In the days of the peer’s good health, she had received Arne in a small room near the entrance where she worked at an old, ornately carved desk that her mother had salvaged from a ruin. When her health began to worsen, she transacted business from a bedside chair. Later, as she became still weaker, she reclined on the bed propped up by pillows. Now she lay corpse-like, as though the effort to turn her head toward Arne was more than she could manage. Delor, the one-name server who had been her close companion from childhood, stood nearby and watched over her anxiously.
Each time Arne saw the peer, the ravages of disease had written new chapters of pain and suffering on her face, but always the steely determination had been there. She refused to succumb.
Now even her determination seemed exhausted. As he knelt beside her bed, she tiredly stretched out her hand to him. “Arne,” she murmured. Her eyes remained closed; her voice was no more than a whisper, weak, tired. “I am sorry for Terril Deline. The fault was mine as much as hers. She was a beautiful child and such a beautiful prince—but I overlooked what she did too long and too often.” The tired voice broke. “I have done what I could to make amends. I do hope things will go well for Elone Jermile.”
Suddenly she opened her eyes and stared at him. “Twice your father saved the peerdom, Arne. He and the one-namers. He saved it once for my mother and once for me. Did you know that? When he was as close to death as I am now, he told me you would make a better first server than he had been. You are still little more than a boy, but already you have saved the peerdom and more. You have saved the Ten Peerdoms. I don’t know how you did it. The Peer of Weslon said there was no way to stop the wild lashers, and most of the peeragers ran off like the cowards they are, but you took your one-namers and destroyed the lashers utterly. Those who saw the battlefield said there were dead lashers lying everywhere and no one ever won a more overwhelming victory. The other peers wanted to give you a second name and make you a peerager, but I told them you were invaluable to all of us just as you are—as a one-namer and my first server. You saved the peerdom—the Ten Peerdoms—and the prince’s guard lashed you.”
She was exhausted and fighting for breath, but for the moment her indignation had aroused her. “Each of my subjects, peerager, one-namer, no-namer, and lasher, has a responsibility to the peerdom, and the peerdom bears a responsibility to each of them. One-namers know that. Too many peeragers don’t. I have made certain that the new prince knows. I don’t have to ask you to give her the same loyalty you have given to me. I know you will.”
Her eyes closed again. Her breath was coming in a whistling wheeze. Her lips moved again. “Have you any favor to ask of me, Arne?” She didn’t say “last favor” but Arne knew what she meant.
Arne thought for a moment. “There is one thing, Majesty. The prince’s guard acted on the prince’s orders in raiding Midd Village. Its conduct during the raid was inexcusable, and the lashings were deserved, but not the loss of numbers. Give the guard to me, Majesty, and I will use it to start the army we have long needed. Further delay might be fatal.”
The peer raised up for a moment and looked at Arne intently. Then she turned her gaze on the land warden, nodded, and sank back.
The land warden touched Arne’s arm. As he got to his feet, the peer’s eyes opened again. “Arne—did I do the right thing? About the prince?”
Arne clasped her hand and spoke firmly. “Majesty, you did the right thing. You did what had to be done. If Terril Deline had become peer, Midlow would have been torn apart in less than a mont.”
She whispered, “Thank you.”
The Land Warden led Arne away.
In an adjoining room, the new prince was waiting. Arne and the land warden dropped to one knee and then got to their feet again. The prince said to her uncle, “How is she?”
“Tired,” the land warden said. “Terribly tired, but still fighting. She has a fierce determination.”
The prince turned to Arne. The astonishing upheaval in her status seemed to have matured her. Her poise surprised him. She said, “The peer has made it clear to me that the success of my reign will depend upon you. I already knew that. All of my life, whenever anything needed to be done or whenever anything went wrong, the first server was sent for. When I was a child, it was Arjov, your father. Now it is you. We are both still young. My hope is that we will grow old together and I will always have you to turn to. I make you one solemn promise. In this peerdom, no lasher will ever again raise his whip to a one-namer, and the first server is to be accorded all of the respect due a peerager—by everyone in the peerdom, including the peeragers.”
Arne thanked her.
“I will send for you soon,” she said. “I have much to learn, and there is an enormous amount of work to be done.”
He and the land warden knelt, and the prince took her leave of them.
The land warden said, “The peer asks one more thing of you. She wants you to take an assistant. Not only would this lessen the burden you carry, but the peerdom needs someone who can stand in your place when you travel.”
“The peer and I have discussed this,” Arne said. “Neither of us could think of a suitable person. The more capable one-namers are already skilled crafters, and Midlow never has enough of them. Their work is needed. The less skilled are less capable in other ways, also.”
His assistant had to be a one-namer. No peerager would consent to serve under a commoner, and a lasher could not be put in the position of giving orders to one-namers even if one had been capable of it. “Did her majesty suggest anyone?”
“Yes. She has already made the appointment. Your new assistant is waiting to meet you.”
Arne was astonished. It was unlike the peer to take such an action without discussing or even mentioning her choice. “Is it a court server?”
“Yes. From the peer’s own household. The peer thinks her capable of learning quickly and assuming responsibility, which are essential qualities for your assistant.”
Arne nodded resignedly. “If the peer requests it—”
“She does. She knows training an assistant will be one more burden on you, and the fact that you didn’t choose her yourself may make it especially difficult, but she asks that you do the best you can.”
Arne wondered if the peer was using his need for an assistant as an excuse for choosing a wife for him as she had done for his father. There were several conspiracies underway to get him wived, and he received broad hints in that direction almost daely. The most recent, firmly put forward by his mother, Lonne, was an attractive village girl named Selta, a talented seamster. Lonne had long considered Arne’s household poorly managed, and Selta was her candidate to correct that—the fourth she had advanced since Arne’s father died. She persistently recounted each girl’s virtues to him until the girl lost patience and accepted another man’s offer.
All of Arne’s lovers had thought him the most desirable suitor in the peerdom at first—he owned the best and largest house in Midd Village, he had the highest earning credits of any one-namer, and the wife of the first server would instantly become the first woman of the peerdom among commoners—but they quickly learned that a man who worked enormously long hours, who had to travel frequently, who could be called away at any moment, who always had his thoughts on some crisis that had to be resolved immediately and several others that might happen, made a poor lover and would make a worse husband. Lonne didn’t know it yet, but Selta already had taken another lover.