“All of us.” Luap shut his eyes a moment, seeing them all in the echoing arches of that great hall, hearing in his mind’s ear the voices racketing off stone. How could he feed them? “We could farm that other valley,” he said. “Small-gardens . . .”
“Most of us aren’t farmers,” said the Rosemage. Damn the woman—she should realize it was their best hope. “Small-gardens don’t yield grain. . . .”
“There’s a plain beyond,” he said. “Maybe that would produce grain. Or something Arranha said, about the terraces used in Old Aare; we could build terraces. And if we aren’t farmers now, more of us are than were. We can learn. Better that, than—”
“You want to run away!” Gird’s anger blazed from his eyes. “You won’t give it a chance!”
“I’ve given it a chance!” The moment he said it, he knew he’d lost; if only he had said we instead of I. He got his voice under control and tried to mend the unmendable. “Gird—sir—however much you want the mageborn to blend in, most of the others don’t. They’ve told you themselves. Even some of the Marshals; you know why you didn’t send Aris to Donag’s grange. And Kanis, in the meeting two days ago—”
“Kanis is a fool,” Gird said through clenched teeth. “And you’re another. You ought to see it, you of all of us, if blood-right stands for anything. Does your mother’s pain mean nothing to you? You are ours as much as theirs—” He flicked a glance at the Rosemage, not hostile, but acknowledging, and went on. “You could be the bridge between us, Luap, if you’d work at it, instead of haring off after some scheme to make yourself a comfortable niche with your father’s folk. You don’t have the right to say: the peoples must say. The mageborn, if they want to leave on their own, can go without you. They don’t need you, except to cause them trouble: you’ve sworn to take no crown, and what can you be, without one, but temptation?”
“That’s not fair!” He wanted to say more, but he had ruined his chance, and knew it. Gird would not budge now, not for a season or so. Yet he could not keep quiet. “You know I have traveled the land, more than you yourself, carrying copies of your Code, and trying to show your—the people—how harmless, how loyal, a king’s son can be. And they don’t trust me yet. What more can I do?”
“Quit saying ‘my people’ and ‘your people,’ for one thing. Quit thinking it, for another. The distance between a merchant trading across the mountains and a shepherd lass who’s never been away from home is no less than the distance between the mageborn and the . . .” Even Gird wanted a name for the others, and though he refused to say “my people” the words hung between them in the impervious flame of reality. He cleared his throat, avoiding the term, and kept going. “If I can expect the merchant and the shepherd, the cheesemaker and the goldsmith, to live under one law, what is so hard about the other?”
The Rosemage warned him with her eyes, but he could not desist. Gird must someday see the truth, he was convinced, and if he kept at it, perhaps it would be sooner. He did take time to choose his words carefully. “Gird, you set no limits on craftsmen or merchants or farmfolk, so long as they stay within the law, but what would happen if you told farmers they could not farm, or weavers they could not weave?”
“Why would I do that?” Gird asked. “And what has that to do with—”
“The mageborn powers, Gird. You want them given up, as if they were wicked in themselves, rather than talents like a dyer’s eye for color or a horse-trainer’s skill with horses.”
Gird cocked his head. “Talents like other talents? I think not, lad, and if you believe that you’re fooling yourself.”
“You let Aris heaclass="underline" that’s a mageborn talent.” He hoped his envy did not bleed into his voice. Every time he saw Aris, his own talent ached within him . . . perhaps he too could heal, if only Gird would let him try.
“Healing is a gift of the gods. Yes, I know, it was said to be a mageborn talent, but what mageborn in my lifetime had it? had We saw no healing; we saw wounding and killing. I let Aris heal, yes, because some god’s light shines through that boy like a flame through glass, but you notice I haven’t let him do it without supervision. The gods I trust; his mageborn talent I trust no more than this—” He flicked his fingernails in derision. “Healing is a service; it’s not a way of getting power over others. Will you—you of all people—tell me the mageborn don’t use their talents to get power?”
“That’s not fair!” It was already too late; Luap felt the last strand of control fraying. “You trust that Marrakai whelp—born and reared in the privilege you claim to despise. You trust a stripling boy of whom you know nothing but another child’s report—and I’ve worked with you for years, gone everywhere at your command, and you don’t trust me—”
“And why should I?” Luap had not seen Gird that angry at him for years. “You tell me that—and remember what you did, Selamis-turned-luap. The first time I saw Aris use magery, it was to heal, and he gave his own strength to it. The first time I saw you use magery, you tried to kill me, to force me to accept your rule. Right after swearing you sought no crown, you tried that—should I then trust you?”
“Then why did you make me your luap? Why expect me, whom you don’t trust, to join our peoples? Why not pick someone you do trust—that Marrakai Kirgan, or Aris?”
“To give you the chance to change, rare as it is.” Now Gird looked more tired than angry. “D’you think I don’t know men can change? The High Lord knows I have, from the boy I was, from the farmer I became, from my first year as a rebel. Some say no one changes, that cows can’t turn to horses, or wolves into sheep—but I know change is possible. That’s what I hoped for you, that you’d grow out of envy and lying, and into some understanding of responsibility. You’ve worked hard—yes, and I’ve praised you for it—but you’ve never given up wanting what you think you should have had.”
“I . . . tried.” His throat closed on the rest. He had given Gird everything he could, every talent he knew he owned, except the one Gird would not accept, the magery. And what he had really wanted, Gird had never given him—not easy praise, but the trust he saw given to others for nothing.
“I know you did. In your own way. But—how many more like you, who still want power, would reach for it if I let active magery return? Yes, it’s hard on the mageborn to lift mud with a shovel when magic might do it, or rely on candles when they could have magelight—but it was hard on everyone else, when the mageborn chose to use their magicks as they did. We can’t have that again; we can’t have you, trying to control your wishes, and not doing it.”
If he had not felt Gird’s fist before, he would have thought the words hurt as much. Remorse lay a bitter blade at the heart of his pride: he wanted to throw himself down and plead; he wanted time to unroll its scroll and let him unsay what he had said. But it would take more than a change in the day’s writing; he had years of error to undo, and time flowed like the great river, always one way, always down to death. He swallowed the knotted anguish, in all its confusion of meanings and feelings, as he had swallowed so much, and felt an insidious relaxation. He had tried; he had failed; he should have expected that. It wasn’t his fault; he had done his best.
He wanted to shrug, but he knew that would anger Gird even more. Instead, he sat very still, avoiding everyone’s eye. From the corner of his own, he could see the Rosemage’s expression, composure over disappointment over frustration. She had as many layers as he did, was as different from Gird’s singleness of heart as he was, yet Gird, though he did not fully trust her, never subjected her to the criticism he aimed at Luap. He glanced at Gird, ready to be dismissed again, only to meet a steady look of regret that almost broke his determination.