“You arranged this?”
“Of course. I can be very persuasive if I want. And in this case I wanted.”
“Why?”
Alicia frowned. “I think that’s obvious, unless you’re more of a dullard than I give you credit for, stableboy.”
Sorial considered. “There’s something else going on, something you and I ain’t seeing. Something that has to do with Warburm, your father, and my parents.”
“This isn’t the first time you’ve said something like that, and Annie made a similar remark. You see conspiracies everywhere, don’t you?”
“Why would your father, one of the most powerful and respected of Vantok’s nobility and a member of the king's council, visit a place like The Wayfarer’s Comfort? It ain’t one of the city’s posh watering holes and he weren’t there to meet a mistress or hire a whore. Before I came here, Warburm admitted to a connection. Some sort of secret society. He wouldn’t say much about it, but somehow my mother and father are involved
“I thought you didn’t know who your father was.”
“I don’t. But Warburm does. And your father may, as well.”
Alicia became quiet as she puzzled over the information Sorial had provided. He could sense her mind working, trying to fit together the same pieces he had struggled with for so long. Suddenly, she became animated.
“Could your father be a noble?”
Sorial shrugged. He had no idea and said as much. “I doubt it, though,” he added. “If I was high-born, there wouldn’t be no reason for me to spend most of my life as a stableboy while my mother hid in a farmhouse.”
“I wonder…” mused Alicia. “A lot of things about you - and us - would make sense if your father was more than some random man your mother used to ward off a cold Winter night in the North.”
“There is something going on. I just haven’t figured out what.”
“In that case, you’ll need my help. And the first thing we have to do is find out who your father is.”
At that moment, back in the yard, a cowbell rang, indicating a change in practice shifts. “I got to go. Time for me to play swords and daggers with the big boys. They’re all impressed by the knife you gave me.”
“I’ll be watching,” said Alicia. “Stab someone for me. Just not yourself.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN: SORIAL’S DAY OFF
Following his lengthy discussion with Warburm, hardly a day passed when Sorial didn’t contemplate a visit to Kara. The impulse was part curiosity - maybe once she knew what the innkeeper had told him, she might relax her stance and reveal more - and part guilt. He was embarrassed by the way he had treated her. Everything she’s done has been done out of love for you. If she truly was as much of a victim of circumstances as he was, she was deserving of more sympathy.
The final push to relent came from Alicia, who had become his confidant. Their relationship, though not without an element of sexual frisson, had turned companionable. They had become to one another what each needed: a friend.
“You have to see her,” Alicia urged. It was a broiling afternoon soon after Sorial’s sixteenth birthday. The two of them, drenched in sweat that made their garments cling to their bodies, were resting in the shade of a tree close to the duke’s estate. Vagrum and Alicia’s pair of personal guards were nearby, under another such tree, looking like they would prefer to be somewhere cooler. Vagrum was especially distressed, as his big body wasn’t built for this climate. Aside from the five of them, there were no signs of life. In this heat, the guards trained and practiced only in the early morning and late evening hours.
“You sound like Warburm,” he remarked. Or my conscience.
“He be right.” Alicia’s imitation of the innkeeper’s accent brought a smile to Sorial’s face. “Seriously, though, you can’t despise her for this. If there’s anyone who’s suffered more than you, it’s her. I can’t imagine what it would be like to have a son who avoided me, especially in these circumstances. I’m not saying you don’t have a right to be angry, but you’re carrying things too far. It’s obvious she loves you; I wish I could say the same about my own mother.”
“It ain’t that I hate my mother. I’m just frustrated by what she won’t tell me.”
“She doesn’t know that. You don’t visit. At best, that can be seen as indifference.”
“I know.” Sorial chewed on one nail.
Alicia glanced over at Vagrum to make sure he wasn’t watching too closely - both recognized that any show of intimacy, no matter how innocent, would be relayed to the duke - then laid a comforting hand on Sorial’s arm. “I’ll go with you.”
“You’ll what?”
“Go with you. I want to meet your mother. I’m sure she and I will get along famously. You’re a source of exasperation and tribulation to both of us.”
“I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” said Sorial. “She might think there’s…”
“…something between us? Isn’t there?” Alicia’s voice dropped to a whisper even though no one was close enough to hear. It was the closest either had come to openly admitting how things stood between them. Without a doubt, they were friends. They both wanted more.
He saw reflected in her green eyes the conflict that dogged him night and day. She wanted reassurance. She wanted to know that class and station didn’t matter, that society’s rigid conventions could be circumvented. Some rules are made to be broken. Warburm had counseled him to woo her and fight for her. Prove to her father that he could be as good a match as the man to whom she was betrothed. Could he do that? More importantly, was it the right thing - not just for him, but for her as well: asking her to give up a life as the pampered wife of a powerful someone? She might say “yes,” but he suspected she wouldn’t understand what she was agreeing to. Impulsiveness trumped wisdom. He didn’t know where his future was headed but the assassination attempt hinted it wasn’t going to be free of danger or tribulation. To drag Alicia along with him…there lay the potential path to resentment and recrimination.
“You can’t be intimidated by what I am, by who my father is,” she said. “We’ve known each other for years now, but we’ve danced around talking about our feelings because it’s a hopeless match. But nothing is hopeless if you want it enough. If you’re willing to make the sacrifices. Here in Vantok, it’s true - we’re a duke’s daughter and a peasant. But in any other city, we could be wanderers from the South - newly married, looking to start a life. It doesn’t take much effort to create a new identity. You just have to want it enough. To take the last step.”
“Are you saying you’d run away with me?”
She nodded almost imperceptibly. “If that’s what it takes, stableboy.”
“We’d kill each other.”
She laughed. “Probably. But everyone dies sometime, somehow. So I ask you again: Isn’t there something between us?”
“Yes.” His finger reached up to trace the curve of her face. He remembered kissing her, and wanted more than anything to do it again. But he jerked away his hand as if burned when he saw Vagrum looking in their direction. He had to remember that he and Alicia were never truly alone. She was always under someone’s watchful eye. Running away, if it came to it, wouldn’t be as easy as she proposed. For perhaps the first time, he noticed the bars on her cage.
“So, you’ll take me with you when you visit your mother?” she asked, bringing them back to the topic at hand. He realized she had outmaneuvered him. Again.
He signed, knowing he was beaten. “If your father allows it, I guess I ain’t got no choice.”
“No, stableboy, you don’t. Eventually you’ll figure out that I have a way with men. They argue with me but in the end, they give in. It may take a while, but eventually I’ll have you trained.”
Getting the duke’s approval for Alicia to leave the estate - not to mention travel to the other side of the city and into the farmlands situated there - proved to be a major obstacle. Although Sorial had been training for nearly a full season, he was
n’t yet proficient enough with any weapon for Alicia’s safety to be trusted to him.
“Absolutely not,” declared Carannan when his daughter approached him about the possibility. They were in the cool confines of a converted sitting room that had once been the mansion’s wine cellar. “It’s out of the question. Sorial is free to visit his mother whenever he likes, but you aren’t leaving this property. Need I remind you…”
“Father, we were taken unprepared and at night. This time, the entire journey will be during the day at a time of the year when hardly anyone’s traveling the roads. And I’ll have both Sorial and Vagrum in case of trouble.”
“With all due respects to your abilities,” said Carannan, looking at Sorial, who was standing in the background trying to look unobtrusive. “You still have a great deal to learn before you’re ready to assume full duty as a member of my militia. Your sergeant, Rotgut, tells me you have enormous potential, but it takes more than ten weeks to turn a stableboy into a soldier.”
“I agree, sir.”
Alicia shot him a withering glance. He could read the words in her eyes: If you’re not going to be helpful, keep your mouth shut.
“Sorial has killed two men. How many of your guards can make that claim? I’d trust Sorial with my life before any of my other ‘protectors’, except Vagrum.”
“He’ll be happy for the vote of confidence,” said Carannan dryly. “My intent isn’t to question Sorial’s integrity or impugn his skill, but to point out that you shouldn’t be placed in a position where you need him or anyone else to protect you.”
“I will not be a captive on this estate!” Alicia exploded, stamping her foot for emphasis. The action made her look like a petulant child, not a woman blossoming on the cusp of adulthood. “You’ve kept me here for my whole life! Other than Sorial, I have no friends. I’ve lived in isolation. In two seasons, I’ll reach my Maturity. I’ll be damned if I enter womanhood cowering on my father’s estate, hiding behind his small army of guards!”
Sorial blanched at Alicia’s outburst, but Carannan, accustomed to his daughter’s occasional displays of temper, merely sighed.
“Take two experienced guards in addition to Vagrum and Sorial, and you can go. I expect you to be home well before dusk. The last thing I want to do is send out a search party. That would make me very cross.”
So it was that the next morning, a company of five traveled to Lamanar and Kara’s small farm. At this time of the year, in the face of the unrelenting heat, the fields lay fallow, the soil having been baked into hard, crumbly chunks. Nothing, not even the heartiest of weeds, could grow in this climate. Lamanar, like all of Vantok’s farmers, wouldn’t plant until the rains returned and the weather cooled enough for the seeds to have a chance of survival.
Alicia and Vagrum were mounted with the guards on foot. Sorial led the way with his compatriots, older veterans Silvan and Sergeant Rotgut, bringing up the rear. During the long journey through the city streets and into the northeastern provinces, all was quiet. They encountered a few merchant caravans but, other than that, everyone was inside. The roads, made of a cracked clay that hadn’t drunk water in weeks, were as hard as stone.
As they approached Lamanar and Kara’s cottage, Alicia dismounted and left her mare with Vagrum and the two soldiers. They had agreed to remain here, close enough to come to her aid if needed but far enough away to afford a modicum of privacy. Vagrum was conscious of balancing his mistresses’ desire for freedom with her safety. She was no longer a little girl and, as a young woman approaching her adulthood, she deserved space. For her part, Alicia had agreed to make this a short visit so her escort didn’t have to bake under the sun’s baleful glare for an extended period. There was no shade in the fields.
Kara answered Sorial’s knock, her careworn features coming alive when she saw her son. She let out a yelp of joy and threw her arms around him. Sorial returned the embrace awkwardly. When they parted, he introduced his companion.
“Mother, this is Lady Alicia of House Carannan.”
Alicia smiled and executed a flawless curtsy.
Kara examined the young woman closely, her eyes darting between Alicia and her son several times before she said, “You’re most welcome to my humble abode, Milady. My husband and I are unused to having such an august guest. You will find out home much different from what you are accustomed to.”
She chose poverty in the house of a man she don’t love just to be close to you.
“Is Lamanar…?” began Sorial.
“He’s at a tavern in the city, doing what farmers do all day in this forsaken heat - drinking away the little of their money that remains. In fact, I believe he’s at the inn where you worked until not long ago. Since Warburm released you from your contract, he’s been going there often. Won’t you come in? It’s more bearable inside, out of the direct sunlight. And your escort as well?” She gestured toward Vagrum, Silvan, Rotgut, and the horses.
“They have their waterskins and we won’t be long,” said Alicia.
“Of course.”
The house looked no different from the last time Sorial had visited. He refused his mother’s offer to sit, being accustomed to standing for long periods. Alicia sat opposite Kara, the slightness of her form evident in the large chair. Her feet didn’t reach the ground. The air inside was stale but cooler than in the yard.
“So you’re the Lady Alicia,” said Kara. “You’re prettier than I expected. Since my son mentioned you, I made it my business to learn as much about you as possible.”
It was a remarkable greeting and neither Sorial nor Alicia knew quite how to respond. Kara didn’t wait for an answer. “I assume you’re here for answers.” There was no equivocation in her voice. “How much has Warburm told you?”
Surprised as he was by his mother’s forthrightness, Sorial didn’t hesitate. He had rehearsed a brief apology. “Enough to realize I ain’t been fair to you. In all this, I thought ’bout my pain without realizing how much it might hurt you.”
Kara smiled, but there was a hint of sadness in the expression. “Warburm has a talent for getting people to feel guilty. What did he tell you, that I cry myself to sleep every night pining for the loss of a son for whom I’ve sacrificed everything?”
“Something like that.”
“I can assure you that’s not the case. Don’t mistake me, Sorial - I love you and have shed my share of tears over the years for you and myself. But I’m not as fragile as the innkeeper imagines, or tries to get you to imagine. I made my choices long ago and don’t regret them. I knew you’d resent me when you knew the half-truths about your birth, but I also knew there would come a time when you’d understand and hopefully forgive. That day approaches.”
“Still, I should have...”
“I hold you blameless, Sorial. There’s guilt aplenty to go around - me, Lamanar, Warburm, and many others share it - but none is yours. You’re a victim caught in a web of circumstance, an innocent we’ve all manipulated.” Having said that, she turned to Alicia. “As are you, Milady. To you as much as to my son, I extend my apology and ask your forgiveness.”
Alicia was startled. “You have it, although I don’t…”
“I hope you feel the same way when the full extent of my culpability becomes evident.”
The statement chilled the atmosphere in a room that was stiflingly close.
“Now,” Kara said, returning her attention to her son. “What did Warburm tell you?”
Sorial recounted his conversation with the innkeeper.
When he was done, Kara nodded. “That’s more than I would have expected him to say at this juncture. But he knows the schedule better than anyone, so who am I to question his decision?”
“Who is my father?” How much of the truth about his past hinged on that question?
“Warburm described him as well as I could. Very dark. Very mysterious. Very alluring, at least at one time. Not so much in his later years. The nights we spent together - nights designated for your conc
eption - weren’t romantic. We were there because of duty, acting out of necessity not desire. It was never intended that we would be together, and we neither knew nor liked each other enough to want that. I haven’t seen him since shortly after you were born. There was a… disagreement… about how we should move forward and when he was overruled, he took it personally and went back to a reclusive existence.”
“His name?”
“Warburm had a reason not to tell you, although I’m not sure what it is. I’ll honor that for now. It would mean nothing to you but there are places in this world where speaking it could make you a target.”
“Did my father know him?” asked Alicia.
Kara considered, sorting through memories. “I don’t think so. It’s hard to remember who became involved at what time. Carannan knew of Sorial’s father, but I don’t think the two met.”
“Was Sorial’s father high-born?”
“Not in the conventional sense. There wasn’t much about him that was conventional. But he had very old, respected bloodlines. Is it important?”
“Just a thought… a possibility. It may be nothing.”
Sorial glanced at her, wondering if the same idea had occurred to her as to him. Were the two of them acting out a story that had been plotted before they were born?
“You knew Alicia and I would meet, didn’t you?” asked Sorial.
“Knew? No. Nothing is certain now that the gods no longer rule in the heavens. In some ways, you two are horribly mismatched. The class difference isn’t easily overcome. And there’s the matter of the betrothal.”
“Do you know who Alicia’s intended is?”
“It’s a closely guarded secret.”
“That ain’t an answer.”
“It’s the only one I can give at this time.”
Sorial had danced these steps with his mother before and knew she wouldn’t relent. She would risk his offense rather than give up her secret. This time, he could live with that.
The Last Whisper of the Gods Page 19
