Blood and Memory (40 page)

He nodded. “Be safe, my queen.”

“Liryk is bringing enough manpower to take on the Morgravian army,” she said, trying to lighten his mood.

There was no smile in return. “Don’t jest, highness. I hope you never face such a thing,” and he bowed and removed himself.

She considered stopping him but left it. Krell was showing rare anger here, and whether or not he couched it in polite words, he was most unhappy with her. So be it. “Be true to yourself first,” he father had always said. “Follow your instincts even if counsel wishes otherwise.”

And that’s what I’m doing
, she reminded herself,
following my instincts
.

One small consolation for Krell and Liryk was that the Yentran woman was not riding out with them. She had taken herself off to check on Pil, muttering something about waiting for Ylena.

“I don’t care what she does,” Liryk had admitted privately to the Chancellor. “Just as long as she’s not around to whisper in the ear of our queen.”

“I can’t agree more,” Krell said. “I don’t doubt she’s been through plenty, but none of it is our concern. We must keep the Queen focused on her marriage, and this Elspyth is a serious threat to it.”

Liryk snorted. “And you don’t think riding off to Brackstead to hear more of Celimus’s savory activities isn’t?” he scoffed.

Krell ignored the sarcasm, accepting that both his and Liryk’s nerves were frayed. “I can’t stop her in this, Commander. Just keep her safe and bring our queen home as fast as you can.”

The soldier nodded. “Hopefully the Morgravian noblewoman’s already dead,” he whispered. “Nothing more for her majesty to learn.”

“Yes, but we still have the business with the head and if Lady Donal is still alive she’s no doubt brimming with some sordid story,” he said, disgusted. “This is none of our business,” he added, more to himself than anyone else.

Liryk sighed. “Time to go.”

“Shar guide you,” Krell muttered. He did not mention to the Commander that an idea was forming in his mind. It was one laced with its own perils, but the Chancellor was feeling uncharacteristically ruffled by events. He was a man used to being in total control—both of his own emotions and of his office. Suddenly all of the activities of recent days were spinning beyond his normal reach. The Queen was making firm, independent decisions, and although she still looked to him for counsel and indeed friendship, here she was riding off impetuously, he felt, on behalf of Morgravians.

When the messenger from Celimus had first brought news of Wyl Thirsk’s imminent arrival, Magnus had risked saying to Krell—when neither could imagine what in Shar’s name the enemy might be doing in making a diplomatic mission—that this might indeed be an offer of marriage to Valentyna from the Prince of Morgravia. The King had said little more upon seeing Krell’s startled expression, although he added that as much as it galled him to face the thought of giving Briavel’s most prized and beloved jewel to Morgravia, he considered it the most inspired move either monarch might make in his reign.

Krell had not forgotten that conversation, or the look of awe on his majesty’s face at the notion that peace might be possible…that Briavellian sons might live to old age without facing battle and that their sons could be raised never knowing the threat of war or of defeat. Krell, who had been a close friend and confidant to the King as well as a counselor, wanted to see Valor’s vision come true. He did not like Celimus; for all his easy charm and grace, his honeyed words and grand style, the man was sly. His eyes were cold and calculating and something dark lurked within. In spite of this, and as much as Krell loved Valentyna, he also knew she must make this sacrifice for her people. Unlike Thirsk and the other critics, Krell did not believe Celimus would seek to destroy her majesty or her realm; he truly believed she had the ability to affect Celimus, change him…and begin a mighty dynasty that embraced both realms.

Krell had taken up Valor’s vision and was determined to bring it to reality. The fact that he had won the Queen’s cooperation and acceptance that this marriage was her duty, that he had been able to see her signature on the bottom of the parchment on its way back to Morgravia, was a balm to his troubled soul. But these new events unfurling threatened to damage the pledge of marriage irrevocably. He could not let it happen. He, Krell, would have to do something…at least make an effort to save the situation.

His mind was made up. Another messenger would be sent. A private one. The recipient would surely assist in easing the passage toward marriage, perhaps help him put out these fires that kept threatening to burn down the two realms’ plans for peace.

As the Queen and her entourage thundered across the Werryl Bridge in a bid to reach Brackstead before the Lady Aleda breathed her last, Krell summoned a page.

“Have a courier readied at once.”

“Yes, Chancellor Krell,” the wide-eyed lad said. “What message shall I give him, sir?” the boy asked.

“Tell him it’s a letter to Chancellor Jessom of Morgravia.”

Fynch was as fascinated to hear Elysius’s tale as Wyl was, and even though he felt himself fading quietly into the shadows while the conversation between his two companions continued, he knew he would drink in the details as if he were parched.

“I am Myrren’s father,” Elysius began “but my story begins much further back…when I was a youngster growing up in the far eastern province of Parrgamyn.”

“Where Queen Adana was born?”

“That’s right. And the cruel, cold streak that ran in that woman also ran in the bones of my younger brother. I don’t know where he is—he’s somewhere in Morgravia, I suspect—but I feel the malevolent swell of his magic and its dark activities.”

“How did you both come to be here?”

“Our parents migrated as part of Adana’s retinue when she was sent to Pearlis to marry Magnus. My father was one of her father’s most trusted advisers. The King of Parrgamyn asked him to accompany the young Adana on her journey to the far southwest. My father didn’t want to go—he despised the woman for her determination to wipe out those gifted with magic—but in the end he had no choice. His family was his secret, you see.”

“Because you were empowered,” Wyl finished.

Elysius nodded. “Yes. It came from my mother’s side, but it was very strong in us boys, which is odd. It normally transfers powerfully through women, not men, but my mother told me once that there was a wildness to our magic she could not account for.”

“So you came to Stoneheart.”

“We didn’t live there, though. Adana quietly set up a household for her own people in Soulstone.”

“Oh…of course.” Wyl said, remembering the story now. “Did she prefer the country palace of the south?”

Elysius snorted. “No. She never had a kind word for anything Morgravian. But she preferred to have her own people away from Stoneheart itself. She hated Pearlis and Morgravia’s king. She had grand ideas of running separate courts; it was very obvious to all that she could hardly bear to spend any time near the King. Then Celimus came along unexpectedly and that changed her life dramatically. As I understand it, even though Magnus didn’t have much time for the boy, he certainly wouldn’t agree to his heir being carted off to Soulstone. He wanted him in the capital. From what I gathered from my father, this enraged Adana and life between the two royals became strained enough for us to feel its chill even all the way south.”

“And how old were you by then?” Wyl asked, trying to work out Elysius’s age.

“We were lads. I was sixteen, my brother fourteen.” He sighed softly. “Myrren’s mother was so much older than I. In light of what it has cost me, I wish I had never set eyes on her during one of those rare visits we made to Pearlis with our father. He was often called upon to advise Adana, but he did not like us boys coming into the city with him.”

“Was he worried about you?”

“Not about me. About Rashlyn.” Wyl sat forward, his mouth suddenly dry. Elysius saw the change in his guest’s demeanor immediately. “What’s wrong?”

“You said Rashlyn?”

The man nodded.

“I’ve met him.”

It was Elysius’s turn to be surprised. “I lost trace of him when I was banished.”

Wyl ignored the startling statement. “He works for the King of the Razors.”

The man’s eyes narrowed. “Cailech!” Elysius declared, quietly shocked. “So that’s where he is. What use is he to the Mountain King?”

“Plenty, apparently. He bears the title of barshi, I gather, which means wise or magic man in the old tongue of the north. He and the King are close. But more than that, I sense your brother has a somewhat unhealthy hold over the King.”

Elysius bared his horse teeth in a grimace. “My brother will work out a way to control him. Rashlyn is very dangerous. He is the reason I appear to you in this guise.”

“Guise?”

The Manwitch smiled ruefully. “There’s so much to tell you,” he said, realizing his tale was disjointed, leaping from one amazing fact to another. “I was actually quite a handsome sort once. Tall and strong. Myrren’s mother, Emil, was a fine-looking woman whom I met while running a couple of messages to her husband, who was physic to Adana. He was older than her by a number of years and I think she found herself lacking in amorous activity, you could say.” He grinned. “She was attracted to me from the moment we met—I could tell.” He shrugged. “And what young man would say no? She possessed a brilliant scholar’s mind too.”

Wyl’s eyes widened with understanding and he glanced toward Fynch, whose attention was riveted on their host. “And she became pregnant,” he stated.

“Immediately. It only happened once,” Elysius admitted. “But then she became obsessed with me. It was sad. I do believe she actually loved me and in a way I her, although there was no future for us. My father discovered the truth and was horrified—not just because of my indiscretion—but there was the threat of passing my abilities on to a child, you see.”

“Which you did.”

“Only marginally. Myrren was not a witch in the true sense, Wyl. She had some powers, mainly of the healing sort, and if she’d had the chance to follow in her father’s footsteps—I mean the man she called father—she would have been very talented at medicine.”

Wyl was astonished to hear this. “Not a witch! But the gift?”

“Is all my doing. I channeled through Myrren.”

“As you channel through Knave?” Fynch chimed in, his first words in such a long time that his host had all but forgotten the quiet lad.

Elysius nodded. “Yes, son. That’s right, as I use Knave to be my eyes and body elsewhere.”

Wyl sat back, speechless. He had truly believed Myrren to be a witch, and ever since Knave had revealed his mysterious powers, Wyl had convinced himself that Myrren had possessed magics she had managed to keep secret for years. He said as much.

Her father shook his head sadly. “She was innocent, poor child.”

Still trying to absorb this revelation, Wyl pressed on. “But why me?”

Elysius shrugged. “You were the only one who showed her any pity that day. She did not deserve to die, especially not as she did. That young woman never exercised her weak powers on anything but doing good for others. If not for her eyes, which she unluckily inherited from her great-grandmother, no one would have been any the wiser. I was angry, Wyl. She wanted revenge on those who hurt her and I wanted to give her that.”

“So you used me.”

He nodded. “I could tell you were the only person in that chamber who possessed nobility in the true sense of the word. I could count on you.”

“To do what?” Wyl asked, his voice rising in rare anger.

“To kill the man who crafted her death,” Elysius answered quietly.

“Lymbert?” Wyl said, aghast.

Elysius shook his head. “Lymbert was only the instrument.”

“As I understand it, then, Lord Rokan called for her death,” Wyl continued, his anger still high. “And Magnus permitted it.”

Once again the Manwitch demurred. “Neither of them. Yes, they were responsible, but they were not the key to Myrren’s suffering. One person alone encouraged the King to sign her warrant. One person alone enjoyed her agony more than any.”

“Celimus,” Fynch whispered from the corner.

They both looked toward the boy and Elysius nodded. “Yes, Celimus. I heard him talking, boasting about how he had coerced his father into allowing the torture and trial.”

Wyl’s mind felt like tangled threads. “How did you hear it?”

“Through Myrren. You were there also, Wyl, but I think you were too young, too alarmed, perhaps, to concentrate on the prince bragging to those gathered.”

“No…no, I do remember now. The priest was saying a final prayer and above it Celimus was boasting that the trial had been his idea,” Wyl recalled, frowning.

“That’s right. And then Myrren singled him out, demanding to know why a prince of the realm would be present for such mummery.”

“And he said it was in the name of education, using me as his excuse,” Wyl followed up despairingly, remembering it all again as if it had been yesterday.

“Myrren sensed your hatred for the Prince, Wyl. She might not have been endowed with pure magic, but her powers gave her a highly developed perception of others—it allowed her to see you, look into you. My daughter knew you were true and that you despised the young man who had forced you to watch the ugly proceedings. She learned who you were that day and knew that you had the ear of the King and the status that could wield power. She chose you. But it was I who used you, son. Forgive me. If I could take it back, I would.”

“You can’t?” Wyl asked plaintively. He had secretly harbored the hope the Manwitch could reverse the gift.

Elysius shook his large head with deep regret. “No. It must run its course.”

“What course?” Wyl cried, not understanding, Ylena’s voice ascending in tone. He hated to hear himself.

Their host pursed his wide lips and stood, clearly upset. He began clearing the table. Wyl’s temper flared and boiled over.

“Leave it!” he cried, reaching for the man’s curiously elongated arms. “I must know!”

Elysius looked down at where Ylena’s fingers dug cruelly into his arm, where the pressure of her anger had chased away the blood to leave blanched spots.

Wyl pulled her arm away as if stung. “Forgive me, Elysius. This is a burden… a… a curse,” he moaned, feeling the full strain of Myrren’s Gift.

The little man returned to his clearing and silence spread uneasily about the large room in which they ate, punctuated only by the clank of dishes. Wyl sat glumly while Fynch maintained his quiet. Elysius busied himself making a pot of tea and soon the silence eased itself into something less awkward and more comfortable. Elysius sat himself closer this time when he returned to the table and surprised Wyl by taking Ylena’s uncared for, yet still-elegant hands between his two enormous palms. His eyes, now sightless, seemed to regard Wyl all the same.

“There is nothing to forgive, son. The apology is all mine. I deeply regret all the terrible events that have occurred and wish I could change the magic that is within you, but I can’t. Once cast, it is its own master. No one controls it.”

“But how do I stop it?” This time Wyl’s voice held nothing but helplessness. Fynch had to look away, unable to bear the look of defeat on Ylena’s face or his own sense of loss at this news.

“It will stop,” Elysius answered gravely.

Fynch held his breath at the words and watched Wyl lift Ylena’s head to search his host’s face. “Tell me how,” he whispered.

It was Elysius who could not hold his guest’s gaze this time. “It will stop when you become the person you are meant to be. Who Myrren wanted you to be.” Wyl swallowed. He thought he already knew the answer; did not want to believe it. Elysius spoke the words Wyl did not want to hear. “The sovereign of Morgravia.”

Wyl’s emotions were not his to command at this moment and he let out a long, shrill cry of such deep despair that Fynch began to weep softly in his corner.

“No,” Wyl begged. “Please, Elysius.”

The man of magic held his large head low. “I’m so sorry.”

When Wyl pushed the chair away and disappeared out of the chamber’s door, Elysius told Fynch to let him be. “The dog will go with him. Wyl can come to no harm in the Wild with Knave nearby.”