As much to cover her relief as anything else, she hugged Alaric close once again, at last chancing a look up at the silent king. Donal’s grey eyes were glittering with mirth, his lips pursed in the only expression he could manage without breaking out into a very unkingly grin.
«Yes, we should help the king», she whispered, stroking her son’s golden head and brushing his hair with a kiss. «You’ve answered very well. In fact, you’ve answered so well that Mummy is going to give you a special prize. Would you like that?»
«A prize?» he replied, as she reached her arms around him and picked up the quill, putting it in his hand and guiding it to the inkwell.
Donal also knelt beside them, one hand resting lightly on the boy’s shoulder, though Alaric seemed not to be aware of that fact.
«I am going to give you a new name, a secret name», Alyce said, as she guided his hand in a first vertical stroke. «It will be a special name, a name of power, for when you are a grown man, and it will be…»
«His name shall be Airleas, which means a pledge», Donal interrupted softly, his free hand touching Alyce’s just as she was starting to form another letter besides an A.
In an instant of bewilderment, Alyce felt her hand moving into the second stroke of the A as if that were the letter she had intended all along, her voice picking up where it had left off, only with Donal’s words.
«Your name shall be Airleas, which means a pledge». Her hand, with the boy’s enfolded in it, finished the A and swept into the I, the R. «A pledge is a promise. So this name means that you are to keep your promise to do good things and to help the king».
The L and the E flowed off her quill and swept on into the second A, the final S.
«Airleas», she said again, as she laid the quill across the back of the table and wondered what had become of the name she had chosen. «Air-le-us. Say it for me».
«Air-le-us», the boy parroted.
«Which means?»
«A promise».
«That’s exactly right. A promise or a pledge. Airleas».
She picked up the parchment and blew on the ink to finish drying it, then laid it in the little earthen bowl. Almost, she could not remember that there had ever been another name besides Airleas. She wondered, as the last memory of that other name faded, just what the king had done to her, and why — though she could not bring herself to resent it. Already, Donal’s hand had closed around the hilt of the little dagger, now held it braced against the snowy table covering. The blade flashed candlelight once in Alaric’s eyes, catching and holding his fascinated attention.
Alyce drew a deep breath, suspecting that Donal had done that intentionally, not feeling further words necessary. Almost absently, she pressed her forefinger to the dagger’s point until it drew blood, let a drop fall on the parchment they had just inscribed.
Alaric watched the process gravely, not hesitating when Donal turned the blade slightly toward him. He pushed his smaller fingertip onto the point without flinching, gave no sign of pain or fear as the blood welled. Without prompting, he himself touched the first glistening droplet to the parchment before popping his wounded finger into his mouth.
As Vera had done, Alyce then produced one of Kenneth’s hairs to seal the naming, affixing it to the parchment with wax from Alaric’s candle. But when she would have passed the candle to Alaric for him to light the parchment, Donal stayed her hand, rising to peer back in Kenneth’s direction and lift a hand in summons.
«Kenneth, join us, please», he said softly. «Leave your sword, and come ’round the way I came».
Dutifully Kenneth leaned his sword against the door frame and began circling to the left to flank the circle, keeping a wary eye on the golden shimmer at his right shoulder. As he came, Donal moved to the east and picked up the sword laid across the threshold, saluted the east, cut a new gate before the altar. He lifted the blade in challenge just as Kenneth came into the gateway, bringing him to an abrupt halt with steel against his breastbone and empty hands half lifting, their gaze locking along the length of shining steel.
«Know that no deception is possible within this circle», the king said quietly, then lifted his blade in permission and salute, reversed it to shift to his other hand, grasping it under the quillons. «Now enter in peace».
Visibly bracing himself, Kenneth took the hand that Donal extended and passed through the gateway, waiting as the king resealed the gate and laid the sword across the threshold. Alyce had been watching all of it, and beckoned for her husband to join her on Alaric’s right as the king sank down on the left.
«You have seen how the children were sealed to their Naming», Donal said quietly to Kenneth, taking up the dagger. «For a simple Naming, your hair was sufficient to link you to your son, but the work eventually required of Alaric will be anything but simple, and it may be that he will need your assistance. Such assistance requires a bond of blood — but only a drop», he added with a faint smile, handing the dagger to Kenneth. «I would have you in my service long after tonight».
At his nod of reassurance — and Alyce’s — Kenneth briskly nicked a fingertip with the blade and smudged his blood on the parchment beside hers and Alaric’s. But when he handed the dagger back to Donal, offering it hilt-first, the king turned its point against his own thumb, not flinching as the blade bit and royal blood welled around it, dripping onto the parchment. When he had set aside the blade, briefly sucking at his wound, he took Alaric’s two hands in his and fixed him with his grey Haldane gaze.
«Alaric Anthony Morgan, Airleas, be thou my son as well as theirs», Donal whispered, gazing deeply into the boy’s eyes, «and be the pledge for Haldane blood, now until forever…And say Amen».
The boy’s mouth moved obediently in the response, but his voice was only a whisper, his eyes wide as saucers. Smiling, the king kissed him gently on the forehead, then glanced at Alyce and nodded slightly.
Numbly, as though she watched through another’s eyes, she saw herself putting her son’s candle in his hand, heard herself telling him to light the parchment. As the parchment flared hot and bright, burning with the faint aroma of singed blood, the boy watched in fascination, pupils black as ink. Kenneth had subsided back on his hunkers, eyes closed and head bowed, hands resting easily on his thighs with fingers splayed, now oblivious to what was taking place.
When the parchment had burned to ash, Alyce dipped her thumb in the residue and traced the cross on her son’s brow as she sealed his name by word and thought. Then the king was laying his hands on either side of Alaric’s head and delving deep, crowding her out to watch helplessly as he set his will upon the young mind.
When he had finished, he allowed Alyce to enfold the boy in her arms again, himself rising to go to the edge of the circle where the sword lay across the threshold. Kenneth had lifted his head as the king rose, aware once again, and watched him cut the doorway to the east and gesture for Alyce to proceed.
Not speaking, Alyce put her son’s candle in his hand and led him to the threshold, gently nudging him to go through. The boy went fearlessly up the three steps to place his candle beside that of his younger cousin. When he had returned to his mother’s arms, a pleased grin on his face, he melted into her embrace and laid his head on her shoulder, asleep in one softly exhaled breath.
Wordless with wonder, Alyce sank into a sitting position with her son cradled in her lap, taking comfort in the circle of Kenneth’s arm, watching as the king laid the sword across the open doorway and came to crouch before them. She could not bring herself to question what he had done, or even to offer comment. She knew only that what had occurred had felt right, if unexpected, and that he was fully her match in all that they had done together that night.