Gaborn. My prize, my joy, Jerimas thought. He recalled the exultation he felt on first holding his son, and his hopes watching Gaborn grow. He remembered the terror of the day when assassins tore Gaborn’s mother and siblings from him.
Jerimas was less than a father to Gaborn, more than a stranger.
Now, as ordered by long tradition, he suspected that he would have to report on the death of King Orden. Jerimas would be able to tell Gaborn more than the mere events that led to the king’s demise. He could relate Gaborn’s father’s dying thoughts.
Bearing the Tale of the Dead was a ceremony that Wits routinely performed after the demise of a master. It was a solemn moment, a private occasion.
But more than that, Jerimas yearned to see where he stood. Would Gaborn accept the counsel that Jerimas and his fellow Wits so longed to give? Would Gaborn treat Jerimas and the others as friends? Or would he push them away?
Jerimas hesitated before knocking at the door, for he heard Gaborn’s voice, raised in argument.
Prince Celinor said, “My father already insists that you are no Earth King—”
“And now I have turned his lies to truth.” Gaborn forced a smile.
The fire in the common room had dwindled down to nothing but cherry colored coals that brooded beneath an ashen quilt. Gaborn, Iome, Celinor, Erin, and Gaborn’s Days, who had arrived less than an hour ago, all sat around it. The Days, a scholar who was charged with chronicling Gaborn’s life, stood quietly at Gaborn’s back. Jureem had left hours ago, to bear messages for Gaborn to the High Marshal and others. The wizard Binnesman was working on his wylde, a creature that looked like a woman with dark green hair, and skin of a paler green. She lay stretched out on a bar counter that was lit by a pair of tallow candles.
“Your Highness,” Celinor argued in a reasonable tone, “when the world hears that you’ve suffered a setback, it will only lend credibility to my father’s lies. I can already hear him crowing to his friends: ‘See, I told you he was a fraud. Now he claims to have ‘lost’ his powers. How convenient!’ ”
“Your father has worse problems than Gaborn to contend with,” Iome countered, “with reavers surfacing in North Crowthen. If they march south, into your father’s realm—”
“I’m not sure which he will see as a greater threat,” Celinor said. “He fears your husband unreasonably. And now Gaborn is vulnerable to attack.”
“You’re starting at shadows,” Iome said. “Your father wouldn’t dare move against the Earth King.”
Celinor looked to Gaborn for counsel, but with a glance Gaborn deferred to the wizard. Binnesman was hunched over his wylde. He held a stem with dainty pink flowers and dark serrated leaves. He used it to draw runes around each of the wylde’s nostrils. The wylde held perfectly still, did not even breathe. It was unsettling, for she looked as if she had died. Nothing living could have kept so motionless. It added to the aura of mystery that Gaborn felt around the creature.
“Celinor is right,” Binnesman whispered without looking up. “His father is a danger. There is sorcery at work here. The nature of his delusions and this business with King Lowicker both suggest that Anders suffers from no common madness.”
“Perhaps I can still reason with him,” Celinor said.
“If your father is one of the wind-driven,” Binnesman told Celinor, “you can’t reason with him. It would be dangerous to try. Mark my words: we are not battling reavers and men, but powers unseen.”
“Yet reason may still prevail,” Iome said hopefully, “if not with Anders, then with those he seeks to deceive. Even if Anders clings to his madness, the world will not hear only his lies. Gaborn summoned a world worm today and drove the reavers from Carris. Men will hear of that, and true men will stand by him.”
“You mean that true men will die by him,” Celinor blurted, “while false men circle like wolves. I swear, I’ll not let my father be one of those false men.”
“Could you handle him alone?” Erin cut in.
“I believe so.”
“Even if it meant killing him?”
“It won’t come to that,” Celinor said.
“But could you?” Erin asked fiercely. “Or if sparks came to fire, would you be needing help to lop off his head?”
Celinor looked at her sharply. With his fine blond hair, lean build, and bright hazel eyes, Celinor had the appearance of a scholar or a healer, not a man capable of patricide.
Gaborn asked softly of Erin, “Have we come to this? Would you have him fight his own father?”
“Not if we can avoid it. But I won’t have him close his eyes to the risks he’s taking.”
“Talk to your father then,” Gaborn told Celinor in exasperation. “Tell him that I would like to open negotiations to renew old treaties. Perhaps that will assuage his fears.”
“I will, milord,” Celinor promised. “May I take my leave now?”
Gaborn had never Chosen Celinor, and therefore could not know if he was in danger. Yet common sense dictated the answer. “The roads are too wet tonight,” Gaborn warned. “I think it best if you wait until morning.”
Gaborn turned to Erin Connal and asked, “Will you go with him? If I sense that you are in jeopardy, I’ll try to warn you. But take care not to lift your hand against any man, except to save your own lives.”
“As you wish, milord,” Erin said.
Someone opened the front door, and a cold wind blew into the room. Several men stood there. Gaborn could see only vague shadows. At first he thought them to be lords riding from Heredon or messengers from Skalbairn.
“Your Highness,” a scratchy male voice announced, “the King’s Wits. We come to bear the Tale of the Dead.”
For a moment, no one spoke. The only sound was the whisper of rain in the courtyard.
Erin Connal said, “Milord, seeing as we’ve a long journey ahead, I’d best tend my horse.” She bustled from the room with Celinor in tow. Gaborn’s Days followed, as if he had found urgent business outside.
Iome glanced at Gaborn, asking with her eyes if she should go. The bearing of the Tale of the Dead was a private affair. A man’s dying thoughts could be as embarrassing as they were touching. “Stay,” Gaborn said. Iome felt a warm flush. She wanted to be with him.
Binnesman was still working on the green woman. He asked, “May I have half a moment? I’m drawing runes of protection with wood hetony and must finish before the sap hardens.”
Gaborn knew that it would take time. With five endowments of metabolism, Gaborn could now amble faster than a commoner could run; and when others spoke, their words seemed to come laboriously.
But finishing the wylde was important. The creature was to be the Earth’s warrior, but she could not fight until Binnesman unbound her, gave the wylde its free will. Yet he could not do that until he’d bound her with protective spells and taught her to fight on her own.
“Stay here and work,” Gaborn said softly. “We need the wylde. Every moment counts.”
Iome and Gaborn stood hand in hand.
The Wits filed in. Most were elderly men. The youngest could not have been less than forty. Their hair was cropped short, and all wore simple brown robes common among the hearthmasters in the House of Understanding.
“Gaborn!” a tall graybeard called in greeting. The love that Gaborn’s father had felt for him came thick in the old man’s voice. Perhaps for Gaborn’s entire life, this former Dedicate had been locked in the Blue Tower, an idiot who loaned the use of his mind to King Orden.
Gaborn reached out to clasp hands at the wrist, but after a moment’s hesitation, he thought better of it and gave the man a hug. “Hello, friend,” Gaborn said. “You are...?”
“Jerimas.” The old man spoke hesitantly, as if the name were a stranger’s. He stared at Gaborn, searching his face. “I...my name is Jerimas.”
Jerimas was thin, with wide-set eyes so dark they were almost black, and a triangle of a face. His hair had receded until he was left with only a narrow band of white along his ears and a sweeping beard of silver.