Hall of the Mountain King (17 page)

Again there was a silence. When Mirain showed no sign of
continuing, the king said, “You left him early and all but alone. Why?”

“There was nothing for me to do.”

“You could have remained to rule in my name. You are my
heir, and will be king.”

“Moranden is Lord of the Western Marches.”

The king regarded him long and deeply. “Perhaps,” he said,
“you fled.”

Mirain flung up his head. “Are you accusing me of
cowardice?”

“I am saying what others will say. Are you prepared to
defend yourself?”

“In that part of Ianon,” Mirain said, “my parentage is not a
thing to boast of. Lacking a war to fight in, I judged it best to return here.”

“How did Ustaren die?”

If the question had been meant to take Mirain off guard, it
failed. “He fell at the hands of one of his kin, a priestess of the goddess.
She was quite mad. She was aiming,” he added, “at me.”

The king’s face drew taut. “No one moved to defend you?”

“My uncle tried, as did my squire. They were prevented.
Ustaren died. I did not.”

“And you left.”

“Before any others could die for me. It is not time yet to
teach the Marches the error of their religion.”

The king bowed his head as if suddenly it had grown too
heavy to lift. In his eyes was a horror, a vision of Mirain dead with a black
dagger in his heart.

Mirain knelt in front of him and laid his hands on the
gnarled knees. “Grandfather,” he said with an undertone of urgency, “I am safe.
See; I am here, and alive, and unhurt. I will not die and leave you alone. By
my father’s hand I swear it.”

“Your father’s hand.” The king lifted Mirain’s own, touching
with a fingertip the sun of gold. Briefly, painfully, he smiled. “Go to bed,
child. You look to be in need of it.”

Mirain hesitated, then rose and kissed his brow. “Good night,
Grandfather.”

“Good night,” the king said, almost too softly to be heard.

oOo

Ymin eased the door shut behind her. The chamber was dim,
the nightlamp burning with its shaded flame, flickering in a waft of air.

The lad from Imehen surged up in his niche, eyes glittering,
his body a shadow of alarm. She sang a Word; he subsided slowly.

Mirain was in bed but not asleep. He did not move as Ymin
came to stand beside him. Nor did he glance at her, although he brought one arm
up, bending it, pillowing his head on it.

He was not wearing his torque. He looked odd without it,
younger, strangely defenseless.

That, she knew, was an illusion. Even at his lowest ebb,
Mirain never lacked for defenses. He had only to raise his hand.

He spoke softly, coolly, without greeting. “You have great
skill with the Voice.”

“If I did not, I would not be the king’s singer.”

He turned his eyes upon her then. Perhaps he was amused.
Certainly he was holding something at bay. “I cannot be so enchanted. Even,” he
said, “when I yearn to be.”

She sat on the bed beside him. “Have you proved that?”

“My initiation into the priesthood was . . . hampered. One
of the priests was young and strong and impatient. He tried force.” Mirain
paused for a heartbeat. The thing in his eyes, the surging darkness, the sudden
light, came almost near enough to name. “He lived. He healed, after a fashion.”

“You won your torque.”

“Avaryan’s priests would not refuse it to Avaryan’s son.
Even though he could not submit that last fraction of his will. Even though he
had come within a breath of murder. Even though he could not master the power that
was a deadly danger to them all.”

“Perhaps,” she said, “the power has its own laws, and your
soul knows them but your mind does not. The rite of the torque was made for simple
mortal folk, to teach them submission, to wake them to the might of the god. As
his son you have need of neither.”

“I have more need than any.” He was quiet still, but she was
beginning to understand. The darkness was wrath, and grief, and hatred of himself.
The light was Sun-fire crying to be set free.

“Tell me,” she bade him gently, yet with a tang of iron.
“Tell me what you are hiding from the king.”

His eyes hooded. “What is there to hide?”

Suddenly she had no patience at all. “Must we play at truth-and-
falsehood like a pair of children? The king suffers it; he longs to spare you
pain. I have no such scruples. You left Umijan because Moranden tried to kill
you. Did you not?”

“Not Moranden. Ustaren, through a kinswoman of his, a
priestess of the Dark One. Moranden gave me what aid he could.”

“It was not enough.”

“It was more than he needed to give.”

“And that galls you.”

Abruptly he rolled onto his face. The coverlet slipped; he
made no effort to regain it.

She looked with pleasure at his smooth-skinned compact body;
saw the healing scars and knew them for what they were; yielded to temptation,
running a light hand down his back.

He shivered under it, but his voice was clear and unshaken.
“It gladdens me. Moranden may have meant betrayal; he may have meant to
challenge me. But in extremity he came to my aid. He may yet become my ally.”

“Why then did you abandon him? Why did you not remain to
press your advantage? Now he is in the Marches among his own people; he will
forget alliance and remember only enmity, until he raises the folk against you.
Why did you set him free to betray you?”

He moved all at once with blurring speed, half rising,
seizing her hand in a grip she could not break.

She met his wide dark stare. His nostrils flared; his lips
drew back. “I did not set him free. I had no say in the matter. For I was
threatened, and the power came, and it did as it chose. It lured Ustaren to his
death. It laid the priestess low. It flung the Marches in Moranden’s face and
drove me back to this my kennel, where I may be safe and warm and protected
from all harm.”

As suddenly as he had seized her he let her go, drawing into
a knot of rage and misery. “The power did all these things, and now it sleeps.
And I wake to face what I have done. Murder, madness, cowardice—”

“Wisdom.”

She had silenced him.

“Yes, wisdom. I spoke ill before; I did not think. You were
best away once your power had revealed itself, and Moranden will not turn
against you yet. Not he. He will challenge you in the open before all Ianon. So
much your power knew when it sent you back to us.”

“My power did more than defend me. It killed. And I—I
exulted. I gave blood to the goddess, and the god flamed in me, and it was
sweeter than wine, sweeter than honey, sweeter even than desire.” His voice broke
on the last word; he coiled tighter, rocking, face hidden in his heavy hair. “I
wonder, singer. Are these vows of mine a dire mistake? Perhaps if—I—” He
laughed with a catch in it. “Maybe it’s all perfectly simple. I only need do
what any man does when the need is on him, and the power will see how sweet it
is and forget the delights of slaughter.”

Her foolish brain wondered if he had had more wine than was
good for him. But her nose caught no scent but his own faint, distinct, male
musk; and her eyes saw that his own were clear, if troubled; and her heart knew
that he was only being himself. Begotten of a god, branded with it, laden with
a destiny and compelled to pursue it, yet he was also a man, a very young one,
a boy half grown given powers and burdens that would stagger a man in full
prime.

She felt him in her mind, drawn into it, walking the paths
of her thoughts. His face was set hard against pity.

She felt none, which shocked him into himself. She watched
him begin to be angry, realize how ridiculous it was, try to swallow mirth.

He looked his proper age then. Before he could laugh she
silenced him, laying her hand on his lips. They were very warm.

She drew back carefully.

His eyes were his own again. Grief and guilt would linger,
anger would return, but the great storm had passed. Now he was regarding her,
and for a Sun-priest raised in Han-Gilen he was astoundingly free of shame; he
did not try to hide his body’s tribute.

“You had better go,” he said steadily, with only the
faintest hint of breathlessness.

Ymin did not move. “Would you like me to sing you to sleep?”

He stiffened, stung. “Do I seem so very much a child?”

“You seem very much a man. Who has sworn oaths that only
death or a throne may break; who has done deeds to sing of, and suffered for
them, and begun to find peace. You are the king who will be, and I am the
king’s singer. Shall I sing for you?”

The moment was gone, the danger faded. He lay on his side
and drew up the coverlet, not quickly, not as if he would hide anything, but
with a certain finality.

Then he smiled with all the sweetness in the world, and she
could have killed him, for now that he had mastered himself he had robbed her
of all her lofty detachment. And he did not even know what he had done. “Sing
for me,” he said, simple as a child.

She drew a long breath and obeyed.

When Vadin woke from a dream of songs and magic, he could
have sung himself. Mirain was up and bathing and trying not to growl at the
servants, and when Vadin came into the bathing-room he greeted his squire with
a mixture of glare and grin that was almost painful, so long had he been locked
away with his wrath and his god.

“Come in here,” he said, “and give these busybodies an
excuse to flutter about elsewhere.”

They were not even insulted, let alone deterred. They were
bursting with joy to have their wild young lord back again; to have him waging
his daily battle with them, which always had the same ending. He bathed and
dressed and fed himself, but they drew his water and set the cleansing foam where
he could reach it, held the towels for him, laid out his clothing and served
him at table. In Vadin’s mind, they won the war by a hair.

As usual, Mirain shared bath and breakfast with Vadin. As
usual, Vadin protested to the last.

It was all perfectly as usual. After days in the saddle and
nights in a tent and never a word except for the most dire necessity, it was an
honest miracle.

And yet, when the old fey look came back, Vadin was not
surprised. It was less staring-mad than it had been, and it did not last long.
Only long enough for Mirain to look Vadin up and down, purse his lips, and say,
“Put on your earrings. All of them. And the copper collar, I think. And your
armlets, and the belt you keep for festivals.”

Vadin’s brows went up. “Where am I going? Whoring?”

A smile touched the comer of Mirain’s mouth. “In a manner of
speaking. I want you to look like the lord you are.”

“Then I’d better take off your livery, my lord.”

“No.” The refusal was absolute. “Jayan, Ashirai, I give this
victim to you. He is my squire. He is also the heir of Geitan. Make him the
epitome of both.”

The young servant and the old one, free Asanian and captive
easterner, fell upon him with undisguised pleasure. He suffered it somewhat
more graciously than Mirain ever did, which he took time to be proud of. It
crowded out anxiety. Mirain’s expression boded ill for someone, he dared not
think whom.

The servants took Vadin’s hair out of its squire’s braids,
combed it, braided it anew as befit the heir of a lord. They trimmed the ragged
edges of his beard and plaited it with copper, and arranged his livery to
perfection, and decked him as Mirain had commanded. They even did what he never
troubled to do except for the very highest festivals: painted the sigil of his
house between his brows, the red lion crouched to spring upon a crescent moon.
And at the last they set him in front of the tall mirror, and a stranger stared
back at him. Rather a handsome young fellow if truth be told, and lordly enough
in his finery.

Royalty came to stand beside him, and it did not diminish
him. It made him look more than ever the Ianyn nobleman; never Mirain’s equal,
but lofty enough in his own right. He could hold his head the higher for
knowing that there was one to whom he would gladly bow it.

Mirain’s reflection grinned at his own. “You, my friend, are
frankly beautiful. Beautiful enough to call on a lady.”

Vadin turned to face his prince. The anxiety was gathering
into a knot in his middle. Mirain was a sworn priest; he could not send a go-between
to one he fancied as a bride. Still less could he contemplate an alliance of
plain pleasure. Which left—

“I have a gift,” Mirain said, “for a great lady. I cannot,
of course, insult her by presenting it with my own hands. Nor can I demean her
by sending a servant. Will you bear it for me?”

Vadin’s eyes narrowed. The request was so simple, so devoid
of compulsion, that it was ominous. “Who is this lady? Or shouldn’t I ask?”

“You should,” Mirain said willingly. “It is the Lady Odiya.
Will you go to her, Vadin?”

Dread mounted. Outrage drove it back. “Damn it, you don’t
have to play the courtesan with me! Why not give me my orders and have done
with it?”

Mirain’s head tilted. “I don’t want to command you. Will you
go of your own will?”

“Didn’t I just tell you I would?” Now Mirain was laughing,
and that was maddening, but it was better than anything that had come before.
“You want—whatever it is—given from my hand to hers?”

“Yes.” Mirain set it in his hand: a small box much longer
than it was wide, carved of some fragrant southern wood and inlaid with gold.
“You are to entrust it to no one else, and see that no one hinders you.”

That would not be easy, if the rumors were true. Vadin
traced a curve of the inlay. “Do I linger for a response?”

“See that she opens the box. Say that I am returning what
belongs to her.” Mirain’s teeth bared. It was not a smile. “You’ll be in no
danger. I assure you of that.”

Vadin could think of any number of replies. None of them was
wise with Mirain in this mood. He chose silence and a very low bow and a swift
departure.