Page 18 of The Summer War
The lord in his song met and murdered an honest potter, and smashed all his vases and his jugs, without any more success.
Some more of the summerlings joined in the chorus with Roric that time, and then the lord met an honest shepherd who said he hadn’t taken his jewel, and killed him too.
“The lord said, ‘I swear I’ll find my jewel,’?” Roric sang, “?‘if I have to search every ram and ewe,’ and he went through them one by one,” and Roric paused the music and put a hand to his mouth and said loudly in a false aside, “Baaa-aah!” making it sound deeply distressed.
It took a moment, but all the summerlings took his meaning; even Elithyon jerked his eyes away from Argent’s pavilion to gawk at him, and the whole court exploded into gales of laughter.
When Roric went on, they all chorused with him in delight, “But he didn’t find his jewel! ”
He had the court with him wholeheartedly, then.
Roric kept the song going through ten more honest men and women, all murdered for nothing: a merchant, a butcher, a candlestick maker; a tavern wench, a weaver, a hedge knight, a priest; a cook, a nursemaid, and even a young bride on the way to her wedding.
The summerlings had laughed at all the others, but they gasped in indignation when the lord killed her and hunted through her dower chest, and the whole court was still murmuring when at the last the lord met a fine city man, who kept one hand in his pocket.
Roric sang, “The city man furrowed his brow and said, ‘Is your jewel agleam in shades of green?’ And the lord cried out, ‘It is!’ The city man furrowed his brow and said, ‘Is your jewel the finest ever seen?’ And the lord cried out, ‘It is!’?” Roric made a great burst of strumming and then spoke for the city man in a mock whisper.
“?‘Why my lord—I know who took your jewel!’?”
All the summerlings were leaning forward in eagerness as Roric continued, “?‘I saw such a jewel just this day, a sly fox holding it on the way, taking it to bury far away, in the hillside over the ridge.’ And the city man pointed the lord to the hill, with the hand that wasn’t in his pocket.
” The lord thanked the city man and praised him for the first honest man he’d found, and he ran to the field and started digging in every gopher hole and rabbit burrow he could find.
“And the city man strolled on down to the market town, to have a fine green jewel set into a crown, while the lord went on digging in the mud,” Roric finished.
The summerlings all applauded riotously for a long time, many of them throwing jeweled ornaments and summer gold at Roric’s feet.
Elithyon himself was smiling again, mirthfully, the coming sorrow slipped away from him entirely for a glad moment; he said, “Well, song-spinner, why should this song have offended me?”
Roric said, “It’s called ‘The Summer War,’?” and all the summerlings stopped laughing.
After a moment, Roric added into the heavy silence, “It’s the song that everyone’s singing in Prosper about the war. You made peace with the heirs of the Betrayer, and they still rule the kingdom, and all you did was kill a lot of people who had nothing to do with it at all.”
The summerlings were deep in shock, darting looks at Elithyon, who was sitting rigidly, his hands clenched on the arms of his throne, a rising storm about to burst. But before he could say anything, Argent ducked out of his pavilion, wearing his armor.
He looked to see that the performance was over, and the sun wasn’t quite down, yet.
He reached back in for his woven blade, and then he went straight to stand in the center of the courtyard, in the challenge ring.
His eyes were too-brilliant in his wan face, but he still wore the serene look, almost smiling, and he didn’t even notice the appalled silence of the court at first, until he’d stood in the middle of it for long enough to feel it lapping against him like a tide against a shore, and then he stirred, and looked up a little puzzled at Elithyon.
Elithyon looked down at Argent, and then jerked and looked over at the summer knights ranged against the side of the courtyard, already gathered to kill him.
Memory swept over him, and the storm broke instead.
He gasped, and said, his voice thick with agony, “May Eislaing’s shade forgive me, the song is true.
I have taken the wrong vengeance.” He put his face into his hands with a cry of grief.
The court was silent with him, sharing the sharp point of sorrow, and they all glared with sudden furious hate when Roric broke in on the silence and said, “But it’s over now. You gave your word.”
Elithyon raised his head to look down at him.
His jaw went murderously tight with anger, and he said through lips that barely moved, “I gave my word that no harm would come to you, song-spinner, and wise you were to demand it. Otherwise you would not leave this court alive, for the insult you have given me this day—even if you have but shown me my own error. You will be no witness to my sorrow. Go forth from my lands at once, and well you should fear returning. You are a strange fool, to dare come to mock a prince in his own court.”
“That’s not why I came,” Roric said.
He’d come to stand next to the challenge ring, before the throne, and as he spoke, Argent’s brows began to furrow. He turned and looked into Roric’s face under the red cap and said, “ Roric? ” in sudden bewilderment.
Roric looked up at Argent. He was a head shorter, and they didn’t look alike at all, but a ray of late sun came dappling through the trees onto them, and up in the tower, Celia could see their shadows stretched out stark on the pale flagstones of the courtyard, facing each other with the matching long narrow slope of their father’s nose in both their profiles.
“Roric,” Argent said again, his face brightening a little more.
“ You came for Celie, too,” and smiled down at him.
Celia could see Roric’s face working a little with the urge to fall into the old scowling lines.
Of course Argent hadn’t ever realized that Roric was jealous of him; Argent hadn’t paid enough attention, too busy trying to fill all his longing with the sword, trying to be fit to be their father’s son and heir.
But he’d also never been angry or jealous in return.
To him, Roric had always just been his little brother.
And of course that would only annoy Roric more, but Roric’s face wasn’t used to scowling anymore, and Argent looked too distant, pallid as a ghost, and instead of scowling, Roric just grimaced briefly, and then he said, almost gently, “Yes. I came, too.”
Elithyon slowly stood up from his throne, staring down at them both.
Roric turned back to face him, and said, “You promised. No harm to me or any of my kin. Not me, and not my sister—and not my brother,” and the whole court drew a united gasp of horror and understanding, seeing too late the way that Roric had snared Elithyon in a woven net of oaths that couldn’t all be kept.
Elithyon stood motionless at the top of the dais.
Celia wondered what would it mean, for the ruler of the summerlings to break an oath?
It had never happened in a single one of the summer stories that she’d ever read.
There wasn’t a single murmur, a single whisper of wind or birdsong, as if all the endless Summer Lands now hung on his breath, on his next words.
She couldn’t help but think that maybe it did, and whichever way he turned, the whole realm might come tumbling down.
And then Elithyon looked down at Argent, and suddenly a light came dawning into his face, almost the same kind of relief that Celia had seen in Argent’s.
Elithyon came down from the dais, and Roric half put out an arm towards Argent, backing away a little warily, but Elithyon didn’t advance on them.
He stopped, standing before the challenge square, and said in a ringing voice, “Come forth and arm me.”
A low murmuring of something between relief and fear went around the court even as the royal servants came forward.
In a grand, stately procession they armed Elithyon in one glorious piece of summer make after another—ashining coat of mail made of gilded steel that folded over his shoulders, a gleaming vest made of narrow plates sewn over green silk, a shoulder girdle with pauldrons of gold enameled with beetle-iridescence, greaves and boots and gauntlets of steel washed with silver and gold, and from his shoulders they hung a cape of green that seemed half silk and half leaves, clasped in gold again.
They brought him a round shield of wood bound in gold, and a spear whose shaft was a living branch with curling leaves, and the head shining golden.
When they finished, Elithyon said, “My people, hear my command: I will stand as the last challenger, and should the Knight of the Woven Blade prevail, my honor shall be sealed with my death in battle, in defense of my oath; no other need stand in his way. You will let him go into the tower, and bring his sister forth from her chamber by the door. And then let the singer and his kin go forth from our lands without harm, and fulfill my last promise. I charge you only to remember forever the fool’s mistake your prince once made, and evade it henceforth.
Well I should have known that he who bargains with liars and cheats can gain nothing but shame and misery thereby. ”