by Ellyn, Court
Kelyn wound through the new guest quarters to the ancient wings of the castle, feeling as if every maid and valet he passed was watching him out of more than idle curiosity. Some of the faces he recognized, but many more were new to these halls. Why the drastic change in staff? He couldn’t shake the feeling that he’d stumbled into an enemy camp and was trying desperately to look as if he belonged. Lissah would put an end to it. Theirs had been a long, cold armistice, but the mere sight of her would ease Kelyn’s mind.
At the end of a long corridor lit by silver lamps loomed a pair of silver doors in which falcons swooped and dived over distant mountains. A pair of Falcon Guards stood in front the doors rather than flanked them, which meant the king was elsewhere. The Audience Chamber where Rhorek had held court was to hold court no more. Valryk chose to govern his people from a new room of cold, pristine stone lacking any hint of history or legacy. The headquarters of the Falcon Guard had yet to be moved, however. They remained behind the unassuming door to the left.
Kelyn knocked loudly. A stranger opened the door, gave Kelyn a bland glance up and down, and asked, “Yes?”
“I am looking for Captain Lissah.”
“Ah, you’ve not-a heard,” he said in a foreign accent. “Er, m’ lord. Just a moment.” The stranger shut the door before Kelyn could demand answers. He had time to pace angrily across the corridor and back again before the door opened. An pale man with wide cheekbones and almond-shaped gray eyes filled the threshold.
“My Lord War Commander, I am Captain Dashka. How may I help you?” His accent was as unfamiliar as his face. He pronounced the ‘l’ far back on his tongue, as if he were on the verge of gagging.
“Dashka? What kind of name is that, man? Who are you?”
“My name is of the Valroi, and I told you who I am.”
“Why would the king send to Valrosk for a guard’s captain? He can’t find one of his own countrymen worthy enough? Where’s Lissah?”
“My predecessor, you mean? Was that her name? I heard she offended His Majesty and he dismissed her. Where she is now, I cannot say.”
“Can’t you?” Kelyn heard his own teeth grinding and clenched his jaw tight.
“His Majesty pays me handsomely to do his will and keep him safe from any and all danger.” Those strange gray eyes missed nothing. They were like tentacles that searched out Kelyn’s secrets. An expert in the arts of interrogation, if Kelyn was any judge. “You are wise to forebear weapons in these corridors, my lord. We wouldn’t want anyone to think you meant to harm His Majesty’s guests. Now, is there a matter you might take up with me?”
“No.”
“Ah.” Dashka crooked a finger and two more Falcons emerged from the offices. Dark, southern men both, they too were strangers. “The banquet is sure to begin soon. These good men will escort you back to your quarters.”
“Don’t trouble yourself, Captain. I know my way around Bramoran better than you do.” Kelyn made an about-face and started back the way he’d come. The footfalls of the two Guards kept time with his own.
~~~~
Carah drummed her fingers on the vanity and fidgeted with her hair, not sure she liked what the maid had done with it. Her empty belly grumbled. “It isn’t seemly for a lady to gobble like a dog, Uncle Thorn, but that’s what I’ll end up doing if he doesn’t hurry. Then I’ll get hot and be sick. Where is he?” She didn’t dare go down to the banquet without her father to escort her. What would people say? They had missed the first courses, she was sure of it.
Uncle Thorn had stationed himself at the window and gazed down into the courtyard. “Rhian’s on his way back. Just came out of the barracks.”
Less chance of him nuzzling swan-like necks there. “Shall we go for the bread in our saddlebags?”
The door opened. Da gave them a scathing glare, then peered back down the corridor. “You may leave now, gentlemen!” he called, voice echoing under the vaulted ceiling. “I’ve arrived without managing to stab anyone, as you can well see.”
Carah exchanged a worried frown with her uncle.
Da slammed the door shut. “Trailed like an accursed criminal!”
“Well?” asked Thorn, abandoning the window.
“Lissah’s gone. There’s some foreign bootlick in her place. Something about his eyes, scared the shit of me. Mercenaries, can you believe it? Valryk is an idiot, hiring foreigners to guard him. Apparently it’s his own people he fears.”
Carah had rarely seen her father so distraught. Seeing it made her long for the safety of home.
Da raked hands through his hair as he paced. “If anyone has hurt her…”
Uncle Thorn seemed to find it difficult to look at his brother. “Did she never marry, have a family?”
“No.” The word sounded so forlorn.
Are Da and Lissah … lovers?
Thorn glanced around at her, as if surprised she were old enough to catch on. His brain failed to bar the truth from her. Long ago. Before you were born.
That’s why she always looked ready to flay him. I can’t imagine Da loving anyone but Mum.
Don’t try. To Kelyn he said, “Look, I’ll keep poking around. When your squire gets here, you’d better go down. You’ll be missed.”
The new King’s Hall was a cavernous monument in warm yellow-gray stone. It lacked the shine and formal beauty of the old Audience Chamber, but had a more austere, masculine ambiance. Chandeliers that looked like inverted fountains hung heavily from robust rafters under high, echoing vaults. Soft music of flute and harp descended from a gallery, and rows of lacquered tables filled the floor. Aralorris and Evaronnans sat on one side, Fierans on the other. The Leanians were dispersed among them. A diplomatic arrangement. The room sweltered with bodies and gossip, laughter and restrained hostility. At the far end of the Hall the three kings sat behind a raised table of richly carved white thellnyth wood, Ha’el to Valryk’s left, Arryk to his right. They appeared to be conversing amiably. Probably small talk about things that didn’t shape nations or start wars. The sight of it eased Carah considerably.
At the end of the high table sat Ha’el’s son, Prince Da’yn. He spooned something into his mouth with abandon. Both father and son had the small eyes and round, fleshy cheeks of their predecessor, King Bano’en. One hoped that their resemblance to swine would lessen with the generations, but alas. It was an unseemly comparison for kings. Aralorris blamed it on frequent inbreeding among the Leanian line. True to form, Prince Da’yn was supposedly betrothed to his first cousin, the heiress of Endhal. At fourteen, he already outweighed his father and seemed to care for little but the next dish set in front of him. He had an older sister, Carah was aware; she wondered if the princess was a match for her brother in size and homeliness. Recently Mum mentioned that Princess Da’era might be a likely match for Kethlyn. Carah pitied her brother.
As it turned out, representatives of House Ilswythe weren’t the only ones late to supper. Drem, Lord Brimlad helped his mother, the Princess Rilyth into the Hall. King Valryk’s great-aunt leaned on an ivory-headed walking stick that wobbled in her feeble grasp. Drem himself looked paler than usual. Though he was a year or two younger than Da, he looked twenty years older, his features shrunken, his hair thin and white from a life of suffering one illness after another.
What a trial, creeping along behind the old princess, Carah thought, her belly rumbling, the scent of delectable dishes wafting up her nose. The herald stationed at the door announced the late arrivals; a page led Drem and his mother to their seats in one direction and another showed Kelyn and Carah to theirs. Surveying the tables, she decided the soup and salad courses had come and gone. Footmen were bringing round trays of stuffed peppers and some kind of fish in an herby lemon sauce.
“I don’t see Eliad, damn him,” Da whispered, oblivious to the food. “I will not be responsible for his neglect, even if he is my vassal.”
“Kethlyn’s not here either.” His golden head ought to be shining among the crowd, but it wasn’t. She hope
d her brother wouldn’t earn the king’s wrath, too.
“Kelyn, here.” Uncle Allaran stood and waved them over in the most un-genteel fashion. Most of the highborns were too boisterous themselves to notice or care. Master Brugge had arrived and sat across the table from him, still wearing dusty scalemail and shoveling peppers into his mouth. Garrs, Lord Helwende occupied the chair next to the dwarf and seemed half-drunk already. “I traded places with Lady Lunélion and her family,” Allaran added, wrapping an arm around his nephew and giving him a good jostle. “This way, we can carouse together. Like old times, eh?”
“Like old times? Oh, do tell.” Carah planted a kiss on her great-uncle’s cheek. “I much prefer your company. You have no idea how grateful—”
Her father cast her a glare that warned her to be polite, so she found Maeret across the aisle and offered her a friendly smile, even though it felt like pricking her mouth with needles to do it.
Allaran’s daughter rose from the table to kiss her cousins. Ni’avh, if Carah remembered, was the shy one of the three. Though her little son resembled her, sharing her hazel eyes and light brown curls, he seemed to be anything but timid. He clambered up on his chair and frowned at Carah. “You must be Lassar,” she said.
“I’m four!” he declared, holding up three fingers. His mother pried up his pinky.
“Is the food good?”
He nodded exuberantly, reached for a half-eaten slice of buttered bread, and shoved it at Carah.
“Sit down, darling, like a gentleman,” Ni’avh said.
“He’ll be a strong, brave knight one day,” Allaran said, beaming at his grandson, and while he bragged about the boy, Carah felt a touch on her elbow.
Rhian leaned close. There was something oddly nervous in the way he lowered his chin and refused to look at her. A squire … how do I … what do I do? I mean, I watched Jaedren, but …
Carah nearly choked on a chuckle. Pointing at the other squires ranged along the walls, she told him, Just do as they do. Pain squeezed at her nape. Stand back there until you’re needed. Look disciplined, don’t slouch or lean against the wall. Anticipate our needs. Keep the wine glasses half full unless we tell you otherwise, be ready to pull out our chairs or push them in. Don’t touch anything with your hands that goes into our mouths, use a napkin to hold those things, and don’t worry about serving us food, we’ll choose the morsels we want when the footmen bring the trays. But if we require anything else, we’ll let you know. Da or I will raise a finger for you, so keep an eye out.
The thoughts came so fast that Rhian responded with a wide-eyed gape. Shit, he replied and went to stand against the wall just in time for Kelyn to pull out his chair. Rhian rushed forward again and scooted it under him as he sat. Carah covered a giggle behind her hand and let him do the same for her.
The food and wine were as delectable as she had hoped. Lamb and porpoise and peahen followed the fish, each accompanied by its own sauce and its own wine. Valryk hadn’t played the hypocrite by serving Fieran white, which was admirable. The dessert wine ended up being a sweet, sparkling blush from Dorél, which paired beautifully with cream cakes and strawberry glaze. Too bad the talk wasn’t as refined. Seated between her father and her uncle, Carah learned more than she cared to about the last war as they traded memories with Garrs and Brugge. The drunker Garrs got, the more he delighted in telling his neighbors how he lost the first two fingers of his left hand. Every time he said “Fieran” he whispered the word hoarsely. Little Lassar’s mouth made a wet pink ‘o’ as he stared at the maimed hand and compared it to his own.
So far, little seemed different from the Assembly at Ilswythe. It was good to be seated below with friends instead of perched on the dais looking down at them as usual. Once, when Carah glanced toward the high table, she saw all three kings staring her direction. The White Falcon leaned close to the Black, who whispered at length to him. Perhaps they spoke of her father, instead. The White Falcon had every reason to be curious about Aralorr’s War Commander, after all. But when King Ha’el found her staring back, he dipped his chin and raised his goblet in a silent toast to her. They were discussing her! Carah returned the gesture shakily, then turned her eyes toward her plate and kept them there.
Once dessert was cleared away, the musicians struck a lively tune, inviting the highborns to drift away from the tables and into the next room. A brilliant silver chandelier glistened above an open floor elaborately patterned in half a dozen colors of Doreli marble. Chairs and columns clung to the walls. At one end was a dais and three gilded armchairs for the kings. Opposite them, under the three royal banners, was a table piled with towers of cakes and fruit and candied flowers. Footmen poured wine into chilled silver flutes. It was everything Carah thought a ballroom should be, and such a glorious surprise after worrying that all the fun would be excluded from the convention. “Da, dance with me.” She tugged his hand.
“No, absolutely not. Find someone your own age.”
Fingers tapped her shoulder. It was Lord Westport’s son, Barrin. He was sixteen, snobbier than a princeling, and wore hats as gaudy as his father’s, but Carah didn’t care. She curtsied and let him whisk her off. Only when the dance was half over did others join them. Why the hesitation? Goddess forbid a Fieran bump into an Aralorri.
Gheryn, Garrs’s nephew and heir, claimed Carah next, though he was so shy he kept staring at his toes.
Carah had to wave off the next invitation from Laral’s friend, Lord Zeldanor, for a chance to breathe. She’d eaten too much, as she feared. The wine didn’t help but only made her face bloom the warmer. The sweat had barely cooled from her brow when she heard a gruff cough behind her and turned to find Master Brugge in his mail, hands clenched behind his back. “I would take you up on your offer, m’ lady, if these peacocks know how to really play. Can you keep up?”
She would’ve refused, but the idea was hers in the first place. “I’ll try,” she said, setting aside her wine glass.
When the music stopped and the applause quieted, he bellowed toward the balcony. “Play a proper dwarven song, damn ye!” The highborns laughed, the musicians consulted, and at last a tabor rattled out a quick rhythm. The whistle joined in with a jig, and Brugge grunted. “Aye, ‘twill serve.” He grabbed Carah’s hand, and his short legs went to work. Carah knew only one jig, but it allowed her to keep time with the dwarf. She was soon laughing so hard that she could barely breathe, and little by little the other highborns circled round them, clapping out the rhythm. It was a scene fit for a tavern’s common room, not a king’s ballroom. Brugge was red in the face and surely Carah’s was a match for it by the time the pipe trilled its last note. A cheer resounded, and Carah kissed the dwarf full on the forehead.
“Aye, that was worthy of a mountain hall,” he said and led Carah to a chair beside an open window. The night air pouring through cooled her face deliciously. “I will tell Dagni she has met her match.” His whiskers tickled the back of her hand as he bent to kiss it, then he made his way across the room to where Da wagged a finger at him, grinning. The dwarf raised his nose smugly, as if he felt ten feet tall.
Carah planned to refuse the rest of the invitations; her feet were throbbing and she’d started dreaming of a pillow, but the night was young yet. Some of the older highborns, like Drem and his mother, had toddled off for bed, while others were conspicuously missing, but the young people remained and the wine flowed. What could possibly be wrong in Bramoran? Carah began to think the nightmare was a lie.
On the dais, King Valryk brooded. Was he merely tired, or had something unpleasant been said? He stared at the floor, insensible to the dancers and the chatter spinning past. On occasion he sipped from a silver goblet encrusted with lapis lazuli. King Ha’el grew weary of trying to make conversation and descended to the floor to dance with his cousin Ni’avh, then with Lord Mithlan’s granddaughter. Aisley, Carah thought her name was. A willowy girl with enviable night-black hair, she was the younger sister of the girl reported missing years ago.
Prince Da’yn was too fat to dance, but he gave it a valiant effort at his father’s insistence. Carah was only glad that he chose Lady Endhal, his future mother-in-marriage. His girth threw off the spacing in the lines, and the minuet nearly ended in confusion. It was better not to watch than laugh at a prince’s expense.
At last, Carah was unable to avoid Maeret. The girl hooked Carah’s arm in hers as if they were best friends and insisted they stroll. Her shoulders were too muscular for the low-collared gown she wore, but she was as adept at gossip as she was at handling horses. “Mother says Lord Lander is vying for another wife. After all these years, can you imagine?” Even though she was excited, her voice remained flat, her eyes heavy-lidded and dull.
“That’s nonsense.”
“Where is he, then?” A sweep of her arm took in the throngs of chatting highborns, the lines of whirling dancers. “Off with Lady Lanwyk, I’d wager.”
“He’s old. He probably retired for the night.”
“Retired, yes. But alone?”
“For shame, Maeret.”
“He needs an heir, doesn’t he? His son can’t show his face in Aralorr anymore, and his daughter is crazy.”
“His daughter is—” Carah bit her tongue. The truth wouldn’t help, she feared.
The latest dance closed, polite applause went up for the musicians, and suddenly everyone was dropping into a bow. One of the kings had risen again. Carah stooped into a curtsy, then glanced up through her lashes to find the White Falcon stepping down from the dais. No one uttered a sound as he walked the length of the floor. He might’ve been aiming for the cakes or wine, but Carah’s cheeks heated, telling her it wasn’t so. He’d spotted her and there was no hiding now. Polished boots walked past her, and she experienced an instant of mixed relief and disappointment. But then he circled round behind her and his fingers brushed her shoulder.
She raised a hand and he lifted her out of the curtsy. “Play the Imperial,” he ordered the musicians. Turning to Carah, he asked, “Do you know it?”
