WinterofThorns

by Charlotte Boyett-Compo

  “You can’t take her away from me. I love her. She is carrying my child!”

  “She is carrying Seyzon Montyne’s child and well you know it,” his father corrected. “Don’t compound your perfidy by lying to us, boy!”

  So had begun the screaming, bellowing, arguing hell that had sent Jana scurrying from the room. Now—a day later—Vindan was silent and sullen, shooting daggers at his father and helpless looks at her.

  “I would have made your son king one day,” he finally said as he looked away from her to push beans across his plate.

  “My son has no need to be king,” she said softly.

  “Actually, he will be king one day.”

  Both Jana and Vindan turned to stare at the king.

  “It follows that the son of the eldest son will be crowned heir when his father dies. I would see the crown upon the head of my eldest son were he amendable to it but unfortunately, he is not. That saddens me for he would make an excellent, fair and compassionate king but you’ll have to do until such time as his son takes the crown from you.”

  Jana slowly turned her attention to Vindan. The man who had been holding her captive for months now was completely devoid of expression. He was looking at his father as though the man’s lips were moving but no sound was issuing forth. Had she not already surmised the king was Seyzon’s father, no doubt she would have been as confused by the king’s words as Vindan appeared to be. She almost felt sorry for him.

  “Do you understand what he is telling you, Vindan?” she asked.

  Vindan did not look at her. “Aye, he’s telling me Seyzon Montyne is his bastard son as I have suspected he was since we were boys.”

  “Is that so?” the king asked.

  “I can see you in his face!” Vindan snapped. “I am not a fool, Papa. He might not have suspected because he’s never seen you but I have. He is your bastard by Millicent Montyne, a woman whose husband you cuckolded.”

  The king leaned back in his chair, braced his elbows on the arms and steepled his fingers. “You are partially right, brat,” he said. “But Seyzon is no bastard. He is the legal, firstborn son of Nolan Brell and we have the sworn affidavits of ten nuns and their Mother Superior as well to prove it.”

  “Affidavits can be forged,” Vindan said, his cheek clenching and unclenching.

  “We repeat. Nuns and a Mother Superior. Seyzon is your fraternal twin born four minutes before your arrival.”

  Vindan shoved his chair back and got to his feet, fists bunched at his sides. “I don’t believe that.”

  “Believe what you will. Seyzon is the rightful heir to our throne.” He smiled slowly. “Lady Millicent is your mother.”

  That seemed to anger Vindan even more and he stormed away, his boot heels ringing on the parquet flooring.

  “That went as planned,” the man at the head of the table said as he folded his napkin and placed it beside his plate.

  “Who are you?” Jana asked.

  He looked up. “Beg pardon?”

  “Vindan believes you to be his father but I don’t think you are. Are you King Nolan’s twin or just a remarkable lookalike?”

  “Beautiful and smart,” he said. “What gave me away?”

  “The man I first encountered when I went to Vindan’s room had an air of cruelty and arrogance about him. His voice—though very similar to yours—was haughty and when he spoke, his lips were stiff and tight with contempt. When he looked at me, I felt unclean. You look at me differently.”

  “And here I thought I was carrying off the arrogant asswipe to perfection,” he said with a grin. “I even had the royal we down just right.”

  “Where is he?” she asked. “The real King Nolan?”

  “On his way to my base camp in Selwyn.”

  Jana drew in a breath. “You are the border lord!”

  “I can’t put anything over on you, can I, gal? I am Kellan Brell, though, not Lord Robbie Bray.” He laughed. “Zonny said you were the most observant woman he’d ever known. He is a lucky man to have you.”

  “I am the lucky one in having met him and very grateful that he returns my love,” she said.

  “That he does and in spades,” Kellan replied. He sat back. “You are his world, milady, and I can see why.”

  “He is well?” she queried.

  “He is and once things are in place here, I will take you to Blackhall where he will join us. I will then turn you over to him and you can go wherever it pleases you. If he wants Lavenfeld returned to him, I will see to it.” His eyes twinkled. “I’d stay close, though, until the brattling is hatched.”

  She put a hand to her belly. “That might be best.”

  He rubbed his hands together. “I can’t wait to be a great-uncle. I’m going to spoil that brat like I never got the chance to spoil Seyzon.”

  “Or Vindan?”

  Kellan snorted. “That one was spoiled enough. It ruined him.”

  “You are going to have trouble with Vindan,” she said.

  “Oh, I’m counting on it!” he told her. “I’ve got troops awaiting my call that will seize the crown from my evil twin—oh I like saying that—and hand it over to me. Don’t you just love it when a coup comes together so neatly?”

  “And King Nolan?”

  “Will be sent into exile with his sweet, endearing wife Bertrice and all six of his ball-busting daughters and their mewling husbands if they have them in tow. I promise you I will make a far better king than my father and his father before him.”

  “I know you will,” she agreed. She frowned. “Does King Nolan know about Seyzon?”

  “He does by now,” Kellan answered. “And I don’t imagine he’s very happy about the situation.

  * * * * *

  In that, Kellan was wrong. Nolan Brell could not have been happier to learn Seyzon Montyne was his son. The moment he had come to on the Fiach and looked up into the eyes of the young man, he’d thought he was Kellan’s offshoot.

  “You’re better looking than your old man,” he’d said. “You’re Millie’s boy, ain’t you?”

  “I am and I don’t think you’re all that bad looking for your age, Your Grace,” the brat had dared say.

  For a long moment the king didn’t speak. When he did he started grinning from ear to ear.

  “Well I’ll be gods-damned,” he said, staring at a younger version of himself. “I should have known your mother would pull something like this.” His gaze roamed over Seyzon’s face. “You were the stillborn one. My firstborn.”

  “That would be me apparently.”

  “Quiet like your mother as Vindan is loud like me,” the older man observed. “I thought you were dead, son, else I would have taken you with me too.”

  “And left my mother without either of her sons?”

  “She had to give you up and she knew it. I’d have taken you had I known you lived.”

  “Aye, you would have but she, like you, thought I was stillborn. It wasn’t until after you had left with Vindan that they realized I wasn’t.”

  “And she kept it to herself all these years rather than have me ever come for you,” he said, nodding. “That’s my Millie. Shrewd as the day is long and just as spiteful when she gets something in her head.” He looked down at the manacles that ran from his hands to his ankles. “Am I Kelly’s prisoner, then?”

  “For a time. He has the might of the Burgon behind him.”

  “Does he now?” the king queried. “That explains a lot. Does that mean he will take the throne and make you his heir or does he have one out there in the bushes?”

  “Not to my knowledge, Your Grace, and no, he will not make me his heir. I don’t have aspirations to be king. Vindan will do well enough.”

  “With Kelly’s men pulling all his strings. My little brother is smarter than I gave him credit for being.”

  “He’s a good man,” Seyzon stated.

  “Not as good as you think he is but that’s a story for another day. Help me sit up.”

  Dyson
stepped out of the shadows. “Careful of him, brat. He’s a slippery one.”

  “Where can I slip to chained hand and foot, Spencer Dyson?” the king barked. “Oh, I know who you are. I once fucked your sister.”

  “Only once?” Dyson drawled. “Three-quarters of the men in Meiraman have had that slut at least three times over.”

  “Once was enough for me,” the king said. “That explains why she was so fucking loose.”

  “Maybe you wasn’t so fucking big,” Dyson quipped, holding up and wiggling his little finger.

  The king rolled his eyes then leveled then on Seyzon. “I saw the woman Vindan took from you. Beautiful little bird.”

  Seyzon stiffened.

  “And by all accounts a lady,” the king hastened to say. “And a good woman.”

  “She is, despite your son trying to make her otherwise,” Seyzon said, clenching his jaw.

  “Considering how I know Kelly feels about some of the ancient laws and rights of the upper class, I imagine he’ll annul Vin’s Joining and reinstate yours.”

  “He has said as much,” Seyzon agreed.

  The king shrugged and his manacles clanked. “Some laws need to be done away with but he’d best be careful with tossing out the rights of the lords and ladies. He might find himself on the receiving end of a revolution.”

  “Such as the one that gives a nobleman the right to deflower a woman on her Joining night?”

  “No one will miss that law save the perverts who think it their due.”

  “Perverts such as your son?”

  “Mistake that,” the king admitted. “I think what he did was more aimed at putting you in your place rather than the girl or Vindan’s desire to have her.”

  “I think it was all three,” Seyzon stated.

  “From what my spies tell me, he loves the girl as much as you do. I have some knowledge of how that feels as I’m sure Kelly’s told you.”

  “Doesn’t matter how he feels. If he ever touches her again, I’ll kill him,” Seyzon told his father.

  “And as the Heir-Apparent, you could get away with it without as much as a slap on the wrist,” the king said. “Something for Vindan to think about.”

  “He’d best think about it.”

  “So, the friendship is dead,” the king observed. “And no chance for you two to bond as the brothers you are.”

  “I want nothing to do with him,” Seyzon replied. “I intend to make Selwyn my home. He can rule Meiraman without worrying about me interfering. Once the laws are as Kellan and the Burgon want them and the border situation settled, Vindan can be the big shit all he likes.”

  “But…” The king cocked a brow. “Should he attempt to invade Selwyn or cause trouble, you’ll wrest the crown from me.”

  “I’ve no desire to be king but if Vindan should ever be stupid enough to declare war against us, then, aye. I’ll take the crown and ships his ass to Tyber’s Isle.”

  “Not Utuk Xul?”

  “I wouldn’t send my worst enemy to that vile hellhole,” Seyzon responded.

  “The difference between you and your brother.”

  “I’m a better man than he will ever be.”

  The king smiled. “Aye, Seyzon. I can see that you are.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  “He has…” Seyzon swallowed. “Pooped.” His nose crinkled, he held his son away from him, looking down at his lap at the dark stain on his pants. “And it has run out of the side of his diaper.”

  “Then change him,” Jana said.

  Seyzon looked around but there was no one to come to his aid. The nursemaid had gone into the keep to fetch a clean gown for the little boy that was partaking of his mid-afternoon meal at his mother’s breast.

  “Ch-change him?” Seyzon repeated. His eyebrows drew together. “How do I—?”

  “Lay him on the blanket, push up his gown and remove his soiled diaper,” she instructed.

  Seyzon made a funny noise in the back of his throat then gently laid his son Dane on the blanket. Picking up the hem of the baby’s gown with his thumbs and index fingers, his face filled with a look that mirrored a bomb technician’s.

  Jana watched him as she shifted Dane’s twin, Thane, more comfortably against her.

  “It’s just used food, Seyzon,” Jana said.

  “Aye but it’s stinky used food,” he said. He released the sticky tabs on either side of his son’s diaper, drew in a deep breath then peeled the top section of the garment away from the babe. He gagged when he saw the black mess that was smeared over his son’s scrotum and tiny penis.

  “Oh, for the love of Alel, Zonny,” Jana said with exasperation. “There’s nothing in his diaper that is going to—”

  Dane took that moment to finish evacuating his afternoon load by peeing straight up into his father’s startled face.

  “Shit!” Seyzon shouted, flinging his head to one side, which sent the urine trickling down his neck and under the collar of his T-shirt.

  “No, that’s piss,” his uncle said as he came strolling over to where Seyzon and Jana sat.

  “Oh, Zonny, if you could see your face!” Jana said, shaking with laughter.

  Seyzon exhaled hard. “It’s not funny. He didn’t pee on you!”

  “No, but he has,” Jana said. “Many times.”

  “You don’t pee on your father, Dane Zell Montyne!” Seyzon said, shaking a finger at his laughing son. It was almost as though the infant knew what he’d done.

  “Get up, lad,” Kellan said. “Let me do it.”

  “No,” Jana stated. “He has to learn, milord. He needs to know how to change his son’s diaper.”

  “We have maids for that,” Seyzon said, stripping out of his shirt. He blotted his face with the garment then ran it down his chest where the baby’s pee had dripped.

  “Change the diaper, Seyzon,” Jana ordered.

  She watched him as Kellan walked him through lifting the baby’s kicking legs to wipe the poop from his little pink fanny. All the while her husband was trying not to gag. She had to admit the smell was a bit riper than usual but strained peas tended to do that to the twins.

  “Where did you learn to be an expert at diapering, milord?” she asked Kellan.

  “Here and there,” he said. When she arched a brow at him, he shook his head. “None were mine.” He grinned. “That I know of.”

  With Dane freshly diapered, Seyzon settled down. His son had hold of his finger and when the boy brought it to his mouth to begin suckling on it, Seyzon laughed. “I think he wants that other boob, milady.”

  “Here,” she said, easing her nipple from Thane’s mouth. “He’s had enough. I’ll swap you.”

  Seyzon frowned. “He’s got a load in there, doesn’t he?”

  “Indeed he does.” She handed the boy to his father.

  Kellan sat down on the grass beside them then stretched out on his side with his head propped in his hand. “Let’s see what you learned, brat,” he told Seyzon.

  “Don’t you have something kingly to do?” Seyzon asked.

  “Not until four of the clock.” Kellan glanced at Jana. “That’s when your brother-in-law arrives.”

  Seyzon looked up from taking off Thane’s diaper. “Vindan is coming here to Blackhall?” At Kellan’s nod, he asked why.

  “He has found a woman he wishes to make his wife,” Kellan said. “He is bringing her to meet us so we may decide whether or not to give our blessing.”

  “I hate that royal we speak,” Seyzon snapped as he hiked his son’s legs to wipe at the dark mass clinging to his left cheek.

  “That’s the way kingy-poop speaks so we must needs speak the like,” Kellan said in a stiff, formal tone. “Else Little Poop will know we are not his father.”

  “He’s going to find out sooner or later,” Seyzon said as he got the new diaper on Thane.

  “The Burgon will let us know when the time is right to inform him. At that time, we will turn our crown over to him.”

  “How is King
Nolan doing in Chrystallus?” Jana asked. She winced, for Dane was chomping hard on her nipple with his toothless gums.

  “Better than Berty is,” Kellan said with a chuckle. “Neither she nor her daughters like living on a world where women are second-class citizens and treated so. Their husbands, however, find it a vast improvement. If the women get out of line, they could be sent to what the Chrystallusian fondly call a reinforcement retreat where they are reminded they are the weaker sex and under the iron rule of their husbands and father.”

  “I’m sure Magdalene is enjoying the hell out of that.” Seyzon smirked.

  “Never met any of my nieces but I hear she’s the worst of the lot,” Kellan said.

  “I’ve only met two and that was back when we were teenagers. Mags is a bitch and a half and she hated Vin almost as much as she hated me,” Seyzon told him.

  “Well, then fair play, mate,” Kellan said. “She’s getting what she deserves.” He reached over to tickle Thane on the chest. The baby arched his little head back to look at his great uncle then blew bubbles with his tiny pink lips before giggling.

  “Silly gooselet,” Kellan said as Dane stuffed his chubby toes into his mouth.

  “Why do little boys put things in their mouths that little girls would never dream of doing?” Jana asked.

  “If they could reach what they’d really like to stuff in their mouths, you girls would be in big trouble,” Seyzon quipped.

  The nursemaid returned with clean gowns for both boys—effectively cutting off whatever Jana would have replied. The middle-aged woman took a sleeping Thane from his mother’s arms.

  “We are outta here,” Kellan said. “The country won’t govern itself.” He dusted off his pants. “We’d like you there when I meet with Vindan.”

  “Why?” Seyzon asked, his expression saying he wasn’t thrilled with the idea.

  “We have our reasons.”

  Seyzon had not spoken to his brother since Vindan had ordered him back to Lavenfeld to send Jana to Wicklow. Nor had he seen the man who had caused him so much trouble and grief.

  “I’m not sure I won’t knock out a few of his teeth the moment I lay eyes on him,” Seyzon admitted.