by Janny Wurts
The Lady smiled. “You are in the suite reserved for Pendaire’s royal family, at the Prince’s request. Neither he nor Taroith thought it fitting for you to return to the castle in the company of the men-at-arms. The Sorcerer sent you back while you slept.”
Elienne rolled over and glared mutinously through the casement to a breathtaking view of the seawall, silvered still with morning dew. She said to the scenery, “Is Taroith back yet?”
“No, my Lady. He returned to Torkal to escort Faisix to captivity.” The woman’s features pinched into a frown. “Is anything amiss?”
Reminded of her manners, Elienne fingered the coverlet and strove to contain her agitation. “A small matter has me concerned. I’m sorry. Would it be possible for me to see Kennaird after I have dressed?”
The Lady-in-waiting’s expression thawed slightly. “That could be arranged, your Grace. But wouldn’t you rather eat first? Your maid has breakfast waiting.”
Elienne sighed, resigned. Whether she liked it or not, she was going to be fussed over. “All right, I agree to breakfast beforehand.” A rueful smile escaped her. “But must I be saddled so soon with titles? ‘Elienne’ is a lot less clumsy.”
“You are unaccustomed to court life?” said the Lady, surprised. She cocked her pert head and suddenly her poise broke into unrestrained warmth. “I am Mirette. Shall I call the maid for your wardrobe?”
Elienne made a face and tossed off the covers. “Yes, but I don’t think I’ll ever get used to the formality of having help with my dress.” She paused, caught by impulse. “Mirette, is there any way I can speak to the Seeress of Ma’Diere’s Order?”
“She talks to no one.” Mirette bent and pulled a dressing robe hurriedly from a chest. “Not even the initiates of her own Order. Following initiation, the Seeress delivers nothing but prophecies, and those only if the realm is threatened, or changed in some way, as with the royal succession.”
Elienne accepted the robe, her fingers damp with sweat. “I cannot see her?”
Mirette froze, china-blue eyes widened under perfectly arched brows. “Lady, the custom for breaking her vow of silence is ritual suicide. What troubles you?”
But Elienne was not willing to share her secrets with strangers. She shrugged lightly. “I was curious. Can you forgive a foreigner’s ignorance?”
Mirette nodded, not entirely convinced. Her stare lingered overly long upon Elienne’s face before she left to call the maid.
The breakfast that followed was tedious. Elienne could not warm to the companionable chatter of the Ladies assigned to attend her as royal Consort. Their interest was piqued by the foreigner chosen for their Prince; though they did not pry openly, Elienne found their friendly inquiries trying, preoccupied as she was with her uneasiness concerning the Trinity of Fortune. If the prophecy was correct, she was not out of danger. Yet with Faisix imprisoned, she had no visible enemy to defend against. The mutes’ knowledge of the Seeress’s words was the only threat she could perceive, and over that she fretted endlessly, while one after another, Pendaire’s nobility arrived to bestow felicitations upon her for her coming child. Though not officially announced, word of her pregnancy had somehow been noised abroad. Aware inheritance of a throne rested upon the fragile life within her womb, Elienne felt vulnerable. She wished her privacy had been maintained until after Darion’s return, and said as much to her women after a lengthy interval of staring out the window.
“Lady, you ask too much.” Taxed by her charge’s moody silences, Mirette rammed her embroidery needle irritably into the surcoat she was stitching, and almost broke the thread. “Eternity.” She paused to untangle a snarl. “In case you’ve forgotten, Darion’s twenty-fifth birthday passed a week ago. The Grand Justice, by law, should have condemned him to the headsman then, except that Taroith won an abeyance until you could be rescued, on the chance you had conceived. That in itself was a precedent. Count yourself fortunate.”
Shaken, Elienne murmured apology. Yet her repentance proved short-lived when, a moment later, Mirette arose to announce still another visitor.
Elienne turned from the window with an oath in questionable taste for a Princess, and added, “Ma’Diere, will they never let me alone?”
Mirette’s well-bred face looked strained as a small figure in dark skirts rushed in from the antechamber, thin brown hair combed back and unfamiliarly tied with ribbons.
Elienne’s bad temper dissolved into welcome. “Minksa!” she exclaimed, delighted, just as the girl flung herself into her arms. “Lady, the mutes didn’t take your baby from you. I’m so glad.” She tilted her face upward, radiant. “And Taroith promised I could ask a place in your service. Will you have me?”
“Are you certain you wouldn’t rather keep the company of girls your own age?”
Minksa shook her head, and seeing again the shadows of abuse in eyes which had known too much for a child, Elienne knew the girl’s decision was not lightly made. The realization filled her with sudden warmth. “Of course I’ll have you, Minksa.”
That moment the antechamber door crashed open. Minksa started, hands closed convulsively in Elienne’s skirts. Mirette jumped to her feet, exclaiming, just as Elienne looked up and saw Kennaird enter, his face flushed above black robes of mourning.
“Well, it’s about time you got here.” Gently Elienne disengaged Minksa’s clinging fingers. “Relax, child. Kennaird won’t bite. You belong here now, remember?”
The apprentice planted himself before her and said quickly, “My Lady, send your women away.”
Though Elienne disliked the stiff formality of court etiquette, his abrupt lack of courtesy rankled. At her side, Minksa shifted with uneasiness. Elienne placed a sisterly arm around the girl’s shoulders. “Whatever you have come to say, I have confidence my ladies can support it.”
Kennaird fidgeted and said crisply, “I think not.” His heavy blue eyes rested upon her, faintly annoyed. The authoritative air he tried to assume only made him seem foolish. “The Seeress of Ma’Diere’s Order is dead.”
“How?” Elienne felt Mirette’s sudden stare, and a familiar, hollow quiver invaded her gut. No, she thought desperately. Not so soon.
“Apparently someone caused her to break her vow of silence.” Flatly Kennaird elaborated. “She took her life with a ceremonial dagger reserved for that purpose alone. The initiates of her Order found her shortly after noon. Now will you send your women from the room?”
Elienne nodded, uncomfortably aware of Mirette’s speculative interest. She knew there would be gossip concerning her request to see the Seeress only that morning, but that was unavoidable. Minksa’s offer of service had seen a rude beginning, as well.
Nettled by Kennaird’s tactlessness, Elienne tried her best to ease the girl’s uneasiness. “Go along with Mirette, child. She will look after your needs in my place until I am free.”
The instant the door closed, Elienne rounded upon the apprentice. “Who could have caused such a thing?”
Kennaird shrugged, disturbed. “No one knows. Not even the initiates.” He sounded strangely irresolute, like a guilty child.
Elienne struggled to master her own fear. “The mutes? Do you suppose there’s another Sorcerer in league with them?”
“No. Definitely not.” Kennaird stepped back awkwardly and sat down on Mirette’s embroidery. Fortunately the needle had been left poked through the stuffed arm of the chair. Oblivious, the apprentice continued. “Emrith checked. Aisa and Denji have not left Torkal.”
Elienne felt the blood beat in her veins like the wings of pigeons startled into flight. “Then who? I told no one of the prophecy other than you.”
Kennaird sighed and pushed a fallen lock of hair ineffectively over his bald spot. “Not even the League knows how it happened. Faisix has been in their custody the entire time ... The incident may not be connected with the succession at all, but I thought you should be war
ned.”
But it was connected, Elienne was certain, and Kennaird’s attempt to dismiss the matter only augmented her concern. Though Ielond had recommended she trust him, he seemed a poor ally. But until the return of the Prince, a fortnight distant, Kennaird, Minksa, and Mirette were the only allies she had.
* * *
Yet despite her foreboding, the interval before the royal arrival passed without mishap, except that Minksa grew careless the morning of Darion’s return and cut her finger on a breadknife. Elienne herself attended to salve and bandages, that the child could watch for the royal cortege from the battlements. Unsettled by the cheerful company of her women, Elienne finally made excuses to Mirette and donned a cloak to join the child’s outdoor vigil. As she buttoned the garment, she overheard whispers that the Prince’s absence appeared to have tried her sorely: how thoughtless she was to expose herself needlessly to chill during pregnancy.
“Never mind the rain,” said Mirette, nettled still by her mistress’s rebellious insistence. “Pray the air will improve her temper.”
Elienne sighed. The women believed her impetuosity to be the inevitable result of new love. Actually, she needed a chance to compose herself, that Darion’s homecoming not take her unprepared. She waited on the battlements to allow space to contain her emotions before she greeted Darion in the courtyard. At all costs, she must not allow his love for her to continue. With the exposure of Cinndel’s child unavoidably to come, disaster would result if sentiment prompted him to defend her against the wrath of a betrayed court.
Elienne left the keep stair and stepped out onto stone sleek with puddles. A sharp wind dragged at her skirts. Through a misty curtain of rain, she saw Minksa curled expectantly against the wall that overlooked the main gates. Her hood had fallen back, and loosened hair had blown into tangles, threaded with sodden red ribbons.
Elienne crossed the open space between. “You don’t look much like a Consort’s Lady, Missy.” She straightened the girl’s damp locks and tucked them back into her hood.
Minksa lifted a face pink with excitement. “That’s too fine a cloth for bad weather, your Grace.” She capped her accusation with a mischievous grin.
“I know.” Elienne glanced ruefully down, saw the delicately embroidered fabric now wilted miserably against her shoulders. “This was the plainest cloak I could find in the wardrobe.”
Which was one thing she would change at once, she decided, if Darion would allow her a seamstress. She had always been accustomed to activity in Trathmere, and riding and hawking might become her only release from the pressures of the intrigue that ringed her round. Pregnant or not, she had no intention of sitting indoors day after weary day.
Lulled into reverie by the steady splash of the storm, Elienne nearly missed the first sight of the Prince’s escort.
Minksa’s exclamation roused her. Small, cold fingers plucked insistently at her elbow, and following the girl’s gesture, Elienne caught a glimpse of banners muted by mist before the cavalcade vanished behind a stand of trees. The nervous rush that followed caught her totally by surprise.
Irritated, Elienne bit her lip. What possessed her, that she felt suddenly overwhelmed? I don’t love this Prince, she insisted to herself. But she could not deny she cared, and that she was honestly glad to see him.
The horsemen reappeared closer and swept at a canter around the final bend in the sea road before the castle gates.
“There’s his Grace,” said Minksa, startling her once again from thought. The townsfolk who had turned out in greeting raised a rough cheer.
Elienne leaned over the battlements to see better, and a sudden gust streamed her cloak like a banner. Attracted by bright, yellow-gold cloth against gray sky, Darion looked up and immediately recognized who awaited him in the rain. The weary line of his shoulders straightened as he lifted a hand from the rein and swept off his helmet in salute to his Consort.
Elienne felt her stomach tighten with unwanted emotion. She stepped back stiffly from the battlements. Bitterly Elienne remembered the uncontrolled moment of warmth she had shown the Prince upon her rescue from Torkal, and regretted that loss of restraint. As Elienne made her way down the keep steps, Minksa’s joyous shouts of greeting were like a knife in her back.
The courtyard was cold and exposed to the bite of the sea wind. Elienne stood amid an expanse of rain-pocked cobbles as the ranks of horsemen clattered through the gates. Darion was soaked, but resplendent, in enameled armor chased with gold. He dismounted, smiling, and threw his reins to the groom who ran at his stirrup.
“My Lady!” His shout lifted easily over the crack of hooves and the rattle of winches from the gatehouse.
He crossed the yard at a half run, and Elienne saw he was stiff with fatigue from the saddle. He deserved nothing less than warm welcome, hot spirits, and back rub. A thick lump knotted her throat; desperately, she forced her emotion back.
“My Lady?” Darion reached her, arms outflung to embrace her.
Threatened by unwanted empathy, Elienne avoided his eyes. She curtsied formally, and felt Darion’s hands touch her shoulders in a belated attempt to recover his equilibrium.
“My Lady, I am glad to see you are recovered from your captivity.” His words sounded forced.
Elienne raised herself, glad of the rain that hid the wetness on her cheeks. “Welcome back, your Grace. Your presence has been greatly missed at court.” She sensed the longing in his voice and knew she was not callous enough to risk a prolonged encounter. “Your Grace, I have a request.”
“You need only to ask.” Warmth crept back into his voice.
Elienne steeled herself against compassion. “Could you arrange a horse and a hawk for me? I am weary of the indoors.”
For a moment, Darion stood utterly still. Then he raised a hand to rake wet locks back from his collar. “Of course,” he said at last, disappointment completely controlled. “I shall speak to the Stable Master at once, and the Master Falconer.” He paused. “You’ll want proper attire. I’ll have the steward appoint you a tailor.”
Elienne murmured polite thanks, and repeated her curtsy. Darion took her hand, lightly kissed it, then moved off without comment. She dared a look at his back then, and at once saw the cost of her resolve to spare him from entanglement. His anguish stopped the breath in her throat. Her facade shattered, Elienne fled back into the castle.
Elienne returned to her chambers soaked and shaken. Mirette and her women accosted her immediately with scolding and hot towels. And that, suddenly, became more than she could bear.
“Leave me,” she said, driven beyond politeness. “I want to be alone.”
The women were slow to respond.
Elienne whirled sharply on Mirette. “Did you hear? Get them out.”
The door closed with accusing control. But Elienne was far beyond noticing nuances. She flung herself headlong across the stag medallion on the bed and wept for the man who had ridden himself to exhaustion for five weary weeks in her behalf. Memory of his stony-faced kiss returned to cut her. Had he shown anger or resentment at her rejection, her cold response would have been easier to justify. Instead, he had mastered his disappointment, determined despite his own desires to grant her release and leave her free to find happiness unencumbered by guilt. “I cannot promise I will love your Prince,” she had said to Ielond on the icefield. “Husband he may be, but only in name. My heart is not available for bargain.”
Caught by a wave of misery, Elienne failed to hear the click of the door latch. Her women were not present to warn the pageboy who entered of her presence. His chatter died, mid-sentence. Startled, Elienne raised flooded eyes and with a horrid shock recognized the black enameled armor he carried.
“Mikon, is something wrong?” called a familiar voice from the corridor, and unaware of her, Darion appeared, framed by the lighted square of the doorway. Elienne confronted him knowing she had no hope of
concealing the evidence of her tears.
His features momentarily registered shock. Then he looked suddenly away, all brisk efficiency, and lifted a towel from the hands of the page who stood, stunned and staring still with curiosity
“Leave us,” he said gently. “I will attend to my own needs this once, and I think if you ask the cooks nicely, there are pastries waiting.”
The boy deposited his burden with a noisy clatter and departed in high spirits for the kitchens. Darion ruffled his wet head with the towel, then rescued his swordbelt from a precarious position against the wall and hung it carefully on a chairback. He stood with hands rested on the gold boss of his buckler and glanced across the bed where she sat.
“Lady, do you still grieve for the one you have lost?”
Though allowed space to compose herself, Elienne groped for a plausible response. Should Darion discover the feelings she kept hidden, her posture of assumed indifference could never be salvaged. Having no better excuse than the one he already offered, Elienne made herself speak. “I miss him, your Grace.”
Stitched leather buckled under Darion’s fingers, and his features assumed the rigid mask she recalled from the mirrowstone’s view of his confrontation with the headsman. Elienne looked away. She raged at her own thoughtlessness, for forgetting her place of refuge had been the Prince’s own apartments. His discomfort tore her the worse for being her own fault.
Darion answered, presently, in a voice that was too steady. “I should never have moved you in here. I’m sorry.”
“No. I’m sorry.” Elienne stared helplessly at the stag medallion on the counterpane as Darion stepped back through the doorway. She heard, through the open door, a quietly phrased request that the old Queen Mother’s apartments be opened and aired. Mirette’s voice queried him once, sharply.
“Never ask that again, madam,” said Darion softly, but with unforgettable force. “Concern yourself with your mistress’s well-being. She has need of a friend.”