by Dan Allen
“Understood.”
“But I’ve saved you the trouble of a solid half hour of unrestrained socializing,” Reann noted.
“You seem to be keen on making the introductions yourself,” Verick said, “or else avoiding them.”
He had pointed out exactly what Reann was up to. And the fact that he had pointed it out meant he had been thinking about it. And that was not good.
“Well, let’s get a seat at our table. Have they already begun the introductions?” Reann asked.
“Just,” Verick noted. “But I think we can make our way in the side entrance.”
“Ah,” Reann agreed. “The serving door—good idea.”
Verick knew about the side door. If Verick should flee, if he should take her with him by force, he might even manage it without drawing attention.
He opened the door and Reann stepped through, finding only two open seats waiting in the spot nearest the exit.
“How convenient,” Reann said with a forced smile, as Verick seated her on one of the two adjacent seats at one of the round tables arranged along the perimeter of great hall.
“Yes,” Verick agreed, sweeping the scabbard of his ever-present saber aside as he seated himself.
Other couples filtered in the doors on the opposite side.
Reann looked to the head table. This year’s announcer was none other than Lord Tromwen. She sucked in a breath of surprise and put her hand to the side of her face.
Tromwen stood at the rostrum, read a name then indicated the person when the man or lady stood to polite applause. He continued making introductions, commenting on each noble’s heritage or the scenic beauty of their land holding, or mentioning a relative he had known. He was making the most of the attention.
The nobles, men and women, totaled more than seventy-five guests. At this rate, the introductions would last at least long enough to put her life in double jeopardy.
“I should start by saying that I have learned a few things of late,” Verick said quietly.
Here we go.
Reann pressed her hands into her lap. “Things of interest?”
Verick nodded.
“Regarding your land holding?” she said cautiously, avoiding mention of the heirs for now.
“As it were,” Verick said tersely.
He was on edge now, standoffish.
“And a few things about my attendant.”
Reann looked at Tromwen but heard not a word he said. Servers mingled through the tables pouring drinks. One looked at Reann but did not recognize her.
Verick leaned closer and spoke into Reann’s ear. “You were born not long after the end of the western conflict. Your mother was a single woman—blind. You’d be surprised what you can find about somebody when you talk to the right people. And it bears out in the records.”
He knows.
“You might say . . . the eyes of the blind see too much,” he whispered softly.
Reann became more conscious of the saber by his side.
“This being a celebration of Toran’s legacy,” Verick said ominously, “I thought I should find out a little more about the fellow. Interesting that you should neglect to mention that Toran reputedly vacationed one winter very near Erdal, just after the end of the western conflict.”
“Yes,” Reann said carefully. “Perhaps with some additional clues—”
Verick gripped her arm. “You have been in my room. Your cat’s fur was on my bedspread. I can only assume you have had access to my private things, including my diary.”
Reann said nothing as her stomach twisted into a knot.
Hurry up, Tromwen—you’re talking me to death, literally.
“I have,” Reann admitted. “But nothing I have learned about you changes what I feel. I think you are an honest person on a fool’s errand.”
“You don’t know what to make of me,” Verick said.
“Then tell me,” Reann said, steeling herself. “What do you make of me?”
Verick placed a black-gloved hand on the table. It lay still when it usually would have fingered the edge of his hat. “As near as I can tell, you read and write six languages. There was only one person in Toran’s court with that kind of skill, and even then only in speaking tongues.”
“Emra,” Reann said.
Verick looked at her, as if surprised.
Reann gave voice to the unspoken question. “Do you think I was born a peasant?”
Their conversation was buried in a roar of laughter as Tromwen made a jest comparing his cousin’s swollen shape to the borders of his land holding.
Verick sipped his glass before answering. “Perhaps not.”
Reann stared at him headlong. “I was, in fact, born to a peasant—an illegitimate birth. What with all the comings and goings of ambassadors, I might even be your cousin.” Reann inclined her head considering the alternative. “Or I might be related to the stable boy. How am I to know? How is anyone to know?”
Verick lowered his voice. “We both know who your father is.”
Reann listened as Tromwen read the next name on the list. There were still ten left to go.
“These people are as loyal to Toran’s memory as anyone, anywhere. This is his birthplace,” Reann said smoothly.
“I see,” Verick said, looking down his nose as if looking at peasantry on display.
“So if I was, for instance, to stand up and say I were against Toran and his legacy, I would be in the wrong place—quite wrong,” Reann added.
The power of Reann’s advantage seemed to suddenly loom heavily over her companion. She paused, letting the words sink in, then continued in a very level, businesslike tone.
Verick’s face remained impressively calm. “You insinuate. Speak to it. What do you mean by this supposed entrapment, this charade?”
Reann swallowed. “There are some things that you don’t know, that I haven’t told you yet. You also have many things which you have not yet told to me. And I think that this is the right place to do it.”
A lady on their table looking at Reann nudged her husband and whispered.
“We can speak anywhere else with more privacy,” Verick said quickly, wary of the new eyes which exchanged looks with others on their table.
Reann spoke deliberately and slowly, so as not to appear nervous. “I know who you are.”
Verick said nothing to that.
“I also know that the reason you seek my help is not to aid the heirs, but to get vengeance.”
Verick opened his mouth, but Reann spoke quickly over his words. “But you learned the truth about what really happened to your family. Toran didn’t kill them. And you are on a crusade without a cause.”
“I have nothing to say to that,” Verick replied. It was all he could say. Reann had said enough, loud enough, to put all sorts of questions in the minds of several eavesdropping nobles.
A growing number were giving attention to their tempered exchange of words. This was the breaking point. She had to win a friend before it came to fight or neither would come out alive. Either they both lived or they both died.
Reann turned in her chair to face him, drawing even more attention. She spoke very quietly, so that only Verick could make out every word she said. “Shall I speak the name of your father, then? I saw his portrait in the library. His face was very much like your own.”
“Keep your peace,” Verick urged plaintively, eyes darting.
“All right,” she said. “I have a proposition for you.”
Verick’s face scrunched indignantly. “What proposition?”
“I think you are neither the villain nor the hero you imagine yourself to be. You’re neither wicked nor brave enough.”
“Aren’t we all?”
Reann put her hand on his. “When we danced, you were a decent man. You were full of life.
”
Verick, again, said nothing.
“What you would do does not become you. It is a vile garment you wear and refuse to take off.”
“I am what I am,” he whispered quickly. “There is nothing you or I can do about it.”
Reann placed both her hands upon his leg and leaned toward him earnestly. “Don’t say that. You have a chance now. You have a chance to clear your name and put right what was done wrong. Killing the heirs won’t make you whole. Two wrongs don’t make a right—even a child knows that.”
Reann waited as the storm raged inside the heart of the innocent son of a bloody traitor.
“What,” his lips stammered, “are you suggesting?”
“I’m suggesting that you care about me. I’m suggesting that I’m your friend. And . . . that perhaps fate brought us together, to help each other.” She looked to Verick with tears brimming in the corners of her eyes. “I know what you feel.”
“You cannot know.”
“Let me,” Reann said desperately.
Verick’s eyes flicked anxiously to the door.
“Find the heirs,” Reann urged. “Return them to the throne. Swear it now, on your father’s sword, and purge the sin of it forever. You would have glory in the histories—the great restorer, the bringer of peace.”
“You mean to suggest that I—wasn’t I already—how do you mean to—”
“Dorian of Ruban, son of Dorgan,” Reann whispered into his ear. The very sound of the words coming from her mouth blanched his face. “I will give you this one chance. Make your choice. If you mean to be a villain, I will call you out as such in front of all these people.” She swallowed. “But I care about you. And I need you. This day is my chance. And here I am, with you, trying to save you.”
“I don’t get that impression,” Verick said. “More like blackmail. ‘Do as I say or else.’”
“I’ve heard that before, from you,” Reann said. “Don’t you remember? But I’ve put that all behind me. To me you are Verick. You are new man, free of your father’s guilt. And if you care for me at all, then give up your vendetta. Join me. Help me. We can find the heirs; we can reunite the kingdom, the way it was meant to be.”
Reann took Verick’s hand as it went to his sword hilt. His fingers trembled. She held them tightly between hers.
“I can forgive the son of Toran’s betrayer as well as his son can leave his vengeance unclaimed. You know I am Toran’s heir,” Reann said quietly, admitting for the first time to anyone else besides Trinah that she was indeed the daughter of Toran.
The word heir was heard by at least three in the crowd. And the word passed quickly from mouth to ear through the guests like the wind moving over tall grass.
“Let us be friends,” she urged.
Verick closed his eyes.
“Let us undo what was done while there is still time.”
Verick squeezed his hand into a fist.
“Let your anger die. Let the vendetta perish in our new friendship. Say the word and I shall trust you with any secret to your dying day. You cannot turn from the path you choose. Now is the moment of destiny, for you, for me, for your people, and for the five realms.”
He was shaking visibly. His face contorted into an expression of agony. “How can I do this?”
Reann put her arm around his shoulder and lay her face against his cheek. “Just be brave. There is nothing we can do anymore. You cannot escape this place. And neither can I. Our fates are bound together.”
Reann’s eyes darted left. Tromwen noted the mark on the bottom of the parchment and turned it over.
“Not done yet. Ah, one more name. I should hope it is someone with a very short title. I’m getting hungry.”
The gathered gave yet another polite laugh.
Verick locked eyes with Reann.
There was only one more name on the list. It could be his, or it could be hers. There was only one move left to be played.
“This name is one I’ve never seen,” Tromwen announced in a tenor voice that quavered. His eyes fixed on the page.
A rush of movement passed through the gathered Erdali nobles like wind through willows.
The question was, had Reann written her name out on the parchment, or Dorian’s?
Verick’s hand hovered by his sword. His jaw was set, but his eyes flickered with doubt.
Reann knew he could cut down most of the overweight middle aged nobility in the room, but not all of them. Reann put her hand on his and closed her eyes.
If anyone was to die, she would be the first.
The anticipation in the hall grew by the moment as the color drained from the magistrate’s face.
Reann released Verick’s hand, which went to the hilt of his saber.
“What does it say?” a voice called.
“Read it, man!” another urged.
“Behold,” Tromwen announced, sounding indignant suddenly. “I read the name as it appears on the register: ‘Her majesty, high princess and heiress of Erdal—Reann, daughter of Emra and Toran, conqueror and lord of the five realms.’”
Rancor spread through the group. Reann stood to acknowledge her name, one hand sweeping her skirt in front of her. With her other hand she gripped Verick’s.
She moved forward and down the steps into the center of the room.
Verick followed. What courage or folly gave him the strength Reann could not imagine. She paced directly into the center of the rotunda and nodded to Tromwen.
The noise washed into a perilous silence.
Reann faced Tromwen and gave a bow, a proper curtsy, only slight as of one to an equal rank.
Tromwen looked from the paper to Reann, then back to the page, and clutched his ceremonial crimson magistrate’s robe at his chest.
Reann reached out and took the paper from him. She rolled it and handed it back to Tromwen, who, though two heads taller, trembled as though she were a giant.
“I welcome you all,” Reann said boldly, “to the house of my father.” She reached out for Verick’s hand again. He took it like a man taking a sentence from a judge. Denial was no option. But better to be on her side now than against it.
Verick gripped her hand tightly as he turned his head toward her, intending to make his intentions clear and present. But a flood of questions and answers mobbed the rotunda.
“Is she the heir?” a lady gasped.
“He meant Emra, the translator,” an older noble explained to his table.
“Where has she been these many years?”
“What sort of mockery is this?” a heavy-set gentleman demanded.
“She can’t prove it,” another shouted, to a chorus of agreement.
Reann stepped forward, leaving Verick next to Tromwen, her back to the one man on earth who had sworn to kill her.
“There is one here who knows who I am,” Reann said. “I have brought him here to witness it.”
The brilliance of her plan shined like a ray of light at dawn. Reann smiled and turned to Verick.
His face was a monsoon of emotion.
“Friends,” she whispered to him, in a promise, a suggestion, and a plea.
Verick paced to the center of the rotunda, where eyes like spears stabbed at him. The windows to the hall were crowded with servants. More pressed in at the main entrance.
The head butler burst through, his bald pate glinting in the light of a hundred oil lamps as he stormed into the rotunda.
“Reann! What do you think you are you doing? Come with me this instant. This behavior is beyond—”
Verick drew his sword in a flash and clotheslined the butler with a blow from the butt of his saber. The clobbered man scrambled backward as Verick aimed the point directly at his chest.
Men around the room shifted, putting hands to sword hilts.
As he backed aw
ay the head butler raised his hands to cover his head in the Erdali gesture of submission.
“I came here,” Verick spoke. A chill hung on his voice, as if speaking at his own funeral, “to find the heirs of Toran.”
Verick gestured with his sword point at Reann. The blade tip was within the range of a sudden thrust. “I spared no end of research, my own clues added to the notes of Toran’s own cupbearer, Ranville. I had reached the zenith of my charge, my mortal duty, when I found her.” He nodded at Reann.
Verick turned and faced the gathered assembly. “Rulers of Erdal and the five realms, I came here tonight expecting to be betrayed. I came expecting a fight, to bloody my sword in defense of my life.” He looked at Reann. “But I was not betrayed to my death. This lady protected my identity. She gave me honor I did not deserve and robbed me of my revenge.”
“Who are you?” Tromwen said boldly, stepping into his familiar role as chief judge of the Erdali court. “Speak your name, I charge you.”
“I am the heir elect of the Serbani protectorate of Ruban. Among you I took the name Verick, but I was born Dorian . . . son of Dorgan.”
The hall burst into an uproar. The nobles at the tables pointed and in an instant the entire assembly was leaning in for a glimpse.
“How dare you!” bellowed a hefty bearded man shaking his fist.
“My son died in that harbor,” cried an aged woman. “Slain! Drowned!”
“Blood traitor!”
Verick brandished his blade with a deftness that spoke of imminent death and shouted them down. “My motives for seeking Toran’s blood relatives are no mystery to any of you. My face is that of my father, the one who betrayed you and your sons. And for that, Toran’s retribution was legendary.” He dropped his blade into its sheath. “But Toran didn’t kill my father. Fate cursed him with disease, as it did Toran. It took them both. And so . . . I have no quarrel with his heirs.”
Reann finally took a breath.
Verick’s hands balled into fists. “I am cursed above all!” he bellowed. “Evil finds me wherever I go. My family name is wretched. And my vengeance is in vain.” He turned and looked Reann in the eyes. “My father failed to destroy yours. And he mine. You declined to destroy me when you had that chance, and so I can do you no injustice.” Verick turned, eyes wide and brave. “She is your rightful ruler! She has wisdom and kindness, with her father’s diligence and her mother’s gift for language. Even if she were not the heir—and she is the heir—her ascendance would be a boon to this realm. You will find none wiser and none truer to the realm.”
