Dear God, she thought shakily, enduring a paroxysm of self-condemnation. He may be hard to read, but how can you be that far off? It would have been funny, a Kim Ford classic, except that people were going to be relying on her now for so much. It was no good, no good at all. She was an impulsive, undisciplined, halfway-decent intern from Toronto. What the hell was she going to do?
Nothing, at any rate, for the moment. She held herself very still on the bed, and after a minute Aileron lifted his tanned, bearded face and spoke.
“After my mother died, he was never the same. He… dwindled. Will you believe that he was once a very great man?”
This she could help him with. “I saw by the lake. I know he was, Aileron.”
“I watched him until I could hardly bear it,” he said, under control now. “Then factions formed in the palace that wanted him to step aside for me. I killed two men who spoke of it in my presence, but my father grew suspicious and frightened. I could not talk to him anymore.”
“And Diarmuid?”
The question seemed to genuinely surprise him. “My brother? He was drunk most of the time, and taking ladies to South Keep the rest. Playing March Warden down there.”
“There seems to be more to him than that,” Kim said mildly.
“To a woman, perhaps.”
She blinked. “That,” she said, “is insulting.”
He considered it. “I suppose it is,” he said. “I’m sorry.” Then he surprised her again. “I am not good,” Aileron said, his eyes averted, “at making myself liked. Men will usually end up respecting me, if against their will, because at some things they value I have… a little skill. But I have no skill with women.” The eyes, almost black, swung back to hers. “I am also hard to shake from desires I have, and I am not patient with interference.”
He was not finished. “I tell you these things, not because I expect to change, but so you will know I am aware of them. There will be people I must trust, and if you are a Seer, then you must be one of them, and I’m afraid you will have to deal with me as I am.”
A silence followed this, not surprisingly. For the first time she noticed Malka and called her softly. The black cat leaped to the bed and curled up on her lap.
“I’ll think about it,” she said finally. “No promises; I’m fairly stubborn myself. May I point out, on the original issue, that Loren seems to value your brother quite a bit, and unless I’ve missed something, Silvercloak isn’t a woman.” Too much asperity, she thought. You must go carefully here.
Aileron’s eyes were unreadable. “He was our teacher as boys,” he said. “He has hopes still of salvaging something in Diarmuid. And in fairness, my brother does elicit love from his followers, which must mean something.”
“Something,” she echoed gravely. “You don’t see anything to salvage?” It was ironic, actually: she hadn’t liked Diarmuid at all, and here she was…
Aileron, for reply, merely shrugged expressively.
“Leave it, then,” she said. “Will you finish your story?”
“There is little left to tell. When the rains receded last year, and stopped absolutely this spring, I suspected it was not chance. I wanted to die for him, so I would not have to watch him fading. Or see the expression in his eyes. I couldn’t live with him mistrusting me. So I asked to be allowed to go to the Summer Tree, and he refused. Again I asked, again he refused. Then word came to Paras Derval of children dying on the farms, and I asked again before all the court and once more he refused to grant me leave. And so…”
“And so you told him exactly what you thought.” She could picture the scene.
“I did. And he exiled me.”
“Not very effectively,” she said wryly.
“Would you have me leave my land, Seer?” he snapped, the voice suddenly commanding. It pleased her; he had some caring, then. More than some, if she were being fair. So she said, “Aileron, he did right. You must know that. How could the High King let another die for him?”
And knew immediately that there was something wrong.
“You don’t know, then.” It was not a question. The sudden gentleness in his voice unsettled her more than anything.
“What? Please. You had better tell me.”
“My father did let another go,” Aileron said. “Listen to the