“He said . . . He said my dad had run away to live with the goblins. He said he had goblin wives.”
“Do you believe that?”
“Course not!” But the pain in his solitary eye increased. Doubt.
“Did Brak say he was a sorcerer?”
Gath thought for a moment. “Not today.”
“What do you answer if the boys say that about your father?”
“I say, `What if he is? That’s his business.’”
“That’s a good answer, a very good answer, because it’s true. But your father’s a king, and if his royal duties require him to go away for a while, then that’s his business, too! Can’t you just say that?”
Silence. Hurt, angry silence.
“You could say that, Gath, and you know it! You weren’t fighting for your father. You were fighting in case they thought you were afraid to fight. And usually that’s very silly.”
Except that this was Krasnegar, not the Impire. Gath looked like a jotunn so his peers judged him as they judged jotnar. And so did he. An imp they wouldn’t bother with, but he was blond and big for his age, like a jotunn. He must think of himself as a jotunn, although he was normally the least quarrelsome boy she had ever known. Everyone knew that jotnar would accept any odds.
She tried another tack. “You must have known what was going to happen when you went to meet Brak and the others.” Pause, then a grudging whisper: ”Yes. I knew.”
“Then why did you go?”
“Because I knew I would go.” No hope there!
“You won’t go anymore!” she said sharply. “From now on, you stay in the castle. Is that clear?”
Even with so little of his face visible, the sullen, rebellious expression was obvious.
“Is that clear?” she repeated.
“Yes.”
But the fight with Brak had happened within the castle, so house arrest wouldn’t do much to solve the problem. There were dozens of adolescent jotnar living in the palace, and townsfolk could stream in and out as they pleased. She couldn’t declare a state of siege just to stop kids brawling. Not in Krasnegar. And if word got around that the queen was protecting her son, then he would be fair game for everyone, even imps.
“So your father is away on business? There’s nothing odd about that! Other boys’ fathers go out of town—trappers, whalers, fishermen—”
“He didn’t tell anyone.”
Ah! “Since when has your father had to ask Brak’s permission to go on a trip?”
The humor didn’t work; she hadn’t expected it to. Gath’s permission was what they were discussing now, even if Gath himself didn’t know it.
“He didn’t have time to say good-bye to you, dear. I told you—he had to leave on very short notice. He didn’t know he was going when you went to bed.” She thought back to that tragic evening. “Did you? Did you know?”
Gath blinked. “I can’t see tomorrows.”
“No, but I recall you looked sort of surprised at one point. Did you suspect?”
“Maybe. I’m not sure. Wasn’t sure. Maybe a little, I did.” A big disappointment might throw a longer shadow than little things, and a father’s disappearance was a very big disappointment to a fourteen-year-old. Rap had promised the whole of the following day to the children and been gone when they awoke. She sighed. “Listen, you big lummox! Maybe one day you’ll be king of Krasnegar. Kings have to keep their private lives separate from their royal duties, and you’re going to have to learn that. Your father doesn’t go around fighting everybody!”
“If someone said bad things about you, he would!”
He probably would. It was much easier to imagine Rap throwing a punch than it was to think of him calling out the guard and laying charges of lese majesty. That was certainly not an option for Gath when his friends jeered. No hope there, either.
She tried another tack. “I know he broke a promise to you. Do you think he would do that, or stay away this long, or miss your birthday—except for something really important?”
“No.”
“Well, it is important! Terribly important! I can’t tell you what it is. I don’t even know all the details myself, but I trust your father, and so should you! I told you he’d gone away for a couple of days. Then I told you that it was going to be longer. I couldn’t tell anyone else that, just you and Kadie, because he sent me word by sorcery! Now do you understand?”
He nodded, almost imperceptibly under the covers. She shivered as the cold worked deeper through her furs; she wriggled icy toes in her boots.
“Gath, you know he’s a sorcerer! You know things that Brak and those louts don’t know! You know that your father went away by sorcery—or you can guess he did. He’ll come back by sorcery, too, as soon as he can. Stupid Brak and the others can only think that the harbor was frozen, so therefore he must have run off to the goblins. That isn’t true, and you know it.”
“Can I say so?”
“You can tell them they don’t know what they’re talking about.”
“I did.” Gath closed his eye.
Oh, my poor unhappy baby!
She lifted the second piece of steak from the plate by the bed and placed it over the swollen lid. She kissed his forehead. “It isn’t easy being fourteen, Gath. I was fourteen once, and I remember. I think it may be even harder for boys than it is for girls. It’s worse than being fifteen, even. You’re big and strong already, and you have prescience. You can hurt people, even bigger people like Brak. Strength and power bring responsibility.” She was about to demand a promise that he wouldn’t fight anymore, and then common sense told her not to be crazy.
Manhood was the problem, the manhood he looked for whenever he saw himself in a mirror, the manhood that was much farther off than he could believe . . . the manhood that would never be the universal answer he thought it would be. And boyhood betrayed.
She stood up. “Gath, I’ve known your father a lot longer than you have. He’s a fine man, Gath, a noble man. He’s a father to be proud of, in every way. I’m sure he doesn’t want you getting hurt just because a young jotunn thug filthy-mouths him.”
She got no answer, because the remark was irrelevant. Gath had been fighting for Gath, not for Rap.
“I know he wouldn’t have missed your birthday unless he had to. I know he wouldn’t have gone away unless he believed that what he was doing was very, very important.”
She took the candle, shielding it with her hand as she walked across the room.
“Good night, my darling. I still love you. You were wrong to fight Brak. I’m sorry you were foolish, but I’m proud that you are brave.”
She heard a quiet sniff as she closed the door. She bit her lip. Rap, whatever you are up to had better be worth this!
Newer World:
Newer world . . . but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.
Come, my friends,
‘Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
— Tennyson, Ulysses
THREE
Parts to play
1
Nobody seemed to be thinking about lunch, except Ylo.
White Impress rolled gently on the slate-gray waters, heading from nowhere to nowhere, and he sat alone and neglected in a corner.
At the far end of the deckhouse the politicians were at workthe imperor, the king of Krasnegar, Sagorn, Acopulo, and Ionfeu—all clamoring like a verbal smith’s shop as they heatedly shaped a new protocol to rule Pandemia for the next few thousand years. When the scholars’ bickering became too personal, then king or imperor would crack a joke. The others would laugh respectfully and calm down. Old Ionfeu spoke less than anyone, but the others always seemed to agree with him when he did. It was an exercise in dreaming, but perhaps dreams were all that remained now.
Hardgraa had gone below and was undoubtedly catnapping, being a veteran campaigner who knew how to take sleep when it was available. Off by themselves, impress and countess chatted quietly, watching over the child dozing on a nearby sofa, under a blanket. The Jarga woman was still steering the ship, her iron endurance more confirmation that she had occult power to sustain her. The dwarf stood outside in the cold, resting his forearms on the rail and staring stonily underneath it at the horizon.
He might be taking a last occult look at the fishermen’s smack now fading into the skyline mist. Lord Umpily had departed an hour or so ago, borne off in that cockleshell at the price of a gold crown. With him he had carried a magic scroll and many false good wishes. As soon as he had been out of earshot, Shandie had said, “How long do you suppose he’s got?”