by DAVID B. COE
The following day, however, when they met again in Kearney’s chambers, the archminister nodded to him first, offering a small smile as well. Paegar struggled to keep himself from looking too pleased as he returned the nod. But his heart raced like that of a young man in love. It had begun. He no longer wondered if he could win her trust; the question now was how soon.
Fighting his excitement and his eagerness to build on these successes, the minister forced himself to avoid her. For much of Bian’s waning, he refused to speak with her again. He even went so far as to argue a point with her in front of the king and the other ministers, though it required that he take the lead role in that day’s discussion. Early in the new turn, however, he began once more to extend small kindnesses to her. He nodded to her at the start of each audience, and occasionally offered a smile if something in the discussion struck him as humorous. A second “chance” encounter, this one near the ministerial chambers, included not just a “good day,” but a “hope you’re well,” besides. The following day he managed to arrive at the king’s door just as she did and, bidding her good morning, held the door open for her, smiling as she stepped past him into the chamber.
All of which led to this day. He would have preferred to build to this over a few more days, but hearing the king ask Keziah to remain with him after the audience ended, Paegar realized that he could wait no longer. If Kearney began to turn to her for more counsel, or-gods forbid it-rekindled her passion for him even in the smallest way, all would be lost. He had to take the next step now.
Her quarters, like those of all the king’s ministers, were on the same corridor as his, albeit at the far end. If she returned here directly from Kearney’s chambers, she would pass by his bedchamber. So Paegar stood by the door, waiting and listening. For a long time he heard nothing, until he began to fear that he had miscalculated and that she had gone elsewhere after speaking with the king. At last, however, he heard the faint slap of footsteps on the stairs of the nearest tower. A moment later, she stepped into the corridor.
He waited until she had just passed his door before pulling it open and stepping out of his chamber.
Keziah turned at the sound and offered a small smile, though clearly something troubled her.
“Archminister,” he said, smiling in return as he closed his door. He rubbed his arm and frowned. “These corridors get rather cold this time of year. Especially when the wind blows off the steppe.”
She nodded, appearing unsure as to how to respond. “Yes,” she finally said. “I suppose they do.”
“Is everything all right, Archminister?”
“Yes, of course. Why?”
“You seem… distracted. And after the king asked you to remain, I feared that perhaps something had happened with respect to Thorald, or even worse, Kentigern.”
“No,” she said. “There’s nothing. He just wanted to speak with me about some changes he’s been considering with the ducal tithes.”
During the past turn, as he first started trying to win her trust, Paegar had wondered what powers the archminister possessed. If that was the most convincing lie she had to offer, he felt reasonably certain that delusion wasn’t one of them.
“I see,” he said. “Well, I’m relieved to hear it was nothing more.” He smiled again and started toward the tower stairs. “Good day, Archminister.”
“Good day.”
He let her get almost all the way to her door before calling to her again. “I was on my way to the kitchen,” he said. “I didn’t eat before we spoke with the king. Would you care to join me?”
Paegar saw her hesitate. She even took a step back in his direction, before stopping herself.
“Thank you, High Minister. It’s kind of you to ask.” She paused again, chewing her lip. One might have thought he had asked her to leave Kearney and serve the emperor of Braedon. “I really should return to my quarters, though,” she said. “I’ve a message to the duke of Tremain that I need to compose. Perhaps another time?”
It was just the response he expected. The only surprise was that she gave his offer so much thought.
“Of course, Archminister. Another time.”
He turned away and descended the stairs, hearing her door open and close as he did. Only then did he allow himself a grin. To anyone watching, it would have seemed an insignificant encounter, a meaningless invitation politely refused. Paegar knew better, however. He had seen her waver as she weighed his proposal. He had seen her cheeks color slightly when she asked if they might sup together another time. She was starved for friendship and he had offered her sustenance. It would still take time, but already he felt certain that he had her. The greatest danger lay not in anything she might do, but rather in his own zeal. He couldn’t rush this. She was lonely, to be sure, but she was also clever. He risked all by trying to ingratiate himself too quickly. Still, he had already begun to plan their next encounter, feeling certain that he could build on this one.
“Let the Weaver come,” he whispered, crossing the castle courtyard to the kitchen tower. “I have a prize for him.”
Chapter Eight
Kentigern, Eibithar
Aindreas stood atop the east wall of the castle gazing out over the city of Kentigern and the open land beyond its walls. The late-morning sun shone upon him from a sky of clearest blue, but it offered little warmth in the cold, steady wind sweeping across the face of the tor.
Beside him, Ennis, his youngest child and sole heir, kicked at the stone wall with a booted foot, making the barrel on which he stood wobble noisily. He was almost too big to stand on it anymore, though he wasn’t yet tall enough to see over the wall without it.
“If you don’t stop that kicking, you’re liable to fall,” Aindreas said.
The boy had never fallen before, of course, and he did this every time they walked the walls together. But Ioanna would have expected him to say something, and she would have his head on a pike if the boy did manage to hurt himself. When a mother lost one child, she grew ever more protective of those who remained.
“Yes, Father,” Ennis said. He stopped kicking, but almost immediately began hopping from one foot to the other.
The duke could do nothing but smile. It was something he would have done as a child. Not surprising, really, since the boy favored him in almost every other way. He was bigger than most boys two or three years older than he, and his red hair, grey eyes, and round face were so like Aindreas’s that even the castle guards had taken to calling him the Little Duke.
“Do you see him yet, Father?” the boy asked, sounding a bit more impatient than the last time he asked.
“Actually, I do,” the duke said, marking the progress of a small company of riders on the road leading from Kentigern Wood to the city.
Ennis looked up at him, a smile brightening his ruddy face. “Really?”
Aindreas nodded and pointed toward the road. “See for yourself.”
The boy rested his hands on the top of the wall and stared out at the riders. “I can see two flags,” the said, “but I can’t make out what’s on them.”
“There’s a golden stallion on the red one. That’s the banner of Thorald. And the blue one bears the crest of Shanstead, crossed swords over a rising sun.”
“Which rider is the thane?” Ennis asked.
“It’s hard to say from here. Probably the one riding just behind the men with the banners.”
The boy looked up at his father, squinting against the sun. “Do you think he’ll liance us?”
Aindreas couldn’t help but grin. “Do you mean, Do I think he’ll form an alliance with us?”
“Yes, that’s what I meant.”
Aindreas stared down at the riders again. “I don’t know. Marston isn’t the duke yet, and he can’t do anything until he is. But I wouldn’t have asked him here if I didn’t think there was a possibility.”
“Does he like the people who killed Brienne?”
The duke eyed the boy briefly, wondering whether to correct thi
s as well. Ennis wasn’t yet ten, but he was a bright boy, wise beyond his years. Perhaps he was ready to understand a more subtle explanation for Marston’s visit.
“It was just one man who killed Brienne, boy.”
“Lord Tavis.”
Aindreas nodded and tried to say more, but the words stuck in his throat at the thought of his daughter.
“But you hate his father, too. And the king. I’ve heard you speaking of it with Villyd and the prelate.”
The boy missed little of what went on around him. He’d make a good duke.
“Yes, I hate Javan of Curgh, and though I wouldn’t say that I hate Kearney, I do believe that he betrayed us.”
“How?”
“By giving asylum to that Curgh demon, and by turning Tobbar against me before I even had a chance to speak with him.”
He glanced down again to find the boy staring at him, a puzzled look on his face. Maybe he wasn’t ready for this after all.
“What’s asylum?”
“It’s when a noble gives protection to someone. Kearney guarded the boy after he escaped our prison and refused to return him to us.”
Ennis frowned. “Why? Didn’t he like Bnenne?”
Aindreas almost ended the conversation there. He didn’t want to have to admit the rest. But he was a duke and a father, and if the boy was to hear some of it, he had to hear all of it.
“Kearney doesn’t believe Tavis killed her,” he said. “Javan and his son claim it was someone else, and the king believes them.”
“That’s why you hate them.”
He didn’t miss anything. “Yes, I suppose it is.”
Ennis nodded, facing the road once again. “That’s why I hate them, too.”
The duke placed a hand on the boy’s shoulder and together they watched the riders approach the city gates. Once Marston and his company were inside the city, Aindreas and the boy left the wall and descended to the castle’s inner ward.
“Go tell your mother the thane of Shanstead has arrived,” Aindreas said.
“She won’t want to see him. She never wants to see anyone.”
The duke winced inwardly. Ennis was right about this as well. Since Bnenne’s death, Ioanna had hardly left her chambers, other than to pray in the cloister or take a brief walk through the castle gardens. In recent turns she had shown some signs of emerging from the darkness that gripped her, but the improvement often seemed painfully slow, like trying to see the movement of the moons as they arced through the night sky. At least she now managed to smile with Ennis and his remaining sister; at times Aindreas even heard her laughing.
“Tell her anyway,” Aindreas said. “She’ll want to know.”
The boy shrugged and hurried off, leaving the duke to greet his guests. He had thought to do so alone, but a moment later he was joined by Villyd Temsten, his swordmaster, who led several hundred soldiers into the ward.
“One of the tower guards told me they had arrived,” the man called to him. “I thought you’d want me here.”
Aindreas grinned. He didn’t trust many men anymore-he would never trust a white-hair again-but those who remained still served him well. “Thank you, Villyd.”
The swordmaster nodded and ordered the men into neat rows, before taking his place just behind the duke, his stout legs planted squarely on the grass and his arms folded over his broad chest.
Marston arrived a few moments later, accompanied by two guards from the city gate who announced him to the duke. He looked older than Aindreas remembered, which wasn’t surprising; it had been several years since last they met. But he appeared taller as well, and broader in the chest and shoulders. The duke had expected to see an unimpressive boy; instead he found himself facing a man who, despite his youth, looked very much like a thane, or even a duke. He resembled his father, just as his brother did, if Aindreas remembered correctly. All the Shanstead men seemed to share the same unremarkable but vaguely pleasant looks-straight brown hair, pale grey eyes, a straight nose and square chin.
Marston had come with eight of his men and his Qirsi minister, a young-looking man with close-cropped white hair and the same strange yellow eyes that all the sorcerers had. The thane introduced the man, but Aindreas missed his name, and didn’t care enough to ask Marston to repeat it.
When they finished with the formalities, the duke had Villyd arrange for the housing of Shanstead’s men and invited the thane, and with some reluctance his Qirsi as well, to join him for the midday meal. They kept their conversation light. Aindreas did not wish to discuss anything of substance in the company of the white-hair, nor did he wish to seem too anxious to speak of weightier matters. He had hoped that Ioanna might join them, but midway through the meal Ennis came to say that his mother was resting and would do her best to attend the evening meal.
“How fares the duchess?” Marston asked once Ennis was gone. “I’ve heard that she suffered greatly for the loss of your daughter.”
“We all did, Lord Shanstead,” Aindreas said pointedly. “My wife is doing as well as one might expect. As one parent to another, I can tell you that I wouldn’t wish the loss of a child on my most hated enemy.”
He regretted the words as soon as he spoke them, for the fact was he had done just that, fighting for the execution of Javan’s boy. If Marston noticed the duke’s error, he had the good sense not to comment on it.
“Of course not, my lord. You and your entire family have our deepest sympathies.”
They lapsed into a difficult silence, which the Qirsi finally ended.
“This is my first journey to Kentigern, my Lord Duke. I wonder if we might walk the battlements when our meal is done. I’ve heard tales of them all my life.”
Aindreas made himself smile. “It would be my pleasure, Minister.”
A short while later they finished eating and ascended the steps of the nearest tower to the castle walls. The duke had walked the battlements with his guests so often that with barely a thought he could tell the history of Kentigern’s various towers and the sieges they had survived. Still, the Qirsi seemed quite interested, as did Marston, who last visited the tor nearly eight years before, as a boy only a year or two past his Determining.
By the time they had come full circle back to Aindreas’s private hall, it was nearly dusk. The thane and his minister left the duke to find their quarters and wash the road from their faces and clothes.
“If we’re to meet the duchess,” Marston said, “we ought not to smell like our mounts.”
After making certain that his guests were escorted to their chambers, Aindreas returned to the castle’s great hall to check on the preparations for the night’s feast. Before Brienne’s death, this had been Ioanna’s task, but for the past several turns Aindreas had considered himself fortunate if she even attended a feast, much less planned one. He had become both duke and duchess, just as he had been forced to care for Affery and Ennis as both father and mother. At times like these, thinking of all that Tavis of Curgh had taken from him, the duke could barely contain his rage. The boy deserved to die, as did his father, the king, and everyone else who had aided his escape from Kentigern’s dungeon.
To his surprise, his wife actually did come to the hall to join their meal, arriving just a few moments after Marston and the Qirsi. She wore a red velvet gown, one that Aindreas had always loved on her. But seeing her dressed so, jewels about her neck, and her hair combed and scented, the duke could only grieve. She had always been slight, but rather than looking elegant, she now appeared frail, as if the darkness that had consumed her mind had ravaged her body as well. Her once beautiful face had grown sallow and pinched; her large brown eyes seemed sunken and when she smiled, upon her arrival in the hall, she looked more like a wraith than a living woman.
Aindreas stood, offering her the chair beside him, and Marston and his minister bowed deeply to her, drawing another ghostly smile to her lips. Though pleased that she had come to the hall, the duke could not help worrying that she might embarrass herself. He
r behavior since Brienne’s death had been erratic almost to the point of madness. Aindreas didn’t want it spread through the kingdom that the duchess of Kentigern had lost her mind, nor did he want his efforts to forge an alliance with Thorald and the other houses to be hindered by rumors that perhaps he was mad as well. Fortunately, Ioanna made it through the meal without any lapses. Indeed, the food and conversation seemed to do her good, leaving her more animated than she had been when the evening began. She lingered over the dried fruits, cheeses, and honey cakes served at the end of the meal, sipping her wine and speaking with Shanstead’s minister about Sussyn, where, as it happened, both of them had spent their early childhood. Despite Ioanna’s sickly appearance, Aindreas could not help but be pleased. In some small way, he felt that his wife had come back to him this night.
At last, the duchess announced that she had grown tired and wished to return to her chambers. Aindreas helped her to her feet and kissed her cheek.
“I’m glad you joined us,” he said quietly, their eyes meeting for a moment.
“As am I.” She turned to Marston. “Good night, Lord Shanstead. I’ve enjoyed your company.”
“And I yours, my lady.”
One of her ladies took her arm and led her out of the hall, leaving Aindreas alone with Marston and his minister.
“Shall we open another flask of wine?” the duke asked, smiling at the thane. “We have a good deal to discuss.”
“Of course, my Lord Duke.”
Aindreas motioned to one of the servants to bring more wine. He glanced for an instant at the Qirsi, before facing Marston again. “If you don’t mind, I’d like for us to speak in private.”