The Path to Power

by Karen Miller

  “We’ll not be overheard in this raucous,” Humbert said, frowning. “So give me answer. Why is Roric unhappy?”

  With a brittle smile his daughter thrust her spoiled bread at another passing servant. “My lord, he lacks a son.”

  “So I’ve noticed.”

  Colour high, she pretended interest in her wine. “Roric complains of me?”

  “Has he cause to?”

  “My lord, I—”

  “Your Grace! My lord Humbert!” Aistan, approaching, still in the company of the betrothed couple. “How do you enjoy the day?”

  “Aistan.” Humbert raised his goblet, brimming with wine. “The day is most fine, as is your hospitality. My lady Kennise, ’tis a warming thing to see you so happy. Vidar—”

  Rich in pearls and brown velvet, Vidar sketched a twisted bow. The scars dug into his face were silvery pale in the sunlight. “Humbert.” Another bow. “Your Grace.”

  As Lindara murmured something indifferently appropriate, looking past Vidar instead of at him, Humbert crooked a confiding finger. Vidar took a cautious half-step closer to the trestle.

  “Humbert?”

  “Many of us thought you’d abandoned any hope of marriage, my lord,” he said, expansively genial. “But it seems we were wrong, and I’m right glad of it.” Smiling in his beard, he felt a rare burst of goodwill towards the man who’d once foolishly thought himself good enough for Lindara. “The lady Kennise will grace your table and be a fine mother to many sons, I’ve no doubt. Sons that will serve Clemen as their father serves it. With honour.”

  Vidar’s lips twisted into a familiar, sardonic smile. “You’re too kind, my lord.”

  “I’m as kind as I need to be, Vidar. No more and no less.”

  “Don’t be alarmed, Kennise,” said Lindara, breaking the taut silence. “My lord father’s blunt manner is famed throughout the duchy. After six years skirmishing together on council, you can be sure Lord Vidar knows he only jests.”

  Vidar bowed again, his unscarred eye glittering. “Indeed, Your Grace.”

  “As do I,” said Aistan’s daughter, blushing. “For you’ll hear nothing but praise for the great lord Humbert beneath our roof. Your Grace—”

  Lindara reached a hand to the girl across the food-laden trestle. “Now, Kennise. Didn’t I tell you already that I’m Lindara to my friends?”

  “Yes, you did. I’m sorry, Your–Lindara.”

  “Excellent,” Lindara said, squeezing the girl’s hand then letting go. “Vidar—”

  “Your Grace?”

  “You must take special care of your betrothed. She’s a dear, sweet lady deserving of every kindness.”

  Aistan, his neat beard turned mostly grey, rested a heavily ringed hand on Vidar’s shoulder. “Vidar treats her like a hothouse bloom, Your Grace, so gentle and considerate. My beloved daughter couldn’t have found a more perfect knight–and no loving father could find a better man to claim his child.”

  Lindara’s reply was lost in a fresh gale of laughter from the feasting courtiers as the water jousting dwarves came tumbling into the courtyard, chased by a pack of tiny, yapping dogs. The miserable little curs were dressed in spangled green felt harnesses sewed over with yet more silver bells.

  With one of his rare smiles, Aistan stepped back then nudged his daughter and Vidar closer together. “Take your seats, my dears. Eat and drink your fill. The feast is being held in your honour, after all.”

  “My lord,” said Vidar, taking Kennise by the hand. “You don’t join us?”

  Aistan nodded. “In a moment. I’d take Humbert aside first. Humbert?”

  “Of course.” Hastily spearing a slice of beef on the point of his knife, Humbert levered himself off the trestle’s bench and shifted with Aistan to stand against a nearby ivy-covered brick wall. As he chewed his meat he eyed the ridiculous antics of the dwarves and their rattish dogs, unimpressed.

  “Don’t blame me,” said Aistan, raising his hands. “They’re my wife’s doing. All the way from Maletti, they’ve travelled. Favourites at the Exarch’s Palace, I’m told.”

  “And still the Exarch could part with them,” he said, scowling. “Hard to believe.”

  Aistan sighed. “Ah well. They make Kennise laugh, and that’s something. There was a time I feared she’d never laugh again.”

  Well, if that was the case best she laugh her fill while she could. For surely marriage to crippled Vidar would be no laughing matter. If Harald’s rough handling hadn’t soured the girl on bedsport, doubtless Vidar’s maimed body would. But that wasn’t anything he could say to her father. Doubtless Aistan was simply relieved to finally get Kennise off his hands.

  “You wanted a word?” he said, around another mouthful of beef. “Not more trouble brewing, I hope.”

  The yappy dogs were turning somersaults and leaping through the dwarves’ looped arms. Laughter filled the three-sided courtyard, the clapping of hands, the stamping of feet.

  “Have you heard from Roric?” said Aistan, turning a robed shoulder to the mayhem. “When will he return?”

  Humbert wiped his knife on his forearm. “Not from Roric, but Arthgallo. The leech says our duke’s megrims still plague him and Roric’s to stay solitary in his country leechery a few more days yet.”

  “I don’t like it, Humbert,” said Aistan, fingering his beard. “Is Roric sickly? Is this why—” He pulled a face. “Forgive me. But is this why your daughter’s womb has yielded no fruit?”

  It was the first time anyone had dared ask the question to his face. There were whispers, of course. Eaglerock ’s corridors and passageways and chambers echoed with anxious, circumspect speculation about why Clemen’s duke still lacked an heir. He ignored it. Did his best to shield Roric from it–though the boy, no fool, knew as well as he did that tongues wagged more and more.

  But if Aistan, of all men, was prepared to openly confront the question…

  “Are you challenging the validity of Roric’s marriage, my lord?”

  “No!” Aistan said quickly. “I supported it at the time and I still support it, Humbert. Roric had to wed, without delay, to help quash Berardine’s intentions and calm Clemen after the turmoil of Harald’s death.”

  “He did,” Humbert agreed, frowning. The dwarves were dancing on the trestles now, their bright red booted heels hammering so hard the platters of beef and pies and braised lettuce were leaping. The yappy dogs danced with them. Any moment one of those hairy runts was going to piss in the wine, he knew it. How many of the little shites could he spit on a sword with a single thrust? Surely Aistan had a spare blade laying around here somewhere.

  “And I thought,” Aistan added, “that your daughter, a well-bred virgin, was eminently suitable to be Roric’s wife.”

  Which meant what? That if Harald hadn’t debauched his youngest girl, Kennise would this day be duchess of Clemen and Lindara would be the one struggling to fuck with a half-blind cripple?

  “My daughter is still eminently suitable,” he said mildly, since this was no good time to offer Aistan offence. He shifted his gaze to her, beautiful and self-contained and talking amiably with Aistan’s wife. “As for her womb, Arthgallo assures me ’tis fertile. And so is Roric’s seed. Our duke is a trifle worn down by Clemen’s burdens. That’s the nub of his trouble. Arthgallo will soon put him to rights, Aistan. You’ll see.”

  Frowning, Aistan brushed crumbs from his doublet. “I know you place great faith in this leech of yours,” he said at last. “But I must tell you, I fear–and I’m not alone in this–the matter might be beyond his skill. We can’t forget that Roric is–was–Harald’s cousin. And Harald’s seed proved unreliable.”

  How discomfiting to hear his own dark doubts given tongue. Especially by a man as sober as Aistan. But he wasn’t about to concede anything. Not until his back was pressed hard to the wall.

  “Harald’s seed, I grant you. But Berold’s never was. And his son, Roric’s sire, my dear friend Guimar, bred true. As will Roric. You may depend on
it.”

  “I hope you’re right,” Aistan said. “For it’s not just me depending on it. Clemen’s people are desperate for an heir. For a reason to celebrate! Especially now, in the midst of so much hardship.”

  “Which we both know can be pressed home to Cassinia.” Humbert turned a stern gaze back to his host. “We’d be suffering far less did they not keep a poisonous dagger-point pricked against Clemen’s heart.”

  A stricken look passed over Aistan’s face, wiping away any lingering joy for his daughter. “Indeed,” he murmured. “The regents have proven most vindictive. Far more so than—”

  “Than you’d heard?” He snorted. “Does your memory fail you, Aistan? You’re the one who warned us of them when Berardine offered Clemen her daughter.”

  “Look,” said Aistan, jerking his chin. “The dwarves are done with their madcappery. Excuse me, Humbert. I must thank them, and encourage my guests to generosity.”

  Under cover of Aistan’s speechmaking, Humbert took his seat again and filled his belly with partridge pie. There was beef remaining, but he didn’t trust it. Not after those yappy dogs. The dwarves handed round their felt caps not drowned in the lake, and Aistan’s guests filled them with silver coins and golden hair pins and the cheapest rings from their fingers. For himself, he wasn’t about to part with so much as a grey hair plucked from his beard. Only one of the dogs fixed him with its beady eyes and growled until he surrendered, and tossed in a copper nib.

  After that came the malmsy-soaked damsons, the sugared figs and the apricots swimming in syrup. He ate his fill of those, gladly, and washed them down with ice-chilled sweet wine.

  With that the feast ended, but there were more festivities planned. Aistan and his wife and his unwed daughter and Vidar led the revellers out of the courtyard and onto the grand lawn, where the minstrels struck up a dancing tune. Excusing himself on account of a bad knee, Humbert folded himself grateful onto a stout stool set near the yew-hedge maze entrance, accepted a foaming tankard from a servant, and settled to watch.

  It was a pretty sight, he’d not argue. The ladies in their jewel-sparkled, colourful gowns. The lords in their colourful doublets, with jewels in the garters they wore to keep their hose from slipping down. Light-stepping and full of mirth and wine, ringed fingers clapping, heads tossing, elbows akimbo and knees snapping high, like palfreys. Even Vidar wasn’t disgracing himself entirely. A miracle. Though his stiffly correct holding of Aistan’s daughter, and the girl’s shrinking response, didn’t promise much in the way of a passionate marriage.

  Lulled almost to drowsing by syruped apricots and beer, Humbert watched his daughter dance a timmory with Aistan and felt a pinch of regret, that Roric wasn’t here. Let the court see the boy dance with Lindara and for certain many whispering tongues would be stilled.

  The music changed. Time to take a new partner. Aistan handed Lindara to Vidar. Circling the trampled lawn, Eaglerock’s courtiers continued merry, with laughter and teasing and not a little horseplay. Now they danced a whirling feranti, the kind of dance to make an exarchite wag a chiding finger. Arms circling lissom waists. Hands clasping hands. Faces scandalously close.

  Humbert sat up abruptly, like a man doused in winter pond water. Step for step with Lindara, Vidar was dancing like a whole man. Dancing and smiling. Not dutiful, but tender. And Lindara–Lindara–

  Throat scalded with bile, he watched his daughter betraying Roric. Every inviting step, every leap, every laughing curtsy and hot glance a treachery. And when the music changed again, when it was time for his daughter and her crippled lover to part, he watched their pressed palms linger in a slow, sliding kiss. Praise the faeries or the spirits or even the Exarch’s god that the court was too breathless and giddy from dancing to notice them.

  But he’d noticed.

  Blinder even than Vidar, Humbert stumbled into the seclusion of the yew-hedge maze, bent over, and vomited up every mouthful he’d swallowed of Aistan’s food and drink.

  The strumpeting whore. I’ll kill her for this.

  He wasted no time in learning the whole truth of his daughter’s wanton misbehaviour. The matter had to be discreetly uncovered in all its ugliness, then disposed of before Roric’s return from Cassinia. In case he’d not been the only one whose eyes were opened during that dance. He set his best man to the filthy task. Egann. Stubborn, reliable and patient, his loyalty not to be doubted, his skill as a clandestine without compare.

  Four nights later, seeing him lurking in a shadowed corner beyond the council chamber, Humbert crooked a finger in passing. Egann fell into step beside him, his felt-soled boots whisper quiet on the worn stone floor.

  “Well?”

  “I fear ’tis worse than you suspected, m’lord,” Egann said, his voice conspirator soft. “I did find foul doings, blacker by far than a naughty wife. I’m right sad for it.”

  And that was an impertinence, but he was too heartsore to make a meal of it. “Were you seen?”

  “Not by any soul what counts.”

  Chilled despite his furred robe, and washed through by a sudden wave of weakness, Humbert stopped short of the torchlit staircase before him and fumbled at the cold wall to keep himself steady.

  “Foul doings, you say. Clammy sweat damped his skin. “How foul, man? What kind?”

  Egann advanced three steps down the spiral stairs and cocked an ear, listening for approaching footsteps. Satisfied they remained alone, he looked up.

  “The witching kind, m’lord.”

  “Sorcery?” He pressed a fist to his roiling belly. Though he’d hardly eaten since the feast at Aistan’s, still he wanted to be sick. “Are you certain?”

  “Your daughter’s maid led me straight to the witch’s haunt, m’lord. Down in the township, where she pretends to deal in harmless herbs and suchlike.”

  “And Lindara’s embroiled? You’re sure of it? Couldn’t the maid be—”

  “No, m’lord. There be no mistake.”

  He wanted to weep like a woman. Howl like a gored hound. “The maid. Where is she now?”

  “Out of the way, m’lord. She won’t be squealing of this to the duchess.”

  “And the witch?”

  “Chained and waiting.”

  “Take me to her,” he said, standing straight again. “I’d hear what this sorcerous bitch has to say.”

  Eaglerock’s dungeons honeycombed the rock on which the castle was built. Disobedient servants were held there, kept cold, fed stale bread and water, punishment for petty crimes. Lawless men of the township, sometimes, when their guild masters sought harsher revenge than a day in pillory, were pelted with dead rats and rotten eggs. Men were whipped in the dungeons, suffered their pilfering fingers to be broken, their lying tongues pierced through, or cut out in the worst cases. Rapists lost their cock and balls to a heated knife then were hung in chains, dripping hot tar, till their joints popped. Other men, caught plotting, were made to long for such minor pains.

  As Egann barred the cell’s heavy door, Humbert stared at the woman secured by wrist and ankle to the wall. Smoky torchlight showed her passably beautiful, though she was sickly pale and her hair was shorn closer than a sheep after fleecing. Her face was bruised, one cheek swollen. A cut on her lower lip, scabbed with dry blood. Her embroidered linen chemise was torn, revealing generous, blue-veined breasts marred with more bruises. But her tits didn’t stir him. He was years too old for lust.

  “I know you,” she said, her voice oddly accented. “Lord Humbert.”

  He nodded. “And I know you. Witch.”

  “I’m no witch. I’m a herbary woman. The only magic in me is what lies atwixt my legs.” She thrust her hips, obscenely suggestive. “Shall I magic you, my lord?”

  “I’d fuck a dead goat first. What is your business with the duchess of Clemen?”

  The witch’s green eyes widened as she feigned mystified surprise. “We have no business.”

  “You were taken with her maid. The girl gave you coin. What was it for?”
/>
  When she didn’t answer, he raised his hand. “Egann?”

  “Her shop in the township were rank with sorcerous filth, m’lord. Men’s parts sealed in jars, I found. Dried dog tongues. Unnatural creatures. Stinking pills and potions. And a baby’s head in a box.”

  He turned, revolted. “What?”

  “It fell to dust when I touched it.” Egann shuddered. “But m’lord, I know what I saw.”

  “This other foul muck. You have it safe?”

  “Yes, m’lord. And the creatures are dead.”

  “Good.” He turned back. “Look at me, witch.”

  The heavy iron chains holding her clanked as she rolled her head against the cell’s stone wall, then slowly opened her eyes.

  “Tell me what I wish to know and Egann will snap your neck clean.”

  She spat at him, sneering.

  “Egann,” he said, and stepped back.

  Not even a witch could hold out against a tarred, knotted rope wielded by a man of experienced purpose. Flogged naked, flogged bloody, in the end she broke.

  Sickened, Humbert listened to the witch’s foul babblings. Learned what she and Lindara had done to Roric, and wept. When the witch was done, reduced to pulped flesh and pain and keening like a madwoman, he left her to Egann and went to find his daughter.

  “My lord,” said Lindara, rising from her settle as he shoved her chamber door wide. “’Tis very late. Is something amiss?”

  “Leave us,” Humbert commanded her gaggle of shocked attendants.

  Cheeks flushed, Lindara nodded. “You may go, ladies. And be sure to close the door.”

  Alone with his daughter, he looked around the richly appointed room. “Amiss, Lindara? Yes. You could say that.”

  “Is it Roric?” she said, breathless. “Have Cassinia’s regents harmed him?”

  “Don’t pretend you care about Roric,” he said, his face stiff, his voice chilled. “I saw you with that cockshite Vidar, all but fucking him on Aistan’s lawn as you danced.”