Traitor's Masque (19 page)

Though Trystan had, inevitably, a few misgivings, she could not help but look forward to her sojourn at any place which did not also contain her family. For the first time in six years she was free of her stepmother’s judgments and complaints and she was determined to enjoy it.

Lady Westerby, however, had other ideas. No sooner had Trystan’s things been settled in a guest room than she was summoned to the drawing room to begin her education.

Trystan had admitted to Lady Isaura that her knowledge of society and her experience in navigating it were both rather lacking. While she had enjoyed the benefit of the usual education available to gently born young ladies, her execution had, demonstrably, lacked application. Lady Isaura seemed determined to make up for Trystan’s lack of experience in a bare five days.

“Please, sit down my dear,” she said to Trystan, when they were both finally seated in the drawing room. “We have very little time to prepare for the masque, so we must make what we can of it. As you may have guessed, I have established a name and an identity for you, and made arrangements for my ‘cousin’ to receive an invitation to the masque. It is imperative that your attendance seem entirely natural.”

Trystan was surprised. She had not expected that such elaborate preparations would be required, and said so.

“Trystan, we live in a very small kingdom.” Lady Isaura spoke in a tone of reprimand. “If you expected to appear as a mystery girl and leave without being identified then you have been reading too many stories. Should you arrive at the masque without a name and a reason for attending, there are fifty people who will make it their business to find out why, and you do not, believe me, want that kind of scrutiny.”

Trystan could see the wisdom in that.

“Your name,” Lady Isaura continued, “is now Elaine Westover, and you are my late husband’s very distant relation from the northern borderlands.”

“Is there such a person?” Trystan asked curiously.

Lady Isaura laughed. “Not likely,” she answered with a shrug, “though I suppose I cannot be sure. Osric did have a great-uncle who moved his family out there many years ago. I will vouch for your identity and your bloodlines, and plan to spread a great deal of gossip about the reasons for your visit with those women I know I can rely on to spread the story rapidly.” She smiled slyly at Trystan. “You should know that you are here because your parents betrothed you while still a child to a suitable young man who recently ran away to sea rather than marry you. I judged it best to work with what we have rather than attempt to confine your naturally vibrant personality.”

Trystan raised an eyebrow at her potential benefactress.

“I am a realist, Trystan, and you should learn to be. You are a very direct young woman, and while I cannot fully appreciate your ungoverned style, I feel we may be able to use it to our advantage in this case.”

Trystan held her tongue. She knew only too well that her temper was not as fully under rein as it should be, but was not sure she appreciated the aspersions on her “style.” She could hardly have survived her past three years had she not learned to govern herself to a point, and if by “governed” Lady Isaura meant the insipid manner affected by Anya and Darya’s friends, then Trystan would prefer to be herself, thank you. And as for her fictional fiancé, she would like him to know that at least one young man had not seemed to mind her straightforward ways. But she was, of course, not going to think about that. Or him. So she focused intently on Lady Isaura’s continuing instructions.

“Your parents are, of course, dead—your father only a short time ago—but prior to his passing your father made a small fortune from his lumber mill. Large enough to be eligible, but too small to attract significant notice. You have no siblings, so you expect to make at least a decent match on the strength of your inheritance. Your father wanted you to marry someone closer to home, so your future husband could assume responsibility for the mill, but you are determined to get away and enjoy your freedom, taste the delights of the court. You are considering selling out of the family business if you find you prefer the city. Are you getting all this?” Lady Isaura asked, with a sharp glance at Trystan, whose eyes had begun to glaze over just a bit.

“Yes, of course,” she answered brightly, not really understanding why she needed quite so much backstory. When her fictional history had been sufficiently explored, Lady Isaura began to tell her exhaustively of the influential families whose acquaintance she would naturally be expected to make as a young noblewoman on her first visit to court.

By dinnertime, Trystan’s head was stuffed and aching with the names and relationships and rivalries that most other young women had been drilled in since birth as a matter of etiquette. Even the minor detail of having never been to Evenleigh before would not excuse her from the necessity of being conversant with social politics.

After dinner, they repaired again to the drawing room to discuss Trystan’s repertoire of dances, a slender thing indeed, for the remedy of which Lady Isaura had hired a very discreet dancing master who would arrive the next day. She had also arranged for her own modiste to see to Trystan’s costume for the masque, a necessity considering the need for secrecy. Trystan retired that evening with a pounding headache and the beginnings of misgivings about her role in this charade.

The following days proved too full for her to dwell on any possible feelings of regret. She needed to practice speaking with the more clipped accents common in the northern part of the kingdom. Then there were the dancing lessons, instructions on etiquette, tests of her memory for names and relationships, and more than a few little sermons on the importance of secrecy and the implications of both success and failure. These, Trystan largely ignored. She could not really imagine failing to retrieve a message. Her goal was the freedom to choose her own life, not the alteration of the political and economic destiny of a kingdom, as Lady Isaura so eloquently rendered the aims of her interference. The sentiments were stirring, and no doubt noble, but not really of much concern to her protégée.

The day before the auspicious event, Trystan’s costume was unveiled, a beautiful mahogany silk gown, embroidered in gold with climbing vines. Trystan’s masque had been made using the same silk, cut in a butterfly pattern. Though her mouth was left bare, the fabric covered most of her face, allaying most of her concerns about being recognized. The rest were easily dismissed when Lady Isaura explained the dark brown dye that would be disguising Trystan’s decidedly reddish locks. Even Anya and Darya, Trystan thought with satisfaction, would stand little chance of finding their despised stepsister under all of her finery.

That same day, Lady Isaura summoned Trystan to discuss yet another point of concern: the application for Prince Ramsey’s hand.

“We have still received no clarification on that point, which is just like the man I must say. So I cannot really advise you on how to handle the process once we arrive.”

Trystan frowned. “I assume it would be preferable for me to at least participate in whatever it is. For a provincial girl with aspirations, it would seem very odd to refuse a chance at marriage to the man who might be king.”

Lady Isaura nodded her agreement. “Of course. You would not want to seem backward, and it would certainly do us no harm for you to be seen conversing with Prince Ramsey. He has no opinions that matter, but if he can be seen to approve of you then you will likely be free from suspicions of involvement in anything untoward.”

Trystan politely expressed her disbelief in this possibility. “I very much doubt the prince will have opportunity to make small talk with every woman in the room, and I am certainly not interested in putting myself forward. Would it not be more to the point for me to pass unnoticed?”

Lady Isaura did not seem to appreciate Trystan’s reasoning. “Your success is dependent upon your ability to fill your role as naturally as possible,” she rejoined sternly. “There is not a young noblewoman in the kingdom who would fail to pursue the notice of the man intended to wear the crown. I suggest you spend less time arguing and more time studying.”

But Trystan was not yet ready to capitulate. “I really don’t see…” she began, only to be firmly interrupted.

“What you don’t see, Miss Trystan, is precisely the point,” Lady Isaura said coldly. “If given the chance, you
will
cultivate a conversation with the prince, if only to make everyone else wonder what he sees in you. If you wish to be successful in your task then I suggest you allow yourself to be guided by those with a keener understanding of exactly what is at stake. As you have no political knowledge or ambitions of your own, your success, and indeed I may say your future, depend on your willingness to submit to those wiser than yourself. Your responsibility is to do as you are told, not to have opinions. I trust there will be no need to remind you of this in the future?”

Trystan agreed, in humbled accents, but not without feeling a bit of a chill. It had finally occurred to her that she was but a minor player in a game that was deadly serious, for reasons that were still a mystery. Why would Lady Isaura and her friends care so very much who was to be king? Her sisters cared, but that had more to do with the princes’ physical attributes than their political policies. Despite her desperate desire to gain her freedom, Trystan was beginning to feel uneasy about her position. She knew what was in it for her. Was it time to ask these shadowy “others” what was in it for them?

The day of the masque dawned warm and cheerful, much to Prince Ramsey’s private dismay, as he was feeling neither. He attempted to see to his usual duties, only to be driven off with cheers and mocking commentary to prepare himself for the upcoming ordeal. He would much rather have kept busy.

Just after mid-day, while he was in the training yard attempting to thrash a grinning Kyril, his father sent for him. Ramsey aimed one last kick at Kyril’s unrepentant backside, wiped the sweat from his face and went to his father’s rooms.

He wasn’t looking forward to it. He loved his father deeply, but knew he was about to hear a sermon on the duties of a son of the royal house. What kind of woman he was supposed to marry, what kind of dowry she needed to have, how short of an engagement was necessary, what would be expected of him after the wedding… He was not at all in the mood to hear his father tell him about his duty to produce sons.

When Ramsey arrived at his father’s apartments, King Hollin was standing by the window, leaning heavily on a cane and looking unusually pensive. His gout had been even worse than usual of late, and, since winter, he had granted fewer audiences than ever.

“Father?” Ramsey asked tentatively. “You asked to see me?”

For a few moments the king did not turn, but continued to stare at the landscape as though he had not heard. Ramsey knew he had. His father was gouty and grouchy and probably rheumatic, but not even slightly deaf.

“I am sorry, you know,” the king said without preamble. “I know that you know, but I needed to say it before tonight.”

“Sorry, Father? For the idiotic mobs of people throwing tantrums, for choosing me over my brother, or for all the fools too blind to see through him? They’re all an equal part of this insanity and none of them are really your fault.”

Ramsey’s tone was weary rather than sharp. Whatever he believed about the economic unrest that was forcing his hand, he mostly agreed with his father’s policies that had sparked them. This was about so much more than his future or his children. If he had to marry to stop the kingdom from falling into violence then he would do it, and try his damnedest to ensure that it was a palatable arrangement for him and his future wife.

But that did not stop him from wishing he could beat some sense into the many parties responsible for his misery. If the guilds would stop whining and stirring up discord, if his brother were a decent human being… Of course, all of it would be easier to accept
if
Ramsey could discover the existence of a suitable young woman who would not make his domestic life miserable. But, if, in the course of twenty-five years, he had yet to meet even one acceptable female who inspired him to the smallest speculation of compatibility, it would take a special kind of insanity to believe that he could find one in a single night at a masqued ball.

“I loved your mother,” the king said without preamble.

Ramsey had been told, though not by his father, that his parents’ marriage had been a happy one, but his mother had died so long ago that he had little memory of it.

“We knew each other for years before we married,” King Hollin continued. “I once beheaded one of her dolls and she filled my bed with spiders in retaliation. She knew I couldn’t stand them.” A small smile twisted the king’s lips as he continued to stare out the window. “I think even while I was busy screaming my head off, I knew she was the one I wanted.” A short, strangled laugh. “She told me on our wedding night that she had been dreading our marriage for most of her life. But she said it with a smile, and I believe she loved our life together as much as I did.” Finally, the king turned and faced his son, tears burning trails down his cheeks and soaking his beard.