“Are you sure you were not hiding in the woods this whole time?” asked the king with a gleam in his eye, as though not quite daring to believe him.
“No, of course not! I shall tell you all about that realm some day-the fields are rich with grain, and the sun never sets. But right now I am going to Kardan’s kingdom.”
“Of course you can accompany me when I go in a few weeks. I need to start assembling suitable betrothal gifts.”
This was becoming as frustrating as trying to talk to the beings of the “third force.” “I am going now, ” said Roric as distinctly as he could. “I would prefer you to release me from my oath before I go so that I can swear myself to Karin’s service, but if you do not I shall go anyway.”
“And why are you so eager to go there now?” Hadros asked suspiciously.
Roric was not about to tell the king he intended to kill his oldest son, but at this point he scarcely cared if he guessed. “Because I love Karin.”
“Out!” roared the king to the others in the hall, who had been following the conversation with intrigued expressions. “All of you, out!” They fled in panic, and Hadros jumped up to slam the door after them.
The hall was dim now, lit only by the smoke-hole and the small windows up in the eaves. Hadros sat down again, favoring one leg and breathing hard.
“You came to me with this nonsense last month. I told you then to forget the whole idea, that Karin would not wed a fatherless man.”
“And you were furious enough,” said Roric, still standing, his hand on his hilt, “that you told Gizor you would not mind if I was dead.”
Hadros started to jump up again, then changed his mind. “Threatening you has not, it appears, taught you sense,” he said with steely calm, but then for a second Roric thought he smiled. “Sit down so we can face each other at eye level.”
When Roric sat down cautiously at the far end of the bench, the king continued, “You are my sworn man, and I am your sworn lord. Gizor overreacted to something I said in anger. Let us not allow that princess make either of us kill the other.”
“I love ‘that princess.’ You tell me a man without a father should not aspire so high, but she loves me herself. A princess can marry any man she chooses.”
King Hadros was still breathing hard. “Maybe you did not hear,” he said quietly, as though not wanting his words to carry outside the hall. “She has taken Valmar for her lover.” Roric shut his eyes for a second to try to stay calm but did not interrupt. “I could not allow Valmar, any more than you, to speak to her while she was still a hostage here, because it was my responsibility to send her home to her father as pure and unfettered as she came to me. He paid the tribute faithfully each year, and I do not war on girls.
“But now- Now that she is a royal heiress and home again, she can make her own decisions. She has many better men to choose from than a warrior without kin. And she has chosen my son.”
Roric clenched his fists. “If you told him- If you told him to take her by the strong hand, then even if I am your sworn man, I-”
King Hadros snorted, and Roric caught again that very fleeting, very strange expression, almost as though the king was pleased. “Not at all. I think it was her idea. Forget her, lad! Do not waste your strength thinking of women. Think instead of this.
“Valmar can afford to marry young. He shall be king here someday, unless that new bride of his leads him such a merry chase that I outlive him! But you, Roric, you cannot tie yourself down. You have grown into the most formidable of my warriors, but you need to use that power to win a realm for yourself. You know you have the strength and the voima within you to be as good a lord as most of the Fifty Kings.”
Roric glanced at him from under his eyebrows; Hadros looked concerned now, even fatherly. “Wisdom, they say, is for old men,” Roric said slowly, “but action is for the young. But I can’t just act as a housecarl or even dependent warrior after you brought me up as your foster-son, and I also can’t act like a man with a family behind him. So what do you wisely recommend?”
“There are always thrones to be won by the valorous,” said Hadros. “Several of the Fifty Kingdoms sent no one to the Gemot this year, and I am sure even now there are second sons preparing their warships to see if the region might be ready for a new lord.”
“I had thought,” said Roric bitterly, “that the lords of voima might have a place for me.”
“That too,” said Hadros quickly. “Now, if you want a ship of your own the best I can do is lend you one of mine, and I’ll let you have a few warriors. How would you like Gizor One-hand?”
Roric stared for a moment, then started to laugh. “Are you still trying to get me killed, or is this one more challenge by which I prove my manhood? No, Hadros,” rising to his feet, “if the Wanderers still want me they will be able to find me, and if they do not I see no reason to attack an unsuspecting kingdom. I simply do not believe you that Karin loves Valmar rather than me. Tomorrow-no, today-I shall leave for Kardan’s kingdom to see her myself. I would prefer you to release me from my loyalty to you first.”
The king rose stiffly, glaring. “Valmar is my son and heir. You are pledged to him through your pledge to me. And I do not release you from anything!”
“Then I forswear my loyalty to you!” He tugged at the ring Hadros had given him when they first swore their oaths to each other, the ring the Weaver would not take. This time he got it off. He held it in his hand for a second, breathing hard, then hurled it at the king’s feet. “And I defy you as an untrue lord!”
Roric slammed out of the hall and rushed toward the stables, half expecting Hadros to shout for his warriors. But there was no sound behind him.
Also no Goldmane in the stables. He saddled one of the geldings as rapidly as he could. No time to go back to the loft for his small store of possessions. The knife the Weaver had returned to him should buy him passage if he could find a ship going to Kardan’s kingdom.
He galloped through the courtyard, hooves echoing, out the gate, down the hill and across the troll’s bridge. This was a fast horse, one of the fastest in the kingdom after his stallion. But there was no sign of pursuit.
Twenty miles along the coast was the little market port where Hadros sold his horses every year. There should be a ship in the harbor there, Roric thought, willing to take him. A mile from the castle he saw a raven perched in a tree, watching his approach with its head cocked to one side. Roric pulled up hard. He would send Karin a raven-message if the bird would carry it. It would take him at least two days’ traveling to reach her, and if she had turned to Valmar in despair, thinking him gone forever, he wanted to let her know he was coming.
He whistled to the bird, trying to remember just what one said when speaking to ravens.
3
Valmar and Karin walked by the seashore. She was restless all the time now, and Valmar walked or rode with her wherever she went, but if she knew herself what was wrong she was not able to tell him.
King Kardan, Valmar thought, did not yet seem to realize that his own father was busy planning their wedding. Karin had not spoken of it again, and it seemed too impossible to be real. But last night he had surprised himself into wakefulness from a dream of lying in her arms.
It was only the sudden change from his father’s court to this castle, he told himself, only the unusualness of seeing Karin dressed like a queen, that made him think of her as other than his sister. And it was the same change that had made him begin to think there might be more to life than the future his father had laid out for him, that his attempt to run after Roric had been more than the folly of a boy. At this rate he would soon want to be like King Thaar in the old tales, he thought, riding out to protect Karin from a dragon-except that no one had ever seen a dragon in this part of the world.
Karin looked out to sea; the north coast of the channel was too far away to be seen. Valmar looked instead at her, her great gray eyes, the angle of her cheekbones, the fine blond hairs around her forehead which were too short to be worked into her braids and blew back in the breeze. If she too had dreams, they were certainly not of him.
“Look at the ravens,” said Karin. “I wonder what they’ve found.”
A pair of ravens hopped along the strand, giving harsh cries and disturbing the gulls. Their jet-black plumage
