Summers at Castle Auburn (43 page)

I shook my head. “But you have—but still—I mean,
why
did you come look for me?” Then suddenly I knew, and I felt even more dreadful than I had a moment ago. “Elisandra,” I said. “You've found out about Elisandra.”

Now he looked interested. “Is there fresh news? Last I heard, she and Roderick were safely installed in Halsing Manor, and everything seemed to be going quite well.”

I stared at him. “She and—you
knew
about Roderick? How did you learn? Did she tell you? Kent, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. I know it is you she should have wed—”

His expression was imperturbable. “I think I knew about your sister and Roderick the day after Bryan died,” he said. “When my father suggested that, now that the prince was dead, there was no need for the prince's personal guard to follow the widow from room to room and from palace to courtyard. Roderick answered, cool as you please, that Bryan had made him swear to protect Princess Elisandra should anything ever happen to him. Which you know,” Kent added, “it would never have occurred to Bryan to say. So, I knew about them then—or rather, I knew how Roderick felt about your sister. Not until Elisandra let him trail her for the next few weeks did I realize how she felt about him.”

“But you—weren't you upset? Because I know you—you were always so close to Elisandra. And last summer you asked her to marry you—”

“Which I did at your behest, as you very well know,” he answered calmly. “I was never in love with your sister. I never wanted to marry her in the first place. Even less did I want to marry her after her first husband died. Of poison. Administered at her hands.”

I stared at him for a very long time, while the sounds of the tavern faded to empty gray noise around me and the edges of my vision blurred. I felt as if I had been turned to brick, and at the same time I felt as if every nerve in my immobile body had begun jumping violently inside its sheath of skin. He was the only thing I could focus on, and I kept my eyes riveted to his face. He gazed back at me with no expression whatsoever upon his own.

“There, now. I see Corie's found an old friend,” Darbwin's wife said at this juncture, coming up unexpectedly with a tray in her hands. She placed a pitcher of cider and two mugs on the table, and laid out plates and silverware for both of us. I gave her one quick, stricken look, but she merely smiled at me. “Would you like the stew? Or the chicken pie?”

“The stew for me, thank you very much,” Kent said politely. I merely nodded. She smiled again and left.

I finally found my voice. “Why do you think Elisandra poisoned Bryan?”

“Because of what you said. Because she was the one who would profit most from his death.” He laughed soundlessly. “As to that, there are any number of us who might say the whole realm profited from his death. Bryan was a terribly flawed man. He would have made a very bad king. And a very bad husband.”

I did not answer, and Kent picked up the pitcher of cider. “Would you like a glass? I hear it's the best in the kingdom.” Without waiting for my reply, he poured for both of us and then took a long swallow. “This
is
good,” he said, glancing at the glass as if it were decorated with the secrets of its ingredients, and then taking another deep drink.

“Does she know you suspect her?” I asked finally.

He shook his head. “We never talked about it. She may not think I believed the accusation. She may not think I even know what you suspected.” He took another drink. “What I cannot figure out,” he said, “is how the poison was administered. Admittedly she sat beside him at the dinner table and perhaps she could have slipped the drug onto his plate while he did not notice. But Bryan was so
afraid of poison, I cannot see him being so careless. And Damien tasted everything Bryan ate—everything he drank—how can Bryan be dead and Damien not?”

I had asked myself these same questions so often, particularly on that interminable drive home from Castle Auburn, that it was a relief to finally be able to answer them out loud. “As for where the poison was placed,” I said, “I believe it was in the venison stew. Elisandra had a hand in making it, because Bryan wished her to prove her domesticity. Ample opportunity there to season his food with enough toxins to kill him three times over.”

“Yes, but nobody else died! Goff was sick, of course—many of us were—but she could have been looking at a massacre! Was she just counting on the fact that Bryan would eat more of that particular dish than anyone else would? That's too chancy even to be credible.”

“She was counting on him refusing to drink the water,” I said in almost inaudible tones.

“She was—” Kent stopped abruptly and frowned at me. “Bryan hasn't drunk the castle water for four or five years.”

I nodded. “So, that is where she mixed the antidote. It has no color or flavor. She could have poured gallons of ginyese into the water barrels and none of us would have known.”

“Yes. I see. Of course. Many people ate the poison, but only one did not also take the antidote. Very clever.” He shook his head. “Very chancy still. Very—” He shook his head again. “It takes a woman with an absolutely iron will to accomplish a task as desperate as that.”

“I could not do it,” I said.

“I am glad to hear it,” he said. “Nor could I.” We both sipped at our cider a moment, mulling things over. “But still,” he said. “How did she obtain the poison? How did she learn about the antidotes? That was the reason I stayed silent, you know.”

“What was?” I asked, totally bewildered.

He pointed at me across the table. “Who at that castle knew more about herbs and elixirs than you? If the word ‘poison' was to be bandied about, you would have been the first one to be suspected.
I was glad my father banished you so quickly. I wanted you safely away.”

I smiled faintly at that. “I'm afraid she learned of the poison from me, though I never guessed that she would use the knowledge in such a way,” I said. “One night I was describing for her all the contents of my satchel, and halen root was one of the herbs we discussed. It's a poison, though it has many other uses. I'm sure I mentioned that it could be bought in any apothecary's shop in Faelyn Market.”

He was frowning. “She spent some time in Faelyn Market—”

“I know. A few weeks before her wedding. She told me in a letter how she shopped for days on end. I just did not realize what she was picking up at the bazaars.”

“Does she know that you suspect her?” he asked.

“I haven't said so,” I replied. “I doubt if I ever will.”

He nodded. “So, you see,” he said in a conversational tone of voice, “why I was not eager to marry your sister. I did not want to be poisoned on my wedding night. Or, indeed, at any time.”

I forced myself to smile. “And yet the king must marry.”

“And traditionally he has taken his bride from the house of Halsing.”

I just looked at him.

“You,” he added, “are the only marriageable daughter of the house of Halsing that I can think of.”

I continued to stare.

“So, I have come here today to ask you to be my wife.”

I watched him another long moment in silence. He did not seem particularly uncomfortable under my searching gaze. He did not fidget or look away; he did not even seem nervous. He gazed back at me, his own expression serious and considering, and waited for my answer.

“That's not a good enough reason,” I said finally.

A slight smile softened his face. “What, tradition? No, I suppose you're right. For you it is not.”

“It is not good enough for you, either,” I said. “I'm baseborn. That's hardly a traditional match for the king.”

“Yes, and there will be a certain consternation when I ride back to the castle to announce our betrothal,” he said, as if I had actually accepted him. “My father will—”

“Your father!” I exclaimed, because, for a minute, I had forgotten Lord Matthew. “He has banned me from the court for life!”

Kent was grinning. “Yes, that's why I waited till after my coronation to propose to you. Now that I am king, I can reinstate anyone I choose. I can order my father to welcome you, and he will have to do so.”

I smiled somewhat bitterly. “Your father would never welcome me at the court. And I have no desire to return there. Do you think I miss it? Do you think I long for its pomp and pageantry—its intrigues? I don't. Never. Not a single day. I am happy here.”

He was studying me much as I had studied him earlier. “That is not the right reason to refuse me any more than tradition is the right reason for me to propose,” he said slowly. “I was the prince's heir—I have lived my whole life under the shadow of politics. I have seen every friendship, every marriage, every alliance of any kind forged because of expediency. I had assumed that my own life would be bounded by such considerations. I could make my father happy by marrying Megan of Tregonia tomorrow—or Liza of Veledore, whom he also favors.

“But I am king,” he said, even more slowly. “And the well-being of my kingdom depends on my sound judgment and clear head. And those things depend on my state of happiness. And I have known for a long time that my state of happiness depends on you.”

He leaned forward across the table, suddenly urgent and intense. “I was a man long before I was king, and I fell in love with you,” he said. “If I was a farmer in Cotteswold, I would want you beside me to help me run the business and raise the children and get the livestock ready to ship to Faelyn Market. I would want you beside me because I love you and my life would be so much harder without you in it. Now that I am king, I want you beside me to help me outmaneuver my viceroys and sit in on judgments and debate declarations of war. I admit, the job is harder. But it is essentially the same job. To live with a man and share his life with him and
love him and have him love you back. You do not decide first if you want to live in a village or a court. You decide if that is the man you want to live with, and then you say yes or no.”

“Yes,” I said, and then looked around to see who had spoken.

Kent sat back, grinning broadly. “Excellent! I will meet your grandmother this afternoon, and we can start back for Auburn tomorrow.”

“Wait,” I said.

“We can wait a few days,” he said agreeably. “I'm sure you have affairs to tie up here and people to say goodbye to—”

“No—I meant—wait. I have not thought about this long enough—”

He tilted his head to one side. “You mean, you are not sure you wish to marry me.”

“I mean, I have not thought of it before now! It did not occur to me as a possibility! You have been plotting for a year, but I was here in the village, getting accustomed to a quiet life—”

“Do you love me?” he asked.

I fell silent.

“For the rest of it is glitter and noise,” he said. “At the heart of it all is love. You make that choice, and you go forward from there.”

I thought of the complex, wicked, brilliant life at court, and wondered if it could really be that simple. I had been happy here for the past year—content, surrounded by friends, touched by few worries. But half of my heart had still been elsewhere. I had lived for the letters from Elisandra, from Angela, telling me stories of the world I had left behind. If Matthew had lifted his ban, I would gladly have returned as the visitor I had once been. Or would I? I had defied Matthew's machinations before. I did not want to fall victim to them again.

I had no particular desire to be queen. It had not ever occurred to me that it was a role that would come my way. Whatever Kent said, it was not a part that could be separated from the one he offered me—I could not simply be his wife. He was not merely a peasant farmer, counting his bushels of grain and heads of cattle. His life was far more complicated.

But if he were that farmer? Would I marry him, then? Oh, yes, in a heartbeat. To see that kind, serious face every day of my life; to rely on his sweet temper, good heart, and deep sense of responsibility; to have him watch me, attentive and hopeful as he was now, and know I had the power to make his face light with happiness. That was a life I would accept any minute, any day. I could find someone else to love, and he could find someone else to be queen, but those would be second choices. Those would never be as good as the world could hold.

“I do love you,” I said at last.

“And will you marry me?”

“I will.”

 

Y
OU CANNOT IMAGINE
the uproar that followed in the next few hours. Elisandra's wedding had nothing on it for sheer excitement and incredulity. For the
king
had come to our village to sweep away one of the tavern maids and make her queen. There was simply nothing that could compare to that story. The feasting and congratulations went on all night. I swear every single soul who lived within the village came by at some point to touch my hand and bow to the king. Darbwin could not have been happier if it were solstice all over again. Even the fact that I had worked my last shift did not seem to perturb him, though he insisted on paying me my last set of wages late that evening, while his wife was next door fixing up the best room and the farmers were still buying the king another round.