C. Dale Brittain (18 page)

Tonight he would not bother the king, hungry and tired as he was.
 
But in the morning he would ask to be released from his oath of loyalty to him.
 
Since Hadros had tried to have him killed anyway, he should be happy to have him go.
 
Then he would go to Karin and offer himself to her as her warrior as well as her lover.

He tried uneasily to remember where Kardan’s kingdom was.
 
He knew it was somewhere across the channel, but he had never crossed the channel in his life.

The king’s younger sons asked about Valmar again once Hadros and the warriors who had accompanied him had wolfed down bread and cheese and stewed mushrooms and had started the ale horn around for the second time.

“Well,” said the king slowly, leaning back on the bench with his elbows behind him on the table.
 
“Valmar will stay in Kardan’s kingdom this summer with Karin.
 
In a few weeks I shall return there with suitable betrothal gifts, and they shall be married after the harvest.”

There was a shocked silence.
 
“I’ve gotten back just in time,” thought Roric.

The king’s younger sons were nearly as surprised as he was.
 
“Did—
 
Did you decide for them, Father?” Dag asked at last, hesitantly as though fearing his father was about to choose a wife for him as well.

“No, although I am well pleased with their decision.”
 
The king showed his teeth in a smile for a second.
 
“It seems they had fallen in love themselves, something Karin, that sly lass, tried to keep from me.
 
Valmar,” with a shrug, “was happy enough to fall in with her plans.”

“But she does not love Valmar!” cried Roric.
 
“She is in love with me!”

No one appeared to hear him.

The maids and housecarls began talking at once about the upcoming marriage, until Hadros looked up with a frown.
 
“Enough of this chatter.
 
I shall not have those who serve the royal family engage in idle talk about us.
 
Karin and Valmar will be married here and live here at least half the year, until her father dies.
 
Or I,” mostly under his breath.
 
“That is all you need to know.”

The men started drifting off toward the loft house, some of them still speculating—and once they were out of Hadros’s hearing, in language he would never have tolerated—about how far Karin’s and Valmar’s love had progressed.
 
The consensus seemed to be that Valmar was quite a lad to have won the cool princess.

Roric went up to the king, who was yawning now and pulling off his boots.
 
“I meant to wait until tomorrow to speak to you,” he said, “but I can wait no longer.”

Hadros looked straight through him and unbuckled his sword belt.

Roric leaned against the wall for support.
 
No wonder no one had said anything to him.
 
No one could see or hear him.
 
He had returned from the Wanderers’ realm but returned in such a form that he might as well not be here.

He wandered out of the hall, picking up a piece of cheese and eating it distractedly as he went—at least food was still real to him.
 
“But the troll could see me,” he thought.

How far did this extend?
 
Would others still be able to feel him?
 
Would a sword still cut him?

He followed the warriors and housecarls up the ladder to the men’s loft.
 
Someone bumped against him in the dark and said, “Excuse me.”
 
So he could still be felt then, even if not seen.

Exhausted and shaken, he stretched out in the straw.
 
Invisible, he would have to stow aboard a ship across the channel in the hope that once there he could find Karin and her kingdom even though no one would hear when he asked directions.
 
But what good would it do him to be there, the silent and unseen observer, if Karin and Valmar really were in love?

He awoke to the sound of his name.
 
“Roric!
 
What are you doing here?”

He sat up abruptly.
 
Early morning sun came through the small window.
 
One of the warriors who had accompanied King Hadros leaned on his elbow next to him.
 
“I didn’t see you last night!
 
Did you come back while we were gone?
 
Did you really meet the Wanderers?”

“Can you see me?” Roric demanded.

“Of course I can see you,” with a laugh.

So he was back.
 
The lords of voima only knew what had happened to him, but at least it was over.
 
He jumped up. “I have to talk to the king, find out more about this marriage between Valmar and the Princess Karin.”

“I can probably tell you more than Hadros is likely to.”
 
Roric sat down again slowly.
 
“You know he always treated the princess very delicately, as though even her ears were made out of glass.
 
Not that he minded her doing all the work to direct his household!
 
But she seems to have decided to take matters into her own hands as soon as she was out of the kingdom.
 
I’d heard, of course, of sovereign queens with a whole string of lovers, who still profess their purity and keep serious suitors dangling, but I’d never believed it before.”

“But what happened?” asked Roric through cold lips.
 
This could not be Karin they were discussing.

“The second night we were there, she took young Valmar with her on a ride up into the hills and did not come back until the next morning.
 
I saw them when they returned, and I don’t think there can be much doubt what happened,” with a chuckle.

Roric kept his hand from his knife by sheer will.

“I think King Hadros moved fast to make sure his son
wasn’t
just one more in a string of lovers, by getting her to agree to their marriage.
 
But I don’t think he’s made a formal offer to her father yet; that’s why we have to go back in a few weeks.
 
If you come along, you’ll see for yourself.

“But what about
you
?” the man added.
 
“Was that really someone with no back?
 
And where did you go?”

But Roric was no longer there.
 
He went down the ladder in one long jump and strode across the courtyard.
 
Since Valmar was not yet of age, he had not yet sworn himself to him, and no oath would keep him from killing him.

Roric had almost forgotten his own voyage to the Wanderers’ realm in the news about Karin, and he was not prepared for the stunned face Hadros turned on him when he interrupted the king in the middle of his porridge and beer.

“No, of course I did not run away,” he said quickly.
 
“I’ve been in the land of the Wanderers, though it turned out it was not a Wanderer who summoned me.
 
But I intend to leave this kingdom now to cross the channel, and I ask to be freed of my loyalty to you.”

The king stared at him as though he had not understood a word, then very slowly began to smile.
 
“Both Valmar and Karin tried to persuade me you had gone with the Wanderers, that the lords of voima might really take a personal interest in people like you and me.
 
Perhaps I should have believed them.”
 
He reached out abruptly to clap Roric on the shoulder.
 
“How does it feel to be a warrior of voima out of the oldest tales?”

“No, you do not understand,” said Roric.
 
“One thing I did learn in the land of the immortals is that they are
not
creatures of honor and glory—or at least not the ones I was with.
 
I never spoke with the Wanderers themselves.
 
There is much more purpose in life here as a mortal than there could ever be in that realm.”

“Are you sure you were not hiding in the woods this whole time?” asked the king with a gleam in his eye, as though not quite daring to believe him.

“No, of course not!
 
I shall tell you all about that realm some day—the fields are rich with grain, and the sun never sets.
 
But right now I am going to Kardan’s kingdom.”

“Of course you can accompany me when I go in a few weeks.
 
I need to start assembling suitable betrothal gifts.”

This was becoming as frustrating as trying to talk to the beings of the “third force.”
 
“I am going
now,
” said Roric as distinctly as he could.
 
“I would prefer you to release me from my oath before I go so that I can swear myself to Karin’s service, but if you do not I shall go anyway.”

“And why are you so eager to go there now?” Hadros asked suspiciously.

Roric was not about to tell the king he intended to kill his oldest son, but at this point he scarcely cared if he guessed.
 
“Because I love Karin.”

“Out!” roared the king to the others in the hall, who had been following the conversation with intrigued expressions.
 
“All of you, out!”
 
They fled in panic, and Hadros jumped up to slam the door after them.

The hall was dim now, lit only by the smoke-hole and the small windows up in the eaves.
 
Hadros sat down again, favoring one leg and breathing hard.

“You came to me with this nonsense last month.
 
I told you then to forget the whole idea, that Karin would not wed a fatherless man.”

“And you were furious enough,” said Roric, still standing, his hand on his hilt, “that you told Gizor you would not mind if I was dead.”

Hadros started to jump up again, then changed his mind.
 
“Threatening you has not, it appears, taught you sense,” he said with steely calm, but then for a second Roric thought he smiled.
 
“Sit down so we can face each other at eye level.”

When Roric sat down cautiously at the far end of the bench, the king continued, “You are my sworn man, and I am your sworn lord.
 
Gizor overreacted to something I said in anger.
 
Let us not allow that princess make either of us kill the other.”

“I love ‘that princess.’
 
You tell me a man without a father should not aspire so high, but she loves me herself.
 
A princess can marry any man she chooses.”

King Hadros was still breathing hard.
 
“Maybe you did not hear,” he said quietly, as though not wanting his words to carry outside the hall.
 
“She has taken Valmar for her lover.”
 
Roric shut his eyes for a second to try to stay calm but did not interrupt.
 
“I could not allow Valmar, any more than you, to speak to her while she was still a hostage here, because it was my responsibility to send her home to her father as pure and unfettered as she came to me.
 
He paid the tribute faithfully each year, and I do not war on girls.

“But now—
 
Now that she is a royal heiress and home again, she can make her own decisions.
 
She has many better men to choose from than a warrior without kin.
 
And she has chosen my son.”

Roric clenched his fists.
 
“If you told him—
 
If you told him to take her by the strong hand, then even if I am your sworn man, I—”

King Hadros snorted, and Roric caught again that very fleeting, very strange expression, almost as though the king was pleased.
 
“Not at all.
 
I think it was her idea.
 
Forget her, lad!
 
Do not waste your strength thinking of women.
 
Think instead of this.