“Ah.” The glint became more pronounced. “You know nothing, then.”
“Either Rabbit’s parents didn’t speak about why they left Iversterre, Your Majesty,” Suiden said, “or he paid little attention. He hadn’t known they’d been forced to leave Iversterre until Vice Admiral Havram ibn Chause mentioned it during our voyage to the Border last spring.”
True. And I’d been very surprised when Uncle Havram had said how he had told my da’s and his eldest brother, Lord Maceal of Chause, not to let my parents be driven out of Iversterre. But that was nothing compared to my shock now.
“Who?” I asked, catching up to Mearden.
“I see,” Jusson said to Suiden. The king watched Cais pour more tea into his cup, then sat up, reaching for the honey and milk. “It’s a long and not very edifying story, Rabbit, in which no one shines,” he said. “But it does have all the stuff of high-drama: star-crossed lovers, ambitious Houses, ruthless rulers.”
I finally arrived at the same place everyone else was in the conversation. “Rulers?” I asked, my eyes wide on the king.
Jusson gave a sharp-edged smile. “Not me, Cousin. Our mother the queen was alive and very well then.” Holding his teacup, he leaned back and took a sip. “Haven’t you wondered why, out of all the Great Houses, I chose you as my heir? As has been said again and again, there are plenty of other, less controversial choices.”
Actually, I hadn’t. When Jusson had latched onto me there were a lot more pressing things happening at the time—assassination attempts, the rebellion, plus the threat of another devastating war with the Border. And hovering over all of that was the fact that Iversterre itself had changed. Claiming God’s holy right, the humans had come and thrust the fae out, but living where the People had once lived, where fae bones and ashes were mixed in the very soil, had caused Iversterre’s citizenry to become the very thing they’d declared anathema. It had made Jusson’s progression through his kingdom interesting with stonings, hangings and burnings, and other forms of rampant hysteria.
But though I’d not listened much to my parents’ tales of growing up in Iversterre, I did know about our family’s close relationship to the king. “My lines to the House of Iver, sire,” I said.
“Which are very impressive,” Jusson agreed. “Thirty-two on Chause’s side and forty on Flavan’s. There are duplicates, but take them away and you still have sixty-four—much more than anyone else. What would’ve happened, though, if your parents hadn’t married each other? If Hilga eso Flavan had not become Hilga Flavan e Chause?”
The idea of my parents not being together was like trying to imagine rain falling up. It was impossible. I stared blank-faced at Jusson while my hand went to the ash-wood staff leaning against my chair.
Captain Javes took pity on me. “Another House would’ve acquired those lines, Rabbit. Or at least the ones they didn’t already have.”
“It would’ve also meant that Chause would not have had Flavan’s,” Thadro said. “The Houses maneuver not only for their own advantage, but to deny others the same.”
Jusson nodded. “All Houses, Cousin, including the royal one. Marriages between nobles have to be approved by the throne and many times permission has been denied because of the potentially dangerous concentration of lines in one House. Our mother the queen was not happy when she found out that Rafe and Hilga had secretly wed. And she became even more unhappy when she also discovered that Hilga was already with child.”
My grip tightened on the staff while my other hand crept to my robe pocket where the feather and knife were as I realized what Jusson had just revealed—not about the timing of my eldest sister’s conception. That was minor, to be put away and mulled over in private. But why my parents left Iversterre … “Who was my mother supposed to marry?” I asked hoarsely, veering away from the quagmire of my da and pregnant ma fleeing an angry queen.
“It was the scandal of the year,” Jusson said. “I was still in the navy and had been a-sea fighting pirates and keeping Tural from encroaching on our waters. I remember returning to jokes on the docks, songs in the taverns, street-players’ dramas in the squares, and whispers behind gloved hands and painted fans at balls and soirees about how Lady Hilga had jilted Idwal of Mearden in favor of her lover, Rafe ibn Chause. However, in breaking her troth, Lady Hilga not only incurred our mother’s considerable wrath, but she also caused Mearden to suffer serious harm in both the loss of her very substantial dowry and of the lines that would’ve allowed Mearden to rise from a middling House to a Great one.” Jusson tapped the dispatches before him. “They have now asked that harm be redressed. By you, Cousin.”
“But I don’t have anything.” While a grandson of one Great House, a nephew of another, and cousin and heir of the king, all I had was my soldier’s pay. And I didn’t think what savings I’d managed to put aside would appease Mearden, no matter how middling their House.
“Yes, you do,” Jusson contradicted. “You have all those lines. And they have a marriageable daughter.”
“Welcome to the aristocracy, Rabbit,” Javes murmured into my stunned silence.
“I don’t even know her,” I began, panic setting in.
Jusson smiled. “What does that have to do with anything?”
“Bloody everything, I should think!”
“It didn’t with my parents,” Jusson said. “They’d met only twice before their wedding.”
“They did?” Suiden asked, his green eyes bright. “When I married I had to wait until the wedding itself. For each of my three wives.”
Jusson, Javes, Thadro, and I all paused, sliding looks at the captain.
Suiden’s eyes grew brighter. “Political marriages, Your Majesty. Ones the amir has long since dissolved.”
“You terrify me, Captain Prince,” Jusson said. “Do not worry, Rabbit. When the time comes, I shall require that you take only one wife.”
“You’ll require, Your Majesty?” I squeaked.
“Of course.” A winged brow rose. “Unless you have a calling for Holy Orders and wish to enter the Church—?”
A knock on the door sounded over my gasps for breath. Jusson, frowning, gestured at Cais and the majordomo opened it to reveal Freston’s garrison commander. I wheeled my panicked stare to Commander Ebner and he checked at the door.
“Are we too soon, Your Majesty?” Ebner asked. “Should we come back?”
“No,” Jusson sighed, his frown easing as he glanced at the lightening gloom outside the window. “It’s time for my day to start.”
The garrison commander entered the parlor, followed by various folks all in some official form or another, including the Keeper of the King’s Peace and the town doyen. Ebner looked tired—even a little haggard—and I figured he was getting scant rest in all the activity. His gaze was naturally fixed on Jusson and the senior officers, but Peacekeeper Chadde and Doyen Dyfrig both cast glances at me. Chadde gave me a calm nod, the newly etched truth run on her hand softly glowing in the increasingly unnecessary candlelight. Dyfrig’s young-again face wore a distant expression, his stare shuttered. However, it was the same one he’d been giving me the past several days and I easily ignored it, just as I ignored the looks of wide-eyed awe on the others’ faces.
“We will talk again later, Rabbit,” Jusson said, reclaiming my attention. His eyes dropped to my half-eaten food. “I’ll have Mistress Inga prepare you another plate.”
I searched for something, anything to say, but my mind was blank. “Sire,” I began anyway.
“You’re dismissed, Lieutenant,” Thadro, Ebner, and Suiden all said at the same time, while Javes lifted his brows at me.
“Yes, sirs,” I murmured, yielding. With a bow at Jusson, I exited the parlor, vaguely acknowledging greetings as I passed by others still streaming into the room. I must’ve climbed the stairs, for I found myself at my bedchamber door. My nighttime guards were gone and I gave my door what I thought was a normal push, but it flew open and hit the wall with a loud thud. The room was filled
with light, with candles and a renewed fire crackling in the fireplace augmenting the gray predawn sky showing through the opened shutters.
It was also a room filled with people. My roommates must not have lingered in bed after I’d left with Suiden; Jeff was shaved, Arlis’ goatee trimmed and oiled, and both dressed in their blue and white royal guard uniforms, while Laurel’s tawny pelt was smoothed and all his beads and feathers were attached. They stood with the Enchanter Wyln at the fireplace, the butterflies lined up on the mantelpiece, all turning at my crashing entrance, Arlis looking impatient, Jeff in midgesture as if he were in the middle of a long explanation.
“Is everything all right, my lord?”
I looked to see Finn at the rickety washstand, his round head and diminutive frame closely resembling Cais’—which was not surprising as he was the majordomo’s nephew. The servant had been busy: our beds were made and he was now about to pour hot steaming water from a copper can into a ewer. A stack of fresh towels rested on the cracked countertop on one side of the bowl, while on the other side was my shaving kit, and over on my made bed was my own uniform carefully laid out.
“No,” I said. “Everything’s not all right.”
“Did the dispatches contain bad news, Two Trees’son?” Wyln asked from the fireplace.
“No,” I said again. I stalked to my bed and flung myself down, not caring that I was crushing my starched and pressed tabard. Outside, a bird trilled. It sounded like the same damned one I heard downstairs. I scowled at the window, feeling persecuted.
“Why are you so upset, then?” Laurel asked.
I transferred my glare to the cat, but he calmly stared back, his tail idly waving as he waited. Sighing, I slumped down.
“I’m doomed.”
Three
We left Freston four days later. It was an impressive leave-taking. We started in the town’s main square at first light, all of us who were going mounted on our horses, our colors waving in the morning breeze. The troopers from the garrison were also a-horse in glittering armored ranks while town watchmen stood at attention in oiled leathers, short swords at their sides, with townspeople crowded into the leftover spaces. Each and every one had their faces turned to the steps of the town hall where Jusson went through the ceremony of turning the town over to the interim government—which, until a new governor was appointed, consisted of Commander Ebner and a few of the local gentry. (While the former town officials hadn’t been involved in the mayor and head merchant’s sorcery and rebellion, they had been steeped in enough malfeasance that Jusson suggested that all should retire from public life. For their health. And for their health, they agreed.)
The usual speeches were happening about the dawn of a new era with peace and prosperity around the corner, and my attention drifted. The square still showed signs of the desperate battle we’d fought there a short time before. There was fire damage on many of the buildings, the square’s paving stones were cracked and broken traps for the unwary, and the church … Doyen Dyfrig, along with a couple of other doyens and a gaggle of church clerks from the town of Cosdale to the south, had purified the inside, but the outside remained battered and scarred, the blasted-open double doors still off their hinges. They were propped up against each other with twined boughs of hazel and rowan fastened to their frames to ward off any malign influences that might wander by.
And though innocuous-looking in the bright morning light, I still found myself casting glances at the small side street that led from the square to the charnel house. Dyfrig and his fellow churchmen had also descended upon the small stone building, but last I’d reluctantly seen, it too remained in a state of disrepair. I reckoned that there was no rush to fix it as it’d be a long time before any of the townsfolk would use it to again house their dead.
Adjusting my cloak against the fall chill, I returned my gaze to Jusson. Despite the king’s stated intention, we hadn’t spoken again about my proposed nuptials. I didn’t know if that was by design or happenstance; the last few days had been busy for everyone, including me. As I was acting as the lord commander’s second, the logistics of royal travel fell into my lap and I was swamped with baggage trains, duty rotas, and other items of interest. I wasn’t too busy to worry, though, when Thadro told me our destination:
Mearden.
“A loyal subject of the realm has invited His Majesty to his home,” Thadro had said, his blue-gray eyes bright. “Of course we’re going.”
As he was my commanding officer, I pressed my lips firmly together to hold back the words clamoring to get out. But I hadn’t been so reticent with Wyln and Laurel. The morning the offer had arrived, they listened intently as I repeated what the king said about my mother’s broken troth and the demand for redress.
“Interesting,” Laurel said when I’d finished.
“Glad you think so,” I said, still sitting on the bed, crushing my uniform. The butterflies had moved from the mantelpiece to my shoulder, but for the first time their weight didn’t connect me to the earth. Then, I hadn’t been feeling connected to much of anything for a while.
“It is interesting,” Wyln said. “Eorl Idwal may have been good enough for your mother; you as the heir of Jusson Iver’son can look much higher for a wife.”
“That’s also very comforting, honored Cyhn,” I muttered. I glanced at Jeff and Arlis, standing a little apart. There was a slight frown on Arlis’ face, which I supposed was an improvement over the blank expression he’d wore over the past couple of weeks. However, I’d expected Jeff to make my immediate life lively with snickers and comments, but he too was silent, his face unreadable.
“It should be, Two Trees’son,” Wyln said, reclaiming my attention. “As should be the fact that, as the Fyrst’s declared son, you have access to all lineages allied with His Grace.”
During the same journey to the Border last spring, Loran the Fyrst discovered not only that Jusson was his many times great-grandson, but also that I was closely related to the dark elf king. Next I knew, I was annexed by His Grace and handed over to his brother-in-law Wyln for fosterage. But this was the first I heard about the Fyrst being interested in my potential descendants.
My spine stiffened. “But I’m human!” I blurted.
Wyln gave a gentle smile, his eyes bright with flames. “And what does that have to do with anything?”
I opened my mouth but nothing came out.
“Wouldn’t Rabbit’s marriage also have to be presented to the Dark Elves Council?” Laurel asked Wyln.
“As His Grace is the Oldest One of the Gaderian á Doerc Oelfs, all his family alliances have to be approved,” Wyln agreed. “Just as my marriage was approved by the Gaderian, His Grace, the temple priests, my cyhn, and my parents.”
I remained silent—partly out of dazed shock of the list of hoops Wyln had to jump through to get married, but mostly because the enchanter’s wife and children had been killed in the first wave of wars between human and fae. While that had been several centuries ago, elves had different ideas than the shorter-lived races on what constituted the recent past, especially when that past included the despised human kingdom. (The northern elfin clans still read their death rolls from the wars on their holy days.) From comments Wyln had made from time to time, his grief was sharp and fresh.
There was nothing of grief and loss, however, in Wyln’s amused expression.
“Joining is too important to leave to those least likely to be objective,” Laurel said, once more stepping into my silence. “When the time is appropriate, my sisters will choose my mate.”
I found my voice. “Your sisters,” I said.
“Yes,” Laurel said absently. He ran a claw through the fur on his chin, his shifting ears causing his wood beads to clack. “Since you are important to both the Border and Iversterre, I wouldn’t be surprised if the High Council would also want a say in any proposed union.”
I closed my eyes, thinking that maybe if I ran away and joined a traveling menagerie, no one would find me.
“True,” Wyln agreed once more. “Something to discuss with Iver’son.”
Now, four days later, I glanced at Wyln sitting on his horse beside me in the square, the sword he wielded in the demon fight worn across his back. If he or Laurel had managed to speak with Jusson, neither had told me about it. The fire enchanter looked pensive as he listened to the king. At first I thought he was engrossed in Jusson’s speech; then I realized that he too was surveying the square. As was Laurel, standing next to my horse. The cat’s eyes were aimed at the bottom of the town hall steps where he had been killed by a crossbow quarrel. It was also where he had returned from the dead.
Then, a whole lot of folks had been killed and then resurrected. Including my old troop mate. At that thought, I turned my head to where Jeff sat on his horse behind me—and met a gaze that was as shuttered as any Doyen Dyfrig had given me over the last week. I frowned.
“What’s wrong—”
There was a blare of trumpets and, breaking off, I faced forward again to see Jusson, done with speechifying, descend the steps to mount his horse, his armor and thin gold circlet of his battle helm ablaze in the sunlight. His standard bearers whipped out in front of him and, with the king’s banner held high, the column began to move. Exiting the square through facing rows of the mounted troopers presenting arms, we went on a procession through Freston to let the cheering crowds get a good look at us. It was a long column, full of pomp and pageantry as we wound our way through the town to the newly reopened Eastgate, where, through the miracle of side streets, the garrison commander Ebner, Peacekeeper Chadde, the newly appointed town elders, garrison soldiers, and watchmen awaited us. There were a few symbolic bricks in the gateway waiting removal and a familiar portable altar was set up by the gate with an equally familiar chest. But it wasn’t presided over by Dyfrig. He had left before daybreak in a much smaller procession, the town doyen-turned-mage going to meet with the senior clergy at the Patriarch’s See in the Royal City, accompanied by a sizable contingent of Own as he carried not only the artifacts and devices found in the sorcerous mayor’s possession to be given into the keeping of the See, but also a casket of cursed gold and jewels to be delivered into the keeping of the Banson River at an appropriately deep spot. Mistress Gwynedd was included in the entourage, in the hopes that the same senior clergy could help the broken-minded street player—and if they couldn’t, at least keep her safe from further demonic incursions.
Shadows Past: A Borderlands Novel Page 3