“Hello, Alenor.”
The sight of him made her want to cry. She wanted to throw herself into his arms and beg him to make the world right again. But she had no idea what Dirk would do. No idea if he would even try to help her. As Lord of the Suns, it was his duty to condemn her adultery. But there was no hint of censure in his eyes, not trace of anger in his smile.
“Let's get you inside out of this rain,” he suggested.
They hurried through the door, followed by Kirsh, who shook a shower of raindrops from his cape as they stepped into the foyer.
“Where's my father?” Kirsh asked, not even bothering to greet Dirk.
“I'm not sure,” Dirk told him. “He went hunting this morning and I've only just gotten back from the city myself. I don't even know if he's here.”
“Where is the Lion of Senet?” Kirsh demanded of the nearest servant.
“In his room, I believe, your highness,” the man answered with a low bow. “He only just—”
“Fetch him. We'll be in there.” Kirsh pointed to the open doors of the morning room, where a rare fire had been lit against the cooler weather.
“Perhaps Alenor would like to get changed first,” Dirk suggested.
“Alenor is just fine as she is.” He turned to the servant im patiently. “Are you deaf, man? Fetch my father!”
“Kirsh…”
Dirk's appeal had no effect. Kirsh pulled off his riding gloves as he strode across the black-and-white tiles toward the morning room.
“Where's Alexin?” Dirk asked her in a low voice, watching Kirsh with a frown.
“With Kirsh's men. We left him in the garrison in Bollow on the way here.”
Dirk frowned. “I must have just missed you.”
“Dirk,” she hissed urgently. “What's going to happen?”
“Alenor!”
She bit back the rest of her question and hurried to answer Kirsh's summons. She was afraid to do anything that might anger him further at the moment. Dirk hurried up the stairs, taking them two at a time. Perhaps he would be able to delay the servant sent to fetch Antonov. Perhaps … Alenor's life had far too many uncertainties in it at present for her to be sure of anything.
Kirsh stood in front of the fire and waited, his hands clasped behind his back, deliberately not looking at her. Alenor perched on the edge of the settee, wishing a servant would come and offer them wine. She could do with a drink. She wanted to get drunk.
“Alenor!”
She almost sobbed with relief when Jacinta hurried into the room. Jumping to her feet she embraced her cousin, hoping to absorb some of Jacinta's strength for the coming ordeal.
“Look at you, Allie, you're all wet. Come on! Let's go get you changed into something dry.”
“Alenor is not going anywhere, my lady,” Kirsh informed her.
Jacinta turned to Kirsh impatiently. “Don't be ridiculous. There is nothing so important it can't wait until you're both clean and dry. You'll catch your death, too, if you don't get out of those wet clothes.”
“I'm touched by your concern, my lady.”
Before Jacinta could answer, Dirk came back. His hair was still damp but he had changed into dry clothes. A servant followed him carrying a tray of glasses and began to offer them around. Alenor snatched at the wine and downed most of it in a single gulp.
“Your father's on his way down,” he told Kirsh, waving away the servant who offered him a drink. “And the Lady Jacinta does have a point, Kirsh. Are you sure you and Alenor don't want to change first?”
“I'm sure.”
“As you wish,” he shrugged. “Did you have a good trip?”
“Good enough.”
“The weather's been awful,” Jacinta added.
“Hasn't it,” Alenor agreed, tonelessly. I'm about to hear my lover condemned to die and we're talking about the weather.
“I hope it clears up by tomorrow,” Jacinta added. “It'll be such a pity if we miss the eclipse because of the clouds.”
“I'm sure if the Goddess has gone to the trouble of arranging an eclipse,” Antonov remarked as he strode into the room, “she'll make sure we are able to view her handiwork.”
They all turned to face the Lion of Senet. Alenor's worst fears were realized when she saw the look on Antonov's face. Kirsh had sent word on ahead of their arrival in Senet, and the reason they brought Alexin with them as a prisoner, so at least she would be spared having to listen to Kirsh deliver the news. But Antonov was furious.
“Father.”
“Kirsh.”
Antonov turned his leonine head toward Alenor and stared down at her. She had grown up terrified of the look he now wore, praying it would never be directed at her.
“I'm very disappointed in you, Alenor,” he said.
“I …” she began helplessly. She didn't know how to answer him. Her eyes fixed on Dirk, begging him silently for help, but he said nothing.
“It's not her fault,” Jacinta declared in the uncomfortable silence.
Antonov looked at her curiously. “Are you claiming a captain of the Queen's Guard forced himself on his queen?”
“No, your highness,” Jacinta replied. “I'm suggesting Alenor is very young and easily led. She was a ripe target for subversion by the people who oppose you.”
“What are you talking about?” Kirsh scoffed.
“I'm talking about Alexin Seranov, your highness. The cousin of Reithan Seranov. Alexin is a heretic, just as his cousin is. The seduction of Alenor D'Orlon was a deliberate and calculated attempt to turn her from the Goddess.”
“No!” Alenor cried in despair. “That's not true!”
“Be quiet!” Antonov ordered. “Your very words condemn you, Alenor.”
“I don't care! It wasn't like that!”
“How do you know Alexin is a heretic, my lady?” Antonov asked Jacinta.
Jacinta glanced at Alenor apologetically and then hung her head in shame. “Because I helped them, your highness. I was the one who arranged for them to be alone.”
“Then you are as culpable as Alenor is,” he told her angrily.
“I admit that, your highness,” Jacinta replied meekly. “But when I confessed my part in the affair to the Lord of the Suns, he said the Goddess would forgive me if I openly admitted my guilt.”
“The Goddess may forgive you, but I'll be damned if I will,” Kirsh growled. Then he turned to Alenor. “No wonder you were so keen to keep your cousin close to you. Who else was involved in this sordid little cover-up?”
Alenor barely heard Kirsh. She stared at Jacinta in despair and then turned to look at Dirk. What is she doing?
“Leave us!” Antonov ordered Jacinta. “I'll decide what to do with you later.”
Jacinta curtsied and fled the room, refusing to look at Alenor.
How could you? Alenor cried silently after her. How could you say such things about Alexin? How could you betray me like that?
“So Jacinta D'Orlon is a Baenlander sympathizer,” Antonov remarked when she was gone.
“I don't think so, sire,” Dirk said, sounding rather amused by the idea. “A bit impetuous maybe, but I doubt she has any deep sympathies for their cause.”
“If I believe her confession, she arranged for one of them to seduce Alenor,” Antonov pointed out.
“That's probably because she's an incurable romantic, your highness. You must know of her reputation. Jacinta would have gotten involved just for the thrill of covering up the queen's affair.”
“Even if you overlook the charge of adultery, she actively aided a heretic in his attempt to subvert the Queen of Dhevyn,” Kirsh reminded him. “That's high treason.”
“I doubt that occurred to Lady Jacinta at the time.”
Why are you defending her? Alenor cried silently. Why are you letting her turn on me?
“You never told me Jacinta D'Orlon knew of the affair,” Antonov said to Dirk. “For that matter, you never said you knew about it, either.”
“I'd be a poor Lord o
f the Suns if I repeated things told to me in confidence as the Goddess's representative, your highness.”
“He's known about it since Alenor lost the baby,” Kirsh told his father with an angry glance in Dirk's direction.
“Is that true?”
“Yes.”
“And you said nothing?”
“My first loyalty is to the Goddess, your highness. Not to Senet. And not to Dhevyn.”
“If you're so damned loyal to the Goddess, why didn't you do something to put an end to the affair?” Kirsh demanded.
“I prayed to her, Kirsh,” Dirk replied calmly. “And then you discovered them together, and my prayers were answered.”
Alenor wanted to cry. How could Dirk stand there and lie so sincerely about praying to a Goddess she knew he didn't believe in? How could he be so cruel, so ruthless? Had he fallen so far under the spell of his new position he could turn on her without a second thought?
Then Alenor looked at Antonov and thought she understood why Dirk had said such a thing. Antonov was nodding unconsciously in agreement. He often prayed to the Goddess and considered his prayers answered when things worked out the way he wanted. He could believe no less of the Lord of the Suns. Whatever his reasons for not helping her, Dirk knew exactly what to say to keep Antonov on his side.
“Where is Seranov now?” Antonov asked Kirsh.
“I left him at the garrison in town.”
“Then after the eclipse, we'll hang him,” Antonov announced.
“I'd rather you didn't,” Dirk said.
“Did you have something else in mind?” “He's a heretic, your highness. Alexin's crimes against the Goddess are far more heinous than simply seducing the Queen of Dhevyn.”
“And what would you do with him?” Kirsh asked skeptically.
“I'll burn him, Kirsh. At the eclipse ceremony, tomorrow. That should satisfy even your lust for vengeance.”
“No!” Alenor cried in horror.
Even Kirsh looked surprised by Dirk's suggestion, but Antonov didn't hesitate before assenting.
“I can't imagine a more fitting fate,” he agreed. “Along with the daughter of the heretic, the Goddess should be well pleased with our offering.”
“The daughter of the heretic?”
“Tia Veran,” Antonov explained. “The High Priestess told me about how the Goddess led her to finding her in the city. And the reason.”
“What reason?” Kirsh asked.
“To be sacrified, of course. To appease the Goddess for the sins of her father.”
“If you burn Tia Veran you may never learn where Misha is,” Dirk reminded him. He seemed truly shaken by the news. Had Marqel ordered Tia Veran burned without consulting Dirk? It served him right. If he was going to turn on his true friends then he deserved to be burdened with a treacherous fiend like Marqel.
“Misha is dead, Dirk,” Antonov said, his voice laden with regret. “He was dying when they took him and if the Shadowdancers couldn't help him, I don't see how the Baenlanders could do any better. We've not heard from them. We've not even had a ransom demand. It's been months. If he was alive, we would have heard something by now.”
Dirk was silent for a moment and then to Alenor's dismay, he nodded in agreement. “As you wish, your highness.”
“It's what the Goddess wishes,” Antonov replied piously. He returned his attention to Alenor. “As for you, young lady, I should burn you next to your heretic lover.”
“Why don't you?” she snapped. She had nothing left to lose, no reason to pretend anymore. Even Dirk and Jacinta had abandoned her.
“Were it not for the fortuitous arrest of Tia Veran, you would burn beside him tomorrow,” Antonov told her harshly. “In the meantime, you will be exiled from Dhevyn and Kirsh will rule in your stead until I decide you've repented sufficiently.”
“I will not!”
“You will, or you will be tried and executed for adultery.”
“You wouldn't dare!”
“He would dare, Alenor,” Dirk warned. “And he'd be quite within his rights to do so. You should be grateful for the mercy his highness is showing you.”
“Mercy! Nobody cares Kirsh openly kept a mistress and you expect me to be grateful that all he wants to do is banish me and take my kingdom?”
“That will be quite enough, Alenor,” Antonov ordered. “At least have the sense to accept your fate with a modicum of decorum.”
Alenor turned on Antonov furiously. “You've seen all the decorum out of me you're ever likely to see, Antonov Latanya. I hate you! I have always hated you. I despised every moment I was forced to spend in your company, every minute I lived under your roof. I hate your Goddess, I hate your sick religion and I hate that little slut you call a High Priestess. I hate all of you and I wish I was going to die because I'd rather be burned alive than spend another minute breathing the same air as you.”
Without waiting for anybody to respond, Alenor fled the room and ran out through the foyer to the main door and out into the rain.
She stopped on the top step and looked about, realizing she had nowhere she could go. So she stood there, sobbing with despair and drenched to the skin, unable to distinguish her tears from the raindrops.
A short time later the guards arrived and she was escorted politely but firmly back into the palace.
he ninth day of Ezenor in the year 10,241 dawned bright in a cloudless sky, the previous days of overcast and rain a distant memory. From the top step of the Bollow temple Dirk watched the second sun rising with an odd feeling of displacement. The world was just coming awake, the red fading from the sky, yet somehow, he had no part in it. He felt as if he was standing slightly out of kilter with reality, as if the rest of the world was something to observe, not something he was actively a part of.
Shaking off the strange feeling, he turned at the sound of footsteps behind him. Claudio Varell and a dozen other Sundancers had gathered behind him waiting for their instructions. Dirk glanced over the men and women with a frown. He could feel their resentment emanating from them like heat from a campfire.
“I need to tell you what's going to happen at the ceremony,” he announced. His voice was calm and steady. That surprised him. The enormity of what he was about to set in motion should have left him a jibbering wreck.
“We know what's going to happen, my lord,” one of the Sundancers said. She looked to be in her fifties, a tall, stern-looking woman who wore the yellow robes Dirk so despised with pride and dignity. “The Sundancers will be destroyed.”
“You should have more faith in the Goddess, my lady. She won't turn her back on you.” Before the woman could argue with him about it, he turned to Claudio. “Do you trust these people?”
“Implicitly,” Claudio said. The old man was filled with barely contained excitement. His eyes were glittering. He was more animated than Dirk had ever seen him. Claudio been like that ever since the early hours of the morning when Dirk had roused the old man from his bed and told him what would happen today. He'd debated telling Claudio sooner, but looking at him now, with his sprightly step and his excited eyes, Dirk knew he'd been right to keep him in the dark until the last minute.
Dirk turned at the sound of horses behind him. A large contingent of Senetian foot soldiers were heading across the plaza toward the temple, led by two mounted captains.
“I'll meet you all in the anteroom in about ten minutes,” he told the Sundancers. Then he turned and walked down a few steps and waited for the soldiers.
The troop halted a little back from the temple steps as the captains rode up to meet Dirk. He didn't know the man in charge of the troop, but the other captain who rode with him was Kirsh's old friend Sergey.
“My lord,” the captain said, with a smart salute.
“Are your men armed, Captain?”
“Of course.”
“Then disarm them.”
“My lord, you can't expect the men to be able to control the crowd—” Sergey began, but Dirk cut him off.
/> “That's exactly what I expect, Sergey. We are here to witness the glory of the Goddess. I will not allow you to spill innocent blood on a day like this.”
“Then how do you expect us to keep control, my lord?”
“By using a little bit of tact and courtesy, Captain. This is a day of celebration. Cutting down women and children with swords tends to put a damper on things, don't you think?”
“But, my lord—”
“You have your orders, Captain. Prince Antonov placed you and your men under the command of the Church today. You will do as I demand, or I will have you arrested as a heretic.”
The captain saluted reluctantly and turned his horse around. He trotted back to the troop and began to order them to shed their weapons.
“That was a foolish order, my lord,” Sergey suggested once the other captain was out of earshot.
“I don't remember asking your opinion on the matter, Sergey. Where are the prisoners?”
“Still at the garrison.”
“Bring them here now. Before the crowd starts to get too unwieldy.”
Sergey nodded, but made no attempt to leave.
“Was there something else?”
“Are you going to disarm the Dhevynian Guardsmen as well?”
“No, Captain,” Dirk replied. “I thought I'd leave them armed so that when we burn one of their captains alive, they can cut him free and then carve their way through stands filled with every nobleman of note in the whole damned world and a few thousand unarmed innocent Senetian civilians, without anybody getting in their way.”
“I'm sorry, my lord, I didn't mean to question your orders.”
“If you don't mean to question my orders, then I suggest you stop doing it.”
“Yes, my lord,” the Senetian said, gathering up his reins.
“And Sergey …”
“Yes, my lord.”
“I don't want them drugged.”
“Sire?”
“I don't want either Tia Veran or Alexin Seranov given any poppy-dust before they're burned. I want them to know what's going on.”
Lord of the Shadows Page 36
