Ean looked around nervously. “Matthieu,” he murmured.
Laughing, Matthieu jumped to his feet and started them walking again. “Zere is no one about to see us, mon seigneur.” He spread an arm to the vista. “Only zee trees and zee birds, who care nothing for zee politics of kings. So tell me,” he said then, “why do you come with zee little duchesse in secret? There must be more to zee story, yes?”
Ean knew there was a great deal more, but nothing he wanted to confide in Matthieu. “I will answer you, if you will agree to answer my question first,” Ean said.
“Ah, a trade,” Matthieu brightened at the idea. “Very well. What is it you wish to know?”
“How did the comte know Her Grace was arriving here? Why did he require us to stay with him?”
“Ah!” Matthieu threw up his hands. “It is as they told you last night, mon seigneur. Le comte, he knew zee duchesse would be coming through Chalons-en-Les Trois—but ’e never said how ’e knew ’twas so—and ’e ordered us to ’ave zee duchesse brought to the manse. But! And I will tell you zis—” Matthieu held up one hand and leaned closer to the prince, “Le comte ordered zat zee duchesse’s party is not to leave zee grounds.” He gave Ean a conspiratorial look. “Is curious, no? Why should you not enjoy our lovely city, but no, to be zee chickens in the coop ’ere on zee hill.”
The news at least confirmed Fynn and Ean’s suspicions, though offered no further insight as to why they were being detained. As Ean mulled over the information, Matthieu said with an elbow and a wink, “So tell me, yes? Why do you travel with zee duchesse in secret? Do you distrust ’er? She seems not the flouncy to me.”
“No, it isn’t that.”
“Secret lovairz?” Matthieu offered with a broad grin. “You cannot be a day from ’er side? Do you play the voyeur? Come, you must tell me, mon ami—I cannot think why zee subterfuge, zee hiding among ’er guard. To what purpose?”
Ean suspected the man wouldn’t be satisfied with anything less than the truth, but the truth was far too important to share with him. So he searched for the most outrageous explanation he could manage. “All right, Matthieu,” Ean said, affecting a manner of the utmost secrecy, in keeping with Matthieu’s dramatic persona. “I will tell you, but the truth must never leave your lips.”
“Shall I die a thousand deaths!” promised the man.
Ean glanced around again and then leaned closer to Matthieu as they walked. “I am not here as Alyneri’s betrothed,” he began in a low voice, “though it is intended upon our unsuccessful return.”
Matthieu arched curious brows. “Unsuccessful?”
Ean dropped his voice even lower. “It has come to the attention of those in the know that my brother may still be alive.”
“Mon dieu!” Matthieu gripped Ean’s arm. “Which brozaire? Zee one missing at sea?”
“The very one,” Ean murmured.
“C’est incroyable!” Matthieu gasped.
“My brother and the duchess are already betrothed, you see,” Ean went on, the words coming strangely quick to his lips, “and we must be sure that the rumors are false before she can be mine.”
“But you would ’ave ’er, yes?” Matthieu asked with a gentle look. “She is a lovely little chatonne.”
“I would gladly have her,” Ean agreed. Then he looked away, adding quietly, “but I would give my life to know my brother lived.” If only there were truth to this tale—any truth at all!
“Ah, yes,” Matthieu murmured. “’Tis a terrible loss. So…” and here he smiled once more, “you look for ze brozaire to see if ’e lives, and if so, to return him his ’eritage and to the duchesse, ’er betrothed.”
“Just so,” Ean murmured, surprising himself with how much he wished suddenly that this fiction was truly the quest he was upon.
“And it does not bozaire you to give up zee throne?”
Ean’s eyes flashed as he turned to Matthieu. “It is my brother’s throne. If he lives, I want nothing that is rightfully his!”
Matthieu grinned and clapped him on the shoulder. “Ah, mon seigneur, you are a good man. A very good man!”
They continued their patrol, with Matthieu spending most of the time voicing his suspicions about where Ean’s lost brother might be hiding, and finally arrived back at the main gates below the manse. Before they came in range of the other guards, Matthieu turned Ean a knowing look and promised, “Mes lèvres sont scellées,” and made the motion of turning a key between his closed lips.
Ean didn’t fear for Matthieu’s idle gossip, for he’d told him nothing of consequence and had gotten some valuable information in the trade, but he did worry over who else might have put two and two together about his identity among Alyneri’s troop.
As they neared the gates, Ean noticed a commotion between two of their company—Fynn’s man Brody the Bull and the soldier Cayal—and one of the comte’s guards. Matthieu charged forward purposefully, demanding, “Now, now! Henri, what’s zis trouble?”
The guard Henri turned to Matthieu looking relieved and answered in his native Veneisean, “The duchesse’s men, they claim one of their own is missing. I assured them it cannot be so, that no one has been allowed to leave, but they are claiming it is without question.”
Ean didn’t need to ask to know who was missing. He cast an inquiring look to Cayal, who shrugged helplessly, and then looked to the Bull. “How long, Brody?” Ean asked.
“All night, far as I can tell.”
Cayal offered, “I think we all assumed he was sleeping in.” He was careful to drop the ‘Your Highness’ from the end of his sentence, yet somehow the concept was still communicated in his tone and manner. Ean realized if they ever truly meant for him to travel incognito, he was going to have to train his men to become better actors.
“Have we checked to make certain he’s not sleeping in someone else’s bed?” Ean posed with a shadowy smile.
“Within reason,” Cayal answered with a grimace.
Matthieu grinned. “So zis missing man is missing often, I take it?”
Ean turned him a resigned look. Matthieu was entirely too perceptive—his easy manner belied a shrewd mind.
Matthieu laughed at Ean’s look. “Fear not,” he promised, “we will sniff ’im out like zee cochon roots zee truffle.” He turned to Henri and gave quick orders in his native tongue. Henri saluted and rushed off.
As Cayal and Brody left following Henri, Ean’s attention was drawn to another of the comte’s men, who was shouting angrily at the gates in two languages. “Allez! I said be off with you! Allez-vous en maintenant ou vous verrez le cachot du comte! Get thee gone or you will see the inside of le comte’s dungeons, you miserable lout!”
Matthieu turned a bemused look to Ean. “Did I say it was quiet here?” He trotted over to the guard at the gates and inquired in his native tongue, “What is the problem, Jean-Marie?”
“It’s that beggar over there,” Jean-Marie answered irritably, pointing to a shadowy figure lurking in the shade of an alcove of a building across the boulevard from the gates. “He’s been there all morning just glaring at me.”
“Give him food or something,” Matthieu offered.
“I tried that. Philippe took a plate of pie to him and he hit it out of his hands and ran off. But half an hour later he was back again.”
“Like the dog kicked too many times,” Matthieu sighed.
“It’s unseemly,” Jean-Marie complained. “Beggars shouldn’t take up stations around le comte’s manse. Others might get the same idea.”
Ean joined Matthieu at the gates and gazed through the iron bars. “What’s the trouble?”
“Just a beggar who doesn’t beg. He is probably—how do you say—several cards short of a full deck?” Matthieu looked back to Jean-Marie. “Ignore him, Jean-Marie. He just wants someone to glare at.”
“Let him glare elsewhere,” Jean-Marie grumbled, but he turned his back on the man all the same.
Ean was about to move on as well when a form a
ppeared, rising over the crest of the hill leading up to the manse. Something about the way the man walked caught the prince’s attention. After a moment’s study, a grin split his face and he said, “Matthieu, I think you can call off the search for our missing companion.”
Matthieu’s gaze followed his own, whereupon he announced, “Mon dieu!” and turned to Jean-Marie. “Le comte ordered the duchesse’s party to stay within the gates!”
“We’ve let no one leave, sir!” Jean-Marie insisted.
“Then how here comes this man? Answer me this, Jean-Marie!”
As Fynn neared, Ean saw that he carried a bulging bag over one shoulder. “I wouldn’t be too hard on your man, Matthieu,” the prince said and then noted blandly, “When it comes to acquiring wine, my cousin has an uncanny knack.”
Matthieu frowned at the approaching Fynnlar. “Are you certain zis vagabond is with you, mon ami? ’E looks more zee hobo than our beggar across zee way.”
“Unfortunately yes,” Ean muttered.
Fynn grinned as he neared and saw Ean at the gates. “Oh good, you’re up,” he announced.
“It’s noon, Fynn,” Ean pointed out.
“Hey, don’t berate me about it,” Fynn complained. “I’d never wake you at such an ungodly hour.”
Matthieu reluctantly opened the gates to admit Fynn, gazing all the while at Ean as if giving him the opportunity to change his mind.
“You can thank me later,” Fynn said as he traipsed within the protection of the comte’s lands carting his bag of wine. He looked typically disheveled—rumpled, wrinkled, shaggy and unkempt—but was in fair humor. “I found a lovely Volga and bought every one of the vintage. We really should make another trip into town to stock up. Bring a wagon next time.”
“How did you get into town, Fynn?” Ean asked.
Fynn rolled his eyes. “Well it should be extremely obvious that I walked there, cousin. Otherwise I’d be riding my horse now, wouldn’t I?” He shook his head and headed off, muttering about annoying people that asked obvious questions.
***
“Hand me that hoof pick, Alain?” the lad Tanis said from under Caldar’s broad belly.
The Veneisean Truthreader jumped down from his perch upon the stall railing to hand Tanis an iron hook. Alain wore courtly garments of navy contrasted to Tanis’s traveling clothes of charcoal and grey, and his fair hair shone like gold, whereas Tanis’s had a muted hue. Tanis imagined himself a rather plain shadow of the older boy.
Leaning back against the rail again, Alain watched Tanis clean Caldar’s hind hoof and observed, “You know, le comte has stable hands for this work, Tanis.” Though he’d been born and raised in Veneisea, he spoke with no accent at all—a product of his demanding court training.
Tanis lifted colorless eyes to meet the other boy’s as he lowered Caldar’s hoof. “I know, but Caldar likes being handled by people he knows, and I don’t mind the work. Her Grace always had tons of projects to keep me busy. It’s kind of strange being here with nothing to do.”
“And Her Grace had no duties for you this morning? Last night you made it seem there was nary an hour of your day that she didn’t require something of you.”
Tanis gave him a sheepish grin as he moved to Caldar’s other side. He pressed his shoulder against the horse’s hip, pushed one hand against the animal’s shinbone, and the stallion obediently lifted his hoof. “Her Grace broke her fast with the other Healer this morning,” Tanis said while pulling the hoof over his knee to get to the softer underside with the pick, “the one sent by the queen—”
“Madame du Préc,” offered Alain.
“Yes, and now they’re sequestered together.” Tanis pulled the pick along Caldar’s hind hoof and cleaned the packed mud from it in three sure sweeps.
“So, when you might have hours or even an entire day to yourself,” Alain observed in amusement, “what do you do but find work for yourself instead.”
Tanis moved to clean the horse’s other two hooves. Then he straightened and looked at the older boy. “Did you have something else in mind then?”
“As a matter of fact, I was going for a ride in the countryside. Would you like to come?”
Tanis found the idea of unnecessary hours ahorse after weeks on the road less than appealing. “I don’t think so, but thanks for the offer.”
“We can do something else then,” Alain suggested. “Do you play Kings?”
“A little.”
“Excellent,” Alain said. “Let’s take luncheon over a game of Kings. I promise not to smear you too badly across the game board.”
“You’d best protect your queen if you mean to play against me,” Tanis boasted as they left Caldar and headed out of the stables. “I have a way with the ladies.”
Alain laughed. “Do you now?”
“Yes,” Tanis said with a sigh, “I send them running for cover.”
Alain gave him an empathetic look. “You know it’s always like that for us.” He shrugged, adding, “Girls are either overawed by the mystique of a man who can read their minds or afraid of what we might discover in so doing.”
“Her Grace isn’t like that,” Tanis pointed out.
Alain gave him a wry grin. “Your lady doesn’t exactly conform to the usual expectations, does she?” When Tanis made no comment, Alain continued, “Truly, she doesn’t travel with any ladies at all?” He sounded both surprised and perhaps slightly intrigued. “You’d never see that here,” the older boy went on. Then he barked a laugh, adding, “I can only imagine the queen’s face upon hearing a lady of her peerage traveled without an entourage a mile long and a wagon of trunks heavy enough to rattle the earth.”
Tanis shrugged sheepishly. “Her Grace doesn’t like to be waited on,” he said, thinking, except by me, “and she prefers to do her own chores,” except when I can do them, “and she thinks a day’s labor is as good as rest.” Well…she really does believe that.
Alain laughed again. “Tanis, you do realize I could hear everything just then, don’t you?”
Tanis reddened and dropped a grin toward his feet as they walked. “Was I thinking too loudly?” he asked.
“You’ve got to learn to keep your thoughts private when you don’t want them heard by other sensitives,” Alain said. “Elae fuels our talent and makes our minds powerful. We can hear a mortal’s thoughts when they think them loud enough, but we can also project our own thoughts louder than any mortal can.”
“I’ll work on it,” Tanis promised.
Alain led Tanis to the comte’s game room, a long gallery draped with tapestries depicting men and women gamboling in various states of dishabille. They played one game while a minstrel entertained two ladies who’d arrived with their lord husbands the night before, but the boys left when the three of them started dancing together and took luncheon on a patio in the gardens instead.
“So tell me of your recent adventures, Tanis,” Alain said idly as they dined on game hens cooked with leeks and juniper berries, and with the late autumn sun warming their backs.
Tanis’s mind, for reasons unbeknownst and quite frustrating to him, jumped immediately to the image of the Marquiin with his hand extended toward Tanis’s eyes. The memory was so startling, so frightening in its sudden recollection, that it seemed to leap right from his mind into Alain’s. The older boy dropped his fork and gaped at Tanis as the utensil clattered from plate to floor.
“It’s not what it seems!” Tanis was quick to deny as the other boy’s face turned ashen. “He didn’t hurt me.” The story came out in a rush then, for Tanis couldn’t bear the look of horror on Alain’s face.
But when he was done, Alain continued to stare at him. “I’ve never heard of anyone…” but the thought was too incredible. He shook his head and said instead, “The queen is incensed by the recent activities of Bethamin’s Ascendants—like the one you describe—illicitly searching her kingdom for Truthreaders which rightfully belong in her service. I traveled here under guard—for my own protection.�
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“The Ascendant we met was in league with an earl,” Tanis said, recalling the man as they first met him on the bridge across the Glass River, his eyes black and threatening of malice, his tone dripping with contempt. “I think the Ascendants try to make powerful allies.”
Alain sat with his meal forgotten. “What was it like, Tanis?” he asked after a moment of staring unseeing at the half-eaten hen. “He touched you, yet you…you survived the power?”
Tanis pushed a hand through his ash-blonde hair and turned to look out over the gardens. “I don’t think it touched me at all,” he murmured, “but I can’t say why it didn’t. It wasn’t anything I was doing. The Ascendant was furious. He started shouting at the Marquiin, and then he hit me…and I don’t remember much at all after that.”
Alain lifted his gaze to Tanis. “My queen will be very interested in this story, Tanis—you have no idea. Perhaps…” He shifted in his chair to better look Tanis in the eye. “Would you be willing to enter rapport with me…you know, to see if I can find out why Bethamin’s Fire didn’t harm you?” When Tanis seemed apprehensive, Alain said, “Tanis, if it can be done—and you’ve proved that it can—others need to know about this. My queen believes Bethamin has stolen more than twenty of her Adepts. If there’s some way to protect them…” His brow furrowed as he gazed at Tanis. “Surely you see the importance.”
Cephrael's Hand: A Pattern of Shadow & Light Book One Page 70