Nobody’s Son

by Sean Stewart

  “You mean Lissa?” Gail’s head drew back, and her earrings whirled in angry circles. “You think I am the sort of woman who tarries alone with a man before her wedding day?”

  Mark stared at her, amazed. Her gall left him speechless. “As if it would matter!” he spluttered at last.

  “Lissa is my oldest friend and closest companion. I suggest you get used to her. Wherever I go, she comes with me.”

  “Even when you come, she doesn’t go,” Mark muttered.

  “That kind of comment is ill-suited to a gentleman,” Lissa snapped.

  Great. Now he had angered even the statue. “Did her remarks become a bloody lady?”

  “Princesses don’t have to be ladies,” Gail said. “It’s the best thing about being one. Look, it isn’t as if I’m saying forever. Just, not now, that’s all.”

  Guess I should be bloody honoured. I bet not many folks hear the vixen plead.

  Gail looked at him with a shy smile, as if to say, I know I’m being very difficult, but we have a special relationship, you and I: I know you will understand. “I can’t stand all these cages! City walls, castle battlements…” She held up the drooping corset and laughed. “They tie the cages to our bodies! I can’t breathe here for all the perfume!…I need to get away from that. When you came before my father like a hawk among the songbirds, you brought a taste of free air on your wings, Mark. Don’t ask me to give it up now.”

  A shiver ran down into Mark at the sound of his name on her tongue.

  “I want to go with you, be with you, travel the wide world. And I can’t do that if I have children,” she finished simply. “I’m an heir of the royal line. They’ll say it’s too dangerous for me to go out while I’m pregnant. Then will come the confinement. I might die, Mark. Some women do. And if I don’t, I’ll be a mother…and that’s a cage that never opens.”

  “You’ve never been out in the wide world,” Mark protested. “It’s cawd, Gail! It rains and it’s muddy and it’s full of bandits and pox. You say you want to go out there, but how do you know? You’ve been a Princess all your life; you don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “I shot him,” Gail said coldly, pointing to the stuffed goose. “I shot him and I gutted him. I handle a bow a damn sight better than you, I’ll bet. I had a tanner teach me to cure leather and a dyer showed me how to draw colours from madder and woad and blackberry root. Don’t you ever patronize me, Shielder’s Mark.

  “You will not come into my bed until I wish it. Nobody else can see how I can bear to wed myself to such as you. If I implore this marriage be annulled, the Bishop will comply before you can count ten—if you can count to ten. My father will have paid you what was owed, and you will then be left with nothing.” She glared fiercely at him. “Nothing! Is that clear?”

  Bull’s-eye.

  Slowly, Mark said, “When boys fight, they have rules. Because if you don’t, people get hurt. We have only known one another two days, Princess, and already you’ve drawn steel on me. Was it fun for you to tell me that everyone here hates my guts, Princess? Was it nice? Was it smart? In fifty years of life together we will have plenty of chances to bare our steel at one another.

  “Tell me, Lissa. Is it well-done to throw my birth at me like this? Is this how nobles talk to nobles? Or is this how they talk to their servants?” Pale-faced, Lissa stared at the flagstones and did not answer.

  “Who do you think you’re dealing with?” Mark yelled at Gail. “Your butler, your stable-boy? Or does everyone let you get away wi’ shite like this because of who your father is? Is that what being noble means? Hiding your bad manners behind your father’s cloak?

  “I may not be some Duke’s son, but I’m the only man to make it back from the Red Keep. I walked through time and crossed the moat where the dead things live. If I was good enough to break the Ghostwood’s spell, then I’m good enough for you.”

  “Is that a threat?”

  “It’s a promise.” Mark tried to master his rage. “Gail, I will be the best husband I can be. I’ll love you and respect you. Once I take my oath I’ll never swive a serving-girl or leave you for another; but I must have my own respect, even if I can’t have yours.”

  “You have mine, you have mine, you idiot,” Gail snapped. “Weren’t you listening?”

  Lissa choked with laughter.

  “Oh, bloody right then,” Mark sighed. “That’s settled. I’ll get your respect; just not your bed.”

  “If you don’t ask, you won’t be refused,” Gail wheedled. “It’s only for a little while, Mark. A few years, no more.”

  “Years!”

  “You’re attractive, Mark, you really are—in a shaggy, awkward kind of way. And I’m…I’m curious,” Gail stammered. “But the step from bed to cradle is so short, you know?”

  Bull’s-eye again. She was right, but Mark couldn’t bring himself to say it.

  “A village woman most oft is married when she is how old?” Lissa gently asked. “Twenty-seven? Twenty-eight? The titch of land each freeman has cannot support too many babes, and common folk are smart enough to know it. So they bide their time, chafing and impatient I am sure, until they feel the moment right to wed and have a family. Only at the Court, where daughters are another good for sale, like cows or beans or eggs, are women wed so young as Gail now is. You demanded of the King her hand, and it was given unto you; you purchased her as if she were a she-goat or a strip of land, because by ancient statute her father had no option but to sell her for the coin you held: the greatness of your deed.

  “And Gail is willing to abide by such an arbitrary sale, closed between two men without the need for her consent, because it is her duty; and she likes you. All she asks is that you give her but a little time to grow into a woman: less than she would have if she had played along beside you in the fields of your youth, and sparked her eyes on yours in the village where you were raised.”

  Eyes downcast and unchallenging, Lissa gently stripped back Mark’s indignation to reveal the narrow-minded, selfish churl he was.

  Oh she’s got you there, lad. You’re just a boy who cries for pudding before dinner. What an ass you are, Shielder’s Mark. What a…what a common man.

  You’re a pig, he told himself. You are a pig.

  Pig. “It’s such a strange thing to be…told you cannot share the marriage bed,” he mumbled. “And in front of someone else!”

  Blandly, Lissa said, “You will find the Princess loses little sleep in fretting over other people’s pride.”

  Gail winced. “Ouch,” she said. But she didn’t disagree.

  5

  Til Death Do Us Part

  Two weeks went by in a whirl of balls and receptions. A rider returned from the Forest, breathless and panting, to announce that Mark had told the truth: the Ghostwood was no longer wrapped in shadow, and the Red Keep lay in ruins within, open to the sun, though no other man yet dared to enter it.

  Mark was officially given the Keep at Borders, just across the river from the Ghostwood. He didn’t care a damn about being titled Duke of Borders, but being knighted by Sir William was an honour that cut him open to the core. It was the greatest moment of his life.

  Valerian, working hard to earn a place near the Divine Lissa, guided Mark through a maze of manners, customs, clothing, perfumes, delicacies, and wines which otherwise would have quite unmanned him.

  Finally the wedding came. The ceremony was lengthy and complex, full of chants and rings and rituals to lay the Troubles that could beset a marriage bed. None of this mumbling made much sense to Mark, but he performed his part with deadly gravity. The wedding guests had buzzed, hearing that Janseni was to provide the entertainment, but when she started playing all gossip stopped, and for a brief time her soaring, joyful music made them all better than they were.

  At last Mark stood with Gail while the Bishop intoned a sheaf of solemn verses, and proclaimed them man and wife.

  Joy cracked Mark open then, spilling from his eyes and his absurdly grinn
ing face. He felt Gail free and alive as spring beneath her mail of lace and silk. Her lips were like warm rain when they kissed, and kissed, until the crowd began to snicker; and Gail’s mouth was as thirsty as his own.

  “What was that?” Mark muttered, when at last the Bishop cleared his throat and prodded them apart.

  Gail grinned back at him, eyes dancing. “A promise,” she said.

  * * *

  “What a haul!” Mark surveyed the cartloads of presents strewn around their new quarters. Most of them had been presented in an extremely long and tedious ceremony earlier, so each giver could show off his gift before the assembled Court. Only a few more private presents remained to be unwrapped. “We should get married more often.”

  Gail cried in triumph as she defeated a silk bow and stripped away the plush cloth wrapping of another present. “Oh. Scent.” She frowned, disappointed, and pulled the stopper from a crystal decanter. A wisp of spring snuck out, a tingle of breeze and blossoms.

  Lissa forgot the wedding ledger in her lap. “Master Civet’s best!”

  Gail shrugged, wedding dress rucked up to her knees. “You want it?”

  Lissa’s blue eyes widened. “You mean I—!” Catching herself, she settled back into her armchair, folding her long, slender legs with the easy elegance that marked her every movement. “I really think the gift was meant for you.”

  “Take it,” Gail grunted through a mouthful of cloth. She was trying to chew through a knotted silk ribbon that stood between her and her next present. “You love it and I never wear the stuff. Besides, it’s from Richard.”

  Lissa cradled the decanter of scent in her slim fingers, shook her head and laughed. “Thanks Gail.” She started to put the bottle by her chair, stopped, opened it once more, touched her finger to the rim and put a tiny drop behind each ear. Spring stole out from her, fresh with new life. Seated there, slim and elegant in her long bridesmaid’s dress, her blond hair winding around her white shoulders, Mark thought again how Lissa looked so every inch the princess.

  “Damn!” Gail swore, pulling at the silk bow with her teeth. “Wish I had my knife.”

  “Alas! By a tragic oversight I forgot to tell the seamstress that your wedding gown must have a place for cutlery,” Lissa remarked.

  Gail stopped, peered down at the lace waterfalling around her shoulders, and laughed. “Don’t let it happen again!”

  “If you really crave your implements of doom, a serving-maid would not be hard to find, to send back to your maiden quarters in search of steel.”

  “Here,” Mark said. “You could borrow—”

  “Ah, don’t bother,” Gail mumbled, gnawing through the ribbon.

  Mark reached for a long, flat gift wrapped in red velvet. “Here’s something from your father. I wonder why he didn’t want me to open it in public?”

  Lissa turned back to her ledger. “Richard Duke of High Holt: one bottle scent.”

  “O Lissa! Shooting gloves!” Gail cried. She held up two gloves, one small and black, the other, much larger, a handsome scarlet. Gail leapt to her feet and hugged Lissa until she gasped. “Real friends give you things you want!”

  “You like them?” Lissa said eagerly, eyes sparkling.

  “Like them! Come here,” Gail said, dragging Mark away from the King’s present. “Put this on. No, the right hand, dummy! There: a perfect fit! But of course it would be. Lissa always does everything perfectly. It’s her worst fault.”

  Mark flexed his fingers and looked doubtfully at his wife. “I never took three shots wi’ bow; I doubt I could hit a cow at ten paces.”

  “What!” Shocked. “A still cow or a walking one?”

  Lissa grinned. “Gail loves to torture other folk with archery lessons.”

  “First thing tomorrow morning,” Gail declared. “We’ll be at the butts at dawn.”

  “Well, first you have your wedding breakfast to prepare, and then you are to entertain a delegation from the town: Swangard’s mayor will be there, with seven cygnet aldermen,” Lissa said gently. “After that, the two of you are due to stand for Master Brush, the portraitist. Then lunch, of course, and after that—”

  “All right, all right!”

  “—You will be making preparations for your trip,” Lissa finished.

  “When we get to Borders, I’ll be an eager ’prentice,” Mark promised. He untied a second ribbon on Astin’s gift. “Why do we have to visit this Richard anyway? There’s work enow to do on my own Keep; I’m not keen to dawdle in another man’s house.”

  “We have to cross Duke Richard’s land to come to Borders anyway,” Lissa said. “’Tis only courteous to call. And then, his Majesty believes it would be…gracious if his daughter were to bring with her a gift or two, to token the esteem in which the Crown still holds the master of High Holt.”

  Gail picked a bit of ribbon from between her teeth. “We have to buy him off so he won’t be too mad that he didn’t get to marry into the royal line.” She shivered. “I’d rather sleep with a snake.”

  “But not wi’ me,” Mark said.

  Gail glanced at him uncomfortably. “Don’t make this unpleasant, Mark.”

  “I guess I need not note my own gifts in the ledger,” Lissa said. “What have you there, milord?”

  “Mark. ‘Milord’ makes me uncomfortable.”

  “You don’t do the title much grace yourself,” Lissa remarked. Her smile was bright as winter sun, her voice as smooth as cold satin.

  Mark blinked. Did she just insult you, lad?

  Impossible.

  He saw Gail give her friend a quick sharp glance. Well, maybe Lissa had meant to insult him. And yet, he didn’t think the cut in the comment was really meant for him. Rather, it was as if he were hearing an echo of an old conversation between the two women. Must be a lot of water has flowed between these two. Deep water. Strong currents.

  Still smiling as in jest, Lissa nodded sympathetically. “You and ‘your lordship’ soon must learn to co-exist in comfort: you are Duke of Borders now. Your name is seated in a high place, and the rest of us must even so approach it, with ‘milord’ and bended knee.”

  “If you can call her Gail, you can call me Mark.”

  “I know the Princess. To her, I am a friend as well as servant,” Lissa said.

  “You’re no servant,” Gail said impatiently. “Just my friend. My best friend.”

  Blandly. “Friends are not required to walk two steps behind.”

  “I don’t require that!”

  “No,” Lissa said politely. “You do not.”

  “Well I’m sick of all these rules,” Mark said. “I’d rather have a friend than a servant, and that goes down to my last man in livery too.”

  Lissa’s eyes narrowed. “He and I are honoured, sir, by such familiarity.”

  Uh oh. Mistake. Mark felt his belly clenching. Talking to these people is like walking in a bog: one mis-step and you’re up to your bloody crotch in it, and every struggle only makes things worse. He fled the conversation and finished unravelling the long flat package from His Majesty, Astin IV.

  The King’s gift was a longsword in a beautiful scarlet sheath. Mark looked ruefully at it. “I guess this is to make up for t’one he stole.”

  The scabbard was of tooled leather, wound about with vines. The hilt was wrapped in silver wire, and a red gem glittered in the pommel. Worshipfully he drew out the blade, which like the scabbard was etched with a tracery of vines.

  “Its name is Harvest,” Gail said gravely. “It is among the finest weapons in the Treasury, forged by Redwine’s Smithson’s Dal in grandfather days.”

  Mark laid the sword across one finger. The balance was superb; his finger sat less than an inch above the hilts.

  He hefted it. Though longer and heavier than Thief, Harvest felt lighter and more responsive. “Beautiful,” he whispered. “It isn’t Sweetness, but it will go a way to settling that score.” He sniffed in puzzlement. “What’s the smell?”

  “Clove oil,” Ga
il said, surprised. “Didn’t you keep your old sword oiled?”

  Mark laughed. “My sheath was lined with sheep’s wool, like this one, and sometimes I might dabble in a drop of neat’s-foot oil, but I never cared if the blade smelled pretty.”

  “A lining well-soaked in oil of cloves is best for steel this fine,” Lissa said, turning to Gail. “But remember, clove oil dearer is than silver.”

  “Really? All my knives just…came with it.”

  Lissa looked at her Princess as if to say, Quite.

  “She’s a beauty,” Mark marvelled. “A man needn’t feel ashamed wi’ such a lady at his side. Strange, though…she’s taller by far than the girls that danced wi’ Deron and Sir William.”

  Gail beamed. “Your friend Valerian, the fluffy one: he told Sir William you’d never used a shield, so William thought a longsword would be best for you.”

  The thought that Sir William had picked the weapon made it even more precious. Mark wondered that the great knight should waste his time thinking of presents for a braggart who couldn’t make him break a sweat, were they to fight. God: maybe there’s a chance he’ll talk wi’ me! Maybe even show a stroke or two…Mark held the hope cupped close to his heart like a candle flame, warming himself with the image of Sir William setting his stance right, teaching him strategy. Moving him through a cut, his wise hands firmly guiding Mark’s arm.

  “It took Sir William and I hours to convince Father that he should give you this. He is so stingy sometimes.”

  Mark grinned, elated. “He’d already given me his best treasure of peace,” he said gallantly. “It’d be hard for t’awd sod to give away so great a prize of war.”

  There. Val ’ud be pleased with a line like that.

  “When added to a Dukedom and a Keep,” Lissa remarked wryly. “Princess, could you really think your father would take kindly to the thought of giving such a weapon to his terrible son-in-law?”

  Gail paused, fingers half-buried in a pile of fine linen. “I hadn’t thought of it that way.”

  “You can be sure your father did. Why else do you think he did not give this gift in public? Even so, others will be certain to remark upon it. To you, a sword a goodly gift must seem, to give a warrior husband. But to others, it will seem a mark of preference; and a hint of where the Crown may go.”