Kings of the North - Elizabeth Moon [148]
“No matter. Have your say; perhaps in this soft chair I can sleep and not listen to your lies.”
“If you are trying to anger me,” Kieri said, “and force me to fight you, that will not work.”
“Will it not? I had heard you were a man easy to anger, quick to take offense.”
“Perhaps I was once, but I am trying to learn better,” Kieri said. When the king said nothing, he went on. “Until I came here, I knew nothing of where your people came from. I did not know you were Seafolk from over the eastern sea.”
The king opened one eye. “Did you not? It is common knowledge with us. Where did you think we came from?”
“I suppose I thought you were mixed mageborn and old human, like most of those in the Eight Kingdoms.”
“Mixed! We do not mix, and certainly not with magelords. You drove us out of our homes, and then, here, attacked us again.” The king leaned forward. “And then, not content with attacking us, confining us to colder, less fertile land north of the river, you despoil my daughter.”
“You sent her here,” Kieri said. “Why?”
“My first wife’s sister thought you might have changed, and of my daughters, Elis was the strongest … you had wed one of your soldiers before.”
“She told me you had promised her a home far in the north, where she could live unmarried.”
The king waved his hand. “It was a girl’s fancy. And yet, I might have let her—she had frightened away several suitors—but when you came, I thought, if she and you wed, it might bring peace. Worth more than a girl’s daydream, if that could be.”
“Um.” Kieri nodded at the pitcher on the table. “There’s water, if you want it.” The king shook his head. “Elis told me you gave her a knife—a poisoned knife—to kill me on our wedding night. That if she did so, and escaped, you promised to let her live as she pleased.”
The king looked the way Kieri had felt when Elis told him. “She—she said what? I gave her no such knife!”
“She had such a knife. She told me where her escort kept it. I had their things searched, and it was there. She said she’d been forbidden all weapons but that, and that only after our wedding.”
“I did tell them not to let her have weapons. She is a wildcat; she might have attacked her own escort.” He scowled. “But I never gave her a poisoned knife to use on you, much as I wish you dead. And Elis … I cannot believe she would lie about that. Who told her?”
“She said her escorts told her it was your command. And it is her escorts, is it not, who reported to you that she had been dishonored?”
“Yes …” Now the king looked thoughtful.
“Tell me,” Kieri said, “why you came alone, in disguise, instead of sending an envoy, or coming in person, openly. It is not a kingly act.”
“It is my disgrace. My honor. My brothers—my sister-sons—all said so, and the challenge was given. It is our way.”
“I do not understand,” Kieri said, though he was beginning to guess. He needed better than a guess.
“A leader protects his people. If he cannot protect them, he is no better than a slave … someone will challenge for leadership, and either they fight for it or the others vote … it depends on the issue.”
“And they challenged you because your daughter stayed here?”
“Because you sent her to that place of infamy.”
“To us,” Kieri said, “it is a place of honor, where Knights of Falk are trained.”
“Falk!” the king said, and spat on the carpet. “A magelord! What could be honorable about Falk?”
“Do you even know the story?”
The king waved his hand again. “Something about working in a stable to free his brothers … that’s not how to free prisoners. He should have fought …”
“That’s what I told the Knight-Commander when I trained there,” Kieri said. “He did not appreciate it.”
“You trained in that place?”
“Yes.” Kieri could feel the man’s intense curiosity, and also his determination not to ask. “It is a place to learn more than just fighting skills. I did not grow up in this palace.” As quickly as he could, he told the story: the fateful journey, the abduction, the years of torment.
“Scars do not lie, but men do,” the king said. “If you have been