Kings of the North - Elizabeth Moon [132]
“Sir King,” the Lady said, turning to him. “Once more you bring alarms—”
He took a step toward her, thinking to make proper courtesy, but the next he knew, he was flat on the ground with his head in her lap. Inside a tent. A tent? His thoughts wandered; he could not seem to think.
“You spent yourself,” the Lady said. Her expression was tender, her voice soft and musical. “I should not be surprised, grandson, for your parents were the same. But did not Orlith warn you about yielding so much to the taig?”
“What’s happened?” Kieri asked. He tried to move, but his body didn’t respond. “Aliam—Estil—the children—?”
“Are very well,” she said, laying a hand on his forehead. “Rest. You are young in the mastery of your magery; you do not yet know how to measure what’s needed, and you gave much. It is no more than the exhaustion that comes after great labor. The taig will restore you; let it do its work.”
He realized then that he was not merely flat on the ground, but unclothed as well, skin to grass under a cloak. Instead of cold autumn soil, he felt warmth, the warmth of a summer sun almost, the taig’s gift to him. “What did I do wrong?”
She laughed. “Not wrong, grandson. Just overmuch. You waked the taig; you gave it direction; you gave it your king’s power. All that was very well done, and Aliam tells me without one curse uttered. But you let the taig take more than it needed.”
“I knew I wasn’t supposed to be angry,” he said. The warmth beneath made him drowsy, but he was determined to stay awake. He needed to ask her something, if he could only remember. Her hand on his brow pushed the question back below his awareness.
“Especially here, where it’s been nurtured so long,” she said. “I wonder, though, that Estil Halveric did not sense the daskdraudigs and the lure.”
“Estil has taig-sense?”
“Oh, yes. She has both old human and a little elven blood, and in her line the awareness, and the care, of the taig is uncommonly strong. She should have known something was wrong.”
“You were there last winter, she said. Did you find anything wrong with her taig-sense then?”
“No …” The Lady’s eyes widened. “Singer of songs! I did that!”
“What?” Heat pulsed from the ground; Kieri felt fully awake, aware that a glamour she had laid on him was fading. He sat up, pulled the cloak around him, and turned to face her.
“When I was there,” she said. “I touched them all so my visit would not be spoken of, lest some evil discover your identity before the paladin reached you.” Kieri felt a touch of her glamour like a silk veil across his mind. What was she hiding? “Only to Aliam and Estil I left the memory, but I barred their speech … and that must have interfered with Estil Halveric’s taig-sense. Because of me that vile monster came and tore down their house, and Gitres Unmaker—”
“Gitres? I thought it was Achrya.”
“She may have laid the lure to punish the Halverics for aiding you, but it was Gitres you held off this night, Sir King, and proved beyond any doubt your right to kingship. Not that I have doubted you since I first met you.” She turned away. “I must apologize to Aliam and Estil, if you will excuse me.”
“Of course,” Kieri said, still astonished. Light remained—her light? His light? Now he recognized his own tent, his own neatly folded clothes nearby. Before getting up, he laid both hands flat on the ground. “Thank you,” he said to the taig, and without realizing he was going to, bent down and kissed the turf.
His clothes felt warm when he put them on. When he came out, dawn painted the eastern sky rose and gold. Off to his right, a fire crackled and steam rose from pots set on and near it. He smelled sib, bacon, porridge. To the left,