Guy Kay - A Song for Arbonne

"So you are happy Gorhaut is looking now to the south."

Carefully Daufridi said, "I am not entirely unhappy."

Silence again. But into it there came now a light, cool voice.

"Forgive me," said Rudel Correze, "forgive my presumption, but I do have a question." Daufridi and Bertran both turned to him. "What do you imagine will happen to Valensa, your highness, if Gorhaut indeed comes south with fire and sword and conquers here?"

Blaise's own thought, his own question. Rudel had always been quicker to speak his mind. Portezzans tended to be. For the first time, he saw Daufridi shift in his seat a little uncomfortably.

"I have thought on that question," he admitted.

"And what have you concluded after such thinking?" It was Valery this time, from by the fire, his broad arms folded across his chest.

Bertran leaned forward a little in his chair and echoed his cousin softly. "What can you possibly have concluded, your highness, should Gorhaut destroy Arbonne and have all the wealth of this land and its ports on the sea to draw upon? If there are five countries, not six, a year from now? Do you really think you would have your five years of peace then, to… as you say, solidify your hold on that farmland north of Iersen? How long do you think it would be before Ademar turned north again?"

Something curious began to happen to Blaise just about then. It seemed to him as though the words each man was speaking had become like preordained speeches in some temple ritual of the god, or the well-known opening moves of a tavern game, each following the other, each compelling the move that followed.

Daufridi said, a slight edge to his voice, "As I say, I have considered this. I do not have any immediate conclusions."

And so Blaise, seeing the next moves now as clearly as if they had already happened, said, "Of course you do not. That is why you are here, isn't it, your highness? To see if the duke of Talair has a conclusion for you. And you find, to your disappointment, that what he wants is your help, which frightens you. You know—you know it is not in the interests of Valensa for Gorhaut to rule in Arbonne. Why will you then deny that aid, when asked for it?"

Daufridi of Valensa turned in his seat to look appraisingly at Blaise, his hard grey eyes almost lost beneath the heavy, drawn-together brows. "I have a question of my own, first," he said coolly. "One I should have asked at the outset perhaps, before being as frank as I have been. Why are you here, Garsenc? Why are you not at Ademar's court in Cortil anticipating the glory of this conquest your father and king have set in motion? There might even be land for you. Younger sons always want land, don't they? We have spoken of love of country—where then is yours, de Garsenc?"

Blaise had been waiting for that: it was the next foreknown speech, the next move in the game being played. He wondered if Bertran had prepared this, if he had seen it coming or even steered them towards this moment. It didn't really matter. The moment was upon them. He said, "Because I have set myself squarely against Ademar of Gorhaut. Because I think he is weak and unworthy of allegiance. Because it is my belief that he dispossessed and betrayed the people of my country with the Treaty of Iersen Bridge. Because the Gorhaut I love is the holy land where Corannos the god of the Ancients first came among the six countries we know, and the earliest corans swore their oaths to serve the god and their fellow men and walk a path of righteousness. Because the invasion of Arbonne would be a final straying from that path in pursuit of a dominion that could never, in the end, be preserved. Because my father knows that. He does not want to rule in Arbonne, he wants to put it to the fire. Because he has long ago lost whatever true communion with the god he ever had."

He drew a needful breath to check this rush of words spilling out of him like a river in flood over a dam that has been breached. And he said the last thing then, made the next move in the game, chose:

"And because before the Lussan Fair is ended I will have named myself claimant to the crown of Gorhaut, to see if there are men of honour in my country—and elsewhere—who will rally to my name and this cause."

He heard Rudel suck in his breath sharply. At least he'd surprised his friend, Blaise thought. If he did nothing else at all, he seemed to have succeeded in astonishing the unflappable scion of the House of Correze.

And the king of Valensa, too, he now saw. Daufridi's hands went to the arms of his chair and gripped there. He pushed for a moment, as if to lever himself to his feet, but then, with a visible effort, remained where he was.

It was silent in the room then. The only sound was the crackle of the fire and the strained breathing of four men. From outside, where the corans of the king were being entertained by Bertran's men, they heard a sudden loud burst of laughter.

"Ah, well," said Daufridi of Valensa at length, very softly. "Ah, well now. It seems we do have some things to talk about after all."

Blaise felt light-headed, almost numb. He reached for his wine and drank. The motion itself seemed odd, unnaturally slow. He felt as if the owl should be in the room with them, Beatritz de Barbentain's white owl, settling on his shoulder again to mark him as a fool, or whatever else he was.

"I hope you realize I do not want her back," Ranald de Garsenc says, glaring at the man on the far side of the room. He has expected this encounter, and has prepared himself, as much as he ever can be prepared for dealing with his father. The news of Rosala's flight to Arbonne, brought by two stammering, exhausted corans, was a shock but not, Ranald has come to realize during the course of the day, as much of one as might perhaps have been expected.

When he had learned—during this morning's earlier, furious discussion—about Galbert's visit to Garsenc and his claiming of the child, Ranald had laughed bitterly in his father's face.

"You did this, then," he'd said. "Not I, not anyone else. Your own folly, father. She angered you, didn't she? You had to say something, to put her in her place." Galbert had scowled furiously, clenching and unclenching his big hands.

"That is exactly what happened, isn't it?" Ranald had gone on. " You are the fool and the weakling, father. You lashed out in the heat of the moment. You had to tell her, didn't you, to see if you could get a reaction. You should have known better than to threaten to take her child."

"Threaten? Her child?" Galbert had made sure the instrument of his deep voice carried all possible nuances of contempt. "Is that how you see it? Not your own child? Not ours? Are you truly so feeble? I am shamed by you in the eyes of the god and all men."

There had been a servant in the room, and almost certainly men listening on the outside of each of the three doors to the chamber where they'd been. King Ademar's palace in Cortil was not the place for private discussions. Flushing, feeling suddenly defensive, Ranald had said, "We will talk later, when you have calmed your choler. It is clear you are in no condition to be spoken with now. I will await you here at midday, father. Until then."

He'd stalked quickly out of the room before Galbert could reply. A coran in the antechamber barely had time to be busy at the window. Ranald had ignored him. In fact he had been guardedly pleased with himself for that exit until, alone in his own rooms in the palace, he'd begun thinking more carefully through the implications of what his wife had done.

He'd sent a servant for ale and sat in a chair by the window looking out over a landscape where the sun was trying to break free of windblown autumn clouds. The king was hunting that morning. Someone had probably ridden out already to tell him the news; at Ademar's court ambitious men fell over each other to be the first to bring him tidings, particularly tidings damaging to the de Garsenc family. Galbert was seen as too powerful, Ranald knew. He probably was too powerful. Their family had blood as royal as Ademar's if one went back only two generations, and the High Elder was now first of all the king's advisers. Not much need to wonder why they were feared. There were those at court—and not a few of them—who would exult in Rosala's flight and their own discomfiture.