Kings of the North Read online

  BY ELIZABETH MOON

  THE DEED OF PAKSENARRION

  Sheepfarmer’s Daughter

  Divided Allegiance

  Oath of Gold

  Oath of Fealty*

  Kings of the North*

  THE LEGACY OF GIRD

  Surrender None

  Liar’s Oath

  VATTA’S WAR

  Trading in Danger*

  Marque and Reprisal*

  Engaging the Enemy*

  Command Decision*

  Victory Conditions*

  PLANET PIRATES (WITH ANNE MCCAFFREY)

  Sassinak

  Generation Warriors

  Remnant Population*

  THE SERRANO LEGACY

  Hunting Party

  Sporting Chance

  Winning Colors

  Once a Hero

  Rules of Engagement

  Change of Command

  Against the Odds

  The Speed of Dark*

  SHORT-FICTION COLLECTIONS

  Lunar Activity

  Phases

  Moon Flights

  *Published by Ballantine Books

  Kings of the North is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2011 by Elizabeth Moon

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Del Rey, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

  DEL REY is a registered trademark and the Del Rey colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

  Moon, Elizabeth.

  Kings of the north / Elizabeth Moon.

  p. cm.

  eISBN: 978-0-345-52479-9

  1. Paksenarrion (Fictitious character)—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3563.O557K56 2011

  813′.54—dc22 2010041124

  www.delreybooks.com

  Jacket design: David Stevenson

  Jacket illustration: © Paul Youll

  v3.1

  For Linda Varda, Master Sergeant, retired after thirty-four years in uniform (Army, Texas Army National Guard, Texas State Guard), senior NCO of her unit and First Sergeant. Served overseas in multiple areas, recipient of the Humanitarian Service Medal when, as part of the 92nd Aviation Company, she was involved in multiple rescues while supporting a high-altitude project on Mount Rainier.

  And for Richard Dykstra, Lieutenant Colonel in the U.S. Army Inactive Reserve, after active-duty service in the Army and the Texas Army National Guard as Ordnance Officer, both here and abroad.

  Both have served their country in many other ways as well, and it was my honor to sing with them in the choir of St. David’s Episcopal Church in Austin, Texas.

  Thank you for your service, and may the winds blow always at your back.

  Acknowledgments

  Thanks are due to the Thursday Evening Fencing Group (my title, not theirs) with whom I can work out the details of combat situations involving swords, daggers, polearms, crossbows, and so on. Access to the library at New World Arbalest was, and will continue to be, a great advantage to these books.

  Thanks are also due to the community forming at the Paksworld blog, source of new alpha readers who were very helpful in pointing out problems with the first draft—and to existing alpha readers whose experience and ability to articulate what was wrong materially improved the book, especially David Watson and Karen Shull.

  Once again, and every time, thanks are due my agent, Joshua Bilmes, my editor, Betsy Mitchell, and the “crew” at Del Rey for their fine work and their ability to keep me on track.

  Errors, as always, are my responsibility.

  Contents

  Cover

  Other Books by This Author

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Dramatis Personae

  Map

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Chapter Thirty-six

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  Chapter Thirty-nine

  About the Author

  Dramatis Personae

  Fox Company (was Kieri Phelan’s mercenary company)

  Jandelir Arcolin, commander, Lord of the North Marches

  Burek, junior captain of first cohort

  Stammel, senior sergeant of first cohort

  Devlin, junior sergeant of first cohort

  Arñe, corporal of first cohort

  Selfer, captain of second (short-sword) cohort

  Tsaia: senior noble families

  Mikeli Vostan Kieriel Mahieran, king of Tsaia

  Camwyn, his younger brother

  Sonder Mahieran, Duke Mahieran, king’s uncle

  Beclan, a younger son and Duke Verrakia’s squire

  Selis Marrakai, Duke Marrakai

  Gwennothlin, his daughter and Duke Verrakai’s squire

  Galyan Serrostin, Duke Serrostin

  Daryan, youngest son and Duke Verrakai’s squire

  Dorrin Verrakai, Duke Verrakai, formerly a senior captain in Phelan’s company, now Constable for kingdom

  Oktar, new Marshal-Judicar of Tsaia (interprets Code of Gird for Tsaia)

  Arianya, Marshal-General of Gird (commands entire Company of Gird)

  Lyonya

  Kieri Phelan, king, former mercenary commander and duke in Tsaia

  Sier Halveric, Aliam Halveric’s older brother, vocal member of Council

  Aliam Halveric, commands Halveric Company, Kieri Phelan’s mentor and friend

  Estil Halveric, his wife

  Garris, senior King’s Squire

  Arian, half-elf King’s Squire

  elves

  Orlith, Kieri Phelan’s tutor in elven magic

  Flessinathlin, the Lady of the Ladysforest, elven ruler of this elvenhome kingdom, Kieri’s grandmother

  Dameroth, Arian’s father

  Pargun

  Torfinn, king

  Elis, his daughter

  Iolin, younger son

  Einar, king’s brother, traitor

  Aarenis

  Jeddrin, Count of Andressat

  Alured the Black, former pirate, self-styled Duke of Immer, taking new name “Visla Vaskronin”

  Fenin Kavarthin, Arcolin’s banker in Valdaire

  Adventurers

  Arvid Semminson, Vérella Thieves’ Guild

  Dattur, kteknik gnome and Arvid’s companion

  Chaya, Midsummer Feast />
  Falkieri Artfielan Phelan, King of Lyonya, waited with barely concealed impatience for his grandmother, the elven queen of the Ladysforest, to appear for the Midsummer ritual. Under his bare feet, the moss of the King’s Grove felt cool and welcoming; the fragrance of the summer night, flowers that bloomed at no other time, filled his nostrils. Yet he could not take full pleasure in the soft breeze, the cool moss, the sweet scents. Where was she?

  He had spent the entire short night on the central mound near the Oathstone, expecting the Lady to appear, but she had neither granted his request to come early nor sent a clear refusal. He had hoped to use this auspicious day to ask her once again for help with his continuing effort to reconcile the two peoples, elves and humans … but since his coronation she had come seldom, and never for long. The whole night she had been elsewhere, and not even his growing taig-sense could find the direction.

  He looked again at the stars overhead; the ritual must begin when the Summerstar touched the oldest blackoak’s crown—and as he watched, the star slid that last short distance.

  “Grandson,” the Lady said. “It is time.” She was there, where she had not been an instant before, and already she had begun the chant. No time now to remonstrate. He raised his arms high and sang as the sky brightened overhead. Across the Oathstone, she also sang, the two of them—so the tradition went—singing the sun over its midsummer peak. The Lady’s hands drew patterns in the air, coils of silvery light, a net to capture the first rays of the sun’s gold.

  Kieri suspected she would withdraw into her elvenhome kingdom as soon as it was done, but as her enchantment wrapped around him, his irritation subsided. Her song, her power, held him fast. His mind soared: he knew he was in the place he belonged, performing the rituals he needed to perform. The taig responded to both of them; he felt it in his whole body, a tingling awareness of life that both nourished him and needed him. This was how it should be. But the dawn song and the Lady left him at the same time; her enchantment no longer clouded his awareness, and his resentment returned.

  He knew she would not return until sundown, when they would spend another short night by the Oathstone. This time, he promised himself, she would listen to him. They were co-rulers; she should not ignore the king any more than he should ignore the Lady. She must at least explain why she had been so supportive that quarter-year ago and so ignored him now. Then he put that out of his head; he still had his own duties.

  That morning he walked the bounds of Chaya, retracing the route he’d taken on his coronation day. Once more his subjects lined the streets and the city wall; now he knew many faces and names, and when a child wriggled loose from Berian, baker, and ran to him, he scooped her up.

  “Jerli, where are you going?” Kieri glanced at the child’s mother, who stood red-faced a few paces away.

  “Give you Midsummer luck,” the child said, pushing a flower behind his ear. Then she planted a wet kiss on his cheek and wriggled to get down. Kieri set her gently on her feet, and Berian snatched her up, face hardening.

  “Don’t scold her,” Kieri said. “Kind hearts are Arianya’s children.” His own heart ached, thinking of his lost daughter at that age, who had run to him just as eagerly.

  “If the king doesn’t mind—”

  “A child’s good wishes? Never.” He went on then, pausing at the four cardinal directions to pour a libation and break a loaf. At noon, he went to the royal ossuary to “bring the sun” to the dead with garlands of flowers. The Seneschal had a basket of fresh leaves ready; Kieri laid the leaves on eyeholes, mouths, earholes, and hung the garlands at either end of the ossuary. He felt a welcome from the bones; he sat on the stool the Seneschal placed for him between the platforms, and the Seneschal set the Suncandle before him, its fragrant smoke wreathing about him, then bowed and left Kieri alone. By custom, he would tell the bones how the year went, reassure them or trouble them as it might.

  He had visited the ossuary several times since his coronation, reading over the stories incised on the bones, aware of something he could not define—clouds of feeling from this one and that, not all of them. But always the Seneschal had attended him. This was his first visit truly alone and the first when he had a report to make.

  He let his mind quiet, trying to drive away that persistent resentment of the Lady’s neglect, and then began, talking to the bones as if they were living men and women, his ancestors, standing around him. He told of the coronation, of the many conferences with his Council, his assessment of the Siers he had met, his concern about the lack of trade, the slow withering of the land’s economy, his concern about the danger from Pargun and what seemed to him an unreasonable aversion to preparations for defense.

  “And the elves and humans are still estranged,” he said, into the silent near-darkness. A chill ran down his back, as if behind him someone had stepped out with drawn sword. He felt a tension in the silence: true listening, it seemed. It could not be, he told himself … and yet the hairs stood up on his arms. He did not glance around; he would not give in to the fear. “The Lady of the Ladysforest—”

  The Suncandle flared, the flame rising to the level of his knees as he sat on the stool. Kieri felt sweat break out on his forehead. Were elves listening? So much the better, then; perhaps they would carry his message to her. He laid it all out in plain words, in a voice flat with suppressed anger. She was his grandmother and his co-ruler: she owed him the courtesy of her presence and the kingdom the courtesy of her attention and her assistance. She had changed since the coronation, and he did not know why. He was angry, he admitted to the bones, that she had neglected what he saw as her plain duty … and yet he was not free to act as he would if he were sole ruler. Even that day, that sacred morn of Midsummer, she had ignored his request and come to the Grove only at the final moment.

  As if physical hands touched his face, he felt something—a warmth on his right cheek, a coolness on his left. Something of his father—the merest hint of a man’s firm, warm hand on his sword-side, the merest hint of a woman’s softer, cooler hand on his heart-side. His heart stuttered a moment, then beat on. He could not speak aloud; he asked the question in his mind. Are you … father? Sister?

  Yes.

  What … do you want? From his father’s hand—he could not think it otherwise—came a sense of love, support, peace. He could almost smell that dimly remembered smell, from times his father had picked him up and held him close. From his sister’s hand, something different: affection, wistfulness, and—stronger as he listened—anger. Then, sudden and strong: betrayal and warning.

  Kieri scarcely breathed. Betrayal? Danger? Who?

  They lie. She—But that was interrupted; his right cheek seemed to feel more pressure.

  Not now. No shadows this day.

  The sensation faded, his father’s faster than his sister’s, leaving the certainty that he had more to learn from them. The final word from his father felt like duty … from his sister, like judgment.

  “Sir King.”

  Kieri opened eyes he had not realized he’d closed; the Seneschal knelt before him, picking up the Suncandle’s holder, in which only a puddle of wax remained.

  “The candle has ended, Sir King.”

  “Thank you,” Kieri said. He had no idea how long it had burned. “I … I will need to talk with you after the rest of this.” A wave of the hand encompassed all the Midsummer rituals.

  “I wondered,” the Seneschal said. “From my post I saw the Suncandle burn higher than I have ever seen it before. When it flares, sometimes there is a message.”

  “There was … something,” Kieri said. “Something I do not understand, but must.” He shook his head to clear it. “Seneschal, do the bones ever speak to you?”

  “Speak to me? You mean, do I hear voices?”

  “I suppose … or something, some knowledge you feel the bones are giving you?”

  “That, yes, Sir King. Just as you said you did, on your first visit. Is that not still happening?”

&nbs
p; “Yes. But I do not know … how much is real. How much is my wish, or my … I was never given to fancies, that I know of.”

  “Nor would I think you so, Sir King. You have every aspect of a practical man, a man of experience and action. If your ancestors’ bones are telling you something, then to my mind you should listen. I am at your service whenever you wish, but is it so urgent that you must ignore this feast?”

  “No … I think not.” Kieri sat down on the bench outside the ossuary to put on his boots. “I must come back again, find the time to sit awhile with them, and then—then I will need to ask you how to interpret what I think I hear.”

  He found the court waiting for him outside, musicians and all. He led them to feast in the shade of the trees at the edge of the Royal Ride. They ate sitting on the grass, even the stuffiest of the Siers, and watched as a parade of livestock decked with flowers and ribbons, mellow bells around their necks clonking gently, ambled past on the main street. Music eddied in and out of hearing as the breeze shifted: ballads, jigs, round dances.

  “We never did any of this in the north,” he said to Arian, one of his half-elven Squires. In the quarter-year since his coronation, he’d found himself attracted to her despite the disparity in their ages and his determination not to involve himself with much younger women. “I wish I’d thought of it.” It did no harm to talk to her, he told himself.

  “Were you even there, in Midsummer?” she asked.

  “Not often. I spent the summers in Aarenis.” Hot summers those had been, sweat gluing his shirt to his body, sun beating down on his helm. “When we were in a safe camp, I poured a libation on Midsummer Morn, and some of the troops would sing songs through the night.” Kieri lay back on the soft grass, eyes half-closed against the gleams of sun coming through the tree’s canopy overhead, and pushed those memories away; the present peace and ease were too precious to waste. After a time, the Squires talked softly among themselves. He scarcely listened, letting his mind wander to the coronation taking place in neighboring Tsaia, to his former captains Dorrin and Arcolin. He wished them well, a Midsummer prayer of abundance and health.