The Path to Power

by Karen Miller

“No, Humbert. Ercole is right,” said Aistan. “It was a foolish, foolhardy action–and you were foolhardy to support it. You had no business lying to us. We should’ve been told from the start!” He turned. “Your Grace, dare I ask the outcome of your ill-considered visit to Cassinia? Was the risk you took worth it? Or did you make matters worse?”

  With a roar of outrage, Humbert buffeted Aistan’s shoulder. And just like that, the council was brawling. Raised voices. Raised fists. Threats and imprecations.

  For a little time Roric did nothing but watch. These men. These contentious, arrogant men. Yes, even Humbert. It was time they learned their place. Time he heeded Harald’s warning. Time he reminded them he was their duke.

  He stood. “Be silent! Or be divested! My lords, the choice is yours!”

  Shocked, their tongues stilled mid-shouting, they stared at him. Certain of their attention, he sat.

  “Was my visit worth it, Aistan?” he said coldly. “I believe it was. Not because I managed to coax the regents into granting Clemen even one small trading concession. Unfortunately, in that I failed. But I didn’t leave Cassinia empty-handed. Indeed, while there I learned several important lessons.”

  “Roric.” Alarmed, Humbert stepped forward. “Roric, don’t be hasty. You can’t prove—”

  “Be quiet, Humbert.”

  Humbert’s gaping mouth shut with a snap. In his eyes, a flash of temper. But he couldn’t afford to care about that. He had this moment to finally claim his authority… and if he let it pass, unclaimed, he might as well give his throne to Ercole.

  “I learned,” he said, looking at the lords of his council one by one, “that not every friend can be trusted. I learned that personal ambitions, personal hatreds, can lead men into betraying the one thing they should hold most dear. My lords, I learned–to my bitter disappointment–that not every man standing before me holds Clemen’s best interests at heart. And so I give you all fair warning: I am an excellent student. I’ll consider these lessons… and surely put them to good use.”

  No answer. His lords stared at him, blank-faced and mute.

  “That’s all,” he said. “For now. You can go.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  The bells of Carillon were ringing, cascades of pealing notes falling onto the air. Imprisoned within her long-dead husband’s carriage, talons of pain ripping her flesh with every breath, Berardine closed her eyes.

  Will they ring for me when I, too, am dead?

  She thought they would, but not for long. Leofric and his fellow regents were careful. They knew they daren’t discard Ardenn’s traditions entirely. It was why they’d always permitted her this weekly ride through Carillon’s streets, why she still appeared on the palace’s public balcony when a new proclamation was read out, and why every action throughout Baldwin’s stolen duchy was taken in her name.

  So the bells would toll for her, sonorous, sorrowful, in accordance with Ardennese tradition. And then, in less than a week, she’d be forgotten. Encased in the ducal tomb beside her beloved Baldwin. Labelled Berardine, wife of the late duke. No more than a faint footprint in Ardenn’s long history.

  And what will become of my poor Catrain then?

  Her other daughters had long been lost to her. Scattered across Cassinia. Married off at the first chance to noble sons of the regents’ choosing, part of their husbands’ grand families now. Was she made a grandmother yet? Of course. She must be. But she’d never know for sure. As soon as she realised that asking gave her keepers the pleasure of denying her even that much shallow comfort, she’d held her tongue. Put those lost daughters out of her mind.

  But try as she might, she couldn’t forget Catrain.

  Eleven years since they’d seen each other. Had her daughter married Roric she’d be a wife, a mother. Instead, like her, Catrain was condemned to a living death. Locked away in the Prince’s Isle with no hope of liberty… or love. Once a year Leofric permitted Catrain to write. For the longest time she’d feared her daughter’s letters were a fraud. Found it hard to trust them. Hadn’t she trusted the witch, Izusa? That had not ended well.

  But tucked beneath her bodice, a tattered, fragile sheet of rush-paper. As often as was safe, she wore it against her failing heart. A travel-stained letter, smuggled to her by ways she’d never know. And for the past five years that letter had kept her alive.

  I have seen her. She misses you. She is unharmed. And it was simply signed: Roric.

  How he’d found Catrain, she couldn’t imagine. What it had cost him to send the letter, she didn’t care. She’d thought all hope was lost. His letter had pulled her back from the abyss. But now not even a handful of words could sustain her. She was forty-one and dying. And she was desperate to see Catrain before the end.

  Carillon’s bells were still ringing, joyous and free. But as her carriage swung to the right she heard their timbre change, heard the deeper, more portentous tolling of the bell called the Old Duke. Massive and beautifully sculptured, it hung in the belltower of the city’s oldest exarch-house. Then the sound of the carriage-horses’ hooves changed from crunch-crunch to clop-clop. Gravel to cobbles. They were driving along Baldwin Fairway, Carillon’s most splendid thoroughfare. Her palace, her prison, lay directly ahead.

  Seated opposite her in the carriage was the man who’d taken dear Howkin’s place. Master Corbert. He kept her close and reported her every sneeze and wince and moan to the regents. Leaning forward, he pulled upon the carriage’s window cord. The green velvet curtains drew back, letting in the light.

  “Wave, Madam,” he said, in his dry, clipped voice. “The people expect it.”

  Madam. How laughable. When they called her Madam, did they think she thought they meant it? That she didn’t understand she was being taunted, as though they sprayed perfume on a whore and called the drab my lady?

  Perhaps. Or perhaps they didn’t care. What she did know, full well, was that to the regents she was a whore. A vixen. Unrepentant and unnatural. A woman who thought to rule like a man. They despised her and she despised them in return. But still she waved at the waving Ardennese who’d gathered along the Fairway to watch her go by. She even smiled, because Corbert was not beyond withholding her syrup of poppy if he thought her insufficiently compliant. And without that small mercy, the pain would surely kill her before she saw Catrain one last time.

  Returned to her apartments, she used the old, well-worn excuse of needing her water closet to hide Roric’s letter. Then her gelded body servant, Ervin, helped her out of the rich ruby velvet gown that these days hung on her like an empty flour sack. One servant for Ardenn’s duchess. One gelded man. Leofric refused her female companionship because he feared a woman’s soft heart. How little he knew women.

  Ervin almost carried her to the bed. “Will that be all, Madam?”

  Swathed in comfortable linen, she sank onto her pillows and patted Ervin’s arm. He wasn’t unkind, merely indifferent. She found herself grateful for it. Kindness would be impossible to bear.

  “I’d see the physick, Ervin.”

  A gelded man had no authority of his own. Ervin asked Corbert and Corbert agreed. The physick came and, as Corbert watched, an eager carrion bird, he handled her meatless bones and swollen belly as carefully as he could.

  It was a torment to speak afterwards, but she was Baldwin’s wife. “How long, Joppa?”

  The physick looked to Corbert, asking permission to answer. Oh, how that galled her. But she was powerless in her own palace. A broken doll, soon to be discarded.

  Permission granted with a nod, Joppa clasped his hands before him. Such a neat little man. Never once had she seen a spot of blood on him that wasn’t her own.

  “We are close to the end, Madam.”

  She raised her thinned grey eyebrows. “We, Joppa? What–are you dying too?”

  “Madam.”

  And that was Corbert, with a warning. They’d deny her everything, even the brief solace of sarcasm.

  “How close, Joppa?” she asked. �
��Will I see summer’s end?”

  “No, Madam. I’m sorry.”

  Her raddled body had already told her, but she’d wanted it said aloud in Corbert’s presence. She’d wanted a witness.

  “Don’t be, Joppa. The sooner I’m released from this misery, the better.” She rolled her head on the pillows. “Master Corbert, you’ve heard the verdict. I’ll not plague you for much longer. Please, I beg you. Let me see Catrain.”

  Corbert’s bulbous brown eyes glittered with his dislike. “That’s for the regents to decide, Madam.”

  “Then ask them for me. Tell them I went down on my knees. It’s not a lie, Master Corbert. My dying soul is on its knees to you, ser.”

  Corbert looked at the physick. “A sound dose of poppy, I think, Joppa. The duchess is upset, and in pain.”

  She swallowed the sickly sweet syrup without protest, because she was in pain and because if she refused Corbert would find a small, mean way to punish her. The weight of the poppy dragged her eyes closed before her keeper and the physick left the room.

  For nearly five weeks, Corbert never answered her request. She didn’t ask again. That too would earn punishment. And she had so little now she couldn’t bear to lose any more. Perhaps that made her a coward. She didn’t care. What courage she still possessed she needed for the daily battle to get out of bed. To face her wasting self in the mirror. To take a breath, and then another breath, and not fall to the floor. Death had dawdled for so long… but now it was running. And she no longer had the strength to outrun it. What meagre strength she did have she was keeping for Catrain.

  But Catrain didn’t come. And with every passing day it seemed more and more likely her request would be denied. The pain of that was worse than everything else she endured. Not even Roric’s letter could ease the suffering. No longer daring to keep the rush-paper within touch, for fear of Ervin discovering it, she felt as though her last hope had died. So she took refuge in sleep, and dreams of better days.

  When she heard Corbert’s voice she thought she was tricking herself. Groaned a weak protest, and turned her face away.

  “Madam. Do you understand me? Your daughter is here.”

  Trammelled in her bed with pillows and bolsters, fending off the afternoon’s chill with goose-down quilts, Berardine slowly opened her eyes. There was Corbert, the carrion keeper, his beaked nose wrinkled at the sly, sour smell of impending death. At his side, a tall and slender young woman. She was weeping. Her tears fell from Baldwin’s blue eyes. She had honey-gold hair bundled maiden-loose into a plain caul. Her dress was dark green linen, scarcely embroidered, and girded round her hips with a modest leather belt. On a choked sob, she clutched at Corbert’s sleeve.

  “Ser, might I have a little time alone with my mother? I know she has sinned greatly against Prince Gaël and his regents, and deserves every punishment that might be devised–but look at her. She is no more a threat to the prince than a starving sparrow in the weeds. If you could show her mercy…”

  “Lady!” Corbert pulled his arm free. “This is most unseemly. Did you not swear to the regents that—”

  “Yes, I swore, Master Corbert!” The young woman flung herself at Corbert’s feet and snatched up his hand. “And I swear to you, on my life, I am no less the prince’s obedient servant in this moment than I was the day I left his court. But my mother is near death. Please, have mercy. Set aside her wickedness and grant me leave to speak of womanly things with the woman who birthed me. I’ll have no other chance.”

  Hugely discomfited, Corbert prised her fingers loose. “Get up.”

  The young woman stood. She was limber, and graceful. “Please, ser, forgive me,” she whispered, her gaze submissively downcast. “That was shameful.”

  Confused, Berardine stared at her. This was Catrain? It couldn’t be. Catrain was Baldwin’s irrepressible, hoydenish daughter, a wild spirit who stole out of borrowed houses without permission and dashed into burning stables to save someone else’s horses. She wasn’t meek. She wasn’t mewlish. She didn’t sob or beg.

  Corbert’s doublet was blue velvet, robustly stitched with gold thread. He smoothed the nap, then plucked at the extravagantly waxed point of his gingerish beard.

  “Given the circumstances I will forgive your unwomanly boldness,” he said, so pompous. “For all your unfortunate breeding, the regents report you as a well-behaved maid. Since you humbly acknowledge your fault–and your mother’s manifest disobedience–I will grant your request. But be warned. Abuse my generosity and you’ll be whipped to a bloody mess.”

  Yet again, the young woman plunged to her knees at his feet. “Thank you, Master Corbert! What a good man you are!”

  Fighting the ever-present pain, Berardine watched Corbert withdraw from her apartment’s heavily curtained, lamplit bedchamber. Watched the young woman wait until the door was closed, then raise her hand and make an obscene, soldier’s gesture.

  “Rampant old fart,” she muttered, rising to her feet. “And a henwit to boot. What I wouldn’t give to whip him bloody!”

  Berardine felt her laboured breathing catch. She knew that scornful voice. She remembered that impetuous temper. Not meek at all. In no way mewlish. A terrible joy welled.

  “Catrain!”

  The young woman leapt to her. “Yes, Mama, it’s me.”

  No amount of agony could have kept her from clutching Catrain to her breast. Weeping, she pressed her sunken cheek to her daughter’s smooth face and cradled the back of her head as she’d done when her child was an infant. But then she let go, because there wasn’t enough time.

  “Catrain, my love. I can scarce believe it. I was sure the regents would keep you from me.”

  Kneeling beside the bed, Catrain smeared the back of her hand across her wet cheeks, a childhood gesture so familiar, Berardine bit her lip.

  “They were going to,” her daughter said, unsteady. “They squabbled with each other for days.”

  “And then they let you come. Why?”

  “Because of politics. For appearances. They’ve decided I’m to be the duchess of Ardenn after you.”

  And that was unexpected. “What?”

  Catrain pulled a face. “In name only, Mama. They won’t let me rule. Or marry. I’m to have a privy council answerable to Leofric and the others. The council will make the decisions and I’ll sign the writs, so everything is legal.”

  “As they have done with me.” Aching, Berardine tried to smile. “Still. At least they’re sending you home. At least they—” But she couldn’t say it. Even the thought made her quail.

  “Haven’t killed me?” Catrain snorted. “I think they would have, years ago, only they didn’t dare. They failed to keep my presence at court a secret and the dukes’ men watch closely. If any ill befalls me, the dukes will take it as a personal threat.”

  “Then won’t they help you escape the regents’ clutches? There must be a way to reach them, Catrain. Baldwin was their brother duke. Surely—”

  “Perhaps if I were Baldwin’s son the dukes would act,” Catrain said, temper snapping. “As a woman, as your daughter, it seems I deserve my fate. Their concern for me is selfish. They want to be sure the regents get no taste for ducal blood.”

  She bit her lip again, harder. Had to know, had to ask, though she dreaded the answer. “You’re well-treated? You’re not abused?”

  “I’m fed,” Catrain said, after a moment. “I’m clothed. The regents are strict but I give them no cause for complaint.”

  And that was the truth. But not the whole truth. “Catrain…”

  Her daughter shivered. “Oh, Mama. The prince’s court is a viper’s nest. Its air reeks of treachery and greed. Everywhere you look, you’ll see somebody scheming. Only one soul in the palace truly cares what happens to me.”

  Berardine blinked away fresh tears. Eleven years in a viper’s nest. Forgive me, Baldwin. “Who, child?”

  “Prince Gaël. We’re friends, he and I.”

  “The prince? Then—”

&
nbsp; “But he’s mad,” Catrain whispered, her brief smile fading. “And there’s no hope for him. Or me. Nor any hope for the Principality, I fear. What will happen when Gaël comes of age is anyone’s guess. All I know for sure is that the dukes would see Cassinia’s streets run with blood before yielding so much as a thumb’s-worth of the independence they’ve gained since an infant inherited the crown.”

  “You sound like your father,” she said softly. “Baldwin had the keenest mind of any man I ever knew.”

  “I think of him often. And I think of you, every day. Mama—” Catrain’s voice broke. “I’m so sorry. Your captivity, the way they treat you, it’s my fault. If I’d not been naughty in Eaglerock, if I hadn’t offended Roric, then—”

  “No, child! We were undone by another man’s malice and the regents’ lust for power.”

  “I saw him, you know,” Catrain murmured. “Roric. Five years ago, in the palace garden. We spoke, and I—”

  “I know. He sent me a letter.”

  “He did?” A flush of colour tinted Catrain’s cheeks. “I begged him to get word to you that I was–but I never dreamed he could–the regents are still punishing Clemen because we–he wrote?”

  “When I thought to drown in misery, that letter–his kindness–saved me,” she said, her voice unsteady. “I think perhaps it could save you.”

  Catrain stared. “Save me? How? Roric is—”

  She pressed a finger to Catrain’s lips. Swallowed a moan as sickening pain surged through her. It was madness, surely, to even consider once more trusting in Izusa’s vague prophecies of her daughter and Clemen’s duke. The witch had abandoned her. The witch was made of lies.

  Only… only…

  Against every chance, Catrain and Roric had met again. She begged him for a favour and he risked everything to help her. Now I’m dying, and she’s to be Ardenn’s duchess… and Roric, in Clemen, is almost close enough to touch.

  She’d long ago lost her faith in Izusa. But Baldwin never did–and she still believed in Baldwin. Besides. She was desperate. If a leaky boat was the only boat, then that was the boat to row.