“We were so happy then,” Felicity repeated. “I’d never had a lover like you. Someone who cared so much about even the smallest things.”
“But you always cared more about being a Princess than you did about us,” said Lament. “No matter how close I held you, you always kept me at a distance. And then there was the baby.”
“I had to abort it. I had to. The scandal if my father had found out about us, about the baby …”
“You didn’t even tell me about it until it was too late. Until it was over and done with.”
“You would have tried to talk me out of it. And I didn’t want to be talked out of it. You were never supposed to know.”
“But someone talked,” said Lament. “Someone always talks. The abortion was the last straw for me. I kept telling myself you’d change, that I could change you. But you were always your father’s daughter. We were always separated, by royalty and religion. You never understood how important my faith was to me, my beliefs. Or you couldn’t have done what you did.”
They walked on, not looking at each other. Felicity’s hand gripped Lament’s arm a little more tightly.
“Did the Duke ever know about us?” asked Lament.
“Of course, dear.” Felicity blew a perfect smoke ring and watched it sail away on the air before them. “Daddy made it his business to know things like that. He had more spies inside his Palace than outside. As long as we weren’t public knowledge and a threat to his reputation, he didn’t care. And he never saw you as a threat. A very minor noble, more interested in the priesthood than politics. The perfect chaperone in Daddy’s eyes.”
“But he never knew about …”
“The pregnancy? No. He’d have had you killed slowly and horribly if he even suspected.”
“You knew the abortion would hurt me when I found out.”
“I had to be strong,” said Felicity. “For both of us.”
“Was it a boy or a girl?”
“I never asked.” Felicity threw aside the last of her cigarette and chose another one. Her hand shook just a little as she fitted it into the elegant holder and lit it. “I never thought it would drive you away from me. Never thought you’d leave me, and the Palace, and everything we had.”
“If you had known that,” said Lament slowly, “would you still have done it?”
“Yes,” said Felicity. “I’ve always been able to do what is necessary.”
“And now you are a Queen, and I am the Walking Man, and we are further apart than ever.” Lament sighed heavily. “We had such hopes and plans, you and I. We never foresaw anything like this.”
“Well, you were the one who ran off to join a monastery!” said Felicity sharply. “Gave up your title, your lands, and your money, just to wear out your knees with a bunch of God-botherers. You never even looked in to say goodbye! I had to find out about it from the gossip sheets!”
“You would have talked me out of it,” said Lament, repeating her words. “And I didn’t want to be talked out of it.”
Felicity sniffed. “You wouldn’t catch me in one of those places on a bet. All ritual and discipline and cold baths at unnatural hours. If God had meant us to pray that much, he’d have put padding on our knees.”
“I went there looking for peace of mind.”
“Did you find it?”
“I think so, yes. Sometimes. Until the long night fell and the demons came. I’m sure you know the rest of the story. Everyone does.”
Felicity stopped walking and Lament stopped with her. She turned to face him, and they looked into each other’s eyes for a long time. “You were the only man I ever really loved,” Felicity said quietly. “The only man who ever meant anything to me.”
“But not enough to marry me,” said Lament.
“I couldn’t! Daddy would never have allowed it. He would have exiled you. Or had you killed.”
“We could have run away together.”
“No,” said Felicity. “I couldn’t. I couldn’t give up the life I thought I valued so much.”
“I know,” said Lament. “I understood that, even then.”
“Your hair is gray,” said Felicity, almost wonderingly. “And your face is so much older than mine, though there’s only a few years between us.” She dropped her cigarette holder to the floor and used both hands to push aside his long coat to get at the shirt beneath. Lament stood stiffly as she undid the shirt buttons one by one, and then opened his shirt to look at his bare chest. “Your hair is gray here, too. And so many scars, so much pain. My poor dear. You had such a beautiful body once.”
“Every scar tells a story,” said Lament. “Medals in God’s wars. I have been very busy in my Lord’s work.”
“Jesus, what have we done to ourselves?” asked Felicity. “This isn’t how the story’s supposed to end. Me, the widow of another man, and you, married to your religion. Doesn’t what we want matter anymore?”
“God has a plan for all of us,” said Lament. “I have to believe that, or I’d go mad. The darkness is real, so the light has to be.”
Felicity turned away, her eyes bright with the tears she refused to shed. Lament buttoned up his shirt again.
“After you left, did you ever think of me?” Felicity asked finally.
“I gave myself to God.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
“Of course I thought of you, Fliss. I always will. But I have given myself to something bigger, to a cause that means more to me than life itself. I am the Walking Man now, the Wrath of God in the world of men. And the man you knew can only be a small part of that.”
“So,” said Felicity, looking back at him, eyes dry and mouth firm. “What brings you to Forest Castle after all these years?”
“Fliss …”
“Why did you come here!”
“The voice within me told me I was needed here. That I must go into the Inverted Cathedral and reclaim it for God. Make it clean again. Felicity, we have made our own lives by our own choices, and the love we once had, or might have had, is no part of either of them. You are the Forest Queen and I am the Walking Man, and that is all we can ever be.”
“Would you give up being the Walking Man for me?” asked Felicity, so quietly, he could barely hear her.
“Would you give up being Queen?” Lament asked. “Would you give up your son’s chance to be King?”
“Go away,” said Felicity tiredly. “Leave me alone.” She turned her back on him. “There’s a private room just to your left. You can wait there while I send for a guide.”
There was a long pause and then he said quietly, “I never meant to hurt you, Fliss.” And then there was only the sound of a door opening and closing behind him as he left the Court, perhaps forever.
Felicity hugged herself tightly to stop herself from falling apart. She could cope with this. She’d coped with worse in her time. Nothing could destroy her anymore. And if she’d become hard over the years, well, she’d had to become hard, because the only other alternative was to be torn apart by all the opposing forces in her life. She pulled the authority of the Queen about her. It was a cold comfort, but better than none.
The Court’s main doors swung slowly open and Cally and Sir Vivian peered cautiously in. On seeing the Queen alone, they entered the Court, and a collection of the braver courtiers filed slowly in behind them. Felicity went back to her Throne and seated herself carefully, her head held high, her chin firm, her gaze cold and forbidding enough to discourage all but the most polite and general of questions. Cally took up her usual position beside the Throne without saying anything, for which the Queen was quietly grateful. Sir Vivian took up a position standing before the Throne, while roughly a third of the normal number of courtiers spread out behind him, unusually quiet and subdued. There was a certain amount of craning of necks as they looked worriedly about them for some trace of the Walking Man.
“Welcome back, my loyal attendants,” said the Queen icily. “Perhaps in future we should forget all about your
solemn oath to protect the Throne, and just issue you all some running shoes. For now, you will no doubt be happy to hear that I am entirely unharmed and in no danger. Neither are any of you, as long as you behave yourselves while the Walking Man is here. He has given me his word he is here solely to deal with the problem of the Inverted Cathedral. So unless any of you are stupid enough to bring yourselves to his attention, you should be safe. Any of you with really guilty consciences should consider locking yourselves in your rooms till he’s gone. Hiding under the bed might not be a bad idea, either.”
The courtiers murmured quietly among themselves once she’d finished. Her stock had risen dramatically just for having survived a meeting with the dreaded Walking Man, let alone with such aplomb. Though every one of them would have given good money to know just what he and she had talked about for so long. A Queen Regent backed by the Starlight Duke was worrying enough; a Queen backed by the Walking Man was enough to make them want to change their underwear urgently. A great many plans would have to be reconsidered and possibly dropped, at least until the Walking Man was safely gone from Forest Castle. The Queen let them mutter, and turned her attention to Sir Vivian, still standing at parade rest before her.
“Our thanks to you, too, Sir Vivian. You were ready to put your life on the line to protect me. I won’t forget that. Though I suppose I should have expected nothing less from the hero of Tower Rouge. But your methods came as something of a surprise. I never knew you were a magician of such power.”
“It’s not something I’m proud of, Your Majesty,” said Sir Vivian, his voice and face as cold and formal as always.
“Thank you anyway, High Commander, for staying when everyone else fled. I have never doubted your courage, but it is good to know I can depend on your honor as well.” She turned to Cally. “Not a word now. We’ll talk later.”
Cally nodded and then looked at Sir Vivian, surprising him with an approving smile. He nodded stiffly back. He wasn’t used to such praise from women, and honestly didn’t know how to react to it. Truth be told, it made him feel more nervous than facing the Walking Man had.
Among the returned courtiers, various cliques and factions were already forming to mutter animatedly with each other, and discuss the ramifications of the Walking Man’s presence and Sir Vivian’s new powers. The whole balance of power in the Castle was up for grabs now, and everyone knew it. The Queen watched them talk themselves into a major panic, and smiled sardonically. Cally watched the Queen watching the Court, and frowned thoughtfully. She remembered the man who’d gone on to become the Walking Man, remembered how he broke Felicity’s heart by leaving. Right now he was a complication the Queen didn’t need. Cally’s frown became a scowl as she looked ahead and saw nothing but trouble. There was nothing like the return of an old love for screwing up your life.
And Sir Vivian stood stiffly before the Throne, his thoughts moving furiously behind the cold mask of his face. His secret was out now. Soon the whole Castle would know. For all his efforts on the battlefield, for all his attempts to be a hero as other men, for all his endless restraint, he had become the only thing he never wanted to be—the Warlock’s son, in fact as well as name. No one would ever see him as anything else now. And what worried him most of all, and squeezed his heart with a cold fist, was how natural it had felt to wield such powerful magics. How natural and how good, how very good. Like something he was born to do. Sir Vivian fought a desperate battle to control his feelings and the new ambitions rising slowly within him, and wondered what he would do next.
Hawk and Fisher sat together in a small, quiet antechamber, and compared notes on their day so far. They were both bone-deep weary, but they stubbornly put their heads together and plowed through what little useful information they’d gathered. Because they knew that if they put their feet up and relaxed, even for a moment, they’d probably sleep for a week. Unfortunately even after all their interviews, they still didn’t have much worth discussing. Practically everyone had some motive to kill Harald, but no one had the means, the opportunity, and the motive. Or at least, not in any combination that made sense. Fisher still wanted it to be her father, on general principles, but had to admit there was no real hard evidence against him. Their arguments went in circles for some time without getting anywhere, until they were suddenly interrupted by the sound of a large number of heavy feet heading in their direction. Fisher moved over to the door and looked out, then stepped back and shut the door quietly. She looked at Hawk, who’d already risen to his feet.
“Duke’s men,” said Fisher. “Twenty of them, heading straight for us. What do we do?”
“There was a time ten to one odds wouldn’t have bothered us much,” said Hawk. “But in our current state … I don’t think they’d kill us. But they might well work us over again.”
“Should we run?” asked Fisher.
“Do you want to?” countered Hawk.
“I couldn’t bear to see you hurt again,” said Fisher. “You know the Castle better than them. We could lose ourselves till they get tired of looking.”
“No,” said Hawk. “We don’t run. Not ever. Not for my sake, or ours. Because if we run, everyone will know we’re weak. That those bastards have broken our spirit, as well as our bodies. The news would spread all over the Castle. No one would talk to us anymore. And besides, we’re Hawk and Fisher. We don’t run. That’s part of who and what we are.”
Fisher smiled slowly. “Of course. I forgot that for a moment. Better to stand and fight and maybe die, because if we don’t, we wouldn’t be ourselves anymore.”
“Couldn’t have put it better myself,” said Hawk.
He drew his axe and Fisher drew her sword, and they stood together in the middle of the room, watching the door. It took all their strength just to hold their weapons steady. The door soon burst open, slamming back against the wall as twenty of the Duke’s men stamped into the room. They came to an abrupt halt and stared at Hawk and Fisher a little uncertainly, taken aback by the drawn weapons. The Duke’s men looked at one another for a moment, and then their leader stepped forward. A big man with muscles on his muscles. He tucked his thumbs into his swordbelt and did his best to fix Hawk with an imperious gaze.
“I’m Hogg. I speak for the Starlight Duke. He gives you a deadline. Either produce a viable suspect for King Harald’s murder by midday tomorrow, or he commands you to leave Forest Castle, never to return. The Duke will then merge Hillsdown and the Forest Kingdom by force of arms, in the name of his grandson, Stephen. The Duke will of course rule this new country, until Stephen comes of age. If you stay, or seek to interfere in any way, you will be killed. You are also commanded to stay well away from the Inverted Cathedral, also on pain of death. That is all.”
“Very nicely memorized,” said Hawk. “Ten out of ten for content, but you need to work on the menace more. It’s all in the delivery.”
Fisher looked at Hawk. “Why would he care about the Inverted Cathedral?”
“Because whatever weapons, treasures, or powers are to be found there, the Duke presumably wants them for himself,” Hawk said easily. “Or at least, he wants only his people, or people under his control, getting their hands on such things. And he doesn’t want us in particular getting nvolved, because either we’d give what we found to the Queen so she could be more independent of her father, or we might keep them for ourselves and become even more of a danger to him.”
“Yeah,” said Fisher. “That sounds like the Duke. Now, are you going to give this arsehole the bad news or am I?”
“Me first, then you,” said Hawk. He smiled at Hogg, the Duke’s spokesman. It was a confident, happy, and really rather unpleasant smile. “I notice Duke Alric didn’t come himself. That’s because he wasn’t dumb enough to deliver such a speech in person. He knew Fisher and I would take turns kicking his arse until he could use his buttocks for earmuffs. You can go back to your master and tell him that Hawk and Fisher don’t give a damn what he wants. We will go where we choose, do as we wil
l, and make fillets out of anyone who gets in our way. Now, I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking there’s twenty of you, versus two people who recently got the crap kicked out of them. Well, we may not be exactly all that we used to be, but you will observe that all our injuries are gone. And ten to one odds or not, we’re better than you’ll ever be. If you rush us all at once, there’s a chance you’ll bring us down in the end. But we’ll kill a hell of a lot of you along the way. So, which of you are willing to die so that some of your fellows might win out? How much does the Duke pay you guys? Does it include funeral expenses?”
“Enough talk,” growled Fisher. “I feel like killing someone.”
Hawk grinned his old wolf’s grin, his axe steady in his hand. Fisher was grinning, too, and there was no humor at all in her unrelenting gaze. Hogg swallowed hard and fell back a step. And then he turned and almost ran from the room, his men hurrying out after him. Hawk and Fisher waited until they’d heard the Duke’s men retreat a fair way down the corridor, then they lowered their suddenly very heavy weapons, staggered over to the nearest chairs, and sat down.
“Damn, we’re good,” said Fisher.
“Oh, yeah,” said Hawk. “Of course, it helped that we weren’t bluffing. We were ready to fight, and they knew it. They just couldn’t believe we’d be ready to take on such odds if we weren’t up to it.”
“We have got to do something about this, Hawk,” said Fisher. “Before we run into someone who’s too dumb to be fooled.”
“There is another way,” Hawk said slowly, reluctantly. “I’ve been thinking more and more of all the good I could do if I were to reveal who I really am. If I declared myself Prince Rupert. I have the Royal seal. Chance would back me up. As Prince, I’d have the authority to order the right things done. The people would flock to me as they did before. The Duke would think twice about leading an army against forces led by the legendary Prince Rupert. I could put that legend to good use for once. Do I have the right to deny my duty, just because I don’t want to take up my family responsibilities? I was always frustrated by my lack of authority back in Haven, by the lack of power to do something about all the evil I saw every day. As Prince Rupert and Princess Julia, we could make people do the right thing, force them to do what’s necessary by sheer Royal authority.”
Beyond the Blue Moon (Forest Kingdom Novels) Page 37
