Tapestry Lion (The Landers Saga Book 2)

by Nilsen, Karen

Rainier chuckled again. “Such refreshing bluntness. Both you and Landers have shed your court masks this afternoon, and I‘m glad. Sycophants have their uses, but they weary me. The only hidden motivations I truly appreciate are my own.”

  “Speaking of hidden things, Your Majesty, I would like you to see that painting Mordric has hidden in his pocket,” Undene said.

  Rainier’s gaze slid back in my direction. “Bring it forth, Landers.”

  The painting itched, then burned through the cloth of my shirt, almost as painful as my scar. I grimaced and reached for my chest.

  “Landers?” The king’s sharp voice split through my musings, as pleasant as the sound of a rusty hinge.

  I started, then reached for my inner pocket. The painting tingled against my fingertips, and I cursed the crone’s witch sight. Well, there was nothing for it now. I might as well make the best of a bad situation. “I mean this as a gift, Your Majesty,” I said before I unrolled the canvas. “You said you appreciated candor, and my daughter-in-law is nothing if not candid, perhaps most of all in her art.”

  I rose from my chair and leaned over the small table in front of the king. The paint crackled, in a few places still sticking to itself, as I unfurled the painting, my hands braced on the edges as they threatened to curl back up. Jazmene and Radik waltzed all over the shimmering canvas. Hundreds of years from now, when they were dust, when we were all dust, they would likely still be dancing on this canvas, forever turning and swaying and dipping. As I watched them, they paused for a moment and embraced, blue sparks hissing over the surface of the paint as they shared a passionate kiss. I glanced at Rainier, gauging his reaction. Unblinking, he gazed down at the canvas. The air, heavy with the dust of many books, weighed down on all of us as we watched him. I heard no one breathe, not even myself, in that long moment.

  Rainier finally straightened and leaned back in his seat, his eyes glinting as he met my gaze. “She did a nice job with the tiles and the columns--the perspective is perfect.”

  “What about the figures, Your Majesty? Would you say she did a nice job with those?” I asked.

  The king and I stared at each other, the same measuring stare I would have given a man who’d challenged me to a duel. The corners of his mouth curled up finally in that nasty smirk. The shuffle of feet made him start then, and we both blinked as Falken, Artemious, and Undene clustered around the table, apparently eager to see the painting for themselves.

  “I knew it was some mischief, but nothing quite as naughty as this,” Undene said finally, with a throaty cackle. “That wayward little witch. Her Majesty’s a fool, thinking she can tame Safire to be one of her pets.”

  “Not even Merius can tame Selkie,” Falken muttered, as if to himself.

  Artemious gawked at the painting in abstracted silence, his mouth slightly open as he traced the lines of the tiles and columns, finally daring to touch a moving fold of Jazmene’s gown. He snatched his finger away from the canvas as if it burned, then reached for it again, more deliberate this time. He held his fingertip over Jazmene’s crown, only to have the crown dance out from under it as Jazmene and Toscar waltzed to the right. “Astonishing,” was his inane remark.

  “Indeed,” I said dryly, relinquishing my hold on the edges of the canvas and stepping aside as Artemious silently took my place.

  Artemious spared me a glance before looking back at the painting. “You told me about Safire, but I had no idea . . . it’s quite another thing to actually see it.”

  “That it is,” King Rainier said, his tone even drier than mine. “Falken?”

  “Yes, Your Majesty?”

  “Can you get an audience with the rebels this afternoon?”

  “I still have enough friends there to gain an audience at least, and if I have this painting in front of me, even my most determined enemies will be distracted.”

  The king roared a laugh, a surprising sound after all his reedy chuckles. “Boy, you anticipate me well.”

  Undene swayed beside Artemious, and despite the fact his gaze never wavered from the painting, he somehow grabbed her arm before she fell. As for Undene, she no longer looked at the painting. Instead she gazed ahead, those sightless eyes seemingly transfixed on something not in this chamber. I found my hand hovering near my sword hilt as I watched her. I swallowed and forced my hands back to my sides, my fingers clenched in fists--it would not do for the guards to think I was about to draw my blade in the presence of the king. What was I thinking?

  “It’s starting, Your Majesty,” Undene murmured then, as if talking in her sleep. She straightened and shook off Artemious’s hand, her white eyes glowing oddly.

  “Ah.” The king’s glittering gaze fixed on me. “Falken, stay here with Undene. I have something to show Landers and Lord Rankin. Come, gentlemen.” He motioned to us as he rose and trotted toward the secret door, his two guards in tow. Artemious let go of the painting, the edges of the canvas rolling up as he cracked his knuckles. He met my gaze, unspoken questions thick in the air between us. Finally I shrugged as if to say nothing for it now and turned to follow the king.

  Just before he reached the steps leading to the door concealed by the bookshelf, King Rainier veered off to the right, the guards lurching after him. He stopped before one of the few rectangles of bare paneling left in this book-walled room. Another secret doorway, another hidden corridor? Sarneth apparently had an obsession with the hired help remaining unseen and silent, as if all the unpleasant work of living was done by invisible hands. I shook my head. Indefensible. This place seemed a fortress on the outside, but a clever assassin or spy who bypassed the guards would find it a veritable haven. I should have let Eden stay in the kitchens here a while longer--she would have learned all the concealed passages and maybe found a way to free Merius and Safire. I imagined all the assignments I could have given her, how useful she could have been, if only I didn‘t feel the urge to protect her. If only I hadn’t taken her to my bed. Sheer madness, that. I groaned inwardly and wondered how she fared on her voyage. Now that the queen had both Safire and Merius in her clutches, the locks were no longer guarded so closely, and I had been able to escort Eden on a ship bound for Cormalen and make certain she stayed on board until the crew raised anchor. I did need her back in Cormalen to keep an eye on developments at court for me, the only argument that had swayed the wicked vixen to follow my orders for a change. Thank God she had--there were quite enough Landers in trouble in Sarneth, and I didn’t need anything else to worry me at the moment.

  Artemious stopped beside me, watching as King Rainier ran his fingers over the far edge of the paneling. There was the click of a hidden latch, and suddenly the paneling swung outward, revealing a narrow arched hallway.

  We walked for many yards through that narrow corridor behind the king, covering several chambers’ length before we stopped at a corner. The edge of the corner had been softened by a line of rounded tiles. The king bent down and began counting the corner tiles up from the bottom until he reached one that was nearly eye-level. Then he counted over five tiles from the corner.

  “This should be right,” he muttered. He gestured toward one of the guards. “You--lend me your dagger.”

  The guard held out the dagger so Rainier could grasp the handle. He grabbed it and used it to prize out the fifth tile. The tile slipped out of its place with the ease borne of many such prizings, the mortar making a barely audible scrape. The king carefully set the tile on the floor and handed the dagger back to the guard. He then glanced through the opening for a minute or two before turning to look at me, his black eyes like the oily water in the bottom of a filthy moat.

  “Landers,” he said. “Get over here--you’ll want to see this.”

  I stepped forward, my hands clasped tightly behind me so they didn’t reach out on their own accord and try to strangle the king. Swallowing, my throat oddly dry, I contemplated the architecture with great care in an attempt to distract myself. We evidently were standing behind the wall near the ceiling of the
queen’s octagonal receiving chamber. As I remembered, there was a complicated pattern of vines and scrolls carved around the top of that chamber near the skylights in the ceiling. Someone had spent some time scraping away the mortar around this tile, removing the stone beneath, and then chiseling small peepholes through the scrollwork of the molding, allowing a clear view into the chamber below. All of this took me an instant to absorb. It took me considerably longer to absorb what I saw going on across the floor beneath.

  The first figure I noticed was Safire, her hair blazing like a silken army banner in the afternoon sunlight. Her arms were clutched across her chest, her skin devoid of all color--she looked on the verge of being sick or fainting. Two guards flanked her, not touching her, but close enough to grab her if she made a move in any direction. At that instant, the queen strode into my field of vision, her hands clasped behind her back. She was as pale as Safire, but her eyes shined--hers was the pallor of intense excitement. I was reminded of her demeanor at my matches with Toscar when she clapped like an eager child at every hit and close miss. Then I heard the sound I dreaded--the deadly hiss and clang of well-sharpened blades in combat, reverberating off the marble floor and walls.

  Toscar and Merius bounded into view. Merius was in a quick retreat across the center of the floor, Toscar following him. Suddenly Merius spun around and surprised Toscar with an abrupt stop and attack. Merius’s blade flew, merely a darting flicker of silver from this height. Thank God he was fast--he was going to need every advantage he had and then some. I had seen Merius on the practice floor hundreds of times, but I’d never seen him in actual battle besides a few fistfights. God, don’t let him lose his temper--Radik will slaughter him.

  “That was a clever move,” murmured King Rainier behind me, watching as Merius lunged and swung his wrist. His blade spun in a flash, almost disarming Toscar. Almost, but not quite. Radik parried and sprang back, out of Merius’s reach for the moment.

  “I taught him that move--trouble is, Radik’s seen it before during our matches.” I stared down, not able to move. Toscar lunged, at the last instant flicking his sword tip down so it was aimed at Merius's lower abdomen. I opened my mouth to yell a warning, but Merius had already adjusted the angle of his parry to block Toscar's sneaky move. He had gotten my note then.

  Rainier heaved a reedy breath beside me. “The guards have my orders to let you pass. Even her guards obey me.”

  I spared a quick dagger of a glance his way. “You knew about this. That’s why you summoned us today and not before.”

  “Of course. I know everything that goes on in this palace.” He said it casually. This place was his giant chess board, the people but game pieces to amuse him.

  “Mordric, is it Merius?” Artemious asked. When I gave a curt nod, he continued, “Against Toscar?” I nodded again, gritting my teeth so hard there was a stab of pain in my jaw.

  “Toscar’s too savvy to do him serious harm, anyway,” Rainier said airily. “It would be a grave diplomatic blunder, and my Lord of the Arkaddian is known for his diplomacy in certain quarters.”

  “He has a temper like any other man. He already tossed aside diplomacy when he agreed to this match. Besides, they’re using real blades--anything could happen.” Toscar managed to knick Merius’s sleeve then, and blood appeared against the white. Safire’s intake of breath, half sob, echoed up to us.

  “Your son’s holding his own.”

  “But how long can he hold his own?” My foot suddenly jerked from its spot, and I found myself running back towards the king’s library.

  Rainier hurried after me. “If you kill Radik, do it in self-defense with witnesses present. Not just Jazmene and Merius and Safire. I‘ll be watching, Landers.”

  I spared him a glance. “Of course you will. Don‘t worry, Your Majesty--I never leave messes.”

  By this point, we were in the library. I caught a flash of Falken’s and Undene’s faces, Falken wide-eyed with surprise, Undene still in her witch trance, watching the match from some other realm. Rainier paused behind me to catch his breath, one of his guards grasping for my sleeve as if to stop me. But it was too late for that. I threw open the door and raced down the hall toward the main staircase, already reaching for my sword.

  Chapter Thirty-Two - Safire

  For the third time in an hour, I heard the heavy scrape of Merius’s chair as he flung it back and stood, the nervous crack of his knuckles to match the crackling of his aura as he stretched his arms, his quick footfalls as he started pacing from window to window, his aura frenetic silver flashes like shooting stars all over the chamber. I sighed, then shut my eyes for a moment and tried to block him so I could concentrate on the image in my mind, somehow willing it through my blood to my fingers into my brush and onto the canvas. I had sketched the study last night, half in a trance after looking at a book of anatomy drawings of criminals’ dissected corpses. Such a book would have been banned in Cormalen, where it was considered immoral to do anything to dead bodies aside from burying them. Korigann had hesitated lending me the book--he thought it would excite my sensitive nerves too much--but I had insisted after he told me about how it helped him draw the human form better. After studying the book, a portrait of sorts had emerged on the paper before me, a side view of a man’s head that had been cloven down the middle so one should have been able to see his brains and the crevices in his skull. Instead of sketching brains, though, I had divided the inside of his skull into many chambers, each chamber with a different scene playing in it. One scene showed a man being assassinated; in another a lively string quartet made music; in yet another, a little boy sat on a window seat and wrote complicated sums on a slate.

  “A labyrinthine mind,” I said aloud as I opened my eyes with a deep breath and stared at the canvas before me. I had the basic shape of the man’s head and all the chambers, done in pencil. Now to start with the paint . . . suddenly there was a silvery prickle across the back of my neck, as if a slight breeze lifted my hair. I didn’t have to look to know that Merius stood there, gazing over my shoulder. “Merius,” I said through my teeth. “What did we discuss this morning?”

  “Your mind’s full of strange thoughts. I just want to see what you’re doing.”

  "Weren't we supposed to be practicing blocking each other? And you know I hate it when people besides Korigann watch me paint or draw."

  “I thought you meant other people, not me.”

  “I mean especially you.” I turned, brush raised like a dagger, just in time to see his crestfallen expression. “It’s only because I care so much what you think, dear heart,” I amended, softening my tone. “And you know it’s hard for me to concentrate with you nearby. How would you feel if I hovered over your shoulder while you were reading?”

  He grinned, his eyes crinkling. “I’d put down the book and take you to bed.”

  “Even if it was one of Keller’s histories or a book of Sirach’s verse?”

  “Well . . .” he considered for a moment. “Which book of verse do you mean? His plays or his poems?”

  I stifled a giggle and turned back to the canvas. “Why are you so jittery, anyway? You’ve gotten up three times in the last hour--is the anatomy book not interesting?”

  “No, no,” he said, starting to pace again. “It’s fascinating. I just can’t concentrate.” He paused beside the largest window. “God, the sun is bright on the snow today. Makes my head hurt.”

  “So quit looking at it.” I watched him out of the corner of my eye, noticed how his aura flickered, one moment burning like a silver brand, the next barely a pewter shadow around him. Now my head hurt. Merius’s aura was always forceful but rarely steady, and today it was even more erratic than usual. I closed my eyes again.

  My eyelids flew open when there came the rattle of the key in the door. Merius started, then quickly moved to my side. His aura stopped flickering and became the uniform silver of the inside of a shield as he surrounded me with it. *Always most content in the midst of crisis was my wayw
ard thought, and Merius shot me a narrow look.

  “That’s not true, Safire.”

  I sighed. “Just an unbidden observation. I’m glad to have a husband who’s at his best in a crisis, since I always seem to be in one.”

  He snorted as several guards came in the cell. “Her Majesty said it’s time for your exercise, sir,” Ladon said, gruff as usual.

  “But it’s barely eleven o’clock,” Merius said, glancing toward the window. Usually the guards came for him around one, then for me at three after he was done. I enjoyed my jaunts along the parapets, even though guards trailed my every step. The cold air slapped me awake, and the view of the Midmarch and the surrounding plains inspired my odd witch fancies as I wondered what people were doing in all the different houses, what missions the small dark figures were on as they trudged like ants up and down the streets below.

  Ladon shrugged. “That’s her orders, sir.”

  *Watch yourself. I blew a kiss at him as the guards took his arms and started to blindfold him.

  *I will, sweetheart. And with that, he and the guards were gone, a tramp of boots echoing down the hall as the door clanged shut in their wake. I turned back to the canvas with a sigh and lost myself in the twisted convolutions of my imaginary subject’s thoughts.

  The key in the lock roused me from my trance. I stepped away from the easel, shaking myself a bit as I glanced at the door. How much time had passed? No sunlight slanted across the floor, so it had to be around noon. Merius practiced and ran for as long as they would allow him, which was usually two hours a day, so it probably wasn’t him returning yet. Besides, I couldn’t feel his aura stirring the air in the hallway or hear his thoughts. No, it wasn’t Merius. Korigann perhaps? He came almost every afternoon after my walk to see what work I’d done for the day and show me various techniques. Maybe he was early today for some reason . . .

  When the queen swept through the door, several guards and handmaids in tow, my stomach did a somersault. With trembling hands, I set the brush on the edge of the palette and then smoothed my smock, leaving a jagged streak of black paint down the front. Then I clutched my fingers together, hoping that would keep them from visibly shaking. What was wrong with me? Certainly Jazmene had been in this chamber many times. But Merius had always been here before. That was the difference.