Ashes of Roses (Tales of the Latter Kingdoms Book 4) (11 page)

I could not help but think that my way of selecting an Empress for Sirlende was a fairer one.

“At any rate,” Lyarris continued, “Mother will bluster and say horrible, spiteful things, for that is what she does, but she cannot stop you from choosing Ashara Millende, if that is your will. The girl seems lovely to me, and well-spoken, and if her family is not grand, still they are of gentle birth, which is all that matters.”

Her words calmed me somewhat, although my mother’s reaction still rankled. Perhaps someday I would learn to stop seeking her approval. In the meantime, I wished to turn the conversation to happier topics. “And what of you? I did not see Lord Sorthannic at the dinner this evening.”

She lifted her shoulders, attempting to be casual, but I saw the disappointment in her face. “He is not much of one for gatherings such as this, and so he sent his regrets through Lord Senric, but said he would come to the hunt tomorrow.”

“Which does you little good, seeing as you are not riding out with the rest of us.” My sister, though a good rider, did not care for the bloodthirsty nature of hunting, and so rarely set forth on such outings.

“No, but I will be at the reception afterward with everyone else, and I am sure Lord Sorthannic will attend that, as it would be seen as rude for him not to.”

This seemed sensible enough. Besides, it would be far easier to carry on a conversation of any import at the reception after the hunt, rather than while pounding away on horseback in search of an elusive quarry. What that observation boded for any interactions between Ashara and myself, I was not sure, although I vowed that I would find some way to get her alone, to slip away from the endless burden of servants and guards and advisors who seemed to dog me everywhere I went.

I said, “Well, then, you must make sure to corner him as soon as you can, for I fear that as soon as more of the young women become aware that my heart is already settled on Ashara Millende, they will seek to transfer their attentions to some other nobleman, as the Lady Gabrinne has already done.”

Rather than take offense at this remark, my sister merely raised an eyebrow and smiled a little. “Do you have so little faith in me that you think I cannot keep Lord Sorthannic’s interest when confronted by a pack of rivals?”

“Of course not…you know I was only teasing you.” I drained the last of my port and went to refill the glass — that is, fill it partway, for I saw Lyarris watching my actions, and knew she would take me to task if she thought I was overindulging. The gods only knew that a blissful drunk might be just the thing to erase this latest confrontation with my mother from my mind, but nursing a hangover during the hunt the next day did not appeal much, either. So I set the decanter back on the table and allowed myself only a measured sip.

My sister was watching me carefully, brows drawn together as if in thought. “If you truly have settled on this young woman as your choice, then why bother to go through with the next three events? Surely it is not precisely fair to keep up the hopes of all the other candidates if you have no intention of marrying any of them.”

Would that it were that simple
. “And neither would it be fair, I suppose, to cancel things so suddenly, and to disrupt the plans of everyone who had thought to stay here through the end of the week, or — as you pointed out before — paid for gowns for the events being held on those days. Also, I believe Lord Hein would have a heart spasm if I were to call a halt to the proceedings at this stage, not when he has already ordered the food and the decorations and hired the musicians and so forth. No, we will have to play this charade through to the end. Anyone with two eyes to see will know that I have made my choice, but I will make no announcement until the ball on Friday.”

Lyarris gave a reluctant nod. “I suppose that does make sense, even though some part of me wishes you did not have to do such a thing.”

“Ah, well, it will not be a complete burden, as I will try my best during the next three days to spend as much time with Ashara as possible. Besides, if I were to send everyone home now, that would include Lord Sorthannic, and I most certainly don’t want to deprive you of his company.”

“How altruistic of you.”

But her tone was amused, rather than irritated, and so I knew she was not put off by my statement. No, it would not be fair to her — or to the Lady Gabrinne, with her pursuit of Lord Senric — to call a halt to things prematurely. Chafe at the delay I might — or rather would — but after all, three days was not so long when measured against the lifetime I envisioned with Ashara once the events planned this week had run their course.

I did know that, whatever else happened, Ashara Millende was destined to be my wife.

A
shara

O
h
, gods, what had I been thinking? What demon had possessed my tongue, made me tell the Emperor all those lies? Truly, I did not know what my aunt had planned for the hunt tomorrow; as far as I knew, she might be thinking that I would wish to sit out the ride itself and only attend the reception, as quite a few of the young ladies apparently planned to do. But to say to the Emperor that he would have to work to keep up with me, that I was nearly his equal in the saddle?

Once upon a time I had been an excellent rider. It was true that my father had me on the back of a horse before I could barely walk, and there was no corner of our estate I had not explored — and many beyond its borders I had traveled as well, since I learned to jump low walls and hedges before I was barely six years old. But I had not ridden a horse in nearly ten years. Perhaps my muscles would remember skills that my mind could not. I would have to hope for the best.

If, of course, Aunt Therissa even provided me with a mount. We did not have a chance to speak when I returned after the dinner at the palace, for Janks was already in his room adjoining the stable, and my aunt and I hurriedly exchanged places in the shadows around a corner of the building, afraid to even speak a word lest he overhear us and come to investigate. Afterward I scuttled up the back steps into the kitchen as quickly as I could, heart pounding, sure someone would discover me coming back inside. Luck was with me that much, though, for Claris was in the pantry, taking stock of her supplies for the meals the next day, and I went to the half-washed dishes and set to as if I had been standing there all along.

Even though I had not been caught, sleep did not come to me easily that night. Part of it was worry for what the next day might bring, of course, fear that either my aunt could not locate a horse, or, possibly worse, that she would find a way to provide me with a mount, and then I would have to hope and pray I recalled enough to ride it without giving away the fact that I had not been on horseback for nearly a decade.

Beyond that, though, I could not keep my mind from turning over and over again the words the Emperor and I had exchanged, the warmth in his dark eyes as he looked at me, the rich velvety timbre of his voice. Everything about him seemed designed specifically to set my heart racing, my blood somehow running hotter in my veins. No, I could no longer deny that he had taken a particular interest in me, not with the way he had singled me out, given me the place of honor directly across from him at the high table.

“You may even be the Empress before I’m a duchess, if the way His Majesty looks at you is any indication,” Gabrinne had whispered to me before we parted ways for the evening. At the time I had demurred, shaking my head, but inwardly, in some deep, secret place in my soul I barely wanted to acknowledge, I knew she was right.

Why the Emperor had singled me out from all those other young women, I could not say. Could this be another, subtler spell, even though my aunt had denied that her magic could be put to such a use? I wanted to say no, that of course she had been truthful with me, but I barely knew her. I knew nothing of her, save that she had expressed a desire to help me, as the daughter of her long-dead sister.

Very fine motives…if they were her only motives. Perhaps she was only one member of a secret group of magic-users, someone who put herself forward to help me so that she and her fellows might have access to the Emperor for their own nefarious reasons.

No, surely that was only a dark fancy spun from my own tortured thoughts. After all, even if there were such a group, surely they could have found a far more likely candidate than I, a girl who had spent the last ten years of her life washing dishes and sweeping and fetching and carrying for her termagant of a stepmother.

And so my mind played with me, until at last I fell into an uneasy slumber, fretting even then over what the next day might hold. My sleep was filled with nightmares of riding a horse with eyes of fire, a dark stallion that carried me forward over a precipice until I was falling, falling, with no hope of rescue. I slipped into darkness, and it swallowed me whole.

W
ould
that I could say the next day was an improvement, but it certainly did not start out that way. I brought breakfast to my stepmother and stepsisters in the dining room, with a misty golden morning sun pouring in through the tall window on the east side of the house. Naturally she was grilling them as to the goings-on at the palace the night before, and neither of them looked particularly pleased by the news they had to impart.

“Oh, la, the Emperor is very handsome,” said Jenaris as she spread a piece of toast thickly with butter and quince jam. “But he pays no attention to any of us.”

“I don’t think she’s even that pretty,” Shelynne added with a scowl. She broke a piece of bacon in half and ate one section. “Oh, yes, so she has that red hair, but what of that? She looks like a skinny scared rabbit.”

I tensed, but somehow managed to keep my hand from shaking as I poured more tea into my stepmother’s cup. The fragrant steam curled upward, and I found myself wishing I might have some as well, to steady my nerves. But tea was far too expensive to be wasted on the likes of me.

“Red hair?” my stepmother said in sharp tones. Her dark gaze flicked toward me for a second, but then she seemed to relax slightly, as if realizing that I had been here all last night, so of course I couldn’t possibly have attended the dinner at the palace. “And who is this girl?”

“No one knows,” Jenaris replied with a shrug, helping herself to the last of the bacon on the platter. “I think someone said her name was…Aislinn? Sharanne? Something like that.”

“Well, which is it?” my stepmother demanded. “Those two names sound nothing alike.”

Jenaris mumbled something around a mouthful of bacon, and her mother let out an exasperated breath and turned on Shelynne. “And I suppose you know nothing as well.”

A lift of the shoulders. “How could I, Mamma? I sat next to Jenaris the whole night, so I heard the same things she did. Anyway, what does it matter who this girl is? All that matters is that she isn’t either of us.”

For Shelynne, this was actually some remarkably clear-headed thinking. Indeed, what did it matter who the Emperor had apparently chosen, if it was not you?

All the same, I found my throat and stomach tight with dread. Oh, how I wished I had given the Emperor a false name, although which one I could have chosen, I had no idea. My knowledge of the nobility was scanty at best, so I could not have come up with something plausible, some distant relation of a well-known family. Such a subterfuge would have been easily discovered, and discredited.

“You are both being remarkably silly,” my stepmother snapped. “Acting as if the race has already been won, when there are still three days ahead of you in which you might catch the Emperor’s eye! And you should do what you can to find out more about this girl, for it’s only by studying an enemy that one can defeat them. Do you understand?”

The two sisters exchanged confused glances, then nodded halfheartedly.

My stepmother did not appear mollified, but she said nothing further, and instead only returned to her own neglected breakfast and began to eat, all the while staring at her daughters as if she were not quite sure they were actually a product of her womb.

As for myself, I made my escape as soon as I could, using the excuse of requiring more hot water for the teapot to leave the room. My heart was pounding and my hands trembling.

It had been difficult enough to escape my stepsisters’ notice prior to this. What on earth was I to do now that their mother had instructed them to spy on me?

“
N
ot to worry
,” my aunt told me in soothing tones early that afternoon, after I had escaped to the stables to meet her. “The same magic that tricks their eyes into seeing you in elegant gowns rather than those rags your stepmother deems it seemly for you to wear also tricks their ears. You could tell them your name directly, and they still would not be able to recall it.”

“Then how can the Emperor hear it correctly?” I half-whispered, shooting a worried glance in the direction of the kitchen door. “Or, for that matter, my friend Gabrinne?”

“Because they mean you no ill.”

I frowned, and my aunt said,

“Oh, for goodness’ sake, what difference does it make
how
it works? It is magic, dear girl, and it is doing all it can to protect you.”

“Is it doing anything more than that?”

She shot me a questioning look. “What are you asking, Ashara?”

I smoothed my hands over my skirts. That day’s spell had already been cast, and so I wore the semblance of a fine riding suit in closely woven deep brown wool. “I am asking if your spell is doing something else…making the Emperor fall in love with me, perchance.”

“Of course not!” Her expression seemed horrified enough that I thought I might believe her. “All I am giving you is the opportunity. Everything else comes from you, dear girl. Have you so little faith in yourself?”

There was a question. I had not had many opportunities for faith, whether in myself or in others. “I do not know,” I said simply.

At once her features softened, and she took my hands in hers. “I cannot imagine how difficult things must have been for you. But I am telling you the truth, Ashara. The Emperor is falling in love with you because you are strong and lovely and good. Not because of a spell. Believe that, and believe in yourself.”

For some reason her words brought tears to my eyes, and I struggled to keep them from spilling over my cheeks. “I — I will try,” I murmured.

“Good girl. Now go.” Her dark eyes twinkled then. “I think you will find something a little better than a coach waiting for you this time.”

That could mean only one thing. I thanked her hastily and rushed out, glad that my stepsisters had already gone and that Janks would not be about, either, as Claris had sent him out for more firewood for the kitchen hearth.

After I slipped through the gate and went around the corner, I found a young man of about my age standing there, holding the reins of the most beautiful blood-bay mare I had ever seen. Her legs were elegant but powerful, her dark mane and tail meticulously brushed.

“For you, miss,” the young man said, and cupped his hands so I might hoist myself into the sidesaddle.

“No need of that,” I told him, my voice sounding light and joyous, even to me. “I can manage.” And I put one foot in the stirrup and pulled myself into the saddle, disposing my skirts around me as if I had been doing that very same thing every day since I was a child.

He shook his head and grinned, but did not seem offended by my refusal. “Her name is Maelyn, and she will bear you well.”

“Thank you,” I said. “I will take good care of her.”

A small half-bow. “And she of you.”

For the first time I noticed a second horse, this one not nearly as eye-catching, standing a few paces past my own.

“Mine,” the young man supplied. “Your aunt says I’m to ride with you, act as your groom.”

She did appear to have thought of everything. “Your name, sir?”

He flashed a grin at me. “Aldric, my lady. Follow me.” In short order he was mounted on his own horse and leading me through the crowded streets.

Although perhaps I should have kept my head down, to prevent anyone from getting a good look at me, I must confess I was too entranced by my surroundings to be so circumspect. For the last ten years — save the past few nights — my world had consisted of my stepmother’s house and the small cul-de-sac where it stood. Of course I was never allowed to venture any farther than that, as I might run away. And although I had ridden forth in a carriage along these same streets, I could not see and hear and smell the city in a coach as I did now, on horseback.

All around me were people of all different shapes and sizes and ages, from the young girl on the corner selling clove-scented lemons — a sovereign antidote for the stink of the streets — to the carter behind me, his hands so gnarled with arthritis I wondered that he could hardly hold the reins of his horses, which looked barely younger than he. My ears rang with the noise, for everyone was shouting out their wares, or cursing someone whose wagon had cut them off, or talking loudly to be heard over the din.

I stared and stared, but retained enough of my wits to follow Aldric as he led me to the city’s eastern gate, where we emerged into a throng as loud and sizable as the one we had just left, save that they were headed into town to conduct their business. We rode further, and the crowds diminished even as the countryside grew more open and more green. Off to my left I saw a dark blur that gradually resolved itself into a great forest of pine and oak and other trees I did not recognize. Against that dark blur fluttered a number of pennants in colors both bright and somber, and beneath those pennants were more pavilions, and a great mass of people.

My hands must have clenched on the reins, and Maelyn gave a little snort and tossed her head, as if in protest. At once I relaxed, then bent close and murmured, “No fear, my beauty — we will have some fun soon enough.”

At least, I hoped so.

Men in the black and silver livery of the Imperial house gestured me toward a group also on horseback, while indicating that Aldric must go in the opposite direction, back where the rest of the grooms and other attendants appeared to be congregating. I shot him an apologetic look, but he only shrugged and said, “’Tis no problem, my lady,” before heading off where he’d been directed.

As for myself, I nudged Maelyn forward in a slow walk so that I might take the measure of the group I was approaching. Yes, there were far fewer young ladies on horseback than had attended the dinner the night before; I thought I counted something more than a hundred, not including the noblemen and guards who would also be riding along. It still seemed a goodly number to be engaging in a hunt. At least here I knew I could avoid my stepsisters, since they were not riding, and must be back in one of the pavilions, pretending to have a good time while waiting for His Majesty and the other hunters to return.