The Path to Power

by Karen Miller

  “My lord, you’re monstrous unfair! Whatever you think you saw, you’re mistaken.”

  No, no. He wasn’t about to let her outface him. “I’m not,” he said grimly. “I know you’re cuckolding Roric.”

  “My lord!” Her eyes glittered with feigned indignation. “How can you slander me so? I never—”

  “Hold your lying tongue, harlot! There’s no point denying it. Your maid’s taken and the witch has confessed all!”

  For a moment she stood there, frozen. Then she sank again to the settle. Clasped her slender, elegant hands in her lap. “I see.”

  “You say you’re not spreading your legs for Vidar? Then who d’you spread them for, girl? Whose bastard would you have Roric raise as Clemen’s next duke?”

  “Oh,” she said, lifting an eyebrow. “So now you object to bastards?”

  If he slapped her once he’d keep on slapping, till she was as raw and bloody as her dead witch. To be safe, he moved aside.

  “Hold your tongue, then. It doesn’t matter. Whoever the cockshite is, your trullish legs are closed to him now.”

  “My maid,” she said, after a furious silence. “Merget. You say you have her?”

  “I do.”

  “Did she—”

  “Betray you? No. More’s the pity for her. I had the little bitch followed, after I saw you and Vidar dancing.”

  A marble statue, Lindara sat there. Not a hint of remorse. “How resourceful.”

  “You don’t ask how she is.”

  “Does it matter?”

  And this was his daughter. Revolted, Humbert folded his arms. “Fetch me the witch’s potions, girl. Keep none back, for these apartments will be searched. And in the morning you’ll see Arthgallo. He’ll leech you clean of the filth you’ve swallowed.” And he’d see Roric purged too, though convincing Arthgallo to lie about the reason would be no mean feat. “Then you’ll fuck with your husband till you give him an heir.”

  Her chin lifted. “And if I won’t?”

  “You will. Or so help me…”

  A tear trailed down her bloodless cheek. “Do you mean to tell Roric?”

  “And break his heart?” Despairing, he shook his head. “I don’t understand you, girl. For six years that boy has loved you and defended you and forgiven you his lack of a son. And all the while–all the while…” He breathed out, hard. “But you’d best be warned, Lindara. I’m not so forgiving. Cross me again–or breathe a word of this to Roric–to any soul–and I’ll see you’re put down like the bitch you are. Better by far that he mourn your corpse than learn the truth.”

  The tear had dried. She stared up at him, saying nothing. Her eyes were cold, and defiant.

  “Fetch those potions,” he said hoarsely. “The sight of you makes me sick.”

  She obeyed, filling a small, tooled leather chest with the witch’s wickedness. Then in silence she handed the chest to him, and in silence he took it.

  “Humbert,” she said, as he reached the chamber door, the chest hidden beneath his robe. “You call me a harlot–but if I am, it’s what you made me. I never wanted Roric, but you forced me to take him. When you should’ve been a loving father, you played the brothel-keeper instead. So if you’re looking for someone to blame, look in the mirror. My conscience is clear.”

  Halted, he turned his head until he could see her from the corner of his tear-blurred eye.

  “Give Clemen’s duke a son, Lindara. Or die in chains like the witch. Those are your only choices. And don’t think to run. You’d never escape the castle.”

  He banged the chamber door shut on her wordless rage.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Through the long, dragging night, as she restlessly paced her bedchamber, Lindara held fast to one small consolation–that no matter what Merget might confess, she could never point an accusing finger at Vidar. The silly girl had no idea of her mistress’s trysts with a lover. All she’d ever done was collect Damikah’s pills and potions and bring them back to the castle. As for the witch… yes, her confession was calamity. But though she’d known there was a lover, she’d never been told his name. So Vidar must be safe, surely. Not even Humbert would dare persecute a man whose crime he might suspect, but couldn’t prove.

  Unless he finds a way to snatch Vidar into secret keeping and there torments him till he breaks, and tells the truth.

  Outrageous, yes, but she wouldn’t put anything past her father. With his sons dead, all Humbert cared about was becoming grandsire of a duke. He’d not flinch at committing more underhanded brutality. Not if it meant revenging himself on the man who’d nearly cost him his dream. And Vidar had no family to speak of. No one with power to stand for him against the second-most powerful man in Clemen. Aistan wasn’t family yet. Let one whiff of scandal touch him–let Humbert so much as hint at matters unsavoury–and Vidar would never wed with pathetic, dowdy Kennise. Aistan would discard him faster than a cook throwing rotten meat into the midden. Which meant Vidar’s only hope was that he’d be protected by Humbert’s need to protect himself.

  At least, that’s what she believed. Had to believe. For if she couldn’t believe it she’d break to pieces.

  Eventually, exhausted, she stumbled against a carved bedpost and clung to it, a shipwrecked survivor in the stormiest of seas. Merget taken. Damikah dead. And with her last moontime proof of an empty womb, not even the hope of Vidar’s child to sustain her. Six years of secret striving laid to waste in a matter of hours.

  Humbert saw us dancing. We betrayed ourselves dancing. One lingering look, one private smile, and we’re undone?

  Oh, she could weep. And so was she punished for encouraging Roric to discourage sour exarchite prohibitions against harmless frolicking.

  Dawn came at last. Slumped on the floor at the foot of the bed, wrapped in fox-fur, she heard the stirring of her ladies beyond the chamber door. Someone knocked, tentatively, and called her by name. When she didn’t answer there was another knock, more determined. She wanted to scream at the ever-present, chattering magpies.

  Go away. Leave me be. Don’t you know my life is ruined?

  But if she didn’t let them in to help with her chamber pot, to bathe her face and breasts and arms with rosewater, brush her hair and braid it with pearl-sewn ribbons, lace her into linen and fine wool, garter silk hose upon her legs, fit her feet with velvet slippers, drape her bodice with gold chains and prick pearls through her ears, they’d shriek an uproar to bring Eaglerock castle crashing down upon their heads.

  Humbert returned just as a kitchen steward was setting out her morning meal of manchet, curd cheese, apricot paste and cider.

  “Be gone,” he said to the steward, and her ladies, jerking his thumb at the outer chamber’s carved and gilded doors. “Her Grace will call when she needs you.”

  She might be Clemen’s duchess, but Humbert was master of any room he chose to enter. Her people obeyed without comment. Only two would meet her gaze. They might be magpies, but they weren’t dullards. They knew something was amiss.

  It galled her to sit, but her legs were shaking. All her self-control was in her face, so he might not see her afraid. Had she loved him once? Possibly. As a little girl. In those long-ago days when she could amuse him. Before he saw her as his pawn, to be moved about the chessboard of his life on a whim.

  Spine sword-straight, breathing ordered, she carefully arranged her dark blue skirts. Watched him from beneath lowered lashes as he helped himself to her bread and cheese, and her cider. Often he dressed in bright, lavishly jewelled doublet and robes, but this morning his clothing was sober. Dark brown. Dull green. Only a hint of flashing bronze. He wore a flat black velvet cap with the smallest curling white feather, and only one heavy gold ring. His signet ring, used to seal the fate of anyone he chose to mislike. Eyes narrowed, considering her, he licked a smear of soft cheese from his thumb.

  “Your maid’s dead.”

  Though she tried, she couldn’t hide her shudder. “Did you kill her?”

  “
No. The bitch hanged herself. Sometime in the night.”

  A buzzing in her ears as the chamber whirled drunkenly around her. A horrible looseness in her bowels. Would she need a change of dress?

  “Poor Merget,” she said, hearing her voice alarmingly distant. “I’ll give coin to one of the exarchs, so he can sing for her soul.”

  Her father’s calloused thumb and finger caught her chin, forced up her head. “Not that it makes any difference,” he growled. “Not with your witch having told me all I never wanted to know.”

  If she pulled away from him he’d strike her. She could see it in his angry, resentful eyes. So she lowered her gaze, submissive, the perfect picture of a chastened child.

  “Egann is here,” he said, releasing her. “He’ll escort you to Arthgallo. After you return—”

  She risked an upwards glance. “You don’t escort me yourself?”

  “There’s a council meeting,” he said. “With Roric gone, I must preside. Egann has my confidence. I warn you, girl. Don’t test him. After you return from the leech, you’ll not set foot beyond these chambers till I give you leave.” He raised a finger. “Which won’t be before Roric’s home again, so you’d best have plenty of embroidery to pass the time.”

  Was she duchess of Clemen, or no more than a servant? Staring at her father’s broad, robed chest, not daring to risk him seeing her contempt, she wondered if he ever thought of that. If he ever, if only once, stopped to think of how he spoke to her.

  She thought not. The great lord Humbert knew as much of courtesy as a gadfly did of swordplay.

  “And what do you suggest I tell my ladies?”

  He glared, beard trembling as he worked his broad jaw. “That your maid was found dead this morning in the township. That you’re sore dismayed by this news and seek a remedy for your grief. And that you’d bear the grief alone, so they should quit Eaglerock for the day. I want them gone. I’d not have them squawking while these chambers are searched.”

  Or spreading inconvenient gossip, either. “Is that all? My lord?”

  “For now. Eat your breakfast. Arthgallo’s expecting you.” She remained seated after he left, and stirred only when her ladies fluttered in… and it was time to tell more lies.

  “My lords, I must protest!” Scarwid, red-faced and bolder than once he’d used to be, slapped the arm of his chair to underscore his unhappiness. “’Tis all very well for you, with your estates lying safely south of the Muckle River. But for those of us north of the Muckle, where blistermouth took two out of every three sheep, if it weren’t for the exarchite houses there’d be even more fear and hunger to contend with! And you’d have this council thank them with another tax? For shame!”

  His fellow councillors launched into heated protest at being so berated. Seated in Roric’s chair, facing them, Humbert took a deep breath and willed himself calm. Nigh on two hours he’d been trapped in the council chamber with his contentious colleagues, who of late could scarce bid each other good morning without coming to blows. It seemed Clemen’s mounting woes were become some kind of pestilence, infecting Eaglerock’s court with fear and division. A pity he couldn’t call upon Arthgallo to give every man here a purge.

  Arthgallo. Reminded, he quelled his own fears. Last night he’d despatched Egann to the leech with the witch’s foul pills and potions and a brief note explaining Lindara’s use of them and how she must be safely purged. Once he was done with this mumpery he’d hie himself to the leechery so he might learn the worst outcome of his daughter’s treacherous conduct. He could only pray she’d not poisoned herself past any normal use. And as for Roric…

  Arthgallo will see him right. He’s more than a match for a dead Osfahr witch.

  Heart painfully thudding, he wiped suddenly damp palms down the front of his doublet. Then he stood, commanding the attention of Clemen’s squabbling councillors.

  “Clap tongue, my lords! You sound like a rabble of Khafuri bazaar vendors!” Having gained their affronted attention he sat again, heavily frowning. “State your objections one at a time, if you please.”

  A moment of silence, as they stared at each other. Then Aistan steepled his fingers. “A question for you, Scarwid. The blistermouth outbreak. Can you tell us how it started?”

  “How should I know?” said Scarwid, harassed and offended. “Am I a shepherd? And what has it to do with—”

  “Everything,” Vidar said curtly. “Since the Exarch’s priests are to blame for Clemen’s loss of more than half its flocks.”

  Vidar. Curdled by a surge of hatred so overpowering, so visceral, that for a moment he couldn’t breathe, Humbert stared at the floor. Never would he believe Lindara’s denials. It was this fuck, this cockshite, she’d turned traitor for against Roric. All that remained to do was find a way to punish him–without revealing his crime.

  And he would, no doubt of it. He’d not lived to a ripe age without cunning and sly wit.

  Scarwid was spluttering. “—to prove such a rank accusation, Vidar! I promise you the exarchites in my district are good, decent men!”

  Vidar was staring at Scarwid with his one cynical eye. “You defend them most passionately, Scarwid. Are you a convert to their mopish cause?”

  “And if I am?” Scarwid’s face reddened. “What’s my spiritual life to you, I’d like to know?”

  “Nothing,” Humbert said loudly, before the cockshite could reply. “In Clemen a man’s soul is his own business.”

  “His soul, perhaps, but not his sheep,” Vidar said. “The exarchite houses north of the Muckle River brought in animals from Danetto already sick with blistermouth. The pestilence spread from their holdings.”

  Faugh. Knowing now what he knew, if Vidar told him it was raining he’d send a squire to make sure. “What folderol d’you talk now? Beasts entering Clemen from other lands are inspected in Eaglerock harbour by an animal leech. Blistermouth has ready signs, even before the pustules form. Do you tell me our harbour leeches are blind, not to see them?”

  “Blind or bought,” said Ercole the indolent, sprawled in his chair. “And my coin is on bought. The harbour’s a hotbed of corruption. Any fool knows that.”

  “Not this fool,” Humbert growled. “Watch your step, Ercole.”

  Dead Argante’s half-brother hesitated, then waved a compliant hand. Obedient still, but these days inclined towards brief outbursts of rebellion. Humbert curled his lip. Rumour had it Ercole was eyeing Master Blane’s orphaned granddaughter for a wife. The Bartrem girl, like Scarwid, hailed from north of the Muckle, but with her father’s death she’d shifted south to bide with Blane and his wife. The thought of the merchant wedding her to Ercole churned his belly. The last thing Roric needed was that little shite marrying into rich pastures.

  But he couldn’t fret on it now. Let Ercole’s ambitions be a problem for another day.

  Shifting attention to this day’s problem, he levelled a look at Vidar. “Talk is cheap, my lord. What proof prompts you to make these accusations?”

  Vidar reached into his doublet and withdrew a folded, sealed sheet of heavy paper. “This proof, my lord. Though I doubt corruption in the harbour’s so bad–yet–as Ercole fears, still for some time I’ve had misgivings. So I looked into it, discreetly, and found this.”

  “You looked into it?” Humbert said, taking the proferred document. “Without bothering to inform His Grace?”

  “Vidar raised his concerns with me,” said Aistan, mildly enough–though his eyes were sharp. “And upon sober reflection, I advised him to do as he thought best.”

  “You didn’t advise him to raise these concerns with Clemen’s duke?”

  Aistan smoothed the edge of his beard. “As demonstrated by his continued absence, Humbert, Clemen’s duke has enough proven troubles to deal with. I’d not care to burden him further without cause. Would you?”

  They were seated side by side, Aistan and the cockshite who’d soon be made his goodson. Now they stared at him as one man, and as one man dared him to stir the m
atter more. And because he couldn’t–not here, at least, and not now–he was forced to let them believe they’d bested him.

  “Even so,” he said, feeling every muscle in his body harden with resentment. “You set a poor example, my lords. I’d advise you not make it a habit.”

  “And I’d know what gave you cause to look meanly upon the exarchites in my district,” said Scarwid. “Unless you want to deny persecution, and claim you but stumbled by accident upon—”

  “I did learn the truth by accident, yes,” Vidar said, shifting to look at Scarwid. “But that doesn’t make it any less true. And if you must know, Scarwid, I have for some time worried over the exarchites’ encroaching ways in Clemen. They—”

  “Oh, yes,” said Scarwid, scornful. “Such wanton wickedness, the exarchites’ charity! We should be hiding ourselves under our beds in terror at their generosity!”

  “It’s not their charity I fear,” Vidar snapped, “but their deceit.” He gestured at the paper he’d handed over. “In his hand Humbert holds signed confessions by two of the harbour’s animal leeches, who were paid to wink at the proper inspections for the exarchites’ sheep.”

  Scarwid was near to leaping from his chair. “And who paid them, Vidar? Can you prove it was Clemen’s exarchites? For that makes no sense. In case it ’scaped your notice, my lord, this epidemic of blistermouth has hurt the exarchites along with the rest of us!”

  Vidar shrugged. “Perhaps. And perhaps not. If their intent was to ingratiate themselves with the north’s lords and its ordinary people, I’d say they’re doing right well. For here you are, Scarwid, a respected northern baron and one of the duke’s councillors, defending their honour as though it were your own!”

  Leaving Roric’s lords to bicker, Humbert broke the wax seal on the document and swiftly scanned it. What he read left him sickened. He’d never believe Ercole’s careless accusation of rampant harbour corruption, but it seemed Vidar’s assertion was true. Or true enough that the council would need to probe the matter further, and officially. At the very best there’d been mistakes made. And at worst…