Eye of the Labyrinth

by Jennifer Fallon

  Dorra bustled into the room carrying a tray with two steaming cups of tea. She offered the tray to Dirk, who lifted the cups and placed them on the side table beside the bed.

  “Will there be anything else, your majesty?”

  “Her majesty will call you if she needs anything,” Dirk answered for the queen.

  Dorra glared at him, but Dirk’s position was too ambiguous for her to challenge him confidently. “As you wish, my lord.” She curtsied politely and left the room, but did not close the doors behind her.

  “Alenor?”

  When she looked back at him, her eyes were filled with tears. “I’m being punished, aren’t I?” she asked in a small voice.

  “What are you talking about, silly? Punished for what?”

  She glanced past Dirk into the other room to check on Dorra’s whereabouts before she answered. “It wasn’t Kirsh’s baby, Dirk,” she whispered.

  He did not respond immediately. In fact, he was quite numb with the shock of her revelation. “Did Kirsh know?” he asked cautiously, in a low voice.

  She nodded. “I’ve never been with him, Dirk. Not even on our wedding night. He was furious when he found out I was pregnant.”

  Furious was probably an understatement, he thought. Then something else Yuri said to him when he inquired after Alenor began to make sense. “Who else knew?”

  “Nobody.”

  “Are you sure about that? What about the baby’s father?”

  “Well, of course he knew.”

  “And do you trust him?”

  “As much as I trust you.”

  He was silent for a moment, debating how much he should tell her. He purposely did not dwell on the implications of her news. That Alenor had spurned Kirsh and taken a lover was something he was not quite ready to deal with just yet. “Alenor, do you know that Yuri suspects your miscarriage wasn’t an accident?”

  “I remember him saying something like that the night it happened.” She suddenly clutched at his hand. Her grip was disturbingly weak. “Oh Goddess, Dirk! You don’t think I took something deliberately, do you? I didn’t try to get rid of it, I swear!”

  “But maybe somebody else did,” he suggested.

  “Who would do such a thing? Kirsh was the only one who knew the truth, and I don’t care what you say, he would never do anything so dreadful.”

  He nodded in agreement. “Kirsh would go to his father and tell him everything before he killed an innocent child, even one that wasn’t born yet.”

  “Then who could have done such a thing?”

  “What about your faithful watchdog?”

  “Dorra? I don’t think so. If she suspected anything, Antonov would know about it, and I wouldn’t be lying here having my every whim catered to. I’d be in a dungeon having a long and painful chat with Barin Welacin.”

  He thought for a moment, and then it came to him. The one person in Avacas he was certain was capable of such a heinous act, and more important, had the knowledge of and access to the herbs required to induce an abortion. Someone with plenty of reason to not want Alenor to carry her child to term, regardless of who the father might be. He did not share his thoughts with Alenor, however. There were other, better ways to deal with the author of this tragedy. And, for Alenor’s sake, it would be better if she did not suspect who had been responsible. He didn’t think she was so good an actress that she would not betray herself if he told her of his suspicions.

  “You must be more careful, Alenor.”

  “I should be more careful?” she asked archly. “That’s rather ironic, coming from you.” She stopped speaking suddenly and looked over his shoulder at the door. Dorra was standing there, glaring at them suspiciously. “Yes, Dorra?”

  “Captain Seranov is here, your majesty,” her lady-in-waiting announced.

  “Send him in, please,” she ordered, with a hint of the old Alenor behind her frail command. “And close the doors, would you? The light is hurting my eyes.”

  Dorra admitted Alexin and with a disapproving scowl, closing the doors behind him as Alenor had asked.

  Dirk rose to his feet, partly out of politeness, and partly out of a strong sense of self-preservation. The captain of Alenor’s guard looked very smart in his blue-and-silver uniform, but he was also rather conspicuously armed, and Dirk could well imagine how Alexin felt about the news that Dirk Provin was now the Lord of the Shadows and the right hand of the High Priestess of the Shadowdancers.

  “What’s he doing here?” Alexin asked coldly, stopping just inside the closed doors with his hand resting on the hilt of his sword.

  “We need all the powerful friends we can get, my love,” Alenor told him. “Would you watch the door, Dirk?”

  She held out her hands to Alexin, and he hurried to her bed, taking her in his arms and holding her silently.

  Dirk was rendered almost speechless by the depth of their lunacy. “You’re a pair of damn fools!”

  They clung to each other desperately for a moment. Dirk realized that this was probably the first chance they’d had to be alone since her miscarriage. Alexin let Alenor go and turned to face him, his hand reaching for the sword.

  “No, Alexin,” Alenor commanded. “Dirk won’t betray us.”

  “He’s betrayed everybody else he’s had anything to do with lately,” Alexin snarled. “Why not you or me?”

  “You’re still permitted to walk freely through the Lion of Senet’s palace armed with a sword, Alexin,” Dirk pointed out. “Do you think that likely if I’d betrayed what I know about you and your family?”

  “Is that a threat?”

  “More a blindingly obvious fact.”

  “Your very presence in this room is an insult,” Alexin spat in disgust.

  “You’re a fine one to talk,” Dirk accused. “Alenor nearly died because of your carelessness. You have an interesting way of interpreting your oath to protect your queen, Captain.”

  “Stop it, Dirk!” Alenor ordered. “This is just as much my fault as Alexin’s.”

  He was not entirely unsympathetic to her plight. How lost and lonely must you have been to turn to Alexin for comfort? But it did not excuse such stupidity. Even if Alenor was too naive to realize the risk, Alexin certainly should have known better.

  He shook his head in disbelief. “Have the two of you any idea of the danger you’re courting?”

  “It wasn’t like we planned anything,” Alenor said defensively. “It just . . . happened.”

  “Then make it unhappen, Alenor. Now. Send him back to Kalarada. For Alexin’s sake as much as your own. Kirsh will kill him if he finds out, and Antonov will destroy you.”

  “I’m not afraid to face Kirshov Latanya,” Alexin declared with quiet determination.

  “You should be, you fool!” Dirk snapped in annoyance. “Because while you’re busy defending your honor, the Lion of Senet will be back on Kalarada disbanding the Queen’s Guard for treason and replacing it with his own.”

  His words silenced both of them. Neither Alenor nor Alexin had apparently given any thought to the consequences of their affair, beyond what they felt for each other.

  What a mess we’ve all made of our lives, he thought.

  “Dirk, please don’t be mad at me,” she said, begging for his understanding. “You’ve no idea what it was like on Kalarada. Kirsh spent all his time doting on his mistress, and then up and disappeared on me for months. I have nobody I can trust except Alexin and Jacinta. Antonov’s spies watch every move I make . . .”

  “Who’s Jacinta?”

  “My cousin. I left her in Kalarada to keep on eye things while I was in Avacas.”

  “Jacinta D’Orlon?” he asked, having heard the name mentioned in palace gossip. She was quite notorious, actually, which was how Dirk had heard of her. “Is this the same Jacinta D’Orlon who told Lord Birkoff that she’d rather marry the male of another species than share his bed?” He rolled his eyes in despair. “Now there’s someone you can obviously rely on for tact and good ju
dgment.”

  Alenor managed a weak smile. “She never told me she said that . . .”

  “How in the name of the Goddess did you manage this without being caught?” he asked in astonishment.

  “We were careful,” Alexin told him.

  “Not careful enough,” Dirk retorted.

  “When I discovered I was pregnant, we decided I should come to Avacas,” Alenor explained. “Jacinta thought that if I could tell Antonov before Kirsh got back, then he’d assume that it was Kirsh’s child and then Kirsh wouldn’t be able to deny it.”

  “That was a pretty big gamble, Alenor. You beat us here by less than a day.”

  “But it worked,” she shrugged. “Will you help us, Dirk?”

  “Help you how?”

  “You could use your influence to get some of the Senetians out of Kalarada,” Alexin suggested.

  “Why should I? So you two can indulge your affair in ignorant bliss while the world falls to pieces around you?”

  “That’s not fair, Dirk,” Alenor said, quite hurt by his lack of sympathy.

  “Very little in this world is, Allie.”

  “You’re wasting your time, Alenor,” Alexin advised. “He’s not going to help anybody but himself. All you’ve done by confiding in him is made the danger worse.”

  “I won’t betray you,” Dirk promised. “I’ve got problems enough of my own without buying into yours. But that doesn’t mean I don’t think what you’re doing is stupid and dangerous.”

  “You don’t care that Kirsh has a mistress.”

  “Antonov won’t kill Kirsh for taking a lover, Alenor.”

  “But now that you’re back and he has an alternative heir to Dhevyn, he’d destroy Alenor without hesitation if he learned she had taken one,” Alexin concluded, convincing Dirk that maybe the captain was not quite as dense as he first thought.

  “Get out of Avacas,” Dirk said to Alexin. “Today, if possible.”

  “I won’t send him away, Dirk.”

  “You must, Alenor,” he insisted. “Besides, I need him to get a message to Reithan for me,” he added, turning to face the captain.

  “What could you possibly have to say that the Baenlanders would want to hear?”

  Dirk took a deep breath before he answered the question, certain beyond doubt that his next words would provoke a reaction.

  “I’m going to tell Antonov how to get through the delta,” he informed Alexin calmly. “You’ll need to warn him so they can evacuate Mil.”

  PART FIVE

  A LITTLE TASTE OF THE SHADOWS

  Chapter 76

  The safe house in the grounds of the Hospice in Tolace was far more luxurious than Tia was expecting. It was designed to accommodate members of the nobility recovering from whatever it was that members of the nobility were prone to suffer from. That was, Tia guessed, anything from a mild cold to a galloping dose of the pox.

  She was installed in the house under the name of Lady Natasha Orlando (Gilda’s idea of a joke), sent to the Hospice to recover from a broken heart. Gilda posed as a hired chaperone so she could later deny any involvement with Tia if anything went wrong. She had concocted some fabulous tale about Lady Natasha being abandoned by a heartless cad on the eve of her wedding in some province in northern Senet Tia had never heard of. The basketmaker’s wife had then taken the Shadowdancer who was arranging her admittance aside, and suggested that they keep the poor girl away from sharp implements, poisons and anything else with which she might do herself harm.

  Doing her best to look brokenhearted (not a difficult task under the circumstances), Tia had been shown the small cottage where she was to rest and recuperate until she recovered—or the Orlando arrived to collect her—and then left to her own devices. The Shadowdancers who staffed the Hospice seemed to be of the opinion that the care of the Lion of Senet’s heir took precedence over the broken heart of one not very important noblewoman, who should probably just pull herself together and get over it.

  The only downside of the arrangement was that she was required to forgo her usual comfortable trousers and shirt and dress like a lady. Gilda managed to find her two skirts and several embroidered blouses of surprisingly good quality— no doubt they were stolen—and she made Tia hide her other garments and her weapons among the four wicker trunks she sent along with her, to give the impression that Lady Natasha actually had some luggage. No noblewoman traveled without piles of luggage, Gilda explained, so Tia arrived at the Hospice with one almost-empty trunk that held her few possessions and three larger ones stuffed with rags.

  Once she was settled into her cottage, Tia spent several days just enjoying the chance to rest. Her meals were delivered by silent servants wheeling small carts along the gravel paths to the various cottages within the high protective wall. The food was excellent and she was largely left alone. It gave her plenty of time to recover from the strain of the past few weeks, far too much time to berate herself for being a fool, and not nearly enough time to prepare for the future.

  The Hospice gardens were beautiful. They were a complex network of narrow graveled paths that wound through the cottages and often ended in surprising little grottos with tinkling fountains, or carefully tended flowerbeds that bloomed with different flowers depending on whether the second or the first sun was overhead. Never one for sitting still for long, Tia explored the gardens for hours, staying away from the main buildings where most of the Shadowdancers worked and the poorer patients were treated, and avoiding the discreet little cottages that housed the other, more distinguished patients.

  It was on one of her forays through the gardens, some three days after her arrival, that Tia stumbled across Misha Latanya.

  The prince was sitting on a garden seat, wrapped in several rugs, beside a small fountain that splashed over an elaborately carved representation of the twin suns of Ranadon. She wandered into the grotto and did not realize at first that she was not alone. The garden seat was set in an alcove cut into the tall hedge surrounding the graveled clearing, and Misha sat huddled so deeply in his blankers that she didn’t notice he was there.

  He must have moved, or made a sound—Tia wasn’t sure— but something caused her to turn around. She stared at him in shock. The prince was almost unrecognizable. He was wasted and thin, his eyes hollow sockets set deep into his head. He trembled constantly, and a small bead of spittle sat on the corner of his mouth, as if he could not stop himself from drooling.

  “I’m sorry,” she mumbled, turning to leave. She lowered her eyes, praying that he would not recognize her.

  “Tia?” His voice was weak and understandably surprised.

  She debated denying it, or simply running away, but either action might pique his curiosity. Even if Misha Latanya was in no condition to chase her down, he had a whole guard here in Tolace who were, and were probably within shouting distance even now. She glanced around, wondering where they were. It seemed odd to leave the prince alone in such a state.

  “I sent them all away,” he explained, guessing the reason for her nervous look as she scanned the bushes. “I wanted to be alone.”

  With a resigned sigh, Tia walked over to the garden seat and sat down beside him.

  “You look awful.”

  He smiled wanly. “I don’t feel all that wonderful, either.”

  “What are you doing here?”

  “I’m more interested in what you’re doing here,” he replied. “The last I heard you’d fled back to the Baenlands.” He smiled for a moment, although it was obviously an effort. “I must say, I wasn’t all that surprised to learn that you were Neris Veran’s daughter. And I missed you after you left. Emalia would never discuss politics with me. She’s hopeless at chess, too.”

  Tia smiled. “Sorry about that. But given a choice between running away and staying around so that Barin Welacin could chop me up one finger at a time, running away seemed the better idea.”

  He reached a trembling hand through the blankets he had drawn so tightly around himself an
d picked up her hand with its missing little finger. “I can’t believe my father stood back and watched while Barin did that to you.”

  “He ordered it,” she told him flatly.

  Misha nodded reluctantly. “It’s easy to turn a blind eye to what goes on when you’re unwell. I was stunned to learn that you were Ella’s daughter, though. She never speaks of you.”

  “I don’t waste much breath on her, either.”

  “And Dirk? Have you news of him?”

  Tia frowned. “Dirk Provin is back in Avacas enjoying the patronage of your father and the High Priestess. He’s doing very nicely for himself.”

  Misha looked truly surprised. “He came back?”

  “Not until he’d learned enough about the Baenlands to make sure that he had plenty to tell the Lion of Senet,” she said bitterly. “Speaking of which, why haven’t you called your guard? Shouldn’t you have me arrested or something?”

  He shook his head. “I’ve no interest in seeing you lose the rest of your fingers, or worse. The war you’re fighting is against Senet, not me.”

  “You are Senet, Misha. You’re the heir to the throne.”

  He held up his trembling hand for her to see. “Look at me, Tia. I’ll be lucky to live until the next Landfall Feast. I’ll not inherit anything.”

  His assumption that he was dying annoyed Tia for some reason. “Well, whose fault is that?” she snapped.

  Misha looked at her curiously. “You think I want to be like this?”

  “Well, you did have a choice. I mean you have wealth, power, everything you could ever want . . .”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Poppy-dust, Misha,” she told him, a little exasperated by his lack of understanding. “You didn’t have to take the damn poppy-dust.”

  The prince stared at her with blank incomprehension. “You think I’m an addict?”

  “I don’t think, Misha. I know it for a fact. I could never understand why someone like you would feel the need—”

  “You’re mistaken, Tia,” he cut in, quite offended by the suggestion. “I’ve never taken poppy-dust in my life.”