“Alaric, I really need—”
“I know. Tobias told me.” He dragged a chair from the corner and sat down beside the cot. “One more sip, and I’ll hear you out.”
She drank it, fought off another a wave of nausea, then took a deep breath and looked squarely at the king.
“Alaric,” she said, so softly that he had to lean forward to hear, “you know how, before a storm, the clouds build and grow dark, and the wind picks up and feels suddenly cooler—it even has a different smell? You can feel in your bones that it’s going to rain, and rain hard. Well, sometimes it’s like that for me. I get a powerful foreboding of things to come. It looms over me like a storm cloud. That’s how it’s been these last days, ever since we set sail.”
He nodded, all attention.
“Last night I had a vision—I’ve learned to tell the difference now between commonplace dreams and visions that come to me in my sleep.”
“And this was a vision.”
“Yes, a very strange one. I was in a garden—like in the abbey, remember? With covered walkways on all four sides? Only this was small. There was a pool in the middle, and there were lots of flowers. I was alone except for a very big yellow cat, and he was speaking to me.”
“The cat?”
“Yes. He said, ‘In chess, the object of the game is to protect your king.’”
“Molly, that’s nonsense.”
“Wait. I’m not finished. I said, ‘I’m not playing chess—I don’t even know how—so why are you telling me that?’ And the cat started pacing back and forth, but he didn’t answer. So I asked the question differently, because I thought I already knew the answer. I said, ‘Are you warning me that my king is in danger?’ And he said, ‘Yes.’ Then I asked him what kind of danger, and he admitted he didn’t know, not yet at least. It could be that the danger was still forming. But he’d hoped I might be able to figure it out. And if not, well, at least I could warn you to stay on your guard.”
“That’s it?”
“No. There’s more. I felt—in this vision—as if I were about to leave, but the cat was calling me back. He said, ‘Didn’t you wonder why King Gonzalo insisted that your king come in person to discuss the terms of the marriage and the alliance? Is that the way such matters are usually arranged?’ And I said that as far as I knew—which wasn’t very far at all—it was more common to work things out through messengers. But as it happened, going to Cortova was convenient for my king. By which, of course, I meant that you have to give the Loving Cup to the princess in person in order for the enchantment to work. But I didn’t tell the cat that part, because I wasn’t sure I could trust him.”
“Molly, I’m trying very hard to take this seriously, but do you have any idea how comical it sounds?”
“Of course I do. But I’ll let you judge when I’ve told you everything.”
“All right.”
“So the cat said, ‘Think, Molly. Gonzalo neither knows nor cares that it’s convenient for your king. In fact, he believes just the opposite, that’s it’s a long journey at an awkward and dangerous time for him to be away, considering how things are between Westria and Austlind. So oughtn’t you ask yourself why?’”
She’d been speaking with her eyes closed; it helped her concentrate. But now she opened them and looked directly at Alaric. She could see that he was considering what she’d just said, and that it had alarmed him.
“So the cat asked, ‘Are you aware that King Reynard of Austlind also seeks an alliance with Cortova and hopes to marry his eldest son to the princess?’ ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘We’ve heard that rumor. But if they’d already come to terms, Gonzalo wouldn’t have summoned Alaric, so that obviously means—’ But the cat didn’t even let me finish. He said, ‘Really?’ and gave me this knowing look. ‘Are you sure?’ And that’s when I started to put it all together.”
“Molly, are you—was the cat—suggesting that Cortova and Austlind have already formed an alliance; and as part of their arrangement, Gonzalo has lured me away from home so Reynard can attack my kingdom?”
“That was my first thought, yes. But then—”
“What?”
“I reminded myself that Lord Mayhew remains in Westria, and you’d defer to him in military matters anyway since your skills don’t lie in that direction. So your absence would be regrettable—”
“But of no real importance. I understand.”
“Alaric, forgive me, but Reynard doesn’t need to attack us. You’re the last living member of the royal house of Westria, and you have no heir. As your first cousin, Reynard is quite legitimately the next in line for the throne. It would be so much easier, and less costly—and certainly it would look much better to the world at large—if he just . . . I mean, if he and the king of Cortova really are in collusion, and you’ve been drawn away from the safety of your castle . . . Do you think he might . . . ?”
“Arrange an accident?”
“Something like that. More or less.”
Wordlessly, the king uncorked the bottle and gave her another sip. On impulse, she grabbed it and drank down the elixir—glug, glug, glug—then shivered, burped, and dropped the bottle onto the coverlet.
“Goodness!” said the king, impressed.
“Double your guard, Alaric. And don’t trust anyone in the court of Cortova.”
The king leaned back and gazed thoughtfully out the tiny porthole, where a brisk wind was flinging sea spray up against the glass.
“How could I possibly have missed it?” he said, shaking his head in wonder. “It’s so obvious now that you’ve said it.”
“You missed it—we both did—because it fell in with our plans.”
“I suppose you’re right.”
He got to his feet and dragged the chair back over to the corner. There he stood for a moment, thinking his private thoughts. Molly had shut her eyes again. The talking had worn her out.
“Once we land,” he said, “we’ll stay on at the inn for as long as you need to recover. After that it’s an easy three-day ride to the summer palace.”
“Mmm,” she said, already drifting back to sleep.
He continued to stand there, his hand resting on the back of the chair, searching for the words that ought to be said: how deeply indebted he was to her; how much he relied upon her wisdom, her courage, and the magical gift that led her.
And then—oh, for heaven’s sake! Relied upon? Indebted? Those were words he might use when speaking to Mayhew or Lord Brochton. They didn’t even begin to express what he owed to Molly, or what he felt, or what he feared, or the terrible sadness that crept over him as they moved inexorably toward the thing he would have to do—because he was king now, and the welfare of Westria must be his paramount concern.
From the bed he heard a soft little snore. Molly had slipped from her upright position and was tilted toward the bulkhead, her head resting against the wall, her hair in her face, and her mouth open. For some reason, seeing her like that made Alaric want to weep.
So he just said, “Thank you,” very softly, and left it at that.
6
The Gift
AS THEY NEARED THE coast of Cortova, the seas grew calmer and the ship sailed more smoothly than before. Molly was up now, having herself dressed by Esther, her lady attendant. They were due to disembark in a matter of hours.
She was terribly weak, having eaten nothing for days. But Molly had her pride (and an important role to play), so she fervently hoped that Esther could transform her once again into the lady Marguerite of Barcliffe Manor, because at the moment she far more resembled her old, original self: Molly, the tailor’s daughter from nowhere.
Esther had plenty with which to work, so it shouldn’t have been a problem. Molly was pretty to begin with, blessed as she was with fine eyes and remarkably luminous skin. And she certainly had everything a lady might need in the way of gowns and jewels. But she’d lost weight this past week, and her gowns didn’t fit anymore. Her once-beautiful complexion had turned sallow, almost gray. And th
e less said about her hair the better.
The transformation was going to be a challenge.
“Any chance you could take the gown up a little?” Molly asked.
“Yes, of course, my lady, if we had enough time.”
“But we don’t.”
“No, my lady.”
“Then we’ll have to make do by tightening the laces. How about my hair? Can you work any wonders?”
“Well, my lady, it is a bit, um—”
“Disheveled? Unkempt?”
“Oh, no, my lady. It’s just that you’ve been lying abed these many days—”
“Tossing and sweating. I understand. It’s oily, and matted, and pressed into strange formations no longer resembling curls.”
“Well, naturally it would be better if we could wash it. But there wouldn’t be near enough time for it to dry.”
“Can you draw it up into a knot in back and make a fringe of curls on the sides? I liked it when you did that before.”
“I could, my lady, though it might be dangerous—the curling iron so close to your face on a rocking ship.”
“Then what are we to do? I can’t go out like this.”
“No, my lady. It seems there are only two possibilities. One, we could braid the hair tight against your head. It won’t be elegant, but you’ll look nice and tidy, and you could always add a spray of pearls or something.”
“And the other possibility?”
“Risk the curling and use a towel to protect your cheeks.”
“Well,” Molly said, “I’ve always preferred to be risky than tidy. Set the iron in the lamp and find me a cloth, and we’ll just hope for the best.”
When the curling had been accomplished with no mishaps whatsoever, Molly looked into her mirror and was satisfied.
“Well done,” she said. “How would it be if we added the golden fillet?”
“I think that would be just the thing, my lady. A very good idea.”
So Esther opened the jewel coffer and took out the fillet: a slender band of gold set with tiny pearls. This she placed on Molly’s head, low over the brow as a crown is worn.
“There!” she said. “How beautiful you look! No one would ever even dream that you’ve been ill.”
“Well, I certainly look less a toad and more a swan,” Molly said. “And all of it thanks to you. Now if you wouldn’t mind, I’d like a bit of time alone to gather my wits.”
“Of course, my lady.”
“And will you take a message to Tobias?”
“Lord Worthington, my lady?”
“Yes. Please ask Lord Worthington to come to me as soon as we sail into port. I’m not very steady on my feet, I’m afraid, and I’ll require his strong arm as we leave the ship.”
“I will, my lady.”
Molly would require a great deal more from Tobias than just his strong arm. What lay ahead of them now would be as hard for her as it was crucial for Westria. And for the thousandth time she thanked the stars that she had Tobias by her side.
When Esther had gone, Molly set the bolt in the door, pulled the canvas over the porthole, and settled herself on the only chair in the cabin. She closed her eyes—more out of habit than necessity, as the room was already dark—then, bit by bit, she released the tension from her face, her neck, her shoulders and arms, and on down to her feet till she had melted into the chair, soft and still.
Now, as she’d been taught, she emptied her mind of everything—the sickroom smell of the tight little cabin, the quiet rhythm of her heartbeat, the soft lap of waves against the hull—and focused on one thing only: moving deep down into her spirit-self in search of the vision of the future she so desperately needed but which had stubbornly refused to come.
This was something new for Molly, a skill she’d only learned the year before. Until that time she’d been at the mercy of her “Gift.” She could neither summon the magical visions, nor could she make them go away. They just came when they wanted to. And they were unfailingly gruesome (no happy children dancing among the wildflowers, just unrelenting horror and death). As a result, Molly had lived for years in a constant state of anxiety, like a lonely traveler on a desolate road who knows that at any moment a cutthroat might suddenly appear and fall on her with a knife.
But then Alaric had sent her to Austlind, where Molly’s grandfather had lived and worked as a silversmith. He had been famous for the beautiful Loving Cups he made: silver chalices with the power to join two people in a bond of perfect love. That’s what Alaric had wanted her to find: a magical cup to help him win the hand of the princess of Cortova, and with it the alliance his kingdom so desperately needed.
In this Molly had succeeded. The Loving Cup she’d brought back from Austlind now rested in Alaric’s stateroom, bound for Cortova and the role it would play in great matters of state. But the journey itself had altered the course of her life.
The search for the cup had led her into the barren northlands of Austlind, where the secret walled city of Harrowsgode lay hidden behind a range of impenetrable mountains. This was her grandfather’s birthplace, the ancestral home of Molly’s people, and the source of her mysterious powers—for all Harrowsgode folk had the Gift to a greater or lesser degree.
But Molly’s was unaccountably stronger than theirs. Indeed, only a handful of Magi, going back to the days of old King Magnus, had possessed such remarkable powers. Once she fully understood how to use them, she was destined to be truly great.
Many things had happened in Harrowsgode, not all of them good. But when Molly left the city (how and why she left is another story), she was well on her way to learning how to control her wayward Gift. She knew how to reach down to the depths of her inner spirit and find the things she wanted. A lesson like that was worth a lot of suffering.
Now she planned to use that knowledge to find a window into the future—because so far her wonderful Gift had sent her nothing but dark premonitions and a talking cat, which weren’t nearly enough.
Molly knew from experience that danger could take many forms, and it would really be helpful to know what they were up against. For that matter, she didn’t even know who was threatened. She’d assumed it was Alaric, but that had been lazy thinking. The premonition of terrible tragedy and the cat’s suspicions about Gonzalo and Reynard might be two entirely different things. So it could be anyone, even Molly herself.
She had to know more. She focused her mind and made ready.
It was always a fearful thing, descending into that ever-changing shadow world. She had to steel herself every time just to bear it. She never knew what would happen down there, except that it would be a struggle. The Gift didn’t give as freely as its name suggested it should. She had to go in there and take it.
On this particular day she found herself in a void, utterly empty of movement or light. The air was stifling; it pressed against her and robbed her of breath. It felt like being trapped in a coffin buried far underground. There was nothing to see, nothing to feel, and only a single sound: the regular, heavy breathing of some great, sleeping beast.
It came to Molly that the sound wasn’t coming from the other side of some invisible door or even from down below. It was everywhere. It surrounded and filled her so that she could actually feel the rumbling vibrations of each and every breath.
She was inside the beast.
No, she realized. It was worse than that. She was the beast. Or rather, the beast was part of her spirit—dormant now but filled with deadly potential. A thrill of terror ran through her body as she grasped this—and suddenly she could not, could not bear to stay there a moment longer.
Swimming up through the stifling gloom, she panicked and found that she couldn’t catch her breath. It was like drowning, her chest tight and burning, crying out for air. And then at last she surfaced into the dim light of a small, stuffy cabin on a gently rolling ship.
Molly sat there for some time, heaving and trembling, cursing herself for a coward.
She had failed.
Tobias
TOBIAS AND MOLLY RODE side by side in the middle of the caravan in company with those few married knights who’d brought along their ladies. He couldn’t help but notice the intimate quality of their conversations—the easy, familiar way they had of being together, sometimes speaking in a sort of couples’ code, leaving sentences unfinished or things unsaid because they were already understood. They seemed to know automatically what the other would like to eat, where he or she would prefer to sit at dinner, or what would be of interest along the way. If they had nothing particular to say, they would ride in comfortable silence for hours. And whether or not they were truly fond, they seemed as easy together as they would have been alone.
He and Molly were like that too—not because they were married, which of course they weren’t, but because they’d grown up together, had saved Alaric from the wolves together, and on several occasions had come very close to dying together. That sort of history builds intimacy and trust.
Though Tobias didn’t know about Harrowsgode (only Alaric did), he knew most everything else, including Molly’s vision of the cat and her concerns for Alaric’s safety. He’d taken it seriously; she was never wrong about such things. So he’d been keeping a watchful eye out for anything suspicious, whether on the road or at the inns where they stopped for the night. And being of an analytical mind, he’d made a mental list of situations likely to arise in Cortova that were especially fraught with danger.
And yet, for all that, he couldn’t feel what Molly felt—that deep disquiet, that presentiment of danger, which hung over her night and day. In fact, it seemed to Tobias that things were going uncommonly well. And that was hardly surprising, since Alaric had left nothing to chance. He might have invaded Cortova with less preparation than he’d put into this ceremonial visit.
Every member of their party had been chosen with special care. The court gentlemen who accompanied the king were all prominent knights, young enough and strong enough to do serious damage with their swords should serious damage with swords be required. Even the pages and squires who attended them had been handpicked by the master of arms. In addition, the king had brought along his physician, a lawyer to advise him on the terms of the contract, a linguist fluent in Cortovan, and a number of servants who weren’t actually servants but spies.
The Princess of Cortova Page 4
