The Heir and the Spare

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The Heir and the Spare Page 10

by Kate Stradling


  Chapter 10

  “Between you, me, and the garden, I think those Caprians are following me,” said Aedan the next morning. He had posed for almost an hour already, the light now shifting beyond its best frame.

  Iona angled to peered at him from behind her canvas. “Why would they do that?”

  He shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine. Ever since they arrived, a couple of men have been trading off as my shadow. I’ve dragged them through the markets half a dozen times this week.”

  She glanced toward the window, open again to allow for free circulation of air. “Are you sure there’s not one eavesdropping outside?”

  “Doubtful. I’ve checked every other morning.”

  He had peered out into the garden at the end of his sessions the past few days, but she hadn’t attributed it to anything more than his usual quirks.

  Aedan continued. “They usually fall in step behind me when I pass from the castle grounds to the city. Obviously they know of my standing appointment with you.”

  “Couldn’t they be your father’s men?” Iona asked, returning her attention to the portrait.

  “No. His don’t try so hard to blend in. He likes me to know when he’s watching me. Besides, it was one of his men that confirmed I’d acquired an extra snoop.”

  “But why would the Caprians want to follow you?” She leaned to the side again, the better to level a stern look upon him. “You haven’t been trying to undermine their treaty, have you?”

  “Heavens, no. I look forward to the fruits of its execution.”

  Her conversation with Jaoven the night before flashed through her mind. She opened her mouth to question whether this treaty was really in Wessett’s best interests, but a voice echoed from the corridor.

  Iona twisted, confused. The speech, far off at first, grew in volume, the orator approaching. Aedan hopped from the platform and crossed to the door.

  “There’s a whole crowd coming,” he said, returning with an odd, backward glance. “Were you expecting them?”

  She had already tossed her palette to the table and lunged for a broad, wadded cloth. “Of course not. Help me cover this, quick.”

  Together they hid the half-finished painting from view, and not a moment too soon. King Gawen entered at the head of his advisors with the Caprian delegation in tow. A continuous stream of talking filled the air as he passed through the doorway.

  “And here we have my younger daughter’s workroom. She’s studied art and literature all over Wessett as well as abroad, as many of you are aware. Iona, come here.” He beckoned with imperious fingers, never so much as looking directly at her.

  Still in her smock, her palms streaked with paint, she self-consciously stepped to his side, where he clapped a heavy hand on her shoulder.

  “The wealth of Wessett lies beyond minerals or jewels, crops or commodities, but in the hearts of the people themselves. The fine arts embody our most hallowed ideals.”

  She’d never heard him rattle on like this. A scan of his audience showed most of them only halfway listening, their curious gazes instead inspecting the eclectic studio. Jaoven pointedly looked anywhere but at her, while Lisenn on his arm fixed a studious, fascinated expression upon her father, as though hanging upon his every word.

  She was the only one.

  “Throughout the castle you can see work from all corners of the kingdom,” King Gawen was saying. “Landscapes reflect the beauty of our shores and forests. Iona, do you—“ His voice stuck in his throat as he looked down at his younger child at last.

  He blinked, and then his brows furrowed. “What’s on your face?” Before she could respond, he pressed his thumb across her forehead and drew it back with a smear of gray.

  Her heart seized. “It’s paint.” Self-consciously she rubbed at the spot. “I’m sorry. We were just finishing.” He stared as though uncomprehending, so she ducked away to her clean-up station at the wall. A small mirror revealed the mark above her left eye, no doubt transferred from her hand when she had earlier swiped some loose strands of hair out of the way. She wet a rag with mineral oil and returned to her still-silent father. “This will remove it. May I…?”

  He allowed her to wipe the pad of his thumb clean, neither acknowledging the act with thanks nor with censure. Her nerves standing on end, Iona returned to her mirror, there to dab away the offensive blot from her own face.

  Behind her, King Gawen drew in a controlled breath. “As I was saying, the whole of our country is reflected in our arts. If you wish to see the land, you have only to look at a painting of it.”

  “Your Majesty is all benevolence,” Prince Jaoven said. Iona observed his reflection at the edge of her glass, how close he stood to her sister. Apparently their differences from the night before had resolved. “Even so, we have so many accounts of the island’s beauty from the old days when Capria and Wessett were still united under the same crown. We would very much like to see the fabled sites for ourselves.”

  So that’s where the fuss lay. The Caprians wanted to tour the country, and her father was balking, trying to substitute a tour of the castle and some landscape paintings instead. She had no clue why, except that perhaps he didn’t want to delay treaty negotiations for a day or two of travel. Why he had to involve her was a mystery as well. There were plenty of exceptional landscapes in the main gallery upstairs, and hers down here were mostly unframed.

  “Where is this?” someone asked, and she turned to find Elouan picking up a stretched canvas propped by her supply cabinet. She bit back her instinct to protest, wary of giving offense to her father though her every feeling revolted against her artwork in the Caprian’s hands.

  Aedan trod where she could not. “That’s Sorrow’s Linn.” He swiped the canvas away, angling himself the opposite direction when Elouan tried to retrieve it again. “She doesn’t like people touching her paintings, especially when they haven’t been framed yet.”

  “I’m sure Iona doesn’t mind,” said King Gawen with a practiced smile, and his eyes slid to his younger daughter, silently commanding her to confirm this assertion.

  A shiver pulsed down her spine. “It’s fine,” she said faintly.

  Reluctantly Aedan returned the landscape.

  The Caprian lifted it high, as though to study it in better light. The image depicted a waterfall tumbling into a pool bordered by dark stones and lush foliage. “Sorrow’s Linn? Where is that? Is it as beautiful as this in real life?”

  The question hung upon the air. Aedan, sullen from his king’s rebuke, deigned not to speak, and everyone else looked to the artist herself to supply the answer.

  Iona breathed a short sigh and stepped away from her wash basin. “It’s up in the Morreinn, near the head of the Awinrea. It won’t look like that at this time of year, though. The snows are melting, so the falls will be stronger and the river higher.”

  The Morreinn, a mountain range that cut through the heart of Wessett, divided the eastern half from the west. The highest peaks kept their snowcaps well into summer, but below the tree line lay some of the most beautiful country in all the world. Iona had passed through the region several times over the course of her life, usually in transfer from one of the king’s estates to another.

  “Why’s it called Sorrow’s Linn?” Jaoven asked.

  She blinked, unsure at what point she had become the expert in the room. Her father seemed disinclined to draw anyone’s attention back to himself, though, and she dared not even glance at Lisenn. “It’s… the legend says the waters cleanse misfortune. People visit when they’ve had a run of bad luck and consign their sorrows to the pool beneath the falls.”

  A hush fell over her audience. The Caprians exchanged a glance, and thoughtfully their prince said, “I think we all might benefit with a visit to Sorrow’s Linn—cast off the old luck before we engage in a bright and hopeful future, as it were.” He looked to his host for approval, his expression almost a challenge.

  King Gawen’s eyes fluttered to half-staff.
“An interesting idea. A little superstitious, but charming nonetheless, and I’m sure the people of both our countries will appreciate the symbolism. If you truly wish to go, we can arrange it. Lisenn, would you travel with them or remain here?”

  The crown princess tightened her grip on her intended’s arm, but her smile remained fixed on the king alone. “Whichever you think the wiser, Father.”

  “Have you been before, princess?” Jaoven asked.

  A tinkling laugh escaped, her limpid eyes sparkling. “I’m afraid I’ve had no sorrows to abandon in my life.” Briefly her gaze flitted to Iona, seeming pity in the pouting of her lower lip.

  “And when did you visit there?” King Gawen asked his younger daughter.

  “Last summer,” she murmured. The blessed trip had taken her from her sister’s side for almost half a year.

  He hummed as though entertained. “And you left your sorrows behind you, I suppose.”

  The comment unsettled her. Iona forced a smile but didn’t answer otherwise. With jittering hands she crossed back to her easel, desperate to be busy and willing to risk her father’s ire in neglecting him to fulfill that need.

  Rather than let her go, he followed her. “What are you working on now?” And before she could protest, he swept aside the sheet that covered Aedan’s portrait.

  “It’s not—!” She dampened her alarm to disappointment and forced her feet to remain rooted in place, though she wanted to fling herself between her onlookers and her art. “—finished yet.”

  From the canvas, Aedan’s handsome face stared back, his expression one of aloof amusement, as if he had a joke to tell his viewer, but at a later time in a less formal setting. His yellow breeches and his shirt had highlights and shadows layered to show folds in the fabric, almost too real in their detail, but his coat and shoes were flat, and his surroundings still only vague shapes and blobs of color.

  “She’s made you very pretty, nephew,” King Gawen said, his sharp gaze scanning the half-completed work of art. The familial title sounded odd on his lips: he was only Aedan’s uncle by marriage and as king did not usually acknowledge that relationship. Why he had chosen to speak it here, in front of such a crowd, eluded his younger daughter. A peek toward her sister showed Lisenn thin-lipped and watchful on Jaoven’s arm. The prince himself was studying the painting, his face a careful, neutral mask.

  Aedan crossed around to join his king. “I was pretty when we started. I’ve aged half a decade since then.” He winked at Iona, a lop-sided grin on his face.

  “It will be magnificent when it’s finished,” King Gawen said, and he replaced the sheet, covering the painting from view. “Truly a legacy to pass down through the ages, for the artist and the subject both.”

  He favored his younger daughter with a smile, but the compliment failed to buoy her. Had he spoken it out of Lisenn’s hearing, perhaps, but her presence only heightened Iona’s desire to meld with the wall and disappear.

  Oblivious to this dynamic, the monarch spun upon his guests. “The road up into the Morreinn is well traveled in the warmer months, but this early in the year it can be treacherous. My daughter’s depiction does the place much better justice than you’ll encounter if you go.”

  “Is there a reason you don’t wish for us to travel the island, Your Majesty?” Prince Jaoven asked, and though he pitched the question with an innocent voice, the underlying implication shone through. The Caprians could logically contend that their proposed ally was misrepresenting what the island had to offer.

  Her father wanted this treaty, that much Iona knew. He wanted the thrones of Wessett and Capria combined once again, but this time with Wessett as the seat of government. The Caprians, for all their professed desire for the strength this treaty could restore to their battered nation, would not enter lightly into an agreement that would bind them under draconian rule.

  “I’m reluctant for you to travel, yes,” King Gawen said, choosing his words carefully. “If something were to happen to you on the road, Your Highness, I shudder to think of the damage it would cause to your country and to mine.”

  Jaoven waved a negligent hand. “If you’re worried about our succession, you needn’t. The second in line for the throne will step into my position and the kingdom will adjust accordingly. If we learned anything over the course of our civil war, it’s that everyone is replaceable—where politics and government are concerned, at least.”

  Princess Lisenn recoiled, though her fingers tightened on his arm. “Surely not! You cannot truly believe so little of your own worth.”

  He examined her, a furrow between his brows. “My worth has nothing to do with it. We all die one day, and someone else will fill the place we leave behind. The world doesn’t die with its leaders. It merely changes, and our best goals must be to steer it on an upward path, so that we leave it better than we found it, and so that it has ample chance to improve beyond our lifetime instead of falling into chaos without our steadying hand. I am very much replaceable, Your Highness.”

  She stared intently into his eyes, and her voice wavered when she spoke. “You’re not replaceable to me.”

  He covered her hand upon his arm, an intimacy between them so intense that Iona instinctively averted her gaze. Almost she could believe that Lisenn had fallen in love, except that prior to this very moment her sister seemed incapable of such sentiment.

  “Surely you don’t need to visit Sorrow’s Linn,” the elder princess said, a soulful expression in her indigo eyes.

  Jaoven’s dimple appeared. “Surely you should want to see it yourself. Your own sister thought the view fine enough to paint, which must have taken no small measure of time.”

  “Especially if she insisted on painting it only in a certain light,” Aedan quipped. “It must’ve taken you weeks, Io.”

  She shot him a warning glance, voiceless reproof for redirecting conversation back toward her. “Landscapes aren’t as fussy as portraits,” she said, turning efficiently away from the company to rearrange her cache of paint pigments. “No one complains if you get the finer details wrong.”

  The busywork calmed her hands, but for an instant it was the only noise in the art room. A breeze from the open windows threaded past her, raising goosebumps on the back of her neck.

  “I think I will go with you, if my father permits,” Lisenn said, a velvet warmth in her tone. What was she scheming?

  “Iona, you will go as well,” King Gawen said.

  A packet of powdered cinnabar slipped from her grip and hit the table. She looked to her father in dismay. “But—!”

  “If the crown prince of Capria is willing to risk his father’s line of succession on this small excursion, surely I can do no less.”

  “I don’t think—” Jaoven began, but the king didn’t heed him any more than his own daughter.

  “It’s more than half a day’s journey to the other side of the Morreinn by the lower road, with plenty of good Wessettan countryside along the way. If we start preparations now, you can leave at first light tomorrow, see the falls in the afternoon, and return the next day. Unless you’ve changed your mind…?”

  The prince squared his shoulders, meeting his host’s imperious expression with one of his own. “On the contrary: I look forward to it.”

  “Then let us prepare. For all your talk of being replaceable, I’d rather not test that theory at this point in time.”

  Half an hour later, a heavy atmosphere possessed the common room of the diplomatic quarters. Jaoven surveyed his personal advisors, his scowl traveling from Neven beside the door frame, past Clervie, Denoela, and Elouan, to land upon Riok. “Why do I feel like we lost that battle?”

  The older envoy, arms crossed, leaned one shoulder against the white-plastered wall. “It seems that way, but all things considered, we came out victorious. King Gawen obviously doesn’t want you to travel, Princess Lisenn is only going for your sake, and Princess Iona doesn’t want to go at all. We’re restricted to whatever information we can glean in
two days of a controlled excursion, but if Wessett had their way, it wouldn’t happen at all.”

  “I’m starting to agree with them,” said the prince, and he paced across the room.

  Elouan followed in his wake, only to drop onto the far couch. “Why? We got what we wanted.”

  “Did we?” Jaoven favored him with a cynical look. “We’re saddled with two princesses, which means there will be hordes of royal guards and attendants watching our every move.”

  “And more time for you to woo the lovely Lisenn,” said Denoela, “while the rest of us poke our noses where they don’t belong. It helps that you’ve already mended your rough patch with her.”

  He stiffened. “It wasn’t a rough patch. She sulked for an evening and then returned to her usual charming self.”

  “With an extra dash of devotion to make up for her previous ill humor,” Elouan said, earning himself another narrow-eyed glance.

  Clervie had moved to the couch opposite. She curled her legs beneath her and asked, “Are you upset that she’s coming, or is it Yanna’s inclusion that has you so at points?”

  “Iona,” the prince corrected. “If you don’t use her proper name, you risk underestimating her.”

  The younger woman snorted. “After a week of observation, I think I can safely say she’s not a threat.”

  But Jaoven’s scowl only deepened. “Don’t assume. She admitted that she doesn’t know whether to be for or against our treaty. She might still wreck it in the end.”

  Clervie sat up straight. “When did she say that?” He lifted his nose, which only heightened her suspicions. “Have you been chasing after the wrong princess, Jove?”

  His answering scoff cut the air. “Don’t be ridiculous. I had an opportunity to ask her outright, so I took it. I’d expect you to be thrilled to find a dissenter at long last.”

  She sagged back into her seat. “Indecision isn’t dissension. It’s only proof that their unanimity is a veneer, which we already presumed.”

 

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