King's Exile: Chronicles of the Dragon-Bound: Book 1

by William Culbertson

  Not all his spying was political, however. Dax had learned more than just politics and statecraft. In the last year, he had become fascinated by what men and women did together when they thought they were alone. Sulley, the upstairs maid, had a habit of meeting Mik, one of the stable hands, near the stairway to the north tower. A month ago Dax had first seen them doing some kissing and fondling in a shadowed spot, and he had glimpsed their spicy action several times since. Dax headed off toward the north tower on the off chance they might be meeting today. He hoped to see something . . . something polite people were not supposed to see. The sense of forbidden knowledge made it all the more tempting.

  Although he had that goal in mind, he kept his eyes and ears open as he padded softly on his way. He could not be seen, but he could be heard. His father had impressed that on him. The castle bustled with activity. He knew from experience there might be something interesting going on anywhere, so he listened and stayed alert.

  Dax heard voices as he passed the library, and he paused to check the spy hole. Mathilde was there talking with Castellan Keir. As he watched, Keir swept Mathilde into an embrace, and they kissed for long minutes. Although his father was dead, Dax was shaken by his stepmother’s intimacy with this man. Everyone talked about Mathilde’s good looks. Even though he did not like the way she treated him, Dax had to admit she was pretty—more than pretty, in fact. Her dramatically long dark hair and upright bearing added to her regal appearance. All the men in the castle followed her with their eyes, and he had overheard comments about her exquisite beauty. He remembered when his father had married Mathilde. Dax’s real mother had died a year after he had been born. He did not remember her at all.

  When Mathilde broke the kiss, she looked left then right. As they moved apart, she squeezed the front of Keir’s breeches. She smiled and waved a cautionary finger at the castellan. “Now, no more of that during the day.” She straightened her clothes primly. “After all, you are on duty with your guard, and I have a kingdom to run.”

  “Ah, Mathilde,” Keir sighed. “You never have time for me these days. Since you got the council to name me castellan, we’ve scarcely had any time together.”

  “But I told you, that is the way it must be. Too many people are around and watching.” She shook her head and mimed a flapping mouth with her fingers. “Tongues wag.” She turned away from him and walked to a window that looked out over the sea. The window was partially open, and a finger of breeze stirred her hair. She took a deep breath and turned back to Keir. “Besides, our plan is right on schedule.” She smiled. “Don’t you want to rule this kingdom?”

  Dax automatically noted her honesty, but he did not understand what she had said. Mathilde was regent, but Dax, as his father’s only son, was king. What was she talking about?

  Keir smiled slyly at Mathilde and moved closer to her. “I know why you want to make me king, but what if I have ideas of my own?”

  Mathilde touched the tip of her finger to the end of his nose. “Then you bring your ideas to me,” she said sweetly. “While the people will not accept me as their queen, the council follows me almost to a man.”

  Keir turned away and threw up his hands in exasperation. “And you picked me because you thought I would make a nice, compliant figurehead.”

  “No, my dear boy. I picked you because you are someone who can lead the guard and someone who looks like a king.” She watched him a moment. “Besides, doing what I’ve asked you to do has worked well so far, hasn’t it?”

  Keir turned back to face her, his face serious. “You gave the boy the poison?”

  Although appalled by what he heard so far, the word poison seized Dax’s attention. He suppressed a gasp.

  “Now, now.” The corners of Mathilde’s mouth curled upward in a small, cruel smile. “It’s not poison. At least not in the amount I gave him. It will just start him on the same journey his father took—a little adventure with bloody bowels.”

  Keir grimaced. “Sounds unpleasant.”

  Mathilde’s smile was unfeeling. “I’ve had to put up with the little brat for two years. Him with those beady little eyes, always lurking about, trying to look like some omniscient little seer.” She sniffed. “Unpleasant doesn’t bother me a bit.”

  She smiled fondly and traced the line of Keir’s jaw with her finger. “Like I said, it won’t kill him.” Reaching Keir’s ear, she flicked the lobe with her long fingernail. She turned away and faced the wall with the spy hole. Dax blinked. Mathilde appeared to be looking right at him. In a moment, she looked back at Keir and said, “After experimenting on his father, I think I can string this young one along for some time. Everyone will come to see him as a weak and sickly child.” Her hand fluttered to her forehead. “Oh, dear,” she said in a high, wispy voice. “It must be a stain that runs in the family.” She sighed audibly. “Like father, like son—poor thing.” She dropped her hand. “No one will be surprised when he dies of one childhood illness or another,” she finished coldly.

  Dax stumbled from bewilderment to anger to . . . rage! But before he could act or think, his stomach lurched. A sudden cramp turned all his thoughts to the word poison. He had been poisoned. The conversation in the library no longer interested him. All he could think of was getting back to his room. Mathilde had poisoned him. Who should he go to for help?

  He started back the way he had come, moving as quickly as he could. Should he go to Garthelson, the royal physician? No. He could be part of the plot. Who better to confirm Mathilde’s treachery and give an official stamp to Dax’s unfortunate “inheritance” from his father? Even as he thought about it, he remembered seeing Mathilde speaking quietly with the physician several times in the last few weeks. At the time he had not thought anything about it, but now?

  The nobles on the ruling council? He rejected that out of hand after what Mathilde had said.

  Orin Herne? Dax was sure he could trust his father’s old friend. He had sensed nothing but honesty from the man—hard as it was to hear at times. The problem was, Dax did not know how to find Herne. He knew he no longer lived with the guard or anywhere on the castle grounds. Plus he was leaving for the South on an errand for . . . Keir! It all fell into place now. Herne was out of the castle. Mathilde had Dax’s head in her noose.

  His thoughts jumbled together as he hastened up the narrow, uneven steps of the hidden ways to the family level. There was no one. Any person of authority in the castle might be a part of Mathilde’s plot. He was on his own. His frustration and despair deepened, and with them, he felt his anger return. He forced it down. No. He could not afford blinding fury now. He had to think!

  Back in his room, Dax stood breathless while the familiar surroundings helped bring order to his frantic thoughts. The first thing he had to do was get rid of the poison—what he could anyway. He went down the hall to the privy closet and stuck his finger down his throat. He vomited out the contents of his stomach. But how much of the poison was still in his body? He went back to his room and took up the pitcher of water on the dry sink. He drank until he could hold no more. After a few minutes, he went back to the privy closet and repeated the process.

  He staggered back to his room. Now he felt terrible. His stomach was a knot of pain, and his head throbbed. He had done all he could, but would it be enough? It would have to be. His legs wobbled, and he sat down on the bed. His head beat in time with his heart. He lay back and rubbed his eyes, trying to ease the pain.

  #

  A knock on his door startled him awake, and he sat up. He had not meant to sleep. “Sire?” It was Ruallo, his personal attendant. “Are you coming down to dinner?”

  Dax had a moment of panic. He could not go down to eat. He could not face Mathilde across the table. As he sat there, he realized he did not feel like eating at all. His stomach hurt. The thought of roasted goose, which had smelled so good earlier, made his stomach lurch toward his throat. As bad as his stomach felt, the thought of food made it feel worse.

  “No.” His voi
ce was rough, and he cleared his throat. “I don’t think I can.” He started to say that he must have overworked at training that afternoon, but the words stuck in his throat unuttered. Mentally he cursed his inability to tell even the mildest falsehood—even when his life was in danger.

  He did the best he could. “Please tell Mathilde I am not feeling well.” That was certainly the truth. “I am going to lie down for a while. Later, if I am feeling better, I’ll get something from the kitchen.”

  “As you wish, sire.”

  Dax didn’t even listen for Ruallo’s footsteps to fade away. He turned, pulled back the covers to his bed, and lay down. He had to. He had said he would.

  #

  A tap on his door startled him awake. Outside his window light had almost faded into night. Dax chided himself for falling asleep again. He had only meant to lie down for a moment to satisfy the censor in his head that insisted on absolute truth.

  Mathilde glided into his room with a small tray and a look of concern on her face. “Hello, Kort. How are you feeling now? Did your little nap help?” Pausing at his bedside, she looked at him speculatively. “Here. I brought you something from the kitchen. Maybe it will make you feel a little better.” She set the tray down on the night table next to his bed and stroked his forehead with her hand. “Hmm. You don’t feel feverish. What seems to be wrong? Did Herne work you too hard today?”

  Dax gritted his teeth and carefully formed an answer. “No, ma’am. General Herne said my training went well. I just have some stomach trouble.” The words came out, and he breathed a sigh of relief. Stomach trouble. The trouble was real, but not where Mathilde anticipated.

  She smiled ever so slightly. “Well, I don’t think it’s anything serious.”

  Dax was amazed. She had told the truth and a lie at the same time.

  “Here,” she smiled and continued. “I brought some milk and two of Suse’s cookies for you.”

  He had been trying to ignore the milk on the tray. Was it another dose of poison? Would she risk two doses in one day, especially after he had evidently already responded to the first one? No matter. After purging the milk she had given him earlier, seeing another glass of it almost made him retch.

  Mathilde moved about the room, picking up odds and ends of clothing Dax had left in a scramble. She looked at them disapprovingly and cast them onto a chair. As she worked her way around the room, she related details of her discussions with Doro Maklyn, Duke of Silverdale, over dinner. He was in Tazzelton to negotiate a new business deal for Argent Trading Company’s access to Stone Harbor, and he had come to court to discuss the terms with the sovereign.

  “Anyway . . .” She regarded a shoe Dax had worn yesterday before casting it onto the chair with the rest of his clothes. “I told him if he would part with a larger share of the furs that come downriver from the Circular Sea, the council would give him a share of our trade concession with Butterock Haven. If we start doing business directly with the duke, we’ll gain a valuable ally on the Marble Coast who could help us with raiders from Deadman’s Finger.”

  While her attention was elsewhere, Dax emptied the milk into the chamber pot below his bed. Mathilde started to circle back to him just as he finished setting the empty glass back on the tray. He let the cookies lie. Even Ma Cookie’s treats did not appeal to him at the moment.

  Mathilde smiled. “Done so soon? You must have been thirsty.”

  “I’m done with it.” His reply was a true statement, and he could say it without stumbling. He hoped she did not ask him directly if he had drunk the milk.

  “No cookies?”

  “Not right now. Would you leave them? Maybe they’ll look better to me later.”

  She picked up the empty glass and gave him a little pat on the head before she turned to go. “Now you get a good night’s sleep so you’ll feel better in the morning.” At the door, she gave him one more little smile before she closed it behind her.

  “Feel better in the morning?” he muttered. He drew a deep breath against the tension in his chest. Was he terrified or angry? In a moment he knew. Anger . . . and more. The feeling swelled into an overpowering, bloodthirsty rage like he had felt in the training yard with Trimble. The room around him lost its color. Everything, from the spider on its web in the corner to the mark on the wall made when Mathilde had thrown one of his shoes in disgust, was razor-sharp. A sword. He needed a sword. With a blade, he would chase after Mathilde and slaughter her in the hallway. Herne would be proud of the point-perfect lunge he would make into her retreating back. He would slide the blade between her ribs and through her black heart. Afterward, he would butcher her into small bloody pieces . . .

  But he had no sword. He had only his personal knife. Could he use it to attack her from behind? Slit her evil throat? No, he could not be sure of a kill with his knife alone. He lay thinking about weapons, and the acute detail with which he saw the world receded. A sick weakness gripped his body as tightness squeezed his midsection. His lust for revenge faded, but down deep inside he felt concentrated resolve—a terribly fierce, determined focus on action. He had to do something.

  He threw back the coverlet and got up. His feet were unsteady for a moment, but the feeling passed. He paced the floor. What could he do? Whom could he tell? No one else had heard the conversation in the library. Would anyone believe him? He could imagine the patronizing tut-tuts from the adults who were much too busy to listen to the wild accusations of a young boy—even if that boy was their king. General Herne would believe him, but when he thought of Herne, another more paralyzing idea struck him. Herne had told him he would be gone for days, but would he ever return from his mission? With Herne’s reputation for devotion to Dax and his father, would Mathilde arrange for him to be assassinated?

  For that matter, what would happen the next time he saw Mathilde? He had experienced that horrible rage only a few times before. He feared the next time he saw the woman, he would not be able to resist trying to kill her. While it would feel good, what would happen next? Even if he did not kill her in a fit of fury, he would still be in danger. If Mathilde lived, how could he avoid being slowly poisoned? His pacing slowed as he realized the inevitable. He could not escape eating or drinking if he stayed in the castle. He could skip some meals and take his food directly from the kitchen. However, as the future king of this realm, he had to attend official functions, and most of those involved eating.

  Even now his stomach growled with emptiness. He still did not feel good. He had not eaten anything since a light lunch before afternoon training—except for the two cookies he had had in the kitchen. At the thought of cookies, he darted back to the bed and devoured the ones Mathilde had brought with the milk. He was sure that if there had been poison again, it would have been in the milk. He sighed as he swallowed the last bite. Now he had eaten four cookies since lunch. His stomach growled at the tantalizing new bits and reminded him it was still not full.

  Should he run away, leave the castle, and try to live outside on his own? He could get out of the castle easily enough. The network of secret passages offered him a route to the outside hidden from all eyes—especially those of Mathilde and her supporters. If he could get away unseen, they would not know for sure when he had left or where he might be headed. In the confusion, they might not even start a serious search outside the castle for several days.

  At that point a painful cramp twisted his lower abdomen. This was not hunger pangs. He sat back on the bed for a moment, but the cramp threatened to become a full-fledged spasm, heralding an eruption. He dashed to the privy closet. This time Mathilde’s poison did its work. Long minutes later, the cramps subsided. Dax cleaned himself up and struggled back to his room. There had been no blood. Maybe his purge earlier had saved him from the worst of it, but he was exhausted and had trouble walking straight. While the cookies were probably still with him, he felt like he had expelled everything else he had eaten for the last week.

  Back in his room, he collapsed on the bed. Badly
chilled, he gathered the comforter over him and tried to recapture his thoughts about getting away. Dax had no doubts now. The thought of another dose of Mathilde’s evil brew scared him badly, yet if he left the castle, how could he get by? Dax knew nothing about the way ordinary people lived their lives. He had gone on occasional trips with his father to visit special people in their own homes, but visiting in the company of the king was not the same as dropping in by himself. Who did he know who would take him in?

  He knew the answer as soon as he thought of the question—Aunt Lesley, Duchess of Ostdell, his father’s only sister. She and her husband, Kerwin Tremayne, owned a horse-breeding farm up the Ostdell River from Tazzelton. The Tremayne farm was a two-day ride on the river road. He had visited his aunt, uncle, and cousins many times with his father and knew the way well.

  A two-day ride? That raised another question. Could he take a horse? He could get out of the castle unseen easily enough, but the horses were stabled next to the main west gate. That gate was busy, and even if he got a horse out of the stable unseen, he could not get out of the castle on horseback without being noticed. If he tried to leave through the east gate, not only would he have to get a saddled horse all the way across the training yard, but once outside the gate, the route led down the east face of Adok on the Serpentine Road into the city itself. On the Serpentine Road, he might as well wave a flag and shout, “Look at me!”