Deeds of Honor Read Free Page A

brothers' wives—with contempt when he dropped a bit of food or his fork clinked on the plate. He had not eaten at a proper table for all those years; he had forgotten how to handle the implements and his scarred crooked hands were clumsy.
    And yet, free once more, neither hungry nor confined, he was happy enough to surprise himself. Looks of contempt did not matter; he had had nothing else for fourteen years. For the next few tendays, he wandered the palace, reminding himself of the places he had so enjoyed as a youth: gardens, fountains, beautiful rooms, music played in the evenings, comfortable clothes, his soft bed. He went to the stable, and was assigned a mount, but he found mounting and riding painful now, from the damage to his hips and knees. Still he kept trying, riding slowly through the orchards and along the fields, rejoicing in being free of chains and locks, unthreatened by whips.
    He noticed that most of his brothers avoided him, all but the third, who spoke kindly to him and had another seat moved to the king's hall so that Falk could sit at the high table. He did not try to approach them. Gradually his strength returned somewhat with good food and rest, though the gray in his hair and beard, that made him look older than the others, did not darken, and his scars did not disappear.
    Finally his father called him in. Falk knelt, though it was painful, and waited to hear what his father would say.
    "I am sorry for your suffering," the king said. "But the fact is—I can find no wife for you. You have no look of royalty anymore and bear no resemblance to our house. You're too old. And I have six sons—six other sons. Why not move out to the country, into the hills where the shepherds range? There I will give you a nice house, some land, I'll provide some servants-"
    "You're ashamed of me," Falk said. "Though I kept my oath."
    The king turned red in the face, and Falk saw in his father the same cruelty he had seen in the evil king's face. "Take the house," his father said. "But leave my court. You are not the son I knew before."
    So Falk left his father's court, and the king's third son also left the court to go with Falk, bringing along his wife and their two children. It had been Falk's idea to wander the world and help those in need, but his brother and his brother's wife convinced him to settle somewhere for the sake of the children. Falk would not consider the house the king had promised, or even his father's kingdom, so they traveled for a time. Falk's tale spread and when he settled at last, people came to him for protection and for advice on how to live with honor.
    Because Falk's brother had known himself a prince all his life, and had more pride in his birth than Falk, he believed that it was Falk's royal blood that made him capable of both making and keeping such an oath as had saved the brothers. And—having been a captive only a short time—he retained the face and body of a prince. He it was who told Falk's story abroad, in one noble household after another, making it such a tale of high courage and honor that other youths whose hearts were set on honor came and begged to learn of Falk. Thanks to Falk's brother, it was mostly those of noble birth who came to be taught. Yet other tales of Falk went from one peasant to another, from the village outside the cruel king's castle all across the land, and from those tales came those under cruel rulers, asking Falk's help.
    Thus the tradition began, and in later times the followers of Falk, unlike those of Gird, believe that leadership ability and a love of honor is inborn and more likely to occur in those of noble birth. Falk himself was gracious to all, even the most humble who sought his teaching, and insisted that they not be excluded. Both of them, Falk and his brother, and then his brother's children, taught the importance of honor and oathkeeping in all things, as well as the arts of war, to be used to protect the helpless.
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    It is not