Margaret Weis - The reign of Istar

"This may hurt a little — "

After a few more punches, Tarli propped Saliak upright with the thonged stick and began a systematic top-tobottom dismantling of Saliak, punches only. Moran, watching in dismay, had to admit that what Tarli did not know about mercy or the Measure, he clearly made up for with his knowledge of anatomy.

At length, Tarli, staggering under the weight, carried the beaten Saliak to bed. Steyan and Maglion shook Tarli's hand several times. Then, to Moran's immense relief, the two larger boys dressed and bandaged Saliak. Everyone but Tarli seemed at last to understand what the Measure was, to a knight.

Moran hated doing it.

He could see Loraine's laughing face, quizzical and completely trusting. All that summer, she had never looked as though she thought anyone would hurt her, and he had tried very hard never to be the one who did.

After breakfast, Rakiel, with every show of sympathy and every indication of smugness, went down the stairs and sent Tarli up.

Moran argued with himself a final time. The best I could hope for, he said to himself, is that it would be many years before he failed. And then it would be trial, and conviction, and the black roses of guilt on the table.

He sat quietly, rehearsing what he would say. As many years as he had sent squires from the manor, Moran always hated good-byes — unexpected good-byes the most.

At the end of the summer, Loraine came

to him. "I'm going away. Don't ask, and don't follow."

He argued, but she stood firm. "You have

your duty. your honor is your life,

remember? Keep your honor for my sake.

Remember your promise to me."

She kissed him. He tried to catch her, but

she twisted out of his hold and was gone -

both from his arms and from Xak Tsaroth.

She was carrying a duffel that he hadn't

even noticed she'd brought. Hurt, he

watched her walk away. As the winds from

the side streets blew across her, she

carefully patted her hair in place over her

ars. She did not look back.

Moran returned to his studies. Years

later, when he heard that Loraine had

returned, he didn't go to visit her.

Tarli knocked. For once, Moran didn't put on the Mask, but left his face as gentle and weary as he'd seen it in the mirror. "Come in."

Tarli had his duffel and thonged stick with him. He looked at Moran quizzically. "I've never seen you at your desk. Is that where you wrote The Brightblade Tactics?"

"Yes." Moran gestured at the other chair. "Sit down."

Without further delays, he began: "Tarli, I've watched your progress these past few weeks. You've done wonders, in spite of your size."

Tarli nodded proudly.

"And in every situation — and I know that in some training sessions you've faced real danger — you haven't shown the slightest fear."

Tarli looked puzzled. "Of course not."

"Most of your classmates found it harder. In three decades of novices, you're probably the most courageous boy I've ever taught."

Tarli beamed.

Moran did not smile back. "However, your courage showed itself in — well, in strange ways. Instead of using weapons, you broke or… took them. Instead of accepting training as offered, you took it and reshaped it. It would not be too much to say that you changed everyone else's training, too."

Tarli sat rigidly. "I did my best for them." He seemed not to understand what was happening to him.

"There has also been a problem of property" — Moran tried to dance around it — "private property. You don't seem to acknowledge others' property as off-limits, unavailable."

Tarli frowned, irked. "If people would just label things — "

"We can't label everything, and what with one thing and another — " Moran waved his arm. "Lances, daggers, miscellaneous books, and foodstuffs — this has been the costliest term I can remember."

Tarli scratched his head. "I've heard people saying that costs are going up all over the city."

Moran said more diffidently, "Finally, in private, you've faced a certain amount of… of hardship from the other boys. For the most part, you endured it patiently."

Tarli's eyes widened. "You knew, then."

Moran nodded. "I needed to know how each of you would respond. Being a knight is learning to act like a knight." He finished, watching Tarli's face, "Not just in training or in combat, but at all times."

He waited.

Finally Tarli said, unembarrassed, "Then you know about last night, too."

"I do." Moran cleared his throat. "You fought in direct defiance of the Measure. What you said, even more than what you did, shows that you don't believe in the Measure."

Moran sighed. "Believe me, Tarli, I'm sorrier than you can imagine. But you just weren't meant to be a knight. You have your own way of doing things, your own view of others' rights, and your own code of honor, and they'll never square with becoming a knight." Righteous but unhappy, he faced Tarli.

"You're absolutely right, Sire. The knights are all wrong for me." Tarli made it sound as though it were the knights' fault.

Moran stared at him. "You don't mind?"

"Not anymore." Tarli frowned. "I would have minded when I started. Did you know, I promised my mother that I'd try to become a knight?"

Moran shook his head, partly to clear it.

"She said it would be good for me and for the knighthood." He sighed loudly. "Sometimes, these past few weeks, I've wondered if she meant it as some kind of joke."

Possible, Moran thought, smiling sadly. Very possible.

"Ah, well. Time to go." Tarli stood up, but he didn't leave. "By the way, I do have another name, Sire."

Moran stiffened. "So I assumed."

"I just don't use it, since my father and mother weren't married." He looked, clear-eyed and innocently, at Moran.

"Your mother's name was good enough," Moran said gruffly. Since that summer, Loraine had become elevated in Moran's mind into a sort of spirit-woman, someone whose love was too wild and pure for Moran.

"By rights I can use the other name." Tarli didn't sound bitter or ironic, merely stating a fact. "Did you know that?"

Moran nodded. "I assumed you didn't know the name." He added quickly, "Which is not an insult to your mother. She was a wonderful woman. I knew her well, you know."

"I knew that."

Moran licked his lips, which were suddenly dry. "Of course you have the right to use your father's name. I think" — he paused and braced himself — "I think he'd be proud."

"Are you?" Tarli asked quietly.

Moran was stunned by the simple directness of the question. Tarli had to repeat it.

Finally Moran stammered, "I… uh… She never told me…"

"Well, my mother told me. And she always told the truth." Tarli looked tolerant of someone else's failing. "She said you probably wouldn't like it if I took your name. She said you might feel awkward about it, training boys like you do. It didn't make sense to her, but she thought you'd want it that way."

Moran nodded. "She was good to me when I needed her most. Except for leaving, she was always good to me." He asked a question he'd wondered about for eighteen years. "Did she know that I would have married her?"

Now Tarli looked startled. "She never told you? She knew, but she didn't think it would work. You're very different from her." He added calmly, "But I think she loved you."

"I think so, too" Moran thought, briefly and with regret, of the demands of knighthood, of bastardly scandals in the knighthood, and of the fact that conflicts of duty can be every bit as painful as conflicts of honor. "You have my permission. Use my name if you wish."

Tarli smiled. "Thank you, but I think I'll keep using my own name, plus my formal name, now that I'm an adult."

Moran, amused by this sudden eighteen-year-old adult, said, "And what name is that?"