Kings of the North - Elizabeth Moon [105]
“Not a random attack by brigands?”
“No,” Kieri said. “By several accounts, she expected an elven escort on the journey—refused a human retinue—and as a full elf should have been able to enter the elvenhome with me if danger threatened. As well, she was skilled with weapons—she would not have been easy to take down. Yet she had no elven escort—they did not arrive when expected, and she chose to leave without them. A Squire who mentioned treachery at the time was soon thrown from her horse and killed. So treachery seems likely—but my sister’s suspicion of our grandmother could be based on as little as a minor argument she overheard.”
“Your sister lived to adulthood,” the Seneschal said. “She could have heard more than you, firsthand, from those who knew your mother and the Lady.”
“My father’s bones have indicated no such suspicion,” Kieri said. “Would he not have known more?”
“Not … necessarily.” The Seneschal frowned. “Knowledge can pass from mother to daughter, or father to son, through bone and blood. Your sister might have some awareness of what your mother knew, from before your sister’s birth.”
“How is that possible?”
“I don’t know.” The Seneschal spread his hands. “In the old days, the old humans believed such was possible. That was one reason for raising the bones and honoring them. They had true wisdom that their descendants might share, at least in part. Certain knowledge and certain skills passed mother to daughter and father to son. Parrions, they called those.”
Kieri thought of something else. “Did you ever hear rumor that the Lady was unhappy at her daughter’s wedding a human? At the need to reintroduce taig-sense into the royal family?”
“No … though elves have always acted as if it were a greater honor to the king your father than to your mother. But I thought that natural.” The Seneschal paused, then went on. “Sir King, will you ask the Lady of these things?”
“If she will talk to me,” Kieri said. Bitterness flooded him again. “She can always hide there, in the elvenhome … and she has been doing just that.”
“It must be settled,” the Seneschal said. “It must be settled for the good of the realm … that is what the bones want, I am sure.”
“I will speak to Orlith,” Kieri said. “Or any elf I can find.”
But when he looked, he found none. Not Orlith, not Amrothlin his own uncle, none of them. His half-elven Squires, when he asked, said they thought all the elves were having a meeting in the elvenhome.
Vonja, in Aarenis
Three days before the contract was over, Arcolin camped outside the walls of Cortes Vonja and went into the city to deal with the Cortes Vonja Council. As he expected, they were not pleased that he hadn’t eliminated the threat, but after some hours, during which he showed the maps, the daily journal of activities, and the number of enemy killed, they agreed that he had done as well as a small force could. He turned in the money taken from the fallen brigands and the counterfeiting dies they’d found, as well as the ten Cortes Vonja pikes. They stared at those last as if they were vipers, not needing to be told what it meant that their weapons had shown up in enemy hands.
“We could hire you until the Fall Evener,” one councilman said.
“No,” Arcolin said. “I must attend Autumn Court in Tsaia; my king commands it. And I have scarce time to travel there as it is.”
“How long will you be here, then?”
“Only long enough to let the men spend a little money and complete the business I have with those who helped my sergeant.”
With coinage the banker considered legitimate, Arcolin paid the troops enough to let them go—one tensquad at a time—into the city for a few hours, while he visited Marshal Harak and the others.
“I’d like to see him again,” Harak said. “I’m sure Tir’s Captain would, too.”
“I’ll tell him,” Arcolin said.
“What’s this about the Blind Archer?”
“You’ve heard of that?