Authors: Janny Wurts
He caught her in startled embarrassment, just as Faisix stirred and raised opened eyes to his warden.
“I see I have distinguished visitors.” His honey-colored hair glanced in the light as he rose and bowed respectfully to Elienne. “My Lady, I’m glad to see you are well.”
Elienne shook off Kennaird’s hands. “It wasn’t my idea to come here.”
‘‘That’s understandable.” The expression of peace on Faisix’s features remained imperturbed. He seated himself smoothly. “They tell me you will give birth to a healthy son five months from now.” His gaze touched the green velvet that girdled her thickened waistline. “I see this is so, and wish you joy upon the occasion.”
Unsettled by his reference to the child, Elienne wanted to leave at once. Her reply came out edged with mistrust. “I won’t forget.”
“Neither will I.” Faisix returned the hostility with frank acceptance. “I felt an apology would be worse than useless, even insulting. I want no more injury between us. And I think the Prince would understand if you go without belaboring the point. I’m not proud of reminders, either.”
Elienne could not bring herself to answer. Inexplicably uneasy, she addressed the League Master who safeguarded the cell. “Gifted, I’ve seen enough.”
The Sorcerer stepped forward to restore the potency of the wards. Though he worked with unerring efliciency, Elienne had a sudden, overwhelming premonition that all was not well. She looked up, just before the sorcery flared active, and saw that Faisix watched her still. His yellow eyes scarred her like a brand. Sudden dizziness spun her vision out of focus. In the blue-white deluge of light that followed, she thought she saw Ielond against the desolate emptiness of Ceroth. Memory of his words surfaced to haunt her.
“We’re going to change history, my Lady, and send Faisix to his Damnation.”
She wanted to cry out, to warn that the man in the cell was evil and still capable of inflicting great harm. But no words came. She swayed on her feet, caught by a firm pair of hands.
The face of the Master Sorcerer wavered above her. “... strength of the wards,” he was saying. “The efiects of close proximity have disoriented her. She’ll recover quickly enough. Just take her out.”
Elienne felt herself transferred to Kennaird, who guided her stumbling steps back the way they had come. Once she was clear of the cell, the vertigo passed almost at once. Elienne caught the railing of the stair, sweat cold on her skin. “I hope his Grace is satisfied,” she said tartly to Kennaird. “I won’t repeat that experience.”
The apprentice regarded her with sympathy. “I doubt he would ask again. Are you all right?”
Elienne nodded, though her heart raced still. She climbed the stair unassisted, preoccupied by the remembered statement of Ielond’s. Her fear was justified. But not even the wisest masters in Pendaire perceived Faisix as a threat, secure as they were in the powers of their sorcery.
* * *
“Lady, the hook won’t fasten.” The maid leaned to one side, hands clutching the waistband of Elienne’s dress. “Do you want me to call the seamstress, or shall I fetch the blue skirt you wore yesterday?”
Elienne touched her swollen middle with a resigned sigh. “The blue will be fine. I don’t expect the Prince’s healers will let me ride much longer, anyway.”
“I would think the weather would stop you,” said Mirette from the window seat. “The sentries on the north gate came in complaining of frostbite.”
Elienne shrugged out of the dress that no longer fit. “It rained only yesterday.”
“
After
it snowed.” Mirette set her sewing aside and flung back the curtain. A cold draft spilled across the room from the uncovered casement. “It’s turned bitter.”
Yet not even the sight of fields leaden-gray under a mantle of new ice prevented Elienne from making her usual trip to the stable. The Horse Master greeted her with a lighted pipe, a sure sign that he had not been overseeing the saddling of her horse.
“What’s wrong?” Elienne knew a moment of apprehension. “Is Abette lame?”
The Horse Master puffed his reddened cheeks until his whiskers bristled. “She’s at her hay, and well sound. But she won’t stay so if ye go out. Ice’ll cut her legs. Best to wait. There’ll be a thaw.”
Elienne returned to her chambers, disconsolate. The healer had granted her no more than one more week of liberty, and with a freeze as deep as the one currently gripping Pendaire, a quick thaw was unlikely. She had watched Mirette amuse herself with an endless succession of sewing projects, aware such activities would do little to maintain her spirits through the weary months to come.
“You could always start on things for the baby,” Mirette suggested, and wondered afterward why Elienne requested books, her gaze fixed morosely on the ice-glazed gardens beyond the casement.
An oppressive silence lasted until Minksa burst in from the anteroom in boisterous high spirits. “Elienne!” Her skirt knocked Mirette’s thread basket, and spools bounced helter-skelter across the carpet.
“Child, will your manners never improve?” Mirette rose, watching her feet. “And that was no proper address for a Lady who might become Queen of the Realm.”
“I’m sorry.” Minksa curtsied precariously among the spools and in the same motion bent to pick them up. “Lady,” she said from her hands and knees on the rug. “The Prince has come to see you.”
Caught unprepared, Elienne left the window. She directed a suspicious glare at Mirette. “Was this your doing?” But the Lady-in-waiting’s startled expression was genuine. Why, Elienne wondered, and sat hastily in the chair farthest from the door.
A moment later, Darion entered, arms loaded with books and a small wooden chest inlaid with mother-of-pearl. He spotted Elienne by the fire and smiled. “I thought I’d find you sulking.” With the controlled grace of perfect fitness he crossed the room and deposited his burden on the side table next to her. He sat down.
Elienne shut her eyes, unwilling to respond for fear loneliness would betray her.
“Please,” she said softly. “I don’t want company.”
Darion opened the box, which contained chess pieces. “You play, don’t you?”
“I’m insufferably out of practice.” Elienne felt her palms break into sweat. He had known what loss of her daily ride had meant; his kindness besieged the integrity of her decision to remain separate, and left no avenue for graceful retreat. Tormented by desire to reach out and use what he offered, Elienne watched his hands as he laid out the board. Yet even that proved a mistake.
The beautiful, long fingers were roughened from weather, and calloused like a mercenary’s. Elienne caught her breath. Even Cinndel’s knuckles had not chapped that severely on campaign against the Khadrach.
Distressed, Elienne looked further, and saw wrists grown sinewy from long hours in the tiltyard. She understood, suddenly, what brought Darion to her chambers with chessmen. Exercise had been his outlet, also. Weather had deprived them both, and he had resolved to confront the source of his pain, perhaps to overcome it if he could.
His determination cut her. And Ielond’s diabolical thoroughness had ensured she was a fanatical devotee of chess. Conscious of failing strength, and resolved not to let the Prince guess, she fought back. “You must have better things to occupy you.”
Darion set the last piece in place with barely a pause. “I’ll take black, for having nothing better. The council chamber offers little other than glorified scrapping among old men. Your move.”
Elienne bit her lip, momentarily defeated by his charm. Intending to discourage him with dull strategy, she reached for a pawn.
Yet he caught her drift early in the game and managed to maneuver his own king into peril first. He sat back in his chair and watched her search in smothered dismay for a move that would not place him in check without sacrifice. There was none. The situation became suddenly comic. Elienne tried to choke back a grin.
“You must like stomachaches,” said Darion, red-faced himself. A moment later, he doubled helplessly over the board, scattering chess pieces like smallshot. His laughter mingled with hers.
The irresistible rapport of shared amusement sobered Elienne first. Events seemed to conspire against her, displaying always the charm, the wit, and the high spirit of the man whose destiny Ielond had joined with hers; the Sorcerer had intended the attraction. Yet poisoned by the uncertainty of her future, Elienne still held back. This discomfort was surely kinder than the grief she had known upon Cinndel’s death.
Conscious of her silence, Darion caught his breath. “We’ll play again.” He ducked beneath the table to rescue the fallen game pieces. His voice emerged, muffled. “This time, to the bitter death, with no bowing out.”
With far more at stake than a chess game, Elienne chose not to put his challenge to the test. She rose quickly, while he was occupied and disadvantaged, and retreated to the bay of casements which overlooked the sea. Leaden combers battered the shoreline, carved into spray by black rocks and the wracked debris of winter storms. A dirtied wall of snow bounded the sand above the tidemark, seaweed piled like war dead beneath.
She heard the chair creak as he straightened. Wooden counters clattered in a cascade onto maple inlay. A few rolled onto the carpet.
His booted step approached her. She stared rigidly at the horizon’s gray line, sensitized to the desolation she inflicted on the man at her back. He had stopped with his hands poised, but not touching her shoulders. His arms lowered after a moment, with a soft rustle of velvet and lawn. His ring clicked against his poniard as he hooked his thumb in his belt.
“Lady, will you forgive me?”
“What is there to forgive?” said Elienne, knowing the painful barb of her own self-reproach would strike like a whip of antagonism. The wintery landscape before her shattered, viewed through a prism of tears.
With her features open to anguish, she faced him. “There is nothing between us to forgive, your Grace.
But I find no peace in your presence.
How long, before you learn mercy and leave me alone?”
The scope of his response caught her like tide, left her dizzied with pain. Unable to speak or see, she caught the paneled wall for support. Nothing reached her except the clink of the door latch that signaled Darion’s departure. Caught by an ugly, wrenching sob, Elienne laid her cheek against the cold panes of the window and watched the beach blur and fade beyond a white cloud of condensation. She felt, inwardly, as though someone had put the candles out.
“I hate you,”
said Mirette suddenly, out of the dark.
Elienne stirred and slowly leaned her back against the wall. “I’m sorry.” The apology seemed to flounder on the stillness.
“Sorry!” Mirette rose, furious, and confronted her with loathing evident in every line of her pose. “Ma’Diere’s infinite mercy, you abuse him! He gives you the best of himself, and you fling it back in his face.”
Cornered and raw with exposed nerves, Elienne frantically sought escape. “Stop. Mirette, you don’t know. I have a reason.”
“No reason known to man would be enough to justify what you just did.” The artfully painted lines around Mirette’s eyes blurred, and tears spilled over her lashes.
Elienne watched the streaks glide down perfectly tinted cheeks. Understanding imprisoned her like a trap: Mirette’s suffering was caused by frustrated love of the Prince. The assault of yet another person’s pain was more than she could bear, with her own feelings vulnerable to exposure. Out of need for survival, she deadened her own response. “The Prince will find another woman. I won’t be jealous.”
Mirette seemed not to hear. “You’re cold as Eternity. If I were Consort to such a Prince, I’d count myself blessed.” And that suddenly pushed the situation beyond constraint.
Elienne knew white-hot anger. “Go to him, then, if that’s where your sympathies lie!”
Mirette gasped, pale beneath her rouge. She answered with vicious honesty. “I’ve tried. Once we were lovers. But since Ielond sent you, his Grace has eyes for no other. I curse that day. And I curse you for your cruelty.”
Punished into a frame where only the absurd became tolerable, Elienne laughed. Mirette’s mouth opened in shocked protest. She whirled and fled the room, leaving Elienne alone, weeping, by the window.
* * *
The morning Kennaird chose to apply for continuation of his training, sunlight through mullioned windows patterned elongated yellow diamonds across the floor of Taroith’s study. The Sorcerer sat at his desk, chin rested on laced fingers. A yellow tabby cleaned her paws by his elbow, untroubled by the concern that furrowed her master’s brow. Though the spring equinox was nearly come, the weather had not broken. Icicles still runged the eaves. Yet from the yard below his window, Taroith heard the crack of quarterstaffs interspersed with an occasional thump or shout as a blow landed. Darion was at practice, again, though the ground was still frozen iron-hard.
Taroith sighed. The cat looked up, then resumed her washing. Through the long winter he had seen the relationship between Prince and Consort progress from stiff to strained. Darion was left preoccupied and temperamental; and Elienne had withdrawn inside herself until even rice powder could not hide the imprint of the unhappiness that left circles beneath her eyes. Though the court gossiped openly, Taroith had not interfered. Now, with the Consort’s pregnancy near term, he questioned the soundness of his judgment.
Outside, a quarterstaff smacked padded leather. Someone applauded, and the Prince’s voice called challenge to another opponent. Listening, Taroith reflected grimly that Darion would be the first heir to carry bruises at a peacetime coronation. The thought spurred his concern. In bringing Elienne to Pendaire, Ielond had initiated a master plan to preserve Darion’s succession. Everywhere, Taroith had encountered evidence of the Guardian’s handiwork, not least in the instant and undeniable rapport between Consort and Prince, which, broken, was starving them both. Though he had implicit faith in Ielond’s judgment, he wondered increasingly what had gone amiss.
The wall clock chimed the hour, and Taroith frowned. Kennaird was late. The man’s haphazard habits had always been irritating. As Master of the League, he had granted the apprentice an appointment strictly out of a sense of duty.