A Hero's Tale (34 page)

"Vintel would have had us murdered," I told Laris. "We escaped her and took refuge in the north. Now I've come back, to accuse her of treachery and to give her warriors an opportunity to choose again whom they will follow."

Laris frowned. "You should come home to Merin's house, to plead your cause before Merin and the elders."

"No," I said. "It was these warriors who disregarded both the counsel of the elders and Merin's leadership and instead followed Vintel to war. I believe I can persuade them that they chose badly."

"And if you don't succeed?"

"As you can see, I have made a few friends in the wider world. They will be glad to make a place for me."

Laris took me by the arm and drew me away from Vintel. Sparrow followed us.

"You don't know the situation here," Laris whispered. "In Merin's house Vintel is the power now. Half the warriors there are hers alone, with no loyalty to Merin. Merin is permitted to remain in her own house as a courtesy and to give Vintel the appearance of legitimacy, but she is no longer in authority."

"Then she can hardly help my cause," I said.

"She may remind her warriors to whom they made their oath."

"Laris," I said. "I won't go where I'm not wanted. If Merin's people trust Vintel's leadership, let them bear the consequences. Only tell my mother that I am living, that I am well and happy and with people who value and respect me. I know you have your own house to return to, but I will welcome any of Merin's people who wish to come with me."

Sparrow slipped her hand into mine. I squeezed it, to let her know that wherever I made my home, she would have a place there.

"Vintel's warriors deserve to bear the consequences of their choices," said Laris. "What about the innocents who will also have to bear them? Will you abandon them?"

"What would you have me do? Shall I impose my will on Vintel's warriors at swordpoint? Can I win their loyalty with force? If I can't persuade them now of my fitness for leadership, how will I ever persuade them of anything else?"

Laris sighed. "I will call Merin's warriors to council," she said.

More warriors had come forward out of Vintel's army, some because they knew me, some out of curiosity. A few went to speak with Vintel, but most of them would have approached me if they had not been kept at a distance by my guard. Behind their shields, swords drawn and ready, Bru's men formed a strong circle around me.

Maara appeared at my side. A look passed between her and Sparrow, and Sparrow let go of my hand.

"Come away a bit while we wait," said Maara.

"Why? I'm safe enough."

"You and Vintel have nothing more to say to each other, and there's no point in trying to explain yourself to the curious. Save your words for the time when they will count."

It was wise advice.

After we had withdrawn a little distance, Maara turned to Sparrow. "What does Tamras need to know?"

Sparrow didn't understand what she was asking.

"What has Vintel told people about our disappearance? What excuses has she made? What has she accused us of?"

"She told everyone you ran away, back to whatever home you always intended to return to, and took Tamras with you. But that's not what she told me. She told me both of you were dead, and she said it was my fault."

"Your fault?" I said. "How could it be your fault?"

"Because I let you out of the armory. Vintel claimed she only meant to drive Maara away, so she locked you up, to keep you from interfering."

"Would she have let me go, to accuse her before the household?"

"She said she had a way to keep you quiet. She said she never meant for you to come to harm."

"And you believed her?"

"I didn't know what to believe. She said you attacked the warriors who were holding Maara. They had no choice but to fight back, and one of them was killed. That much I knew was true. They buried her in secret, but Vintel took me to see her body. It was your arrow in her chest."

"She told you they killed both of us?" asked Maara.

Sparrow nodded.

"But she didn't tell that to the others."

"No."

"Why not?"

"She was afraid they would blame her for Tamras's death."

"They would have," Maara said. "And Namet would have had something to say about what Vintel had planned for me."

"Namet knew Vintel was lying," said Sparrow. "She came to me and demanded to hear the truth. I told her everything. I told her about finding Tamras in the armory, and I told her what Vintel told me. She wouldn't believe that you were dead. She said that if she were twenty years younger she would go to look for you herself."

"How is she?" asked Maara. "Is she well?"

"I don't know," Sparrow replied. "She went home to Arnet's house before the snow fell. She refused to stay in the same house with Vintel."

"Is Merin well?" I asked.

"Merin is very well," said Sparrow, "and it's your mother we have to thank for that. The day you left, Merin fell ill. I couldn't convince her that Tamnet was alive. I'm not surprised she didn't believe me. I was deep in grief myself. Tamar came back just in time, and Tamnet grappled Merin back from the brink."

"How did Vintel explain her lie to Merin?" I asked.

"I don't know what she said to Merin," Sparrow replied. "By then Vintel was afraid that she would be found out. She said nothing publicly, and no one dared confront her about it. Instead she put the word around quietly that it must have been Maara who started the rumor of Tamnet's death, to explain your disappearance and to ensure that that no one would think to search for you until it was too late. Vintel implied that it was she who guessed the truth and sent for Tamnet."

In my mind I compared Elen and Vintel. Next to Elen, Vintel appeared to be no more than a simpleminded blunderer, yet the grief she had caused, the harm she'd done, were as hideous as Elen's wicked deeds. Perhaps stupidity is as dangerous as evil.

"I should have said something," Sparrow whispered. "I should have told everyone what Vintel told me."

"Why didn't you?" Maara asked her.

"I thought you both were dead," she replied. "I didn't see what good could come of tearing the rest of Merin's house apart. I spoke to Namet about it, and she agreed with me. She said if you were dead, Merin's house would need Vintel. If you were not, you would return and bring about Vintel's defeat."

"Namet was right," said Maara.

"Not yet," I said.

Laris soon assembled a council of half a hundred. Each of them had made her oath to Merin, not Vintel, and each of them led a band of warriors loyal to her. If I could win these few, the rest would follow.

I stood silent for a time before them. One by one I met their eyes. I made them look at me. I knew them all.

"Didn't any of you wonder where I was?"

It was not what I had meant to say, but as I looked into the faces of these people with whom I had once shared a place, with whom I had once shared a life, I asked myself why I had believed I could come home. Why should I try to win over the very people who betrayed me? Their loyalty came, not from the oath they took nor from their sense of honor nor from their respect for the wisdom of Merin and the elders, but from fear. All Vintel had had to do was frighten them.

For a moment I was tempted to frighten them myself. A signal from me would bring my army down upon them. They saw my anger in my eyes and shrank away from it.

"Cowards!" I said to them. "Was it easier to shelter from your fears behind Vintel? Was it easier than thinking for yourselves?"

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Maara approaching me.

"Tell them why you disappeared," she said.

"I disappeared because Vintel tried to kill me."

I heard among them not a murmur. No one believed me.

"You believed rumors put about in whispers," I said. "You believed scandal and idle gossip. You believed things so absurd that if you had dared speak them aloud, you would have seen they were ridiculous. I'm not surprised you don't recognize the truth when you hear it."

Maara moved closer and would have spoken again, but I gestured to her to back away. I knew that I was speaking from my anger, that my heart had overruled my head. I didn't care. I didn't care whether they accepted me or not. I almost hoped they wouldn't. I almost hoped they would set me free.

That thought calmed me enough to enable me to speak to them without emotion. I told them how Vintel lured Maara out of Merin's house, how she locked me in the armory, how Sparrow found me there and let me go. I told them what Vintel said to me, that she threatened Maara's life to make me promise to go home.

"You said I tried to kill you."

Vintel's voice came from close beside me. I turned to face her.

"Sending you home is not the same as killing you," she said. "I wanted you out of Merin's house for a while, that's all."

Vintel thought she was being clever. With Sparrow as a witness, she had no choice but to admit that she had caused our disappearance. Now she had to justify what she had done. But she had also shown herself to be a liar.

"You told me that if I agreed to leave Merin's house, you would let Maara take refuge with Laris," I said, "yet I found your warriors taking Maara to our northern border. What would they have done with her there? Did they plan to let her go? Do you claim that you didn't intend for them to kill her?"

Vintel shrugged, as if Maara's fate could be of no interest to anyone but me.

"Will you now deny what you just told me, that your warriors lied to you, that they told you they had killed us both? If they lied to escape your anger, they knew that was what you wanted. Why would I believe you would not have killed me too?"

Murmurs began among the assembled warriors. Vintel sensed that she was losing their trust and their good will.

"Maara was a danger to us," she said. "You were not."

"Maara was never a danger to us. Maara was one of us."

"Maara fooled you. She fooled Namet too. You were too young to know better, and Namet had been fooled before. I knew that Maara was just waiting for her chance."

"Her chance? What chance?"

"To betray us to our enemies."

"Was she?" I turned to Maara. "Your chance has come. Give the word, and I will call down upon them every warrior at my command."

Maara shook her head at me. Her eyes were angry. "Don't even think it." She wasn't speaking for the benefit of Merin's warriors. She was scolding me. "Don't even think it, much less say it. Was it only yesterday that you complained of the burden of responsibility for the northern dead? What will you feel if you conspire in the murder of your own."

I smiled at her and turned back to Merin's warriors. They were terrified.

"Maara has just saved your lives," I told them. "Who among you will accuse her of intending to bring harm to Merin's house?"

No one spoke. I waited, until they grew calm enough to hear me.

"Vintel was wrong," I said. "She was wrong about Maara, as she has been wrong about a great many other things. You followed her because you depended on her strength, but strength is not enough. Without wisdom strength is a bull blundering among the lilies."

"I hardly think Tamras can lay claim to wisdom," Vintel said. "She's just a child."

"This child has defeated you upon the battlefield," I replied. "But I was not claiming wisdom for myself. Merin is wise, yet you set her will aside. The elders are wise, yet you don't avail yourself of their counsel. If you had listened to their wisdom, you would not now be at the mercy of your enemies."

"Are you speaking of the northern tribes," Vintel asked me, "or are you speaking of yourself?"

Without waiting for an answer, she turned to the assembled warriors.

"Don't you see what is before your eyes? Don't you see that Tamras has joined forces with your enemies? Why would you believe that Tamras bears you no ill will? Was it not Tamras who just threatened to destroy you?"

Maara stepped forward. "If Tamras wanted to destroy you, you would be lying in your blood here on this ground." Then she turned to me. "They are at your mercy. It's time to stop toying with them and state your terms."

"My terms?" I said. "Here are my terms. If you are pleased with Vintel's leadership, then release me from any obligation to the folk of Merin's house and let me go my own way in peace with any who wish to join me. But if you recall a better time, when you trusted Merin's wisdom to keep you safe and free from fear, follow me back to Merin's house and let Vintel and all who belong to her go where they will, as long as it's somewhere else."

Merin's warriors turned to Vintel, perhaps to see if she had agreed to this bargain.

"I told her what answer you would give her," Vintel said to them.

She was trying to appear confident, but I sensed that she had begun to worry. I think she expected them to acclaim her right away. Instead they looked undecided, as they waited to hear what she would say on her own behalf.

"If I leave Merin's house," she said, "half your strength in warriors will go with me. Then who will protect you from the northern tribes?"

"As you can see," said Maara, "it is Tamras who now stands between you and the northern tribes."

Vintel would have ignored her, but the warriors had all turned their eyes to Maara and listened with respect.

"Oh, yes," Vintel said. "We can see that you have struck a bargain with the northern tribes. How much of our goods have you promised them and how long will you be able to appease them? When they tire of bribes and empty promises, you will regret the loss of the strength you now think so little of."

"I have promised them nothing but my friendship," I replied.

Vintel snorted. "How long will they be satisfied with that?"

"You misunderstand the situation here," said Maara. "The northerners you see are the remnant of an army so vast that they would have easily defeated you. They would have slaughtered every one of you here in the wilderness before marching south to murder everyone at home. Then they would have taken everything -- your goods, your homes, your lands. All would be theirs, but for Tamras, who defeated them before they could do you harm. But for Tamras, the northern tribes would even now be feasting in Merin's great hall."