Oath of Fealty

6

As they came in sight of Vérella, Arcolin saw what he had not seen for years—a Royal Guard blockade on the road. He trotted ahead of the cohort and then halted at the blockade. “What is it?”

“Who are you?” demanded a man with officer’s knots on his shoulder.

“Arcolin, Duke Phelan’s captain, with a cohort bound for Aarenis—surely you had word. Our employers preceded us.”

“They’re all in Phelan’s colors, Captain,” one of the troop said. “It’s got to be him.”

“Do you have proof of your identity?” the captain asked, a shade less truculent now.

“I have the Duke’s ring and a letter,” Arcolin said, fishing the ring out of his pocket and handing it over.

“It’s the Fox’s, all right,” the captain said, handing it back. “I suppose you know about the trouble?”

“The Duke wrote that he had been proclaimed king of Lyonya,” Arcolin said. “That he was on his way to Lyonya. Is that the trouble?” He did not want to ask about Paks, not from a stranger.

“Nay. Worse. Treason and rebellion. Two nights agone, Duke Verrakai tried to kill the crown prince—did kill his uncle, Knight-Commander of the Bells, and Marshal Donag, the Marshal-Judicar of Gird. All the Verrakaien are under attainder, but it’s thought many will try to pretend they’re someone else, and they have magery.”

“Magery?” Arcolin stared. “If you mean the old lords’ magery, that’s all gone—been gone since Gird’s day. It’s all wizard-work now.”

“So we thought, but it’s not. Anyway, Captain Arcolin, now I know it’s really you and not some Verrakai putting a glamour on me, you’re wanted in the palace. You’re to go there at once. Your cohort can stay in palace barracks, if you like—”

“We usually march through,” Arcolin said.

“Aye, but things are different now. You’ll be here at least a day and a night, I daresay. The gate guards will know where your soldiers should go.”

A night in someone else’s barracks would at least not lighten his purse. Behind him, he heard the marching feet come to a final stamped halt. He turned in the saddle.

“Change of plans, Sergeant Stammel. I’m wanted in the palace; we’ll be staying in Vérella overnight; the cohort will be housed in royal barracks.”

“Very good, sir,” Stammel said. He eyed the Royal Guard and asked no questions.

“There’s been some trouble. We don’t want more.”

“No, sir.” Stammel would need no more hint than that to keep the cohort—especially the young ones—on a tight leash.

As they went on from the roadblock toward the city, Arcolin told Stammel what he’d been told. “I suspect there’s a lot more to it, and the city either roiling or too quiet. I don’t know what the prince wants with me; I don’t know if our employers are still here, or have gone on. I will need to contact the Duke’s bankers, and see about finances, too, so we might be here even two nights, if the prince’s conferences last a long time.”

“Verrakai attacked the prince and killed his uncle? Why? Surely he didn’t hope to take over the kingdom? And why now, just when the Duke’s gone to Lyonya?”

“My guess would be that Verrakai tried to attack the Duke first. He’d always hated him as baseborn, you know.” Stammel snorted, a very Stammel snort, and Arcolin went on. “If he did that, and attacked the escort of Royal Guard the prince sent with him, then that’s already treason. Then he might think his only chance would be to assassinate the prince and try to hide the facts until—I can’t believe he thought he could pull it off, though. But that Royal Guard captain said he used magery.”

“He used a Liart priest, I’ll wager,” Stammel said. “Not magery—that’s all been lost for hundreds of years.”

“That’s what I told him, but he thinks not,” Arcolin said. “He thinks the Verrakaien have it. That’s why they’re all under attainder.”

“Good thing Dorrin’s with the Duke in Lyonya, then,” Stammel said. “It’ll be hard for her to come back through.”

Arcolin felt a jolt. He had forgotten that Dorrin was a Verrakai.

“They wouldn’t include her; she’s not even in the family book,” he said.

“They know, I would bet on it,” Stammel said. “Proper mess, it sounds like. So—we need to smarten up, before we come into the city?” Under the circumstances, he meant. Before they went into a royal barracks.

“Good idea,” Arcolin said, and raised his hand. Stammel halted the cohort. He and Devlin and their new corporals went through, checking equipment, sharpening the troops up, and then they started off again. Arcolin took the opportunity to check his own gear, stuffing his winter hat into one saddlebag and the scarf around his throat into the other, putting on his helmet. Stammel came back to the front of the cohort, gave Arcolin a nod, and again they set off, now near enough to see the guard at the first gates.

The palace guards, more alert than Arcolin had ever seen them, insisted he disarm before he came into the palace itself.

“One of us will bring your arms, sir,” the taller guard said. “Under the circumstances no one can carry arms save with the prince’s express permission.”

“That’s quite all right,” Arcolin said, unbelting his sword and dagger. “I have a small boot knife, as well.”

“That also, if you please.”

Arcolin removed it, and watched as the guard wrapped them all carefully then put the bundle under his arm.

“This way, Captain,” the shorter guard said, and led the way; the taller followed with Arcolin’s weapons.

He had been in the palace many times, carrying messages from the Duke to the Council and even to the crown prince as he grew older and more active in the government. He sensed at once the change in atmosphere, the tension showing in the way servants, guards, and nobles moved, the glances cast at him.

A young man in Marrakai red and green with the shoulder knot of the kirgan stopped him. “Sir—aren’t you one of Phelan’s captains? Is there news of him?”

“I’m Arcolin, his senior captain, yes—but I’m just in from the north and only now learning what has happened. I’ve had no news from the Duke—the king—since before he left here.”

The kirgan gave a short nod. “Thank you. I believe my father has met you before. I wondered why you were here—”

“The prince asked for him,” said Arcolin’s escort. “And we had best be going there, by your leave, Kirgan.”

“Certainly, certainly.” The kirgan bowed. “I beg your pardon, sir.”

Arcolin smiled, returned the bow, and went on, following his escort. The Marrakaien had always been Kieri’s particular friends, and Arcolin had seen the young Marrakai before. He’d then appeared to be one of the prince’s friends content to leave Council business to his elders. Now he, too, looked different.

The crown prince was in his office, with armed guards at the door and inside both. Though it had been almost two years since Arcolin had seen him, Arcolin had not expected to find him looking so much more a king. Arcolin bowed.

“My lord prince.”

“Captain Arcolin! I’m glad to see you arrived safely. Did you have any trouble on the road?”

“No, my lord. But then, I traveled with a full cohort. When I left the Duke’s stronghold, I knew only that he had been proclaimed king of Lyonya.”

“You know about the assassinations?”

“Only what your Royal Guard told me.”

“You will need to know all of it; please sit down.” He looked at the guard carrying Arcolin’s weapons. “Return Captain Arcolin’s weapons to him; I know him personally and he is not a threat.”

Arcolin sensed the guard’s reluctance and ventured a suggestion. “Perhaps you would prefer that my sword, at least, be in custody?”

“No, no,” the prince said. “If we had not been armed, we would have died. You are known to me, and I will be happier when I see that sword on your hip.”

Arcolin belted it back on, rearranged his other weapons, and sat down where the prince indicated.

“My Council would agree to my coronation being advanced,” the prince said. “But I have chosen to wait until Midsummer, as is traditional. However, I have taken over additional powers in this time of emergency. Let me brief you on what happened.”

Arcolin listened, horrified but fascinated, as the prince explained everything from Duke Phelan’s arrival at court, having been summoned by the Regency Council, to the present. And all while he, Arcolin, had been up at the stronghold, unaware.

“Did you, did anyone in his Company, have any idea of his parentage?” the prince asked, finally.

“No, my lord,” Arcolin said. “I was with him twenty years and more; we all thought him remarkable, but as for this—born to a throne and half-elven—it’s hardly believable.”

“If I had not seen the sword come alight in his hands, I would not have believed it myself. I cannot—I cannot comprehend the years he was lost, or how he was found, and once found, not recognized.”

“Nor I, my lord.”

“Well. You know most of what has happened here. To complete the story, we discovered lairs of Liart’s worshippers in the Thieves’ Guild, and with the help of the city granges, these were exposed. Certain of the Thieves’ Guild have cooperated with the Crown … not all were happy to have overlords of any kind. That appears to be mostly through Paksenarrion’s influence with a thief—or Thieves’ Guild enforcer—she met in Brewersbridge years back.”

“That would’ve been after she left us,” Arcolin said.

“Yes. He’s the one who got her out after … well, after what happened.”

“I don’t understand how she survived.” He wanted to hear that, not what had been done to her.

For the first time the prince’s face relaxed into a smile. “Nor does anyone else except Gird and the High Lord’s favor. Witnesses say her wounds healed, slowly enough to watch and fast enough that in minutes she was whole again, broken bones mended, bleeding wounds but scars—or in some cases, no scars at all. It terrified those watching; they fled. She had been branded on the brow: she now bears a silver circle, the High Lord’s mark.”

Arcolin felt hollow … he had known Paks from her first year in the Company, and though he had recognized her basic good character and her fighting ability, he’d never seen that potential in her. How had he missed so much—the Duke’s real nature, Paks’s real nature? What else had he missed?

“You are an experienced soldier,” the prince said. “And you have known many realms. More than I have, who have visited only within Tsaia. You must recognize how unbalanced Tsaia is now, with two domains vacated … if this were the South, what would you say about it?”

“A dangerous situation, my lord prince. Your eastern border, from north of the Honnorgat halfway down to the mountains, and your northern border all at risk.”

“What would you do?”

Arcolin stared. “My lord—that is for you and your Council to say.”

“But you know Tsaia—you have lived here how long? And you have studied military history, our history, haven’t you?”

Arcolin tried to calm himself. “You need strong, loyal lords in both places. Not the same for each—that’s too much, too big, for one to rule well and it would unbalance the realm. Verrakai—I know nothing about its resources, its people, even its terrain, but I would expect it’s more thickly settled, and thus potentially more difficult than the North Marches. Though at least, with Kieri Phelan ruling Lyonya you should have no problems from over the border.”

“Pargunese soldiers were also in that attack. It’s believed they crossed into either Verrakai’s lands directly or through Lyonya.”

“Lyonya had a weak king.”

“A dead king by then, but yes. I’m sure Kieri Phelan won’t let that happen again, though what resources he will have I don’t yet know.”

“The northeast and north is your most vulnerable,” Arcolin said. “We fought off the orcs this last winter—destroyed their base and the Achryan priest supporting them. They should be little trouble for a while. The Pargunese, though, test the border off and on—we keep constant patrols out for that.”

“Who’s commanding there?”

“Cracolnya—he has been senior captain of the mixed cohort for years. Experienced, a good tactician, good manager, too. When Captain Dorrin comes back—” He paused at the look on the prince’s face and felt his heart sink. “She didn’t—in that attack—?”

“No, no. She survived; her arrival with the paladin just saved the day, I understand. I would like your assessment of her. You do know she’s a Verrakai?”

“Of course,” Arcolin said. “She’s never made a secret of it, or of her estrangement from her family.”

“Do you believe that estrangement complete? Have you known her to contact her family?”

“No, my lord, never. I know she asked the Duke—the king—not to assign her to duties here, where she might meet Duke Verrakai. She and the Verrakaien both considered her no longer part of the family.” He hoped to convince the prince Dorrin was not a traitor.

“Birth matters, in spite of choice,” the prince said, a bit grimly. “It made your duke a king; it will make Dorrin Verrakai a duke, if she accepts my offer.”

Arcolin stared. “Dorrin? You can’t mean—I beg pardon, but—you want her to take over as Duke Verrakai? Of Verrakai?” He imagined Dorrin’s reaction to the thought; she had spoken of her family only with revulsion.

“She’s the only adult Verrakai I can exempt from the Order of Attainder, precisely because she was estranged and was said to be blotted from their records. Not every Verrakai is evil—I know that—but at present I cannot take risks. The innocent will clear themselves at trial, in time, but I dare not leave Verrakaien loose on the land that long. We have evidence they’ve colluded with Liart’s priests—it’s a danger to both.”

“But—” Arcolin could not imagine the Duke’s Company without Dorrin any more than he could imagine it without the Duke. He shook his head to clear it. “We were expecting her to return—the Duke said her cohort had been sent for, as escort, but are they staying?”

“I don’t know yet. They went with him into Lyonya; if she takes up my offer—which is contingent on her gaining control of Verrakai and sending those resident at Verrakai House to Vérella—she may well want to keep them with her and I’m assuming the king or his successor as duke will agree to a contract with her.”

Arcolin considered the situation back north … were two cohorts enough to protect the dukedom and Tsaia’s borders? Probably. It had worked that way for years, with even fewer at the stronghold during the fighting season.

“I’m pleased to hear your opinion of Dorrin Verrakai,” the prince said. “It accords with everything Phelan ever said about her, and I see her as the best hope to make Verrakai a healthy, sound, and loyal steading. There’s a young man in another branch—whom I personally believe is loyal and not involved—who, after his trial, should be a good possibility as her successor, as she has no children and is unlikely to breed.”

“Likely not,” Arcolin said, almost choking at the casual use of a term that, applied to Dorrin, made her nothing but a prize cow.

“And that leaves the problem of Phelan’s domain,” the prince said. “For my part, I would let it stay in his name awhile, and consult with him on a successor, but the Council is concerned. They do not wish so large a domain to be under the control of Lyonya’s king, more especially as it adjoins Pargun.”

“I understand,” Arcolin said, when a pause seemed longer than necessary.

“Tell me,” the prince said. “I know he sent word to you—what were his orders?”

“Before he came south, to prepare the troops for a contract; he was hoping to get your approval to take some of the Company south again. Then this—” Arcolin handed the prince Kieri’s letter. “I have a one-cohort contract with Vonja, if the Council approves.”

“I don’t think you’ll have a problem,” the prince said, handing the letter back. “Phelan maintained more troops than other nobles—every one knew it was because he was a mercenary—but some worried.”

Arcolin privately thought they had simply wanted an excuse to control Phelan, but he said nothing about that.

“But they expect me to appoint someone—at least temporarily, though they’d prefer a permanent status. I thought of you, of course, and he suggested it.” The prince cocked his head.

“Me? But—I’m not of noble birth—”

“No one thought Phelan was.”

“But—”

“He taught me that what justifies an appointment—any appointment—is how the person carries out their duties, not their birth. He thought you’d be capable, Captain, and his judgment has proven itself over the years.”

But I’m taking the cohort to Aarenis almost escaped Arcolin’s lips; he held it back and instead said, “I’m honored by his trust, and yours, my lord. However, I would need to take contracts, as Phelan did. Otherwise, I could neither afford the soldiers’ keep, nor would it be legal under Tsaian law.”

“I have no objection, and for the reason you state—our laws—it is as well that you continue to take them south. Moreover, as Phelan himself went south every year with the Company, you should be permitted to do so as well. The Council will want to know, as they did with him, who is in charge in your absence every year.” The prince shifted in his seat. “What I would like is this: to change as little as possible now, when great change is happening in the East. Dorrin Verrakai as Duke Verrakai is shock enough; the trials of the other Verrakai will occupy the lords in Council for the rest of the year, at least. If you can protect the borders and maintain the same routine as Phelan, that seems best to me. I can call a Council meeting for to-morrow; can you be ready to present such a plan?”

Arcolin had not felt ready for any of the things that happened since Paksenarrion returned to them, but life did not wait on readiness. “Yes,” he said. “I can be ready.” He felt every moment of the day’s ride, but one thing he’d learned from Kieri was that tired was just a word. “I will need more paper than I brought—”

“Of course,” the prince said. “In fact, we’ve assigned you my late uncle’s suite, as I haven’t yet appointed a new Knight-Commander of the Bells. And I’ve assigned you a clerk, in case you need anything from the library, any research.”

“My lord prince,” Arcolin said, very carefully, “you are more concerned than you’ve said, are you not?”

“I have a—a strange feeling. It’s not over, with Verrakai’s death. I don’t know what … but … I feel a menace.” The prince swallowed. “Not just danger to me, but to the whole realm. And yet—it’s only a feeling, and when there was danger, before Verrakai’s attack, I felt nothing.”

“Nothing? After what you told me of the attack on Kieri—on the king?”

“Not that night. Beclan—my uncle—had told me they thought they’d found all the Liartian priests. At dinner with my friends, it felt normal—I missed it somehow—and now I don’t know if my feelings are trustworthy—”

“If you are asking me whether to be concerned, my lord, the answer must be yes. Of course you must be. Gird may be giving you warning, as well as your own senses. From my experience I would say that such actions as Duke Verrakai took are not taken lightly, or without deep planning; I doubt that his death and that of his brother end it. Your Order of Attainder is certainly necessary.”

“He held me motionless, Captain,” the prince said. “I cannot get over that. I thought Gird’s power was stronger than evil; I thought my faith was enough. This was not wizardry—this was the old magery that Gird once defeated, back again in today’s world.”

The prince looked angry; Arcolin knew that look. All the young squires looked that way the first time they were truly frightened.

“My lord prince,” he said, “I believe the gods are stronger than evil, but faith must marry with deeds. Gird had his cudgel, after all. Yeomen of the granges do not merely pray for faith, but train for deeds as well.”

The prince looked at him, almost indignant at first and then, his expression easing, rueful. “You are right, Captain. This was my first experience of violent death. I saw my uncle, whom I loved, killed before my face and could do nothing. And the Marshal-Judicar, as well.”

“Yet you lived, and killed the killer, did you not?”

“That was mostly Roly,” the prince said. “If he hadn’t come in and bashed Verrakai with a map rod and then stabbed him with a stone knife, I’d be dead. Neither my sword not Juris’s would bite, for Verrakai’s magery, until Roly’s old stone saveblade got him. Then the magery failed.”

Arcolin could imagine the three noble youths, trained in weaponry but inexperienced, against a man like Verrakai, whose own sword skill was well-known at court. And with magery as well—even if it proved wizard-work at the last—

“You did well,” he said, as he would have to a squire. “And I rejoice at your survival. Let me go to work now on a plan to present to your Council tomorrow.” He put aside any thought of visiting Kieri’s—and now his—banker that day.

“I nearly forgot,” the prince said. “There’s another of Phelan’s people—a councilor for one of his villages—who came south with him. A one-armed woman.”

“Kolya Ministiera, yes,” Arcolin said.

“She was staying in an inn, but for her safety I had her come to the palace—I’ll see she knows you’re here.”

By morning, Arcolin had a plan that—according to the palace clerks who had helped him—would fulfill the requirements of a grant-in-lieu-of-heir. They praised his foresight in bringing fair copies of the newly signed village charters. Kolya Ministiera signed the new Duke’s East charter and congratulated him on the grant, but they had little time to talk over what had happened. Though he’d had little sleep, Arcolin was awake when the seneschal asked if he would care to breakfast with the prince; they discussed his plan through breakfast and the prince nodded.

“This should do,” he said. “They won’t give you a title at this time, but they should confirm you as grant-holder until you come back after the campaign season. Once I’m crowned, I can insist on a title, though not a dukedom at first—it wasn’t for Phelan, either.”

“I remember, my lord prince.”

“Well, then. The Council meeting, and the oath—you do know you must swear fealty? Good—and then you can go about your business. I know you did not anticipate all this, but before you return for the Autumn Court, we’ll need to know your mark, your colors, and you’ll need court costume.”

“The same colors and mark, if that’s permissible,” Arcolin said. “I am not Phelan’s heir of the body, it is true, but—”

“You will need his permission,” the prince said. “If you like, you can send him word by royal courier.”

Arcolin nodded. It still felt unreal, but coping with details, moment to moment, he had no time to ponder how unlikely it was that he, like Kieri, might rise to noble rank and own land … his own land, his own people.

His appearance before the Council took less than a glass: he laid out the papers, the charters, his intent to guard the North and East as Kieri had, his need to campaign in the South to support the land until it could support itself. He recognized most of the faces from previous visits.

The Councilors agreed that Jandelir Arcolin should become liege lord of the vacated domain. That he could raise a military force sufficient to guard the North and also campaign in Aarenis, that he could transport said force across Tsaia and through Vérella on the same roads Phelan had used twice each year.

He bent his knee to the prince and swore fealty; he signed the documents that made him a lord-vassal of the Crown and defined his responsibilities. The prince waived the usual security until autumn—Arcolin hoped Kieri’s bankers somewhere had that much gold—and by the noon ringing of the Bells, Jandelir Arcolin, Captain, had become Lord Arcolin of the North Marches.

He spent the afternoon first with Kieri’s banker and judicar, and then with Kolya and the merchants Kieri dealt with in Vérella, buying the supplies Cracolnya and Valichi wanted. That evening he wrote letters to the North, again aided by the castle clerks who made copies so he need not write duplicates to each village and each commander, and a letter to Kieri in Lyonya, asking permission to retain the fox-head mark and the same colors.

Although he had carried out similar tasks for Kieri, it felt strange to be doing it for himself—to sign the letters and orders as Lord Arcolin and not Arcolin, Capt, for Duke Phelan. He supposed he would get used to it.