Never After

by Laurell K. Hamilton

  “Don’t turn around yet,” he ordered. “My sister will hand you a mirror. If you don’t like what you see, I’ll change you back.”

  Calroy stood obediently passive, while a woman sitting at the back edge of the circle came to her feet. Sister? I thought with some derision, remembering my walk through camp. But this one looked enough like the magician to make the blood tie plausible. By firelight, her hair was redder, thicker, and without that springy curl. But the curve of her mouth and the line of her profile matched his own, and her smile looked just as playful. In her hand was a small mirror, which she angled for Calroy’s view.

  He bent forward, and then he gasped, his hands flying up to touch his face. “Show us!” someone from the audience demanded, and Calroy pivoted on one foot.

  There was first silence and then a murmur that was half admiration and half fear. For Calroy stood before us definitely altered and yet still clearly himself. The heavy brow had been shoved back, the outsize eyes reshaped. The nose was much refined, and the mouth—stretched wide in a smile—showed even teeth without a hint of decay. He certainly wasn’t a man who would turn the girls’ heads, but neither would he draw the mockery of young boys. He was a little better than ordinary, with a look of happiness that gave him extra appeal.

  “Well?” asked the magician. “Are you satisfied?”

  “More than satisfied. Thank you—thank you—I do have a few coins with me, not nearly enough to pay for something like this—”

  The magician waved a dismissive hand. “The work of a few moments. I was glad to do it. All I would ask is that if you have the chance to do an easy kindness for someone else, you take that chance.”

  “And this will be my face from now on? For the rest of my life?”

  “Forever,” the magician confirmed.

  “I must go show my brother,” Calroy exclaimed, and dove through the crowd and disappeared.

  The others drew back to let him pass, and then turned to one another to express their amazement at what they had just witnessed. I had jumped off my trunk, ready to sneak away, but I got caught in the general disorganized movement of the crowd. A few murmured apologies, a few bodies gently pushed aside, and I suddenly found myself a few feet from the magician and his sister. I could not see them through the press of bodies, but I recognized his voice and guessed at hers.

  “That was the most fun magic has brought me for a while,” he said in a jaunty tone.

  Her voice was a lilting alto. “I suppose you’re hoping Princess Olivia will hear of your kind deed and favor your suit?”

  He laughed. “Yes, or her father. Why should they not learn that I am gifted and generous? Who would not want such a man for a husband?”

  “I love you, Darius, but you would make a very bad husband. And an even worse king. I don’t know why you’re even in this competition.”

  “Have you seen her, Dannette? She’s beautiful. That hair! That skin!”

  “They say she has a temper. And a strong will and a stubborn heart.”

  Eavesdropping in the dark, I couldn’t help but nod. All true. I wondered which servants or local lords had provided Dannette’s information.

  He laughed at her. “She sounds delightful.”

  “So you’re really going to try to win her hand?”

  “I really am.”

  I managed to choke back my squeal of excitement. At last! A man I could love, and a man who was already halfway enamored of me! A handsome, charming, talented man, blessed with a kind heart and a cheerful manner! How could he have been better? I was tempted to step forward and introduce myself, but the group of spectators that had absorbed me in the dark now began to shred apart, and I decided it was wiser to move on. My head was humming with elation; my heart was pattering with glee. After all, my father’s competition to find my husband was turning out very well indeed.

  * * *

  I was thinking so blissfully about Darius that I was careless when I returned to the palace, with the result that I ran into Harwin within a minute of slipping in through a side door.

  “There you are,” he said in his measured voice, the syllables heavy with disapproval. “I should have guessed. Wandering through the contestants’ camp, I suppose, picking out your favorites.”

  I gave a guilty start upon first hearing his voice, and for a moment I looked up at him like a small child waiting for a scold she knows she deserves. Unlike me, Harwin was properly dressed in formal evening clothes. The dull brown color of his jacket did not do much to lighten either his expression or his olive skin tones, though the garment was finely made and nicely showed off the width of his shoulders. I remembered that he had handily won his events in the joust. I was not used to thinking of him as being any kind of athlete, but he was big enough, and apparently dexterous enough, to handle himself with competence on the battlefield.

  Then my natural insouciance reasserted itself. I tossed back my hair and dropped my hands instead of tightly clutching the cloak as if I wanted to hide inside it. “And what if I was?” I said breezily. “If I’m going to marry the man who wins my father’s competition, shouldn’t I learn about all of the contestants?”

  “If that is really how you plan to choose a bridegroom, I will win the three competitions,” he said.

  His cool, blockish, unimaginative certainty inspired me with sudden rage, though I tried to tamp it down. “I have already said I will not marry you,” I replied. “You have already been eliminated from the lists.”

  “Do you reserve the right to refuse any other contestant who might be successful?” he said with a little heat. “That clause was not in the proclamation that I heard.”

  I leaned forward, still angry. “I will never marry a man that I cannot stand,” I said. “No matter how he is presented to me or what obstacles he has overcome.”

  Harwin’s face smoothed out; almost, I would have said, he was relieved. “I told your father this competition was ill-advised,” he said. “I told him he could not possibly predict what kinds of rogues and ruffians might show up on his doorstep, prepared to go to any length to win a spectacular prize. There are plenty of villains who can wield a sword and solve a puzzle. Those are no criteria for deciding who will wed your daughter—and who will rule the kingdom after you.” He gave me one long, sober inspection. “I do believe you have the courage to refuse any man who is not worthy of you.”

  I supposed that was a compliment in its heavy-handed way. “I wouldn’t think my father plans to hold the wedding ceremony the very day the competition ends,” I said. “No doubt I will get to know my prospective bridegroom during our engagement period. I’m not afraid of scandal—I’ll break off the betrothal if I find he’s not the man he seemed.”

  Harwin’s eyes took on a sudden keenness. “Yes, that is a most excellent idea,” he said. “Tell your father there must be an engagement long enough to enable you to assess the worth of your victorious suitor.”

  “Even if the victorious suitor is you?” I asked in a dulcet voice.

  He just looked at me for a moment. “Yes,” he said, at last. “I would hope you would use that time to get to know me. To learn things about me that perhaps you have not understood before.”

  “I cannot imagine what those things might be,” I said. “I have known you my whole life.”

  “You have been acquainted with me your whole life,” he corrected. “It is not the same thing.”

  I shrugged. I was tired of talking to Sir Harwin. “I will tell my father I want a betrothal period.” Suddenly, for no good reason, I remembered Gisele’s earlier advice to marry quickly before my father sired a son. I wondered if that had been her subtle hint that she was pregnant, though she could hardly know if she was carrying a boy. “Though I’m not sure I like the idea of a long engagement,” I added.

  “It is a splendid idea,” Harwin said. “I will make the recommendation myself.”

  Now I scowled. “I don’t know why you think you have anything to say about my engagement or my wedding
or my life.”

  “I have everything to say,” he responded, his voice cool again. “I’m the man who’s going to marry you.”

  I made a strangled sound deep in my throat and spun on my heel, not even answering him. Within a few steps, I had turned the corner and slipped up the servants’ stairwell, on my way back to my own room. If Harwin had any more ridiculously grave pronouncements to make, I didn’t hear them.

  I was not going to marry Harwin. I was going to marry Darius the magician, if he turned out to be as delightful as he seemed—and if he didn’t, I wouldn’t marry him or any other man who had flocked to my father’s house with the hope of winning my hand. I was not a prize to be bestowed, won, or bartered.

  I was a princess, and a rather difficult young woman. I knew how to get my own way.

  2

  The Dashing Suitor

  I had not attended the joust that whittled my suitors from more than fifty to about two dozen, because I had never enjoyed the sight of violence. But my father insisted I be on hand for the competition that would judge the contestants’ courage, whatever this test entailed. So the following morning I joined all the other spectators gathering before a makeshift ring that had been set up just outside the walls that surrounded the palace. A dais had been erected in the most favorable spot to overlook the grounds; this was where the royal party would sit. More rudimentary stands had been built to accommodate everyone else and to enclose a space that resembled a small arena. Overnight, this arena had acquired chest-high walls and an overarching lattice canopy—it had, in effect, been turned into a very large cage.

  I sat on the dais, awaiting my father and the rest of his guests, and surveyed the arena with misgiving. Would such a cage be used for keeping dangerous creatures in or not allowing terrified contestants out?

  It was not long before the stands filled up with several hundred people of all ranks—servants, tradesmen, merchants, and nobles—including a few of my unsuccessful suitors from the previous round. The day was sunny and warm, except for a persistent chilly breeze, and the mood of the crowd was mostly cheerful. I was half excited and half fearful, since my father was an unpredictable and not very nice man, and what he dreamed up to test someone’s bravery might be highly unpleasant to watch.

  At last my father arrived on the scene, trailed by Gisele, a handful of guests, and five or six servants bearing food, drink, cushions, and other comforts. The audience cheered and applauded when he made his appearance—less because they were happy to see their king, I thought, and more because his arrival indicated that the entertainment would soon be under way.

  There was a little fuss and confusion as he and his companions mounted the dais and disposed themselves in the waiting chairs. Like me, my father had dark hair and blue eyes, but I had a larger and more solid frame than he did; he often wore bright colors and a lot of jewelry to make up for the fact that he was not particularly tall. Today he was dressed in dark green with gold trim, and he wore a gold circlet on his head. I noted without any enthusiasm that his guests were Sir Neville and his daughter Mellicia, a pretty but rather silly blond girl close to my own age. Like Harwin’s father, Sir Neville was a longtime ally of the crown and often at the palace. More than once it had occurred to me that Mellicia would make a perfect bride for Harwin. Perhaps, once I was betrothed to Darius, I would suggest her to Harwin as a substitute wife.

  I had taken the seat at the very end of the row of chairs, knowing that my father would sit in the middle. I was not surprised to see Neville and Mellicia given the seats of honor on either side of him, and I was not surprised—but not particularly happy about it—when Gisele strolled down to take the chair next to mine.

  “Your father asked me to look after you while he entertains his company,” she said by way of greeting.

  “I don’t need looking after,” I said.

  “Good,” she said, settling in. “Then I should have an easy day of it.”

  I glanced into the arena, where several of my father’s grooms and trainers had slipped inside the cage and stationed themselves along the perimeter. Their hands were full of staffs and chains and other simple weapons, and my uneasiness increased. “Do you have any idea what he’s planning for this competition?” I asked.

  “Only a rather dreadful suspicion,” she said. “I’m hoping I’m wrong.”

  Which was not reassuring in the least.

  Almost on the words, a stream of men entered the arena from the left side and milled around inside the cage, waiting. I was surprised to find them all barefoot and stripped to the waist, except for a loosely knotted collar each wore around his neck. None of them bore weapons. Whatever they were to face, it seemed, they would have to fend off armed with very little except their personal courage.

  I searched the crowd, looking for Darius. There. He stood perfectly still to one side of the cage, gazing around with curiosity. He had pulled his fair curls back from his face with a leather cord, which gave him the brisk air of someone prepared to do business. He did not appear particularly nervous.

  Most of the other men, I thought, had started to show some apprehension. They glanced up at the latticework ceiling of their prison; they casually leaned against the half walls as if testing how easily they could be breached. One or two paused to confer with each other, casting quick glances over their shoulders in case a monster had been released while they were engaged in conversation.

  I was not looking for him, but I spotted Harwin anyway. Like Darius, he was standing almost motionless, but his eyes moved as he studied his competitors, his jailors, and his terrain. I saw his features set as he came to some kind of conclusion. I guessed that he had a pretty strong inkling of what trial lay in store, and he did not like it. While I watched him, he turned his eyes toward the dais and gave my father one long, narrow-eyed appraisal.

  Then, before I could look away, he turned his attention to me. For a moment we stared at each other through the wide bars of the makeshift cage. Then he dropped his eyes and offered me a deep bow, ridiculously inappropriate considering his attire and his situation. I turned my face aside before he could straighten up and try to meet my eyes again.

  I was just in time to see my father rise to his feet, his arms outstretched. Despite his lack of height, he had a certain forceful charisma; all eyes invariably turned his way when he moved or spoke. “Let the second phase of the competition begin!” he called and dropped his arms.

  Over the renewed cheering of the crowd, I heard a chilling sound.

  “Oh, no,” I said and looked at Gisele with horror in my eyes.

  Her own eyes were fixed on the field. “Oh, yes,” she said.

  A large enclosed cart had been maneuvered toward the entrance to the grand cage, and now its rear door was opened. From the wagon into the arena streamed about fifty of my father’s fighting dogs, barking and baying and baring their teeth.

  It was suddenly clear why all the contestants had scarves knotted around their necks. Each scarf had been drenched with some kind of bait-scent; each pair of dogs had been primed to hunt for one of those scents.

  Within seconds, each of my luckless suitors was under attack by two of the fiercest fighting dogs in the kingdom.

  The action was so sudden, so brutal, and so uncho reographed that it was almost impossible to tell what was going on. At first, I was not even able to find Harwin or Darius among the whirling, slashing, howling maelstrom of bodies, both canine and human. Almost instantly, there was blood. Almost instantly, shrieks of real terror and pain. A flurry of motion on the far edge of the circle brought my attention to one desperate battle, where a man had slipped to the ground, his arms flailing. One dog had his calf in a death grip and shook his head so hard the man was scrubbed back and forth along the grass. The second dog leapt in, closing its jaws over the man’s throat.

  “No!” I shrieked, leaping to my feet as if I would jump from the stage and fling myself into the arena to offer aid. Gisele shot up beside me, clasping my arm to hold me in
place. I shook her off, but stayed where I was, my eyes riveted to the action.

  Two of the handlers had waded into the fray, using their sticks and choke collars and practiced commands to call off the attack. One of them tossed the dogs reward meat and shepherded them out of the arena; they frisked at his heels, pleased that they had pleased him. The other knelt on the bloodied ground by the fallen contestant, putting his hands up to the fighter’s throat.

  Another man stumbled into my line of vision, blocking my view. He had one dog fastened to his left wrist, another gnawing at his right ankle, but he was still on his feet. His face was contorted into what looked like a hysterical scream. He tripped over something on the ground and almost came to his knees—a fatal mistake—but righted himself just in time. The dog worrying his wrist opened its jaws, crouched, and sprang for the man’s throat.

  I turned away.

  Gisele stood beside me, her dark eyes fixed unwaveringly on the scene before us. There was no expression at all on her face, unless stony stillness could be interpreted as an expression. My eyes went past her to where my father sat. He and Neville had their heads together as they watched the fighting and tracked individual contests. Mellicia had slumped back in her ornate chair and lifted a fan to shield her eyes from the gruesome scene, but I noticed that she had lowered the pretty confection of paper and lace just enough to see the action.

  “What a despicable man my father is,” I breathed.

  Gisele nodded without glancing at me. “Yes,” was all she said. We both sank into our chairs again.

  I forced my attention back to the arena. I was sickened at the thought that these men were being gravely injured—some could even die—all because they wanted the chance to marry me. This whole violent nightmare was in some sense my fault, and I owed them the courtesy of watching them display their courage.