Kings of the North - Elizabeth Moon [165]
“You … saved me.” The king lifted his arm and looked at his blood-streaked side. “How—?”
“Better gods than yours saved you,” Kieri said. His head hurt; he felt dizzy. “And my grandmother’s dagger.”
“Elf-made?” The king looked scared.
“Yes.” Kieri’s head swam; he tried to push himself up and instead nearly fell over. Strong arms clasped him from behind.
“Sir King! Are you—”
“It’s just … the healing,” Kieri said. The stench of blood and death in the room sickened him. “Fresh air,” he managed to say. Someone ran to the door and flung it open. In blew a gust of cold wet wind and a few snowflakes; he shivered, but the fresher air steadied him. Someone brought a chair and helped him into it. His vision cleared slowly. What a mess they had made of his carefully prepared meeting place. He took another breath, and another.
“You have it all,” the Knight-Commander said to him, across the traitor’s body and the blood.
“All?” Kieri said. His vision was clear now, but he still felt a strong desire to fall into a bed and sleep for a night and a day.
“Do you even know what you did?”
“Healed a wound, with the gods’ aid.” He bit down on a yawn. “I tried to do for him what Paksenarrion did for me.”
“Did she tell you how?”
“No. We never spoke of it; I thought it paladins’ mystery. It was a poisoned weapon, the same as this—the same poison, for all I know.”
“Did she use a symbol of Gird?”
“I don’t know … I was not in condition to notice.”
“Light?”
“That, yes. She was the only light in the room for a time.”
“As were you.” The Knight-Commander sighed. “My lord king, what you have shown this night goes beyond our expectations. I heard about the daskdraudigs, but this—not for generations have we had a king with such powers. When did Orlith instruct you in healing magery?”
“He hasn’t,” Kieri said. “He said I still needed more training in other arts … I did manage to sprout a seed, though.”
“It is more than a seed I witnessed,” the Knight-Commander said. “It is a blackwood tree, grown to full height and flowering.”
Kieri looked at the dead traitor; while he had rested, the Pargunese lords were stripping his body. One had a knife. He reached out, and Kieri understood. “No!” he said. They looked up, startled. The Knight-Commander glanced down and stared.
“No,” he said, too. “You must not.”
“But he needs,” one of them said in halting Common, nodding at their king. “Einar said, he come back with man-pizzle, maybe prove honor. No pizzle, nobody listen.”
Kieri switched to Pargunese. “I don’t care what Einar said. You are not going to mutilate the body here, in Lyonya. This is my kingdom, and I forbid it.” He glanced at his Squires. “Get a blanket from our gear and wrap him up well; take the body outside—the stableyard, maybe—and mount a guard over it. They can take it back to Pargun tomorrow. What they do there is their concern, not mine.”
“You show honor to the traitor who would have killed me?” the king asked.
“It is not his honor that concerns me, but mine,” Kieri said. “I have killed many men, but it is against my beliefs to treat their bodies as no more than that of a wolf or an ox, and take pieces. They were once men like me.” He remembered having that argument with Aliam, the first time he went to Aarenis, and saw—with mingled horror and fascination—a belt decorated with human ears. They’re already dead, he had said to Aliam, and Aliam had clouted him to the ground. So will you be someday, Aliam had said. Should someone take your ears or scalp as a trophy, as if you were a wild animal?
The king glared, then shrugged. “You saved my life,” he said. “If that is your decree, in your own land, I will obey.” He and the Pargunese lords moved away from the body. In Pargunese, the king spoke to the four Pargunese guards. “It is over—no more fun tonight. But if that king bids you