Soren contributed little to the planning, speaking up only when they touched upon something where she had particular knowledge, but she was learning an extraordinary amount. About Tor Darest, but primarily the two men who wished to rule it.
That they were both highly intelligent, decisive men she had already known. That restoring Darest was important to both of them was obvious. That they were very alike was becoming increasingly clear. More than just shades of blue eyes.
They had hardly become bosom-chums, though. Total capitulation did not fit with Lord Aristide's ruthless image, and the honey and acid quickly returned, just as Strake had almost immediately fallen back into his terse, demanding habit. With distinct, definite opinions about just how they should proceed, their discussion involved a good measure of feint and thrust, and ever-wary observation. Fortunately, they were both willing to concede a point in the face of compelling argument and in their own ways she thought they were enjoying the sheer magnitude of the task ahead, and a comrade-in-arms to tackle it with.
But Soren, watching them while she crossed Fleeting Hall, could not help but remember again that Lord Aristide had made this move knowing both the doom predicted for Strake and the existence of the child he had fathered. Were these all plans he would carry through alone?
And she could not help but wonder why her Rathen had not so much as mentioned the Rose.
Chapter Fifteen
Strake announced Aristide Couerveur his Councillor of Mages, and the Court approved. The stories of an impending marriage strengthened, and those who had wavered rushed to show their allegiance to King and Councillor. Fors Cabtly was the first to pay the price of change, losing position, apartments and even his apprentice, though Aspen admitted he had not so much transferred his tutor as received permission to temporarily keep his room. Fors' new apartment, as befitted a mere jobbing mage, did not stretch to housing more than his immediate family.
Strake made few other appointments, and held off further replacements while he strove to learn enough about the Darest of now to make more sweeping changes. He had not reached the point of simply accepting everything Aristide told him.
Ambassadors began to trickle in, along with outlying Barons, come to pay their respects. No-one made any open attempt to object to the Whirlwind King, and the Court settled into a kind of watchful anticipation.
Soren missed dreaming. Missed the rambling epics of day-to-day routine, the skewed tangles of past and future loves, the crystal sharp urgencies where worlds were saved and forgotten before dawn. She'd never been one to clearly remember her dreams, but she was used to waking out of all manner of night-born oddity. Now, she had only the palace.
Possibly what she saw while sleeping included conjurings of her own mind, but it remained obstinately focused on privies and gardens, lovers and loiterers. So many people. Far too much of Strake.
He slept badly, still had nightmares. Ten days now, and he continued to toss and turn through the night, sometimes bolting awake, sweating and shaking. And Soren would wake with him and watch as he paced or pissed or read. Once he had sat with a hand covering his eyes. Her Rathen.
On the morning of the eleventh day of his reign, Aluster, first King of that name, turned and sighed, burrowing beneath blankets. His mouth quirked and relaxed, the shadow of lashes shifted. No nightmares for once, not about the frozen moment of death at his back, or the Champion who had betrayed him.
Soren slid out of bed, impatient with this morning ritual of waking only to continue to watch Strake sleep. Scurrying over the chill floor to dress, she felt no drowsiness despite only half a night's rest. One of the compensations of the Rose, like being able to move about dark palace rooms without worrying about uncovering a mageglow.
She had watched Strake too much this last week, seeking signs that his anger was easing. Over and again palace sight had revealed him looking fixedly at her when she was turned away, had shown intent study slide to a frown he could not hold back, his eyes flashing resentment or pain, sometimes outright anger. And then the shutter would come up, with only a hint of constraint leaking through as he plunged back into plans and preparations.
It had been too much to hope Aristide wouldn't notice. He and Strake spent most of every day together, and though Strake watched her more when they were alone, it was inevitable that Aristide's bright gaze would catch first the constraint, then what lay beneath it.
He kept any speculation to himself. In fact, both men were being entirely circumspect. So far as Soren could tell, since Aristide's oath neither of them had said a word which did not involve things like merchant fleets, flax crops or the viability of transforming the problem of the Tongue into a shipbuilding industry.
Wisdom on Aristide's part, Soren thought, glancing at him curled in the centre of his bed. He always looked so young in sleep, vulnerable. It was those lips, soft-sweet and deceptive, more suited to an infant. The saecstra was a coil beneath half-closed fingers. She alone of the Court knew that when he slept it seemed to come awake, whirled and twisted like there were dragons chasing their tails beneath his skin, trying to break free.
Despite the certainty of the spell, and her speculated explanation, she still couldn't trust his sudden capitulation. But careful observation had revealed nothing she could mark as preparation for betrayal. To all outward appearance, Aristide was willing to simply cement his position, playing the long game. Strake had even started to greet him with something akin to relief, thanks in part to the man's exclusive focus on business. For the rest of the Court was in full pursuit.
He had lost all patience with the onslaught. Fisk still hadn't recovered from whatever Strake had said to him when the secretary had tried his luck, and now crept about like gallows-bait. The only person who'd had any hint of success was Jansette, and that mainly because she'd twice more met Strake briefly, showed open admiration, then hastily left. That had roused his curiosity, if nothing else. Soren was sick of the entire business, of her head's insistence that he was her Rathen despite her heart's ambivalence. And especially of the palace. She lived for her dawn escapes.
The guards at Dathan's Walk saluted as she approached, and drew open the double doors. They were a weary, depressed pair who obviously found the Champion's morning departure the most interesting thing on their watch. Or a harbinger of their release, since they were never there when she came back. Soren smiled at the older of the two men, feeling sorry for him and pleased when he nodded his head. And then she smiled in earnest, for she was outside, with a cool breeze nipping at her face and the palace merely a building at her back.
This is the only time of the day I'm actually me, she thought, tugging a red-streaked apple from one pocket and a mageglow from the other. There isn't room for me inside the palace. If I'm lucky, Strake will decide he does want to look over Islay before winter sets in, and then I'll have entire days of not being the palace. Perhaps I can convince him he really wants to look over Carn Keep, and I'll be able to visit Mother. Tell her about the baby without fear of telling the whole world. And talk to someone who sees Soren first, who lets me be someone other than Rathen Champion.
I need to be held.
Soren paused to look up at the stars. More than a few had offered to do just that in the past week, for the Champion had most definitely become a person of consequence. Aspen had been graceful, but Lady Rothwell's daughter Varian evidently now thought Soren marriage material and had been persistent despite refusals. Regretfully, Lady Rothwell was mother enough to see the advantages of her daughter's pursuit of the Champion, and liked Soren enough to want her part of the family. That was a door Soren would rather not have had closed.
Halcean now obligingly screened out people wanting an audience with the Rathen Champion purely for romantic purposes. The number of propositions was sure to change when her pregnancy was known, though it was difficult to say whether they would increase or decrease. But that would surely be months off, and her surcoat would long hide a thickening waist.
No u
se continuing to hope it somehow wasn't true. The child she hadn't chosen would come. Some time soon it would become more than 'the baby', an abstract idea that did not seem to belong to her, no matter how many buds Aristide found on the Rose.
-oOo-
It was the smell which stopped her.
On a cold morning it was like a needle from sinus to brain. Rust and storm-dust and something else which brought Soren to a heart-pounding halt, apple in hand at the wide stable door. As her brain slowly processed the body's warning, horses whickered and shifted. The entire stable was awake.
Suddenly lack of palace-sight felt like an amputation. Soren squeezed the mageglow until it flared to its full brightness, setting long equine heads tossing at the glare. The stable was etched in sharp relief, stalls and rafters, bales of hay. And, winding through wisps of straw across the floor, a stream of black glinting red.
Third stall on the left. No glossy bay head poked over the gate, no dark mischievous eyes sized her up in hope of a treat. No soft nose or warm neck or any sign of Vixen except that shining swatch of blood.
Quite without thinking, Soren wrapped her arms protectively across her stomach. Shadows swallowed the stable as the mageglow was blocked, then fled as she caught herself. She turned, seeing nothing but anxious horses and the same walls and buildings she'd seen every morning. Less Vixen. Plus blood.
Nothing leapt out at her. Fingers falling slack, she dropped the apple. It bounced in the dust and rolled to one side, still gleaming from Soren's efforts to polish it. Nothing leapt out. A grey to her right blew noisily and thumped the wall of its stall. Nothing.
Unable to bring herself to go forward, Soren went back. Her chest kept fluttering. The Moon knew how her face looked, for when she tapped on the Palace doors, the guards who opened them took one glance and drew their swords.
"What is it, Champion?" the shorter of the pair asked. He had more crow's feet than face, but he moved like a young man to put himself between Soren and the dark. The other was only a step behind, suddenly exuding alert competence.
Their reaction spurred Soren to try and pull herself together. The Rose was silent. Because she wasn't in immediate danger, or because it had withdrawn its protection from her, as it had Strake? Or had it simply not known that someone or something had come in the night to butcher her horse?
"One of you fetch the Captain of the Guard," she said, and was proud her voice wobbled only a fraction.
The younger man immediately saluted, and left at double-pace. Soren turned and walked back to the stable, followed by the other guard. She'd dropped the mageglow as well. She couldn't remember when, but there it was, a harsh white star sitting in the dust a foot from her apple. The guardsman saw the blood and swore.
"Don't go too close," Soren said, forcing her throat to work. "There may be signs which can be used to track the killer."
He nodded, looked around, then hoisted himself up onto the nearest gate and leaned forward so he could peer into the stall. Soren made no move to follow. She would not allow that sight into her head.
As she watched, the guard turned his free hand palm to ceiling and, fingers splayed, lifted it in commendation to the Moon. Even the mask of laugh-lines couldn't hide grim shock as he climbed down.
"The blood's drying," he said, peering at every corner of the stable. "Not hours ago, but it didn't just happen."
Soren turned away. She supposed if the killer had still been here, she would not even have had the chance to see that Vixen was dead. Or perhaps the Rose would have stopped her, or it. Countless experiments had not provided her the trick of using the palace defences, but surely–
Cold metal pressed against her fingers. An unstoppered flask, thin and smooth. The guard's eyes were kind, fatherly. Soren made no more pretence of composure, tilting the flask to her lips and letting a draught run down her throat. Vicious cheap stuff, but it served its purpose, burning her back into some semblance of alive. Returning the flask with a nod of thanks, she checked Strake's breathing. Still asleep.
Had Vixen been killed by the same creature which Strake had hunted long ago? Was that what they had encountered in the Tongue? But how and why had it suddenly emerged here? Why Vixen? Why no warning from the Rose?
An explanation occurred as she bent to pick up her abandoned mageglow. She had spent the last week expecting some move from Lady Arista or one of the more disgruntled Barons, or any of the faceless thousands she suspected of wanting to do away with her Rathen. What better way to hide an assassination than to link it with a past killer? A few random deaths to match those recorded in the histories. Then Strake.
Grimly, Soren sorted through her tumble of palace dreamings, trying to isolate who had been on the move. But what she saw asleep was always an uncertain mess. And wasn't it wishful thinking, seeking a human killer rather than facing a seemingly invincible monster out of the past?
The guard began examining the ground at the stable entrance, but since this was one of the most trampled areas of the palace grounds, Soren doubted he'd have much luck. She turned her attention to the palace wall, and the well-lit gatehouse. The grounds were not strongly fortified, but the wall was still too high to simply scramble over, and the gatehouse and watchtowers were manned night and day.
If it was the thing from the Tongue, it had to have reached the stable somehow. Perhaps the wall posed little obstacle. Perhaps it had come through the gatehouse.
In answer to her thought, a swear-sword appeared to raise the portcullis, no doubt anticipating her morning departure. Not widespread slaughter, then. Just Vixen. Just Soren's horse.
No more morning rides, Soren thought as the Captain of the Guard, Helaine Vereck, arrived trailing a handful of guards she'd evidently collected en route. Vereck was a competent woman of few words, and she needed no direction to do her job. In short order the entire area blazed with light, there were patrols scouring the grounds, and a snub-nosed young woman was examining the floor of the stable as if the hollows and scuffs actually meant something to her. Stable hands sleeping in the loft above were woken by the noise and had to be restrained from swarming the scene.
The Guard had a few minor mages in its service, and Soren waited until a sleepy-eyed diviner pronounced himself perplexed, then left. Very likely Vereck breathed a sigh of relief not to have her erstwhile commander watching, grimly intent.
It would not be true to say that Soren felt overwhelmingly relieved to walk back into the security of palace-sight. But it did allow her to make absolutely certain nothing was anywhere near Strake. She flicked her attention across Aristide, various Barons in residence, the Chamberlain, the Marshall, and anyone else who had ever prompted her to the slightest suspicion. No-one obliged her by being blood-spattered, knife in hand. Most were still asleep, only the Marshall fumbling through morning routine.
Trying to look everywhere in the palace at once made it a little difficult to walk in a straight line, but Soren proceeded to do so, searching out anomalies, any hint or sign. Anything.
News was spreading with disobliging speed. The most unusual thing in the palace at that moment was the number of people rushing to wake others and talk excitedly. Though the sky was barely shading toward dawn, the palace was rapidly coming alive. If there was a vital clue to be found, it was lost in gossip.
On cue, Fisk turned into the corridor ahead. Soren intercepted him and said tersely: "Go wake the King and tell him what's happened." Fisk, already brimming with excitement, looked caught between dismay and pleasure at her command, but didn't argue.
That done, Soren returned to her apartment. Halcean was just emerging from her room, and stopped in faint confusion at the sight of her charge returning so early.
"Forget something?"
Shaking her head distractedly, Soren watched Strake's face as Fisk reached him. The shutter came down during the hesitant explanation, but Strake kept any shock or fear to himself.
"Champion?"
Soren forced herself to turn her attention back to her
aide. Halcean had thrown herself wholeheartedly into her new role, obviously finding considerable entertainment in handling the importuning hordes, but there'd been little chance to get to know her. She was far too much a stranger for Soren to begin to explain.
"I won't be seeing anyone but the King this morning," she said instead. "Keep them away."
"Of course," Halcean said, now wholly startled. Her expression as Soren headed toward her bedroom was one of proprietary concern, and Soren realised that to Halcean she would be 'her Champion' in a grey imitation of the way Strake was Soren's Rathen. The thought didn't help.
Her Rathen was dressing, efficient but unhurried. Soren watched him leave for the stables, waiting until he had passed out of palace-sight before she allowed herself weep.
It was not as if Vixen had even really been her horse. Property of the Regent or the Darien Crown, and mainly interested in Soren as a source of treats. And someone to gallop away with, madcap along a beach. And she did love to be groomed, vain creature.
Half Soren's tears were surely for the fact that there could be no more morning rides, that she could not possibly risk venturing out alone, or even in the company of guards. Man or beast, the killer would effectively keep her prisoner, here where she could safely see anything coming, could not help but see them, any more than she could avoid witnessing the gossips' delight, the quiet attention with which Aristide received the news, or the lowering frown on her Rathen's face as he returned.
There would be no Vixen to ride, anyway. Swallowing one last hiccuping breath, Soren rolled heavily off her bed and went to wash her face.
Halcean was hovering in the receiving room, and started forward as Soren emerged, only to sheer off when Strake knocked at the door. Casting a worried glance over her shoulder at her Champion seating herself in one of the receiving room chairs, the aide opened the door to the King, then removed herself from the room.
Strake took one look and said: "Crying over a horse?"
Champion of the Rose - Kobo Ebook Page 15