“Brakandaran the Halfbreed? ” Corian echoed, clearly sceptical. “Even if the stories about such a legendary figure were true, surely he’d be long dead by now. Old age would have taken him, if not the Sisterhood.”
Marla shrugged. “I know. It sounds too fantastic to be true. Elezaar suspects Wrayan’s just a scoundrel who makes up these stories because it amuses him. But the truth of the matter is this, Corian: I have no idea if Wrayan Lightfinger knows the Halfbreed. What I do know is that Wrayan was instrumental in uncovering a plan to destroy my son. He came to me when he could have walked away.
He risked exposure and the wrath of the Thieves’ Guild to bring that information to me. I cannot discount his value simply because I don’t like what I’m hearing.”
“But the Harshini, your highness? They’re long gone. And if they are still out there somewhere, why choose a common thief as their envoy?”
“I have no idea. All I know is that Wrayan is able to prevent Alija from reading my mind.”
“But how do you know he has?” Corian insisted, clearly not able to accept her belief that their minds were magically protected. Or that the Harshini might still be among them. Or perhaps he didn’t like the idea that his mind had been tampered with, without his knowledge or permission. “You have only this Wrayan Lightfinger’s word that Alija can read minds. And only his word that this spell of his prevents it.”
“True.”
“Then surely your trust in him is misplaced?”
“Perhaps.”
He looked at her in confusion. “Then why . . . ?”
“Because it doesn’t matter, Corian. If you’re right and Wrayan has no power, then what harm is done by letting him believe that I accept his story? At best, I have protection against Alija. At worst, all I have is a valuable ally in the Thieves’ Guild and a source of intelligence to which I would never normally gain access.”
Corian shook his head. “You play games within games, your highness.”
“I don’t have much choice, Corian.” Marla shrugged as she turned back to the pile of work on the table. “I’m not a man. I don’t have the easy option of going to war to protect my son.”
Corian nodded in understanding. “And it is that which drives your every action, I suspect.”
Marla smiled thinly. “Corian Burl, you’ve been working with me every day for eight years. I would think, by now, you would know me well enough not to suspect that it’s the protection of my son that drives me, but know it for a certain fact.”
“Which is why you’re having so much trouble making the decision about who should foster him, isn’t it? You’re afraid to let him go.”
“I’m afraid he won’t come back,” she amended. “In Krakandar I can protect him. But once he leaves? I have no chance. And it’s not so much his physical safety. I can send him anywhere in Hythria with a whole army of bodyguards. Besides, no Warlord other than Barnardo Eaglespike would dare allow any harm come to the High Prince’s heir. Not while he’s officially in their care, although there’s more than one who’d do it covertly if they thought they could get away with it. It’s all the other things that could go wrong. Suppose some girl seduces him before he’s had a chance to be court’esa trained?
Suppose—as Jeryma feared—he inadvertently fathers a bastard on some Warlord’s daughter? Or worse still, some peasant girl? Suppose he falls in with bad company and they lead him astray? Suppose he turns into a drunken wastrel?”
“Suppose Damin turns into his uncle?” Corian interrupted softly. “That’s what you really fear.”
Marla fanned herself with the sheaf of papers again. The heat was getting worse. Unbearable.
“It’s something I have to consider, Corian.”
“Then send him somewhere he’s not likely to be led astray.”
“And where is that?”
“Send him to Rogan Bearbow.”
“The Warlord of Izcomdar? Are you mad? He’s Alija’s cousin.”
“So nobody will be able to accuse you of playing favourites.”
“He does have a son a few years older than Damin,” she remembered.
Corian nodded. “Rogan. He’s named after his father. He’s currently being fostered in Pentamor.
Only the elder daughter remains in his household and she’s been promised to Terin Lionsclaw of Sunrise Province. I believe they’re to marry next year sometime. I doubt she will be a problem.”
“Izcomdar does border Krakandar,” Marla said thoughtfully. “Damin would still be close enough that Mahkas could get to him if there was a problem.”
“There are many advantages, your highness.”
“I will give it some thought, Corian. What else is there that I need to take care of before I leave?”
Corian turned to the table and picked up the first of the neatly stacked piles. “We should start with these, your highness.”
Marla sighed. Sweat trickled down her back. Her skirts were damp against the leather of the chair where she sat. The air hung heavy and thick and there was still no sign of a relieving breeze.
Even with a possible solution about Damin’s fosterage on the horizon, Marla knew it was going to be a long, long night.
Chapter 10
Why do I have to wear this damned coronet?” Cyrus Eaglespike demanded of his mother impatiently as he burst into her sitting room. “I look like a fool.”
“You look like a prince,” Alija corrected, glancing up with a frown from the letter she was writing. She hadn’t expected to see her son until later, having sent the coronet to the barracks with Tarkyn Lye earlier this morning, along with instructions that Cyrus must wear it this afternoon during the parade out of town.
“But I’m not a prince, Mother,” her son pointed out testily. “And all your posturing isn’t going to make me one. I should be riding with the Guard, in any case, not sitting in an open carriage like an invalid. For that matter, why do I have to go home to Dregian at all? Why can’t I stay here in the city over summer with the Guard?”
“You are riding in the carriage because you are the cousin of the High Prince, son of the High Arrion and the heir to Dregian Province. Under the Retreat Season laws, heirs are not permitted to stay here over summer any more than Warlords. You know that.”
“It’s a stupid law.”
“But the law, nonetheless. What are you doing here at the house, anyway?”
“Complaining about your taste in accessories,” he responded with an insolent grin. “I would have thought that much was obvious.”
“You’ll be a prince soon enough,” she assured him with a smile. “When you’re heir to the High Prince’s throne.”
“Ah, but that singular honour falls to my distant cousin in Krakandar,” he reminded her, snatching the coronet from his head. He flopped inelegantly onto the cushions surrounding the low table in the centre of the room. “Or had you forgotten that minor but rather important detail, Mother dear?”
It was obvious Cyrus wasn’t going to let her finish the letter so Alija put aside her quill and looked at her son. Cyrus had been in Greenharbour for over two years now and had already been promoted to the rank of captain in the Palace Guard. As he was the son of the High Arrion, Alija could easily have placed him in the Sorcerers’ Collective Guard until he was old enough to take over his inheritance—the lordship of Dregian Province—but she had thought it more prudent to keep him close to the High Prince. Nobody would ever accuse her son of not having any experience at court.
He was nineteen, still a little self-conscious and gangly, the way most boys of his age were, caught between childhood and manhood and not entirely certain, from one moment to the next, exactly where he stood in the general scheme of things. Cyrus was not a handsome young man. He favoured the High Prince in looks, which was a mixed blessing. It would have been better if he’d looked more like a classic Hythrun. They tended towards the blond stereotype; the fair, handsome specimens of which the Harshini artisans had been so fond.
Thin
king of the Wolfblades set Alija wondering what Marla’s eldest son, Damin Wolfblade, looked like these days. Marla had wisely kept him away from Greenharbour for the past eight years.
He’d be twelve, almost thirteen years old by now, Alija calculated. She knew remarkably little about him.
Getting spies past Mahkas Damaran and into Krakandar palace had proved next to impossible, so she’d had to rely for her intelligence on those few people who’d visited the northern province and actually laid eyes on the boy. It was scant at best.
Has he inherited the fair looks of his ancestors, or does he share his uncle’s pinched features?
Perhaps he favoured his father. Laran Krakenshield had been a big man, but not a particularly handsome one. The child Alija remembered was an appealing little boy with fair curls and a winning smile, but cherubic beauty rarely followed its owner into puberty. She smiled to herself, thinking the lad was probably an unruly mess of pimples and embarrassing bravado these days, with a voice caught somewhere between soprano and bass; all legs and arms and teenage awkwardness.
“I am fully aware that Damin Wolfblade is currently the anointed heir,” she informed Cyrus, turning her attention back to her son. “However, he is barely thirteen. A lot can happen between now and his thirtieth birthday.”
Cyrus smiled in anticipation. “Is there something you’re not telling me, Mother?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, do you know of some . . . accident . . . likely to befall poor Damin?”
“Don’t be absurd, Cyrus!” she snapped. “And don’t ever repeat such nonsense outside this room. Even a hint that I might be plotting something against the High Prince’s heir would bring the entire family down.”
“But you are, aren’t you?” he insisted, warming to the idea. “I can never be High Prince while Damin lives. It follows, then, that if you’re so certain I will be High Prince some day, you must have plans to remove the only obstacle standing in my way.”
“I could simply be waiting for fate to decide,” she shrugged.
“I know you better than that, Mother.”
“Then do as I say, Cyrus. Wear that damn coronet and ride in the carriage next to the High Prince when we leave the city this afternoon. The people of Greenharbour need to be reminded that you are a member of his family.”
“I’ll be in the carriage with you and the High Prince because I’m the son of the High Arrion,” he pointed out. “Nobody remembers some long distant relative of mine was a Wolfblade.”
“They will. When the time is right.”
Cyrus sighed and picked up the coronet, jamming it on his head with a scowl. “Do I have to speak to him?”
“Who?”
“Lernen, of course! It’s bad enough I have to ride in the damn carriage with him. Please don’t tell me I have to make conversation with the old pervert as well.”
“It would be nice to give people the impression you’re on speaking terms with the High Prince.”
“But what would we talk about, Mother? I certainly don’t want to hear about what he gets up to in his private garden. Or risk him inviting me to join him in his bizarre little games.”
“Talk about racehorses. That should be fairly safe.”
“Will Princess Marla be riding with us, too?”
Alija shook her head and picked up the quill again. “She’s leaving for Krakandar tomorrow morning.”
“Is it true she’s adopting Luciena Mariner?”
Alija’s head jerked up in surprise. “What?”
“Luciena Mariner. You know . . . that bastard old Jarvan Mariner sired on his mistress.”
“I know who she is, Cyrus. Where did you hear that?”
“I was talking to Xanda Taranger the other day in the barracks. He was on his way to deliver an invitation to Luciena to meet with Princess Marla. The old man’s mistress died about a month ago, he said . . . or hadn’t you heard? Katira Keyne was her name, wasn’t it? She was supposed to be the most beautiful court’esa that ever lived.”
“Why didn’t Marla send you?” she asked. “You outrank Xanda Taranger. He’s been in the Guard barely a year and already she’s singling him out?”
Cyrus seemed unconcerned. “Keeping it all in the family, I guess. Anyway, I’m not a messenger boy. Do you suppose the daughter is as beautiful as her mother must have been?”
“I don’t know,” Alija said, rising to her feet. She walked to the window and looked out, not really seeing the flat white rooftops of the city stretching before her.
What is Marla up to now? Is she just taking on another lost cause in a career littered with lost causes?
Marla Wolfblade was fond of lost causes, Alija had decided long ago. Why else would she continue to insist on aiding her useless brother so diligently all these years? Admittedly, her aid had probably helped Lernen keep his throne. Marla was thorough and conscientious, if not very imaginative, in Alija’s opinion. On the few occasions Alija had been able to get close enough to touch Marla and read her thoughts, they were always bland and uninformative, her mind filled with trivial surface thoughts and rarely anything deeper or more dire than what she was planning to wear tomorrow. Still, this business with the Mariner girl was a little unsettling. “Tell me exactly what Xanda said to you.”
Cyrus thought about it for a moment and then shrugged. “Something along the lines of:
‘Princess Marla’s asked me to visit Jarvan Mariner’s daughter and invite her to the palace for lunch,’ I think.”
“That’s a long way from saying she’s planning to adopt the girl.”
“That was after he got back. And he didn’t say it to me. I overheard him talking to the dwarf. He was complaining the girl seemed ungrateful, considering Marla was offering to give her a name. I can’t really be certain. I didn’t overhear that much and they were walking away from me at the time.”
“Why?”
“I was on my way to the barracks after escorting the princess back to her house from the palace, and they were headed for—”
“No! I mean why would Marla do this now? Why suddenly take an interest in the Mariner girl when she’s ignored her all this time?”
“Katira Keyne is dead,” Cyrus reminded her. “Marla can make contact with the daughter now without it being quite so scandalous, I suppose.”
“If Marla cared about scandal, she would never have married Jarvan Mariner in the first place.
Or married that damned spice trader, Ruxton Tirstone, after Jarvan died. There has to be more to it.”
“Why?” Cyrus asked curiously.
She turned to stare at him. “What do you mean, why?”
“Why must there be something more to it? Why do you always assume people are plotting against you, Mother?” He smiled suddenly. “You should be careful. There are asylums full of people who think the rest of the world is plotting against them, you know.”
“You think this is funny?”
“I think you credit Marla Wolfblade with far more intelligence than she deserves, actually,”
Cyrus countered. “I’ve had to escort Her Royal Highness numerous times. You can’t expect me to consider a woman who spends all day shopping for a single pair of shoes a serious threat, surely?”
“How many shops did she visit in search of her shoes?” Alija asked.
“Scores of them.”
“And how many shopkeepers did she speak to? Were they spies? Do you even know who her spies are? How many of those apparently innocent shopkeepers were actually contacts in her network?”
She shook her head and sighed. “You really must begin to think like a politician if you expect to take the throne some day, my dear.”
“It seems more like you expect me to develop an irrational fear of conspirators.”
“I wish you did fear them, Cyrus, whether you think it’s irrational or not.”
“I’ll try, Mother,” he promised. “If only to keep you happy.”
She nodded in satisfaction. He was s
uch a dutiful son. “You will be High Prince one day, Cyrus.
And it will be the proudest day of my life.”
“Then I suppose I shouldn’t let you down this afternoon,” he announced, climbing to his feet. He straightened the coronet on his head and smiled at her. “It’s going to be as hot as a roasting pig out there this afternoon, riding through the streets in an open carriage.”
“Don’t look to me for sympathy,” she warned with a sour smile. “I’ll be in that carriage right beside you, you know. Wearing a black woollen robe.”
“The things we do, eh?” Cyrus chuckled, crossing the room to kiss her cheek.
“The things we do for Hythria,” Alija corrected with a smile.
Cyrus laughed softly and turned for the door. Alija watched him leave, thinking no mother had ever been more fortunate in a son, while another part of her—the politician inside that never slept—
wondered why Marla Wolfblade had suddenly decided to welcome Luciena Mariner into the fold, when she’d quite deliberately ignored the poor girl for the past eight years. And more importantly, why she’d left it until the day all the important people in the city were leaving Greenharbour.
Alija glanced out of the window again. It wasn’t yet midday and the parade to farewell the High Prince from Greenharbour wasn’t due to start until midafternoon. There was still time, she reflected, to see if she could discover what was going on. Marla Wolfblade suddenly deciding to welcome a baseborn commoner into the royal family was something that, as High Arrion, Alija couldn’t let slip by unremarked.
Xanda thought the girl ungrateful, did he? Alija thought. There might be an opportunity here.
Maybe a chance to get through the wall of protection surrounding the only obstacle to her son’s ascension to the throne. Perhaps the forgotten daughter of Jarvan Mariner had good cause to despise the Wolf-blades.
Perhaps enough cause to wish them harm.
And who would blame the child . . . abandoned and forgotten, publicly humiliated and ignored by the princess, when the whole city knew who she really was?
Warrior Page 10