Kings of the North - Elizabeth Moon [190]
“Their guardians agreed?”
“It seemed so at the time, but in the case of Pargun, that agreement was a ploy. That princess’s guardians told Pargun’s king that we’d sold his daughter to a brothel—”
“What?!”
“And a few tendays ago, Pargun’s king came across the river alone, intent on assassinating King Kieri to revenge the insult.”
“But that’s ridiculous! Kieri would never—not even the Pargunese could believe—”
“They did, my lord. There’s more—” Arian explained about the guardians’ lies to the princess, the Pargunese king’s visit to Chaya, and his return to the north, including the king’s injury, and Kieri’s healing of it.
“That’s like what happened to him,” the Duke said. “That’s what you meant about Paks—she healed his poisoned wound.”
“We were all amazed, you may imagine. Not in living memory of men has a Lyonyan king had such power.”
The Duke frowned. “And yet you are not come as a King’s Squire and his messenger. I do not understand. Nor why any of this should be held secret.”
“So much is not—I agree your king needs to know it, and I expect the king has sent a courier direct to Vérella,” Arian said.
“Why not you?”
“It is difficult.” Arian took a breath and reached to the taig for support. “My lord, how old do you think I am?”
“Somewhere in your twenties—perhaps thirty.”
“My lord, I am over fifty, and am like to live to near two hundred, as will the king. We are nearly of an age.”
The Duke frowned. “You don’t look it.”
“No. It is my elven blood. I have lived all my life in Lyonya, where the taig nourished me. And that leads to the core of what I would have you hold close in Falk’s Oath, Knight to Knight.”
“If it does not harm those I love, I will hold it so,” the Duke said, touching her ruby.
“The king chose many half-elves, men and women both, to be King’s Squires,” Arian said. “Because he himself is half-elven, and looks younger than his human years, we did not realize that he saw us all as younger than we are. Too young when he considered whom to marry.”
The Duke’s brows went up. “You love him.”
“Yes. From the first, but he showed no sign that he cared for me. I am not a rash youngster to go chasing a man.”
The Duke nodded. “I have trouble seeing you as my elder, looking so young, but I can believe a woman of fifty would not act like a girl of eighteen.” She laughed a little. “I was a girl of eighteen when I thought he was the hero of my life. As he was, but differently than I’d imagined.”
“All the spring, all the summer, into the fall,” Arian said, “I respected him, as our king, and admired him for what he was doing, and my affections … grew. I said nothing; he showed nothing; I was careful not to hint. Then the morning after we came back from the north, I took him down in the salle.”
“You took Kieri down?” This time the Duke looked startled. “I’ve sparred with him; I think I’ve taken him only four times in twenty years.”
“He wasn’t attending. Our armsmaster signaled me.” Arian did not mention that she’d taken Kieri down before. “Everyone at the palace had been pressuring him to find a wife—even Armsmaster Carlion, that morning. So when he said he wanted to find a woman with a sword, my heart leapt, because he had smiled at me. And then he said, still looking at me, if only we Squires were not all so young, and left it unfinished. So … I told him I was not so young.” Arian stopped. Her throat had closed; she could feel tears stinging her eyes. It had been so frightening to say that, to risk his scorn or his indifference, and then so wonderful … and then so terrible. The Duke said nothing. Arian managed to swallow at last.
“We saw each other, our hearts and our souls face-to-face. We felt the taig, and I was sure it rejoiced. And we were happy … but then …” She told the rest of it, knowing her voice was uneven, knowing that Dorrin could not possibly understand. When she was done, she stared at the grain of the tabletop in front of her.
The Duke sighed,