This story is a work of fiction. It contains descriptions of violent behavior between adults, references to violent behaviour between adults and children, and expressions of physical affection. If you find this type of story offensive, or if you are underage and it is illegal for you to read it, please exit now. All characters are fictional and in no way related to any persons living or deceased. Any such similarity is purely coincidental and uncanny.
This work is copyrighted by the author and may not be reproduced in any form without the specific written consent of the author. It is assigned to the Nifty Archives under the provisions of their submission guidelines but it may not be copied or archived on any other site without the direct consent of the author.
I can be contacted at Bookwyrm6@yahoo.com
Copyright 2003 Kristopher R. Gibbons All rights reserved by the author.
I want to thank Rob for his tireless editing help, his keen eye and his helpful ideas.
24 Black & Grained Spots
Hamlet: What devil was't
That thus hath cozened you at hoodman-blind?
Eyes without feeling, feeling without sight,
Ears without hands or eyes, smelling sans all,
Or but a sickly part of one true sense
Could not so mope.
O shame! where is thy blush! ...
Queen: O Hamlet, speak no more.
Thou turn'st mine eyes into my very soul,
And there I see such black and grained spots
As will not leave their tinct.
Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 4, lines 77 ff.
"Well, that woman has a lot to learn." Aldul concluded.
Evendal could not help grinning at the summation. "But you watch her, Aldul. Without a word of thanks or of contrition, she will turn the whole of her realm on its ear to rectify her own errors, now that her nose has been smeared in them. She accepts no tenderness, no pity, no gentilesse. If such is at all in her nature, it is reserved solely for her daughters. None for herself or us. My only real fear..." Here he looked at the doorway, as if to call the woman back. "My only fear is her inflexibility in the face of a daughter so changed."
Aldul smirked at Evendal. "How do you mean?"
"Nehaleidda is much altered from what anyone would deem sensible. Without inhibitions, what will pass when she is truly angered? Niem Dir provokes many."
"Your concern is well founded. Those who survived such injuries were slower to anger, but once provoked beyond their limit they have killed without reticence."
"Aldul, about the glamour..."
The Kwo-edan sighed. "Evendal, you're borrowing on tomorrow's troubles. There is no way of gauging these matters, but I would ken that if you had the three Guard before you now, and personally asked them questions under songspell, they would not be able to deceive you. Wait, and let your Guard do what they can to restore their honour. Did not Hielbrae here deliver on her own pledge?"
Evendal ald'Menam let his gaze settle on the woman Chielheroni flanked. "Hwil-marsidyan, what are you now? You have heard Dhu-etslef and Uhult-helt speak what is foremost in their hearts, and your name never emerged. What would you?"
"I would... redeem myself recovering your father's effects." The young woman stared at the floor before her.
Evendal m'Alismogh thought her downcast look stemmed more from embarrassed rage than penitence or capitulation. He grimaced his disgust.
The legacy of my father dear,
The heritance of his killers, too,
Whether parchment, cloth, stone, steel, or brass,
All that each left, meant for their own eyes,
Retrieve and restore, now, to the son.
The floor between Aldul and Evendal quickly crowded, as two chests rested, one thin and three ells long, of light-toned wood and familiar, the other much larger and so dark as to look black.
"I thought I had stored that away," Evendal exclaimed, looking at the smaller, then realised the stupidity in that statement. The crate he had been found collapsed over in the Kul Wastes had contained items previously owned by his father.
"I recognise the smaller case," Aldul commented. "Did you fashion this other storage for the effects?"
The King shook his head. "I don't create."
The clasps on the larger box were undone. Curious, Evendal stood and opened it. Papers, folios, cloth satchels, festucae(81) made of bone, rowan, and other woods. Disdaining the larger, more colourful items, the King lifted one of three grey pouches, unlaced it, and found it filled with silver medallions. Among some Hramal existed a tradition of making a medal for a child at its birth, with the child's use-name and an auspicious cantrip or charm. Ierwbae had been so bold as to show him his, given him by Anlota's long dead brother, Ierwbae's father. What Evendal held in his hands, he came to comprehend, were the identities of some of Polgern's or Abduram's victims. He left the other pouches alone, and shut the purse he held.
"We hope you did not intend that search to be your life's work," the King commented, suddenly furious again, feeling vulnerable somehow. "What have you seen while restrained here? Speak. Have you encompassed nothing in your ordeal?"
Hwil-marsidyan yet refused to look at her King. "I have seen that you have no need of me. You have made that too clear."
"Yes. And?"
"That, while not... gentle, you are either just or kind..."
"True, We are not gentle by nature." His grasp tightened on the medals.
Hwil-marsidyan, pursuing her own thought, paid Evendal little heed. "....with an eye toward the people you rule."
"How do you reckon that?" Aldul enquired, surprised at the acuity.
"Your Majesty?" The King gestured her to answer. "I have been unintended witness to Lord... Master Polgern's ruthlessness. Quick, unheralded executions done in the night, with bodies burned, or cast into the waters, unnoted. With every family member adjudged guilty for the failings of one. During a fete held out in the courtyard, Abduram made a sport of chasing an offender he had detained. Feeling goaded by the jollity this provoked among the courtiers, Master Polgern brought out two detainees at the next gathering. For a hunt. It failed miserably, and they turned to other amusements.
"Rather than quietly punishing, Your Majesty allows those people most directly affected to see the perfidious humbled. Your Majesty gives the commons the opportunity to regain a sense of... safety, when we have all thought ourselves nothing but penned-in sheep."
Aldul scowled at the woman's eloquence.
"Like penned-in sheep," she insisted. "And not for simple shearing! No one knew when they might be taken for stone hauling or galley duty, or to serve as targets for Guard weapons practise. For no other reason than that we were out of doors and visible at the wrong moment. Serving these rabid... idiots was no honour.
She continued to stare at the floor, yet Aldul doubted she saw it. "So I hid myself, my fears, in delusion. I can say that now. I deluded myself. Dhu-etslef and his ilk seemed less dangerous than the Beast and that Walking Abacus. Why should I care to do a job that had become a joke long before he approached me? Siarwak and Uhult-helt would have driven me to despair if I had!
"It does not matter that I repent of my indifference, my insolence, does it? It mattered not at all to me that you had come and vanquished those two polecats. You were just a new danger to watch out for and avoid the attentions of."
Quietly, unruffled, Evendal asked, "Do you?"
"Do I what?"
"Repent of your indifference? Your cultivated unconcern? Because from what I am hearing, you are far from indifferent, Hwil-marsidyan."
The woman did not answer right away. "In truth I was, because it was safest. And Dhu-etslef looked strong and virile and capable. In the face of no other deliverer, I settled for him. I mimed many different faces of Stupid. Yes, I repent."
"We cannot trust you with the station you fouled. You understand this?"
Hwil-marsidyan nodded.
"Go, for now. See as clearly as you choose to. And choose less... dramatic ways of showing your penitence."
She obeyed, leaving even as Rhoswyl returned and stationed herself behind her liege.
"I would trust Niem Dir with my son before I'd trust that girl with my wash water," Aldul exclaimed.
"You're full of ginger tonight," Evendal observed. "And you are justified in your suspicions. Even though she was being utterly honest with us, it could have been the transitory honesty of mortal fear. Oh, Aldul."
"What troubles you?"
"Again I doubt my own sense and wit. I don't understand commonly accepted presumptions. I fear my own judgement. I could have turned my voice upon Hwil-marsidyan and rendered her a gibbering shell of a woman, her deepest shame piped to the five corners, her greatest fears summoned continuously for display in her head. I stood ready to do so, so angry was I. And not over her own actions."
"Whence this storm within you?"
"These!" Evendal exclaimed, hefting the pouch. "Every one of these shouts a tumult in my ear, a demand for justice I cannot provide. A desire for life and the fulfilments of life, ignored and stolen while she played in a fantasy of her own making, in order to be comfortable with her own cowardice."
The Kwo-edan did not let the King's apperception stand. "In order to be comfortable with her own cowardice, Evendal? Or her own powerlessness?"
Evendal ald'Menam scowled at his friend, grim and impassive of mien. "Powerlessness. She is not the actual cause of my disquiet. What truly angers me is the mystery I keep bloodying my head on: Where was I while these people I was responsible for were killed? Each trinket indicts me, in my fool's heart. So that I cannot trust what moves me to act or decide matters.
"What of Niar-lles and Eirath-harl? Am I to foster children when I can barely keep from hurting the one I adopted..." He stopped speaking abruptly, his luminosity again diminished to its most common temper.
Aldul shared a brief grin with Drussilikh. "Have you, in your limited time with the Quillmaster, witnessed her being timid or submissive? No, because it is not her nature. Likewise with you. When you make a mistake, you do what you can to rectify it. It is your nature. Where you cannot, it is best to learn how to let it stand. Easier said than accomplished, but still true. Start with those medallions.
"As for your turning the Palace into a nursery..." The Kwo-edan priest shook his head in mock disgust. "You have myself, Anlota, Shulro, Iesaldim, Bruddbana and Falrija -- at least for a few more months -- Cheselre, Ierowen, Drussilikh here, and Hyrosh-mi. All of us either have had some experience with younger siblings or children, or seem to naturally attract them. Now, get some sleep. Your Majesty."
In a small voice, Evendal whispered, "I'm afraid."
Startled, Aldul blurted, "Of what?"
Unable to speak further, Evendal gestured to his side, and the small bundle still asleep in the large bed. The child that had been like a sodden weight of worry in his head and heart for too many bells.
"I had wondered..." Aldul tendered.
"What?"
The Kwo-edan faced the King squarely. "You have been so busy, so whelmed, I wondered if it was to avoid looking on your son as he has become. Also, do you storm over those silver petals because it is easier to rage than to face your much-changed son?"
Evendal paled, open-mouthed, before such a blunt dissection. Rather than answer, he swivelled about and stared at his adopted son.
The room held eight other mortals, and Evendal had addressed or confronted each. Chielheroni guarded the Royal Person. She, Rhoswyl, and Henhyroc helped to preserve the Order he embodied. Hielbrae served as a comfort and protection for his heir. Ierwbae and Metthendoenn had wounded each other and had required the Royal Touch. Aldul attended as Archate Procurator and, with Drussilikh, as friend.
Evendal saw none of these, his mind instead force-feeding him one very real sight and two memories, repeatedly. The sight, of course, was of his son, diminished in form but unchanged in importance. Kri-estaul's face, though only a shade darker than the linen, looked bruised under the eyes and around the few remaining bite wounds. Aldul had restored the counterpane to keep the child warm, but the abrupt declivity in the bedclothes, at midthigh, jarred. The absence seemed blatant, even when covered.
M'Alismogh was reminded of his son as he had been back in Drussilikh's home: A small bundle of need and emotion, with an inflamed face, lying untouched in too-familiar solitude amidst rich cloths and a pleroma(82) of pillows, overjoyed at the sight of Evendal and all the while quietly bleeding from the bum and heels.
The other memory emerged like a daydream, a tear-blurred sight: A swarthy giant of a man, unconscious and supine in a dark room with a blood-speckled bandage about his head. Lanterns swung slightly about them as Evendal stared down at this solid-bodied, black-haired casualty. He felt a roughness under his fingers, and knew he held this man's callous-ridden hand, and never wanted to let go. A swath of light beige linen ran from the left hip up to the right shoulder, reinforced by more linen wrapped about the man's belly. All that came through, all Evendal knew for certain, was fury that the man had been in a swordfight, grief that he himself had been the ultimate cause, and relief that the man would live.
Evendal heard a strange hiccoughing attempt at speech. "Kar... kar..." He shook his head, flinging water droplets on his cheeks, and froze as he recognised his own voice. "Kuh, huh..." The King crossed his fists against his chest and rocked back and forth in his chair.
"Sometimes I should just keep my own counsel," Aldul cursed himself. "Kri's safe. He'll heal. That's all that matters right now," he insisted.
Pearl blue shimmered across Evendal's eyes as Aldul wrapped an arm about the King's shoulder. He held his friend in a light grip and it was enough to elicit a response. "Kri, Estaul," was all Evendal could say as he held onto Aldul and shuddered. No tears fell but Evendal found it difficult to breath.
A deep breath went awry; Evendal tried to force another, in vain, each breath stopped short by a constriction about his chest. The King found himself hunched on the floor, nearly coughing his sobs as they erupted from his gut. He forced mouse-small gasps of air, choking down on the sounds trying to escape. Drussilikh came up from behind him, and Aldul moved in front to clasp his hands.
"My heart!" Evendal burbled. "My heart... he almost died today! And I waste time. Trying to convince some idiot woman... that the sky is blue. Aldul, he almost died again!"
"But he didn't," Drussilikh began. Aldul shook his head, wordlessly asking her to desist from that line of comfort, and the Quillmaster acceded.
"Yes," Aldul agreed, eyes lowered. "Kri-estaul nearly died of that clot. Had you been any other kind of man, he would have. But do you know what his days would have been like had you not agreed to cutting his legs?"
Evendal turned bright blind eyes toward his friend, questioning.
"Cramps, chills, fever, sweating, swelling, eventual kidney failure, bile and blood from his mouth and in his urine and faeces. Constant and unassuageable pain. And, finally, long-wished-for death."
"Truth?" The brightness dimmed.
Aldul knew that Evendal m'Alismogh knew his honesty. But Evendal the man needed to voice his own pain and anxiety around someone who would let him, without offering bromides or panaceas. Even knowing, he yet needed the reassurance from words spoken. "Truth. Nasty, sickening truth, my friend." The Kwo-edan collapsed on the floor and again wrapped an arm around a trembling Evendal.
"I couldn't heal him, Aldul. All the fear and wonder in my 'gifts,' and I couldn't think of a way to restore his legs! He... he should be running around, worrying and delighting everyone in the Palace."
"I have no answers. I can only agree with you."
The King looked his friend in the eye, as best he could. "You know that he may never be accepted as my heir. I could sing the most coercive song my heart could compose, and I would still have a disgruntled, fearfully vicious populus at the gates, if I ever tried to have him crowned."
Even half-choked, Evendal's voice evoked the derisive plaints he anticipated. "'He can't look a man in the eye if he can't stand!' Something I seldom need to do. 'He can't ride a horse, without legs!' I absolutely had to ride a horse only once in my life. 'He's not a whole man!' Thunders! The only undamaged men in Osedys are the undetained criminals! He would be the best ruler a crippled province could hope for, if what I have seen in him abides. But that matters not a bit!"
This time, Aldul's glance at Drussilikh was a troubled one. He lifted his shoulder in a half-shrug and grabbed Evendal by his bristled chin to gaze sternly into glowing golden orbs. "You borrow trouble again. Has Kri-estaul asked to become King after you? No. And he won't."
"How do you know?"
"Because you are King. He does not understand what being King means. The words King and Papa are the same word to him. If he has any fancies of himself as an adult, they do not hold any ambitions beyond being happy and making others happy. With you, naturally, unthinkingly, as everyone's King.
"Aside from the worry and the sleeplessness, do exactly what you have done. Keep telling him and showing him that you love him. And be reliable. Let his future create itself."
The two men sat in companionable silence. Drussilikh took advantage of the peace to fuss over her brother, to pull the counterpane more securely, to check his neck for fever, to kiss his cheek and rest her own against his forehead and feel the reassurance of his breathing.
When the bands about his chest finally relented, Evendal signalled his restoration. Drussilikh moved back to her seat. But the King gripped Aldul's hand to keep him close enough to whisper. "I... I was on a ship!"
It took Aldul a moment to pull his awareness away from Kri-estaul, Niem Dir's sons, and the immediate circumstance, and realise the cause for his friend's urgency. "During your nine-year absence?"
Evendal nodded.
"Should I be secret with this?"
Again Evendal nodded. "I may tell one other of the piecemeal restoration of my memories, but only one. For now."
"What did you feel, my Lord, that brought such a recollection?"
"You know," Evendal chastised Aldul. "All my anger, fears, and sorrow over my son. I have stood such a vigil before, onboard a ship. But for the life of a man grown, after a swordfight. An ambush."
"Any further clarities?"
The King shook his head curtly. "Only that I am well served in friends."
"Then get some sleep!" Aldul barked, amused.
"Yes. That I shall." Rearranging it closer to the bed, Evendal sat back in his chair.
"What do you think you are about?" Aldul enquired, his left eyebrow lifted in continued amusement.
"I am not going to sleep in any room but this one, so don't ask it," Evendal warned.
"That is good to know. But if you want to hurt Kri-estaul worse than any blade, you will stay in that chair."
"Are you unhinged?!" Evendal bolted up out of the offending seat. "I could fling my hand over in my sleep and cause him some serious pain. I could..."
"You could trust, having slept with him by your side every night without incident, that you are not likely to hurt him now," Drussilikh spoke up.
"Blood and spume! No."
"Think, Evendal. Don't just react. Think on how he will feel. He does not need you at a distance."
"Of equal weight," Aldul added, "you need him, and not at a distance. You need to know, in your heart, that he is not going to disappear. He is not going to die on you. Having him right beside you, snoring, crying, needing help, convinces best."
"You are his father," Drussilikh stated flatly, firmly.
"We are simply giving you permission to. Be. His. Father. He is in no danger from anything you might do in the oblivion of sleep. He is weak, Evendal, not fragile."
"If he were fragile he would have died two years ago," Drussilikh and Evendal muttered in near unison. They glanced at each other and chuckled.
All but shaking with uncertainty, Evendal pulled down the counterpane. Aldul went around to the windowed side of the bed, pulled the pad of cloth on which Kri-estaul lay curled up closer to him, and then arranged the bedcover so that the child remained blanketed on that side of the bed.
Evendal looked pointedly at Drussilikh.
The Matron of the Scriveners grinned. "Have you forgotten? You asked for a meal to be brought."
The King of the Thronelands groaned. Just then, Darhelmir appeared at the doorway, his two charges still beside him.
"Your Majesty, forgive me. I have not been able to secure a proper meal as yet."
"Just as well, but what delayed your efforts?"
The Guard flushed in discomfort. "Niar-lles. He. Well, he..."
The child stared up, red-faced, at Darhelmir.
Eirath-harl piped up, "We are not taking our clothes off with anybody around. Anybody!"
Evendal grinned. "No younger siblings in your family, Darhelmir?"
Relieved that his liege was not angered, the Guard shook his head. "But that is not the impediment, Your Majesty. Not truly. It's why they won't."
"Niar-lles," Evendal addressed the thinner child, "what troubles your brother so?"
The boy said nothing, preferring to sniffle and hide his head. Both Aldul and Drussilikh began to speak.
Evendal gestured with one hand for silence. After a long interval, in which Kri-estaul's shallow breathing predominated, Evendal left the bedside and knelt down in front of the two lads. "Why did they do this to you?"
Drussilikh looked confused, while Aldul frowned in suspicion.
Niar-lles's sniffling grew louder. Eirath-harl moved between his brother and the ruler. Then, feeling alarmed at being so close to the strange man, he stepped backward. Niar-lles accommodated to his brother awkwardly.
Evendal stared, encompassing both boys in his gaze. "Which one did this to you? Tell me."
"Did what?" Drussilikh demanded. No one answered, though Hielbrae looked grim.
"Dhu," Eirath-harl hissed, pride briefly overturning caution. "Dhu says we are too weak. Too soft. He tried to toughen us. Said it would help us endure the Warden."
Surprised that either child had responded at all, Evendal pressed on. "Show me. Show us what he did against you. Please?"
Eirath-harl glanced back at his brother. "Against us?"
Niar-lles, no longer the sole centre of attention, had calmed a trifle. "You enjoy that?" he accused between gasps.
"Thunders, no! But I need to see for myself. If you were mistreated, I need to know. And I can assure you, you will not be so hurt again."
"I don't understand, Lles," Eirath-harl murmured. "Doesn't it help?"
"Hush, now, Harl. Not now, please." Spearing Evendal with his own angry stare, Niar-lles unhooked his overtunic revealing a thick grey wool tunic-shirt beneath. Slowly, with eyes bigger than his trembling body, the child wiggled and twisted, ineffectually striving to pull his tunic-shirt up over his head. When Eirath-harl tried to help, Niar-lles's high-pitched cry startled everyone. "Stop! Stop! Please! Slowly. Do it slowly!"
Terrified and confused, Eirath-harl obeyed. When Niar-lles straightened back up from his contortions, Evendal's eyes narrowed to pinpricks and his glow intensified. Aldul paled. The heavy grey blouse had come off inside out; streaks of red and brown hid its grey weave completely. Scars, keloids, scabbed skin-breaks, and fresh wounds existed along every handspan of Niar-lles's back. The boy's exertions and the drag of the wool had irritated many of the sores.
"Eirath-harl..." Evendal sought to keep his voice calm "...Harl, guide your brother over to the right of the jakes, or behind Guard Hielbrae, where the fires are." Intimidated and worried, Eirath-harl pulled Niar-lles by the hand, away from Evendal, to the corner Hwil-marsidyan had recently occupied.
"Aldul?"
"Yes. Let me see if either Anlota or Cheselre are willing and equipped."
The King shook his head. "Hielbrae. If you would search, instead?"
"Yes, Your Majesty." The woman replied readily and rushed around the bed and out the door.
Evendal stared after her. "What brought on such dispatch?"
Aldul shrugged. "Perhaps she needed to absent herself and restore her composure. This," he indicated the shivering bare-chested boy, "is heinous."
"You know my mind," m'Alismogh returned. "Would it be justice? Would there be any point in it?"
The Kwo-edan did indeed understand; Evendal wanted to strike back. "Not unless Dhu-etslef comprehended the reason for his sudden affliction. And if Niem Dir's tale of her cursing him is true in the details... then even knowing the reason served as no deterrence, taught him nothing."
Evendal digested his friend's answer, working it past his thought-damping rage but slowly. "You are the second greatest gift to my life, Aldul.
"Rhoswyl, in the chest of drawers under the window you will find some rugs and thicker bed-clothes. Hand them to the children. Avoid the wool items." The Guard bowed and obeyed, hefting an armful of blankets and nightclothes. After Rhoswyl retreated, Evendal approached. Both children stared with wide eyes and no expression.
"In a moment a lady will arrive to take you, Niar-lles, to bathe your wounds. I know!" Evendal waved aside the child's protests. "I know you do not want that. But she will not be merely washing you. She needs to help heal you of your wounds as much as they will permit. If you want Eirath-harl with you, then he will stay with you."
"Fighters are supposed to take pain and pay it no mind. That's what my brother says," Eirath-harl singsonged, troubled and unconvincing. By the wincing of Niar-lles's face, Evendal knew which brother the child parroted.
"But neither of you are fighters," he pointed out.
"We could be! We will be."
"No!" Niar-lles blurted. He looked at a scared Eirath-harl with an ocean of sadness in his eyes. "No, Harl. I am not a fighter. Neither are you. Dhu was wrong, anyway." The King knew those words came hard in front of strangers. "Dhu was no soldier either. He did not know what he was talking about. But... but..." and again Niar-lles broke down.
"But what?" Evendal asked softly.
"But what am I?" the boy wailed. "I have no sister. No sister to take care of. The Warden. My mother never loved me. No father. My brother hurt... me. He lied. He lied... destroyed the only... the only way I might have redeemed myself. What am I now? What? What?"
Niar-lles clutched at the King, wincing every time his cuts rubbed across the royal garb. Fear of causing him more pain was all that kept Evendal from embracing the devastated boy. Even so, Niar-lles wept and would not let go. Evendal settled for patting and caressing the boy's hair.
"You are a strong, lonely, valiant boy who loves his younger brother very much. You have taken punishments not only for your sister, but placed yourself many times between Harl and the cane." Niar-lles started, and stared up at the King in shock. "Shhh. Yes. Anyone can see it."
"He's my brother," Niar-lles insisted, as if that explained all.
"True. You will no longer have to do so. Unlike my father, I do not condone such hypocrisy, nor the whipping and beating of children, culpable or not," Evendal told him. "You both are safe from that. Safe. Do you begin to believe?"
The boy stared into the golden gaze. "But you are angry."
"Yes, at your elder brother. And I will not beat you or Harl because he is not here to punish. Can you begin to believe that you are safe here? With me and mine?"
"Yes. I guess so."
Evendal noted the appearance of a small, aged form in the doorway. "Then let me introduce you to Anlota, the Mother of Midwives." He stood, and stared hard at the silent figure waiting at the door with head bowed. "Anlota, come closer."
As she complied, the King took a step or two away from the two boys and spoke soft and low. "Anlota, have you done as We advised?"
The face that Anlota raised held all the age and weariness it had eschewed before. "I have, Your Majesty. And damn you to a waterless waste for your perception. I have spoken with my peers and deputies, the seigniors of the other guilds, entreating them to offer brutal avouchment if necessary. They reminded me of more people and instances than I ever wanted to remember." She pulled a cylinder out from the cuff of her tunic. "I have a listing. Two, actually. One, of those names I recalled, in umber ink as is usual for me. Added to that are names provided by others, in black. You will find, to my shame..." Her tone had begun to harden in anger. Anlota swallowed, and then repeated in a calmer tenor. "You will find that the names in black are more numerous.
"The second list is a tally of those I was able to recover. Those whose fates I was able to learn. A sigil beside the name marks those whom I, and my deputies, feel I had failed."
Evendal stood unmoved in semblance, his eyes glowing steadily, his face impassive. His hand continued to sooth Niar-lles's hair. "Anlota, it would seem We have to remind you of the reason for this exercise."
"No, Your Majesty, you do not," Anlota grated out.
"We deign to differ. Your resentment is evident. You seem to be under the delusion that Our purpose is your humiliation or Our own amusement. Your lists will not quite provide the intelligence We want. At this moment, We do not care whom your peers feel that you failed. We asked you to plumb your memory and list those you did abandon. Your memory. The only aid others could provide was to see that you did not rationalise what constituted neglect. Who did and did not prosper regardless of neglect, while important to your guild, matters not to Us here and now."
The woman stared up at Evendal for the first time, gaping in dismay as she reconsidered her efforts. She had altered her remembrance of his adjuration, to avoid confronting a character flaw.
"It would seem, Anlota, that your habit of avoiding onerous duties is pervasive and devious. Abrogating responsibility after the initial excitement or challenge has past. We advised you to review your memory and examine your heart for others whom you have neglected out of self-preservation or personal comfort. The first list is relevant, but only to the last name you yourself scripted. The second list means nothing here."
Evendal thought furiously. "Let Us deal with your failing by another path. Anlota, I present Niar-lles and Eirath-harl, born of Niem Dir, now Our wards due to her consistent neglect and antipathy. As you can see, Niar-lles has been the object of repeated whipping and flaying. They need care, food, and rest, but this is all strange and new to them. And Niar-lles fears for his brother's safety."
"I know them both, Your Majesty," Anlota replied solemnly.
"We presumed you might. Only in passing, of course." Evendal paused, then bowed to the midwife. "Forgive Us that barb, Mother. We are tired, worried, and hungry. And with no gentleness to offer anyone right now. Lles, you have met Mother Anlota?"
"Yes, Your Majesty. She visits mother's sister on occasion. She took care of me when Nehal... when I broke my arm once."
"Then do you have any objection to her tending you and your brother hence?" Evendal had the guilty pleasure of seeing surprise, and then alarm, chase each other across Anlota's face.
"No, Your Majesty. I... I often wished she could take me with her whenever she left us." The boy blushed brightly.
"Then it shall be so. Anlota, We give into your constant and consistent care Our two wards, Niar-lles and Eirath-harl. You shall not be seen in public without them accompanying you. You shall not, in turn, hand them off to others to raise in private. Indeed, you shall guide them and care for them here, in the Palace demesne. In this manner may you learn constancy. You may not raise a hand to them, regardless of provocation. You must treat them as what they are, heirs to the Eastern Dark, Our newest acquisition."
Anlota finally found her voice. "You must be joking! Me? A mother? In my advanced years?"
Evendal ignored the outburst. "Is this agreeable, Harl? Lles?"
Eirath-harl looked to his brother, who stared back, then addressed the King. "If she proves... unsuitable, who will know? Dhu also... he also used words, was mean."
"Anlota knows better. Do you not?" The woman nodded. "She also knows that she cannot lie successfully to Us. Not even by silence. But in turn you may not act as free adults, without limits or discipline. It is not abuse for her to tell you 'No' and expect obedience or compliance. If she gives you a nickname such as your birth-mother did, We need to know such things. All that We promised you and offered still abides. Do you understand?"
"I think so."
"And you, Anlota?"
"Your Majesty, what do you think to accomplish by arranging this?"
"Your instruction. Look on it as the chance to put into practice all the advice you offered mothers over the years. And, again, you are their foster-parent, no one but Ourself may intercede. No governesses, no au-pair, no 'nephews.'"
"Your Majesty..."
"These children need a bathing and one needs a salving. And they have yet to eat. We would say that you have a busy evening ahead, Mother Anlota."
Anlota scowled in utter confoundment. "As you say, Your Majesty."
"Niar-lles, Eirath-harl, though tended by the Mother Anlota of the Howdy-wives, you yet may approach Us at any time, for your safety, health, and comfort. Again, you may visit Our son or not as you will. For now, go with this lady, treat her with respect, and expect the same in return."
"Yes, Your Majesty," Niar-lles responded.
"Keep those nightclothes, as the halls can be draughty. You have Our leave, Anlota, Niar-lles, Eirath-harl."
The Mother of Midwives bent her back, the children made quick, uneasy bows, and all three left the room.
"Well," Evendal drawled, looking around. "I traded a cohort of people for two large crates. Darhelmir? Brown bread and ham. Aldul? Hielbrae? Rhoswyl? What would you?"
The two Guard, surprised at the offer, deferred to their liege's choice. Aldul declined, having eaten.
Darhelmir nodded and fled. When the Guard returned, Shulro's assistant in tow, Evendal was sitting up in the bed in his linens, Kri-estaul yet asleep beside him. "We have all these empty chairs now, put some of the platters on them," the King directed.
After he ate, Evendal could not have said whether the bread was warm, cold, fresh, two weeks stale and mouldy, or even leavened or not. His eyes were on Kri-estaul exclusively. The child's hair, still straw-like, called for his touch. Kri-estaul's hands twitched and his eyes meandered under their lids, so that Evendal wondered if dreams troubled him. As no sound emerged but a light snore, and the boy's brow remained untroubled, he let his son sleep on.
"How do we keep him from feeling his lack too keenly?" Evendal asked the room.
Aldul shook his head. "Each child will react differently. We must wait and see what he needs and asks from us, and not throw our helpfulness at him blindly. From what I have seen of Kri's character, I would suggest two helps initially: Honesty and constancy. Offer no false sops and no shallow consolations."
"I must sleep. But I don't know if I will."
The Kwo-edan grinned. "You will. Eventually. And I will remain nearby this night and the next, in the room with Kinmeln, to see that all goes well."
"Thank you. Indeed, all of you. Your valour, your good care. We would not survive without your expedition and stalwartness."
Drussilikh cleared her throat. "You are our... Prince. We have needed you sorely, and are not about to fail you if we can help it."
Evendal wondered what word she had intended; it did not reveal itself to him.
"What the Matron said is true for us as well," Ierwbae added.
"I would be facing death or disgrace, with a heart gnawing on itself, had you not returned," Drussilikh admitted, staring at her brother.
Aldul murmured, "You have caused me to revisit times in my mind I had avoided. And had hoped to leave neglected." Had Aldul's chair not been so close, Evendal would not have heard. Hielbrae and Ierwbae looked at the emissary, respectfully waiting for him to repeat what he said in a louder tone; royal protocol prevented them from addressing anyone but Evendal. If Drussilikh, being the closest, had heard him she gave no indication.
"I know," Evendal nodded, embarrassed by this truth but aware that Aldul had only begun.
Aldul glanced uneasily at Drussilikh as he continued to whisper. "I wonder if you do. You hear so much now, in silence and in speech. Do you know how my sleep has soured? How the survivors from the under-grounds kept reminding me of the refugees from Mausna? Likewise how the look of the Stone-haulers, and the remnant from Onkira's cadre, reminded me of the dastards who had seized me? How it took all my fear and rage, sitting like a boulder in my gut, to keep from joining you in the corner as Sygkorrin sliced Kri-estaul's legs off? Because I felt myself back in Kwo-eda, back in the healer's annex with the wounded from Mausna. The amputees, the gangrenous... I looked at Niar-lles, the scars on his hands and arms, and I wanted to vomit from this sudden fear. I was seeing my own old urge for self-destruction." Aldul's voice remained steady and soft, but his face had become an anatomy lesson, with each muscle outlined in sharp relief.
"I... I did not know what I was hearing, dearest friend. Why did you not say something?"
The Kwo-edan stared dumbly at Evendal, as if he could not believe the question. "You needed me," he whispered simply.
Evendal scowled. "And I still do. But I need Aldul, not 'the perfect servant.' You are not made of Kul-stone, nor do I expect you to be!"
"There is more," Aldul admitted. "For, strange to say, it has all been of benefit. Should I neglect so powerful a part of my past it must overtake me. Just as it has. All the dread and fear and distress I feel tells me I have not truly healed. And my having avoided thinking about that time, or recalling it, confirms this. Remember how much I hated talking about the war, when we were walking here from the Wastes? It was not just that I disliked being reminded."
Again Evendal nodded. Gingerly he stepped from the bed to where Aldul sat. He crouched down and grinned gently at the priest. "Then do as you are doing now. Talk to me. Tell me. You are a friend to me. I want to be a friend to you. And I am not a friend if you conceal your pain, anger, or fear from me. I know... simple to say, not so simple to do." What Evendal did not say was how he had known of Aldul's distress, both the nature and degree of it, from the first time the man had offered advice regarding Kri-estaul's frame of mind. He had taken Sygkorrin's chat with him very much to heart: That Aldul was an intensely private person, from whom intimacies and vulnerabilities could not be forced.
"If you feel overwhelmed. If whatever I ask troubles you unduly, simply say, 'Evendal, please.' Add nothing more. Just 'Evendal, please.' And I'll know to use another."
Aldul shook his head vigorously, frustrated. "But I am not made of cobwebs, Evendal! And I will not have a weakness catered to! Before you know it, I will be doing nothing but sitting like some ornament on a waterspout!"
"You forget, Aldul. I am not your liege. You serve Sygkorrin, not me. You have indulged me, because of the bonds of friendship, but you are not in my service. What you will do is acquire an assistant. Someone to mix and administer Kri-estaul's potions, and to tend him. Also, someone to help you in your assigned duties as the Archate's voice, eye, and arm here in the Palace."
"That is an added burden."
Evendal grinned. "The Throne may not be able to afford it, but I myself can, most readily."
"And where will I be, with someone else tending your son and shadowing me like some squirrel after an acorn?"
"By my side, when you wish to be. Challenging my perceptions and judgements, representing the Archate's interests. None of this will necessarily help the youngster-Aldul who still hurts within you, because you will not be any further away from all that reminds you of that time. But you won't be shackled or constrained to be other than what you feel at a given moment."
"Evendal..."
"Aldul," Evendal's voice rose from the whispers they had been tossing back and forth, "permit a friend to do what he can. We both know it is simply a gesture and does nothing of any great moment." Betraying the depth of his concern, his eyes brightened.
A strange expression crossed Aldul's face, a quick grin and a downward-cast eye, then a long stare, as though he searched for something in Evendal's glowing face. "You really do..."
"You have been my friend. May I be yours too?"
Infinitesimally, Aldul nodded.
Evendal quirked his lips up in a quicksilver grin that Aldul shared, then returned to a normal tone of speech. "Then let us both get some rest."
The remainder of the night held no surprises. Weary, Evendal dismissed Drussilikh and Ierwbae. He charged Mulienhas to send to the Temple with his requests on the morrow, as it had begun to rain, then bade her retire as well.
The next morning, disturbed by dampness, Evendal awoke to find that Kri-estaul had not been able to contain the diarrhea his distress had elicited. Carefully, he extricated himself from the bed and went next door to rouse Aldul. He found the Kwo-edan bundled in easily half of the room's reserve bedclothes, staring at the hearth fire almost mournfully.
"Aldul?"
With a shiver, Aldul jerked his head about. "Is there trouble?"
"Nothing worrisome. The fluxing you anticipated. I did not want to move him without advisement. Aldul?"
"What vexes you?"
"I had not reckoned on how shrewd our winters might seem to your temperate nature."
The Kwo-edan shrugged, and settled a multilayered robe around his thick-wrapped body. "Time and familiarity will stiffen my sinews." He laughed in his huffing fashion. "I feel as if it is already stiffening my bones."
Evendal was all set to laugh with him, until Aldul's knee buckled from moving too fast. Though surprised, Evendal stepped forward and caught his friend under the arm and at the shoulder, preventing him from pitching forward. "Whence this?"
"A legacy of my misspent youth. This joint trouble resulted from some of the injuries I sustained. My bones do not care for cold and damp. It passes with persistent movement, at least in my arms and neck. But with my legs?" Aldul shrugged again. "They must bear too much weight, and protest the only way they can."
The King stared in shock. "Then what makes you at Osedys? This must be like a punishment."
Aldul fumbled with the belt of his robe. "I can tell you. You might could understand, but I want this kept in your good counsel alone."
"So it shall be, whate'er you wish to speak on."
Aldul kept his gaze on the selvage of his clothing. "I would never have left my home, but I was besieged almost daily."
"Besieged?"
"Evendal. I don't..." Aldul stumbled, struggling for words for the first time in Evendal's experience. "I am a young man. Physically whole in comparison to many who returned home from Mausna. The women of Kwo-eda, in many ways, kept the city from dispersing and dying through mass desertions. So they saw me -- one and all -- as a reluctant groom, sire, and mate. Even those who thought my affections tended toward males would all but tie me up with their brothers, cousins, or nathlil."
The scenario presented sounded harmless enough to Evendal, but for the squint of pain around Aldul's eyes. He deliberately trailed Aldul as they walked back into his room. Kri-estaul's vianki-wide eyes darted to the doorway. When the child saw his father, he cried out, "Oh, Papa! Uncle Aldul!"
"We are here, Kri-estaul. We are here." The King knelt at his son's side of the bed. "I'd hoped you might sleep until I got back."
"I thought... I thought..." The child swallowed, his hands curled into small fists in the effort to speak around his upset.
"I ken what you thought, my son. Dispel your dread, I but went aside for aid."
"Forgive me. Please! I could not stop it. I tried. I truly did." In the morning light the stain along Evendal's bed-wear showed plainly, escalating Kri-estaul anxiety. "Forgive me, Papa! Forgive..."
"Shhh. Calm yourself, sweetling. This is all easily remedied. There is naught to forgive. Take a deep breath," he instructed.
Shakily, the child obeyed, eyes still wide.
"Do you know I love you? Relax. And again, deep breath. Well, I do. You are my wonder, my son. One more deep breath and relax. All is well."
"It is?"
"Yes. Aldul and the Priestess thought this might happen. You could not have prevented it, my boy. Now we are going to move you off the bed so we can clean you up." Aldul grabbed a square of cloth three arm-lengths long and an equal span in width, and set it on a lightly soiled area of the bed.
"Uncover him," Aldul directed. Evendal obeyed. Aldul then directed his attention to Kri-estaul. "Let your Papa grip you under the ribs." Aldul waited for Kri-estaul's tickle reaction to pass. "I'll secure your thighs. And we'll lift you. Now."
Settled in the soft, absorbent material, Kri-estaul suffered Aldul and Evendal to lift it and him to the table, where Aldul deftly manoeuvred him, wiping away the dross and carefully cleaning the leg-nubs. The child's weariness and lingering shame silenced him.
Into that silence Evendal tendered, "What you describe sounds almost farcical, until I imagine myself so plagued. As I doubtless will be soon."
Encouraged, Aldul continued his explanation. "I wanted simply to help the people who saved me, who healed me despite myself. Over time, this carried less and less weight in anyone's considerations. Nor did it matter that I might be perfectly capable of finding my own mate, had I wanted such a life..."
"But you don't," Evendal stated for him.
After a moment quietly drying a pensive Kri-estaul, Aldul confessed, "I can't tell you how wrong it feels to me." Aldul anguished. "I see a beautiful man, a buxom and comely woman, and I enjoy what the elements and their natures have fashioned. I find them pleasant to look upon." He scrambled in his thoughts for clarity. "I enjoy a gentle-affectioned touch from a safe companion, just as anyone. But, when I was groped and bussed by five women and two men in three consecutive days, I knew I had to leave. I was being hunted for stud service and being sacrificed to provide the emotional and social security that marriage offers to whichever neighbour could entrap me."
Evendal's eyes bulged in amazement.
Aldul shrugged. "Death, and the lack of control it reveals, motivates people to strange deeds." Aldul pulled a tin from the satchel on the table and, after opening it, delicately applied its grease to Kri-estaul's thighs.
"But my petty aches cannot compare to the bone-deep wrong, the odd numbness I feel in courting someone. It is like my strength, the focus of my attention, leaves when I try acting amorous toward someone. Anyone. I am like a mimic. I function, but am not truly involved. I do what I believe the other person expects. But I would be happier with that person at my side, not in front of me."
"Yes," Evendal affirmed. Aldul's eyebrows rose in surprise. "I know nothing on the matter of loving congress. But as to the comfort of someone at my side, or my back, that is how I feel about you and Ierwbae, Sygkorrin, and Kri-estaul. You are my companions and my family. For some people that is more than enough."
Aldul's shoulders lost some of their tension as he discarded the old remnants of bandage and wrapped newer sphagnum on Kri-estaul's anointed wounds. "How is it with you, Your Highness?" The child did not answer.
"Kri-estaul." Evendal crouched beside the table his son lay on. Kri-estaul would not look at him. Behind them three stewards, new acquisitions summoned by one of the attending Guard, laboured to remove the oversized raw-cotton cushioning. "Kri-estaul, please look at me. Do you think I am angry or frustrated? I'm not."
"You... you should... why not?" the child murmured, anguished and ashamed.
"Why? You are worth so much more to me than a bit of plant life. Please look at me."
Flinching at first, Kri-estaul complied.
"How do you feel?"
"All strange inside. Like my stomach doesn't want to sit still."
"Can you see me clearly? Does my voice sound normal to you?"
"Yes,"
"The gases made you sleep for a long time. I wanted to be certain they no longer affected you. Heed what I am about to say, my son."
Kri-estaul, still anxious and fretful, went motionless with dread. "I am listening, Papa."
"You had a very serious cutting." Honesty, Evendal thought to himself. "It went well, in the end. I won't pretend that the effect is insignificant, but the strangeness of it will pass with time.
"You know how, with a cut, sometimes a little dried blood can act as a bandage? Well, you nearly died from a... nugget of dried blood that wanted to travel from your thigh to your heart, to block or bandage something inside that should never be blocked."
"I did?"
Evendal nodded. "We managed to tear it up so it could not block anything. But that is twice that I almost lost you. I do not want to face a third time. It will be a few sennights before you can leave your bed to roam any part of the Palace. Do not try to do anything for yourself as yet."
Kri-estaul said nothing, but his gaze, and the uncertainty in it, spoke for him.
"If you do not know the answer to a question then you need to ask it aloud, sweetling. I am not going to coddle you where I can help it."
"Where... where will you be?"
Evendal ald'Menam grinned indulgently. "Right by your side, my son. Where else would I be?"
"But why?" Kri-estaul lay looking up into Evendal's glowing eyes.
"Say what you are thinking, Kri-estaul."
"I'm not... I don't understand."
Again Evendal realised what he dealt with here was not an adult. Rational thought had little to do with Kri-estaul's world, except as it impinged on his surviving any adults around him. Feeling was always more accessible than thought.
"You're worried." He watched as Aldul cleaned up the table and tossed the debris into the nearest hearth. At a nod from his friend, Evendal rolled a new square of cloth beside and then under Kri-estaul, wrapped him in a rug for warmth, but waited before settling him onto the bed.
The child turned his face to the side and scrunched his eyes shut. "I'm sorry."
"No you are not." Evendal insisted. "You have nothing to feel worthless over." Kri-estaul opened his mouth, but the King preempted him. "I know what you meant. What worries you so?"
After a lengthy silence, Kri-estaul explained, "I woke up very early. I tried to see what she did." The words startled Evendal, who thought he had attended his son's every alert moment. "Nothing moved. But I saw. I saw where the bedding is flat."
The child said nothing more. And Evendal was loath to break the quiet, uncertain what it held as his gift refused to serve him. Eventually, the ambiguity bedevilled him for too long. "You were awake early this morning, then?" the King murmured. Kri-estaul nodded into his pillows. "You must have been awake long before I awoke, harbouring your fears for quite a while."
"Yes," Kri-estaul whispered. "But I fell asleep again, and then I woke up when I felt my diarrhea. I didn't know what to do."
Evendal smiled sadly. "You knew what to do. But you were afraid. You were afraid to awaken me."
"I didn't know what to do."
"You thought that not waking me would delay my anger and my punishing you," Evendal posited.
Kri-estaul jostled his head in the negative. "You would not hurt me. You said. But... but..."
"But what, dearling?"
Aldul answered for the suddenly mute child. "You've had too much time awake and alone this morning. You thought Evendal would give you over to someone else -- maybe your sister -- once he realised how helpless and to your own thinking how 'useless' you are now. How much a burden. Or that he would rail at you, shout, and tear at you verbally."
"Aldul!" the King protested.
"Am I right, child?"
"I'm worthless. Ugly!"
Evendal gaped, briefly helpless. He had anticipated dealing with his son's self-loathing and distress over his body, but not so immediately. "Kri-estaul, I have not and will not... In your distress... What would Nisakh have done?" Evendal could see that the question surprised his son and started him thinking.
"He would have unshackled me to toss me around the room."
"What else?"
"And held my face in my faeces, or have me roll in it."
"And what else?"
"He... he would have shouted and cursed me, told me how dumb and useless I am."
"Yes. You are not down there anymore. Nisakh is dead, my son. I love you and I don't see you as useless or a burden. I am your father, and whatever you need it is my duty to provide. More, it is a gift, a privilege(83) for me to give to you according to your needs."
Both Kri-estaul and Aldul looked doubtful. Evendal saw only his son's misgivings. "Kri, any male can sire a baby. You gave me a gift in permitting me to be your father." The child frowned, certain now that he was being patronised. "Yes, Kri-estaul, your acceptance was a gift to me! Suppose you ate all the oatmeal and gruel in the kingdom and got bigger than the palace... so that when you went to the jakes you flooded us out. So that we had to all travel on rafts and dinghies. I would be right beside you offering the honey and figs to put on your meal, or wiping your bum if that was what you needed, and happy to be there."
As Evendal had hoped, Kri-estaul chuckled at his imagery and his exaggerated tone of voice. "Kri-estaul, never apologise for needing. Never. You are my wonder, and giving you what you need is what I am here for. Such is being a father. You are my child. A child I am certain will grow up into a kind, intelligent, wise man."
Kri-estaul shook his head slowly, causing his hair to crackle with static. "How can you...? How can I... do anything? Why would you want to stay stuck in the same room... for days and days? You'll hate it! Always cleaning up after... Just a needy, sickly... bedwarmer!"
For a moment Evendal watched in utter frustration. His son. The word echoed in his head. A child pressed past his limits, sharp and precocious and innocently self-hating. Unlike previous episodes there were no tears, no sobbing, just a scarred face in abject certainty and misery. Again, Evendal felt his heart pounding, his chest hurting with his own urge for tears.
"You are my son." The words came out thick through a constricted throat. "You are my son! You are the heir to all that I am! No one... no one but you may thwart this or alter this in any way! You are no... thing, you are my son. You are a gift, precious beyond all gifts I have been granted."
"You still..." Kri-estaul hid from the glow in his father's eyes, still too upset to finish his question.
Again Evendal was reminded that he dealt with a child. "I still do. You have trusted me well through so much, continue yet a little more."
"I do." Kri-estaul glanced sideways, up at his father. "I know I burden you. You say that is just fathering. But I still hate it!" He could not continue.
At that point, Evendal felt he had a clearer idea what persisted in his child's mind. "Do you know what I wish?"
"What?"
"I wish you were stronger, your leg stumps less fragile..." Kri-estaul swallowed "...so that I might hold you and carry you around. Keep you safe."
"I... I wish you could, too, Papa."
"I will not lie to you. What you said could happen. You're going to be abed for a long time. But do you know what I think will pass instead?"
"No. What?"
"I shall see you do not grow fusty. You have much to learn about ruling, about the kingdom, and about me. While I am going to learn a lot more about you, and about being a wiser man."
Kri-estaul's stare turned wide-eyed. "You think I am wise? Are you making fun of me?"
Evendal had a brief recollection of the last time Kri-estaul asked that question, how the child could barely force the words out for his fear of being punished. "No, I do not ridicule you. I think you are wiser about people than I am.
"And you are right, there will be times when the last thing you will want is to see these same walls. When that happens, just tell me you're bored. I'll know what to do." He grinned at his son.
"What?"
Evendal's grin widened into a smile. "Patience and trust. Rely on me."
"Not more lessoning?"
"Patience. Wait but a while."
With Aldul's help, Evendal lifted Kri-estaul onto the newly arrived bedding.
"You still look troubled, Aldul."
"Not on my own account, my friend. But, your testament just now..."
"What?"
Your Majesty, last night did you not enumerate the reasons Kri-estaul could not become Osedys?"
Evendal sighed. "Yes, valid reasons."
"And did you not just assure Kri-estaul that he is your heir?"
"I did, for he is." He looked down at his watchful son. "You are." Almost of its own volition, his hand reached down and stroked his son's straw-like hair.
"What has changed since yesterday's assertions?"
"Nothing. Aldul, I also pledged him that should he want to climb the Dragon's Shield(84) and dole out insults rather than become King, he would have my help and sanction. Last night I simply listed some impediments to his advancement. Until he is of an age and disposition to make such decisions, he is my one and only heir. There will be no others until then."
"Your Majesty, who will determine that such a time has arrived?"
Evendal grinned. "Now who is borrowing tomorrow's trouble? We shall. Confirmed by such of my companions as still surround me from these days."
"I wonder if you have thought this through, my friend. The child..."
"I'm right here!"
Aldul glanced down and away, embarrassed. "Forgive me, Kri-estaul."
"Why your concern for the succession of my kingdom?" Evendal continued to caress Kri-estaul's head.
"Evendal, you touched on the reason three days past. Kri-estaul, you are going to find daily life more of a task, too much so to have the burdens of rule, territory and state loaded upon you as well. Your father's need for you to be his heir may overshadow you, even with the best will in the world."
"Very true," Evendal acknowledged, then exhorted Kri-estaul. "Attend closely, more to my sense than my exact words."
Kri-estaul gave an awkward nod.
"You are yet mistaken, Aldul. My reason is most hale and eager, and has assayed the meagre list of pretenders. My family, though newly expanded, lacks any advantage by which it can commend itself. Were my half-brothers and half-sisters to return from Wytthenroeg's safe haven, they would carry the brand of cowardice for having been secreted away 'fore the storm of the interregnum. Not an insurmountable obstacle, true. Should Wytthenroeg's children wish even to be considered has not been asked as yet. Her youngest is a child in mind. My own father's line ends in me, with no consanguineous branches."
"You could wed."
Evendal glared. "As readily as you."
Aldul chose not to pursue that argument.
"Ierwbae and Metthendoenn made their adoption quite specific, eschewing my estate and any advancement or entitlements.
"I could turn to the Archate, and the wisdom of the fair Priestess Sygkorrin. But that is an avenue no one wants to travel, including the Archate, and the people would take poorly to it."
"How did you determine that?"
"In nine years of omnivorous despotism, the Temple had opportunities to assassinate the duumvirate, to subvert them, to conspire to put a contender in power. Instead, they remained passive, working to preserve who and what they could. You and I both know and accept the wisdom of their policy. In a condition so much less dire, the Archate will certainly not deviate from that precedent."
"You have considered the matter," Aldul acknowledged.
"Yes. Kri-estaul may not be the fittest candidate, but he is my current choice until I can discover others who might demonstrate moderation in sovereignty and prove skilled in their authority. The ship of that concern is still beyond the horizon and I see no cause to hurry it into port. Further, were I to make Mar-Kestlen my heir, or suffer Sygkorrin to nominate someone, what would become of Kri-estaul?"
"Nothing, except that he would not have to endure constant challenges to his right to the Throne."
"No. You are not thinking of Kri-estaul. You are thinking of the Throne. What would happen to Kri-estaul?"
Abashed, Aldul demurred. "I cannot predict."
Suddenly angry, Evendal snapped, "I can. Neglect. Ridicule. Slow, shameful, ignominious death." He quickly moderated his tone. "Like any Thronelander, even you would, regretfully, admit the child's uselessness. Well, unlike everyone else in this entire realm, and I suppose unlike most Hramal, I see value to Kri-estaul as he is. That value is not born solely of my love for him, nor is it dependant on him being one who can provide me a haven in my dotage. But I will, I must, provide accommodation for him equal to my dignity and his honour. For he is Osedys. What I do to him, the commons will see as my ambitions for the realm. And they would be right. He is Osedys. More than any candidate the Temple or Fortune could offer. I will not defy the weave of events that has made him my son. And if he is my son, then he is my heir.
"So, Aldul. Again, I will neither borrow trouble from an unrevealed future nor deny the gifts of my enemies. And Kri-estaul is one such gift."
(81) Literally "stick" -- Staff gifted by liege to vassal as a symbol of fee. (82) Pleroma (Greek) -- A fullness or abundance. (83) A particular and peculiar benefit or advantage enjoyed by a person... beyond the common advantages of other citizens. (84) A fabulous mountain of fantastical height; the Hramal equivalent of "the Big Rock-Candy Mountain."