The Wayward Knights

Epilogue

On an island so far north of where Suivinari had been that the seasons were the reverse of what they were in Ansalon, Mirraleen sat cross-legged on a mat of fragrant dried seaweed. She was nursing her son.

Water rippled, then splashed, in the pool in the middle of the cave. Medlessarn the Silent rose from the water, swam to the shelf below where Mirraleen sat, and walked up to her.

"How fare you both?" he asked. His eyes, however, were fixed on the babe. The babe, it seemed to Mirraleen, was returning stare for stare. But perhaps it was easy to imagine things about those eyes. They were the same intense dark brown as his father's, so well remembered from love bouts and much more.

"I think the lad will be one to make Torvik proud, whether he ever learns of the boy's existence or not," Mirraleen said.

That was the plainest answer she had yet given Medlessarn. It was also somewhat of a test of his character. He wanted to try not merely to be her mate but wed her in the old style. The rites and ceremonies of that old style, however, said nothing about the bride's having already borne a half-elven child to a far-distant human seafarer.

Mirraleen was not sure whether she wished Medlessarn to be equally silent, or to speak eloquently. She decided that silence or speech could equally well lie or tell the truth.

"Has he changed yet?" Medlessarn asked.

Mirraleen laughed. "At barely four months old? I have never heard of even the most potent of the Dargonesti changing before a year. We shallows-dwellers are laggards.

"He can swim, though," she continued. "That is not common in human babes of his age. They seldom have that much use of their limbs, or if they do, too much fear of the water. I could sometimes wish he had more fear in him, of the water and other things."

"It is easy for a babe with a good mother to grow without fear," Medlessarn said.

"Easier when the mother has as many friends as I do."

That was not merely flattery. Medlessarn's clan had taken Mirraleen in, swollen belly and all, and given her as much help with the babe as if one of them had sired it. This said plainly that they did not think like the Silvanesti or the minions of the kingpriest, when it came to mixed-blood children.

Medlessarn lay down on his belly, propped his chin on one hand, and waggled the fingers of the other to amuse the baby. He was rewarded by a formidable belch, then a squeal of laughter.

"Swimming that young suggests the blood breeds true," he said.

"Which blood?" Mirraleen asked.

"It could be either, I admit," Medlessarn replied. "More likely shallows-dweller, but Torvik was not one of those human seafarers who refuse to learn swimming because that will only prolong their dying if they fall overboard."

"He could swim like an eel," Mirraleen said. "But he was much warmer to the touch."

They sat in companionable silence for a while, each thinking back to the battle now over a year in the past. Medlessarn broke the silence with evident reluctance. "How long will you keep him?"

"If he runs true to the shallows-dweller blood, until he is grown. If he does not, I shall take counsel on the best way of returning him to his father." She looked at the water, seeing nothing.

"Grown men or women can live where they please, with whom they please, and as they please," she said. "But a babe should grow up with those most like him, who understand his needs."

Medlessarn laughed. "Tell that to Darin," he said. "A minotaur raised him from the age of three, and he has the best of both races in him."

"Yes, but he was not of mixed blood, with his mother a sea-dweller. Humans and minotaurs are both dryfeet. If the boy cannot learn to change-"

"What of the old spells that could give a dryfoot that power? They were known once, at least among the Dargonesti," Medlessarn offered.

"Indeed, the tales run so. But are they still known, anywhere?"

Medlessarn frowned, and said, "I have heard whispers, which may be nonsense, I admit. But would it not be worth asking about? I have traveled farther than many in these islands, but there are some who have traveled and lived longer."

Mirraleen was grateful to her friend for not adding that he could give the babe what Waydol had never given Darin-two parents to raise him. She shifted the babe and patted his cheek.

"It is too soon to decide our future, let alone that of a babe who is still too young to be named." She was observing the old custom of waiting to name a Dimernesti babe until he or she had changed for the first time. This did not keep her from calling him in her heart "Joimer," the Dimernesti form of his grandfather's name.

"Ah. But if you wait that long, he may know you well enough that he will sorrow to leave you even for a father. Also, by then Torvik may well be wed to a human woman who will not be pleased at his half-elven by-blow coming out of the sea to remind her of his past."

"Torvik would never wed such a fool," she said.

"Men are not that much wiser than women, when it comes to whom they will wed."

Mirraleen had to laugh. Medlessarn could have lost her forever by the smallest lie, but had somehow managed to tell only the truth. His ability to resist temptation would make it hard to resist him.

When the babe's future was decided.

"If the babe is a shallows-dweller, you may name him yours, with all due rites," she said. "This I swear. But if he must live a dryfoot, will you swear to help me take him south to Vuinlod?"

"If the kingpriest has not laid it in ruins by then, I do so swear," Medlessarn said. "I also swear to adopt the babe or return him to his sire, whether we wed or not.

"But I hope when this coil in your mind about the babe is done, you will think kindly upon me."

"I doubt that I shall ever think unkindly of you or your kin," Mirraleen said. "Only-do not presume to be too much in my company. Otherwise, he will grow to know you as well as me, and then will sorrow twice over if we must part."

"That is the hardest thing you have asked of me yet," Medlessarn said. He sighed dramatically. "But weak men are not worthy of strong women. I shall try to be what you demand." He grinned. "But, oh, what a tyrant I shall be after we are wed!"

They kissed, nearly squeezing the babe between them, but making him laugh again.

The monument was a simple curving wall of stone, built into the side of a hill outside Vuinlod. The names of the dead from Suivinari and Tirabot were carved there. No distinction by race, rank, profession, or even which side they had been on (at least in those cases where the names of House Dirivan's dead were known).

Pirvan and Haimya stood for a long time before the slab with Gerik's name carved on it. A hot breeze puffed across the flagstones at intervals, carrying dried petals and bits of yellowed fluff with it. Pirvan shook his head. "There are times when I wonder what it was all for," he said. "I can't say there is less injustice in the world. I can't even say that anyone's life will be better for all the dying."

"Not with certainty, no," Haimya said. This had been one of the nights when in the deepest hours of darkness, she had wakened to weep silently by the window. Her eyes showed traces of it, but her voice and carriage showed none. Pirvan would let her guard her secret, as she guarded the secrets of all the times he had wept, save when he did it in her arms.

"But do you demand certainty?" she went on.

"If I did, would I have become a knight or wed you?" Pirvan said. He held her hand briefly. "No, I suppose it is the feeling of every father and mother who have lost a son like Gerik. That he was as precious to the gods as he was to us, so that his death ought to buy a whole new world, or at least cleanse the old one of much evil."

"Well, there is House Dirivan under the ban of the Orders," Haimya said. "That and the merchants' wrath should keep them honest or at least quiet for a generation.

"There is much more knowledge and even somewhat more trust among humans and minotaurs. It may last only as long as Zeskuk does, but he has a good twenty or thirty years left.

"There is more caution among the knights-"

"How do you know that?" Pirvan asked.

"By listening to what they say, even when I am not supposed to, and to what you do not say, even when I could wish you spoke plainly. The knights may be more cautious about Istaran schemes to allow private warfare, and other breaches of the Swordsheath Scroll."

"We may need not so much caution as plain speaking," Pirvan said. "Istar needs reminding that it is ill done to divide the knights. We are still their true strength in war, just or unjust."

"Then you have chosen your work," Haimya said. "I think Niebar may have given his life partly so that you could take on the work Marod intended for you, while you were still young enough for it. Like Zeskuk, you may have twenty or thirty good years left."

Pirvan put a finger over Haimya's lips. "Not if I have to listen to you every waking minute. But you speak some truth. Gerik may not have bought us more than time, but he bought enough of that for us to put it to use within the ranks of the knights."

"Yes, and Rynthala is with child."

"What has that to do with Gerik?" Pirvan asked, startled.

"Nothing," Haimya said. "I just received the letter this morning."

"I should hope it has nothing to do with Gerik," Pirvan said wryly. "Our son was honorable. He would never have lain with a comrade's wife and begotten a child on her."

For a moment it seemed the jest would escape Haimya. Then she gave a small snort of laughter and hugged Pirvan. He could feel her thoughts, for they were very much his own.

They had both made their peace, that Gerik had not left Ellysta with child. She and they alike would have nothing of him but memories.

But they were good memories, of a son and a betrothed who had lived and died without being a knight, yet also done both as if he had sworn more oaths than all three Orders together might have demanded of him. Such memories were not a small thing.

Arm in arm, they walked away from the monument, down the hill, until the shadows swallowed them.