“We may be a bachelor, Mearden,” Jusson remarked, “but even we know that kisses aren’t going to sweeten your marriage bed any time soon.”
“I’ll deal with it when I have to,” Idwal said, placing the candle on a ledge of one of the nearby cabinets.
“So you shall,” Jusson said. “And while you do, we too shall retire to our chambers.” He straightened, and once more headed for the door. However, Idwal didn’t move aside, and Jusson stopped, his other brow rising.
“Believe it or not, Your Majesty, when I suggested a union between Lord Rabbit and my daughter—”
“ ‘Suggested’?” Jusson asked.
“Yes, well …” Idwal shrugged. “What I had in mind was more conciliatory.”
“Reconciliation, Idwal?” Jusson murmured. “There’s an idea. Tired of living out here in the wilds?”
“It’s not good to be on the outs with one’s king,” Idwal said.
“Things have been rather rocky since our royal mother died,” Jusson agreed, his expression not changing. All around me, though, there were knowing looks and smirks on the aristos’ faces. Even Thadro’s mouth quirked up in a half smile that had little to do with humor.
Idwal either didn’t notice or didn’t care. “It would’ve been a whole lot rockier if Her Majesty hadn’t put certain protections in place, ceded my House certain rights.”
“Your House had nothing to do with that,” Jusson said. “Nor with the fact that you have damn near a mini-kingdom here, with the rest of the realm receiving very little benefit from your busy and prosperous harbor. A harbor on which we cannot levy one copper without your approval.”
“I do enjoy more freedom than other Houses,” Idwal agreed. “However, perhaps it’s time those rights and protections return to the throne.”
“So you’re just doing me a favor?” Jusson asked.
“It would be a favor to us all,” Idwal said. “You regain your royal prerogatives over my holdings and I gain assurances for my family.”
“Assurances?” Thadro put in. “From what?”
“That’s the question, isn’t it?” Jusson said.
“He has short-weighted the Qarant and now wants protection, Your Majesty,” Suiden said, and there was another round of humorless smiles.
“No, no,” Idwal said. “It’s just that Berenice has no brothers to protect her when I and her mother are gone, no husband to see to her interests. In asking Lord Rabbit here, I’d hoped a union could be made where she’d be settled with someone who could be her protector, her shield. But what you brought me is someone who’s a danger to himself and everyone else around him, someone who doesn’t have the sense to know when he’s in danger. In essence, a fool—”
“Careful, Mearden,” Jusson said lightly. “Rabbit isn’t nearly as stupid as you think.”
“Far from it,” Suiden said.
Idwal cast me a derisive look. “I admit when I first saw him, I was shocked at how close he resembled his grandfather Lord Alain and I’d begun to hope that perhaps he’d inherited his grandfather’s intelligence too, but apparently all he knows how to do is wear gewgaws and pretty clothes and run headlong into trouble—”
“So, how long were you and the queen lovers, my lord?” I asked.
Idwal stopped midsneer as laughter broke out, dark and heavy.
“For some time,” Thadro said. “Queen Herleve liked them young.” He then broke off, a surprised look on his face. But Jusson merely gave a sharp-edged smile.
“So she did, Thadro,” he said. “But even more so our mother worshipped greatly at the altar of the end justifying the means.” He cocked his head. “How does it feel to have been merely a means to further her ends, Mearden?”
“We both wanted the same thing,” Idwal said. “Iversterre strong and prosperous.”
That sounded familiar. I briefly wondered if Laurel had disappeared because of any machinations the Faena had set in motion. However, that did not explain Captain Javes’ and Mab’s courtiers’ disappearance.
“So what’s good for you is good for the kingdom?” Jusson asked.
“In a broad sense, yes, Your Majesty,” Idwal said.
“Was my mother a reward for good behavior?” I asked, my gaze hard on Idwal.
“No,” Jusson said before Idwal could. “Mearden did that on his own, sure that our mother would not object. He was right, but not because of their past relationship. She was confident that she could control both the marriage and whatever resulted from it.” He shrugged. “She most likely would’ve too.”
“My courtship of your mother was sincere,” Idwal said to me quietly.
“And of course her lines to the throne meant nothing,” Jusson said.
“Of course they meant something,” Idwal said. “If only as a legacy to pass to our children.”
“Which she did,” Jusson pointed out. “Just not your children.” He picked up the candle from the cabinet ledge. The flickering light once more gave his face a dark cast, made all the more worrisome by the way his gold eyes blazed with cold anger. “But this is moot. There will be no marriage, no alliances, no reconciliations until those who have gone missing are returned.”
“Look elsewhere, for I do not have them,” Idwal said.
“Oh, trust us, we will look,” Jusson said. “Beginning at first light, this time not stopping until we find them. Even if we do have to take this place apart brick by brick.”
“You would threaten to destroy my House?” Idwal asked Jusson, his voice soft.
“It’s not a threat,” Jusson began, but Idwal threw up a hand.
“Do not drag out that tired saying about it being a promise,” he said.
I had returned to the cabinet, my eye caught by something gleaming dully off-white behind the back row of bottles. Wondering whether Lady Margriet had taken to collecting the teeth that the castle’s barber had pulled, I started to move closer, but at Idwal’s words, I turned, startled at the sudden downward turn the conversation had taken. Thadro also appeared startled, the surprise look returning to his face.
“Idwal,” he said.
Jusson waved him away. “What is it?” he asked, his voice just as soft. “Something in the air of Mearden that makes people take lightly our intent and our meaning? First our heir and now you. Do you think because we’ve chosen not to tread in our mother’s steps that we cannot? That we will not?”
“Queen Herleve was able to not only hold the kingdom together, but bend it to her will, make it go where she wanted it to go,” Idwal said. “And then there’s your reign, with the kingdom in disarray, your lords in rebellion. You are naught but a weak shadow of her.”
“Am I?” Jusson asked.
“In all ways,” Idwal said. “You knock me for being Herleve’s lover, yet who shares your bed? Never had a woman, let alone a wife and children, and you’re how old?”
“Uhm, my lord?” I asked, horrified to hear my voice in the resounding quiet that followed Idwal’s remark. I continued anyway. “His Majesty is a dark elf and he probably has about another hundred years before he could even think about marriage—”
“Your mother despised you,” Idwal said over me. “It frustrated her that she was stuck with you as her heir and she even talked about how accidents could happen, especially as you were supposed to go into the army.” He gave a sour smile. “It’s a good thing you ran away to sea or else you might have been replaced with someone who had more ballocks than a clothes stand.”
Stunned, I dragged in a breath and let it out. Even after Jusson’s revelations at the Freston posting inn, I had still vaguely viewed my parents’ flight from Iversterre as an adventure. However, at Idwal’s words, it finally dawned on me how much peril they’d been in. Just as I realized how much peril Jusson had been in as prince—peril from his mother. While I’d had the typical ups and downs with my ma and da growing up, I’d never doubted that they’d loved me. Even my rage at being apprenticed to Magus Kareste was about their carelessness in not seeing whom they were giving me
to, not because they actively sought my harm. Unlike Jusson’s mother, who had toyed with having her son killed.
A son who now didn’t look surprised at what Idwal had just tossed in his face. Nor did his aristos or his lord commander or his King’s Own. Apparently, Queen Herleve’s desire to rid herself of a despised heir was common knowledge among the Great Houses. I shivered, scrubbing my hand across my stomach while beside me Jeff gawked.
“Captain Suiden’s uncle tried to kill him and the old queen wanted to do the same to His Majesty?” Jeff blurted out. “Are all rulers kin killers?” He then broke off, clapping a hand over his mouth.
Suiden merely laughed. True, it was a laugh as dark as any I’d ever heard come from him, with basso rumbling notes that faintly rattled the glass in the cabinets, but it was humor. Of a sort. “Assassination by one’s sovereign is an occupational hazard shared by all crown princes,” he said. “Then, sometimes it’s the heir who becomes impatient and decides to speed up matters, so I suppose it all evens out in the end.”
Jeff cast me a wild look and I shook my head at him. I’d no desire to kill for the throne. Nor did I have any intention of being killed by it. Not that I thought that Jusson had designs on my life. I glanced at the king and nearly stepped back at how much he looked like that long-ago elf high king.
“That’s true,” Jusson said to Suiden, his light voice in marked contrast with just about everything else about him. “Her Majesty had certain expectations regarding her heir, as I had the same regarding our mother, the queen. Neither one of us met the other’s.”
“She didn’t know what she had in her son,” I said. I then folded my lips tight so no more words could slip out.
“No, she did not,” Thadro agreed anyway.
“My mother’s disappointment did not concern me,” Jusson said, shrugging. “I did not ‘run away to sea’ because I was afraid, Mearden. At least, not of what she might attempt to do to me. I left because I didn’t want to turn into her, devouring everyone and everything in her path, including my father. But if you yearn for Queen Herleve’s reign once more, we can accommodate you. We will leave as soon as we find our missing and you will accompany us to Iversly. We find that we have neglected certain of our subjects. We will rectify that beginning with you as our guest in the Royal City.”
“No!”
We all turned to see Lady Margriet standing in the doorway, her hands held to her mouth. Apparently she had ditched the servant and returned, despite her husband’s command. She rustled in and sank down in front of Jusson in a bellow of skirts. “Please, Your Majesty. Have mercy. He didn’t mean it. We asked you here because we need your help—”
“Margriet, get up,” Idwal said, more impatient than angry. “His Majesty couldn’t help us find our way out of a burlap sack. And he sure as hell isn’t going to risk alienating his lords by taking me unwilling from my House after being invited here as a guest.”
Ignoring Idwal, Jusson looked down at Lady Margriet, his gaze remote, the shadows cast by the candle on his face terrifying. He then gestured to one of the Own surrounding me. “Take her to her quarters,” he said, “and this time make sure she stays there.”
“What?” The impatient sneer disappeared off Idwal’s face. “Damn you, get your hands off my wife!” He tried to shove past the royal guards, but they pushed him back hard enough that he rapped his head against the cabinet, causing the teeth behind the bottles to shift. Except I could now tell that it wasn’t teeth. It looked more like a long, thick needle made of bone.
“Take him away too,” Jusson said, indicating Idwal. “We do not want to see him until we’re ready to leave.”
“No,” Lady Margriet said again as an Own lifted her to her feet. She started to weep as the guards half pulled, half carried her towards the outer door. “Please, Your Majesty—”
“Place Mearden’s captain under arrest,” Jusson said, ignoring both Lady Margriet’s weeping and Lord Idwal’s shouting as he followed them out of the inner stillroom. “And make sure that Mearden’s armsmen are secured. Put them in the dungeon if you have to. Also make sure that there are guards outside Mearden’s chambers. We don’t want any sympathetic servants accidentally leaving a door unlocked.”
“Yes, Your Majesty,” Thadro said, his voice subdued as he trailed behind Jusson. The aristos and troopers fell in, their faces somber. “And what about this room?”
“What about it?” Jusson asked, stepping into the hallway.
“Lady Margriet was locked in here, in a room that wasn’t locked, Your Majesty,” Suiden said before Thadro could speak.
Jusson came to a halt and, turning, stared into the stillroom with narrowed eyes. “Place guards here too,” he said after a moment. He started walking again, his long-legged stride showing no hint of the fact that he had just dispossessed one of his nobles. “Let us return to our chambers. We have much to discuss before the morning arrives.”
Twenty-two
I once more slept in a crowded room. This time, though, it wasn’t mine. We were all bunked down in the lower royal chamber. Well, not all of us. The aristos returned to their rooms and Wyln, taking one look at the teeming mass of humanity packed into one place, murmured something about tasks left undone and disappeared out the door. However, Kveta remained with us, resting on her pallet before the fireplace. Jusson was with us too. Some servants braved the upper floor and returned with his trunks and canopied bed. The trunks were placed about his bed, separating him from the lesser mortals. The rest of us were catch-as-catch-can, with some of the soldiers and guards sleeping in their bedrolls on the floor. I did manage to get a cot, but my joy in getting to sleep on something (somewhat) softer and potentially warmer than the stone floor was alloyed by the fact that I was still surrounded by guards.
The hunt tapestry was also brought down from upstairs and draped on the wall to block out some perceived draft near the chamber entrance. Fortunately the white stag and dogs had remained in their proper places; however, the antlered shadow under the trees stood out, even in the candlelight. I started to go closer to see, but was stopped by my guards. Apparently they thought I was going to make a break for it.
The Own had kept tight around me as we returned from Lady Margriet’s stillroom. It had been a silent journey; the shouts of Lord Idwal and the sobs of Lady Margriet had faded by the time we’d found our way back to the gallery and no one seemed to want to fill the quiet. That is, no one but Jusson. He kept a running murmur with Thadro as he climbed to the head of the mass of folks working their way up the winding steps, his face terribly calm as he discussed the disposition of the guards about the castle for what remained of the night and how they were going to section the lands and town for the search on the morrow. One thing I didn’t hear in the list of those leading search groups was my name. Which worried me—not only because of the uncertainty of my position, but also if I weren’t going out searching, I would be here at the castle, within easy reach of Berenice. I hadn’t forgotten that she’d wanted to meet with me early in the morning and while I figured that wasn’t going to happen, it would be impossible to avoid her for the rest of my stay at Mearden. The thought of facing her with her mother’s weeping fresh in my ears made me dread the coming day.
Still, despite my guards, my fears, and my aches and pains—and despite the tapestry—I was worn out enough to fall asleep almost immediately, awakening sometime before dawn, the sky dark outside the windows. My dreams had been muddled, shot through with red and the sense of being stalked by something that I kept catching out the corner of my eye. Chilled, I lay there for a bit, listening to Jeff snore as I waited for my heart and breathing to calm, when I noticed that it was brighter than it should’ve been. And in the brightness I could see something hovering about me. Several somethings—my air, water, earth, and fire spheres. They were back and all in the same defensive position they were just before the ambush. Abruptly wide-awake, I sat upright and, ignoring the pain from my stiff and sore muscles, stared about, the aspect
s shifting with me. But the only shadows were the ones cast by the fire sphere. I returned my gaze to them; however, their attention seemed to be focused elsewhere and all I got back was an absent hum from the air sphere. Rising from my cot, I wrapped the blanket about me and I carefully stepped over Bertram and a few other slumbering forms on the floor to get to the fireplace, the aspects forming a tight box around me. Carefully kneeling, I poked the banked fire a couple of times until the embers glowed, then caught fire on the peat moss. I then stood in front of the growing flames, trying to catch some of their warmth, and my gaze fell on the tapestry. It was shrouded in darkness, outside the circle of light cast by my fire spheres. I debated whether to go over to it, but decided not to brave the obstacle course. After a few moments, I turned to warm my backside—and came face-to-face with a wide-awake Kveta.
“I hope I didn’t wake you,” I said very softly.
“Not at all,” Kveta said, her muzzle dropping in a grin. The silver and bone of her good-luck charm was painted orange and red in the renewed firelight, the dancing flames highlighting tiny runes carved into the links. Thinking that Kveta wasn’t leaving her luck to chance, I settled the blanket more firmly about me.
“Good,” I murmured. The fire felt wonderful, easing some of the tightness in my muscles, and I started to drift, going back to my spheres’ appearance and wondering if it had anything to do with my muddled dreams.
“So, little Rabblet, I heard things became interesting when you took off with honored Idwal earlier.”
I blinked down at the wolf. As I noted last night, she hadn’t appeared limping behind us in our search for Lady Margriet. And though Jusson was full of instruction on our way back, he quieted upon entering the room, his conversation desultory and commonplace as Bertram and the other servants assisted him in undressing for bed. Still, I wasn’t surprised that she’d found out what had happened. Kveta’s hearing was sharp enough to pick out the softest of voices some distance away and I’m sure there had been some discussion—with those doing the discussing concerned only with keeping it out of the hearing of the equally sharp-eared king.
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