The Lascar’s Dagger

by Glenda Larke

  Prince Ryce and several of their royal cousins stayed on, together with the four ladies-in-waiting who were to accompany her to Lowmeer. The only other Ardronese in attendance was the Prime. She couldn’t see Sorrel anywhere, although she’d promised she’d be on board.

  She won’t break that promise. She won’t.

  Yet her handmaiden was tender-hearted and still so angry about what had happened to Saker. Which wasn’t fair, really. Mathilda hadn’t thought Saker would be killed. The idea that Ryce would be sent to murder him had never occurred to her. When he’d been nulled, she’d thought the shrine guardian would save him because he was innocent – and she must have been right to think so. He hadn’t died. Ryce hadn’t killed him. Sorrel knew that. She needed her. She had to be there.

  “Would your grace like to adjourn to your quarters before the banquet begins?” Lady Friselda rumbled in her ear.

  “Indeed I would,” Mathilda replied, relieved. She’d being aching to use a privy and had been wondering how to ask. She signalled her ladies-in-waiting to follow her, and they all descended the narrow companionway to the lower deck, their dresses brushing the walls as they went.

  When Lady Friselda stopped, she indicated a door on her right. “This is the Regal’s cabin. Yours is the opposite one on the left.”

  She waved Mathilda in ahead of her, then closed the door behind her, shutting the four ladies-in-waiting outside in the companionway. Inside the cabin, Aureen and Sorrel, who had been unpacking Mathilda’s cabin trunk, looked up from their task and hastily sank into curtseys.

  Lady Friselda fixed them with an unfriendly stare. “There is no need to unpack her grace’s Ardronese dresses. They are inappropriate for Lowmeer and will be sent ashore in the morning.” Before Mathilda could protest, she added, waving her hand at a grey gown laid out across the bed, “That is a gift from me, and it is what you will wear to the banquet. I shall leave you to change.”

  “Wait!” Mathilda said, looking at the gown in dismay. “You want me to wear that? It looks like widow’s weeds! My wedding gown was sewn especially for this occasion. You cannot mean me to change out of it now?”

  “Indeed. It is the Regal’s wish.” Her eyes narrowed in irritation. “Your grace, you came on board an Ardronese princess, but you are now the Regala of Lowmeer. You will no longer be garbed in – such a way.” With those words, uttered with dismissive contempt, she stepped out of the cabin and closed the door.

  Mathilda gaped, rendered speechless. Then she picked up the charcoal-coloured high-necked gown and held it up against herself. “Oh, no.”

  “You knew this was possible,” Sorrel pointed out with infuriating calm.

  “She can’t be serious. All my lovely dresses? And today, now?”

  “I’ve been talking to some of the Lowmian servants,” Sorrel said. “A wards-dame is a very powerful person whose task it is to initiate a new bride into the bridegroom’s family. I wouldn’t advise going against her wishes too much.”

  Mathilda grew more and more furious. “Aureen, go find my ladies and have them come here.”

  Aureen scuttled out the door.

  “Be careful, your grace,” Sorrel said. “You need to enchant your bridegroom before you challenge him.”

  “No. I need to challenge him before he gets what he craves. That is my power.”

  “That might work with many men, but Regal Vilmar is a monarch. Monarchs do not take kindly to direct challenges to their supremacy.”

  Va, but the woman was exasperating. Always so – so prosaic! She ignored her advice and demanded instead, “Is there a privy on this Va-forsaken boat?”

  Sorrel waved her hand at a door on the other side of the cabin. “There’s a commode in there.”

  “I need to use it, but first you may unlace me. If they want me to change my clothing, I will. Unpack my red gown.”

  Sorrel raised an eyebrow. “Isn’t the bosom a little low on that dress? And the colour, er, a little too – red?”

  “Exactly,” Mathilda said, steely-voiced.

  Aureen returned, flustered, just as Sorrel was about to lift the dress over Mathilda’s petticoats.

  “What is it?” Mathilda asked. The maid was white-faced, and Aureen was usually as phlegmatic as a well-fed cat.

  “Milady – I mean, your grace – they’ve gone!”

  “What has?”

  “Your ladies. Lady Maris, Lady Annat…”

  She couldn’t absorb what Aureen was saying. “Gone? Gone where?”

  “They’ve been sent back to shore. On the Regal’s orders.”

  “That can’t be right. It was agreed! I could bring four ladies-in-waiting, and two servants.”

  “Milady, I seen them being handed down into the longboat. With their luggage an’ all. The Regal was there, watching them go. So I asked the Lady Friselda’s maid what was happening. She said she’d overheard the Regal talking to her mistress, telling her to get rid of the four Ardronese wenches. Only Pashali peacocks should be that colourful, he said, and there weren’t no place in his court for women who looked like tavern bawds.”

  Mathilda lowered herself slowly to sit on the edge of the bed. “Ryce,” she whispered. “I must speak to Ryce. He’s still on board, isn’t he?”

  Aureen nodded.

  “He can’t do anything for you,” Sorrel said. “Your grace, you are now on your husband’s ship. Neither Prince Ryce nor the King will risk abrogating the treaty for—” She halted.

  “For me,” Mathilda finished. “You think they won’t do it for me.”

  Sorrel didn’t answer that. Instead, she said, “Your grace, your greatest strength has always been your charm.”

  She regarded Sorrel, wondering what she hadn’t said. Her mind began churning with ideas. She had charmed Saker, hadn’t she? And he’d been a witan with strong ideas of right and wrong. She stood up and paced the room. Then she said, “You’re right. I can choose my own jousting field.”

  Aureen looked from her to Sorrel, puzzled.

  “Pack away my Ardronese gowns,” Mathilda told her. “The Lowmians can send them back, if that’s what they want.”

  “Shall we keep the nightdresses here?” Sorrel asked without expression, but it was a suggestion nonetheless.

  She smiled, thinking of how pretty – and revealing – some of them were. “Yes, I think we’ll keep those. Without letting the Lady Friselda see them. And one of my headdresses too.”

  Sorrel picked the grey dress up and shook out the creases.

  Mathilda eyed her, wondering how the wretched woman managed to say so much without opening her mouth. “All right, I’ll wear the horrible thing for the banquet. Oh, and one more thing. Don’t call me ‘your grace’ when we’re alone. Either of you. Call me ‘milady’, as you’ve always done. That will remind me that I’m still an Ardronese princess.” She looked at Sorrel. “If I ever rule in my own right, that would be the time to call me ‘your grace’.”

  She enjoyed seeing the perplexity on Sorrel’s face. Let her wonder.

  At least, Sorrel thought the following morning, no one’s said a word about the bride’s virginity being suspect.

  When she came to help the Regala dress, all Mathilda said about her wedding night was, “I am so glad Saker was the first.” Her expression was wooden, her tone bitter.

  The crossing over the Ardmeer estuary was a rough one, and Mathilda appeared to be violently ill, although Sorrel had her doubts how much was real and how much feigned in order to avoid more advances from her husband.

  Certainly when the ship edged into the Ustgrind’s royal wharf, some days later, the Regala stood at the railing with the Regal as they docked, smiling and waving happily at the gathered crowd.

  Sorrel observed them from a quiet corner at the stern, noting the way Mathilda had threaded her arm through her husband’s, unobtrusively pressing herself to his side. Every now and then she looked up at his face with an adoring smile. When a strong gust of wind whipped away her white headdress, supplied
by the Lady Friselda, she laughed delightedly. Her blonde curls blew about in the wind as the coif disappeared into the sea. She sent Sorrel to fetch a replacement. “The blue one,” she whispered, “with the pearls.”

  Knowing that Aureen would never have tied the coif so loosely it would blow away, Sorrel guessed the incident was no accident. Mathilda had decided that the first glimpse the Lowmians had of her would be a memorable one, a pretty woman laughing with her hair loose in the wind. Their second glimpse would be of a lady wearing a coloured and beaded coif in a sea of white headdresses.

  Oh, Va, she thought. The minx might be overplaying her hand if she takes Vilmar or the Lady Friselda for a gullible fool.

  She couldn’t help but wonder if the Regal had intended to part Mathilda from her ladies right from the beginning. She bit her lip, fearing that she and Aureen might be sent away too. Va confound it, I don’t know enough about the Regal and the Lowmian court. And I’ve no idea what I’ll do if I’m dismissed!

  She pushed the thought away and turned her attention to the scenery. It was easy to be impressed by the port, with its many-fingered waterways, each lined with wharves and merchant warehouses. The hustle of boats and barges and wherries along the canals and channels, the bustling chandlers and laden carts on the wharves were all signs of a prosperous sea trade. It was the castle that hooked and held her gaze, though. An uncompromising pile of hewn stone, on its landward side it dominated the city, squinting down at the streets through glassless window slits. On the water side, the walls plunged straight down towards the estuary of the River Ust. At some point, stonework melded with the natural rock of the riverside cliff.

  Her heart was leaden in her chest; this was no building she could enter and leave as easily as she had Throssel Palace. She now understood that anyone with a witchery could sense another’s. Worse, she’d heard Lowmians didn’t like glamours.

  In Lowmeer, her use of witchery might destroy her.

  “This place is always cold,” Mathilda grumbled, looking around her bedchamber. “Even with fires burning in every room of the solar, the chill never leaves the walls. But will they put up tapestries? Or glass in the windows? No, of course not. They prefer to shiver than be so frivolous. And I hate the smell of peat! Why don’t they use wood like Ardrone?”

  “Perhaps because they don’t have forests like Ardrone,” Sorrel suggested drily. “This is a land of marshes and lakes, after all.”

  “Another reason to despise Lowmeer.”

  Sorrel muffled a sigh. This was only their second night in Ustgrind, and Mathilda had not ceased to complain. “There’s glass in the windows that overlook the inner bailey.”

  “I know the Regal is going to call for me tonight,” Mathilda said, ignoring her reply. “You should have seen the way he looked at me at dinner.”

  “I did.” Sorrel had roamed the castle with her glamour that day, and she’d watched Regal Vilmar. “Come, Aureen will help you undress. If the Regal sends for you, you must be ready.”

  Mathilda pulled a face, but allowed the maid to help her change. A little later, with a warm robe over her thin cambric and lace nightgown, she was still restless and disgruntled. She wandered over to a hidden door in the wainscoting, clicked it open, looked inside, then closed it again.

  On the other side of the door, a spiral staircase led directly down to the Regal’s bedroom, and then on to another bedroom below his. The Princess had not yet used the staircase, but one of her new Lowmian ladies-in-waiting had related its history. Built as an escape route in the troubled times of a distant past, it had become a convenient way for a Regal to visit either his wife above, or his mistress below, without anyone knowing which way he’d gone. “Not, of course, that our beloved Regal Vilmar has a mistress,” the lady had hastened to add. “Lady Friselda occupies that chamber now.”

  It was Friselda who told Mathilda that Regal Vilmar was no longer capable of climbing the narrow steps; such exertion pained him. His manservant would climb up to inform her when she was to descend to her husband’s bedchamber.

  Mathilda’s instincts were correct. Not half an hour had passed before there was a knock on the hidden door and she was requested to appear below. She dimpled prettily, fixed an expression of eager anticipation on her face, and followed Torjen, the Regal’s manservant, down the stairs.

  Aureen watched soberly.

  “You’re very fond of her, aren’t you?” Sorrel asked.

  “I served her mother, Queen Amarys, from the time I was a lass of ten. Kind to me she was, the Queen. When she lay dying, she begged me to tend Lady Mathilda kindly. Poor lass, no mother to guide her as she grew.”

  “Aureen, I have something to tell you, which I think you ought to know. I have a witchery.”

  “You mean the glamour? Oh, I’ve known that these many months! You were Celandine Marten back in Throssel. ’Twas me mother told me she glimpsed a glamour on you. She’s not got a witchery herself, but she’s canny, and sees things others don’t. She were fretful you might mean ill to the Princess, but I were soon able to set her straight. I got eyes in me head, not like some I might like to mention, and I could see you did what the Princess bid. Sorrel Redwing may not look like Celandine, but I knew ’twas you the moment you opened your mouth!”

  Sorrel gave a rueful laugh. “Of course. I might have known you’d see through me! And I will continue to use my glamour in the service of the Princess. The Regala.”

  “I never doubted that.” Aureen looked towards the concealed door. “Poor child.”

  “You go off to bed,” Sorrel said. “I’ll wait up for her.”

  Mathilda followed Torjen down the narrow circle of stairs. The candle he carried flickered, and shadows cavorted. Her heart fluttered with anxiety.

  I can do this, she thought. I can pretend. I can make him dance to my tune. He’s old and besotted – and I am Mathilda of Ardrone.

  When she stepped out into his bedchamber, she held her head high and let her robe open up to give tantalising glimpses of the curve of her shoulder through the lace of her gown. The Regal was sitting in a padded chair in his nightgown, his feet encased in stockings and his head covered with a nightcap. He looked like a figure of fun, yet she feared him. Those watchful eyes of his held intelligence and calculation in every glance.

  She dropped a curtsey, her robe gaping still further. “Your grace,” she said, and lifted her gaze, smiling with her lips slightly parted. “You honour me,” she purred.

  He waved Torjen out of the room, and they were alone. “Come here, my dear,” he said. “See what I have to show you.” He gestured towards the table next to him.

  She came to his side to look. Spread out on the polished wood was all her jewellery. Her eyes widened. It had been taken from her, along with her Ardronese gowns, and she’d assumed it had gone back to Throssel with Ryce. Instead, it was here. He picked up one of the pieces, a ruby necklace that had once belonged to her mother. With his thumb tip, he lovingly rubbed the largest stone.

  “Beautiful, beautiful,” he murmured. “Like a woman’s wanton lips.” He replaced it on the table and picked up another piece, only to stroke it too, sensually, as if it was an object of his love.

  In growing amazement, she watched as he moved his fingers from one piece to the next. Not once did he ask her anything about them, nor did he glance at her. It was as if he was in a world of his own, rather like a child concentrating on his play.

  She went to stand behind him and began to massage his back and neck with gentle strokes of her fingers. At first he hardly seemed to notice, so intent was he on the jewellery. She said, “I thought you’d sent it all back to Ardrone because it’s not meet for a Lowmian lady to wear gaudy gems.”

  He turned to look at her then, and rubbed her cheek with his long dry fingers. “I collect beautiful things,” he said. “I don’t give them away, or send them back where they came from. And you are very beautiful, my dear. Take off your clothes and wear the jewellery.”

  “Which piec
es?” she asked.

  “All of them.”

  She kept her smile and, in a mix of assumed shyness and coquetry, played with the gems, holding them up against herself, sliding the necklaces over her bare breasts, entangling the rings in her pubic hair. By the time he bade her lie on the bed, she was adorned with jewellery from head to toe.

  This could have been fun with someone like Saker, she thought. Instead, she felt sick.

  He fumbled at the neck of his nightgown and drew out a key dangling from a chain. Using it, he unlocked a large wooden chest near the bed and reached inside. Unaccountably afraid of what he was about to do, she started to shiver. His breathing quickened as he drew out the contents.

  At first she thought he held strips of burning cloth, flames licking into the air in spirals of red, orange and gold. She shrank away, trying to make sense of the sight.

  No, not something on fire. Feathers. Huge feathers. Pickles ’n’ hay, they were almost as long as she was tall! Three of them, not loose, but fitted into a gold handle to make a giant fan. Three plumes that shimmered and shivered like living fire.

  She was both entranced and wary. “That is – magnificent. From what fowl did such feathers come?”

  “One living on the Va-forsaken half of the world. A gift from the merchant Uthen Kesleer.”

  “Are they – are they bewitched?” She wasn’t sure what had prompted the question, other than that the colours burned so bright.

  He didn’t answer. He pushed her down flat on her back and began to fan her where she lay. His eyes glittered, his smile took on an unworldly, faraway look. The cool air wafted across her body. She scented spice, tantalising perfumes. The plumes moved silently through the air and finally touched her skin. The hairs on her body stood up as fear suffused her. She looked through the feathers into another world. She glimpsed birds, an emerald sea, white sands and blood, streams of soaking blood. She heard the tinkling laughter of children fade into wrenching screams of devastation.