Crown Duel

by Sherwood Smith

  My spirits were high as I joined Nee and Bran. But instead of walking down the stairs to go into the ballroom with the rest of the guests, Nee and Bran led the way across the hall, to the gallery that overlooked the ballroom, and stopped at the landing at the top of the grand stairway.

  And there we found Shevraeth waiting for us, looking formidable and remote in his usual dark colors. The last time we spoke I’d managed—again—to instigate a quarrel. Embarrassment burned away my anticipation.

  Shevraeth greeted us in his customary calm manner. When he turned to Bran, I muttered out of the side of my mouth to Nee, “You mean we have to go down these stairs—with him—and everyone looking at us?”

  “We’re the guests of honor,” she whispered, trying not to laugh. She looked fabulous in her dark brown velvet gown, embroidered all over with tiny gold leaves dotted with little rubies. “We’re supposed to be looked at! We’ll open the ball. You remember? I know I told you.”

  Bran flicked my shoulder. “Brace up, Mel. You’ll like it. I promise.”

  My attempt at a bland face obviously wasn’t convincing. I studied the toes of my dancing slippers, wishing with all my strength that I was in Tlanth, riding the mountain trails with no humans in sight.

  “Savona’s waiting,” Nee whispered to me.

  Someone must have given a signal, for the music started: an entire orchestra filling the vaulted room with the strains of an ancient promenade. Had I been downstairs among the glittering throng, I would have loved it, but I now had Shevraeth standing right beside me, holding out his arm. I just knew I would manage to do something embarrassing.

  I took a deep breath, straightened my shoulders, and tried my best to smooth my face into a polite smile as I put my hand on his sleeve.

  Just before we started down, he murmured, “Think of this as a battle.”

  “A battle?” I repeated, so surprised I actually glanced up at his face. He didn’t look angry, or disgusted, or sarcastic. But there was suppressed laughter in the way his gray eyes were narrowed.

  He replied so softly I could barely hear it. “You’ve a sword in your hand, and vast numbers of ravening minions of some dreaded evil sorcerer await below. The moment you step among them, you’ll leap into battle, mowing them down in droves…”

  The absolute unlikelihood of it made me grin, on the verge of laughter. While he spoke we came safely down the stairs, and were halfway along the huge room to the Duke of Savona, who waited alone, before I was aware of it. On either side people bowed and curtsied, as graceful as flowers in the wind.

  I’d almost made it, and my smile was real—until I recollected where I was and who with. I muttered defensively, “I don’t really like battles, you know.”

  “Of course I know,” he returned, still in that soft voice. “But you’re used to them.” And then we were before Savona, who was resplendent in black and crimson and gold; and as the Duke bowed, fanfare after fanfare washed over me like waves of brilliant light.

  Because Shevraeth was also a guest of honor, and had the highest rank, it was his choice for the first dance, and he held out his hand to me. Savona went to Nee, and Bran went to Nee’s cousin Tamara.

  We danced. I moved through the complicated steps with sureness, my whole body in harmony with the singing strings, my eyes dazzled by the swirl of color all around me. Above our dancing figures, and around us, flowers and ribbons and hangings of every shade of violet and lavender made the room seem almost impossibly elegant.

  When the dance ended, Shevraeth bowed and handed me to Savona, and once again I danced, relieved that I had somehow managed to get through the first one without any awkwardness at all. It’s the music, I thought happily as I spun and stepped; music is truly like magic.

  At the end of that dance I was surrounded by potential partners, and so it went for the rest of the night. I scarcely remembered any of the introductions, but it didn’t seem to matter. A succession of smiling, handsome partners and a continual flow of easy chat and flattery formed a background to the music, which filled me with joy and light.

  It wasn’t until the night was nearly over that I discovered I was thirsty. It was my first quiet moment. Standing near one of the potted shrubs that isolated the food and drink, I sipped at the punch and started picking out individual voices from the chatter around me, and individual dancers from the mass.

  From the other side of the shrub: “…see Tamara? That’s the third time she’s gotten him.”

  Curious, I surveyed the dancers and easily found Lady Tamara—dancing with Shevraeth. They made a very handsome couple, her pale blue gown and dark hair, his colors the opposite. Her eyes gleamed through her famous lashes as she smiled up into his face; she then spoke, though the words were inaudible. He, of course, was exactly as unreadable as always.

  “Tsk tsk.” A new voice joined in, drawling with sardonic amusement, “I suppose it’s inevitable. She’s always gotten what she’s wanted, and beware whoever gets in her way.”

  “Everything?” the first voice said with a tinkly sort of laugh. “Compassing marriage to either of the cousins?”

  “Come now, she’s dropped the lesser prospect. Why settle for a duke when there’s a king in reach?”

  “Perhaps she’s been dropped,” was the answer. “Or else the glare while Savona danced with the little Tlanth countess was a sham to provide entertainment for our speculation.”

  Laughing, the speakers moved away. I stood where I was, watching Tamara happily whirling about the room in Shevraeth’s grasp, and I realized that he hadn’t been near me since the beginning of the evening. Uncomfortable emotions began eroding my enjoyment. I tried to banish them, and also what I’d heard. It’s nothing to do with me, I told myself firmly, hoping there wasn’t some like conversation taking place elsewhere in the room—only with me as its subject. I didn’t do anything wrong.

  Still, it was hard during the remaining dances to recapture the earlier joy, and at the end I was glad to follow Bran and Nee upstairs to our rooms, Nee yawning all the way. My feet were tired, but I buoyed myself with the reminder that my Name Day came with dawn. What has Branaric planned?

  He gave me no hints as he bade me a good night outside my rooms.

  oOo

  The windows were bright with sunlight when I woke, and though I could have slept longer, the prospect of my Name Day got me up and dressed.

  My first thought was to go to Nee’s rooms. She would be a part of anything Bran planned.

  I bustled down the hall. As I stretched out my hand to knock outside her tapestry, I heard Bran’s genial voice booming from inside: “Enstaeus and Trishe went to kidnap him. We’re to meet them at the stable.”

  And Nee said, “Then we’d better go before Meliara wakens. It’ll be easier than trying to explain that she wouldn’t enjoy this ride—”

  My hand froze. Shock, dismay, and question all kept me from moving, even though I knew I ought to retreat—fast—to my room. Even in the rudest house among the most ignorant people, children grow up knowing that tapestry manners require you to make a noise as soon as you reach someone’s room. You don’t stand and listen.

  Holding my hands straight at my sides so my skirts wouldn’t rustle, I backed up one step, two—then Nee’s tapestry lifted, and there were the three of us, face-to-face.

  Bran snorted a laugh—of course. “Life, sister, you gave me a start!”

  Nee’s entire face went crimson, though the fault was mine for being there without warning. “Good morning,” she said, looking unhappy.

  I did my best to assume a sublimely indifferent Court mask. “I stopped to tell you I was going to the library.” And I walked away quickly.

  Not enjoy a ride? I thought, and then I remembered that this was Court, and people didn’t always say what they thought. Apparently even Nee. They want to spend some time alone, of course, I realized, and guilt overwhelmed me. I had monopolized Nee ever since the night in our palace when she offered to show me Court ways.

&nb
sp; Well, I was at Court now, and I had made it through a grand ball without causing any disasters or making a complete fool of myself. So now it is only fair to leave her some time alone with my brother, I told myself firmly. After all, wasn’t that a part of courtship, wanting to be alone with your intended, however much you liked the rest of his family?

  I hurried down the silent halls toward the library as if I could outrun my emotions, forming a resolve to start making my own way, leaving Nee to get on with her life.

  As I neared the State Wing, my heart thumped, and despite the princess’s kind invitation, I hoped I wouldn’t encounter any of the Renselaeuses. But no one was about except silent footmen and occasional equerries passing to and fro. When I reached the library, the waiting footmen opened the doors for me, and I passed into the huge room and found myself alone.

  I strolled slowly along the shelves, looking at titles without really comprehending them, wondering where I ought to begin. Remembering my conversation with Princess Elestra, I decided what I really wanted to see were the originals, the papers written by kings and queens in their own hands. Were they all in the Heraldry Archives, or were some of them here?

  My gaze fell on a plain door-tapestry at the other end of the room. A service access? No. A narrow, discreet outline of a door was tucked in another corner between two bookshelves. That was the service door, then. Might I find some kind of archive beyond that tapestry?

  I crossed the room, heard no noise beyond, so I lifted the tapestry.

  The room was small, filled with light. It was a corner room, with two entrances, floor-to-ceiling windows in two walls, and bookshelves everywhere else. A writing table angled between the windows in the slanting rays of the sun—and kneeling at the table, dressed in riding clothes, was the Marquis of Shevraeth.

  He put down his pen and gave me a glance of inquiry.

  Feeling that to run out would be cowardly, I said, “Your mother invited me to use the library. I thought this might be an archive.”

  “It is,” he said. “Memoirs from kings and queens addressed specifically to heirs. Most are about laws. A few are diaries of Court life. Look around.” He picked up the pen again and waved it toward the shelves. “Over there you’ll find the book of laws by Turic the Third, he of the twelve thousand proclamations. Next to it is his daughter’s, rescinding most of them.” He pushed a pile of papers in my direction. “Or if you’d like to peruse something more recent, here are Galdran’s expenditure lists and so forth. They give a fairly comprehensive overview of his policies.”

  I stepped into the room and bent down to lift up two or three of the papers. Some were proposals for increases in taxes for certain nobles; the fourth was a list of people “to be watched.”

  I stared at him in surprise. “You found these lying around?”

  “Yes,” he said, sitting back on his cushion. The morning light highlighted the smudges of tiredness under his eyes. “He did not expect to be defeated. Your brother and I rode back here in haste, as soon as we could, in order to prevent looting; but such was Galdran’s hold on the place that, even though the news had preceded us by two days, I found his rooms completely undisturbed. I don’t think anyone believed he was really dead—they expected one of his ugly little ploys to catch out ‘traitors.’”

  I whistled, turning over another paper. “Wish I could have been there,” I said.

  “You could have been.”

  This brought me back to reality with a jolt. Of course I could have been there—but I had left without warning, without saying good-bye even to my own brother, in my haste to retreat to home and sanity. And memory.

  I glanced at him in time to see him wince slightly and shake his head. Was that regret? For his words—or for my actions that day?

  “What you said last night,” I demanded, “about battles and me being used to them. What did you mean by that?”

  “It was merely an attempt to make you laugh.”

  “I did laugh,” I admitted, then frowned. “But did you really intend some kind of courtly double meaning? Hinting that I’m used to battles in the sense that I lost every one I was in? Or merely that I get into quarrels?”

  “Neither.” His tone was flat. “Forgive my maladroitness.”

  “Well, I don’t get into quarrels,” I said, desperate to explain, to accuse. “Except with—”

  There came a tap outside the opposite doorway.

  I shut my mouth; and there we were, me wishing I could run but feeling I ought not to. There was—something—I had to do, or say, though I had no idea what.

  So I watched him rise, move the few steps to the other tapestry, and lift it. I did not see whoever was outside—I realized he was shielding me from sight. I could not hear the voice beyond, but I heard his: “Please inform Lady Trishe I will be along shortly. Thank you.” He dropped the tapestry into place and stood with his back to it, looking at me across the width of the room. “It seems,” he said, “that seeking your opinion will not cease to embroil us in argument, whatever the cause. I apologize. I also realize trying to convince you of my good intentions is a fruitless effort, but my own conscience demanded that I make the attempt.”

  I couldn’t think of any reply to make to that, so I whirled around and retreated into the library, my insides boiling with a nasty mixture of embarrassment and anger. Why did I always have to bring up that civil war—and pick a fight? What kind of answer was I looking for?

  All I do is repeat the humiliations of last year. As if I haven’t had enough of those, I thought grimly. And the worst thing was, I wouldn’t dare to go near that room again, in spite of his offer at the beginning of the encounter—an encounter which was thoroughly my own fault.

  Well, I’d have to console myself with the big room. Stopping along the row of biographies, I selected the histories of three well-hated tyrants, figuring they’d be good company for me, and I retreated to my rooms.

  oOo

  It was a while before my mind was quiet enough for reading. The conversation with Shevraeth I was determined not to think about. What was the use? It was over, and it was clear it wasn’t going to be repeated.

  Then there was that name he’d mentioned, Lady Trishe—one of the names Bran had spoken earlier that morning. It was Shevraeth they were planning to go riding with! She wouldn’t enjoy this ride was what Nee had said, meaning that I wouldn’t enjoy it because Shevraeth would be along. It also meant that they wouldn’t enjoy having me along if I glared at Shevraeth and started squabbling.

  My mood thoroughly glum, I grabbed up a book and flung myself down on my nest of pillows. At frequent intervals I set the book aside and listened, expecting to hear the noise of their return. But the sun marched across the sky without their reappearance, and just after sunset Nee knocked to ask if I was ready to go to a concert officially scheduled for the ambassadors.

  I changed hastily, expecting my brother to appear. But what happened was that we went to the concert. Bran—indifferent to music—had gone off elsewhere with other friends. The choir was wonderful, and the songs from over the sea were beautiful, though I heard them through a damp veil of self-pity.

  I finally had to admit to myself that my brother had forgotten all about my Name Day, and Nee had no idea. Before the revolt, my brother and I had been close. Obviously, more had changed since Galdran’s defeat than I’d realized.

  The main person in his life now is Nee—as it should be, I told myself as she and I walked across the flagged courtyard to the Residence Wing. But my mood stayed sober as I contemplated how life would change when we all returned to Tlanth. I’m not oath-sworn as a countess, not until we gather before the new monarch when he or she is crowned; and Bran is the legal heir. And a county can’t have two countesses…

  When we reached our hall, Nee offered to share hot chocolate with me. Shaking my head, I pleaded tiredness—true enough—and retreated to my rooms.

  And discovered something lying on the little table in the parlor where letters and invitat
ions were supposed to be put, an exquisite porcelain sphere. It was dark blue, with silver stars all over it, and so cunningly painted that when I looked closer it gave the illusion of depth—as if I stared deeply into the sky.

  Opening it with reverent care, I found a lovely sapphire ring sitting on a white silk nest. After trying it on my fingers, I found that it fit my longest one.

  Why couldn’t Bran give me this delightful ring in person? There were times when I found my brother incomprehensible, but I knew he thought the same of me.

  Puzzled, but content, I fell asleep with my ringed hand cradled against my cheek.

  CHAPTER TEN

  When I heard Branaric call a morning greeting outside Nee’s parlor, I rushed out and batted aside her tapestry. They seemed surprised when I hugged Bran. “Thank you. It’s really lovely!”

  “Huh?” Bran looked half-pleased, half-confused, and Nee completely confused.

  “The gift egg! This ring!” I stuck out my hand. “The finest Name Day gift I ever had!” I laughed.

  Bran blinked, then grimaced. “Burn me, Mel—I forgot. I mean, it ain’t from me, the date went right out of my head. Life! I talked to Nee about planning a boat party—didn’t I?” He turned to Nee, who put a hand up to her cheek, eyes wide and stricken. He sighed. “But I guess I think we’re still back three or four months.” He held out his arms and hugged me. “I’m sorry.”

  I said with an unsteady laugh, “Well, I’ll admit to being disappointed yesterday, until I found this—but if you didn’t put it in my room, who did?”

  Nee also gave me a hug. I sensed how bad she felt. “We’ll make up for it,” she whispered, and then, louder, “Was there a letter with it?”

  “No. But who else would know?”

  “It might not be a Name Day gift at all, though it’s awfully expensive for an admirer to start with,” Nee said slowly.