Kings of the North - Elizabeth Moon [138]
“That may be,” he said, “but the fact is that my ancestors who came to Aarenis from Aare were craftsmen, not nobles. The title was given because too few nobles escaped the final disaster to govern the land … Commoners were elevated, and my family, my lord, were one of them. I did not know this until this past summer.” He went on, more fluently now that the worst of his shame had been told, to describe the flood that had caused his father and grandfather to reorder the archives and begin sorting and copying those damaged and how he himself had been trained as a scribe and scholar initially, before he came to rule.
By then it was dark, and despite the pastries and the fire, Dorrin was both stiff and hungry. She held up a hand when it seemed he was about to embark on another part of his tale.
“By your leave, my lord, I will go refresh myself before dinner, and after dinner we can resume.”
He flushed again. “Of course. I’m sorry, my lord, I forget time … and you have journeyed today … perhaps tomorrow?”
“After dinner will be well enough,” Dorrin said. “I am eager to hear more.”
Dinner passed quickly; Dorrin and her squires were hungry and talked little. Andressat and the King’s Squires who had accompanied him made their own inroads into the roast meats and other foods. The King’s Squires asked leave to ready themselves for departure the next morning, now that Dorrin was in residence.
“I have an urgent message for your king,” Dorrin said, “that I thought to send by one of my people—are you allowed to carry messages for others?”
“Certainly, my lord,” the woman said. “If it will not delay us.”
“No,” Dorrin said. “My lord Count, if you will excuse me briefly, I will be back with you shortly in the sitting room.” He bowed, and she led the King’s Squires to her office. “I have a letter for the king from his former captain, Jandelir Arcolin, and a sword found in Aarenis, cleansed and blessed by a Captain of Falk, which the letter concerns.”
She handed over the familiar message-case Arcolin had given her, the same kind they’d used for years in the Company, brown leather stamped with the fox-head and tied with maroon laces. “And here’s the sword.”
The man’s eyes widened. “That’s a Halveric sword! What was it doing in Aarenis? Halveric Company’s been quartered in Lyonya the last two years.”
“I know,” Dorrin said. “It’s a family sword; Arcolin thought Kieri—your king—should give it back to the Halverics rather than have Andressat take it, as it closely involved a matter of honor for both the king and the Halveric. Will you do this?”
“Of course,” the man said. The others nodded.
“And give the king my heartiest good wishes,” Dorrin said. “I will write him at length, with much that Arcolin told me, but tonight I must hear more from Andressat, and you want to leave early tomorrow, do you not?”
“Yes, my lord.”
“Then order what you will, in hall and stable, and Falk’s Honor go with you, if you leave before I rise.”
“Thank you, my lord.” They bowed and withdrew; Dorrin rejoined Andressat in the sitting room, where he had built up the fire.
He resumed without delay.
“It was a shock to find out we were not of pure blood,” he said. “I did not want Alured to find out, lest he insist on removing my family from the rule of Andressat. We do not have the resources to resist him for long, should he invade—and yes, I think that a possibility. He is more like Siniava than any of us guessed. He wants to rule the south—all of it.”
“Surely he doesn’t think he can—” Dorrin began.
“Indeed he does,” Andressat said. “Aarenis and more than Aarenis. He has heard rumors of a crown—of royal regalia that once belonged in Aare—”
Dorrin stiffened. “How—what made him think—”
“Rumors of such came through Valdaire after Midsummer,” Andressat said. “I myself heard nothing of it until later, but apparently Alured’s spies in the north—yes, my lord, that is what I said, in the north—told him of some excitement at court when your king was crowned. I could not determine if this was the