Rules of Ascension: Book One of Winds of the Forelands (19 page)

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Authors: David B. Coe

BOOK: Rules of Ascension: Book One of Winds of the Forelands
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“Then I was a fool, my lady. I obviously knew nothing of beauty or grace or intelligence. For if I had, I would have showered you with gifts and praise, rather than with teasing and cruelty.”
She blushed and her eyes lingered on his for an instant before looking away. They were the color of smoke from dying embers or of sea clouds carrying a storm.
“That was prettily said, my lord,” she told him. “My mother taught me to be wary of men who spoke so sweetly.”
He laughed. “Even the man who is to be your husband?”
“You mean the man who would be my husband.”
He stared at her, opened his mouth to say something, then closed it again, not knowing how to respond.
After a few moments, Brienne began to laugh.
“You don’t take kidding very well, do you, my lord?”
Tavis looked away. “No,” he admitted. “I never have.”
“You’ll have to learn if you’re to have me as your wife. I’m afraid I’m not always as staid as a court lady ought to be.”
Once more, he wasn’t certain how to respond. He was accustomed to the somber dignity of Curgh, where there was little room for mirth or gaiety. His mother and father were capable of engaging in lighthearted banter when their position in the court demanded it, but they rarely did so in the privacy of family conversation. He and Xaver joked with each other a good deal; Tavis thought of himself as having a sense of humor. But it was one thing to laugh with his friend, and quite another to trade jests with the beautiful woman sitting beside him. Yet, awkward as it seemed, Tavis liked the idea of it. It would be a complete departure from the way he had been raised, which perhaps explained why he found the notion so attractive.
“I think I can get used to that,” he said.
For the first time that evening, she gave him a smile seemingly free of irony. “I’m glad.”
Tavis reached for one of the flasks. It was filled with dark red wine, Sanbiri no doubt. As much pride as Eibithar’s winemakers took in their vintages, most agreed that there was none finer in the Forelands. He reached for Brienne’s goblet.
“May I pour for you?” he asked.
There could be no denying that they made an attractive pair. The young noblewoman, with her golden hair and her striking sapphire gown, and the boy who would be king, with his youthful good looks, his dark eyes, the color of which was almost a match for the lady’s dress, and his festive silk shirt and doublet. They looked just the way young royalty ought to look: beautiful and spirited, shining like gems in sunlight. An entire country could fall in love with such a pair. No doubt the Qirsi men and women Cadel were working for understood that. No doubt that was why he was here.
They were on their second flask of wine, but Cadel had yet to add the sweetwort to their drink. For one thing, others at the table were also drinking from the flask and he could not risk having any of them affected by the herb as well. More important, sweetwort, when mixed with wine, worked quickly, and he had no desire to see his prey fall under its influence here in the duke’s hall.
In large enough doses, sweetwort could kill, but Cadel wanted it for its narcotic qualities. A simple poisoning might work well under certain circumstances, but in this instance he needed something a bit more subtle. Sweetwort, the flavor of which could be masked by the wine, and the effects of which could be enhanced by the same, had the added benefits of being widely available and commonly used. Nearly every apothecary in Eibithar sold it, and none would think twice about doing so. Nor had he needed to buy much; the small vial he carried held more than enough for both Lord Tavis and Lady Brienne.
It was simply a matter of waiting for the right moment and slipping the extract into their wine without anyone noticing.
For an arranged betrothal, the two appeared to be getting along quite well. Before leaving his father’s court in Caerisse, Cadel had witnessed more than his share of these feasts, and rarely had he seen them lead to any sort of romance, at least not so quickly. But Tavis and Brienne had spent much of the meal whispering to
each other, laughing, and gazing into each other’s eyes. The wine helped, of course. Up here, in the northern reaches of the Forelands, wine was known as the spirit of Bohdan, for the god of mirth and festival. But to the south, in Caerisse, Sanbira, and even Aneira, where the people truly knew something of making and drinking wine, it was called Adriel’s nectar, for the goddess of love. Still, even without the wine, Cadel thought that the young couple might have found something in each other to love, if only they were given the chance.
The confections that concluded the feast had been served some time before, and now a number of guests at the lesser tables started to stand and stretch and make their way slowly out of the hall. The two dukes, taking little notice of the rest of their dinner companions, were in the midst of a sometimes heated discussion of the Aneiran threat and how best to cope with it. The duchess and Aindreas’s first minister were deep in conversation as well, although their voices were pitched lower and Cadel could make out little of what they said. The duke of Kentigern’s other children had long since been bundled off to bed.
Had he been taken with a young woman and eager to slip away with her, unnoticed by their parents, Cadel would have chosen that moment. Apparently, he and Tavis had this much in common. Or perhaps he and Brienne did; it was hard to say who was leading whom when they rose carefully from their places at the table and stepped off the dais, casting furtive looks back at the two dukes. For just an instant, Cadel feared that he had miscalculated. But as they reached the door leading out of the hall, the young lovers hesitated. A moment later, Tavis looked in Cadel’s direction and raised a single finger.
Cadel smiled and nodded before turning to the table on which he and the cellarmaster had placed the wine. At the same time, he pulled the vial from his pocket, removed the small cork from its top with a quick motion of his thumb, and hid the open vial in the palm of his hand. With his back to Tavis, he glanced quickly to each side to see that he wasn’t being watched. Then he pulled the stopper from a container of Sanbiri dark and in the same motion poured the sweetwort extract into the container. In all it took him just a few seconds, no more time than it should have to open a flask.
Lifting the flask, Cadel hurried to where Tavis and Brienne stood.
“Here you are, my lord,” he said. “Would you like goblets as well?”
Tavis’s eyes wandered once more to where his father sat. “No,” he said, his voice low. “This is all we need.”
He turned away, taking Brienne’s hand again.
“Thank you,” she said over her shoulder, as Tavis led her away.
Cadel made himself smile. “You’re welcome, my lady.”
It had been years since Cadel felt any regret for what he did to earn his gold. Yet in that single instant, when her eyes met his, he felt as though his heart froze in his chest and his own life stood balanced on the edge of a blade.
Then the moment was gone, and Cadel was left to consider what would come next. Tavis and Brienne would be going to the guest chambers on the southeast end of the castle, where Tavis was staying. Cadel was certain of it. He was noble-born and had spent much of his life studying the courts of the Forelands. He knew that Brienne’s quarters were too near to those of her mother and father, and too closely attended by her servants. He knew as well that Tavis’s quarters would offer ample privacy. Usually the son of a visiting duke would share his chambers with others in the duke’s company. But Tavis was no ordinary lord; he was to be king after his father. To avoid offending either Javan or the boy, Kentigern would give each his own chamber. It would mean more cramped quarters for the rest of the visitors from Curgh, but that was of little consequence next to the comfort of the future kings.
Once again there was little Cadel could do but wait. The young ones needed time to make their way to Tavis’s room and more time still to drink the wine. For now he returned to the wine table. Vanyk would expect him to help clean the empty flasks and return the unopened ones to the cellar. That was fine. Sweetwort worked quickly, but its effects lasted for hours. The later it got, the lower Panya would be in the night sky, and the harder it would be for the castle guards to see him climbing like a spider across the wall of the inner keep.
He was not a fool, nor was he blind, though his fool son seemed to think he was. Javan was just thankful that Aindreas hadn’t seen
Tavis and Brienne sneaking off with that container of Sanbiri red. Their betrothal notwithstanding, the duke would have tried to take a sword to Tavis’s neck had he known that they were alone together, with a full flask of wine no less. Fortunately, Aindreas had consumed a great deal of wine himself this night. He was too busy fulminating against the Aneirans and their allies in Braedor to notice how loud his voice had grown or how his continued pounding on the table was upsetting the plates and goblets. He certainly wasn’t about to notice that his daughter had vanished with Javan’s son.
As far as Javan could tell, neither the duchess nor Aindreas’s Qirsi had seen them leave either. A small miracle. He could only guess how Ioanna would have felt about it. Had Shonah been here, she would have been furious.
For his part, Javan couldn’t really blame his son. Brienne was a beautiful girl, and that dress … The duke shook his head. He and Shonah were not old by any means, but there were times when he wished they both were that young again.
At least Tavis hadn’t done or said anything to offend Brienne. Given his recent behavior—his drunken appearance at the dinner in Curgh last turn, his attack on Xaver, his late-night drinking, which he tried so desperately to hide—that had been Javan’s greatest fear. Considering what might have happened this evening, Tavis and Brienne running off together into the night was really not so bad. Just so long as Tavis didn’t do anything stupid, like get the poor girl pregnant, everything would be fine.
The duke closed his eyes at the thought and took a long pull of wine. If that happened, Aindreas would kill Tavis, and probably Javan as well. He wondered briefly if Shonah had ever spoken to the boy of such things. Not likely. She probably saw that as a father’s responsibility, and Javan couldn’t really argue with her. His father had spoken to him about it, on a hunting expedition the two of them had taken when Javan was ten. He already knew most of what his father told him, having heard it all from guards, servants, and some of the older boys in the court, and their ride seemed to last twenty years. Even now, the memory of it made Javan squirm. Perhaps that was why he had avoided such a discussion with his own son. By now he had to assume that Tavis knew all that he needed to know. And more, no doubt.
“You will do tha’, won’ you, Javan?” Aindreas said, the words running together like paints on a wet canvas.
Javan stared at him blankly. The big man’s face was even more flushed than normal and his pale eyes were red-rimmed and half closed.
“I’m sorry, Aindreas. My mind must have wandered. The wine, you know. What were you saying?”
“I said, I asked Aylyn t’ sen’ some of the King’s Guard to the Tarbin an’ he hasn’ done a thin’’bout it. But you will, won’ you? I have jus’ so many men, Javan. I can’ protect the castle and the city and the river and continue to pay all of them. I’ll be out of gold in no time.” He leaned forward, his breath stinking of wine. “I don’ need a lo’ of men. Jus’ a thousan’ or so. Jus’ enough to watch the river. You can do tha’, right?”
He knew that this was what it would be like to be king. Aylyn himself had warned him, during his most recent visit to Audun’s Castle a few turns back.
“Someone is always asking for something,” the old king said at the time. “And more often than not, someone else is asking you to do the opposite. For all its glory, being king grows more burdensome with each year.”
Javan just hadn’t expected that it would start so soon.
“I’m not even on the throne yet, Aindreas,” he said, sounding, he knew, like a parent putting off a demanding child. “I can’t make any promises without knowing more about how the king’s men are assigned currently.”
Kentigern frowned. “If you need more men, you ca’ recruit them. If you don’ like the way they’re assigned, you ca’ reassign them.”
“Forgive me, my Lord Kentigern, but I couldn’t help overhearing your request.”
Javan turned toward the voice and saw that Fotir and Xaver had moved closer, taking the seats that had been occupied by Tavis and Brienne. Fotir, who had spoken, was smiling now, though Javan could see that the smile was forced.
“What of it?” Aindreas demanded, eyeing the Qirsi with suspicion.
“Reasonable as your request is, my lord, I needn’t explain to a man of your insight that my Lord Duke could not assign men to the Tarbin so soon after taking the throne. Such a move by a new king could easily be misinterpreted by the Aneirans as a prelude to attack.”
Javan gave his first minister a grateful smile before facing Aindreas again.
“He’s right, of course,” the duke said. “Even if I were already king, there would be little I could do right now. I’ll be happy to consider your request, Aindreas, but I think we should wait for a more appropriate time.”
Kentigern shook his head and let out a sharp, loud laugh. “You’re jus’ like him, aren’ you? Not even king yet, an’ already acting like th’ dithering old man you’re t’ replace. Hiding behind th’ lies of your Qirsi, keeping your men t’ yourself while th’ rest of us guard your borders an’ fight your battles.” He drained his goblet and threw it on the floor. “I should ha’ known better than t’ trust a Curgh.”

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