Arianne thought for a moment. “So your punishment will be of short duration?”
The Queen smiled. “I hope so, for your sake and mine.”
“And why should you care that he participate more at court?”
The Queen sighed and leaned back, turning her gaze out the window as she spoke. “I want him to lead, Arianne. The court is in desperate need of the voice of one so steady and so uninfected with stupid frippery! For now, Lord Carver is content to stand in corners and send ballots through the post. I want his words, his wisdom, and his example to be known to more than just you or me or his tenants at Frostbourne! You know him quite well by now. Am I delusional?”
Davon was unique, Arianne had to admit. But what the Queen was asking would be difficult. “He is a quiet, gentle man, but one of passion, as well. To turn him into a public man, yes, could take time. I’m not sure I am equal to the task. I fear that until he is able to escape your disfavor, I may see him very little.”
“It is not disfavor, dear Arianne,” the Queen said. “It is merely a way to transition the man back into society in a way they can understand. I have work for him to do, but I promise you that I will have him back enjoying your warm smile as soon as I can.”
Again her heart pounded, and no amount of control could staunch the glow she could feel beaming from her face. “I thank you, Your Grace. I miss him already.”
“As do I. Be patient some few weeks, my girl. Now, I do have a request—no, an order—to give you. You won’t like it.”
Arianne frowned. “What is it?”
“I need you out of Bellshire, immediately. It is for your protection. For the sake of appearances, I need you to accompany Miss Ironhorn back to Frostbourne and help her collect her things. She is to return to her parents’ estate.”
Arianne fought to keep her composure. “Accompany that beastly tart of a woman? For days? I would rather take my chances in Hightower.”
The Queen’s face hardened. Arianne knew the look. Filippa the friend had disappeared; Filippa the monarch had taken her place. “You will do this, Arianne. You may not thank me for it now, but it cannot be helped. I need you far from Bellshire. This instant. It will appear to everyone that two women wronged by one Baron Carver are taking solace together. While you may find such dissembling distasteful, you will just have to trust me when I say it is absolutely necessary.”
Was she really in so much danger? She’d rather take the journey with a sabercat. “As you wish, my Queen.”
“Good,” Filippa said, her softness returning. “It may be nigh on intolerable, but you may just learn a thing or two about Davon that might temper your regard for him. I’m sure Emile will introduce you to another side of Davon Carver you do not know.”
Arianne folded her arms. There was only one side of Davon she did not know: the side that had decided to marry Emile Ironhorn.
Chapter 26
The rabbit lasted surprisingly long. Its soft and now still innards glowed wetly in the lantern light, streaks of red staining its brown fur and joining darker red streaks where blood had flowed from the top of the rough stone slab down to the cave floor. Heavy odors of rot and decay hung motionless in the rough subterranean chamber shot through with cracks and slick with seeping water. Pale tendrils of roots dangled lifelessly from the ceiling, water droplets clinging to their tips before losing their grip and falling into glassy, dark pools in the pockmarked floor.
Years ago, the Voice had led him to the crack in the rocky hill near Tenwheel Creek not far from his modest manor. Thickly leaved vines and a nearly impenetrable tangle of debris washed down during a flood had completely obscured the wide but low fissure. It took two days of work to clear enough of it away to allow entry, and then another day to cleverly conjure a way to conceal it again so anyone chancing by would continue on their way.
The low crack required him to stoop when coming and going, and rendered it difficult to pull game animals of any size into its depths. Once past the opening, the crack shifted and grew tall and narrow, slanting slightly but unevenly downward. Walls slick with water and slippery fungus always befouled his clothing. His increasingly frequent visits had cleared the floor of most of its slippery carpet, but he still watched his footing carefully. The chamber in which he now worked waited beyond a larger one filled with a wide, knee-deep pool. A school of pale fish the length of his forearm glided through the water, dark eyes stunned by the lantern light when he crossed in an out. The fish retreated to cracks and unseen reservoirs, his echoing splashes startling them whenever he tread through the basin on his way to snuff out the life of another victim on top of the slab.
The water in the walls, the pools, the drips, and the basin itself spoke to him. The Voice in him brought him as a guest into its dark, lonely home. This evidence of his progress pleased him during his first visit, but the Voice banned him from returning to the dark tunnels until he could crush the emotion of pride and enter stoically, devoid of self-aggrandizement or ambition. He succeeded in time. Learning to view the unimportance of everything in the world around him took years of grinding work and now formed part of his very nature. Quashing feelings of his own importance took little time by comparison.
He traveled a great deal during the summers, so when he returned during the fall months, he killed regularly and casually, always careful to avoid detection. His offerings to the Voice he brought to the bowels of the cave, killing them there. The small animals, like the now motionless rabbit, were easily transported in a sack. His larger prey—a dog, a pig, or an itinerant worker—he had to bludgeon into submission before he could pull them through the tight passageways. The pale fish licked up his victims’ blood as he pulled them through the pool, the same way they licked his blood when he first passed through the waters, barefoot at the Voice’s behest.
The fish had teeth. On that first visit into what he viewed as an underground temple, he had doffed his boots and slipped his legs into the water. In panic he had nearly dropped the lantern when the fish darted toward him. When they had nibbled on the flesh of his legs, terror gripped him and he turned to escape, only to be forbidden by the Voice. He had endured their feasting, the fish darting in and snipping away bit after bit of his skin, blood oozing into the water to be inhaled by the hungry creatures.
When he could endure no more, when the crimson in the water seemed more than the fish could ingest, he had cried out in agony and the fish retreated into their holes. Wincing, he had pulled himself out onto the bank, angling the lantern to inspect his wounds only to find a ring of curious scars around both his ankles, patterned into what looked like a primitive language. Nothing bled, and the pain faded quickly.
The Voice had marked him that day. He belonged to it now. He was its servant, its priest. These thoughts of exultation earned him his first expulsion from the sacred chambers, and it took a winter of sacrifice until he was ready to return. But when he did, he earned a greater gift. That gift would protect him and one day propel him forward into the chamber of the Eternal Flame. And there, as a vessel of truth, he would turn the eternal into the ephemeral, and the Voice would have its victory.
Carefully, he untied the rabbit’s paws. He had driven four spikes into the altar rock just for the purpose of immobilizing the smaller offerings. Larger animals and men required larger stakes pounded into the ground and heavier ropes for restraint. He had learned much from his vivisections about what creatures of many varieties could endure before succumbing to death. Any fool knew where to shoot a deer to free its life from its body; few knew how to remove tiny bits here and clamp this and cauterize that to keep it alive as a grotesque version of its former self. The Voice had begun to disapprove of his experiments, seeing his budding arrogance at his skill, and he had to make more offerings and lock away more inappropriate feelings.
Now that spring had come and his work with the Aid Society plot had arrived prematurely to its conclusion, the Voice had set the stage for his final act. He would, of a rarity, spend his summe
r at home until the call came for him to travel to Bellshire. The longer he tarried, however, the more bothersome his wife, the Baroness, became. She had acquired another bird. She pampered it and fawned over it and treated it with such bizarre condescension that he could scarcely stand it. His years of training had not rubbed off on her in the least. The oddest of things endeared themselves to her, like the drapes in her drawing room, the painting of her great uncle, or even the silverware.
All foolishness and idiocy. If she prized the drapes so dearly, would she be shocked when he destroyed them? He had desperately wanted to kill the bird since she first purchased it, but wouldn’t do it until he was sure he could strangle the life out of it and not feel any satisfaction doing so. Kill it he would, though, and its fawning mistress, too. He would do it with a blank heart and a blank eye. He would walk away from his riches and his land without a glance back or a stitch of sadness his heart. All was vanity. All was purposeless. All was here now and then forgotten in the long march of years. In the end, only the wind, water, and earth remained to claim all, all three impervious and independent. Life and fire were but upstart encumbrances to the world, dependent upon the more stable forces. Like parasites, fire and life must have an end.
He would end them.
Chapter 27
Longford.
Davon pulled back on the reins, bringing a laboring Ceril to a halt at the top of a ridge overlooking the prosperous town and the estates it supported. The mid-day sun and summer haze obscured the most distant villages across the plains beneath him. If judged by size and prosperity, Longford was no longer a town, but a city. Like Bellshire, Longford had an old city encompassed by a new one. Longford Castle, home of the Duke of Longford and his son, Uticus Longford, was built from limestone chiseled from the cliffs just below where Davon had stopped. The edifice shone in the sun like a beacon to travelers.
Many of outlying manors on the plain and along a lazy river boasted the same white stone, but some of the newer houses outshone their predecessors by virtue of crushed quartz mixed into their exterior plaster. A sparkling sheen played off the walls in the brilliant light of midday, always teasing his eye to take a look. By all accounts, Longford was a fine city, and one Emile had missed greatly upon her taking residence in Frostbourne—the holdings of the Ironhorn family lay within the Longford’s duchy.
The burgeoning sprawl of growth had forced the citizens to expand the pike walls that served as a deterrent against the migration of bison and mammoth. The walls extended an impossible distance along the city’s edge, but besides these defenses, Longford had no city wall or even towers besides those on the castle itself. Trees and parks graced the old town, while buildings choked out the greenery at the outer edges. Beyond the breaks to the east, stands of trees too small to be called woods or forests dotted a rolling plain blanketed in fields and orchards glowing with the green of new growth. To the west, the Ursaline forest, dense and nearly impenetrable, forbade the city grow in that direction.
Davon’s hurried journey to Longford had taken him through Hightower, Sharpton, and Hackwind, the road running along the western edge of the Ice Fire Mountains before turning west and into the Duchy of Longford. Now that he had arrived, Davon prodded Ceril forward at an easy pace, forcing himself to consider the needs of the exhausted horse, which he had driven mercilessly. His heart wanted to race into Longford and to find Mr. Goodwin and Mr. Killcreek as soon as possible. Arianne may have already suffered arrest and imprisonment, and greedy relatives would no doubt line up to see Hightower stripped from her control as soon as possible.
That anyone could devise a scheme to harm such a treasure of a woman defeated his understanding. She was so kind. So forgiving. So generous. Only a truly callous and depraved soul could perpetrate such a fraud upon a woman such as Lady Hightower. And if Davon found that soul, he would pay. Before leaving Bellshire, he had half a mind to find where the sheriff had hidden her former steward and clerk, tie them both to Ceril, and drag them through a field of stinging nettle until they gave up their scheme and its conspirators.
As it was, Justus Paige—whoever the scoundrel was— would bear the brunt of his ire, if indeed the man could be found. If the mysterious go-between had heard anything of the ledgers and the ensuing investigation, he might have decided to disappear into another place and find a different identity as Davon himself had done. Perhaps Mr. Goodwin and Mr. Killcreek would already have ascertained his whereabouts, but what then?
The Queen hadn’t specifically instructed him about what to do with the criminal, once found. His job, as far as he understood it, consisted of gathering evidence, though surely the sheriff’s men would be better suited for such a task. His personal assignment from the Queen gave him authority, but none that anyone would recognize.
The well maintained road descended smoothly down a wooded ridge, crossing a small river that had swollen in the early summer heat. Travelers on the road increased as he pushed past several large manor houses swarmed over by servants manicuring lawns and caring for animals. The buildings and the spaces between them shrank the farther he pressed into the city, the bustling streets filled with men and women from all classes and professions. He began his inquiries into the location of the Brawny Maid Tavern and found it on the other side of the city in the newer growth near the edge.
Unlike nearby buildings, the Brawny Maid sprawled outward rather than upward. Davon smirked. Perhaps its owners had realized that stairs and hard liquor made for poor companions. The edifice had a rough-hewn feel, constructed of unsanded, thick timbers and wide planks that could endure the tempers of both nature and its patrons. By the noise and the patronage lingering outside, it was clearly not a place for gentlemen. Reminding himself that he was not a proper gentleman at present, he lashed Ceril to a post outside and opened the door into a raucous world of loud laughter, pipe smoke, and drunken brooding.
No one paid him any mind, his worn travel clothes not distinguishing him from the rabble in the least. The woman behind the bar fulfilled the tavern’s namesake. Stoutly built with arms that could crush an ox, the proprietor regarded him with a practiced eye as she collected empty mugs. Her wild, curly red hair she tamed with a bonnet, and her dingy, frayed dress bespoke a lack of personal pride when it came to fashion. Davon dared any man to comment on it. He sat on a stool at the bar, remembering the Queen’s instructions. The barmaid spoke first.
“A man with a purpose and a bit of strength in his stride. New to the Brawny Maid, unless I am mistaken,” she said in a sweet, high pitched voice reminiscent of a young girl’s. The disparity between the sound and the source prompted a grin which her meaty fists kept in check.
“I’ve just come for a bit of the Queen’s Bull Ale, if you please…Miss?”
“So sure that it’s Miss are you, and not Missus? Think I ain’t got a man to call me own?”
“When in doubt, it is the custom to call a woman Miss,” he said defensively. “In society it is apparently more of an insult to be considered married than not. I congratulate you and your husband on your love and humbly repeat my request for the Queen’s Bull Ale.”
She winked at him. “I’m not married. I’ve been saving meself for a man who’s sturdy enough so that I won’t break him. You’re as fine and strong a man as I’ve seen at my humble tavern in a year. You think you could survive a night with the Brawny Maid, do ya?”
Davon swallowed. “I think that would greatly depend on what we were doing.”
She leaned forward, yellow teeth revealed in full glory as her lips pulled back to deliver a sultry grin. “Well, I don’t mean chopping wood, love. Where does your imagination take you?”
Davon cleared his throat. “It is that purpose that you so readily noticed in my stride earlier that takes me here and keeps my imagination from going anywhere else. So if you wouldn’t mind, the Queen’s Bull Ale, please.”
She pursed her lips in a mocking pout. “Don’t be such a bore! Most of the prisoners my aunt sends along are much
more fun. So what did you do, Mr. Purpose?”
“So sure that it’s Mister and not Sir?” he shot back, earning him a wink and apparently a drink as she filled a mug from a barrel. Her aunt? Was this woman implying that she was the Queen’s niece? He didn’t have the courage to ask for confirmation at the moment, but as she approached with his drink, he tried and failed to see any family resemblance.
“Here you are, Lord Carver,” she said with a smile. “Been expectin’ ya since yesterday. If you cross the room, you’ll see an older gentleman there nursing his ale by the window all alone. Mr. Goodwin is his name. A bit of a grumpy codger, that one, so don’t expect a warm welcome. Oh, and call me Mary, love.”
“Thank you, Mary, and good day,” he said. “How much?”
“Queen’s Bull Ale is free.”
He approached the table Mary had indicated, finding the sole occupant gazing lazily out the window. His old, pale face was pinched and narrow, dark eyes penetrating. A hedge of gray hair encircled the back of his bald head, meeting with woolly sideburns that dropped nearly to his mouth. The dour cast of his expression and the skeletal, emaciated form bespoke disappointed expectations turned to bitterness. An older man, he wore all black save an expensive white shirt, and his tailored black coat and waistcoat with golden buttons evidenced some wealth.
Before Davon could introduce himself, the man spoke without moving his gaze from the window, his refined accent and easy speech coming languorously from thin lips. “You really are a fool for leaving a fine beast like that unsecured in front of a place like this, Lord Carver. I might steal him myself, but if you arrived today then you must have whipped the poor horse something fierce. I’d probably get farther riding Mary over there, but then she might enjoy it, and even a wretch like me has some scruples as to his mode of transportation.”
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