The Queen's Tower

by J. S. Mawdsley

  Brandon looked at Presley. The young man calmly picked up his pencil and jotted “SLF” on the line next to the room that had recently been declared “fit for a king.”

  “And that solves that crisis,” said Presley with a mock grin at Brandon’s sister. “Is there any other news you or the messenger have to share, Lady Hildred? His grace and I have yet to tackle the finances to pay for the feast you have planned.”

  “Are you questioning my abilities to plan a feast, young man?”

  “Not in the least, my lady. Nor am I questioning his grace’s ability to pay for it. And yet, paid for it must be, and that is rather my job, so I must see to it.”

  Hildred sneered at Presley, but he refused to rise to the bait. Brandon admired the young man for that. He didn’t think he could have controlled his temper half so well at that age, especially not with Hildred.

  “I will be in the kitchen examining stores with your cook.” She paused in the door, clearly disappointed at not having a more cutting retort to offer. She pondered for a few moments, but at last, still unable to think of anything sharper, she turned and departed.

  Brandon tried not to smile too broadly, as it would never do to be seen glorying too entirely in his sister’s comeuppance. Still, he was pleased with how Presley had stood his ground. Brandon loved his sister, but it did not blind him to her faults, and she occasionally deserved and needed a rebuff to her snobbery.

  “So,” Brandon opened, “did you wish to leave this particular task and get your account ledgers now? Finster knows I have a pile of correspondence to keep me busy if you have more pressing work. I’m sure you’d like to finish in time to enjoy yourself this evening.”

  Presley chuckled, and his smile, equal parts knowing and carefree, reminded Brandon once more of his youth. Reminded him of all the things he had missed out on, all the things he could never have again.

  It required a certain level of discretion, but here in Leornian, the city of learning and art and thought, in this particular day and age, Presley was able to live a fulfilling life as a man who loved other men. Obviously, this was not something they ever discussed, but Brandon recognized the signs, saw how Presley behaved around handsome men his age. Presley did not have an especial friend as far as Brandon knew, but if he had to guess, he assumed Presley was enjoying himself as much as most handsome 25-year-old single men did.

  As much as Brandon had enjoyed himself at that age, if only with women.

  Brandon sometimes wondered what might have been if, in his youth, the climate in Leornian had been the same as it was now. Leornian had been a very different place then—crueler and more violent—with the guilds at each other’s throats and brawls in the streets. It had been a place where one misstep, one slight deviation from the norm, would be seized by a man’s enemies to destroy his career and family. Little wonder that city had ended up engulfed in riots and flames.

  But Brandon and his family had rebuilt what the riots had destroyed and thrown open the gates to all the most brilliant, talented, and ingenious people of Myrcia, regardless of how they behaved themselves behind closed doors.

  What if Leornian had been like that when Brandon was 25? Would he have confined himself to “only women”? But even as he sat here with this lovely young man in his study, Brandon knew in his heart that his life would have remained essentially unchanged, no matter the climate. Even if he were a young man now, and he could go out to taverns and the theater with Presley, nothing would change. No, as lovely as Presley was, Brandon did not long for his young Treasurer. The only man Brandon had ever truly desired was Fransis.

  How strange is the path life laid for me. To have loved my wife’s brother, the man who betrayed my first friend, who only loved the woman I now imprison and protect. All of whom I love. And yet, he was the great love of my life. Ellen was a remarkable wife, and I took real enjoyment in her mind and body. But nothing ever set me ablaze like the one drunken kiss Fransis and I shared that night in Formacaster, the night Ethelred and Merewyn were betrothed. I’ll never forget his sweet smile before he poured us more wine and went on with the conversation as if nothing had happened. But for me—

  “Pardon me, your grace,” said a servant at Brandon’s side. He had not even heard the man enter, he had been so lost in his memories. “This comes from Lord Harish Govinda. I was asked to place it directly in your hand and await a reply to give to his man.”

  Brandon grimaced at this unexpected request but took the offered parchment. “He’s that fellow who’s doing research at the university library, isn’t he?”

  Presley nodded.

  “I wonder what a Sahasran member of the Vizirate of Magy could possibly want so urgently?” Brandon whispered as he took up a paper knife and sliced through the sealing wax.

  “Ah! I can guess,” Presley said, pulling the room assignment and guest list back to the top of his pile of papers. “Keeping an eye on the competition, as it were. I believe he has his own rooms in the city, so assuming he turns out to be the lone Sahasran representative, we are in remarkably good shape as far as housing goes.”

  Chapter 7

  LOUD KNOCKING CAUSED Merewyn to start, jolted awake again, but before she could close her book or rise to her feet, the door swung open to reveal Brandon.

  “May I come in, your majesty?” he asked, bowing.

  She appreciated that he always asked, even though this was his castle and she was his prisoner. “Of course, your grace.”

  He noticed the stack of books immediately. “I hope these have been helpful.”

  She decided to tell a minor untruth. “Very helpful, thank you.” Through Haley, she had passed on a request for any books in the Bocburg library about Loshadnarod. She wanted to prepare for Nina’s visit as much as possible, but the dry old tomes on sheep farming and mining kept putting her to sleep.

  White, even teeth showed through Brandon’s salt and pepper beard. “I’m glad I could be of service. But I did not come to talk about your reading. Are you busy, or do you have a quarter of an hour to spare?”

  She laughed, looking around her little chamber. “Oh, your grace, my life is a catalogue of appointments, engagements, and commitments. But for an old friend like you, I daresay I can set aside fifteen minutes out of my busy day.”

  He smiled wistfully, and she knew he was thinking about the old days, too, when they had all been friends together—the two of them, plus Fransis, Ethelred, even Edgar.

  “How have you been?” he finally said. “I apologize that I have been busy and unable to visit more often.”

  “You have nothing to apologize for. I have been well. And from everything I hear, you have a few small matters occupying your time.”

  “Indeed,” he said with a sigh. “You know how much work it is to prepare for this sort of occasion.”

  “Even all these years later, I remember vividly. Listen, I have a question. I intended to send you a note with Haley. But here you are, and I can ask you in person.”

  “Oh?” He looked slightly nervous. “What were you hoping to ask me?”

  “Well, everyone will be here soon. I imagine they will start arriving in a week or two. Could you send an invitation to my stepson, Sir Broderick, asking him to see me at his earliest convenience?”

  The sooner she could see him and secure his agreement to help her and Maxen, the better. She could send Haley with an invitation, of course, but a letter from Brandon commanded more respect—not only with Broderick, but also with anyone who might hear gossip about the visit later on. As she gathered allies to help herself and Maxen, she wanted everyone at court to know that Brandon was on her side.

  Brandon frowned and rocked back and forth on the balls of his feet. “H’m.... I imagine the captain general will be very busy, your majesty.”

  She had never quite understood why Brandon didn’t seem to like Broderick very much. From everything she heard, the duke was practically the only person at court who didn’t find the captain general charming. Well, with th
e exception of Maxen, obviously.

  “Could you please ask him, though?”

  Brandon tugged at his beard. “Let me think about it, your majesty.”

  That was probably the best she could hope for at the moment. But she would continue asking, and sooner or later, she knew Brandon would give in.

  Smiling again, he gestured to the other side of the room. “Ah! It looks as if you’ve been drawing.” He passed between the two slender pillars, toward her writing desk at the window nearest the stairs. She rarely wrote there, or anywhere else for that matter, knowing every fragment she jotted would be read, but she enjoyed sketching.

  It was one of the oddities of her confinement. As a girl, the lessons of her drawing master had bored her, yet in here, with little else to do, drawing had become a solace. That and the books lining the shelves nestled into the corner between desk and stairs. Always an enthusiastic student of literature, her years of intensive study must now make her one of the best-read women in Myrcia. She devoured it all—epics and philosophy, history and fanciful tales—and then she thought overlong about how it all fit together. But how else to spend one’s time? There were only so many laps—no, circuits!—she could trod in a day before she would need to beg Brandon for new shoes.

  “These are really quite skillful,” he said, leafing through the few charcoals she had left sitting out. “I’ll never forget that pencil sketch you drew of me just after you arrived.” He patted his stomach with a deep sigh. “Do you possess any art that will take me back to that time when I had twenty fewer pounds and no gray hairs?”

  Merewyn thought him still a remarkably handsome and fit man, especially for one now in his fiftieth year. “There would be no need to trim your frame, but if you insisted, I have no doubt that in the proper light I could represent your slimmer past self. However, I positively refuse to remove the gray. It gives you dignity I would never dream of stealing away.”

  “I believe that is a compromise to which I would willingly accede.”

  He scanned through more of her sketches before holding up a drawing of Hengist Tower, which dominated the view from the windows of her bedroom. Ten years ago, she’d grown so sick of drawing it over and over and over again for lack of any better subject that she’d affixed old gowns over her windows so she wouldn’t even have to see the tower. But that marked another lesson learned during her imprisonment—given enough time, everything circled back around. Two years ago, she’d even allowed Brandon to frame the best of her sketches of the tower—a slightly hazy view at dusk—and hang it over her fireplace.

  “We’ve recently done some work on Hengist, installing a new set of windows. You can’t see them very well from here, though. Would you like to accompany me to the roof for a better view?”

  Would she! She finished the calculation before she needed to blink again. Five hundred and thirty-seven days. She had last been outside 537 days ago. The spell that confined her to her prison prevented her from going down the stairs, but curiously enough, it did not prevent her from going to the roof. The door was always locked, though, and Brandon or the guards always accompanied her personally when she was allowed up. It had taken her a few years before she realized they were all afraid she would throw herself off.

  “Are you quite serious?” she asked.

  “Of course. I would never tease you like that.”

  “That sounds delightful.” She only barely managed to take the proffered arm without trembling so that she could exit her apartment with dignity that befitted a queen.

  Brandon chattered as they climbed the stairs that circled the two stories to the top of the tower, but she understood none of it.

  Five hundred and thirty-seven days.

  During her first spring in the tower, Brandon had installed windows in her chambers that could open just slightly, less than the span of her hand. Again, he had probably been concerned about her jumping to her death. Her summers were often intolerable, but she could actually breathe fresh air when she placed herself close enough to the cracked window, and when the wind rushed down the Wislicbeorgs and across the river, sometimes she could even feel the breeze on her face. But it did not, could not, compare to having her entire body out of doors. Five hundred and thirty-seven days. An eternity to survive without knowing the pleasure of having no walls around her.

  The first thing she saw was the Bocburg itself—the entire castle, not the tiny glimpses of stonework she could get from her windows. In the castle grounds, gardeners were hard at work, tending the flower beds. Knights in Brandon’s livery watched as two young squires practiced fencing with wooden swords by the stable door. Above it all, the spire of Leofe Tower cast a shadow, the impossibly spindly and elegant structure obviously the result of extreme magy. The walls of entire floors were constructed of nothing but glass. Merewyn had seen it all many times before, but even so, it left her breathless.

  She turned slowly and took in the city. The cathedral seemed impossibly large—far bigger than she remembered. Colored pennants snapped in the breeze from the pinnacles of the great guild houses. For a second, looking so far into the distance made Merewyn dizzy. She had to look down at her feet. Then at the parapet. Finally down at Addle Street. The whole neighborhood seemed to bustle. Carts and carriages packed in so tightly they barely seemed to move. And around them, streaming like water, were hundreds upon hundreds of people walking, out enjoying the salubrious weather.

  On the cusp between summer and fall, the day perfectly blended both. The sun shone brightly in the sky, inhibited by no clouds, yet its power did not overwhelm, but rather complemented the breeze. Though her proclivities had never run in the direction of outdoor pleasures, even she had always appreciated days such as this in her youth.

  Her eyes closed, she inhaled deeply. “What a glorious day.”

  “I’m happy it pleases you.” He meant his words; he always did and always had.

  “‘Please’ is such an inadequate word. My gratitude, well, even I am, on occasion, at a loss for words.”

  Brandon dipped his head, and had he still been a young man, she had no doubt he would have blushed. “Come, see the new windows,” he said.

  He escorted her to the far side of the tower roof where they stopped at a crenel offering an angle she could never achieve from her bedroom. The stone of Hengist Tower, she already knew, had been scrubbed clean during the summer, revealing an almost shimmering slate blue shade. Yet if that subtle color had impressed her, the glittering reds and yellows of the stained-glass, lit from behind by lamps even during the day, now mesmerized her. Other understated hues mingled with the diamond shaped brilliance of ruby and gold (yes—ruby and gold), and it must all form a pattern or picture, but she could not determine what might be depicted from this distance.

  “A shame you cannot see it clearly from here, but it is a representation of King Hengist receiving the submission of the Kenedalics of the Wislicbeorgs.”

  She closed her eyes and imagined the window, the ability to vividly “see” that which she could not lay eyes on another talent she had honed to perfection in her tower. The king would be seated on his throne—in the great hall of this very castle, as it happened. All his knights and nobles, in their bright livery and armor, would be standing around him, while the defeated hill tribes knelt at their feet. “Spectacular.”

  Opening her eyes again, she looked past Hengist Tower and into the city. A flash of bright colors caught her gaze. “It looks as if Bishop Robertson has been at work as well.” Perhaps she was misremembering, but she didn’t think the spire of the distant Bishop’s Palace had always been covered in colored slates.

  “He has,” Brandon said, frowning.

  “Has my son been visiting him again?” she asked, trying to make the question seem casual.

  “Not to my knowledge,” said Brandon. “There has been discussion as to whether or not Robertson is using his office in the holiest manner possible. The matter has been raised in council.”

  Ah, so the bishop wa
s making himself unpopular. That was excellent news. And Brandon appeared to be annoyed at Robertson. That was even better. If there was one person in the world who would stop at nothing to keep her locked quietly in this tower, it would be Robertson.

  “At least tell me no one is shocked,” she said. “This is the man who used church funds to ‘study pagan ways,’ as an excuse to sail the Middle Sea for three months. All he learned about the pagans was that they ate exotic seafood.”

  Brandon chuckled with a shake of the head. “I think he told the story at every dinner for a year about the first time he was served octopus.”

  Merewyn had heard that Robertson told the story for two years, but she thought it bad form to contradict a duke about what happened in society while she was locked away.

  “If only his foibles had remained as innocuous,” Brandon went on. “His behavior has grown even more inappropriate, at least in my opinion.”

  “And I trust your opinion over all others. Do tell me everything.”

  “It began with his decision to settle a land dispute between the preost of Hamstowe and the preost of Broadwyn.”

  Merewyn rested her back against the nearest merlon and narrowed her eyes at Brandon, already seeing where the problem lay. “Shouldn’t the Bishop of Keelweard have adjudicated that? Both towns are in Keelshire.”

  “Precisely. Then, he named the Baron of Erianworth’s bastard his legitimate heir after the Baron wed the boy’s mother, despite the claims of the Baron’s other son, born of his deceased wife. And then there was Brawley. He gave the town permission to hold a fair instead of renewing the fair license of Harlglen, because the preost and mayor of Brawley offered Robertson twenty percent of the profits. And on and on. He shows no deference to precedent or tradition.”

  She wondered why Brandon or anyone else would expect Robertson to show constraint in any of his dealings, but then again, she knew things about the bishop no other living person did. She wondered idly what would happen if she told Brandon what she knew, but there was no telling whether Brandon would believe her now, seventeen years after the fact. And in any case, it might be good to keep the secret to herself for the time being. If Robertson tried to thwart her release, it would be good to have something to threaten him with in order to gain his cooperation.