"I would be glad to see such a one king of this land," said Elof smoothly.
"You will work your wizardry for us, then, Master Valant?" broke in Kenarech impatiently. His brother hissed wordlessly between clenched teeth, and he added "I mean, since it is willed so. Aid us and you'll find us generous…"
Geraidh gestured him angrily to silence. "This sorcerer is a wise man. I'll avow that he and I understand one another; he'll serve us far more willingly than ever he has Nithaid." He paused a minute, tugging at his beard with an air of deep reflection, and met his brother's eyes a moment before adding "When the time comes, of course. No, sorcerer, it is not yet here; our father lives still. Word has reached us that he has beaten back the worst the Icewitch could do, at a great cost in lives, and there is talk of peace. He stays only to be sure her forces have all drawn back. Soon he will return, and take up his throne again."
"For years and years, maybe!" spat out Kenarech, a frustration in his voice that sounded close to tears. He was shorter than his brother, and though little more than a year younger the plumpness he kept gave him a boyish look, which his trim moustache only served to accentuate. "You couldn't ask for better, could you, smith? Years more swinking under his thumb, in this place' Years before you can come into our service!" He gazed moodily into the fire. "No more could we! Years of guzzling mouths, of endless levies, of eating, sleeping, breathing nothing but war…"
"Of shedding a Great River's worth of blood!" put in Geraidh. "Terrible, of course; but absolutely necessary, you understand."
"Oh, of course!" complained Kenarech, sprawling back on a bench. "To win back all those wild wastelands on our northern borders - absolutely! Why should it matter, after all, that they've not been ours for two generations past, and that we've never missed them? Or the Gate, that had become a punishment posting for mutinous soldiers, so far was it from anywhere civilized! Let the savages have them, that's what some people might say; give up chasing about after every flea-bite of a raid! After all, those border folk are half savage, anyway; leave them to fight one another, and the rest of the country in peace! That's what some people might say, but never us!" He snorted. "We're with our father, every step of the way. We can't wait to go blundering about the backwoods with a huge force every time the savages lift a few cows from the peasants! So we stir them up and have to spend another fortune quelling them! Eh, Geraidh? Can we? We're afraid the Icewitch is going to come and get us!"
Geraidh smiled thinly, like a kindly adult entering into the spirit of an infant's game. "I lie awake worrying about it," he remarked. "Never mind that I've never seen the Ice moving any nearer in my lifetime; our father is quite right to encourage all that cloud of superstition about it, and this Witchwoman the savages worship. How else would he drum up so much support?"
"How else indeed?" laughed Kenarech. His brother seemed content to let him run on, as if confident what opinion of him Elof would form. "After all, if it isn't the Ice he has to deal with, it's these border lordlings. Now there are those might be content to let them run free and be hanged if they like, with their endless provincial bickerings; not as if they brought in their worth in taxes, after all! But no; let's butcher every savage and whip every lordling into line, say I, and beggar the kingdom for a century to come, if we need to…" He bit off what he had been about to add, and spat viciously into the fire.
Geraidh, who had been looking wary, relaxed and nodded calmly. "Our esteemed father is certainly a man of great and war-like ambitions. If he makes peace with the savages, he will turn next to uniting his borders; that will be a bloody business! Yet already he talks of it. And then? Why, he dreams of the lands across the sea, whence I believe you came! Naturally you would wish to see him rule there also. There is no limit to his ambition - and of course," the prince shrugged, "he is fully entitled to it. He is, after all, the king. But there is no treason, after all, in favouring, as we have on occasions counselled…"
"A less dedicated approach?" suggested Elof, resting heavily on his crutches. The rumour of peace had shaken him, and he could think of little else at that moment.
"I see you understand. But, as he is entitled to do, he has ignored that. These things cannot be helped, of course. Our father is the rightful king, and we his loyal sons. There are those, of course, even many great lords and men of wealth and influence, who feel that our father's rule grows daily too costly, and not only in money, that he throws away lives like so much wine-lees. They complain, if you will credit it, that they are weary of glutting this strife with their taxes and their sons. But this is dangerous talk, talk of rebellion even, and there has been far too much of it around the court of late. We have done our best to suppress it, of course; but these things are particularly hard to contain. Especially while the king is away. You take my meaning?"
"Of course," said Elof, with a slight bow. Having endured Nithaid's doting upon these his own flesh, he felt an almost physical surge of sickness. He had seen without difficulty the way they were leading, and without surprise; but to hear this monstrous ingratitude from their own lips was almost beyond bearing.
"We are particularly afraid that some such foolish rebellion might be prepared to strike before he could return. In such a time we must move with circumspection. A personage such as yourself could be of material importance in assuring the success or failure of such a revolt - if, for example, you are preparing some powerful engine of war for Nithaid on his return, as it is rumoured. You might be approached, or even abducted by such rebels…"
"Tortured, even!" Kenarech chimed in. "They'll baulk at nothing, men like that!"
Geraidh nodded, tugging his beard. "It is possible. I do not like the idea, but it is possible. When the stakes are so great… We came to warn you, therefore, and to assure ourselves of exactly where your loyalties might stand in this matter, were you approached, pressured even, by any such misguided faction." He paused, expectantly.
"You may be sure," said Elof slowly, "that my loyalties are engaged as you would wish them to be; and that if the worst should come to the worst, I would hope to serve you and your brother in exactly the same manner as your father. As it happens…" He leaned on his crutches and steepled his hands, watching the sudden flaring of interest in their faces. "As it happens, I am indeed working on such a device, which could be of signal advantage to either side in any rising, if they were clever enough and enjoyed sufficient support. I would feel a great deal better if you knew about it…"
"And perhaps took charge of it?" suggested Kenarech. His brother glared at him.
"Some details, at least, might be of assistance; a demonstration, even - if you are not saving that for Nithaid."
Elof smiled. "For him, yes; but in the circumstances I consider this more important. Provided all this is kept in the utmost confidence -" He looked at Kenarech and then, meaningly, at Geraidh.
"That goes without saying," said the older prince sharply, with a sour look at his brother.
"Then I will be pleased to show you what I am working on. When it is ready."
The two keen faces clouded with impatience and disappointment. "Why not now?" demanded Kenarech. "At least give us some idea…"
"If we are to forestall any such treacherous action," put in Geraidh quietly, "we must -
must! -
have some sight of it before he returns!"
"Till it is ready there is nothing to demonstrate," said Elof firmly, thinking of the shimmering beauty that hung concealed in the cooling furnace below. "How long will that be, think you?"
"No more than three weeks away, I'd guess. Well, can you achieve it in that time, sorcerer?" The tone was a threat in itself, but Elof smiled as if he had not heard it.
"I believe I can," he said. "I must consider, and study. If I may send word to you, no later than fourteen days hence… By my thrall; he is to be trusted entirely," he added, as their faces darkened. He watched greed war with caution in them both, as clearly as metals that cannot alloy.
At length Geraidh nodded. "Very well. But take care! The conspirators may be all around you. Why, we have not even dared warn our father yet, so certainly would any such message be intercepted, and the rebels alerted. There is no need to bother him, for now."
Elof smiled broadly, and bowed. "You need have no fear I will turn aside in this matter. What more could I wish, after all, than to enjoy the gratitude of the heirs-apparent, and the just reward of my toil? I would wish you no less, my princes."
Kenarech chuckled. "When our father returns, we will see to it that you have your reward! Whatever a cunning sorcerer takes delight in, eh?" He chuckled, and clucked his tongue lightly. "Whatever your desires -whatever your tastes - set yourself no bounds, you may indulge diem all!" His moustache worked as his mouth pursed at the thought.
Geraidh shook his head reprovingly. "This learned and cunning man would scarcely bother with such things!" he said with calm certainty. "Come, brother, let us take our leave ere you offend him further. We await your word, sir; and leave our lives, and the good of this poor bleeding realm, in your hands. Come, Kenarech!"
Elof bowed deeply as the tall young man turned his brother towards the door; Kenarech acknowledged him with a jaunty and patronising wave, but Geraidh studied him a moment out of his narrowed eyes, and then inclined his own head slightly. Elof watched them step through the door and out onto the hill, and was about to sink down in his seat when Geraidh plunged back inside and strode over to him. "My gloves!" he remarked, somewhat loudly. "I must have laid them down somewhere… Ah, there!" They lay on the bench beside Elof. As Geraidh bent over to pick them up he paused, and murmured, "Hearken to me, wise man! You heard my brother prattle, you will have formed your own view of his discretion. He is scarcely to be trusted. I counsel you, when you send that word, do you send it to me alone!"
Kenarech poked his head around the door. "What keeps you, brother?"
"I had left my gloves. And I was remarking that I will wish to command an armour also, when times are more settled!"
"No, sir sorcerer!" laughed the younger brother. "Do you shape me one first, for he hardly cares to bestride a horse, this one, let alone fight with his own two hands! He'd sooner crouch over the coals and plot -"
Geraidh ushered him firmly out, and Elof slumped down and rested his head in his hands. When Roc reappeared, having seen their boat safely away, he looked up at him. "Pour me a stoup of wine, will you? I've a foul flavour needs rinsing from my mouth…" He tossed back the cup at a gulp. Roc refilled it, and Elof nodded his thanks.
"When I think how the king has doted on these two young vipers…! How that old brute has driven himself half into his grave these past years, killing himself with the effort to leave them a kingdom secure, united and at peace…" Elof shook his head furiously. "I could almost find it in me to pity the man!"
"As he raised his seed, so he must reap it!" said Roc censoriously. "It might be a hard and scarring thing to be raised by such a man; I'll wager his devotion could make twice the tyrant of him, and crush those it fell on!"
Elof nodded. "Crushed they are, out of their natural shape!"
"You don't know the half of it!" grunted Roc. "That little swine Kenarech, as we're turning down to the boat he makes as to toss me a coin, and stands fumbling in his purse. Well, I'm playing the daft mechanical, so I stand and wait, and damned if he don't whisper to me that I'm to warn you his brother will betray and cheat you as he's cheating
him
, and you're to send the word to him alone. Or, failing that, that I'm to bring it to him anyhow; and he gives me a gold piece, no less, as an earnest." Roc tossed it on the table. "Another of yours, damn it!"
They laughed, but Elof swiftly grew serious. "I wonder if Kenarech is quite the fool his brother thinks him; Geraidh did not think to bribe you, which might have been the surer way of getting the message, had you been the usual thrall. Though he did contrive to assure me he would still have a use for me afterwards, with that mention of armour…"
Roc poured more wine. "There's not a handsbreadth between them; Hella have the pair of them, for me.'" He looked anxiously at Elof. "Not really going to aid them, are you? Not even for revenge on Nithaid?"
"And give Kerys to the Ice? Hardly! I could simply betray them to Nithaid; for what revenge could be keener than showing him the treachery of what he loves the most? His own flesh and blood…" Elof considered. "But I do not seek so base a vengeance. And as they warned me, I might not manage it. Yet…" He sipped absently at his wine. "There is too much that does not satisfy me, Roc. Too much I fail to understand. This talk of peace with the Ice - what
in
the world could induce Louhi to offer that?"
"Maybe the hiding Kerys has given her; you suggested that once. Made her think she'd be better off turning her powers elsewhere - against Morvanhal, maybe as we feared."
"It might be - and yet I cannot believe it. Nithaid has only just held back the Ekwesh, and they are no more than the advance guard of the Ice. There is none of that unity of heart and mind here that the Ice seems to fear. As witness those two! They endanger the land. And something more worried me - "
"So it bloody well should! Bugger the land! What about you and me? Can't you see? They fear what you've shown you can do! If you don't help them they've as good as threatened to slay you, just to deny their father your help."