“I suppose, but I am tired of guarding my tongue around her.” Pausing, I ran a hand through my hair and then shook my head. “To be honest, I am weary of everything right now.”
“I know,” my sister said, and put a comforting hand on my arm. “I cannot imagine how difficult this must all be.”
“No, you can’t,” I replied abruptly, and stopped, somewhat ashamed of myself. Lyarris was the last person in the world I should be snapping at. But somehow I could not find the words for an apology, and so I shifted away from her and stared out the window instead. The day was grey and lowering, a dull mist-like rain blanketing the city. A fitting accompaniment to my mood, I supposed.
“You will find her.”
I was not so sure of that. As distinctive as Ashara was in appearance, she seemed to have vanished into thin air — another sorcery, I would have said, although Lord Keldryn had told me that Therissa Larrin asserted over and over that her magic was not of that sort — “illusions only, and nothing that lasts,” had been her words.
Of course I had not been to see her. No, she was locked up securely in the deepest vaults of the dungeon, in one of several cells constructed long ago in the age of magic, cells barred with cold iron that had their own sigils protecting them, so that no one contained within could use their own powers. Whether those sigils still worked, my advisors could not say, as there were none among them with magical powers. Still, it seemed the most logical place to put a known sorceress.
“How will I find her?” I asked. “My guards have fanned out through the city and have found no trace of her. Granted, in a city of some two hundred thousand souls, finding a single woman might be difficult. Even so, no one has seen or heard of her, not even at her home.”
I hesitated, and despite the grimness of the situation, I had a difficult time repressing a grin. For although the cook claimed she had seen nothing, it seemed Ashara had gone home whilst all the other members of her household were still here at the palace, and had made off with a good deal of the silver, much to her stepmother’s dismay. No doubt she intended to pawn it and further finance her disappearance…which led me to believe that the aunt was telling the truth, and that she had no knowledge of her niece after she made her initial escape from the palace grounds.
Lyarris gazed out the window as well, as if somehow she could spy Ashara within the city’s teeming masses of humanity. For a long moment she said nothing. Then she turned back toward me and said, “Perhaps you should speak with Therissa Larrin yourself.”
“I?” I asked, staring at my sister and wondering if she taken leave of her senses. “The Emperor of Sirlende does not stoop to questioning prisoners.”
For the first time an expression of irritation flitted across her normally serene features. “Then perhaps you should stop thinking like the Emperor of Sirlende and more like a man who has lost the woman he loves.”
I made an exasperated sound. How dare she stand there and say such a thing! Yes, I had lost Ashara, but more than that, I had lost everything that had passed between us, for now I knew it had all been a lie, all illusions, shifting and formless as mist evaporating in the harsh light of day.
What she saw in my face, I did not know, but Lyarris said calmly, “You are the Emperor, true, but you are also a man, and I saw how you cared for Ashara. It was new and uncertain, true. I just want to make sure that you are not allowing pride to dictate your actions. You have sent Lord Keldryn and Renwell Blane to question Mistress Larrin, and it seems she has been forthcoming enough, but I do not know if they are asking the right questions. Only you can know that for sure, Torric.”
This last was said with such a pleading note in her voice that I looked at my sister in some surprise. “You really think it could make a difference?”
“I do not know that it will not.” She knotted her fingers together and stared down at them for the space of a few heartbeats before saying quietly, “I cannot imagine that you wish to spend the rest of your life wondering what might have happened if you had had the courage to seek answers for yourself, rather than relying upon your advisors and such to do it for you.”
At first I did not reply, but instead pondered her words. Would I be content with letting Ashara go, with letting my mother and those who thought like her have their way, and allow Therissa Larrin to be executed while she still possessed knowledge that might give me the peace of mind I so desperately desired?
Put that way…
“Very well,” I told my sister. “I am off to the dungeons.”
* * *
It had been many years since I had last descended to the dark regions hidden beneath the palace’s splendid public rooms. Once when I was a child, the son of the Earl of Landishorne had dared me to play hide-and-seek down there, and we had spent a stolen hour wandering around the dank, unused corridors and jumping out from empty cells and shouting “boo!” before my father’s guards found us and dragged us quite unceremoniously back to the upper floors. As I recalled, I was sent to bed without any supper, but that seemed a fair enough exchange for such an adventure.
Now, however, I did not find the place quite so amusing. The upper floors still contained a few prisoners of the worst sort, although most transgressors these days were housed in the new modern gaol built near the city wall. As I approached the entrance to the lowest level, the guards snapped to attention, clearly startled to see the Emperor in their domain, and even more surprised to see him here alone. I had told the two men-at-arms who followed me everywhere to wait at the top of the stairs to the dungeons, and they had followed my orders, though they were clearly most unhappy at letting me descend into the lower levels unaccompanied. For myself, I did not see the need for their worry, as every level of the dungeon had its own contingent of guards, and no doubt they could protect me if anything untoward should happen.
“I wish to speak with Therissa Larrin,” I said.
There were four guards present, all them looking rather surly and low-browed, though that could have been a trick of the flickering torchlight. But they straightened in shock at my words, then bowed low. One of them, presumably the senior of the quartet, stepped forward, saying, “Y-yes, Your Majesty. At once, Your Majesty. This way.”
Their discomfiture rather amused me, but I maintained a stern expression as the one guard led me down a narrow little corridor, the ceiling so low I felt certain my head was going to scrape against it at any moment. The hallway ended at a single cell, its bars seeming thicker than those of any of the chambers we had yet passed. Strange runes were scratched into the rock at the lintel — the guardian sigils set there centuries before by mages now long dead. I repressed a shiver.
“You may go,” I told the guard, and he seemed to pale in the chancy light.
“Your Majesty — ”
“I will speak with the prisoner alone.”
Whatever courage had prompted him to speak up had apparently fled, for he bowed and left with some haste, not even sparing me a backward glance over his shoulder.
There was a rustle within the cell, and I turned to see Therissa Larrin rise from a mean stone cot with a thin mattress of straw and approach the bars, although I noticed she did not touch them. “So the Emperor himself deigns to enter his dungeon and question the prisoner.”
She did not look nearly as downtrodden as I had thought she would. True, her hair was somewhat disheveled, and there were stains on her gown of fine blue wool, but her dark eyes seemed bright enough as she regarded me, her hands planted on her hips.
Under that lively gaze I found myself somewhat discomfited, as if somehow I were the one about to be questioned, and not she. Setting my expression in what I hoped were grim lines, I said, “As I have had no satisfaction from either my chancellor or the captain of my guard, yes, I thought I would speak to you myself. Perhaps you will be more forthcoming with me.”
At that remark she actually chuckled. “And here I thought I was being so honest with them. Truly, Your Majesty, I have withheld no information,
but if you wish to hear it for yourself, I have no quibble with that.”
Surely a woman locked up in the lowest levels of the palace dungeons and awaiting a certain sentence of death should not be quite so light-hearted in countenance or tone. Stepping closer to the bars, I demanded, “Tell me where Ashara Millende is.”
“Why?” she asked frankly. “So you can send her down here to share a cell with me?”
“No!” I retorted, then went on, fumbling with my words, “That is, I have every right, as Emperor and as the man who intended to marry her, to know of her location.”
“Indeed? For I would say that the Emperor and the man who wished to marry her are two very different people, and I wish to know which of them I am speaking with at the moment.”
What an impossible woman. “I assure you, they are one and the same.”
She shook her head, and slanted me a little sidelong look. In that moment I could tell she must have been quite beautiful when she was younger, although I did not see much of Ashara in her — something in the half-dimple at the corner of her mouth, perhaps, or in the tilt of her dark eyes. “I find I do not possess that same assurance. For you have come stomping down here, quite high-handed, with such a stern brow, and I fear I do not see much of the lover in you.”
For a full moment I could do nothing but stare at her, astounded by her impertinence. I noted the lack of an honorific, but it was far more than that, for it seemed she thought herself well positioned to rebuke me, as if I were the miscreant here. “Do you know who you are speaking to, woman?”
The light went out of her eyes then, and she replied in sad tones, “It seems as if I am speaking to the Emperor of Sirlende, and not the man who loved my niece, and so I fear I have nothing more to say to you.” After delivering that remark, she returned to her makeshift seat on the lumpy pallet, and turned her head away from me.
Of all the — I moved closer to the bars and wrapped my fingers around them. As I did so, I felt an odd tingle move through my hands and up my arms. Perhaps I was feeling something of the old charms laid within the metal. That was not enough to keep me from exclaiming, “Have you no heart at all? Your niece is lost somewhere within this city, and I do not think I have to remind you of what may befall a young woman on her own on its streets. Let me help her!”
She shifted, and watched me for a second or two, then seemed to nod. “Ah, that sounds more like the man who loves her, and not the Emperor. You do love her, do you not?”
“I — ” My breath seemed to strangle in my throat. Hoarsely, I said, “I believed that I did. But how do I know what I really fell in love with, when it was all an illusion?”
My question only made her sigh, and give a small shake of the head, as if she were impatient with my stupidity. She rose and came to pause a foot or so beyond the bars. From that distance I could see the smudges of weariness under her eyes, the etchings of worry lines between her brows. “The only illusion was her gowns and jewels, you foolish boy. Oh, and I suppose her hairstyles, as I fear her stepmother would not have allowed her to spend an hour curling her hair to make herself beautiful for you. Everything else, though — that was all Ashara, and no doing of mine. How different was it, really, from the artifices those other fine-born women used to catch your eye, the rouge, the powder, the charcoal liner? The stays, and the padding in the bodices of their gowns? All these things would melt away as well, at the end of the evening. The only difference here is that I used magic to give Ashara the trappings required to enter your little contest. But that is merely a difference of means, and not intention.”
I reflected then that this woman had missed her calling, for truly she could twist words as well as any politician or reader of the law. There had to be something fundamentally wrong with her argument, but damn me if I could find it. “That is not the same thing,” I said at length, “for paint is not outlawed, nor are overly tight stays, but magic has been forbidden in this land for nigh on five hundred years.”
The glint returned to her eyes. “Ah, you have me there. ’Tis true, but it is a foolish law, especially with something so harmless as the kind of magic I can conjure.”
“I do not think it harmless at all. Perhaps on this occasion you used it merely to give your niece the semblance of fine gowns and jewels, but I saw for myself how you could make it so your own face was altered, and Ashara herself was changed so she could safely escape. That could be a very evil power, in the wrong hands.”
To my surprise, she did not naysay me, but nodded soberly. “There is some truth to that argument. I have seen — ” She stopped herself then, and seemed to shiver. “My lord, my only intention was to help my niece. I swear on my own life and hers that no other spells were cast. It was always possible that you would never notice her at all. I did not think that was likely, not as lovely as she is, but still, I did nothing but put her in a position to cross your path. Everything else after that was between the two of you.”
Oh, how I wanted to believe that. It would be easy enough to wave away a few conjured gowns and necklaces and rings. I did not want my mother and Lord Keldryn to have the truth of it, that beyond her illusions Therissa Nelandre had cast some sort of spell to make me fall in love with her niece, as no other explanation for the sudden violence of my affections could possibly exist.
“And what was in it for you?” I demanded suddenly. “Did you hope to gain some influence by making your niece Empress of Sirlende?”
At that question she actually laughed out loud. “Oh, my, they have trained you to be the suspicious sort, haven’t they?”
“I am the Emperor.” Even I heard the stiffness in my tone.
“True, to your misfortune. I cannot say the crown has done all that well for you.” Her expression sobered, and she continued, “I have been gone from Sirlende these twenty years, for as soon as my powers began to be too difficult to conceal any longer, I knew I had no place here. So I packed what I could and left, although it hurt greatly to leave my younger sister behind. I have seen many things in those twenty years, my lord, and learned a great deal. But I had never planned to return to my homeland, as I knew one such as I could make no real life for herself here.
“However, in one of those odd twists of fate, I retraced my steps some months ago, and visited a town I had not seen for some ten years, and there it seemed a letter had been held all that time for me by a kindly innkeeper, in case I might return one day. That letter was from the steward of my late brother-in-law’s estate, who was let go upon his death, as his second wife wished to rent the country house and make her home in town. Until then I had no idea my dear sister was even dead, let alone her husband, and once I learned that my only niece was all by herself in the world, I hastened back to Sirlende, to make sure all was well with her.”
“I assume it was not,” I said dryly, for I had not forgotten the things Ashara had said of her stepmother.
“No, it was as bad for her as could possibly be, for that wretched woman who married my late brother-in-law after my sister’s death was the very worst sort — vain, and cold-hearted, and concerned only with her own two daughters. She made Ashara a servant in her own household, worse than a servant, really, because at least a servant earns some modest wage in addition to the roof over her head and a bed to sleep in.”
At these revelations a cold anger began to burn in me. Yes, I had gotten the impression that things were worse in the Millende household than Ashara had ever let on, but never had I imagined that the poor girl was escaping a life of utter drudgery in those few stolen hours we shared together. No wonder she seemed to find something to marvel at in even the simplest niceties. She had no frame of reference.
I do not know what shifted in my countenance, but something of my thoughts must have shown in my expression, for Mistress Nelandre nodded and said, “You begin to see something of my desperation. I will confess that when I first came to Sirlende, my only thought was of removing her from her stepmother’s household and taking her with me, or at least
setting her up in a better situation far outside Iselfex. But my arrival here coincided with your announcement of a search for a bride, and I thought that would be far better. I had caught glimpses of her before I met her, saw her going out and fetching water for the household, or running small errands for her stepmother. It was enough to show me that she had grown up as lovely as my younger sister, and I knew that if I could only put her in your path, she would almost certainly catch your eye.”
That she had, without a doubt. “So you formed a plan, and somehow got Ashara to go along with it.”
“Not without some convincing, I assure you. She understood the consequences, but her desperation to escape her stepmother’s household proved to be greater than her fear of punishment.”
And could I blame her? After meeting the woman in question — and her two tedious daughters — I could only imagine how terrible serving in such a house might be, even without knowing the entire time that it should have been hers. Yes, I began to understand why Ashara would be willing to risk so much.
“I believe you,” I said slowly. “For truly, if your only desire was for power, then it would have been far simpler for you yourself to take on the guise of a young noblewoman, and attempt to trap me that way, rather than drag your niece into the affair.”
Mistress Larrin nodded approvingly. “I am glad to see that you are beginning to think for yourself, my lord, and not as your advisors believe you should. And I will tell you that I wish I knew where my niece has gone, but I do not possess the power of far-seeing. I can only tell you what I think.”
“And what is that?” I inquired, half-consciously moving even closer to the bars so I might not miss a single word of her reply.
“When we are hurt, when our world has been turned upside down, we often seek out those things that are familiar to us. What Ashara has known for the past ten years is a life of service, even though it is not a life she chose for herself.” Mistress Larrin glanced up and away from me, as if her gaze could somehow pierce the layers of rock and earth that separated her from the world above. “I cannot say this with any certainty, for I do not know for sure, but it seems to me that she would have taken her refuge in some household where she could work to earn her keep. Perhaps I am wrong — perhaps she fled the city altogether, and is even now on her way to South Eredor or farther still. But I do not believe that is what she has done.”
Ashes of Roses (Tales of the Latter Kingdoms Book 4) Page 22
