Oath of Fealty by Elizabeth Moon Page B

sound of water trickling somewhere. Stone-flagged paths curved among thorny bushes, some pruned low and some as high as his head. A few tiny leaves showed purple-red; most of the leaf buds looked pinkish.
    “By your coronation, the early flowers will have opened,” Astil said. “It is not all roses here; you will see. It is said the elf queen planted it.”
    “My mother,” Kieri said. He had a moment’s clear memory: the smell of roses and the sound of her laugh.

     
    A fter dinner that evening, Kieri asked Dorrin and Paks to look at the maps with him.
    “What do you see?” he asked.
    Dorrin ran her finger around the line of the border. “Where are the defenses? I see no indication of fortresses.”
    “Rangers,” Paks said. “I served with them, as you know. They’re effective on the Tsaian side, at least.”
    “Effective against brigands and poachers,” Kieri said. “Paks, you’ve seen them—how would they do against a few cohorts of infantry—mine or Halveric’s?”
    “In pitched battle—their longbows have more range than you’d think. But they don’t fight in formation at all, as far as I know. On open ground, the cohorts would win, but rangers would hide in the forest and it would be hard to keep a camp safe from them.”
    “And if an attacker cut down or burned the forest? How many are there, anyway?”
    “I don’t know,” Paks said. “They work in small groups—even singly sometimes—moving every few days.”
    “Someone will know,” Dorrin said. “Cutting down the forest—that would be a task. I wouldn’t want to try it, not unless I had more than two or three cohorts. Would the elves intervene, do you think?”
    “I’m not sure,” Kieri said. “I saw what you saw—the kingdom’s practically unguarded—there may be elven magery I don’t know about, but as it is … with Verrakai and Konhalt on the west, and Pargun and Kostandan on the north, it’s not safe. The palace walls are for privacy, not defense. The Council, though, acts as if having even one cohort of real soldiers here means I want war. And you, Paks, told me the elves feared me because I had been a soldier and might bring war upon them.” He stared at the map. “I swear to you, to the gods themselves, though I have fought in one war after another, I do not want it. And yet the first duty of a king is to protect his realm. And this—” He laid his heart-hand on the map, thumb on the Tsaian border, small finger on Prealíth. “This is not safe. Not yet. But I will make it so.”
    Paks cocked her head. “Sir King, I understand you, but consider—these are as sheep who do not yet know you as their shepherd. If you push them too fast toward the sheepfold, they may break and run in panic, as sheep do. Go gently with them.”
    He glanced at Dorrin, who nodded. “With respect, I would say the same. You have commanded veteran soldiers before, used to both danger and taking orders; these are not, and will flinch away from roughness.”
    “I hear you,” Kieri said. “And yet I worry.”
    That night, only his second in Chaya, Garris—oldest of the King’s Squires—and Lieth stood beside his door when he came to his chambers.
    “So you pulled night guard, Garris? Don’t they respect your gray hairs?”
    Garris grinned. “They think you’re safe enough at night, Kier—Sir King. And Lieth’s young; she stays awake half the night anyway, if I should doze off. What time will you wake? I hear you surprised them this morning … I slept until almost noon.”
    “Cock-crow,” Kieri said. “And you slept late back at Aliam’s; don’t blame that on age.”
    Garris laughed. “So I did, and many’s the morning you tumbled me out of my bunk in the squires’ room and then shoved my head under a pump. I hope you won’t do that now you’re king.”
    Kieri clapped him on the shoulder and Garris opened the door for him. In his chamber, he found the bed already turned back, with the handle of a warming pan sticking