And this man, Jilseponie knew in her heart, was in many ways akin to her handmaiden, used and abused by the man truly holding the power.
She would not be as generous with him.
She felt strangely comfortable as she made her way through St. Honce, heading for the room of Abbot Ohwan. That surprised Jilseponie, until she took the time to pause and consider that, in this situation, she held all the power. Jilseponie had found many adversarial situations with powerful men of the Abellican Church, often on a desperate precipice, but this time …
This time she knew that Abbot Ohwan had no defense, that he could not and would not oppose her demands.
She gave a slight knock at his door and pushed right in before he could even respond. He was sitting at his desk, staring up at her incredulously. He started to say something when Jilseponie forcefully slammed the door behind her and turned an imposing glare upon him. “You have been poisoning my food,” she stated bluntly.
Abbot Ohwan stammered over a few words and started to rise, but he fell back to his seat and seemed as if he would simply topple to the floor.
“Deny it not,” Jilseponie went on. “For I have found the substance and have spoken with the man who actually sprinkled the herbs upon my food, following your own explicit orders.”
“Not poison!” Abbot Ohwan remarked, shakily climbing to his feet. “Not poison.”
“Poison,” said Jilseponie.
“Herbs to prevent you from becoming with child, nothing more,” the abbot tried to explain. “You must understand that I had little choice.”
Jilseponie’s expression showed that she was far from understanding.
“You … you … you came here and upset everything!” Abbot Ohwan said boldly, going on the offensive as he quickly came around the side of his desk. “There is, or was, an established order here in Ursal, one that you do not comprehend.”
“I came to Ursal at the invitation of the only person who can rightfully make such a claim that I have somehow confounded the court,” Jilseponie was quick to respond, and forcefully. “Since the court is his to confound! And if my presence at Castle Ursal court somehow upsets this secluded little world that the nobles of court and the hierarchy of Church have created for themselves, then perhaps that is a good thing!”
Abbot Ohwan started patting his hands in the air, his bluster expiring in the face of the powerful woman. “Not poison,” he said again.
“I know nothing of the herbs, except that the amount I was being given would have killed me soon enough,” Jilseponie retorted.
“Not so!” the abbot protested. “Only enough to keep you from becoming with child. And can you blame me? Do you not understand the trauma to Church and to State if that were to happen?”
That ridiculous last statement was lost on Jilseponie as she considered his first claim. She knew it to be a lie, knew that she had been given far too much of the potent herb, but she could not deny the sincerity in the man’s expression and in his tone. She figured it out pretty quickly. “And do you also give the herbs to Constance, that she might remain sterile?” Jilseponie asked.
“Of course,” Abbot Ohwan answered. “Such has been the duty of the abbot of St. Honce for hundreds of years—to supply all the courtesans.”
“And the queens?” asked Jilseponie. “Without their permission?”
Abbot Ohwan shook his head and stammered again. “N-never before has a queen also been within the province of St. Honce, serving as sovereign sister,” he suddenly remarked.
“Nor am I within your province, Abbot Ohwan,” Jilseponie said calmly and in a low and threatening tone.
“And tell me,” she went on, “to whom do you deliver these herbs? To each individually?”
“They are separated into proper portions for each kitchen and all given to a courier,” the abbot explained innocently. It wasn’t until he heard his own words that his expression soured and he apparently caught on to Jilseponie’s reasoning, that Constance and the other courtesans could easily divert some of their supply to Jilseponie’s food.
Jilseponie shook her head at the man’s stupidity.
“You are a liar or a fool,” she said.
“Please, sovereign sister,” Abbot Ohwan stammered. “My Queen.”
“Resign your position,” Jilseponie demanded. “Go and serve as a parson in a minor chapel far removed from Ursal and the court.”
“I am the abbot of St. Honce!” Ohwan protested.
“No more!” Jilseponie shot back. “Go now, this day, else I will publicly reveal your treachery to King Danube, discrediting you and bringing upon you the shame you deserve.”
“You will bring about a war between Church and State!” insisted the desperate abbot.
“The Church will abandon you,” Jilseponie assured him. “You know that it will. I offer you the chance to continue your vocation and to find again the heart you have apparently lost, but it is a tentative offer, I assure you. Accept it at once and without condition, or I walk out of here to the King with a tale that will boil his blood.”
Abbot Ohwan’s expression shifted through many emotions, from fear to denial to anger. Finally, like an animal that has been backed into an inescapable corner, he squared his shoulders and stood tall. “Thus you play God,” he said, his voice full of contempt, his face locked in a defiant glare.
Jilseponie didn’t blink. “If I played human, you would now be lying in a pool of your own blood,” she said calmly, and then Abbot Ohwan did shrink back and blanch.
Jilseponie was no less sure of her actions as she headed back to Castle Ursal, armed with the information she had subsequently pried from the defeated abbot. This was not a fight that she had ever wanted, and it saddened her profoundly. But neither was it a fight that she could avoid, and certainly not one that she intended to lose.
She knocked on the door of Constance Pemblebury’s rooms and this time, waited for a response.
A sleepy-eyed Constance answered the door, opening it just a bit and peeking around it. A flash of anger accompanied the flash of recognition when she saw who had come calling, but she held her composure well.
“I must speak with you,” Jilseponie remarked.
“Then speak.”
“In private.”
“Say what you must here and now or go away,” said Constance, squaring her shoulders. “I’ve no time—”
Before she could finish, Jilseponie dropped her shoulder and shoved through the door, crossing into the room and slamming the door closed behind her.
“Queen or not,” Constance yelled defiantly, “you have no right to invade my private quarters!”
“A minor transgression, I would say, when measured beside your own perceived right to invade my body,” Jilseponie answered.
Constance started to respond but stopped short, caught by surprise—and caught by the stunning and true accusation. “W-what?” she stammered. “You speak nonsense.”
“I have just come from Abbot Ohwan,” Jilseponie said calmly. “And from the kitchens of Castle Ursal before that. I know about the herbs to prevent pregnancy, Constance, and I know as well about the exceptionally high dose you chose to add to my food.”
“What evidence?” Constance started to ask, trying to stand bold and defiant.
“Was it not enough for you to keep me barren?” Jilseponie asked. “Did you have to go after my very life in addition?”
“You do not know—”
“I know,” Jilseponie growled so forcefully that Constance backed away a step. “And so will King Danube unless—”
“Unless?” the woman interrupted, more eagerly than she wanted to reveal.
“Unless Constance Pemblebury takes her leave of Castle Ursal, and of Ursal altogether,” Jilseponie explained. “Go away, Constance. Go far away. To Yorkey County or to Entel or all the way to Behren, if that is what best suits you. But far away.”
“Impossible!” Constance shrieked.
“Your only option,” Jilseponie calmly answe
red. “I know what you did and can prove it openly, if you force me to. I can reveal your treason to the King and the court and, worse for you, to all the folk of Ursal if need be. Is that the path you will force me to take? To destroy you utterly?”
“I cannot leave!”
“You cannot stay,” Jilseponie was quick to reply. “This is no debate. I came to offer you this one chance to be gone from Ursal and from my life. I’ll not suffer an assassin to live in my own house.”
“Your house?” Constance roared indignantly, and she came forward, poking a finger Jilseponie’s way. “Your house? You do not even belong here, peasant! Your house is in the Timberlands, in the forest with the other vulgar creatures—”
Jilseponie slapped her across the face, and she fell back, stunned.
“Be sensible and do not force my hand,” Jilseponie said quietly, calmly, and powerfully. “You have betrayed me, and thus, whatever your feelings, you have committed treason against the Crown. A simple and undeniable fact. If you force me to reveal your treachery, I shall, and woe to Constance Pemblebury, and woe to her children, who would be kings.”
The mention of the children seemed to steal the ire from the woman, though she stood very still, trembling, her eyes darting all about, as if looking for some escape.
“Be gone,” said Jilseponie. “Be long gone from the castle and the city.”
Constance trembled so violently that Jilseponie feared that she would simply fall over. “My children,” Constance said, her voice barely above a whisper.
“They may remain at Castle Ursal, if that is what you desire,” Jilseponie replied, “or take them with you. The choice is yours to make—have you never understood that I am no threat to Merwick and Torrence or their ascension to the throne, if that is how the fates play out?” Jilseponie shook her head and chuckled helplessly. Nor was she ever a threat to Constance, she thought. A part of her wanted to tell that to the beleaguered woman then, to try to reason with Constance and salvage …
Salvage what? For truly it had gone too far. There was no repairing her relationship with Constance Pemblebury, Jilseponie knew, especially given Constance’s obvious feelings for King Danube. Constance’s hatred of Jilseponie went deeper than any fears the woman had for her children. Constance’s hatred was rooted in irrational and irreversible jealousy; and since Jilseponie could not alter King Danube’s heartfelt feelings, nothing she could say or do would repair things. Nor, given the wretchedness of the woman and her cronies at court, did Jilseponie have any desire to do so. No, the only remedy here, short of an open trial for treason, was for Jilseponie to follow her original plan.
“There is nothing left for us to discuss,” she said, holding her hand up to Constance to stem any forthcoming remarks. “I have given you the choices—you must do whatever you believe to be best for you, though I warn you one more time that I have all the evidence needed to convict you in open court.”
She patted her open hand toward Constance as the woman started to speak, then gave her one last stare, turned, and headed for the door.
“How long?” came the shaky question behind her.
Jilseponie turned, and her heart sank at the pitiful sight that was Constance Pemblebury.
“How long do I have before I must go?” the woman asked, her voice breaking with each word.
“Tomorrow will be your last day in Castle Ursal, with one day after that to secure passage out of the city,” Jilseponie replied, and she knew that Constance would have little trouble securing her passage from her many wealthy and influential friends. “And beware of how you wag your tongue concerning your unexpected departure,” Jilseponie warned. “Implicate or deride me in any manner, and I will reveal my evidence and demand a trial.”
“Witch,” Constance muttered as the Queen turned again to leave.
Jilseponie accepted the insult and continued on her way. She felt good about her generous decision, though she understood that allowing Constance to leave would likely mean more trouble for her somewhere down the road.
Chapter 23
Lady Dasslerond’s Awful Secret
BECAUSE THEY’D HAD TO WAIT UNTIL THE FIRST SNOWS, THE WANDERING TRIO now found themselves trapped in Dundalis for the winter, but it was not wholly unpleasant for Aydrian, De’Unnero, and Sadye. The folk of Dundalis treated them well, welcoming them with open arms. The town was larger now than in the days of Elbryan’s childhood, its population having nearly tripled during the days of the plague, since Dundalis sat on the main route to the Barbacan and the covenant of Avelyn. Still, the folk were, for the most part, of a similar type as those who had always inhabited Dundalis and so many of the other frontier communities. Close-knit by necessity, trusting one another, the community of Dundalis survived through cooperation. Aydrian, with his tracking abilities, De’Unnero, with his strong work ethic and many, many skills, and Sadye, with her haunting and entertaining ballads, soon proved welcome additions to the somewhat stagnant community.
Up there, in the dark north on a midwinter night, the trio witnessed the rare sight of the Halo, the spectacular multicolored rings of Corona, glowing majestically in the sky with a surreal, supernatural beauty that transcended earthly bounds. To De’Unnero and to Sadye, the sight was a spiritual experience, confirmation to the former monk that, despite the transgressions of the weretiger, he remained within the good graces of St. Abelle and God. For Aydrian, the Halo proved a more confusing sight, a hint that there might be something greater than this mortal presence and existence. The young man, who had constructed his own theories and pathways to immortality, found that revelation, combined with his confrontation with the dead, strangely unsettling.
The Dundalis nights were also the setting for other seemingly mystical events: music drifting on the evening breeze, haunting and melancholy. The three would find themselves merely sitting and enjoying the distant sounds, oblivious of them for many minutes. Among the group, only De’Unnero thought he knew the source, and the former monk wasn’t pleased at all to learn that the wretched Bradwarden might still be about the forests of the Timberlands.
He contemplated going out in tiger form to do battle with the centaur, but only briefly. For the ever-pragmatic De’Unnero recognized that if he so engaged Bradwarden, but did not kill the centaur, then he might be alerting others, Jilseponie most of all, that he was still about. Given the true lineage of his newest traveling companion, that would not be a good thing.
“You know of the source,” Sadye said to him one night when the piping drifted into their small cottage.
“Perhaps,” De’Unnero replied. “Perhaps not. It is not important.”
“I should like to meet the player.”
“No,” De’Unnero answered bluntly, and he quickly smiled and lightened the mood. “The Forest Ghost, as that one is called, has been piping in the Timberlands for decades,” he explained, and that part of his dodge was honest enough. “Some say it is a man, others a horse, others say something in between.”
Sadye’s eyes narrowed. “Bradwarden, then,” she reasoned with a sly smile.
De’Unnero knew that he was caught. Sadye was an impossible one to bluff! “It may be,” he admitted. “And that would make any meeting disastrous at best.”
Sadye nodded her understanding and agreement. “Though I would love to meet him,” she said quietly, moving closer to De’Unnero, that he could wrap his strong arms about her.
“As would I,” the former monk whispered under his breath; but he knew, if Sadye did not, that his enjoyment at meeting the troublesome centaur would be of a very different nature indeed!
Still another call found them during those long and dark nights—or found Aydrian, at least.
“There is something out there,” he explained to his two companions late in the season, “calling to me.”
De’Unnero glanced at Sadye, and both did well to hide their alarm, thinking that the young man might be speaking of Bradwarden or perhaps of some other former friend of his dead father.
“What is it?” Sadye prompted.
“I know not,” Aydrian admitted. “I only know that it calls to me—perhaps only to me.”
“Ignore the feeling,” De’Unnero instructed. “Our time here grows short, and there is nothing else about that is worth our time or trouble.”
“But—”
“Ignore it,” the former monk said again, more forcefully. “The forests about Dundalis are not to be taken lightly. There are many things out there better left alone—Lady Dasslerond and her kin, perhaps, among them.”
His reference to the Touel’alfar did give Aydrian pause, and so he nodded and excused himself, and went to his private bed. He was soon fast asleep.
Only to awaken sometime later, hearing again that strange and insistent call in his mind. He recognized that gemstone magic was somehow involved in this strange communication, but it was like nothing he had ever heard before, nothing he had ever seen from Dasslerond or the other elves. Furthermore, the source of the communication seemed somehow different than anything Aydrian had ever experienced. He thought of waking De’Unnero and demanding that they go to investigate, but as he considered that option, as he considered the monk’s somewhat stern warning, Aydrian decided that this choice was his own to make.
He was dressed soon after and out of the house, Hawkwing slung over his shoulder, Tempest strapped to his waist. During the day, he didn’t dare show his recent acquisitions, but no one in the town was awake, he knew.
The snow was still deep, but Aydrian found paths windblown enough to navigate in the general direction of the call. He walked for hours, too excited to feel the cold wind. Then, in a small clearing some miles from Dundalis, his efforts found their reward.
There stood a stallion, and such a horse Aydrian had never seen! Such a magnificent horse he had never believed existed! The steed’s coat glistened black in the moonlight, with a white crest between its eyes and white socks on its muscled legs. The wild black mane told Aydrian that this creature was no man’s pet or possession.
DemonWars Saga Volume 2: Mortalis - Ascendance - Transcendence - Immortalis (The DemonWars Saga) Page 97