Guardians Of The Keep tbod-2

by Carol Berg

  “Now just hold there a moment, young woman,” spoke a crusty, quavering voice from behind me. A familiar voice. “Might I ask who you are and what business you have in the duke’s library, much less ordering the servants about like you was mistress here?”

  I smiled as I spun about to face her. “Was I not always the one to get my way, Nellia?”

  The elderly woman was propped up on a walking stick, but she came near toppling over backward in surprise. “Seriana! May the gods strike me blind and dumb if it not be my darling girl… after so long and so dark a road… oh my…” She fumbled at her pockets.

  I caught hold of her and guided her to a leather-covered bench. “I was beginning to doubt there was any familiar face to be found here, but if I were to choose one to see, it would be yours. It makes me think the place must be properly run after all.”

  “Oh, child, what a blessing it is to see you. There’s none but me left that you’d know, to be sure. The mistress”- the word was dressed with scorn enough to tell me the old woman’s opinion of Tomas’s wife-“brought mostly her own people from the city. She was of a mind to dismiss us all. But His Grace, your brother, wouldn’t allow her to send me away, nor John Hay nor Bets Sweeney, the sewing woman. But you can see as things are sadly out of sorts. The new girls care only for the mistress and her things. John Hay died two years ago, and Bets is pensioned off to live with her daughter in Graysteve, so I’m all as is left. Little worth in me neither. But these eyes is good enough to see my little sprite come home when I never thought she would.”

  She patted my knee and dabbed at her eyes with a handkerchief. “Shall I have one of the girls open up your room? I’ve kept it set to rights in hopes you and your brother might make it up between you. We never believed what was said about you. Great wickedness we were told, but I knew my little Seri could no more do a great wickedness than she could eat a frog. The master wouldn’t speak of it. And mistress-well, she has little good to say of anybody- and so’s Bets and John Hay and myself would never credit ought she said of you.” Quite breathless, Nellia stopped. Waiting, perhaps…

  The tales she’d heard of me were likely quite wicked- treason, heresy, consorting with sorcerers and all the evils attendant on such sordid association-crimes that would have cost my life had my brother not been the boyhood friend and sword champion of the King of Leire.

  I wrapped my arm about her bony shoulders. “You mustn’t worry about anything you’ve heard. It was all a terrible misunderstanding. And I appreciate so much that you’ve cared for my things, but I’m not to stay. I’ve only come to speak to Philomena and her son. I was with Tomas when he died, and all was well between us at the last.”

  Nellia’s pink-rimmed eyes filled with tears. “I’m glad to hear it. He was always a prideful boy, and the same as a man. Never learned to bend. Came by most everything as was his desire, but he’d no peace from it. Broke my heart it did, who knew him from a babe, to see him so high, but troubled so sore.”

  “But his son-he spoke of him with great affection. Surely the boy brought him happiness.”

  The old woman frowned and shook her head. “You’ve not met the young master, then?”

  “No. I’ve been here only half an hour.”

  “It’s right to say the duke-may holy Annadis write his name-took pride in the boy and had great hopes for him, but he’s not an easy child.”

  “Tomas and I weren’t easy either.”

  The old lady chuckled. “No. Easy was ne’er a word used in the servants’ hall about either of you, but this one… Well, you must meet him.” She glanced up and wrinkled her brow. “Shall I find out where he is?”

  “I think it would be prudent if we were introduced in Lady Philomena’s presence.” I desired no personal relationship with the boy.

  “That mightn’t be easy. He’s not one to sit at his mother’s knee or-” She broke off and waved a hand. “Ach, I’m too free. You must be perishing thirsty, and hungry, too, I’d guess. Shall I have a tray brought to the library?”

  “That would be marvelous. And it would be kind if you would send someone to your mistress’s room to tell Nancy where I can be found. I’d like to know when the duchess wakes.”

  “Done, my dearie.” Nellia wiped her eyes once more, patted my hands, and hobbled away.

  My father’s library was almost the same as I remembered it-leather chairs, dark woods, and ceiling-high shelves stuffed with leather-bound books and rolled manuscripts. On the end wall farthest from the hearth was his giant map of the Four Realms: our own Leire colored in red, subject kingdoms Valleor in blue, Kerotea in brown, and the ever-rebellious Iskeran in yellow. And yet a great deal of dust lay about, along with a general air of neglect. The tables and desks had seen no oil or polish; the brass lamps were tarnished; and my father would have threatened to behead the hapless servant who had allowed the bindings of his books to crack or his priceless maps to curl in their display.

  My father had been, first and foremost, a warrior. For twenty years he had fought his sovereign’s battles with skill and pride, always with more notches on his sword than his most grizzled veterans. But even more than fighting and glory, he had relished strategy and tactics, the marvelous interplay of soldier and general. Though not a scholarly man, he had accumulated a library of military history and philosophy unrivaled even at the University in Yurevan. He had collected maps, too, of all known lands and seas, ranging from ancient, primitive brushstrokes on silk or parchment that would crumble at a whisper to the most detailed, modern charts made by King Gevron’s military cartographers.

  But long before the books and maps held any fascination for Tomas and me, we were drawn to the library by the contents of two glass-fronted display cases. The treasure inside was a wonder unknown in any other house of our acquaintance-hundreds of miniature soldiers, cast in such perfect detail that you could read the expressions on their tiny lead faces and distinguish the individual links in their chain mail. Foot soldiers and cavalry, knights and flag bearers, trumpeters and generals, heralds and kings were crafted in every possible position. There were horses, too: battle chargers rearing, racing, wheeling, and beasts of burden laden with water casks the size of a thumb or pulling tiny baggage wagons. Along with a miniature flotilla, awaiting a young admiral’s command, were armaments enough for a nation of finger-sized warriors.

  Sometimes we would find the diminutive hosts deployed upon the maps of some ancient battlefield, poised to relive a day of blood and glory. Sometimes they were arrayed on the long, polished library tables as our father considered a new plan for smiting the enemies of Leire. But we couldn’t touch the armies if they were in use, so our delight was to find them captive in their velvet-lined cases. Then had we released the leaden hordes and devised our own games.

  The soldiers were the first thing I looked for in the library. To my delight, the cabinets were just as I had last seen them, flanking my grandfather’s suit of plate armor. One cabinet held an army painted silver and blue, and the other a host of red and gold. I pulled open the door and reached for a silver swordsman and a horse caparisoned in blue, but passed them by when I saw the silver king, his sword still raised in royal majesty and his crown still bent from the days when Tomas and I would forever fight over him. Beside him was his herald, blowing an invisible trumpet, his instrument lost when Tomas sat on him in the dining room to hide from our father his terrible crime of removing a piece from the library.

  “You’re not to touch them!”

  I turned in surprise, still holding the silent herald, and glimpsed the shadow of someone sitting in the window seat, all but his boots obscured by green velvet draperies.

  “But they do no good, sitting so quietly in their case. They are meant to be out and about, defending their king from his enemies, are they not? No soldier hides in his encampment forever.”

  “You needn’t speak to me as if I were five.”

  “I had no such intent. I just believe that it’s a shame when any things so fin
e as these soldiers are left idle. Someone ought to use them, whether to give military insights or just for the pure pleasure of playing with them.”

  “No one plays with them.”

  “More’s the pity,” I said.

  “Who are you?”

  “When your mother is awake, we can be properly introduced.”

  “One of her friends. I might have known. Are you here to steal something from us?”

  “It’s not my habit. Have there been a rash of thefts in the neighborhood, that everyone here seems to suspect a stranger of thieving?” I drifted to my left, trying to get a glimpse of the boy in the niche, but the glare from the window behind him left him in shadow.

  “Why else would anyone come here?”

  “To visit your mother?”

  “No one enjoys visiting her. And now she’s a widow. Not worth knowing.”

  “To visit you, then?”

  “I can grant no favors yet.” How old was this child?

  “Then perhaps to visit this marvelous house and the beauteous lands of the north?”

  “No one-”

  “No one would consider them marvelous or beautiful? I’ll not dispute your assessment of your mother or even of yourself, but I will argue with any attempt to discount the attractions of Comigor Keep. Once you’ve held one of the Guardian Rings and imagined what it was like to be chained there for months on end with everyone you valued depending on your faithful watch, or hidden in the secret room in the north tower and watched the colors of the hills and sky change or the lightning dance across the roof as a summer thunderstorm rolls through… Well, I’ll hold it up to you for marvels any day of any week. But for now, I’ll leave you to your business. Excuse me for intruding.”

  Without waiting for a response, I left the library, narrowly avoiding a collision with a young footman who bore a tray loaded with jam pots, butter, and steaming oatcakes. “I’ve changed my mind,” I said. “I’ll sit in the music room. Leave the door ajar, if you please, so I can see if anyone looks for me in the library.”

  The footman set the tray on a low table, and I sat where I could see the library door. After only a few moments I saw a thin face peep out of the carved double doors that led to the library.

  Tomas had said his son had our looks. There was no disputing that. The boy could have been his father as a child or a masculine version of myself at ten or eleven. Deep brown eyes, too large for the immature face, a body gangly and bony, already starting to get his height. Shining hair that waved about his face, hair of the same dark brown color with the tinge of red as my own. Bitter resentment at fate’s cruel jests took a moment’s grip on my heart. My son might have looked just the same as this boy.

  The boy surveyed the hall and seemed annoyed at finding no one about. He threw something to the floor and ran toward the stairs, out of my range of vision. Such an odd child. So angry.

  I restored my equilibrium by devouring Nellia’s oatcakes until some half an hour later when a chambermaid scurried across the tiles to the library doors. I jumped up. “Are you looking for me?”

  “Aye, miss. The mistress is waked. Nancy’s sent me to find the lady in the library.”

  “Well done. Tell her I’m coming.”

  The girl hurried away, and I followed more slowly. Halfway across the black and gray tiles, I saw a lump on the floor and stooped to retrieve it. It was the silver king, his bent crown now totally askew, and his mighty blade twisted so that it could never harm his enemies, only himself.

  CHAPTER 2

  When I arrived at her room, Philomena was yelling again, but not for pain or fear of dying. A stooped, middle-aged man, soberly dressed and unremarkable, was the recipient of a diatribe being laid on like a flogger’s cane. “How can there not be enough silver to pay the wine merchant? You’ve likely put it all in your own pocket. I’ll have you hanged!”

  “But my lady-”

  “Comigor is the richest hold in the Four Realms, and you are paid exorbitantly to manage it. Perhaps if we were to take your wage out of your flesh, you would find what’s needed.”

  “But, if you please, my lady, we have spent… prodigiously… in the past year: the new furnishings, the gem dealer, the dressmakers. And now the roof is leaking in the west wing and the forge is unusable since the fire, and we cannot even hire laborers-”

  “How dare you accuse me! My husband denied me nothing, but my steward dares tell me ‘no more’? I suppose you would have me wear rags. I suppose I am to suffer completely.”

  “But my lady, the rents are eight months overdue.” The steward blotted his forehead with a wide kerchief.

  “Then get them, fool. Must I hold your hand?”

  “Duke Tomas-may blessed Annadis write his name- left instructions at the first of this year that my lady must see to collecting the rents, as he was to be away on the appointed day. The Lords of Comigor have honored their covenant with the tenants for more than five hundred years. Only the lord or a member of his family may receive the rents. The tenants are not permitted to deliver their coins to anyone else.”

  The bruised patience in the steward’s voice gave me the sense that this was not the first time for such an argument.

  “You insufferable prig. It was certainly not my choice to rot here while my husband went charging all over the Four Realms, but of course he never consulted me in this or any other matter. ‘For Gerick’s inheritance,’ he said. ‘To keep the vultures in Montevial from getting any ideas.’ As if I knew nothing about inheritance and ambition. At least he can’t pester me about it any longer. A new lord rules here-though he listens to me no better than his father.” The painted fan that Philomena had been napping like a pennant in a gale fell still, and her rosy face beamed with sudden inspiration. “Of course! My son can do it! He is the castle lord now. I’ll command him to collect the cursed rents.”

  The long-suffering steward replied patiently. “Until he comes of age, the young duke cannot collect the rents, Your Grace. He is too young to be held to account, and therefore he cannot fulfill the terms of the covenant.”

  Philomena uncorked a silver vial she had snatched from her bedside table, inhaled deeply, and closed her eyes for a moment, then motioned to one of her maids. “Even if I could escape from my bed, I would not spend an entire tedious day nodding and smiling to filthy peasants. I care nothing for their nasty children or their cows or their wheat. Find some other way to get the money. Send the soldiers. Take hostages. I don’t care.”

  “My lady, please… the dishonor of it…”

  The steward seemed on the brink of tears, but Philomena turned her attention to a silver-backed mirror a maid had brought her, instantly rapt as the girl began to brush her golden hair. The steward stood his ground for a few moments, but when the lady began directing the maid in how to braid her tresses, he bowed and slunk out of the room.

  I knew well of the Comigor Covenant. How many times had I been forced to dress in my stiffest clothes and sit in endless boredom beside my mother and Tomas as my father collected his rents? The ceremony played out like an elaborate dance figure. On the first day of every year, Covenant Day, the line of tenants would stretch through the great hall, across the outer ward and far into the outer bailey. One by one they would step forward, and my father would graciously invite the man to sit with him at a small table, offering him the glass of wine that sat on the table. Inevitably, the man would refuse the wine. The tenant would inquire politely after the health of the lord’s family. We were always “quite robust,” even when my mother was so weak from her last illness that she had to be carried up the stairs at the end of the day. Then my father would inquire after the health of the tenant’s wife and his parents and the progress of his children, each of them by name, and ask whether the man needed new tools or a new goat. After a suitable time, the tenant would stand and bow, and, almost as an afterthought, offer his coins to his lord. My father would salute the man and wish him a good season, then turn his full attention to the next man an
d begin the dance again.

  When Tomas and I got restless and speculated between ourselves on the dire consequences to the state of the universe should one of the tenants actually drink the glass of wine, our mother whispered that we were being disrespectful. For many years, I believed that she meant we were disrespectful to my father-a terrifying prospect that instantly corrected my behavior. Only later did I understand that our behavior was disrespectful to the tenants, who fed us, clothed us, and kept us in comfort in return for the use of the Comigor land and the protection of its lord.

  When my father was away on campaign, my mother sat at the little table with Tomas and me beside her. Tomas had been awkward the first few years after his coming of age, when our mother was dead and our grieving father too drunk to do his duty, but he had grown into it. Until my banishment from Comigor, I had sat with him as always. To change the practice had been unthinkable.

  I entered my sister-in-law’s bedchamber in great disturbance of mind. “Did you rest well, Philomena?” I said.

  Philomena’s aunt lurked glowering on the far side of the bed, half hidden behind the bed-curtains. The duchess’s attention remained focused on her mirror. “I don’t know what was in my head this morning, Seriana,” said Philomena, smoothing a strand of her hair. “I should have told you to go immediately. My husband didn’t want you here and neither do I. I’ve only your word that he sent you.”

  “You may accept what I say as truth or lies. But your son has a right to know how his father died, and there’s no one else to tell him of it.”

  “For all I know, you may have killed Tomas yourself,” said Philomena, more from annoyance than conviction. “You were married to a sorcerer and conspired with traitors. My husband caught you at it and called down the law. You’re probably here for revenge.”

  “I told you, I hold neither you nor your child responsible. Tomas is beyond knowing, so vengeance has no purpose. Nothing will bring back my son.” I pulled a small gray silk bag from my pocket and laid it on the bedclothes in front of Philomena. “I brought this for you. It’s not dangerous.” I smiled at the old woman, who had backed away from the bedside as if the little pouch might conceal a snake.