by Karen Miller
In the fireplace, flames flickered. Shadows danced on the tapestry-hung stone walls. With a muttered curse Grefin braced his elbows on his knees and pressed his hands to his face.
“When we were boys,” he said, muffled, “after Malcolm was squired to Deness of Heems and it was just the two of us, you always wanted to play King of Harcia. Remember? You brandished a wooden sword and wore a crown you wove from willow-wands, and when I wouldn’t call you Your Majesty you’d get so angry…”
Balfre’s heart thudded hard. “Doesn’t every boy dream of being a king?”
“Maybe.” Grefin let his hands fall. Shifted a little, to look at him squarely. “But we’re not boys any more.”
“More’s the pity. Things were fucking simpler then.”
A startled moment, then Grefin laughed. “Yes. They were.”
“And you have to admit, Gref, they’d be simpler now,” he pointed out, carefully careless, “if the old kingdom returned and Harcia and Clemen were reconciled under one rule. Clemen’s people would be happier were they rid of cursed Harald.”
Grefin thudded his shoulder blades against the wall. “No doubt. Only the last king of Harcia died some two hundred years ago and those crowned days died soon after when the kingdom split. I know you still dream of the old Harcian kingdom reborn, Balfre, but you must know that’s folly. It’s far too late to turn the clock back.”
Said Aimery and his faithful echo Grefin. But they were mistaken. Ancient wrongs could be put right. Stolen thrones could be reclaimed. The Kingdom of Harcia had been mighty, once… and would be again, when he was done.
But that wasn’t something he was ready to share with his brother.
“I know,” he said, heaving a deceptively rueful sigh.
“Do you?” Grefin frowned. “Really?”
“Yes, really.” He punched a fist to Grefin’s knee. “It’s late. You should go. Mazelina will be thinking I’ve shoved you down the garderobe.”
Grefin’s answering smile was tinged with relief. “Given into temptation, you mean.”
“Oh, go fuck yourself,” he suggested. “Better yet, fuck your wife.” When his brother only stared, uncertain, he shoved. “Go, Grefin. I might sting over the Green Isle but if you think I’d throw myself from the top of the Croft for losing it, you’re moonshot.”
“So…” Grefin stood. “I’m forgiven?”
Balfre blinked. Forgiven? For capitulating to Aimery. For taking what wasn’t his. For thinking he could speak on anyone’s behalf but his own. Forgiven?
Grefin really was moonshot.
Maybe in a year, when–if–Grefin kept his word, and the Green Isle’s stewardship passed from his brother’s unlawful hands to his. Maybe then he could find it in him to forgive the day’s betrayal. But not now, with Grefin’s presumption of pardon so glibly thoughtless, so arrogant. So like Aimery he could spit.
“Yes,” he said, smiling, as the dragon-talons clutched anew. “You’re forgiven.”
The smile lasted until the outer chamber’s door closed behind his little brother. Then he staggered to his feet, snatched up the bottle of brandy and poured what remained of it down his dry throat. Choked. Gasped for air.
“Fuck. Fuck!”
He was too angry to stand, had to rage about the luxurious chamber that served only to remind him of what he didn’t possess. In every castle of Harcia it was the same, he and Jancis and her mewling daughter granted the apartments that had belonged to Malcom. He held no castle of his own, outright. A clutch of manor houses, yes, with villages and farmland yielding him wealth. After Aimery, before Grefin, he was the richest man in Harcia. But it didn’t make up for his lack of moat and drawbridge and keep.
Grefin would have a castle, now he was Steward of the Green Isle.
The thought had him smashing the emptied brandy bottle onto the floor, sent him hunting for a fresh one. But then he stopped, panting. What was the point? There wasn’t enough brandy in the duchy, in the world, to numb his rewoken, all-consuming pain. He needed a living distraction, something soft and warm. A woman.
“Jancis!” he roared. “Jancis, where the fuck are you?”
He found his wife in the nursery, clad in unbecoming tawny wool, holding her swaddled brat of a daughter and talking with a servant. “Get out,” he told the girl. She picked up her linen skirts and fled.
“My lord,” Jancis whispered, standing with the brat’s crib between them. “I heard. About Hughe, and the stewardship. I’m so sorry.”
Oh, but she was a colourless shadow, his wife, with her pale hair and pale skin and eyes like watered glass. So thin, so flat-chested, sunlight almost passed right through her. No wonder he struggled to sire a living son. Aimery was to blame for that. From misplaced loyalty to one of his nobles, Aimery had cradle-promised him to Jancis, and when Malcolm died forced the wedding upon him. After two sons miscarried he’d begged his father on both knees for release, but the old fulmet wouldn’t let him put the barren bitch aside–even though her father was dead by then and couldn’t be offended. So he was yoked to her until Aimery was bedded for good in his own coffin.
He could feel the brandy in his belly, burning like dragon-fire. “How did you hear? Who told you?”
“I was with Mazelina in her apartments. We heard the servants gossiping.”
Fucking servants. He should rip out their tongues. “And?”
“And what?” his wife said, tears rising. “I don’t understand.”
Held tight to her uninspiring breasts, the brat wriggled and cooed. Jancis started to look down, then stopped herself.
“And do you have a fucking opinion?” he demanded. “Or is that too much to ask?”
His insipid wife’s pale cheeks washed pink. “I think it’s wrong that Grefin’s made Steward. Why did Aimery do such a thing?”
“Don’t you mean How am I to blame, that Aimery would kick me in the balls before the watching world? Isn’t that what you mean?”
Like his privy chamber, the nursery was generously lit with oil lamps and firelight. Jancis’s plump tears glowed with a golden warmth.
“No,” she whispered. “Of course not. However Hughe died, I know the fault’s not yours.”
“Herewart says elsewise.”
Jancis gasped. “Herewart calls murder on you? And Aimery believes it? That’s why he’s named Grefin his Steward? But–but that’s wicked unjust!”
She was a barren bitch and he could never love her. So what did it say of him, that her swift defence of his honour was a balm, and welcome?
“What a needle-wit you are,” he said roughly, sneering. “So sharp you must prick yourself twice a day, at least.” Her face paled again at the taunt. “There’ll be talk,” he added, needing to goad her. “Will you stand it?”
Her resentful eyes met his. “Will you?”
The tart reply was a surprise. Jancis hardly ever challenged him. Perhaps he’d like her better if she did. Perhaps if she had greater mettle she’d find the strength to give him sons.
And if mules were horses a peasant in the saddle could be mistook for a lord.
“Mind your shrewish tongue,” he said, skirting the crib to close on her. “You’re the cause of this, Jancis.”
The brat snuffled as her holding arms tightened. “How is it my fault? I never—”
“Hughe’s dead because he slandered me!” he shouted, backing her into the wall. “And he slandered me because of you! What corruption is in you, Jancis, that your feeble body must spit out my sons before they’re formed?”
“No corruption, Balfre! Indeed, you do me wrong!”
“I wrong you?” He almost laughed. “Bitch!”
“I’m sorry, Balfre,” she whispered. “I’d give anything to give you sons. Perhaps if I could find a wise woman who knows of such things I might—”
“A witch? Woman, are you mad?”
She cried out. “No, no. I won’t look for one! I promise! Please, Balfre, don’t—” She was weeping, half-turning to shield the bra
t, starting to slide down the wall. “Don’t hurt her!”
Like a man watching a mummery, he saw himself looming over his unwanted wife and girl-child. Saw his fist raised to strike. Saw her tears, and her terror. Heard the child’s frightened wails. Sickened, shaken, he turned away. Never in his life had he struck a woman. Any man who beats a woman makes of himself a beast. A lesson learned at his formidable mother’s knee. How ashamed she’d be, could she see him now.
Helping Jancis to stand, he felt her trembling fear of him beneath his hands and flinched. “I’m sorry,” he said, as she settled the brat in its crib. “Jancis…” Helpless, he stared at her. “Fuck. I wish–I wish—”
She looked up. “I know, Balfre. So do I.”
Without warning, his throat closed. “It’s not right that Grefin’s made Steward. Ever since Malcom died, Aimery has looked for ways to—” He breathed hard, fighting the pain he resented so much. “The honour of the Green Isle belongs to me.”
“Your father’s made his decision,” Jancis said, shrugging. “There’s nothing you can do.”
Her defeated acceptance rekindled his anger. “Fuck that. I don’t accept it. You wait. I’ll change the old bastard’s mind.”
From atop the Croft’s battlements, wind-tugged and shivering despite his padded doublet and heavy woollen surcoat, Aimery watched the summoned lords of his council clatter on horseback across the stone bridge leading to the castle’s outer bailey. Though he stood high, and they were distant, he could tell they weren’t happy. But then, neither was he.
Out of long custom, Harcia kept an itinerant court. As he travelled the duchy, showing his face, hearing disputes, he often met with his greatest barons. Together they nipped trouble in its rancorous bud, which meant a great council was held once, at most twice, in a year. Its holding was a disruption, an upheaval in many lives. That reckless Balfre was the cause this time would not endear him to the men cruel fate had decreed he’d one day rule.
Aimery sighed. If only Balfre understood that.
Horse by horse, Harcia’s barons vanished from sight as they passed into the keep: Deness of Heems, Lord Keeton, Lord Ferran, Maunay of Knockrowan, Reimond of Parsle Fountain, Lord Orval. Last of all, Joben, Balfre’s cousin on his mother’s side. There was a younger cousin, eager for a place on the council. But history taught that dukes who favoured family over their duchy’s loyal barons came to foul ends.
I must punish Balfre harshly in the eyes of every lord. Not just to save him, but to save myself too. And Harcia.
Footsteps behind him, and then a lightly cleared throat. Curteis. “Your Grace, the council gathers in the Great Hall.”
“Let them wait. I’ll come presently.”
“Your Grace.”
Alone again, Aimery feasted his gaze on the open countryside around the Croft. Once woodland had grown almost as far as the eye could see. But Harcia had cut down nearly all of its forests, hungry to turn tall trees into swift galleys. A mistake, that had proven. The men of Harcia weren’t natural sailors. They failed to read the treacherous tides and currents of the northern sea. Those mistakes, and three seasons of vast storms, had wrecked Harcia’s galleys to driftwood. One more reason for his duchy’s struggle to find wealth in the world. Aside from the Green Isle’s splendid horses, they had precious little. He was doing his best, sapling by sapling, to bring back those slain forests and with them the natural riches Harcia had squandered. He’d not see them reborn in his lifetime, but Balfre would. If he continued the work his father had started.
Balfre.
Aimery felt his breathing hitch. When would his son realise he must be a better man than the man who’d knocked Black Hughe from saddle to coffin? Than the man who blamed Jancis for their sorrows and looked with sour envy upon Grefin and his thriving son?
He must know he disappoints himself. He must know he breaks my heart.
Even so, there was courage in him, and the capacity for love. If he was spoiled a little, if he wasn’t Malcolm, surely he wasn’t yet rotten. Surely he could still be saved.
For Harcia’s sake he must be.
Staring over his battlements, seeing in his mind’s eye every village and creek and manor that by birthright he owned yet only held in trust, Aimery felt a sting of tears. As much as he’d loved Malcolm, did love Grefin, tried to love Balfre, did he love his harsh, rugged duchy.
Blinking away the sting, he turned from the battlements. He could hide up here no longer. Hard tasks did not soften with the passing of time.
Grefin was waiting in the Great Hall, in company with the council. In company with Herewart, returned to the Croft after Hughe’s funeral, still dressed head to toe in mourning black. The old man’s sharp grief was blunted, the pain instead settled deep in his bones and moulding his face into a portrait of permanent loss. Herewart had no place on the council, but he was owed this public apology.
“My lords,” Aimery said, raising a hand to acknowledge their sober greetings. “Be seated. I’d not keep you longer than necessary. Grefin, stand with me.”
As they obeyed he took his own chair, the hugely carved ducal seat with its bearskin covering and bear-claw decorations. Let the bear’s strength suffuse him, let its courage rouse his blood. Bears were mighty and ferocious. Bears did not weep.
He could feel Grefin at his right hand, high-strung beneath the outward calm. As always, dressed more like sober, self-effacing Curteis than a duke’s son, in dark blue velvet lacking jewels and gold thread. That would have to change. Clothes proclaimed the man… or, in his case, the Steward. But Mazelina would see to that. His youngest son’s wife was a lively woman of unbounded tact and common sense.
“My lords,” he said again, once his barons were settled, “your summons to council arises from our dear brother Herewart’s grievous loss. He knows my privy heart in this, but I’ll share it now so none here might wonder. A son’s untimely death is a sorrow no father should suffer. And I tell you my sorrow is doubled, for the part my heir played in Hughe’s death.”
“Your Grace, we all grieve,” said Reimond of Parsle Fountain. Time-grizzled, with thinning hair and two fingers lost from his left hand. He turned to Herewart. “Hughe was a fine man, boon friend to my own Geffrei. That he should die—”
“By mischance,” Joben said quickly, not caring if he gave offence. Only two years parted him and Balfre, and as boys they’d been peapod close. “There was no malice.”
Reimond glowered, while the other barons tapped fingers and muttered. “But there was temper, Joben. Temper and poor judgement. Your Grace—”
“Peace,” said Aimery sharply. “This is not a debate upon the character of my eldest son. I know him, heart and soul, better than anyone. Balfre is—”
“Here,” said his son, unwelcome and gallingly disobedient, as he entered the Great Hall. “Come to plead my case before Harcia’s duke and his council.”
“Balfre, you noddle,” said Grefin under his breath, dismayed. “What are you doing?”
The council, and Herewart, stared at Balfre as he approached. Not a popinjay this afternoon, but a sparrow, he wore an undyed linen shirt and mud-brown woollen hose. He came barefoot and bareheaded, not an ear or finger-ring to be seen. Plain Grefin by comparison was turned gaudy bright.
Searching his barons’ faces, Aimery fought to keep his own face still. Balfre’s brazen defiance of established protocol was a barbed blade twisting in his guts. And he could see Reimond felt the same, his forehead knitted in disapproval. Indeed, only Joben showed any favour. Deness of Heems and the lords Keeton and Ferran echoed Reimond’s unmasked disgust.
Heedless of their hostile stares, Balfre halted and folded into a bow. “Your Grace,” he said, straightening, his steady gaze supremely confident. “I come to you humbled, seeking forgiveness. When I blinked at your disapproval of rowdy sporting I acted out of youthful bravado, discarding your wise judgement for my own. Your Grace, you deserve much better. And before these great lords, whom I have also offended, I swear on m
y life I will never again fail you or Harcia–and I ask that you let me prove it by granting me all my rights as your heir.”
Breathing out softly, Balfre pressed a hand to his heart, making his words a solemn vow. Then, letting his gaze lower to the flagstoned floor, he folded first to his knees and then to utter prostration, arms outstretched before him in an extravagance of entreaty.
From a great, cold distance, Aimery heard the hall’s air whistle in and out of his chest. There was rage… and there was, he now discovered, a place beyond rage. He stared at the stunned faces before him.
“Balfre is my heir,” he said, as though no time had passed, as though his other son had never entered the hall. “And when I die he will be your duke. But the tragedy of Hughe’s death makes plain that he yet has much to learn. Therefore I declare that for the span of a year and a day my younger son Grefin, here standing beside me, shall be hailed Steward of the Green Isle, my voice and my authority in that place.”
Reimond of Parsle Fountain cleared his throat. “And if Balfre proves himself a slow learner?”
“For his sake, Reimond…” Aimery bared his teeth in a smile. “I hope he proves otherwise.” He stood. “My lords of the council, my lord Herewart, I invite you to withdraw with me and my well-loved son Grefin, that we might spill wine in memory of Black Hughe and then celebrate our new Steward!”
With every man watching, with Grefin breath-caught and torn, to his sorrow, he took a step forward… and stepped over his other son. Stepped again and kept walking, leaving Balfre prostrate and speechless in his wake. And as Grefin followed, and the other lords followed Grefin, he did not look back.
CHAPTER THREE
“Your Grace! Your Grace, please, another measure,” cried Lord Gerbod’s wife, pouting. “The hour is not so late and no man here prances a roundelay to rival you!”
Harald, Duke of Clemen, waved his hand in refusal then collapsed breathless into his high-backed, intricately carved wooden chair. Sweat trickled down his face, his spine, soaked the hair in his armpits and slithered over his ribs. But none here would notice, surely, and if they did–what matter? Though the night was cold he didn’t sweat alone. Dancing was a sweaty business. No reason for any man here to glance at his sweating duke and wonder.
