“Marqel the Magnificent?” Dirk asked intuitively.
She looked at him in surprise.
“I saw her the other day in the temple,” he explained. “I wondered what she was doing here on Grannon Rock.”
“I’m not even going to ask what you were doing in a temple, Dirk,” she said with a faint smile, and then sighed. “But you’re right. She’s with him now, I suppose, nursing him back to health.”
“Is that why you’re here?”
“Alexin asked me the same thing.”
“What did you tell him?”
Unaccountably, Alenor blushed and looked down at her hands. “You don’t want to know.”
He waited for her to say something further, but she seemed reluctant.
“You can’t stop the wedding, Alenor,” he said gently, guessing that was at the core of her torment. She had loved Kirsh all her life, and now, when he was within her grasp, she realized that she loved a dream, an illusion. The Kirsh that Alenor had loved as a child probably never even existed.
“Why can’t I stop it?” she demanded petulantly. “If I don’t marry Kirsh, then he can’t become regent and—”
“And Antonov will have your mother executed and the whole of Dhevyn under martial law while you’re still trying to return the wedding gifts.”
“So that’s it? You think I should just marry Kirsh and let him ruin what’s left of Dhevyn in his father’s name?”
“I don’t think Kirsh would deliberately ruin Dhevyn, Alenor.”
“That doesn’t mean he won’t. It’s killing me to think that I’m a party to this. I want to end it. I want it over and done with!”
“Then marry him. Let him have Marqel as his mistress.”
“Are you mad? You think I should allow Kirsh to take my kingdom while he entertains himself with that ... that ... whore?”
“I think, Alenor, that if Kirsh is busy entertaining himself with that whore, then he’s going to be far too busy to do anything but sign whatever you put in front of him. You can’t fight them from the outside, Alenor. The only way to win this is to keep what little power you have. I’m sure Johan Thorn would have been the first to tell you how little real impact you can make from exile.”
Alenor was silent for a long moment, then, slowly, tentatively, she smiled. “You really are quite devious, aren’t you, Dirk?”
“Don’t take such a step lightly, Alenor,” he warned. “People can be very cruel. You may find the humiliation of having your husband openly flaunting a mistress more than you can bear.”
“I could bear it. If I knew there was an end in sight.”
“What do you want of us?”
“The Baenlanders? It’s odd thinking of you as one of them. I don’t know what I want, Dirk. A magic wand would be nice. Something I could wave over Dhevyn and make everything right again.”
“Damn,” he said with a smile. “I left my magic wand back in Mil.”
“What am I going to do?” she asked, as if he knew the answer. “I can’t do this on my own.”
“Reithan was hoping to find a way to delay the wedding, too.”
“Then he’s more guilty of wishful thinking than I am. Antonov will make certain that it goes ahead. Anyway, I’m beginning to think that maybe it’s not such a bad idea that my mother abdicates. She is far too willing to give in to Senet. But then I look at
why
she gives in so easily and I realize I probably won’t do any better. I can’t fight Antonov any more effectively than my mother can.”
“You’re never going to win Dhevyn back by fighting for it, Alenor. Even Johan understood that.”
“Then how do I do it?”
“You have to expose Belagren. That, in turn, will destroy Antonov.”
“Far easier said than done,” she pointed out with a frown. “Unless your new chess partner happened to mention when the next Age of Shadows is due.”
“If only,” Dirk said with a short, skeptical laugh.
“Why can’t
you
do it, Dirk?”
“Me?”
“You’re as smart as Neris, aren’t you?”
“No!”
“Don’t be so modest. Why don’t you go to Omaxin and work it out? If we knew that
one
thing, we could crush Belagren in a matter of days.”
“I really don’t think it’s that simple, Alenor.”
She smiled at him and squeezed his hand comfortingly. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t even ask it of you. You must be out of your mind over your mother.”
“What’s my mother got to do with it?”
She stared at him with a puzzled frown. “Surely you know what’s going to happen on Landfall?”
When Dirk responded with nothing more than a baffled shrug, her eyes filled with tears.
“Your mother was arrested at Wallin’s funeral, Dirk,” she said. “I thought someone would have told you. Antonov and Belagren are going to burn her at the Landfall Festival tomorrow.”
Chapter 27
Tia watched Dirk and Alenor for a long time as they sat under the tree not far from the house, lost in a conversation that excluded all others. The cousins’ obvious closeness irritated her. The princess had greeted Dirk like a long-lost lover; all his past deeds apparently both forgiven and forgotten. She could not understand what it was about Dirk Provin that made people react to him like that. She couldn’t understand why he engendered such a feeling of trust in others, when his actions should attract quite the contrary.
Alenor was holding both his hands in hers as they spoke.
What’s he telling her?
she wondered.
What is she saying to him?
Are they just catching up on old times, or are they plotting some
thing?
She was suspicious of Alenor, even more so of Dirk. How did one trust a girl in love with the Lion of Senet’s son, and friends with the man who had killed Johan Thorn?
There was simply no way to tell what they were discussing, so she moved back to the window near the front of the lodge and looked down on the others. The two guards Raban had brought with them were still mounted, one of them holding the falcon on his left arm. Raban, Reithan and Porl were standing under the tree talking.
“. . . it’ll take place in Kalarada,” Raban was telling Porl and Reithan. “The invitations have already gone out.”
“Was there any mention of the abdication?” Porl asked. Tia guessed they were talking of Alenor’s upcoming wedding to Kirshov Latanya.
“No. But don’t get your hopes up,” Raban warned. “It could just mean that Antonov wants to spring it on the guests at the wedding, before anyone has time to object.”
“It’s an open secret though, surely?” Reithan suggested.
“Yes and no. I mean, the rumors are fairly accurate, but for the most part, Rainan hasn’t been acting like she’s about to abdicate, so people prefer to believe that she won’t.”
“Is there any chance that she won’t?”
Raban shook his head. “Alexin thinks not, and from what I’ve seen since she’s been here in Nova under my father’s roof, I’m inclined to agree with him. Rainan is cautious—cautious to the point of being ineffectual, actually. Our young princess over there has more spunk in her little finger than her mother ever had.”
Reithan glanced over at the couple under the tree and suddenly straightened as he saw Dirk and Alenor heading back toward them. Alenor was holding Dirk’s hand and had obviously been crying. Tia looked at Dirk and experienced a moment of dread. He had an oddly familiar expression on his face. It was that same flat, dangerous look in those steel-gray eyes that she had seen the night he killed Johan Thorn.
Cautiously, Tia nocked her arrow again.
“Your highness,” Raban said with a bow as they approached. “Is everything all right?”
“Yes, my lord,” the princess replied. “Dirk and I just had some catching up to do.” She turned to Reithan and Porl. “Dirk tells me you were hoping to find a way to delay the wedding.”
“That’s right, your highness,” Reithan agreed. “We thought that—”
“It can’t be done,” Alenor announced. “Nor do I think it should be done.”
“But your highness—”
“None of us is in a position to challenge Senet, Reithan, and one furtive meeting does not constitute an alliance. You have no plan. We have nothing but a common purpose. Noble as that might be, it’s not going to free Dhevyn.”
“But once Kirshov is regent,” Porl pointed out, “it will be too late to do anything.”
Alenor glanced at Dirk before she answered. Tia saw the look and wondered about it. What had they cooked up between them?
“You let me take care of Kirshov. I believe I know him better than you.”
“Well enough to control him?” Porl asked.
“And even if you can control Kirshov Latanya, your highness,” Raban added, “you’ll still have all his lackeys to deal with.”
“Then find a way to free Dhevyn, gentlemen. Come to me with a plan that has a hope of succeeding and we have ourselves an alliance. Until that day, don’t make my life any more difficult than it already is. We should get going, Raban. We can’t afford to be away from the rest of the hunting party for too long.” The princess turned to Dirk and smiled at him warmly. “Good luck, Dirk.”
Good luck? Why was she wishing him luck?
“Remember what I said,” he answered cryptically.
“I will,” she promised. Alenor stood on her toes and kissed Dirk’s cheek, then put on her wide-brimmed hat and tied it under her chin before allowing Raban to assist her into the saddle. Once she was mounted, she gathered up her reins and looked down at Reithan and Porl. “I appreciate that your people want to help Dhevyn, but good intentions alone are not enough. Get a message to Alexin or Raban if you have something constructive to offer, and I promise I will get a message to you if a solution somehow magically presents itself to me. In the meantime, let’s not endanger everyone by meeting like this again, unless the risk is truly worth it.”
With that announcement, Alenor kicked her horse into a canter, heading back in the direction they had come. The two guards rode behind her, followed a few moments later by Raban.
They watched her leave in silence, then Porl turned to Reithan and Dirk.
“Well, she’s not exactly what I imagined,” Porl remarked.
“Raban was right about one thing,” Reithan agreed. “She certainly has spunk. What were you two talking about for so long, Dirk?”
Tia waited for his answer. When he didn’t respond immediately, she lifted the bow and began to draw back on the string, the arrow aimed squarely at Dirk’s back.
“Which one of you,” Dirk asked in a flat, toneless voice, “decided that I didn’t need to know that Antonov and Belagren are going to execute my mother at the Landfall Festival on Elcast?”
Reithan and Porl exchanged a concerned glance before Porl answered him. Tia drew back the arrow until the fletching brushed her cheek.
“Now, lad, I can understand that you’re a bit upset—”
“A
bit
upset?”
“We thought it better that you didn’t know, Dirk,” Reithan told him.
“
We?
” Dirk demanded angrily. “Who is
we
? Who the hell do you think you are that you can decide such a thing on my behalf?”
Reithan reached his hand out to his stepbrother. Dirk reacted as if he had thrown a punch. He took a swing at Reithan, but the older man ducked and grabbed Dirk, swung him around and slammed him against the trunk of the tree.
“Settle down, Dirk!” Reithan yelled at him.
Dirk tried to hit him again, but Reithan had Dirk’s right wrist pinned in a tight grip above his head and his other arm across his throat. Dirk was finding it difficult to breathe. Tia trembled as she watched them struggle, the muscles in her arm crying out in protest. Dirk thrashed against Reithan’s hold but could not break it. In desperation, his left hand reached down to the dagger at his belt.
Tia let the arrow go. It thunked solidly into the tree a whisker from Dirk’s left ear. Reithan jumped back in alarm. Dirk turned to look at the arrow in shock then stared up at Tia, who had already nocked and drawn another arrow.
“Get your hand off that dagger, Dirk Provin, or I swear I’ll put the next one between your eyes,” she called down to him.
Without hesitating, Dirk brought up his hand to show that he believed her. Reithan turned to stare up at her, looking almost as pale as Dirk. “Get down here!”
Tia slowly let the string go slack and turned for the ruined stairs. It only took a minute to reach the ground floor. When she emerged into the sunlight, Reithan turned on her angrily. “Do you know how close that was?”
“Do you know how close he was to gutting you?”
Tia walked over to the tree where Dirk was still leaning against the trunk. “Believe it or not, I happen to think they
should
have told you,” she said as she began to work the arrow loose. “But that doesn’t give you an excuse to pull a knife on anyone.”
He stared at her, wide-eyed and pale, as she jerked the arrow free and replaced it in the quiver on her belt.
“You knew about this, too?” he asked.
“We all did. Lexie thought it best that you weren’t told. Porl and Reithan agreed with her.”
Dirk looked past her at Reithan. “I have to go to Elcast.”
“There’d be no point, lad,” Porl told him sympathetically. “We’d barely make it in time and even if we did, there’s nothing you can do to save her.”
“You don’t know that for certain.”
“No, he doesn’t,” Reithan agreed. “But what we
do
know for certain is that Antonov is on Elcast with the High Priestess, and your brother Rees is actively aiding him. Just what do you suppose you can do against those sorts of odds?”
“You can’t expect me to stay here and do nothing!”
“Dirk, think about it . . .” Porl began, but Dirk was in no mood to be reasonable.
“I am thinking about it, Captain, and all I can see is that you and Reithan and Lexie conspired to prevent me from saving my mother from being burned alive.”
“Even if we got there before Landfall, Dirk,” Reithan pointed out, “there’s nothing we can do to save her. Morna Provin was condemned to death before you were born.”
“I don’t care. I’m going to Elcast,” Dirk announced. “If you won’t help me, I’ll find my own way there.”
“Be sensible about this, lad!” Porl said. “You’ve spent the past two years trying to stay out of Antonov’s way and now you want to reappear right under his nose for the sake of a useless gesture. Damn it, boy, he’s probably expecting you to turn up!”
“You think trying to save my mother from being burned alive is a useless gesture?” Dirk asked incredulously.
“That’s precisely what it is,” Tia agreed. “And Porl’s right. This is as much about driving you out into the open as it is about your mother.” Dirk glared at her, but before he could respond she added, “But in your place I’d want to do exactly the same thing.”
“Don’t encourage him!” Porl snapped.
“Johan would have tried to do something,” she reminded them, turning to look at the captain. Her words silenced the argument like a wet blanket thrown over a fire. Porl Isingrin shook his head and then looked down at his boots.
“If we leave Morna Provin to die without trying to do
something,
then we’re no better than Antonov,” she added.
Reithan turned to Porl. “Maybe Tia’s right. Maybe we should try.”
“It’s a waste of time,” Porl insisted.
“We
could
get there by Landfall, though, couldn’t we?” Dirk asked.
“If we leave on tonight’s tide,” Porl agreed reluctantly. “If we don’t have any trouble clearing the harbor. If we get favorable winds the whole way. If nothing breaks. But once we get there, what are you going to do? Drop anchor in Elcast harbor and lower the longboat? Even if I could get you there in time, even if you could get past the Lion of Senet’s guards and somehow find a way to free Morna, even if by some miracle you got her back to the
Makuan,
how would we escape? The
Calliope
would run us down in a matter of hours.”
“We could get to Yerl in a night,” Dirk said. “And then I could go overland to Elcast Town on horseback.”
“Alone?” Porl scoffed.
“If need be,” Dirk retorted.
“I’ll go with him,” Tia volunteered.
“You?” Reithan asked in surprise.
“Well, someone has to make sure he doesn’t do anything stupid.”
Reithan stared at her for a moment and then shrugged. “In that case, I suppose you’d better count me in,” he told them. “Someone has to make sure
you
don’t do anything stupid, Tia.”
The captain debated the issue for a moment in silence then he threw his hands up in defeat.
“This is foolish in the extreme,” he warned. “But if you really must do this, I’ll do my best to get you to Yerl by morning. But after that, you’re on your own. I’ll weigh anchor outside Elcast harbor until second sunrise the day after Landfall. If you haven’t found your way back to the ship by then, I’ll assume you’re not coming back.”
“Thank you, Captain,” Dirk said.
“If we’re shipping out tonight, we’d better get moving,” Reithan suggested, turning toward the ruins where their borrowed horses were tethered.
“Tia,” Dirk called as she turned to follow Reithan.
“What?”
“Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me. I was aiming for your forehead. I missed.”
“I meant for sticking up for me. You didn’t have to. I appreciate it.”
Tia was not even sure why she had spoken up on Dirk’s behalf. It was not as if she actually wanted to help him. And she was certainly not happy with the idea that she had just convinced Reithan and Porl to put Dirk within the grasp of the Lion of Senet. Perhaps it was because she still didn’t trust him, and it was easier to go along with him than risk letting him out of her sight. But somehow the decision felt right, even if she couldn’t explain it.
“Nobody deserves to be burned alive, Dirk,” she said with a shrug. “Not even your mother.”