Date: Thu, 2 Sep 2010 18:08:11 -0700 (PDT)
From: Kris Gibbons <bookwyrm6@yahoo.com>
Subject: SongSpell-48

This story is a work of fiction. It contains descriptions of, and
expressions of, physical affection without regard for affectional
orientation. If you find this type of story offensive, or if you are
underage and it is illegal for you to read it, please exit now. All
characters are fictional and in no way related to any persons living or
deceased. Any such similarity is purely coincidental and uncanny.

This work is copyrighted by the author and may not be reproduced in any
form without the specific written consent of the author. It is assigned to
the Nifty Archives under the provisions of their submission guidelines but
it may not be copied or archived on any other site without the direct
consent of the author.

My thanks to Dr. Grant for his encouragement.

I can be contacted at Bookwyrm6@yahoo.com

Copyright 2009 Kristopher R. Gibbons All rights reserved by the author

                               Chapter 48

          Theseus: Where I have come, great clerks have purposed
          To greet me with premeditated welcomes,
          Where I have seen them shiver and look pale,
          Make periods in the midst of sentences,
          Throttle their practised accent in their fears,
          And in conclusion dumbly have broke off,
          Not paying me a welcome. Trust me, sweet,
          Out of this silence yet I picked a welcome,
          And in the modesty of fearful duty
          I read as much as from the rattling tongue
          Of saucy and audacious eloquence.
          Love, therefore, and tongue-tied simplicity
          In least speak most, to my capacity.

                             Midsummer Night's Dream
                             Act V., Sc. i., lines 93-105


     Guild-mistress Drussilikh of the Scriveners stood looking up from the
seats, stunned. She had faced considerable acrimony from family and members
of her guild's council for her support of a coup leader with doubtful
longevity and even more doubtful heritance. At this new ruler's behest, and
against all instinct and better judgement, she maintained an undeclared
Arkeddan espier on her guild's member-lists. She had also allowed this
damaged, inexorable force of a king to adjudicate against three of her
long-standing guild-members, despite all tradition and in defiance of a set
of laws her predecessors had bled and suffered durance to legitimate. This
last decision outraged many of the Scriveners against her, mostly those who
had been granted Mastery within the past six years. Now this mystery
wrapped in dumb flesh claimed she was not-so-subtly working to estrange
herself from her people's best hope.
     How many ways might a guild -- or a guild-master -- show trust and
loyalty?
     The question was moot as the King did not doubt the Matron -- the
Scrivener Guild's public will -- but rather the private person. The
guild-mistress of the Scriveners had indeed been loyal, open and
accommodating with the Royal Personage.
     And what of Drussilikh olma Emmas-dawyl a Inosien?(317)
     On first thought, Drussilikh could find no cause for regret. True, she
had initiated no overt kindnesses for the royal person. Nary one sentence
spoken by her offered him frivolous chatter, curiosity, or empathy. But she
had never been blithely effusive or demonstrative toward anyone. She did
recall moments of silent comprehension, unvoiced understanding and quiet
acceptance toward the royal's behaviours. It was out of concern, not
expedition, that she could be found in the Palace even when no occasion
summoned. Affection, not duty, ever impelled her. That both her affection
and concern gravitated toward Kri-estaul was mere blood-tie and
happenstance. The child Kri-estaul needed succour more than Evendal the
man. Didn't he? And her attendance on the Heir benefitted the King as
well. Such indirect support indirectly abetted the still unsecure ruler.
     Didn't it?

     A sombre expression lapped at Evendal's face and rendered Drussilikh's
rationale so much sea foam. What Drussilikh confronted was not the
countenance of a King content in his vassal's service. An unwelcome wash of
second thoughts flooded Drussilikh's mind. Those subtleties that she
presumed proved her, seemed but self-excusing fancies now. The Matron took
three deep and slow breaths, then stared again at Evendal's closed
expression. If the King's visage served as any sort of wind-flag, he was
more hurt than angry. Yes, she had proven an amenable guild-mistress. But
having agreed to her brother's adoption meant that -- for Evendal -- she
had indirectly agreed to more.
     In this second assessment, her public discourse of late with the
rightful king looked to differ little from the blather of viperine civility
she had so often engaged in when confronting Polgern. Eyes open but
unseeing, Drussilikh thought back over those times when she spoke out of
unprovoked distrust such as she had felt in the last quarter bell. Whatever
began her near-treasonous acrimony had insinuated itself during the
compelled visitations of the magistrates(318).
     "Can you tell Us We are in error, Matron Drussilikh?"
     Drussilikh shook her head.
     "What can you tell Us, Matron Drussilikh?"
     "You terrify me," leapt from the depths, blunt and unadorned. And
unanticipated even by Drussilikh.
     Evendal flicked a glance Karondeo's way. "We know. Is this a territory
your heart travels whenever you attend Us?"
     The Matron gazed at Evendal in incomprehension.
     "Does the anticipation of Our Presence fill you with dread? Or is it
merely that you have moments, in Our Presence, when We trouble your
composure?"
     Drussilikh knew the peril inherent in what she was about to
admit. Whether she had been listening with her heart or her spleen up until
this moment, she had come to a decision. Her mother, rapier-witted though
the woman had been, might no longer be the right exemplar for her to
immerse in. Submitting to a trained royal heir, a sovereign authority
invested and determined to restore just rule, was a circumstance Drussilikh
had no experience with. She had to learn, with no examples from her past as
guides.
     "My love wanes on inexplicable occasions, Your Majesty. I would...I
would to beg Your Majesty's forbearance, and request the grace of
leave-taking. To better order my thoughts and fathom my poor treatment of
Your Majesty."
     She drew a breath, deep and somehow decisive. "I would. But such a
retreat would give license to the rhetorician in me. Away from Your Majesty
and I, unawares, promptly brush layers of wax and gilt over my fault. Her
Eminence tasked me in the past, to that very end. Might Your Majesty, of
your munificence, prove a more ruthless erne?"
     Weary, Evendal rubbed his eyes and, nodding, sighed. "You join a
precious compagnie.(319) We may tell you only so much, lest Our prejudice
lead you down the wrong scent...It is not Our voice you hear, brave
Matron. It is not Our face you spit on. Nor is it insignificant that
Robiliam's past, made apparitional, so amazed you. Your own past is no less
substantial, no less eager. You cannot see Us for the sovereignty Polgern
and Abduram retain in your heart."
     Drussilikh rightly protested, "The duumvirate enjoys no niche in the
grace of my affections! It never has!"
     Evendal m'Alismogh brooked no contravention. "True. Nevertheless they
command your behaviour toward Us!"
     Drussilikh stood frozen, unable to counter a truth she had only just
admitted to herself, albeit more gently.
     "Matron, We are Osedys. We are, and shall be, wilfully ignorant,
unyielding, inscrutable, seeming more bloodthirsty than ruthless and, to
all appearances, unrestrained and petty. That is the countenance of a ruler
absolute to those who are not he."
     "Then where the distinction between you and your predecessors?"
     "You divert, Mistress," m'Alismogh warned. "And are seeking to
undermine, again, how We are perceived."
     Drussilikh bit her bottom lip hard, with a visible distress that,
finally, was not anger. "Then must I rely on the sense and sensitivity of
others in my facing Your Majesty...and Evendal."
     Evendal, uncertain whether she asked a question or made an assertion,
chose to treat her comment as a decision wanting support. "Yes. That would
be best. Thus you are reassured and no one mistakes your words for treason,
an attack on the royal repute."
     The question gave the Matron a chance to calm. "My gut twists to think
I must bridle my tongue at all. And to trust the acuity of others in court
matters!"
     She shaded her eyes with a hand, as though suffering headpain; in
truth it was to mask the wet display of her repentance from all but the
person wronged. "I freely confess, Evendal, that I am not moderate or
clement where your august office is concerned. Forgive the disparagement I
have hoisted upon you. I say to all present, as genuinely as I can, that it
is undeserved."
     Evendal almost spoke out, to deny any need for Drussilikh to so humble
herself, but thought better of it. However uncomfortable he was with a
friend and kinswoman openly abasing herself to him, as the paramount public
person, to be seen accepting or rejecting her gesture was necessary.
     "We accept your words of contrition, and affirm to all that they are
genuine."
     Drussilikh's head jerked back in surprise at that last comment.
     The King paused, thinking further. "Is there no kinsman whom you trust
to be straight with you? One who does not mean you mischief, who can see
past the efferent lights(320) of their own ambitions?"
     It became Drussilikh's turn to pause and think soberly. "While there
are a few cousins I love, and trust them in their stations, I must assert
that having the King's ear and the attention of the court sycophants would
change them fearfully."
     "Nathlil?"
     "We exiled him with the others," Drussilikh explained glumly, "that he
might better thrive. Forgive the familiarity, Your Majesty and Your
Eminence, but...having watched those satellites in your orbit there are one
or two I could hesitantly, in good conscience, entreat to advise me. Their
perception and judgement I would trust in courtly matters."
     "Who foremost?" Sygkorrin asked.
     The Matron declined her head, indicating the High Priestess. "And in
the likelihood of Your Eminence's absence, Master Aldul. If Master Aldul
feels uncomfortable chastising me," Drussilikh grinned briefly, "then I
must imbibe discretion."
     "Your indulgence, Your Majesty?" Gwl-lethry interrupted with some
asperity. Baffled, the King nodded his permission.
     Tinde-keb rounded on Drussilikh with impassioned mien. "Do I bear no
commendation in your eyes? No niche in your noble respect?"(321)
     "I confirm your capacity(322) In truth you are more patient and keen
than I.(323) But I would not impose..."
     "You do not impose, good lady." Again Gwl-lethry interrupted,
startling King, Guard and gentry. "Mean and Ugly have scarred all. But ask
me to help you rasp this chancrous habit of thought down to level
smoothness, and I would account it the greatest of favours."
     Drussilikh cast a rounded eye upon the young manourlord, her mouth
slightly agape. Commonly solitary, quiet, and of an independent turn –-
when not playing the fool -- this ardent stance was baffling, but
unquestionably sincere.  "Out of all I could name, I would not make an
enemy of my lord of the Tinde lands. I am not `good', my kind
lord. `Harridan' might be a more apt address."
     Gwl-lethry cracked a grin. "And I am not `kind', stalwart lady. And
you are as ignorant of your own virtues as you are of our Majesty's. What
better way can you ascertain my mettle and suitability than in a legitimate
challenge?"
     The Lord Tinde-keb looked neither intimidated nor dissuaded by
Drussilikh's appeal and warning. His addition of the word `suitability' was
not lost on the King, though Drussilikh was too distracted to note it.
     Worried, the Matron turned a belligerent eye toward the one aged
magistrate she shared seats with. "Magister Urhlysha. Should word of these
confessions wend its way back to mine own ears..."
     The King reclaimed control of the discourse. "You shall do nothing,
because inapposites do not truly trouble you. Matron, in Our court We mark
your `frailty' as cause for commendation. Now, is there aught else We can
do to help you in your heart's vermin-hunt?"
     Drussilikh shook her head.
     "Then please sit and consider as Our companion."
     With a relieved sagging of the shoulders, Drussilikh complied.

     Hard upon the King's words came sharper speech, delivered in a high
pitch that leapt from the hallway adjacent the Chamber.
     "I must see him! Another day won't serve! He needs to know! He must!
He must!"
     This last barged into Evendal's very frame with its shrill strength
and emphatic certainty. Then all heard "Unhand me! No! You have no
right. Leave be! I'll not be silenced! He must know now! The morning? And
with morning's advent, then when?"
     "Ierwbae, fetch."(324)
     Ierwbae nodded even as he moved for the doorway. The young Guard
returned with two other Guard and a distraught young female. The loud girl
was clothed in grey and russet, a peasant colour combination seldom worn in
the Thronelands, with a quirt clenched in her trembling fist.
     That the young damsel held a whip told enough. Her very appearance
reminded Evendal of an arena of responsibility he had overlooked. He did
not haw or prevaricate. "The horses!"
     The young lass knelt briefly and then glared about the Chamber, her
fish-cold gaze lingering most blatantly on those Guard yet conscious. When
she spoke again, her register was noticeably lower than when in the
corridor. "Yes. Majesty. Your horses." Unwisely, the girl emphasized the
possessive. "Congratulate the Guard and Court leeches! They have provided
the Palace with sufficient meat to see out the winter."
     "Your Majesty," Ierwbae interjected, pink-cheeked, "I present a girl
of no restraint, Mistress Tīri-iase olm'Etiyerne."
     Evendal tapped his thumb and forefinger together(325) and Ierwbae
stepped back from the girl, his cheekbones darker yet. The King stared at a
point of air behind the enfuriated youngling, silent, reviewing a dolorous
roster of grooms nine years dead. The exercise brought no joy, so he turned
to his yet breathing attendants.
     "Ierwbae. Your Eminence. Have you any among your number apt at
restoring horses exposed to sleet and cold rain?"
     "And starvation, and rickets, and violence," Tīri-iase appended,
disgust choking her voice.
     "You are their designated ostler?"
     The girl shook her head, tears scattering. "They have none. She fled
for Donnath-luin the day she heard of Master Polgern's fate. That wench,
appointed by the duumvirate, was but a cere-wash; someone to give the
appearance of benign maintenance while violence and neglect were visited on
Your Majesty's servants."
     "Wherefore?" Evendal asked; he could hear that Tīri-iase's use of the
word `servant' in place of `horse' was a disclosure and indictment, not a
euphemism.
     Flesh-flensing bitter anger drenched every word of her reply. "In
retaliation for the most heinous of crimes committed against the
duumvirate. These...rapacious and ungrateful horses refused to advance
while sporting caltrops in their hooves, Master Polgern saw no sense in
their continued care on the Throne's vianki."
     "Of course they wouldn't proceed! What creature could? When was this?"
     "Several seasons past, during a spell when our Wise Counsellor thought
to subdue the Cinqet."
     "So why the desperation this bell? They were bred for colder climes
and have survived Our's for generations."
     One of the more unusual schemes Menam enacted early in his reign was
to ensure one adult horse per Guard candidate and, after each journeyman
had paid out his apprenticeship, a weanling to train. Prior to Mausna, the
Guard numbered over twelve hundred, schooled for infantry and cavalry. The
idea had been that confirmed Guard would use, and thus train their
weanlings, so that new Guard might have mounts prepared for lengthy
service; and each set of new Guard would school weanlings for the next set
of Guard, in perpetuity. The Manourlords had raised a horrendous row at the
Throne's demand that they annex a fair portion of their property for
pasturage and fit stables. When Menam made a suspension of certain arable
land taxes contingent on obedience, Menam's will had prevailed.
     Evendal was troubled. The number of young horses that had not faced
battle and death should have been more than one lone girl could manage.
     Tīri-iase olm'Etiyerne's voice rose, again signalling her own
distress. "Not without tending: windbreaks, a wholesome mix of grain and
hay, clean water, and grooms watchful for hoof-rot. But I have no more
money. No feed. I've borrowed off everyone I know. To pay for the most
abhorrent of stables. For over a fortnight I have waited to be summoned,
pestering Guard and courtier. Instead, I have been banished from these
grounds and my good name defamed in order that alert residents might notify
the Guard should they see me trespass."
     "All to keep you from Us?"
     "So it has seemed, Your Majesty. I received promises and reassurances
of being brought before you that a child having six years would not trust,
and was expected to keep sated with them."
     The more Evendal heard, the angrier he got.
     "Lin-kaelug...?"
     Drussilikh interrupted. "Your Majesty, I myself know two from my
legions who have calmed shy beasts overset by mistreatment. If I might
employ a page, one who knows the lay of the city, for their retrieval? They
would respond faithfully to my importuning."
     "Readily. Ierwbae?"
     It was Ierwbae's turn to shake his head in dismay. "All those I knew
of among the Guard are now dead."
     Evendal paused, startled and respectful of a bitter and perverse truth
frankly faced. "Mausna?"
     The Guard again shook his head. "I did not know many of the late
Majesty's dead. Rather the press-ganged or those trapped between Polgern
and Abduram."
     "And thus are we, even now, deprived," was all he could think to
say. "Par-shetope! Attend, personally, to the Matron's need..."
     Sygkorrin sported a faint grin, listening to the impassioned apprisal,
hasty commands, and prompt reappraisals. Evendal supposed his care
singular, but hardly cause for mirth.
     Behind the Priestess, Guard Lin-kaelug looked on in stark
puzzlement. Finding the royal gaze upon her, she admitted the cause for her
expression. "Guard Metthendoenn has trumpeted Your Majesty as a lord most
approachable with one bearing an honest query."
     "We hope to be. Ask, strong arm of my rule."
     "Whence the urgency? Horses can be replaced, can they not?"
     Sygkorrin piped up with a sly, "The Guard's question mirrors mine own,
Your Majesty."
     The King glared at the High Priestess.
     And saw a woman worn by the length of a hard day. Somewhere Evendal
recalled hearing how Her Eminence did not take to the sea very well. And
she had doubtless seen to the grieving family of Illiamarro. As `first
among equals' in her disciplines she also had to deal deftly with the
throng of priests and postulants who would have demanded to attend the most
macabre execution a Thronelander was ever likely to witness. In many ways
Sygkorrin had endured a more difficult day than Evendal. Evendal at least
had a reminder, in the form of a dozing Kri-estaul, that the day's tasks
benefitted breathers he worshipped, rendering any effort worthwhile.
     Evendal held the tired woman's attention and said, more gently than he
wanted to, "What an odd attitude, Your Eminence. Of course they cannot be
replaced."
     "Your Majesty believes that?" Tīri-iase olm'Etiyerne asked
tremulously. She had surpassed the limits of her courage, and her body
shook in reaction. As he attended to the supplicant, m'Alismogh felt he
dealt with one who could herself act the skittish horse. Tīri-iase, like
Aldul, might not accept another's touch as comfort; likewise, she made it
quite clear that she put no trust in words. For this troubled girl, only
effective gestures would serve.
     Evendal m'Alismogh nodded once, his nimbus casting lithe shadows, not
daring to look at anyone in his worry and anger. "There is nothing more
beautiful than a hale horse challenging the wind. Every one of them is a
paean of trust, loyalty, delicacy, and strength. They are more deserving of
Our good care than most of the people We serve." He turned back to
Sygkorrin. "Our family has seen to the breeding of different qualities in
different gens. For travelling. For combat. For farming and carting. For
the joy our communion has long provided.
     "Your Eminence, think on who betrayed the barter we have taken
centuries to arrange with these servants. We will wager a Pearl of Delight
that Mean and Ugly did not confine their deliberate abandonment and
organised isolation solely to the war horses of Our stabling."
     The Priestess offered only a weak protest. "But I came here in a
gharry, pulled by horses purchased from the Throne! No one has harried me
over their use or the Temple's ownership of them."
     "That only tells Us that your horses have been exclusive Temple
chattel for more than four years, or that Mean and Ugly saw no advantage in
challenging the Archate over them. Do not mistake Us. We do not contend
that those two plotted to cull all horses from the Thronelands. But both
Polgern and Abduram had suffered embarrassment, failing to bring the Cinqet
to its knees. If they could have punished the very stone of the Cinqet's
embrasured bridges in retaliation, they would have. Horses made a more
responsive victim."
     The King saw differing levels of disbelief in the visages around
him. Gwl-lethry nodded, and shared an understanding with Danlienn, Aldul,
and Urhlysha. Drussilikh, Lialityne, Par-shetophe and Sygkorrin either
knotted their brows in perplexity or stared at the floor so that no
expression might indict them. Karondeo and Ierwbae stood with clear
forehead and expectant demeanour, trusting where they did not
comprehend. Not for the uncaring to know how Polgern had preserved a
written accord, bearing Abduram's mark, to remove all horses and donkeys
from the Cinqet, under the disgusting fiction that the King's Fifth was
cooking and eating the healthy ones in desperation. The fabrication became
well-known, the Bill and its enforcement did not.
     Evendal had blithely assumed that the effort had died with
Polgern. His error, his responsibility.
     Like many courtiers, the `Wise Counsellor' had nurtured an ignorance
of horses. For the oi polloi, horses were like the ubiquitous
vermin-killing nis-ralur, unremarked ænigmas disregarded until they were
unavailable. When Master Polgern could not walk to a place, he suffered one
mature horse to pull his carriage. The beasts' age was the only stricture
Polgern ever concerned himself with, to the best of Evendal's recollection,
because in Polgern's mind the older the animal the more phlegmatic and
safe. Whether a given horse was easily spooked and what it was actually
bred for were questions that would never have sailed into Polgern's mind. A
horse was a tool; it either met whatever need he had at any moment or it
became meat-pies.
     The King could easily imagine the Counsellor blaming the Royal harras
for the failure to turn his march on the Cinqet into a triumphal. What else
the elder had hoped to accomplish, except to restore a reputation he never
really owned, Evendal could not guess. But Abduram would have gleefully put
his animosity with Polgern aside for any scheme or law that promised him
slaughter or the degradation of others.
    Evendal grabbed a heavy cloak with a tabard-like front panel and pulled
it on over his head. "We chatter to no purpose here."
     "Where do you think to visit, Your Majesty?" Ierwbae watched as his
lord took up a blanket brought for Ddronhelim's use.
     "We must find a place suitable for Our less fractious subjects."
m'Alismogh then spoke as to the air. "Grandfather, if you will, again?"
     Before the child could awaken fully, the King had his son swathed and
settled back in his rolling chair.
     To change from secure and sleeping to suddenly in motion without
referent or preamble made Kri-estaul waken in terror.
     "Papa!" The almost murmured cry sliced through Evendal more painfully
than Tīri-iase's strident alarm. That Kri-estaul whispered told Evendal his
son presumed himself again under-ground and brutalised by some dastard.
     Face hot with shame, the King knelt beside his cringing heir. Too late
he asked himself the motive for his eagerness. Why the room suddenly seemed
too small to relax in. Whence this abrupt implacability? The answer stared
back at him, worried, panting and wide-eyed.
     "I am here, my son. Forgive me. I frighted you without good cause."
     The form of a man with a cap of gray and white hair appeared from the
entryway. "Would Your Majesty appreciate being dropped precipitously into
as rough a confusion as you have your son?"
     Serpent quick and willow-bark bitter came Evendal's reply. "We have
had that displeasure already, grandfather!"
     Surn-meddil was neither curious nor intimidated. "And you would share
it with my...the son you purport to love?"
     The heat from Evendal's face continued. "We are not gentle,
Majesty. We work to be."
     Surn-meddil's bickering provided Kri-estaul a moment to calm. "What
happened, Papa? Why am I in this...these rugs?"
     "I wrapped you against the chance of your getting a chill. We are
determined to dodder about, to venture out again. Your Highness Prince
Kri-estaul agdh Emmas-dawyl a Inosien, may We present Mistress Tīri-iase
olm'Etiyerne, vanguard and guardian of Our Stables. Tīri-iase olm'Etiyerne,
We present Our son and heir, His Royal Highness Prince Kri-estaul agdh
Emmas-dawyl a Inosien. We go to secure a safe haven where Our horse stock
can wait out the worst of this winter untroubled."
     "Now?" The protest burst out of Sygkorrin's mouth, to her own
surprise.
     "Have you some argument, Your Eminence?"
     The Priestess paused to gather her composure before demurring, "Only
the lateness of the hour after such a day as His Highness has had. That and
the measure of cold that awaits with the sun's rest begun."
     "Sister in puissance, winter itself will be trammelled before it
touches Our child. Tīri-iase olm'Etiyerne, where do the beasts abide
currently?"
     Tīri-iase whispered in her uncertainty, faced with what –- by her
limited experience -– was an inscrutable lord. "Less than a league from
here; north-west, and then west. A corner of land whose owner I met but
once. She proved inaccessible to the duumvirate or their minions and she
would not barter with the Throne."
     The answer led Evendal to nod; he anticipated a place worthless for
the girl's purpose, seeming perilous. "We had been told how many of
Polgern's plans had proven useless, most often because he never took into
account the Powers that a King had to cosset. But so many!
     "Ignore my murmurings, they are of no consequence. Come whoso
will. Dusk has but begun and We would see what temporary balm is possible."
     "Master Urhlysha, We give you Our grace to await Us, to retire here,
or to seek your home. Likewise Mistress Lialityne and Master Danlienn -- as
your Matron permits. Sister of Our son and Matron of Scriveners, you are
free to chose however you want; as are you, Lord Gwl-lethry. So are you
two, dearest to me, Master Aldul and Master Karondeo, free. Though
Aldul..." Evendal hesitated in his rapid-fire dismissals. "Aldul, had I the
nerve and time to debate with you, I would. I can but beg you to take your
rest. Spare your limbs, your bones, the harrowing of a winter's night
outside."
     The King's plaint matched his expression and the Kwo-edan deferred to
the Thronelander's wishes. "I shall indeed remain here. Provided the fire
stays fed and a skin of kumyss can be retrieved from some corner of the
Palace for my use."
     "Your words, Our voice," the King confirmed, relieved.
     Aldul grinned. "Then I shall keep watch over the twins, as Your
Majesty permits."
     "Our thanks. And you, my son?"
     Kri-estul looked up, startled. "What? Do you want me to stay?" The
worry returned to his countenance.
     Evendal did not answer outright. "Your health is much improved. You
have a protector unrivalled. Hence you always have that choice, beloved
boy."
     Kri-estaul stared at Evendal until he felt assured his Papa was not
just bored with him and angry at him. "I don't understand. Why do you want
to go outside?"
     The King reined in his impatience, disciplining the urge that had
forgotten that its motive force, the irrational inspiration behind this
effort, sat stubborn and scared before him.
     "Kri-estaul. Even as you, I dreamt that you were near, waiting to be
rescued. For many days I had bad dreams of pain and fear."
     Papa had not told him this before. "You did?"
     Evendal nodded. "But, until your sister commissioned me, I thought
them nothings; my own worries populating a dumb show. You suffered
unnecessary days of durance as I took my leisure." He found it harder to
speak. "I. I don't. I don't want other innocents to hurt or
starve...because I am turned lazy. For these children of the earth to
suffer as you did."
     Kri-estaul nodded, matching solemnity with a solemnity of his own. "I
really like Unc'Aikathemi's gift-horse. I want to see horses, but I am so
tired, Papa. Do we have to go outside?" To Evendal's surprise, the child
whined.
     "No," the King reaffirmed. "I have decided to, but you need not. You
choose, my son. You. Choose."
     Kri-estaul's eyes turned from a haggard-looking Papa and Unc'Aldul, to
the motionless lumps that were Darhelmir and Ddronhelim, back to his father
and Tīri-iase. He knew he would get no rest by staying and waiting; no
matter his trust in Uncle Aldul, the Palace still held a lot of dangerous
Guard. Nothing would keep him from worrying once Papa left, because
whatever might happen would happen only around Papa. Uncle Surn-meddil was
interesting and could talk with two people in different places. But
Kri-estaul felt tired and he knew that more talking would make him more
tired.
     "I want to go with you and Uncle Meddil."
     The King glanced at the white-haired form, and both grinned their
pride.
     The Matron caught the exchange, but wondered only briefly at it. "I do
not know where Your Majesty races toward. Where shall I send the help I
promised?"
     "Is there yet the Eikhonist Lodge west and north of here?"
     "Yes."
     "And they remain its tenants?"
     "Yes, Your Majesty."
     "Whoever responds to your petition, send to that locale. An
itinerarium beyond there is just not explicable. We shall appoint someone
to guide them further."
     Drussilikh snorted a laugh. "There is nothing 'further'. Nothing
beyond the lodge but barren bluff, cliffs, and coastline."
     Solemn-faced, the King declined his head. "As you say."
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(317) ~(Hem-mas-da-will & Yin-no-see-in) of the Keh'my-ralur.

(318) Ch.31

(319) He refers, delicately, to Ierwbae.

(320) phosphenes

(321) Generous aristocratic consideration.
     'And what poor duty cannot do, noble respect
     Takes it in might, not merit.' (Midsummer Night's Dream; Act
V. Sc. 1. line 91)

(322) judgement

(323) One of the attributes ascribed to the chameleon totem Drussilikh's
family claims is patience.

(324) The Hramal, in general, avoid dogs, and so have no verbal cues or
conventions associated with them. So this terse command implies no
disrespect.

(325) Mimicking a jaw opening and closing; a gesture of annoyance,
amusement, incredulity.