Robin McKinley - The Blue Sword

"I will return to you your sash," Corlath said, but his hands did not move to untie it from around his waist. "You should not have lost it—for I assume you lost it. If you had not, but flung it away deliberately, it would be a sign that you denied me, and Damar, and were making yourself an exile forever."

"Oh no ," said Harry, horrified; and the slightly foolish and uncertain smile on Corlath's face grew into a real smile, one unlike any Harry had ever seen on the Hill-king's face before.

"No," he said. "I hoped not."

Harry whispered: "You have done me much honor—since the beginning."

Corlath replied: "I did only what I must, for the kelar gave me no choice; but I—I came to believe in you, and I did not care what the kelar said."

"Did you believe in me then, when I rode away and left you, my king, and I a king's Rider, against your orders?"

The smile faded, but his eyes were still bright yellow. "I did," he said. "Luthe … warned me you would do something mad—and I … feared something else, for thus a man makes a fool of himself, and will not accept the wisdom the gods send him. I did not realize what Luthe had told me—I had forgotten what the kelar had told me—till you had gone."

"Something else?" said Harry. "What did you fear?" Her heart beat more rapidly as she waited for his reply, and she hoped he would ask her such a question, that she might answer it as her heart bade her.

But Corlath looked around them. "The Outlanders you bring to my camp are not your escort home?"

Harry shook her head violently. "They are my escort home only insofar as they would bear me company in my home, in the Hills, if you will have them."

"I will have them, and be honored," said Corlath, and his eyes lingered on Jack, who sat Draco quietly between Richard and Terim, "they who stood at Madamer Gate and watched the mountain fall on Thurra. This tale they will tell, I hope, and tell often."

"And I hope I will never have to do anything like that again," said Harry, and for a moment she could not see Corlath's yellow eyes, but a demon-thing that had once been human on a white stallion with the teeth of a leopard.

Corlath looked down at the top of her bent head. "For you I hope that you do not either; the kelar strength is not a comfortable Gift.

"I saw—I watched the mountain fall. I heard you call me and knew then who it was you faced—and thus why it was that I had not seen him before me: why we were able to throw the Northerners back, for all that they outnumbered us. They did not, I think, expect us to be so strong, or Thurra would not have divided his army as he did; for Thurra's demon blood had told him that only the demon Gifts are strong.

"I was proud of you—and I was glad that it was I you called upon." His voice died away to a murmur, but then he spoke loudly: "There is a tradition that goes back hundreds of years, to Aerin and Tor, that we do not often see today, for there have been few women warriors of late, till Gonturan rode to battle again. But tradition is that a betrothed pair may exchange sashes, and thus they pledge their honor to each other, for all to see. I will return you your sash if you choose, for I have no right to wear it, as you have not granted me the right. But I have been honored to wear it, in my people's eyes, till you returned—for as I had had so little faith in you despite Luthe's words to me, so I decided to have faith that you would return, to the Hills and to me, and to hope that your answer might justify me."

Harry said clearly, that all might hear: "My king, I would far rather you kept my sash as you have kept it for me in faith while I was gone away from you, and gave me your sash to wear in its place. For my honor, and more than my honor, has been yours for months past, but I saw no more clearly than did you till I had parted from you, and knew then what it would cost me if I could not return. And more, I knew what it would cost me if I returned only to be a king's Rider."

Then a cheer went up from many throats, and not only from those of Harry's company; for many of the camp had gathered in the center court before the king's zotar to hear how this meeting would go, for they had seen Harimad-sol's sash around their king's waist, and those who remembered the tradition had told of it to those who did not. And there was no surprise, in those who had followed Harry or in those who had fought with Corlath, and there was much joy; and the echoes of those cheers must have come even to the city boundaries of the Outlander town called Istan, and the barred gate of the General Mundy. And the Outlanders who had followed Jack Dedham when he decided to follow the young Harry Crewe, who had become Harimad-sol and the Hill-king's Rider, and who did not know the Hill tongue, looked around them, and at the two tall figures before them standing beside the chestnut stallion, and they cheered too; and Jack, in a lull, said to them: "In case you would like to be sure what you're cheering, our Harry is going to marry this chap. He's the king, Corlath."

Under the cover of the shouting Corlath drew Harry closer to him and said: "I have loved you long, though at first I did not know it; but I knew it when I sent you into the Hills with Mathin and Tsornin for your teachers, for I saw then how I missed you. And when in the City I found that Narknon had followed you, I was jealous of a cat, who could go where she wished."

Harry said, softly, that only his ears might hear: "You might have spoken."

Corlath smiled wryly. "I was afraid to tell you, for I had stolen you from your people, and the awakening of your kelar might make you hate me, for she whose blood gave you the Gift left the Hills long ago. When you knew what it was that this heritage gave you, it might drive you back all the more strongly to your father's people, to a fate the Hills had no part of. The Gift is not a pleasant burden.

"But when I saw you were gone I looked to the west, for I knew where you must be going, and I vowed that if we both lived, when we met again I would tell you that I loved you, and ask you to stand by me not as Rider but as queen; for suddenly it seemed worth the risk, and I could not bear it that you might never know."

Harry said: "I love you, and it has haunted me that for my disobedience I would be exiled, not from the people I have claimed as my own, though this were punishment enough, but from you that I loved best of anything and best of all. I think I knew you could not exile me, for the victory Gonturan had won for you and your Hills; but I knew that for you to have turned against me for leaving as I did, it would have been the bitterest exile, even if I sat at your left hand as Rider all my life."

It was Innath who grabbed her away at last and danced her around, for Innath had no dignity, and Corlath and Harry seemed able to ignore the tumult around them indefinitely. Then Jack took her away from him, and then she was embraced and knocked about and swung back and forth till she was dizzy; but she laughed and was happy, and thanked everyone who touched her. But there was one face in particular that she looked for and could not find, and its absence troubled her. At last they let her go to Corlath again, and her happiness was shaken for the face she could not find, and she seized his arm anxiously and said, "Where is Mathin?"

Corlath, who had been dancing too, went very still.

"He is not dead?" she said, and her voice rose till it broke; but when he shook his head it gave her no comfort. He took her hand in his and said, "Come," and led her away, through the tents. Now she could see the traces of battle, for by lantern light she saw blood-stained gear and unidentifiable bits and tatters moving mournfully in the evening breeze, and some few people, bandaged, limping, or lying by campfires, gently tended by those who were unhurt. Corlath led her to a long low tent and drew her inside, and the smell of death struck her at once, although the figures lying on rugs and blankets and cushions were well cared for and cleanly bandaged, and their chests still rose and fell with breathing, and there were many nurses watching over them and bringing drink and thin invalid food. Corlath brought her to the far end of the narrow tent, and the figure there turned its head toward them. Harry threw herself on her knees, weeping, for here was Mathin.