Startled, “Darling…”
“Stop! I made it past my fourth birthday. Yes. I’m more emotional than some. I get upset about things that don’t bother other people. But I am a big girl.” She touched his cheek gently. She did appreciate his concern. “I remember more than I want. But some of it might be useful—if I let the experts dig.”
“But…”
“Stop! I won’t hear any more nonsense.”
He suppressed a flood of the blistering, unreasoning rage that had swept him to the brink with King Bragi. That anger, unrestrained, was the reason today’s ugly world had come to be.
He clamped his jaw, went on with his work. He spent time with the mental specialists as needed. They proved deft at panning nuggets he did not know lay hidden in the lowest sands of his mind.
He left Fangdred, though, so he would not have to watch while Nepanthe endured the process.
He was sure he would lose his composure if he stayed.
He took bin Yousif with him.
Chapter Twenty-Six:
Ragnarson bel owed, “Silence!”
He had the voice of command stil , and it was loud, yet the effect was neither quick nor comprehensive.
“I wil have you beaten if you don’t stop running your mouths.”
Those people knew he was not given to idle threats.
They knew, too, that there was no precedent for him doing anything of the sort. Only…
Only this was, clearly, not the man whose arrogance had driven him to disaster beyond the Mountains of M’Hand.
This man had been chastened and tempered.
He had a harder feel, and, maybe, a new disdain for past tolerance. He might even have developed a streak of cruelty.
He had been in the thral of the Dread Empire. Only the shel might be Bragi Ragnarson now. Best not to irk the possible monster concealed inside. Though, stil , he was just one man.
Even so, the Thing hal so quietened that the proverbial pin would have sounded like a clash of cymbals. It seemed, almost, that everyone had stopped breathing.
In that desolation of sound a smal voice asked, “Daddy?” The tiny question had more impact on Kavelin than did al the murder and maneuver of the year just passed. Bragi Ragnarson, startled, looked down at the boy in the old-fashioned clothes, who looked back with puzzled hope.
The hard man changed. He scooped the boy up, settled him onto his left hip. He peered into the Sedlmayrese delegation, beckoned Kristen, shook his head slightly when Dahl Haas started to fol ow.
Ragnarson settled his grandson on his other hip, then declared, “The bul shit wil stop.” That sounded certain as death. That made it plain who would be in charge. Special pain was in store for anyone who disagreed. Al of which he sold without having one soldier behind him.
“I made a big mistake. It cost me more than I can calculate but it cost Kavelin even more. It almost cost everything that three monarchs did to make this a principality where every subject could be proud to live. I wil not repeat that error. I vow that here, now.” He was improvising, promising what many wanted to hear but meaning it. His intensity permitted no questions, however much future and established enemies might want to know about his relationship with the Dread Empire.
His piece said, he spoke past Kristen to Inger, “Give them the rest of today to get their minds around this.” Inger managed a nod. She looked to Josiah Gales, who nodded in turn. “Don’t we al ? Need time?” Bragi Ragnarson carried his son and grandson down to the floor of the hal , fol owed by Kristen Gjerdrumsdottir. He set the boys down, took each by the hand, walked out, headed for Castle Krief. He was not armed. Today he had no need.
He was improvising stil , going on instinct. For the moment instinct and timing were enough.
The news had gotten out already. People came to see.
Most remained quiet and respectful. There was almost supernatural awe in their attitudes.
There was, as wel , hope.
Nature had blessed Kavelin. A tide of economic improvement was rising. But the political situation remained calm mainly because the contenders were exhausted and, in Inger’s case, impoverished. Ordinary folk dreaded the day she obtained fresh resources.
This might herald the possibility of avoiding al that.
A wondrous hope it was.
...
Inger stared at Josiah Gales as the excitement oozed out of the Thing hal . He said nothing. Neither did Babeltausque, nor did Nathan, who had rejoined them, stil shocked. Dr. Wachtel fidgeted but kept his mouth shut.
“What do we do?” Inger murmured. “What do we do?” She harvested no advice. Josiah, though, looked like a man who had shed a huge moral burden. Nathan was afraid. His future no longer looked as sweet as it had—that age of bitter almonds. Babeltausque stared in the direction the Heltkler girl went as Ozora Mundwil er led her tribe away.
Inger was worried about the sorcerer. Something was going on with him. Something obsessive. It might be a harbinger of a darkness to come.
She hoped she was wrong. She hoped she was imagining it. She hoped he was not just one trivial mishap of an emotional trigger short of crossing over into the night land that had claimed Father Ather Kendo.
She hoped, but, this morning, she had no confidence that she would ever see anything good again. Hel had become impatient. Hel was coming to her.
Josiah said, “What do we do? How about we go home, hunker down, and see what happens next?” Bragi was back. He had come in like some natural force, gathering the ley lines of power and expectation to himself.
Nothing would happen ever again without his hands being on it, in it, or taken into account. He had managed it so easily, so instinctively.
Bragi was back but he had changed. He was the nostalgical y recal ed hard case but there was more to him now. Inger thought it might be a new maturity.
She said, “You’re right, Josiah. Let’s just ride the lightning and see where it takes us.” Bragi’s behavior suggested that would not be the hel she might have expected.
He was not a Greyfel s.
Though the day was advancing and it should have been getting warmer, a scatter of snowflakes fel during the transit to the castle. The flakes melted instantly but did proclaim the imminence of winter.
Inger realized that the trees had shed most of their leaves.
When did that happen? She had been too preoccupied to notice. That was sad. Autumn was her favorite season. She loved to see the colors.
“Josiah, the leaves are gone.”
“Uhm?”
“We’ve been missing the good things.”
Gales grunted agreement despite having no real idea what she was thinking. He was good that way. Nathan and Babeltausque contributed supporting nods despite being even farther in the dark.
...
After sixteen days in hiding, while rumors of his death abounded— though no body ever surfaced—Megelin made a run for safety, into the desert north of Al Rhemish. He was accompanied by Misr and Mizr, an ancient chamberlain cal ed abd-Arliki, and a grizzled, one-eyed rogue cal ed Hawk in his presence and Boneman behind his back.
