Soren couldn't quite manage not to flinch. This was a leap to the heart of things.
"I don't know."
"But."
"But." She found her hands had closed into fists and forced them to relax before she met his eyes again. "I can't think of any other explanation for the Rose doing that to us. If it thought you were about to die."
"Champion brood mare." The words were cruel, but his anger had already drained away. "I don't know the reason for the black rose. I thought it must be the hunter, that it had somehow found its way to now, as I had. But we couldn't track it with magic, and I don't see why you'd be able to, any more than I understand why the Rose is so willing to abandon me in favour of a...hastily-produced successor. If the thing we encountered in the Tongue is the same that the Tzel Aviar hunted, then it has formidable magical defences. But is that reason enough for the Rose's behaviour? Whatever the case, I don't intend to be shuffled aside. I don't intend to leave anything of Darest to the Rose's devisings."
"What do you mean?"
"The Rose is bound into the Covenant and the succession. The palace, the Rathens and Darest itself, all intertwined into one. A way of strengthening, making what is formidable almost insurmountable. All very well, when there are Rathens, but it hasn't been good for Darest these last two centuries. Whatever else Domina Rathen planned, she certainly did not intend for Darest to be held in limbo by its own protective enchantments. And never beneath a thousand Suns would she expect a Rathen to tolerate being treated as–" He stopped, face a mask of anger. Took a breath, as if he needed it to control his voice. "That is not something I will tolerate. Tomorrow – no, the day after – I intend to study the foundation of the Rose's enchantments. With a view to unmaking it."
"Do you expect me to object?" Soren asked, for he was staring at her with evident hostility. What Strake was proposing would significantly weaken the Rathen possession of Darest, but Soren could not be anything but supportive of removing the Rose's ability to make her a puppet.
"I suppose not." Strake glanced away, controlling himself, and the hard lines of his face eased. He took a deep breath and looked back up at her. Almost human; resigned and weary and rather worried. "What's your name?" he asked. "Your first name, I mean. They were full of 'Champion Armitage' at Teraman, but nothing else."
"Soren." It had never occurred to her that he would not know it.
"I need you to understand something, Soren," he said then, so grimly that Soren straightened. "What the Rose did to control me– You are not a mage, so you wouldn't have experienced it the same way. You would have had no way to resist it, would have...drowned in a moment. But I fought. It was holding my head under water, and I was struggling with every scrap of strength to lift my head, to break free. Fighting death of self itself." He looked sick. "The Rose is too strong for any individual mage. I drowned, and then I – we – were used as we were. I'll try to remember that you were as unwilling, but you must understand that as I struggled to lift my head, to take 'breath', it was your face I saw. And I can't simply erase that."
He stood up, prowled around to stand behind his chair as if he wanted it between them. "Intellectually, I can't blame you. On some level, I even recognise the Rose's motives, if that's what they were. But that makes no difference to what I feel when I see you." He looked down at his hands, resting on the high padded back of the chair. "I am hardly the most temperate of men. I've had my enemies, taken my revenges. I have never so wanted to punish another human being as I do you."
He smiled, thin-lipped and sour, at the expression on her face. His own was still pale.
"You're fortunate I'm not so petty as I am quick-tempered. I tell you this only because you need to remember that whenever I see you, for a moment I am drowning. Hating." He shook his head. "I would never have believed I could so want to hurt someone, to humiliate, to make them suffer."
Soren didn't, couldn't, say anything. After a prolonged pause he went on, staring at the far wall.
"Even without the possibility of a child, I don't suppose it would be politically wise to send you somewhere out of the way. Especially if the Rose's doom is unavoidable. So I will master this, teach myself not to react as I have been. Just remember that I have a temper. And that I don't want to be the first Rathen King to beat his Champion to death."
It was at this faultless juncture that the Seneschal arrived with their midday meal. Awkward silence reigned, Soren thickly miserable and Strake brooding over his wine. They did not say another word to each until they went together to the newly pristine throne room, where Soren watched Strake sit for the first time upon his throne.
Then the Regent came to deliver a brief and gracious speech of welcome, before announcing that she was quitting Tor Darest.
Chapter Eleven
A palace never truly sleeps.
Night is the realm of cats and mice, owls, spiders, moths, roaches. Even a nest of furry grey torlindars hidden among the kitchen stores. Their perilous Court scuttled and squalled, hunted, mated, battled and died while those who ruled the day lay snoring.
The borders between the two dominions were constantly crossed. Countless visits to chamber pot or privy, bed-hopping of every description, fractious babes tended by weary nurses, and a handful who read or talked or watched Selune gazing back at them. And there are always guards, exchanging desultory comments, playing cards, making rounds of empty corridors.
Lack of light didn't impede Soren's view, confirming her belief that she wasn't really seeing at all. Nor did it matter whether she had her eyes open, or was even conscious. Exhaustion had finally shown her sleep despite the constant distraction, and even then the palace trooped through her head, a silent pageant slipping between vision, memory and dream so fluidly it became a tangled whole.
The fourth time Soren opened her eyes it was a little before dawn and she was weary to the bone of her dozing observation over the palace, and the tangle which made waking such torture. Three times during the night she'd woken a beat behind the strangled cry and bolt-upright jerk of her King. She'd watched him gasp and shudder, pace about the newly refurbished royal bedchamber, just two rooms away, then finally settle back to sleep. He hadn't done this in the Tongue, and Soren suspected she knew too well what haunted him now.
What do you do when your King has nightmares about you?
Haunted by an overwhelming sense of failure, and unwilling to lie in bed any longer, Soren rose and dressed, though she left her so-distinctive tabard off. The door to the Hall of the Crown was still guarded, not by the tall Jutlanders who protected the Regent, but a man and a woman wearing the same black touched with gold as Soren's uniform. The Master of Apparel had turned his energies to outfitting the King's Inner House.
Ignoring their salutes, Soren strode east through the dimly-lit palace, fingering the mageglow she'd slipped into her pocket. The double door to Dathan's Walk and the stable yard was also guarded, by a less distinctive pair. They saluted just as smartly though, and opened the doors as she approached. Newfound respect.
Soren walked into sweet relief: the chill, dark nothing of outside, where she saw only what was in front of her.
She'd discovered this the previous afternoon, after Strake's marvellously pithy address to the Court. After the briefest of explanations he'd dismissed the curious crowd and headed out to inspect the changes to the palace grounds. The moment Soren had stepped outside she'd found herself almost human again.
"Not surprising," Strake had told her over dinner. "There has to be limits. It obviously has range outside the palace, especially where you're concerned, but the constant flow of information of this 'palace-sight' would be ruinously expensive outside the area of the enchantment."
Beyond its limits, Soren couldn't summon up the palace at all, but she walked into the stables listening to Strake's breathing. Sleeping deeply, and she would know when he woke. That would surely be enough to allow her a small freedom.
It was pitchy dark inside the first of the long stables.
Soren stood a moment listening to tiny noises made by unseen animals, and was careful to set the mageglow she'd liberated from the Champion's apartments to a soft glimmer before taking it from her pocket. Sparing the eyes of the horses was as much a consideration as not waking whatever hands or minor officials infested the stables.
She was not three stalls along before she found what she was looking for.
"Hello Vixen."
Stupid to go hugging horses, but spending the day standing at the side of a man who was trying not to hate her had left Soren needy. The bewildering mix of dismay, concern and desire she felt around her Rathen was not helped by the fascination of the Court or the weight of the palace. Among so many, she found herself very alone, and it was with considerable regret that she'd found time to write her mothers a most circumspect composition which could be translated as "stay away for now, until I'm sure it's safe". It was a sensible move, but not a comforting one.
One thing Strake had said to her cut deeper than anything else. She'd yet to puzzle out a reason for the Rose to choose her above all others as Strake's Champion, but he'd brought a horrid possibility to light when he'd called her Champion Brood Mare. Little as she wanted to be Champion, Soren loathed the idea of having nothing more to contribute than any woman capable of bearing. But, she told herself, the idea didn't make sense – the urgency of attack had brought on the Rose's attempt to breed a Rathen, if that was what it had been. She didn't know if she was pregnant, didn't know the why behind that coupling, and mustn't fall into the trap of making herself less than what she was.
Indifferent to riderly woes, Vixen tried to eat the apple Soren had wedged into her other pocket.
"Put me in my place," Soren laughed, and pressed her cheek briefly against the soft hair of the mare's neck. Then she fed her the apple, and looked about for a saddle.
-oOo-
On the maps, the Kingdom of Darest looked like a shakily-drawn square leaning east. It was a large, mostly flat country, its few mountains trailing along the border with Sax and Ceria to the west. The northern and eastern borders were consumed by trees, slowly being absorbed back into The Deeping, while south was entirely coastline, deeply notched by the Bay of Diamonds. Tor Darest spread across the low hills at the apex of the Bay, where the Eldavar ran into sea.
Established by the wealth of Domina Rathen and blossoming in the security of Rathen rule, it was airy, had wide streets, flowing lines and few scars. But, like the north-east borders, the edges of Tor Darest were fraying. As the Tongue slowly licked across Aramond, that region's occupants had trickled south and west. To Islay, to Tor Darest, or all the way to another kingdom.
The city had changed to accommodate those displaced from the north, especially in the flat valley close to the wharves east of the Eldavar. These crowded boxes made stark contrast to the wide orderly streets with their sewers, ornamental streetlights and large picturesque houses.
'Tor Darest is like a splendid Queen with mud on her face.' Soren couldn't remember who had said that to her. Aspen's tutor Fors Cabtly, perhaps. It was a not inaccurate description. Even in the domain of the wealthy 'on the hills', fading whitewash and weeds creeping out of pavement cracks spoke the same message. Darest was in decline.
West of the river's mouth was the royal preserve, with the palace on Seduna Hill and only the wealthiest private residences to the north. Soren rode south, to a hill which sloped down to the beach and formed a kind of parkland open to all.
People claimed that if you stood on Vostal Hill on a clear morning, it was possible see Atlarus reflected in the sky above the Sumaric Ocean. Cities of towers and fountains, populated by firebirds, dragons and the coal-skinned mages who rivalled the Fair for their complex nobility. All Soren saw were gulls, swirling up in a column as they followed the fishing fleet out to sea.
Turning back, she looked up at the palace, wondering why it faced away from the beauty of the south. Toward the forest. Her domain, the world which filled her head. When she was inside, it was hard to believe there was anything beyond the bounds of the Rose, and the ocean could very well be a world away.
Her King still slept, and the beach stretched empty and tempting along the western shore of the Bay of Diamonds. Shafts of sunlight were just breaking over the far hills and soon the choppy water would begin to sparkle and earn its name. Vixen shifted eagerly, ears pricked as she contemplated the possibilities of the surf.
"Let's go," Soren murmured, allowing the nebulous beauty of the moment to wash away roses and Rathens. Weeks with Vixen had taught her that there was more to horses than a slow plod, and she rode down to the beach and raced the waves along the damp, tight-packed sand. A throat-swallowing gallop through the thin sheets of foam, with the cry of gulls and the shush of surf her only accompaniment.
And breathing.
The bubble of exhilaration burst. Abruptly exposed, Soren slowed Vixen and looked around. Up ahead, where Vostal and Seduna met in a tumble of dark, angular rocks, two somethings were breathing.
They reacted to her searching stare. Soft gasps, something she thought must be hurried whispers, though it was difficult to be sure without the words. Then, sheepishly, two ten-year children emerged from behind one of the larger rocks. They carried a bucket and a rake, and bowed clumsily. Collecting mussels.
She inclined her head, smiling to show she was not annoyed by their presence, then rode on, wondering why she had been able to hear two children who plainly posed no threat. Experimentally, she attempted to call up the breathing of Lord Aristide, whose activities she had watched carefully all the time she'd stood beside her King.
Nothing.
By the time Soren reached the stables, she had decided that the Rose allowed her to locate anyone – and anything? – which watched her or Strake from hiding. It was an explanation which matched her previous experiences, though it did not quite account for the way she had followed the progress of Strake's pursuer through the forest. Still, a theory to start with.
During her absence, the stables had been overrun by thin, scruffy boys and girls in their early teens, busily removing the night's deposits. Without compunction, Soren handed the salt-spattered Vixen over to the first one who looked her way.
"Have tack ready in her stall at all times," she said, trying to sound assured without being as curt and dismissive as Strake. Then she went back into the palace.
It came over her in a wave. The kitchens were a hive of activity, the Seneschal had already rallied and was lecturing her forces, fresh guards were in the process of relieving those who had stood through the night. Energetic children demanded attention or played quietly, the most enthusiastic lovers discovered each other anew among tumbled blankets, and every second person made more work for the night-soil attendants. Less than an hour past first light and hundreds were awake.
Soren had been braced for it, but still her step faltered just within the east door. She picked up her pace, gazing for a moment on Strake's continued slumber, finding Lady Arista coldly surveying the progress which had been made packing her belongings, and then checking on Lord Aristide. The Regent's son was still in his bed. He lay relaxed and quiet, blinking occasionally as he stared up at the ceiling. Just looking at him made her deeply uneasy.
Aristide Couerveur had attended Strake's address to the Court, standing to the back of the crowd. Now only a Baron's heir, he had not been included on the list of people Strake wished to speak with. Abruptly relegated from the Court's centre to the margins, he had made no attempt to approach his new King since their first encounter. Soren wondered how many people who had firmly been in the heir's camp the previous morning would abandon the pale precision he preferred to follow Strake's tastes? The Court would look as if it were beset by crows.
True to form, the Diamond showed every sign of finding twisting circumstance a source of immense entertainment. Contemplating him prompted Soren to abruptly alter her course as she crossed Fleeting Hall, and head for the door of the Royal Mage's apartments, which lay between
her apartments and the Garden of the Rose. She glanced toward the garden as she did so, but had no wish to look upon the black petals which blotted Strake's future.
There were a few spectators to watch with interest as she turned the door's handle, but none were close enough to hear the double-click as she released the lock at the same time. Inside was an apartment very similar to her own, and almost as over-stacked with books as hers had been before the advent of the rose. The Court Mage, Fors Cabtly, was still in his bed, cuddling close to the equally plump figure of his wife. But that only suited Soren's purposes the more.
Aspen's room was as fastidiously neat as the man himself. He even slept in the exact centre of his bed. Soren studied the remarkable symmetry of the room, then sat down beside Aspen and touched his arm.
His first response was a long, deep inhalation, then his eyes cracked open. He breathed in again, and smiled, still mazed with sleep. "Sea-foam, sweat and sand. I can smell the beach on you, nixie."
Soren sat back. "Are you always this poetic first thing in the morning?"
"Only when someone lovely comes to seduce me," he replied beatifically, then rubbed his eyes.
"I wanted to ask you some questions."
"I thought you would." A little more awake, Aspen gave her a cat-with-cream smile. "On the desk."
Surprised, Soren moved across to the neat stack of books positioned in the exact centre of the spotless desk. Places were marked with strips of blue ribbon. Histories. "I see you've been busy."
"Currying your favour, my sweet. Though, really, why I should be at all helpful when you've gone and let that fribble Fisk worm his way into the King's good graces, I don't know."
"You didn't happen to be there at the precise moment he decided he needed a secretary," Soren replied, absently. For a time Strake had asked Soren questions before interviewing each of his officials, but had soon tired of her ignorance of Court minutiae and appointed a random footman to be his personal secretary. The man was barely out of his teens, and still looked stunned by his sudden change of circumstance, but he had proven to be a rival for Aspen's crown of gossip.
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