“Guessing is not the same as knowing for sure.”
“Well, with that remark, sir, you’ve just transformed the guess to a certainty anyway. Might as well go all the way.” She pulled the door open farther and cocked her head at them.
Blackwell capitulated with a sigh, stepping aside as Madeleine gestured Simon toward the open door.
Abramm lay on his back on the canopied bed of the royal bedchamber, stripped down to britches and hose, his body enfolded in a corona of white light, so bright one could hardly see his face. Simon stood at the king’s bedside, regarding him for a long time, shocked beyond words or feeling, despite the near certainty of his suspicions. After a while he sank into the chair Haldon brought for him and continued to stare. As if staring would somehow ease the awful pain in his breast. Or make the light go away. Or give him a clear vision of what he was supposed to do now.
Slowly his mind began to work again, throwing up vignettes of memory, one after the other in no particular order—Abramm and Gillard and Meren and Raynen. . . . In the end he found himself mostly reliving those last few moments of the ball, the way Abramm had handled himself in the attacks upon his life. The clock had just finished striking—he didn’t know how many times—when he said to Haldon, “Do you think he really might have been this White Pretender Lady Madeleine made the song about?”
Haldon stood beside him, hands clasped at his back. “I know he was, sir.”
And now, finally, Simon looked at him, surprised by the conviction in his voice. “How could you know that, Hal? Just because a man can throw you up against a wall—”
“I’ve seen the brand on his arm, sir.” He paused, his eyes going back to the form on the bed. “And the scars on his body. The light is fading now. If you wait a bit, you’ll see them, too.”
And so he waited, and the light did fade, and the lines of Abramm’s muscular torso emerged and on it, gleaming white around the golden shield, was a network of scars, both long and short, wide and narrow, clean-lined and ragged. More battle scars than Simon bore on his own body, and Abramm still a very young man.
The White Pretender.
Comprehension shook him to his core. How much of Madeleine’s song is true? Had he really stood and fought the great Beltha’adi to the death? Little Abramm, the skinny-legged boy who’d been the only student ever to rank lower than twenty-five in the Qualifying Order of Fence, who’d excelled at song and scholarship and refused his princely warrior training to take up the vows of peace and contemplation? And then run even from them. To survive the nightmare of slavery in a galley ship and the even greater nightmare of whatever training he must have received to fight in the Games.
The steel was there. And the stubborn Kalladorne will. Simon wondered how he had not seen it. How he could have been so completely wrong about this boy. And about Gillard, as well. For if there might have been question as to who was behind the initial assassination attempt tonight, Gillard had removed all doubt by attacking the king in full view of everyone, no pretending, no façade of scare tactics. If Abramm had not deflected his brother’s blade, he would be lying here dead, surrounded by mourners. It was a despicable thing Gillard had done. A crime worthy of death. A dishonoring to the family name far worse than anything Abramm had ever done.
Yet something in Simon would not let him give up on the boy. This was Gillard, whom he’d doted on since infancy, the six-year-old who’d told him he wanted to be the best swordsman in the land just to make Simon proud. Now he’d tried to kill his own brother in front of all the peerage, and Simon couldn’t seem to get his mind to match the deed with the person. Confusion roiled in a bitter, murky froth—guilt and regret mixed with disbelief and the cold brutal truths of life. Was some of this his fault? If he had resigned his position as Grand Marshall and refused to work with Abramm, might he have been able to bring Gillard to his senses? To have stopped this before it started?
And now what was he to do? Go back to Gillard? Stay with Abramm? He didn’t know. His loyalties had become more bitterly divided than ever, his sense of honor teetering on the verge of cracking apart. Even his confidence in his ability to rightly judge a man’s character lay in ruin.
Only as the last of the light faded from around Abramm’s body did Simon leave, and by then it was almost dawn. He trudged back to his quarters, feeling alternately miserable and completely empty, wanting only to fall asleep in his bed and awake to find it all a terrible dream. Instead, he found his servant Edwin awaiting him with a message that had come in hours earlier. Edwin didn’t know who it was from, for its wax wafer was sealed with a generic mark. He knew only that the person who brought it had stressed that Simon must read it as soon as he returned.
“Why didn’t you send someone out to find me?” Simon asked, turning the envelope over in his hands.
“He told me not to, sir. Though I did try. Discreetly, of course. No one seemed to know where you’d gone.”
Stepping away from the servant, Simon opened the envelope. It was from Harrady, requesting his presence at the man’s lodge at once, regardless of when you read this. Make sure you are not seen.
It didn’t take much to deduce what this must concern. He tossed the letter into the fire, then stared at the flames, frozen with indecision. If he dallied, perhaps the choice would be made without him. . . . Coward! he thought with a grimace. Besides, was there really a choice to be made? As Simon had figured out the meaning of the corona of light on Abramm’s body, so would the Mataio, and likely soon. They’d force him to reveal what he was and remove him from the throne. Gillard would be reinstated, and all Abramm had done and planned would dissolve like mist in the morning.
The only real winner would be the Mataio.
KIRIATHAN AND KING
PART FOUR
CHAPTER
28
Carissa and her party approached the town of Breeton nine days after leaving Highmount Holding, five after bypassing the ruins of Raven Rock. Those last five had been especially miserable—plagued with snow, rain, mud, and dwindling supplies. They saw no sign of Rennalf nor his men. No ells, no birds, no animals, and few travelers, though given the weather that wasn’t surprising. The farmsteads she’d hoped to shelter in had been intact, but deserted and emptied of foodstuffs. And as the snow turned to rain, dry wood became increasingly scarce, making their fires small at best. The last night they’d had no fire at all, sharing round their last portion of biscuit and washing it down with icy stream water which, even after most of the particulates had settled out, still tasted like dirt.
The ninth day had dawned like all the rest: cold, gray, and rainy, the clouds hanging low and thick above them, the trees dripping, the leafcovered road puddled with water. In retrospect Carissa wished now she’d chosen the Kerrey route, especially in light of the probability Rennalf really could use the Dark Ways—which she suspected were similar to the etherworld corridors of Esurh. If so, Cooper was right to fear she wouldn’t be safe from him until they reached the lowlands.
As for going to Springerlan, what was so awful about that, anyway? It was warm, civilized, populated, and as far from the Highlands as she could get and still be in Kiriath. Abramm was certain to be occupied with his kingly duties and unlikely to seek Carissa out, especially if he knew she didn’t want to see him. They’d been able to avoid each other in the confined cave system at Jarnek, after all. Surely they could continue to do so in the sprawling environs of Springerlan. Though, truth be told, she wasn’t sure she even wanted to avoid him anymore. For the part of her that longed to see him had been inexplicably gaining ascendance over the last few days. Perhaps it was escaping Highmount and the influence of the ells. Or spending nine days in the company of Elayne Cooper, who somehow always brought the conversation around to Eidon. Or perhaps it was Elayne’s observation back in Highmount that it wasn’t Abramm Carissa hated, but Eidon himself.
They had talked of that some on this journey, a word here, an exchange there. Never more than a few lines, but Elayne h
ad made Carissa think. Was it Eidon she hated? She certainly had reason. He’d taken Abramm from her— twice—and also her mother and father and everyone else she’d ever cared about. He’d refused her a husband’s love, refused her the child she’d yearned for, and by that condemned her to humiliation and unending misery in Balmark. Then he’d refused to let her save Abramm—from slavery or the Terstans— and had turned her own travels in search of fulfillment to an extended exercise in futility. Wherever she turned, it seemed, he was there to slam her down again. What else could she do but decide there was no just creator directing things? It had to be fate or evil, or maybe just people randomly running up against one another, making each other miserable. Whatever the answer, if Eidon did exist, it seemed he had no hand nor interest in any of it and must be occupied elsewhere.
“Or perhaps he is simply trying to get your attention,” Elayne had suggested.
But if that were true, then why had Carissa not been marked with the shield when she’d tried to take the star back in Jarnek? She hadn’t voiced that question to Elayne, for to ask meant admitting what she had done and what had come of it, and she wasn’t ready to expose that humiliation yet. She’d abased herself before him and he’d rejected her. Made herself willing to take on the curse that was his shieldmark for the sake of her brother and been refused. Eidon had already gotten her attention, only to reject it outright. If she did hate him, it was only because he hated her first.
It was midafternoon when they reached Breeton, which, despite her fears, stood untouched. Unfortunately, it was so full of people and livestock it could hold no more. Its gate stood locked, though dusk was hours away, and the gateman would not open it. “We got refugees from Raven Rock,” he told them through a small opening cut into the gate at eye level. “Ye know them barbarian demons leveled it, don’t ye?”
“Aye,” Cooper told him. “And we’ve been nine days on the road now because of it.” He paused. “So it was barbarians, then?”
“That’s what they say. And now we’ve got not only the Raven Rock folk, but those from the outlying crofts, too afraid to be out alone, plus all the travelers wanting to get out o’ the rain or fearful o’ going on. Even if we could squeeze ye in, there’d be no place for yer animals. There is a place south o’ here, though—maybe a league and a half. Old fortress, used to house royal soldiers, ’til Gillard pulled ’em out a couple years ago. Been empty ever since. Roof’s still decent, though, and the hearth works. I sent a couple groups there yesterday.”
“For the hearth to work,” Cooper argued, “we’d need dry wood. Supplies, too.” The man grumbled that both wood and supplies were in need by all, but finally he went away, returning eventually with another man, who gave them a bag of biscuits and volunteered to bring down a load of wood on his own donkey. In fact, he’d even show them the way if they wanted to wait for him.
Elayne did not want to stay at the fort, and argued with Cooper about it for a bit, too quietly for Carissa to follow, but it seemed to hinge upon some old tale of magic and warlocks which might or might not be true. In the end, seeing as the place had once been manned by the king’s soldiers, and the Breeton gateman had sent other folks to shelter there already, Cooper believed it would be safe. The Breeton people wouldn’t be sending folks on to a place that sheltered an entrance to the Dark Ways. Besides, after nine days everything was wet and soggy, and they could all use some time out of the weather to dry out. It was at least four days more down to Aely.
From the outside, the fortress appeared deserted, its heavy front gate aslant and ajar, bottom edge so buried in a buildup of earth it could not be moved. The keep windows stood dark, but a wisp of smoke arose from the chimney, quickly swallowed by the lower edges of the clouds. Old outbuildings, a clump of bathweed interspersed with dried corn stalks, an old stock pen, a stone well and adjoining trough—they all stood glistening with moisture in a thick growth of grass marred by a single trail leading up to the keep itself.
The Breeton man led them to a musty stable, which they were surprised to find empty, if recently used. “Looks like the others must’ve gone on already,” their guide said as they dismounted. “Guess you’ll have the place to yourself.” He grinned at them, but Carissa felt a twinge of uneasiness all the same. She’d been looking forward to enjoying the sense of safety to be found in the company of common folk.
Leaving two of their men to see to the horses, they trooped up to the box-shaped keep after the Breeton man and his wood-laden donkey. The front door suffered from the same ailment as the main gate, torn partly free of its hinges and scraping the floor. Cooper shoved it aside in a great echoing screech, and they stepped into warmth that was almost painful. That the inside of an abandoned, broken-down keep could feel this warm, Carissa thought, was a measure of just how cold she had become.
As the remainder of their hired guards unloaded the wood, their guide led them up a narrow corridor into a dark chamber whose size Carissa only sensed at first by the feeling of space and the way sound echoed around her. As her vision gradually adjusted, she picked out the stone stairway rising along the left wall, the dim shape of a long table at the room’s end, and the glowing bed of coals on the hearth to the right.
The Breeton man surprised them by conjuring an orblight over by the hearth, directing the men to stack the wood beside it. Following his lead, Cooper and Elayne each conjured one, as well, though their combined light still barely reached the Great Room’s surrounding walls. As the men started to lay the fire, Carissa and her companions continued across the chamber toward the long table, its surprisingly clean surface gleaming in the kelistars’ pale light. Tall, wide-backed chairs presided at each end, the near one empty and the far one— Light pierced the shadows of its embrace, glinting off the long, frizzy hair of the bearded man who sat there, elbows propped on the arm rests, fingers steepled before him, and they all stopped at once. Cooper’s muttered oath drowned out the unladylike word that left Carissa’s own lips. Simultaneously, a cadre of northmen burst from a doorway in the left wall with torches and drawn swords, while another group trooped through the front door, now at Carissa’s back. In a heartbeat, they were caught, led by the Breeton man into the very trap Carissa had feared. She turned to look at him in question, and saw he had known all along.
“I’m sorry,” he muttered miserably, staring at his feet. “They said they’d turn Breeton into another Raven Rock if we didn’t deliver you over.”
Cooper growled another epithet as Carissa forced her gaze back to Rennalf, who watched them with amusement. As the man Breeton from fled through the front door, Rennalf’s underlings swiftly disarmed Cooper, Hogart, and the others, then herded all out the side door save Carissa.
As the rest of Rennalf’s men scurried about setting torches in wall brackets and stoking the newly kindled fire, she stood looking down the table’s gleaming length at the man civil law designated her husband. He met and matched her gaze, his face hard between the side braids, his eyes reflecting the light of the candelabra that had been set upon the table between them. He still wore the green-stoned amulet on his throat, and now she clearly sensed his unsettling aura of dark power. Warlock. Master of the Ells. Walker of the Dark Ways and Servant of the Shadow. No wonder he’d reminded her of the priests and Broho of Esurh.
“Well,” he said. “Ye’ve have decided t’ return at last, my vinegary, headstrong little wife.”
“What are you going to do to my friends?” she demanded.
“They’ll be fine. I have what I came for.”
She stared at him wordlessly.
“Ye heard my little Illik died?” he asked.
No answer. He grinned. “That means ye still have a chance t’ produce an heir for me.”
The words were not unexpected, but hearing them sent a shudder rippling through her, and for a moment she thought she couldn’t stand here another moment. He saw her reaction, and snorted. “Ye should be grateful, woman. If I didna need ye, I’d kill ye. In fact I may yet, if ye�
�re too displeasin’. Or truly barren.” He waved a hand. “I’m preparin’ t’ eat. Join me. I’m sure ye’re hungry after all yer travels.”
Actually, her stomach was drawn up into a knot, her breath coming in shorter and shorter gasps as if all the air was somehow being used up and she couldn’t get enough of it. A plate of mutton and rye bread was set before each of them along with a tankard of mead. She loathed mead and he knew it, though right now even water would have been hard to swallow. He pulled out his knife, using it with his fingers to cut and pull away pieces of the meat, then stuff them into his mouth in great, awkward gobs. Fatty juices gleamed off his beard, and he kept grinning at her every time he caught her looking at him, showing his teeth along with the food he was chewing. She soon learned not to look.
In the relative silence her thoughts finally came round to the acknowledgment of how he had gotten here. For there’d been no horses in the stable, and she doubted they’d been hidden in the woods. It was cold and wet, and Ren- nalf couldn’t have known when she’d arrive. Besides, horses in the stable would have been no surprise. If they weren’t there, it was because Rennalf hadn’t used them.
He waved his knife at her plate. “Eat. Drink. We’ll be leaving soon and I want ye mellow.” He grinned at her as he chewed. “This very night ye’ll be back in the big bed at Balmark.”
She swallowed down rising terror and came suddenly aware of the Terstan orb, hanging from its chain around her neck, warm against her skin. Elayne said it would protect her against the ells. Maybe it would protect her from Rennalf, as well, though it hadn’t done much of a job so far. You said you would make me a way, she thought reproachfully at Eidon. But just like always, you only make things worse.
Rennalf scowled at her. “Are ye deaf, woman? I said eat. The food’ll help settle yer stomach.”
The Shadow Within Page 36