by Sharon Shinn
She bent her head back over her book. “Then stitch me another.”
I had to wonder at that: make her another pillowcase, better than the first, so she would not be ashamed of my handiwork; or make her another just as bad as this one, to make sure Bryan would not allow her near?
I did not ask. Some questions Elisandra would not answer.
The afternoon stretched out more and more slowly until its gold became so thin it had to break reluctantly into crimson evening. Daria brought us trays of food for our evening meal.
“No one’s eating in the dining room tonight,” the maid observed. “Everyone’s having a tray brought up.”
“Where’s my mother?” Elisandra asked, for Greta had not been in once this entire day.
Daria tried not to sniff, but she and Greta had no love for each other and never bothered to hide it. “With the other ladies of the castle in Lady Sasha’s suite,” she said. Lady Sasha was Angela’s mother, even more adept at scenting scandal than her daughter. “They’ve all spent the day there gossiping.” Elisandra gave her a level look, and Daria amended, “Talking amongst themselves.”
“I suppose there’s no news?” Elisandra asked.
Daria shook her head. “Nothing.”
“Thank you. You needn’t wait,” Elisandra said. Daria curtseyed and left the room.
We picked at our food. Neither of us had an appetite, but eating was at least a diversion. We had each eaten a forkful of dessert when we heard shouting outside below us. We exchanged glances, then scrambled to our feet, running for the window.
There was just enough rosy twilight left to make out the cavalcade riding through the castle gates. Two liveried guardsmen were in the lead, followed by Kent, followed by Bryan. There was a strange gap between Bryan and the next several riders, all of them guardsmen; Roderick, bringing up the rear, was a few more paces back.
Elisandra and I stuck our heads out the window as far as they would go, clinging to the stone windowsill to keep from pitching forward. “There’s Kent—there’s Bryan—I don’t see Andrew. Where’s Andrew?” Elisandra asked.
I couldn’t see any prisoner, either. “Do you suppose they couldn’t find him?” I asked.
“I don’t think they’d have come back without him. Not so soon,” she said.
“They’ve been gone all day.”
“They would have ridden into the forest, looking for him, don’t you think? They wouldn’t have given up until they couldn’t find another track. But I don’t see him. Maybe they didn’t—”
Just then, Bryan stood up in his stirrups and loosed a whoop of triumph. He raised both fists in the air, prince victorious, and his horse shied nervously as Bryan kicked its ribs. Someone in the courtyard cried back a welcome or a congratulations. Elisandra leaned out even more perilously to see.
“Wait—I see something—what’s that tied to the back of—” Her voice trailed off. She didn’t need to ask; she knew. I knew. We had both seen it.
Tied behind Bryan’s horse was a body, head and shoulders dragging along the ground, heels up in the air where the rope lifted to the saddle. In this light, and covered with dirt as it was, the corpse was impossible to identify, but we did not need to see face and features to know who had been hauled brutally back down the trail. All we could hope was that the creature’s suffering had been short—that some friendly rock had smashed in his skull not half a mile from the point of capture, or that the own natural anodynes of the body had caused him to lose consciousness almost as soon as the return journey began. I could not really see that well in the fading light, but I was sure I could make out the shackles still on the aliora’s hands. He could not have put up much resistance at all.
Abruptly Elisandra pulled her head in from the window and ran across the room. I heard her retching in the chamber pot, but I did not go to her. I had no comfort to give her. I was more miserable than I had ever been in my life.
LATE THAT NIGHT, Kent came to Elisandra’s door. I was still there, of course; I had begun to think I might never leave. Again, we had sent Daria away, and Elisandra was lying in bed, sick with a fever, so I was the one to admit him.
“I knew you would be here,” were the first words he spoke. “How is she?”
At least I was not wearing my nightgown this time. “How are any of us?” I said, closing the door behind him. “How are you? That must have been a nightmare journey.”
Elisandra had heard Kent’s voice and dragged herself in from the other room. Her skin was as white as her ivory-lace shift; the braids I had put in her hair made her look frail and childlike. She leaned against the doorframe that separated the two rooms and appeared ready to topple over.
“Is he dead?” she asked. “We saw him from the window, tied to Bryan’s horse. Please tell me he’s dead.”
Kent nodded. “Dragging him back was Bryan’s idea. I said what I could to change his mind, but . . . So, we tethered him to the horse and started back, as fast as Bryan could go. We went that way for maybe a mile. Andrew—I don’t want to describe it. I forced Bryan to a halt, to argue another five minutes.” Kent took a deep breath. “And while we were quarreling, Roderick slipped off his horse and cut Andrew’s throat.”
Elisandra’s lips moved in a silent prayer of gratitude. Color actually washed across her face. That was bad; that was actually terrible; but there had been a hero, nonetheless, some mercy shown, and that made the story more bearable. Her hand tightened on the doorframe and she swayed forward. Kent had crossed the room before I had time to think and caught her in his arms.
“You’re burning up,” he said.
She nodded, her hair dark against his dark vest. “Corie gave me something for the fever. I’ll be fine. I just need sleep.”
“I’ll put you in bed,” he said, and carried her into the next room.
I stayed standing where I was, feeling small, invisible, and strange. Did they want to be alone, to tell secrets and take consolation? Should I leave now? Greta would tell me absolutely not; I was chaperone, of a sorts, for a rendezvous that should not even be taking place. No man entered a single woman’s room this late at night, whether or not her relatives were strewn about to protect her. And certainly no man entered the bedroom of the woman betrothed to the man who would soon be king. . . .
But he did not stay there long. Moments later he emerged, closing the door behind him.
“Will she sleep?” he asked me. “Because of whatever drug you gave her?”
I nodded. “I’m surprised she’s still awake.”
“And the fever?”
“I’ll watch it,” I said. “I think it’s just unhappiness.”
Standing across the room, he inspected me. “You seem calmer than she does. Are you all right?”
“Sad,” I said. “Horrified. But it is worse for Elisandra than for any of us.”
He moved slowly across the room, heading in the direction of the outer door, but his eyes never turned from my face. “Because she is to marry Bryan.”
“You could help her,” I said. “Take her away from here. Hide her somewhere on your own estates. Marry her.”
“She won’t marry me.”
“How do you know? Have you asked her?”
“She doesn’t love me.”
“She doesn’t love Bryan, and she’ll marry him in a couple of weeks!”
He stopped at the door, his hand on the knob. He was still watching me. “Things are not as simple as you seem to think, Corie. It is not so easy for her to walk away from the life that has been laid out for her. Elisandra does not believe she has the right to marry anyone else while Bryan wants her to be his bride.”
I was so angry with him. What Elisandra did not believe was that she had any options. “You’re just afraid,” I flung at him. “Of what would happen to you and your life at court if you were to carry Elisandra away. Of what your father would say. Of what Bryan would do to you.”
Now he, too, looked angry. “I am afraid of many things, but those are not the fears that ke
ep me from action,” he said.
I turned my back on him. “Then I don’t understand you,” I said.
I heard the door open. “No,” he said, “and you never have.” I heard him step into the hall and close the door with a little unnecessary force. I listened to his footsteps striding away down the hall. Then I listened awhile to the silence.
THE NEXT DAY, Elisandra was better and I was heartily sick of her two rooms. I left Elisandra in Daria’s hands and headed to my own room to bathe and dress. To my surprise, the aliora was there waiting for me.
“Cressida!” I exclaimed, and hurried forward. I would have taken her in a hug, but she stepped back from me. She looked so wan and so delicate that she could have been a doll made from twigs of birch and alder; her face was so set it could indeed have been carved from wood.
“Lady Coriel,” she said formally.
I came to a stumbling halt a few feet away. “But—are you all right? Have you—I’m so sorry about Andrew, so sorry. Is there anything I can do? For you—for the others?”
She held up both of those painfully thin hands to request my silence. Light made a playful halo around each shackle and seemed to pour through the translucent skin. “Don’t ask. Don’t talk,” she said, and that lovely voice was reedy and wasted. “There is nothing to say.”
“There has to be something to say,” I whispered.
“I’ve drawn your bathwater,” she said, turning away from me. “What would you like to wear today?”
I chose a dress at random and stripped down for my bath. Did it soothe her a little to reenter the familiar old routines, reassure her that there was sanity and structure to the world? Or did it gall her, one more murderous human to shield and succor, one more helpless girl to hate with all her heart? Cressida did not hate me—until Andrew’s outburst the other day, I would have said the aliora were incapable of hate—but I did not understand how she could love me. Until this summer, I had always accepted the love of the aliora as a matter of course.
I bathed in silence and dressed in silence, while she handed me soap and perfume and undergarments. As I stood before the mirror, pushing my hair rather carelessly in place, I made her look at me in the glass.
“Tell me one thing,” I said. “If he had made it to Alora, would he have been all right?”
For a moment I thought she would not answer, but I held her gaze with mine and would not let it go. “He would not have made it to Alora with the chains around his wrists,” she said at last.
“And if the chains had been gone? Would he have remembered the way?”
She nodded. “The aliora always know the way home.”
“And the queen? She will recover from—from Bryan’s touch?”
“She will bear scars on her face for her lifetime. And she will fear men even more than she does now.”
I turned to face Cressida. “She must hate my uncle.”
“She wanted to,” Cressida said.
She did not amplify and I did not ask any more questions. I thanked her for her aid, and went slowly downstairs to the breakfast room.
That day, and the next three, passed in the slow, cautious ways that days pass when you are recuperating from a serious illness. Except the whole court seemed to be experiencing the same disorientation and fearful sense of dizziness. Everyone moved slowly, as if their joints still ached, and talked in low voices as if to keep from waking feverish children. Mealtimes were subdued. Activities were kept to a minimum. Conversations were short, trivial, and inconclusive.
Only Bryan seemed immune from the pervasive malaise. He strode into rooms with his usual boisterous vigor; his laugh could be heard from three hallways away. He and Roderick went riding every morning, hunting most afternoons, and often practiced swordplay in the weapons yard. He drank a great deal of wine every night over dinner and looked about as happy as I could ever remember seeing him.
Kent did not talk to me at all during these three days.
And Elisandra’s wedding was just one week away.
14
That night I went to Cloate’s wedding, which had been deliberately scheduled for a sennight before the prince’s. I don’t think he expected me to attend, even though he had issued the invitation, but I would not have missed this for all the gold in Castle Auburn—the culmination of my first successful professional spell.
I wore a green dress that was pretty, though not particularly fancy, as I did not want to appear grander than the bride or her attendants. But I found, as I entered the servants’ dining hall on the back side of the castle and facing the stables, that the abigails and kitchen maids and valets and groomsmen could do themselves up fairly fine when they had a special occasion.
The low-ceilinged room, badly lit by cheap candles, was lined with simple wooden pews and nearly filled with people. The cleric standing at the makeshift pulpit was the same man who preached to the gentry once a week, though I had to admit he looked a little less severe than I was used to seeing him. Perhaps he thought the members of the nobility needed more meditation on their vices and possible punishments; he looked quite affable and approving tonight.
I slipped into the very last pew and listened to the ceremony, which was brief and fairly joyous. “Love your god—love each other—love your fellow creatures” was the way it ended up. The crowd exploded into cheers of goodwill and speculation as the bridal couple kissed. I smiled and applauded with everyone else, and felt, for a moment at least, some of the bleakness melt from around my heart. Here and there, individuals might find happiness, or so it seemed; perhaps there was no need to despair entirely.
After the religious part of the ceremony was concluded, the newlyweds made the traditional parade up one side aisle, down the other side aisle, and back up the middle one. The audience flung coins at them, bits of copper and silver that would be swept up afterward by the attendants and presented to the groom in bags embroidered by some of the bride’s closest friends. I tossed out a few copper bits of my own, but that wasn’t my real gift. I had brought a sachet of pansy pat and rareweed and nariander—love, fidelity, and serenity—and while no one else was paying attention, I untied the strings holding the little bag shut. Then I tossed out the powdered herbs with the coins, so that my spell would be swept up with the money. More than that I could not give to anybody.
Once the newlyweds had finished their procession, the real mayhem began. Strong young ostlers and muscular guardsmen wrestled the pews to one side, stacking them high against the walls and swearing cheerfully as they did so. The kitchen maids went outside to fetch baskets of food and drink, and began to arrange their delicacies on a table near the altar. Somewhere I heard a musician tune a string. I decided this was my cue to exit.
“Lady Coriel!” a voice exclaimed behind me. I turned to find Shorro beaming at me. He was dressed all in black and silver, and he looked more freshly washed and clean-shaven than I had ever seen him. “Cloate’ll never believe you came to his wedding! And his missus—lord, she don’t even believe him when he calls you his friend. You’ll have to come up and tell them hello.”
There was a crowd packed tightly around the happy couple. I did not want to fight my way through or wait my turn. “I don’t want to interrupt,” I demurred.
Shorro took my arm in a completely unself-conscious hold. “Nonsense! He’ll be happy as a hound dog to see you tonight. Make his wedding complete, it will.”
So, I allowed him to pull me through the mob, which good-naturedly let me pass, waving aside my murmured apologies. Cloate indeed looked delighted to see me, his dour gray features lightening to a pleasant benevolence.
“Lady Coriel! You’re here!” he exclaimed, and made me a deep, if unpracticed, bow. I heard my name echo in low voices behind me, and various others bent their heads to acknowledge me.
“Oh, please, none of that,” I said. “But Cloate! Don’t you look grand! And this is your lovely bride. I’m so pleased so meet you.”
Though I had glimpsed the girl several times,
I had never actually been introduced to her, and it seemed unlikely that I would get a coherent sentence from her on this particular occasion. “I—my lady—so good—” were the words she managed to choke out. I laughed, and drew her into a quick embrace, managing to scatter the remaining powdery seeds of pansy pat along the back of her dress.
“Best of luck to you both,” I said. “I think you each did well.”
I had thought I would be able to escape then, but, of course, I had reckoned without Shorro. He happily took my arm again.
“Dancing now,” he said. “Don’t even bother telling me you don’t like to dance, because I can tell by the way you move that you do. Of course, there’re no fancy dances here with the serving folk, but I believe you’ll catch on fast enough. You’re a quick study.”
I couldn’t help it, I started laughing. “I bet I know the country dances better than you do,” I challenged him. “You forget where I spend the greater portion of my life.”
His dark eyes lit up; if he’d been a puppy, he would have frisked. “Well, then! The first five dances with me!”
And, as the music had just started and dancers were already on the hastily cleared floor, we were able to show our mettle without any more time wasted. As I might have expected, Shorro was an energetic and flirtatious dancer. He held me close when the music called for hands to be linked, and he grinned at me suggestively when our pattern caused us to step apart. I swear, once he almost kissed me, but he remembered just in time who I was. But he seemed unabashed as he drew back, and the look in his eyes said he might, a little later in the evening, allow himself to forget.
I had planned to make good my escape as soon as the fifth dance with Shorro ended, but I found that I could not refuse when my hand was solicited next by Clem. So, I took a turn with him, and then a turn with Estis, and then I danced a few numbers with guards whose names I could not have called out if theirs were the last faces I should see before I died. I could not remember another time I had enjoyed myself so much. Maybe the release felt so good because of all the preceding days of cruelty and despair. Maybe, during some more ordinary week, I would have found the wedding celebration tedious. But this night I danced, I laughed, I flirted, and when Shorro claimed me for a sixth time, I let him kiss me as the music ended.