm to Durrym.” Eben drank more wine, carefully, a hand covering his beard that he not spill on its pungent silkiness. Cullyn could not help smiling, for all his nervousness. “You to Lyandra, Lofantyl to Abra. This is such an event as has never before happened. This is a turning point for the world.”

Cullyn groaned. More ominous talk of fate and destiny. “Where shall we live?” he asked.

“Abra with Lofantyl, in Kash’ma Hall,” Eben replied. “You and Lyandra, where you choose.”

“I can’t take her back to the cottage—even if it still stands. She’s accustomed to better accommodation. And …” He frowned. “There’s still Per Fendur.”

“Who shall be dealt with,” Eben said calmly. “One way or the other.”

“And those ways are?”

“Worry about that later.” He drank more wine. “You’re syn’qui: you shape destiny.”

Cullyn shook his head and took up a goblet, drained it in one long gulp, and looked to Laurens.

“How say you? You came into all this in my defense, would you go back?”

Laurens paused before answering, downed a goblet of the rich red wine, and then shook his head.

“Save Lord Bartram demands it, no. I’ve thought this over and decided I’ve no love of that priest or Amadis. I’d as soon stay here—Coim’na Drhu seems a most pleasant country, so why go back?”

Eben chuckled.

Laurens ignored him, continuing: “I threw in my lot with you, and I believe this old man”—he shaped an obscene gesture in Eben’s direction—“is wise. So I’ll stay here so long as you remain.”

“And if I don’t?”

“Then I’ll follow after. You need someone to watch your back.”

“Well said!” Eben clapped his hands. “Even syn’qui need bodyguards.”

Cullyn ceased his nervous pacing, staring at them, knowing he had true friends with him. He took their hands. “Thank you.”

P
YRIS CAME AGAIN.

He wore a black shirt topped with a long tunic of white trimmed with silver embroidery and pale fox fur. His breeches were white and his boots black as deepest midnight. His long hair was gathered in a tail by a knot of oak leaves, and Cullyn thought he had not seen so splendid a figure as Pyris bowed formally and asked, “Are you ready?”

Cullyn gulped down the last of his wine and nodded.

Pyris smiled and reached beneath his shirt to extract a package that he extended to Cullyn. “I’d give you this.”

Cullyn unwrapped the parcel and found himself holding a magnificent knife, sheathed in a no-less splendid scabbard. The hilt was ivory—a unicorn’s horn, he suspected—the quillons fashioned from some golden wood he did not recognize that matched the inlay of the butt. The blade was long and wickedly pointed, fashioned from stone or wood—he could not tell—but sharp on both edges, with a fuller running from tip to choils. It was the finest knife he had ever seen, far better than the one Lofantyl had gifted him. He stared at it, turning it in the light.