Mystic and Rider (Twelve Houses) (65 page)

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Authors: Sharon Shinn

BOOK: Mystic and Rider (Twelve Houses)
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“I would not—I hope you don’t think—Halchon Gisseltess—”
The king laughed merrily. Senneth could not help noticing that Queen Valri did not look amused in the slightest. “Oh, Senneth, I would as soon expect Tayse to knife me in the back as I would expect you to act in any way that would endanger me,” he said. “Even if you didn’t hate Halchon Gisseltess with all your heart, you wouldn’t marry him to advance his claim to the throne.”
Queen Valri spoke in her low, controlled voice. “Yet if Senneth thought such a move might prevent a war, she might be excused for acting in a way that seemed noble.” Her voice did not make it sound as if such actions would seem noble to her.
“I will never marry Halchon Gisseltess,” Senneth said flatly. “If I were going to betray my king, I would find some other way to do it.”
“In any case, Senneth’s a mystic. If he marries her, he has to placate the whole faction of fanatics he’s roused to war,” the king said. “He just might find himself in a bind there.”
Valri lifted her impossible green eyes to Senneth’s face. “You haven’t said so, but I feel certain the question of magic has been raised for yet another critical reason.”
Senneth felt a certain admiration for the cool way that the queen invited censure. “Yes, majesty,” she said in a quiet voice. “I heard from more than one source that those who despise mystics are beginning to whisper that you are one as well.”
The king lifted his delicate gray eyebrows. “Really? They’re saying Valri is a mystic? Do they have any proof? Any instances?”
Senneth shook her head. “Not that I heard. And you know the way of rumors. People are charged with the crime that seems most heinous for that time and place. Malcontents trying to turn sentiment against the throne would naturally play on people’s growing distrust of magic.”
Valri gave her husband an unreadable look from her unnerving eyes. “I am proving to be a liability to you,” she said in a low voice. She did not seem to mind that others could hear what she said.
“Nonsense,” the king said. “You’re essential to me.”
“If my presence is rousing the Houses to war, I think you might find me dispensable.”
Baryn reached over and took her hand in his. It was less a lover’s gesture, Senneth thought, than the reassuring clasp a father might give his child. “The kingdom will fall before I put you aside,” he said.
There was a brief, uncomfortable silence as the rest of them tried to pretend they had not witnessed this scene. Senneth could not help noticing that neither the king nor the queen had refuted the basic charge. “At this point,” she said, “I don’t suppose it matters. Even if, in some grand gesture to impress the nobles, you cast the queen aside, the damage has been done. If she has the power to compromise you, she has done it already. You are better off, it seems, standing united as you face the world.”
“Exactly what I said,” the king replied. “Valri knows I would not let her leave me.”
Valri smiled tightly and trained her eyes on her shoes.
“So! Where do we stand?” the king asked in a conversational voice. “What is my next obvious step?”
“Announce your regent, make Amalie more visible, and confer with the lords you know to be loyal,” Kirra said.
“And make shows of strength to the Houses you suspect of considering treason,” Senneth said. “It might have some effect to send a few well-armed envoys into Nocklyn and Fortunalt. Let the lords know that you are aware of their machinations.”
Tayse lifted his voice for the first time. “Send a delegation to the convent at Lumanen,” he suggested. “It would not hurt the sanctimonious Lestra to get a taste of temporal power.”
The king regarded him with some interest. “You speak as if you actually had face-to-face dealings with Coralinda,” he said. “Is that possible? Time to tell me some of your adventures on the road!”
Tayse smiled briefly. “That one, at least, isn’t much to my credit. I was overtaken by men in service to the Pale Mother, and thought it better to surrender than die in battle. They brought me bound to the convent and were happy to keep me captive. The Lestra herself came to visit me, promising to convert me to the ways of the Silver Lady. There was something about her—very disturbing. I think she would go to almost any length to prove a point. It was clear she was debating whether or not it would serve her best to kill me outright—or to taunt you with the news that she had captured one of your Riders.”
The king was mesmerized. “But tell me! How did you win free?”
Tayse glanced at Senneth, for only the second or third time since they’d stepped inside this room. “Senneth, of course. Arriving at the convent gates and threatening to set the place on fire.”
Cammon clearly could not contain himself any longer; his awe seemed to have exhausted its power to keep him silent. “And threatening to set free the
raelynx
,” he said.
“Set free a
raelynx
?” the king demanded. He appeared to be hugely entertained. “Where did you find one?”
But Queen Valri seemed greatly startled at the word. Her green eyes lifted; she stared at Cammon. “You have a raelynx with you?” she said in a voice barely above a whisper. “Who answers to your command?”
Cammon nodded, then pointed at Senneth. “Well, Senneth’s the one who caught him first, of course, and she’s the only one who can truly control him, but I’m learning. I can hold him for more than a day now, and not let him break free of me.”
Valri’s gaze traveled swiftly between Senneth and Cammon. “A raelynx?” she repeated. “But they almost never stray outside the Lirrens. And when they do—did you find it by the trail of slaughtered bodies it had left behind?”
“Almost,” Senneth said. “We came across a small town that the beast was terrorizing. It’s not full-grown yet, so it had not done quite so much damage as it could have. I want to take it back to the Lirrens once I—once we are finished with discussions here.”
The king still looked amused. “And where is this terrible beast? Have you left it to wander around Ghosenhall, eating my subjects at will?”
“He’s in a cage now, because Senneth thought it wasn’t safe to bring him into the city,” Cammon said. “But I thought—couldn’t he run free here in the palace grounds? I can’t stand to think of him cooped up as he’s been for so long.”
“I don’t think—” the king began, but his wife interrupted him.
“Yes. My private garden,” she said. “It is completely walled in. No one goes there except by my invitation. He will be safe there.”
Senneth transferred her thoughtful gaze from Cammon’s face to the queen’s.
This is very interesting,
she thought. The king said in a humorous voice, “My dear, it is not the safety of the raelynx we are so concerned about, but the safety of the humans it might want to eat.”
“It won’t trouble me,” she said.
Senneth could sense that Kirra’s eyes had also come to rest on the queen’s face and that Kirra was thinking very much what she was. Cammon just seemed relieved that someone with power was taking an interest in his beloved creature. “Can you talk to the guards, then?” he asked. “Because they won’t listen to me.”
“Yes,” she said. “As soon as we’re done here, I’ll go see to its disposition.”
The king laughed out loud. “Well, Senneth, I expected you to bring me back many interesting tidbits, but I certainly never expected you to come back with a wild animal at your back. I suppose it is true what they say about any bargain you make with a mystic.”
Senneth smiled. “It will fail you or reward you in ways you never anticipated.”
The king rose to his feet, and all of them hastily stood. “Tayse, I assume you can make provision for these young men in the barracks?”
“Yes, sire.”
“Kirra, Senneth, you are welcome to stay at the palace as long as you like. The two of you will join me for dinner, of course. We still have much to discuss.”
The king and queen were two steps from the door when Cammon blurted out, “But are you going to see about the raelynx now?”
“Cammon,” Senneth said sharply.
Queen Valri looked back at him with a ghost of a smile on her red mouth. “Come meet me in half an hour,” she said. “Ask Milo where my private garden is to be found.”
“I will, then,” Cammon called after her, but the door had already shut between him and the royal couple.
CHAPTER 35
 
S
ENNETH spun on her heel to look at those remaining in the room. Cammon still seemed distracted by thoughts of the raelynx, but the rest of them were watching her, their own faces showing various degrees of curiosity and trouble. She thought, with a moment of affection so intense that it resembled pain, that she had never trusted any group of people so much as those gathered here in this room.
“Well,” she said. “And what did we make of that?”
“He wasn’t surprised by anything you had to say,” Justin said.
“Not even the bits about Amalie,” Kirra said. “And I thought those accusations might have made him angry.”
“But he’s heard them before, or thought of them himself,” Senneth said slowly.
“And already has a man picked out as regent,” Tayse added.
“Which means,” Senneth said, “that she possibly is
not
fit to rule. And that he knows it. And has made no provisions for what will happen upon his death.”
“Because even a good regent can’t rule forever for an incompetent heir,” Kirra said.
Donnal shook his dark head. “Makes no sense,” he said. “He’s a good king. If he had no faith in his daughter, he’d be making plans for turning over the kingdom now. He trusts her, but he knows there’s something about her that others will dislike or discredit.”
Senneth looked at Kirra. “I don’t remember the story of an attack in Ghosenhall. Do you?”
Kirra shook her head, but both Riders said, “Yes.” Justin added, “It happened before I became a Rider, but they were all still talking about it. The day the Riders saved the princess.” He grinned. “I’ve been waiting for my own chance ever since.”
“What I found even more interesting than the king’s reaction,” said Senneth, “was the things the queen said—or didn’t say.”
“
Is
she a mystic?” Kirra demanded.
“Exactly.”
They all gazed at Cammon, who first looked surprised and then thoughtful. “Is she?” he repeated. “I don’t know. Not the way we are—the four of us.” He waved a hand. “But she has—there’s something about her—some kind of power. I don’t know if it’s magic. I can’t read it. I can’t tell what she can do with it. But she’s—” He shrugged. “I wouldn’t call her dangerous, precisely, but—”
“She has some kind of hold on the king,” Justin said darkly.
Cammon wrinkled his forehead. “Nooo,” he said. “I wouldn’t say that. He doesn’t seem like a man enchanted.”
Donnal gave a little snort. “A man besotted. Young woman who looks like that—” He rolled his shoulders expressively.
Cammon shook his head. “No,” he said again, “he doesn’t love her.”
They all stared at him. “You can tell something like that for certain?” Kirra demanded.
Cammon nodded. “He’s not in love with her. She’s definitely not in love with him.” He shrugged.
Senneth lifted her eyes and glanced briefly at the others in the room. “So why did he marry her then?” she asked softly. “And what makes her so ‘essential’ to him?”
Tayse smiled faintly. “You’re the ones invited to the royal banquet table tonight,” he said. “Maybe you can find out.”
Cammon seemed to bounce on the balls of his feet. “How soon does the queen have to go to the banquet hall?” he asked. “Is she in the garden now, do you suppose?”
“And that’s another thing,” Kirra said. “Why was she so interested in the raelynx?”
“
Just
what I was wondering,” Senneth said. “Could it be that she’s from the Lirrens, where raelynxes run wild? Is that why no one knows anything about her or what House she’s from?”
“The Lirrens,” Kirra repeated, incredulous. “You think the king married a Lirren girl? But that would be so—” She shrugged. “How odd.”

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