Dragon Prince 03 - Sunrunner's Fire Page 6

  “Andry was never what you’d call biddable,” Urival began. “Brilliant, intelligent, mind-hungry, yes. But as ungovernable as Sioned in his own way. A more dangerous way, it turns out. Had you heard he’s to be a father next spring?”

  “Andry’s married? Who to?” Rohan didn’t bother to hide his astonishment. Tobin and Chay, as uninformed on the subject as he, were going to be furious.

  “Did I say he’d Chosen a wife?”

  Rohan looked at Morwenna, who nodded grimly. “That’s why we left. Not because he didn’t marry the girl, or even because he’d gotten her with child. But it was the way he did it and the future which it implied that shattered all for us.”

  “For me,” Urival corrected. “You wanted to stay and try to talk him out of it. Perhaps that would have been the right way. I don’t know. But I couldn’t stay there any longer. Not when he’s using the first-ring night to sire a son on a girl no older than sixteen!”

  Rohan’s wine cup nearly dropped out of his hand. He stared at the faradh’im, too stunned to speak.

  “You know about that night, of course,” Urival went on. “The boy or girl calls Fire formally for the first time in front of the Lord or Lady of Goddess Keep. That night they’re virgins no longer.” He glanced briefly at Morwenna. “She has been one of the more enthusiastic initiators of boys into the delights of being men.”

  Morwenna tossed her black braid from her shoulder. “And, of course, they had to drag you kicking and screaming to the same duty for more than a few girls!”

  A smile flitted across his face. “That’s many, many years ago.”

  “But I’ll bet you still remember!” Her manner was sharp, but her dark eyes danced.

  “Memories to warm an old man’s long, cold nights,” he riposted easily. Then he turned to Rohan again. “The guise of the Goddess is used to hide identity from the virgin.”

  Rohan nodded. “Sioned . . . spoke of it once or twice, a long time ago. She never knew.” He recalled his own disgraceful behavior of—could it really be twenty-five years ago?—when he’d found out that his Chosen lady would not come virgin to their marriage bed. He looked on the memory from a bemused distance now, amazed to think that it had meant so much to him at the time. Of course, at the time he had been barely twenty-one, unsure of himself both as a prince and as a man, and desperately in love.

  “She never knew,” Urival echoed softly, holding Rohan’s gaze with his own.

  And the High Prince suddenly realized that one of the sweetest memories to warm the old man’s nights was the initiation of Sioned. He felt blood heat his face, and told himself sternly that at his age he should be long past the curse of a fair complexion. Urival gave another fleeting half-smile.

  “Of course she didn’t,” Morwenna said briskly. “None of them do. The point here is that Andry’s changed tradition. At least as far as the girls are concerned. We’ve always been very careful to time that night so no child comes of it. And the duty is parceled out among several men. But Andry’s reserved the right to himself and two others. When I questioned him about Othanel’s pregnancy, he flat out admitted he arranged it so she’d conceive!”

  “And then declined to marry her.” Urival was grim-faced again. “Told me that she had agreed to bear his child—was honored, in fact. As what ambitious woman wouldn’t be, to have the child of so powerful a Lord of Goddess Keep, and a close kinsman of the High Prince into the bargain?”

  Rohan thought this over for a time. Then he asked, “How many others feel as you do?”

  “Quite a few. They stayed.” Morwenna shrugged uncomfortably. “We’re here because of your son—Urival to train him, me to be Urival’s company.”

  The old man added, “Ostensibly I’m in retirement. Morwenna’s along to keep an eye on me, as she said. At least she’s not had to lie.”

  “Then Andry doesn’t know—”

  “He suspects.” Urival shrugged. “His suspicion may be a certainty by now. But officially he can’t take any notice. I go where I like and do as I please. I gave over my keys as Chief Steward to one of his friends. Trained the boy myself, so he knows his work. Sorin met him in 719.”

  “The Fironese? The one who had so many fine ideas for rebuilding Feruche?”

  “Torien’s his name. And now that I’ve left, he can do to the Keep what Andry’s doing to the Sunrunners themselves—remaking the entire structure of both.” Urival shook his head. “I’m too old for this, Rohan. I don’t like so many changes.”

  “And yet,” Morwenna pointed out, “you’re going to change the way the most important Sunrunner alive will be trained.”

  Rohan stared at her long and hard. “You’re not here merely for Urival’s sake, are you?”

  Her dark skin acquired two blossoms of dusky color across the cheekbones. Then she laughed heartily. “Ah, my lord, you have me there! But from what I hear from Graypearl I won’t be Pol’s first by any means!” She paused and sighed her regret. “Wish I could be. But I’ll take care of the first-ring night for him, yes. He’ll know it’s me, but that can’t be helped. It’s something he has to experience if his training is to approximate that at Goddess Keep.”

  “But it won’t,” Urival said. “That’s the whole point.”

  Rohan poured himself a much-needed second cup of wine. “Meath and Eolie have been training him at Graypearl. They keep in close contact with Sioned and she’s pleased with his progress. Andry knows about it.”

  “And doesn’t dare say anything,” Morwenna added. “He has to behave as if it’s perfectly all right with him, or people will realize that he doesn’t have the power he claims to have. A good deal of his influence rests in his relationship to you and Pol, my lord.”

  “Exactly the way Andrade engineered it when she married her sister to your father,” Urival said, nodding. “She envisioned a Sunrunner Prince connected to her by blood, trained by her to rule with both kinds of power, princely and faradhi.”

  Andrade had been disappointed in the first generation, for Rohan’s sister Tobin had the Sunrunner gifts, not he. So she had arranged for him to marry Sioned, reasoning that their children would be her tools. What she had not known—what only seven people now living knew—was that Pol was not Sioned’s son.

  “There’s a third kind of power,” he said in level tones.

  Urival met his gaze unblinking. “Which is why I’m here.”

  “The Star Scroll has been fully translated, then,” he guessed. “And you have a copy Andry doesn’t know about.”

  Morwenna shifted uneasily in her chair. “He’s not afraid of it,” she burst out. “The Star Scroll is only another means of power to him. More knowledge. But it scares me half to death. I’m the one who copied most of it in secret for Urival. Who knows better than I what it contains?”

  “Calm yourself,” the old man advised. “If you don’t feel comfortable discussing it, perhaps you’d better go have your bath now.”

  “Treat me like a child and I’ll use what I learned from it,” she threatened.

  “I do have a small demonstration in mind, actually,” he replied. “Will you do the honors, or shall I?”

  Rohan noted with interest that she immediately shook her head. Were the spells so very dangerous? he wondered. Or was it only that they came from ancient enemies of the faradh’im?

  Urival gestured, and Morwenna went to lock the door. She drew the window shutters, closing out daylight. Going to the side table, she poured water into a polished bronze bowl and brought it to Urival. He had pulled up another chair to his knees. When the bowl was placed on it, he hunched forward over the water.

  “We use Fire as a focus for such things,” he said matter-of-factly, and it startled Rohan to hear his voice so casual when he was about to—to do what? “But they had a technique for working with Water, an element we usually avoid, as you know. Rohan, have you something of Sioned’s? Something small enough to fit into the bowl, preferably a thing she wears or uses frequently.”

  “Wha
t are you going to do?” he asked, unable to keep suspicion from his voice.

  Urival glanced over at him, laughing sardonically. “I presume you miss your wife and would like to see her?”

  After a moment’s thought, Rohan got up and crossed to a glass-fronted bookcase. Opening it, he extracted one of a pair of tiny carved cups. “The Isulk’im sent us these a few years back, for rattling dice in. Sioned uses this one when playing Sandsteps.”

  “Isulk’im?” Morwenna repeated blankly, then nodded. “Oh—those crazy people who live out on the Long Sand.”

  “Go gently with your descriptions,” Urival smiled. “They’re Rohan’s distant kin.”

  “But I’m crazy, too. Hadn’t you noticed?” He gave the old man the sand-jade cup. “Will this do?”

  “Perfectly.” It disappeared into his palm for a moment, and then he slid it into the water. “Stand close, so you can see.”

  He did so. Morwenna stepped back warily. Her skittishness would have been catching had Rohan allowed himself to react to it. Urival cradled the bowl in his long, knotted hands, holding it but not lifting it from the chair. After a moment Rohan heard soft metallic vibrations and realized the Sunrunner’s nine rings were quivering delicately against the bronze.

  “Mark this,” Urival breathed. “When others do sorcery while I am nearby, the rings burn. The stronger the magic, the more heat. But when I myself perform a spell, my rings merely tremble. I am of the Old Blood.”

  “And so am I,” Morwenna whispered. Rohan stared at her. She was chafing the rings on her hands and the muscles of her face had tightened with pain. “Get on with it, won’t you? This hurts.”

  “It’s the one sure way to tell,” Urival said. “I never understood one particular part of fashioning our rings, but now I do. A . . . warning . . . is set into them. Last year I taught young Torien that part of the Chief Steward’s duty, but I didn’t know what it was for, any more than the rest of us do. Our devious Lady Merisel didn’t mention the why of it in her scrolls—only that it was essential.”

  “Urival, please!” Morwenna’s hands had curled into fists. Rohan brought the pitcher of water from the sideboard and she gratefully dipped first one hand and then the other into it. “That helps a little,” she said, but he read no easing of the pain in her eyes.

  Rohan’s attention was snatched by the bowl, where the cup had begun to glow softly. His eyes widened as the golden light spread, permeated the water, swirled slowly and coalesced not unlike the way faradh’im used Fire. Water was not the Goddess’ element; Sunrunners were all violently ill when they attempted to cross it. Fire and Earth, these were the children of the Goddess. As for Air and Water—the Father of Storms obviously had dominion over them. Destruction and life were in each, balancing the world, and all four were used in the most somber and powerful of faradhi conjurings.

  He saw Sioned, slim and vigorous in pale riding leathers, thick fire gold hair braided around her head. She was speaking to Sorin, who nodded and unrolled a parchment on which architects had sketched and resketched plans for rebuilding Feruche. Beyond them the castle itself rose, fleshed out in stone for its first two floors, a skeleton of steel supports above that. Rohan saw girders for two towers, a balcony running the length of the Desert side of the keep, and a watchspire reaching skyward with steel fingers.

  Old Myrdal, long-retired commander of Stronghold’s guard, limped into the vision, leaning heavily on her cane. She pointed to the design parchment, then to the keep, and laughed. Sorin looked startled; Sioned, thoughtful. Myrdal drew patterns in the dirt with her cane, speaking rapidly, then wiped out the sketch with her boot.

  Rohan knew what the old woman had proposed—in principle if not detail. She knew every secret of every castle in the Desert—including the gutted ruin that had stood where a new keep was now being built. She had frankly admitted that her reason for accompanying Sioned to Feruche was to remind Sorin to sneak secrets into a design where no one suspected them. Beauty had won over preparedness for war in most of the final plans for the new keep, but Myrdal’s adamant face told Rohan she would insist on precautions just the same. There were ways in and out of Stronghold, Remagev, Radzyn, Tiglath, and Tuath that no one but Myrdal knew of, ways she had imparted to him and Sioned but not, in most cases, to the owners of the keeps. By just such a secret passage, Sioned had entered the old Feruche and taken Pol from his mother, Princess Ianthe.

  Urival drew in a shuddering breath and his hands fell away from the bowl. The vision faded as he sagged back in his chair. Rohan forced him to drink some wine, and color gradually returned to the old man’s face.

  “It would be easier to sustain if I’d taken dranath first, of course,” he said. “But I assume you understand.”

  “I understand that you now can do certain things—which Andry also knows how to do from his copy of the Star Scroll,” Rohan said slowly. “And you propose to teach these things to Pol.”

  “And to Sioned. I may not last long enough to teach the boy everything myself. When does he return from Graypearl?”

  “He’ll be knighted at the next Rialla, when he’s almost twenty-one. When Sioned feels he knows what he should of faradhi arts, he’ll take over Princemarch from Ostvel and rule from Dragon’s Rest.”

  Urival nodded. “How close to completion is the new keep?”

  “It’s coming along slowly,” Rohan admitted. “I hope to have one large building and two smaller ones finished by the Rialla.”

  Morwenna was startled. “Five years you’ve been working on it, and only three parts done?”

  The basics of a small defensive keep could be finished in a year. Upper stories and embellishments—what Sorin was doing now—could take up to two more. The fancy work of towers, spires, and so forth could go on forever, depending on the ambitions, tastes, and funding of the builder. Feruche was taking a long time because it was something of an experiment; techniques used there would be applied to Dragon’s Rest. But the latter was not a keep; it was to be a palace.

  Rohan said, “We’re not creating a castle, but an impression. It must be perfect for the first Rialla held there.”

  “What you’re saying is that your three parts of Dragon’s Rest will be completely finished, down to the rugs and doorknobs,” Urival mused.

  “Yes.” He rose and opened the shutters, letting in light and air.

  “I’ll wager Princess Gennadi is relieved not to have the responsibility of the Rialla at Waes anymore,” said Morwenna.

  “But young Geir is not,” Rohan reminded her. “He’s sixteen, and that’s a proud age. Gennadi allowed him to preside with her at the Lastday banqueting, when the move to Dragon’s Rest was formally announced. If looks were daggers. . . .” He shrugged.

  “Taking the Rialla from Waes wasn’t perhaps the smartest thing you ever did,” Urival remarked. “But I can see the necessity. Bring the princes to Pol once every three years and make your—impression. Be that as it may, we will need more than that, his status as your heir, and the Princemarch title to fulfill Andrade’s scheme.”

  “And that’s what it’s about for you in the end, isn’t it?” Rohan asked softly. “She chose Andry to succeed her because she could choose none other—and was just as trapped into accepting Pol as her faradhi prince.”

  The old Sunrunner got to his feet and said with dignity, “Your own schemes mesh with hers, my lord High Prince.”

  “Not necessarily.”

  “Lying to yourself was never one of your vices.”

  “I have others more interesting,” Rohan said smoothly, “but this is hardly the time to discuss them. I tell you now, my lord, that what Pol learns he will use as he sees fit. Sunrunner arts or sorcery, neither you nor Andrade’s memory nor anything else will rule him in their use.”

  “Just like Andry,” Urival snapped.

  “With a subtle difference.” He gave the old man a hard smile. “You trust Pol.”

  Chapter Five

  725: Dragon’s Rest

  T
he roses had not performed to expectations. Everything and everyone else had, this first Rialla at the new palace, but not the roses. Pol had been extremely irritated. How dare flowers not bloom precisely when and as he wishes them to? Sionell asked herself acidly as she paced the water garden. Ruler of Princemarch, High Prince’s heir, Sunrunner—thwarted by uncooperative roses. Serves him right—arrogant swine.

  Reaching a little hillock at the garden’s edge, she sat with her back to a sapling and began shredding the leaves of an inoffensive bush. It needed a trim anyway, she thought—just like Pol’s conceit. Newly knighted, awash in compliments for the beauty of the Princes Hall—and hip-deep in pretty girls—he’d had a lovely Rialla. Just lovely.

  She had seen him at least once a day for the past twenty days. He positively oozed self-confidence for all that this was his first year as a ruling prince, mingling with his highborn guests or striding purposefully to yet another meeting (where he was undoubtedly brilliant, tactful, and wise, she told herself snidely). Everyone’s model of perfection, was Pol of Princemarch.

  Who had come to greet his parents riding on the back of a cow.

  Sionell felt her mouth defy her mood by twitching upward at the corners, remembering her first sight of him after six years. Any romantic notions about his riding back into her life (or, more accurately, she into his, through the narrow gorge that protected the valley of Dragon’s Rest) on one of those golden horses had crumpled like old parchment. Rohan had blinked in astonishment, Sioned had sighed and rolled her gaze skyward, and Pol had smiled innocently.

  “You caught me in the middle of trying her paces! Actually, she’s quite comfortable, once you get seated right. I may start a new fashion. No, really, I’m trying to teach her to take a path that doesn’t involve trampling the crops. Where she goes, the others follow. I thought if we nudged her in the right direction, we wouldn’t have to replant every few days.”