When they spoke, it was much shallower than this. Of the beauty of this thing, of the health of the next, or even, the beauty of a passing manservant, lost quickly to lowered eyes. Neither liked to speak to the other in such terms—the uncertainty to their commentary told as much—but it was their way to voice displeasure. Freedom only went so far.
It served its purpose still. By the time they entered into her father’s solar, she was sufficiently deadened inside to deal with him as daughter to father should. Her father sat with uncle and nephew and Boyce alike, sipping at the afternoon’s cups. She curtsied to him across his pale bounty, even as he nodded to her accompaniment—and secretly, she thanked the Maker for the gift of company between them.
“My dearest princess,” Walthere said with all the measure of a serpent’s tongue, “how kind of you. Surely our servants should have found her.”
Sara flitted with a huff. “It was no trouble, ser. Any moment at your daughter’s pleasure is a pleasure well received.”
As princess and father descended into their formal circles, Charlotte spared a glance for the others. Her uncle, as ever, laid things plain upon his face, and served as warning for the coming words. He made sure she caught his eyes, and gentle shook his head. Something was fouled, then. She locked that knowledge behind her own steeled gaze. Her nephew Amschel, ever the formal one, raised a glass to her, and gestured for the seat beside him. He was a sweet thing, and nothing at all like her uncle, she thought. But perhaps war would change him. Or a bride. Youth. It was funny to think how man and woman wore its mantle so differently.
Perhaps it had something to do with Walthere’s plotting in the capital. The shadow man. Too many hours she had devoted to prying that truth, but of it, nothing ever came. It infuriated her. What they needed was the other Farren daughter of the crown. Not more ways to kill.
As her cousin held a chair out for Sara, Charlotte slid in beside her uncle and kissed him on the cheek. “Old Maynard,” she whispered close, “do we intrude on war?” At a time, his belly might fair have shook for that, yet her uncle only patted her shoulder, and turned a weary eye upon his son’s own shape. As she turned for it, she gaped, for the bandages his stoop exposed, pressed tight about the chest. Thick wrapping, that, and not lightly done.
Amschel caught her gaze as he limped from out behind the princess. He smiled slightly, and retreated heavily, lowering into another seat. Even pain, it seemed, did not quaff his manners. Nor did it prize an answer from him.
With the pleasantries out between them, the air took on a decidedly uncomfortable haze as Walthere turned upon their spymaster. “Overlong, is all I say, Boyce. Remind the good lord of his duties when the rest is done, and debt will be as ever it was—words upon a paper.” With that, he made his dismissal, and Boyce, nodding to the queer instruction, took it upon himself to depart with but scarce words for his ladies.
Debt. Ever a weapon. A nation was, to a certain degree, built on debtors. Her father made a habit of knowing them, and buying up the more savory debts. It was a solid, vicious way to capitalize on other men’s misfortunes. Unfortunately useless to her queries. Too many held the title usurer for any great narrowing of prospect. It merely tightened the noose about a plot.
“What calls me to your side, dear father?” Her eyes remained upon her cousin. “I was about the children.”
“Time with your good betrothed, coz?” Amschel countered quickly—deflection’s haste.
It was chill, what she flicked on him, but it was Sara who answered. “My brother, I think you mean,” with tone sharp enough to redden him, “and prince, to be certain.”
Walthere ignored their bickering. “A foulness. Your cousin was grievous struck, and I fear it for an omen.”
It happened like this. Amschel and Maynard had been out upon the country with nigh a hundred men, hunting bandits near the northern fields. There was conflict there, as ever there had been, for though those borders were old, the men that settled them held grudges far older. Religion had only furthered the disputes, as men to the crown’s side of the border tended to the Orthodox, while those of Usteroy took to their master’s Farren nature. Blood came and went.
As they had made their rounds, Amschel, as the young were oft to do, broke off with a score of his men to ride ahead. With night, they had taken shelter in a tavern rather than head back for their camp, and there, as they drank, another troop of men had come upon them. These men, recognizing well the marks of Usteroy, announced themselves for officers of the Emperor, charged to arrest brigands. Naturally, they named Amschel for one of those brigands.
“They offered me no papers and they bore no badges of their office,” Amschel spat. “I took them for Lievklaus’s fools.”
When Amschel had refused to lay down arms, a fight had broken out. Though the so-called officers had been driven from the tavern, as Amschel and his men had plunged after them a cry went out into the night, and crossbowmen, hidden among the stables, loosed on them. Three of his number had been struck dead, and in the same volley, Amschel was speared through the ribs.
Still, he had rallied his men and charged the crossbowmen, slaughtering them before they could reload. The original assailants joined the fight, and they fought like animals in the yard. Died like them too. Only two men managed to flee, taking horses in the confusion and striking back across the border.
Word of the fight had drawn Maynard there by morning’s light, and doctors saw to Amschel’s injuries. Broken ribs and a few broken fingers, at the end. Of their attackers, however, seventeen men lay dead, and from their captain’s pouch, deputizing orders were pulled. To hunt brigands, indeed—at least one man bore a white cloak, and he, charged to demand the removal of the royal family from Cullick’s hands. It was Ser Darrow, lately of Prince Joseph’s own entourage, and a member of the Imperial Guard.
“I need not tell you why this is poor at any time, but why it stands so poorly struck now,” Walthere concluded with a grimace.
“I do not understand,” Sara shuddered. “Ser Darrow was with us when we made our decision. He, of all men, should know it was our own choice to remain.”
“An emperor is advised by many, but beholden to none, and the Imperial Guard, beholden only to him.” Maynard said, carefully eying his son. “And he knew Amschel’s look. I’ve no doubt. This was a trap, if ever there was one.”
“A trap?”
Charlotte leaned toward her friend, patting at her arm. “The crossbowmen. They knew someone would ride there. They hoped to provoke something. The charge of banditry—but an excuse, perhaps even one they started.”
Sara’s face fell. “They knew you would not surrender,” she said, turning sorrowfully to Amschel.
“Just so,” Walthere sighed. “In killing a knight of the Guard, we will take much ill will. The people love them. And now, Leopold will have claim against us for holding you—for now he has corpses to point to, to say we killed those men that sought to bring you home. We become the provocateur.” His look was wistful as he tapped his chin. “A smarter man than I gave him credit for.”
“So…”
“So I need you to deal with this, Charlotte.”
“I?” She looked between the lot of them, all but scoffing at the notion. “Am I to be a gift for this royal? It was my thought I was already one prince’s present.” She did let a smile go when Sara lightly slapped her wrist.
Walthere snapped, “Silence, child, and listen well. The only gift you shall be is to the people. You and your fiancé both shall give letter and give voice to our family’s own apology, and offer recompense. You will promise to go the capital at the Emperor’s pleasure, when you are man and wife. Yet in the same breath, you will denounce the lawlessness that has befallen that corner of our country, and hold up your cousin as circumstance’s victim.”
“We stall?”
“We stall, and plead, and massage this problem down. Sara, I ask you do the same. Your mother, I think, we shall send south, with Bidderick besides, lest
he be called upon here, and forced to his own sworn duty.”
Politick. Diplomacy. Ever, and always, she remained the final card to be played. She shook her head, but Sara answered for them gently, showing such faithfulness to the task as one might begin to wonder who was daughter, and who, friend. They shared a smile, those two—Sara and her father. Charlotte did not like it.
“That will be all. Get to your boy, and see it rightly done, the three of you.” Walthere ordered, as he took his feet. Then he moved to usher them out.
Charlotte let him take Sara’s arm, and her ear, while she tarried a moment with her better-beloved family. She kissed her uncle’s other cheek, and bid him well, and turned swift upon her cousin, bending to take his good hand. “The Mummer Knight,” she whispered, seeing his uncertainty.
“If I had known him for Ser Darrow, I should not have killed him.” The boy held up his left hand, showing the wrapping that now bound the fingers straight. “He had his mace. Broke my hand with it. Would have broke me, but…” He looked away, darkening. “I slipped in the blood.”
“But all the same, you broke the Mummer Knight. Be proud, cousin. Above all else, be proud. Many a man have fallen to that man’s club. Great is the soul that can kill a great man in open fight.”
This seemed to cheer him, and she left him with both that and a hug, turning at last on her father as he parted from Sara. The princess went ahead as Walthere guided Charlotte out by a chin’s flex of will alone.
“I will expect a draft by the end of the day,” he chided.
She stopped him before the door. “And this other plot you fetch? Can you yet tell me whilst it lies?”
He took her chin between his fingers, and smiled where her defiant gaze met his, but a shred of light, he offered not. “Concentrate upon your coming nuptials, my dear. We shall make a proper woman of you yet.” Where his touch caught skin, it might as well have been a slap. Yet he left her on that note.
Rage bubbled to a boil as the doors closed to them. Ustrit and Hacket, her father’s shieldmen, did their best to seem oblivious as she watched the room disappear. Come here. Go there. Do as you are told. Some lion, she. More a dog, like these. She all but snarled as she turned past Sara, and surged down the hall. Yet Sara followed all the same, and in time she slowed for her friend’s own sake, trying to conquer her fire.
“I am sorry for that,” she said.
Sara dismissed it with a smile. “No, no. Order and chaos both. They find us all.”
Logical, if annoying. True enough, though—the tasks would come. Best to address them. “Will your mother part so willingly from Lothen?” It was, she thought, a good question. Since the other princes’ untimely demises, Surelia had scarce parted from her son. To be told she was being now sent away—she could not see it ending well.
“Truth be told, I do not think so. Yet if she thinks it will help him…I do not know.”
Thoughts skipped, as they, upon the long halls. “I wonder how long it took my father to convince her—the Empress Dowager,” Charlotte spoke hastily. “Do you think it took convincing at all? The greatest families of the faith, reunited at a wedding vow. Do you think we shall be a story one day?” She tried her best to keep the disgust from her tone.
“Excuse me?” Sara’s face drew slack.
It did not become, to begin playing the fool now. Charlotte shook her head. “Apologies. My thoughts are—I wander. I meant Lothen and I.”
“Oh, no doubt,” Sara clucked. But the trouble would not leave her face. “But—your father? Dear, sweet one, it was not your father’s suggestion. Not alone, at the least.”
“My mother’s?”
“Mine.” Her look made a puzzlement of her features—a human question of a woman that seemed to earnestly wonder how Charlotte simply could not have understood. “You aid us. I should see it rewarded. And it will be the best of alliances for the both of us. Your father is not alone in planning for the future. Besides, did I not tell you we should be as sisters? Now it should be in fact, so well as words.”
She missed a step, and stopped dead in the hall. Sara carried on a few steps more, before she stopped and turned to meet her. The lion, they said, was but a crest, but truth be told, Charlotte could feel it rising in her veins right then. A growth of fur, the bestial roar—if she thought hard enough, she could almost picture the nails of her claws.
She suggested it. The last act of the stolen life. This was precisely the reason one could not trust. So much given for duty. Could she not have but this one thing? Fair. Yes, that was a word, but mere notion—that this woman who had known the greatest of deprivations at the height of duty would so willingly cast it upon another—this was the final betrayal.
But her eyes were dead, and cold, and leant none of this to her guest. Yet she could not keep the bitter from her voice.
“If you’ve such interest in youth, friend, why not marry my own whelp blood, rather than making me your proxy?”
Only then did the smile truly die.
* *
Hours turned to so much dust before his eyes. One of the princes of Ravonno nearly earned his wrath for daring to bring up trade rights before the best vintage could even be inspected. Exclusive rights, he wanted, to some of their wine country—country, the man had argued, that once belonged to Ravonno. Perhaps they thought him a prelate still before they thought him an emperor. The man certainly looked on him as one might a child. So he put the man to rights gentle enough.
But all anyone spoke of was the former empress. The Bastard too loomed like a cloud over the festivities, but there was nothing to be said for it. The man was like a bad dream—if they woke enough to the daylight, they all hoped they would not have to face it. Those who did assured him such treason would be crushed.
“But Effise?” Duke Turgitz had shook his head sorrowfully at him. “A shame to say, I think your greatest coronary gift will also prove your greatest loss.”
He drank a glass and tilted his head with the gentlest of murmurs.
“Othmann is a most loyal man-at-arms, Your Majesty,” another count and his attendants reminded him. “What the Bastard forsakes, he will return upon your plate.”
He drank a glass and thanked the men for their insights.
“The real problem is the Farrens, lord. With a true man of Assal atop the throne now, I hope you will sweep them all aside,” a baron chimed.
Even before he had finished, there were wives clucking like so many hens. “I heard they sacked the church at Weidekopf. Did you hear? And some supposedly make pilgrimage to see the Empress Dowager—can you imagine? If she was wise, she would turn them away.”
He drank a glass and pretended they were so much dust.
“And did you hear? They take their filth to the Aswari camps now. As if those savages have souls to sway. Northerners, of course! Those keeper lords that allow such madness, well, at least we will know them for the traitors’ blood.”
He paused at that, and chirped an uncertain note. Aswari. That was one devilment, at least, Ravonno no longer had.
Foreigners offered gifts in one hand and asked for gifts with the other. They spoke of battles he did not care of, and men who did not concern him.
Ambassadors bowed to him. Oh, fine day, they said. All of Idasia shall benefit your wisdom. Now surely you would remember your friend, surely you will recall those blackest words this other lord has lain against you, yes, a fine day, fine day indeed.
Guests from Lorace spoke of Zuti probes along their border, and of war bands resurging. It would not be long, they said, until war resumed. To listen to the lot, one might think the world itself were crumbling. Of course, they knew Leopold’s horses would protect them. Or so the game went.
The Asanti offered arms to help put down the Bastard—“A man cannot suffer treason in his country, or the people would suspect a fool. The important thing is swiftness.” But he would brook no outside armies in his lands, save those of the Church, and he would not be made a weakling in others’ e
yes for taking thinly veiled bribes.
Still, the night’s worst moment came when he nearly swooned into the back of Count Ibin, busy chattering with his wife. They parted to receive him, and fortunately made as if the fault was the count’s own. It was an explanation Leopold readily accepted.
There were four of them, in all. The Count and his wife, Rufus—a nominal count in his own right and Leopold’s youngest remaining brother—and a dark-skinned beauty whose name escaped Leopold’s stilled tongue. He made a clumsy bow of himself to the woman, taking her hand in his and kissing it with all the grace of the town fool. But he straightened before her reddening cheeks and glared openly at any that looked affronted, Rufus foremost among them. Leopold’s wife ignored the gesture.
Naran, the woman was. The count introduced her. The daughter of their ambassador—or at least, the old court’s ambassador. The Narans had long since capitulated to the Zuti onslaught, their king losing his head in the process. What remained were few enough, but men and women like this ambassador and his daughter—these were the true inheritors of that kingdom, the rightful heirs of a lost land.
This one veiled herself in the colors of their country. A hundred tiny bells rang against the bright silks that named the place of her birth, each bit of metal, he was told, a marker of another eight-day lived. He marveled at the custom. Their skin was darker than most, though not so dark as the Zuti. The colors of her silks brought it out nicely. Lean and lithe, she had the grace of a ballerina, but the eyes of a woman. When she spoke, it was with but the slightest of accents—an infatuating roll of the tongue that drew his thoughts elsewhere—and words tumbled from her with the command of a man. A feature that reminded him all too powerfully of his wife.
He leered openly at her.
The men spoke of war, the ladies of religion and of fashion, and Leopold’s dear wife effortlessly straddled the line between the lot. He remained largely quiet, until laughter left an opening with the ambassador’s daughter.
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