Threads of Gold (Tales of the Latter Kingdoms Book 6)

by Christine Pope

  “Yes, no thanks to Lord Edmar. I fear his latest theory is that I must be a mage myself, for how else could I turn straw into gold?”

  At that remark, Rumple paused. I could not see his face, but it seemed as if he frowned within the folds of his hood. “What did you say to him?”

  “The truth, of course. That I was no mage, and that perhaps this strange ability of mine is rather a gift from the gods.”

  “What was his reply to that?”

  I shrugged. “He seemed to take my words at face value, or at least he did not press the matter.”

  “That is something, I suppose. Typical, though, for him to start questioning you about the very thing he and his king desire most.”

  “I suppose now he has gone past his initial surprise that I was able to do it at all, and is beginning to wonder how. But for the time being, he seemed willing to set his questions aside.”

  “Of course he was,” Rumple said, an edge entering his tone. “It would not do, after all, for the woman he desires to be revealed as a mage.”

  My cheeks heated at that remark, but I did not bother to deny it. The duke had made his intentions obvious enough. I had acknowledged it to myself, but it was quite something else to have Rumple state the matter so baldly.

  “At any rate,” I said hurriedly, “the best thing is to conjure more gold for the king, so they have nothing to take exception at.”

  “Is that the path you truly wish to take?”

  I had begun to move toward my chair and the wheel next to it when Rumple’s words stopped me. “‘Path’?” I echoed in some confusion. “What path can I take, save to keep spinning this gold? Or rather, have you help me spin it.”

  He crossed his arms. “Yesterday evening, I told you that I would do what I could to discover a way to release you from this makeshift prison the king has put you in.”

  “And have you discovered such a way?” My tone was light, but underneath, my heart had begun to race. I felt I would not even care so much to keep spinning for the king, as long as I could do it from my own home, where I could be with my sister and in familiar surroundings. The only difficulty there would be to keep my activities with Rumple from her, but I felt I could devise some way to do so. I certainly did not fear any discovery by my father, as I could not even recall the last time he had set foot in my chamber.

  “I believe I have,” Rumple replied. “After careful study, I have decided that the best thing to do would be to sue for your release.”

  The suggestion was so completely unexpected that for a moment I could only stare at him, mouth slightly agape. Then I managed to recover myself, and I said, “Sue…the king? Are you mad?”

  “Not at all,” he said calmly.

  True, the people of Purth were known for being litigious sorts. More than once my father had been compelled to hire a lawyer to settle some suit or another brought against him. I supposed it was better than crossed swords at dawn, which long ago had been the usual means of settling all manner of disputes, including business ventures gone wrong. But to sue the king….

  “On what grounds would I even bring such a suit?” I asked, glad that I had been able to conceal most of the alarm I was currently experiencing. “After all, this is not quite the same as suing a neighbor because the roots of his tree are undermining the wall around your property.” That example was the first thing to spring to my mind, a nonsense lawsuit my father had spent a good deal of money he couldn’t afford getting dismissed.

  “No, it is somewhat more involved than that,” Rumple said. “But you have excellent grounds. You are an innocent woman, and have not even been accused of a crime. The law states that anyone held by the king or his proxies must be charged within the first two days of imprisonment, or that person must be set free. Have any formal charges been brought against you, Annora?”

  Of course they had not. I had been kept here under a sort of ominous hospitality. If I cooperated, and provided the gold the king desired, then I could stay in these luxurious apartments. If not, then I would be returned to the dungeon. That was bad enough, even setting aside my continuing worry that my family would also be punished if I failed to produce a sufficient amount of golden thread.

  “No,” I replied. “I was not — that is, I did not think the king needed to follow the same rules as anyone else.”

  “Ah, but he does,” Rumple said. He went to the spinning wheel and gave it an idle turn with one finger, watching as the wooden spokes began to move lazily around and around. “He may be the king, but that does not mean he can do whatever he pleases. His limits are broader than most, but they still exist.”

  “And I as a woman can file such a suit?” I had never heard of such a thing being done before. True, occasionally women were involved in legal matters, but in most cases as an adjunct to their husbands, and nothing more.

  “Yes, you can.” A gloved hand clamped down on the wheel, preventing it from spinning any longer. “In fact, that is one area where your father has actually done you a service, for as a woman who has reached her majority and is neither married nor betrothed, you are entitled to enlist legal aid on your own behalf.”

  “I can?” I asked, startled. Once again, this was new information, but welcome information for all that.

  Rumple turned back toward me. “Tell me, Annora — have you heard of Queen Jenelda?”

  “Of course. She was….” I paused to recall my studies in Purthian history, now several years behind me. Not that they had ever been all that extensive; my father had believed in giving his daughters only enough education so they wouldn’t embarrass themselves. Bookishness was not counted of much worth to most prospective husbands in our class. “She was the wife of King Bannic, was she not? He died only a few years after they married, and she acted as steward for their son, who was an infant at the time.”

  “Exactly right,” Rumple said. He sounded pleased. Perhaps he had thought I wouldn’t remember. “But what is often not taught — and I can see why, for I misdoubt that many fathers would want their daughters to know these things — is that Queen Jenelda passed many laws during her time as steward that were intended to better the lot of the women within her realm. One of them is the statute which declares that young women who have reached the age of twenty and have no husband or betrothed to speak for them can seek legal aid on their own. It has been almost a hundred years since her death, and her work on the behalf of the women of Purth has been mostly forgotten…or concealed…but no one has repealed those laws. So you can use them to your benefit now.”

  I nodded. In that moment, I felt both excited and afraid. Did I have the courage to do such a thing? And if I declined, told Rumple I did not think I could go through with it, would he still help me in spinning the golden thread, or would he wash his hands of me, thinking me a weak-willed fool without the strength to take the true assistance he offered?

  Put that way….

  Voice low, I asked, “If we do this, who will represent me? You?”

  At that question, he chuckled and immediately shook his head. “No, Annora, I have a few skills, but I have made only a casual study of the law. I cannot make this case for you.”

  “Not that casual, it seems, to have recalled a law most would prefer remained hidden.”

  A shrug. “The law has always fascinated me, although I am in no position to actually practice it.”

  “Because you are a mage?”

  That question was followed by a long silence — so long, in fact, that I began to wonder if he intended to answer me at all. “Among other things,” he said at last.

  His tone was so carefully neutral that I thought he must be hiding something. But for all the help and advice he had given me so far, I did not feel I knew him well enough to probe further. Besides, a lawyer was someone who must be out in the world a good bit, and for someone like Rumple, who had to hide the truth of what he was from everyone he met, the law would not be the most practical of vocations.

  “Do you have someone in m
ind?” I inquired. It seemed best in that moment to move on to the practicalities of the matter at hand.

  My question appeared to come as a relief to him, for he squared his shoulders and then nodded. “Yes, I do. His name is Ryon Jamsden, and he has offices not far from my residence.”

  “So you live in town?” As soon as the words left my lips, I regretted them, for it seemed to be quite an impertinent question to ask, considering that Rumple had so far volunteered almost no information about his own background. And for some reason, the notion of him living in Bodenskell, in some unassuming townhouse surrounded by people who could have no idea of what he truly was, struck me as not very likely.

  But he shrugged again, replying, “Yes, I do. How else do you think I can come and go here so easily? Magic is mine to command, but only up to a point. It is one thing to send myself here to the palace, a journey of less than a mile. It is quite another to have the strength to do so when traveling a large distance.”

  Yet again I wished I could ask more questions about his powers, about what he could and could not do. But he had certainly not given me permission to make such inquiries, and so I put them aside for now. “And you think this Master Jamsden will take my case? After all, it cannot be without risk for him.”

  “I know he will. He is not the sort to back away from a challenge. In fact, he delights in taking on the suits that no one else will.”

  That did sound rather heartening, although I had to wonder how Master Jamsden managed to make a living at his profession if he continually accepted cases that were unwinnable. That thought brought me to another concern. “I — I have no way to pay him — ”

  “Nonsense,” Rumple said crisply. “I shall pay him. And before you protest, remember that it is nothing to me to conjure the gold Master Jamsden will require.”

  That was true enough, and yet it seemed I was becoming more and more indebted to this man who had appeared from nowhere to lend me his aid. Surely he must expect something from me in return, no matter what he might have said about wanting only to share my company.

  In my heart, I thought it might not be such a bad thing if his expectations were somewhat different from what he had told me. True, I had never seen his face, but I knew he was tall and well-built, and his voice was not that of an older man. At least he was kind, which was more than I could say for many of the men of my acquaintance.

  “I will be forever in your debt, Rumple,” I said slowly. “And please — I do not wish to offend you, but does all this aid only stem from a desire to help me? For I must confess that I am having a difficult time understanding why you would do so much for someone you have only known for a few short days.”

  “Length of acquaintance should not dictate one’s desire to help,” he replied. He did not sound angry. Actually, he did not sound like much of anything at all, as if he were keeping his tone as neutral as he could so I would be unable to divine anything from it.

  “I understand that, but — ”

  A sigh escaped his lips, not of weariness, I thought, but of exasperation. He made an impatient gesture with one hand. “I do wish to help you, Annora, but yes, I must confess that desire does not stem from a motive of pure altruism. Aiding you means making things difficult for the king, and that is an outcome which is worth a great deal to me. Do you understand?”

  I still didn’t, not completely. But I was rather perversely relieved that this was not all to do with me. Rumple had some grudge against the king, and I was merely a tool he had decided to use to help him carry out that grudge. Perhaps one day he would tell me why, but in the meantime, I would have to content myself with knowing even this much.

  “I do understand,” I said clearly. “Thank you for telling me. And now I suppose we must get on with this spinning.”

  Chapter 8

  The door to my suite banged open with little ceremony early the next afternoon, and the king came raging in, followed by a man I did not recognize. The stranger was slight and vaguely rabbity-looking, with a pink nose and eyes set too close together, and he held a sheaf of papers in one hand.

  “What is this?” the king shouted, tearing the papers from the rabbity man’s hand and hurling them to the floor, where they scattered all over a rug of priceless Keshiaari weave.

  I had been sitting on the divan in the main salon, working on some embroidery, for Rashelle had been kind enough to bring me a hoop and floss earlier that day. At the king’s explosive arrival, however, I got to my feet and curtseyed, all the while attempting to hide the embroidery hoop behind my back. “What is what, Your Majesty?”

  “That!” he growled, pointing at the papers, which were even then being gathered up by the other man. “You dare to file suit against me?”

  Oh, dear. My gaze flicked to the rabbity man, who finished picking up the papers and straightened, although he did not appear much more impressive at his full height than when he had been bent over. Could this be Master Jamsden? Somehow I doubted it; his appearance did not seem to match what Rumple had told me about the lawyer he planned to hire.

  I raised my chin. “I am sorry, Your Majesty, but I had no other choice, since it was quite clear to me that you intend to keep me here indefinitely, even though no charges have been brought against me.”

  “Charges?” he repeated in outraged tones. “Charges?! Why, look at this apartment! That gown you are wearing! The jewels in your ears and on your fingers! Who has given all that to you?”

  “You have, Your Majesty,” I said calmly. “And I would say it was all very generous of you, save that I asked for none of it. All I wished was to be sent home to my family once I had” — I hesitated then, for I did not know how much the rabbity man knew of the services I had rendered for the king — “once I had performed that one task for you. But you would not send me home, and would instead keep me prisoner here. In a very fine prison, true, but still a place I do not have the freedom to leave.”

  During this entire speech, the king’s pale blue eyes had opened wider and wider, his cheeks flushing with apoplectic color. “You dare to speak in such a way to me? I am the king!”

  My heart began to race, but I told myself that to reveal any weakness now would be to give the king an opening he would most surely exploit. “Yes, Your Majesty, but the king of this land must abide by its laws as well. Because I was not charged with any crime within the allotted timeframe, I should have been allowed to go home.”

  He rounded on the rabbity man, demanding, “Is this true, Holtson?”

  “I, well, yes. That is — ” He faltered, then shot me a look of mingled terror and annoyance, as if asking how I could possibly have put him in this sort of untenable position. “It is the law, Your Majesty. She has the right to sue for her freedom. And the right to speak with her counsel alone,” he added in a rush, as if steeling himself to do so before he lost his nerve.

  “Ridiculous,” the king growled, but I noticed the sidelong glance he gave me. I could have been misreading him completely, but it almost seemed that a grudging respect had entered his expression. Most likely he was wondering how a sheltered young woman like myself had even come up with the notion of contacting an attorney.

  Of course the idea had not been mine, but I would never admit such a thing. All I could do was hope that he wouldn’t inquire how in the world I’d managed to do so in the first place, because of course there was no way I could have gotten word to a lawyer without outside help.

  But then he did ask the question I had feared the most. “And how is it that you were able to seek this help, Mistress Kelsden?”

  “I — ” The words seemed to catch in my throat, and I swallowed, hard. The last thing I wanted was to cause any trouble for Rashelle, but she was the only person I had any contact with. I had to hope that because she was a servant and therefore must do as she was told, she would not be held to account for the lie I was about to tell. “I gave a note to Rashelle, and bade her have it sent to my father’s house. Oh, she did not know what the note contained,�
� I added quickly as the furious color began to rise in the king’s cheeks. “She thought I had written to my sister. But the note was a plea for help to Master Jamsden, who had provided legal counsel to my father once upon a time. That is how he came to my defense.”

  King Elsdon’s eyes narrowed, and I could tell he fought to contain his anger. “Very well, Mistress Kelsden, but do not expect anything much to come of it. You will have one hour to speak to your lawyer, and no more.”

  Because I did not want to annoy him further, I only assumed as meek an expression as I could muster, and then nodded.

  “Come, Holtson,” the king commanded, then began to stride toward the door. Just as his lackey moved to open it for him, he rumbled ominously, “Do not think that this removes your current obligations from you. Lord Edmar will be stopping by tomorrow morning. Do you understand?”

  I nodded once more.

  “Troublesome wench,” he muttered, and then was gone, slamming the door behind him.

  I did not even have the opportunity to let out a sigh of relief, for Rashelle emerged then, eyes enormous.

  “The king seemed very angry,” she whispered.

  “I know,” I said cheerfully. “I’m suing him for my freedom. And I believe I will be speaking with my lawyer soon, so if you could see if there is some tea…?”

  She swallowed, then hurried out of the suite.

  And I, suddenly realizing that I had just experienced an open confrontation with the king and somehow lived to tell the tale, sank down onto one of the divans to await the arrival of my lawyer.

  * * *

  Master Jamsden was younger than I had expected, probably no more than thirty, and tall and well-favored. Indeed, if it were not that I had far more important things on my mind, I would have thought he was the kind of man I might have been happy to have as my betrothed, if my father had had the good sense to seek out someone like that for me.