Kings of the North (4 page)

“But your duty’s here—”

“Yes, until I’ve sired my replacement,” Kieri said. “I’m not planning to storm off tomorrow, after all. But in time—” Now that he had time, having learned of his half-elven heritage … barring accidents or illness, he could expect at least another seventy years of vigorous life and a slow aging after that. By their standards, he was now in the prime of life.

“Well, then,” Garris said. “You’d best get to courting, don’t you think?” He picked up the maps and schedules and left the room, his shoulders stiff with disapproval. Kieri stared after him. He had not expected that reaction … yet when he thought about it … about leaving his father’s and sister’s bones to go to Aarenis … the weight of his inheritance dragged at his earlier determination.

O
rlith was his next visitor. Surely, Kieri thought,
he
would not bring up marriage.

“The Lady was pleased with the taig’s response to you during the Midsummer ceremonies,” Orlith said. “She suggested that I advance your training.”

“I see,” Kieri said. “And in what way?”

“She saw you talking to one of the younger elf-maids,” Orlith said. “But it appeared you did not understand the maid.”

“I think I did,” Kieri said.

Orlith smiled, a particularly superior smile. “She liked you,” he said. “She made you an offer of marriage. The Lady had permitted it; the taig approved. You did not understand—”

Kieri put up his hand. “Yes. I understood she found me attractive and might consent to marry.”

“And you did not—”

“She is my mother’s age—the age my mother would have been,” Kieri said, trying to keep his voice level. “I cannot marry … someone like that.”

“She is very young for an elf—”

“I understand. She told me.”

“Which was a great honor and a compliment to you.” Orlith folded his lips in and crossed his arms. “I tell you, you did not understand. It would fix the taig-sense in your line for generations.”

“Is that why the Lady did not let me approach her?”

“The elf-maid?” Orlith’s brows arched high.

“No,” Kieri said, trying to control his voice. “Herself. Was the Lady keeping me away to force me to talk to the elf-maid?” If Orlith wasn’t using her name, neither would he.

Orlith’s mouth tightened. “I doubt the Lady ‘kept you away’ but merely had no need to speak to you at that time.”

“I had a need to speak to her, as I have had these past tens of days, as you know. I have invited her repeatedly; I asked her to come early the first night of Midsummer—”

“She had, doubtless, more urgent matters than yours.”

Kieri felt anger rise and pushed against it. “She is my co-ruler; she has responsibilities to the realm.”

“Indeed.” A touch of scorn and disbelief was in that. “And do you not think the Lady had the realm’s welfare close to her heart when she considered your need for an heir to succeed you and thus a consort who was not—as you remarked at your coronation celebrations—a mere child and yet young enough to bear children? Is there need greater than that?”

“There might be,” Kieri began, but Orlith interrupted.

“You will allow me, Sir King, to finish what I have come to say. The Lady approves this match. The elf-maid is very young, for our people, and apt for bearing children. She will commit her life to yours—”

“That is not the point,” Kieri said. “I cannot marry someone the age of my mother. Or someone who will outlive me so long.”

“Your father did.”

“My father had need to do so,” Kieri said. “And did he even know how old my mother was? He did his duty—” He realized too late that phrasing could seem an insult to both his mother and elvenkind in general. Orlith looked angry now. “And
his
mother was not an elf. It may be different with you Elders, but for us, to marry someone the age of our mothers is—”

“Even if the maid truly loves you?”

Kieri sensed withdrawal as well as anger and chose his words carefully. “I do not think she loves, or even thinks she loves, the man I am. I think she loves the idea of repeating—perhaps completing—the pattern of elf-maid marrying a human king. It is something she
would do for the memory of her friend, my mother, and for closing a circle … but not the real desire of her heart.”

Orlith’s arms relaxed. “So you are not rejecting her for any flaw?”

“Flaw! No, in my eyes she is flawless. I meant her no discourtesy. You are right: I did not recognize what she said and did as an
offer
of marriage, but as permission to court her, if I wished to do so. I do not wish—not because of any flaws in her but because—” He could not tell this ancient person the exact truth; what he had said already must serve. “I will know, when I find the right woman, who it is. I felt nothing from within or from the taig.”

“The taig seems not upset, true,” Orlith said. He spoke more slowly than usual. “The Lady assured me it had agreed to your union with the maid if it so happened, but I sense no real regret from the taig that it did not.” He paused, then shook his head. “Well. If that is so, and you have said it is, then so be it. But I warn you, the Lady is not pleased, and you may find her less understanding than I am. She is not wont to let human custom stand in the way of her plans.”

Kieri opened his mouth to ask if she thought the king’s will had any part in her plans but felt something sharp as a pinch in his mind that warned him not to open that topic yet. “Would she ask an oak to grow like an ash?” Kieri asked instead, hoping that metaphor would make sense to Orlith—and, through him, to the Lady. “It is the nature of humans to follow human custom as it is the nature of elves to follow elven.”

“You are half-elven,” Orlith said. “
You
should be able to follow either.”

“I am but one person,” Kieri said, “and for fifty years knew nothing of my elven heritage. Do not bend hardened wood until it breaks.” He took a breath and dared more. “I am, after all, the king the Lady chose to rule with. She and I together, I thought: making decisions, taking actions. You know I have asked her, more than once, to talk with me, help me bring our people closer. Yet she does not come, and I do not believe she spent a full quarter of the year searching out a mate for me.”

“You criticize the Lady?” Orlith looked furious again.

“I ask why,” Kieri said. “Does she want me to fail? This realm to fail?”

“Of course not!”

“Then she should do her duty.”

“You have no right to speak of her duty!”

“I am the king,” Kieri said. “That gives me the right. This realm is my responsibility, and I am not going to let it fail because the Lady will not stir herself to tend it. She can spare the time for this, out of her immortality, or she can give up her claim to sovereignty.”

“You dare! This land was ours; we share it with lateborn out of generosity.”

“I dare because I must,” Kieri said. “This land survived so long because—so the tales say, at least—elves and humans worked together. Now, as you well know, they do not—and she is not helping. Was she like this when my mother was queen? Did she help my sister when she came so young to the throne? Or did she withdraw to her elvenhome whenever my sister asked for her help?” That, after all, might explain his sister’s sense of betrayal, if after losing mother and brother, her grandmother refused to have anything to do with her.

Orlith’s expression was suddenly guarded. “Your sister did not ask.”

“Why not, do you think?”

Orlith shrugged. “How would I know? She never spoke to me.”

“Perhaps the Lady never offered,” Kieri said. “I wonder if she even cares that my sister and I were her grandchildren.”

“The Lady saved you,” Orlith pointed out. “If she did not care, do you think she would have come?”

It made no sense. “I’m grateful for that,” Kieri said. “But I don’t understand why she is so … so changeable.”

“She is the Lady,” Orlith said, as if that explained and excused everything.

“And I am the king,” Kieri said, “but that does not mean I can do whatever I please from moment to moment.”

Orlith glared but said, “Then perhaps the king’s majesty will condescend to have the lesson which I came to give. We shall go to the garden.”

Kieri sighed inwardly, but he might as well comply. Though he felt—he was sure—that he was gaining taig-sense even when not around elves, he knew he needed more instruction.

In the garden, surrounded by the roses in full bloom and the other
flowers, birds, insects, he tried to do as Orlith wanted, and use only his taig-sense to identify the components of the garden, but he could not keep his nose from telling him where the roses were, his ears from noticing the wasp that zipped past his ear.

Yet Orlith was pleased when he was able to sense beyond the rose-garden wall that in the kitchen garden a row of carrots had been pulled … there was a gap where five days before there had been a row of living plants.

“You have indeed made progress, Sir King. Now try to reach the King’s Grove trees … do you feel them?”

“Yes,” Kieri said without hesitation. “All I have to do now is reach out.”

“Good. Then let us see if you can distinguish them.” He handed over a polished stick. “Only one of the King’s Grove trees is kin to this … can you tell which one?”

Kieri held the stick, admiring the gold and dark grain. “What is it?”

“Later. For now I want you to feel your way to the parent tree.”

Kieri had no idea how to match the wood in his hands to his taig-sense connection to the trees … but the taig itself, he thought, might help. He imagined the stick as a tiny child looking for its parent … and as if that were true, one of the trees reached out. His hand tingled, and then he knew.

“Sunrising side of the circle,” Kieri said.

“Could you put your hand on it?”

“Yes.”

“Excellent! Try this one.”

Dark wood, the grain barely visible. Kieri was sure it was blackwood, but he said nothing and let the taig lead him. This time it was faster; he opened his eyes and said, “Summerwards, two trees into the grove from the circle.”

Orlith blinked. “Amazing. That is, indeed, the location of the tree. We will try one more—it is the traditional test—but I expect you will have no problems with it.” He handed over a stick of wood with red and black grain that glittered a little in the sunlight.

“Fireoak,” Kieri said. He had no need to ask the taig; it wrapped itself around and through him, and he and the tree both regarded the wood that had once been part of a particular limb on its sunsetting side with pleasure. He told Orlith; the elf nodded, smiling now.

“Well done indeed, Sir King!” Orlith stood and bowed. “It is enough for one day.” Then he was gone in an instant, and Kieri realized that he had never answered why the Lady had not come, nor if she would.

Another chance gone. He wondered when Orlith would come back or if he even would.

Even as he stood up, one of his Squires appeared in the garden door.

“Pardon, Sir King—”

“Yes?”

“Master-trader Geraint Chalvers to see you—you had asked him for a quarterly report.”

“Yes, of course.” Master-trader Chalvers, the first merchant appointed to his Council, bowed low as Kieri came into the room. He had a cluster of wood and leather tubes under his arm.

“Sir King, I have the reports you asked for.”

“Thank you, Master-trader Chalvers. Perhaps you would like some sib. I was just about to have another cup.”

“Er … thank you, Sir King.” Chalvers bowed again.

“We should go to a larger room,” Kieri said, looking at the size of the rolls Chalvers had brought. “Are those maps?”

“Yes, sire. These were made for trade.”

“Then we need the big table.” Kieri led Chalvers to the smaller dining room.

Chalvers spread the maps out on the table. “You asked what impeded trade here. I know you’ve lived most of your life in Tsaia and the south—you’re used to a trade network that runs at least from Fin Panir to the Immerhoft Sea. Here our largest problem is that we’re at the far end of anything … we don’t have an easy pass across the Dwarfmounts, we don’t have a really good river port, and for overland transport our roads are inferior to many in Tsaia and the Guild League roads of the south.”

“Have you yourself traveled to Aarenis?”

“Oh, yes, Sir King. When I was young, my father bade me follow the trail of Lyonyan goods all the way to the last buyer. I went as far east as the Immervale and as far south as Cha and Sibili, where I found them making tiles more cheaply than we could. I even came
back with the secret of a blue glaze we did not have then. I was gone almost three years.”

“Well, then, let’s see what you’re showing me.” Kieri bent over the first map.

“Lyonya has many trails but only two real roads—” Chalvers pointed. “—along the foothills, where every spring the snowmelt and rain flood across the road and no one much cares to fix it. Wagons make it only as far as Halveric Steading, and some years not that far. There was a road, or so the tales run, all the way across Prealíth once, right through the Ladysforest, or what the Ladysforest is now.”

Kieri nodded, thinking of his own journey the other way, from Bannerlíth to Halveric Steading: forest tracks and trails, dry leaves underfoot and more falling from the trees as day by day it had grown colder. Had he gone through the Ladysforest? He must have, and yet he had never seen an elf. A dim memory came of someone tall and shadowy, asking him questions and then walking into a silvery mist.