Shadow Over Kiriath (44 page)
Amicus regarded him soberly. “Would it help if I suggested that belief is na a prerequisite fer the taking o’ the vows?”
“How can I swear to serve a god I don’t believe exists?”
“In truth or in pretense, ye still serve.”
Gillard felt his eyebrows rise.
“The Heartland is Mataian country. Right now, they trust ye no more than they do Abramm. If ye were t’ do this . . . they’d rally round ye by the hundreds.”
“I thought I was supposed to be in hiding. I thought that was the whole purpose of your suggestion in the first place. If word gets out I’ve come and taken vows here, the king’s men will surely come, so what would be the point?”
“I didna mean to suggest we’d reveal yer presence now, o’ course. But in due time the truth
will
get out, passed quietly from supporter t’ supporter. A secret knowledge. A secret hope. To the king it’d be no more than a rumor he surely expects will arise. And all the time ye spend serving as humble acolyte without it being common knowledge will only accredit yer cause the more.”
“So you want me to take a vow to a god I don’t believe in, abase myself to become his acolyte and spend the next eight years living a lie?”
Amicus smiled. “P’rhaps ’twill turn out t’ be more truth than lie.”
Gillard snorted. “I wouldn’t hold my breath.” He shook his head. “I’ve always believed you holy men were a duplicitous bunch. I just didn’t think you were so deliberate about it.”
“What’er the Flames require . . . sir.” Amicus allowed himself a small, amused smile. “I will await yer answer. And remind ye that the sooner it comes, the better fer all of us.”
————
As tears once more blurred the print before her, Lady Madeleine dropped her head back against the wooden side of the window seat in
Starchaser
’s large stern cabin and gave up trying to read. They were five days out of Springerlan, and even when she could actually see the words, she couldn’t concentrate on them. But no matter how many times she berated herself for her lack of discipline and swore she would not allow herself to think of Abramm any further, each succeeding phrase just sent her back to him. It was as if he had filled all her mind, had so pervaded her soul she could do nothing without it reminding her in some way of him. His smile, his level brows, his broad shoulders, those blue, blue eyes, his strong, beautiful hands . . . his voice . . . his mind . . . his lips upon hers.
She closed her eyes, feeling the ache rise in her again, trying to head it off with reason—
you could never be queen of the realm and don’t want that anyway
—trying to find the Light before the grief took her . . . and failing, as always. It was like sliding down an ice-coated hill, swooping into a misery that only gained intensity with the fall. Once she’d started down it, there was no stopping until it left her numb and gasping at the bottom. Where guilt would flail her for putting herself at the mercy of feelings that weren’t remotely rational—again.
At least she’d managed to keep from weeping aloud. And the spells were not lasting so long anymore.
When this one passed, she took a deep, hiccuping breath and wiped her face with her hands, annoyed with herself but reminded anew that she wasn’t nearly so strong as she’d thought she was. She glanced at the book in her lap and decided she’d be better off with theWords and her notes from Terstmeet.
A little later, she was just settling back on the padded bench with book and notes when her eye caught on something outside the wide, multipaned stern window. The day had been misty, raining off and on, the sea a dull gray in the late afternoon. A dark runner of coastline crouched to her left, and out in the distance loomed the black shapes of the rocky islands and monoliths through which they had just come, veiled like everything else with a thin curtain of mist. Set against them, almost in line with the white furrow of
Starchaser
’s wake, hung a thicker bit of cloud, probably a squall, from the look of it.
Rain began to fall again, obliterating the view as it drummed on the deck overhead and pocked the surrounding sea, a curtain of silvery streaks that triggered the unwelcome memory of the man on the dock the day she’d left Springerlan. The one who’d stood at the end of the pier alone in the rain, watching as the longboat had borne her out to
Starchaser
. She’d had no reason to think he was Abramm, but even so, as the gap of gray water had widened between them, she’d wept unrestrainedly. Once aboard the merchantman, she’d refused her servants’ urgings to take shelter and had gone to the vessel’s stern to find him still on the pier; she had stared at him until she could see him no more.
Only when she finally turned away had the pain hit her—so intense it took her breath away, so deep she thought it would kill her then and there. She must have cried out, for Liza and Peter were beside her in moments, urging her again to come out of the rain.
In the captain’s spacious stern cabin, which he’d vacated for her comfort, she’d stood like a sleepwalker as Liza stripped off her drenched garments and clothed her in a warmed bedgown of soft, thick silk. After a supper of hot broth and soft bread, of which she ate very little, her maid put her to bed. She did not waken for twenty-four hours.
When she did, she’d only wanted to go back to sleep and never wake again. On the second day, she’d not left her bed, and it wasn’t until the morning of their third day at sea that she’d taken herself to task and demanded she stop all this woe-mongering. She had lost many things in her life, seen many hopes die, and never had she been one to lie weeping in a puddle of self-pity. That she did it now for love of a man she could never have was abhorrent to her, and she refused to let herself continue in it any longer. Not only was it a total violation of the person she prided herself on being, it was an insult to Eidon, who surely could have stopped all this had it been his will.
And anyway, she really and truly did not want to marry a king. The responsibility of that position combined with the loss of freedom would make it a jail sentence. Indeed, she’d probably bring down the nation with her missteps and blunt ways; certainly she’d make many enemies. Abramm sending her away had been a blessing for both of them, and it was time to put all that behind her and move on.
So she’d arisen and washed, dressed, eaten, taken a walk about the deck, talked cheerfully with the captain at some length about the ship and the shore and the weather, and then had gone below to crack open the books on the Western Isles she’d brought to prepare herself for her new life.
Days later she was still reading the same introductory pages without comprehending one word that she read. The only things that could hold her interest were the Words of Eidon, and even that didn’t always work.
Now she stared blindly out the small, rain-pecked panes at the rain-swept afternoon.
Face it: he is not the man for you, nor is that the life Eidon has chosen for you. And you know very well, whenever Eidon says no to something, it’s because he has something better
.
Something better. That was what she must hang on to. To keep recalling, over and over, that he had control of her life, that he loved her, that none of this was surprising to him and all was working out as it should. This brief bit of pain, mostly the result of her own headstrong desire to have her will rather than embrace his, would in the end work out for her benefit. Just like Abramm, she had a destiny. What it was, she did not know, but sooner or later Eidon would show it to her. And when he did, when she finally walked into it, the Words promised her that it would make all this turmoil worthwhile. She just had to be patient and keep on living in the Light.
She drew a deep breath, feeling a semblance of peace again and taking comfort in the realization that these moments were coming more often of late . . . that it wouldn’t be long before this was over. As soon as she arrived in Avramm’s Landing, she planned to book passage to the Western Isles, hopefully leaving within the week. A two-month voyage would be just the thing to close out this unfortunate chapter in her— She frowned and sat forward, peering through the glass. The rain had stopped, and with its passing she saw that the clot of mist still swirled in
Starchaser
’s wake. Had, in fact, gained on them. Moreover, she thought she’d seen something in it. At first she supposed it was a rock, but on further reflection realized
Starchaser
would have sailed close by it not long ago, and she’d seen nothing of the kind.
Though you weren’t exactly paying attention,
she told herself dryly.
Still, the more she watched it, the more inexplicably threatened she felt. Finally she went up to the quarterdeck for a different view of it, figuring at the least the captain could assure her it was indeed a rock.
Instead Captain Windemere told her they typically gave the rocks wide berth. “But let us put the spyglass to this mystery.”
Surprisingly willing to accommodate her vague suspicion, he peered at the mist clot with his telescope for some time before handing the glass to her with a regretful shake of his head. She studied the mist even longer than he had, but nothing untoward revealed itself. Finally her aching arms could lift the glass no longer, and she gave up.
“Sorry for the false alarm,” she said, embarrassed as she handed the glass tube back to him. He took it soberly, slid it shut, and told her “ ’twas no trouble at all. I appreciate the extra eyes.”
It was his smile that made her realize he, like Liza, was simply happy to see her up and showing interest in something besides her troubles. When she asked what else it might have been if not rock, he was diplomatic enough not to say imagination and speculated it could have been a whale or small fishing boat. At which point he eyed the cloud again. “Though I must admit, it is odd how it’s hung together so long. . . .”
She turned to look again herself. “And the way it’s following us.”
He frowned but faced his ship again, glancing up at the rigging, where the sails swelled before the afternoon breeze.
She asked him then of the fortress at Avramm’s Landing, and he happily shared his knowledge, though much of what he told her she already knew. Avramm, a captain in the Ophiran emperor’s personal guard, and a devout Terstan, had been at sea heading for Hasmal’uk when he was hit by the great Cataclysm unleashed by the sinking of the Ophiran Heartland. The massive wave had shattered his four ships to flotsam and hurled him and a handful of his crew ashore near an old imperial fortress with a guardstar that was slowly dying. Avramm had re-ignited it, casting back the darkness that had gripped the region for centuries, and as a result eventually became king of Hasmul’uk. The guardstar had gone out again sometime during the Middle Years of Kiriathan history, but no one knew why. Nor how to relight it.
In the midst of Windemere’s enthusiastic recitation of this history, his first mate approached from the taffrail and stood at his side, waiting to be acknowledged. Maddie noticed that he kept glancing backward, but she refrained from doing so herself until the captain finally wound down and turned to his subordinate. “What is it, Mr. White?”
“Cap’n . . . that cloud you and the lady was looking at earlier? I think there’s something in it.” He paused, looking uncomfortable. “More than that, sir. I been watching it for over an hour and I believe it’s following us.”
“Something in it?” Windemere asked. “You mean like a vessel of some sort?”
“Yes, sir.”
The captain frowned. “How could it make the cloud stay around it as it follows us, mister?”
“I don’t know, sir.”
“I do,” said Maddie soberly.
The men turned to her in question.
“Esurhites,” she said.
They exchanged a quick glance; then Windemere looked up at the sails. And in the fading light of the late afternoon, Maddie could see the breeze was faltering.
Two days before the royal wedding, the Duke of Northille stood in the second-floor bedchamber of his new house in the prestigious Bayview district of Springerlan, threading his arms into the sleeves of the short-waisted jacket his valet held up behind him. In front of him, his tailor carefully folded into its linen wrapper his new suit in progress, which he had just tried on for its last fitting. Arms now in the jacket’s sleeves, Trap started to shrug the garment up over his shoulders, then stopped as he remembered to let the valet do it for him.
“I’ll have it ready for you by eight tomorrow morning, sir,” said the tailor.
“Excellent,” Trap replied. He left the man gathering his pincushions, chalk, and tape measures into a satchel and stepped into the hall outside, bemused.
I have a tailor. When, in all my life, would I ever have imagined I’d have a tailor?
And more than a tailor. He had a personal secretary, an accountant, a couple of lawyers, a handful of personal servants, more than a handful of domestic servants, grooms, stableboys, several fine horses, a burgeoning wardrobe, and a home in a district populated by the richest men in Springerlan. His own home, not leased. And this was only a temporary residence.
The stair he descended was carpeted with a fine Sorian runner, the walls beside it richly paneled, and the spacious antechamber below dominated by an expensive crystal chandelier. At the foot of the stair he stepped aside as a pair of movers came through the open front door with the fine bedstead he’d just purchased and began jockeying it up the stairs. He had slept on a pallet last night, as much for the pleasure of sleeping in his own house as to get away from the king’s foul temper, increasing now in inverse proportion to the number of days left before his wedding. Tonight it would be the feather bed.
“Sir?”
He turned to his doorman, who stood holding a basket of fruit. “This just came from your sister. Her servant’s asking when would be a good time for her and her husband to come over.”
Trap grimaced. His older sister had been content to ignore him for almost all his thirty-two years of life. Now that he was a duke, however, she’d become suddenly friendly, barraging him with unwanted gifts, cards, and invitations. Two days ago, mere hours after his secretary had closed the deal on this house, she’d waylaid him in the palace, lamenting that she and her husband could not afford the rent where they were staying. Might he know of more suitable lodgings?
