A Song for Arbonne (66 page)

"You are mad," said King Ademar flatly, dismissively.

Only then did Blaise turn to him. "I am enraged," he said, a ferocity in his voice for the first time, a first blaze of heat. "I am revolted. I loathe how you have allowed yourself and your country to be used. What king permits a counselor's vile obsession to lead him so far down paths of unholiness and betrayal?"

"A false king," said Fulk de Savaric, his sudden voice clear as a bell. "One unworthy of his crown."

"Or his life," said Bertran de Talair quietly.

"Or of any remembrance at all in the world after the death that Rian is even now making ready for him," added the countess of Arbonne, and of all those there it was her voice that was grimmest of all, as if she were truly speaking for some power beyond the world.

For the first time the king of Gorhaut, turning from one of them to the other, looked shaken. And so smoothly, predictably, his adviser moved to fill the silence that followed.

"These," Galbert said in the deep, commanding voice, "are the last strident posturings of the doomed. Shall we quail before this mumbling? Rather, you should all be on your knees even now, begging the mercy of a gentle death."

"You would like that, wouldn't you?" said Ariane de Carenzu, moving her horse forward a little. She was smiling, but not with her eyes. "You would like the women of Arbonne kneeling before you, I see. I do see it now, actually. No wonder your son's wife fled from you. What does Corannos say about such desires, Galbert de Garsenc?"

"They are abominations," said Blaise quietly. "For which atonement must be made." He himself was pale now.

"This," said the king of Gorhaut, regaining his composure, "has grown tedious. I am here only because the protocols of war compel this meeting of heralds. Hear me then: we have come south because the countess of Arbonne has given shelter and succour to a woman of Gorhaut and has refused to return her to us. All else, as the High Elder says, is posturing. I have patience for no more of it. Prepare yourselves to die on the morrow."

"What if I do return?" said Rosala suddenly. "If I come back north, will you take your army home?"

Galbert de Garsenc laughed thickly. He opened his mouth to reply but was forestalled by the king's lifted hand. "This comes," said Ademar softly, "very much too late. There is a lesson now to be taught to those who have denied our most proper demands. I am pleased to see you eager to return, but it makes no matter at this point. There is no power here, or anywhere in the world, Rosala, that can stop me now from bringing you back to Cortil."

"With the child," said Galbert quickly.

He was ignored.

"To
Cortil,
my lord?" Rosala asked, lifting her voice. "Are you so open about this now? Do you not mean: back to Garsenc and my lord husband?"

In the stillness that followed this, Lisseut realized that the king of Gorhaut had just made, in some fashion she did not entirely understand, a mistake.

A long way south, on the Island of Rian in the sea, where the wind was not blowing on this day and the waters lay calm and blue under the pale winter sun, Beatritz de Barbentain, High Priestess of Rian, rose suddenly from before a fire into which she had been gazing sightlessly for most of the day.

"Something has just happened," she said aloud, though there was no one in her room with her save the white owl on her shoulder. "Something that might matter. Oh, sweet Rian remember us, have mercy upon your children."

She was silent then, waiting, reaching out in her darkness for the elusive, un-coercible vision of the goddess that might let her know at least a part of what was now happening so far away in the place of the wind.

And in that precise moment, by the lake, among that gathering of enemies, a voice was heard for the first time.

"I am afraid," said Ranald, duke of Garsenc, moving his horse into the open space between the two companies, "that this
is
rather too openly said for my taste and for the honour of my family." He was staring at the king of Gorhaut. He had not used a title.

No one responded. No one else moved. It seemed to Lisseut, afterwards, that the duke's words had virtually frozen them all with astonishment. Ranald de Garsenc, the only moving figure in a still world, turned to his wife. He looked remarkably at ease now, as if this action or decision, this movement, had somehow granted him release from something. He said, "Forgive me, my lady, but I must ask this, and I will accept the truth of what you say: has the king of Gorhaut been your lover?"

Lisseut realized she was holding her breath. Out of the side of her vision she saw that Blaise had gone bone-white. Sitting her horse easily, Rosala de Garsenc seemed almost as composed as her husband though. She said, as clearly as before, "He has not, my lord, though he has sought to be that for some time now. He was only delaying while I was with child. Your father, I am sorry to say, has been urging the thought upon him for purposes of his own. I will swear to you though, upon the life of my child, that I have not lain with Ademar, and that I will die before I willingly do so."

"This is why you left?" A different note in Ranald's voice, almost too exposed; it made Lisseut wish, suddenly, that she was not here.
None of us has a right to be listening to this,
she thought.

But Rosala said, her handsome, strong head held high, "It is indeed why I left, my lord. I feared you could not, or would not, guard us against your father and your king, for the one had claimed the child I was carrying, as you know, and the other wanted me."

Ranald was nodding slowly, as if the words were striking echoes within himself.

"Ranald, in the god's name, do not shame me," Galbert de Garsenc began, the beautiful voice becoming harsh, "by allowing this depraved, contemptible woman to give voice to such—"

"You be silent," said the duke of Garsenc bluntly. "I will consider how to deal with you after." The tone was so curt it was shocking.

"After what?" asked Ademar of Gorhaut. His own head was lifted, his carriage in the saddle magnificent. There was a glitter to his gaze.
He knows,
Lisseut thought.
He knows the answer to that.

"After I have publicly dealt with you for the dishonour you have willed upon my house. No king of Gorhaut has ever been free to wreak what havoc he will among the high lords of our land. I am not about to let you be the first. The wife of the duke of Garsenc is not a trinket to be played for, however blind the duke might be." He paused for a moment, then: "This is a formal challenge, Ademar. Will you fight me yourself, or name a champion to shelter behind?"

"Are you
mad?"
Galbert de Garsenc cried out.

"That," said Ranald gravely, "is the second time that question has been asked of one of your sons. In fact, I think it is true of neither of us." He turned to Rosala. "Other accusations may fairly be made against me. I will hope to have a chance to address them after."

She met his glance but said nothing, stern and proud, Lisseut thought, as some yellow-haired goddess of the north. But that, she realized immediately after, was idle fantasy: they didn't allow goddesses in the north.

Ranald turned back to Ademar. They all turned back to Ademar. The king of Gorhaut, past the first surprise of this, was smiling; only with his lips though, his eyes were hard as stone.

"We are in a foreign county and at war," he said. "You are a commander of my army. You are now proposing that we fight each other because your wife, whose flight from your home is the cause of our being here, alleges that I expressed a desire for her. Is this what I understand from you, my lord of Garsenc?"

It sounded absurd, mad indeed, when put that way, but Ranald de Garsenc did not quail. He, too, was smiling now, a smaller man than the king but as easy in the saddle. "You might not remember it," he said, "but I was in that room in Cortil with my father last autumn when you came in and demanded that Rosala be brought back. Back to you, you said." They saw the king's expression change. His eyes flicked away from Ranald's, and then returned.

The duke went on. "I should have made this challenge then, Ademar. You have been using Rosala's flight from me as your excuse for war—my father's idea, of course. You aren't nearly clever enough. She didn't fly from me, Ademar, I think I dare say that. She left her husband and put our child at terrible risk because of you and my father. I think I am seeing things clearly for the first time in a great many years. If you have any honour or courage left in you, draw your sword."

"I will have you arrested and then gelded before burning," Galbert de Garsenc snarled, pointing a gauntleted finger at his older son.

Ranald actually laughed. "More burning? Do what you will," he said. "The king might well be grateful for that protection. I will not, however," he added, still with that unnatural calm, "speak further to procurers." He had not even bothered to look away from Ademar. To the king he said: "There have been allegations of treason thrown about freely here. At my brother, by my brother at my father, at you. I find it all a game of words. I prefer to name you what you are, Ademar: a dupe, and a coward hiding behind his counsellor, unwilling to use his own sword in a matter of honour."

"Ranald," said Ademar, almost gently, "Ranald, Ranald, you know I can kill you. You have done nothing but drink for ten years—
that
is why your wife fled south. I doubt you have given her a night's satisfaction in years. Do not deceive yourself before you go to the god."

"This means, I take it, that you will fight."

"He will do no such thing!" Galbert snapped.

"Yes, I will fight," said Ademar in the same moment. "The sons of my High Elder have finally grown too tiresome to endure. I would be done with them."

And the king of Gorhaut drew his sword. There came a sound from among the armies north of them, for the light was brilliantly clear and all men there could see that blade drawn. Then the sound changed, grew high-pitched with surprise, as Ranald de Garsenc drew his own blade in reply, and moved his horse apart from the others by the lake. Ademar followed him. As he lowered the visor of his helmet, they saw that the king was smiling. To the west, not far away, the stones of the Arch of the Ancients gleamed, honey-coloured in the light.

"Well?" Lisseut heard Bertran murmur under his breath.

"Ten years ago," said Fulk de Savaric softly, "it might have been a match. Not now, I am sorry to say."

Blaise said nothing, though he had to have heard that. He was watching his brother with something hurtful in his eyes. Rosala was watching too, but there was nothing to be read in her expression at all. Ranald, Lisseut noted, had not bothered to lower his helm.

"It will make no difference, you know that," said Galbert de Garsenc heavily, speaking to the Arbonne party. "Even if Ademar dies we will destroy you tomorrow. And he will not die. Ranald has been drinking all day. He would never have done this otherwise. Look at his face. He is about to meet the judgment of the god, sodden and disgraced."

"Redeemed, I should have said." Blaise's voice was hollow. He did not take his eyes from the two men circling each other now on the roadway by the strand.

And what they saw then, as the long, bright swords touched for the first time, delicately, and then again with a sharp, wrist-grinding clash, was indeed redemption of a kind. There
is
a grace here, thought Lisseut suddenly, resisting the thought. She had never seen Ranald de Garsenc before and so she had never seen him fight. He had been King's Champion of Gorhaut once, for Ademar's father, someone had told her. That had been a long time ago.

For a moment it seemed not to have been, as he pivoted his war horse using knees and hips and rang a hard, quick downward blow against Ademar's side. The curved armour caught the blade and deflected it, but the king of Gorhaut swayed in his saddle, and there came a rumble again from the armies. Lisseut looked over at Blaise, she couldn't help herself, but then she turned away from what she saw in his face, back to the two men fighting in the road.

Blaise didn't even see Ranald's first blow land. He had actually closed his eyes when the combat began. He heard the clang of sword on armour, though, and looked up in time to see Ademar rock in his saddle before righting himself to deliver a slashing backhand of his own. Ranald blunted that with a twist of his sword-arm and sidled his horse away from Ademar's attempt at a cut back the other way.

It was that horseman's movement, the instinctive, almost unconscious product of a lifetime in the saddle with blade in hand, that took Blaise back, in a blur and rush of time, to his childhood and those first clandestine lessons his brother had given him, at a time when Galbert had forbidden Blaise to touch a sword. Both boys had been whipped when the deception was uncovered, though Blaise hadn't actually known about Ranald's punishment until long after, and then only because one of the corans had spoken of it. Ranald had never said a word. There had been no more lessons though. Galbert had had his way. He almost always did.

Blaise looked over at his father then, at the smooth-cheeked, commanding features. The furrow of concern on Galbert's brow had gone; he was actually smiling now, a smug, thin-mouthed expression Blaise knew well. And why should he not smile? Ranald was ten years past his fighting days, and Ademar was very possibly the strongest warrior in Gorhaut. The result of this had been assured from the moment the challenge was made, and Galbert, Blaise understood in that moment, cared nothing at all for the life of his son. Ranald's death would even simplify matters. He had become almost irrelevant to the High Elder, except, as here, when he became a nuisance and a distraction, or even a threat to Galbert's power over the king.

In fact, if Rosala's story was true—and of course it would be true—the honour or dignity of Garsenc had ceased to be important to Galbert in any way that signified. All that seemed to matter to the High Elder was his control of Ademar and this great burning in Arbonne that was allowing him. Ripened fruit of his long dream. That was what mattered, and one thing more: Cadar. His grandson was also a part of Galbert's cold stalking of power in Gorhaut and Arbonne's obliteration.