Sons of the Falcon (The Falcons Saga) (16 page)

While Carah showed her gift to her
mother and grandmother, Thorn nudged his twin. “A word?” Following Kelyn to the
lord’s study, he remarked, “Mother’s looking a bit pale. Has she been ill?”

“Does she?” Kelyn glanced back
along the corridor. Alovi laughed in delight as Carah demonstrated her skill at
spinning around on one foot to make her new dress bloom out around her. “You
know Mother. She never complains and avoids a fuss. She hasn’t been out in her
garden as much this season. Maybe that’s the cause.” He closed the study door
behind them. “So?”

“It’s nothing much,” Thorn said,
“but I found out what
bogginai
means.”

“What
what
means?”
Recognition dawned in Kelyn’s face. “Oh, of course. How long ago did I ask
about that?”

“Six years ago, on the day I came
home to meet Carah. Apologies, I forgot till now. Then something came up,
reminded me. Anyway, it’s the dwarven word for ‘ogres’.”

“Do they mean that literally?”

Thorn unsheathed a dagger he wore on
his belt. The handle was yellow ivory, pitted with black runnels and carved
with delicate floral patterns. It was the dagger he used to extract tusks. He
handed it to his brother, hilt first. “That’s not a boar’s tusk.”

“I should hope not.” Boar’s tusks
were no wider than his pinkie, triangular, razor sharp on two sides; the one he
held was round, smooth, and big enough to provide an ample grip for a man’s
hand. “Then what?”

“I don’t earn stripes on my arms
for killing boar. Remember? I told you all this. You didn’t believe me.” Thorn
tried to sound wounded, but the suppressed chuckle ruined the effect.

Kelyn examined the dagger and his
twin in turns. The truth of the matter drove any good humor out of him. “The
clans have been at war with ogres all these years, and Brugge told me nothing?”
He handed the dagger back and sank onto the edge of his desk. “Figured it was
something like this, though. The Thyrvael dwarves have been entrusted with a
portion of the gold cache in exchange for iron. All Brugge told me was that his
Drakhan cousins were using the iron to forge weapons.”

“Aye, it’s no wonder the Drakhan dwarves
have sealed their gates. They could wage war for years underground and we’d
never know.”

“Why haven’t they asked for aid
from us?”

“Pride, mostly. Secondly, humans
can’t see ogres.”

“I remember. But the dwarves can?”

“They have their methods.”

“Could the fighting spill over,
above ground?”

“It has, in spots, but nothing
aimed at humans, not since Lord Zeldanor’s death.”

“And how do you know all this?”

“The Elarion keep an eye on things.
Sometimes they let me into their confidence. But don’t mention that in your
correspondence.”

Kelyn snorted. “Who would believe
me?”

A
fter a family feast that
featured several helpings of sweetberry custard, sickeningly rich sugarcakes,
and sweet-tart lemon cider, the birthday girl fairly spun off the walls. She
squealed in an unladylike tumbling match with her Uncle Thorn on the parlor
rug, diving under chairs and tables to escape him, then scrambling out the
other side to pounce him with all the wild determination of a monkey on choice
fruit. The hem of her new dress already needed mending. Grieva herded Carah
upstairs to change, and as soon as she returned wearing her hand-me-down play
clothes, the match resumed. A pillow flew. A chair overturned. Lemon cider
spilled.

Alovi watched from a rocking chair,
swaying leisurely and smiling in contentment. Having all her family under the
same roof again was plenty of reason to neglect the embroidery laying in her
lap.

Kethlyn sat on a footstool near his
grandmother and dug into his box of tiny pewter soldiers. They were painted in
exquisite detail, uniforms bright blue with black falcons across their chests.
He made a point to occupy himself with his back turned to the wrestling match.

From a safe perch on the lounging
couch, Rhoslyn shook her head at her daughter’s oh-so-feminine attempts to wrap
Thorn in a headlock. “Next year, remind me to warn Nelda to go easy on the
sweets. She’ll never get to sleep.”

Even after her exertions, Carah laid
wide-eyed among her pink pillows. Her mother tucked her in, then admitted Thorn
for storytelling. In the nursery’s vestibule, Rhoslyn whispered, “If the
stories don’t work, feel free to use a little fairy magic to put her to sleep.”

Thorn choked on laughter. “Who told
you about that?”

“Isn’t that what fairies do?”

“You’ve forgotten the tales, then.
Fairy sleep lasts for a hundred years. Carah would be terribly disappointed if
she missed that many birthdays.” An unexpected ache rose into his chest as
Rhoslyn laughed and touched his arm in farewell.
Balance, keep the balance
,
he told himself.

A small voice from inside the
nursery steadied him. “Uncle Thorn? Are you there?”

He settled into the storyteller’s
armchair beside the bed, and as soon as Rhoslyn’s footsteps faded, Carah kicked
aside the blankets and crawled into his lap.

“Don’t worry, I won’t get in
trouble. It’s still my birthday.” She snuggled into the crook of his arm and said,
“Tell me another story about Laniel Falconeye. And make it a story with
dragons.”

“Are you sure that’s a story that
will put you to sleep?”

“Make it a sleepy dragon.”

Thorn did his best to fulfill the
request, but Carah showed little sign of getting sleepy. She rarely stayed
awake long enough to hear the end of one of his stories, so Thorn had to
stretch his imagination to invent a satisfactory conclusion. Somewhere along
the line, the sleepy dragon became a rampaging dragon who was cranky because he
hadn’t slept in a thousand-million years. He growled and complained atop his
hoard of stolen gold and had a fiery breath that scared little girls away. “But
Falconeye hefted his spear and braved the fires behind his enchanted shield. The
greatest marksman of the Elarion, he drove the spear into the dragon’s heart
and won all the gold for the lovely Princess Carah. The end. Are you asleep?”

Carah lifted troubled eyes. “He
killed it?”

“You wanted a dragon.”

“It was supposed to be a
sleepy
dragon, Uncle Thorn. Laniel wasn’t supposed to kill it.”

“Heroes kill dragons, what can I
say?”

She glowered, unconvinced. “Is
Laniel real?”

“Of course he is. He’s my
oath-brother.”

“What’s an oath-brother?”

“Someone who promises to be
like
a brother for all your days.”

“Is an oath-brother better than a
real brother?”

“Nothing is better than a real
brother. Laniel comes close, but your da is my very best friend.” There were
times, in the dark of night, when this wasn’t true, but morning faithfully
dispelled old resentment as the sun dispelled the shadows.

“Kethlyn isn’t
my
best
friend.”

“He might be one day, you’ll see.”

Carah mulled this over in silence,
and after a while Thorn thought she’d finally drifted off, but she sighed and asked,
“Does Laniel really hunt dragons for princesses?”

“Sure he does.” Thorn hoped the lie
would appease her curiosity so she’d agree to go to sleep. Besides, what was
the harm? When was Falconeye likely to find out? “He
rescues
princesses,
too, from ogres and giants and all sorts of nasty things.”

“From rágazeths, too?”

Thorn flinched, then leaned away so
he could look her in the eye. “Where did you hear about the rágazeth?”

Catching the change in his tone, Carah
shrank deeper into the hollow of the chair. “Da said you saved him from
somebody called a rágazeth.”

Thorn’s hackles prickled at the
sound of the word rolling off his niece’s tongue. “The rágazeth isn’t a
somebody, Carah. It’s a some
thing
. A very bad something. Your da
shouldn’t have told you about it. It’s not a story for little girls.”

“I’m not little anymore,” she
insisted. “It’s my birthday.”

“You’re still young enough to be
frightened by that story. So am I.”

“When I’m as old as you will you
tell me?”

“Not at bedtime.” He smoothed a
dark curl from her eyes and tried to a smile. “Think about Laniel instead. And
dragons. They’re safer.” Even though Thorn had destroyed the Soul Snatcher,
saving Kelyn and earning his four gold stripes in the struggle, he still had
nightmares of it pursuing him through dark woods and empty, derelict castles. Always
he saw its eyes. Eyes as soulless as the Abyss, devoid of life and mercy, that
sucked into their black emptiness the light of his own soul.

Carah climbed onto her knees and
faced him, bringing him back to the nursery. When he smiled at her, she asked,
“Will you marry me, Uncle Thorn?”

The question made him happy again.
He laughed. “I’m afraid I’m too old for you, love.”

“Is Laniel too old?”

“Yes, Laniel is even older than I.”

Carah drooped with disappointment,
but she didn’t fuss when Thorn transferred her back to her pillow and tucked
her in again. She yawned, revealing the first gaps of missing baby teeth, and
Thorn felt he might soon be very old, indeed.

L
eaving the birthday girl in
the storyteller’s spell, Rhoslyn went next door to say goodnight to her son.
Though Kethlyn had scolded her a couple of years before that he was too grown
up to tuck in, she still stopped by to turn down his lamps. Tonight she was surprised
to see him sitting at a desk, instead of squeezing in a few more moments of
drilling his pewter soldiers. Riveted to the pages of a thick volume, he failed
to notice her entrance.

“I thought you might come to the
nursery.”

Kethlyn jumped, slammed the book
shut.

Rhoslyn pretended not to notice as
she drew near. “You usually like to hear Thorn’s stories. Too grown up for that
now, I guess.”

“It’s not that,” he admitted. “I
don’t like him.”

The statement brought a bark of
laughter from Rhoslyn’s mouth. “That’s absurd. Why ever not?”

“He never comes on
my
birthday.”

Ah. “But your birthday is only a
couple of weeks away, and he uses this time to see you both.”

“He never brings me anything, does
he?” Kethlyn’s lips pressed tight when his mother couldn’t think of an answer
fast enough. “He doesn’t like me, so I don’t like him.”

“Now, son, that’s not a very
grown-up attitude.” She was aware that her voice lacked heart; her face bloomed
with anger, and not at her son.

“You can’t make me like him.”

“I can speak to your father—”

“He can’t make me either!”

“I was going to say that I can ask
him to talk to Thorn about it.”

“Don’t bother. I don’t care.”

“You care or you wouldn’t have
mentioned it.”

Kethlyn retreated into sullen
silence, so Rhoslyn changed the subject. Her fingers tapped the frayed cover of
the book on his desk. “What in all Lethryn are you reading?”

He shrugged, pretending he wasn’t
embarrassed. “A book of law.” As if daring her to laugh, he opened it to the
page 531.

Rhoslyn bent closer to read the
printed header. “Law of inheritance?”

He fidgeted with the corners of the
pages. “There’s lots of big words I have to skip over, but I understand good
enough.” When he glanced up at her, his blue eyes welled.

Rhoslyn touched his cheek. “What is
this?”

“It says … it says you have to
die
before I inherit.”

“Oh.” She thought she had already
explained this to him; perhaps she had been too vague in her word choice, to
avoid scaring him. She tried to sound casual: “That’s how inheritance works,
son. My father died, then I became Duchess of Liraness. And when I die, you’ll
be duke.”

He leapt from the desk chair and
flung his arms around her waist. “But, Mum, I don’t want you to die!”

“My precious boy.” How tall he had grown
already; barely stooping, she could press her cheek to the crown of his golden
head. “Goddess willing, I’m not going anywhere for a long time. Enough of this.
It’s nothing to be afraid of. You’ll feel better in the morning, and if you
need, we can talk about it then.”

Kethlyn backed away, sniffing and
cloaking his sorrow behind a mask of man-sized courage. He climbed into bed and
said, “Mum? You can tuck me in if you want. I don’t mind.”

Rhoslyn accepted the invitation,
not knowing if she would ever receive it again. When the blankets trapped Kethlyn
toe to shoulder, his mother kissed his forehead and both cheeks before he shook
her off, groaning in mock disgust. “Be civil to your uncle tomorrow, eh?” she
said, going for the lamp. “You might win him over. That’s called ‘diplomacy’.”

Kethlyn glared at the ceiling and
freed his arms, just so he could cross them over his chest. Rhoslyn blew out the
lamp and closed the door, certain her son would soon grow out of his jealousy
and his bitterness.

But he didn’t.

~~~~

Secrets of the heart are
laid bare by the actions of the hand.

—Elaran proverb

L
ook your peers in
the eye and don’t pace
, Laral told himself. He had trouble doing both. The
long, broad Gallery that led to Brynduvh’s throne room was packed with milling
Fieran courtiers, merchants, and envoys from foreign ports. They had all come
for an audience with secretaries and ministers who would present their requests
to the White Falcon. In Laral’s vest pocket, however, was a summons from the
king himself.

For two years he had dreaded this day.
Once the excitement of the White Falcon’s enthronement faded, he began to
wonder if the summons would come at all. He dared to feel relieved that he had
avoided the king’s gaze, but the White Falcon’s head had turned at last and
spotted him ducking in a distant, dark corner. Perhaps it would’ve been better
if he’d come to Brynduvh sooner. Every highborn of Fiera had come, even Wren,
but Laral had hidden, happy to be ignored. Only now, at this belated date, he
could not hide the truth:  not only was he reluctant to show his face at the
Fieran court, he was also reluctant to bend the knee to the Fieran king.

All morning he waited in the Gallery,
ears open to the whispers, eyes clinging to the passing of fine beaded slippers
and brightly dyed kid-leather boots. The courtiers knew who he was. Oh, yes, he
heard that much of their conversation. The only person who approached him was a
Dovnyan trader with beads on the side of his nose and his white-gold hair
powdered lavender to match his velvet robe. “You are Aralorri, they say.” His
false obsequiousness glittered like rhinestones. “How fortunate for me to find
an Aralorri here.”

Laral breathed out his disgust on a
slow exhale. “Fortunate?”

“You must know the state of
Aralorr’s ports, its trade.”

“Evaronna’s ports, you mean?
Aralorr has no ports.”

“Yes, yes, of course! Are the
ladies there coveting seal or fox this year? And the gentlemen? A bit of steel,
perhaps?”

Hidden meaning lurked behind that
question. More likely, a Fieran had paid the Dovnyan to ask. “I’ve never been
to Evaronna. I can’t help you.”

No one troubled him further,
leaving him to his dread. Wren had voiced her fear the night before he rode out
from Brengarra. “Unless the boy has been corrupted already, it’s not the king
you have to worry about.”

“No? He’s Nathryk’s brother, and
I’m the enemy.” He shoved his fancy court velvets into his trunk without
folding them properly, which told of his unease. More, Lesha was there,
crawling into everything, asking a thousand questions. The pink ribbon slipped
out of her golden hair. Laral found it last night when he opened his trunk. He
tucked it into his pocket for good luck, along with the little ragdoll that
Ruthan had given him when he rode south to claim a foreign bride.

“Don’t turn your back on anyone,
Laral,” Wren had warned him, “and come home to me.”

So Laral stood with his back to the
Gallery wall. No sign of the great mural remained. The painted plaster had been
overlaid with smooth cream-colored marble. Between Laral’s shoulder blades the
stone was as cold as an icy reception.

At noon, the tall silver doors to
the throne room opened and a herald called, “Laral, Lord Brengarra.”

A long green rug led him down an
aisle between two tables lined with the king’s advisers. Wrinkled necks craned,
and whispers rippled under the vaulted ceiling. Eyes scrutinized, passed
judgment, drew conclusions, and heads shook in disapproval.

Where the rug ended, alabaster
steps reared up toward the alabaster throne. Semi-translucent wings swept
forward, embracing the king while providing him a place to rest his arms. Eyes
of onyx glared severely across the throne room. Beneath them, the king watched
Laral approach.

How young he was. Compared to the
aged, clucking flock of roosters below, the White Falcon was little more than a
fledgling. Dark hair curled around a stern, cautious face. It was the face of
one who had learned to distrust every soul he encountered. From his shoulders
trailed a green velvet cloak lined with ermine, so long it cascaded halfway
down the steps, and in the tradition of a thousand years’ worth of Fieran
kings, his brow knew not the weight of a crown.

Just past the tables, Laral stopped
and bowed. His nape tingled with the weight of eyes on his back. At the bottom
of the dais, a pair of White Mantles had their swords bared, propped on their
shoulders. A single step and swing from either of them and Laral’s head would
be rolling across the marble floor.

The White Falcon’s voice was flat,
dry, and scoured of emotion: “I have never met an Aralorri before. You look
like any other man to me.”

A few of the advisers chuckled, but
the White Falcon hadn’t meant it as a jest. The fingers of his right hand rose,
and the snickering stopped.

And what was Laral to say to this
remark? “It’s good of you to say so, Your Majesty.”

“Is it?”

It was the kind of sarcastic riposte
that Laral imagined Nathryk might fire at him. But Nathryk was dead, he had to
remember that. What kind of king was this? A brief glimpse up at the boy gave
no hint. How had one so young mastered the art of masks already?

“Why did you not come with Lady
Brengarra, two years ago?”

Did he want flattery, diplomacy,
pleas? There was no way to know. Tossing excuses and fear to the winds, Laral
said, “My name was not on the summons, Your Majesty. I did not think my
presence desired.”

“Wasn’t it?” The White Falcon’s
eyes darted between the two tables. One of the advisers cleared his throat;
another shifted in his well-padded chair. The others were silent. “An
oversight, surely,” the king added. “Your oath I required most of all, and it’s
no wondering why.”

“Before these same witnesses, I
gave my oath to your aunt and your father’s heir.”

“Both of whom are dead.”

Laral lowered his glance to the
bottom step and kept it there.

“How often did the Princess Regent summon
you?”

“On only three or four occasions,
sire. I couldn’t answer her questions, I’m afraid, so she finally stopped
sending for me.”

“And the Black Falcon? Has he
summoned you?”

The same mistrust all over again.
Would it never end? Laral carefully smoothed the impatience from his reply,
“Never once, sire.”

“We’re to believe that?”

“Believe what you will, Your
Majesty. I will not lie to you.”

Silence reverberated as insistently
as a war drum. Laral seemed to have eaten sawdust. Impossible to swallow his uncertainty.
Had he just stumbled into a dungeon cell?

A soft rustle descended from the
throne as the White Falcon swept a hand. “Everyone but Lord Brengarra is
dismissed. The White Mantles, too. I will interview him alone.”

Gasps and arguments rose from the
tables. “This is not prudent, sire,” said one of the old men.

The king grit his teeth. “Go.
Rance, you may stay. Stand at the door, out of earshot but within sight.”

Only then did the advisers rise,
stiff from reluctance as well as being far too accustomed to sitting at those
particular tables. The two White Mantles herded them out. The younger of the
two, whose black eyes were painfully familiar, glared at Laral as he passed. He
was the one called Rance, for he shut the doors and stood with his back to
them.

Laral felt more in danger now,
alone with the king and a single guard, than surrounded by so many hostile
gazes. This was not going to be a typical audience.

“Those questions were for
them
,”
said the king. “The ones they requested I ask you. The questions
I
want
to ask are none of their concern.” Despite the absence of his advisers, the
king remained just as stone-faced and formal. Had he ever enjoyed a single
moment as a normal boy? “Answer me this. Aralorris are known liars, yet you
claim that you are not one of them?”

“An Aralorri or a liar, Your
Majesty? I cannot deny the one, but I refute the other.”

“Who does not lie to save their own
skin?”

Was Laral’s skin in danger? All he
could do was wait it out and hope he didn’t put himself on the headsman’s block.
“The last time I lied, sire, was to my foster-lord. I indulged in too much of
his wine one night and was so ill the next day that I told him I had the
plague, hoping he would take pity and excuse me from my duties. I think that
proved to us both that I’m a rotten liar. It has never served me well.”

“We’ll see.” The White Falcon rose
and descended a couple of steps. The heavy cloak rippled like floodwater,
preceding him to the floor. “You are a knight, yes?”

“Yes.”

“A knight who swore before his king
to protect his people and his realm.”

Inwardly, Laral squirmed like a man
whose neck stretched inside a noose. Outwardly, his only reaction was to glance
at the ermine hem of the cloak pooling below the dais. “Yes.”

“Would you ever break the oath you will
swear here today?”

Measuring his response carefully,
he began, “I’ve had to reevaluate many things, sire, my conscience among them—”

The king sighed in disapproval.
“You disappoint me, Laral. I prefer you to be straightforward. I asked a
straightforward question.”

Yes, but your motives are not so
straightforward, sire. What is it you really want?
Laral kept the thought
to himself, remembered his daughter’s pink ribbon in his pocket, and plunged
in. “Would I ever break my oath to you? Yes. Yes, I would.”

The White Falcon’s statue-like
expression clouded. “Then why swear it?”

“Sire, I will renew my oath in the
hopes that my sovereign will never order me to act against my conscience.”

“Is your conscience more honorable
than mine?”

“That’s up to you, isn’t it?”

Laral expected a hellfire response.
The boy’s eyebrows darted up, but neither tirade nor order for Laral’s head
followed. Instead, the king descended the rest of the alabaster steps and
looked up into Laral’s face. His eyes were as green as summer leaves, and Laral
had trouble holding their intense gaze. Inscrutable, that’s what he was. What
was the key to understanding him? Would Laral be permitted to find it?

Likely this boy worried that a
monstrous, maniacal enemy lurked inside Laral’s skin and hoped to tease it out,
just as Laral feared a second Nathryk lived inside the White Falcon. He caught
himself grinning at their mutual distrust and ducked his chin to clear his
expression.

The boy turned his back and strode toward
the long row of windows in the southern wall, as if daring the Aralorri to take
advantage of the easy target. Laral planted his feet on the rug and crossed his
arms, disinterested in the game.

 Peering out the windows at the
gardens below, the king said, “I heard your father disowned you when you
married a Fieran. Is it true?”

Old sorrow crept in again. “It is.
My younger sister inherits everything and my father no longer acknowledges me.”

The king turned to face him. “You …
you threw it all away for a woman?” There was neither scorn nor incredulity in
the question. Instead, the boy chewed his lower lip as if the idea made him
nervous or giddy. This, of all things, caused the masks to slip?

“No, but for the only life I could
contemplate. A life with her,” Laral clarified. “My choice is filled with
danger and sorrow, certainly, but what kind of life is not?”

“But if war breaks out, for which
side will you fight?”

It was a question Laral had
considered all too often. When his silence drew out, the White Falcon took a
step toward him, frowning. At last, Laral shrugged and admitted, “I cannot
raise my sword against my wife or my father. As I told your aunt, I’ve made it
my duty to promote peace and friendship, but my voice falls on scornful ears.”

“My advisers tell me you have
ambitions to foment rebellion.”

Laral snorted. “I’m certainly
taking my time about it. No, sire, I want to grow grapes, drink wine, hunt the
hillsides, and watch my children grow.”

The White Falcon cast a furtive
glance toward the Mantle standing at the door, then beckoned Laral closer. In
the sunlight pouring through the windows, Laral saw that he was not giddy, nor
even nervous. The White Falcon was scared to death. Of what? “H-how many
children do you have?”

This was not the question he longed
to ask, no doubt about it, but Laral played along. “My daughter, Lesha, is
almost four, and we have another on the way. Else, Wren would have traveled
with me.”

“Did you … did you find it
difficult to love a Fieran?”

“On the contrary, sire. It was all
too easy. We were sixteen, and it was the last days of the war. Our people were
dying all around us, but Wren was a song of sweetness in the middle of it.”

“Yes, that’s the way it should be,
don’t you think?” The boy’s breath shook in his throat, and Laral decided it
was only the massive weight of the cloak that held his bones together. He
leaned closer, as if he were about to confess some horrible, shameful sin, and
whispered, “Now that I’ve turned sixteen, my advisers urge me to marry. They’ve
already chosen her. A girl from Quelstorn. I’ve never even seen her.”

Is this why he had ordered those
advisers from the room? The certainty of it struck Laral in the chest. He released
a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding and warned himself not to laugh or
even crack a smile. In truth, the future of the kingdom depended on a king’s choice
for a queen. But why ask a complete stranger about something so grave?

When the boy raised his eyes, they
made no attempt to mask a desperate hope for Laral’s advice. Indeed, the boy’s
willingness to trust him stunned him for an instant. Recovering, he said, “I
assume you don’t agree with their choice. You have someone else in mind?”