by Susan Murray
“So, Weaver, these rumours.” Tresilian strolled over to the window, pausing to look outside before he turned to face Weaver again. “I confess, they disquiet me.”
“Highness, Garrad sought to discredit the Lady Alwenna by spreading lies about her.”
“Lies?”
“Poisonous lies, your highness. Not one word of his accusations was true.” Not then, at any rate.
“The rumours have been spread by more than Father Garrad.”
“After the journey we undertook, that is inevitable. You know I have always had the utmost respect for your queen.”
“Indeed. Respect, you call it?”
“Highness, she is as far beyond my reach as it is possible for a person to be.” Weaver chose his words with care. “I could never ask her to stoop to my level, even were she not your wife.”
Tresilian moved over to the throne-like seat on the dais and sat down, drumming his fingers on the arm. “I would like to believe what you say, Weaver. We have travelled many miles together and I have never before had cause to question your loyalty.” Again he drummed his fingers. “Nevertheless, I understand you signed a confession to intimacy with the Lady Alwenna. My wife. The one you claim is so far above your reach. You can understand, I’m sure, why this concerns me.”
“That confession was a falsehood, your highness. Extracted under torture by the usurper, Vasic.”
“I would dearly like to believe you, Weaver, but… can you prove any of this?”
Weaver raised his head. He should tell him the whole truth. Tell him just how many times he took his wife on stained sheets in a common inn. Tell him how she moaned with pleasure. Tell him… “I bear the scars of Vasic’s branding iron.”
“So I have been told. Convenient for you.” He looked at Weaver thoughtfully. “You capitulated to the usurper’s demands, then? What reason could you possibly have for putting your name to a lie that would so damage my wife’s reputation?”
“Highness, the usurper threatened the novice monk who helped the Lady Alwenna escape Vorrahan. I’d asked him to do what he could to help her in my absence. It would have been poor reward for the lad for doing as I asked him. I never imagined she’d face such betrayal, from Garrad of all people.”
“A selfless act, then?” Tresilian gazed into Weaver’s eyes as if he could read every thought that crossed his mind. “I wonder. This troubles me, Weaver.” He drummed his fingers on the chair arm once more. “The rumours are so widespread I would be seen as a trusting fool if I let you resume your post as King’s Man. Yet the Lady Alwenna enjoys such popularity in these parts I should be criticised for persecuting her if I were to make anything of these same rumours.”
Weaver fixed his eyes on a knot in the plank in front of Tresilian’s foot. “I understand, your highness.”
“I wonder if you do. In the end what I require is not your understanding, but your obedience.” Tresilian studied Weaver in silence, then appeared to reach a decision. He stood up and approached the edge of the dais before which Weaver stood. “In these difficult times I would be foolish to lose such a talented soldier as yourself. Do I still have your loyalty, Weaver?”
“You do, your highness.”
“Then kneel before me.”
Weaver obeyed, bowing his head. Tresilian watched him in silence.
“I understand you turned back – against Marten’s orders – when you heard the Lady Alwenna was in difficulty. Was that the act of a loyal man?”
“The novice who brought the news has the sight, your highness. He told me she was in great danger.”
“You believe in the sight now? That is a remarkable change of heart for you, Weaver.”
“The Lady–” He had better not speak her name again. “Your wife described such scenes as I could no longer doubt it, your highness.”
“I see. Yet it troubles me still that you flouted Marten’s authority.”
“I confess at that time I still believed him to be a pedlar of lies. I fully expected to find some pretender here claiming your name.”
“So you say.” Tresilian returned to his makeshift throne and sat down, drumming his fingers on the arm once more. The silence lengthened. The uneven stone flags were beginning to dig into Weaver’s knees.
“You must swear fealty to me again, Weaver, before the assembled court tomorrow morning. You must be seen to be humble and obedient.”
“As your highness wishes.”
“Then so be it, Weaver. But words are easily uttered. Once the first lie is spoken, others hurry after it, lie upon lie. It is so easy, I know myself. Understand this: your oath of allegiance will be for others to see. I have another way for you to convince me of your loyalty. And until such time as you have convinced me, you will serve in my king’s guard.” Tresilian smiled a tight, strange smile. “You may leave me now.”
No sooner had the words been spoken than the slender priestess rose to her feet and, in silence, crossed the dais to Tresilian’s side.
Weaver got to his feet and bowed. Tresilian had already leaned over to speak to the girl. She turned her pallid eyes momentarily towards Weaver and his skin prickled with apprehension. He’d seen her give just such a look to the Lady Alwenna.
CHAPTER NINETY
Alwenna had bathed and dressed in the gown provided by Tresilian’s servants. Upon Alwenna’s insistence Erin had been similarly attired in her capacity as lady-in-waiting. The sun was still some distance above the horizon, and now all they could do was wait.
The girl sat in silence as Alwenna paced the floor. The voices were crowding in on her, clamouring to be heard, but too indistinct for her to make any sense of them. Of the lovers there was no trace, for which she was thankful.
A knock at the door stopped Alwenna halfway across the room. Erin jumped to her feet and went to unbolt the door.
A maidservant waited outside. “His highness requests the pleasure of your company before dining, my lady.”
Did he indeed? Was he foregoing his usual assignation with the lithe priestess? So tempting to make him wait. Alwenna toyed with the idea, but dismissed it as childish. She needed to understand what had happened since she left Highkell, although she doubted Tresilian was prepared to tell her. He’d been taking lessons in diplomacy from Vasic if their first encounter was any indication. “Very well.” That was all she could say. “Erin, you will accompany me.”
“My lady, he said to bring just you.” The servant looked apprehensive.
“Don’t worry, I will tell him I insisted.”
The servant dipped a curtsey. “Thank you, my lady.” She appeared relieved, more than Alwenna would have expected of one of Tresilian’s servants.
Tresilian waited for her in a smaller chamber off the great hall – the room from which the priestess had emerged earlier that day. Alwenna told Erin to wait outside and the girl took a seat on the bench set on the dais against the wall. It had been carefully positioned out of earshot. The single guard stationed at the far end of the room would no doubt suffice to prevent anyone sneaking closer to eavesdrop. Vasic would have had two men at each door. It was debatable whether that was a sign of Vasic’s insecurity, or of Tresilian’s lack of resources. Alwenna directed the maidservant to knock on the door, and she did so, opening it when Tresilian gave the command. The girl stepped over the threshold to announce Alwenna, then hastily withdrew.
Alwenna entered the room, leaning on her stick as little as she could manage. The pervasive scent of lavender was even stronger here. Every room was filled with the stuff – was it all that grew here, or simply a hasty measure to counter the fustiness of a building that had been unoccupied for so many years? She clenched her hand, digging her fingernails into her palm. She would not let her mind wander. This meeting was important.
Tresilian waited by the fireplace where a small fire had been kindled, not so great that it would overheat the room in this warm spell, but enough to lend a little cheer to the proceedings. Two settles were arranged on either side of it, faci
ng one another. At the other side of the room was another raised dais, with a table set in the deep window embrasure. Like the anteroom to the great hall this room was panelled, but any smell of beeswax polish was overwhelmed by the lavender. She counted six pots before she realised Tresilian was waiting until he had her full attention.
“Well, cousin. Here we are.” Tresilian smiled. Alwenna was able to see his features clearly for the first time. He had aged visibly in the weeks they’d been apart. His face was deeply lined, and his eyes appeared sunken, ringed by deep shadows.
“Your highness.” She made such a curtsey as her ankle permitted, determined to set a fence of formality between them until she understood this new situation.
“Please, sit down. You must be weary after your journey.”
“Thank you.” She sat, taking her time about arranging her skirts decorously and propping the stick against the arm of the settle. Then she waited.
Tresilian looked down at her, his expression thoughtful. “So, lady wife, where do we begin? I trust you are well, aside from that ankle injury?”
“Well enough, thank you.”
Tresilian sat down opposite. “And our child?”
“Our child is well.”
“That is good. I take it the sickness has passed, for you look happy.”
“It has.” She felt as though she were discussing her life with a stranger.
“Excellent.” His shoulders relaxed visibly. “And does anyone else know our secret?”
“Only Weaver. He recognised my symptoms as we travelled to Vorrahan.”
“Is that so?” Tresilian rubbed his chin in the manner Vasic was wont to do. “I take it he took good care of you?” The question was casual enough. If he intended any double meaning it was not evident from his expression.
“He did. Until your Father Garrad betrayed us, in any event.”
Tresilian smiled. “Yes, Father Garrad. I never took him for such a zealot.” He didn’t appear remotely surprised by her revelation. Or indignant.
“I gather your spies have already told you of this?”
“Why, yes, they have. You always were perceptive.” He steepled his fingers, studying her as if she were some strange new creature. “Nevertheless, Alwenna, I find you have changed in these few weeks.”
“Is that a surprise? You sent me away – cut me loose from everything and everyone I held dear. Sent me off into the wilderness with a common mercenary as protector. How do you imagine I thought of myself after that?” The only familiar thing in all that time had been Weaver. Weaver, whom she’d despised. Weaver, who dealt death with ruthless efficiency. Weaver, who, in the end had saved her from her own personal hell, had seen her at her very worst and brought her back to the land of the living. He’d shown her more loyalty than her husband.
“It was necessary.”
“Necessary? Is that all the explanation I’m to get? You sent me into the clutches of an enemy. You trusted Garrad – you fool – and he sold me straight away to Vasic, without hesitation. The very moment Weaver left.”
“My father warned me you’d always be a handful.” He spoke with indifference.
“Is that any way to speak to me when I kept our secret safe all this time? You told me to seek out Gwydion and I did as you asked. That crazy old man who spent his days shut in the dark – whatever possessed you? And still I trusted you.”
“That was your duty. All of it was necessary, to save Highkell, and to assure its future. Yet despite all my precautions you still managed to destroy it. Our childhood home. That saddens me.”
“That’s nonsense, I did no such thing. It rained for days. The water washed out the foundations.”
“That discussion can keep.” Tresilian brushed her words away as if they were nothing more than an annoying insect. “Garrad was right about you all along. And you killed him, too, did you not?”
“No. He took his own life.” But the blade in the priest’s hand had been meant for her until she spoke up. The doubt on his face had only appeared after that, then his agony as his life blood sprayed against the wall. The floor pitching beneath them. And her descent into– “He took his own life.”
“A pity. I could have made better use of him.”
“He betrayed us.”
“Quite so. Your people can be… remarkably creative with the blood of an enemy.”
“My people?” Her people had been at Highkell, Goddess knew what had happened to them. All but Weaver. And Drew. They were her people. Perhaps she ought to number her husband among them, if she could believe the evidence of her eyes. Yet…
“Yes, your people here in The Marches with their heathenish ways.” His lips curled in a tight smile.
“Heathenish? Need I remind you without our marriage, you are nothing to the people here? Think on that as you disdain us all, husband.”
“You misunderstand me, Alwenna. It is not disdain I feel for your people and their mysteries. Far, far from it.” Tresilian pressed a fingertip to his forehead, as if it pained him. “I have such things to tell–”
Oh, yes, he’d changed. His eyes saw something new where she stood. He seemed to see beyond the loyalty, beyond the fair looks that had always drawn him, beyond the anguish and the struggle to remain loyal. And beneath it all he saw her guilt. That she had, in the end, turned to Weaver. And somehow she suspected it no longer mattered to him: she’d become nothing more than a tool to be used to serve his purpose.
“I’m not the only one to have changed. You have, too.” The thought filled her with an overwhelming sadness, that stripped away all her anger as suddenly as the weather changing on a high ridge. “What happened, Tresilian? I… I saw you die.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Indeed? You intrigue me.” This time he wanted to hear what she had to say.
She twisted her fingers together. “I saw it happen. In the dungeon at Highkell. Vasic stabbed you – I saw it all. It was as if I was in there with you.”
He raised his hands in the air, smiling. “Do I look as if anyone has stabbed me?”
“I saw it.” She pressed her hand over her own ribs. “Right there.”
“Well, well. Crazy old Gwydion was right after all.” With a twisted smile he stood up, tugging his shirt out from the waist of his leggings. “There’s no point denying it. You’re bound to see it sooner or later.” He hitched the fabric up so his abdomen was exposed. And there between his ribs was an ugly, puckered scar with an angry network of veins radiating from it as if his blood had been poisoned, far worse than Drew’s shoulder.
Alwenna stared. How could he have survived such an injury?
“You can touch it if you want.” Tresilian stepped closer and she pushed herself up from her seat before he could lean over her.
“Go on, touch it. You are my wife, after all.”
She reached out an unsteady hand and set it over the wound, not sure what to expect. The flesh there was heated and there was some inflammation, but it was undeniably healing. And, yet every instinct told her it was wrong. Unnatural. She snatched her hand away and stepped back.
Tresilian laughed and let his shirt drop over the injury, leaving it hanging loose. “Satisfied now, my dear?”
It hardly seemed possible. “So Vasic’s blade missed your heart? You didn’t die?”
“Oh no.” Tresilian grinned. “I died.”
Impossible.
Alwenna took another step away from him but found herself backed up against the wall. The baby in her womb shifted fretfully.
“The bonds of kinship, my darling, run deep. Deeper than you or I ever imagined, innocents that we were.” He leaned closer, then set one hand over her abdomen, where their baby lay. “Through all those years we never even guessed. And now, what wonders we have wrought between us.”
“You must be mistaken.” Alwenna fought the urge to edge towards the door. “These people must have lied to you. No one could–”
He frowned. “No, dear wife, it is you who are mistaken.” He raised his hand
and gently traced the side of her face with his fingertips, bringing them to rest at the point on her throat where her blood pulsed. “It wasn’t at all easy, of course.” He smiled, not quite the lopsided smile she knew. “You will see in due course.”
Alwenna pulled away, and he made no effort to stop her.
“It will be good to have you dining at my side once more.”
Alwenna looked back as she opened the door. He still stood where she’d left him, watching her with that same smile. Oh, yes, he’d changed.
CHAPTER NINETY-ONE
Alwenna had already eaten what little food she felt need of. On her right side Tresilian was deep in conversation with the freemerchant, Marten. In the bustle of the hall her husband’s manner seemed less sinister – so much so she began to wonder if she’d imagined it in her initial shock at finding him alive. She surveyed the room from her vantage point at the high table, unable to shake off the sense she was being watched.
Weaver was seated halfway down the long table on the left, eating in a desultory fashion while Curtis and Blaine beside him were drinking and laughing over some joke. Something jarred about the scene. For a moment she couldn’t pin down what it was, then realised: Weaver was clad in the livery of the king’s guard, while Curtis wore the emblazoned tabard of King’s Man. That could only mean one thing. But did Tresilian know the truth – just as she knew about him and the priestess – or had he acted on the basis of Garrad’s false accusation?
What was done was done. If she’d known her husband lived she’d never have turned to Weaver. Or so she liked to think. And then, Tresilian claimed to have died. Where did that leave marriage vows made in a former life? Her tutor’s etiquette lessons had neglected to address such niceties. She drained her goblet of wine. It was poor stuff, and burned a raw path down her throat. At least it was strong enough to dull her mind and to soften the edges of this strange new court she’d blundered into.
The household at the summer palace was nothing like as large as at Highkell. There were familiar faces at the tables, even though she’d only been there a short time – Tresilian’s portly steward for one, and the guard who’d been on duty outside the king’s quarters that afternoon. And there, towards the top of the right-hand table, she found the person who was watching her.