Kings of the North - Elizabeth Moon [8]
“I had a need to speak to her, as I have had these past tens of days, as you know. I have invited her repeatedly; I asked her to come early the first night of Midsummer—”
“She had, doubtless, more urgent matters than yours.”
Kieri felt anger rise and pushed against it. “She is my co-ruler; she has responsibilities to the realm.”
“Indeed.” A touch of scorn and disbelief was in that. “And do you not think the Lady had the realm’s welfare close to her heart when she considered your need for an heir to succeed you and thus a consort who was not—as you remarked at your coronation celebrations—a mere child and yet young enough to bear children? Is there need greater than that?”
“There might be,” Kieri began, but Orlith interrupted.
“You will allow me, Sir King, to finish what I have come to say. The Lady approves this match. The elf-maid is very young, for our people, and apt for bearing children. She will commit her life to yours—”
“That is not the point,” Kieri said. “I cannot marry someone the age of my mother. Or someone who will outlive me so long.”
“Your father did.”
“My father had need to do so,” Kieri said. “And did he even know how old my mother was? He did his duty—” He realized too late that phrasing could seem an insult to both his mother and elvenkind in general. Orlith looked angry now. “And his mother was not an elf. It may be different with you Elders, but for us, to marry someone the age of our mothers is—”
“Even if the maid truly loves you?”
Kieri sensed withdrawal as well as anger and chose his words carefully. “I do not think she loves, or even thinks she loves, the man I am. I think she loves the idea of repeating—perhaps completing—the pattern of elf-maid marrying a human king. It is something she would do for the memory of her friend, my mother, and for closing a circle … but not the real desire of her heart.”
Orlith’s arms relaxed. “So you are not rejecting her for any flaw?”
“Flaw! No, in my eyes she is flawless. I meant her no discourtesy. You are right: I did not recognize what she said and did as an offer of marriage, but as permission to court her, if I wished to do so. I do not wish—not because of any flaws in her but because—” He could not tell this ancient person the exact truth; what he had said already must serve. “I will know, when I find the right woman, who it is. I felt nothing from within or from the taig.”
“The taig seems not upset, true,” Orlith said. He spoke more slowly than usual. “The Lady assured me it had agreed to your union with the maid if it so happened, but I sense no real regret from the taig that it did not.” He paused, then shook his head. “Well. If that is so, and you have said it is, then so be it. But I warn you, the Lady is not pleased, and you may find her less understanding than I am. She is not wont to let human custom stand in the way of her plans.”
Kieri opened his mouth to ask if she thought the king’s will had any part in her plans but felt something sharp as a pinch in his mind that warned him not to open that topic yet. “Would she ask an oak to grow like an ash?” Kieri asked instead, hoping that metaphor would make sense to Orlith—and, through him, to the Lady. “It is the nature of humans to follow human custom as it is the nature of elves to follow elven.”
“You are half-elven,” Orlith said. “You should be able to follow either.”
“I am but one person,” Kieri said, “and for fifty years knew nothing of my elven heritage. Do not bend hardened wood until it breaks.” He took a breath and dared more. “I am, after all, the king the Lady chose to rule with. She and I together, I thought: making decisions, taking actions. You know I have asked her, more than once, to talk with me, help me bring our people closer. Yet she does not come, and I do not believe she spent a full quarter of the year searching out a mate for me.”
“You criticize the Lady?” Orlith looked furious again.
“I ask why,” Kieri said. “Does she want me to fail? This realm to fail?”
“Of course not!”
“Then she should do her duty.”
“You have no right to speak of