“Lady Miriel,” Wilhelm said graciously. I saw him hide his pleasure at seeing her. His bow was exquisite, his tone courtly.
“My Lord.” Miriel curtsied back. The two of them were children, but not. Play-acting, but not.
“How may I be of service?” Wilhelm cast his eyes around the room. They were blue, I noted, pale to Miriel’s dark, and he shared the King’s fine, sandy hair. His face was well-formed, his cheekbones high, his jaw sharp. He had become a sensation at the court earlier in the year, when the courtiers were minded to think of the Conradines as tragic figures and not potential traitors. Any woman might lose her heart to that smile, but Miriel appeared not to take the slightest notice of it. As she drew him towards the chairs by the fire, she said,
“It is…in regards to the King.” Her steady smile did not waver when his jaw tightened.
“Yes?” He had hoped for more, perhaps, after their laughing conversation the other night; he did not want her to call him to her rooms to speak of the King. But he did not lose his composure. Only someone listening closely could have heard the sudden edge in his voice. Then again, Miriel always listened closely, and she missed nothing. For all her feigned distraction, I knew from the quick rise and fall of her chest that she was as aware of him as he was of her.
I had wondered how she would play this, her appeal to the king’s closest friend. I had thought that she might make some clever excuse; she was skilled at such things. She surprised me, however. She did not coquet, she was grave and quiet.
“I feel I can trust you, my Lord,” she said soberly, and I saw a leap of hope in his eyes.
“You can,” he assured her.
“Good.” Miriel smiled, but the smile did not reach her eyes, and it dropped away quickly. “Then I will be honest with you, my Lord. No courtly words. I tell you truly—I fear that the King may no longer love me as he once did.”
“No.” Wilhelm shook his head. His voice was tight. “He loves you still.”
“Then how can he bear this?” Miriel whispered. “I am forbidden to be at his side, and so I cannot advise him. I cannot see his smile. How can I help but fear…” She trailed off into the superstitious silence of those who fear that saying a thing could make it true. Then she shook her head. “I am sorry. I do not question his wisdom,” she said firmly. “I will not.”
“This is too heavy a burden for you.” Wilhelm reached out and took one of her hands in his own. “Watching him flirt with other women while he exposes you to such gossip.”
“It was necessary,” Miriel demurred at once. “He needed the goodwill of his Council.” She could switch sides with the most consummate skill; now she lured Wilhelm on. Only I could have seen the flicker of distaste in her eyes, the sad set of her mouth. It was gone in a moment, but I knew that it would come back to her as she lay in bed tonight. Strangely, I was reassured to see it—that the clever lies grew no easier for Miriel, either.
And she adored Wilhelm. For all that she had kept from him, it was plain to see now. She would not want to lie to him any more than I wanted to lie to Roine, or Temar.
Wilhelm, however, saw none of this. He was consumed with his indignation on her behalf. “He is the King,” he said passionately. “The Council must heed him, even if…”
“Even if?” Miriel leaned closer to hear him, and I saw his fingers clench around hers.
“If I were the King,” he told her, “I would not let anyone make me deny my love. I would never hide it. And I would never hurt my love so.”
His voice was taut, quavering slightly with emotion; he was no rake, using the careful, intimate tones of seduction, but desire was there. There was only the slightest pause; however I chided her, Miriel had a good sense for danger. The yearning in her eyes was wiped away in an instant, and in its place was a warm smile.
“Ah, my Lord Wilhelm, you will make some noble lady a fine husband,” she promised him. “You have the heart of a poet!” He nodded, only his courtly training keeping his shoulders unbowed; his disappointment was plain to see. Miriel laid her hand on his sleeve and smiled. “But the King is not like you and like me,” she said. “He is a King. And I am only a girl. Please, my Lord. Help me.”
He swallowed. “I will carry any message my lady wishes,” he said, chivalry cold in his voice.
“Then, please, take him this.” Miriel handed him her latest letter, composed carefully by the two of us. It was scented with her perfume, and I wondered if Wilhelm would take it from the pocket of his doublet when he was out of sight of the room, to breathe in the fragrance. “And tell him…”
“Yes, my Lady?”
“Only that I think of him,” she said lightly. She was caught in the woman’s dilemma, knowing that her love was both ardently desired and yet reviled as weakness. She stared thoughtfully after Wilhelm as he bowed and left.
“You be careful,” I said again, and this time she did not reproach me for it. “If the King knew…” She threw a look at me and then crossed the room swiftly, beckoning me into her bedchamber and ushering Anna out, unceremoniously. We waited until we heard her heavy tread cross the room; Anna had long since stopped trying to listen at doors when we talked, after one or two glares from me.
“The King will not know,” Miriel said, when she was sure we were alone. “And Wilhelm knows as well as anyone what can and cannot be. Whatever foolish feelings he has, he will have to put them aside.” Her face was bland, and I drew closer to her, intrigued.
“You don’t mean that.”
“No,” she agreed pleasantly, “I don’t. I mean to hold him. I mean to take his loyalty, and the loyalty of as many as I can—everyone, if I can. And I mean to keep the King’s heart, too, and his mind, and then it will be me who rules this kingdom and its lords.” She looked straight at me and her deep blue eyes, normally as rich as velvet, were as cold and flat as chips of stone. Whatever love had welled up in her heart as she spoke with Wilhelm, she had pushed it far away.
“You want power?” I asked uncertainly, feeling my way in this conversation.
“Yes. I want power to bend the King and the Council to do what is right for Heddred.” I stared at her: this delicate, pretty half-child. I saw the regal bearing, the determined thrust of her chin, the utter, uncompromising conviction in her eyes, and I had the crazy thought that, in the deepest part of her heart, she wanted to give Wilhelm up. It was some kind of simple magic, a spell that would make the rebellion all the more precious to her, and free her of her own love for him.
I could hardly see her as the same girl who had traveled to court with me years ago. That Miriel was so insubstantial that a puff of wind might have blown her away. She had been a girl of empty ambition, yearning for advancement without knowing why. She had known no true desire of her own. And now her soul had been sharpened against the grindstones of her uncle’s ambition and the court’s spite, she had been forged into something altogether harder and more deadly. Her childhood was wiped away, she had gone cold and found a conviction that they could not touch, could not dim.
And I, too, was unrecognizable. I was forged by her need and our shared danger. I would kill now, I knew how, and I knew I could. Last time I had been able to save us both without using my blades, but I knew without doubt that a time would come when I would not have such a choice. I would have to kill—not only to save her, for those who came after Miriel would come for me, too. The Duke had been true to his word: he had intertwined my fate with Miriel’s. He had laid the groundwork for our alliance. He had set us down the path to become something more, and something less, than two girls.
I wondered if this was how it was for him and Temar. And then I wondered if Miriel and I could ever change back.
“Things could change,” I said. I did not believe it. She might be a child by age alone, but Miriel had seen more of life and pain and fear than most courtiers twice her age. Now she smiled, narrow-eyed, and she looked like her uncle.
“I hope they will change,” she said, deliberately misunderst
anding me. “I hope the great Lords will remember their duties to the people of Heddred. I hope that the King will remember that the powers granted to him are given by the church—and that the church may one day remember that it serves the Gods and not its own wealth. But that won’t happen on its own. The High Priest is turning the church back to its origins, and I am turning the court, and the King. And to do that, I need everyone. And Wilhelm supports the rebellion,” she added. “He’ll be a good ally for that reason alone.”
“You said you wouldn’t do more than writing letters until you were Queen!”
“I might not. But I might have to.”
“No,” I whispered, as much a plea as an accusation. “You said…”
“Don’t reprimand me. You’re on my side,” she reminded me. “You promised.”
“I’m on our side,” I retorted. “You promised. And this puts us both in danger.” I sighed at the look on her face. “You’re not going to give this up, are you?”
“I can’t.” For all that I knew her to be a consummate liar, a woman who could charm and dazzle thought out of any mind, I could not resist the sincerity in her voice. “Catwin, I swear to you, I cannot give this up. It touches my very soul—I feel that this is why I was born to this earth, to help them.” Her steely mask had slipped away, and as I puzzled, trying to see if this was only a quieter, gentler mask, I wavered. She saw my uncertainty.
“Please, Catwin. Can you not see that this is the most honorable cause that anyone could choose to serve? Of all people, I would have expected you to understand. You know that you are no less a person than a noble. You know that you have a mind as sharp, a soul as worthy. Why should nobles rule your life?”
I laughed; I could not help it. “Because I am oath-sworn to protect one of them. And even if not, I am not such a fool as to range myself against those who hold all the power and wealth in the world.”
She turned a hooded gaze on me, as lazy as a bird of prey, ready to strike. “You already have,” she pointed out. “You and I, we are allies to no one but ourselves. We have powerful enemies.”
I wavered again, unsure of myself and cursing my own stupidity. Miriel was a master of twisting an argument, but I had never been the target of her skill before, I could not deny her logic.
“It’s different,” I said uncertainly. “With a court, you can set the players against each other—they’re all working for the same prizes, they’d be glad to see one another fall. But if you fight for this, they’ll band together. This strikes at all of them.”
“We can still set them against each other,” Miriel said confidently. “If we play it right.”
“It’s too risky.” My tried-and-true response.
“Catwin…” Another woman would be frustrated by my refusal of her ideals. Miriel had a gentle, understanding smile. “The idea seems strange, I know. But if you cannot accept this cause yet for its own sake, can you not fight for it for love of me?” The question was so strange to me that even she could see my puzzlement. “You’re the closest to a sister that I have,” she said. “We’re bound to each other, we should work together—why are you smiling?”
“I’ve never had any family,” I admitted. “Only Roine, and I never even called her ‘mother.’ It’s strange to be a sister to someone.”
“We’re not quite sisters.” Miriel tilted her head to the side. “We’re more than that. We’re like sides of a coin.” Even knowing that she would say anything to get her way, I was drawn in.
“You think so?”
“Don’t you?” she countered. “My uncle named you my Shadow, so I am shaped to you just as you are shaped to me. I could not be what I am without you, and you would not be here if not for me. I give you cause to fight, and you caution me—you are my conscience, and I am yours.”
I giggled. “Your assassin is your conscience?” She was not pleased that I had interrupted her grand speech, but smiled despite herself, and then jumped when a knock sounded on the door.
“Catwin?” Temar opened the door and came in. He bowed when he saw Miriel.
“Ah, my Lady, I hope there is no trouble. I hear Lord Wilhelm Conradine was summoned.”
“Yes,” Miriel answered, readily enough. “He carries letters between the King and me. The King’s letters are on the table outside,” she added, gesturing, “if my uncle would like to read them.”
Temar stared at her, and I looked between him and Miriel, as if I might see their mutual dislike made manifest in the air. I had only seen the look in his eyes once before, and then it had been Miriel, staring at her uncle. Temar, too, hated to lose, and he hated Miriel for how easily she evaded his traps. He did not trust her in the slightest, and that made her his enemy. I saw the wedge, now, between Temar and the Duke: the Duke, wanting to believe that he had not made a mistake, wanted so badly to trust me and Miriel both that he did, and Temar thought him a fool for it. Now, Temar only bowed.
“I will ask the Duke,” he said, and he left without even a glance at me. I looked after him, and when I turned back, Miriel was standing with her arms cross and her shoulders tilted. In a moment, I recognized an impression of myself.
“You be careful,” she said, in a near perfect imitation of my reprimand. She had even caught the faint traces of my mountain accent. When I sighed, she smiled sunnily, and sat down at the desk to read.
Chapter 15
And then, just as quickly as Miriel had seen the threat, it all began to come apart for her. The Meeting of the Peacemakers had finished, Kasimir declaring loudly at any opportunity that only honorable allies were good allies, but both Kings doing their best to ignore him. Now the village was set to be deserted, and we were all to pack. When at last the King thought to contact Miriel, it was only a single sentence on a torn bit of parchment.
“What is it?” I asked curiously. Miriel was staring down at the scrap of paper, her face unreadable.
“He says he will see me when we are on the road again,” she pronounced. “He calls his work here a great victory for us both, and assures me that he is working to make my dreams for Heddred a reality.” Her tone made it clear what she thought of his assurances.
Here, I thought, lay the difference between Miriel and the Duke. The Duke gloated in victory, he enjoyed it to the fullest, he was smug when he triumphed. Miriel accepted victory only with a calm that masked relief. Each victory was only a step for her, at best, or more likely another moment of evading her own downfall. And I knew she was afraid: one letter, only, a single sentence in response to the dozen notes she had sent him as we stayed in the village. Was he slipping away, as she feared?
“How are we to meet him, then?” I asked, when a servant had come into the room for her trunk of clothing and then hauled it away.
“He will take a servant’s clothes and come to my tent.”
“Anyone could listen in,” I said at once.
“Well, you make sure He doesn’t,” Miriel said simply. I did not need to ask who she meant. There was only one man she was so wary of.
“He’ll hear it all, one way or another. Be sure of it. Especially after Wilhelm visited. He’s waiting to catch you out at something and take tales back to the Duke.”
“You can’t stop him?” she challenged.
“I could, but not without him knowing I did,” I explained. I lowered my voice, superstitiously afraid that he would know we were talking about him and come to check on us. “We don’t want this fight yet, do we?”
“Well, you don’t,” she said pointedly. I ignored her.
“Watch your words,” I told her. She accepted the advice without complaint and drifted out into the main room, where the servants were carrying away every bit of luxury we had brought with us, to be packed into the Duke’s cart. Some would be missing when we returned, I knew, and the guard stationed at the village would be unable to keep the servants from taking anything they could lay their hands on to sell: relics of the Meeting of the Peacemakers.
The minor nobles, those without t
heir own estates, were already petitioning the crown to be allowed the buy the beautiful mansions. They would form their own enclave, rent out the inns, and rake in the sort of wealth that the higher nobles deplored.
As the week was drawing to a close, I saw the courtiers move through the village with drawn faces. They did not want to return home, where their entertainments were only draperies in the great hall, the dancing of men and maids they saw every day, dinners cooked by the same chefs. They wanted the fireworks and elaborate sets and glittering masquerades never to end. This was a magical place, where a courtier or a councilor could forget that the battles of the world forged onward. Life outside was filled with woes.
Of the courtiers, it was the King’s Councilors who fretted the most. Like Miriel, they had been locked out of the long discussions between Garad and Dusan. They and Dusan’s councilors circled each other warily, all suspecting the rest of knowing some vital scrap of information. They knew that decisions were being made, and treaties, and trade agreements—all the business of the realm that had been mismanaged, to great profit, by the nobles. They had controlled it since time immemorial, and now the King managed it himself. They could no longer claim credit for it, nor reap the profits. All they could do was wait to see how the dice had fallen, and they feared it—every one of them had something to lose.
“You had better hold his heart still,” the Duke had said, ominously, to Miriel. She did not betray by a single flicker that she was afraid of the King’s love slipping away. She only smiled.
“You saw his letters,” she replied. “I hold his heart, and when I am back in his eye, I will enchant him as I always have done.” Her voice was controlled, but I could hear her uncertainty. We rode in silence on the road back home, and on the first night, as we were waiting for the King’s arrival, she said to me,
“I have to change the rules.” She was staring into the brazier, watching the coals shift. The nights were cold on the plains, and even wrapped in furs, she was shivering. She did not seem to notice. “I have been too sweet.”
Shadowforged (Light & Shadow) Page 14