Kings of the North - Elizabeth Moon [119]
All he had to do was make it through the Count of Andressat’s visit, play the host as he’d done for so many others, and then … his imagination failed. Old men died so many ways. Their eyesight dimmed; they tripped down stairs and stumbled off walls. Their hearing dimmed; they did not hear stampeding herds, shouted warnings of danger. They fell off horses and broke their necks; they fell into rivers and drowned. He had to be sure it was not seen as anyone’s fault; he wanted no more guilt carried by his family than they already bore.
On that resolution, he stood, feeling a little stronger now, breathed in the scent of apple blossom, and went out to find Estil striding along the hall looking angry. “There you are—”
“Is he come?” Aliam said. “I just remembered, he has a fondness for cakes sprinkled with that southern spice, the yellow one. I can’t think of the name—”
“Figan,” Estil said, diverted by a cookery problem. “We have some, yes. Cooked in or sprinkled on after, do you know?”
“I don’t,” Aliam said. “At his own house, he gave us such cakes. The flavor was more on the top, but baked in or added after, I can’t say.” He pushed away the memory of that day, when the count had made it so obvious how little he respected Kieri and he himself had done nothing about it.
“Mercan just came; the rain’s stopped, and the count’s just a few hours’ ride away. I have just time if I start now … but Aliam, please—please don’t—”
The smile came easier now, and must have looked natural, for Estil seemed to relax even as he spoke. “I’ll get over it,” he said. “Maybe you’re right, and I am missing summers in Aarenis—all that heat, sweating and stinking in my armor—” He tried for a mocking tone and she chuckled. But he thought … all those ways to die. Old men slowed down; old men were easier to kill. Maybe he should go south again.
“I love you,” she said. “And now I must get to the kitchen. Just check the guest chambers, will you? I’ve tried to make them as southern as I could, with things you brought back, but I don’t know …” Her voice trailed away as she set off back downstairs.
Aliam looked into the guest chambers she’d set aside for Andressat, with hangings in Andressat’s colors, piles of pillows re-covered in blue and gold, southern carpets spread on the floors. The rooms smelled of fresh herbs and a hint of rose essence. But out the windows, instead of Andressat’s open plains and rocky slopes under the burning blue of the southern sky in summer, he saw the rich green of northern grass, summer pasture ending in a wall of forest, a forest so different from those in the south. He himself had found the south exotic, exciting, but he still loved this best; he still loved the cool deep shade under trees the size of houses, the creatures that lived in those woods. He suspected Andressat would find the north oppressive, that he had traveled unwillingly and thus with no intention of enjoying what he found. He would be stiff and difficult, as he had always been.
Estil Halveric and one of her daughters-in-law mixed the dough for sweetcakes in a flurry of activity that did nothing to ease Estil’s mind about Aliam. Less than a year ago he had been the same vigorous, joyful companion she’d known for so many years. Balder, grayer, a little more stooped, perhaps, but by no means old, nor had he thought himself old. Just as she could outwork most of her daughters and her sons’ wives, Aliam could outwork his