by Morgan Rice
“You are the ones who want to speak with Duke Lars?” she asked.
Sophia nodded. “I am Sophia, and this is Kate.”
“I’ve been sent to tell you that if this is some trick, some joke, you should say so now. Admit the lie, and you’ll only spend a night in our lockup for wasting our time. Take it further, and there will be consequences.”
“It isn’t a lie,” Sophia said. “Lars Skyddar is our uncle.”
The woman nodded. “Then I am to take you to him. I just hope that you are who you say you are. This is not a matter for joking.”
CHAPTER TEN
Around Sebastian, the preparations for his wedding surged ahead, regardless of how little he wanted them to. He wanted to be able to have time alone, to grieve properly for everything he had lost, but instead he had…
“Your highness, forgive me, but if you are not still I cannot take your measurements,” the tailor said. The man had the aggrieved look of someone who already had far too many preparations to make in too short a time.
Sebastian had seen plenty of others with that look in the last day or two. There had been poets and musicians commissioned to produce the official works that would mark the occasion, servants who were to be responsible for dressing the hall, cooks who were arguing over the details of the wedding feast, and more.
Sebastian knew he was supposed to have an opinion on all of it, but the truth was that he didn’t care about any of it. It felt like some great farce, where he stood still at the center of a stage while the rest of it whirled around him at comic speed. Even when he did try to engage with it, every tiny moment of it left him thinking about the wedding he should have been having instead, the proposal he’d already made, which would never be fulfilled now.
“Your highness!” the tailor said, as Sebastian stepped away.
He walked over to the window, looking out over the city. With enough height, even Ashton could look like a peaceful place, but Sebastian could imagine the battle preparations they must be making down there. He could even see a couple of them, dirt banks forming on the fringes of the city to absorb cannon fire in a way that stone walls never could.
“Is there any news on the war?” Sebastian asked, although why he hoped that a tailor would know the details of the New Army’s progress, he didn’t know. Maybe it was just that he felt like the least informed person in the kingdom right then, insulated from the invasion by the talk of the wedding.
“Forgive me, your highness, but your mother said that you were not to be bothered with that kind of news,” the man said. “Her words were ‘tell him that I have many competent generals, and that everything is in hand.’”
There was no point in asking the tailor to go against his queen’s commands, but equally, Sebastian didn’t like feeling useless. It reminded him too much of the way he’d felt helpless standing over Sophia’s body, unable to save her; unable to even convince her sister that he hadn’t been the one to kill her.
Sebastian turned as he heard the door opening, seeing Angelica enter. Today, she wore a dress of simple blue that made the blonde of her hair shine in the sunlight. It reminded him a little of the one she had worn for the ball where he had met Sophia, and just that memory sent a flash of pain through him.
“What is it?” Angelica asked, moving over to him and putting her hands on his arms. “Sebastian, are you all right?”
It was surprising that she could pick up on his pain so easily. He didn’t feel close enough to be able to do the same with her, yet he could hear the concern in her voice.
“Just remembering,” Sebastian said. “Your dress… it reminded me of the one you wore for the ball.”
“Which was where you first met Sophia,” Angelica said.
Sebastian knew he should apologize for that. He shouldn’t be thinking about the woman he had loved while looking at the one he was going to marry.
“It’s all right,” Angelica said. “I understand that it will take time; that I’m not the one you would have chosen.”
She did a good job of hiding whatever pain she felt at that, but Sebastian knew that it had to be there beneath the surface. He didn’t want to hurt Angelica, especially not when she was the only one who had offered to help him find Sophia’s killer.
“I’m sorry,” Sebastian said. “You are… any man would be lucky to be marrying you. You’re beautiful, you’re intelligent, you’re confident—”
“And you’re saying it as if you’re trying to convince yourself,” Angelica said, with a smile. “I came because everyone was telling me that the wedding preparations would go a lot better with a groom who managed to engage with it all.”
Sebastian sighed. “I don’t want to spoil all of this for you. You deserve a better wedding than this.”
Angelica laughed at that. “If you think that your mother will allow this wedding to be anything less than perfect, you haven’t been paying attention. This is her wedding, as much as either of ours. She directs it, and we are the players, set upon the stage and expected to say our lines.”
She made it sound like a duty she didn’t particularly want either. But then, who would want a husband who was still mourning for someone else? Sebastian knew then that he was being unfair to her. All of this was about her as well as him. They both had a duty to perform, and if Sebastian didn’t do his well, then that only made it harder for Angelica to do hers.
He would do his duty then. He had no choice anyway. Sophia was gone, and he had no doubt that his mother would force him to go through with the marriage, whatever it took. Wasn’t it better for everyone if he did that duty willingly? Maybe it would even help him to think about something other than the all-consuming grief that threatened to eat him from within.
“Come with me,” Angelica said, holding out a hand. “All of this can wait. I had something prepared.”
Sebastian frowned at that, but took her hand anyway. He let Angelica lead him through the palace, heading upward using staircases that Sebastian normally didn’t use. Here and there, Sebastian saw people in military uniforms running around, obviously preparing for the coming fight.
“Ignore them for now,” Angelica said. “There will be time enough for all that later. For now, I just want some time that’s about the two of us. Can you do that, Sebastian?”
Sebastian knew he owed her at least that much, so he nodded. “I can try.”
He let Angelica lead him up through the palace, up onto one of the flat sections of the roof, where Sebastian was surprised to see that a marquee had been set up, brightly striped and open on one side to allow them to look out over the city.
Inside, rugs were set out, along with a low table, obviously designed to allow them to sit on the floor while they ate. There were dishes set out that seemed too elaborate for just the two of them, from roast swan to candied oranges obviously brought in on ships.
“The chefs wanted us to make decisions about their ideas for the wedding feast,” Angelica said, “and I thought that it might be a good chance to have some time to ourselves. To actually get to know one another.”
“That… sounds like a good idea,” Sebastian admitted. Already, Angelica had managed to surprise him. She clearly wasn’t just the spoiled noblewoman he’d always assumed she was. She’d already proven that, so maybe he owed it to her to learn who she really was before they were married.
They sat together on the warmth of the rugs, the city spread out before them like a picture.
“I’ve always liked looking at the city,” Angelica said. “From here, it’s easy to wonder about people out there and their stories. Thousands of things happening at any given moment, and most of them we’ll never hear anything about.”
“I’d always assumed that you’d find ordinary people boring,” Sebastian said.
He saw Angelica shrug. “I’m not romantic about it. Most of their lives are hard and dirty, and there are plenty of criminals out there in the city. I wouldn’t want to walk through the roughest parts looking for the beautiful
moments. But it’s nice to think that they exist. That there is some beauty in the world.”
“I think there is,” Sebastian said, looking across at her.
Angelica smiled then. “Why, my prince, was that a compliment?”
Sebastian had said it without thinking, and now guilt flashed through him at having done it. He started to apologize, but Angelica stopped him, putting a finger to his lips.
“Don’t,” she said. “I know this is hard for you, but it’s all right to at least compliment the woman you’re due to marry. In fact, I think you should compliment me again. I demand it. I demand compliments at once!”
She said that in a voice that was such a perfect version of a noblewoman making unreasonable demands of a servant that Sebastian found himself laughing despite himself.
“All right,” he said, although it was hard to do this now that he was thinking about it. “You have beautiful eyes.”
“It’s a start,” Angelica said. “You, Sebastian, are kind, and brave, and you care deeply about the things around you. If I ever manage to be loved by you, I will be very lucky indeed.”
That turned Sebastian somber again. “What if it doesn’t happen?” he asked. “What if we never end up loving one another?”
“Then we will try to make one another happy anyway,” Angelica said. “And we will find ways for that to be enough.” She reached out to touch his arm. “I do know what it’s like, you know, losing someone you love.”
The way she said it was enough to make Sebastian pause.
“Who was it?” he asked. “What happened?”
Angelica didn’t answer for almost a minute, staring out over the city as though trying to work out if she could tell him about it. Finally, she seemed to come to a decision.
“There was a boy,” she said. “His name doesn’t matter. He was a minor nobleman’s son whose family lived close to a house that I was staying at over the summer. You know what it’s like with the tours of the oldest houses.”
Sebastian did know. To escape some of the heat and stink of the city in summer, young men and women stayed in house after house around the country in a kind of slow procession of hunting parties and formal dances.
“I met him, and it was as if I’d been struck by lightning,” Angelica said. “From the moment I saw him, I knew that he was the one I would spend my life with. Better, he seemed to feel the same. From the first moment we kissed, it seemed as though we were perfect for one another. I decided that I would tell my parents that I had found my future husband the moment I got home to them.”
“What happened?” Sebastian asked.
Angelica laughed, briefly and bitterly. “He fell from a horse. All of that passion, all of that joy, and he fell from a horse in the middle of a hunt, trying to show off to me. Just like that, he was gone, and…” She shook her head.
“And?” Sebastian prompted.
“The rest doesn’t matter. What matters is that I still feel it when I think about him. I know the pain never truly goes. I’m not expecting it to, but you can build new things too. I saw you, Sebastian, and I saw a chance to finally be happy again. Even if we don’t end up deeply in love. Even if kindness and friendship is all we have.”
Sebastian found himself hoping that was true.
Angelica looked over at him. “I want to try to kiss you now,” she said. “Is that all right? I’m not expecting lightning, but it would be nice if there were at least something.”
Sebastian hesitated, but he nodded. He would need to kiss Angelica soon enough if they were to be married.
The kiss was soft, and it was sweet. More than that, Sebastian could feel himself responding to the passion in it. Angelica was right. There was something there. It was just a question of—
“I hope I’m not interrupting.”
Sebastian jerked back from the kiss so fast it almost hurt. His brother stared down at them, interrupting when nobody else would have dared. The way he looked at Angelica in particular made Sebastian want to stand up and hit him.
“What do you want, Rupert?” Sebastian demanded. Wasn’t it bad enough that Rupert had dragged him all the way back here without interrupting even this?
“I know it’s a pity I interrupted before you got the lovely Lady d’Angelica out of her clothes,” Rupert said with a smirk that said he was picturing it. “But Mother requires our presence at once.”
Sebastian could only think of one thing that would prompt that kind of urgency. The invasion had begun in earnest.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Dowager Queen Mary stood in one of the smaller committee chambers of the Assembly of Nobles, trying to mask her impatience as she waited for her sons. Trying to mask other things too, because every moment that she waited was another in which she might find herself coughing up blood, looking weak in front of men who could not see her that way.
Even now, her physiker hovered quietly in one of the doorways, disguised only by the presence of other servants and courtiers. There were others there too, so many that they could have used the main Assembly chamber and filled it: Assembly members, minor nobles, ship captains, representatives of the surrounding towns, and of course, generals. In a land where they had more than a hundred free companies, there was a proliferation of generals.
Many of them were still arguing about pay.
“The terms proposed by the crown are simply insufficient,” Sir Arthur Nallis was saying. The Dowager couldn’t remember who his father was, suggesting that he was minor nobility at best.
“I agree,” Charles Banquith of the Banquith Red Company said. He hadn’t even had the decency to forge a family tree to claim a title, as some others might have, but his men had proved useful against some of the more rebellious factions of her kingdom in the past. “There isn’t enough money to make us fight the New Army.”
“The alternative is that you find yourselves killed by the New Army,” the Dowager said, deciding that the moment had come to interrupt. “And then there is the matter of the Assembly’s vote on the issue. Fail to show up as required, gentlemen, and you will be giving aid to the kingdom’s enemies.”
She didn’t need to say what the penalties for that were. The Dowager sighed. There had been a time when she wouldn’t have had to invoke the authority of the Assembly for this. She hoped that when their times came, her sons wouldn’t find themselves endlessly mired in these arguments.
As if her thought had summoned them, Rupert and Sebastian chose that moment to enter the committee chamber, looking as though they’d barely spoken to one another on the way there. A pang of sadness shot through the Dowager at the rift that had grown between her sons. Today probably wouldn’t make it better.
“Ah, my sons,” the Dowager said. “So good of you to attend. We have been discussing the situation with the war.” She waved a hand at one of the few generals who owed direct loyalty to the crown. “Lord Heatherwood, please sum things up for my sons.”
The general stood to attention as if on a parade ground.
“Yes, Your Majesty. In the days since the New Army made landfall, it has advanced rapidly, bypassing our initial coastal defenses and destroying many of them. Already, it has taken much of the southeastern peninsula, and we anticipate it advancing north toward Ashton in the coming days. In almost every place it has passed, there has been slaughter. Those villages that have not surrendered immediately have been butchered without mercy. It currently seems to be advancing outside the town of Dathersford.”
That was closer than the Dowager would have preferred, and a sudden, wracking cough reminded her that the New Army wasn’t the only thing moving far more quickly than she wanted. She looked up to find the rest of the room looking back at her, and turned the cough into one designed to demand attention instead.
“Rupert, Sebastian, you have heard how difficult things are,” the Dowager said to her sons. “You have both served in my armies, both shown yourselves to be capable commanders in the field. Tell me what you would do in this situation.”
Rupert went first, of course. He had always been a boy in a rush, and becoming a man hadn’t mellowed him.
“The only option is to counterattack,” he said. “We gather a raiding force and plunge into the peninsula. There are many forests and wheat fields there, so we light fires around the enemy army, trusting the wind to carry them toward it and burn our foes. Even if it does not slay them all, an army like that will soon starve without supplies.”
“A… bold option,” the Dowager said. “And the fact that this plan would mean burning some of our subjects as well? The risks to the men engaged in the raid? The chances of our people starving in the wake of such a plan?”
“War carries with it risks,” Rupert said, “and if people are alive behind the New Army, it is because they surrendered. They deserve to burn for that.”
“I see,” the Dowager said. She turned to Sebastian. “And you, Sebastian?”
Sebastian took a moment to gather himself, and the Dowager wondered if her younger son would say anything at all. Finally, he did.
“We should bring people in from the lands around Ashton,” he said. “The city is safer than the countryside, and they can assist in building defenses here. We let the enemy come to us, and we take their momentum from them with a siege. Fewer of our people will die that way, and it buys us time.”
“Time to do what?” the Dowager asked.
“Time to reach out,” her son said. “We have allies, or we once did. In this we may have more. There will be plenty of people who will see this as a chance to finally defeat the New Army. We can encourage people to rise up in the lands they conquered across the Knifewater, persuade our friends to help us against them. But only if we hold out long enough.”
The Dowager looked around the room, trying to gauge the reactions of the others there. Many of them were looking to her, waiting to see which option she would choose. Others seemed to be considering it, weighing up the benefits and the risks, the chances for glory and the possibilities of dying. For the moment, they were quiet, but the Dowager doubted that it would last.