The Empire's Ghost

by Isabelle Steiger

  Cadfael shrugged. “It was a good guess, sure enough. I don’t hold it against you, and I won’t leave until the rest of them do; it wouldn’t be wise to depart in the middle of things.” His lips pressed together. “But I will be leaving. That was our agreement, wasn’t it?”

  “It was,” Kel agreed. “I won’t stop you.”

  “There’s naught but good between us, then.” Cadfael’s face relaxed, and his gaze shifted, moving to the window. “It makes me wonder, though: if Shinsei’s not guarding Elgar, then where is he, and what on earth is he doing? What could be more important than ensuring his master’s safety in such an uncertain situation?”

  Eirnwin frowned. “I can’t help but worry about the same thing. Could Shinsei be carrying out some plot while Elgar keeps us occupied here?”

  Lessa shook her head. “A man like Elgar using himself as a decoy? I can’t picture it. Imagine if we got word of anything—we could clap the gate shut on him, and he’d have to fight his way out on more or less even terms.”

  “And Elgar hates even terms,” Cadfael said, nodding slowly. “That’s why he makes sure never to face them.”

  Eirnwin was less convinced. “Perhaps. That doesn’t make me feel any easier about Shinsei’s absence.”

  Cadfael laughed mirthlessly. “Easier? You ought to be glad of it, old man. It means you’ll be spared the headache of my killing him in your halls.”

  Eirnwin didn’t bother to hide his scowl. “It also means we’ll be out your service as soon as this is over.”

  “True enough.” He went to the window, resting on the sill and pulling his legs up after him.

  “Didn’t you hear a rumor about Shinsei?” Kel asked him. “Wasn’t that what you were chasing when we met you?”

  Cadfael hesitated. “Aye, but it didn’t come to anything. I lost him somewhere near the border—if that even was him. They said he was heading east, but he could be anywhere by now.”

  “East,” Kel repeated. “To Esthrades, maybe.”

  “Maybe, but I doubt it. Your sister’s got the right of it, I think—there’s no need to be worried yet, but we might be curious.”

  “I certainly am,” Eirnwin said, “but curiosity alone never accomplished anything.”

  * * *

  Their windows faced out across the forest, not down into the courtyard; that was probably intentional. But Elgar and Varalen had both given the men strict orders, and the way this soldier was panting suggested they had been adhered to.

  Elgar looked up casually enough from the book he had been reading, but Varalen saw the way his spine had stiffened. “She’s here, then?”

  The man nodded, still gasping slightly. “Just spotted by the men on watch, Your Eminence.”

  “Good.” He turned his gaze away from the man without so much as a dismissal, looking over at Varalen instead. “Well? Shall we meet this viper at last?”

  “It would be wise,” Varalen said. “And I suppose I’m a bit curious.”

  Elgar got to his feet. “You knew the father?”

  “I met him once, at a parley. It was many years ago now.” He’d had Caius Margraine well enough in hand even then, though; he never thought he could miss an enemy so much. “They said he could twist a man’s head off with his bare hands, and looking at him, I believed it. How much more frightening could his daughter be?”

  “If only power always showed itself so obviously…” Elgar began, turning slightly away. “Is what I would say, but … well.”

  Well enough. Elgar and Varalen were both men who preferred to hide their strengths, and he expected Lady Margraine was no different. It would be like a game of blind man’s chase, each one grasping sightlessly at the weaknesses of the other. It was not a game he personally preferred, but it was one Varalen knew how to play, if it came to that.

  Since they’d arrived at Mist’s Edge, Elgar had seemed tranquil enough so long as he stayed in one place, but whenever he moved about, his eyes became searching and overeager, flicking anxiously every which way as he walked. Though the fortress was certainly imposing, Varalen couldn’t say it held much fascination for him personally; there was none of the history or aesthetic of the Citadel, just a whole lot of sturdy gray stone.

  They arrived in the courtyard before Lady Margraine did. King Kelken and his retainers were already there; they glanced at Elgar and Varalen when they came into view, but did not seem surprised to see them there. The men entering the courtyard were still all Reglians, by the looks of them, and Varalen peered around them, trying to catch sight of where Lady Margraine’s personal party might be.

  She was getting off her horse almost before he could see her at all, so his first impression was of a slender frame and a mass of pale blond hair that had gotten tangled in the wind. As soon as her feet were on solid ground again, she pulled it back out of her face, giving the group before her a cursory glance. She dressed simply but elegantly, in a blue-gray color that matched her eyes. One who had not spent months being frustrated by her might have called her fair, but Varalen’s pride could hardly allow him to pay her that compliment. The smirk that gently twisted her mouth was just as he might have expected, if somewhat more vivid in the flesh.

  She did not curtsy to Kelken, but inclined her crownless head, tilting it slightly even after she had finished, the better to regard him. “My dear young king, how delightful to meet you at last.” There was no flattery in the words, just enough dryness to make the Gods’ Curse feel damp.

  The prince returned the gesture, his face as solemn as it had been since they’d arrived. Varalen thought, rather uncomfortably, of Ryam, of the concentration that wreathed his face when he worked through a difficult sentence in some book. Oh, everyone was someone’s father or someone’s son, he knew that. That did not mean he wished to pit himself against a boy.

  Then Lady Margraine’s eyes met Elgar’s for the first time, and even Varalen had to catch his breath. They were so different, in every particular he could think of, but in that moment the look they gave each other was exactly the same.

  A stranger drops a gold coin in the street, and two urchins snatch at it as it rolls; with it out of sight, they glare, wary and bewildered, at each other, each seeking the coin in the guilty, eager gaze of the other. You have it, don’t you? I know you have it. Give it to me.

  It was, undoubtedly, a question, asked a thousand times in the space of a moment, but Varalen did not think either of them could answer it. And then, before he had time to wonder what they had been asking for, he caught sight of the woman at the marquise’s elbow, and his breath stuck in his throat.

  The woman from the dungeons met his eyes coolly; she did not appear startled, and she did not seem to recognize him, but he had little doubt she did. Varalen himself could hardly have failed to recognize her: even without that mass of copper hair, he remembered her stoically flat expression all too well. Questions tore at him: What on earth was he to do now? Should he tell Elgar, or would the knowledge that Varalen had helped put that damnable stone into the hands of Lady Margraine herself only assure his own death, and Ryam’s?

  Lady Margraine had already introduced the man on her other side, though Varalen had missed his name. The woman she did not introduce, but she clearly must have been someone of consequence—she stuck to Lady Margraine’s side like a shadow, while the remainder of her party kept a slight, respectful distance.

  When Elgar introduced him, he found himself bearing the full brunt of the marquise’s smirk; it was not precisely pleasant. “I believe we know more than a little of each other, Lord Oswhent, if indirectly.” That was certainly one way of putting it.

  Varalen settled on a jaunty bow. “I don’t know half so much of you as I’d like, Your Grace, to be sure.”

  Her smile widened at that; perhaps she saw the same humor in their situation that Varalen did. “Let us talk further over supper, then, by all means.”

  The old man, Eirnwin, cleared his throat. “We can have supper laid out momentarily, if Your Grac
es so please. But perhaps the Lady Margraine is still tired from her journey?”

  She laughed. “Oh, nonsense. I’ll just be happy to sit on something that isn’t a horse.”

  As they followed King Kelken’s party inside, Varalen drew close to the woman from the dungeons, but he didn’t dare whisper anything to her, not with so many others so near. She held his gaze every time he caught hers, but otherwise she hardly seemed to notice him.

  If she had fetched the stone for the marquise, did that mean that there was some value in it, or just that Lady Margraine was as eccentric as Elgar was? Or had she not especially meant to get her hands on it at all? Perhaps this mysterious servant had taken it upon herself to steal something she knew her mistress’s rival wanted, even without knowing herself what it was. Gods, if only Varalen had just kept her in that prison …

  His shoulder grazed one of the king’s retainers, a handsome fellow with a scar down his forehead. “Is everything all right?” the man asked, a sharp look in his blue eyes. His mouth stayed thin and flat, his expression opaque.

  Varalen smiled, though the back of his neck prickled. “I’m well enough. How are you?”

  The man grunted and looked away, and Varalen turned his own gaze ahead, fixing it on that familiar copper hair.

  * * *

  Kel had heard countless tales of royal banquets in days gone by, full of song and merriment and all manner of guests, with courses that seemed infinite in number and wine that flowed unceasingly. But there were far fewer nobles now than there had been in the days of Elesthene—or at any time before that, if the history books could be believed. The Margraines had never suffered anyone in Esthrades to be called lords or ladies save them alone, and Elgar had no nobles, only subordinates. As for Reglay, it was poor and small, and the only man of counsel his father had ever trusted within it was Eirnwin. So there was no great scroll to unfurl, no fantastic titles to announce: there was only Kel and Imperator Elgar and Lady Margraine, and the handful of intimates each had chosen to attend them. Kel had Lessa and Eirnwin, with Cadfael guarding the door; Lady Margraine had Gravis Ingret, who served as her captain of the guard, and a taciturn bodyguard named Seren. Elgar had only Lord Oswhent, who looked barely more at ease than he had when he’d arrived.

  The food, too, was perhaps not so fine as he could have wished, but it had been all they could do to get the castle prepared in time. He’d had men bringing food stores from Second Hearth practically without pause since they’d arrived, and they’d bought up whatever the nearest villages could spare, but they’d still barely be able to offer every soldier even a meager meal. As for the banquet itself, the fact that they had venison at all was entirely due to the chance encounter one of his men had had with a magnificent stag just the day before, and he couldn’t help but think that the grapes looked rather scrawny. If his guests had wanted fine food, no doubt they could have stayed at home. But Kel knew everything a ruler did reflected back upon him in some way, and he wondered what the simple fare made them think of him.

  Elgar paused over his plate, plucking idly at his beard. “Perhaps Lady Margraine would be so good as to test the food for us? You’ve naught to fear from it, if the stories are true.”

  She laughed. “It’s no burden to me, but I’m afraid it wouldn’t help you much. It seems a Margraine may survive a dish that might be the death of another—although if it’s bad cooking you fear, I’m sure I’m as sensitive in that regard as any other, and I’ll happily warn you against it.”

  “So it is true, then?”

  Lady Margraine reached for a bunch of grapes. “Who knows? My ancestors were curiously unwilling to let the blood apples be studied, and who am I to scoff at so many years of tradition?” Kel was starting to think she scoffed at everything. Or perhaps she didn’t scoff exactly, but everything that fell under her gaze seemed to amuse her in a way that had none of the innocence of simple mirth. “I suppose the only way to know for sure whether a Margraine can be poisoned is to poison one, but if that’s your endeavor, we must unfortunately be at odds.” She plucked a single grape from the bunch before her. “Well, if I do die, at least I’ll have provided everyone here with a suitably rare spectacle, eh?”

  Elgar did not smile, but he did finally start eating. “I suppose it is the prerogative of the young to talk so nonchalantly about dying.”

  She raised her eyebrows in mock surprise. “Is it? Then it’s our good host who should lead the way, not I.”

  Kel shook his head. “My father passed too recently for that, I’m afraid.” He could still remember the way his father’s eyes had looked, as if there had never been anything behind them, anything human at all. Blood he had seen; blood he knew, though never in such quantities. But the eyes had been strange, and horrifying.

  “Ah,” Elgar said, on the heels of a sip of wine. “My apologies.”

  Kel couldn’t say, It’s all right, so he said nothing.

  “I didn’t much know my father,” Elgar continued, half to himself, sloshing the wine around in his glass.

  “And I knew mine far too well,” Lady Margraine said, raising her own glass to him.

  Instead of responding to that, Elgar turned his gaze to the wall behind her, where her bodyguard had been standing since the meal had begun. Kel had offered the woman a seat at the table, but she had not taken it, preferring to lean against the wall and watch the room, face blank and lips pressed together. If she’d spoken a word since she’d arrived, Kel hadn’t heard it. “If you distrust the food,” Elgar said, “then you should not have let your mistress taste of it, blood apples or no. If not, then eat; you’ll hardly defend her on an empty stomach.”

  The words had been provocation, no doubt—hadn’t Elgar said he didn’t eat much himself?—but they had no effect; Seren glanced at him, as if acknowledging she had heard his words, then turned her gaze straight ahead once more. She said nothing. Out of the corner of his eye, Kel noticed that the marquise’s captain had also turned, and was watching their interaction, a deep frown on his face.

  Elgar raised his eyebrows, then turned to Lady Margraine. “Is she mute?” he asked, jerking his head at Seren.

  She smiled. “Not at all. Just not so eager to waste words as you or I.” She popped another grape into her mouth. “He is right, though, Seren—stop glowering and eat something.”

  Seren still said nothing, but she walked to the table and tore off a cluster of grapes, then returned to her post and began nonchalantly eating them.

  The marquise curled her fingers idly around the stem of her glass. “More than that. Have some meat.”

  Seren inclined her head, but she did not look up, and she made no move toward the table. Even so, that seemed to be enough for Lady Margraine, who returned to her own meal. Captain Ingret continued watching them for some moments, but he seemed just about to turn away when Elgar spoke again. “She’s an interesting one to trust your life to, Your Grace.”

  Seren ignored him as easily as before, leaving her mistress to respond to the lure. “Oh, Seren’s interesting, to be sure. She would serve to counterbalance Gravis, even if she did nothing else.”

  Captain Ingret flinched, but did not speak. Elgar asked, “To balance … what?”

  Lady Margraine devoted more care to her venison than to Elgar, but she answered the question. “Gravis, you see, is almost always boring. Seren is almost always interesting. Therefore, they balance each other out.”

  Elgar smiled wanly at that. “I should think you of all people would have no use for those who bore you at all.”

  “You would think that,” she told him, taking luxurious pauses every few words to have another bite of meat, “and I can understand why. But boring people are often the best suited to handling boring things, and as much as it grieves me to admit it, even ruling a country can be boring in places.”

  “Boredom in a ruler generally bodes well,” Lord Oswhent said, looking up only fleetingly from his own food. “It implies a stable realm.”

  Lady Margrain
e waved a dismissive hand at him; Seren, having finally finished her grapes, walked to the table and obediently carved herself a modest portion of venison. “Stable realms are all very well, but boredom, I assure you, can never bode well. There is no state I have sworn more zealously to avoid.”

  Lord Oswhent finally looked up in earnest. “Boredom is the worst fate you can imagine? You surprise me.”

  She laughed. “Well, I can hardly swear never to be dead, can I? Such are the risks we take when we assume power.”

  “Were you bored while your father ruled, Your Grace?” Elgar asked, his food lying forgotten on his plate.

  She shrugged. “Not overmuch. I suppose he made enough bad decisions to keep things interesting.” She turned to smirk at her captain. “Gravis was quite the awful prig in those days too—even worse than he is now. He wouldn’t listen to a word I said—gods, I think even my father was more tractable.”

  Most of her words seemed to glide undetected right past Elgar’s ears; he sat idly in his chair, sloshing his wine again, but never raising the cup to his lips to drink. Lord Oswhent stared at him curiously, his mouth a thin line. When Elgar finally spoke, his words were very slow, very deliberate: “Over the course of time,” he said, “I happened to hear a rather interesting story about you and your father.”

  Captain Ingret frowned again, and this time even Seren’s eyes narrowed. The marquise, however, tossed her hair just as easily as ever. “I’ve heard quite a few of those myself, though I wouldn’t dare presume to say I’ve heard them all. Which one is it, that I fucked him or that I murdered him? I can assure you I did neither, but the stories grow more fantastical with each telling.” She tore off another cluster of grapes, plucking each one almost contemplatively before eating it. “I heard one last winter about how my mother and I were the same person. I suppose it’s because I look so much like her, though I believe resemblances between parents and their children are not uncommon. Either way, she, or I—we?—had struck some evil bargain in return for youth, such and so many virgins killed or something, so she and my father spread a rumor she’d died and instead she was me. That’s the wisdom of the common folk for you: a woman with a pregnant belly becomes a coffin and an infant, and the natural conclusion is not death in childbed but demonic transfiguration.” She rolled her eyes. “For the gods’ sakes, who’d bargain with a demon just to become a baby again? At the very least, wouldn’t you want to start with all your teeth?”