DemonWars Saga Volume 2: Mortalis - Ascendance - Transcendence - Immortalis (The DemonWars Saga) (117 page)

A thunderous applause ensued, and at that moment, the weight of the occasion hit Jilseponie, nearly overwhelming her.

Danube looked to Midalis as he continued. “Scribe in stone,” he said formally, meaning that this was a Kingly Decree, a point of absolute and unbreakable law, “that the code of bloodlines will be adhered to, despite my undeniable love for this great woman. Thus, in the event of my death, Jilseponie will not become ruling Queen of Honce-the-Bear.”

It was not a shocking statement to any who had been about the court of late, including Jilseponie, for all of these procedural details had been meticulously gone over.

“Prince Midalis, my younger brother, remains second in succession, with Jilseponie to assume the title of Lady Ursal. In the event that my brother’s death precedes my own, or that he dies childless after assuming the throne, the line of succession remains intact, with my accepted son Merwick as Prince Midalis’ immediate
successor, his brother, Torrence, in line behind him.”

Jilseponie stared at Constance while the King made these formal proclamations, which, too, were no surprise to either of them. The woman, staring back at the new queen, wore a smug expression indeed!

“But hear ye all and scribe in stone!” Danube said, most powerfully of all. “That should Jilseponie bear a child, then that child, male or female, will enter the line of succession immediately behind me, above even Prince Midalis of Vanguard.” He looked to Midalis as he spoke this, and so did Jilseponie, and the reasonable and decent man nodded and smiled his acceptance. Jilseponie quickly glanced back at Constance and was hardly surprised to see that the woman’s smug expression had soured considerably.

Soon after, the great party on the fields behind Castle Ursal began, with feasting and drinking, a display of the joust by Duke Kalas and the Allhearts—which Duke Kalas won—and parades of entertainers. It went on and on, and was planned for several straight days of revelry.

Of course, soon after night fell, King Danube found Jilseponie and bade her to go off with him to their private quarters to consummate the union.

She was not comfortable as she made her way across the ground, leaving Braumin and Roger and Dellman and the others to their discussions. She had not made love to any man since the death of Elbryan, and only once before her joining with her former husband had she ever come close to intimacy with a man. And that unhappy occasion, the night of her first, quickly annulled, wedding to Connor Bildeborough of Palmaris, had not gone well at all.

But Jilseponie was an older and wiser person now, one who had perspective on the world and on the relative importance of events. She found that she was not so nervous when she and Danube ascended the huge curving stairway to their private quarters in the palace, when he moved even closer to her and kissed her gently on the cheek.

This night was not going to be a sacrifice, Jilseponie knew, and she mumbled a little prayer to Elbryan and took comfort that his spirit, if it was watching the events of this day, would not disapprove.

“H
ow can I know for certain?” Abbot Ohwan asked helplessly against Constance’s insistence, his pronounced lisp only adding to the sense of dread and urgency in his voice.

“Abbot Je’howith learned of my pregnancies long before even I knew,” the woman sharply replied. “He used his soul stone to inspect my womb. Can you not do the same to discern if Jilseponie is barren?”

The man was shaking his head before she even finished. “Abbot Je’howith was very old and very skilled with the gemstones,” he explained. For, indeed, Je’howith, who had been abbot of St. Honce for many, many years until his death at the beginning of the rosy plague, was considered by many in the Order at St. Honce to have been the greatest leader and user of the sacred stones ever to come out of
that abbey.

“You fear her,” Constance accused.

Abbot Ohwan didn’t deny the truth of that. “Her powers with the gemstones are legendary, m’lady Pemblebury,” he said. “If I went to her in such an intrusive manner, then she would likely overwhelm me and chase my spirit back to my body. And what repercussions she might then exact—”

Constance’s snort stopped him short.

“Can you not go to her feigning friendship, then?” the woman asked. “Offer your help in examining her, that you two might learn if she can bear Danube’s children?”

“I could do nothing that Jilseponie could not do for herself,” Abbot Ohwan protested. “My offer, I fear, would beget little more than scorn.”

“But you do not know!” Constance yelled at him.

The man stood very quiet, tucking his hands into the sleeves of his voluminous brown robe and lowering his gaze.

“You said that she was barren,” Constance remarked, grasping at any hope.

“So the rumors say,” Ohwan responded.

Constance snorted again and waved the man away. He was more than happy to oblige, leaving her alone in her room with many dark and confusing thoughts. The rumors did say that Jilseponie had been gravely injured in her battle with Markwart on the field outside Palmaris, had lost her baby and her ability to conceive.

But was Constance to wager the future of her own children on a rumor?

She moved across the room to a small cabinet and pulled open the door. Dozens of jars lined the shelves, spices and perfumes. Constance fumbled among them, knocking many to the floor, finally finding the ones containing certain herbs she had used so many times in the distant past. She held the two jars up before her eyes, rubbing the dust from them. Parsentac and holer grubbs, the herbs courtesans took to prevent conception. Could she, perhaps, find some way to slip these into Queen Jilseponie’s food?

The woman frowned. Discerning the appropriate dosage of the herbs could be a trying and painful process, for too much could cause the most excruciating cramps, could even cause death.

That possibility did not seem so unpleasant to Constance Pemblebury at that moment, and her mind began to whirl, scheming and plotting, thinking of favors she could call in to get these herbs into the appropriate places. Yes, it would take some doing, but it could be done.

Strangely, though, Constance felt little relief as she came to believe that she could indeed help ensure Jilseponie’s barrenness.

Other more devastating emotions tugged at her mind and at her heart. She thought again of the wedding, of the look on Danube’s face at the moment he became joined with that woman. She thought again of the look on Danube’s face when he had retrieved Jilseponie from the garden celebration, taking her off to his—to their!—bedroom.

And even now, as she sat here miserably, he was with her, in her arms. Images of passion flashed through Constance’s mind, of Danube and Jilseponie entwined in lovemaking.

She tried futilely to focus on Merwick and Torrence, on the threat to their inheritance, but no matter how many times Constance tried to tell herself that their fate was the most important matter here, she could not dismiss her imagination, could not rid herself of those horrible scenes.

She heard the cracking of the glass jar before she felt the stinging, burning sensation in her right hand.

Constance looked down at that gash in her palm, all the more painful because some of the herbs were inside it. She hardly moved to grasp it, though, or to stop the bleeding, thinking the pain a very minor thing at that time compared to the deeper wound King Danube had given her this day.

Chapter 16
 

M
ARCALO
D
E
’U
NNERO WENT THROUGH HIS TYPICAL DAILY DUTIES
,
CLEANING A
deer he had killed as the weretiger the night before, with his usual boredom. He and Sadye had settled in well at Tuber’s Creek, had been welcomed by the community with open arms. And why not? De’Unnero realized, for he and Sadye had brought something with them—different stories of different places—that the folk of this isolated little town were sorely in need of.

Life here was pleasant enough and easy enough, with fertile fields and plentiful game, and no threat from goblins or other monsters.

Well, De’Unnero realized, almost no threat from monsters. For he had brought one with him, inside him; and the beast was there, every day, part of his waking and sleeping hours. He did not try to deny that part of him now, as he had in his days in Micklin’s Village. Rather, Sadye helped him channel the energy of the weretiger, keeping it at bay with soothing words and melodies during any times of tension in the town and luring it out into the forest when it came forth at night, sending the beast out in a productive manner, hunting deer. Because of that Callo Crump had the reputation as the finest huntsman in Tuber’s Creek, though none of the others understood his methods or even how a human might go out in the dark forest night and survive, let alone take down a wary deer.

Yes, Sadye was his savior now, his channel for energies that he could not suppress. The passion, the fire between them amazed De’Unnero, taking him to places that he never imagined even existed in the life he had previously carved out for himself as a member of the Abellican Church. It amused him to think that he had earned the reputation as the most fiery of brothers, the great warrior, the crusader. Next to Sadye, he thought himself boring indeed, for she was full of life and energy, boundless energy and the desire to live on the very edge of complete destruction. Marcalo De’Unnero had never been afraid to take a chance—had thrown himself willingly, eagerly, into battle against the greatest foes, the greatest challenges, that he could find. But Sadye, by comparison,
lived
with the most dangerous person in all the world. It wasn’t out of any desire to prove herself, as had motivated the younger De’Unnero. Rather, it was merely for the excitement of the situation.

Sadye had come to love him, he believed with confidence. She was, in every way, the wife of Marcalo De’Unnero. But she was more than that. By her own choice, Sadye was the willing and eager companion of the darker creature, of the weretiger. She not only accepted that part of De’Unnero, she found it perfectly thrilling.

De’Unnero paused in his work and glanced back across the yard, to see Sadye sitting quietly in the shade of an oak, plucking the strings of her lute, apparently composing some new song for the town’s weekly celebration, scheduled for that
very evening. With her light brown eyes sparkling with innocent joy, she looked so delicate and so calm and so … 
pretty
was the only word De’Unnero could think of to describe Sadye in that scene before him.

And yet, this pretty young woman scared him at least as much as the beast within him. For she was so much like him, a person wearing two faces. The folk of Tuber’s Creek thought her a pleasant and entertaining young lady, a person of respectability.

They had never seen her at lovemaking, had never seen the not-so-innocent fire that lay behind her brown eyes or that wicked little smile that crossed her face whenever she thought of something particularly delicious. They didn’t know how callously she had dismissed her former traveling companions, the men De’Unnero had ripped to shreds at Micklin’s Village. This innocent young lady hadn’t given those murdered men a second thought.

De’Unnero chuckled helplessly as he regarded her. How he loved her, and feared her! She was his warmest thoughts and his deepest fears all rolled together, and she kept him constantly on the very edge of disaster, the very edge of excitement.

He went back to skinning the dead deer, remembering the sweet, warm taste of its blood in his tiger mouth the previous night. Strangely, without even consciously noticing it, that sensation shifted to his memories of tasting Sadye’s delicious lips.

Sadye was in top form for that week’s celebration, bringing the gathering of fifty villagers and another score of folks from outlying reaches to a rousing mood with her songs of the Demon War. She sang of one warrior monk in particular, a master from St.-Mere-Abelle named Marcalo De’Unnero, and her escort scowled at her fiercely when he caught on to her little teasing game.

It was a scowl that De’Unnero could not hold, though. Sadye was playing her challenge with disaster and relishing every moment of it. De’Unnero could feel the heat rising within her as she hinted, ever more convincingly, that the warrior De’Unnero was still about, and might be close by.