Valdemar 06 - [Exile 02] - Exile’s Valor

by Mercedes Lackey

  “No, of course not,” Talamir agreed, and nothing more was said on the subject in her hearing.

  But as the dinner wore on, she was able to think less and less clearly. By the time the sweetmeats were served, she would almost have been ready to ask forgiveness of him if it would put things back the way they had been yesterday. She kept listening, dreading that she would hear something about the debacle in Companion’s Field, but evidently no one was going to talk about it where she could overhear.

  Maybe that was why he wasn’t here! He didn’t want to have to answer any questions about what he’d done; he didn’t want to have to explain himself. . . .

  She felt a great surge of relief, then, and was able to talk normally, able to think of something besides wondering where he was. She was still angry at him, especially for the cruel things he had said to her, but she was ready to forgive him, so long as he asked for forgiveness.

  Except that he did not appear in their quarters after dinner. Tonight she had retired to her suite as soon as dinner was over, letting her Court amuse itself for a change.

  And he did not appear as the hour grew later and later; she filled the time with attending to her private correspondence, something she had neglected badly over the past fortnight or two. But her heart was not in it, and time after time, she had to throw out a letter that was ruined by tears falling on it.

  He had not come when her maids arrived to help her prepare for bed, and he still had not arrived when they blew out the candles, leaving her alone in the dark in that great bed.

  And when she realized that he wasn’t going to come, the anger ran out of her.

  What was wrong? How could he not understand, at least by now, how she was powerless in the face of the law? How could he not realize by now the enormity of the insult he had given Caryo? Of course he had been angry, but how could he have flung those horrible insults at her? She thought he had understood her, as no one had ever understood her before. Hadn’t they shared all those long conversations about how miserable it was to be a child of royal birth? Hadn’t he commiserated with her about it as no one else had ever done before? Hadn’t he told her how he had dreamed of finding someone he could care for as well as merely marry for the sake of an alliance, and had given it up as an idle dream until he met her? How many times had he sworn that to her? How many times had he shared his dreams with her, and how many times had she discovered to her joy that they were the same as hers?

  What had gone wrong? How could he have changed so? What had she done to make him turn away from her?

  She had no answers for any of this, and she waited, fruitlessly, in her cold, lonely bed, until at last she cried herself to sleep.

  Alberich contemplated the glass image of the SunLord—defined at the moment by the lines of leading rather than the colors of the glass—and tried to think of all of the possible paths that the Prince might take after this afternoon.

  The most obvious, of course, was the most direct; wait until the baby was born, and engineer an “accident” that would kill or incapacitate Selenay. There was no law in Valdemar that the Regent had to be a Herald; as Regent, it was even possible that he would have the same power as the Monarch, just without the title.

  But that was only one of a number of courses he could take—

  :Chosen, the Royal Guard Kimel is coming down the path,: Kantor warned, breaking into his train of thought. :I can’t imagine he’d be coming to see anyone but you at this time of night.:

  Forewarned, Alberich got up to meet the young man as soon as he entered the salle, greeting him at the door. But it wasn’t until he got to Alberich’s private quarters that the Herald could see his expression, and it was both grim and troubled.

  “Master Alberich,” the young man said, when he’d taken the proffered seat and been offered, and refused, any refreshment. “I overheard a conversation this evening that—that I do not much like.”

  “Did you?” Alberich replied noncommittally.

  The Guard nodded. “It was during the hour of dinner for the Court. I was on duty when I heard two voices raised in argument on the other side of the wall where I was standing—I happened to be in the gardens, and there was an open window right above my head.”

  “Assume, I must, that you overheard something that might of importance be?” Alberich prompted.

  “Two men arguing,” Kimel replied. “And one of them was the Prince.” He coughed. “I knew about what happened this afternoon, and I guess he’d gone to someone to complain about it.” He frowned as he concentrated on what he was going to say. “I didn’t recognize the voice, but he got not much sympathy. In fact, the person he was talking to gave him a regular dressing-down about it. The man said that the Prince was on the verge of ‘spoiling it all,’ though he didn’t say what ‘it’ was.”

  “Go on,” Alberich told him. Surely there was more to this story!

  “Well, then the Prince said something about the unfairness of it all, and the other man told him to be patient, and that Selenay was—” here Kimel blushed, “—well, anyway, what he went on to say was ‘once the child is born, there is no law preventing you from becoming Regent, when something happens to Selenay. All you have to do is to be patient.’ And the Prince muttered something, and the man laughed, and they all went out of the room.”

  So. There it was. “You may have done Her Majesty a great service, Kimel,” Alberich said gravely.

  “I am in a position to do more,” the young Guard replied, to Alberich’s surprise. “So long as I wear my uniform, and look as if I am guarding something, no one ever notices me. I could make sure that if I am not on duty elsewhere, I can follow the Prince all over the grounds of the Palace. Perhaps I might discover who he was speaking with.”

  “If you did, invaluable, it would be,” Alberich said, hardly able to believe the luck.

  “Then I will.” That seemed to be all that Kimel felt urged to say on the matter; he remained a little longer, but not much, and excused himself.

  :Well?: he said to Kantor when the young man was gone.

  :I think we’ve gotten an ally, who will at least be watching out for Selenay. I don’t know how useful what he learns or overhears will be.:

  :It’s better than nothing, which was all we had,: Alberich pointed out.

  :Yes, Chosen. It is at that.:

  19

  EVERYONE knew the obvious that night—that the Prince had not attended the Queen at dinner. By morning, though, there was a better bit of gossip to take its place—that the Prince had not spent the night with the Queen, nor even (it was said) in the Palace.

  By breakfast, that gossip had inflated further, with the addition that the Prince had returned at last, from somewhere outside the Palace walls. And he had gone to his own suite, not the Queen’s.

  Valdemaran royal marriages, like most royal marriages, were not always for love. Hence, the Consort always had his (or her) own suite of rooms within the larger Royal Suite. It had its own entrance; the one who occupied it could come and go without disturbing the Monarch. It would not be the first time that the Monarch’s spouse had elected to take up residence in his own private space. The trouble was, this defection of the Prince would have gone unnoticed except that this was supposed to have been a love match. Selenay herself had virtually bullied the marriage through the Council. And now, it seemed, it was already falling apart.

  So tongues were wagging from the first, and Alberich did not think it possible that Selenay was unaware of the gossip. She’d have to be blind and deaf, and she was neither. It made him sick inside to think how unhappy she must be, but there was little he could do about it.

  She was paying a heavy price for her infatuation; this was going to be a very expensive lesson in thinking things through. However unhappy the Prince was with his wife and his situation, Alberich doubted that Karathanelan was going to relinquish what he did have willingly, once he realized the alternatives. Even if Selenay became so unhappy as to wish to dissolve the marriage, such a
move could not be made without the agreement of the other party—and the Prince would never agree.

  No, unless the Prince actually committed an overt act of treason, Selenay was stuck with her bad bargain. And if she was unhappy now, when the last of the infatuation wore off, she was going to be even less happy.

  Alberich wished there was something he could do, but he knew that, in this case, there really was nothing. He was entirely the wrong person for her to confide in on two counts. First, the task required someone who was a close friend, which he was not—someone, perhaps, that was Selenay’s yearmate at the Collegium. Second, his sex was against him; he knew instinctively that to become a confidant and adviser in this situation, a man just would not do.

  Which, unfortunately, left Talamir out of the running as well. Perhaps she was confiding in her Companion; perhaps at this point Caryo was about the only one she could confide in. He hoped that Caryo was wise enough to know not to criticize the Prince herself at this point—because Selenay would feel impelled to defend him, and that would only prolong the agony, so to speak.

  The Prince continued to shun the company of his Queen; one or two days stretched into a week with no sign of him in or around the Palace from the time he rose until the time—which was usually very late—he returned from wherever he had just spent his day. Alberich grew increasingly weary of the words, “They say—” as the days passed. But not weary enough not to listen, for there were several nuggets of information to be mined from the dross.

  One of them sent him out in disguise one evening, to an establishment known as “The Silver Horn,” which catered to “the discriminating tastes of gentlemen.” Or at least, it catered to those with money who cared to call themselves gentlemen; certainly you could find both the highborn and the monied lowborn there, although there were special places within the establishment to which money alone did not guarantee entrance. Alberich already had a persona established here, that of an elderly, semideaf gentleman with a substantial fortune—elderly, because that way he would not be looked on askance for not making use of the opulent rooms up the parlor stair and the ladies who inhabited those rooms, as jewels graced a setting. Alberich would, every now and then, dodder in, partake of a splendid meal, and sit enjoying the entertainments on offer in the more public rooms—generally scantily clad young ladies singing or dancing, though it was said that they performed far more interesting maneuvers elsewhere in the establishment—until he apparently nodded off. Then, if he had overheard nothing of importance, he would “wake,” and dodder off again. He found the place far more useful than the Court for obtaining information about the goings-on of the highborn.

  The Horn provided something of an educational tradition with the aristocracy. Young men were often brought here by brothers or even fathers for their first (so far as the parent knew) sexual experiences. Then, as they grew older, they would come here by themselves or with friends to make a night of it—fine meals, gambling, entertainment, and then a romp. It wasn’t cheap—but Alberich wasn’t paying for this out of his own pocket. And there were times when he felt as if, given the number of candlemarks he had spent in the Broken Arms and other, even fouler dens, lurking on Street corners in the freezing dark, getting soaked with rain or baking in the hot sun, that he had earned an occasional evening in the Horn. Even if all he did was have a meal and lurk.

  He had heard that friends of the Prince were going to introduce him to the pleasures of the Horn, and as a consequence both of that, and of an internal prodding too vague to really be called Foresight, after the third night in which the Prince did not appear, Alberich began haunting the Horn nightly. He was a forgettable enough character that no one really noticed. And the Prince did, indeed, appear that first night, and every night subsequent.

  Unfortunately, to Alberich’s vast disappointment, the Prince kept himself to the “exclusive” areas for the most part, and Alberich never saw more of him than his back as he swaggered through the public rooms and into the private areas.

  It seemed, after three nights, that Alberich was wasting his time, that all the Prince was doing was roistering. Fine, he could bring this to Selenay, but what good would it do?

  Yet that vague prodding only strengthened as the nights went on, and although he never got a glimpse of ForeSight, after the fourth night he knew, with absolute certainty, that if he kept up his watch, something significant would happen.

  And then, on the seventh night, it was not the Prince who became the center of attention when he walked in the door.

  It was the actor, Norris. And with him was young Devlin.

  Alberich was in a shadowy corner, slumped in one of the Horn’s supremely comfortable chairs, fingers interlaced over his “paunch,” chin on his chest, seeming to doze. This time he had chosen a seat because of the feeling that this was where he needed to be—again, it was a feeling and not a vision, nothing concrete, but he was certain that it was linked to his ForeSight, and he acted on it. One of the young ladies had made certain to tuck a cushion on either side of him so that he wouldn’t put a crick in his neck; he had muttered vague and sleepy thanks, and she had giggled and left him alone. Now everyone seemed to have forgotten he was there, which gave him ample opportunity to watch the room from mostly closed eyes.

  When Myste had made absented herself from the theater, Alberich had continued to keep an eye on the actor at a distance, through other contacts, but there did not seem to be any sign of further chicanery. In fact, Norris was so busy, Alberich couldn’t see how he managed to find the time to sleep, much less write letters and find ways to pass them to anyone. In addition to rehearsing and performing, he spent every waking moment at the site of his new theater, obsessing over details and virtually flogging the workers into going faster.

  But here he was, and as soon as they saw him, those young ladies who were not otherwise occupied left what they were doing and clustered around him with exclamations and coos of delight.

  The odd thing was, although he put on a very good show of being pleased, and it was clear that young Devlin was nervously gratified to have him here, Alberich got the distinct impression that he very much would rather not be there.

  Then again, as busy as the man was, Alberich wondered where he had found the time to come here in the first place.

  The only possible corner of the room that could have been considered secluded was the one in which Alberich had ensconced himself. Norris accepted refreshments, teased and flirted with the ladies, but took none of them up the stairs, which was so entirely out of keeping with everything that Albench knew about the man that he was immediately on alert. Devlin did not move from his side either, and it seemed to Alberich that the young noble was keeping a sharp watch on the door.

  And perhaps three-quarters of a candlemark later, the Prince strolled in, with an escort of young sycophants.

  Except that one of them apparently was not as much of a sycophant as the Prince had thought, because before Karathanelan could vanish, as usual, into one of the private parlors, that young man steered him over to Norris’ chair. Devlin and the other young man exchanged a glance; Devlin nodded, and within moments, the newcomer gathered up the Prince’s escort and hustled them into the private parlors.

  “Highness,” Devlin said with a bow to the Prince. “Our patron wishes you to have a discussion with my friend.” And at that, he took himself off, going, not into the back like the others, but back out the front door.

  Alberich was torn between following—for surely he was going to report to someone!—and staying to listen. But his own internal urging said stay, so stay he did.

  And Norris, looking up indolently at the Prince, indicated with a nod that Karathanelan should take a seat beside him. “Run away, my beauties,” the actor said, in an amused tone of voice. “We gentlemen need to discuss things too delicate for your tender ears.”

  With giggles and pretty pouts, as the Prince glared his outrage, the ladies did as they were told. “Sit down,” Norris said, and then
, when the Prince did not move, repeated, with force, “Sit down. Now.”

  “I shall do nothing of the sort!” the Prince said tightly. “I will have you horsewhipped and thrown into the street for your insolence!”

  “You won’t if you know what’s good for you,” Norris said, without turning a hair. “I am here at the behest of, and doing a very great favor for, our mutual sponsor, and if you don’t sit down, I am going to walk out of here and tell him why I did so. You can see what will happen to you without his protection then, but I don’t recommend it.”

  The Prince sat down.

  “That’s better,” Norris said pleasantly.

  “What about him?” the Prince growled, nodding at Alberich.

  “Nothing to worry about.” Norris dismissed Alberich with a shrug. “He’s older than dirt, half senile, mostly deaf. I tested him—” Norris grinned then. “If he’d been conscious when I tipped little Kassie’s skirts up, he’d have at least twitched.”

  Yes, and you aren’t quite as clever as you think, Alberich told him mentally. Because a real agent wouldn’t have reacted even if you’d taken the girl on the spot. He wasn’t sure he would have had the ability to remain “asleep,” but then again—he’d yawned through worse, down in the Broken Arms.

  “Now,” Norris continued, losing the grin. “Before we begin, I’ll trouble you to remember that I have no loyalty to you, or to anyone else who has not paid my fee. Once bought, however, I stay bought; this is good business, and it is why our patron brought me here, but remember that I do not give a damn what happens to you. My part of your education should have been over moons ago, and it would have been, if you hadn’t been such an idiot a week ago.”

  “Idiot?” the Prince hissed. “I think not—”

  “Exactly,” Norris interrupted. “You don’t think. If you did, you would realize that you are expendable, fellow-my-lad.”