Conar looked down and saw nothing. "What is it I’m supposed to see, Herbie?"
"My hand, Your Grace!" The man laughed. "Look at my hand!"
Conar dropped his gaze to the man’s proffered hand, but still did not see anything to warrant his attention. "I see nothing," he said, confused.
"Exactly!" the man cried with glee. "There ain’t nothing there to see!"
Thinking the man had delved one time too many into the cook’s wine cellar, Conar patted him on the back. "That’s nice, Herbie." He turned to leave and was stopped by the man’s giggle.
"Don’t you remember my warts, Your Grace?"
Conar turned around and squinted, sudden memory breaking through to him. "Aye," he said and took the man’s hand and looked closely. The thin, slender hand with its bulging veins and dark brown liver spots had been covered with huge warts.
They were gone.
Conar looked into the man’s beaming face. "How did you get rid of them?"
" ’Twas your lady, Highness. The young princess. She saw my hands and she said she had something to help." He rubbed the back of his left hand, a faraway look of adoration in his rheumy eyes. "They used to pain me sometimes, but your lady-wife gave me a cream and in a few days the warts was gone."
"The Toad got rid of your warts?" he asked. Weren’t toads supposed to give warts, not take them away?
"And she cured the cook’s rash. Remember that rash Sadie used to get on her neck and shoulders? And she gave the dairy girl a potion to help her monthlies. Then she saw Master John Boggs limping—you know how cold weather makes his old bones ache—and she told him about some root that would help. And you know how old Rufe had that sore that wouldn’t heal? Well, she healed it with the same potion! She even went out with one of her serving girls and got the root, herself."
"Why would she—"
"Mistress Donna don’t have her aches and pains in her joints no more after your lady gave her some potion or other to take every morning." The man smiled lovingly at Conar. "She’s a good woman, your lady-wife, Highness."
Conar managed to smile as the cook’s helper left him standing in the main hall. He watched the old man sidle away, his stooped shoulders hunched forward as he went about his business.
"Why the hell would she go to all that trouble?" Conar asked and felt someone watching him.
He turned to see the lady in question standing just inside the library door. On her shoulder was a little brown blob of wriggling fur whose pink tongue was licking at the edge of her veil. One slender hand was stroking the puppy’s back as she gently bounced it up and down on her shoulder.
He stared at her, not moving, not greeting her in any way. This was the closest he had ever been to her, but he sure as hell didn’t feel like speaking to the bitch. Not now. If truth be told, not ever.
"Lady," he grated out in a harsh greeting.
When she stepped back through the door and silently closed the portal, shutting him out, he fumed inwardly at her lack of manners until he realized with a pang that his had been no better.
"I don’t need this crap today," he murmured as he spun around. Angrily slamming the front portal shut behind him, he thrust his hands deep into the pockets of his cords and stalked across the courtyard toward the Temple.
His mind numb with anger, Conar plodded wearily under the high wooden canopy leading to the Temple’s portico. As he passed the Tribunal’s Main Complex, he looked up at the black marble entranceway and his blood ran cold.
There was something about the place that had always unsettled him. Although he had never once had reason to be admitted inside the Hall of Laws, he always felt a dark fear whenever he passed the place. Today was no different, for he felt a great unease gripp him as he neared the entranceway. He glanced to the rear of the center courtyard where the scaffolding and whipping post stood. Conar shivered.
He had seen men die there in the Punishment Yard, hung from the scaffolding until they strangled. The wooden structures never failed to make him ill, for it was a barbaric practice he detested. Capital punishment was carried out in Serenia with great determination by the Tribunal.
Few men had ever entered the main facilities of the Tribunal Hall beyond the Hall of Laws where courts were held. Those who did were never the same when allowed out, for torture was part of their physical penalty within the Punishment Cells of the Tribunal.
Those who were chained to the whipping post were later transported to either the prison colony at Guilder’s Cay or shipped to Labyrinth Prison where the worst elements were incarcerated.
None of the three options—hanging, whipping, or transportation to a penal colony—was easy. All of them entailed humiliating abuse and physical torment that might well be considered inhuman and unjust.
Conar looked away from the tall black doors with their shiny marble columns of bronze plate and the crest of the god-Clere—the Lawgiver. For some reason, the Tribunal Hall caused him more unease than usual.
"Papa!" a young voice called to him as he neared the first step up to the Temple and he turned and smiled.
"Where’ve you been, Wyn?" He laughed and caught the young boy who flew at him, picking him up. "I haven’t seen you since I got home." He set down the boy and tousled his bright blond hair.
"I went with Healer Cayn to help Master Tucker with the birth of one of Lord Teal’s mares. They let me help, Papa!" The boy’s freckled face shone as he looked up at his father. "Today’s the day you wed, isn’t it, Papa?"
"Aye," Conar said with a frown, his good humor at seeing his five-year-old son vanishing. "Tonight is the Joining." He sat on the bottom step and patted the stone beside him. "What have you been up to lately?"
Wyn plopped down beside his father and turned so he could look at Conar. "I met your wife, Papa," he said eagerly as he threaded his fingers through his father’s.
"You did?" Conar couldn’t have cared less. He looked over the courtyard to his left where a servant raked the leaves from a huge cottonwood.
"She sent for me!" His small chest puffed up, and when his father turned, surprised, the boy giggled. "You did know that, didn’t you, Papa?"
"What did she want?" Conar asked, his tone filling with suspicion.
Wyn’s young face split into a grin. "She wanted to meet all your children!"
"Why?" His suspicion turned to fury.
"Papa!" Wyn cried with exasperation. "Because she’s going to be your wife, Papa, and she wanted to see your children." He scooted on the ground at his father’s feet and wedged himself between Conar’s legs, his small hands gripping his father’s waist. "You know what she did?" His face was eager, excited.
"I’m afraid to ask," Conar mumbled under his breath, as he stroked his son’s upper arms.
"She gathered all of us together in the garden and told us all about herself. We sat on the ground around her and listened. She has such a pretty voice, Papa."
No doubt the only pretty thing about her, Conar thought wickedly. "What did she say?"
"Oh, you know! Where she was born, who her Mama and Papa are. That sort of thing." The little boy made a wry face as if to say that was of no importance. "She has four sisters and two brothers!" His nose wrinkled. "As if I need any more uncles!"
Conar chuckled. "I guess you don’t, huh?" He sighed. "What else did she say?"
His little voice took on an air of excitement. "She told us all kinds of stories about her homeland. All about dragons that can fly and wizards that can make themselves disappear right from under your nose. She taught us songs and jokes and riddles and she told us she would teach any of us who didn’t know how to read." Wyn drew himself up and patted his thin chest. "She appointed me her helper because I’m the oldest and you already taught me how to read. Well, sorta, anyway."
The boy got up and sat on his father’s knee, hooking his arm around Conar’s neck and leaning his forehead against his father’s. "And you know what else she did, Papa?"
Conar shook his head. "What?" He was star
ing at his son as Wyn continued on with the marvelous things the lady had done and said to his children. He was amazed. This boy was very shy, easily frightened, preferring to spend his time in the stables, transferring his love to the animals, rather than take a chance on humans and their fickle natures.
"She said that if we ever needed anything, we were to come to her because we were your children and now we were hers, too!" Wyn smiled. "Isn’t she a grand lady, Papa?"
Conar hugged the boy and then eased him off his lap, standing up to stare at the palace doorway. "Have you seen her face, Wyn?"
The boy shook his head. "She wears a pretty veil, Papa. Tia asked her why she wears it and she said because she could see other people and they couldn’t see her."
"A good reason."
Wyn frowned. "I asked if that was so she could judge people and not have them judge her."
Conar glanced at his son. As a bastard son of the Prince Regent, Wyn had fought many times with boys who had insulted his parentage to his face. He had become quite adept at hiding his own little feelings except around those he loved.
"And what did she say to that?"
Wyn looked up at his father. "She said sometimes people judge you wrongly before they even meet you. She said the veil hides many things from prying eyes, but it hides tears especially well."
Conar felt as though he had been sucker-punched in his gut. "But what if what is beneath the veil is a face others find too horrible to look upon, Wyn?" he asked, searching the boys blue eyes that were a mirror image of his own.
Wyn shrugged. "What difference does that make, Papa?" he asked with the perfect innocence of childhood. "Isn’t it what’s in a person’s heart that matters, not what they look like?"
Conar flinched. He had heard much about the lady who was to become his wife that night. From his father. From the cook’s helper. Now from his son. If what they were telling him was true, she would make a worthy wife.
Or a formidable enemy.
He touched his son’s cheek. "I have to go to the Temple, now. I’ll see you tomorrow."
"I’ll see you at the wedding!" Wyn laughed.
"Oh, you will, will you?" Conar asked, one tawny brow lifted in challenge. "How so?"
"The lady told Mistress Emmie Lou that all of us could watch the wedding if we took naps this afternoon; and we stayed in the balcony of the Temple and didn’t make no sound during the Joining. We all made a pact to be good so we can see you marry her, Papa."
"Wyn?" a voice called and both father and son turned to see Mistress Emmie Lou beckoning the boy. The children’s nanny waved at Conar and crooked her finger at Wyn. "Time to go in, now, Wynland!"
"Well, then, you see that your brothers and sisters behave," he said, slapping his son’s rump.
"I love you, Papa!" the boy called as he ran off, turning around once to wave goodbye.
"I love you, too!" Conar yelled.
For a long moment Conar stood staring after his running child. The woman was obviously trying to endear herself to his children and he couldn’t help but wonder why she had gone to so much trouble over her husband’ bastard offspring.
"What kind of game are you playing, Toad?" he asked and was startled by a gentle hand on his shoulder. He turned and frowned. "What?" he asked, although he knew gods-be-damned well the answer.
"It is time, Highness," a brown-robed acolyte from the Temple informed him. "You must come in, now, too."
Conar let out an angry snort of breath and fell in beside the acolyte.
"Tonight will be some night, won’t it, Your Grace?" the man asked politely as he and Conar started up the Temple steps.
"Aye," came the bitter reply. "Some night!"
Chapter 31
* * *
The bathing chamber deep within the bowels of the Temple was a delight to the senses. Lush green plants cascaded from the high vaulted ceiling where soaring redwood beams framed panels of pale green crystal skylights. Massive copper pots, hung from the buttresses over and to the sides of the freeform pool, were suspended from thin copper wires, braided for strength with tempered steel. It gave the illusion that the flowing plants within the pots were suspended in midair. Their burdens of leafy green plants, some with tiny yellow or white flowers, hung all the way to the floor in some places while others trailed down the walls and into a far section of the pool to hide the fieldstone wall beyond.
Tall vines of honeysuckle, wisteria, sweet shrub and clinging rose climbed almost invisible trellises and clung to black, gold-veined marble columns that held a canopy of vines in place over a wooden swing. An espaliered wall of thickly-grown ornamental pear formed a perfect backdrop for the nude statue of the goddess, Serena, for whom the country was named.
The bathing pool itself was set in the center of a dark red brick floor, its water heated by a natural underground hot spring. The edges of the pool had been capped with a shiny, pale pink marble that sparkled in the glow of hundreds of candles burning in tiny clear votive cups about the chamber.
Mists of steam rose in lazy waves above the water’s surface and drifted over the rim to lap at the brick flooring. A pleasant smell of flowers and vines filled the air and seemed to weave their magic fragrances with the vapor floating above the pool like so many lush perfumes.
There was a stillness to the place; a tranquillity, a calm, soothing effect that everyone who visited there seemed to luxuriate in. It was a warm place, humid with the vapors of steam and oxygen given off by the plants, and yet it was cool and welcoming, a cocoon of serenity where the troubles of the outside world did not exist.
Everything within the chamber glistened with a soft green glow cast from the ceiling. The slushing of the bubbling waters was the only intrusion into the peace and harmony offered by the bathing chamber and it helped to enhance the notion that there was nothing left on earth that was of any consequence.
Conar stepped into the knee-high water and waded out a little ways until the lapping waves were mid-thigh. He felt a sigh of pleasure come from him as the bubbling hot water broke over his thighs and wrapped their calm around him.
"Is the water too hot for you, Your Grace?" James Brigman, one of the Temple deacons, asked his Prince.
Conar shook his head and gingerly lowered himself into the pool, gasping as the hot water touched the tip of his manhood. With a slight grimace, he lowered himself all the way, sitting on the black sand bottom, emitting a soft laugh as the sand wedged itself between the cleft of his naked rump.
"Any warmer, Jamie, and I’d be of no use to my bride this night," he quipped.
An uncivilized thought crossed his mind, but he shrugged it away. Boiling his genitals to keep from having to service The Toad wouldn’t stop the wedding and he was pretty gods-be-damned sure he wouldn’t enjoy the process. He chuckled as a vivid image of his manhood being boiled in a pot flashed across his mind’s eye.
"I’m glad you find this amusing!" a snarl erupted from behind Conar.
Arching back his head, Conar squinted up at his older brother. Legion was staring at him with hostility. The man looked massive in his white silk robe.
"May I help you with your robe, Lord Legion?" James asked.
Conar had to tightly press his lips together as Legion noticed the deacon staring unabashed at his rather legendary manhood.
"See anything you like?" Legion snarled.
James looked upward to Legion’s angry face and shrugged. "Nothing of consequence, Lord A’Lex."
Conar snorted and then laughed as Legion stomped into the pool and flopped beside him, making the water lap hungrily at Conar’s chin.
"Damn your eyes, Conar!" Legion growled as he felt his own manhood shriveling from the heat. "Are you trying to maim us?"
Conar didn’t answer, but the wicked grin on his face said it all. He tuned out Legion’s grumpy comments as the larger man tried to get comfortable in the raging heat and concentrated on the bubbling warmth that lulled him.
Legion stopped grumbling and glanced at
Conar’s serene face. He snapped his mouth shut with an audible click.
"Afraid you might shrink, A’Lex?" Conar joked, glancing down at Legion’s lap.
"Shithead," Legion said under his breath as he wiggled in the water, grimacing at the feel of the sand oozing under his genitals.
Legion had never been allowed in the bathing chamber before but Conar had requested his presence today. Spreading out his arms on each side of him, Legion hooked them on the pool’s rim and looked about, awed by the place’s beauty. He hoped he could forget about his shaft turning a most peculiar shade of red as it bobbed about in the water.
"You don’t have to go to the steaming chamber with me if you don’t want to," Conar told him.
Legion glared at his brother. "I’ve steeled myself to bake alongside you."
"You don’t have to." Conar let his toes rise to the surface then wiggled them. "Galen’s here."
"I know," came the terse reply. "Seen his ugly face."
Conar grinned. "He bears a striking resemblance to your Prince, A’Lex."
Legion snorted. "As much resemblance between the two of you as between a viper and an earthworm!"
Conar’s brows rose. "I hope that remark was meant to be a compliment, not a judgment."
"Take it any way you feel fit," Legion retorted, out of sorts and not really knowing why.
"I won’t have the bastard insulting you or your mother. If you prefer not to be in his company, I will understand."
Legion rolled his eyes to the heavens. "Oh, for the love of Alel, Conar! You know gods-be-damned well you want me there to protect you from the vile little prick!"
Conar shook his head. "I do well enough with Galen on my own."
Legion turned. "You let the fop get away with murder. Besides"—he shrugged—"I suppose I could slit his gullet for you if you’re inclined that way. Wouldn’t mind doing so."
"I’ll get back to you on that," Conar said with a laugh in his tone.
Legion glared. "You do realize I am making a supreme sacrifice on your behalf by even being in this hot cauldron, don’t you?" Legion took a lot of cold showers.
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