Hundreds of people had witnessed Sylvarresta's murder. Gaborn had been totally focused on Borenson, but now he became aware of the others.
Duke Groverman and a full hundred knights were rushing up the hill with weapons drawn. Behind them ran commoners. Some looked furious, others dismayed. Some could not believe what had happened. Gaborn heard shouts, the hue and cry of “Murder, murder most foul!” and “Kill him!” and others shouting in wordless grief at the death of their King.
Young boys with scythes and sticks were running up the hill, their bloodless faces twisted in dismay.
Iome dropped to her knees, took her father's head in her lap. She rocked back and forth, weeping. Her father's blood was pumping out quickly through the huge wound, as if he were a steer being bled by a butcher. The blood pooled and mingled with the melting snow.
Things had happened so quickly, Gaborn just stood, dazed. His guard had killed the father of the woman he loved. Gaborn's own life might well be in jeopardy.
Some here would see it as their duty to avenge House Sylvarresta. A tide of people swept toward Borenson. Some young men were stringing longbows.
Gaborn shouted, using all the power he could muster in his Voice, “Stop! Leave him to me!”
Borenson's horse danced backward at the shout, and he fought to control the mount. Those nearest Gaborn all stopped expectantly. Others still rushed up the hill, unsure.
Iome looked down at her people, raised a hand for them to halt. Gaborn suspected that her command alone would not have stopped the mob, if Borenson were not such a deadly foe. But partly from fear, partly from respect for their Princess, the crowd advanced only falteringly, and some older and wiser lords near the front spread their arms, to hold the more hot-tempered men back.
Borenson glared at the mob in contempt, then flourished his hammer, pointing at Iome, and gazed into Gaborn's eyes: “She should have died with the rest of them! By your father's own orders!”
“He rescinded that order,” Gaborn said calmly, using all his training in the control of Voice, precisely repeating every studied inflection, so he could convey to Borenson that he spoke the truth.
Borenson's mouth fell open in horror, for he was full of guilt, and Gaborn now laid it on him thicker. Almost, Gaborn imagined that he could hear the sneers that would be cast at Borenson's back for years: “Butcher. Assassin. Kingslayer!”
Yet Gaborn could not speak anything but the truth, no matter how horrible it might be, no matter how it might destroy his friend. “My father rescinded that order, when I presented King Sylvarresta before him. He hugged the man as a friend dearer than a brother, and begged forgiveness!”
Gaborn pointed down with his spear at King Sylvarresta for effect.
If he had thought Borenson gone in madness before, now he became certain of it.
“Noooo!” Borenson howled, and tears filled eyes, eyes that now gazed past Gaborn's head, at some private torment. “Noooo!”
He shook his head violently. He could not bear for it to be true, could not live with it being true.
Borenson half-dropped and half-threw his warhammer to the ground, then turned in his saddle, pulled his right leg over and stepped off his horse awkwardly, as if he were walking down a great stair.
“No, please, no!” he said, shaking his head from side to side. He grabbed his helm, pulled it off, so that his head lay bare. He bowed to the ground, neck stretched, and as he walked forward, he stammered under his breath, staring at the ground.
He walked in a strange gait—back bent, head low, knees almost touching the ground at every step.
Gaborn realized that Borenson was torn, did not know whether to approach him or drop to his knees. He was trying to keep his head bowed.
“My lord, my lord, ah, ah, take me, milord. Take me!” Borenson said as he crept forward.
A young man dashed up with a hammer, as if to deal the death blow himself, but Gaborn shouted at the lad to stay back. The mood of the crowd was growing uglier. People were bloodthirsty.
“Take you?” Gaborn asked Borenson.
“Take me,” Borenson begged. “Take my wit. Take it. Please! I don't want to know anymore. I don't want to see anymore. Take my wit!”
Gaborn did not want Borenson to become as Sylvarresta had been, did not want to see those eyes that had laughed so often grow vacant. Yet, at that moment, he wondered if he'd be doing the man a kindness.
Father and I are the ones who took him to the brink of madness, Gaborn realized. To take his endowment would be vile—like a king who taxes the poor till they can pay no more, then tells himself that by relieving them of endowments he shows generosity.
I have violated him, Gaborn realized. I have violated his Domain Invisible, taken his free will. Borenson had always tried to be a good soldier. Now he will never see himself as good again.
“No,” Gaborn said softly. “I will not take your wit.” Yet even as he said the words, he wondered at his own reasons. Borenson was a great warrior, the best fighter in Mystarria. To take wit from him would have been wasteful, like a farmer killing a fine horse in order to fill his belly when a chicken would have served as well. Do I deny him this because it is merely pragmatic? Gaborn wondered.
“Please,” Borenson shouted again. He hobbled next to Gaborn now, not more than an arm's length away. His whole head shook, and his hands trembled as he pulled at his own hair. He dared not look up, but kept his eyes at Gaborn's feet. “Please—you, ah, you don't understand! Myrrima was in that castle!” he pointed to Longmont and wailed, “Myrrima came. Take my—my metabolism then. Let me know nothing until this war is over!”
Gaborn shrank back a step in horror, wondering. “Are you certain?” he asked trying to sound calm, trying to sound reasonable when all reason left him. Gaborn had felt other deaths—his father's, Chemoise's father's, even King Sylvarresta's. But he had not felt Myrrima's. “Have you seen her? Have you seen her body?”
“She rode from Bannisferre yesterday, to be here in the battle, with me. She was in the castle.” Borenson's voice broke, and he fell to his knees and sobbed.
Gaborn had felt so right when he matched Borenson and Myrrima. He'd thought he felt another Power guide him, the powers of the earth coursing through him. Surely he had not felt impressed to match them so that they could meet so tragic an end?
“No,” Gaborn said more firmly, deciding. He would not take Borenson's endowment, even if the guilt did promise to destroy him. Kingdoms were at stake. He could not afford such mercy, no matter how it rankled him.
Borenson dropped to his knees, put both hands palm-forward on the ground. It was the traditional stance of prisoners in war who offered themselves for beheading. He cried, “If you will not take my endowment, then take my head!”
“I will not kill you,” Gaborn answered. “If you give your life to me, I will take it—glad for the bargain. I choose you. Serve me. Help me defeat Raj Ahten!”
Borenson shook his head and began to sob, great racking sobs that left him breathless. Gaborn had never seen anything like that from the warrior, felt stunned to learn the man was capable of experiencing such pain.
Gaborn put his hands on Borenson's shoulders, signaling for him to rise, but Borenson only knelt, weeping. “Milady?” someone called.
Down in the fields below Gaborn, utter silence reigned. Groverman and a hundred other knights now drew near, aghast. Staring at Borenson in horror. Wondering what they should do. Some knight had called Iome, but she only held her father's head, rocking it, almost oblivious of her surroundings.
After a long moment, Iome looked up. Her eyes filled with tears. She bent to kiss her father goodbye, on the forehead.
Her father had not even known her at the last, Gaborn realized. He'd forgotten her existence, or did not recognize her, robbed of glamour. That seemed perhaps the worst blow of all.