Deeds of Honor Read online

  He stared at the tabletop...what had his idea been? He had only been joking about offering her to Phelan...it would be a great jest if that came to be, for if there was one man who could tame the girl, surely it was a crusty old mercenary commander. Phelan would be stronger, smarter, proof against her wiles...the king shook his head. Phelan was his enemy. The man would marry, no doubt, but he would marry some sweet simple girl of his own domain, some noble's daughter.

  As smoothly as a hot knife sliding into butter, another image of the situation eased into his mind; he never considered whence it came. Phelan had been married before, to a soldier-woman. He had shown no interest in sweet simplicity, but in exactly the kind of woman Elis was like to be. And if once Elis shared his bed—unwillingly, for he was sure Elis would never be willing—she might...she might do something. His mind ran through the possibilities: a knife in the ribs as he slept, poison dripped into his ear, or in his food or drink, to kill or control. As his wife, Elis would have opportunity to influence him—or kill him—that no one else could have.

  That she would never consent, he was sure, but that a single girl could evade the situation if he set it up without her knowledge...? Impossible. Of that, he was also sure.

  He had not made up his mind when he left the chamber; he would seek counsel of his advisors on this matter. But he eyed his other daughters at dinner that night: Atonyin with her flirting eyes, her dimples...Sargitta who was almost plain and about as interesting as a boiled dumpling without salt...he could not imagine any of them doing what Elis could do, if only she willed it.

  What would make her will it? Would she kill Phelan merely because she was forcibly wed to him? Or would he soften to Pargun if he had a Pargunese bride?

  Elis came to dinner late, her dinner robe rucked up on one side.

  "You have boots on!" her step-mother said angrily.

  "Sorry," Elis said. She bowed to Torfinn. "My apologies, sir, for being late, but the red mare foaled."

  "And you wore stable boots to the table?"

  The other girls giggled, pleased as usual to see Elis in trouble.

  "I had no time to change; I was late already." So much for apology.

  "Do we not have stable staff to deal with foaling mares?" her step-mother asked. "You are a princess, not a groom! Your place is here, properly dressed, on time."

  "Let her be," Torfinn said. He could play the doting father for once. He had to find a way to delay her, to give himself time to think all this out.

  They all looked at him in surprise. "But—" her step-mother said.

  "She is going, you know that," Torfinn said, forking up a slice of mutton, folding bread around it. "She has chosen to leave court life; I've no doubt she'll come to the table in her northern fastness with stable dirt on her boots every day, and we can't stop it."

  "But here—"

  "It's only a family dinner. Let her be."

  Asgone had been strong-willed once, but the king had convinced her that a queen must show regard for her lord the king; now she frowned, but dipped her head. Elis, he saw, had the sense to sit down quietly, without any triumphant or defiant looks or words, and accept the food the servants offered. She ate rapidly, clearly hungry. Her clear pale skin showed only the faintest color at her cheeks...she had, the king recognized, a beauty that might well appeal to someone like Phelan. Might remind him of that paladin or his former wife.

  "How long will it take your builders to ready your steading for you?" he asked Elis. "You are waiting until there's a roof against the weather, aren't you, before you leave?"

  She gave him a glance, spoon halfway to her mouth. "They are arranging transport of materials now, sir. Tools and such." She sipped from the spoon, swallowed, set the spoon down. "I will wait until the foals can travel; by then they expect to have as much roof as I need at first."

  "Wise," Torfinn said. So she would be here until snowberries ripened, at least. Probably until Midsummer. Would Phelan be in Chaya, or would he attend the crowning of Tsaia's new king, the crown prince who would ascend the throne? Surely he would be too busy in his own kingdom, so new to him. Surely, too, he would not risk crossing Verrakai lands again, even with Verrakai and his brother dead or in a Tsaian dungeon.

  He had time to plan; he had time to consider if he really wanted to risk his daughter, flesh of his flesh, with a man like Phelan...but he had no other plan, nothing else that might make his land and people safer. The girl owed him that—owed their people that. He smiled at her; she gave him a tentative smile in return.

  The End

  Author's Note on "Cross Purposes"

  Pargun figured as a historical backdrop for all of the first Paksworld books—hostile to the domains in which the action took place, and from which the characters came. But no land is simply an antagonist. Pargun's human population derived from Seafolk, from across the Eastern Ocean. The Seafolk had their own language, customs, legends, and beliefs, as well as a history as deep as any other, from before the magelords left Old Aare. The deep sources of their antagonism would lie in those. In Paladin's Legacy, changes in Lyonya, the mysterious domain governed jointly by elves and humans, forced Pargun's king to react. So did internal divisions no one outside the kingdom knew about. After losing troops in an attempt to prevent Lyonya's new king from getting to Lyonya in Oath of Gold, Torfinn faced a crisis and—like any good king—sought a way out that would do the least damage to his land and people. Like any good king, he saw his relatives—especially marriageable daughters—as tools of his strategy. But strong kings may have strong offspring. Fathers and daughters often see the same situation in different terms.

  Torre's Ride

  On Midwinter Night, in the darkened houses, with all hearths bare and swept clean, and families huddled together for warmth, the story of Torre's Ride will be told when Torre's Necklace rises in the night sky. This is the version most often told Fintha, Tsaia, and western Aarenis.

  * * * *

  Once there was a foolish and self-indulgent king who believed the gods would serve his need, since he was also generous. This foolish king had a daughter less foolish than himself, a princess not beautiful but brave and prudent, who was also generous but not in the ruinous way of her father. Her name was Torre, and behind her back some called her Torre Bignose, for she had her mother's nose and her mother had come from far away, from a people with proud noses. Her mother had died when Torre was scarcely able to walk.

  Year by year the foolish king borrowed gold from a neighboring kingdom to maintain a reputation for generosity, trusting to its king's indulgence, for that wicked king, with his eye on profit as well as the young girl Torre, reassured him and encouraged him to borrow more until half the kingdom's worth lay in the debt. Torre's father signed one letter after another acknowledging his debt and promising to pay soon, then spent the loan on feasts for his people and luxuries for himself.

  When Torre came of age to marry, she was not betrothed, for of those kings with sons, none wished to take on a kingdom half lost to debt. Except for one: the king who held those letters. He came, then, and demanded the kingdom and Torre besides, smiling a wolf's smile as he stood in the hall of Torre's father's palace with his soldiers behind him.

  Torre's father begged and pled, to no avail, and Torre, watching, knew she could not let this thing happen, for she knew the neighboring kingdom to live in fear of this king, who treated his people badly. Worse than her own fate as his wife would be the fate of her father's kingdom when joined to his. For many of the wicked king's subjects went hungry and ragged; her father might be foolish, but his people did not lack.

  So boldly she stood forth, and boldly she asked what that king would accept instead, and swore to perform any daring deed he named to ransom her father and her kingdom. And that wicked king laughed, but then bethought him that he could seem merciful at no risk to himself by setting her impossible tasks. This he did, twelve of them, and then demanded that they be all performed in so short a time that not even one could be a
ccomplished. Torre agreed, and would have started at once, but the wicked king told his soldiers to lock her in her chamber.

  In the dark of night, and despite the wicked king's guards, Torre escaped out her window and down the vines that climbed the palace. She had with her little enough: the supper she had not eaten, her sturdiest clothes, a sack to bring home the proof of her deeds, and her determination. In the stable, where she expected to find her own mount, she found instead a tall horse as black as her own hair and eyes, and around its neck a string of twelve lumps of coal. Its eyes were bright as stars; its hooves shimmered, as if standing in a stream of running water and not on straw.

  It bore no saddle or bridle, and when Torre would have fetched her own saddle, the horse was before her, blocking her from the tackroom. So Torre, determined that death was better than giving up, dared to mount the strange horse bareback, and rode off into the night, and the wicked king's anger, in the morning, came hard upon those he blamed for her escape.

  The deeds demanded were every one difficult and dangerous, and though the black horse bore Torre from place to place more swiftly than any mortal horse, it was Torre herself who faced heat and cold, hunger and thirst, danger from man and beast and monster, storms of wind and storms of rain, to achieve them.

  Time passed, for her, and her skin bore the marks of sun and wind and age as well as the scars of injuries. Her hair, once night-black, whitened year by year until it was white as plum blossoms. And one by one, as she accomplished the tasks, the coals on the horse's necklace turned to jewels, blazing with the light of all stars together.

  When all was done, and the black horse wore a necklace of these jewels, she returned to her home, where only the days required by the wicked king had passed. The black horse bore her up to the palace, and the guards fell back, frightened and astonished by the gleaming black horse and its necklace of brilliant jewels: they did not recognize the white-haired rider in ragged clothes. Into the hall she rode, the black horse's hooves ringing on the stone like warning bells.

  In the hall where the wicked king stood gloating over her father, all eyes turned to the black horse and its jewels. Torre slid from its back, with the sack in which she had carried proof of her deeds. Still none recognized her, for they had in mind the princess she had been, and not the aged woman she had become.

  She walked forward, and held out the sack. "Here is the debt paid," she said, "with the treasures you swore would wipe it out."

  "Who are you, old woman, to talk to me of debts?" the wicked king asked.

  "I am Torre," she said, and her father all at once knew her for his daughter, but wept at what she had become. "Look, and see that the debt is paid in full," she said. And she opened the strings of the sack, and turned it upside down, so the treasures of the universe fell out and everyone there was astonished, for nothing so precious had been seen there before, and gold itself appeared dull beside them. Here was a leaf of the One Tree, and a dragon's scale, and the heart of a star, and all other things the evil king had demanded.

  The evil king, astonished with the rest, was yet angry that she had succeeded, and spurned the treasures with his booted foot, saying, "If the debt be paid, you are still turned old and ugly and I have indeed taken this king's daughter from her father. Only your ugly nose is the same, Torre Bignose, and you will die alone and childless." He looked at the horse. "But I will take those jewels as payment of the debt, and that horse as well."

  But when he reached for the jewels, the great black horse bared its teeth, grabbed him by the shoulder, dragged him from the hall, and then—with a swing of its neck—threw him elsewhere, beyond human sight or knowing. His soldiers, all affrighted, ran away, and the evil king's body was never found. Then the horse pranced back into the hall and bowed to Torre, tossing its head until the necklace of jewels slid off its head and over hers, to hang around her neck instead. In that instant her youth was restored: her hair black and curly, her body strong and lithe, and her clothes no longer ragged, but whole and unfaded. Her father reached out to her, tears of joy this time streaming down his face.

  But Torre bowed to her father, and shook her head, refusing his touch. "I have others to care for," she said. "Use the treasure well." She mounted the black horse; it rose, whirled, and trotted out of the hall. No one saw where it went, nor did Torre ever return.

  That night new stars appeared in the sky, a ring of twelve, brighter than any around them. Torre's Necklace, the proof of impossible deeds done, and the hope of many. Torre herself continues to perform great deeds of rescue and succor, though none can predict where or when she will answer requests.

  Author's Note on "Torre's Ride"

  Torre is another part of the deep background created as I was writing The Deed of Paksenarrion, and her original legend is in the missing notebooks. I'm sure I'll find them someday. Maybe. I hope so, because there's a story in the same source about Torre and the Master Shepherd that I'd really like to have in its original form. At any rate, Torre's legend is also so old it cannot be dated. She is the patron of hopeless causes, throughout the lands once governed by magelords. Among the Horsefolk she and her legend are remembered differently. This, however, is the legend as known in the Eight Kingdoms. Torre's followers never organized as did Falk's and Gird's and Camwyn's; there are no "Knights of Torre".

  A Parrion of Cooking

  When the duke's men rode into the vill and demanded a maid or two to take back to the main house for training, Farintod's father pushed her out into the lane. "Here she is," her father said, his hands firm on her shoulders. "A true parrion for cooking she has."

  The soldiers looked her up and down. "She's over-young," the leader said. "How can you be sure?"

  "She makes good bread. Better than most. Take her and see," her father said. He pushed harder, sticking his thumb under her shoulder-blade to make her stand tall. "A hard worker, too. She's stronger than she looks."

  Farintod didn't fight him. Six hungry sibs in the hut, and no more food to be had; her tiny share would mean more to the youngest than to her. The soldier nodded to the others; two of them dismounted, put a rope around her neck, re-mounted, and led her behind them like a dog.

  She stumbled along, red-faced, humiliated, frightened, while the men laughed and teased her about her clumsiness. Soon there were five, three girls and two boys, all leashed to riders, all eventually standing—naked, wet, and shivering from the buckets of water thrown on "those filthy things"—to speak a name and a skill to a tall man in thick clothes and boots. Farintod gave her name and—as her father had told her—claimed a parrion of cooking.

  "A parrion, is it? Or do you just know how to boil water?"

  "A parrion," Farintod said. "I make the bread—"

  "We shall see," the man said. He jerked his head at one of the other men. "Fetch the cook. This one's to the kitchen if Cook'll have her."

  Goltha Cook had taken her inside, into the warm kitchen, and asked her questions—how did she make bread, what foods could she cook—and then had her demonstrate what she knew. And then she had become Cook's assistant, learning day by day the use of spices she had never known, and more uses of the ones known to every peasant. Cook was twelve years dead now, and Farin her successor, head cook for this terrifying family.

  She had learned, in the years since leaving her village, how to survive in a place where magery and evil ran thick as blood. Bow the head, lower the eyes, and show no weakness the masters could exploit. She never complained; she never asked favors; she made no friends and took no lovers. Her former life, she told herself, was only a dream—lost forever—all but her parrion, the gift from Alyanya, Lady of Peace, a name she must never say in this place.

  Farin thought of that day, and the days after, the night she found the girl Efla sobbing in a heap on the kitchen floor. Her kitchen floor now, though she dared not say it out loud. Sobs did no good, and much harm, in this house; the masters liked to see girls cry.

  Efla, unlike herself, had been born among the
house servants and had never known a real family. Shorter than Farin, easily frightened. Skinny, until she grew apples on her chest and a curve to her hip, at which point Farin knew—try as she might to keep the girl out of sight—one of the masters would notice her and the inevitable would happen.

  And now it had. And no need to ask who; she had a nose and the scent he wore was unmistakable. Young lord Hagin, the Duke's grandson.

  "Be quiet, girl!" Farin said. "Stop that noise."

  Efla looked up, tears running down her cheeks where the marks of a hard grip showed dark—on cheeks and chin and...of course...neck. "I—I—I—can't!" she wailed.

  Nothing to do now but this: Farin leaned over and slapped her smartly. "Be quiet, I said. Do you want to end in one of the cells below the tower?"

  That quieted the girl; her face turned pale as new-sifted flour. Farin handed her a dough-cloth off the table. "Dry your face and get up." Efla opened her mouth again; Farin scowled. "Get up," she said again. Efla clambered up, more awkward than ever, and clutched at the table, bent like an old woman. Farin forced herself to stand back. She knew, she could feel in her own body, every pain Efla felt; she had been hurt the same way. But sympathy could send them both to the cells. She willed the strength she now had into Efla's body, knowing she was no mage, and it would not work.

  And it didn't. Efla, bent, gasped as she tried to push herself up straight. From the corner of her eye, Farin caught a movement in the dark passage beyond the kitchen. One of them, that would be. Probably Lady Verrakai, come to spy.