by Mark Anthony
It didn’t help that she and Aryn had been forced to curtail their time together. Aryn still came to Grace’s chamber whenever she could, but much of the baroness’s time was engaged in readying guest chambers, overseeing servants, and keeping an eye on the castle’s kitchen, all in anticipation of the arrival of the kings and queens of the other Dominions.
“Is there anything I can do to lend a hand?” Grace had asked the baroness one day.
Aryn’s expression had been scandalized. “Grace! You’re a guest of the castle and a lady of noble birth. It wouldn’t be proper!”
“Really?”
Aryn had given an emphatic nod. “Nobility,” she had said, “does not lend a hand.”
Grace had sighed. “No, I don’t suppose it does.” It wouldn’t be boring enough. But she hadn’t said the words aloud, and had only smiled as Aryn squeezed her hand and hurried away to some other task.
Nor had King Boreas paid Grace much attention since the morning after the feast, three days ago. She had awakened to a summons from the king, brought to her door by Lord Alerain himself. She had thrown on the first dress she could find and had dashed through the castle corridors to the king’s chamber. By the time she had stumbled through the doorway, her gown was askew, her hair clung to her damp cheeks, and she was gasping for breath.
King Boreas had taken in her appearance with his fierce gaze. “I see Lord Alerain came upon you in the midst of your morning constitutional.” He had given an approving nod. “By Vathris, good for you, my lady! As the sages say, a weak body houses a weak mind.”
Grace had simply nodded, and had declined to mention that her run through the castle was the most exercise she had gotten in months. She had eyed the king’s powerful chest and arms. What did he do for sport? Juggled lesser nobles, perhaps.
“Now, my lady,” he had said, baring his big teeth in what wasn’t quite a grin, “you are going to tell me all you learned at the feast last night.”
For a quarter of an hour the king had paced back and forth in front of the black mound of mastiffs heaped beside the fire while Grace had stood in the center of the room—he had not asked her to sit—and had spoken of her conversations with the various seneschals and counselors in the great hall. When she had finished, Boreas had given a bullish grunt, and his blue eyes had sparked with interest, but he had made no comment regarding her report. Instead he had twirled a dagger in his hand, his expression thoughtful, as if trying to decide whose heart to stick it in first. It was the table that had gotten it instead. Grace had been unable to take her eyes off the quivering knife embedded in the wood. The motion had been so quick, so easy, she had hardly seen him do it.
“You may go now, my lady,” Boreas had said.
Grace had retained enough of her wits to know this was not a request. She had started to curtsy, caught herself, and had nodded instead. “I’ll keep observing as best I can, Your Majesty.”
“Yes,” he had said, “you will.”
Afterward, she had replayed her audience with the king in her mind. Much as she disliked to admit it, Boreas’s behavior had only served to fan the spark of her suspicion. Why was he so eager to muster the Dominions for war? The Lady Kyrene had said Boreas followed the Mysteries of Vathris. Grace didn’t entirely understand what all a mystery cult entailed, but it was clear Vathris was some sort of war god. Perhaps Boreas was looking for an excuse to conquer one of the other Dominions, either for personal gain or for the satisfaction of his god.
Grace considered telling Aryn of her concerns, then remembered the baroness’s loyalty and reconsidered. There was no point in getting Aryn upset. She could tell the baroness when—and if—she learned anything more concrete.
Not that this seemed likely. Over the last three days, she had found little opportunity to talk with the other nobles. All were too busy with preparations for the arrivals of their respective lieges to engage in gossip, which meant they were busy indeed. She did pass Lord Logren once in a corridor. He pressed a hand to his chest and made a fluid bow, but he did not stop to speak to her. Even the Countess Kyrene was curiously absent.
Left to her own devices, Grace had tried to content herself by exploring the castle. However, every passage seemed to lead, in the end, either to the privy or the kitchens, and she soon got the impression these were the two most important places in Calavere, with the great hall running a distant third.
By that tenth day in the castle, Grace found herself gazing out the small window of her chamber and feeling utterly trapped.
From this vantage she could just glimpse the tops of the two towers that stood to either side of the castle’s main gate. She remembered the peasants she had seen trudging in and out of the archway, on that snowy day when Durge had first brought her to Calavere. It was ironic, but right then she envied the peasants. Yes, they were downtrodden serfs—overworked, uneducated, and malnourished chattels of a capricious feudal system. But at least they could leave the castle if they wanted.
Grace let out a resigned breath. There was that small side corridor she had noticed near the great hall the other day. Maybe there was a chance it led somewhere besides the privy or the kitchens. She was tired of studying the convoluted words in the books Aryn had brought. At least exploring would give her something else to do. Resolved, she started to turn away from the window.
A spark of emerald below caught her eye.
She moved closer and peered down through the flawed glass. There. She could not see the lady’s face, but the burnished-gold hair and the green gown were unmistakable. Lady Kyrene. The countess walked across the upper bailey alongside another figure: taller, broader, clad in pearl-gray. Grace recognized the fine clothes, the sleek hair gone to steel at the temples. Logren, High Counselor to Queen Eminda of Eredane. The two bent their heads toward each other as if in conversation. Grace felt a tightness in her chest. Logren hardly seemed the type to let himself be tangled in Kyrene’s web of intrigue and innuendo. What could the two possibly be talking about?
The odd pair approached the hedge maze in the center of the courtyard. They paused a moment—did Logren look from side to side?—then slipped through an arch woven of leafless wisteria and disappeared into the maze.
Grace bit her lip. She knew from Aryn that, in this world, a host’s permission was required before a guest could leave his house. She should ask Boreas, or at least Alerain. But venturing into the courtyard wouldn’t really be like leaving Calavere. Before she had time fully to consider what she was doing she dashed from her chamber.
It was colder outside than she had thought.
Grace had neither coat nor woolen cape, as she had seen Kyrene wearing, and the wind sliced right through the fabric of her gown. The side door shut behind her—it was a servant’s entrance, little used, and out of view of the main keep, which was why she had chosen it. Her time spent exploring the castle had not been wasted after all. She clasped her arms over her chest and hurried across the cobblestones of the upper bailey, toward the tangled wall of the hedge maze.
She paused and looked over her shoulder when she reached the arch of withered vines that formed the entrance. There was no one else about the upper bailey, save a squire leading a horse toward the king’s stable, and he did not so much as glance in her direction. She drew in a deep breath, braced her shoulders, and—before she could reconsider—plunged into the maze.
After a few dozen paces Grace began to think it might not be such a good thing after all that no one knew where she had gone. Already she had lost track of the number of turns she had made—four lefts and two rights, yes? Or was it the reverse?—and she had no idea in which direction the entrance lay. Nor was there any chance of cheating and cutting through the walls of the maze. The hedges were a dozen feet high and formed of dense, thorn-covered branches. If she tried to force her way through, she would be torn to shreds before she had gone a foot.
Come on, Grace, think. You’re a doctor and a trained scientist. Surely a conundrum created by some medieval garde
ner is not beyond you.
She clenched her jaw and forged on, deeper into the maze.
Then she began to detect a pattern. Yes, that was it: two lefts, then a right. Each time she made the turns she found herself in a new passage that—she was almost certain of it—led toward the heart of the maze. She lifted the hem of her gown off the damp ground and quickened her pace, she had to be close to the center now. A left. Another left. Then a right. And—
—a dead end.
Grace stared at the wall of thorns. She hadn’t expected that. She bent her head and retraced her steps in her mind. Had she made a misstep somewhere? No, she had followed her formula exactly. There was only one logical conclusion. The pattern she had thought she detected wasn’t a pattern at all. Which meant …
“… I’m lost,” she whispered.
Her breath fogged on the air. In the exertion of running through the maze she had begun to sweat, but now she shivered inside her gown. She walked back down the dead end until she reached a crossing of paths. Now which way? At this point one direction was very like another, and neither was likely to get her back to the castle by suppertime. Would Aryn miss her? Or would the baroness be too busy with her tasks?
Left, she decided after a minute and started down that path. She rounded a corner, then suddenly clasped a hand to her mouth.
Turn around, Grace. Turn around now!
But fascination was stronger than fear. She peered around the corner of the hedge-wall and gazed into the small, circular grotto.
Despite the cold they were naked. He had spread his cloak on the ground, and they lay upon it, limbs tangled like the winter wisteria. Her arms were coiled around his neck, white as ivory against his olive skin. The lean muscles of his back and legs rippled as his hips moved with hers in slow, easy, familiar motions. His eyes were closed in ecstatic concentration, but not hers. They glittered like emeralds as she gazed past his shoulder. A satisfied smile coiled around the corners of her pink mouth.
Grace tried to back away, but her legs would not respond. Her mind felt dull and soft, the scent of apricots filled her lungs. Seemingly of its own will her hand moved away from her mouth, slid down her throat, down over her breasts and stomach.…
As if sensing the presence of another, the emerald eyes turned in Grace’s direction. Grace froze. For a heartbeat surprise flickered in those eyes. But only for a heartbeat. Then a new light shone in them, a glow that was almost … approving. The white arms tightened around his back, and the smile about her pink lips deepened.
No!
Grace shook her head, as if waking from a spell. She snatched her hand up, gripped it with the other, and stumbled away. Without looking back she turned and ran headlong through the maze. The sound of rich laughter followed after her.
She shut the sound from her mind and ran on.
57.
The next morning Aryn threw open the door of Grace’s chamber and rushed inside. Her large blue eyes shone with excitement.
“She’s coming!” the baroness exclaimed.
Grace stood from her seat by the window, and her heart raced in her chest. For a panicked moment she thought Aryn meant the Lady Kyrene. Had the countess come to confront her about what she had witnessed?
Aryn seemed not to notice her startled look. “It’s Queen Ivalaine of Toloria,” the baroness said. “She’s the first to arrive for the council.”
“Ivalaine?”
Aryn gave a vigorous nod. “The guards in the tower spotted her entourage crossing the old Tarrasian bridge over the Dimduorn. They know it’s her by the pennants.”
She unfolded a bundle she had been carrying in the crook of her left arm and held it out. It was a cloak of fine wool.
“Well, don’t just stand there, Grace. Put this on. You’ll be cold if you don’t.”
Grace took the cloak in numb fingers and wrapped it around her shoulders. It was heavier than she would have guessed. “Where are we going?”
“To the battlements, of course. I want to see the queen the moment she arrives. People say there isn’t another woman in the Dominions as beautiful as Ivalaine. Come on.”
Grace opened her mouth to respond, but Aryn grabbed her hand and tugged her out the door. After that she was forced to forgo questions and concentrate instead on keeping up with the light-footed baroness. Breathing hard, they climbed the last steps of a spiral staircase, pushed through a door, and found themselves atop a high wall above the upper bailey.
Grace glanced down and saw the hedge maze below. From this vantage it was easy to trace the twists and turns that had confounded her yesterday. There—that was the grotto where she had spied Kyrene and Logren, and from which she had fled. She had thought it simply luck that after only a few dizzied minutes of running through the maze, she had stumbled upon the exit. Now she wasn’t so certain. The place where she had run from had been deep in the heart of the maze, surrounded by a webwork of paths so convoluted she could hardly follow them even now with her eyes. Yet somehow she had managed to navigate them without once having to backtrack. How else to explain it except luck?
And if it was good luck that had helped her escape the maze, then it was cruel fortune that had caused her to stumble upon Kyrene and Logren. She would never have guessed a liaison between the two. At the feast Logren had seemed so intelligent, so sophisticated. It seemed impossible he would fall prey to Kyrene’s wiles. Or was it? Grace thought back to that moment in her chamber when Kyrene had spoken about the king.
He is a man, and like all men he can be controlled.
Grace saw again the countess’s white arms coiled around Logren’s muscular back. Was that how Kyrene worked her magics? Or had there been something more to it? She recalled the odd torpor she had felt that day in her chamber, and the presence that had reached out to touch her. A few herbs, the proper words … Had Kyrene used something more than simple desire to bring Logren to her? Before she could think of an answer, Aryn tugged her hand.
“This way, Grace. We’ll get a better view of the castle gate from the south battlements.”
Hand in hand, the two women picked their way along the wall. When they reached the crenellated top of the south battlement, high above the lower bailey, they found they were not the only ones with this idea. A sizable crowd had gathered to watch the coming of the queen: petty nobles, squires, servants. However, the throng parted without a word for Grace and Aryn, and the two women moved to the front of the battlement. Grace took in the clear view of the castle gates below and smiled. At least being nobility was good for something.
At that moment the call of a horn rose on the icy air: high and distant. The sound of it thrummed in Grace’s blood. She lifted a hand to her brow to shade her eyes from the bright midday sun. Then she saw the line of horses crest a distant rise between castle and river, and her breath caught in her chest.
Ever after Grace could recall little of what actually transpired that afternoon. Feelings, images—these were what stayed with her for the rest of her life. Banners, yellow on green, that snapped in the wind. Sunlight on burnished breastplates and steel helms. Horses prancing to the music of their silver barding. White hunting dogs with muddy paws. Nobles in black, and red, and purple. The sound of horns.
Most of all Grace remembered the queen.
Ivalaine rode, not in a litter, but upon a chestnut horse. Her gown trailed nearly to the ground, and was the color of ice, as were her eyes. She was tall, fair, and regal. Her only crown was her hair, fine as flax, woven with jewels, and coiled upon her head. Aryn had been right. Even from a distance Grace knew she had never seen a woman more beautiful than Ivalaine.
In all there were more than fifty riders in the queen’s traveling party, and another hundred on foot, bearing bundles and pushing carts.
Grace whistled softly. “Queens don’t travel lightly, do they?”
“No,” Aryn said. “They don’t.”
Ivalaine’s party halted before the castle gate, and a group of King Boreas’s knights rode
out to meet them. Words of greeting were exchanged, though Grace could not hear them. Then horns sounded, the castle gates opened, and the long line of horses and carts started through.
The throng on the walls began to disperse, and there was a tug at Grace’s sleeve.
“Come, Grace. Let’s be going.”
Grace raised a hand to her temple. Her head still thrummed with the call of the horns. “What?”
“There’s nothing more to see. And it’s getting cold. I swear, I’d think this was Midwinter’s Day if I didn’t know by the calendar it was only the middle of Sindath.”
Grace hardly heard the baroness’s words. She could not take her eyes off the road below the castle, even though it was empty now. She wasn’t sure what it was, but she felt different somehow. What had she been thinking just a moment ago? It had something to do with the royal entourage, and the way the queen had ridden so proudly at the fore.
“Grace?”
She tore her gaze away. “Yes, of course. I’m sorry, Aryn, let’s go.”
The baroness gave her a curious look, then shrugged and started back along the wall. Grace followed. They had just reached the door to her chamber when she remembered what it was she had been thinking as she watched the queen ride toward the castle.
That should be me.
No. That was impossible. She shivered, forced the thought from her mind, and shut the door.
58.
Those next days, Grace felt more trapped than ever by Calavere’s stone walls. Ivalaine’s arrival had sent the entire castle, already bustling, into a fevered pitch of activity. Not all of the queen’s traveling party was staying in the castle proper, which was well, as with five more rulers to come Calavere would have burst at the seams trying to hold them and all their courtiers, attendants, and servants. The majority of the new arrivals were staying in the town below the castle. Still, it was work enough for Aryn, Lord Alerain, and the rest of the castle’s people to situate just Ivalaine and her immediate court in their chambers.