“Binnesman himself,” Molly said. “I used to help him dry his herbs, and he would tell me stories. And if you’re the Earth King, then bad times are coming, and the Earth has given you the power to Choose, to Choose the knights who will fight beside you, and to Choose who will live under your protection and who won’t. Erden Geboren knew when his people were in danger, and he warned them in their hearts and in their minds. Surely you should be able to do the same.”
Gaborn knew what she wanted now. She wanted to live, wanted him to Choose her. Gaborn looked at her a long moment, saw more than her round face and the pleasing figure hidden beneath her dirty robes. He saw more than her long dark hair and the creases of worry lines around her blue eyes. He used his Earth Sight to stare into the depths of her soul.
He saw her love for Castle Sylvarresta and her lost innocence there, and her love for a man named Verrin, a stablemaster who had died after being kicked by a horse. He saw her dismay to find herself at Castle Groverman doing menial work. She wanted little from life. She wanted to come home, to show her babe to her mother, to return to the place where she’d felt warm and loved. He could see no deception in her, no cruelty. More than anything, she was proud of her bastard son, and she loved him fiercely.
The Earth Sight could not show Gaborn everything. He suspected that if he peered into her heart for long hours, he might get to know her better than she knew herself. But time was short, and in a few seconds he saw enough.
After a moment, Gaborn relaxed. He raised his left hand. “Molly Drinkham,” he intoned softly as he cast his spell. “I Choose you. I Choose to protect you through the dark times to come. If ever you hear my Voice in your mind or in your heart, take heed. I will come to you or lead you to safety as best I can.”
It was done. Immediately Gaborn felt the efficacy of the spell, felt the binding, the now-familiar tug in his gut that let him feel her presence, that would warn him when she was in danger.
Molly’s eyes widened as if she felt it, too, and then her face went red with embarrassment. She dropped to one knee.
“No, Your Highness, you misunderstand,” she said. She held up the infant in her arms. The boy’s fist flopped from his mouth, but the child seemed to be half-asleep, and did not mind. “I want you to Choose him, to make him one of your knights someday!”
Gaborn stared at the child and began to shiver, unnerved by the request. The woman had obviously been raised on tales of Erden Geboren’s great deeds, and so she expected much of an Earth King. But she had no comprehension of Gaborn’s limits. “You don’t understand,” he tried to explain softly. “It’s not that easy. When I Choose you, my enemies take notice. My war is not with men or with reavers, it is with the unseen Powers that move them. My Choosing you puts you in greater danger, and though I might be able to send knights to your aid, more often than not you must help yourself. My resources are far too thin, our enemies too numerous. You have to be able to help yourself, to help me get you out of danger. I—I couldn’t do that to a child. I couldn’t put him in danger. He can’t defend himself!”
“But he needs someone to protect him,” Molly said. “He doesn’t have a da.” She waited for him to speak for a moment, then begged, “Please! Please Choose him for me!”
Gaborn studied her face, and his cheeks burned with shame. He looked from side to side, from Binnesman to his Days, like a ferrin caught in a dark corner of the kitchen, hoping to escape.
“Molly, you ask that the child be allowed to grow up to become a warrior in my service,” Gaborn stammered. “But I don’t think we have that long! Dark times are coming, the darkest this world has ever seen. In months perhaps, or maybe a year, they’ll be on us in deadly earnest. Your child won’t be able to fight in battle.”
“Then Choose him anyway,” Molly said. “At least you’ll know when he’s in danger.”
Gaborn stared at her in utter horror. A week ago, he’d lost several people that he’d Chosen in the battle for Longmot: his father, Chemoise’s father, King Sylvarresta. When they’d died, he’d felt stricken to the core of his soul. He hadn’t sought to explain the sensation to himself or anyone else, but he felt as if they each had roots, and were pulled from his body, leaving dark holes that gaped and could never be filled. Losing them was like losing limbs that could never be replaced, and he was mortified by the thought that their deaths were a sign of his own personal failure. He carried the guilt as if he were a father who, through neglect, had let his own children drown in a well.
Gaborn wetted his lips with his tongue. “I’m not that strong. You don’t know what you ask of me.”
“There’s no one to protect him,” Molly said. “No father, no friends. Only me. See, he’s just a babe!”
She unwrapped the sleeping boy, held him up, and stepped in close. The child was thin, though he slept soundly and did not appear to be hungry. He had the sweet scent of a newborn on his breath.
“Come now,” Binnesman urged her. “If His Majesty says he can’t Choose the child, then he can’t Choose him.” Binnesman gently took Molly by the elbow, as if to steer her toward town.
Molly turned on Binnesman and shouted viciously, “So what would you have me do, then? Dash the little bastard’s head against a stone by the road and be done with him? Is that what you want?”
Gaborn felt dismayed, cast adrift. He glanced at his Days, and feared what might be written of his choice. He looked to Binnesman for help. “What can I do?”
The Earth Warden studied the babe, frowned. With the barest movement he shook his head. “I fear that you are correct. Choosing the child would not be wise, nor would it be kind.”
Molly’s mouth dropped in shock, and she stepped back as if she’d just recognized that Binnesman, an old friend, had become an enemy.
Binnesman tried to explain, “Molly, Gaborn has been charged by the Earth to gather the seeds of mankind, to protect those he can during the dark times to come. Yet even all that he does might not be enough. Other races have passed from the face of the earth—the Toth, the duskins. Mankind could be next.”
Binnesman did not exaggerate. When the Earth had manifested itself in Binnesman’s garden, it had said much the same thing. If anything, Binnesman was being far too gentle with Molly, holding back the truth from her.
“The Earth has promised to protect Gaborn, and he has sworn in turn to protect you as best he can. But I think it best you protect your own child.”
This was how Gaborn planned to save his people—by Choosing lords and warriors to care for their charges. Before the hunt, he’d Chosen over a hundred thousand people around Heredon, had selected as many as he could—old and young, lords and peasants. At any moment, if he considered one of those people, he could reach out in his mind, know their direction and distance. He could find them if he had to, and he knew if they were in danger. But there were so many of them! So he’d begun Choosing knights and lords to protect certain enclaves. He struggled to Choose wisely, and he dared not reject the frail, the deaf, the blind, the young, or the weak-minded. He dared not value these less than any other man, for he would not make of them human sacrifices to his own conceit. By placing a lord, or even a father and mother, in charge of the safety of his or her own charges, he relieved some of the pressure he felt. And to a great degree, he’d done exactly that. He’d been using his powers to instruct his lords, requiring them to prepare their defenses and weapons, prepare for war.
Molly paled at the thought that she would be placed in charge of her infant, looked so stricken that Gaborn feared she would faint. She wisely suspected that she could not protect it adequately.
“And I too will help protect your child,” Binnesman offered in consolation. He muttered some words under his breath, wet his finger with his tongue, and knelt by the roadside to swirl the finger in the dirt. He stood, and with muddy fingers he painstakingly began to draw a rune of protection on the child’s forehead.