The Winter King

by C. L. Wilson

  Lady Melle cast a glance out the windows, where rain had begun to fall. “A walk, my dear? In the cold and rain?”

  “I like the rain,” Kham snapped, and the shocked, hurt look on Lady Melle’s face made her feel like a brute. She took a breath, forcing down her temper. “I’m sorry. This headache has me on edge. But I do like the rain, and the cold doesn’t bother me.”

  “Of course, Your Grace.” Lady Melle’s polite use of Khamsin’s honorific instead of the warm, maternal “my dear” made Kham feel even worse. The white-haired lady waved to one of the footmen. “Send for our maids, Gunter. We need oiled jackets and rainshades. The queen wishes to go for a walk.”

  “No. Gunter, wait.” Kham held up a staying hand. “Lady Melle, none of you need to come with me. Stay here inside where it’s warm.” Lady Melle had a surprisingly stubborn look in her eyes, so Kham moved closer and dropped her voice to a low whisper to admit, “This morning has been just a little . . . overwhelming. I need some time to myself.”

  And then, because it suddenly occurred to her that Lady Melle’s determination to accompany her stemmed from reasons other than politeness and court etiquette, she added, “I won’t go far. I’ll keep to the gardens you can see from these windows.”

  After a long, considering moment, Lady Melle waved off Gunter the footman, and said, “Of course, my dear. Go have your walk. Only please don’t stay out too long. The king would have my head if you caught cold.”

  Kham beamed her first genuine smile in the last two hours. “I never catch cold.” Impulsively, she threw her arms around the older woman and kissed her on the cheek, then just as quickly jumped back and blushed, very conscious of the Winterladies whispering behind their fans. “I’m sorry,” she muttered. “I don’t suppose I should have done that.” She’d never had cause to put Tildy’s comportment lessons into real practice, but she did know queens didn’t go about throwing their arms around their ladies and smacking kisses on their cheeks.

  Lady Melle, once she got over her surprise, just smiled even more warmly than she had before and patted Kham’s hand. “There’s nothing to be sorry for, my dear. Gunter, send someone to fetch the queen’s wrap, then please escort the queen to the east garden.”

  Fifteen minutes later, with a warm fur coat over her red velvet dress, Kham turned her face up to the icy drizzle that even now was softening to a fine mist as the dark clouds began to lighten and break up. She took a deep breath of the clean, brisk air, flung her arms out, and whirled in a circle. Summer Sun, that felt good!

  The garden was empty and quiet. The bustling sounds from the two large baileys at the front of Gildenheim were muted here. Several fountains burbled peacefully among manicured walks. Instead of beds of bright summer flowers, the gardens here had been planted with evergreen shrubs and sculpted trees and plants that sported bright leaves or berries in shades of purple and red and a ghostly silvery gray.

  There was a maze in the center of the garden, grown from holly bushes. Kham glanced back at the arching windows of the banquet hall where she had lunched with the ladies of the court, then turned and dove into the maze, following the twisting paths between the dense hedges. It wasn’t a particularly difficult maze, and Kham found the center after only a couple of wrong turns. There, a ring of wooden benches surrounded a lovely, three-tiered fountain.

  Scarlet flashed at the corner of her eye, and she turned her head to see a bright red cardinal alight atop one of the benches on the other side of the fountain. She smiled. She’d always loved birds. They reminded her of her brother because wherever Falcon went, birds always congregated. They flocked to him with the same eager devotion as his many beautiful female companions.

  Kham watched the cardinal hop down and peck at the cold ground beneath the bench and wished she’d brought bread crumbs from the luncheon. She’d have to do that tomorrow.

  A shadow passed over the center of maze, and the cardinal took wing, disappearing into the dense holly bushes. Kham glanced up to see a large, snowy white falcon soaring across the sky. It circled Gildenheim on outstretched wings, then dove in to land on a window ledge near the top of the castle’s tallest spire.

  “Where are you, Falcon?” she murmured aloud. Had her brother finally found Roland’s sword? And if he had, when he heard about the conditions of her marriage—the threat hanging over her head—would he come to Wintercraig to save her? That was just the sort of grand, heroic gesture Falcon loved most.

  So why did the idea of Falcon riding to her rescue fill her with dread?

  Her gaze wandered down the gray stone spire and traveled across the rings of fortified battlements that protected Gildenheim as if it were the greatest treasure of the kingdom. She thought about the cheers of the people gathered in the bailey to greet their king and his new bride, and the genuine care and concern he’d shown for the villagers they met along the way.

  She was married to Wynter of the Craig. She was his now. His wife, his queen . . . and his key to retaining unequivocal control of Summerlea once she gave him an heir. After the last weeks together, she knew enough about her husband to know he would never surrender anything he considered his. If Falcon came for her, there would be battle, a war that would not end until either Falcon or Wynter lay dead.

  And if Falcon had Blazing, the victor would not be Wynter of the Craig.

  For no reason Khamsin cared to examine too closely, that thought left her feeling more ill than the awful fish dishes she’d not been able to escape at lunch.

  Kham met with Vinca later that afternoon, but the tour of the palace wasn’t remotely as helpful or extensive as Khamsin had hoped it would be. They visited only the kitchens, wine cellars, the servants’ quarters, and portions of the lower four levels of the main palace.

  Kham didn’t like the wine cellars. They’d been dug deep into the mountain, through solid rock, and they reminded Kham too much of the place King Verdan had taken her to beat her into compliance with his plans. Especially since her connection to the sun disappeared when she stepped across the cellar threshold.

  Rattled by those memories, her curt, “Yes, quite impressive,” and the abrupt way she then turned and headed for the door didn’t win her any points with Vinca or the wine steward. She was too proud and too protective of her vulnerability to apologize for her behavior. Instead, she announced briskly, “I believe I’ve seen enough of the kitchens. I would prefer to spend the rest of our tour above stairs.”

  She didn’t draw an easy breath until they reached the first floor, and she stood in a beam of sunlight shining through a large, arched window.

  Wynter’s palace servants were too well trained to show disapproval, but the tiny hint of warmth that had been in Vinca’s voice at the start of the tour disappeared after that visit to the cellars, and it never returned. With cool, dispassionate efficiency, Vinca escorted Khamsin through the lower four levels of the palace proper, which housed banqueting halls, the throne room, rooms of state, and an entire wing of rooms they did not enter, which Vinca said were used by Wynter, his cabinet, and the many folk involved in the governance of the kingdom. In addition, there were all manner of parlors and galleries and a tremendous library that would have made Summer and Spring sigh with pleasure. Everywhere were terraces and balconies overlooking the mountains, the valley below, Konundal, the village at the foot of Gildenheim’s mountain, and the many, multileveled gardens built into the side of the mountain and integrated into the palace itself as it went up and up.

  At the fourth floor, Vinca turned to Khamsin and announced the end of the tour. “What about the rest of the palace?” Kham gestured to the gilded stairways twining up to floors they hadn’t visited yet.

  “Naught that would be of interest to Your Grace,” Vinca said. “Mostly just rooms used by the nobles and visiting dignitaries and their servants when they are at court, and most of those are empty now.”

  “How many more floors are there
?”

  “Another ten, not counting the towers, but three of those are servants’ quarters.”

  Kham gasped. “So many?” She’d realized Gildenheim was massive. She just hadn’t realized how massive.

  “There was talk of building an upper palace before the war.” Vinca smiled with pride before she caught herself and marshaled her expression back into a cool mask. “Things are much quieter here these last three years.”

  Kham shook her head. “If Gildenheim got any larger, you would need a horse to ride from one end of the palace to the other.”

  “Winterfolk are a hardy breed, and walking does the body good,” Vinca replied crisply. Then she sighed, and admitted, “But an expansion is unlikely to happen anytime soon. Wars are costly, and not just to the treasury.”

  A brief, tense silence fell between them at the reminder of the terrible price of war.

  Vinca cleared her throat. “If there won’t be anything else, Your Grace? Dinner will be served in less than two hours, and I have a number of duties yet to attend to.”

  “Of course. Thank you very much for the tour, Vinca.”

  “My pleasure, Your Grace. Shall I escort you back to your chambers?”

  Kham wasn’t ready to go back to her rooms. She wanted to explore a little more. “No, you go on. I’ll find my way there.”

  Vinca made no move to leave. She gnawed on her bottom lip, then said, “The king would not be pleased if I were to abandon you here alone.”

  “If I tell you to go, you aren’t abandoning me.” Kham’s mouth twisted in a sardonic smile. “Believe me, if the king doesn’t like it, he’ll know where the blame lies.” When Vinca still remained where she was, Kham arched a brow. A flicker of irritation stirred in her breast. “I’ll be fine, Vinca. I need to learn my way around. Now is as good a time as any.”

  Left with no alternative but to leave or directly disobey the woman who was—however temporarily—her queen, Vinca dipped a curtsy and made her way back downstairs.

  Once she was gone, Kham turned and started down the wide corridor that led to another set of stairs. Ten more levels? Plus all those towers and turrets? Her pulse quickened. She was an explorer at heart. Quiet, abandoned places with their musty old secrets had been her home for years, and she’d spent a lifetime ferreting through forgotten treasures, imagining where they’d come from, who had left them there.

  True to Vinca’s word, however, the fifth floor was nothing more than living quarters for palace guests—many of those rooms unoccupied, and utterly disappointing on the hidden-treasure front. Still, she opened every door that wasn’t locked and peered inside.

  The rooms were graciously appointed, luxurious without the sometimes garish opulence of the palace at Vera Sola. Kham didn’t want to admit it, but the restrained elegance of these rooms appealed to her. And every one of the rooms, occupied or not, was maintained in a perfect state of readiness.

  She was inspecting a small study, admiring the cream brocade couches and the beaded embroidery of ice blue velvet drapes, when a young maid approached and bobbed a quick curtsy.

  “Begging your pardon, Your Grace. It’s half past six, and the king sent me to escort you to your chambers to change for the evening meal.”

  Had Vinca reported that she’d left Kham unattended in the upper levels of the palace? Or had one of the servants on this floor taken exception to her poking her nose in all the rooms?

  Kham considered sending the maid back without her, then discarded the notion. If she defied him, Wynter’s next emissary would likely be one of his White Guard, and she had no desire to be marched back downstairs like a wayward prisoner. Her exploring for the day had come to an end.

  “What’s your name?” she asked the maid, as they made their way to the main staircase.

  The girl looked surprised. “Greta, Your Grace.”

  “Have you worked here long—at the palace, I mean?”

  “Since I was eight, Your Grace.”

  Kham frowned. “Eight seems awfully young to go into service. Is it customary for Wintercraig children to work at so young an age?”

  Greta lifted her chin. “My father died in a Great Hunt not long after Prince Wynter became king. My mum had four children and a fifth on the way. The king saw to it that we had a roof over our heads, food in our bellies, and work, because Winterfolk don’t take charity. Mum works in the kitchens. I started doing top-floor work until I was old enough to move downstairs.”

  “Top-floor work?”

  “Keeping the upstairs tidy. Seventh floor and higher.” She bit her lip. “No one really uses those rooms anymore,” she admitted, “but the king wouldn’t let Mistress Vinca close them up even during the war. Said it was important to keep the palace ready for whatever the future holds. It’s mostly the little ones who tend the unused rooms.”

  “The little ones?”

  “Too old to stay in the nursery but too young to do heavy work. Mostly they just dust and sweep and change the linens. Like I did when I first came here. My sister Fenna still does top-floor work. But she’s ten next year, and she’ll be training with the seamstress.”

  “What about your brothers and sisters?”

  “My brother Skander—he’s sixteen—works in the stables, but he’ll be training for the White Guard soon. My brother Tarn is an armorer’s apprentice. Linnet—she’s thirteen—works with the gardener. Some of the little ones work with the gardener, too, during the summer, but this time of year, it gets too cold, so they can’t stay out for long. Top-floor work is better. And there’s schooling in the mornings.”

  “What sort of schooling?”

  Greta frowned as if the question made no sense. “The usual. Reading, writing, doing figures.” She made a face. “History.”

  Kham’s brows raised in genuine surprise. “Where I come from, Greta, there’s nothing usual in that. Only the merchants and the nobility educate their children.” It was a long-held belief of many a Summerlander noble that their farmhands and manual laborers had no need for books and mathematics. Education tended to give the menial classes “ideas” that caused all manner of societal problems. “And, history is fascinating.”

  “I could never like it.” Greta shook her head. “All those battles and kings and dates. Deadly boring.”

  “Oh, no,” Kham objected. “All those lives, those heroes, those tales of great adventures and sacrifice. It’s the very furthest from boring anything could ever be.”

  “If you say so, Your Grace.” The young maid looked unconvinced.

  “I shall prove it to you. When is the next history lesson?”

  “History is every Thorgyllsday at ten o’clock.”

  “Excellent. Next Thorgyllsday, you will escort me to wherever these lessons are held, and I’ll share a bit of history from my country that I promise you is anything but boring. It’s the story of Summerlea’s greatest king, Roland Soldeus.”

  Greta didn’t look too enthusiastic about the prospect, but Kham attributed that to Greta’s self-professed dislike of history. She’d wager not one of these Winterchildren had ever heard the epic tale of Roland Triumphant. She had no doubt they’d love it as much as she did once.

  The prospect of sharing Roland’s valiant tale kept her smiling all the way to the dining hall, where the sight of Gildenheim’s assembled nobles greeted her like a splash of cold water in the face. As the footman rang a bell and announced her arrival, Kham doused her smile and took a deep breath, girding herself for yet another mealtime ordeal.

  The next week fell into a stultifying pattern. Although Wynter ate his evening meals with the court and visited her bedchamber nightly, she saw very little of him during the day. Her attempts to get involved in the actual running of the palace were politely but firmly rebuffed, leaving her to fill her time as best she could. She spent her mornings exploring the upper levels of the palace and talking to the
children or sitting in on their lessons. Then came the interminably long luncheon and tedious social hour with the ladies of the court, followed by an hour spent walking through the gardens and feeding the birds—which might have been blessedly private and peaceful had not several of the ladies and several White Guard taken to accompanying her. In the afternoons, she wandered about the palace and tried to get to know the servants and Winterfolk who lived and worked in Gildenheim.

  Then Thorgyllsday rolled around, bringing with it the much-anticipated history lesson. Khamsin sprang out of bed, eagerly donned a royal blue gown that had belonged to Summer, and raced upstairs, her copy of Roland Triumphant clutched to her chest. When she entered the little classroom, however, instead of a roomful of children waiting for their lesson, she found empty chairs and a history teacher who informed her that all the children had been called away to tend other matters.

  “How disappointing,” Kham said. “Perhaps I could come back next week.”

  “I’m sorry, Your Grace,” the history teacher informed her, “but if you intend to teach them about Roland Soldeus, I expect their mothers will have work for them next week as well.”

  She swallowed hard. “I see.” All week long, she’d noticed that some of the children had been disappearing from the classes, not to return, but she’d assumed that they’d just been reassigned to work in other parts of the palace. It hadn’t occurred to her that she was the reason they’d been withdrawn from the classes. “What if I were to teach them about one of Wintercraig’s heroes instead?” She didn’t know any stories about Wintercraig heroes, but there was a big library in the palace. Surely there must be something she could use in there to excite these children about history.

  “I don’t know, Your Grace,” the teacher said. “Perhaps it’s best if you leave the education of Wintercraig children to Winterfolk.”

  Kham stumbled back. There was no misunderstanding this message: She was a Summerlander, and she was unwelcome here. “Of course. I’m so sorry. I didn’t realize.”