The Tale of Oriel (46 page)

All but Wardel looked puzzled.

“Here they called her Baer, she was with us that first day, but—she is the puppeteer, the—she—” It was too many griefs at one time. “I would have the Queen and one or two of her ladies, if you know of ladies of good judgment, and good hearts, have you a sister, Lilos?” Griff didn't know how to say what he was thinking of. In part, he cared about none of it and wished only to go away—to be perhaps a mountain man, living among ice and blinding light until he could die.

But he had to live and be Earl Sutherland.

“I would ask—I don't know how many, but enough so that no one man's enmity could condemn Tintage, and so that no one man's friendship could save him. Can you find and bring them here?” he asked. “Your father, Garder, and the Lords Haldern and Karossy, Verilan? The King, Wardel? and the Queen, too, and the best of the ladies, Lilos? Lady Rafella, too, she must be here. We gather at midday,” Griff said, and rose abruptly from the table.

The four, he thought, would take his abrupt rising and leaving as showing fixed purpose, as the proper action of an Earl. They wouldn't know that grief had come down upon him unbearably, and he must be alone to put his arms around her, and feel her arms around him, to take enough comfort from grieving so that he could return to finish the business of the day. The business Oriel had given into his hands.

THERE WERE ALMOST TWENTY IN
the great hall. Griff sat alone at the center of a long wooden table, and the rest were behind him, on benches and in chairs. Tintage faced Griff, and thus faced all. Two guards stood close beside him, and his hands were chained in front of him, and two more guards stood at each door, but Tintage didn't look dangerous. He stood straight, as if unafraid, and calm, but his eyes, like moles wandering above ground, shone fearful, and he considered his words carefully before he spoke.

He bowed his head to the King and the Queen, to the other lords and ladies present. He greeted Rafella not by name but by title; not, however, by her title as Lord Haldem's wife, but by her title in relation to himself. “I am glad to see you, Aunt,” Tintage said.

At the last, his mole eyes met Griff's.

Griff had fallen into flames. His heart choked him and he could see only Tintage, and he had a sword near his hand—

“My lord,” Lilos asked. “Are you unwell?”

Verilan spoke softly. “Let him do it. Who better?”

Griff shook his head, to clear it. For blood called out for blood, when lands and wealth were at issue. If Griff revenged Oriel now, who might revenge Tintage?

He pushed himself back into his chair and gripped its carved wooden arms. He forced himself to look at Tintage—why was the man smiling now? Oriel would have slit the man's throat, if it had been Oriel now in the Earl's chair and Griff buried underground with his stiff fingers wrapped around the hilt of his sword. When the avalanche rolled down toward Rulgh, there had been joy in Oriel's face, as well as long hatred and stern necessity.

But Griff was not Oriel, and couldn't take a blood revenge. Even if Tintage mocked that in him, when the fit had passed Griff knew it had gone forever. He wished, seeing Tintage smile, that he could summon the fiery fit back, but he couldn't. He wasn't Oriel and he never could be.

“You stand accused of treason,” Griff spoke the formal words.

Tintage answered, “What I have done deserves my death. I don't deny it. If I could undo the action, I would. But I cannot and so I must accept your judgment on me.”

He spoke like a true man.

Griff smelled falseness on him, like fear.

“It was a madness of jealousy that made me act,” Tintage said. He looked now at the lords and ladies, and the royal couple. “With the others I was nearly equal. With the others, some of them your sons, and some of you present to confirm my words, I was in some ways the stronger or more able, and in other ways the lesser. With any of the others, I might fight well. But Oriel—”

Tintage stopped speaking. Griff thought, watching the mole eyes measure the expressions Griff couldn't see on the faces behind him, that he could see the man peeping out from behind the eyes, pleased with the effect of his words on the company.

“It was madness of jealousy. But Rafella knows the truth of my life, and how cruelly I was treated—she will speak of beatings, of being locked into my father's dungeons and given only water, for days, of the shaming. Can you say that for me, Aunt?”

“I cannot deny it,” she said.

“What hope had I of honor, then?” Tintage asked.

Griff didn't trust himself to speak.

“My great fault is, I turned my sword against a man I should have offered it to in service,” Tintage said.

“You turned it against a man you had just offered it to, in fealty,” Griff reminded Tintage.

It was as if Tintage hadn't thought Griff was any danger to him. It was as if he hadn't seen how Oriel honored Griff, and how the others now gave Griff the title they had hoped for. Now he gave Griff his attention, and the title. “Let me live, my lord Earl, and I can promise that you will come to no harm from me. My enmity, like my envy, was for Oriel. For he had everything.”

Griff answered, “Everything but the heart of the lady.”

“What is a lady's heart without her lands?” Tintage asked, almost gaily, as if he were not standing trial for his life. “He would have had her heart, too, soon enough, I'll wager, once he'd wed and bedded her, once she'd ceased her weepings.”

Griff had thought the same, and hoped for it. But he thought Tintage disrespectful to the lady, a coward's disrespect, to say so.

Death would silence that false voice, but death was not the only silencer. And he would always choose not to kill, if he had the choice. As Oriel had once chosen—

And regretted it, Griff remembered, then he remembered better—with grief like a stone at his belly—remembered that Oriel never regretted the chances he took.

“Have you more to say?” he asked. Tintage shook his head. “Then I say to those present that I think of banishment,” Griff said. “Lifetime banishment from the Kingdom, never to be lifted, not for any cause, not on any petition.” He looked around then.

Haldern stood red-faced but irresolute, Garder seemed doubtful, but it was Verilan who spoke. “If you hesitate to kill him, I offer you my sword.”

“I hesitate to kill,” Griff said.

“Is that wisdom?” Wardel inquired, after a silence.

“It is my choice,” Griff said. “For the weal of the Earldom is not fed by blood, is it?”

Nobody answered him.

“Thank—” Tintage said.

One look at Griff silenced him.

Griff waited, but no one wished to speak, so he said, “I ask my lord and King to banish Tintage, son of Yaegar, from the Kingdom, and for all of his life.”

The King spoke the sentence without hesitation, adding, “In three days' time you must be gone. If after that time you are found anywhere in the Kingdom, your life will be forfeit.”

Tintage bowed his head. “Thank you for my life, my lord Sutherland. Sire, I thank you. I will obey. I hope—”

Griff stood, was standing up before he knew that was his intention. Silence held the room, and he knew he held all eyes, but he needed all of his strength to hold his hand and let the law rule. “Take him away,” he ordered the soldiers, and they obeyed him.

Before Griff could turn away, before the courtiers could rise, before the King could speak whatever formal words he thought befitting the occasion, almost before the servants had closed the doors behind the guards and their prisoner, Merlis ran into the room. She knelt down before the table, her head lowered down into her skirts. Her long pale hair spread around, and when Griff went to her, and asked her to rise, the face she turned to him was paler than her hair, and ravaged by weeping.

“What do you want of this company?” he asked her.

“I would speak with you, my lord Earl,” she said, her voice so low he had to bend down to hear her words.

“Then you will,” he said.

“Alone,” she whispered.

Griff remembered his promise to Oriel, but she had shown herself to be a woman capable of great betrayal. “Not alone,” he said.

She clasped her hands over her breast and tears came out of her eyes and she seemed to gulp in air for the breath to ask him, “Let me go with Tintage. I beg you. Don't make me—marry—”

“Never,” he promised her. “Have no fear of—”

“—bed another—” she gulped.

“—being forced to marry me, or—”

“—nothing else matters—”

“—any other man,” Griff said.

“Please, give me leave. Please, to take his exile with him.”

Her request suited Griff's own purposes, but he tried to warn her, “You are a lady of high birth, and wealth.”

“I had nothing to do with my birth, and you have my wealth, you've taken it, he would have— All I ask is to go with Tintage.”

“Lady,” Lord Karossy spoke. She turned to face him, like an animal at bay. “If birth has given you lands and beauty, you can never be as those who have none.”

“I don't care!” she cried. “I care only to be with him!”

“Lady,” Griff said. The face she turned to him was hopeful, and she accepted the hand he offered to raise her to her feet. “He wouldn't have forced you. Oriel. He wouldn't have struck another man in the back for you, either.”

She snatched her hand away. “You didn't see the way he looked at me, my lord Earl,” she said, coldly angry now.

“You didn't know his heart,” Griff said.

Neither could speak to the other.

But Griff had made a promise to Oriel, and he would keep his word. All he had left of Oriel was word to keep. “You may accompany Tintage, if that is what you wish,” Griff said then. That was the most he could do, for now; and if more was needed later, then later he would do more. “If the King agrees, and no other makes objection.”

The King agreed. No other made objection. Griff was suddenly tired to exhaustion.

“And what of my personal effects?” the lady asked now. “My horses? my gowns? linens and servants? my jewels, and the carved chests they are kept in, and the tapestries and furnishings of my own apartments at the castle, my dogs?”

Griff turned his back to her. “Lilos, would you—?” he asked, and stood looking out the window, stood alone, while Lilos gave the lady Merlis permission to take one horse for riding and one for sumptering, and one hundred gold coins to keep her. He forbade her the jewels, which belonged to the House of Sutherland.

“May I take my gowns and cloaks? boots? bedclothes? May I have one of the stable cans to carry my goods?” Merlis asked.

“Yes, lady, you may. And any servant who wishes to accompany you is free to go with you.”

“And—”

Griff made himself turn around, to speak again, for she had lost everything. “Lady, I offer you a home of your own, wherever in the southern lands you choose, with fields to keep you in wealth, and servants to care for you, and a dowry should you wish to marry.”

She drew herself up. “I am already wed,” she said, and he knew she was lying. He knew also that she didn't wish to be saved.

“The man is a blooded traitor,” Griff reminded her.

“Yes, while now you are the Earl Sutherland,” she answered scornfully, and Griff's heart broke again within his chest.

I
T WAS AS EARL SUTHERLAND
that Griff rode south from the King's city. In towns and villages he was formally welcomed—by the Majors and the wealthiest men from among the people. Others, men of all ages, women of all ages, children of all ages, stared at him, as if they could read in his face what their futures might be. At least once in every town and village someone would find the courage to call out, “Aye, and we'll all miss him, won't we? You as much as the rest of us, my lord.” Griff heard how those gathered around all agreed. “Aye, and he was a lovely man.” The praise for Oriel made it easier for Griff to ride out on the tall horse, with its great hooves pounding onto the ground, to wear the long green cape with a wide-winged falcon stitched in gold across his back, to have on his finger the ring worn only by the Earl Sutherland and his heir.

Thus Griff came to the castle of the Earls Sutherland.

Sorrow, loneliness, and labor made the sum of his days. The storehouses and granaries were low, the linens in disarray, the servants confused and frightened, the rooms and the gardens in neglect. The castle seemed without heart, without life. It was Garder whom Griff put in charge of bringing order to the castle. It was Lilos he sent down into the surrounding city, and to the towns and villages beyond, to carry messages of good will, and to find out how things stood for the winter, how the harvest and herds fared. Verilan was busy with the training and accommodation of a troop of soldiers from the north. For the lady Merlis had taken her soldiers with her into the south.