Oath of Fealty

19

They had not gone as far as she advised; they were with her sooner than she hoped. “Ware the steps,” she said as Selfer neared them. “I … don’t like killing children.”

“He wasn’t a child, if he was what you said,” Selfer said. “But I’m not surprised. You do not take delight in suffering or death.”

“Flattery?” Dorrin said, smiling.

“No, my lord. Observation.”

From someone who had seen her in battle, not only recently but in Aarenis, it was strange testimony but comforting.

“Thank you,” she said.

“Are there more such spies here?” Selfer asked.

“Among the children? I’m not sure. I must question the maids more closely. Once I suspected this boy, I didn’t test the others with my magery lest he attack one of them then and there.” She sighed. “I don’t want to panic the children who aren’t possessed, or the maids. We’ll need to conceal Restin’s death, and consider how to handle the body.”

“We can’t just bury it?”

“There’s blood magery here, Selfer. We will need to be sure that every drop of blood is cleaned up, for instance—and burn the rags we clean with.”

“I’ll have someone—”

“I need to be there.” At his look, she shook her head. “No, not from guilt—to ensure that the evil in this house doesn’t harm those who come in contact with it.” She scowled, looking past him into darkness. “I don’t know enough, that’s the truth. I never thought I’d be coming back here; I never wanted to know about it, how it works, what the warding spells are. And now that’s put you and the entire realm in danger. It’s not enough to be disgusted by it—it feeds on disgust and revulsion.”

“So … what will work against it?”

“Falk and Gird and the High Lord have power against it, but I sense they expect me to do the actual work.” Suddenly, for no reason, Dorrin felt lighter of heart. “I suppose that’s proper. I swore to be Falk’s servant, when I took the ruby. To the gods belong power, and to us the work of our hands.”

“Then the first step is cleaning up a mess in the dining room?” Selfer said. “That sounds within human strength.”

Dorrin straightened. “Indeed. Set your guards for the night, Captain, and then send me a couple of strong-stomached soldiers.”

The blood smell in the dining room was strong but not more than Dorrin had endured many times before in a life of soldiering. The body seemed to have shrunk, as bodies did when not animated. All the adult cunning and malice had gone from the face; Dorrin lifted the body, cradling the head, and laying it upon the table.

“It wasn’t your fault,” she murmured to the corpse. “They used you, as they used me. You will rest easy in your grave; your soul has long returned to the light, and the Lady will cradle your bones.”

She searched along the paneled walls, and found the door that led to a linen pantry. By the time the men came with water and rags, Dorrin had wrapped the body in a linen tablecloth and bound it with brocade curtain ties. “I believe it is safe for burial,” she said. “But in the morning, and far from this house. The child who was suffered long before his body was taken; the body should be far from that suffering.”

“Yes, my lord,” Selfer said.

“I will go up and speak to the nursemaids; they’ll be wondering why I haven’t sent Restin up to bed.”

“You aren’t going to tell them?”

“That I killed a nine-winters child? No. Tomorrow I must try to get them to understand what he was, what the death-sickness was, but not tonight. The children who aren’t involved need sleep.” She yawned. “So do I. I will tell them he’ll sleep somewhere else.”

“They’ll worry—”

“I can’t help that,” Dorrin said. “It’s the business of nurserymaids to worry.”

Upstairs, she found, as she expected, the senior maid at the door of the nursery, looking worried.

“My lord, Restin should be in bed—it’s past time—”

“I know,” Dorrin said. “He is in bed, but not here. He is old enough to have a room of his own, you know.”

“Yes, but—”

“He is sleeping,” Dorrin said, putting just a touch of power into it.

The maid’s worried face smoothed. “Yes, my lord.”

“Just take care of the others,” Dorrin said. “And get some sleep. If the weather’s fair tomorrow, you can take them out in small groups to exercise in the garden.”

“Yes, my lord.” The maid curtsied and went into the nursery, dimly lit by a lamp at either end. Dorrin caught a glimpse of the rows of beds, the little lumps of sleeping children, before the door closed.

She went back downstairs. She didn’t want to sleep in the dining room, but she was desperate for sleep. In the end, she slept in the main reception room, in bedding taken from the rooms upstairs, with her own Phelani soldiers on guard.

She woke at dawn, to the low-voiced mutters of two guards wagering on when she’d wake, before or after they’d been relieved for breakfast.

“Before,” Dorrin said from her nest of blankets.

“You could’ve slept another glass or two, Captain,” one said.

“My lord, Sef; say my lord. She’s a duke now, not a captain.”

The two most inveterate gamblers in the cohort. “I might have known,” Dorrin said. “Black Sef and Merik. You two would wake a corpse, arguing odds.”

“We was really quiet,” Sef said. “Just barely said a thing—”

“I wasn’t awake,” Dorrin said. “And now I am. That’s how loud you didn’t talk.”

“Sorry, Cap—my lord,” Merik said.

“I needed to get up anyway.” She felt rested, but dirty, itching with the need to bathe. Today, surely, she could find time to get clean all over. And make real plans for the next days, not just reacting to one thing after another. Somewhere out there still more Verrakai plotted the realm’s destruction. “Light more lamps. I’m going to see if the kitchen’s stirring.”

“It is,” Sef said. “I smell sib.”

Dorrin could too, now that she paid attention. “Good,” she said. “I want hot water.” She picked up her pack with its change of clothes, and headed for the kitchen.

There, warmth came from both the hearth and the ovens. Two young cooks thumped at lumps of dough, a row of lumps under a cloth would be ready when the oven heated, a can of sib simmered at the edge of the hearth, and a pot of porridge hung from a hook bubbled even as a red-faced maid stirred it.

“My lord Duke!” Farin bobbed a curtsy. “What do you need?”

“A can of warm water,” Dorrin said. “And a place to wash up.”

“There’s the bathing rooms upstairs,” Farin said. Dorrin shook her head. “Well, then … the servants’ bath, just out there. It’s not … not fancy …”

“I don’t need fancy,” Dorrin said. “I do need to be clean.” She grinned at the cook. “I was a soldier, you know. I can bathe in a cold river, at need. But warm water is better.”

“Jaim—bring water cans!” Farin turned back to Dorrin. “A mug of sib, while the water heats?”

“That would be lovely,” Dorrin said. She looked around the busy kitchen. Where could she be out of the way while water heated?

“Just there,” Farin said, nodding to a corner with a low stool. Dorrin took the mug of sib and sat on the stool, watching. Two more lumps of dough, shaped into rounds, were set next to the others. Farin opened one oven, thrust in an arm, shook her head, and shut it again. The other, she deemed ready. She took down a long-handled wooden paddle from its hook on the wall, and slid it under half the loaves, then swung it around and into the oven with one movement. Dorrin noticed that the others all stepped neatly out of the way without a command, even the youngest.

Work resumed instantly. The young bakers, now they had shaped the last of the dough, cleaned their workspace, took mortars and pestles from a shelf, and began grinding seeds—spices, Dorrin realized, as her nose recognized figan among others.

“Water’s hot,” Farin said. “Jaim, Efla—carry these out to the bathhouse.”

The servants’ bathhouse had a half-barrel tub hung on the wall, a stone floor with a channel for washing feet, and a stone trough with a plug at one end for washing hands. A leather water sack hung from the plugged pipe that supplied water. Dorrin put her pack down on the ledge above the trough, took down the water sack, and pulled the plug. Icy water poured into the sack; she plugged the pipe again when the sack was full. By then the kitchen servants had the barrel tub down and a stack of towels beside the steaming cans of hot water.

“You may go,” Dorrin said; they nodded and withdrew.

She mixed one can of hot water with cold in the barrel tub for a bath, and used the other for washing her hair. Clean and dry at last, and in clean clothes, she felt fully awake, alert.

When Dorrin came back into the kitchen, her dirty clothes stuffed in her pack and water cans atop it, she found Selfer talking to the cook. Servants rushed to take the cans from her.

Farin turned to her. “My lord—your captain suggested meat for breakfast in addition to porridge and bread. We do have smoked ham, of course, and sausages.”

Dorrin’s mouth watered. “Fried ham. Do you have any eggs?”

“The hens have only just started laying, my lord, and we used yesterday’s eggs in the bread.”

“That’s all right,” Dorrin said. “Ham will be enough, with the porridge. And if there’s someone who can wash my shirt—”

“The laundry maids heat their water after breakfast,” Farin said firmly. “If you’ll just leave your things in the passage—” Not in her clean and busy kitchen. “Now, my lord, meals for today?”

Dorrin let Farin guide her to the selections the cook really wanted—yes, that haunch of venison for dinner, with baked red-roots, stewed fruit in spices, a steamed pudding, and for midday, a pastry pie of minced meat and vegetables. She touched Farin lightly with her magery—but that commanding presence wasn’t a transferred Verrakai, just the cook’s own ability.

Breakfast that morning was the first meal Dorrin enjoyed since arriving. Porridge with honey dripped in it, fried ham, hot bread swiping up the fat from the fried ham. The sun rose into a clear sky, with ground mist along the stream; in the distance, the subtle colors of early spring created a picture of peace and beauty.

She made lists while eating, and after breakfast set about them. With a squad of Phelani, she went back into the old keep, searching from top to bottom with great care. It had been used for storage as well as holding prisoners: the family treasury, the armory, rolls of woolen cloth dyed Verrakai blue, jugs of blue dye, stacks of records. Dorrin had all this carried outside. Some levels were empty; they had once been occupied, some even recently—some beds with feather ticks and blankets still on the frames, chests and wardrobes still holding clothes, a leather purse with three copper coins.

“It’s like plundering,” Mekli said, staggering past her with a load of old books.

“And just as dangerous,” Dorrin reminded him. “I’ll be back later. When you get to the lower levels, call me first.”

The nursemaids had their charges up and dressed, ready for the outing Dorrin had promised if the day was fair. Dorrin looked them over, this time touching each with a flicker of magery. Her heart sank. There, and there, and there … three more children who were not children. Two boys and a girl, seven winters, six, and five.

She should have done it last night, while they were sleeping, but that would have been terrifying for the other children, and the nursemaids … now, in daylight, with all of them awake and alert, Dorrin realized it would be hardly less frightening. They would ask her about Restin; the ones who were not truly children, with adult cunning, would soon know he must have been discovered. She tried to think how best to proceed.

Suddenly one of the children—Mikeli, the sickly one—collapsed, falling to the floor with a strange mewing cry, his body jerking, foam at his mouth.

One of the maids ran to him, felt his face. “It’s the crisis!” she said. “He’s burning with fever. We must get him away from the others.” The others hurried over, warning the other children away; children cried out, all was bustle and confusion.

Dorrin watched, wondering which Verrakai was trying to transfer to the child, wondering how to stop it. A bolt of magery staggered her, then another.

It should have been impossible to use attack magery here in the shielded nursery—she’d trusted that shield. Now she felt the leaden weight of that attack; the two boys came toward her, smiling, their power beating at her. Dorrin fought it back, felt the weight ease. She could move; she could think—but what to think? What could she do here, in front of the others?

Trust the light. In her mind, the voice was firm but not harsh. Which light, though? Magery’s light was fire; Falk, after his years of toil, had burned out the prison in which he had been kept, cleansing it. Here were children she did not wish to burn. She did not have that other light, the light by which paladins revealed the truth of evil.

Trust me, then. But she still doubted. Was it Falk and the High Lord in her mind, or the Verrakai who had violated children’s bodies to take them over? An internal laugh, good-natured, without malice, answered her. Again she thought of Paksenarrion, and seemed to see a ruby centered in the circle she wore on her brow.

She had sworn her life to Falk. She had received her magery back from a paladin and Falk’s own Captain-General. With that thought she released whatever kept light from doing whatever Falk and the High Lord wanted. It burst from her, soundless, effortless, unconsuming and revealing. By that light, she saw the adult selves in the two boys nearest her and the girl squatting on the floor behind the others … that one pouring magery at Mikeli as he lay twitching across the room.

Saving him had to come first. Dorrin attacked full speed, disabling the other two with one blow each to the head. The other children fled screaming to the corners of the nursery, except for the little girl. She did not even look up, concentrating on Mikeli. Dorrin felled her with a blow, and turned to the maids now huddled protectively over the sick boy.

“These three were making Mikeli sick with magery,” she said. “I am taking them away. He may recover now.”

“But—but you—”

“He’s sweating,” one of the maids said. “He’s not as hot.”

“Stay here,” Dorrin said. She carried the little girl, now bleeding from mouth and nose, over her shoulder, and managed to pick up the others and get them out of the room. She shut the door, took a breath, looked around. What now?

Out of the house. No more killing blood here.

Dorrin called for Selfer and explained. “We must kill them—they are not children, but adults using children’s bodies—but we must not kill them in the house. Too much blood here already.”

“They’re so little,” he said. “Can it really be—” He looked at her face and then nodded. “You are sure; that’s enough for me. Do you want someone else to do it?”

“No. I must.” She sighed. “I hate it, but it is my inheritance. I am the legitimate duke—and every duke I know of killed, and killed family members. That is not power I ever wanted to inherit.”

“What about the orchard? That is a fruit orchard isn’t it? Alyanya’s preserve, a place of peace?”

“We can hope,” Dorrin said.

Together they wrapped the little limp bodies in linens and carried them out of the house to the orchard, and Dorrin cut their throats. A detail of Phelani dug the graves at one end; it did not take long, since the bodies were so small. Selfer spoke a Girdish prayer for their rest, and Dorrin spoke both the Falkian prayers and the traditional Verrakaien farewell.

As they walked back up the orchard paths, Selfer said “Children! How could they use children so?”

“I know. It’s disgusting in ways I can’t even describe. Those children—the real children—having their lives taken away …”

“I was never convinced the Verrakai were evil until I saw this,” Selfer said. “I knew you—fought beside you—and if anything you were more committed to good than even Kieri—the king.”

“I had memories of this place, and the fear that I would become like them,” Dorrin said.

“Not you,” Selfer said. “Ever.”

“Now that I have the power, I feel its temptations,” Dorrin said. “Anyone with power, magical or not, Selfer. You’re a captain now—has it started for you, yet? You speak and others obey … how does that feel?” She kept her voice light; Selfer had been a good squire and junior captain.

He said nothing for a few paces, then: “I know what you’re speaking of. And when I was first a squire, I thought how grand it must be, to have a cohort or a whole company at my command. I felt a thrill of pride, even though I had no right. But the Duke taught me, you taught me, all you captains, that being a commander was not about that. Do I like it, when the cohort does what I command? Yes, of course. But I must command well, for that pleasure to be … to be honorable. It isn’t all about me.”

Dorrin punched him lightly on the shoulder. “So I thought. You are a good captain, Selfer, and we’ve all seen that coming as you grew into it. But there are temptations at every level of power, temptations to take the easy way. Even Kieri—even the king, that last year in Aarenis.”

Selfer nodded, then said, “I didn’t know what to do.”

“Wasn’t anything you could do. We captains couldn’t do anything; he was beyond reason for a while. He dragged himself back from being even worse. But anytime you have power, you will have temptations. You know that; always remember it. We are not gods; we make mistakes, we judge wrongly. If you can keep in mind ‘I might be wrong’—”

“But doesn’t that slow your thinking in emergencies?”

“Indeed.” Dorrin kicked at a withered pear on the ground. “It nearly killed me, just now. Trust the gods, trust your experience of Gird, but when you have time, don’t trust yourself too much.” She stopped; Selfer slowed and turned to face her. “It’s not easy, Selfer—it’s not ever easy, or it wasn’t for me. But if I can do what the prince wants, what the realm needs, what the honest remnants of Verrakai need—it will be by my understanding that I am not always right, and my willingness to admit that, face the consequences, and go on trying.”

“I would wonder if it was easier for paladins, had I not seen Paksenarrion’s face,” Selfer said. “When I was a boy, I heard of them and wanted to be one …”

Dorrin walked on. “So did I. But it was made clear to me, in my time in Falk’s Hall, that I was not.” Another few steps. “We have our own tasks, Selfer. When I knew Kieri Phelan in Falk’s Hall—”

“You knew him then? You never said—”

She shrugged. “No reason. He was older by a few years. I admired him greatly; many of us did. The commander of our year spoke highly of him as someone who had followed Falk’s path of service—he’d been with Aliam Halveric, as you know—and then through his own merits had been accepted into training.”

“Was he the same?”

“Yes … not exactly.” Dorrin felt her cheeks heating. Like the other young women in her class, she had found him handsome beyond bearing; they had discussed him, in their dormitory, when they thought the sergeants could not hear. Those tough older women had no patience with girlish chatter. From his flaming red hair to the broad-shouldered, fit body, the shapely legs, the … she forced that memory back. “When he was young,” she said instead, “he was already a natural leader, and he’d been to the wars with Aliam. No one else had actual fighting experience. He had most of us students wrapped around his finger; everyone wanted to be him, or be near him, or both.”

“I’m sure you had your own following,” Selfer said. “With all due respect, you must have been beautiful as a girl; you’re good-looking now.”

“I was a mess,” Dorrin said. “And I was always in trouble. It wasn’t the way my face was made, but how I used it. Growing up here, I learned lessons that made people distrust me, dislike me.”

“Well,” Selfer said, “people don’t distrust or dislike you now.”

“Except my own family, and that’s nothing new,” Dorrin said. “I hope that child lives—”

“Which one?”

“The one who was sickening, being prepared for a transfer. That’s what happened—one of the children I’d identified tried to force a transfer. Now we know it’s possible.”

“Gods! Which one?”

“The girl.” Dorrin felt tears stinging her eyes. The girl she might have been, had things been different. A girl who would never have her chance to escape. “I must make it better for the others,” she said. “Verrakai must not be a name of terror, treachery, evil.”

“You’ll do it,” Selfer said.

“That’s the scariest thing you’ve ever said to me,” Dorrin said. Her heart lifted as they came to the front entrance. The sun seemed brighter; the great doors looked less ominous. “Falk’s grace,” she said. “If Falk and the High Lord want this done, then surely it can be done.”

“And Gird,” Selfer said as they came up the steps.

“And Gird,” Dorrin said.

A kitchen maid waited for her in the reception room. “Cook says the pastry’s still waiting.”

Lunch. She had completely forgotten about lunch. “That’s very kind,” she said. “Where—”

“We’s set a table in the servants’ hall since them soldiers won’t let us in the dining room.”

“Fine,” Dorrin said. “Lead the way. Selfer?”

The pie, mincemeat and vegetables in a pastry crust, was delicious. Dorrin ate it quickly, anxious to get back upstairs and check on the children. She met one of the nurserymaids on the stairs.

“He’s better still, my lord,” the maid said. “The fever’s all gone; we’ve never seen the like.”

“Is he awake?”

“No, but he’s sleeping restful, no twitching. Malin says let him sleep it out.”

“That’s good. I’m sorry the children couldn’t go out this morning, but this afternoon let them play outside.”

“In the orchard? That’s where we usually take them when it’s this cool, out of the wind.”

“No, not in the orchard today. It’s cool, but not windy—they should be fine in the front of the house.”

The children came downstairs quietly, obviously anxious with the house full of strangers and none of the familiar adults about. Dorrin watched them file out the front entrance; none were invaded that she could detect.

Once outside, their reserve gradually leached away and soon they were running around the wide graveled entrance, screeching and playing like normal children. They were normal children, Dorrin reminded herself. The nurserymaids watched, trying to keep the children into rough age groups.

After a few minutes, she went back upstairs to check on Mikeli and find out why the nursery’s protection against aggressive magery had failed. Mikeli slept peacefully, appearing normal to all her senses. The nursery’s protection, a spell controlled at the door, had been turned off; Dorrin turned it back on.

While on that level, she spent the next hour checking room after room for any evil magery and found nothing—the children’s floor seemed clear. Down one flight, where the adults had their chambers, was a different matter. After finding multiple death-dealing traps of various kinds, familiar from her time in Aarenis, and spells set to confuse, injure, or kill, in the first bedchamber she explored, she decided she’d continue to sleep somewhere else.

A soft call from the stairway to the third floor brought her back up. “He’s awake, my lord.”

Dorrin went into the nursery; Mikeli was now propped up on pillows, rubbing his eyes.

“Mikeli—how do you feel?”

“Better. Hungry … Who are you?”

“I’m Dorrin Verrakai,” Dorrin said. “The new Duke.”

“Where’s Mama?”

“She had to go on a trip,” Dorrin said. “But I’m here. If you’re hungry, let’s go see if the cooks can find you something.” She looked at the nurserymaid. “I don’t know what a child who’s been sick should eat—”

“Toast, weak sib, to see how it settles.”

“I’m hungry,” Mikeli said in a stronger voice, pushing away from the pillows. “I feel … different.”

Dorrin extended her magery a little. No hint of someone other than a five-winters child inside, a child thinner and paler than he should be, but with healthy energy surging inside him.

“Come downstairs with me,” she said, standing and holding out a hand. Mikeli got up and took her hand without hesitation.

“Your shoes, Miki,” said the nurserymaid, fetching them and putting them on his feet as he stood on one leg at a time.