It was virtually impossible for the High Prince to travel incognito, but Rohan gave it a good try on the journey through Princemarch. No dragon banner announced the identity of the eight riders; no royal badges appeared on the guards’ tunics, which were plain and unmatched; no expensive trappings decorated the horses; and no farmer or innkeeper with whom they stayed went without payment, though it was every prince’s right to demand free meals and lodging when traveling through his realm.
But though Rohan did not advertise his presence, neither did he deny his identity when people addressed him with royal titles. News of his travels seemed to spread more quickly than faradhi messages on sunlight; An-drade would envy the silent efficiency of these people. For his own part, he appreciated their general lack of ceremony. He hated fuss, suspicious practically from birth of those who made a great show in his presence, for show was usually designed to cover substance people did not wish seen. These folk, however, were casual and cordial in their welcome, with nothing to hide from their prince. Rohan viewed this as a tribute to their good sense and Pandsala’s good governance on Pol’s behalf. Had she been a bad ruler, they would have hated everything to do with him, while trying to hide it with false good cheer. Accommodations varied. Some nights they stayed in neat chambers at an inn; occasionally they unrolled blankets in a barn; quite often they spent the night in the open beneath the stars when evening found them still on the road. Food ranged from tavern fare to farmhouse stews to their packed provisions and whatever half-a-day’s hunt could provide.
They rode wherever curiosity took them, investigating local landmarks, seeking deep into remote valleys, riding measures out of their way to visit famous sites recommended by their hosts. There were impromptu races across flower-strewn meadows and excursions into the hills for baths in ice-cold waterfalls. All these side trips were watched over by four guards who, while joining in the spirit of fun, remained on constant alert.
The four were commanded by Maeta, whose presence had not been planned. She merely showed up their third day out, as casually as if the encounter was an accidental one during an afternoon ride. Her explanation that she had always wanted to see the sights fooled no one; they all knew that she had been sent by her formidable mother as an extra guard for Pol. Rohan did not send Maeta back to Stronghold, for not even he felt equal to facing Myr-dal’s wrath; the old woman was probably Pol’s kinswoman, but she was certainly the only grandmother he would ever know, and Rohan respected that special relationship almost as much as he respected Myrdal’s temper.
Besides, it suited him to add Maeta to the group. Pol had already shown a talent for taking off on his own. The mare Chay had lent him, a streak of lightning compacted into four legs and a pair of roving eyes, liked nothing better than a wild gallop. Pol defended his escapades with the innocent reminder that he had promised to keep the horse in good trim for sale at the Rialla. Threats did no good; even the private promise of the application of Rohan’s palm against his backside did not impress him overmuch. But his first attempt to bolt off after Maeta’s arrival earned him an afternoon riding on a lead rein behind her horse. Rohan heartily approved of his son’s discomfiture—while wondering ruefully if he really was so complete a failure as a disciplinarian.
Maarken, too, was glad of Maeta’s presence. They talked tactics and strategies most of the day and half the night. She had been in most of the important battles of the last thirty years, and her wealth of experience was nearly as great as his father’s. Sometimes Rohan and Pol joined in these discussions, sitting around the campfire to trade ideas. But more often father and son spent their time with each other. During the long nights spent talking, Rohan came to understand his son more deeply— especially the reason why physical punishment was nowhere near as effective as a judicious dose of public embarrassment. He should have known, of course; Pol was just like him in his consciousness of rank, his pride, and his notions of personal dignity. It was not quite arrogance—and that failing was something to guard against. The lowlands of Princemarch were a revelation: rich, rolling valleys of cropland and pasture, a careless abundance that amazed Desert eyes. Farmers gifted the royal party with the summer fruits of the countryside, proud of their productivity and grinning as their guests marveled at the bounty.
One midday an incredible array was produced for their lunch in a farmer’s front yard. Rohan asked, “Tell me, is there anything you people don’t grow?”
The farmer scratched his chin thoughtfully. “Well, my lord,” he said after due deliberation, “not much.”
And it was true. Fruit, grain, meat, cheese, nuts, vegetables—they partook of the plenty and were amazed.
“And you own all of it,” Maeta remarked to Pol one morning, her arm sweeping out to include the fields and orchards around them.
“All of it,” he echoed incredulously. “It must feed the whole world!”
“A goodly portion of our part of it,” Maeta answered. “You don’t remember the old days. Sometimes we had to give up a year’s salt or half Radzyn’s horses for food enough to last the winter. Now that this is ours, we’ll never have to crawl again.”
Rohan met her gaze over his saddle as he tightened a girth strap. “Never again,” he echoed. He remembered very well the year to which Maeta alluded, and the fury of helplessness in his father’s black eyes when Roelstra had demanded exorbitant payment for food enough to keep the Desert from starving. More lightly he added, “But it probably sharpened the wits, bargaining back and forth. I sometimes miss the stimulation of my first Rialla as prince.”
Maeta snorted. “Nothing wrong with your wits, if what I hear about Firon is true.”
“And what do you hear?”
“That all of this—“ She waved again at the fields. “—will include most of that.” One battle-scarred finger pointed northwest where Firon lay.
“It’s possible,” Rohan conceded.
Maarken laughed as he swung up into his saddle. “Don’t let my mother hear you say that! The tapestry map is already being rewoven, you know—she’s using it to teach Sionell stitchery. If you change your mind, she’ll have your head on a spear.”
“Aunt Tobin knows how to sew?” Pol was astounded. “She doesn’t seem the type to like that kind of thing.”
“She doesn’t,” Maarken said cheerfully. “She says it’s only good for something to do with your hands when you want to strangle somebody.”
“Strangulation really isn’t in her line,” Rohan observed. “Knives, arrows, swords when we were growing up—that’s more her style.”
“Is it true about her marriage contract with Uncle Chay?” Pol asked as he mounted.
“No knives in the bedchamber!” His father laughed. “Oh, it’s true enough. Chay insisted on it.”
“What’s in your agreement with Mother?” Pol teased.
Maeta answered him. “Sunrunners are much too subtle to go around waving steel. Her contract says that the only Fire she’ll call up in their bedchamber is the kind that burns the sheets. And that, my lad, is how you got started!”
That day, the twenty-fifth of their journey, began the climb into the Great Veresch. Chain upon chain of peaks rose nearly to the clouds, the tallest of them snow-crowned even in high summer. In between were blue-violet depths where, when the angle of the sun was right, thin ribbons of water reflected silver. Conifers ten and twenty times the height of a man grew bunched needles as long as Pol’s arm, and bore cones that could be split open for sweet seeds and resin that tasted like honey. Herds of startled deer lifted white antlers to the sky be- fore racing into cover. The water in lakes and streams was the sweetest any of them had ever tasted, as if milked directly from the clouds without touching the ground at all. The number and variety of birds astounded them; the world seemed alive night and day with wingbeats and songs and hunting cries, so different from Desert silence. They sometimes spent whole mornings watching flocks of birds float across a lake or dive for fish or plummet from the sky over prey-laden meadows. And the flowers—narrow trails through the forest would suddenly give way to mountain meadows awash in blue, red, orange, yellow, purple, and pink, the unbelievable profusion of colors enough to makefaradhi senses drunk.
To the Desert-bred, familiar only with the stark beauty of the Long Sand where nothing grew and few birds or animals made permanent homes, the Veresch was almost frightening. Lowlands that had felt fence and plow were somehow more comprehensible than these mountains, where everything was as it had been since the first trees. People were an afterthought here, and the work of their hands could not begin to match the strength of the forest. In the Desert, people grouped together, the better to withstand the harshness of their place; here, folk lived in tiny settlements of not more than thirty, herded sheep and goats endlessly through the high country, and built lonely cottages deep in the woods. But as alien as their patterns of life were to each other, the two shared a bond that became clearer to Rohan as the days passed. Both peoples had accepted that they could not work changes on the land. The silent power of Mountain and Desert was greater than any fence or plow. People knew what their places would give and what they would not.
Pol turned stubborn about snow. He not only wanted to look at it, he wanted to touch it and make sure it was real. Rohan, secretly sharing his son’s curiosity, received directions from a bemused shepherd who obviously thought them all deranged for going to find snow when winter would bring it to them soon enough. The royal party spent two days coaxing their outraged Desert-born horses across frozen crystal fields, and two nights shivering under blankets inadequate for the temperature and the altitude.
“Had enough?” Maarken asked hopefully on the morning of the third day. Pol, clutching a blanket around him on top of every stitch of clothing he had brought with him, nodded emphatically. Pelting everyone with snowballs had been great fun, and the crisp air was literally breathtaking—but he wanted above all things to be warm again.
The ride down from the heights showed them ridge on ridge of blue-misted mountains. Startling outcrops of solid granite alternated with hillsides thickly covered in pine. Strange, smooth slabs of rock half a measure wide and punctuated with colossal boulders set their horses’ hooves to ringing. They even found some long-abandoned dragon caves, and spent a day exploring. There were, oddly enough, signs of humans nearby; Maarken discovered firepits and the foundation stones of a village-sized habitation, also long forsaken. Of more interest to Rohan and Pol was evidence of a primitive smelter works. They exchanged speculative glances and headed directly back to the caves. But most of the walls had collapsed, and instead of dragons in one of the few usable caverns they encountered a very bad-tempered hill-cat who deeply resented disruption of his afternoon nap. Father and son beat a hasty retreat.
Back below snowline, they began visiting manors and keeps in more systematic fashion. Word of their coming preceded them; they were welcomed with considerably more state than on the early part of the journey. Their first stop was a small keep called Rezeld, where Lord Morlen and his wife Lady Abinor had been preparing for the anticipated visit since spring. Rohan winced inwardly at the boundless enthusiasm of their welcome, but shared the philosophical observation with Pol that Rezeld had probably never seen a prince within its walls—let alone two—and that neglecting personal visits to each athri under one’s rule was always a mistake.
“The best way of judging a keep or a manor is to visit it yourself,” he mused. “Granted, they usually have the place looking its best—except for what they want you to pay to refurbish—but the trick is to look beneath the surface and see what’s really going on.”
They were seated in Lady Abinor’s large, finely pro- portioned chamber, theirs for their stay. Threadbare tapestries and frayed rugs brightened the room and eased some of the stone’s chill; all the weavings, including the bedclothes, showed signs of mending inadequate to their state of wear. The furniture was simple and sparse, and the glass in the windows needed replacing—but the wine made from pine cone resin was excellent. Rohan poured himself another cup and leaned back in a chair, regarding his son thoughtfully.
Pol looked around him, correctly interpreting his father’s last remarks to mean that he was to evaluate Rezeld and its occupants. Their arrival that morning had been the greatest event of the past twenty years at the manor; everyone from the athri’s family to the lowliest kitchen boy had turned out, scrubbed and polished and beaming. The sons of the house, both a few winters younger than Pol, had served as squires through dinner and acquitted themselves nicely for never having had formal training in a large keep. Lord Morlen’s sixteen-year-old daughter Avaly had shown up in her mother’s best silk veil, a-clatter with wooden and elk-horn ornaments. But Pol saw Rezeld as a distinctly minor holding, without much wealth or importance.
“They really did bring out their best for us,” he said, gesturing to the rugs and tapestries. “The necklace Lady Avaly had on was just carved stuff, not valuable at all. And from what else I saw ... I mean, they don’t even have candles, just smelly old torches. I don’t think they’re playing poor to get more money out of us, Father. And they seem glad to have us here.”
“Yes, they do.” Rohan smiled.
“But why is Pandsala so stingy? There’s plenty of money for new rugs and such, and it’s not as if it’d be a foolish luxury in a climate like this. I can feel the cold coming up through the floor even with boots on.” He sneaked his toes beneath a carpet for emphasis. “The sheep and goats are probably all out at summer pasture, but still. ... If I was welcoming my prince, I’d want to have my best animals here so he’d know how good they are and reward me accordingly by getting good prices at the Rialla. “
“That’s a very interesting analysis, Pol, based on what
I’m sure were careful observations.” The boy’s eyes lit with pride until Rohan added, “Unfortunately, all of it is wrong.”
“What? Why?” Pol demanded.
“The young lady was indeed wearing row on row of ‘carved stuff’ in a necklace. Very pretty it was, too. If you’d really been listening to some of the people we’ve met on the road, you’d know that each betokens a certain number of sheep, goats, cattle, bushels, or other local produce a family lays claim to. Rezeld boasts a rather fine quarry nearby, I’m told, administered by his lordship.” He grinned. “But remember, we’re only ignorant Desert folk and don’t know about that. We think these are her only jewels, poor girl, and not much of a dowry it is to our way of thinking—when in fact she’s wearing more dowry than most of our own girls can offer! She also made big eyes at you—yes, I was watching!” he teased as Pol blushed. “Not that I’m surprised. You’re a well set-up young man and a prince into the bargain. But she hasn’t a hope of attaching you and she knows it—so her probable intention was to make you wistful that so pretty a girl doesn’t have more in the way of material wealth. It appears she succeeded, too. Clever girl. His lordship is, in fact, flaunting what he owns and trusting our ignorance to lead us to believe that he’s poor.”
Pol’s jaw had dropped, and his blue-green eyes were as wide as they could get. Hiding another smile, Rohan got to his feet and went to pour himself a third cup of thick, sweet wine.
“Consider the tapestries,” he continued, gesturing to the walls. “If their purpose is to keep out cold and damp, why arrange them on rods so they can be pulled aside? They ought to be nailed right to the wall as close as can be. If you’ll notice, the rods are new—you can tell not by their polish but by the whiteness of the plaster used to secure so heavy a load. Just to the sides of the fixtures is more plaster, hiding marks where other tapestries used to be. I’m sure there’s a whole line of marks beneath, telling us that another weaving does regular duty here. It’s the same in all the other chambers we were shown, by the way.”
“But, Father, why would they do such a thing?”
“Excellent question. The tapestries these replaced are probably very fine ones that we weren’t supposed to see or know about. As for torches, because they can’t afford candles—have a look at the brackets. They’ve been scrubbed clean, but there are still traces of dripped wax. And the size of the sockets is rather inconvenient, wouldn’t you say? See how the torch-ends have been whittled to fit. Thus we find that in addition to plenty of sheep, goats, tapestries, and so on, they also possess candles. But we’re meant to think they have none of these things.”
Settling in his chair again, he gave his son a wry smile. “So we finally have to ask ourselves the point of all this. Why so much trouble to disguise their wealth? Do they want us to cough up a bit? Or is there something else going on here? I tend to think the former, for his lordship doesn’t seem quite devious enough to have schemes afoot other than the obvious. But I’ll be watching him over the next days—and so should you.”
Pol’s mouth still hung open. Rohan laughed softly.
“Don’t feel foolish, Pol. I’m no magician. Many years ago one of my vassals—long dead—tried to pull similar tricks on me. When I pointed them out to your mother, she looked just about the way you do right now.”
“How did you know?”
“Well ... to be perfectly honest, I didn’t at first—not until I noticed something else interesting. In a place famous for the quality of its goats, I was served cream made of cow’s milk one morning over a dish of moss-berries.”
Pol suddenly laughed. “Where was he hiding the cattle?”
“Oh, the cattle weren’t even the problem. They were only the clue to the private deal he had going with the Cunaxans across the border to supply him with more than just a few cows every year. I won’t go into the details, but suffice to say he supplied me with excellent cheese until the cows died—as any self-respecting cow does as soon as she can in the Desert.” Rohan winked.
Shaking his head ruefully, Pol said, “I never would’ve seen it! And I would’ve made a fool out of myself by promising to make Pandsala do more for them! Father, may I ask you something?”
“Whatever you like.”
“I don’t understand about being a prince.”
“Oh, dear,” he murmured. “Is it things in general, this manor in particular, or something else?”
“All of it.” Pol sighed. “We can’t trust them for an instant, can we?”
“Of course we can.”
“But you just said—“
“In the important things, we have to trust them. Pol, this matter of tapestries and candles is unimportant. I’ll let Lord Morlen know that I know what he’s up to— discreetly, of course, to save his pride—and fine him some of his quarried stone for a building project I have in mind. I doubt he’ll ever try it again. He’ll know I’ll catch him at it. But he’ll also respect me and trust me, because not only was I smart enough to see through this, but I didn’t execute him for it.” Rohan shrugged self-mockingly. Getting to his feet, he paced to the windows and stood looking out at the mountain twilight.
“He’s only doing what his father did, you know, hiding his real wealth from Roelstra. In his time, if Morlen had been caught, he’d be dead. He’ll be free to try to outwit me again, but my guess is that he won’t. People only hide what they fear will be taken from them. I won’t take what he can’t afford to give—he’ll come to trust me for it and appreciate the way I work. Which means he’ll fight if I ask him to, so he can keep me as his overlord.”
“And will you trust him?”
Rohan faced him and grinned again. “As much as I trust any of them—which is to say that I trust my own judgment and wits.”
“You know, I think I’m beginning to understand how we got to be where we are,” Pol mused, his eyes dancing suddenly. “Maybe we just outlasted everybody—but maybe we were smarter than all the rest!”
“That’s one way of looking at it, and probably as accurate as any other.”
Pol was silent for a moment, then burst out, “But why do people have to treat us different? I mean, everybody bowing and deferring to us and all—do they do it because we’re princes, or because they really think we’re special?”
“Why do you ask?”
“Just—the way people react when they find out who I am.”
“Mmm. I see. Makes you nervous, does it?” he asked sympathetically. “Me, too. I suppose they have to believe in someone, Pol. We are where we are because people believed in our ancestors for one reason or other. Your grandfather won battles and convinced everyone he could protect them. My ways of protection are different. Morlen will come to understand them in time, if he’s smart. He’ll trust me and you the way his father never could trust Roelstra. But what all this means is that we have to work very hard to keep their trust and faith.”
“It sounds awfully difficult—and grim.”
“Grim? Not at all. My son, we have to put up with some very tedious people because that’s part of the way a prince does business. But it’s worth enduring all the fuss because a prince can do so much to serve.”
“You mean serve the Goddess?”
‘ ‘If you want to think of it that way. Personally, I let Aunt Andrade take care of that aspect of things. I meant to serve the people who trust us to look after the peace they need in order to live out their lives.”
Pol nodded slowly. “Grandfather did it with his sword. You do it—“
“—by outsmarting everyone I possibly can.” Rohan laughed again. “Which I sometimes think is infinitely harder!”
A derisive snort greeted this remark. “You love it and you know it.”
“I have to admit it can be fun. It’s a great responsibility, but a joyful one. To conclude a treaty that gets a better price for sheep, to give a dowry to a boy or girl whose parents haven’t anything for them—just knowing that armies won’t trample the grain while it ripens— there’s goodness in those things, Pol. And if the joy ever goes out of being a prince, then ask yourself who it is you’re serving: the people who trust you, or yourself.”
“But you talk about duty as if it really is fun!”
“I never had more fun in my life than the night I gave
Remagev to Walvis. You never saw it when it was nothing but tumbledown walls and old Cousin Hadaan trying to prop them up. Walvis made it into a working keep again. Now he raises more sheep than anybody in the Long Sand, and his glass ingots are among the finest we produce. And there’s joy in that, Pol.”
“I guess I understand. But it still seems grim sometimes.”
“Well, I suppose so. But we get so much, Pol—I’m not talking about deference or even the chance to outwit an athri who thinks he’s outwitted you.” Rohan smiled again. “And it’s not the jewels and fine horses and things that come of being rich. We get the chance to do things. Good things, things that matter and will make this a better place for our having been here.”
He crossed his ankles and stared at the toes of his boots. “If you and I were, say, a farmer and his son, we’d make sure our wheat grew tall and hearty, so we’d get the best price and feed ourselves—but we’re also feeding those who buy our grain. Of course, few farmers look at their crops and say, ‘How wonderful that I’m growing such fine grain to feed so many!’ But you see my point. All the crafts fit into the weave. So do you and I. Only what we get to do is somewhat more spectacular on the face of it.” He shrugged. “And it can hurt more, too. Sometimes you have to lead an army against someone who doesn’t see being a prince as the chance to do valuable work, but instead regards it as the chance to make others do as he pleases.”
“The way Roelstra did.”
“Yes. That’s when being a prince is a very hard thing. You have the power to order men and women into battle where many of them will die. That’s the grimness, Pol. There’s no joy in winning a war. There’s only grief, and regret that it had to be fought at all.”
“But we have to sometimes, don’t we? To get the chance to do the good things, help the people who trusted us enough to follow us and fight for us.” Frowning, Pol went on, “But we also have to work hard to make sure we’re not cheated by people we have to protect whether they’ve cheated us or not! It hardly seems fair.”
“Did I ever say it was? Pol, there are many ways of being a prince. One is to enjoy the material advantages and not worry about the responsibilities. You’ll find plenty of examples at Waes. I prefer that type, personally. They’re no threat to anything but their own treasuries. Another way is to enjoy your power to order people’s lives—not for their beneift, but for your own amusement. You’ll see several of that kind, as well. They aren’t very fond of me, because I won’t let them indulge. And then there’s the kind like me, who prefer to exercise their brains instead of their swords. Sheer laziness,” he said casually. “I don’t like going to war. It involves all sorts of inconveniences and I hate being away from my own home—“
“And Mother,” Pol added mischievously.
“That goes without saying.”
The boy lounged deliberately back in his chair, legs sprawled and arms dangling. “I think I’ll be your kind of prince,” he decided, grinning. “As long as my wife’s pretty enough!”
Whatever reply Rohan might have made other than laughter was interrupted by a discreet scratch at the door. Pol straightened up quickly as his father gave permission to enter. A young girl came in, dressed in brown homespun and carrying an empty tray.
‘ ‘Just here to take away the dishes, your graces—excuse me, please, I won’t be but a moment—“
“Of course,” Rohan said, gesturing to the table where the wine pitcher rested and holding out his cup for her to take.
Pol, primed now to notice everything and draw conclusions, observed the girl closely. Wisps of black hair escaped the severely knotted braids at her nape, and she brushed them back with a remarkably well-kept hand. The dirt beneath her nails was an incongruity somehow, and set him to wondering. As she placed pitcher and cups on her tray, she met his curious gaze quite levelly. Her eyes were a peculiar shade of grayish green, their expression older than her perhaps eighteen winters. He blushed at being caught staring, and rose to stand near his father. The girl bent her knees awkwardly to them before turning to leave, but somehow the gracelessness seemed false as well, fitting her as badly as the brown homespun dress and dull green shawl with its ragged fringe. Her eyes held his again before she went out, and there was laughter in them.
“Father—“
Rohan held up a finger for silence. Pol listened, not knowing what he should be hearing, and then had it. The latch had not clicked. He thought rapidly, then said, “All that wine—which way to the nearest garderobe?”
Rohan nodded his approval and congratulations. “To the left, I think, end of the hallway.”
Pol saw no one on his way there and back. He made sure the door was firmly shut when he came back into the room, and his father grinned at him.
“Very nice,” Rohan approved. “See anybody?”
Pol shook his head. “Do.you really think she wanted to listen?”
“I don’t know. It might have been carelessness, leaving the door unlatched. But I think I’ll watch Lord Mor-len even more carefully. For now, though, I don’t want to watch anything but the insides of my eyelids.” He turned to the huge bed in the corner. “Do you know, I haven’t slept beside anyone but your mother in longer than I can remember. I do hope you don’t snore.”
“Snore! Mother says that sometimes you rattle the windows!”
“A vile and insulting lie, for which she will pay dearly the next time she kicks all the covers on the floor.”
Pol stripped and slid into bed, feeling a bit muddle-headed—not from his father’s revelations about Rezeld or being a prince, but from the potent wine. He was gratified that no comment had been made about his taking a cup. Several cups, actually, enough to have made the garderobe really necessary; his ploy hadn’t been entirely the inspiration it had seemed. Now, with the torches snuffed and only the soft starlight glowing through the windows, for it was one of those infrequent nights without moons, he felt as if his brain was slowly awhirl inside his skull.
After a considerable time in an unsilent darkness, he turned onto his side and fixed an accusing look on his father’s sleeping face. “You do so snore!” he whispered, and got out of bed.
No one stirred down below in the small courtyard. He peered through a broken pane of glass and mused on what else besides tapestries and candles Lord Morlen might be hiding. His father would find it, whatever it was. During childhood Pol had always looked on Rohan as the source of all knowledge and wisdom. Nothing he had seen had ever disabused him of the notion. He simply could not conceive of his making a mistake.
But Pol began to think that he himself had as he saw a single figure hurry through the courtyard, heading for the postern gate. The starlight showed him a bulky dark gown and fringed shawl—and he blinked in surprise. Why would a servant girl be out at this time of night, and leaving the manor? The obvious explanation, a lover, occurred to him. He shrugged. But then the girl abruptly stopped, swung round, and looked straight up at Pol.
A slight, biting breeze came through a broken pane. Pol drew back, his gaze fixed on the woman’s upturned starlit face. Not a girl’s face; a woman’s. Its shape was the same in arch of brows and line of the mouth. But this was the face of a mature woman of fifty winters, probably more. She was smiling, the laughter that had been in her eyes earlier finding expression in a malicious, mocking curve of lips and quirk of brows.
Then she drew the shawl up over her head and melted away, out the postern gate and into the night-dark forest. Pol shivered and turned away, deeply troubled.
‘ ‘What is it?” his father asked softly, sitting up in bed, the stars glinting off his fair hair.
“Nothing.” Pol made an effort to smile. “Maybe Meath is right, and I am too young for that much wine.”
* * *
Mireva reached the brookside tree where she had left her own clothes, and shucked off those she had stolen from a drying line at Rezeld Manor. Excitement warmed her cheeks and her body; she felt nothing of the night’s chill as she redressed in her own garments.
So that was young Prince Pol, she thought. An intriguing face, just like the father’s, but with the aura of more than princely power about him. More than Sunrunner power, as well. Mireva laughed aloud as she loosed her hair from its confining braid and shook her head wildly.
She had not been mistaken about the sensation of being with her own that had come at proximity to the youth. She knew it in lanthe’s three sons, and in all others who were of diarmadhi blood. But whereas with Ruval, Mar-ron, and Segev, she knew the power had come from Princess Lallante, she had no idea which of Pol’s ancestors had carried the gift. Sioned’s people were readily traced on her father’s side back to the faradhi invasion of the continent; no source there. Of her mother’s people before the marriage of a Sunrunner to a Prince of Kierst, nothing was known. Perhaps Pol got his doubled talents from her.
But there was Rohan as well. Again, his paternal ancestors were firmly established—but his mother Milar’s forebears, who were also Andrade’s. . . . Mireva tied her skirt around her waist, grinning. What perfect irony if the Lady of Goddess Keep herself was diarmadhi!
Then she sobered. Whoever and wherever it had come from, this second legacy of power was a new wrinkle and possibly a dangerous one. Sunrunner alone was bad enough, but Mireva could have dealt with that. Pol’s inheritance of her own kind of power presented several alternatives.
She started the long walk back to her own dwelling, mulling over her choices. Killing Pol tonight had not been one of them; nor was drugging him or interfering in any way with his mind or body. She had only wanted a look at him, to judge what kind of man he would grow into. There was much of his father about him, not only in looks and the way he held himself but in the clear-eyed, intelligent, curious way he had looked at her. No, killing him was not what she had come for, not why she had assumed her guise of youthfulness—and then shed it, knowing he watched. To explore his face with her eyes, to intuit his faradhi strength, to set an uneasiness into his mind: those had been her purposes. Killing him would have to wait some years yet.
But this business of his being diarmadhi was a thing to give her pause, and perhaps to rethink the future. What if she let it be known and demonstrated somehow that Pol was descended from those Andrade feared so much, those the faradh ‘im had worked so hard to destroy? The other princes were nervous enough about his Sunrunner status as it was; might they object so strongly to having him trained in the arts that Rohan would have to back down on Pol’s faradhi education in order to save his throne? What if she threw her own support behind the boy, instead of lanthe’s sons, and made him her pupil? That thought held a great deal of charm, but she rejected it with a shake of her head. There was too much in Pol’s face of his honorable fool of a father to make Mireva’s games of ambition and power palatable to him.
But what if she told nothing about Pol’s other gift— and taught Ruval methods the diarmadh ‘im had used to discipline, even kill, their own kind? Their greatest tragedy was that these had no effect on faradh ‘im; while fighting off the Sunrunners so valiantly, they had learned this to their final defeat. Of course, teaching the willful Ruval such potency was a calculated risk; he might use it on his brothers or even on her if she could not control him. She knew lanthe’s sons, and trusted none of them.
Mireva slowed her strides as dawn slid over the mountains, and stopped as she watched the last stars fade before another day of blinding summer sun. Uncharacteristically indecisive, she worried the problems for some time as the air heated around her and made even her thin gown too warm. Then she shrugged. She would wait and see whether Ruval would need such methods against Pol. There were many years ahead to plan the boy’s death—and she reminded herself that Sunrunners had their own special vulnerability, one that her people did not share. Pol’s faradhi blood made him susceptible. It would be an interesting choice of deaths for him— through his proud Sunrunner heritage or through his unsuspected Old Blood. But for the present she had other concerns.
She had not heard from Segev since his departure for Goddess Keep. Soon she would have to reach him on starlight, find out if he was close to successful theft of the precious scrolls. Soon, too, she would have to discover what had happened to Masul, who had killed four of her strongest minions in escaping from what would have been his surest path to triumph. She had heard rumors about him for years, of course; Dasan Manor was only a mountain or two from her home. She shrugged again, irritably. If he was too stupid to grasp at the kind of power she could offer, he deserved to fail. Whether or not he was Roelstra’s son made no difference to Mireva; she only wanted to use him to find out what sort of approach would be best when it came Ruval’s turn to challenge Pol.
But this led her back to the vexing question of exactly what she ought to teach Ruval. How much she dared teach him. How far she could trust him.
Mireva trudged on through the growing daylight, cursing the necessity of having others do her work for her. At a time when she had been ready to abandon all hope of ever restoring her people to their rightful place, Lal-lante’s grandsons had given her renewed purpose. But still she wished that they were not also Roelstra’s get. The man had been impossible to control. She wondered suddenly if that was why Lallante had married him. Her kinswoman had always been a puling ninny, frightened of power and declaring that it was not for nothing that their people had been defeated so long ago. Roelstra, High Prince, most powerful man of his generation—until Rohan had come along—had provided Lallante with a haven utterly safe from any other influences, including those of her own kind. Roelstra, who had been as ungovernable as his grandsons would be if Mireva was not very, very careful.