Oath of Fealty (70 page)

They nodded and muttered their agreement, shuffling off to their posts. Dorrin followed, making sure each was in his place, then went to the great glass in the downstairs hall and turned it, ringing the bell to start the watch. She went into the room where the royal treasures were, carrying the old trousers and shirt she slept in, and looked at the sack a moment. “I wish,” she said, “you could tell me your history and
why you think you want me …” Then she changed, laid her court clothes on the table and stretched out on the floor, a candlestick and her sword to hand.

The house creaked, as old houses did. She heard no mice or rats—with no food in the house since before the Evener, they would have moved to better quarters. The room was stuffy with its shutters closed, but she’d slept in hotter, stuffier places. The smells were old and dry, whatever they were; she knew that here on the floor she would be smelling odors tracked in from the street, as well as those intrinsic to the house. She dozed off.

When the bell rang, she woke at once, lit the candle with her own magelight, and went to check on the rotation of the watch. Overhead, she heard Perin coming down … and then one by one they moved as she had directed. When they were all in place, she turned the glass again and went back to get what rest she could.

Dawn came early near midsummer; Dorrin woke Efla and Jaim, and sent three of her escort to sleep as soon as they’d had breakfast. The other two, she promised, would have their time later. Her own breakfast she scarcely tasted, thinking of all that must be done: find a suitable container for the treasure, cleanse the taint of blood magery, find the many traps … and the day-to-day running of the house, the market trips, the laundry, carting away the horses’ dung, fetching straw and hay …

A knock on the door interrupted her search for a suitable container—she had found three, but all heavily spelled—and she hurried downstairs as Eddes called her.

When she opened the door, two Marshals wearing formal blue tabards and two yeomen with blue sashes were waiting.

“Be welcome,” Dorrin said. “May I have your names?”

“Marshal Veksin,” one said, “and my yeoman-marshal Gilles.” The other, Marshal Tamis, introduced another yeoman-marshal, Berin.

“We should start with the worst contamination,” Tamis said. “Will you take us there, please?”

“Yes,” Dorrin said, “but I am required at the palace this morning and three of my men—who had watch the night through—are sleeping there—” She nodded to the smaller reception room, where the men snored away on the floor and her clothes were still laid out on the table.

“How many servants did you bring with you?” Marshal Tamis asked.

“Just a cook and a boy to help,” Dorrin said. “And five men for an escort and to manage the animals. I am more used to traveling light, military style, and did not think what a house this size might need.”

“I hear the prince visited yestereve,” Marshal Veksin said. He sounded as if he disapproved.

“The prince, Duke Mahieran, and High Marshal Seklis,” Dorrin said. “They did me the honor of coming here after I went to the palace; given the circumstances, I scarcely expected it and was not, alas, prepared to receive them as handsomely as they deserved.”

“They parted friendly, I heard,” Veksin said.

“Indeed so,” Dorrin said. “I had never met the prince, in my years with Duke Phelan’s Company, but the Duke had told me about him. It was both honor and delight to meet him and the others.”

A grunt from behind indicated that Veksin was thinking about that. Now on the second floor, she led them to her uncle’s study. “That,” she said, nodding at Liart’s symbol on the wall and the bloodstains on the floor. “I am not wise in such matters, but it seems to me this is the worst. Next would be the bedrooms, with blood on the thresholds and bloodmarks under the beds.”

“Are there simple traps here?” Marshal Tamis asked.

“Undoubtedly,” Dorrin said. “I have found two hands’ worth at least, so far, and expect to find more. No chair here is completely safe, nor drawer nor cabinet door, and I would not handle those things that look most interesting or valuable. I will show you one trap I have not yet disarmed.” With the butt of her dagger, Dorrin pressed on the back of one chair; a spike emerged from the upholstery, its tip clearly darker than the rest. “That is poison,” Dorrin said. “Anyone who sits in this chair, without the trap being disarmed, looses a spring and that spike will pierce clothing, even leather.”

“Can you disarm it?”

“Not without taking the chair apart, which is itself dangerous. On Verrakai’s own domain, I burned such things, which also destroyed the poison. Here, in the city, fire is too dangerous. I planned to have them broken up in the stableyard, and burn the parts containing poison in the kitchen hearth.”

“Will you wish to observe our work?” Veklis asked.

“No,” Dorrin said. “As I am required at the palace, I have things to do before then. Call if you need me; I will tell you when I leave for the palace.”

Downstairs, she gave up on the two difficult chests, and looked into the larder. There she found a plain wooden box, untrapped, and in the linen press off the large reception room, a small tablecloth, heavily embroidered, for a cover. She herself packed the treasure into it, covered it with the tablecloth, and tied the cloth on with blue velvet ropes from the drapes. A certain sullen resentment emanated from the box; Dorrin murmured to it as to a child.

“You will be safe; you will be honored; all will be well.”

I am yours; you are mine; no other will suffice
.

“If you are mine, then it is my will you abide here for the time being,” Dorrin said.

No more blood!

“No more blood,” Dorrin said. “A place of safety and honor.”

How long?

How long indeed? She had intended to live and die as a faithful vassal of the king of Tsaia. Yet the oath she had sworn did not say “until death” as many such oaths did. “I do not know how long,” she said to the treasure. “But for now, abide in peace.”

Until you come again, but do not wait too long
.

The sense of resentment vanished, replaced by watchful patience. Dorrin laid her hand on the box, and through all the wrappings felt a tingle as if she held one of those treasures in her hand.

The rest of the morning, as she woke the first three from sound sleep and chivvied them back to work, let the other two sleep, answered myriad questions from the cook, from the escort who were awake, from the Marshals, she felt like someone trying to push a handful of balls uphill—the moment she let go of one problem, two others would roll down on her. Finally she was ready to return to the palace: properly dressed in clean clothes, the box lashed to the pack-saddle of one horse, mounted on a horse she’d had to remind her escort three times to groom. Even as she turned to ride away, Efla appeared, to report that she’d seen a mouse in the larder.

Dorrin spent the short ride from the house to the palace wondering if she could find any trustworthy house staff for hire at such a time.
At the gate, this time, she was recognized and waved through; stable help took the horses and palace servants ran out to help, putting the box in a sling between poles.

“It is a coronation gift,” Dorrin said. “The prince knows of it.” They nodded and followed her to the entrance.

“The Master of Ceremonies wishes to meet with you,” said the guard at the door. “He has been summoned.”

The Master of Ceremonies, wearing a short cape of brilliant red over Kostvan colors, an eye-startling combination, strode down the hall toward her.

“My lord Duke, welcome! I apologize for not being at hand yestereve when you arrived; the prince bids you to luncheon with him, if you will, and has given me explicit instructions about your generous gift. It is not, I understand, suitable for public display?”

“As the prince wishes,” Dorrin said. “He knows what it is; it might provoke … comment.”

“Then come with me to the treasury, and we will see it safe housed.” He signaled to the servants and led them all deep into the palace, again confusing Dorrin’s sense of direction. “This is not the old treasury. The old treasury was found to have a tunnel entrance, from the days when it was the cellar of the original tower. That tower fell in the Girdish war, its secrets lost until, after the attack on the prince, we looked more closely. The new treasury is above ground, in the interior.”

Guards stood at the door; the Master of Ceremonies signed a book on a stand to one side, then unlocked the door and led Dorrin and the servants with the box inside. It looked much like the bank vaults Dorrin had seen in Aarenis—a windowless room with shelves, boxes, heavy leather sacks, ledger books.

“Does the prince know what this contains?” he asked.

“Yes,” Dorrin said. “He, Duke Mahieran, and High Marshal Seklis.”

“It must be inventoried,” the Master of Ceremonies said. “That is the Seneschal’s task.” To one of the guards he said, “Fetch the Seneschal.”

The Seneschal and the High Marshal arrived together, and shooed the Master of Ceremonies away. “You can instruct Duke Verrakai on
the ceremony when we’ve inventoried the gifts.” Dorrin unwrapped the box, opened it, and then unwrapped the gifts, opening the box to show its jewels still intact. The Seneschal, with no change of expression, wrote down a description of each one. Then he and Dorrin rewrapped, retied, and finally she was able to leave and attend the Master of Ceremonies, a few paces away from the door, waving his arms and giving directions to the servants.

“There you are! I must conduct you to the prince’s dining hall for luncheon, and on the way, explain the details of tomorrow’s ceremonies. You will need—” He looked at Dorrin. “—you will need a ducal robe—do you have one?”

“Yes,” Dorrin said, stretching her legs to keep up with him, and trying at the same time to understand where in the massive pile she was. “I do—you mean the long one with fur at the cuffs?”

“Yes. And shoes, not boots. Your sword will do, but it must have a tassel, in silver, the length of your hand; if you do not have that, you should seek out the royal outfitters in Bridge Street. Short breeks, tied at the knee with ribbons of your family colors, with a rosette. The shirt to be adorned with lace—wider than that on your shirt today. A velvet cap, with a feather—silver pheasant is best.”

He kept on, all the way down a set of stairs Dorrin was sure she had not seen before, then announced her at the door of a room that overlooked the front courtyard. After a moment, she recognized it from the evening before, but now the long table was covered with a green cloth, centered with bouquets of roses, cream and pink and red and yellow, their scent filling the room. Besides the prince and Duke Mahieran, she saw other men and women in the dress of nobles … by the colors and insignia, this was the Regency Council.

“Be welcome, Duke Verrakai,” the prince said. One by one he called the others forward to introduce her. Dorrin knew Marrakai had been Kieri Phelan’s friend; the burly man wearing the ducal chain gave her an appraising look and finally nodded.

“You look like one of Kieri’s men—and it was you who rode through here like the winter gale to come to his aid, was it not?”

“Yes,” Dorrin said. If he would not give her an honorific, she would not either.

“You’re very different from the previous Duke Verrakai.”

“I should hope so.” Dorrin smiled at him. “Whatever I am, my lords and ladies, your prince, tomorrow our king, found me worthy. If you have a quarrel with his judgment, do not bring it to me.”

“Well said, Duke Verrakai,” Duke Serrostin said. “I have no quarrel with you, but with your family I had several.”

T
he next morning, Dorrin arrived at the palace to find that she had been assigned a dressing room and two tiring maids to help. The tiring maids, used to helping noble ladies into their dresses, stared at Dorrin in her trousers and boots with some dismay. “But—you’re a lady …”

“I’m a duke,” Dorrin said. “And I’ve spent my life as a soldier. I brought the clothes I was told to bring.”

Giggling, the tiring maids helped her into them: the elaborately ruffled shirt with its lace collar and cuffs, the striped, bloused short trousers, the slashed doublet through which the shirt’s sleeves had to be carefully tugged to make symmetrical puffs, the stockings, the ribbons tied at the knee, the formal high-heeled court shoes, silver buckles decorated with yet more jewels in the Verrakai colors. Everything had ruffles or lace or jewels or some combination of these.

It was ridiculous, Dorrin thought, and yet … she did feel different, inside that magnificence. She fastened Falk’s ruby to the lace of the collar, one drop of red in all that blue and silver and gray.

A knock on the door. “A half-glass, my lord,” came a voice through the door. Dorrin picked up the blue velvet cap with its silver-pheasant feather and put it on, then looked in the mirror as the tiring maids lifted the formal robe and held it for her. She slipped her arms into the sleeves. In the mirror, she saw the transformation completed. No more Dorrin the runaway. No more Dorrin the student at Falk’s
Hall. No more Dorrin, cohort captain in Phelan’s Company … but Dorrin, Duke Verrakai. This was what people would see, now and in the future … not her past, but her present.