Shary followed her and stood a few feet away, shuffling her feet and letting the silver letter tray dangle from one hand. Audreyn frowned meaningfully at it, and Shary followed her eyes down and then back up, but didn’t seem to understand what the look meant.
Audreyn hmphed quietly and pressed on. “How did you get here?”
“Fell in wi’ yer train,” Shary said. “Nobody takes a head count o’the followers, only the soldiers. Once we were in the town, t’were easy t’sneak into the Hall, steal a maid’s dress.”
“Cold, woman. What were you Idgen Marte found you, a spy, a master thief?”
“A whore,” Shary answered with the same unashamed calm she’d already displayed. “And then a wife and a priestess, of a kind, and then a widow in short order.” The girl smiled faintly. “D’ya think Idgen Marte spent all the winter talkin’ t’you and drinkin’ with yer brother? She taught me. It isn’t e’en that hard, in truth.” Her smile vanished. “Nobody looks at women like me, m’lady. If my eyes are down n’I look busy, I can go everywhere and hear everythin’.” As if to prove the point, the girl lifted her tray correctly, lowered her eyes to the ground, and seemed to shrink into herself.
Audreyn had to admit that the girl’s actions were effective. She suddenly looked like any maid serving here in Coldbourne Hall, like dozens, scores that Audreyn had seen in her life.
Audreyn was suddenly keenly aware of the fact that of those many women, she could name, at best, a little over half a dozen, and she was ashamed. Suddenly something the girl had said grabbed her.
“I’m sorry, Shary that you’ve been widowed already,” Audreyn quietly offered.
“Thanks, m’lady.” The girl frowned faintly, worrying at her thin bottom lip with the sharp points of teeth that were whiter than Audreyn would’ve expected. “Just so it’s clear, I’m not the only widow wearin’ a maid’s dress in this hall. And, in truth, Gend weren’t much of a husband.”
“Die he die in the war, then?”
“Not so. Killed by greenhats, or Delondeur swords-at-hire at the start o’winter, when they declared the anathemata. Found us havin’ a meetin’ up in Ashmill Bridge, chased us out o’town. Were it not for Idgen Marte we’d all’ve burned for heretics. Couple o’men got close anyway, and Gend stayed behind for ‘em.”
The entire time she told the story, Shary remained as calm, as cool as ever, hands at her sides, posture relaxed.
“You are remarkably calm for a woman who lost her husband.”
“He weren’t for long and he weren’t much for the time we had,” Shary said, “and pinin’ o’er his bones isn’t like to help me help you, m’lady. And that’s what I’m here for, after all.”
Audreyn knew she’d been told to get on with it, so she pursed her lips. “Do you speak with the other servants?”
Shary thought a moment. “I could, but I best not do it often. Word’ll get back to who’er hires that there’s a new lass and he’ll wonder where she came from.”
Audreyn smiled. “She will wonder.” She gestured at the parchments and implements before her with a sweep of her hand. “All I need do is write the appropriate documents, and we have hired a new maid.”
“If I’m spendin’ m’day haulin’ wood and sweepin’ ashes and cleanin’ pots I can’t do what Idgen Marte sent me here t’do, m’lady. I’ve already got two women t’answer two. A third’d get no answers at all.”
“I can also see to it that you are assigned to me, for whatever duties I see fit. I’ll think of a reason later. For now, get yourself hidden. I can have all in readiness by the morning.”
“As y’wish, m’lady.” Shary made another abominable curtsey and walked towards the door. As she reached and opened it, her entire demeanor underwent a swift change. Her shoulders drooped, her head lowered. She took up less space and seemed to lose all of her confidence, all that forthright calm. And then she was gone.
Audreyn frowned as she watched Shary disappear into the hallway. Turning back to the papers piled on her desk, she felt an unsettling thought rise to the top of her suddenly churning mind.
Likely enough, the girl was here to help, just as she’d said. But, Audreyn admitted, though not aloud, she is also here to watch me, and make sure I do as I said I would. She selected a piece of fresh parchment and the pen she’d meant to take up when the girl had finally revealed herself, had a deep and steadying breath.
“Sorry, Gilrayan,” she muttered, as she dipped the silver end of the pen in the ink bottle. “Coldbourne is about to admit its deficiencies as horse country and the poor work of its smiths is going to get poorer given the high cost of iron.”
* * *
Cerisia had been given a room among the Vineyards’ many-towered splendor that allowed her a good view of the rookery. On an early morning several days into her visit, she found herself at the window, staring hard at the platform outside a slender tower where messenger pigeons would leave or enter the rookery.
Real work had to be done by riders bearing messages, she knew, but a pigeon flapping and cooing outside with a tiny hollow tube on its legs, perhaps a scrap of cloth in Baronial colors affixed to it, would be the first indication of any movement.
The breeze that the open window brought was colder than she liked, or colder than she’d thought she liked. An entire winter spent more or less in the outdoors of winter had, perhaps, adjusted her preferences when it came to such things. She was at least more willing to admit to the beauty of the landscape, the quilt of green and brown she could just see unrolling from the castle walls.
Cerisia was turned from the window by a rustling among the linens on the massive four-poster that had been placed in her chamber. Its posts were carved—with vines and leaves and grapes, of course—and two sets of curtains, light and heavy, were available to draw across the bed at need.
Currently, no curtains were drawn, giving her a view of the smoothly-muscled torso of Arontis Innadan as he stirred in her bed.
She smiled, pushing aside thoughts of the scandal that might arise if a chambermaid were to walk in upon the Castellan and Baronial Heir in the bed of a Priestess of Fortune. Not that Cerisia herself needed fear any such scandal; servants of Fortune were all but expected to seek liaisons with the rich and powerful. Still, for Arontis it could affect marriage prospects.
Only if his future wife’s family is full of Urdarite prudes, Cerisia thought, glancing at the door to see that it was locked.
She glided away from the window and sat carefully upon the bed. She stretched one hand out to Arontis’s chest, smiled at the hard planes of muscle that lay just beneath the skin.
She studied his face as his eyes flickered open. He had the body of a man—of that she had no more doubt—but in repose his face was still quite young. The boyishness melted away as he awoke and sat, capturing her hand with one of his.
“Do you still look for messages? It’ll likely be another day at least,” he murmured, his voice a whispered croak.
“I do,” she admitted, shrugging rather more broadly than was strictly necessary, and watching how his eyes were drawn to the clinging silk of her nightdress. “It is important work being done, Arontis. It must move forward quickly if there is to be any chance of success.”
He let go of her hand and she let it drop to her lap, then placed his arms behind him and stretched. “And what chance of success do you really think it has?”
“With Allystaire Stillbright and Hamadrian Innadan working at the same purpose, I see a great chance of success. I see woe and ruin for those who would oppose them.”
“You think quite highly of Stillbright, and of my father.”
“As to your father, should I not?”
“I love my father, and honor him as is my place,” Arontis said, sitting up and leaning against the headboard. The linens—colored golden in honor of Fortune, Cerisia guessed—were pulled down and pooled around
his hips and folded legs. She briefly let her eyes follow the ripple of lean muscle down to the line of golden-yellow linen drawn over his hips. “Yet I think in his age, his hope is starting to overcome his reach.”
“There is every reason to hope,” Cerisia said. “There is always reason to hope.”
“Is it the paladin, then? Is he the reason to hope?”
“Yes,” Cerisia said. “And not only him. There are his companions. There is the fact that people will remember who he once was, and respect him for that.”
“Tell me about him.”
Cerisia fought the urge to frown or scold. Better to find some way to gently demonstrate the annoyance of interruption, she told herself, and took a deep breath. “What do you wish to know?”
“Is he as fair as legends would have it? The songs never cease to speak of the beauty of men like Reddyn the Redoubtable or Parthalian.”
Cerisia shook her head. “Not at all. His face is large, and years of battering have made it uneven, with a nose broken so often I could hazard no guesses as to what it originally looked like or where it might once have pointed. In other words, Arontis,” she said, leaning forward to hover her mouth near his, and sliding her hand from her own lap to his, “he is not half as fair as you.”
Cerisia felt strong arms slide around her and pull her against that smoothly-muscled chest, and put Allystaire, the open window, and the slim tower in its view out of her mind.
And while the room grew temporarily warmer than the air gusting into it, neither of its occupants were watching a small grey and white pigeon with a tiny hollow tube tied to its leg. Even if they had been looking, neither could’ve seen the device carefully painted onto its feathered breast: a light blue field with the paw of a white bear upon it.
* * *
“The White Bear will come!” Hamadrian Innadan was practically shouting as he held the tiny note aloft in one thin, liver-spotted hand. He, Arontis, and Cerisia were gathered once again in the study where she had met him upon her arrival. “Unseldt Harlach says that further arrangements will arrive by riders with drawn banners within the fortnight. He thinks the use of Standing Guard Pass an excellent one. Or so he tells me,” he added, gesturing over his shoulder at the scribe who’d had that morning’s charge of the rookery. The young man with a scholar’s wispy beard and a red skullcap was still carrying the bird itself in a cage made of thin wires.
“And I want the bird knighted,” Baron Innadan said in a rush of heated excitement. “With full honors.”
“Yes, m’lord,” the scribe answered, bowing. The man seemed entirely out of sorts, bewildered at his inclusion in the company.
“It is a Harlach bird, father,” Arontis pointed out, failing to hide his smile. “How will Unseldt take it, you knighting one of his own in your name?”
“I’d say I don’t care what that old bearded goat would think,” the Baron admitted. “Yet I’m afraid that I care a great deal. Unseldt Harlach agreeing to a peace congress headed by Allystaire Coldbourne, the man who carved away nearly a third of his lands over the years, who never failed to at least bloody his nose every time they scrapped, is a wonder I never imagined I’d see.”
“Have you considered, father,” Arontis began, “that Unseldt Harlach might show up with his knives out, or an army hidden in the mountains, ready to fall upon all of us?”
“In the first place, Standing Guard Pass makes hiding an army almost impossible,” the old man grunted. “In the second, I’m not sure how much army Harlach’s got left. They stayed in their mountains the past couple of years. Might be because Oyrwyn had driven them right up against it.”
“If all the Barons proceed with suspicions,” Cerisia offered, “then this process will go nowhere.” Privately, she wondered what sorts of things Gideon could do to an army foolish enough to try and hide itself from him in the mountains.
She tried not to let the chill that crept up her back turn into a shiver.
Her composure was unruffled, or at least neither man had noticed it.
“She’s right,” the Baron rasped. “But then I have rarely known a beautiful woman who wasn’t, usually. And consider again the man, lad. Unseldt Harlach’s got an old, prickly kind of honor. If he didn’t want to attend a peace congress, he’d have Freezing well said so. All the same, we’ll have to be careful not to insult him.”
“As you say, m’lord,” Arontis replied, sketching a light bow.
Hamadrian looked again at the scrap of paper in his fist, and turned to the scribe, scowling. “Why are you still here?”
The scribed bowed low, using his free hand to keep his skullcap from sliding. “You hadn’t given me leave, m’lord Baron.”
“Then you have it. And you’ll have two gold links and a bottle of my reserve brandy for having brought this directly to me, despite the early turn and the warnings of older men with more station and less sense than you have got. Begone then.”
Sketching more thankful bows, the scribe made a hasty exit, the bird in its cage fluffing the feathers of its chest, picking at the blue and white design that had been crudely painted upon it. They watched the exit in silence that Arontis finally broke.
“Very generous of you, father.”
“If a man can’t afford t’be generous at the end of his life, when can he be?”
“Come now, Hamadrian,” Cerisia said, crossing to him and taking his hand in her own. To her surprise the tremor in it was tangible even at rest, and the skin was soft and loose. “Surely it is not quite so bad as that.”
“It is, Cerisia. There is no point in hiding it or talking around it. Nothing for it but to do what I can in the time that’s left.”
“Father,” Arontis said, “please—”
“Please nothing. You want to play knight for a while longer and avoid the responsibilities of taking up the Seat, eh? Well you’ve got no brothers left and your nephews are unblooded boys.”
“Hamadrian,” Cerisia said, “I do not want to give you any false hope, but there is something that might be done for your health.”
“Eh? Can your goddess change my chances, then?”
Cerisia’s eyes widened and the Baron laughed. “It hadn’t occurred to me, but I suppose I could try. No, what I meant is that the paladin, Allystaire—he can close wounds with a touch, heal ills.”
“I thought you said he could rip men apart and uproot trees to swing as a club.”
“He can,” Cerisia answered, matter-of-factly, “though I have never seen him uproot a tree and swing it, I do not doubt that he could. Yet he has also closed the wounds of battle or mishap with a touch. Villagers, both in Thornhurst and in places he’s visited, speak of fevers broken, of rot and pox disappearing. An entire village will tell you, with the light of honest belief behind their eyes, that he took into his hands an infant who could not breathe, and that when he handed him back to his mother, the lad cried louder and longer than any baby they’d ever seen.”
She watched the Baron swallow, could see his throat visibly working, the bobbing apple beneath the thin and blue-veined skin. “I am not a boy to be easily entranced by tales, and to think they hold the solution to all my ills.”
“I do not know if he could heal you, Hamadrian. I know that he can heal.”
“Well,” the Baron said, drawing his slightly drooping shoulders up. “All the more reason to make it to the congress then, eh?” He took a deep breath, moved to one of the chairs in the room, and steadied himself against it. “We all have work to do, I am sure. Archioness, if you would excuse me and my son so that we could speak on matters that would surely bore you.”
Cerisia held her tongue and let the implied insult in the words—that the details of statecraft would bore her—roll off of her. Hamadrian knew better; he wanted to speak to Arontis alone.
She leaned forward and kiss the old man’s whiskery cheek, then turned and left the room
. She cut one eye up at Arontis as she passed him, and let her hips have an extra swing in them as she walked, the white silk of her dress flicking lightly behind her.
* * *
Father and son both watched Cerisia leave, and both realized that the other was watching at about the same time. They shared a quiet laugh, then looked away from one another for a moment of awkward silence.
“Son,” Hamadrian began finally, lifting his head to look his heir in the eye, “be discreet.”
Arontis colored easily, his father noted, smiling inwardly at the prickliness of youth. “I am not sure what you mean, m’lord.”
“You only m’lord me when you think you’re saying what I want to hear.” The Baron cut him off and walked around the chair he was leaning on, sank into it slowly. “I know exactly what is going on with you and the Archioness.”
“I’m sorry, m’lord—”
He cut his son’s words off by slicing a hand through the air. “If you think I disapprove, you aren’t paying enough attention. If I were ten years younger—Cold, maybe five—I’d be competing with you. I’d lose, but I’d make it a race, damn it all. She’s a fine woman, smart and well educated. You don’t find many people who are all three in this part of the world, which makes her all the more rare, the more to be valued. She is probably teaching you a great deal, and not just what to do with the sword the gods gave you when you were made.”
Arontis colored even more deeply, lowered his eyes to the floor.
“Let go of your shame, son,” Hamadrian said with a gentle sigh. “I don’t mean to scold you. I just want you to be careful. For all that Cerisia is a companion any man should treasure, in or out of bed, she will also serve her own agenda. It is not our task to help her do that.”
“I tell her nothing, father,” Arontis replied quietly. “It is a dalliance for the both of us.”
Hamadrian laughed, a dry sound that rattled in his old, thin chest. “So you think. Likely you have already told her more than you realize. But it’s to be expected. Cold, an affair with one from Fortune’s Temple is practically expected of a Baron’s child. Just be mindful of your future as Baron. You don’t want Fortune’s Temple able to interfere too much.”
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