“She had always hoped you would be free to be her consort when she became older. She thought it wouldn’t matter that you were a one-namer—no one cared what the peer’s second daughter did. Now she is the prince, and this is certain to cause an uproar. It would have been wiser for her to wait another sike or two, but she is worried you might get yourself wived in the village and no longer be available.” The land warden added anxiously, “I hope you don’t find the idea distasteful.”
Arne found it staggering. He had never thought of Elone Jermile in any connection at all except as the new prince. His mind continued to search desperately for a way out. He said slowly, “I know that now and then a peerager mates with a one-name server, but it isn’t even considered respectable. For the prince to do it—”
“It will cause a commotion,” the land warden said regretfully, “but there may be a way around that. There was all that talk among the peers about giving you a second name. If they had done so, you would be a peerager yourself, now, and there wouldn’t be any problem. You weren’t even consulted—about the second name, I mean. It still could be done.”
“No,” Arne said. “The peer was entirely right—if she gave me a second name, she would have to find another first server. A peerager couldn’t associate with one-namers as I must do.”
“You know best about that. Maybe it will help that you have been offered a second name. After all, you are the highest one-namer in the peerdom. The prince is waiting for your answer. What do you want me to tell her?”
Arne suddenly remembered that he
The land warden hadn’t given a thought to how the one-namers would react. Arne would have to consult with the Three and other leaders. He wanted Egarn’s reaction. Perhaps if enough people objected…
First of all, he must talk with Deline. The happiness that had seemed within his grasp had suddenly been jerked away.
“Please give the prince my thanks for the high honor she has shown me,” he said slowly. “Both of us have important responsibilities, as she knows, and for that reason we are not free to do exactly as we like. First we must consider what would be best for Midlow. The prince should confer with the peer, and the peer’s advisors, and other peeragers whose opinion she values. I must do the same with the Three and with other one- namers.”
“I entirely agree,” the land warden said. Then he added, with a shy smile, “Even if everyone’s reaction is favorable, don’t forget that in the end you must also confer with each other.”
Arne left his borrowed horse at the court stables and returned to Midd Village on foot, meditating worriedly as he walked. How would Deline react? Even though peerager matings were notoriously short-lived, he couldn’t say to her, “I want you to wive me, but you will have to wait until your sister has finished with me.” That described the situation perfectly, but she would have a right to be furious with him.
He had to think about his responsibilities. He couldn’t take the prince to his dwelling in the village. He would have to live at the court, which would disrupt both his work and his life. Midd Village was the largest—and, with its mills, by far the most important—settlement of one-namers, and Arne was accustomed to starting and ending his day by dealing with the villagers’ immediate problems and the small daily crises that arose in their lives. That would no longer be possible. He would quickly become a remote figure, unavailable for routine matters. He also would be unavailable to Egarn’s team in a crisis, and neither Deline nor anyone else could be trusted with that responsibility.
He decided to visit the Three and then talk with Egarn. In the end, the decision would be his, but he wondered whether he really had a choice.
Deline was waiting for him with the same joyous greeting she’d given him earlier. She sensed at once that something was wrong. “What is the matter?” she asked. “What has happened?”
“The prince has asked me to be her consort,” he said.
She stared at him incredulously. Then she laughed. “From the expression on your face, I thought perhaps the peer had taken your name.” She went to a window that looked out on the darkened garden. “My little sister,” she said. “I keep thinking of her as little. But she is grown, now, and I never noticed when it happened. I never paid any attention to her at all, but she managed to grow up anyway, and now she is the prince and paying no attention to me. Probably it is time she took a consort.”
She laughed again, harshly. “My sister wants you for a consort? If you agree, where is the problem?”
“She is a peerager, and more—she is the prince. And I am—”
“So what does that matter to anyone except you two?”
“The other peeragers may object.”
Deline shrugged. “There is no reason why they should take notice at all. They never paid any attention to my consorts. A consort never lasts long anyway. If Elone Jermile’s first is a one-namer, that doesn’t mean she is going to make a habit of it, and you are an exceptional one-namer. It isn’t as though she were taking one of the mill hands.” Again she laughed harshly. “You one-namers are much too serious about these things. Imagine keeping the same mate for years and years! Why be so glum about it?”
“I don’t know what to do.”
She laughed again and turned away. At the door, she paused. “Surely you aren’t thinking of refusing! She is the prince!”
He wanted to call her back, to tell her again that he loved her, but he could not. It would only complicate things further. He couldn’t speak to her until he had decided what to do, but first he had to find out whether he had a choice.
He sent for the Three at once, and they did indeed take his problem seriously. Nonen, the miller, said bluntly, “Now why would you want to do a thing like that? There are much prettier girls in the village, as you would know if you bothered to look at them, and any of them would jump at the chance to wive you and turn your big, drafty house into a home for you. I’ll guarantee you won’t get much wiving from the prince.”
“Just a moment,” Margaya said. “It isn’t that simple. It wasn’t Arne’s idea. The prince asked him. What happens if he refuses?”
“That is what I am thinking,” old Toboz said. “We had problems enough when Deline was prince. This would be a bad time for any of us to make an enemy of her sister. The peer doesn’t have any more daughters.”
“Peerager matings aren’t like ours,” Margaya said. “If you think you can put up with the prince for a little while, it would be best to accept.”
“My first concern is my work,” Arne said. “There is no way I could become the prince’s consort without neglecting it.”
“That is true,” Nonen said. “You would have to spend some time with her—live at the court, I suppose. You might have to spend quite a lot of time with her until she begins to tire of you. Deline can manage routine things, but if a real emergency came up, we would have to send to the court for you. On the other hand, you have always traveled a lot, and we manage to get along without you then, so I think we could cope with this. There is no way you could mate with anyone without neglecting something.”
“The closer your connections with the court, and the more highly the peer and the prince regard you, the more you can accomplish for all of us,” Margaya said. “I am sure everyone realizes that. I think you should do it.”
In the end, they decided it would be a considerable advantage to one-namers everywhere, even those in other peerdoms, if the first server were the prince’s consort. They also were in agreement that Arne shouldn’t accept for that reason. “If you want to do it, then do it,” Nonen said. “If you don’t want to, then don’t.”
But they didn’t really believe that. They knew he had no choice.
As soon as they left, Arne left also, through his garden, and strode off into the dark forest. The cool night air helped him to shrug off his exhaustion. He wanted Egarn’s advice at once; he also wanted to know how Egarn’s work was going, and he had a project of his own to discuss.
Finding the ruins by night was an ordeal, and when he finally arrived, it was almost impossible to locate a checkpoint. The identification procedure was equally difficult. Even though Arne’s voice was known to all of the guards, his own orders permitted no exceptions. He had to crawl into a tiny shelter so a sentry could light the stub of candle and visually identify him.
Then came the ordeal of creeping through the totally black tunnel, followed by the torturous descent. Even
