“He claimed they would obey rules they made better than rules he gave—and yet he won’t let them make the rules they want to make. Insists that they and the farmers must agree what is a ripe plum, nonsense like that.”
“Nonsense like that matters, to those who grow the plums, or pay good coin for them.”
“And that brings up coin. D’you know he’s planning to call in and melt down all the old coinage? No more copper crabs and gold crowns, but stamped with wheat-ear and poppy. I tried to tell him what that would cost: the finesmiths don’t work for nothing. He wouldn’t listen. And he asks of me what he does not understand—”
“He wants you to give up your grievance, as he made me give up mine.”
“Your heritage, he’s made you give up.”
“One and the same. My grievance: being born of royal blood, and thrown out to live in a peasant’s world. Having the royal power, and being denied its use. The world, in short, not to my liking.”
“It’s more than that!”
“Not really.” Luap grinned sideways at her. “Lady, I’ve known peasant lads enough, furious because their father favored another brother, because the steward was unfair, because the world was. Grumbling, sour, envious, resentful, quick to take offense and seek vengeance for every slight. So was I, though I hid it, thinking myself too good to admit such feelings, though they burned in my heart.” He paused, to see how she would take this. She listened, though he suspected it was only because she knew he was a king’s son. He took a deep breath, hoping no one would interrupt them, or come close enough to overhear what only Gird, so far, knew of his past.
“When I married, lady, I loved my wife as a prince might love a scullery-maid: just so much, for her beauty and her skill. Our children: I saw them in my mind, clothed in royal gowns, and hated the reality of their broad peasant faces, their rough hands. You are unwed: you cannot imagine what this means of love foregone, of wasted years, when I might have been rich in hearts-ease. Then as Gird’s power grew, my master—who should, I knew, have been but a courtier at my court—commanded me to join the army, gain Gird’s confidence, and betray him. I would have done so, for the reward he promised, but he did not trust. He took my wife, my children—killed my son, to make his point, and held them captive against my behavior. The wife I had never loved as I could have, the daughter I thought too plain: I saw in their eyes, as the soldiers took them away, a trust I had never earned. Then I began to love them, but it was too late.” The old pain struck to his heart again, and tears blurred his vision. He blinked them away, and saw on the magelady’s face a curious expression. He hoped it was not contempt: he could feel rage rising in him like a dangerous spring; contempt from her would set a fire under it. She said nothing.
“So I came to Gird, as one driven into rebellion by injustice, but I meant to betray him, only he was gentle, that night, with my injuries, and something—I could not do it. I told him, about my family, and he cried: great tears running down his face, his nose turned red—I could not believe it.” He waited until she asked.
“And then?”
“And then they died, as my master had promised, and I could do nothing. In the market square at Darrow, before a frightened crowd—someone told me about it later, not knowing whose wife it had been. And I—I hated Gird, almost as much as my master, for having done nothing—though there was nothing he could have done. When I discovered my powers, I had thoughts of claiming my own place, somehow. Making things better, being the king that should have been, in a land where no one suffered. A boy’s dream, after a beating. Crowns and palaces for all, meat and ale and honey on the loaf—”
“You could have—”
“I could not. Gird knocked me flat, when I tried my powers on him, and rightly so. I didn’t see that at the time. But if you’ve wondered why I have no command, that’s why. He could not trust me. The marshals still look at me sideways, but Gird knows I’m different now. So could you be, if you’d give up that old wound you cherish.”
“I do not cherish it! The ruin of my life—!”
“Only if you choose so. Lady, listen to me. You have lost something: who has not? It is what we make of what’s left that counts. I lost my wife, my children, lost them even before they were taken, in the blindness of my pride in blood. I lost a crown, the way you see it. You stayed away from this war; you have not seen what I have seen, or learned the lessons it taught. My loss is as important as any other, and no more important than any other. King’s son, bastard, widower, childless by war, a luap in every way: I have lost or renounced all command, being unfit for it.”
“And this is what you and Gird want me to do?”
Luap stretched his arms high over his head, easing the knot in his back. By her tone, she was at least thinking about it, no longer quite so sure of herself. “Gird wants you to quit thinking you’re a special case. I would have you consider the fruits of freedom: freedom from your past. What good is that old anger doing you now? What good is it doing any of us, when you would lure me into a conspiracy to undo what all these men and women have died to do? You, lady, best know whether you are as unfit for command as I was.”
Her expression shifted, from half petulant to something approaching respect. “I—never doubted my ability to command, when it should be time. Not until now—”
“Yet you never took the field. And why come here, to your people’s enemies? And why stay?”
“I’m not sure.” She looked down, and away, and anywhere but his eyes. “I did not take the field . . . because the king did not call me, as he called other nobles. After I killed him, I thought . . . I knew that none of our people would accept me, the king’s murderer. Why should they? I’d broken my oath to him, why not join his enemies? My own act placed me there, it seemed.”
“And what did you think Gird would do, pat you on the head and tell you the king had treated you badly and deserved your vengeance?”
She flushed. “I didn’t know. I don’t suppose I was thinking clearly. As for why I stay . . . where would I go? Back to Tsaia to pick sides in that contention? Away from here, where some peasant terrified of magery is like to split my skull with an axe while I sleep?”
Now she met his eyes again, with an expression he had never seen on her face, honest bewilderment and the first glint of humor. “I set out to save the king, and killed him; after that, what could I dare intend, that would not go awry?”
Chapter Thirty-two
Gird had been right; Tsaia preferred lords to peasants, if peasants to mages. There the followers of cruel gods had all been magelords, or their close kin. When the bartons rose, some found their own lords with them, against those they most hated and feared. Duke Marrakai, though accused of treachery by Duke Verrakai, proved his loyalty in most men’s eyes by supporting a Mahieran for the throne. The Rosemage, as Gird called her, assured him that the candidate had no more magical ability than a river cobble. He was not sure he believed her, but he did believe Arranha, who said the same thing.
He was, as he had never expected to be, alive and a hero. Everyone knew the big blocky man in blue (it seemed simpler to keep wearing that color; when he didn’t, someone would give him a blue shirt “to remember by”) on the stocky gray—almost white now—horse. Children ran out to meet him on the way, calling to him, running beside the horse. If his route was known, there would be bits of blue tied to branches, blue yarn braided into women’s hair, blue flowers, in season, thrown before him. If he surprised a village, they would drop their tools and gather, beg for his blessing, bring all their problems for him to solve.