“Lena,” he said, conversationally, “has an excellent memory for what she has read. She knows Colm’s history nearly by heart, which is proving useful.”
“Now you’re actually listening to her.”
“Indeed. She had more words about my arrogance, which I fully deserved. Although I never thought Dagney’s scholarship lesser than Perras’s, only different. But we — I, but I doubt I am alone in this — carry presumptions, prejudices, of which we are not fully aware.”
“I suppose we do.” Or which we are fully aware of, but allow to sway us anyhow, I thought. I had proved myself for many years to be competent to succeed my father as Harr of Gundarstorp, yet one aspect of me would have led to my disinheritance in a moment, had he known. “Decanius doesn’t bother to hide his.”
“That he does not. We have spoken about how she will handle him, when she comes to the next talks.”
“I assume it won’t involve her secca,” I said.
He looked at me, eyes narrowed a little. “What is wrong, Sorley?”
“Nothing,” I said, and saw his frown. “I don’t know. I’m just out of sorts. I miss Druise, I suppose.”
His face softened. “I am sorry.”
“You sent him away,” I snapped.
“You are out of sorts,” he observed. He reached out a hand, touching my shoulder.
“Don’t,” I said. “Cillian, just — don’t.”
He dropped his hand immediately. “I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “That was insensitive.”
“It was,” I said. “I do miss Druise. But remember what I told you a few days ago. Will you be all right, if I leave?”
“Of course. Just tell the attendant.” I climbed out. He said my name. I turned, looking down at him, conscious suddenly of his gaze, and my nakedness, and that we were alone. “Mo duíne gràhadh,” he said. “I wish — ”
“Wishing,” I said, cutting him off, “got me nowhere, did it? I’ll send the attendant to you after I’m dressed.”
I refused any assistance, drying and dressing as rapidly as my trembling muscles would allow. Anger and shock at my own behaviour combined to make me unsteady, disoriented. I walked outside, careless of my cloak, turning towards my room, then away: I didn’t want to go inside. There were hours of daylight left.
The gate guard greeted me civilly, and I said something I hoped was a fair reply. My boots clattered on the steps down to the harbour. I headed south along the seawall and down onto the beach. Gulls cried and circled, or stood at the tideline, pecking at weed. Shells and starfish littered the sand. I walked along the hard strand, watching the tide recede.
“Lord Sorley?” A quiet voice, from beside the cliff. I stopped. The man stepped forward, just a little. I recognized him from the soldiers’ commons.
“Evan, isn’t it?”
“Yes. I haven’t seen you out here before.”
“I needed fresh air,” I said, trying to be courteous. “I suffer from headaches, from time to time. And you? What brings you onto the beach?”
“The seals,” he said, indicating the animals basking on rocks a little offshore with a tilt of his head. “And there’s a pair of otters, too. I like to watch them.” I turned to look. “When will Druisius be back?” he asked.
“I don’t know.”
He took a step or two nearer. “Are you in need of company, Lord Sorley?”
A tug, visceral and deep. He was my age, I guessed, slight, his lips slightly parted in a smile. He cocked an eyebrow. I hesitated for a moment, and then I moved towards him.
Arms around me, the touch of lips on skin. A growled laugh, the nip of teeth on my ear. The moment of utter oblivion. I lay still, avoiding thought, listening to my heart beating.
“Druisius is a lucky man,” Evan said, sitting up.
“You won’t — ?”
“Tell him?” He adjusted his clothes. “No. Neither will you, Lord Sorley. At least not my name.”
“No.” I sat up. Sand chafed. I looked at the ocean. Pulling off my tunic, kicking my breeches onto the beach, I ran into the waves. Evan called something, but I ignored him. When the water reached my thighs, I dived, swam a few strokes, turned around.
I stood dripping on the hard sand. The wind chilled me, but I would dry soon enough. I walked forward, bending to pick up my clothes. Evan sat still, watching me. I shook as much sand as I could from my shirt before using it to rub water from my hair. “I wouldn’t have done that,” he said. “Far too cold.”
“Never gets any warmer, in Sorham.” I crouched; I didn’t want to stand over him. “I’ve been swimming in the sea since boyhood. Sometime there’re chunks of ice in the water. “
“Look!” he said, pointing. A pair of otters crossed the beach to slide into the water. He grinned, the sight clearly bringing him enjoyment.
“We had otters at Gundarstorp, too,” I said. We watched the animals in silence. One flowed up onto a rock, a fish in its mouth, and began to eat. When its meal was done, it slipped back into the water with barely a ripple.
I was dry, and cold. I dressed. Evan didn’t move. “I’ll stay here,” he said. “Watch the otters some more. A pleasure, Lord Sorley.”
It had been. Demanding, brief, mindless pleasure. A hunger satisfied, as instinctual as the otter with its fish. I nodded, smiling, and he smiled back before his eyes returned to the animals. I turned to walk north, back to the fort.
Regret insinuated itself into my thoughts before I’d reached the stairs up the cliff. Regret, then disgust.
In my room I poured myself wine, not watering it. Behind my anger with myself was a memory, a familiarity to this feeling. I picked up my ladhar, letting my fingers find what they might. A few notes, bringing remembrance.
I had been seventeen. The visiting scáeli had been older by a handful of years, new to his title. My father thought nothing of me going to his room for lessons, encouraged it, in fact. Amlodd had taught me more than music, to my delight — but also to my guilt. I loved Cillian, did I not?
The young scáeli returned the next year, and then I did not see him for some time. Our last encounter had been chance: I’d ridden to the smithy at Hagenstorp, and he’d been visiting its Eirën. We’d talked a little of music: anything else, outdoors in daylight in Linrathe, was far too dangerous.
He’d taught me unintended lessons, too: that desire and love were not the same thing, and that a physical appetite temporarily slaked did not reduce my longing for Cillian. All you have done today, I told myself, is satisfy a need. There is no need for guilt.
Chapter 24
In the height of summer, Rufin returned from Casil, bringing Apulo, the body servant Gnaius had insisted Cillian needed. Newly freed from slavery, scared and looking younger than I had expected, he stood trembling when Gnaius brought him to Cillian.
“Sit,” Cillian said to them both. Apulo remained on his feet. “Apulo,” Cillian said, gently, “you are not a slave now. Please take a seat.” He did as he was asked, perching on the edge of the chair.
“I have had the pleasure of Apulo’s massages, at the baths in Casil,” Gnaius said. “His hands are skilled. Over the next weeks I will teach him all he must know about your needs, Cillian, and then perhaps by the autumn I can begin my travels in these lands, to teach and to learn.”
“Of course,” Cillian said. “You have curtailed your own interests too long, in caring for me.”
“Not at all,” Gnaius said. “I have learned much from your case. Your treatment and recovery will be the subject of a lecture I am preparing for when I speak again in Casil. Including,” he bowed his head to me, “the role of music in that recovery, Lord Sorley. And speaking of music, Apulo, please sing.”
The boy — he wasn’t, but it was hard not to think of him that way, slight and frightened as he was — stood, obediently. What poured from his throat, words to a tune I recognized as one Druise played sometimes, was the voice of a trained singer, precise and controlled and beautiful. “Oh,” I murmured involuntari
ly, listening with wonder and confusion. How had such a singer become a slave?
“You sing beautifully,” I told him, when the song was done.
“Gratiás,” he said shyly, but I saw a faint smile.
“I have told Apulo,” Gnaius said, “that music is valued in this household. That the Lord Sorley is a musician, as is the absent Druisius. And,” he looked at me again, his face showing me only the calm, impassive physician, “I have also told him nothing is expected of him in the treatment room or elsewhere, beyond Cillian’s massage and exercises, and assistance with dressing and the baths.”
I met Gnaius’s eyes with equal impassivity. “A message for your Procurator, not me,” I said. “In our lands, he is the only man who needs to hear that.”
“Take no offense,” Gnaius said. “A reassurance for Apulo, nothing more. But given that concern, would the Princip accept an oath of loyalty?”
“It would be wise,” Cillian said. “I want no confusion over his status, as there was with Druisius. Are you willing to make an oath, Apulo, to the Princip of Ésparias?”
“To you?” the boy asked.
“No. To Casyn, my father’s brother. He is our leader.”
“I am free? I have a choice?”
“Yes, to both questions,” Cillian said. “You will be paid for the work you do for me; and you are free to leave my service if you wish, but if you do, it is better you are a citizen of Ésparias, and not Casilani. Do you see?”
“Yes,” Apulo said. “I will swear. I wish not to go back to Casil, ever.”
A knock sounded at the door. Lena got up, frowning, to answer it. It had sounded like Birel’s double rap. “The Princip and the Governor require your presence,” Casyn’s soldier-servant said, a little apologetically. “Yours too, Lord Sorley.”
“I will show Apulo where we work,” Gnaius said. “Later, he can watch your treatments.”
I handed Cillian his cane. “About the forts?” I murmured.
“Perhaps,” he said, “but why include Lena? The timing suggests to me a message from the Empress, something about the treaty. We are all signatories.”
“There is a decree from the Empress,” Livius said. He’d greeted us with apparent pleasure, smiling, asking after Gwenna. Decanius had been barely civil, his usual aspect since Cillian had revealed his overstepping of his position as Procurator of a royal province.
“It affects the leadership of Ésparias; your local leadership, not my position or the Procurator’s. Lord Sorley, I have asked you to attend as Linrathe’s envoy, so that the exact message of the decree can be accurately conveyed to your leader. And,” he added, “because of your close friendship with both the Major and the Lieutenant.”
Cillian’s eyes had narrowed. Gods, I thought, now he has recovered, has Eudekia countermanded his decision to renounce the leadership? With all the unrest there is around his position as advisor? But she would not know that. I glanced at Lena. Her set jaw showed me she had reached the same conclusion.
“The decree should be read by you first, Princip,” Livius said. “Then give it to the Major, if you will.”
Casyn could hide his feelings better than many men, but his lips parted as he read. He glanced at the Casilani men, and then at Cillian. Wordlessly, he handed Cillian the letter. Cillian’s eyes scanned the page. He blinked once, and an expression I didn’t understand — almost sorrow, I thought — crossed his face. Then he laughed. “This,” he said, “borders on the ridiculous, Governor, and I shall tell the Empress so myself. How can the bastard son of a peasant girl and an army cadet be made a prince?”
A prince? I bit my lip to stop myself from gasping.
Livius laughed, genuinely, masking Decanius’s grunt of anger. “You have just cost me a large amount of wine. The Empress wrote that you would say something close to this. I had wagered you would not. Clearly,” he said, chuckling, “she knows you better than I thought.”
“A prince?” Lena said. “What does this mean for our daughter, Governor?”
Her frown and her clenched hands told me — and Cillian — how displeased she was, as Livius explained, in detail, the Empress’s decision. How their first child, boy or girl, was, after Faolyn, heir to Ésparias, returning the title to Callan’s direct descendent. A rule second to the Empire’s appointed governor, of course, but still the leader. Gwenna would be the Principe, someday.
“But you,” Livius said, addressing Cillian, “as the last Emperor’s son, are to be acknowledged as the senior prince, second only to the actual Princip. The Empress was very clear on that.”
“I imagine she was,” Cillian said drily. In another life, they would be well suited, I had said to Lena once. It had been true. Regardless of the political games being played in those tense weeks in Casil, I thought they had genuinely enjoyed each other’s company, intellect and wit equally matched. He put a hand on Lena’s for a moment. “We will talk later,” he murmured. “First, though — ” He bowed his head to Casyn. “Prince Casyn of Ésparias. I repeat what I told my father: I have no wish to lead this country. You will forgive that I cannot kneel to offer my fealty, but it must be clearly witnessed that I did.”
Casyn sat very still. Then, his lips tightening slightly, he nodded. “I understand the need. I accept your fealty, Cillian, prince of Ésparias.”
Lena did kneel, offering Casyn her hands. “Prince Casyn. You have my trust and my fidelity.” As Cillian’s wife, this too was necessary, regardless of how she truly felt. She looked up at Cillian.
“No,” he said sharply. “Never.” He held out a hand. “Stand, käresta. There will be no oaths between us beyond the ones we have sworn. I will play this game, but not at that cost.” His voice was firm. Livius sipped his wine, saying nothing. Watching and listening, detecting the undercurrents. Decanius hadn’t moved, hadn’t said a word, his face and head red with anger.
I stood to bow deeply to Casyn. “Prince Casyn. My deepest respect,” I said. Then I turned to Cillian. Eudekia’s Governor was a subtle, insightful man. I bowed again. “My heartfelt regard, Prince Cillian.”
“A provincial title,” Decanius had found his voice. “A sop to the barbarians.”
“Procurator,” the Governor said coldly. “Do not speak of a decision by our Empress regarding the leaders of her province in such a way.” There had been the faintest emphasis on ‘her’. “And as we are all here, I will take advantage of this meeting to tell you this: my captains inform me a lighthouse is imperative on the small islands just beyond the Eastern Fort. I myself was dismayed by its lack on my voyage here. Your oversight is needed, both for the work itself and to ensure the costs are kept low.”
“I am still determining the division of lands, Governor,” Decanius said. “Surely that is more important?”
“More important than alleviating danger to our ships?” Livius said mildly, arching his eyebrows. “You have a villa on the coast, I understand. Surely you wish to acquaint yourself with your lands, and ensure your steward is competent? I wish the construction of the lighthouse to begin immediately. A ship will be ready to take you to the Eastern Fort within a day.”
He turned back to Casyn. “Princip, our business here is done. The Procurator and I will leave you. My lord Cillian, presents from the Empress have been taken to your rooms, as the Princip’s have been taken to his.”
“She was supposed to have a choice!” Lena said, as soon as we had returned to their rooms. Cillian had insisted I accompany them. “How could you accept this, Cillian?”
“How can I not?” he countered, gently. “Eudekia sees it as a gift of great value.” I busied myself pouring wine. This gift, this elevation of status, was nothing Cillian could have expected. I handed him his cup. “No one can argue about the li’ítho now,” I murmured. He shot me a look, half-amused, half-irritated.
“It is utterly ridiculous,” he said. “But there is an artful mind behind it, so let us consider what its purpose truly is.”
“My lady Lena,” I said, hold
ing out her wine.
“Don’t jest,” she snapped.
“I’m not,” I said. “You’ll have to get used to it, as wife to a prince. Unless there was a more formal title for Lena, Cillian?”
“Not that Eudekia mentioned. An elevation too great in her eyes, I think.”
“Good,” Lena said. “I would have refused.”
“You could not,” Cillian said. “She is our Empress, Lena. Your signature is on the treaty, as you so recently reminded me.”
She swore, walking across the room to stare out the window. “And Gwenna?” she asked.
“Principe.” Princess.
“You said that it did not have to be the oldest child, or any.”
“That is what I believed, käresta. Eudekia has changed the rules of inheritance.”
“Does this increase your influence in the negotiations?” I asked. “Yours or Casyn’s?”
“That may be one reason.” He glanced at Lena and shook his head slightly. “I am only part of it. Faolyn is a prince now too, by this decree. There will be alliances he could be — offered for.”
Lena spun around at that, her shoulders high and rigid. “I do want an oath between us beyond the ones we have sworn, Cillian,” she almost spat. “Whatever game is being played here, Gwenna is not a piece in it. You will never allow our daughter to be used to further Eudekia’s plans.”
“I have already sworn that,” he said evenly. “I promised to shelter you and our children, did I not?”
“Then I trust you will be more successful with her than you have been with me,” Lena said.
Dear gods, I thought. She is trying to hurt him. “Go to Casyn,” she added, her voice flat. He limped over to where she stood, putting a hand on her shoulder. She didn’t move. He kissed her hair. The treaty between them had been so fragile. Had this ended it entirely?
I handed him his cane. He took it, and then to my surprise embraced me, kissing my temple. “Do not bow to me again,” he said. “Never, Sorley. Promise me.”
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