He kissed her back this time and tears threatened to squeeze from her closed eyes.
Freath shook his head when they finally parted. “Did it show?” She looked back at him quizzically. “I tried so hard to hide how I’ve felt about you these last two anni.”
His words made her catch her breath. “No, you hid it very well, Master Freath.” He smiled briefly at her formality.
“I’m sorry about that, Genrie. I’m forty-four anni. I gave up on romance a long time ago. And although I’ve been captivated by you since the moment you started, I didn’t for a moment imagine you could ever return my feelings.”
“For someone so brave that is a cowardly admission.”
He smiled more easily now. She’d never seen such softness in his face. “Where you are concerned, yes.” He kissed her tenderly again before his expression darkened. “And now I have more reason to fear for you. I want you to leave. It is getting too dangerous, this fine tightrope we are both walking.”
“I agreed to follow your lead before they stormed the palace. Nothing has changed.”
“But you are taking the greater risk. I have some protection through Loethar’s favor. Now the queen’s courageous death has added to my disguise. You are too vulnerable.”
“I’m not leaving you, certainly not now. Don’t ask me again. I love you, Master Freath. I’m staying come what may.”
He touched her face gently. “I can’t believe you’re saying that. I’m probably going to have to ask you to repeat it sometime later when I’ve convinced myself I dreamed this.”
She hugged him tightly. “I love you. Remember that always. Now where are you meant to be?”
“With him.” She nodded. “But tell me quickly about Leonel,” he added, his voice dropping.
“I arose just prior to dawn, laid out the food as you asked—everything I could find that was easy for them to grab. Then I yelled out for help so that they’d know there was no one else around and made a big show of going down to the cellar. I gave them ample time and as you predicted some of the food had been taken when I returned. I’d left a flask of milk but I wish I’d thought to leave water in the same fashion—they must be thirsty.”
“That poor boy. He’s lost everything, and now to be in exile in his own palace.”
“How can he survive?”
“The same way we must. Using his wits. He has the advantage of being hidden, plus he has Gavriel De Vis with him. Under the circumstances, we couldn’t have asked for a finer champion. King Brennus chose well.”
“De Vis is just a young man,” Genrie said.
“Leonel trusts him, and that short age gap will keep them close. If you knew Regor De Vis as well as I did, you’d know the breeding is there—we can all trust his sons. Gavriel would lay down his life for Leonel, or for Penraven, for that matter. We can’t ask for more.”
“De Vis asked me to kiss him just a day or two ago,” Genrie said playfully.
“You’ve only kissed me twice and already you’re trying to make me jealous,” Freath sighed. “He’s youthful. I would expect nothing less than his wanting to kiss every beautiful woman he comes across.”
“Beautiful, eh?”
“And brave. Stay brave, my Genrie. No heroics, please promise me.”
“I promise,” she said and kissed him farewell. “Go. The two witches will be looking for me too, I imagine.”
Freath reluctantly let Genrie go and hurried away down toward Loethar’s salon. He had refused to tell her how the king and De Vis would be watching or where from in the kitchens and fortunately she was astute enough not to press him. He blessed his luck that he’d had those few moments with King Brennus before the royal was dragged before Loethar. Captive and already guessing his fate, Brennus had refused Freath’s words of sympathy, telling him instead of the existence of the ingress. Freath realized that his ear was not a desperate option either. He knew the king had absolute faith in him. He must not lose his nerve now. Newly determined, he continued his descent toward the salon where he would find Loethar. He was not looking forward to seeing the queen’s smashed corpse but as he knocked on the barbarian’s door, he hoped with all his heart that Leo would never learn the method of his mother’s death.
In the ingress a terrible silence lay between its two occupants. Gavriel had attempted to say something into the shock of the void but Leo had raised his hand and uttered a single word, “Don’t!”
Gavriel waited anxiously, watching the young king’s chest heave as he battled to wrestle back a hurricane of emotion. The luminous glow of the candle revealed the dryness of the royal’s mouth as Leo licked his lips nervously, his forehead creased into a vertical line at its middle, as he concentrated hard on breathing steadily, no doubt talking himself back from the precipice of despair that Gavriel was sure he teetered on. He himself was still in shock over what they’d witnessed and now he knew they had to leave immediately. There would be no time for food, no time for any supplies. What they already had and what they could pick up on the run through the secret corridors up to the roof was all they would have. He imagined the feel of the fresh air on his face; that might help Leo remain steady. He tried not to think about what came beyond that. Surely to lower themselves from this height was close to suicide. Why not suicide? Gavriel wondered. Everyone’s doing it, he thought bitterly, echoing the sort of dark humor that Corbel would appreciate. But Corb wasn’t here to help him. Blood was pounding through his veins, urging him to take the king and flee. Again his mind helplessly returned to Leo’s audacious idea to lower each other down on a rope.
“We slide down it, of course!” he’d said, incredulous that Gavriel had had to ask. “We move silently from the palace to beyond the castle gates.”
“How do we anchor it precisely?”
“Petty detail!” the new king had replied, giving an irritated shrug. “We have everything we need. Father stocked the ingress with weapons, ropes, cloaks, candles—all sorts of supplies, just in case. You know he checked them annually, had the weapons oiled, sharpened?”
“No, I didn’t,” Gavriel had replied, somewhat petulantly. How could he!
Leo’s plan was the stuff of boys’ daydreams. Gavriel knew there was a good chance they would fall to their deaths, or at best suffer nasty injuries.
More splattered bodies to be cleaned up, he heard Corbel’s somber drone in his mind.
The king’s voice was wintry when it came, interrupting Gavriel’s bleak thoughts. “Piven’s fate is in the lap of Lo now but I must survive if I am to see Loethar and Freath answer for their sins. If I do nothing else with this life, I will claim their last breaths; my face will be the last they see.”
Gavriel could only nod. He knew the king needed this fury in order to survive. Perhaps—dare he even think this?—the deaths of the king and the queen were the very triggers needed to turn Leo from crown prince into King Leonel. The boy standing before him now was certainly no child but a genuine King of Penraven and instinctively Gavriel knelt.
“King Leonel, as my father did to your father, I pledge myself wholly to your service and to your protection. I will follow you wherever you go, I will lay down my life for you.” The words were rote but he had never meant anything more deeply in his life and to prove it he snatched the knife from his belt and without hesitation slashed open his palm. Leo remained silent, listening gravely, watching somberly, as Gavriel offered up the most primitive of the Valisar blood covenants, first performed on King Cormoron by his brother. Dipping the fingers of his uninjured hand into the blood pooling in his palm, Gavriel reached up and smeared his blood onto the face of the king.
“I offer you my blood covenant, King Leonel.”
Clearly moved, Leo nodded. “And though we have no witnesses except ourselves, let it be known that I accept your pledge and from this day you will be called Legate Gavriel De Vis.” Mirroring Gavriel’s actions, Leo took the blade, opened his own palm and painted the resulting blood onto Gavriel’s cheeks and forehead. New k
ing and new legate solemnly clasped bleeding hands together. “The Blood Covenant of the 9th is sealed,” Leo pronounced.
Fourteen
Loethar was not sure what to make of this latest and rather incredible development. Iselda had needed to be dealt with and he was privately relieved the matter was already taken care of but it was nevertheless a bold move by a mere servant.
His mother was still ranting. Why do women always harp on about something that cannot be changed and always when a matter should be left alone!
“But, Loethar, could we not have made more use of the royal wretch? Imagine the punishing effect it could have had on the people. This traitorous servant to the Valisars has usurped your authority, surely?”
“I have spoken with Freath. I did agree that Iselda was his property to do with as he pleased,” Loethar answered. “If I didn’t want him to ill-treat her, I should have made that more clear.” He shrugged. “As it was, I gave him no instructions regarding Iselda.”
Stracker arrived and, without waiting for permission to enter the discussion, announced, “She’s being scraped off the cobbles now.” His amusement was evident.
Loethar didn’t share it. “There you are, mother. She’s gone to her god now. Nothing more to be done about it.”
“And still you allow this man into your bosom.”
“Bosom?” Loethar turned on Negev. “Where? Where is he that he is so close to me, so deeply involved in my thoughts and actions? I’ll tell you where he is, mother. He’s piling the remains of the woman he just murdered into a slops bucket. Hardly the work of my right hand man, wouldn’t you say?”
She refused to answer him, turning instead to her other son. “Is this true?”
Stracker nodded, then laughed. “He horrified onlookers by refusing the wych elder chest as a coffin. He insisted that she was not worth the cost and instead tossed her remains into a couple of crates. I’m beginning to like your servant, brother.”
“Are you satisfied?” Loethar growled.
Negev didn’t look chagrined but had the good sense to finally leave the subject be, instead turning to her next axe for grinding. “Well, now that you ask, no. I have helped you get to this point—both of us have,” she said, touching Stracker on his broad chest.
“And?” Loethar said, keen to get this out of the way now. It had been building for months.
“Well, son, we have given you more than simply a throne.”
“You didn’t give it to me, mother. I took it. And my half-brother has certainly played his part and your cunning mind has also played its role, but please never flatter yourselves that you handed me any of the Set thrones on any platters.”
“Forgive me, Loethar, that was wrongly spoken. What I meant,” she soothed, “was that we’re here now. You are on the throne. You are the emperor already, if I’m not mistaken. So what is the next step?”
“We arrived only two days ago. We have since slaughtered any number of important people, including the Valisar king and queen. What else would you have me do in this time span, dear mother?” His last two words were spoken so acidly, Negev took a small step back, a movement that was not lost on him.
Her reply, nevertheless, lost none of its bite. “I want to understand your intentions, Loethar.”
“I see. So crushing the last of the great family dynasties of the Set is not enough?”
“Except you haven’t!” she levelled angrily at him.
He glared at her. She still believed he needed her counsel, and it was true that she’d been a formidable woman alongside his warrior father—equally brave, far more conniving and ambitious. Even in old age, she was a force that he had to reckon with. In his quietest, most private moments, he often dreamed of ending her angry, bitter life. A blanket over her face, a poison, a stray arrow. But think it though he did, he could never follow through. It was not a matter of courage—he had that in droves. It was a simple promise given to his dying father that he would forgive his mother her overbearing ways and protect her until she took her final breath. He’d sworn he would as the older man took his own last breath and if there was one person he would keep faith with in life, it was his tribal father.
“You haven’t!” she repeated and he despised her in that instant.
“What do you mean?”
“The crown prince is alive. You admit it yourself. And that Valisar whore got to rub my face in her dirt, reminding me that Prince Leonel lives, that he will emerge to slaughter you, slaughter all of us!” Her voice had built shrilly as she spoke until she was near yelling.
Stracker broke the tension, laughing as her voice broke on the last word. “He could only be about this tall!” he cut in, his incredulity at her howling claim obvious. “I could snap the life out of him with one hand, even if he were capable of lifting a sword with any menace.”
Negev visibly calmed herself, her nostrils pinched as she inhaled a steadying breath. “Stracker, dear, you’re my flesh…my blood runs thick through your veins. But you should never believe that you are more imaginative than I. I am well aware of the boy’s age and I can guess at his height—I did raise two sons of my own. This is not about strength or fighting capability. This boy is no longer a prince.”
Stracker frowned at her and Loethar sighed inwardly. His half-brother was not dumb—not by a long shot—but he could be obtuse when his arrogance overrode everything.
“You haven’t grasped it, have you, son?” Negev cajoled. “Look to your brother. He will enlighten you.”
Stracker glared at Loethar, who regarded him with a small measure of sympathy. He, too, had been on the receiving end of their mother’s sharp tongue all of his life. “As soon as Brennus breathed his last, his heir became king. Our mother is simply making the point that the boy is now King Leonel in spite of his youth, and as long as he remains alive, he becomes a symbol of hope for Penraven.”
Negev couldn’t contain herself a moment longer. “He is a symbol of freedom, a rallying point, a hook upon which to hang an entire region’s hope! Faith is an incredibly powerful force, especially among those who have been crushed. As long as King Leonel is at large, the people of the Set will endure. As long as the stories of his survival race like a plains fire out of control from realm to realm, his stature and his presence will grow, whether he’s this tall or this tall!” she said, mimicking a child’s height and then a man’s with her hand. “And as long as he continues to grow, any rebellious element within the people will have their fiery dreams of vengeance stoked.”
“He’s a child!” Stracker hurled back at them, incredulous. “You’re scared of a child?”
“Only what he represents,” Loethar said patiently. “Leonel the boy is, at this moment, irrelevant. It’s the fact that he lives that matters. The blood of the Valisars pumps strong through him for he is the rightful heir. Did Iselda give any indication that she knew where he was?”
Negev shook her head. “No. But she believed him alive, revelled in the knowledge. She must have known something.”
Loethar’s expression darkened. “She could have just said that out of maliciousness.” He shook his head, thinking of the dour manservant’s actions. “I still can’t believe Freath was so brutal. He seems so very conservative and contained.”
“Well, believe me, he enjoyed it. It surprised me too,” his mother grudgingly admitted. “The look on his face. Animal-like fury.” She shook her head. “It doesn’t solve the issue, Loethar,” she added pointedly.
“No,” he said, noncommittally.
“So, we hunt him down. Destroy him,” Stracker said. “Send me. I’m done here.”
Loethar nodded to himself in thought, cast a glance absently at Vyk, who was as still as a statue. He looked back at Stracker and his mother.
“May I?” Negev asked. He nodded. “I think you should take your brother up on his offer. Let him get together a group. Keep it small. You’ll move more easily around the realm that way,” she said, turning to her eldest son. “He’s had a couple of da
ys on us and perhaps he’s getting help. He is only young so he’ll be scared, no matter how courageous he is. He also won’t be as resourceful as you or Loethar. Try and think as you did when you were his age, Stracker. At twelve summertides your belly’s needs overrode everything—trust me on this. He’ll stop often to eat, not thinking so carefully about cover of darkness. He’ll take risks when he’s famished—perhaps try and steal food from remote homes or from other people’s traps. Put the word out. Put a reward up. Make it generous. Someone with a grudge against the royal family might just speak up. I would urge—”
“Stop, mother,” Loethar said wearily. He rubbed at his eyes. “There is a far more simple solution, one I believe will not only win the entire Set’s attention but will satisfy my half-brother’s lust for bloodletting.”
Stracker grinned with sinister anticipation. “I can’t wait to hear it.”
Negev, clearly unhappy at being interrupted but unable to wipe her curiosity entirely from her expression, looked to him expectantly.
“There are times to win hearts and other times to impress one’s control. Stracker, get your Greens on the march. Surround the realm. And then you may kill every male child aged between eleven and thirteen summertides. If there’s one skill Penraven possesses, it’s excellent records. The Valisars are notorious down the ages for it and, according to Valya, one particular aspect they loved was the census. Ask Freath to help—in fact I’ll tell him to. He’ll know where to find the books that will give you names, locations and ages. Make it swift and brutal. No torture, Stracker. Behead each publicly; leave the families nothing but the headless bodies to bury. You will make it known that every one of these boys is being slaughtered because the prince—and you must never call him king, Stracker—is a coward. Put up notices for those who can read, send out criers for the majority who can’t. It is summertide now. They have until the first leaves begin to fall before the next wave of killing begins. We will be merciless if the prince is not given to us. Are you confident the armies are quelled?”
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