by Ellyn, Court
Eliad nudged Kethlyn after them. “Better go tell your da—if he’s not too busy.” Kethlyn raced away through the crowd that had gathered into one large, curious heap outside the mews. Inside, Eliad dropped to one knee and examined Carah front and back. “They didn’t hurt you then?”
She shook her head, and her ringlets bobbed. The sunlight glistened on the blood that dripped onto Eliad’s shoulder, staining the blue velvet black. Fear sank into her eyes. “Did they do that?”
“Nearly tore my eye out!”
She shrank from his anger and whispered, “They thought you were trying to catch them.” Her thumb strayed to her mouth, paused, then her little hand reached toward the ugly gashes.
Eliad clasped her fingers before they got blood on them. With a helpless, lovesick sigh, he scooped her up. “C’mon, m’ lady. You’ve got some explaining to do.”
“Did I do something wrong, Eliad?”
He gave her an uncertain half-smile. “I don’t know, kid. Just have to see what your da says.”
~~~~
Prince Valryk watched the falcons fly. Their wings flapped desperately, carrying them in a wide semicircle over the heads of the highborns, past the royal suite on the third floor of Ilswythe’s keep, and on toward the noontime sun. They vanished in the white glare. When Valryk’s eyes stopped watering, he saw them flying so high that they were nothing more than indistinct black dashes racing northward. Through large windows that overlooked the crowded bailey and the curtain wall, Valryk glimpsed the knife-sharp summit of Mount Drenéleth glinting bright with snow. So that’s where the falcons lived…
Below, the gathering of children scattered from the falconer’s barn. They carried long sticks like staves, and a little girl dropped an odd-looking hat. She turned back for it, then raced after the others. Had they set the falcons free? Valryk wanted to run and hide with them, the thrill of danger twisting in his belly.
Should he bother asking for permission? In the dressing room, Queen Briéllyn was crying. Her handmaid cooed and fussed over her. Valryk crept toward the door, pressed himself against the wall, but it was so hard to be quiet when he wanted to scream and run and giggle.
“Do you think her ghost is haunting me?” the queen said, and Valryk’s ears pricked up.
“I don’t think that’s possible, ma’am,” said Lady Endhal. “You’re doing yourself a great deal of hurt.”
“I saw that cat again. The big gray one.”
Ah, now Valryk understood. He’d heard that Bramoran’s North Tower, where political prisoners were kept, was haunted by the ghost of a crazy woman who had jumped to her death. The gray cat had been her only friend. Valryk had seen the huge animal with his own eyes, prowling around the kitchens. Mean, it looked, all scarred and tattered. The scullery maids had thrown scraps at it to drive it away. Mother sounded as frightened of the animal as the maids were. “It was crying in the rose garden, Agga, the night before we left Bramoran, as if it were looking for her. I sent two crossbowmen after it, but it vanished.”
“Oh, ma’am, don’t fret over a mangy old cat. I told you and His Majesty both that it was too soon, that you weren’t recovered yet, but neither of you had the wisdom to listen to me. It’s the loss of the baby that’s brought on this melancholy. It will pass, and those nightmares will cease troubling you. You’ll see. Let’s get you dressed now.”
When Mother came out of the dressing room in stiff green silk, Valryk was sitting in an oversized chair, swinging his legs and twiddling his thumbs. All the furniture in the royal castle was pretty but hard and cold; here at Ilswythe chairs were squishy and comfortable. Valryk decided that as soon as he was the Black Falcon, he would replace a few things at home.
Briéllyn turned before a full-length mirror, smoothed a few wrinkles from her skirt. Her face was flushed, and she tried to smear away the signs that she’d been crying. She looked at her son in the mirror. Their eyes met. Valryk looked down at his knees. His eyes were hazel like his father’s, but his hair was a darker auburn than his mother’s, and he shared her delicate, long-limbed frame.
“Stand up,” she said. “Are you wrinkled?”
He obeyed, slowly, grudgingly, and she stooped down to straighten his lace collar and make sure all his buttons were fastened. She frowned and fussed, as if a prince’s buttons were a matter of state importance. “Wrinkled already,” she muttered. “All this traveling. Your father ought to hold the Assembly at Bramoran. The people should come to us. I don’t understand some people’s traditions.”
“Jewelry, ma’am,” said Lady Endhal. Mother stopped fussing over Valryk’s clothes and sat down at the vanity. Her handmaid lowered a velvet-lined tray from which Mother selected large pearls for her ears and a strand of tiny emeralds for her throat. “Is it too much for silly horse races?”
“You look stunning, ma’am.”
She did, indeed. Mother drew back her shoulders, raised her chin, and smoothed her expression. From one instant to the next, she ceased being Mother and became the queen.
“My hair, quickly. Mustn’t keep the horses waiting.”
Now that her tears were dry, maybe Valryk could make his appeal. “Can I go play with them, Mother?”
“Play? With whom?”
“Kethlyn’s in the bailey. He has friends. I don’t have friends.”
“Your cousin and his friends will be at the races, as you will be. You may sit with them.”
“But I want to play!”
“Absolutely not!” she snapped. “This is not a week for play. It’s intolerable, that’s what it is, and I won’t have you show up downstairs filthy and mussed. Understood?” She whisked an emerald hairpin from the tray and stabbed it into the coils of her auburn hair.
“You never let me play,” he muttered, returning to the window. He hoped she saw him moping and took pity.
“That is not true. You’re not being fair.”
She wasn’t being fair. He saw no sign of the band of children. They were off playing some other game, and he was stuck doing dutiful things.
The queen asked her handmaid, “Are the guards assembled?”
“I’ll look.” She rustled off into the vestibule.
“Valryk, dear, come here,” Mother said. Her hand, reflected in the window glass, beckoned for him. When he trudged back to the vanity, she smoothed his oiled hair with her silver brush. “Why am I bothering?” she muttered. “We’ll soon be covered in dust anyway.”
“You’re never happy.”
The brush paused, and her green eyes stopped scrutinizing his every thread and eyelash; though they latched onto his, she wasn’t looking at him.
“You still have me,” he insisted, trying to make her smile, but his words had the opposite effect. Valryk wanted a brother or sister, too; then he would have someone to play with. But the baby didn’t come when Mother said it would. He’d heard his bodyguards talking. They were always saying things meant only for grownups, not realizing that he was listening, that he wasn’t a baby anymore. They said his little brother died only hours after being born. A weakling, just like the one before and the one before that. Mother cried so often that she didn’t sit with Father in the Audience Chamber anymore. Please, don’t cry again, he wanted to scream.
She pinched his chin and rewarded him with half a smile. “Yes, I still have you. And I won’t lose you, do you understand? If something should go wrong this week—”
“D’you mean assassins?” The idea made his belly jump and twist with excitement. If an assassin came, Valryk would show him. He would punch him in the nose and send him to the dungeon with the rats forever and ever.
Mother set aside the brush. “You see, the other children aren’t the problem. I’m sure they’re good children. But an assassin got into the Assembly once before and nearly killed your father.”
“And one got into my nursery! Nanna told me.”
“Did she? Then you know why I won’t let you out of my sight this week.”
“Can anybody be an ass
assin?”
Her eyebrows jumped. “That’s an astute question. I don’t know the answer.”
“That means yes, doesn’t it? Why would anyone want to kill Da? Or me? My people like me, Mother. One of them gave me a pony for my birthday.” He’d been allowed to ride it only once.
Mother’s shoulders sagged a bit. “How much truth can you afford to hear?”
“All of it! I’m big enough now. I turned five and a half yesterday.”
A sparkle threatened to return to her eyes. “Yesterday? My, my. So you did.” She chewed her lip, reached for his hands, squeezed them gently. “Your people give you gifts because you are their prince. They want you to like them. But people hide schemes behind smiles. You have twelve older siblings who may think they have a stronger claim to the throne than you do. They can’t be trusted. Eliad may be the one exception, and yet one can never tell. No, we must be careful, my son.”
She smiled at him then, and Valryk drew back. What did her smile mean? Was she hiding schemes? What was a scheme anyway?
Mother stood from the vanity stool. “Come, I know you enjoy the races.”
Did he? The stupid horses just ran around and around in circles.
“Tell you what,” she added, “after the races, we will dine on the lawn, and then you must go to bed. But tomorrow, during the audience when the rest of us are in the Great Hall, you may summon Kethlyn here to play chess.”
“Really?”
“Yes, really. It would do you good to get to know your cousin. Hurry along.” She swept off, stiff skirts rustling like clouds whispering, and Valryk’s heart soared. He didn’t mind so much that the horses ran around in circles or that he didn’t get to paint his face black. Not today anyway. But tomorrow, Mother would be downstairs, and then Valryk would see about that face paint …
~~~~
Kelyn was not happy. His son managed to track him down during one of the few precious moments of quiet he could claim for himself this week. He had sequestered himself in his chamber to change his clothes and rebuild his composure after the morning’s archery tournament. A thousand details had to be overseen and approved; a hundred guests had to be kept content. Captain Lissah complained that security was lacking and insisted the garrison neither sleep nor eat during these hours and those watches, and so Captain Maegeth brought complaints that her men were complaining. Lord Helwende, determined to be fatter every year, had nothing but complaints about the food. The ladies, after sweating in their corsets during the dances, complained that the cistern water was too hot for baths, and so the icehouse was almost empty. As every year, Kelyn felt sorry for the staff, who had to try and amend these petty problems while remembering their courtesies.
Lord Tírandon complained about everything, chronically disgusted ever since Laral wed the Fieran girl. It was the scandal of the decade. Kelyn decided that Lander’s new and largely unfounded rants against Fieran cattle raiders resulted from his damaged pride. And there was no undoing it now: his traitor of a son had gotten a half-Fieran daughter, and in his letters sounded perfectly happy about it. “Why shouldn’t he be happy?” Kelyn had asked Lander that morning at breakfast. “The child must be almost two by now. How can you still be upset about it? Have you even seen your granddaughter?”
“Of course not!”
“Why not?”
“If I must explain that to you, War Commander, you’ve gone simple.”
So now Kelyn was simple, and Lander made sure everyone knew it. He raised plenty of support for his anti-Fieran cause, whispering and grumbling during the archery tournament, until Kelyn finally had to tell him, “If I have to lead another army onto Fieran soil, Lander, I’m blaming you. The history books will not forget it, and the bards will sing loudly of it, I swear upon the Goddess’s sweet bosom.”
Thus, the second day of the Assembly was only halfway over, and already Kelyn’s head throbbed with what he was sure was impending apoplexy. His son’s enthusiastic, high-pitched tale shattered the brief, stolen moment of crystalline peace. With a change of clothes draped over one arm and his free fist knotted on his hip, Kelyn glared down at his son. “Why didn’t you stop her? She should never have been in mews in the first place. Those falcons aren’t pets.”
“Why are you always blaming me for stuff she does? I tried to stop her, and I wish those falcons had ripped her face off!”
The chamber door swung open. Master Urlen fumed. Rhoslyn reminded Kelyn of a startled pigeon; most likely, the falconer had been less than tactful presenting his case to her. Carah blinked fearfully, her cheeks shiny with tears. And Eliad, who carried her, bled profusely, caught up in the wrong family crisis. The squire set Carah on her feet and nudged her into her father’s forbidding shadow.
“Do you realize the trouble you’ve caused, young lady?” he demanded. “Look at Eliad’s face. Have you learned how dangerous those birds are? You could’ve been hurt, Carah.”
“I didn’t mean to,” she pleaded. “I tried to help.”
“Help! We’ve lost our falcons. We must have them to hunt.”
Carah dug her toe into the carpet and twisted side to side. Her thumb strayed to her mouth.
Kelyn dropped to his knees, grabbed her hand away, and added, “If the birds don’t return, Master Urlen will have to go all the way to Mount Drenéleth to catch new ones, and that’s dangerous, then train them, and that’s costly.”
Carah shook her head, desperate. “No, Da!”
“Don’t tell me no. Apologize to Master Urlen and Eliad both, then go to the nursery where you won’t cause any more trouble.”
Carah’s face crunched up, and she broke into sobs. Sometimes Kelyn could tell when she was faking her fits, but this time the heartbreak was genuine. His chest ached seeing it, but he’d given his orders. “I-I did ap-apologize,” she stammered, stomping her foot to make him understand. “They said … the birds said—”
“Go!” Kelyn commanded with the same implacable authority with which he commanded the king’s soldiers.
Carah whirled and fell into her mother’s skirts. Rhoslyn managed an unsympathetic frown. “Go on,” she said softly.
All hope for appeal lost, Carah ran from the room, wailing at the top of her lungs. When the nursery door slammed shut, Kelyn sighed and sank into the comforting arms of his favorite chair. “I’m sorry, Master Urlen. I thought she knew better.”
“No need, m’ lord,” the falconer replied. “If my birds don’t come back in a few days, I’ll start for Drenéleth. Maybe I’ll be able to find some of this spring’s hatchlings.” He bowed out the door, shutting it quietly.
Rhoslyn drew Eliad to her apothecary cabinet, poured water into a basin, and began sponging away the blood that had run down his neck. “These gashes are to the bone. They’ll need stitches, I’m afraid.”
Kethlyn climbed into his mother’s armchair and leant over the back, the better to see all the gory details. “We woulda had you that time, Eliad. We’d have surprised you sure.”
Eliad ruffled Kethlyn’s fair hair. “You think I didn’t know all along where you were hiding?”
Rhoslyn poured extract of wolf’s muzzle onto a cloth and applied it to the wounds. Eliad winced and jerked away. “Your Grace, ow!”
She slapped him in the chest. “Oh, hold still. Whiny warriors are the worst.”
Kelyn had no ear for the banter. His fingers toyed forlornly with the buttons of the tunic laid across his knees. He couldn’t stand it when his little girl hurt because of something he’d done. And something in what she’d said…. His fingers paused. He’d been so determined that he had talked right over her.
“Kethlyn,” he asked, “what did your sister mean by ‘the birds said’?”
The boy plopped down in the chair. “She’s a liar, Da. She said the birds wanted her to open the cages. She said the birds said they wanted to go home.”
Rhoslyn dropped the bottle of wolf’s muzzle. “Oh, Kelyn….”
He jumped from the chair as though it had bitten h
im.
Carah lay face-down on her bed of frilly pink lace. When she heard the door open and shut, her wailing paused with a hiccup, then redoubled in volume. Kelyn stepped over a doll with rouged cheeks and a rocking horse—painted dapple-gray like the War Commander’s—and sat on the edge of the girl-sized bed. He waited for Carah’s crying to trail off before tapping a doll-like arm. She sniffled deeply into her pillow then rolled onto her back. Her nose was red and swollen, and her ringlets clung to wet cheeks.
“I should’ve listened to you,” Kelyn said. “Your brother told me about the birds. What they said to you, I mean.”
Carah wiped her nose with the back of her hand. “He said I’m lying. I’m not!”
“I believe you.” It had been more than four years since Thorn warned his brother of the signs to watch for. Kelyn had come to hope that they wouldn’t manifest after all.
“You do?”
He nodded sheepishly. Carah dived into his arms, and he cradled her in his lap. “You must understand something, dearheart. You can hear the falcons because you’re special. You have abilities that most of us don’t.”
She peered up at him through tear-spiked lashes. “You mean, you can’t hear them?”
He shook his head. “If your brother calls you a liar, it’s because he can’t hear them either. But your Uncle Thorn can hear them. And when he comes for your birthday this summer, he’ll want to hear your story. All right?”
“All right,” she said, but the delicate pleats in her brow told him everything was not all right. Her tiny fingers stroked the softness of his velvet sleeve, and she said, “They were so sad, da, the falcons.”
Kelyn sighed; his daughter was too clever by half. “I’ll tell Master Urlen to forego his trip to Mount Drenéleth. I don’t know how we’ll catch our doves though.”
“No doves,” Carah exclaimed.
“You mean we can’t eat doves now?”
She shook her head.
“What about geese?” Not that falcons were used to hunt the larger wild geese, but Kelyn had to learn the boundaries.
