The Path to Power

by Karen Miller

  He thought he was spirit-cursed. First Lindara lost to him, and now Kennise? Marriage with Aistan’s daughter would’ve done him much good–and helped disguise what he and Lindara planned to do.

  “Aistan,” he said slowly, “I think it would be a mistake. I’m wary of the Exarch, just as I’m wary of Berardine and Harcia. Of all those who’d seek to undermine Clemen’s sovereign authority. And anyone who denies the Exarch’s love of power is a fool.”

  “True,” said Aistan. “But Kennise has her heart set on it. She finds the world burdensome.” Another sigh. “And my heart breaks, knowing that for Clemen’s sake I must deny her.”

  “So there’s no hope she might soften?”

  “Vidar, I’m sure she will. Be patient. Every girl desires marriage. In time Kennise will find her courage.”

  “I don’t doubt it,” he said, accepting his temporary defeat. “For she’s your daughter, my lord. And you are a great man.”

  Aistan grimaced. “That’s not for me to say. What I can say is that I’m a busy man.” He picked up his discarded quill. “So if you’ll forgive me…”

  Swallowing a grunt of pain, Vidar pushed his heavy chair back from the table. “Of course, Aistan. My thanks for your time.”

  Making his uneven, circuitous way out of the castle, Vidar fought the urge to curse out loud. It was likely that now, with his new position and new estate of Coldspring glossing over his physical deficiencies, the maidens that might’ve been shown to Roric would be shown to him instead. And not a father among them would be as useful an ally as Aistan. Perhaps he should ask Lindara to procure him a love charm to sway Kennise.

  Because while he could put off his own marriage a little while… it wasn’t something he could put off for ever.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Berardine sailed into Carillon harbour on a rising tide and a swelling of hope. It was late. The night sky was dimmed with cloud, the city’s joyful bells silent. Once her galley was docked in the Royal Pool she bundled herself and a drowsy Catrain into the closed litter she’d left handy for her purposes, and chewed at her lower lip as four panting sailors hurried them home to the palace.

  Come to me, Izusa. I need to know what I must do now.

  Perhaps there was some gentle sorcery, a kindly love charm, to nudge Roric of Clemen where Ardenn needed him to go. Nothing malicious. Nothing harmful. She’d not endanger his soul… or her own. And especially not Catrain’s. But there had to be something Izusa could do. Or why else was the woman a witch?

  She’d confided in Howkin, Baldwin’s trusted majordomo, her purposed journey to Clemen, and left him to divert attention from her absence. But since she was returned so soon it was doubtful he’d needed to exercise his imagination.

  “Madam!” he said, startled, answering her swift summons once she and Catrain were neatly and secretly slipped back into the palace. “I did not expect to see you again before next Chapel Day.”

  Seated on a velvet-covered chair in her official dayroom, deliberately unattended by her ladies, Berardine smoothed a fold in her pearl-grey damask skirts. “My purpose was somewhat diverted, Howkin.”

  More than once Baldwin had declared that the majordomo would tear his own heart from his breast with his teeth before ever he’d betray their house. Watching him closely, she saw a fierce disappointment leap behind his well-schooled servant’s face, and was comforted.

  “It pains me to hear you say so, Madam,” he said. “I know you had high hopes for your gracious daughter’s settlement.”

  “I still have them, Howkin. Diverted is not the same as defeated.”

  He brightened. “No, Madam. That’s surely true.”

  “It’s possible I was o’erhasty in my eagerness to settle Catrain. Clemen yet remains in turmoil following Harald’s hasty despatch.”

  “If true, ’tis a pity,” said Howkin, downcast again. “You at least met with its new duke? This bastard, Roric?”

  He was bordering on insolence, but she was prepared to disregard it. Lacking Baldwin, missing him so hurtfully, Howkin’s solid loyalty was an echo of her beloved’s steadfast support.

  “Roric and I did meet, Howkin,” she said, toying with her favourite ruby ring. “And it went well. Catrain impressed him. But now that I’ve assuaged your curiosity you’ll promptly forget you ever heard me mention his name.”

  “Madam,” Howkin murmured, pricked into remembering his rightful place. Candlelight gleamed on his grey hair and doubled itself in his blue tunic’s bright brass buttons. “Not a whisper of him shall pass my lips.”

  “Very good.” Bone-weary, she fought the urge to slump. “Was I missed, Howkin?”

  “Exarchite Lamesh requested an audience, Madam, but did not press the matter once I explained you were slightly indisposed.”

  Lamesh. The Exarch’s most trusted priest in Ardenn. A good enough man, but persistent. “What did he want?”

  “Madam, he declined to enlighten me.”

  She smothered brief amusement. “Best you send to him come morning. Invite him to attend me here.”

  “Yes, Madam.”

  “There’s nothing else I should know?”

  “I don’t believe so, Madam.”

  “Then you’re dismissed, Howkin. And thank you.”

  He bowed with infinite correctness, then left her. For some time she sat in her extravagant chair, relieved to be neither aboard a wave-lurched galley nor trapped within a swaying litter. Through the closed door that led to her inner apartments she could hear the whisperings of her ladies, those twittery hens, roused to excitement by her return. They thought she and Catrain had travelled into the countryside for a mother-and-daughter retreat. They’d been told to sew their lips on it, and she had no reason to think them disobedient. It was the height of accomplishment to be named one of Berardine’s ladies. There wasn’t a hen among them who’d risk her place or her family’s wrath by speaking out of turn.

  Because she’d stir alarm if she kept them waiting any longer, she abandoned the rare pleasure of solitude and suffered herself to be curtsied and smiled at, exclaimed over, disrobed and bathed and scented and lotioned and encased in demure embroidered linen. Not a man’s hand upon her anywhere. No more a wife but a widow, a living doll, excised of passion. Her ladies’ possession. Ardenn’s bride.

  When she could bear no more of their fussing she sent them away, pleading a megrim. At least that wasn’t a lie.

  Alone in her dark chamber, in the desolate bed she’d shared with Baldwin, she sought in vain for sleep. All her treacherous fears, unbridled, stampeded inside her painful skull. What if Roric failed to understand the great honour she’d offered to bestow on him? What if he rejected Catrain or–worse–allowed his personal desires to be over-ruled by his council? For all he was a man comfortable at court and blooded in the Marches he was still a child when it came to his authority. Did the maggoty worm of his bastardy gnaw at the heart of him? It was a greater taint in Clemen than in many other realms. Why that should be, she had no idea. Noble bastards abounded elsewhere, to little ill-effect. Well, save the Danetto Peninsula of course. But they were mostly mad in Danetto. Everyone knew that.

  He spoke of Catrain kindly. I did not mistake the look in his eye, the hunger. He’d happily play the bold ram to her sweet ewe. And for all his protestations I saw that other hunger. Ambition. Isn’t he Harald’s cousin? Berold’s grandson? He springs from a lusty bloodline, never mind he’s not bred true.

  And then there was Izusa. How could she doubt Baldwin’s choice? Doubt the proofs the witch had given? She might as well doubt the sun… or the memory of her husband.

  Izusa said Catrain and Roric would marry. I must hold on to that, no matter who’d dissuade me. Izusa, Izusa. You promised to be my guide. Come to me, I beg you, and set my mind at ease.

  Exhausted, her head pounding, at last she slid into sleep. She dreamed of Baldwin’s kisses… and when she woke, her cheeks were wet.

  Though the waiting was worse than frostbite, Cat
rain showed nothing of her growing impatience to those in Carillon who liked to watch her. If she’d learned one thing from her mother it was the importance of patience. Cats who splashed too soon in a fishpond caught nothing but duckweed in their claws.

  As Baldwin’s heir she had her own small court, confined within the larger orbit of Ardenn’s duchess. She was far from independent, sadly, but at least her position was recognised. She no longer had to share the palace nursery with her annoying little sisters. That was important. For if Ardenn couldn’t take her seriously, how could she expect the prince’s regents and Cassinia’s dukes to see her as anything but a wayward girl-child in need of supervision and male guidance? How could she hope to keep Roric in his place as her consort? Because no matter how much she liked Clemen’s new duke, that was all he could ever be. The notion that Baldwin’s heir would allow the man she married to rule her or her duchy was nonsense.

  Since no ruler could afford to be ignorant, much of her time was taken up with learning. Each day a procession of tutors put their prize pupil through her paces, like an expensive minstrel’s palfrey. Resigning herself to the familiar humdrum after the excitement of Eaglerock, she danced for them, and pranced for them, sang sweet songs in four different tongues and calloused her fingers on lute-strings for them. She embroidered exquisite tapestries and cushion covers, recited the lineages of every royal house in Cassinia unto the fifteenth generation, tried to care about the wool trade, shamed the palace horsemaster with her knowledge of colic, stumbled somehow through the complications of Ardabenian mathematics… and through it all daydreamed of that surprising man, Roric. Her husband-to-be.

  But then, to her dismay, she realised she was beginning to forget his face.

  On the morning of the sixth day since she’d sailed home from Clemen unbetrothed, she dismissed her language tutor, ordered her matronly attendants to lose themselves in a convenient garden maze, and went in search of her mother. They’d scarcely laid eyes upon each other since returning to the palace. First it was the Exarchite Lamesh, then a delegation from Maletti, then the monthly royal Court of Assizes, followed soon after by another delegation, this time from Duchy Grayne, and on its heels a trading envoy from Harcia. The demands upon Duchess Berardine never ended. And she understood that, of course she did. Wasn’t she Baldwin’s daughter? The heir to Ardenn?

  But surely the least Mama can do is tell me when Roric and I are to wed. I hardly think that’s too much to ask.

  The southern tower of the palace was devoted to the cogs and wheels of governance, both seen and unseen. The grand throne room and its succession of antechambers occupied the entire top floor, loftily floating above Carillon’s general population. The rest of the tower was a rabbit warren of closets and offices and storerooms and libraries, where the sweaty machinations of the minions whose task it was to transform Berardine’s decrees into deeds were performed, day in and day out, without respite.

  Knowing that one day those decrees would be hers, the minions answerable to her, Catrain had for some time made sure her face was familiar there, and that she knew who did what for Ardenn, and why, and how. When she did become duchess she’d not be taken by surprise.

  But that was the future. Until the day she claimed her birthright she was as constrained by proper protocols as any subject in the duchy.

  “My lady Catrain,” said Howkin, bowing. “How may I serve you?”

  If her mother were a house then Majordomo Howkin would be its door. Neatly painted, hinges well-oiled, and most usually locked. Knowing better than to try charming him, Catrain offered him a regal nod.

  “Howkin. Please tell my mother I’d beg a few moments of her time.”

  “Certainly, my lady. If you’d care to wait here?”

  As Howkin withdrew from his antechamber into her mother’s–formerly her father’s–official ducal study, she swept a deceptively disinterested gaze across his parchment-covered desk. But the majordomo’s spiky handwriting was hard enough to read rightside up. Upside down it was impossible. She could make out a few names she recognised: nobles from other duchies, Exarchite Lamesh, the duke of Pruges, even the fearsome Baldassare. She felt her skin prickle. What was that wicked pirate up to now? And did anyone expect her mother to stop him?

  Surely not. Surely nobody could think Ardenn could or should—

  “My lady,” said Howkin, reappearing. “Duchess Berardine invites you to sit with her.”

  The last time she and her mother had spoken at length, in Eaglerock, things hadn’t gone at all well. She could still feel that dreadful stinging slap across her face. How completely the blow had killed her lingering excitement over Roric, and the fire, and the way she’d helped save most of Harcia’s trapped and burning horses. Berardine’s apology, afterwards, had done little to soothe the pain. Words. Just words. They couldn’t undo what was done.

  Remembering that moment, Catrain hesitated. Howkin closed the study door behind her, but she remained a few steps over the threshold. As always her gaze went first to Baldwin’s portrait, hung on the wall behind his elaborately carved mahogany desk. For all her turmoil, she smiled to see him. Dark gold hair, deep-blue eyes, a determined chin rescued from stubborness by that thumbprint of a dimple. His lips too thin for beauty, but for ever hiding some amusement. Lingering on his dear face she felt the ever-present ache deep in her heart and didn’t resent it, because he was her father and she loved him. She missed him every day.

  Of course she loved her mother too… but it was different for mothers and daughters. Everyone knew that.

  Berardine stood at the window with her back to the room. Stood very still, staring out over her glorious, sunlit city of Carillon. Waiting for her mother to acknowledge her presence, Catrain gave herself over to thought.

  As always, these days, Berardine looked magnificent. While Baldwin lived of course she’d dressed as the wife of a great duke ought, in softly flowing fine wools and velvets, and wore glistening ropes of pearls and gold beads around her neck. But she never appeared more grand than her husband, never garbed herself so richly that next to her he’d seem poor. Baldwin had been the brilliant sun, she the moon content to shine less brightly by his side.

  But with his death that, along with everything else, had changed. Lusciously plump Berardine lost her spare flesh to grief. Lean as a Lepetto hunting dog now, she encased herself in heavy, whalebone-stiffened silk brocades sewn all over with seed pearls and gold nuggets and jet beads and jewels. This morning she wore a midnight-blue gown, stitched intricate with gold thread flowers whose every heart was a glossy, faceted sapphire.

  Before Eaglerock, her first adventure into the wider world, Catrain had never paid her mother’s attire much attention. Berardine was Ardenn’s duchess, of course her clothing was the most opulent of any woman in the duchy. Since returning from Clemen, though, she’d realised there was more to her mother’s astonishing dresses than mere show. In Eaglerock, for the first time, she’d seen her mother uncertain. Seen her at the mercy of someone else. A man. And seeing that she understood a profound and sobering truth. Like a knight, Berardine daily dressed for battle, and within her costly carapace did all that she could to rule her inherited duchy invulnerable, like a man.

  It was a stern lesson for a daughter to learn. That even her mother, the most powerful woman in Ardenn, in Cassinia, could be afraid. Could find herself in danger, like every other woman.

  She never told me. Why didn’t she tell me? How am I old enough to marry but too young to know that?

  Staring at her silent mother, who stood statue-like before the chamber’s window, Catrain felt a fresh stirring of unease. It was improper for anyone, even a daughter, to speak to Ardenn’s duchess before being spoken to by her first, but…

  “Mama?” She took a step closer. Her mother’s unnatural stillness was making her pulse leap. “What’s amiss?”

  Sunlight sparked on sapphire as her mother took a deep breath. Shifted, just a little, and held out her left hand. Her ringed fingers cl
asped an unrolled letter. They were shaking. Her many rings were sparking, just like her dress.

  “Read this, Catrain.”

  Mouth suddenly dry, she crossed the beautiful hand-woven Rebbai carpet like a doe venturing onto thin ice. And with every cautious step thought she could hear her life splintering.

  “Who is it from, Mama?”

  “Read it, I said.”

  Catrain stopped. Swallowed tears. First the slap in Eaglerock, and now a voice so sharp and hard it could chip flint. Berardine was turning into a stranger. Her own fingers unsteady, she took the letter. Blinked until her vision cleared then waited for the attractively scrawled words to make sense.

  “Berardine, what I must tell you isn’t yet common knowledge, but to keep you waiting longer for my answer would be discourteous–and unkind. Three days from now I will wed the daughter of my chief councillor, the lord Humbert. I’ve known Lindara since I was a boy. We deal well together, she and I, and in choosing her I choose the path of least upheaval for my council and my duchy. Please believe I was honoured by the offer of your daughter’s maiden hand. Believe too that in refusing Catrain I make no criticism of her. In truth I found her delightful, and were matters here different then I might well follow my heart instead of my head. Please tell her I wish her every happiness in life. As for myself, I hope in time you will forgive me, so Clemen and Ardenn can remain the best of friends.”

  The letter was signed simply, without floursh, Roric.

  Catrain felt her breathing hitch. Felt her fingers twitch with a fierce impulse to rip the letter to shreds. She mastered it, but only just.

  “Well. And there I thought Clemen’s duke was clever enough to know he’d never find a better wife than me.” Hearing her brittle voice waver, she braced her shoulders and lifted her chin. She was Baldwin’s daughter. Roric would not make her cry. “Never mind, Mama. We won’t lose sleep over a fool. We’ll put our heads together and find someone else, someone far better than Harald’s bastard cousin to be my consort in Ardenn.”