“No!” Karin started to jump up, then remembered herself and sank again to the cushions. “I have no men of my own, none I could trust with a mission this delicate. And also,” she added defiantly, “I would certainly not wish such a wound on Valmar.”
“You need to acquire some trusty warriors as soon as you may,” said Arane thoughtfully. “Or perhaps, if you are squeamish, you could arrange for Valmar merely to be threatened. Does he have a rival for your affections, someone who would at a word from you make threats against the boy to frighten him away? Then Hadros’s wrath would turn against his son rather than against you. His temper is swift, as I know well, but he can also think clearly once his fury is past. If Valmar himself shrank from the marriage, it would be in Hadros’s own self-interest to keep this matter quiet.”
Karin shook her head. “The only rival Valmar has for my affections is gone, and I do not know where he is.” She was certainly not going to tell the queen that Roric had left with someone awe-inspiring and terrifying, who still was not, it seemed, one of the Wanderers. But she did wonder if King Hadros would be content to hush this whole affair up if Valmar himself did not want to marry her, or if his rage against his heir would become murderous as it apparently had against Roric.
Queen Arane was silent for a moment, looking out the window at the twilight, a small smile on her lips. “What does young Valmar think of this?”
“He has had no idea, I think, that we might marry. As I said, we are to each other brother and sister.”
“So Hadros is your principal opponent here. He will take it as an insult to his honor, I judge, if you flatly refuse to take his son, especially in these circumstances.” She turned a jeweled ring thoughtfully on her finger. “Before you reject this marriage utterly, be certain there are not reasons why it would be beneficial. A young and malleable husband offers certain advantages, even if the advantages do not compare with those of being single.” The queen reached out to turn Karin’s face toward her. “For example-are you quite sure that you are not with child?”
Karin kept her eyes cast down. “Quite sure. There was a time, a few days ago, when I wondered- But no.” She did not look up, regretting bitterly now that she had asked the queen to come.
“You could try to win Hadros around with clever words,” said Arane. “I must believe that in the years you have lived in his court, a woman of your wit has found ways to do that. Tell him, for example, that you are already pledged to someone else, someone far away-perhaps even this rival you mentioned-and that you need the king’s help to cover your shame.”
“I think I already tried that,” said Karin gloomily. “It was of no use.” She did not dare add what she now thought fiercely, that with Roric she had hoped to be an equal, part of a couple who trusted each other and spoke openly to each other, and that even without Roric she did not want to be a woman who directed the men around her with wiles and manipulation and never affection.
“You are making it very difficult, Karin, for me to help you!” said Arane with an exasperated laugh. “You are sure you could not make the best of the situation at this point by marrying young Valmar?”
“I am sure.”
“How did you come to do something so heedless as spend the night with him?”
Karin wished again that she had not asked the queen for counsel. She had no more good ideas than she had had before, and another of the Fifty Kings now knew she had not spent last night peacefully sleeping in Hadros’s tent. “We had not so intended,” she said quietly, thinking now only how she could ease Arane away. “But dark overcame us before we could get down.” That, she commented to herself, was an understatement.
“You perhaps could tell King Hadros that you and Valmar spent the night with me,” suggested the queen, as though having been asked for advice she could not leave without finding some way to save the situation.
“No, although I thank you,” said Karin, shaking her head and keeping her eyes down. As she had asked herself all last night while pacing the rocky hilltop, and as she awoke today, she wondered where Roric could be if not with the Wanderers-and what they could now possibly want with her. “I think the only way this could easily be resolved would be if Hadros were to die.”
Queen Arane started back. “Karin, my dear! I know I counseled you not to be squeamish, and that you are feeling somewhat desperate, but- Do you not think this might be somewhat too drastic a step?”
Karin stared at the queen in horror. “I did not mean I planned to kill him! I was merely saying that while he is alive- I was just explaining that… He is almost my second father!”
“Then your first father had best beware,” said Arane briskly. She rose and gave Karin her hand. “I doubt we shall meet again before the end of the Gemot.”
A page appeared as she started across the hall to escort her out to where her bodyguard was waiting. Karin, looking after her, felt a laugh rising in her chest that was almost a sob. She had after all discovered a way to get rid of the queen.
4
“The Wanderers in your world bring death and life.”
They sat in an apple orchard, the fruit so thick overhead that the leaves were almost hidden. Roric had been surprised when they reached the orchard to see no green and no rotten fruit among the long grass under the trees. But several in their band had taken sticks and began beating the branches, and after the downed apples lay on the ground for several minutes the flesh softened and the skin split. Roric wiped a hand on the grass after accidentally leaning on an apple and getting his hand covered with sticky fermented pulp.
“Are you trying to tell me,” he asked slowly, “that in this world mortals bring death and life?”
The man did not answer. He only turned on Roric a face shadowed and without detail, then looked away.
They had paused in their riding, stopped for the night except that there was no night. But most of the band had eaten, traded a few songs and stories, and curled up under the trees to sleep. Now only Roric and this man, this being, were left sitting up, while the sun hovered low in a sky without a sunset.
Roric was not sure whether to believe anything he might say; but he still felt he had a better chance of getting a reliable answer out of him than any of the others. He wondered if this sense was only a result of having been in his company longer than any of the others’.
“If you will not tell me that,” Roric said after a few minutes of silence, “then perhaps you can tell me who constitutes the first two forces, since you say you are the third.”
This the man apparently thought he could answer. “The first are those you call the Wanderers. The second are those who oppose them.”
“But do you not oppose them yourselves? Who are you riding to war against if not the Wanderers?”
“We fight both sides.” The man suddenly drew his dagger and threw it, as though playfully, past Roric’s ear. It lodged in the trunk behind him.
He jumped involuntarily, then reached back as calmly as he could and pulled it out. He weighed it in his hand, then looked up with a forced smile. “Is this then your guest-gift to me?”
The man snatched it back. Too bad-it had what looked like gold inlay on the blade.
“The lords of voima, they call themselves,” said the man suddenly and in what Roric thought were bitter tones. “They are proud and self-righteous, roaming earth and sky, watching over mortals, shaping their own land in imitation of mortal lands- Men, they call themselves, yet I in the form of a stallion have begotten colts on all of them!”
“How do they treat you when they are not mares?” asked Roric carefully. This was an insult they used at home, and he could-he hoped-discount its validity, but he had never heard such an insult hurled at the Wanderers.
“They ignore us, scorn us, laugh at us, treat us as beneath their notice. They say they created us, but if we are their creation you would think they would show us more respect.”