Kingfisher(46)

“Sorry,” Pierce gabbled with genuine regret to the fury looming over him. “I am so much more willing than you could imagine to get as far away from you as possible. But if I do that, I will never find my way back to this chair where I was told to stay so that for the first time in my life I can meet my father. I have come all the way from Cape Mistbegotten and through all the years of my life to get to this chair.”

All expression flowed out of Sir Kyle’s face; his eyes emptied even of contempt. He pulled something out of his jacket, said into it, “House guards to the Hall of Wyverns. South doors. Now.”

“Wait, Sir Kyle,” an unexpected voice said. A woman, half a head taller than most of the knights, broad-boned and graceful, eased toward them through the growing crowd. Her hair, shades of honeycomb and gold, was swirled into a severe knot; her eyes, a lovely, pale violet, seemed recklessly fearless in the face of the fuming seneschal. She said simply, “Sir Kyle, we are here for reasons most of us barely understand yet. As Lord Skelton pointed out, we can’t make assumptions. Nothing on this path the king has asked us to take may be as it seems. Not even a kitchen knight.”

The seneschal seemed to struggle between various responses as he looked at her. “Dame Scotia,” he said lamely, “we haven’t started the quest yet.”

“How do you know? We don’t even know what we’re looking at now. He has a name. You could ask him.”

With reluctance, the seneschal looked away from her to Pierce. His face tightened again; he said brusquely, “Who are you?”

Pierce pulled together some tatters of dignity under the young woman’s calm gaze; he stood up before he answered. “My name is Pierce Oliver.”

He heard the whispering begin, ripple through the crowd, which had grown by then to fill a quarter of the hall and was still growing. His eyes followed the whispering and found, with vast relief, the wicked grin on his brother’s face.

Then he saw the broad-shouldered, black-haired man beside his brother, staring at Pierce with complete astonishment.

He jostled his way through the crowd, his eyes, a warmer blue than Val’s, never leaving Pierce’s face. He would have walked through the seneschal if Sir Kyle had not gotten out of his way. In front of Pierce, he finally stopped.

“I had no idea,” he said. He put his hands on Pierce’s shoulders. “You look so much like her.”

Pierce was struck mute again, this time with wonder. He took in the strands of gray in his father’s hair, his deep voice, the expression in his eyes of tenderness and rue. His own hands rose, fingers closing on his father’s arms; he felt the muscle like stone. He dwindled, somehow, knee high to the knight, staring out of a child’s eyes at someone he should have known but never had, and wishing for a sixth sense that might have shown him all the missing years.

He took a breath finally, sharply. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t— I’m sorry to surprise you like this. I didn’t know—any other way.”

“Well,” his father said. “There it is. How many other ways are there to tell a man you are his son?” He paused, while some sort of chaos disturbed the back of the crowd, and it began to separate around a single moving figure. “How is your mother?” Leith asked.

“She’s—she’s fine. She’s—at least she was before I left. She—” His voice stuck again, as he recognized the force approaching. His father glanced around, finally remembering their transfixed audience, and saw the magus.

“I suppose,” he said reluctantly, “this must wait.”

Pierce let go of his father. The slight, cob-haired Lord Skelton eased through the brawny crush of knights as if they were not there. Behind his circular lenses, his unblinking eyes seemed enormous. They caught at Pierce, held him; he could not look away. Leith said something; he scarcely heard it, so compelling was the magus’s focus on him.

The magus reached them finally, stood silently, his gaze like a mist enfolding Pierce, separating him from time, past and present, giving him nothing to see except himself and the confusion of unknowns surrounding his next step.

Lord Skelton blinked, set them both free in the world again, and smiled.

“You,” he said, “have already begun.”

The wyvern was not far behind the magus.

The king had, it seemed, finally found a use for an expression. “Sir Leith,” he said, “is this yours?”

“Yes, my lord. My son Pierce Oliver. His mother neglected to tell me. I’m sure she had her reasons.”

The king studied Pierce, who bowed his head belatedly, not having a clue what else he should do.

“That’s a kitchen uniform,” the king noted with interest. “What were you doing there?”

“My mother taught me how to cook. Sir. My lord.” He gave up, flushing deeply, but his father was nodding. “I found my way to the kitchen by accident. I think.”

“Which doesn’t begin to explain—” The king left it there, shaking his head. “We have an assembly to finish, a quest to consider. Welcome to my court, Pierce Oliver. From what I understand Lord Skelton to say, you have already begun the search for this ancient object of power, which may or may not, depending on magus or mystes, be seen or possessed, and which may resemble the sun or a stewpot. Join us at supper; you can explain then how you found your way into my kitchen.”