by Karen Nilsen
Finally she reached out and snuffed the candle between her fingers. "Love, you have a witch in your bed. Don't you want to find out what makes me fly?"
Her laugh was low and throaty in the dark as I grabbed her to me and kissed her hard, a drowning man.
Chapter Ten--Mordric
The manservant escorted me into Prince Segar's private receiving chamber, a long, paneled room down the hall from Merius's chamber. "His Highness will join you presently, sir," he said. "Is there anything you require?"
I waved him away and pulled my pipe out of my pocket as I went over to the side table with its line of tobacco jars and decanters. Stuffing the pipe bowl with weed from the prince's fine selection, I plucked a candle from the mantel and drew a quick breath as the flame took. Then I sank into the leather cushion of the settle, inhaling the warm smoke until I could inhale no more. The door creaked open. I glanced up--it was Cyril of Somners, my dead wife Arilea‘s first cousin.
"Mordric." Cyril's nod was stiff as he sat on the chair across from me. A gaunt sort with a bilious temper, he was red-faced today under his neatly trimmed gray beard and moustache. That was what came of too much honesty--lifelong indigestion.
“Cyril.” I nodded in return and blew smoke in his direction.
“Has Merius drafted the proposal to raise the tariff on the shipments of our wheat to the SerVerin Empire? Both Prince Segar and King Arian asked about it this morning.”
“He’s roughed it out, more or less--he lacks the conviction for it that he had at council, and he doubts himself too much to finish it properly.”
“Why? It’s a good proposal.” Cyril sounded almost indignant.
“Why? Because of you and your idealism. He’s listened to your harangues about cutting off all trade with the SerVerin Empire so long that he thinks we single-handedly caused the SerVerin slave trade when we sold a loaf of bread to Emperor Tetwar.”
“Our merchants’ willingness to trade with those southern slave mongers sends an unspoken message we support trafficking in human flesh.”
“Get off your high horse, Cyril. Our merchants‘ willingness to trade earns Cormalen coffers of coin--and nothing else. Those slaves you‘re so concerned about would starve without Cormalen wheat. Your own tenants would suffer without a strong wheat market.”
“The merchants’ trade of the wheat from our and other nobles’ estates doesn’t earn Cormalen any coin--it earns the merchants more coin. You want to see knaves like Peregrine prosper off the backs of our tenants?”
“Not all the merchants are like Peregrine. You only think so because you’ve alienated the entire merchant contingent at court with your impolitic posturing.” I crossed my arms, watching him through a haze of smoke. “Some of the merchants are honest, like Devons, but whether they’re honest or dishonest, they all have a great deal of coin, which means they have a great deal of power. If we nobles expect to maintain supremacy at court and in our provinces, we‘d best be more subtle. Your idiocy makes no enemies except among your allies. Threatening the merchants' precious SerVerin market for our wheat with an embargo? I could have jammed my spurs down your principled throat. If Merius hadn't distracted Devons with the wheat tariff and you had persisted, we might have lost the council to the merchants then and there."
"The merchants are still several votes shy."
"Don't count on it. Some of the lesser nobles are so indebted to men like Peregrine they'll piss in the king's cup if the merchants tell them to," I said.
"Sometimes it's wise to use your blunt edge in a duel--it saves the sharp side for when you need it."
"It sounds like you need a new blade, Cyril. I won't let Merius act as your second again. Next time could be lethal to his career."
"That irritates you, doesn't it? The fact that he refuses to be your mouthpiece irritates you. Of course," and here he shrugged, "I suppose all fathers have the same arrogance."
"At least Merius hasn't forgotten his duties at council and defected to the king's guard." Cyril's only son was a captain in the king's guard.
"Give him time, Mordric. Anyone with scruples couldn't last long as your son. Or your wife."
I took a long draw on my pipe. "Strange. The honorable House of Somners didn't seem so concerned with scruples when your father rushed to betroth his niece Arilea to me, a wealthy, influential Landers. I don't remember you making any objections yourself. Hypocrisy never hurt your career, did it?"
"Fork-tongued snake . . ." Cyril began to rise, his face red.
At that instant, the manservant opened the door. "His Highness, Prince Segar," he announced.
Cyril and I looked at each other. "We already fought one duel," he said quietly. "Neither of us can afford to make it two."
It would not do for the prince to see us on the verge of throttling each other. As the two highest ranking nobles at court, Cyril and I had to present a unified front to the rest of the council if the nobility was to keep control. Divided, we accomplished nothing and gave the merchants the power to topple us. The whole court knew of our duel. However, as long as we smiled with gritted teeth and pretended agreement on council matters, no upstart merchant would likely challenge our positions.
"Your Highness." I rose, removing the pipe from my mouth.
He sniffed. "Your pipe--Sarneth long leaf?"
"Yes. From your own collection, actually."
"Do you find it has a richer taste than the short leaf?"
"That depends how it's cured. I find the best place for it is the shop by the river."
"The shop with the thatched roof?" When I nodded, he continued, "That’s the only shop I'll let my steward buy from. Good man--he knows his trade." He cleared his throat and perched on the edge of an armchair, his jeweled sword at an awkward angle as he braced his elbows on his knees.
Cyril and I sat as well, settling back in our seats. It sometimes took Segar awhile to find his point, which explained why councils had become so long in the last few years.
"Mordric, Cyril," he began finally. "As my most trusted advisors . . ." Blathering dolt--he wasn't even skilled at flattery. Or spying. The letter Eden had pilfered from his chamber the other day had revealed his ineptitude with court intrigue. Bribing the bishop for secrets of the confessional? A prince should have more subtlety, having been reared in the shadow of the throne. Of course, his father King Arian's throne didn't cast that long of a shadow and neither had his grandfather's. The only reason the royal House of Ewing was still in power was everyone's desire to avoid the disruption of civil war. One bad harvest or too many ships lost in a tempest or an overly ambitious noble, and the royal family would be royal no more. I crossed my arms, wondering about Merius's claim to the throne. It could be a solid claim--both the Landers and the Somners had ancient kings in their bloodlines.
"So," the prince was saying, "Before we threaten to raise the wheat tariff, we should determine what the SerVerin reaction will be. Explosive if mishandled."
"But of course, Your Highness." Cyril sounded surprised, as if he wondered at the fact the prince might have considered otherwise. He had never been adept at keeping a poker face, one of his few useful weaknesses.
"That should be simple enough," I said. "Just don't have our ambassador flush out the SerVerinese. Find someone else for the job."
"But our ambassador to the SerVerin Empire is the obvious choice to approach Emperor Tetwar . . ." Cyril began.
"Exactly. That's why we don't want to use our ambassador. He's obvious. Tetwar will know something's up if our ambassador mentions the tariff. We want to dumbfound Tetwar, not give him advance warning of our plans."
"Maybe a merchant then? A merchant would have reason to mention the tariff." Cyril was a trifle sarcastic. "Of course, what merchant gets audience with the SerVerin emperor?"
"I can think of one."
"Peregrine?"
"Why not? Tetwar trusts him, considers him one of their smugglers."
"That's because he is. There's been rumors of him smuggling ca
nnon powder to the Empire since he took over the House of Bara from his father," Cyril sputtered. "If I had the proof, he'd be off the council."
"Why not use him instead? He's in an advantageous position."
Cyril shook his head. "How would you control the man? He's completely untrustworthy."
"Leave that to me."
Prince Segar watched us through this entire exchange, eyes wide. He rarely consulted us both at the same time, and I wondered if he was regretting it. "Cyril, you're right. Peregrine has the capacity to betray us."
"That's what you want for this sort of work. If he didn't have the capacity to betray us, he wouldn't have the emperor's ear."
"But how do you propose to handle him, Mordric? This is a delicate matter. One step wrong, and we lose the advantage of the tariff and possibly the entire SerVerin market."
"Simple blackmail can work miracles, even with a scoundrel." I smiled grimly at their sudden silence. I had used the forbidden words--blackmail and bribery were a fact of court life, but few were so ill-bred to mention this fact aloud. I really was getting old.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
When I opened my chamber door, a stack of letters blocked it. I kicked them aside with a muttered oath as I went over to the window seat. There I unlaced my shoes, removing them and lining them up with the other pairs under the wardrobe. The boots Randel had polished yesterday stood beside it like sentinels awaiting orders. I grabbed them and braced myself against the bedpost as I tugged them on.
"Come in," I grunted at the knock at the door.
"Going riding, sir?" Randel asked as he entered the room.
"Yes. Is Merius about?" I straightened, testing the boots. It seemed the cobbler had made them a shade too tight. Of course, they were new enough to creak when I walked, so maybe the leather would stretch with time.
"I saw him this morning." Randel's tone was stiff.
I gave him a sharp glance. "And?"
"You won't be pleased, sir."
"Spit it out, man--I haven't all day."
"The girl I mentioned yesterday--she's Safire of Long Marsh, the Lady Dagmar's younger sister. Warden said she spent the night in Sir Merius's chamber."
Somehow, my feet took me to the window. I stared out at the courtyard below, at the mud from last night's rain baking in the noonday sun. "Thrice-damned fool," I growled, fingernails digging into palms. The barmaids had been bad enough. If he had just tumbled them, that would have been one thing. I had tumbled wenches in my day. But Merius didn't just tumble them. He wrote poems about them, picked flowers for them, got into fights over them. He had almost eloped with one a few years ago. At least, however, an elopement with a barmaid could be annulled. Taking the maidenhead of a nobleman's virgin daughter was something else altogether. There were highbred courtesans like Eden, but the Long Marsh minx, despite her sharp tongue and unwomanly ways, was definitely not a courtesan. The first man who plucked this particular plum had better marry her, or he would lose all semblance of honor. This particular plum, with her twice-mended dresses, her pitiful dowry, her lack of connections. Hell, her father hadn't even sired a son--the House of Long Marsh died with him. A Long Marsh match with Dagmar was fine for Selwyn, who would have no career at court. But Merius . . .
Randel cleared his throat. "There's more, sir."
"What?" I took a deep breath.
"Merius went into the city this morning. Remembering your orders, I followed him. He's bought her a ring."
"Damn him. And I could have gotten him the king's niece.” Pain shot through my temples. “Damn him.” Randel started to pick up the letters, setting them on the desk. "Leave it," I told him. "I'll answer them later."
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
The sword still fit my hand as if it had been forged yesterday. I slashed the sunlit air of the salon a few times, dust motes scattering in all directions. It had been a fortnight since I had even drawn it from the scabbard, a sorry lapse for a former wartime commander. Randel kept it oiled and ready, but it seemed time for practice came less and less these days. Merius, of course, was down here almost everyday. Everyday that he wasn't busy seducing daughters of the sparrow nobility. I charged at the practice dummy, raining blows on its padded gray shoulders.
"Waste of a fine blade," Herrod the king’s guard commander remarked behind me.
"Would you rather I waste it on you?"
Chuckling, he selected a blunt-edged practice sword from the master-at-arm's table. "Does an old dog still know any tricks worth learning?"
"Does an insolent whelp have the mettle to find out?" I sheathed my rapier and picked up a sword from the table, testing the weight. There were wooden swords for regular drills, but neither Herrod nor I used them. They never seemed to have the proper balance. Metal practice swords, even with their blunted points and edges, were more dangerous than wooden ones, but by the same token were more likely to inspire the proper respect for a real blade. I had not allowed Merius to use a wooden sword after he was twelve for that very reason.
We moved to the center of the room and saluted each other. Then, with a sudden flash of silver as his blade caught the afternoon sun, he lunged. I moved too slowly, my sword edge catching the full force of the blow. Bracing myself, I immediately shifted and aimed the point at his shoulder. It made contact, and he retreated, side-stepped, and then lunged with an oath. This time I was ready and leapt backwards, blocking him. The blades hit with the harsh ring of steel. I pretended another thrust to his shoulder, and he parried instantly, leaving his lower torso open. I got in my second hit.
"If this was a battle, the old dogs would be feasting with the carrion fowl," I said.
Herrod laughed. "Ah--the battle may be yours, graybeard, but the war will be mine."
We circled each other, sudden, staccato clashes followed by taut silences. The way the sunlight slanted over the stone floor, the salty tingle of sweat, the hiss of the metal on metal, the terse repartee, the intricate maneuvers, the practice swords--all haunted me. Herrod had never been my pupil, but it seemed suddenly as if he had. And then I remembered. Merius--this was like teaching Merius the finer points of swordplay in the long front room at Landers Hall. It was the summer after he turned thirteen, before he began his education at court, and I hadn't trusted anyone but myself to train him properly. He was always too headstrong and clever for his tutors at Landers Hall, readily getting out of his lessons to ride or hunt or build one of his innumerable projects.
The projects had brought me home from court more than once--his dam flooded the bottom half of the Rivers' fields, his bear snare caught his friend Gerard of Casian, his experimental oil lamp exploded, burning the roof off an abandoned outbuilding. This last was the main reason he had started a year early at the court academy where I could keep an eye on him and teach him some discipline, not an easy lesson for Merius. Not like the sword. Of all the things I had tried to teach him, he learned the sword most eagerly, perhaps because it was the one time he could strike me and not get killed for it.
No, there was no way my brother Gaven had sired him--Gaven had been merely an adequate swordsman, but Merius could be a master. I stepped forward then and met Herrod's descending sword with a solid parry. Before he could retreat, I instantly flicked my blade out. It hit the center of his chest hard, harder than I had intended. He fell back.
"I surrender," he gasped, throwing down his sword as he reached for the buttons of his jerkin.
"I apologize. I'm used to dueling with masters."
His eyes were narrow under bristling black brows. "There’s a rumor that you piss vinegar. God, what a mean son of a bitch." He unlaced his shirt and examined the damage.
"Didn't crack a rib, did I?"
"Don't sound so hopeful. You're too old to hit that hard," he said cheerfully, lacing his shirt back up. "Just a bruise. A few bruises in practice makes for lives saved in battle."
"Your father used to say that." I straightened the practice swords so that they lined up in perfect parallels on the cloth surface of the
table.
"My father also said you were a faithless cur for not renewing your commission after the war, that you were too skilled a fighter to sit on council and send others to battle."
"I had a duty to fill the Landers council seat and offices." A duty my hangdog brother refused to fit himself for.
"Is Merius as devoted to duty as you?"
"Why do you ask?"
Herrod looked at his feet. "The prince has tied my hands on this Marennese affair. I can only take a thousand men, not nearly enough."
"It's only a campaign against a few slave traders, Herrod, not a war."
"If we don't want it to become a war, we need archers and swordsmen. Merius is both."
I began to shake my head. "He's my only son. He's needed here."
"He wouldn't have to join the king's guard, just be a recruit for the length of the campaign."
"But . . ." I began, a sudden thought occurring to me. "Tell me honestly, Herrod," I continued finally. "How long will this campaign take?"
He shrugged. "With passage there and back, four or five months. His Majesty wants us to daunt the slave traders, not conquer the whole SerVerin force."
Five months. A lot could happen in five months. In five months, a young man might lose his hunger for a wanton witch after tasting the bitter fruit of war. In five months, that same wanton witch, bored with waiting, might marry another. The one thing I was sure of is that I couldn't let on to Merius that I'd found out about Safire; he knew I'd be displeased and likely marry her on the spot just to spite me. Now, after Merius left on the campaign, I could reason with Safire. A girl opportunistic enough to risk her reputation and seduce a higher-ranking man into marriage could likely be persuaded to relinquish her hold on him. It just required the right kind of persuasion.