The King's Name by Jo Walton Read Free Book Online

little Gwien heir to Derwen—" Although what else could I have done? Darien was promised to Urdo, who still had no other heir. Veniva kept on sighing for more grandchildren, saying that she had not expected this when she had borne four children. In the end I had outright told her I would never marry. Gwien was as good an heir as any child of mine and the land accepted him. Anyone would have thought Aurien would be pleased to see her two sons both become kings, but since Galba died nothing pleased her.
    I ran my hands through my hair and looked at the words again. "My sister Aurien." Oh, I had known for years that Au-rien hated me, and had known it in part my fault. Still, why did she Page 18

    think she could get away with poisoning me now? The story about drink would never have worked on those who knew me best, on Veniva or on Urdo. She was no fool. There must be something I was missing, something happening I didn't know about.
    She had not acted like someone mad or possessed by evil spirits, and Daldaf had been in league with her. I
    kept staring at those three words, as if expecting them to develop answers instead of more questions. I stood up and paced. The little accounts room was cluttered with chests of accounts and receipts, and there was only enough clear space for three strides. One of the chests was marked in fresh, clear letters, "taxes." The summer before we had passed twenty years since we had given our hoarded gold to Urdo, and now Derwen paid tax like all the kingdoms. My mother groaned and complained and said she would have argued the gold was worth more if she had ever imagined any of us would be alive to see the day.
    I looked out of the window. I could just see the gates, shut and guarded. There was no sign of the pennon coming back with Conal and Garian's bodies. The sky was full of threatening low clouds but there was no rain yet. I looked at the couch and longed to fling myself down and sleep. Things might be clearer when I woke up. I went back to the table and sat down; those three words were waiting to ambush me again. "My sister Aurien." I shook my head at them. I could feel my eyes closing and I let them. When I woke up Veniva would come and explain why Aurien hated me and what I had done wrong.
    I knew I was dreaming, and yet it seemed as if it was no dream but just what I had been expecting to happen.
    Veniva was in the room, dressed in a drape, white with a dark blue border. It was folded perfectly and pinned with Aurien's pearl brooch from the hoard. I noted idly that her carefully pinned hair had returned to the black it had been when I was a child. She looked entirely calm.
    She was holding a big leather pouch like the ones the red-cloaks carried. "Sulien, I have come to ask your permission to send these to Aurien." She drew out of the pouch a coil of rope and a dagger. I drew in my breath. I had read in Cornelien about this ancient custom of sending the implements of suicide as a mercy to the nobly born. It had been a custom, never a law, even in Vinca long ago. I could not remember a time it had been done in living memory. "She is the mother of my grandsons," Veniva said. "Let me send these as my personal gift. Treachery needs repayment. I have raised a fine set of fools and traitors. At least let hers be a Vincan death." Then she reached into the pouch again and drew out Daldaf's head, dripping blood from the neck. He appeared to be quite alive; he looked up at me and said, "And the life of the world to come."
    I woke with a start, to find not Veniva but one of the house servants bending over me. I rubbed my eyes. I felt slow and sick and stupid.
    "They've brought the bodies and they wanted to know what to do with them," she stammered.
    "Has my mother—is my mother there yet?" I asked, stretching and yawning.
    "The wife of Gwien is still—" She hesitated. "Still in the old dairy with Daldaf."
    There was a horrible taste in the back of my mouth. I did not want to watch Daldaf being