Crown Duel

by Sherwood Smith

  oOo

  The rain had turned the sky to slanting sheets of gray by afternoon, a steady, pelting shower that kept the humans from promenading the paths. Even the spring birds were quiet and invisible.

  As Bran had gone off in pursuit of some kind of pleasure, Nee joined me in my room. I’d bade Mora to bring us hot chocolate, which had arrived creamy and perfect as always. Nee poured it out, then settled at my desk to read her letters. For a time I stood at the window, toying with my cup and breathing the gentle, aromatic steam rising up. For some reason the scent of chocolate threw me back to my first taste of it—at the Renselaeus palace. I scowled out at the rain and thought about my past.

  My thoughts lengthened into reverie, which was broken only by the sound of Nee’s voice. “Something amiss?”

  I turned my back on the shower-drenched garden. Nee laid down her pen and regarded me over her cup, held in both hands. Her manner indicated it was not the abstract question of one who would hardly spare the time to listen to the answer. She was in a mood for converse.

  So I shrugged, and forced a smile. “Thinking about the rain,” I said.

  “Rain?” Her brows arched in inquiry.

  “Here I stand, regretting our missed opportunity to walk. A year ago I would have happily run up in the hills, whether it rained or not. And I was thinking that I could go out, in spite of the weather, but I wouldn’t enjoy it like I used to.”

  She gestured in amicable agreement. “There’s no fault in misliking the feel of a water-soaked gown.”

  “That’s part of it,” I said, seizing on the image. “Last year I wore the same clothes year round. My only hat was a castoff that Julen found me somewhere. I loved the feel of rain against my face, and never minded being soaked. I never noticed it! Now I own carriage hats, and walking hats, and riding hats, and ball headdresses—and none of them except the riding hats can get wet, and even those get ruined in a good soak. My old hat never had any shape to begin with, or any color, so it was never ruined.” I turned to face the window again. “Sometimes I feel like I didn’t lose just my hat, I lost my self that horrible night when I walked into Bran’s trap.”

  Nee was silent.

  I ran my thumb around the gilt rim of the cup a couple of times, then I made myself face her. “You think I’m being foolish?”

  She put her palms together in Peaceful Discourse mode. “Yes, I do,” she said, but her tone was not unkind. “One doesn’t lose a self, like a pair of gloves or a pin. We learn and change, or we harden into stone.”

  “Maybe I’ve changed too fast. Or haven’t changed enough,” I muttered.

  “Have you compromised yourself in any important way?” she asked.

  I opened my mouth to say Of course, when we were forced to give up our plans to defeat Galdran, but I knew it would be an untruth as soon as it left my lips. “I think,” I said slowly, “I lost my purpose that day. Life was so easy when all I lived for was the revolt, the accomplishment of which was to bring about all these wondrous changes. Nothing turned out to be the way we so confidently expected it to. Nothing.”

  “So…” She paused to sip. “…if you hadn’t walked into that trap, what would be different?”

  “Besides the handsomeness of my foot?” I forced a grin as I kicked my slippered toes out from under my hem. No one could see my scarred ankle, not with all the layers of fine clothing I now wore, but the scars were there.

  She smiled, but waited for me to answer her question.

  I said, “I suppose the outcome in the larger sense would have been the same. In the personal sense, though, I suspect I would have been spared a lot of humiliation.”

  “The humiliation of finding out that your political goals were skewed by misinformation?”

  “By ignorance. But that wasn’t nearly as humiliating as—” my encounters with a specific individual. But I just shook my head, and didn’t say it.

  “So you blame Vidanric,” she said neutrally.

  “Yes…no…I don’t know,” I said, trying not to sound cross. “I don’t.” I saw my hand fidgeting with the curtain, and dropped it to my side. “Tell me about Elenet. Why haven’t I met her before? Or is she another who abjured Court?”

  “On the contrary,” Nee said, and she seemed as relieved as I was to have the subject changed. “She grew up with the rest of us. In fact, she was my greatest friend until she went back to Grumareth. As young girls we were both very minor members of our families, largely ignored by the others. She’s solitary in habit. Serious. Though her humor comes out in her art.”

  “Art?”

  “Yes. She’s very, very gifted at painting. The fan she made for me is so beautiful and so precious I use it maybe once a year. She makes them only when she wishes to. Screens as well. They can change a room.”

  “I remember you talking about her once.”

  “She went home two years ago, when she was unexpectedly made the heir to Grumareth.” Nee’s mouth tightened. “It was another of Galdran’s workings, though no one could point to any proof. Until two years ago the Duke of Grumareth had been a very bright man working hard to counter Galdran’s worse excesses. Then there was some kind of power struggle and the duke had one of the accidents that has decimated so many of our families. Galdran got rid of most of the rest of the smart ones in that family, either by accidents or by sending them out of the kingdom. Elenet’s mother then moved back to her family in Denlieff, leaving Elenet here. Galdran settled on the present duke, Elenet’s great-uncle, to take the title and quiet, obedient Elenet to be heir. The new duke stayed here to pay lip service to Galdran, and Elenet was sent back to run the province.”

  I recollected my first formal dinner in Tlanth, when Shevraeth and Nee fenced verbally over the question of reversion of titles. Nee had defended her friend. “She’s done a good job?”

  “A superlative job,” Nee said fervently. “No one expected it of her, except me. Just because she seldom speaks doesn’t mean she doesn’t notice, or think. She’s saved her people untold grief, deflecting Galdran when she could, and her great-uncle the rest of the time.”

  “Do you know what brings her here now?”

  “I don’t,” Nee said. “I’ve scarcely had an opportunity to exchange two words with her. I trust I’ll have the chance tonight. I expect, though, that she’s here partly because Grumareth has finally gone home ill.”

  I’d scarcely noticed the absence of the obnoxious duke. Full of patently false flattery and obsequiousness mixed with superciliousness, he was thoroughly repellent—and stupid. He favored the older generation as gambling cronies, only paying lip service to those young people he thought would somehow advantage him, and he’d apparently decided we Astiars were not worth his exalted efforts; though he’d courted my brother all the year before, he’d largely ignored us both since my arrival.

  “Ill? But no one admits to being sick—it always means something else.”

  “Probably gambling debts.” Nee shrugged. “That’s what it usually is, with him. Elenet will have informed him they haven’t the wherewithal for his latest squanderings, and he’ll have gone home to save face until they can raise what’s needed.”

  “You mean they are that close to ruin?”

  Nee grinned. “Oh, not as bad as they were, thanks to Elenet. His foolishness is now the very last priority, over land improvement. It’s she who governs the finances, not he. He’s so afraid of anyone finding out, he perforce permits it. I shall make certain the two of you have a chance to talk. I think you will really like her.”

  “Thank you,” I said, sweeping a curtsey. “I’m flattered.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  The next day’s race was canceled due to rain. My invitations had been delivered, causing a spate of notes to cross and recross the elegant pathways, borne by patient pages under drooping rain canopies.

  Bran and Nee were delighted—and I think Nee was relieved as well. With every appearance of enthusiasm, they summoned their clothiers to plan thei
r costumes.

  I received a note from Azmus saying that he needed to talk to me, so I asked Mora to help me arrange my schedule for the following day so that I could see him alone when everyone else was to be busy. Mora gave no sign that I knew she knew all my affairs—she said she’d help, and did.

  I also received a note from the Unknown, the first in two days. I pounced on it eagerly, for receiving his letters had come to be the most important part of my day.

  Instead of the long letter I had come to anticipate, it was short.

  I thank you for the fine ring. It was thoughtfully chosen and I appreciate the generous gesture, for I have to admit I would rather impute generosity than mere caprice behind the giving of a gift that cannot be worn.

  Or is this a sign that you wish, after all, to alter the circumscriptions governing our correspondence?

  I thought—to make myself clear—that you preferred your admirer to remain secret. I am not convinced you really wish to relinquish this game and risk the involvement inherent in a contact face-to-face.

  I dropped the note on my desk, feeling as if I’d reached for a blossom and had been stung by an unseen nettle.

  My first reaction was to sling back an angry retort that if gifts were to inspire such an ungallant response, then he could return it. Except it was I who had inveighed, and at great length, against mere gallantry. In a sense he’d done me the honor of telling the truth—

  And it was then that I had the shiversome insight that is probably obvious by now to any of my progeny reading this record: that our correspondence had metamorphosed into a kind of courtship.

  A courtship.

  As I thought back, I realized that it was our discussion of this very subject that had changed the tenor of the letters from my asking advice of an invisible mentor to a kind of long-distance friendship. The other signs were all there—the gifts, the flowers. Everything but physical proximity. And it wasn’t the unknown gentleman who could not court me in person—it was I who couldn’t be courted in person, and he knew it.

  So in the end I sent back only two lines:

  You have given me much to think about.

  Will you wear the ring, then, if I ask you to?

  I received no answer that day, or even that night. And so I sat through the beautiful concert of blended children’s voices and tried not to stare at Elenet’s profile next to the Marquis of Shevraeth, while feeling a profound sense of unhappiness, which I attributed to the silence from my Unknown.

  The next morning brought no note, but a single white rose.

  Despite Nee’s good intentions, there was no opportunity for any real converse with Elenet after that concert. Like Nee, Elenet had unexpectedly risen in rank and thus in social worth. If she’d been confined to the wall cushions before, she was in the center of social events now.

  But the next morning Nee summoned me early, saying she had arranged a special treat. I dressed quickly and went to her rooms to find Elenet there, kneeling gracefully at the table. “We three shall have breakfast,” Nee said triumphantly. “Everyone else can wait.”

  I sank down at my place, not cross-legged but formal kneeling, just as Elenet did. When the greetings were over, Nee said, “It’s good to have you back, Elenet. Will you be able to stay for a while?”

  “It’s possible.” Elenet had a low, soft, mild-toned voice. “I shall know for certain very soon.”

  Nee glanced at me, and I said hastily, “If you are able to stay, I hope you will honor us with your presence at the masquerade ball I am hosting to celebrate Nee’s adoption.”

  “Thank you.” Elenet gave me a lovely smile. “If I am able, I would be honored to attend.”

  “Then stay for the wedding,” Nee said, waving a bit of bread in the air. “It’s only scarce days beyond—midsummer eve. In fact, if Vidanric will make up his mind on a day—and I don’t know why he’s lagging—you’ll have to be here for the coronation, anyway. Easier to stay than to travel back and forth.”

  Elenet lifted her hands, laughing softly. “Easy, easy, Nee. I have responsibilities at home that constrain me to make no promises. I shall see what I can contrive, though.”

  “Good.” Nee poured out more chocolate for us all. “So, what think you of Court after your two years’ hiatus? How do we all look?”

  “Older,” Elenet answered. “Some—many—have aged for the better. Tastes have changed, for which I am grateful. Galdran never would have invited those singers we had last night, for example. How he hated polyphony!”

  “He might have discovered its beauties if someone convinced him that they were all the rage at the Sartoran Court and only provincials would not have them to tour.”

  “It must be expensive to house so many,” Elenet observed.

  “Princess Elestra brought them.” Nee picked up her fan, snapped it open, and gestured in Acknowledgment of Superior Aesthetics mode, which caused Elenet to smile. “Apparently they have those children up in Renselaeus every year, and I understand one or two of their own youth have been deemed good enough to join the choir and travel the world. It’s a long association.” She leaned back on her pillows. “It’s been like that of late, Elenet. You really must stay and enjoy it while the princess is still arranging royal entertainments. Remember those long, hideous nights of watching Galdran win at cards?”

  “I never watched him,” Elenet admitted. “I watched the others, always. It took consummate skill to lose to him.”

  “I take it people had to lose,” I said.

  They looked at me quickly, as if they’d forgotten I was there. So others get overwhelmed by memories of the past, too, I thought. And obviously not good memories, either.

  “Yes,” Nee said. “If you didn’t, he got his revenge. Mostly, though, if you wanted to live—if you wanted your family to be safe—then you pretended to be much stupider than he was.”

  Elenet made a quick gesture of warding. “Banish those old fears. Let us talk of pleasant things. Have you been keeping up with your own music?”

  “I blush to say no,” Nee admitted, “but a beautiful harp awaits me when we remove to Tlanth, and then I know I will have the time to practice every day. Maybe even make my own songs again.”

  I showed my surprise—I hadn’t known that she wrote music.

  “Your songs are beautiful,” Elenet said.

  “But sad.” Nee wrinkled her nose. “I promised myself no more sad songs, and so I stopped. Now I think I can make happy ones. You?” Nee asked.

  “Every day,” Elenet said. “Acquit me of heroic efforts, though! It has been my solace to sit at my harp each morning, right before first-gold. “

  “If I painted like you do, I’d have solace enough.” Nee sighed.

  Elenet’s smile was slight, and her eyelids lowered as she stared down at her hands. “It seems that my…sad songs…took a different form.”

  “No more sad songs for you, either.” Nee touched her friend’s wrist. “You’ve earned happiness. I command you to have it!”

  All three of us laughed, and the remaining conversation was about inconsequentials, such as gowns and materials, and then music again, before Nee realized it was late and we all had things to do. We parted with mutual compliments and expressions of esteem.

  oOo

  Azmus leaned forward and said, “I have only one fact to give you: The Duke of Grumareth met with the Marquise and her daughter on their way to Merindar.”

  “On their way?” I repeated. “Merindar is north, and Grumareth west.”

  Azmus’s round, pleasant face hardened into a kind of sardonic amusement. “For a half day’s journeying, their path could lie together.”

  “Which could be innocuous,” I said. “Anything else?”

  “Only that the rain forced them to stop at an inn for a full time-change. Admittedly the rain was heavy that day, but it was also intermittent; yet only after second-green did both parties deem it possible to ride on.”

  “I take it you got this from inn servants, or Grum
areth’s?”

  “One of the duke’s people.” Azmus nodded. “They are loyal enough to their land, but some loathe the Merindars with deadly passion.”

  “Ah-hah!” I exclaimed. “So, what now?”

  Azmus’s gaze was serious. “It is time for the truth, my lady, if you will honor me with the privilege of speaking frankly.”

  “Do,” I said, hiding the wail of dismay that shivered through my head. Everyone seemed to want to tell me the truth, when I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear it. Except Flauvic, who says there is no truth.

  “I can pursue this,” he said, “but it will take a great deal of work, and it will also be costly.”

  “How so?” I asked uneasily. “Bribery?”

  He shook his head. “Not at all. The person who gives information for bribes is usually worthless; someone else could be paying a higher price either for the information you want—or for you to get the wrong information. I told you before that the Merindars’ servants are mum. What I must do is reassemble many of my old contacts and gather the information we need by finding patterns. This is exhaustive and complicated if it is to be done well—and without causing comment.”

  “Patterns?”

  He leaned forward. “The very first lesson I learned was that information that cannot be gathered on where someone is can usually be inferred by where the individual isn’t. This is particularly true for couriers.” He waited expectantly.

  I drew a deep breath. “So. What you’re saying is that you—and whomever else you need—must visit all the likely inns along likely paths and find out if Merindar couriers have been there, and when, and how long?”

  “That’s close enough,” he said. “Bear in mind that the best of them take different routes quite often, but humans are creatures of habit, and they are also creatures of comfort. At some point they will go where they know there are clean beds or a particularly good table set, or where they can do their own listening. And of course, there are their horses.”