"Because Lord Ian cannot be found," Edwinna sniffed.
Angharad was about to remark that she had never been consulted before this simply because Ian was unavailable, but held her tongue. Ever since she had been brought to the castle and installed in her rooms she had been treated like a child. She could have most anything that she ordered, catered to as she was by a staff of servants who were considerate to the point of condescension. Left alone in her rooms to brood, she had pitied herself, casting herself in the role of a friendless outcast caged in a silk prison. Ian had kept the bargain that they had agreed on and, she was forced to admit, he treated her politely when they met, but she knew that he, like the others, saw her only as a child to be humoured. When she saw that the castle was being fortified, she was too isolated and too proud to ask questions, so that the only information she had of what was happening, came from surreptitious bits of gossip gleaned from the servants. From what little she had overheard, she realized that the situation within the Pentarchy was collapsing, just as Ian had predicted and her father had feared.
Mustering her dignity, Angharad asked to be conducted to the commander. Edwinna said nothing, merely bowing and furtively looking down the side of her nose at Angharad's uncharacteristic bout of initiative.
The man that Angharad was ushered before struck her at once as being exceptionally large of body and voice. He seemed to be at least the size, in girth and height, of a full-grown oak tree, and his voice boomed loudly in her ears as he explained his situation and the need for a speedy response to the earl's courier. Swallowing her misgivings, Angharad held out her hand for the letter and broke the seal herself. Within, she was confronted with a demand for the Pretend Duke of Langstraad to immediately surrender the castle or suffer its total destruction. After reading it, she glanced up to find Sir Griswold waiting in polite silence. She was somewhat startled as she realized that, unlike Dame Edwinna, this overwhelming person was regarding her quite seriously and expected to act on her orders.
"Lord Brescom's army is now at our walls?" she inquired in her soft voice. The fear that she suddenly felt was not of the unseen army, but of disappointing this giant of a man who was not treating her as either an imbecile or a child.
"Aye, they're here but t'will do them no good if we dinna open the doors for them," he answered with a great laugh. "Someone's not been keeping you much informed of the state of the castle recently," he went on to say, his shaggy eyebrows drawn together in concern.
Angharad forbore telling him that no one kept her informed of anything happening inside or out of the castle. Instead she asked whether a reply was expected in writing. With a grin indicating that he saw a jest, one that she did not, he replied that "telling the dog to begone" would nicely tweak the earl's nose. By this, Angharad understood that a verbal reply would imply that Brescom was suppliant to their superior position.
Taking a moment to phrase her answer, she tilted her head up to look Sir Griswold in the eye and replied in the regalist tones that she could summon: "Let the Earl of the Inner Ward know that never will the right-wise Head of a Great House deign to even consider such an absurdity. He is trespassing onto land where he is not welcome and does not belong. Tell him that he is ordered to leave the Duchy of Langstraad and return to his own foul den immediately." When she had finished, there was a wicked gleam of amusement mingled with approbation in his eyes.
"Aye your ladyship, 'tis as fine an answer as he deserves and one that her late ladyship might well have given. Thank ye; I'll be sending Brescom's hound back to his master forthwith." With a rough bow Griswold strode out of the room and Angharad, feeling ridiculously giddy, saw that she was alone with an astonished Dame Edwinna.
The flush of power and approval still on her, Angharad asked again where Lord Ian was. Shaking her head, as if to dispel a dream, the older woman replied that his lordship had not been seen since earlier this morning and that, though they had searched for him when Griswold came looking, none knew his current whereabouts in the castle.
Casually dismissing Edwinna, Angharad went to sit down in a corner and decide what she should do next. Her first impulse was to run back and bury herself in her rooms, but upon brief reflection she discarded the notion. For the first time in months, a decision she had made had been taken seriously and acted upon. The lethargy that she usually felt was replaced by a sense of vitality as she realized that what she said and did could actually matter. This large, bluff soldier had consulted her and listened to what she had to say. What was happening around her, the war, the siege, the efforts of those entrapped within the castle, began to take on substance and reality. Deep within came her acceptance of the fact that she had been treated as a child because she had spoken and behaved as one.
The pattern of sunlight across the room caught her attention as it moved into her eye, waking her from her reverie. Action was the key, and the first action that she must engage in was finding Lord Ian and letting him know what she had done. Heady with her resolve, she stood up and headed for his private apartments, the logical place to begin searching for him.
Never having been to Ian's personal rooms before, it took her quite a while and a few wrong turns to find them. Standing at his door she was struck with an attack of shyness that made her hesitate. Wetting her lips and silently reaffirming her resolve to act, she raised her hand to knock. Before her hand reached the door, it suddenly swung inwards and she found herself face to face with a woman who looked familiar, but to whom she could attach no name.
At first the woman seemed equally taken aback. Then a slow, not very nice smile began to play on her lips. "Well, well your ladyship..." she intoned archly. "What brings you here?"
Flustered at being caught off-guard, Angharad tried to peer over the woman's shoulder and into the room, while she inquired in a faltering voice after Lord Ian. At this, the woman's smile became a smirk. Leaning against the edge of the door she looked Angharad up and down, saying nothing more. If she intended to intimidate the girl, she had under-estimated her opponent. Angharad's back stiffened and her chin lifted as it dawned on her that the woman behaving so insolently to her must be Ian's mistress. Angharad's relationship with the lord of the castle might be only one of state, but she was the daughter of a duke and the purebred pride of many generations now came to her aid. "Stand aside!" she ordered.
"He's not here," the woman replied without moving.
"That may or may not be, but when I command you to step aside, you will do so." Angharad's voice acquired a steely edge to it.
"I tell you that he is not here!" Kathryn stared back at this little stick of a girl contemptuously. She was not overly concerned at the girl's wrath. Being the lord of the castle's mistress, in her mind, put her up several notches from this dressed up doll who reputedly spent all her time sulking in her own rooms.
"I said to step aside!" Angharad reiterated imperiously.
The two women stood glaring at each other: one angrily and the other mockingly. Neither was willing to budge and the tension between them crackled. What would have occurred next was forestalled by the arrival of Ian's personal attendant, Evan.
"Who is it?" he asked coming up behind Kathryn. Looking over her shoulder, he quickly exclaimed in alarm, "Your ladyship! What can we do for you?"
"You can begin by removing this obstruction," she replied pointing at Kathryn.
His look of alarm became compounded with annoyance and fear. Angharad was unsure as to which of them was causing his evident consternation. "Step aside and allow her ladyship to enter at once," he hissed in Kathryn's ear.
She glanced mutinously at him, read something in his face that changed her mind and reluctantly stepped aside. Without speaking, Angharad swept by her and into the room beyond as if the woman had ceased to exist. She came to a halt inside a large, well furnished room and waited. At the door a whispered argument was taking place that abruptly ended with a sharp retort as the door was closed behind Kathryn. The young man who had admitted her returned.
>
"How may I serve your ladyship?" There was a gentle solicitude in his inquiry that surprised Angharad.
"I am looking for Lord Ian," she replied simply.
"Oh dear, there were others seeking him earlier today but I'm afraid that he still has not returned," Evan replied, trying to put the young woman at ease. He did not need to have heard what must have been said between the girl and Kathryn to guess that Ian's "whore" had been indefensibly rude. Over the last months the friction between these two servants of the duke regent had rapidly escalated to an explosive level.
"Do you have any idea where he might be found?"
Evan's dark, square face furrowed in thought. At last he ventured, "Occasionally, when my lord wants to be by himself without any interruptions, he goes to the late duchess' private study. No one else ever goes there."
"Where is it? Do you know whether anyone has yet checked there for him?" she asked eagerly.
"I doubt if anyone has checked it. It had slipped my own mind until just a moment ago," he admitted. "It's up in the western tower, away from the main halls. Her grace liked solitude," he added irrelevantly.
"How do I find it?" Evan offered to conduct her to the room himself, but she was filled with a sudden desire to find the room on her own. Repeating his instructions several times, Evan saw her to the door.
At first, Angharad passed many servants and courtiers pursuing their tasks and paying her scant heed except to incline their heads respectfully as they hurried by. From Ian's quarters in the eastern wing of the main castle, she had to go up several flights of stairs to a connecting corridor through the northern wing and then climb more stairs until she found herself in a deserted hallway in the far tower of the western wing. She stood alone now facing a short flight of stairs and a closed door. A rush of trepidation filled her as she forced herself up the five steps and gently tapped on the door.
There was no response to her soft knock and she was about to leave in discouragement, but curiosity stopped her, and she tried the handle of the door. Unlocked, it turned easily and she gently pushed the door inwards. Standing on the threshold, she peered into a narrow room faced with mullioned windows and crowded with books, trunks and an odd assortment of furniture. It resembled nothing so much as a storeroom for unneeded and excess items. Against the bright glare from the window she shaded her eyes with her hand and looked to find a human form sprawled on a chair before an unlit fireplace.
At the opening of the door the figure's head moved spasmodically and a harsh voice ordered that the door be closed and its opener leave behind it. There was a slight twisting in Angharad's stomach as she recognized Ian's voice in the rasp of the command. For an instant, she thought to obey, but something in his voice and demeanor checked her, and she closed the door behind her. She came forward several paces until she could see him clearly, and was shocked at what her eyes discovered.
The habitually elegant and self-contained young man that she was used to was gone. Ian lay slumped in his chair, hair and clothing in dishevelment, his eyes closed and the pallor of his skin vivid against the dark fabric where he lay his head. She had said nothing, but a sudden suspicion that he was not alone caused him to raise his eyelids, revealing eyes that glittered in their intensity and caused her to instinctively step back. It took him several minutes before he recognized her, and then he closed his eyes as his voice inquired wearily, "What is it that you want?"
There was that which was so ineffably sad in his voice and demeanor that Angharad found herself regarding him with unexpected sympathy. She came forward again, this time to crouch beside his chair. His eyes opened once more, revealing mingled uncertainty and weariness. He did not move; only his eyes betrayed the life within him as he continued to stare at her.
"We have been looking for you all afternoon," she began timidly. "Everyone was very worried..." her voice trailed off as she became aware of how inadequate she sounded. The eyes watching her closed for a moment, as if what she said added to an unseen burden. In desperation she cried out: "What is it? What is wrong?"
A ghost of a smile barely lifted his lips as he replied. "What is wrong is myself, my lady. I cannot understand what madness possessed Holly to make me her heir when I am so entirely inadequate. I am going to fail her and myself, and the fear of it is a constant knife in my guts." He ceased speaking but his anguished eyes remained on her face.
Angharad felt acutely embarrassed by this disclosure, but compassion rooted her. As she continued to gaze at him an awakening comprehension filled her. She had known that he had been particularly devoted to his cousin but did not understand until now how deep that devotion ran. She sat back on her heels and remained staring at him in wonder.
Realizing that she was not going to leave, an inner compulsion to speak of his fears and his loss prompted him to continue. "When they told me that Holly was dead, I was tempted to leave Langstraad and the Pentarchy. To flee to the ends of the earth where I would know no one and none would know me. You see, I could live with the knowledge that she might be another man's wife, because then I would still be able to see and speak with her. But without her in the world, everything became meaningless. It was only because she made me her heir, and made me promise to take care of that which was hers, that I stayed here. I have tried, but I am not of the stuff that leaders are made."
"That is nonsense!" Angharad exclaimed involuntarily. He stopped his rambling and regarded her in surprise. "You are doing as well as any man in this situation could do. You did not ask for this war! The fact that you foresaw as much as you did and took the measures that you did saved many lives."
"Not Alwyn's, nor the men who fell with him." He remained morose. "I am not a soldier, not a captain of men. I am not even particularly noble except on my mother's side." To Angharad's puzzled look, he explained. "My mother was Baron de Medicat's daughter, but my father was a common man by the name of Toller Branwell whose trade was making objects out of clay." Angharad was abruptly enlightened on some of the obscure comments that she had overheard during the course of Ian's stay at Gwenth and their betrothal. A flame of anger rose in her heart as she recalled the unkind jests that had been made at both his and her expense.
"I must apologize for having dragged you into this," he continued, forcing her thoughts back to the present and the man seated before her. "At the time, it seemed that an alliance with your father and his duchy was the best way to preserve Langstraad. But I can now see that it has drawn off soldiers who might have stayed and helped Alwyn to repel Brescom's army. It also dragged you off to unwilling exile in a strange castle." There was silence in the room as Ian, in his self-recrimination and misery, turned his gaze to the ceiling.
While he had been speaking, Angharad reached out to lay her hand gingerly on his sleeve in a gesture of comfort. Something of her movement caught the perimeter of Ian's vision and he moved to put her back into his line of sight. Meeting her eyes, luminous blue-violet, he saw in them an acceptance and understanding entirely foreign to him. It came to him suddenly that for the first time since he had lost Holly, he might not be alone. As he continued to gaze at her, a reciprocal feeling began to flow back along the emotional bridge that Angharad had unintentionally forged, and she also was comforted with the knowledge that she was no longer friendless.
Shyness overcame Angharad at last and she had to bend her head over her knees to recover her composure. When she finally grew bold enough to steal a glance at Ian's face, his manifest surprise forced a smile from her. Swiftly he returned that smile with one of his own. Not knowing precisely what to think or say, Angharad took refuge in the mundane and launched into an account of Sir Griswold's coming to her with Lord Brescom's message, the urgency with which it needed to be dealt, his absence, and her response to the earl's demand. As she spoke she remained dazzled about the last hour and the change she had seen in Ian's expression, from the withdrawn despair when she had first come upon him to the interest and the approving glint in his eyes as she now spoke.
&nb
sp; "An excellent answer," was his opinion when she had done speaking. "Of course he will do nothing of the kind, but it will give him a moment's pause to be so summarily dismissed. I only wish," he continued ruefully, another smile taking the sting from his words, "that I was of the House line. Then I might actually offer him a real threat."
"Why? Your authority as the dukal regent, is accepted by everyone without regard to your antecedents. How would your being of the House line be that much greater an advantage?" She was puzzled.
"Because, if I was of House Langstraad, I would be able to command the House Gift. I am the ducal regent precisely because I am not of the House," he explained without rancor. "I hold this office until the daughter of Hollin's cousin, Lady Genvra Iscoed, who carries the potential, comes of age."
Angharad frowned and nodded quickly. "Yes, I do remember being told something about that. The girl was supposed to be sent to you next spring to be fostered." He nodded. "But I still do not understand why having the House Gift would aid you?"
"I don't really know. I don't know that much about arcane matters, but I know something about those who we are fighting, and sooner or later they will take the opportunity to use such forces against us." He stopped and rubbed a hand across his forehead, sweeping the dark hair back into place.
"Well," Angharad began, stepping into the breach. "If it would be of any help to you, I am a d'Aurilac and a direct heir of House Creon."
He looked at her in some astonishment. "Do you mean to say that you have the House Gift? Have you ever used it?"
"I have been told that all the d'Aurilac's carry the potential, but no, I've never used it. Usually only the Head of the House wields the power, but I believe that is more due to custom than ability. Of course the Head of a House undergoes a ceremony to take control of the House Gift but I don't know whether that is essential."
"Do you mean that you might be able to use the power of House Creon?" he asked in amazement.
Hearts in Cups Page 32