by Sharon Shinn
After the meal, there were interminable toasts and speeches by Matthew and a few of the Auburn nobles. Jaxon, when called upon to say something, rose to his feet and gave the whole room a wicked grin.
“I’ve snared the greatest prize in the eight provinces, and I am a happy man,” he announced, raising a goblet in each hand. “And that’s something you can drink to in water and in wine!”
“True in water, true in wine!” the crowd chanted back, and we all took a gulp from each glass before us.
Except Bryan. As he had for several years now, he left his water glass untouched and merely sipped his wine at Jaxon’s toast. I happened to be sitting across the table from Angela, and I caught her eye at this flagrant breech of manners. Most often the water-and-wine toasts had been in Bryan’s own honor, so there was no insult in his refusal to drink. But to decline to accept the sweet water of Auburn on behalf of another man . . . Angela raised her eyebrows high and shook her head very slightly. No doubt Matthew would have something to say about this in a more private setting.
After the meal we were all herded into the music room, which was large enough to contain a small crowd but smaller than the massive ballroom. The dais was set up with a row of stately looking chairs which left no room for the musicians, so the three of them sat in a corner playing soft melodies. As I watched, Matthew ushered Rowena to the middle chair on the dais, and he and Jaxon took their places on either side of the queen. There was to be a receiving line, and all of noble Auburn would have a chance this night to offer respects to Rowena Halsing.
Just to show the rest of us how these things were done, Kent was the first in line to pay court to the aliora queen. He approached the stage, then bent so one knee rested on the platform itself—not the completely prostrate bow one would make to a human royal, but a mark of deep reverence nonetheless. He took her hand and held it to his forehead, speaking some indistinguishable phrase of praise or approval, and then he straightened to his full height. She said something and gave him her brilliant smile, and they exchanged a few more agreeable observations. By this time, the line behind Kent was ten deep and continuing to grow. He dropped her hand and moved away. The next man stepped forward and made his bow to the queen.
“This could take the entire night,” Angela said in my ear. “Do you think we’re expected to curtsey to her again? We’ve been running into her in the halls anytime these past three days.”
“If Kent did it, I think we’re supposed to do it,” I whispered back. Andrew was passing through the crowd, carrying a tray of wineglasses, and I snagged one from his hands. I smiled at him but he merely nodded; like Cressida, he seemed tense and unhappy at Rowena’s continued presence at Castle Auburn.
Angela also took a glass from Andrew and seemed to meditate as she sipped from it. “Well, if Elisandra does it, I’ll do it,” she decided. “Or—no—if Greta kisses her hand again, then I’ll know what’s expected of us.”
I giggled. “Fair enough.”
But Greta, that court intriguer, was already in line behind two young women of the Auburn nobility. I gave Angela a smirk and together we made our way across the room to join the parade of well-wishers. Behind me, faintly, I heard male voices arguing. I looked around to discover the source. At first, I couldn’t see anyone locked in disagreement, but I did catch sight of Roderick standing stiffly with his back flat against the wall. His gaze was fixed at a point across the room, so I turned to look in that direction.
Kent and Bryan were standing as far from the crowd as they could manage, facing each other, expressions angry, gestures short and sharp. What in the world could they be discussing so heatedly at such a time and place? Kent lifted his hand as if to make a point and Bryan batted it down. Kent’s other hand lashed out to shove Bryan on the shoulder, giving the prince a push so hard that he actually stepped back a pace. Now Bryan looked furious. He raised both fists as if to strike Kent, but the older man caught the younger about the wrists and shook him, hard. I glanced around to see if anyone (except Roderick and me) was witnessing this, but no one else seemed to have eyes for anyone except the aliora.
When I looked back, Bryan had broken free of Kent’s hold and was stalking across the floor in the direction of the dais. I realized then that Kent had been insisting that Bryan pay his respects to Rowena again, and the prince had been savagely refusing. Something Kent said had convinced him, and now Bryan was knocking through the disorganized crowd to insert himself at the head of the line.
Angela and I edged to one side to see.
Bryan made a bow so deep his red hair brushed the floor before the stage. There was so much drama in his gesture that the mockery was impossible to overlook. “Ah, the queen of Alora!” he exclaimed as he swept himself upright. “For how long do you intend to grace our court with your superior presence?”
Rowena regarded him warily; the men on either side of her were frowning. “For as long as my husband wishes that we remain here.”
“Excellent! I hope it is for a good long while now! I think it is important that you grow accustomed to the ways and the touch of your human cousins.”
And, putting a hand on either side of her face, he bent in to kiss her on the mouth.
And she shrieked and tore herself away from the gold on his hands.
Instantly Jaxon leapt up, bellowing rage; Matthew was on his feet, calling out commands. In a blur of motion, Jaxon flung himself on the young prince, throwing him to the ground. There was the sound of Bryan’s head hitting the hard stone of the floor, and then there was no possibility of distinguishing one noise from the next, for the whole room exploded into sound and motion. The queen was still shrieking in pain; the crowd was shouting; an Auburn lord was attempting to pull Jaxon away from Bryan. Jaxon lashed out at this unfortunate noble, sending him sprawling across the room, and lifted his fist to pummel Bryan once more in the face.
Then the room blurred again and suddenly Roderick was at Bryan’s side, punching Jaxon in the head, grabbing his shoulders in a powerful hold, and hauling him away from the battered prince. Jaxon cursed and fought in Roderick’s grip, but the guardsman had reinforcements, as Kent and three other nobles regrouped to drag the furious husband away from the prince.
Matthew knelt on the floor beside Bryan, and Elisandra dashed onto the stage to see to Rowena. Moments later, Cressida appeared beside the aliora queen, pushing Rowena’s hands away from her face and inspecting whatever damage had been done. The queen had grown quieter but was still sobbing, and even from this distance I could see the welts forming across each cheek. I stared at her, and then stared at the cruel man who had harmed her so—who was even now stumbling to his feet with his uncle’s aid.
Just as Bryan achieved a standing position, one hand to his head and the other on Matthew’s arm, Andrew approached him with a restorative bottle of wine. As I watched, Andrew lifted the bottle in one grand, simple arc, and brought it down with all his force on top of Bryan’s head.
Guards poured in from every door. I was jostled against the wall, like everyone else, shouting out and craning my neck to see. I could not push enough onlookers aside. Huddles of people were escaping out the servants’ entrance—the prince, the queen, Elisandra, others I could not make out. Someone elbowed me in the ribs, and I struck back with the intent to do damage. Everyone around me was similarly scratching and clawing and arguing with their neighbors. “What’s happened to the prince?” a male voice shouted out. That cry was taken up, and no one answered. Someone behind me began weeping softly. It was almost more than I could do to keep from turning around and slapping her into silence.
Finally, probably no more than twenty minutes later, an exhausted Kent climbed the two steps to the stage.
“The prince is hurt and bleeding, but he will be well enough,” Kent called out over the insistent clamor of the crowd. He held up his arms to ask for silence, but no one bothered to grant it. Kent raised his voice. “Rowena Halsing will also be well. We thank you so much for your attendance here t
onight and apologize for this unpleasant scene. The servants will see you to your quarters or your carriages, depending on how you plan to pass the night. Thank you again for coming.”
And, with this unsatisfactory speech, he climbed back down and disappeared. The crowd milled and muttered a few minutes longer, but clearly there were going to be no more explanations offered this evening. I pushed my way toward the door, determined to find Elisandra or Cressida or even Greta and demand more information. Someone clutched my arm and I jabbed my elbow back in automatic response, but Angela’s voice caught my attention.
“Corie, it’s me,” she said. We pulled each other against the nearest wall, out of the unsteady flow of traffic. And we stared at each other.
“What happened?” she demanded. “Did Bryan do that on purpose?”
“Why did he do that?”
“I thought Jaxon was going to kill him!”
“Will she be all right, do you think?”
“I don’t know! And Bryan! His face—!”
A few more sentences like this, and then, almost at the same time, we remembered the last participant in that little drama. Our eyes grew bigger and our hearts grew smaller.
“Andrew,” I whispered.
“Bryan will kill him,” she whispered back. We fell into each other’s arms and cried like schoolgirls. The room emptied around us, and we paid no attention.
Jaxon seemed safe enough, though even that was debatable. But no servant could assault a member of the royal house and survive.
I HAD FALLEN asleep on Elisandra’s bed by the time she returned, sometime past midnight. I had dismissed Daria as soon as I entered and then settled in for a long wait. It had not occurred to me that I would actually be able to sleep this night, so it was with a shock of disorientation that I came awake to see Elisandra seating herself before her dressing table.
“Oh. Sorry. I didn’t want to disturb you,” she said when she saw me sit up groggily. She was pulling pins from her hair and the long, thick locks were falling like so much abandoned night down her back. It did not seem to occur to her to be surprised to find me there.
“What happened?” I demanded, hugging my knees to my chest. “Will Bryan be all right? Will Rowena? What did Jaxon say? What did Matthew do? What—”
She shook her hair back, picked up her brush, and began to untangle the curls. “Bryan’s bruised from Jaxon’s attack and bleeding from Andrew’s, but he doesn’t seem to be in any danger. Matthew put him in his room, and sent Giselda up to him. I believe Kent will spend the night with him. He’s furious, of course, but a little too stunned to do more than mutter. I think he’ll be fine.”
“But he—Elisandra, he did it on purpose. He tried to hurt her—”
Three more brushstrokes before she answered. “I know. He’s a very jealous man, is Bryan. He did not like so much attention being diverted to—to someone he does not even respect. An aliora. A woman.”
“Jaxon’s wife.”
“I know,” she said again.
“And Jaxon! What will happen to him? Surely he had cause—surely the regent will not put him on trial or—or punish him—”
“He’s gone,” Elisandra said. “He and the queen. As soon as Cressida had tended to Rowena’s face, Jaxon had his carriage brought around. Matthew made no move to stop him, so I cannot think there will be a trial ahead.”
“Bryan will never forgive him,” I said.
Elisandra brushed her hair five more times. “Jaxon will never forgive Bryan,” she said. “I don’t think we’ll ever see him again at Castle Auburn.”
I nodded, my throat closing against grief and assorted terrors. I had an even more awful question to ask. “And Andrew? What will happen to him?”
Elisandra laid her brush aside and rose to her feet. Moving slowly around the room, she snuffed out the half dozen candles that flickered along the walls, leaving only the one on the bedside table. She climbed into bed beside me and I blew out the last candle. Instantly the room was full of hulking shadows, pitch black against the filmy gray of the walls. Moonlight made a halfhearted effort to filter in through the heavy shutter, but mostly stayed in a small dispirited pool on the floor beneath the window.
“Andrew,” Elisandra whispered in the dark, “cannot be found. They searched the castle for him, Roderick and all the other guards. They were still looking when I came up to bed.”
I whispered back, using Angela’s words, “Bryan will kill him.”
“Matthew is afraid that, if they don’t find him, Andrew will kill the prince,” Elisandra answered.
“I don’t think he has the strength,” I said.
“I don’t, either. But because of this fear, Andrew has been put under a sentence of death.”
I could not keep the whimper from escaping, though I covered my mouth and tried to force it back in. I heard Elisandra’s freshly brushed hair move against the pillow as she nodded. “I know,” she said, and laid an arm across my shoulders to comfort me. “I know.”
The next morning, we learned that Andrew had escaped in the night. Matthew suspected that he had climbed over one of the garden walls, for the roped ivy had been torn partway from the brick as if someone had used it to support his weight. And the soft ground on the other side of the wall showed the faint marks of footprints—and palm prints, as if the man had landed clumsily and had had to break his fall. None of the guards had seen anything.
“But he won’t get far,” Kent told us, buckling on his leather fencing vest and checking the fit of his gauntlets. He had stopped briefly in Elisandra’s room to give us the news, showing absolutely no surprise that I was there, still in my nightclothes. Daria had refused to let him any farther than the sitting room, but we had quickly emerged from the bedroom, dressed as we were.
“Why not?” Elisandra asked.
Kent glanced over at her, his face extremely grave. “The shackles,” he said. “He’ll be able to run, but he won’t be able to hunt, or swim, or even fend for himself. And Roderick thinks he may have hurt Andrew last night, when he pulled him away from Bryan.”
“He would be safe,” I said, almost to myself, “if he could make it to Alora.”
Now Kent redirected his serious look to me. “He won’t make it that far,” he said. “I doubt he’ll make it to the forest.”
“Who rides with you?” Elisandra asked.
“Kritlin and Roderick and a half dozen guards. And, of course, Bryan leads the hunt.”
“Bryan!” she exclaimed. “He’s not well enough to ride!”
“He says he is. And he looks strong enough this morning. Just a few cuts and bruises. And I’d say,” Kent added grimly, “that he’s looking forward to the expedition. He’s as excited as a little boy.”
Elisandra shook her head—her whole body seemed to shudder. She drew her bedclothes tightly about her as if seeking extra warmth. “Kent, this is dreadful,” she said.
“I know,” he answered somberly. “I do not see how it can be made right.”
She made one small, hopeless gesture with her hand. “If you—do what you can to keep him safe,” she said.
“I will.” He crossed the room in three strides and took her in a close embrace. Elisandra, who never sought comfort from anyone, dropped her dark head against the leather of his vest and let her hair fall in curtains around her face. I saw Kent kiss the top of her head. He saw me watching him, and, keeping his gaze upon my face, kissed her again.
Elisandra was the one to pull away. “Come to me when you return,” she said, and hurried through the door back to the bedroom.
I was left staring at Kent across the room. He made no move to leave. “Which one of them are you going to try to keep safe,” I asked, “Bryan or Andrew?”
His eyes were guarded; his face gave nothing back. “Which one do you think?” he said.
“Andrew does not deserve to die,” I said.
“I agree,” he said.
“But Bryan is your prince. He will be your king. You have to
protect him.”
Kent turned toward the door. “I know which one you would save,” he said, pulling on the handle and stepping into the hall. “I wonder if you know me as well.”
And he was gone.
THAT DAY WAS, without exception, the longest of my life. I only left Elisandra’s room to go to my own and dress. There was no sign of Cressida; I did not expect there to be. I supposed none of the aliora would be fit for human company this day, but as it turned out, there was another reason I did not see her: Matthew had ordered all the aliora confined to their quarters. He did not want the events of the night before—and today—to lead to unrest and dissatisfaction.
I wondered if he had thought the aliora ever felt rest and satisfaction under his roof.
We got the news of the incarceration of all of the aliora from Daria, who brought us food and tiptoed around the room and left, sensing our desire for privacy. Elisandra and I spoke very little that day, but we could not bear to be apart from each other. It did not have to be said. We could not stand to be alone, and no other company was endurable.
For a while, she sewed and I attempted to read a book. Later, we played board games for more than two hours. She set up an easel and made a sketch of me as I wrote a letter to my grandmother. I did not have much to tell her and the ubiquitous Milette. Finally Elisandra read while I tried my hand at embroidering a pillowcase that she lent me. The results were execrable. I had no skill with a needle, and no desire to learn, either.
“I wouldn’t shame a dog by laying this upon his bed,” I remarked, showing Elisandra my efforts. She actually smiled.
“I like it,” she said. “I’ll put it on one of my pillows.”
“Bryan won’t let you sleep in the same bed with him if you bring this as your dowry,” I said with an attempt at humor.