“Then you’ll have to improvise. You know the objective. Do what you need to.”
Brookes exchanged a sober glance with Whartel. “What about you, sir?”
“I’ll be with her. And if you’re having to improvise, there’s a good chance I’ll be dead, so it’ll be up to you to save her.”
He turned and walked back across the island while Brookes and Whartel came around in their rowboat. As he descended through the olive trees and gorse thickets toward the small stone quay where his own vessel was moored, he glanced toward the river’s mouth and the floating breastwork Chesedhan engineers had constructed there to defend it. On the stoneworked banks to either side of it rose the city of Peregris, the white-walled royal residence conspicuous on its north-bank hill overlooking river and harbor both. He didn’t know whom he should mistrust more—the Esurhites or Queen Ronesca.
His own suspicions of the Chesedhan queen’s real intentions for this night horrified him. And despite all attempts to deny them, dread lay in his gut as heavily as an undigested meal, demanding that he do something. And he had, at least partially. Abby had to stay close to her mother and was in Peregris now, but the very day the Esurhite emissaries had arrived in Fannath Rill, Trap had sent Channon off with Simon and Ian to Deveren Dol, and then Carissa and Conal after them the next day.
His thoughts brushed the latter memory and brought it back hard—how she’d stood before him so awkwardly that day, wanting to say something he was determined not to hear.
When she’d run from him in tears the night of the ball, he’d been devastated. The next morning, he’d immediately gone to have the divorce papers drawn up, vowing she would never hurt him like that again. For too long he had hung his heart on the hopes of something developing between them. He’d been as bad as Maddie in her unwillingness to let go of Abramm. Well, no more. He’d granted her the divorce, and that was to be the end of it.
In some ways he’d been happy to be arrested, for in Larochell he didn’t have to answer her questions or rebuff her explanations. But alone in his cell he’d had too much time to brood. It didn’t help that the black spore he’d cleansed from Simon still lived in his flesh, and it seemed to latch on to his hurts with a vengeance. Time and again, he found himself reliving that moment when his kiss had driven her tearfully from his presence, after all he’d done for her. It was bitterness, it was resentment, it was self-pity. It was a host of thoughts distasteful to Eidon. He repented of them time and again, but time and again they returned.
It was worst when his jailers continued to come with word she was outside, wanting to visit him. Part of him had rejoiced to think she was remorseful, that she cared for him after all. The other part—the hard, bitter, cynical part—reminded him how much it would hurt to allow himself to believe that. Of course she would be distressed he was imprisoned. She probably feared it would fall back upon her and she might end up in jail with him.
When Ronesca finally released him two months ago and he learned he’d been demoted from finance secretary to captain of Maddie’s personal guard, he’d been pleased. Not only because he felt himself more suited to the position, but because as captain he could sleep in the barracks with his men. Since Carissa had not redrawn the divorce papers as he’d asked her to, he’d considered doing it himself, just to be done with her once and for all. But he’d had no time with all the preparations for meeting with the Esurhites, and in the end lacked the heart to go through it all again.
Tears had gleamed in her eyes when he’d told her what he feared was to come of Queen Ronesca’s dealings with the southlanders, but he’d refused to let himself be swayed by them, reminding himself that it was Maddie she most feared to lose, not him. Without the First Daughter as patroness, she’d have to support her young son on her own. Taking in sewing or something else she was good at. A harder life than she’d ever known, but life at least.
The notion provoked in him a momentary burst of compassion and regret, but in the end his bitterness overwhelmed all sense of tenderness. He’d said good-bye in a voice whose coldness startled even him.
Now he pushed the memory from his mind, repenting of his angry attitude yet again. It was a product of the Shadow within him he could not afford to indulge tonight. Not when Maddie’s life rested on his remaining strong in the Light.
He returned to the mainland and the royal residence, where Maddie and Ronesca would await their two o’clock in the morning meeting with the enemy. Tiris ul Sadek, the man they were allegedly trading for the king, remained secreted away. So secreted, in fact, that Trap had been unable to learn where he was being held, or even how he’d been conveyed to Peregris. When he asked about a secret prisoner, the man they were going to exchange, he got only blank stares and shrugged shoulders. Which was, he argued with himself, as it should be for so delicate an operation. If the Esurhites found him and broke him out themselves, they’d have no need of surrendering Leyton.
Trap spent the afternoon and evening finalizing plans, seeing all the details were in place and even napping a bit before going early to find the First Daughter so he might speak with her one last time before the meeting.
She sat alone, reading, in the main room of her second-story suite. Seeing him, she closed her book with a grimace. “Please tell me you’ve not come to try to change my mind again, Trap.”
“Where’s the queen?”
“Praying for the success of our venture, of course. As you knew she would be.”
He frowned, paced a turn about the room, then faced her, noting anew how drawn her face was and the dark shadows under her eyes. “Ma’am—”
“I know. You have a bad feeling about it.” She grimaced again. “I don’t have a very good feeling about it, either. Whatever else he may be, Tiris has been a friend. And from all I hear, our ally.”
“It’s not Tiris that concerns me. Madam, please! Plead a headache. Plead illness. Plead anything at all. Just don’t go out there tonight.”
“You know I have no choice.”
“You do have a choice. This is madness! Think of your boys! Think of Abby. . . .”
“Didn’t our Kiriathan compatriots already settle that? You and Carissa serving as foster parents should I marry someone unacceptable?”
He frowned. “Carissa and I . . .” His voice died. Despite all his efforts to harden himself to the pain, admitting his loss and failure still hurt abominably. He’d wanted so much for things to work out between them, but— Stop now. Do not go down that road. . . .
Maddie shook her head. “She loves you, Trap. She truly does. And your refusals to forgive her are killing her. As they are killing you. Do you have any idea why she even did what she did that night?”
He snorted derisively. “I kissed her and she didn’t appreciate it. Too much boldness from the swordmaster’s son.”
“Too bold? You were not bold enough! You kissed her so carefully she thought you didn’t mean it!”
He gaped at her. “That’s absurd. I wouldn’t have kissed her at all if I didn’t mean it!”
“Have you talked to her? Have you let her explain herself? No. She’s tried over and over, and you shut her out completely.” She stood to face him. “You’re being a fool about this, Trap Meridon. A petty, self-absorbed fool. And if you can’t find it in yourself to bend, you really will lose her. For good.”
“I don’t want her!”
“Yes you do.” She stared up at him.
He stared back helplessly, then turned away from her. “Why are you doing this, ma’am?! Why are you bringing this up now? And digging at me like this? I don’t—” He broke off in sudden understanding. Swallowed on a dry throat. “Plagues. You know it’s going to go sour tonight, don’t you?”
“I know nothing.” She turned from him and walked to the window, parting the drapes to peer out briefly.
He clenched his fists. “Please, Madeleine. Don’t do this. Tell her you cannot go.”
“I have to.” She let go of the fabric and turned back. “Whatever happens, Eidon
will see me through it. I have him always and—” Her voice trembled and broke off as she pressed her fingertips to her lips and looked at the floor.
A wave of anguished grief swept across her face, and she swallowed. He saw her pressing it down, pushing it way, saw the deadness that had been so often in her manner these last few months replace it. He’d heard about Jeyanne’s late-night excursion to cast the amber seeing stone into the river. And though Maddie had told no one why she had done it, he could guess easily enough. Because she had looked in it again, and it had shown her something she hadn’t wanted to see. Something that had knocked the life out of her as it had convinced her finally that Abramm was gone. She’d not told Trap that in so many words, but he’d seen it in her face, and in the things she didn’t say these days.
It didn’t give him near the peace he’d thought it would.
She stared at him expressionlessly. “The queen claims she needs me, and I think in some ways she’s right. She is very fragile right now. But still volatile and more spiteful than ever. If I were to refuse her request, what grounds could I give? That I am ill? She is far more ill than I. That I suspect her of the most heinous treachery imaginable? She’d probably send me off to that convent she’s been threatening me with before the evening was over. Take my sons, give them to some Harvadan to raise. . . .”
“At least you’d be alive.”
Her face went dead white beneath the scatter of freckles across her nose. “Maybe I’d rather be in Eidon’s realm.”
He stared at her evenly, refusing even to acknowledge that statement. “And you’d abandon your children? Knowing what they’ve been through? Knowing how devastating it will be for them to lose you?”
She turned from him and returned to her place in the chair. “I don’t believe Ronesca would do the sort of thing you’re suggesting. And anyway, what good would I be as a trade? My father is dead. Belthre’gar already has Leyton, and everyone knows Ronesca would suffer little grief losing me. I have no value to the Esurhites whatsoever.”
“You have value as the White Pretender’s woman.”
She flinched as if he’d struck her, her face jerking up to meet his.
“You think she’d never do such a thing?” Trap pressed. “How about in exchange for her sons?”
At that she turned her attention to the book in her lap. After a time she drew a breath and said, “So what should we do? Stage a rebellion? All of us? Refuse to obey the queen and run away?”
“If we must!”
“Where would we go? Where can we go? Chesedh is our last hope.”
He frowned at her, dread and sorrow squeezing his chest like a vise.
Soon after that, the oldest of the queen’s pages slipped into the room to tell them it was time. Trap picked up the First Daughter’s cloak from where it lay upon the chair, and laid it over Maddie’s shoulders. She tied it at her throat, then gave him a smile as she patted his arm. “It’ll be all right, my lord duke. I have Eidon always.”
He followed her out of the room to the hall where the queen’s party was assembling to board the carriages that would take them to the waterfront.
Peregris was an ancient port, predating the Ophiran Empire. The harbor had first been dredged over a thousand years ago, and the banks built up with masonry so the big ships could come right up to the quay. It had never been quite deep enough for the biggest sailing boats with their deeper keels, but Chesedh’s galleys could snug up quite comfortably.
It was one of those galleys that the queen and her attendants boarded, and they were immediately escorted to the captain’s stern cabin. Though Trap would have preferred a station immediately outside the cabin, that space was occupied by the queen’s own guard, forcing him and his six men to find places near the ship’s bow.
Barely had they taken up their positions when the ship was cast off from the dock, and shortly the oars were pumping and flashing in unison as they headed out for the island, aglow with torchlight in the deep darkness of the now-moonless night. He stared at it blindly, his anxiety rising as he went through scenario after scenario and what he might do to protect his charge. So deeply was he involved with his thoughts, he didn’t even hear the sailor come up behind him until a soft voice said, “Sir?”
Trap turned to find one of the ship’s officers bowing and touching his cap. “Cap’n would like a word with you, sir.”
“Of course.” Trap pushed off the gunwale and followed the man through the ship and up the companion to the quarterdeck. The captain stood at the taffrail, looking back toward Peregris as it receded behind them. The mate and two others attended him.
As Trap drew up, the officer turned to him. “Ah, Captain Meridon. Thank you for coming so swiftly.”
“Is something wrong?”
“No. There’s just been a change in plans.”
Trap glanced at the mate, standing close at the captain’s elbow, uneasily aware of the other two men—brawny sailors, both—stepping away from the rail to stand at Trap’s sides.
The captain was shaking his head. “I’m sorry, sir, but I’m afraid you’ll not be accompanying us to the island.”
Trap stared at him. “I am the First Daughter’s chosen escort.”
“I know, sir. And I really am sorry. It’s just how it has to be.” He seemed far too remorseful for the situation, which put Trap off-balance even as it triggered an unfocused alarm.
The captain’s eyes flicked to the man beyond Trap’s left shoulder, and Trap was turning toward him when the blade plunged into his back. It entered just under his left shoulder blade, a cold, strange pressure driving through his chest that shocked him emotionally and mentally as much as physically. Before he could even begin to regather himself, his lungs erupted in fire, and when he breathed he felt a liquid gurgling where no liquid should be.
His sword came out of nowhere, drawn by an instinct that circumvented thought, and flashing in the ship’s lanterns. Too late. The knife blade twisted deep his chest, and he gasped, then could not draw another breath. Brightness blasted away the night shadows as hard hands gripped his arms and the deck spun away from him. More hands gripped his legs. Something smashed into his hip and the hands released him. For a moment he floated, completely disoriented. Then he plunged into the sea’s cold, dark embrace, the shock of contact forcing him to inhale a full breath before he could stop himself. As oblivion took him, his stunned mind churned toward the realization that now he’d never know in this life if Carissa had loved him truly, or not.
Maddie’s misgivings had never been stronger in her life. Surely, though, Ronesca could not be planning to betray her in such a hideous manner as Trap had suggested. She was a devoted servant of Eidon. Had she not brought High Kohal Minirth with her in this endeavor? How could they both be involved in the giving over of the First Daughter of the royal house to the enemy? It went against all Eidon’s commands. Minirth would seriously compromise his standing and create an uproar in a church already fractured by increasing numbers of sects.
Still, there was no denying Ronesca was gravely ill. She’d lost considerable weight, her cheekbones angled sharply now beneath pale skin stretched tautly over them. She hadn’t been eating at all that Maddie could see. People said she’d been fasting too much, but she’d not announced it if she was, and she always made a point of announcing it. Her skin had a perpetual sheen of moisture, as if she were fevered. And then there was the smell—acidic, sour, growing stronger by the day. Maddie feared it was the black spore, and if it was, there was no telling what sort of things Ronesca might decide to do.
As they were settled into the captain’s cabin and the steward brought tea, Maddie looked around at the small party gathered there and asked about Draek Tiris. “I thought he would be coming with us once we were on the island.”
“Oh, he is, my dear,” Ronesca replied. “But he’ll stay safely hidden until we make certain our counterparts have kept their part of the bargain.”
“He’s in the other boat, then?”
Ronesca smiled and patted her hand, her fingers icy even through her gloves and Maddie’s. “Don’t worry yourself about it, dear. All is in hand.”
Minirth cleared his throat. “We should use our time wisely here and beseech the Father of Lights for His grace and mercy on our efforts this day.”
Ronesca nodded at once and arose to approach the altar, where she knelt on the low bench before it, crossed her hands upon her heart, and bowed her head. Immediately Lady Iolande and Lady Locasia joined her. As she began to murmur her prayer, Minirth turned to Maddie, who had not moved. “These are serious times, girl. Can you not do your sister-in-law this one small kindness and join her?”
Realizing it made no difference what position she assumed when praying, Maddie complied. If it made Ronesca feel better, what harm was there? She’d barely settled when a loud ripping sounded just outside the stern window followed by a splash of something heavy plunging into the water.
“What was that?” she asked, looking toward the window.
“Probably the anchor, my lady,” Minirth said. “We’ve not much time left.”
“But the oars are still pumping.”
Minirth scowled at her, but after a moment of appearing to listen, agreed that they were.
“Then it couldn’t have been the anchor.”
“Oh, Maddie, please,” Ronesca burst out. “Do you always have to ruin everything? Can’t we just pray? It was surely just some ship’s business—nothing to concern ourselves with.”
Maddie looked from Minirth, so cold and stern, to Ronesca, obviously hurting and ill, and surrendered. In the end, she was glad she had, for it was freeing to call up all her concerns and uncertainties and fears and lay them at her Father’s feet, knowing he knew of them and that his hand governed all. Knowing, more, that he loved her beyond her ability to comprehend and had chosen all of this as part of his perfect intention for her life.
All too soon, though, it was time to stop, the moment of truth and revelation upon them. She heard the booming of the oars being shipped as both Minirth and Ronesca stood. Maddie and the other ladies did likewise, waiting in silence as the gangplank thundered across to the island’s small quay and the guardsmen disembarked to prepare the way.
Return of the Guardian-King Page 33