Champion of the Rose - Kobo Ebook

by Andrea K Höst

  Soren stared at him. She had resigned herself to a nervous wait for her next woman's blood, and this was probably the last way she would have wanted to learn that she really was pregnant. Rather than make any kind of response, she leaped to an abrupt tangent. "How was it you were there, that morning?" she asked. "How did you know to come before the bells rang?"

  Star sapphire eyes glinted with renewed amusement. "I am a mage, Champion. I knew that the Garden was the first place you'd go, if you succeeded in returning with the heir. Ordinarily, I would not risk establishing a casting so near the Rose. But I wanted to be there."

  "Why?" It had not been to attack. He had made no move to do so.

  Lord Aristide looked down the length of Fleeting Hall, to guards wearing black and gold before the door of the throne room. His face was blank and closed and Soren thought that 'Diamond' was not the right name to give to so opaque a man.

  "Because I promised myself a long time ago that I'd see my mother's reign to an end," he said, with cold honesty. "And now I have. I thank you for that, Champion."

  With a dry, eloquent bow, he turned and walked away.

  -oOo-

  Seeking solace in the luxury of a bath, Soren clutched at her knees and tried not to exist. It did not seem possible to take in the reality of her pregnancy. There was no joy, not even any room to think. She felt crowded, cut by Lord Aristide's barbs and overwhelmingly crushed beneath the constant tide of the palace.

  It wore on her even more than she had anticipated: all the bed and bathroom visits, the strange things people did when they thought themselves unobserved, the constant motion demanding her attention. People's lives, made petty by distance and silence, sheer numbers and unrelenting observation.

  Lying in water up to her chin, she watched Strake wake up and make his way to the privy. Twenty-seven other people and a handful of animals were doing the same thing. At least half the palace still slept. The Chamberlain's husband was in a borrowed room, working up a frantic sweat with a gangling young woman who resembled the Baroness of Runath. An elderly woman had fallen down the stairs of the west residences and a small cluster of scourers, all wide eyes and flapping mouths, stood about her. Dolls, waving their arms.

  Every single Champion had watched the Court as she did. No matter how they felt, however wretched or sick or tired or dismayed to be pregnant – they had no way to hide from the intimacies of hundreds. It was a wonder Rathen Champions did not have a reputation for going mad.

  Yet the idea of returning to Carn Keep, of not living in this place, of ignoring whatever responsibility she might have to King and Kingdom and escaping a life for which she wasn't suited, seemed to be beyond her. She constantly thought about it, had ever since she'd first come to Tor Darest, but could not go beyond the thought. Her head just did not want to work that way.

  The Rose again. It had to be. Taking away choice, just as it had taken away the control of her body, back in the Tongue. It had even stripped her of privacy along with freedom, had displayed her pregnancy for anyone to see. For Aristide Couerveur to throw in her face.

  Puppet Champion. How could all the stories have been so wrong? Life-long servitude, where she couldn't even call her dreams her own.

  What if Strake couldn't destroy the Rose? She had to accept that it might not be possible, that she would spend the rest of her life in the palace crucible, battered by the constant sight of everything. With people like the Diamond cutting her to pieces. Not to mention her King.

  Enough.

  Soren squashed all her helpless hurt into a ball and pushed it away. Then she breathed deep and slow until the useless self-pity receded. This life had become hers, and she could at least choose to be more than a cipher while she wore the uniform of the Champion.

  She could start with palace-sight. Horrible as it could be, it was a tool she most certainly could use. Time to get out of the bath and try and do her job.

  Strake was talking to Fisk now, issuing a long series of orders. One of them would be for his breakfast, so Soren dressed in anticipation of an invitation. He was looking withdrawn this morning, gazing out the windows of his receiving room at the neglected garden which lay at the heart of the King's residence. Elsewhere, the Captain of the Guard and Lord Aristide matched swords, a regular practice bout. Jansette Denmore arrived in the palace, walking purposefully toward the western halls. The old lady who had fallen down the stairs was finally carried off to the ministrations of a physician. A cook was screaming at a scourer who stood among shattered dishes.

  Lady Arista had left for Ritmar yesterday, as quietly as the movement of a Baroness' entire household could manage. Jansette Denmore had remained behind, but Soren had not seen any sign of argument between the former Regent and her lover and was duly suspicious. Jansette was a person who seemed to go everywhere and talk to everyone. A veritable mine of connections, who, frustratingly, had found rooms in the New Palace, where Soren could not keep a close eye on her.

  All the Barons were naturally next-most interesting. They'd been primarily concerned over how the new King would deal with the ever-difficult question of taxes and the army portion, and had invariably brought it up in the audience he had granted each. In return Strake had been uncommunicative, curt and demanding. The King was fully aware of his station.

  Not that anyone had objected. So early on, and with the Couerveurs at least publicly compliant, they were all waiting to see what would happen. Waiting to see if this sudden gift of a Rathen could turn the kingdom's fortunes, waiting for Strake to give them a reason to think themselves better off without him. Making contingency plans.

  Lip-reading was definitely a skill she would have to acquire.

  Combing her hair, Soren divided her attention between Jansette Denmore and the table attendant who was laying two places in Strake's receiving room. Both of them were beauties, and had dressed to display a sweetly enticing curve of breast. Jansette was far more exquisite, her skin so fine Soren could not help wondering what it was like to touch, but it seemed this morning the Denmore talents were to be wasted on coquetting the Chamberlain, while the table attendant worked at captivating the King.

  Fretfully, Soren watched this first attempt to win Strake's favour. She knew she was going to witness many, many more, but this morning her situation seemed particularly invidious. She wished she could stop thinking of him as her Rathen. She wished not to be carrying his child.

  It took Strake some time to notice the attendant's display, but he finally glanced at her and looked amused, then lazily appreciative. The woman immediately bent to adjust the fall of the tablecloth so that her breasts bulged into handfuls just waiting to be cupped.

  The King of Darest's response was to stand and walk out into the parched garden, where he stood staring at the brittle yellow weeds. His back was rigid, jaw set, brows drawn together. All the muscles of his face and throat stood stark and clear. Anguish. It was the first time Soren had really seen him act like a man who had lost everything. Scarcely three weeks ago in his memory.

  The attendant, horrified, said something and hurried away, obviously convinced she'd angered him. Soren rather thought that she'd momentarily roused him, and now his anger was directed inward. After the loss of his betrothed, and then what the Rose had done to them–

  Watching his grief hurt. Soren sighed and wished she knew whether she even liked her mercurial King, and whether she could mend the fences between them. He had resented her from the first, and what little accord they might have built had been shattered by the Rose. The last thing he would want was her sympathy.

  A short time later Halcean opened the door to Fisk, then came to relay an invitation to join the King at breakfast. By the time Soren reached his receiving room, any hint of loss was banished, and Strake was back to gazing moodily out at the ravaged garden.

  "Why has it been left in this condition?" he asked as she came in. "It looks disgraceful."

  "It looked worse yesterday," Soren replied, making an effort to be equable
and detached and not nearly so battered and unhappy. "They carted out a forest of dead vine."

  That simmering, baulked expression darkened his face when he looked at her, but she was prepared and far less ready to quail. What had happened to them in the forest may have made it nearly impossible for them to deal easily with each other, but she wasn't going to spend the rest of her life creeping and cowering.

  "I expect they'll finish clearing out today," she continued, carefully ignoring his irritation. "If that isn't soon enough for you, I suppose I could pitch in. What was it like before? It smells like a stillroom."

  "An ornamental herb garden. There was a reflective pool with a mosaic. Brilliant blue and green stone."

  Soren tilted her head, feeling the boundaries of the garden. "The pool's full of dirt. But it seems intact."

  Strake was duly surprised and, to Soren's satisfaction, no longer a thundercloud at the breakfast table. Not reacting to his irritation seemed the best way of handling it. A pity she would soon have to ruin the mood.

  "That's not sight," he was saying. "How do you know?"

  "It's part of the palace." She shrugged and sat down at the table, surveying steaming pancakes and fruit compote. "It's like knowing I still have toenails.

  He snorted. "Very poetic. Tell me, then, what rooms are beneath the palace? The structure of the Rathen enchantments is supposedly down there, and I'll need to reach it if I'm to take it apart. But if there's a way to access it, it was kept very dark. I don't particularly want to take up the throne room floor getting rid of the Rose."

  This proved more complicated than the garden, for, apart from the wine-cellars and a couple of simple storage chambers used by the kitchens, there didn't seemed to be anything beneath the palace. Aware of Strake's critical gaze, Soren surveyed the sprawling building room by room.

  "I can't see below," she said, eventually. "But there's a sealed chamber behind the treasury, with a stair which goes down. Beneath the big bell."

  "Behind the throne?" He stopped spreading preserves, teeth bared in a satirical grin. "Old Domina had a sense of humour. Can we get to it without a battering ram?"

  "There's a door of sorts in the treasury," Soren said, doubtfully feeling her way around the walls. "Very concealed."

  Strake finished off a pancake in three neat bites and selected a peach from the tray. "We'll take a look after breakfast." He checked off a few points on their schedule that day, then ate in silence, shifting his chair so he could continue to gaze out at the garden. Soren watched him without looking at him, just as she divided a fraction of her attention between different members of the Court. Jansette was now engaged in a teasing conversation with a young man who went bright red at every second thing she said. Lord Aristide had returned to his rooms and begun the ritual of either meditation or incantation he had undertaken every morning of Soren's observation. Fors Cabtly and Aspen were having a solemn discussion. Lady Rothwell, whom Soren had not had a chance to speak to since her return, was crossing Fleeting Hall with her daughter. She knocked on Soren's door and spoke briefly to Halcean, but Soren didn't move, deciding to find the time to meet later.

  "Fors Cabtly asked me to make representations to you on his behalf," she said, since Strake was spending more time staring at the garden than eating. "And it is true that he has performed the duties given him by the Regent perfectly well."

  "You'd best not encourage people to treat you as a conduit to my ear," Strake said, voice flat, but added: "Though there's little you could do to stop them."

  Soren just shrugged, and watched him frown at an unoffending salt cellar.

  "Cabtly occupies the rooms of the Councillor of Mages," he continued, his tone suggesting that this was somehow Soren's fault. "I've no objection to his maintenance role – Sun knows the palace needs jobbing mages, and it seems like Darest's stock of them has been whittled away to nothing – but he is not even a shadow of a Councillor of Mages. That posturing sprat apprenticed to him has more base ability, coupled with an impressive lack of drive. I'm looking about for a better choice."

  Soren made no comment to this. He surveyed her lack of expression then grimaced. "Other than the obvious. The one the every second person has tried to shove down my throat."

  Precisely why he hadn't done it, Soren realised. Why no audience had been arranged with the man who had been ruling Darest in all but name. Her Rathen did hate to be pushed. "I suspect it would be more...comfortable to work with Lord Aristide than against him."

  "I've seen enough of that one to know how 'comfortable' I'd be if I strayed from whatever plans he's fomenting." He looked, of a sudden, sourly amused. "Especially if Fisk is correct in telling me he hopes to marry his way to control of the throne."

  "That could be said of most of the Court," Soren observed neutrally. She hadn't realised Strake's new secretary was passing on this variety of gossip.

  "The man has every reason to wish me dead. Should I clutch a viper close to my chest?"

  Soren wasn't altogether sure if Strake wasn't arguing just to be contrary, or if he'd been completely set against the Regent's son. "I met Lord Aristide earlier this morning," she said, deciding that there would never be a safely predictable opportunity to tell Strake he was going to be a father. Now that the Rose had made delaying the news nearly impossible.

  "Earlier? A dawn rendezvous? Did he ask you to make representations as well?"

  "No. He knew the meaning of the black rose and said the knowledge would inevitably spread through Darest."

  "Causing uncertainty and all manner of calumny no doubt. Did he offer to show me a way to avoid it?"

  "Just made the observation."

  "No solution?"

  "He suggested calling on the Fair."

  "You said he courted them, didn't you? Very eager to have the Fair back, and passing messages through you won't get him anywhere."

  "I'm not sure why he chose to. But I suppose he could just have been leading up to – he did point out something on the Rose I didn't know was there. A bud."

  For a moment Strake looked blank, then he lifted his eyebrows. "Didn't know? What happened to it being like knowing you still have toenails?"

  "I need to direct my attention to pick up details like that," Soren said, feeling lost. His lack of reaction was more disconcerting than any towering rage. "Turn to the page of the book, open that particular window in my mind – whatever analogy you care to use. I haven't been looking at the Rose." She fidgeted with her knife, then began segmenting a peach as if lives depended on the result.

  It was not until her eyes were turned away that Strake revealed the blow. Soren struggled not to react to the piercing hurt suddenly evident on his face, the loss and pain rapidly overtaken by anger. One of his hands closed on the table's edge; strong, finely-made fingers gripping cloth and wood as he stared at Soren, so assiduously bent over the task of dissecting breakfast. On the verge of throwing the table at her.

  Then he sighed and passed his hand across his eyes, slumping back. Controlling his anger, as he had promised. Soren waited a moment more before looking up, feeling sick. It was so hard to know how to deal with this man who was her King. Making him not hate her seemed quite as important as ensuring he didn't die.

  "I don't think it likely anyone but Lord Aristide would have seen it," she said, because she guessed that Strake would only withdraw if she pushed. "Few go into the Garden. And I've hidden it now."

  "They'll see you soon enough," Strake replied, dourly. But the anger was a dull simmer, no longer directed at her. "I suppose I should look on this positively. An heir would be just the thing to soothe the nervous once news of my imminent death gets out. It is something I would have had to see to in due course."

  But at his own speed and choosing. He didn't have to say it.

  "Your death hasn't been very imminent," Soren said.

  "No."

  "Perhaps the flower is black because of the period when you weren't alive, even if you weren't really dead. It mightn't be a fu
ture event at all."

  "Very optimistic." Looking particularly saturnine, Strake pushed back his chair. "We're wasting time."

  Without another word, Strake left the royal apartments, Soren trailing in his wake. His personal guard and the carrot-topped Fisk attached themselves, but Fisk was quickly dismissed and the guards left to stand outside the Treasury. Firmly locking the doors, Strake turned to Soren with grim expectation, and she suddenly realised that if he succeeded in destroying the Rose she would lose more than the Champion's burden of sight.

  Strake would not be her Rathen.

  Chapter Thirteen

  "So where is this door?"

  Soren, sliding a bar across the inside of the Treasury doors, gestured toward the far wall. The Treasury was freshly cleaned, the shelves and benches gleaming and laden with ornate chests and odd-shaped lumps veiled by dust-cloths. It all looked highly intriguing, and Strake's order not to open anything must have been particularly frustrating for the Chamberlain during the turning-out.

  Ignoring the mysteries of the chests, Strake crossed to the centre of the wall opposite the door, where it was unobstructed by benches. The stony surface was blank and smooth, with no sign of join or crack. He looked back at her, ever impatient.

  Soren touched the wall, aware of an absence, then nodded when Strake pressed his hand to the smooth stone. "It's waiting for you."

  Strake grunted and drew his hand back as Soren felt the lock change. A thin line of light climbed from floor to ceiling, expanded and was gone, taking the wall with it. It left a doorway into a yellow-gold room where dust-motes tumbled in sunbeams above a grimy stair.

  "Not sealed," Strake said, surprised. He gazed up into the throat of a massive bell, suspended high above their heads. It was just possible to glimpse blue sky beyond its circumference, though the dazzle of light made Soren's eyes smart.

  "The sun's only just over the horizon," she protested. The light couldn't be natural.

  "Redirected." Strake had already started down the stair. "Could be a power source, maybe even for protection."