Guy Kay - A Song for Arbonne

When they had done so Blaise walked forward. The ring of men parted to let him through.

"It seems," said his father calmly as he came up, "that I misjudged Urté de Miraval." He might have been discussing the wrong track a hunt had taken, or some mistaken crop rotation on the Garsenc lands.

"He was hardly likely to join you after women were burned."

Galbert shrugged. "Was that it, do you think? Did he change his mind, or was it planned?"

"Planned," said Blaise. "By him and the countess. No one else knew."

"Clever, then," said his father. He sighed. "Ah, well, at least I have lived long enough to know my son will rule in Gorhaut."

Blaise laughed bitterly. "With so much aid and nurture from you."

"Well, of course," said Galbert. "I have been working towards this for years."

Blaise stopped laughing. "That," he said harshly, "is a lie." Something hard and awkward seemed suddenly to have lodged itself in his chest. He swallowed with difficulty.

"Is it?" said Galbert placidly. "You are supposed to be the clever one. Think, Blaise."

He couldn't remember the last time his father had called him by name.

"What is there to think about?" he snapped. "You showed your devotion to your family with Rosala and now here with Ranald. You killed your son."

"I gave him life and I took it away," said Galbert, still mildly, "though I was sorry to have to do it. He was worthless as a man until the end, but he was about to undo my one chance to cleanse this land."

"Of course. That is what you have been working towards all these years."

"Among other things. I would hardly have been worth much myself if I had only one purpose in life. I wanted Arbonne scourged if it could be done, I wanted a son of mine on the throne of Gorhaut if it could be done. I never expected to have both, but I did see reason to hope for one or the other."

"You are lying," Blaise said again, hearing the note of desperation in his voice and fighting to control it. "Why are you doing this? We know what you wanted: you intended me to follow you into the service of the god."

"But naturally. You were the younger son, where else should I place you? Ranald was to become king." Galbert shook his head, as if Blaise were being unexpectedly obtuse. "Then you balked me, not for the first time or the last, and a little later it became clear that Ranald was… what he was."

"You made him that."

Again Galbert shrugged. "If he could not deal with me he could not have dealt with kingship. You seemed to have found a way to do both. After I managed to drive you away with the Treaty of Iersen Bridge."

Blaise felt himself losing colour. "You are now going to tell me—"

"That I had a number of reasons for that treaty. Yes, I am. I did. Think, Blaise. Money for this war and a dagger at Ademar's back among the dispossessed of the north. And I finally made you leave Gorhaut, to go where you could become a focus for those who might oppose Ademar. And me," he added as an afterthought.

"Incidentally," Galbert went on, still in that same flat, calm manner, "you are going to need a great deal of money to retake the northern marches, especially after our losses today. Fortunately Lucianna d'Andoria is a widow again. I was planning to have Borsiard killed here if no one in your army managed to do it. I saw her as a possible bride for Ranald if events fell out that way. You'll have to marry her now, which I know will make you almost as happy as it makes her father. With his daughter a queen he might even forego bringing her home to his own bed at intervals." Galbert smiled; Blaise felt slightly faint. "Watch him though, watch Massena Delonghi closely. Between the Correze and Delonghi banks, however, you should be able to deal with Valensa withholding the rest of the payments they owe by the terms of the treaty."

Blaise felt his head beginning to ache, as if he were absorbing blows.

"You are lying, aren't you? Tell me why? What does it gain you now, at this point, to try to make me believe you planned all of this?"

"I didn't plan it all, Blaise, don't be a fool. I am a mortal servant of Corannos, not a god. After you left home for Gotzland and Portezza I thought Fulk de Savaric and some of the other northern barons would send men after you with an offer of kingship. I didn't expect you to step forward yourself the way you did. I didn't know you had so much… rashness in you. I did consider that you might end up in Arbonne at some point, if only because you knew I would be coming here, but I didn't know how much… influence they would have on you. That, I will admit, has been a surprise."

"Ademar," said Blaise, still struggling. "You did everything for him. You even tried to give him Rosala."

His father's expression was contemptuous. "I did nothing for Ademar but offer him rope for his hanging. He was never worth more than that. He was an instrument that would let me take Arbonne for the god. That is all." He shrugged again. "We seem to have failed in that. It is my grief as I die. I really thought we could not lose. In which case I expected the Correze boy would take you away from here-back to Portezza, and in time I might yet achieve both halves of my dream. Ademar would never have been able to hold Arbonne—not after what I intended to do here." His beautiful voice, thought Blaise, was so seductively lucid. "As for Rosala, really Blaise—that was to goad the barons further against him—and you, if you needed a further spur, and it was only to be after she'd borne her Garsenc child. Tell me, the boy, Cadar, he is yours isn't he?"

Blaise felt his hands beginning to shake. "Will you soil everything you touch in your life, even at the end? Can nothing be clean?"

"My death, or so I have been promised," said Galbert drily. His mouth quirked. "Come, Blaise, if it isn't yours I will die wondering whose it is. I did some investigating after Ranald had been married some time without an heir. I discovered that in all the years he was King's Champion, with women clawing each other in their lust for his bed, he never fathered a single child that I could trace. You will remember that my brother failed to produce an heir either. There may be a flaw in our seed, though I seem to have escaped it. Did you?"

Blaise looked down at his shaking hands. He said, "Nothing ever mattered except the goals, did it? Nothing had meaning in itself. We were all tools, every one of us, Ademar, Rosala, Ranald and I, even when we were boys."

His father made a flicking gesture of dismissal. "What did you want, Blaise? Lullabies? A pat on the back? A doting father's grip on the shoulder when you did well?"

"Yes," said Blaise then, as evenly as he could. "Yes, that is what I suppose I wanted."

For the first time Galbert seemed to hesitate. "You have managed all right without them."

"Yes," said Blaise again, taking a breath and letting it out slowly. "I managed." He looked at his father. "Had we leisure to discuss it I might tell you something of my own sense of things, but I don't think I want to." He paused. He felt very calm now. "Is there more, father?"

A silence, then slowly Galbert shook his head. For another moment they looked at each other, then Blaise turned and went from the ring. The soldiers parted to make way for him. He saw that a company of archers in the crimson colours of Carenzu had come up to join the others now. Beyond them he saw his horse, with Hirnan holding the reins. He walked over and mounted up and began riding away. He didn't look back.

Behind him he heard Rudel's voice asking a question, and Thierry responding, very clearly, then he heard an order spoken and he heard the arrows sing.

Blaise was unaware for the first part of his ride that he was following the same path Bertran had taken leaving the field. Heading west towards the reddening disc of the sun, he came to the avenue of elms that led to the arch. He stopped and looked back then at the fires dotting the battlefield. He felt very strange. It came to him, almost as an incidental fact, that he was alone in the world now.