Kings of the North - Elizabeth Moon [180]
No image for the “bad place.” Kieri struggled with himself, not to press for answers, to listen only, but he had to know, and the question burst from him. Did she kill our mother?
Silence. A sense of overwhelming grief, the grief of a child who does not understand the finality of death. Then: Betrayal. Danger. Judgment. And then, from more than one, unnamed and unnumbered: Peace. Rest now. He sank into that peace despite himself.
“Sir King?” The Seneschal’s soft voice woke him.
Kieri opened his eyes. “I’m fine,” he said. “They wanted to talk to me.”
“Ah.” The Seneschal’s expression showed he understood who “they” were. “I can tell the others, if you like—if you need more time.”
“No.” He felt refreshed, though the ache of losing Arian—he hoped for only a time—still hurt, and the warnings his sister had given him rang in his mind like trumpets. “It was time to wake. I don’t understand it all, but it’s something I needed to do.” The Seneschal, he knew, would ask no more questions and might even understand more than he did himself.
“There have been things said,” the Seneschal said. “About the king’s choice and some disturbance …” It was not quite a question, but permitted an answer.
“What did you hear?” Kieri asked.
“I hear many things,” the Seneschal said. “I repeat none of them.” Then his expression softened. “Although, for the king, I will say that many rejoiced when it seemed the king had found a mate. And were shocked and alarmed when the King’s Squire rode away, and the king returned in a passion. Only later did anyone hear, from the other Squires, something of what happened, though the details were uncertain. It was thought perhaps the taig had forbidden it—”
“The taig rejoiced with us,” Kieri said. “The Lady my grandmother objected. I was angry at the reasons she gave, and she was angry at my choice and my defense of Arian. That disturbed the taig, as you can well imagine. Arian—left.”
“I have no dislike of the Lady,” the Seneschal said, frowning, “but she is not beyond error. To go against the taig’s joy … that is not wise. Arian will return.”
“So I hope,” Kieri said. “I trust her courage, but her sense of duty to the taig is as strong. She will not damage it.”
“It is not she who damages it, if you and the Lady quarrel,” the Seneschal said. “Arian was not angry, was she?”
“No,” Kieri said.
“Then the taig’s disturbance was not her fault.”
“There is more,” Kieri said. “You remember what I told you of the bones’ messages?”
“Yes.”
“And that I spoke to others?”
“Yes, that too.”
“I was never able to ask the elves, or the Lady—they evaded me again and again—even Arian’s father,” Kieri said. “I still find it hard to believe, even after what the Lady has done this past year. She acts so—so strangely. Coming to my aid before I even arrived, cordial at my coronation, then cold at Midsummer … refusing to come when I asked … then coming to my aid and the Halverics’ … then disappearing again, only to come and show anger to the Pargunese king. If she were human and not elf, I would fear madness.”
The Seneschal shook his head. “I do not know or understand elves, Sir King. In my life, I have had few conversations with an elf; they dislike the ossuary and do not make friends with palace staff. I cannot judge the Lady’s character. But she is said to be great in power and wisdom. When she appears not to be, can we be sure we understand?”
“I understand my mother and sister are dead, and I spent years as a captive,” Kieri said. He walked out of the ossuary and sat on the bench to put his socks and boots back on. “Should she not have known the taig’s reaction?”
“That the taig rejoiced when you and Arian found each other? She must have, if she summoned you—why else?”
“Could I have been mistaken? Could it have been only my own joy?”
“No, Sir King. From all accounts your ability to read the taig is more than adequate to tell joy from distress. And so is Arian’s. The Lady must have known, and