The Element of Fire (38 page)

"Then they know the Alsene troop is here." Dontane's sharp features were fearful.

"I would imagine so, yes."

Dontane strode for the door, gesturing for the Alsene trooper to follow him. Denzil watched him go, perhaps knowing as Grandier did that Dontane would take this opportunity to order the Alsene troops and officers, using the Duke's authority. Denzil was in no position to object; his blond hair was soaked with sweat, and he was biting his lips until blood came from the effort to not cry out.

And bleeding like a slaughtered pig on good furniture,
Grandier thought. After the poverty of his early life in Bisra, the abundance of first Lodun and then Vienne and the palace had astonished him. Ile-Rien had little understanding of its own wealth, of how valuable was the flow of goods from the foreign vessels flocking to its trading ports, of the surfeit of arable land that allowed any peasant with enough coins in his pocket to own it. Of how this wealth would affect those who did not possess it. His voice dry, he told the kneeling page, "You may go. This won't take long, and he can do without the necessity of adoration for a short while."

The boy was too afraid of Grandier to argue. He left without protest but with several longing backward glances. Denzil took a breath, brow furrowed with exertion, and whispered, "Jealous, sorcerer?"

It did not surprise Grandier that the Duke would make the effort to say something vicious despite his agony. Grandier examined the large wound in Denzil's shoulder where the pistol ball had penetrated and frowned at the visible bone splinters. "Oh, yes, terribly," he answered. "It affects my judgment, you see." He turned back to the apothecary box to select the necessary powders. Dontane had been the messenger in the forging of the alliance between Grandier and the Duke of Alsene in Ile-Rien, and that alliance had never been anything but uneasy. And Grandier did not like the accord he saw at times now between Dontane and Denzil.

"Your affectation of superiority is amusing." Denzil gasped, closed his eyes briefly, then continued, "I hardly think you can take the high moral ground in this situation."

"I, at least, am not a traitor. My homeland turned against me long before I returned the sentiment." Grandier came back to Denzil's side. On the panel supporting the daybed's canopy was a painted scene of nymphs, satyrs, and human shepherds enjoying each other's company in several ways that would have been displeasing to the Bisran Church. The casual displays of sensuality and the acceptance of it in Ile-Rien had also been a surprise. Like the acceptance of sorcery. Grandier had heard about it, about the university at Lodun, but he had not really credited the rumors until he had seen the reality.
I wish I had come here as a young man,
he thought.
So much might have been different.

"And what excuse do you make for your betrayal?"

"Attempting to excuse the inexcusable is always a mistake," Grandier said. "Why not simply admit that greed overwhelms loyalty, affection, and common sense."

"I have no affection or loyalty for Roland," Denzil said, voice grating with pain. "He serves my purpose."

"I wasn't speaking about you," Grandier said. Denzil might have grown to hate the young King because of the power Roland held over him, even though as Denzil's friend and patron Roland had never exercised that power. Grandier understood this all too well. He knew the danger of allowing any individual, any state, any force of whatever kind, to hold one in its power, to control one's actions. "This is going to hurt, but I can't think why you should mind. You seem to enjoy the pain of others."

Denzil's chuckle was weak, but it held real amusement. "You mean that as a taunt, but even you would be shocked at how accurate your assessment is."

For an instant, Grandier hesitated. He knew Denzil to be a smiling killer, as excellent an actor as the hags who lured children to their deaths with their own mothers' voices. No, that was not quite the analogy he was searching for.
He is not a monster,
Grandier thought,
but forces beyond his control have warped him past reason. Even as they have me.
"Perhaps I would," he said, actually enjoying Denzil's presence for the first time in their short acquaintance. "We are both in good company."

"ROLAND, I WANT you to come with me." Ravenna stood in the doorway, her look of determination as grim as the faces of the Queen's guards accompanying her.

Her son looked up at her nervously. He sat in an armchair holding a small lapdesk, though the paper on it was still blank. The room would have been light and airy in the summer, but now the wooden winter shutters covered the large windows and the fire in the hearth could not dispel the cold. There was no one with him but his personal servants; Ravenna had made sure she would not have to do this under the eyes of any courtiers or hangers-on.

Roland turned the pen over in his hands and got ink on his fingers. "Why?"

She said, "I have something to show you."

Roland stood reluctantly. "Has something happened?"

Ravenna knew he wasn't interested in anything besides news of Denzil's whereabouts and that he would realize she would not be the one to bring such news to him. "Take your cloak; we'll be going out on the wall."

Immediately an impassive servant brought a thick fur-trimmed cloak from the bedchamber. Roland stood still for the man to arrange it around his shoulders. "Where's Renier?"

"Downstairs, attending to the guard placements."

"Oh." He followed her through the other rooms in the suite and out to a landing on the grand stairwell. Ravenna could tell Roland was uneasy, even though the four knights guarding the door to his chamber followed them and she was accompanied by her gentlewoman Elaine.

They went up the stairs to a lesser-used floor, then waited as one of the Queen's guards unbolted a door and forced it open against the wind's pressure. They walked out onto the wall, which was sheltered by a shoulder-high parapet, and the wind tore through the crenellations like a mad creature.

Ravenna and Elaine each held onto a guard's arm to steady themselves, and Roland forced himself to walk along unaided. Ravenna held her head down and tried to breathe the shockingly cold air, knowing she would pay for this ordeal later with coughing fits. In the face of everything else, it was a minor consideration.

The sun was making a brief appearance, though dark clouds were visibly building up in the distance. To the north, if one could have forced oneself close enough to the parapet to take in the view, were several miles of snow-covered fields and then the rise of the city, like a man-fashioned mountain range. The wind had torn away much of the haze of wood and coal smoke that normally hung over it, and the snow made it appear pristine and empty. The other side of the wall looked down on the inner court, where Denzil had hosted gatherings in the summer and displayed the little fortress's wealth and elegance. When they had arrived yesterday, they had found the usual garrison depleted, and the steward had said that the Duke of Alsene had ordered most of his men to one of his other estates to quell some tenant problems over taxes some weeks ago. Messengers had been sent on to the Granges, a day's ride to the south, to General Villon.

Ravenna wondered if Thomas was alive.

There was no other man she had ever felt closer to, or who had actually understood how her mind worked without condemning her for it. When he had first been accepted into the Queen's Guard it had not been his political astuteness or his wit that had attracted her, though from the occasional flashes of ironic humor she had witnessed, she had suspected that he might possess those qualities. No, most of that she had discovered later, and that discovery had added more meaning to what had been one of the most pleasurable times of her life.

You're getting old, my dear,
Ravenna told herself. Old and frail and helpless. It was the constant underground war of intrigue that had beaten her down. She and Thomas had once found such subtle battles exhilarating, but now... Palace power struggles had always been intense, but since Roland's maturity, the battles had escalated into full-scale wars with no clear victors. Denzil had much to do with it, but it was also that the wolves sensed Roland's weakness. And her options to remedy that were severely limited.

She forced her mind back to the present. Grandier had rendered the court's tenuous balance of power a matter for future academics to consider. If Thomas was alive, he would come to her when he could. If he wasn't... That would be for her to face alone.

They were heading toward the old keep, a rough square tower more than seven stories high. It had been the center of the fortress before the bastionbehind them had been built.

They reached the door into the side of the tower, and two of Ravenna's guards split off to post themselves at it. The others went inside, and Ravenna shivered gratefully. The keep felt warm after the wind. A guard stopped to light a candlelamp with flint and steel, and Ravenna saw that the Albon knights were standing stiffly together as if anticipating an attack they could do nothing to prevent. Roland saw it too and said, "What are we doing here, mother?"

Ravenna didn't answer immediately. She started up the stairs, the guard with the lamp going on ahead, and there was only room for Roland to walk beside her. Finally she said, "I've made allowances for you, where Denzil is concerned."

She could see he was slightly shocked that she brought this up in the presence of her guards, let alone Elaine. In an effort to outdo her effrontery, he said, "Allowances? You've been trying to turn me against him with lies for years."

Ravenna stopped and looked at her son for a moment. As always, it hurt that he found her eyes hard to meet. She said, "My dear child, I didn't think you had noticed."

Roland stared at her. "You admit it?"

"Of course. Recent developments have made it possible."

She continued on up the stairs, and Roland followed her, bewildered. He said, "I don't understand."

"That man has made a fool of you."

"He has been my only friend--"

"He has used you to accumulate power and wealth beyond his reach under ordinary circumstances."

"He's been the only one who cared for me; I gave him all those things--"

"Of course you gave it all to him, Roland; that's the way these people work."

Ravenna stopped on a landing and faced him. Roland was out of breath and must have forgotten that he was King and able to order her to be silent, if he could enforce it. He said, "You certainly never showed me any affection. You never gave a damn for me."

"Perhaps you are right," Ravenna said. "You look too much like your father, and God knows I never gave a damn for him." She took a key out of her sleeve and handed it to a guard, who unlocked the door and pushed it open.

"Go in there," Ravenna said.

Roland didn't move. He was trembling, and his eyes were dark with hatred.
He isn't stupid,
Ravenna thought;
he must know his cousin's protestations of eternal love are not sincere. But perhaps he thinks he can earn his respect by doing everything Denzil asks.
It made her feel sick at heart, though her expression betrayed nothing.
The world doesn't work in that fashion, and Denzil is not interested in respecting you, my foolish son.
The guard with the lamp stepped into the room but stayed close by the wall. After a moment Roland went through the doorway.

Inside was a large shadowy room, dark wood a rough veneer over the stone walls. The back half was filled with wine barrels and other boxes stacked to the high ceiling. "You wanted to show me this?"

"Why would anyone store wine here, Roland, away from the livable portions of the fortress, high up where the air is so very dry, in a place more fit for the storing of other things?" Ravenna nodded to one of her guards. "Open one."

He went forward and carefully knocked out the bunghole in a barrel at the bottom of a stack. Something dark flowed out. Roland started toward it, stopped when the odor reached him, but still went to kneel and touch the dark granular substance. "It's powder," he whispered.

Ravenna said, "The four floors above us are as well stocked as this one. The supply does not quite rival the city armory, but I'm told that it approaches it. More than enough to stage a palace coup."

Roland lifted his head, saw the pity on the face of the guard who had opened the barrel, then looked back at Ravenna. She knew her expression showed only weariness. She folded her arms. "Surely you are not going to say we brought it with us."

He shook his head mutely. He stood and walked the length of the row. The lid had already been pried off one of the long boxes, and he lifted the coarse wood to see matchlock muskets packed in heavy cloth.

Ravenna said, "There is another store of powder and shot, a small one, enough to supply the garrison for a few months, set where it should be near the gate. There is only one reason for all this."

Roland began to tremble. "He will have an explanation."

"Undoubtedly."

"I'm going back now." He strode past her and down the stairs.

His knights came to his side, Ravenna's party following. They reached the landing where the door led out onto the parapet, and Roland stopped, waiting. Ravenna reached him and regarded him quietly for a moment, then nodded for one of her guards to open the door.