by Melanie Rawn
“Well, not a castle, really, but a palace. Something along the lines of what Lleyn has at Graypearl. Not a keep ready for war, but a peaceful place, with lots of gardens and fountains and all those things.”
“And where would you site this marvel?”
“Halfway between Stronghold and Castle Crag. In fact, I’m going to inspect a few places on the progress. Think of it, Sioned—a new palace for a new prince, uniting two lands. I’d like to start building next spring, so it’ll be ready by the time Pol takes a wife.”
“I’ll bet it’s Sionell. And as stakes—”
“Extortionist. What do you want if you win?” He smiled at her.
“Feruche.”
The shock went through his whole body and he drew back from her. “No.”
“The pass through the Veresch is important, Rohan. Feruche always guarded it—but now there’s nothing, not even a garrison. Feruche should be rebuilt.”
“I don’t want to have anything to do with that place ever again,” he rasped, looking out the windows with blind eyes. Feruche—the beautiful rose-pink castle rising from the cliffs; the deadly woman who had ruled it; the night he had raped her and she had conceived his son.
“You promised a long time ago to give me Feruche,” Sioned reminded him. “There are dragons near it who need watching and protecting. I want Feruche, Rohan.”
“No. Never.”
“It’s the only way either of us will ever forget what happened to us there. I destroyed it with Sunrunner’s Fire—for me, it lies in ashes. But for you it still stands, because you never went back to see it razed to the ground. I want it rebuilt, Rohan, so that it’s not Ianthe’s anymore but ours.”
“No!” he shouted, turning on his heel for the door. “I won’t rebuild it, I won’t set foot within ten measures of it! And I won’t have you speak of it again!”
“When we tell Pol the truth, shall we also present him with the charred ruin where he was conceived and born—and where his mother died? Or will we make a new place that has nothing in it of the old, nothing to bear witness to what happened there?”
He stopped, his hand on the doorlatch. “If you love me, you will never say the name of that place in my hearing as long as we live.”
“It’s because I love you that I have to say it. I want Feruche, Rohan. And if you won’t rebuild it, then I will.”
Chapter Seven
Lady Andrade stood at the closed gray library windows with her back to Urival and Andry, unwilling for them to see her chafing her hands together. Pride forbade her to huddle by the hearth as her chilled flesh begged her to do, and especially did she reject the plea put forth by her aged bones for the warm softness of her bed. She glared resentfully at the rain-wrapped tower across the inner court of Goddess Keep. Had the winter cold and spring rains been worse this year, or was she only feeling her age? This last New Year Holiday had been the seventieth of her life; compared to Prince Lleyn, she was a mere child.
“Whatever possessed them to leave Dorval for this dismal place?” she muttered.
Urival came to stand by her shoulder, soundless as an expert huntsman seeking skittish prey. “This will be the last storm of the season. But you’re right—clouds are a Sunrunner’s natural enemy. Why did they choose to build here?”
She put her hands in the pockets of her gown to hide their trembling, then turned to her young kinsman. “Well? You’ve had a while to puzzle out the scrolls.”
“Not very long, my Lady,” Andry reminded her. “But I think I may have a few clues. It’s maddening, though—some words are very like the ones we use now, but they’ve changed over the years in context. I’ve had to be more careful with them than the ones that made no sense at all in the beginning. But I think I’ve found something interesting.” He ran a finger over the section of scroll they had been examining all morning. “A little mark like a bent twig appears over and over. The first few times I thought they were just blots on the page, mistakes—but now I think they’re quite deliberate.”
“And they mean?” she asked impatiently.
Andry hesitated, then shrugged and plunged in. “I think they mean that the word above them is to be taken as its exact opposite. You know how strange it’s been, reading one thing and then later finding it contradicted. But the mark appears with suspicious regularity on the places that seem to be the opposite of what went before or after.”
“What a delightful confusion!” Andrade snorted. “Are you saying they deliberately wrote untruths, trusting their little twigs to signal the lies?”
“I think so.” Andry began to speak with more enthusiasm for his theory, even in the face of her obvious mockery. “For instance, there’s one place that says Lady Merisel stayed on Dorval for the whole of a certain year, but later on it says she stayed with a powerful lord in what’s now Syr that same summer. Later still there’s mention of an alliance between the Sunrunners and this man that was formed that summer—and in that very first passage I told you about, that little twig sign appears.”
“You need a better case than one instance that’s probably a mistake,” Urival frowned.
“But it’s the only thing that makes sense! Otherwise it all comes out as a series of statements that constantly negate each other until we don’t know what’s right or what’s wrong—which is probably what Lady Merisel intended when she had this written, as a matter of fact.” He unrolled the parchment to another section. “In all the parts I’ve studied, where one place says one thing and somewhere else it says the opposite, the mark always appears at the key word. Listen to this.” He found the place he wanted and read aloud, ‘The twin sons who were Lady Merisel’s by Lord Gerik were treated by Lord Rosseyn as his own.’ And the mark shows up below Lord Gerik’s name.”
“And what does this mean?” Andrade put acid into her voice to disguise her growing excitement.
“I think it means that—that the boys weren’t really Lord Gerik’s sons at all! They might even have been Lord Rosseyn’s! Please, just listen to me. If I read it as the mark indicates—‘The twin sons who were Lady Merisel’s but not by Lord Gerik were treated by Lord Rosseyn as his own.’ Couldn’t that mean that he was the father?”
“Evidence,” Urival demanded. “Give us proof, not conjecture.”
“Here it says they fought over a few measures of land near Radzyn—but I know that area. Why would they contend over a worthless plot of Desert? The mark confirms it, for it indicates that the land was not the reason why they fought the battle. And in this section later on it says Lord Gerik was pleased that Lord Rosseyn used his powers in battle. But only a page before it states that he and Lady Merisel had outlawed the use of the gifts to kill—and there’s the sign, right below the word for ‘pleasure’ in reference to what Rosseyn did.” He raked the hair out of his eyes and looked at Andrade. “It’s the only possible way to explain all this, my Lady.”
Urival peered down at the scrolls. “They gave us two versions of their history, then? Good Goddess, it will take years to sort through it all!”
“What we have to remember is that they weren’t giving anybody anything,” Andry said. “They couldn’t know who’d find the scrolls, or even if they’d be found at all. This must’ve been their way of confusing anybody who shouldn’t be reading this—the contradictions would drive you crazy. It nearly did me, until I figured out what their twig sign must mean.”
“But why confuse the issue so?” Andrade asked. “Who’d care at this late date whether this Rosseyn, whoever he was, sired Merisel’s twin sons?”
Andry pulled in a deep breath and stared at his four rings. “I think it’s far more subtle than that, my Lady. Why were these scrolls buried along with the one on sorceries? To provide the clue that would help us interpret correctly that one essential, dangerous scroll—and to keep people who weren’t as persevering from discovering what that scroll meant.”
Andrade returned to her chair and sat, hands clenched into fists inside her pockets. “Show me the S
tar Scroll,” she ordered.
Andry took it reverently from its case and unrolled it atop the other. “The marks are all over it,” he explained. “This formula, for instance. It says it can cause loss of memory. All these roots and herbs and directions—but instead of leaving out an essential ingredient that would cancel its effectiveness, they put in something that would ruin the recipe just as surely. Here. This flower nobody around here has ever heard of, with the little mark beneath it. And look at this one—directions on how to boil a certain ointment that can make a wound fester instead of heal. But the sign indicates that it shouldn’t be boiled at all! And here—this recipe for a powerful poison. It’s just the same, my Lady—the list of ingredients with the little sign beneath several of them that I’d swear combine to produce the antidote within the poison itself, so it wouldn’t be dangerous if anybody happened upon the scroll! In all the ones that could be dangerous, the little twig appears somewhere—telling us not to do something that the uninformed reader would do in following the directions.”
“The false step added to make the formula worthless in case it got into the wrong hands.” Andrade gave in to wonder and admiration, convinced now. “From what you’ve told me of Lady Merisel, she was devious enough to have thought this up. Can you imagine her in her old age, writing all this down as the first scroll says she did, laughing herself silly while she made sure no one would make use of this knowledge even if they found it?”
“And the clue is in the histories,” Andry agreed. “It really is the only thing that makes any sense.”
“Hmm,” Urival said, still skeptical. “The only way to prove it would be to pick a recipe and follow it both ways. With your permission, Andrade, I’ll do just that—choosing something we know we can cure, of course.”
She nodded permission, then turned to Andry again. “Read me a section that doesn’t have to do with potions. I want to find out if this holds true.”
Andry immediately chose a few lines of cramped script, giving Andrade the correct impression that he had planned the whole conversation to lead up to this point. “ ‘The herb dranath cannot augment powers,’ ” he read aloud, then met her startled gaze. “The mark is below the word for ‘cannot.’ ”
She knew for certain that he had deliberately maneuvered her to this. She resented his skill and admired it, but stronger still was her fear. “If it cannot augment, then it must increase. Was that their secret? ‘The herb dranath can increase powers’? The damnable herb that corrupted my Sunrunner to Roelstra’s use?”
Andry flinched slightly. “My Lady—I’m sorry—”
She stared into the fire. “It enslaves, addicts, kills—but it also healed the Plague. And now you tell me it enhances power.”
“It would seem so,” he said cautiously.
“I don’t believe it!” she stated. “Prove the rest of it as you wish, but this I will not believe.” Rising, she turned her back on him, needing the fire’s warmth to soothe more than the chill of a spring storm. It was a gesture of dismissal, and she listened as the scrolls were gathered up, slid whispering into their leather tubes, replaced in the saddlebags. There was a breath of air around her ankles as the door opened on silent hinges and then closed.
Urival knelt to put new logs on the fire. “You lied to him. You believe.”
“He led me by the nose where he wanted me to go!” She backed off a step as the flames rose hotter. “Urival—I didn’t even sense it. He deceived me completely with his fine little show.”
“He’ll make a properly devious Lord of Goddess Keep.”
“Yes, he is as we’ve all made him. Especially me. He’s good, is young Lord Andry. Very good. When he’s ruling here, from my chambers and my chair—” Sinking into her chair again, she closed her eyes. “Goddess be thanked that I won’t be around to watch.”
For all the privileges due to his kinship with Lady Andrade, Andry wore only four rings and took no special precedence at Goddess Keep. Officially he was an apprentice, though he hoped that by summer’s end he would earn the fifth faradhi ring, marking him as a fully trained Sunrunner. The sixth would signify his ability to weave moonlight with equal skill; the seventh, that he could conjure without Fire.
He closed the door of his chamber behind him and sat on the bed, staring at his hands, seeing them empty of the honors he knew one day would be his. But in all honesty he knew he would have to learn much before he was worthy of the rings, including the eighth and ninth he intended to earn. He had botched his ploy for convincing Andrade and Urival about the scrolls. Their belief had been within his grasp, but he had made a mistake. If he ever hoped to wield real influence among faradh’im, he would have to learn subtlety.
For the first time he dared to imagine the tenth ring, the gold one on his marriage finger and the thin chains that would lead from it and all the others to bracelets clasping his wrists. Lord of Goddess Keep. Master of this place and all Sunrunners—and of the princes and athr’im who possessed the gifts. The number was very small now, but would grow. He intended that it should grow, for he believed wholeheartedly in Andrade’s long-term scheme.
Andry bit his lip and tried not to see all ten rings on his hands. Yet part of him argued that there was nothing wrong with aspiration to high position. Certainly his siblings were not shy about their abilities. Maarken with his six rings would one day be Lord of Radzyn and military commander of the Desert and Princemarch. Andry’s twin brother Sorin was to be knighted this year at the Rialla, and had made no secret of the fact that he wanted an important keep of his own, which their uncle the High Prince would undoubtedly give him. But Goddess Keep was the only place Andry wanted, the only honor he coveted, the only life he had ever believed would suit him. He had the gifts in stronger measure than Maarken, and no desires toward Sorin’s knightly accomplishments. He wanted ten rings and this castle, the right to govern all farad-h’im, and the privilege of guiding the princedoms as Andrade had done for so long.
He heard footsteps outside in the hallway. It was time to go down for the evening meal, yet he made no move from his seat by the small brazier that barely lit and rarely warmed his chamber. He never felt the cold; the joke at the keep was that he had soaked up so much Desert sun and heat in his childhood that nothing short of a winter at Snowcoves would ever chill him. But he did regret the feebleness of the brazier’s light that did not allow him to read until all hours, and looked forward to the fifth ring that would bring with it a larger chamber, one floor below, complete with its own hearth.
“Andry! I know you’re in there, I can hear you thinking,” a familiar voice called from outside his door. “Hurry or you’ll be late.”
“I’m not hungry, thank you, Hollis,” he replied.
The door swung open and his elder brother’s unofficial Chosen stood there, hands on slim hips, braids like twin rivers of dark sunlight falling down past her waist. She gave him a grimace of good-natured exasperation, and he smiled. He liked Hollis and approved of his brother’s choice—the two of them were certain to produce not just handsome, intelligent children but faradhi-gifted ones as well. But he wondered how his parents were going to take to the idea of Maarken’s marrying a woman without family, possessions, wealth, or anything else to recommend her besides her beauty and her Sunrunner’s rings. Of course, they were concerned with their sons’ happiness above all things—Andry would never have been allowed to choose this path otherwise—but Maarken was their heir. Andry wished Sorin had already met Hollis so they could compare notes and work out some sort of strategy for supporting their elder brother in his aims.
Hollis had not gone out of her way to make Andry’s acquaintance or to make him her ally. Indeed, she had avoided him quite devotedly for some time after her return from Kadar Water this winter. Andry had been insulted until it had suddenly dawned on him that she had been sick with nerves, afraid he wouldn’t like her and that he would disapprove of her less-than-highborn blood, and hadn’t dared approach him for fear he would think her curry
ing his favor. Andry had spared a shake of the head for the incomprehensible ways of women and sought her out. Within a day they had reached a good understanding, helped along by her shock and then her laughter when he had opened with, “So you’re the Sunrunner my brother’s going to marry.” His bluntness had been matched by her honesty in confessing her trepidations, and they had become friends quite apart from their love for his brother.
So it was that she scolded him like an elder sister. “Not hungry? And what do you expect to live on, then? The sheer brilliance of your intellect as you sit here thinking great thoughts? Comb your hair and let’s go eat.”
He stood up, made her a humble low bow marred by a grin. “Goddess help my brother once you’re wed.”
“Goddess help the poor girl who weds you,” Hollis replied tartly, smoothing his hair into place. “Come, you don’t want to miss the presentations, do you?”
“Oh! Of course not. I’d forgotten it was tonight. Thanks for coming to get me, Hollis. I love watching them make their first bows to Andrade.” As they left his chamber and descended the staircase, he went on, “Even though I’d known Andrade all my life, I was terrified that night! I always try to smile at them so they see at least one friendly face. But I don’t know how much good one smile does.”
“Not much,” she admitted. “It was different for me, being born and raised here—although when I made my first bow my knees knocked so hard I had bruises!”
“How many are there tonight?”
“Six. Urival says he’s expecting another six or so before summer’s over. We hope to get twenty per year, but we’re lucky if we get ten.”
They turned the landing and took the next flight of stairs. These were carpeted, unlike the bare stone higher up, indicating they had reached the more public areas of the keep. Andry shook his head at Hollis’ last remark. “I can’t imagine why anyone who even suspects they’ve got the gifts wouldn’t want to get here as soon as possible.”