by Sharon Shinn
My head was spinning. None of this maneuvering had ever been suggested to me before; I had thought an engagement, once announced, was a settled thing forever. “But the kings have always taken their brides from the house of Halsing,” I said. “You told me that.”
“Which is why Dirkson considers the match good enough. Greta does not, of course, because nothing will do for her but royalty, but she agreed to go to Tregonia and play the game. Who knows? Dirkson’s a widower himself, and Greta is reasonably attractive. That might satisfy him.”
I put a hand to my temple. “You’re making my head hurt,” I complained.
He smiled again, a bit more bitterly. “Well, you did ask.”
I had one more question. “What does Bryan think of all this? After all, he has always assumed Elisandra would be his bride.”
“Bryan,” Kent said, and fell silent as he seemed to think it over. Before he could answer—if he had even planned to—Bryan himself entered the room.
“Kent, did you—oh! Corie! I didn’t know you were arriving so soon!” he exclaimed. He descended upon me like red desire, sweeping me from my chair and pulling me into an enthusiastic hug. Still holding my hands, he pulled back to survey me with a frankly assessing expression.
“Well! Don’t you look inviting,” he said gaily. “Our little Corie has grown up to be quite a woman.”
I felt myself blushing and ducking my head; I was not used to such attention from the prince. He was as beautiful as ever, that I could tell from my quick glance at his face, and his smile was melting my bones in a most peculiar way.
“I’ll have to spend some time with you, getting to know you again,” he said. “I look forward to that.”
Leaning over, he kissed me quickly and lightly on the mouth. At my expression of stupefaction, he laughed out loud.
“Still the unspoiled country girl, I see,” he said, dropping my hands. “That’s what I’ve always liked about you. Kent, your father sent me to fetch you. He wants us both in his parlor.”
“Tell him I’ll be there in a minute,” Kent said coolly. “I had something else to tell Corie.”
Bryan nodded at both of us. “Later, then,” he said, and left the room.
I turned to look at Kent. I had not said a word since Bryan marched into the room. Kent’s expression was both cautious and rueful; he watched me as if unsure of my emotions.
“Bryan,” he said, as if we had not been interrupted, “has discovered how very much he likes women who are attracted to the man who will be king. I don’t know that, at the moment, he is too interested in marrying anybody, even someone as gracious and gentle as your sister. Perhaps especially someone as gracious and gentle as your sister.”
“But he—yes, but Bryan was always something of a flirt—” I said weakly.
A shadow crossed Kent’s face, as if he was disappointed at my inability to discern some very basic truth. He rose to his feet. “And perhaps it is nothing more than that,” he said. “It is hard to know you are the most powerful man in the kingdom and not be interested in using your power.”
“And what does that mean?” I said irritably, but Kent was already at the door.
“My father needs me. It’s good to see you again, Corie,” he said, then he too left the room.
I finished my breakfast in silence and solitude. I did not care much for my first morning back at the castle.
THERE WERE TO be more disappointments. I made my way to Angela’s room, to find her being fitted for a new dress. Marian sat in the corner reading a novel, but she leapt up at my entrance. After we had all exclaimed over each other, how different we looked—how lovely, your hair looks so good that way—Angela shooed the fitter out of the room and we sat together and talked. Angela always had the best gossip, and so I hoped she would enlighten me on some of Kent’s dour suggestions.
“It is so good to see you both!” I said, aiming at my goal through a circuitous route. “I could not believe it when I arrived last night and found Elisandra gone. And to Tregonia, of all places! Why there? With that vapid Lady Megan?”
Angela leaned forward to whisper, even though there were only the three of us in the room. “Lord Matthew hopes that if Elisandra’s gone for a while, Bryan will miss her. He thinks the prince does not appreciate his intended bride.”
I made my face look incredulous. “Does not appreciate her! Why, what do you mean?”
Angela glanced around the room yet one more time, her blue eyes very wide. “Lately, Bryan has said he does not care to marry next year, as has always been intended. He told his uncle that he will be a good and faithful husband—but not yet. The regent is absolutely furious, so he sent Elisandra away.”
“But Bryan has not seemed to regret it,” Marian murmured.
Angela giggled. “I can’t say I’m sorry,” she said. “I love to dance with Bryan five times in one night! Or walk with him through the gardens! Did you ever see a more beautiful man? And the things he says! I know he doesn’t mean them, but I like to hear them. And I know he says them to other girls. I don’t think the prince is ready to marry, either. And I say—let him wait. Let him see who else might take his fancy.”
I had always liked Angela, but at the moment I wanted to strike her dead. I spent so much energy holding on to my black fury that Marian had time to detail her encounters, too, with the prince. I remembered that kiss in the breakfast room. All of us had always adored Bryan, but none of us had ever expected him to notice us. Now that he had, it was so much stranger than any of us had expected.
We talked awhile longer before I could escape, heading outside again where it seemed I might have enough room for my thoughts to circle around my dizzy head. There was no solving this puzzle, I knew; but a little exercise might at least calm my mind.
I strode through the gardens at a pretty good pace, disturbing a few sets of lovers and a handful of birds. My way took me without conscious volition to the back of the castle, to the guardhouses and the weapons yard, where there was even now a practice session under way.
I climbed to my usual perch and watched the combatants. None of them looked familiar. Eventually, after I had spent about an hour wishing I, too, could knock a few heads around and perhaps dissipate some of my vexation, I had a chance to speak to a pair of the younger guards who stood by me as they pulled off their vests and helmets.
“Do either of you know a guardsman named Roderick?” I asked with a pretty smile.
The shorter of the two, a fresh-faced young boy who could hardly have been sixteen years old, smiled back. “Everyone knows Roderick, but he’s not a guardsman anymore,” he said.
Had he left the castle and the service of the prince? My heart squeezed down. This was not news Elisandra would think to pass on in a letter. “Not a guardsman anymore? What do you mean?”
“He’s a half-sergeant. Been since I came up from Mellidon,” said the other man, who was taller, heavier, and a bit more surly than his friend.
Ah, a promotion. My heart billowed up again. “So that’s why he’s not practicing in the yard with the rest of you?”
“Not practicing because he’s not here,” said the second man. “Gone to Tregonia with the Halsing ladies.”
My bad mood flared suddenly higher; everyone had been spirited away from me, it seemed. “Well. Tregonia. That’s nice,” I said shortly. “I don’t suppose anyone knows when they’ll be back?”
“No one’s told us,” said the short one cheerfully. “Did you want to be getting a message to Roderick?”
Goodness, no. What would I possibly say in a message? I slipped to my feet and brushed out my skirt. “Oh, no. I’ll run into him later. Thank you so much for your help.” And on those silly words, I turned and practically ran back toward the castle.
Where I suddenly did not want to be in the slightest.
* * *
IT WAS TWO more days before Elisandra returned. I spent those two days in the laziest fashion imaginable. I slept past noon, read novels in Elisandra’s
drawing room, and didn’t speak to any other residents until the communal dinners. At these events, at least, everything seemed unchanged: Bryan, Damien, Matthew, and Kent sat at the head table with several high-ranking guests; I found my seat with Marian and Angela; and everyone gossiped. I tried, during these first two evenings without Greta’s supervision, to drink the wine that the servants passed down the tables, but I still had not acquired a taste for it. The well water was as delicious as it always was, and I contented myself with that. I noticed that Bryan still would not touch the water, though Damien drank it when he was not tasting whatever fresh bottle of wine the prince had called for.
I was beginning to think Bryan was a little more erratic than I had ever noticed before.
After the meals, where I ate as much of the rich food as I possibly could to make up for Grandmother’s much simpler table fare, I returned to my room to nap for a few hours. And, both those two nights and for most of the nights of that summer, I woke as the clocks were striking two.
Grandmother had been teaching Milette and me some of the darker magics during the last winter, potions that could only be mixed at midnight and plants that could only be cut when the moon had slivered away. So we had formed the habit of rising late, going to bed early, then rising again in the dark of night to practice our newest skills. It seemed I could not immediately retrain my body to adhere to a more ordinary schedule.
But I found I somewhat enjoyed wandering at night through the dark but far from quiet castle.
The corridors themselves were never entirely silent, even at this late hour. That first night, I crept stealthily down the halls where the permanent residents lived, and then past the rooms where the guests were quartered. Invariably, behind one or two doors, I heard the low murmur of conversation, the spike of laughter, or the run of tears. Sometimes a light spilled out at the threshold, even when there was no noise inside the room; there, I guessed, someone was reading late, or writing a despondent letter, or frightening away ghosts or memories with the aid of candlelight.
I climbed the levels of stairways to the servants’ quarters, where all was deathly still; these hard-worked souls wasted none of the night in talk and superstition, but slept away every available minute. Another flight, to the highest story of the castle, to the curtained doorway through which the aliora could be found. There was no door to block my way, but I did not walk in. I stood outside listening to the strange whistling and hissing that marked the sound of aliora dreaming. Their voices sounded thin, hopeless, unraveled, and I imagined them pitched in a key and on a frequency that would carry their words to their loved ones in Alora. The longer I stood there, listening to that strange, woeful noise, the sadder I grew. I fixed my eye on the gold key hanging outside the door, and I thought about Jaxon even now hunting down by Faelyn River, and I felt colder than I had since the winter solstice.
This was too much to take for long. I hurried back down all the flights of stairs, through the grand entrance hall, and out into the warm summer night. There were guards at the main door, who were astonished to see what passed for a noblewoman roaming around at night, but they did not challenge me; they gave me a respectful salute, fist touched briefly to the forehead, and watched me go. My shoes made an odd, clacking sound on the cobblestones of the courtyard, no matter how quietly I placed my feet. It was like being followed by the audible manifestation of my own shadow. I resolved to wear my slippers if I ever went out wandering at night again.
I came to rest beside the great fountain, still spuming with water long after everyone was sleeping. I jumped to the ledge and caught my balance with my arms outstretched, then walked the unsteady circle all around its perimeter. I had done this as a child, but I had thought it too unseemly a prank to try once I turned fifteen. I was surprised at how happy it made me to walk around the entire fountain once again, feel the feather edge of spray against my face and hold my equilibrium on the slanted slope of the stone. Laughing silently, I completed the circle and hopped down.
It was a few quick steps to the front of the courtyard and the great gates that guarded the entrance to the castle. Here, there were four men on guard, all talking in low voices until they caught my clattering approach. Then they all came to attention, placing their hands on their weapons and assessing what kind of threat I might offer. I liked that; it made me feel like I could sleep more soundly at night, knowing that guards were on watch from danger without or within.
But two of them, at least, recognized me as soon as I recognized them: the young men I had spoken to briefly in the weapons yard that afternoon. I hesitated just a moment before addressing them.
“A long day for you two,” I observed. “Will they let you sleep late in the morning, or is it up at dawn and back to practice?”
The short one grinned. He had curly brown hair and an open smile; he could not have been here long. “Sleep in,” he said. “Cloate says it’s the best part of drawing night duty. He’s a lazy bones, anyway, hates to get up when the sun rises.”
I glanced at his surly friend. “And this would be Cloate?”
The short boy nodded. “He’s Cloate, I’m Shorro, that’s Clem and Estis.” Clem and Estis were a pair of evenly matched young men who looked large enough and menacing enough to give me pause; but they both nodded and smiled in a friendly way. Clearly they wondered what I was doing out at night, but Shorro obviously had already pegged me for an eccentric, so he didn’t mind extending our acquaintance.
He said now, “I know who you are. The Halsing half-sister what only comes here in the summer.”
I nodded. “That’s right. Coriel Halsing.”
Clem and Estis faded back against their side of the gate and resumed their own quiet conversation, but Cloate decided to set his observations alongside Shorro’s.
“They say you’re a witch,” Cloate said.
I nodded again. “Studying to be one. Why? Do you need a potion?”
Even in the moonlight, Cloate looked embarrassed. “No.”
“Yes,” Shorro said instantly.
I could not help but be amused. I divided a look between them. “Now, who needs that potion? And what kind would it be?”
“He needs it,” Shorro said. “Love spell.”
“Do not,” Cloate muttered. “Not interested in her, anyway.”
“I can make a tonic,” I said in the most encouraging of voices. “It doesn’t always work, though.”
They were both immediately interested, but Cloate was too proud to ask questions. “Why is that?” Shorro wanted to know.
I made a shape in the air with my hands, as if holding a large cup of water. “There are a couple different love potions,” I said. “I only know one. It’s good, but it only works to—how can I explain this—to open the eyes of the other person to your good qualities and charms. It can make her aware of you, but it won’t make her love you. You have to do that on your own. There are potions that can create false desire, but I don’t know them.” I added primly, “I wouldn’t practice them if I did know them. That’s not the kind of herbalism I do.”
Shorro nodded sagely, as if any good citizen should know those distinctions and abide by them, but Cloate for the first time looked hopeful. “That’d be good enough for me,” he said. “A potion that made her—what you said. Notice me.”
“Do you have access to her?” I asked.
“Have what?”
“Does she live here at the castle?” I said patiently. “I can make a preserved potion that will last till you return home again, or I can make a fresh one if you plan to use it immediately.”
“Oh, she’s here,” Shorro said for him.
“And would you have a chance to present her with the mixture?” I asked. “Most often, it is something you would slip into her water or her wine.”
Cloate looked thoughtful. Shorro said, “No, but Meekie would do it. If I asked her.”
I glanced at the short boy again, laughter spilling out of me. “Meekie? And I take it you don’t need a
potion to draw her attention?”
He grinned so widely that no other reply was needed. Cloate snorted and said, “No spells for him.”
“Well, I can make the potion, if you want it,” I said briskly. “Do you?”
Cloate hesitated, his eyes trained on the ground for a long time. When he finally looked at me again, he seemed to be struggling with his desires as well as an innate sense of justice. It made me like him a great deal. “And it won’t cloud her mind? It won’t make her do nothing she would be sorry or ashamed to do?”
“No,” I said. “It will just open her eyes to possibilities. It won’t change her nature or make her act against her best interests. It’s a benign potion. In fact, if it will make you feel better, I’ll mix a double batch and I’ll drink half of it right in front of you.”
His face cleared miraculously. “You would? That would be—but I don’t want you to think I don’t trust you—”
“Nonsense,” I said. “You have no reason to trust me. You don’t know me. I’d be happy to drink half my own vial.”
“Then—yes, I’d be pleased to hire your services, Lady Coriel,” he said formally—if incorrectly, for no one called me “lady.” “What is the price for your work?”
I was tempted to offer the service for free, but I knew better; the village folk were too proud to accept charity magic, and insisted on paying us even when they were too poor to feed themselves. And this was a working man who was taking the prince’s wage, so I certainly did not want to insult him.
“Two silver pieces,” I said, for it seemed substantial enough to make the serum seem valuable, but not so expensive he would be forced to sit out the next round of gambling with his fellows. He nodded, looking a bit relieved. He seemed to think herbal remedies came at a higher price.
“And I can bring it by tomorrow night,” I said. “If you will be on duty then?”