“That always seemed unlikely to me,” she admitted. “In my experience old men are stubborn and intractable, and it is almost impossible to change their mind on any point.”
He guessed she was speaking of her sire but not wishing to raise that particular specter right now, he did not voice his suspicion. Instead he led her outside and felt her tense as they approached the stable. The groom, however, fetched their horses without any altercation, they remounted and were soon back on the road.
The next few hours passed without incident. It was a pleasant ride, the sky was blue, the sun shone, and all seemed right with the world. Whenever he glanced Una’s way, she had a smile playing about her lips and was clearly enjoying herself.
Doubtless she was seeing south Karadok at its best, for the trees and hedgerows were in full blossom and the fields full of workers employed in planting out the crops. It must indeed be sweet for her to savor such views, after three years of house arrest with the dour Mycroft family and then a year and a half stuck at court attending stuffy state functions.
“Not long now,” he said, catching her eye. “The inn we are making for is The Merry Wayfarer. I know it well and we are assured a good night’s rest there.”
Such, however, did not prove to be the case. For when they finally arrived at the inn, Armand was most put out to find the landlord who came out to greet them was not familiar to him. It soon transpired The Merry Wayfarer had changed hands. After an indifferent supper, they retired to their room and he drew a map out from his saddlebag and unfolded it.
“Do you think you could mark on this map where you know the Northern treasure to be hidden?” he asked, setting it down between them.
Una’s expression remained calm, but he thought he felt a ripple of unease from her as she drew the document toward her. Just for the tiniest moment, he wondered if she had lied about the prospect of hidden treasure, but then dismissed the thought. She seemed inherently truthful, if anything.
She frowned over the map, running a finger over its surface. “It still shows the border,” she commented with surprise.
“It’s an old map.”
Her finger hovered over a large area marked by forest, and she looked up. “I can put approximate areas, but the locations are more precisely fixed by markers that are not shown on your map.”
He nodded, returning to his saddlebag for quill and ink and a small penknife. “Do so,” he said, passing her the items. “You will need to repair the nib. I’m not much of a scholar, or one for writing letters.”
Una busied herself inspecting the quill and trimming it to purpose for the next few moments as he sat back in his chair and poured them both another goblet of wine. After this was done, she dipped the pen in the ink and started industriously scratching away at the parchment.
“Tell me about the treasure,” Armand said, taking a sip of his drink. The wine was faintly sour and an unpleasant reminder of The Merry Wayfarer’s shortcomings.
She was silent a moment, intent on her work. When next she dipped into the ink, she looked across at him. “It is not what you might expect,” she said flatly.
He lowered his cup. “How so?”
“There are no crowns or scepters, no royal jewelry.”
He thought about this. “Gold?” he asked. “Jewels?”
“Yes,” she admitted. “But the majority of the gold or silver is in plate or coins. The jewels will be set for the most part in items of worship.”
Items of worship? His eyebrows rose. “The Northern cause fell back on ecclesiastical donation in its latter days?” he hazarded.
Una gave him a very direct look. “Donations were accepted from every quarter. The nobles and barons were expected to turn over great reserves of their wealth. When that dried up, the Northern cause stripped every house, church, monastery or abbey that its forces chanced upon.”
Armand was silent a moment. “So,” he said. “The treasure is not so much a King’s ransom as loot.”
Una inclined her head. “Yes,” she said simply.
“And your father hid some of it?”
Her smile was bitter. “My father was a fanatic. He would envision no future that did not see him set on the throne at Caer-Lyoness and covered in glory. But he had a trusted advisor, a general who was more realistic. He conspired to make caches that could be recovered in time of need.”
“And he told you their location?”
She nodded. “He made me memorize them like a catechism, lest I ever had need of them. To rally the cause in the event of disaster.”
“And what happened to this general?”
“He was executed after the battle of Kettelbrooke.” Her tone was neutral, but he thought he heard a quiver of some emotion there.
“You were fond of him?”
“He was a decent man and always considerate of me.”
He set down his sour wine and left her at her task, as he went in search of the slovenly maid who had failed to bring their hot water for washing before bed. The inn seemed largely deserted, he thought descending the stairs without seeing another living soul. Clearly its change of hands had led to a decline in patronage, and he wasn’t surprised, if their lackluster supper had been anything to judge them on.
He walked through empty room after room until he was forced to head for the kitchens in search of some service. Crossing the threshold, he found the landlord conferring with the groom, the maid, and someone in a grubby apron, who he could only guess was the cook. They wheeled around in surprise at his entrance, the landlord exclaiming hotly.
“We don’t receive guests in the kitchen, good sir! My cook is a temperamental man!”
Armand looked at the cook and thought he looked more furtive than bad-tempered. “He does not object to your stable-hand’s presence, I see,” Armand commented blandly, looking at the muddy boots of the groom who had trodden straw all over the flagstones. The landlord puffed out his cheeks and looked set to respond, but Armand forestalled him.
“I am come in search of our hot water,” he said sternly. “I was promised it would be brought up to our room after supper, and yet it has failed to make an appearance.”
The landlord turned to the sharp-faced maid and berated her roundly for her oversight. “It will be brought up shortly, good sir,” he assured Armand, ushering him out of the kitchen.
“Have you no other guests?” Armand asked. “The place seems half dead.”
The other man bridled. “We have a pilgrim lately arrived who is taking his supper in his room,” he said indignantly.
Armand’s ears pricked up. “Indeed? A devout man would eschew the dining chamber, I suppose. No doubt he took only bread and water, for he would be fasting on his quest.”
“No indeed! He partook of a good dinner of roast pork, much like yourself,” the landlord said tartly.
Armand did not make the obvious reply that the pork had been lacking in flavor and the vegetables overcooked. Instead, he made his way quickly back up to their room, half anticipating that Una’s brother might have ambushed their room without him there.
To his relief, Una seemed quite undisturbed on his return and was in the act of rolling the map back up. “I have marked the five locations,” she said. He took it with thanks from her outstretched hand and slipped it into his pack.
“The water is coming,” he said apologetically. “This inn has gone to the dogs since last I was here. I will give it a wide berth in future.” He hesitated before continuing. “Apparently the only other guest is a pilgrim who has recently arrived. He took his supper in his room.”
Una looked up quickly at that. “You think it might be Otho?” she asked.
“It might,” he conceded. “We will be sure to lock ourselves in before we go to bed, and to be on our guard in the morning.”
She nodded and a knock on the door proclaimed the arrival of the maid with the water. She brought it in with ill-grace, her unkempt hair escaping from under her cap. After setting the jug down with a thud and sloshi
ng water on the table, she retreated, muttering under her breath.
“I will not be leaving a tip,” Armand noted, shooting the bolt in the door. He noticed Una folding her lips as she poured the jug’s contents into a washing basin.
“Is it cold?” he hazarded.
“Lukewarm,” she admitted, and he swore. “We can make do until the morrow,” she said appeasingly and directed a smile at him. “It was a good day. We should not allow one poor meal to ruffle our composure.”
For a moment he debated telling her of the state of the kitchens. But what would that achieve, other than robbing her of her own serenity? “You’re right,” he rallied. “We’ll soon be out of here.” He yawned. “Let’s turn in.”
*
The fire had not been lit in the grate and though it had been a warm and balmy day, there was now a chill in the air. They both undressed quickly and climbed into bed.
Armand rolled over and blew out his candle before stretching out alongside her. “Are you warm enough?”
“Oh yes, for I found the trick long ago to climbing into a cold bed.”
“And what’s that?” he asked, sounding curious. The pillow rustled and she wondered if he had turned to face her. If so, he would not be able to clearly make her out her features.
“’Tis only to force yourself to relax your limbs. After a few moments, you fool your body, and everything warms up.”
“Surely a princess should have her bed warmed as a matter of course,” he said, and she heard the slight frown in his voice.
Una paused a moment before replying. “Perhaps in my girlhood, in my father’s palace,” she replied softly. “But I have not been at Menith now for many years,” she said, naming the Northern capital. It was a mistake to say its name aloud, for as always it conjured its ghost. The towers of Menith Castle rose in the shadows before her, only to fall away again in ruins.
“How many years?”
Una thought about it. “Some nine or ten at least.”
“What’s it like?” he asked. “I’ve never been that far north.”
“Cold,” said she. “But majestic in its own way. There are mountains and their peaks are always covered in snow. Even in the summer.”
“Should you like to go back one day?”
“No,” she replied abruptly and shivered. “My life is here now.” She squeezed her eyes shut and turned away from him, showing him her back. To her surprise, she felt his arm close about her waist and he hauled her firmly back against him. Una smothered her exclamation.
“You’re not following your own advice,” he said dryly. “Relax, Una.”
Una? He said it with such easy familiarity that her face flooded with color. No one had ever dared addressed her with such ease and assurance when she was a princess. It gave her hope for the future. “How far north have you been?” she asked, and her voice sounded husky even to her own ears.
“Strethneal,” he said shortly.
Oh. She closed her eyes, her stomach lurching as her rising hopes were immediately dashed to the floor. She knew what that meant. Sir Armand had been at the siege of Demoyne, she thought with sudden despair. She had to ask that foolish question, even though she knew it was always a mistake to go down this route. She thought of Lord Mycroft, her grim jailor of three years. His son and heir had died at Demoyne, in the mud and the rain and the misery and pain of that conflict. She remembered the hatred that would flash out of Lady Mycroft’s eyes toward her and was glad it was dark, and she could not see her husband’s face.
She had been foolish to cling to the hope that perhaps Armand de Bussell had not been touched by the evil of Karadok’s civil war, but she had always known it was a forlorn one. The whole country was scarred, she thought bleakly, and it would take more than her own lifetime to heal.
He removed his hand from her waist to run up and down her upper arm. “You’re trembling,” he said, sounding shocked. “Is it me? Una? Is it my touch?”
“No, no, of course not.” She wiped a hand over her face in the dark, as she strove to make her voice steady.
He swore, sitting up abruptly. “You’re crying! Did I hurt you on our wedding night?” His voice had an urgent undertone. “I knew I must have been clumsy sot, but I never imagined—”
“No, no,” she protested, rolling back toward him and reaching out to touch his arm. “It’s not that. I’m just being foolish, it’s nothing of that sort. Indeed, Sir Armand you have been nothing but considerate, I assure you.“
“Una,” he pulled her firmly into his arms, his voice urgent and low. “If that’s true, then why are you shaking like a leaf?”
So startled was she, by the physical contact, that she could not even think to tell him anything but the truth. “It’s silly,” she said stiltedly, wiping her wet cheeks again. “It’s just … talking of the North. Of the war,” she forced out.
“We weren’t talking of the war.”
She looked straight into his face, even though she could not make out his expression in the dark. “You said you had been to Strethneal,” she said forthrightly. “I know what that means.”
His arms tightened around her a moment in the dark. “You were there?” he asked, and she could hear the incredulity in his voice. “At Demoyne?”
She nodded, unable to speak the words aloud and his hand was suddenly at the back of her head urging her to rest her wet face against his chest. “Ah, Una, Una, my poor girl,” he murmured, along with other soothing nonsense words until she closed her eyes and let the comfort of his warm body soak into her limbs, as he rocked her in his embrace.
Even Estrilda had never babied her like this, she thought wonderingly, as she took comfort in the press of his warm body and the husky voice in her ear. Her nurse had been a brisk, no-nonsense woman who had shown her affection by the assiduousness of her service rather than affectionate gesture.
“I’m being silly,” she mumbled. “Doubtless you had a far worse time there, than I.”
“They should never have taken you to such a place,” he said vehemently. “What can they have been thinking?”
She lay still, not liking to tell him that for those four years, all her life had been nothing but a succession of battlefields. She was oddly touched by his indignation. She let herself be weak and relax just for a moment or two before lifting her head. “I’m quite well now,” she said quietly but with conviction.
“You’re sure?” he asked gruffly.
“Absolutely sure. I must—”
“Don’t apologize,” he said, guessing her intent and rearranging her, so she once more presented her back to him. Then he slipped an arm around her again, quite easily, as though it were something he had done a hundred times before. “Now go to sleep,” he recommended. “I’ll be waking you in the morning soon enough.”
What an extraordinary change in her circumstances, she marveled, that meant she was now lying here in the dark next to this man. Una lay awake long after she heard Armand’s breathing even out into sleep. Her thoughts were troubled and gave her no peace. She stared up at the ceiling above her and gave in to the fact she would probably find no sleep this night. It was not unusual for her to be thus deprived. She had lived her whole life on a knife’s edge and had often woken to the sound of a soldier’s footfall approaching to urge her to dress and flee or even to the sound of clashing swords nearby.
She had been schooled from a young age to never accept wine except from a trusted source and her father had always employed tasters to sample their every meal. In her old voluminous gowns, it had been easy to tip the contents of a goblet down her wide sleeves. These precautions had to fall by the wayside when she spent three years under Lord Mycroft’s household, but in any case, they had been an honorable family, even if they bore no love for her. She could not imagine stiff, autocratic Lord Mycroft lacing her meat with poison, though his wife perhaps might have been sorely tempted.
At the Southern palace, her dear Estrilda had insisted on drinking and eating a mouthful of any d
ish sent to her rooms, and at the public feasts she had eaten but sparingly. Her gowns had grown a good deal looser, and it was hard to remember that in her youth she had been round and plump. Perhaps, she thought folding her hands across her stomach, in old age she could relax enough to grow a little stout. That would be nice.
She was not sure why tonight she had eschewed the wine, although in truth, her husband had pulled such a face at the sip he had taken that it was not to be wondered at. The food too had been unappetizing, greasy and tough, so that could account for why she had pushed her plate away, largely untouched.
If she were truthful though, it could not entirely account for it. In part, her abstinence had been due to her own finely-tuned instincts, tingling away and warning her to be on her guard. But why was that, she pondered, turning it over in her mind?
Armand himself had been put out by the fact their hosts were not who he expected. Was that what had triggered her unease? She went over their reception by the smiling landlord who had explained he had taken over the business some twelve months earlier. Could he be an agent of the collapsed North? His accent had not been Northern, but that did not rule out such a thing.
She knew only too well that certain factions would like to gain control of her as a figurehead for their planned uprisings and rebellion. Even under house arrest, she had received smuggled messages, which she had been forced to burn, and twice the house had been breached by rebels wanting to free her and incredulous of her disinclination to go with them.
If this did turn out to be some attempt to grab her and spirit her away to some fortress full of loyalists to the Blechmarsh cause, she would resist it with her last breath, she thought with determination. She could imagine nothing worse than returning to that life of hiding and running away, a mere pawn in someone else’s game. Especially, when freedom had been almost within her grasp.
Was she just being paranoid, though? It would not be surprising she acknowledged, after the life she had led. Quickly she ran over the household in her mind’s eye. The groom had been a surly looking fellow, a hulking great brute who had led their horses to the stables with barely a word.
The Consolation Prize (Brides of Karadok Book 3) Page 9