Royal Exile

by Fiona McIntosh

  He picked up the blanket and said a silent prayer with his face buried in it for a few moments. Easy tears were not something Corbel suffered from but although his body didn’t betray him with a physical sign of his grief, he felt it nonetheless as he placed the blanket over the now sleeping, very weak child’s face and begged Lo to make this swift. He tried to blank his mind as he pressed on the blanket but thoughts of Gavriel surfaced. How would his brother protect Leo? Would they survive the coming conflict? He might never know; he was being sent away—far away…and he didn’t know if he would ever return. Accepting this felt impossible and grief began to mix with anger as he sped the child to her death.

  Gavriel De Vis had watched his father leave with his brother. There had not been time for he and his brother to share anything more than a look, but that look had said droves about the terrible action that was about to be taken. In that moment in which he and Corbel had learned of the king’s plan, Gavriel had despised Brennus for forcing them into this corner. Perhaps Brennus sensed it for as the legate and Corbel left, the king had held him back.

  “Gavriel, a word if I may?”

  “Of course, highness,” he said, curtly.

  “I’ve asked a lot of you today.”

  “You’ve asked me simply to keep guard over Leo, which is no trial, majesty. What you’ve asked of my brother is completely different. Enough to shatter anyone’s soul, if you’ll forgive my candour, highness.” He felt proud of himself for saying as much.

  “You understand it could not be done by my hand?”

  “I’m not sure I understand it at all, your highness. But I will take care of Leo as my king has asked and because my father demands it.”

  “I know you will protect him with your life.”

  “Of course. He is the crown prince.”

  “There is something else I need to share with you. It is a delicate matter but I can share this information with no one else.”

  Gavriel’s anger gave way to confusion. “Your majesty, whatever you tell me is in confidence.”

  “I mean no one, though, Gavriel. This information is for your ears alone—not your father, not your brother, no one at all. Not even Leo. I am entrusting a great secret to you alone. I would ask you to swear your silence.”

  Gavriel frowned. “All right, highness. I swear you my silence. Whatever you share remains our secret.”

  “Not here,” the king said. “I shall send for you. Come to my salon. Right now I must away to my good wife. Await my message.”

  Gavriel bowed, baffled.

  The queen’s convalescing chamber was attended by various servants and officials who the king had insisted upon. Its atmosphere was frigid, the awkward quiet punctuated only by the sounds of embarrassed shuffles or coughs over the mournful toll of a single bell. The only focus of activity or brightness was Piven, who gently stroked his mother’s hair. No one could be sure of the sound, but he was humming tunelessly as he did so.

  “And tell me again, Hana, why my newborn child is not at my breast and you cannot find my husband?” Iselda demanded, her face wan from fatigue and worry.

  Hana fussed at her queen’s coverlets before pressing a warm posset of milk curdled with ginger wine and honey into her mistress’s hands. “I’ve heard the king is on his way, your highness. Now I beg you to drink this without fuss. You need to regain your strength.”

  In a rare show of anger Iselda hurled the cup across the room, its contents splashing in all directions. Piven sat back in what could only be described as amusement, while Hana flinched in astonishment. The cup shattered against the stone, the liquid soaking into the timber beneath the herbs that were strewn underfoot. Its heat instantly released the sweet smell of lavender mingling with mint and rosemary.

  “I shall take nothing, eat nothing, say not another word until my daughter is returned to me. Find her! Do you hear me?” the queen yelled, coughing on the last word as she dissolved into tears. Piven returned to stroking his mother’s hair as though nothing had happened.

  “As does the entire palace, my love,” Brennus said, finally arriving. Hana visibly relaxed at the sight of the tall, dark king whose beard had recently erupted new silver flecks, whose once broad shoulders now appeared to sag, and whose laughter, which had boomed around the walls of Brighthelm, was now only an echo.

  “Brennus!” Iselda took his hands as he settled to sit beside her. Piven leapt onto his father’s lap. The queen accepted the soft kiss Brennus planted on her cheek, mindful of their audience, and pulled back to search his face. She found her answer in the set of his mouth, the grief in his eyes. She asked all the same. “Where is our daughter? Why the mourning knell?”

  “Iselda,” Brennus began gently. The hurt in his voice was so raw it hit her like a blow and her eyes spilled, tears coursing down her cheeks and finding a path through the fingers she clamped to her mouth to prevent herself from shrieking her own grief. “Our baby died not long after her birth,” Brennus finished. “In my arms.”

  Iselda shook her head slowly, repeating the word “no” over his soft words.

  Brennus wiped away his own tears and over her denials he continued. “No daughter has ever survived. The Valisar line seems to have its own self-defense for the female line—but you already know that, my love.” He took her hands, squeezing them, gently kissing them. “She didn’t suffer, my darling, I promise. She simply fell asleep as Father Briar blessed her with holy oil. She heard her name spoken and I’m sure she heard me tell her that we loved her with all our hearts.”

  Iselda’s lips moved but no sound came. The death bell tolled mournfully through the difficult silence.

  Brennus pressed on. “I knew this might occur and that is why I took her from you, my love. I needed her to be blessed before…before…” He was unable to finish, his voice crumbling.

  “Before the devil stole her soul?” Iselda asked, her voice suddenly hard, her cheeks wet. “Do you really believe that something so small and beautiful and pure would be ignored, cast aside by Lo? Is he really that cruel, this god we pray to and put all our faith in, to not only murder my baby but then refuse her soul passage into heaven?” Her voice had changed into a hissing shriek at his apparent insensitivity. She was very well aware it was unseemly to unravel emotionally in front of the palace servants but she no longer cared. Three children were all Lo had given her to love; of those, one was a grotesque, and now her only daughter was already dead within hours of her birth. Precious Leonel, their hope, was likely as good as dead anyway.

  “Perhaps our little girl is the lucky one, taken by Lo peacefully. Where is Leo? Does he know?” she begged, her voice softer now.

  The king’s red-rimmed eyes closed briefly. “De Vis is with him now but will leave Gavriel with him.”

  “That’s good,” she said, relieved, giving a watery smile to Piven. “Leo does love that family as if it’s his own,” she added absently, before dissolving into quiet weeping.

  The king cleared his throat, looking toward the queen’s overly attentive aide hovering nearby. Freath was a good man, only slightly older than himself and although not handsome in a traditional sense, there was an enigmatic quality to his dry, reserved manner that was appealing. “I think we’re fine here now, Freath. You can organize for us to be left alone.”

  “Yes, majesty,” the man replied. “Er, Father Briar awaits.”

  The king nodded, waiting for the servants to shuffle out at Freath’s murmured orders.

  “Why were these people allowed in my chamber? I can understand Physic Maser, but the others?” Iselda asked through her tears as she counted almost eight others being herded out by Freath.

  “I must be honest with you, my love. I had no idea how you were going to react. I needed people here for various contingencies. But as always you surprise me with your courage.” She watched him hug their vacant little boy close to his chest and inhale the scent of his freshly washed hair. She was glad Piven did not have the mental capacity to understand any of thi
s.

  “I don’t feel very courageous, Brennus, and I am sure the real pain has not yet hit me. I feel too numb right now.”

  Brennus nodded in shared pain. “There will be no shame if you prefer not to see her, but I have had our daughter brought up from the chapel. Father Briar is outside.”

  “He has her?” Iselda asked, tears welling again.

  “I thought you might like to hold her, have some private time with her,” Brennus said, choking as he spoke. “I’m so sorry, my love. I’m sorry I’m not being strong for you.”

  “I have always maintained that one of the reasons I have loved you, Brennus, 8th of the Valisars, is because you are capable of such emotion, and are not ashamed to suffer it. I’m surprised you’ve been so open with it in front of others, just now. But you don’t have to be outwardly strong for me, my king.” Iselda reached out to stroke his beard. “Just be strong for our people. What’s ahead is…” She shook her head. “Unthinkable,” she finished. Then a hint of her private courage ghosted across her pale face as she stiffened her resolve. “I would like to hold her and kiss her again. Please ask Father Briar to come in.”

  The king nodded, touched her hand and rose from her bed. “I’ll fetch him.”

  Iselda’s heart began an urgent ache for the sister Leo would never have, for the daughter she would never fuss over gowns with, for the little girl Brennus would never know the special joy of being a father to, for the realm that would never have the glamor and excitement of the first living princess in centuries…but especially for the future. Because there wasn’t one. Without a royal line—and Leo would surely be put to the sword if Loethar found him—Penraven and the prosperous era of the Valisars was destroyed forever.

  She watched her husband usher in the priest, and trembled to see him lightly carrying a bundle draped with cream silks. Giving herself entirely over to her grief, Queen Iselda took the tiny corpse of her infant daughter and cradled her tightly against her breast, praying with all her heart that the long dark lashes would flutter open. Her prayer fell on deaf ears. The child’s eyes remained determindedly closed; her lips were now blueish in color. Tufts of hair escaped the silken cap, their darkness making her dead daughter’s waxy skin look even paler, when only a couple of hours earlier she had been a dark pink with her efforts to be born. Iselda wanted to touch the fairy-like fingers and toes again that had looked so perfect, so tiny, earlier. She was unaware that she was sharing her thoughts aloud.

  “We wrapped her up in the silks you’d made,” Brennus admitted, then shrugged awkwardly. “It seemed right to do so.”

  Iselda watched with a broken heart as Piven gently curled the little girl’s dark hair around his small fingers and smiled at his mother before he bent and gave the corpse a loud wet kiss on her forehead. His father eased him back onto his lap to give the queen a chance to say her final farewell to her daughter.

  Iselda stroked the silken cape she had sewed and then painstakingly embroidered through her confinement the last three moons of her pregnancy. “I unpicked this rosebud so many times,” she admitted ruefully. “Just couldn’t get it to sit right.”

  Father Briar stepped forward, bowing again. He glanced at Brennus, who nodded permission. “She was blessed, majesty. She died gently in the arms of our king—a little sigh and she drew her final soft breath. Lo has taken her, accepted her soul with love.”

  The queen grimaced. “I wish he hadn’t, Father. I wish he’d given me even just a few more hours with her. I had barely moments before she was whisked away from me and now she’s dead. I can hardly remember how it felt to hold her while she breathed or fix a picture in my mind of how she looked when she was alive.”

  Father Briar shifted uncomfortably. “Forgive me, highness. Perhaps it is Lo’s way.”

  “You mean our god deliberately steals her memory from my mind to make it easier on me when he steals her soul?” Iselda asked, her expression hardening, lips thinning.

  The priest looked between king and queen before awkwardly saying: “Yes, that’s a rather nice way to put it, your majesty. I may—if you’ll let me repeat that—use it in a sermon sometime.”

  Brennus blinked and Iselda knew this to be a sign of frustration at the priest’s clumsiness. “Thank you, Father,” the king said. He turned to her. “Enough?”

  She shook her head, not even conscious of her tears. “I could never have enough of her.”

  “Just remember we have Leo to think about. He must be worried, confused as well. I don’t think he needs to see her but he will want to see you, know that you are safe.”

  She sniffed, unable to tear her gaze away from the child. “You’re right. I can only imagine what he’s thinking. Bring him to me, Brennus. Let me smell the hair and kiss the pink skin of the living.” She sounded resolute and Brennus thanked her with a squeeze to her hand.

  “Shall I take her?”

  Iselda nodded, too frightened to speak, fearful that treacherous tears and fresh, uncontrollable emotion would threaten her fragile resolve. She bent and kissed the baby’s forehead. It felt like marble and her tears, which splashed onto the infant’s skin, rolled off, barely leaving a trace. No, there was no warmth, none of the porousness of life present—of that she was sure now and the tiny irrational flicker of hope guttered in her breast and died too. She gave her daughter a final squeeze, hating the stiffness of her tiny body and suddenly grateful to Brennus for having the child swaddled so tightly. She knew now that was his reason for doing so—so she would not have to feel rigor claiming her daughter.

  And finally she handed the doll-like infant back to its father. “All this time I haven’t asked and you haven’t offered,” she said sadly.

  “What, my love?” he inquired, looking ashamed, she presumed because he genuinely didn’t know what she meant.

  “Share with me the name you gave our daughter.”

  He found a sad smile and whispered it for her hearing alone.

  “Very beautiful,” Iselda admitted. “A choice I certainly approve of. But I would now ask a favor of you, Brennus.”

  “Anything, my love.”

  “Send out an edict that no child of Penraven will ever bear that name from this day. It belongs only to her.”

  He nodded. “It will be done, I promise.”

  “You’d best ask the funerary to prepare our tombs, including Leo’s. I can’t imagine we are long for this earth.”

  “Come now, Iselda. Rally, my queen, for the sake of your son. All is not lost. Loethar will have a tough time breaching our walls.”

  “How is that supposed to cheer me? Loethar has only to sit us out. Our supplies will dwindle soon enough.”

  “I promise you this: whatever happens, Leo will escape the tyrant’s touch.”

  “How can you know that? In the same way you knew that the barbarian could never succeed in taking the Set?” It was a low blow but well deserved. He shouldn’t have been so arrogant to Loethar. The warlord had called his bluff. She wasn’t finished with him yet. “And your other son?”

  “The barbarian will not bother himself with the boy.” Brennus took her hand.

  She shrugged it off. “If you could keep that promise I could go to my death happy. But how can you be so sure?”

  Brennus paused. She imagined he was weighing telling the truth against saying something to make her heart beat easier. “I have already taken steps for Leo’s escape. He doesn’t know it yet, of course, but should Loethar enter the palace, no matter what else occurs, Leo will be protected. In time he will carry the torch of the Valisars against the tyrant. We, my love, are expendable—as is Piven—and I intend to see that Loethar burns all his energies on enjoying my demise, while our healthy son slips his net.”

  None of it sat easy in her heart, especially the betrayal of Piven. He was an invalid but he could still feel pain and fear. She was weary of grief. “Perhaps her death is for the best then,” she said, as he opened the door to leave.

  “Why do you say that?” he aske
d, glancing at the dead girl in his arms.

  “Because she would have been a complication to your plan. If she hadn’t have died, you might have had to have her killed…to be sure she would not be used as Loethar’s tool. I would offer Piven the same courtesy if I only had the courage.”

  Brennus blanched, stared at her with such apology in his painful glance before he left wordlessly that in that heartstopping moment of his pause Iselda believed she had stumbled upon the real truth of her daughter’s demise. As the door closed on her chilling revelation the Queen of Penraven knew she had no further desire to live—the Valisar name and its sinister secret suddenly no longer mattered.

  Two

  “My sister’s dead,” Leo said in the bald way that any twelve-year-old might comment.

  Gavriel nodded. “I’m sorry for your family…for you, majesty.”

  “I was hoping for a brother—not like Piven, but one like you have.”

  “Girls are fun too,” Gavriel replied, knowing the youngster probably wouldn’t catch on fully to his innuendo.

  Leo screwed his nose up. “They’re not much good at fishing, archery, riding, fighting—”

  “Ha! Don’t you believe it, majesty,” Gavriel said. “They’re pretty good at most things and very good at others.”

  “Like what?”

  “Er, well, like looking beautiful, smelling nice…”

  The boy obviously thought about this for a few moments as Gavriel helped to hoist him up to balance perilously on his shoulders. “Get that one, your majesty,” he said, pointing to a particularly fat, ripe-looking pear. The pear landed in Gavriel’s outstretched hand. “One more, over there.”

  As he stretched to reach it, Leo continued, “Smelling good isn’t much help in a battle, though, is it?”

  Gavriel liked the way Leo’s mind worked. He still had that direct, slightly unnerving manner of all children but the crown prince was a thinker and often amused Gavriel and Corbel with his opinionated insights. He was maturing fast, too. Gavriel was still young enough to recall how quickly one could turn from a youngster disinterested in anything but boyish pursuits into a young man whose every thought seemed to focus around women and enjoying them.