Maeander held his hands out like a merchant attesting to his honesty. “I want to make you an offer. A simple offer. Dance a duel with me, Aliver. Just you and me, fairly matched, to the death. Nobody will interfere; all can see which of us is the greater.”
“A duel?” Aliver asked. “What will this solve? You do not ask me to believe that your army will admit defeat upon your death, do you? Hanish will pack his things and leave Acacia, return to the wilds of the Mein? That would tempt me, but it is not a possibility. We both know that.”
Maeander laughed. He acknowledged that he promised no such thing. Neither did he ask Aliver to swear to a similar oath. But why not face each other like men? There was a time when leaders stood before their armies and let their own blood sanctify the contest. It was they who had the most to gain or lose; so why should they not risk their lives as willingly as they put the lives of others in danger? It was a noble ideal that Meins and Acacians had both subscribed to once. It had been forgotten over the generations since Tinhadin’s rule, when nobility was squashed, reviled, and-
“You’re mad,” Dariel interrupted. He could not help himself. Aliver seemed to be considering the offer. Nothing in his tone or demeanor suggested the disdain Dariel thought appropriate. He wanted to make sure his brother understood how he felt about this absurd proposition. “We have an army that fights for its own reasons. Every man and woman here is free. And they war for even greater freedom. Not one soldier in this company would risk Aliver’s life before his own.”
Voices affirmed this from all sides. They clapped, shouted, cursed. A few tossed quick insults.
Maeander deigned to look at Dariel long enough to ask, “You are the raider, yes? I would not expect you to know anything of honor. I am proposing only that Aliver do his part, that he face an equal and be tested.”
Dariel spat on the ground. He felt Mena’s hand touch his elbow, but he yanked away. “An equal? You are not a king. You are not Hanish. Why would Aliver Akaran risk your treachery when this isn’t even about you? You must be truly desperate.” Turning to shout to the crowd, he said, “That’s the only reason he’s here. The Mein are desperate! We have them beat, friends. That’s what this is about.”
Eyes back on Aliver, Maeander spoke through the tumult that answered Dariel. “Nothing rallies an army like a symbol. If-or should I say when-you kill me, Prince Aliver, you have my permission to saw my head from my shoulders. Go and mount it on the tip of a tall pole and hold it up for the world to see. Maeander Mein killed! Aliver Akaran triumphant! Your army would double overnight. The downtrodden masses-most of whom have forgotten whose heel ground them into the dirt before my brother’s did-would rise in one great wave. Prophecies fulfilled! Destiny! Retribution!”
Aliver seemed at ease with this discussion. He did not seem surprised by the situation, did not seem at all troubled by looking into the face of the man who had orchestrated so many days of death. He leaned forward slightly, engaged, one hand raised to gesture, quieting the troops. “And if I perish?”
“That is the beauty of it,” Maeander said. “Your death would spark some similar effect. Anger! Rage! What a hero you would be, having sacrificed yourself for your nation. Sometimes a martyr inspires a curious kind of devotion…”
“You speak well,” Aliver said, “but all the same things could be said of you. Should you triumph, you would have the same rewards. So isn’t this duel ultimately without effect?”
“No, not at all. I am feared but not loved. I am powerful but not the supreme chieftain, as your brother pointed out. No, you would gain more from my death than I from yours.”
“So why do you offer this duel?”
“Because he’s a fool,” Dariel said.
Maeander dropped his smile, replaced it with an instant mask of gravity. “He is right. Just think me a fool, Aliver. But fight me. I challenge you by the Old Codes, those that were in place before Tinhadin’s time. As a man of honor, you have no choice but to accept. You know this, even if your brother does not.”
During the private council that followed, Dariel tried to speak reason to Aliver. He reiterated his belief that it was madness to concede to a duel. It was a ploy, a trick of some sort, a last-ditch treachery. Nothing good could come of it. Maeander should be repulsed or seized or killed on the spot. He did not deserve the protection of parlay. Dariel said these things numerous times in varying ways, growing frustrated that Aliver heard him with equanimity and yet still seemed resolved to accept the challenge. It was clear from the moment the small group gathered in his tent that he had made up his mind. He did not sit as he motioned for the others to do so. Instead, he stood stretching, moving about, keeping his body limber.
In his quiet, measured voice, accented by his Talayan origins, Kelis asked, “What are these Old Codes Maeander spoke of?”
Aliver explained that they were the unwritten standards of conduct from the far past, when the Known World was made up of self-governing, tribal powers. Each had his own customs, even more varied than what exists now. But when dealing outside a particular tribal group they relied on established rules of conduct that everyone understood. He named several of the customs, and might have gone on if Leeka Alain had not finished for him.
“Some of the Old Codes are best forgotten,” the general said, “but Maeander did evoke a known precedent. Bastard that he is. In those times kings met before their respective armies and tried to settle their disputes before putting their armies at risk. Sometimes they fought to the death. The First Form-Edifus at Carni-was such a duel.”
“And Tinhadin did away with these codes, didn’t he?”
Leeka sighed, chewed his answer a moment. “To our lasting shame. He rewrote everything, though, not just these codes. He brought the entire Known World under his control, and much that had been could no longer persist.”
Melio Sharratt, who had led the Vumuan force the day before, sat beside Mena. He was the one who had taught her how to use a sword. He had also helped save them from the antoks, and because of it nobody questioned when Mena pulled him into the council. Indeed, Aliver remembered him well and had commented last night on how fortuitous his arrival was. Melio asked if anyone ever stood in and fought in the king’s place.
Aliver jumped in before anybody could answer, firm but smiling. “Nobody will stand in for me. Not you, Kelis-I see you thinking it. And certainly not you, Melio. Still think you’re my superior-as you were when we were boys?”
“Not at all, my lord,” Melio said deferentially. “You surpassed me long ago.”
Aliver paused in his exercises and looked one after the other of them in the eye, his face sun burnished, lean, handsome. His brown eyes showed touches of gray in them, flecked with stony veins of silver. He had never looked more like the ideal of a young king. “Maeander is right. I cannot ignore the Old Codes. They are part of what we’re fighting for. I believe in the notion of a leader’s responsibility that he cites. If I believe it, what choice do I have but to accept what he offers? I’d be betraying everything that I want to be if I did. I didn’t wake up this morning expecting this, but here it is. Better that I welcome it than run from it.”
Nobody offered a rebuttal to this. Even Dariel could not think how to argue anymore. “If all this is decided,” he said, his voice bitter, “why are we here talking?”
Humor curled up the corners of Aliver’s mouth. “I’m here for the pleasure of your company and to keep those men out there guessing.”
“Can you promise me you won’t die?” Dariel knew he sounded childish, but he thought the question and could not help but ask it. “Can you promise that?”
No, Aliver admitted. Of course he could not make that promise. He stepped close to Dariel, grasped him with a palm set along his jawline. He called him Brother and reminded him that he had been beside their father when Thasren Mein stuck a poisoned blade in his chest. He was an arm’s length away, he said. He saw the blade as it thrust forward. He saw the face of the assassin, and he had seen it a million times since. He could carve it out of stone and have the visage accurate to the last detail. This duel was not really offered this morning. It had begun the day he let Thasren kill their father.