His mouth suddenly went from a pout to a hard, angry line. “Why not?” he asked tightly. “You are the ruler here. Your Council doesn’t have any power except to advise you. I’ve seen what you can do when you want to. You’ve handed out properties and titles to anyone you choose without even telling them. You can make me King if you wanted to. You can tell your Council, just like you told them that you were going to marry me.”
“No, I can’t,” she said, the nausea rising into her throat. “And it has nothing to do with the Council. It’s the law that’s keeping you from it, and not even the Queen is above the law. You can’t be King, because you aren’t a Herald. Only a Herald can be a King or a Queen in Valdemar.”
He snorted with exasperation, as if he suspected she was prevaricating. “Then make me a Herald!” he exclaimed angrily. “If that is all that it takes, just make me a Herald and get it over with! I don’t know why you haven’t bothered to do it already!”
“I can’t make you a Herald!” she replied, now getting a little angry herself. Hadn’t he listened to anything anyone had told him since he had arrived here? Or did he only listen when what he heard was what he wanted to hear? “Heralds aren’t made, they’re Chosen.”
“Then Choose—” he began, but she interrupted him.
“They aren’t Chosen by a person, they’re Chosen by their Companion,” she told him flatly, a chill over her words that he seemed oblivious to. “So you can’t be a Herald because none of them have Chosen you.” She didn’t bother to add that he would then have to go through the Collegium like anyone else before he became a full Herald and could be crowned co-Consort and King. If he really had ignored something so fundamental as needing to be a Herald before becoming a King, he would never grasp having to be schooled for four or more years first.
“You’re telling me,” he said, slowly and incredulously, “that the reason I can’t be King is because I don’t have a white horse?”
“They aren’t horses,” she began, but he was already pushing away from the table.
“There must be fifty or a hundred of those beasts in that field next to the Palace,” he said, a dangerous edge to his voice. “They can’t all belong to somebody. We’ll see about this nonsense.”
He stalked out, and she might have tried to stop him—except at that moment she lost her battle with her stomach, and with that, her will to try to break him of his delusions gently evaporated.
Let him stand around in Companion’s Field with a carrot in his hand for the rest of the day, if he elected to. He’d only look silly, and maybe when he was tired, hot, and ready to come back to the Palace he’d be more reasonable.
***
:Chosen—: Kantor said, just as Alberich was correcting one of the younger Trainees’ aim with his bow, nudging his feet into a better stance, showing him how to aim along the shaft, then elevate to allow for the arrow dropping in flight. :I don’t want to interrupt you, but there is about to be something of a crisis. And we are the closest—we, and Keren and Dantris, of course—to the situation.:
Calmly, Alberich stepped back and let the Trainee shoot, not changing his expression by a hair. :What crisis? What situation?:
:Prince Karathanelan is coming to Companion’s Field; he has three friends, they are all mounted, and they all have ropes. He thinks he’s going to catch and break a Companion so he can be made co-Ruler. Evidently when Selenay convinced him just now that he couldn’t be crowned unless he was a Herald, he put his own interpretation on being Chosen.:
Hardly surprising, if he was the sort of Prince that Alberich thought he was.
The arrow hit the target this time, at least, which was an improvement over the Trainee’s last several shots. :I fail to see the crisis. Surely you aren’t going to try to tell me that he can catch one of you if you don’t want to be caught?: It wasn’t as if the Prince could pin a Companion in a corner; the fence around the Field was mostly to keep people out, not Companions in. In fact, Alberich would not have put it past a Companion to leap the wall around the Complex, at need.
And besides that, any Companion in danger of being caught against his will would be instantly rescued by the entire herd. No horse would stand there and face a charging Companion herd, no matter what his rider wanted.
:Of course not,: Kantor replied, now coming into view through the trees, trotting toward him. :But I believe Caryo intends to be caught, so she can kick the fewmets out of him. And other than you and I and Keren and Dantris, I think the rest are inclined to let her have her way. She has put up with a great deal since he arrived here, and done without much of the company and attention of her Chosen.:
:Ah.: That put an entirely different complexion on things. At the least, if the Prince was damaged, Selenay would be distressed. If he was embarrassed, he’d make her miserable. And even if Caryo was not the sort to have murder on her mind, accidents could happen. He didn’t bother to ask if the other
