Beyond the Pale (27 page)

“Very different.” Grace didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. She settled for a wry sort of grimace.

“Then you must trust me in this,” Boreas said. “The task I require of you is really quite simple. I have called the council to convene on the first day of Valdath. Nobles from the royal courts of the other Dominions will arrive soon to prepare things in advance of their kings and queens. You’ve already met Durge of Embarr. All you have to do is observe, speak to the other nobles when you have opportunity, and report to me all of interest you learn.” He regarded her, his eyes solemn. “Will you deign to accept this task, my lady?”

Grace decided to give reason one more chance to prevail. “Forgive me, Your Majesty, but I just don’t think I can be of any help to you.”

Boreas glowered at her. “That was not my question, my lady.” He drew close, until his face was mere inches from hers. She could almost see intensity radiating from him like waves of heat distortion. “I will only ask you once more.” His voice dropped to a thrum. “Will you help this king, Grace of Beckett?”

Exasperation gave way to awe. She knew nothing of politics, and she was hardly the right candidate for a job mingling with nobles. However, it no longer seemed her place to protest. This was, after all, the
king
. In disbelief, Grace found herself murmuring in reply.

“Of course, Your Majesty. I would be honored to help you.”

Boreas nodded. “I am gladdened at your answer, my lady. You see, I find I rather like you, and I would have been quite distressed to have had to toss you in the dungeon. The rats start to get hungry this time of year, what with winter coming and all.”

Grace’s eyes bulged.

The shadow vanished from King Boreas’s face, and sparks of mirth danced in his eyes. He grinned again, but this time the expression was only slightly fearsome. He had been making
a joke. Aryn had warned her, all right. The king really did think he was funnier than he actually was.

“I got you, didn’t I?” Boreas said in triumph.

Grace let out a deep breath of relief. “Oh, yes. You certainly did.”

The king clapped his hands together at his victory. “Now,” he said, “to find what’s become of the Lady Aryn. I have a task for her as well.”

“Would you like me to go look for the baroness, Your Majesty?” Grace tried not to sound too eager to take her leave of the king.

A sly light crept into Boreas’s eyes, and his voice dropped to a whisper. “No, my lady, I don’t think that will be necessary.” He stalked to the chamber’s door, his boots making no sound against the thick carpets. “I think I know exactly where to find my ward.”

The king paused beside the door, then in one swift motion jerked it open. Something blue tumbled into the chamber with a gasp of surprise.

“Greetings, Aryn.” Boreas folded his arms and gazed down at his ward.

The baroness straightened and smoothed her sapphire gown, her face pale. “I wasn’t listening at the door, Your Majesty,” she said. “I swear!”

“Yes, you were.”

Aryn’s look was stricken. “All right, I
was
listening at the door, but I didn’t hear a thing about the Lady Grace helping you at the coun—” She bit her tongue.

Boreas shook his head in reproach. “I’m beginning to think I failed somewhere in the course of your upbringing, Aryn. Who taught you to lie like that?”

The baroness hung her head. “You did, Your Majesty.”

“Yes,” he said. “But it’s apparent you weren’t listening very closely. You won’t survive a minute at court if you don’t learn to lie more believably than that.” The king held a hand beside his mouth to give Grace a half-whispered aside. “I’m afraid the poor thing has an incurable streak of honesty in her, though I have no idea where it comes from. There must be common blood in the House of Elsandry somewhere.”

Grace did not even attempt a reply to
that
.

Aryn let out a forlorn sigh, and the king’s expression softened. He laid an affectionate hand on the young woman’s shoulder. “There, there, child. It isn’t your fault. You tried your best. And I really do think you’re improving.”

Aryn looked up, her face shining with hope. “You do?”

“No,” he said. “I was lying. But see how natural it can sound?”

Aryn sighed again, this time in exasperation. “Does His Majesty have a task for me?”

“As a matter of fact, he does.”

Boreas treated Grace to a critical look, as if noticing her attire for the first time. Clearly he was not pleased by what he saw. She willed herself to vanish, but unfortunately it didn’t work.

“The Lady Grace of Beckett is going to be attending the coming Council of Kings,” Boreas said. “I would be most grateful, Lady Aryn, if you could help her to become slightly less …” Here he fought for the proper word. “… slightly less
irregular
in terms of dress and manner.”

Aryn’s brilliant expression returned. She nodded in excitement. “Of course, Your Majesty. I’ll show her everything a lady needs to know.” The baroness winked at Grace and whispered, “Don’t worry. This is going to be fun.”

Grace swallowed hard.
Fun
wasn’t exactly the word she would have chosen. She cast a nervous glance at the king. What in the world—what in
this
world—had she just gotten herself into?

The four travelers set out from Kelcior in the brilliant late-autumn sunlight to begin the long journey south to Calavere and the Council of Kings.

In the muddy courtyard behind the old Tarrasian keep, Travis and Falken mounted the horses that had been King Kel’s farewell gift. The bard’s steed was a jet stallion with a white streak in its forelock. Travis, in turn, sat astride a shaggy brown gelding with intelligent eyes and a star in the center of its forehead. Melia and Beltan mounted their own horses, which they had ridden to Kelcior. The blond knight’s horse was a bony roan charger, while Melia, her blue kirtle artfully arranged, perched upon a mare as pale as mist, with delicate legs and a graceful neck.

Earlier that afternoon, they had gone to find King Kel and beg his permission to leave Kelcior. As Beltan had explained to Travis, under the laws of hospitality, a guest could not depart—be it from castle or hovel—without first being granted leave by the master of the house.

“What?” Kel had said with a glower after Falken had made the formal request to depart the keep. “Leaving so soon?”

They had met with the shaggy king in his solar. This was a cozy, if cramped, chamber located behind the curtain which crossed the end of the great hall.

“Some of us have been indulging your hospitality for nearly a month, Your Majesty,” Melia had said. “Surely any longer and we will overstay our welcome.”

Kel’s voice had rattled the very stones of the fortress. “Impossible!” Then he had snapped his fingers. “Would you stay, my lady, if I were to command a feast in your honor?”

Melia had refrained from answering, although by her expression the effort cost her. Falken had expressed their need for urgency, and at last Kel had acquiesced—though not without some grumbling when he learned a Council of Kings had been called and he had not been invited.

“Just because I have a few wildmen in my court, they think they’re so much better than me.” He had let out a disgusted snort. “Why, I have half a mind to march down to Calavere and show King Boreas how a
real
kingdom is run.”

“Now that is something I would pay good gold to see,” Beltan had whispered to Travis with a grin.

The travelers had spoken their good-byes, then had made their way from the keep. As they passed through the great hall, Travis had looked around, for he had hoped he might catch one last glimpse of Trifkin Mossberry. However, there had been no sign of the little man or his troupe of actors. They had vanished, like a strange dream, with the night.

Now, astride his horse in the courtyard, Travis cast a sidelong glance at Falken and Melia. He was still wounded by the way they had decided his fate that morning in the ruined tower. For the tenth time that day, the two were engaged in some discussion which they did not seem compelled to share. Travis sighed and turned his attention to adjusting the gear strapped to the saddle behind him.

Each of the horses bore a pair of saddlebags that bulged with provisions from Kel’s kitchen. The king had not been given the chance to hold a farewell feast in their honor, so he had apparently decided to send one with them instead. Tucked away in the saddlebags were smoked meats, hard-crusted breads, cheeses contained in protective rinds of mold, and clay pots of wild honey. Kel had also provided the travelers with extra clothes and blankets.

After he tightened the straps, Travis stared at the saddlebags. He was starting to feel like just another piece of baggage himself.

Falken shaded his brow with his one gloved hand and eyed the sun overhead. “Are we ready yet? It’s a long way to Calavere, and we’re not getting any closer just standing here in the courtyard.”

Melia adjusted her slate-blue cloak. She was seated on her gray mount sidesaddle—a feat she somehow made appear graceful and natural. Travis suspected that, if he tried the same, he would promptly slide into the muck below.

“I am ready,” Melia pronounced, as if this were the only factor constraining their departure.

Apparently it was. The others nudged their horses into motion, toward a gate in the ramshackle wall, and Travis followed suit. A brisk wind picked up, and the smoke of the castle’s cookfires scudded across the courtyard like blue mist. They had just reached the gate when a drab figure scuttled out of a swirl of smoke and brought the horses to a sudden halt.

“What?” Grisla the witch said in her chalky voice. “Leaving without so much as a simple fare-thee-well?”

Falken glared at her, annoyance written across his wolfish face. “The laws of hospitality require a guest to ask leave of a castle’s lord before departing. I’m afraid I don’t recall a line in there about hags.”

“It’s in the fine script.” The tatters that served as the ancient woman’s clothes fluttered on the wind along with her scraggly hair.

Melia guided her mount forward a few steps. “Do you know you delay our departure on a crucial errand?”

The hag clasped a gnarled hand to her cheek and affected a look of mock mortification. “Oh, forgive me, Lady High-as-the-Moon! How foolish of me to stand in your all-important path. Please don’t punish me for being drawn to your grandness. I am like a lowly fly, you see, compelled by nature to alight upon all great heaps of dung.”

Melia’s coppery skin blanched, then her eyes narrowed to slits. “What do you want of us, Daughter of Sia?”

The hag spat on the ground. “I want nothing of you, Lady Vitriol.” She turned her lone eye on Falken. “Nor you, Lord Calamity.” She bared her snaggled teeth in a sly grin. “I wish to have a word with the tasty young lad, here.”

The witch scampered on stick legs to stand before Travis’s
horse, then pointed a clawlike finger at his chest. “I believe you have a bone to pick with me, lad.”

“What?” he said in confusion.

“A bone, boy!”

His expression of puzzlement only deepened.

Grisla gave her head a rueful shake. “Why does Fate always shine upon such dimwits?” She thrust out a greasy leather bag. “Go on, lad. Pick one!”

Travis eyed the lumpy sack, wary of its contents. However, there was only one way out of this situation. He clenched his jaw and slipped a hand into the bag. He half expected to touch something wet and slimy. Instead, his fingers brushed several hard, smooth objects. He drew one out and gazed at it. It was a yellowed knucklebone, three lines scratched into its surface.

“Humph!” Grisla said. “I wouldn’t have thought you would draw that one. One line for Birth, one line for Breath, and one more for Death, which comes to us all.” Her eye rolled toward Falken for a moment. “Though for some of us later than sooner.”

Travis shook his head. “But what does it mean?”

“What do you think it means?” Grisla said.

Travis chewed his lip and stared at the bone. He was reminded of Trifkin Mossberry’s play about Spring and Winter and the birth of Summer. “It seems like it’s about endings. Or maybe beginnings.” He shook his head. “But which is it?”

“Perhaps it’s both, lad. Perhaps there’s no difference between the two.” Grisla shrugged her knobby shoulders. “Or perhaps the oracle bones can lie after all.”

The witch snatched the bone from his hand and spirited the bag into the depths of her swaddling rags.

“Are you finished with your amusement yet, hag?” Falken said.

“As a matter of fact, Lord Impatience, I am.” The witch brushed Travis’s hand with her gnarled fingers. “You know, you’ve taken a little piece of my heart, lad.” She cackled, scuttled into a cloud of smoke, and was gone.

Travis felt something warm and damp against his skin. He looked down to see a piece of raw meat on his palm. With a yelp he shook his hand and flung it into the mud. He wiped
his hand on his tunic. “I really wish she would quit doing that!”

With the way clear once more, the four urged their horses through the gate and picked their way across the causeway that led from fortress to shore. The air was cold, but the autumn sunlight was warm, and it gilded the lake like gold filigree on blue enamel. It was a fine day for traveling.