Valdemar 06 - [Exile 01] - Exile’s Honor Page 42

  Now it was Talamir’s turn; his voice trembled a little, but only a little, and Alberich didn’t think that anyone noticed but him. “I vouch for her heart, for I am the Queen’s Own, and her heart is open to me.”

  Now, tradition said that the last lines were to be spoken by the Lord Marshal himself, but Selenay had asked for Alberich to take the final part. “Who else could but you?” she had asked, and he could not find it in him to deny her. He had drummed his response into his brain until he woke to find himself reciting it in his sleep; this was no time to let his Karsite syntax mangle what he was going to say.

  “And I,” he said, in a voice that sounded harsh to his own ears, “vouch for her hand, strong in defense, gentle to nurture, for I am the Queen’s Champion, and I have tested her will and her spirit in the fires of adversity.”

  The Lord Marshal nodded, and stepped back. “Then come, Selenay, daughter of Sendar. Come and assume your rightful place, Queen of Valdemar.”

  Selenay took the last few paces until she was within touching distance of the throne, then turned, and faced the gathering. Her pages scrambled to gather up the train of her gown and arrange it at her feet. Alberich moved farther to her left and took the gold wand that served as the seldom-used scepter from the hands of the Seneschal, as Talamir did the same on the right and took the crown from the Seneschal. Selenay removed the bejeweled chaplet with her own hands, and gave it to the Treasurer.

  With infinite care, Talamir placed the simple gold crown, hardly more than an engraved circlet, on her golden head, and stepped back to take his place behind the throne. Alberich gave the scepter into her hands, and looked for a moment deeply into her eyes.

  She looked back at him fearlessly. A world of question and reassurance passed between them in that look, and he could not have told which of them comforted the other more. But he knew then, in that moment, that no matter what hardships, what trials came in the future, she would not break under them. He had seen her tested in the fires of adversity, tested and tried and tempered, and she had come out of it full of strength, true as steel, and as tough and flexible.

  :As have you,: Kantor said, a universe of love and pride coloring the words. :And those who don’t see it, haven’t eyes. The rest are proud that you are one of us, Herald Alberich.:

  He stepped back and took his place, next to Talamir, and the Lord Marshal called out the very same words that he had used, all those many days ago, on the road to Haven.

  “Valdemar—behold your Queen!”

  And the cheer that erupted from those gathered below her held nothing feigned or uncertain.

  EPILOGUE

  ALBERICH had wanted to come to the Temple of the Lord of Light and visit Geri for nearly a moon, but there had just been too much to do. It wasn’t just his full duties as Weaponsmaster, although that was a time-devouring job in and of itself. When you added his continued forays into the darker streets of Haven, then his informal, but very necessary lessons with Talamir, lessons detailing the intricacies of the life of the Court and the highborn courtiers that made it the very hub of their existence, as well as all the eddies and swirls of intrigue within it—

  There just hadn’t been enough marks in a day.

  Working with Talamir had been the hardest, although Talamir was, during these sessions, the most like his former self that he ever was these days. Alberich walked into the lessons with a shiver, and out of them with a feeling of relief and the strong sense that he’d been in the naked presence of someone who’d been done no favors by being brought back to life, and who lived each moment longing to return to the path he’d been taken from so that he could finish the journey.

  But Crathach had been right; there was no one else that could serve as the Queen’s Own that Selenay needed right now. And Talamir knew that.

  Perhaps that was why he was driving Alberich so hard. Transferring the full weight of the job of—intelligence master, for lack of a better title—onto Alberich’s shoulders meant there was one less thing holding Talamir back from that delayed journey.

  Finally it had been the fact that he hadn’t been to the temple in far too long that had decided him. Talamir was busy with some delegation or other paying respects to Selenay, and the scum of Haven could stew without him for one night.

  Kantor heartily approved, which eased his conscience somewhat. And truth to tell, it felt very good to ride down into the city without wondering which persona he should don, if there was going to be any trouble that night, or whether he was going to have to explain himself to the constables and City Guard again. He felt relaxed, as he seldom did, as Kantor stopped inside the walls of the temple’s outer court and waited for him to dismount.

  On a pleasant evening like this one, he had expected the court to be full of the Sunlord’s worshipers, and indeed it was. As the priests intended, the court was serving its function as the neighborhood gathering place. Older children who had not yet gone to bed played games along one wall, a number of folk were using the “free” lantern and torchlight to read by, sitting at the benches on the opposite wall to where the children played. There were little knots of gossip and courtship, awkward flirtation and some friendly rivalry, and even a pair of old men playing a game of castles on a portable board. Alberich wouldn’t have been surprised to see a hot pie seller there, though no doubt, if one had appeared, Geri would have run him off. There were some things that were just a shade too undignified for the forecourt of a temple.

  None of them paid any attention to Alberich. He was now a fixture at the temple—though he doubted that anyone knew him for the Queen’s Champion, in his dark gray leathers. They probably thought he was just someone’s private guard. Anyone could have a white horse, after all, and what would the Weaponsmaster of Herald’s Collegium be doing down here, in this little neighborhood temple, anyway? Those with Karsite blood took great pride in the fact that one of their own was a Herald, but no one would ever dream that a Herald would come here to worship the Sunlord, however devout he was.

  People, he was coming to think, mostly saw what they expected to see. And if they saw something that ran counter to their expectations, they tended to rationalize it away.

  Useful, that, for a man in his position, though he would never trust his life to that principle. People were also likely to figure out the one thing you wanted to keep hidden from them at the worst possible moment.

  The door to the temple lay open to catch the coolness of the night breezes, and he simply walked in. And stopped to stare.

  For there was Geri, and around him was a gaggle of children, one of which he recognized as the little Karsite girl who had talked to him on the night of the rescue. They were all wearing a version of the warm yellow tunics and trews worn by novices in the service of Vkandis, brand new, and a bit oversized. And they all acted as if they were completely at home here.

  Geri was giving them a Valdemaran lesson, with the flock of them tucked out of the way in the side chapel used for long vigils and private meditations. Alberich realized after a moment of complete blankness, that this little temple had taken in all of the Karsite children that had been taken by the Tedrels. And if the hour seemed rather late for lessons, well, that might be the case for anyone other than a Temple of Vkandis—the Sunlord had rites and rituals going on from the dawn to sunset, and only after darkness fell was Geri going to be free to give these little ones the language class they needed before they could hope to learn anything else.

  I’ll have to ask Myste if she can get down here and give him a hand, he thought, watching them all. I wonder if there are any other Karsite exiles who’ve got the time to help? Geri won’t push it, but Myste will.

  He quickly moved back into the shadows, lest he disturb them, and watched. And felt something extraordinary unfold inside him. Something so extraordinary, that at first, he didn’t recognize it for what it was.

  Happiness. Pure, unalloyed happiness. Of all of the things he had done or had a hand in doing, this was the one that had brought
nothing but good for all concerned, with nothing whatsoever to regret or wish he had done differently.

  The children responded to Geri with all of the warmth that he would have expected; Geri was one of the kindest souls in the world, and children liked him even when he had to discipline them for something. But these children in particular were blossoming for the young priest like flowers in the sun—already he could tell a vast difference between the too-eager, too-helpful, anxious, pinch-faced little things they had been, and the bright-faced creatures they were now. It was wonderful. This was how Karsite children should look. And even as he reveled in the pleasure of knowing that he had had a key hand in making it possible for them to be here, he also knew a moment of sadness at the fact that even in Karse, most Karsite children were not this free, not this happy. . . .

  Sunlord, gentle giver of light, make it possible for them, too—

  A small hand tugged at his sleeve, and he turned and looked down.

  “I heard you were looking for me?” said a very small, very red-haired boy, with amazing blue eyes that looked oddly old in such a young face.

  For a moment, Alberich stared at him, trying to work out what on earth the child could mean. Then it struck him.

  “You are the boy they called Kantis?” he asked.

  The child nodded. “And you’re Alberich, the White Rider, the one who was promised to us. Right?”

  “Well—” he squatted down on his heels, so that he could look the boy straight in the eye. “I would say that it depends on just who was doing the promising. And where he got his information.”

  The child grinned at him. “It would be me that was doing the promising, but the promise wasn’t mine, it was the Prophecy. And it all came out of the Writ, of course. I know the Writ very well!” He struck a pose, and began to recite. “Alcar, Canto Seven, Verse Nine—And the children shall be reft from the people, and they shall suffer in the hands of the infidel, but those that keep faith shall endure and the riders of light shall redeem them. Porphyr, Canto Twelve, Verse Twenty-two—And lo! in the moment of despair, I shall be with you, I shall guide you, as you were a child, out of the camp of iniquity and into the hands of the saviors, and great spirits of white shall succor you. Werthe, Canto Fifteen, Verse Forty-nine—And a rider of the purest white spirit shall—”

  Alberich held up his hand to stop the flow of words. “I would say that you do, indeed, know the Writ very well,” he admitted gravely. “But I am not at all certain that there is anything in those verses that I would recognize as being part of the—the Prophecy.”

  He was going to add, if there ever was a Prophecy, except that what this child had done, and the hope he had given the others, the way he had organized them and kept them going—how had that been so wrong? Even if it had all been a childish tale concocted out of the scraps of Writ he knew, the tales the Valdemaran children babbled, and his fertile imagination, it had essentially saved them.

  “But I suppose it depends on how you interpret them,” he finished instead. And smiled. “I wanted to meet you primarily because I wanted to thank you for helping all of the others so much.”

  The boy looked at him unblinking, but with a smile playing about his lips. “Isn’t that what we’re all supposed to do? Help each other? No matter who we are and where we come from? That’s what the Writ says, in the Great Laws.”

  Where had the child learned that? Not from any of the Sunpriests that Alberich had served. . . . “Absolutely right.” He stood up, and gazed down at the child. “You are a very remarkable fellow.”

  “And so are you, Alberich of Karse, Herald of Valdemar.” The child’s voice suddenly deepened, and seemed to fill his ears, his mind, and his world shrank to the boy’s young face and the voice that resonated all through him. He couldn’t move. And he didn’t want to. . . . “A man of such conscience and honor is a remarkable man indeed; so remarkable, that it would seem that his prayers reach a little farther than most.”

  Alberich could not look away from those blue eyes, eyes which held an impossible golden flame in their depths. He wasn’t afraid, though. Far from it. He had never felt such peace before in his life.

  “A man of conscience and honor—who has found a fitting place in his exile, among those who value that honor, and honor the conscience.” The boy nodded. “It is written that exiles do not last forever, for those who are true to their word, their family, and their home. But remember, always, that the Writ tells us that a man’s home is where his family is, Herald Alberich. And also, that friends are the family one can choose. . . .”

  The child backed away a few paces, as Alberich felt his pulse hammering in his throat, as if he had run a very long distance. He hardly knew what to think; he couldn’t have actually said anything if his life had depended on speaking.

  The boy turned, and walked a few more steps away in the direction of the door, then looked back over his shoulder.

  “And if you think what I am is remarkable, wait some few years. And you will see what my daughter can do. Or should I say, my daughter who will be my Son?” Then he laughed and ran off, a high, utterly childlike laugh that broke the spell that had held Alberich motionless.

  He still couldn’t think; his thoughts moved as if they were flowing through thick honey. But—he needed to run after that boy—

  “Alberich!” Geri called, and he turned—

  The priest had broken up the class, and apparently had spotted Alberich in the back of the temple. “I was hoping you’d come to see what we’ve done! We took all of the Karsite children when the Queen’s people came to ask if we had room for any. You know, we just couldn’t turn them away, and they’ve been a delight to have here. What’s more, they are making remarkable progress!”

  “Like—that boy?” he replied, feeling his heart still racing with an emotion that held both excitement and fear. No—not fear, but an emotion like fear. It took him a moment to recognize it as hope. . . .

  “Boy?” Geri looked puzzled. “What boy?”

  “The boy I was—” he gestured, but there was no sign that there had ever been anyone there. “—talking—to—”

  They both scanned the now-empty temple, but there was no sign of any children now. “It must have been one of the youngsters from the courtyard,” Geri replied, looking puzzled. “All of the Karsite children were with me.”

  “Are any of the children who come here in the evening named Kantis?” he ventured, not knowing whether he wanted to hear the answer.

  But Geri only shrugged. “I haven’t a clue, there are so many of them, and they just swarm the place in weather like this. Some of them aren’t even worshipers of the Sunlord. They just come to play with our children.”

  Alberich licked dry lips and thought furiously. It might just have been a child playing a prank; it would have been natural for the Karsite children to tell others about Kantis and their peculiar prophecy. Children sometimes played the most elaborate jokes, especially on adults, when they thought they could get away with it. Although the families who worshiped here were fluent in Valdemaran, they all spoke Karsite at home, and children picked up languages easily. It would have been easy for one to pick out some passages from the Writ that matched that “Prophecy.” Wouldn’t it?

  And who was he, to be the recipient of a visitation from the Sunlord Himself? No one. If anyone should have gotten a visitation, it should be Geri. Not him.

  And—no. I won’t worry this to death. If it was the Sunlord in His aspect as Child of the Morning, or if it wasn’t, it is all the same to how I should continue to act. That was Free Will again, the Gift of the Sunlord, to choose or not choose a path. He would choose the same path he always had, that of honor. And in either case, because pearls of wisdom drop from innocent mouths, I shall take the advice to heart, for it comes from the Writ, and I shall take comfort from it for the same reason.

  “It probably was one of the youngsters from outside; if you see him again, make sure to get him to talk to you, for he is remarkably wel
l-spoken,” he said, and slapped Geri on the back. “I am dying for a decent glass of tea. Why don’t you tell me what you’ve been doing with these children, and give me some idea of how I can help?”

  After all, wasn’t that what everyone was supposed to do? Even an exile in a strange land—

  Exile? The Writ—and the boy—were right. When he had come here, perhaps, but among these people, he had found those who understood that a man had to hold to his word and his honor. People who were the truest sort of friends—and as the Writ said, the sort of friends who became one’s family.

  Which meant that he wasn’t really an exile after all.

  It was good to be home.

  1 Forthcoming in hardcover from DAW Books