“She wished to be presented to Your Majesty, nothing more,” the Duke said calmly. Only then did it occur to me that most of the girls at court were after husbands. Certainly I was much too young for that!
“Well,” the Queen was saying, “I shall not detain you a moment longer, since I see your brother-in-law is making for the doors and I’m sure you’ll want a word with him.”
Alban’s head lifted like that of a hound that has caught a scent and with a low bow, he headed for the Baron, who had become cornered by the Queen’s Lord Chancellor, rumored to be an extremely astute man.
“Hendfield,” snapped my father, as, rudeness or not, the Baron attempted to break away from the Lord Chancellor in the direction of the door. My father caught up with him quickly and the Lord Chancellor walked away, smiling to himself.
Trapped, the Baron attempted to smile at the Duke, his eyes darting wildly over me.
“I’m sure you’ll be glad to see that Serapia is safe and well,” remarked the Duke in a dangerously pleasant tone.
“Oh yes.” The Baron simpered in a sickening manner. “So pleased to see you found her. She just ran away, distraught, you know, because of my sister. So tragic. Can’t tell you how hard I’ve been looking for her.”
“I wager you can’t,” said the Duke, much less pleasantly, “because you didn’t look at all.”
“Didn’t look? Of course I looked. My dearest, dearest niece. I am overjoyed. Come here, my dear.” He made a determined effort to kiss my cheek, clearly considering it a cheap price to pay to get away from the Duke’s anger. I dodged, partly in disgust and partly to avoid having Raven pop out and bite my uncle on the nose.
My uncle hesitated in his attempts, then caught the Duke’s eye and stumbled forward again, as though convinced that getting his lips on my cheek would protect him. I dodged once more and Alban gripped the Baron’s shoulder tightly, stopping him from following. “I’m afraid that my daughter gives a rather different version of the story.”
“I tell you,” exclaimed the Baron, “she was mad with grief. Couldn’t reason with her. She ran right out of the house the day her mother died, and I’ve not turned up hide nor hair of her since.”
“Your lies are not making me feel any better disposed towards you,” remarked the Duke in a dispassionate voice, his eyes hard with anger.
“I tell you,” said the Baron more stridently, clearly desperate to convince his brother-in-law, “the little witch child has been nowhere to be found!” Seeming to lose his head completely at the look in the Duke’s eyes, he blathered on, “I even searched the whorehouses...”
My father’s hand dropped gracefully to the hilt of his dagger. Smoothly, the dagger slid a full inch from its sheath, then I clamped my hand around my father’s wrist, arresting its progress. His face was like stone and his eyes were drowned with rage. Fortunately, he did not try to break my grip on his wrist, and I stood on tiptoe to hiss in his ear, “He did not kill my mother!”
Alban drew in a breath as though I had struck him and swung around, his back to the Baron, jaw rigid and eyes momentarily aghast before he closed them for a long moment. Finally he looked down at me.
“How did you get so wise?” he asked, then with no more ado, he spun around and his fist connected solidly with the jaw of the Baron, who was in the process of sidling away. The Baron flew a remarkable distance, but his landing was cushioned by an ample matron, in whose skirts he became entangled. As the matron strove to eject the unwanted encumbrance from about her person, the Duke touched my head gently.
“Thank you, child,” he murmured. “It is better to observe the formalities.”
He made light of it, but his cheeks were a shade too pale.
~+~
The Baron was not a brave man, but he was even more afraid of being known throughout the entire court for a craven than he was of the Duke’s sword. I watched him warming up, my expression sour. According to every story I had ever read, a bad character such as my uncle ought to be either short, fat and helpless, or gaunt, emaciated and weak. He was neither. He was a little on the short side but not particularly podgy or particularly slow with a sword. Not especially fast, either, but I had seen too much of the world to assume that my father’s superior skill would definitely win. In a duel, anything could happen.
The duel was to take place right there in the throne room. The Queen wished to watch and had no inclination to go and sit in a cold practice court. Servants had swiftly rolled back the rugs from the floors, and a sword and dagger had been fetched for the Baron, who had never led anyone anywhere. Both noblemen had stripped off their outer tunics and ruffs, and began stretching. A few courtiers had firmly sent their wives home, sure there would be blood on the ground, but most were grouped eagerly around the open area, packed together to achieve the best view. I was honored with a place near the dais, where I was not jostled, which was something.
As my father crossed swords with the Baron and they waited for the Lord Chancellor to bid them begin, I feared that the thunderous pounding of my heart would wake Raven. Then in a sudden burst of motion, the duel began. My father had snatched out his dagger as well, so that he held bare steel in each hand. My uncle looked wrong-footed by this, for he was no soldier and had learned to deal with only one blade at a time. Thus he was on the defensive from the start, parrying constantly, no sooner blocking a stroke of the Duke’s sword, than that gleaming dagger would dart in towards his stomach, necessitating another frantic block or a retreat.
It was quite clear from the start that quarter formed no part of the Duke’s intentions. It must have been clear to the Baron too, as he stumbled backwards to narrowly avoid another flashing sword stroke that would have slit him from rib to hip, only to be nearly impaled upon his enemy’s dagger.
Soon the Baron was sweating heavily, like a man who had not practiced as much as he ought and who was sinking in fear. My father was light on his feet and barely perspiring. He practiced every day.
I suspected that with the immediacy of the threat posed by the Duke’s sword, the Baron was beginning to revise his idea of what he feared most. Blood ran down his left arm from a nasty gash, and even as I watched, the Duke’s sword glanced across his thigh in a stroke that would have all but taken off the leg if it had struck squarely. Hendfield’s breathing became ragged, more than a hint of a sob audible. I watched his constant backward flight and his trail of blood emotionlessly.
Perhaps I don’t hate him as I have a right to, I thought rather distantly, and that’s good. But I feel no pity for him either. Pa can kill him, and I shan’t care. I stopped and only just swallowed a smile. Pa. I have a Pa.
I hope my Pa is doing this for justice, though. Not just for revenge.
I turned my attention firmly back to the matter of life and death in front of me. The end came suddenly. With a flurry and a gasp, courtiers dodged as the Baron’s sword came shriiinging across the flagstones into their midst. The Baron remained frozen for a second as the Duke raised his sword for a final blow.
You’d better yield, you fool, if you want your life, I thought.
Completely unmanned with terror, the Baron went even further than that. He flung himself to his knees and actually seized the Duke’s legs, sobbing something incoherent and shaking with terror. I very nearly looked away in disgust and didn’t bother trying to imagine my father acting in such a manner. What was wrong with a graceful knee (one knee only, of course) and a dignified, ‘I yield’?
The Duke looked near revolted and freed himself from his opponent’s grasp with a none-too-gentle kick. His sword tip darted down to touch the Baron’s throat as the Baron scrabbled backwards, slipping in his own blood and ending flat on his back. I wanted to cover my eyes. Enemy or not, the man was, most embarrassingly, related to me.
“Do you yield?” demanded the Duke of Albany in a decidedly pitiless voice. Apparently that had not been what the Baron had said, either that, or the Duke hadn’t been able to interpret the words either.
> “Yes, yes, I yield,” gasped the Baron.
“And do you freely acknowledge before all these witnesses that you tried to bring about my daughter’s death?”
The Baron turned slightly purple; apparently his fear of public humiliation wasn’t entirely gone. But a poke of the sharp metal at his throat reminded him that his choices were limited. “Yes, I acknowledge it,” he growled, face paling again.
“Tell them what you did,” demanded the Duke.
The Baron tried to speak, choked, coughed and finally said, “I, I put her out of my house...” He flinched as a trickle of blood appeared on his neck. “That is, her house,” he amended hastily.
“On what day?” prompted my father mercilessly.
“On...on the day her mother died,” the Baron whispered, but the shocked murmur made it clear that he had been heard.
For several more, long moments, the Duke went on looking down at him, then, finally, after what must have been an age for the Baron, he turned away with a sound of eloquent disgust, beckoning a pageboy for a cloth to wipe his sword.
The Baron, left alive, which he probably had not expected, might reasonably have been grateful, at least to divine providence if not to my father. But humiliation was a very powerful spur. The thought leapt into my mind as the back of my neck prickled and my hand flew instinctively to my dagger. The hilt seemed warm and eager for my touch.
The Baron whipped out his own dagger and, launching himself from the ground with a powerful thrust of hands and feet, flung himself towards his adversary’s unwary back...
Only to jerk to a halt and stand motionless for a long moment, staring in stunned disbelief at the plain, unadorned dagger that had sprouted through the palm of his hand.
I folded my hands together demurely and hoped that no one had seen where the dagger had come from. Small hope of that, any eyes that were not on the Baron were on me.
The Duke had been spinning around even as the dagger sailed through the air, though he would have been too slow to save himself, and he raised his sword towards the Baron, who finally seemed to drag enough attention from his impaled hand to see his danger. He stumbled blindly backwards, hand still clutched in front of him, and for the second time in minutes slipped on his own blood and landed flat on his back. The Duke stepped up and set his sword far less gently to the Baron’s throat.
“You have my full permission, dear Alban. I have never seen such a shocking display of cowardice. And after you showed him mercy, as well!” The Queen’s collected tones broke the silence, and the Baron’s gasps of pain turned to gasps of terror as the Duke’s knuckles whitened on the hilt of his sword. Dampness spread over the Baron’s breeches.
Perhaps my father also saw this, for after a moment, with a noise of utmost contempt, he bent down, yanked the dagger from the Baron’s hand, wiped it clean on the Baron’s expensive velvet coat and walked away. The Baron promptly fainted.
The Duke walked over to me and handed me the dagger. “Thank you,” he said softly. “My reflexes these days…” He broke off, his mouth twisting, and turned away.
I flushed at his thanks and tucked the blade away, glad to have Siridean’s dagger back and gratified that he did not mind me displaying my unladylike skill in public. I took his slighting of his own reflexes with a fond pinch of salt. They seemed pretty good to me.
“I believe we are expected to forgive even the worst wrongs done to us,” the Duke said grimly to the court at large, clearly in explanation for the Baron’s still-breathing condition. “Besides, I believe I have rarely been so revulsed in my entire life. Even were our Lord’s commandment not so clear, I could hardly bear to shame my sword with his blood.” The Baron was stirring weakly and flinched at the court’s unrestrained laughter.
“Baron Hendfield,” said the Queen sharply, her voice cutting off all other conversation, “you will return Lady Ravena’s house and belongings. Anything that you have sold, you will replace with another of like value. Do I make myself clear?”
“P...p...perfectly, Your Majesty,” whispered the Baron, still clutching his bloody hand, but when the Queen had looked away, I sensed his hate-filled gaze on me.
~+~
CHAPTER 15
WITCH CHILD
I rested my head against my father’s shoulder on the way home, rather shaken by how close we had come to disaster. My uncle’s deranged attack could all too easily have succeeded. I myself could have missed, even with Siridean’s dagger.
Still, they were all might-have-beens and what had been was on the whole, rather satisfactory. As for the Baron...
“I probably should have killed him,” said the Duke abruptly after a while. “It would, no doubt at all, have been perfectly just. Yet...unforgiving. I can’t make up my mind.”
“You seemed fairly decided at the time,” I replied, “but I was wondering the same. He’s a live enemy.”
“You think I should have killed him, then?”
“No, not necessarily. I mean, we are supposed to forgive...”
“Well,” said the Duke, “it’s not of much matter. With the orders from the Queen herself, he will scarcely dare do other than obey.”
The Duke tucked his arm around me and we sat in silence for a while, watching Raven scurrying and leaping around the coach in great high spirits.
“You know, this seems familiar,” said my father after a while, looking down at me with a smile of gentle amusement.
“Yes, doesn’t it, Pa,” I replied, watching to see how he would take his new title.
He smiled. “You didn’t call me that last time. In fact, if I’d put a foot wrong I think you’d have stabbed me.”
“Oh! Then, the dagger; you knew?”
“I knew you had it fairly early on.”
My cheeks heated. “I haven’t been carrying it because of you. Not since...not since I was ill. I’m just used to having it.” I hadn’t had any idea he knew about my dagger, or I would have made this reassurance sooner.
“For which I am very grateful,” said the Duke in a humorously devout tone.
We sat in silence for a while, but eventually I could no longer hold the question back. “Pa? My uncle...why did he always call me witch child?” Watching my father’s face closely, I felt emboldened to add, “And devil spawn, he sometimes called me that, too.”
The Duke sighed dismissively. “Oh, that. Don’t worry about it, child. It’s an old slander directed at our line by the ill-meaning, dating from long before you or I were born. And what truth there is in it has nothing to do with the devil. As most acknowledge. No, child, it is a very old slander and no one pays it any heed.”
I nodded, “Umm, everyone was listening and no one seemed worried.”
“Quite. Because there’s nothing in it.”
I sat in silence, reassured, but still wondering. I’d always assumed my uncle called me that because of the strange things I felt. But it was just an old slander and nothing to do with me.
“Why does he hate me so much?” I asked eventually, in a rather small voice. “He’s always hated me.”
The Duke’s face hardened in a way that suggested he was regretting his merciful urge more and more. “He always hated me,” he replied curtly. “Called me devil spawn behind my back, trying to stir up trouble. You, I fear, have inherited a double, even triple measure of his ill feeling, for you are my daughter, your very existence takes his sister’s property from him, and in time my own fortune will make even that look a pittance.
“In short, old hate, greed, and envy, an unwholesome mix that he seeks to conceal from himself and the world behind the empty words of a tired slander.” The Duke spat the final words with such disdain that I did not venture to ask anything more. What he’d said matched with my own memories of my uncle, anyway.
After a moment, with a clear determination to lighten the subject the Duke remarked, “It’s Christmas soon.”
“Christmas?” I said wonderingly. “I can hardly remember. S’been six years since I had a Ch
ristmas.”
He gave me an inquiring look. “Six years?”
I tried not to look crestfallen. “The year before, Ma was ill at Christmas. She had a wasting disease, you know. I mean, she could get about and all, but...I tried to get the servants to decorate the house a bit, but she wouldn’t have any of it.” I could not express my childish disappointment, my confusion at the unexplained change to the order of my world, nor the creeping fear at my mother’s hopeless dejection, her complete loss of heart and lack of effort.
My father looked so pale I felt sorry I’d mentioned my mother, but as he met my eyes I couldn’t help feeling that he did, in some measure, understand.
“Well, I promise,” he said gently, “that if I am ever struck by a wasting disease, Christmas and everything else will go on as much as normal—as is humanly possible—until they’re nailing down my coffin.”
First my mother and then Siridean, and Father Mahoney too…the very idea of losing my father... I gave him a quick, fierce hug. “You’re not going to get a wasting disease,” I whispered with savage determination.
He turned his attention to his window, perhaps regretting his poor joke, but as we passed along Paternoster Row, his eyes lit on something. “Ah, toffee apples.” He banged on the ceiling. The coach drew to a halt, and he pushed back his curtain to purchase two of the sticky treats from the stallholder.
My mood improved as I felt the toffee on my tongue, still sticky and warm beneath its cooled crust, and bit into the sweet, juicy apple. Due to the science of a toffee apple’s anatomy, I also had the added bonus of seeing, long before we reached home, my father as sticky as a schoolboy.
~+~
I trimmed my candles against the night’s dark and tried to attend to the book in my hand. A servant had arrived earlier from Baron Hendfield to start arranging the handover of the property, and my attention was rather lacking. Raven was amusing herself dipping her paws in the ink well and walking back and forth over an old sheet of paper. She started to get quite artistic, and distracted or not, I spared the occasional appreciative murmur and finally suggested that Raven show her work to my father; then hastily seized the dragonet and cleaned her feet before she could bound across the rug and up the armchair with inky paws.
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