Shadow Over Kiriath (7 page)

With a schedule to keep and no time to dally, Trap climbed reluctantly into the carriage. “Why are
you
interrogating prisoners?” he growled. “And why now?”

“Esurhites tried to take Graymeer’s this morning,” his brother replied, shutting the door with a snap.

Trap’s head whipped around in horror.

“It was only a pair of scouting galleys,” Philip hurried to assure him. “And all aboard both were caught. Duke Simon was notified when the news first came, during the giving of the fealty. He made the decision to hold off telling the king until he changed into the Robe of State.”

Trap nodded approval. If the action had already concluded and the threat was neutralized, no need to cause unnecessary disruption of the coronation. “But why are
you
interrogating the Esurhites?” he demanded.

Philip shrugged and his grin returned. “I’m the only one who speaks the Tahg.”

“I speak it better than you by a long shot. And I have more experience questioning prisoners.”

“Aye, but you’re a duke now, brother,” Philip reminded him with a thump on the door. “You have more important things to do.” He stepped back with a salute, and before Trap could say any more, the carriage lurched forward. Thus the new Duke of Northille also experienced for the first time the limitations of his new station.

More important things to do,
he groused inwardly.
Like what? Ride in this carriage and wave at people? Receive the insincere congratulations of a flock of two-faced courtiers who, truth be told, would rather send me off to exile again?
He’d not missed the glare Oswain Nott had given him as he’d passed by in the recessional.
More important things to do, indeed! What could be more important than finding out how the Esurhites attacked and why?
It could be no accident they had chosen today to do it. Not only had Graymeer’s stood vulnerable with a quarter of its usual force to defend it, this was the coronation day of the White Pretender, the man hated above all others by the new Supreme Commander of the advancing Armies of the Black Moon.

But no, Trap was a duke now, and that meant, apparently, that all he was allowed to do was sit around and look aristocratic.
I knew I should never have accepted this position!

At the palace, the door guards welcomed him with broad grins. Which made the cool and sudden silence of his reception inside the already crowded entry atrium all the more startling. Many of the courtiers had raced away from the Hall of Kings in advance of Abramm’s departure so as to provide a welcome for him here. Now, as Trap stopped in the entry to strip off his gloves and let the servants take his cloak, all conversation ceased and every eye turned his way, few of them friendly.

Abramm, of course, was not present, having gone immediately to his chambers to change out of his coronation clothes. After that, if Trap knew him at all, he’d be calling an emergency meeting of his war cabinet, something a captain of the king’s guard might have had the privilege of attending, but another thing denied to a duke. Or at least to this duke, though he supposed he could force his way into it if he wanted. . . .

Simon was not in the atrium, either, nor surprisingly, was the Chesedhan crown prince, Leyton Donavan. But Oswain Nott was, happily in conversation with Princess Carissa, who had her back to the door and didn’t see Trap’s entrance. Nott did, however, his hard, narrow eyes fixing coldly on Trap the moment he entered. As the only other duke in the room, Nott should have hastened to congratulate him. Instead he stood staring, and Trap could see his conflict—the desire to turn away and shun his new rival warred against not wanting to offend his king. Before either position could win out, Carissa turned to see what had captured everyone’s attention and, breaking into a grin, came at once to greet him. Nott was left standing there, and Trap did not miss the flash of rage that darkened the man’s long face.

“Welcome to Whitehill, my lord duke,” Carissa said to Trap as she dropped a deep and respectful curtsey before him. Blood rushed hotly into his face.

“Oh, look, Princess,” said Lady Madeleine, who had tagged along at Carissa’s elbow and seemed none the worse for her earlier fainting spell. “You’ve embarrassed him. Not used to being a duke, I guess, are you, sir?”

Carissa beamed at him. “Well, he’d better hurry up if he’s going to—” She broke off as Madeleine’s elbow jabbed her ribs.

“If I’m going to what?” he asked, trying to ignore the fact that they were still the center of everyone’s attention and that the onlookers had begun to whisper among themselves as they watched.

“Did you hear about the birds?” Madeleine countered, oblivious to their audience.

It took a moment for the word to register with him. “Birds?” Had
they
attacked along with the Esurhites? A new skill among the disciples of the Shadow? Or was it merely feyna, misidentified again?

He noted Arik Foxton come in behind him about that time, noted the servant who spoke into the new count’s ear and sent him hurrying away up the east hall. Summoned to that War Cabinet meeting, no doubt.

Carissa had taken up the story of the birds. “When Abramm stepped out of the Hall of Kings they say a whole raft of white pigeons erupted from the eaves—all on their own.” Her face was flushed, her startling blue eyes alight with an excitement he sensed wasn’t wholly related to her story, but which, he thought, made her more beautiful than ever.

“Pigeons,” he repeated, as his mind finally caught up with her words. Not feyna. Not even at Graymeer’s.

“There were no baskets,” Carissa went on, “no handlers, no one who had anything to do with it. It was a miracle. Another sign.”

“Aye, and there’s more,” Madeleine added. “People have been healed all through the city today—the blind and deaf and crippled made whole. Right about the time the crown was placed on Abramm’s head.”

“I’ll wager your brother is excited about that,” he said dryly.

She grimaced as he glanced around, looking for Leyton again. Trap was about to ask where he was when he noticed Nott headed his way, an insincere smile pasted on his long lugubrious face. Apparently the man’s desire not to offend the king had won out. A longtime wearer of Eidon’s shield and recently come to his position upon his father’s death, Nott was the man Abramm was expected to appoint as First Minister of his cabinet in the next day or two.

Before he reached them, however, a servant stepped up and bowed. Assuming the man was bowing to Carissa, Trap ignored him. Until he said, “My lord duke, the king requires your presence.”

“The king?” Trap repeated blankly. From the corner of his eye he saw Nott stop in his tracks as, again, total silence gripped the room and all the courtiers looked Trap’s way. It was a vapid remark, to be sure, but hardly enough to warrant the degree of shock with which they were now regarding him. And why did Nott look as if he’d just eaten a mouthful of bad roe? More than that, why was Carissa smiling in that
I-know-something-you-don’t
sort of way?

The servant gestured toward the east wing. “My lord?”

And why was he gesturing to the east wing? The king’s chambers were to the west. As Trap followed the man out of the atrium and down the mirrored corridor, he realized it must be the war council. Abramm’s war room was in the east wing, and Trap did have some experience fighting the Esurhites. He felt a stab of chagrin to think he’d believed Abramm would really leave him out of things. . . .

Sure enough, he was shortly ushered into the familiar second-floor chamber, the rank of tall windows lining its eastern wall flooding the room with light. A long gleaming table lined with high-backed chairs paralleled them. Closer to the main door a number of damask-upholstered chairs and divans stood in clusters on a green and gold Sorian rug, and a blaze crackled in the marble fireplace.

Though Abramm had not yet arrived, several men were already present: Grand Marshall Simon Kalladorne, the bulldoggish Grand Admiral Walter Hamilton, and their respective assistants, as well as the commanders of Kildar and Graymeer’s fortresses, and Seth Tarker, head of the king’s intelligence network. Shale Channon, in full dress uniform, was also present, as were Arik Foxton and Leyton Donavan.With the exception of the latter, Trap had come to know all of them well in the last six months.

Now all conversations cut off as he entered, and every man within turned toward him. Simon was the first to offer congratulations, clasping his hand and clapping his shoulder. “No question you deserve this, son. And of all the men I know, you’re one of the few who can probably handle it.”

Trap looked at the older man in surprise, for he knew Simon had been among those who argued against giving him the dukedom. He seemed wholly sincere now as he added, “It won’t be easy, though. There are many who opposed this and will continue to do so.”

“I’m sure they will, sir,” Trap responded, thinking wryly of Nott’s sour look.

“If you need any help at all—advice on servants, accountants, where to get a good deal on breeding stock—don’t hesitate to ask.”

“I won’t, sir. And thank you.”

Admiral Hamilton made the same offer, and soon the rest of the men were clustered about him, offering congratulations, seeming genuinely pleased by his promotion, particularly Captain Channon.

Brannock Whitethorne entered in the midst of it all and added his congratulations, and just as conversation was turning to the reason they’d been called here, Mason Crull, the small, bespectacled assistant to Royal Secretary Blackwell, burst into the room, breathless and pale as mist.

“It’s Prince Gillard!” he said with quiet intensity once the door was safely shut behind him. His gaze tracked from face to face. “He roused this morning! Right about the time the other healings happened. Cried out and sat up in his bed. First time he’s moved at all in six months, much less spoken.”

The fire crackled and popped as the men digested this. Then Simon asked in his gravelly voice, “You’re saying Gillard’s conscious?”

“No. He fell back into his stupor almost immediately and remains as senseless as ever. His guards have been locked up in the suite with him until the king decides what to do about it.”

“The king’s been told, then?” Shale Channon asked.

“When he changed to the Robe of State. I’ve just come from interviewing Gillard’s attendants, in fact.”

Simon scowled. “When his supporters learn of this we’ll have yet another spate of harebrained rescue plots to waste our time with. As if we have any to waste—especially after what’s happened today.”

“Well, hopefully we’ll keep it quiet and they’ll never know,” Crull said.

“Unless,” Simon began, “it turns out he’s finally coming out of—”

He was interrupted as the door opened at the back of the room and the doorman entered. “Gentlemen . . . the king.”

And Abramm stepped into the room. He had exchanged his white coronation suit for a doublet of burgundy brocade and black trousers but still wore the jewel-hilted sword and the ancient crown of Avramm. Without its blazing light to overshadow them or the beard to hide behind, his scars seemed startlingly vivid again, giving his hawkish face a fierceness Trap had not noticed before. Indeed, as Abramm stopped beside the high-backed chair at the table’s head and raked the gathering with his gaze, Trap felt the tension ratchet up in the men around him. And coming on top of that display of power in the Hall of Kings today, Trap could well understand if they were no longer sure who he was, nor what to do in his presence.

The king’s blue eyes fixed upon Crull and he frowned. “Where’s Blackwell?”

“Ill, sir,” Crull said, bowing. “H-he suffered another one of his fits during the ceremony, sir.” Ever since his encounter with a tree branch the morning Abramm faced the morwhol, Blackwell had been prone to such fits, particularly when he became excited. “It left him—” the small man grimaced— “quite unable to function. They had to carry him back to his chambers.”

“Will he be all right?” Abramm asked.

“I believe so, sir.”

Abramm regarded him steadily for a moment, then nodded and indicated that everyone should take their places at the table. In the past, Trap would have stood somewhere on the room’s wainscoted sidelines as Captain Channon and the high officers’ assistants were doing. Now he had his own seat, the place of highest honor, in fact, directly to Abramm’s left. Crull, serving in Blackwell’s stead, sat to Trap’s left, then Foxton, Seth Tarker, and the commander of Kildar. Simon, Whitethorne, Admiral Hamilton, and the commander of Graymeer’s sat across from him, with the blond, ruddy-faced Leyton seated at the end.

Sitting at the same table with a foreign crown prince, a duke, a high admiral, a count, an earl, and the king himself did not feel at all real. But Trap had little time to contemplate, for as soon as they were settled, Abramm got down to business.

The Esurhites had rowed a pair of scout galleys in on a still sea under cover of the morning fog and moored at the old sea entrance on the west side of the cliff where Graymeer’s sat. Each boat carried a thirty-man crew— twenty to row, ten to fight—and between the two had sent twenty men ashore. Before they could accomplish their still-unknown goals, a wind had sprung up to blow away the fog, and the lookouts spied the boats. Stones dropped from the fortress’s ramparts had inflicted sufficient damage that, even though the galleys escaped the landing, one of the Chesedhan warships Prince Leyton had brought with him had chased them down.

Meanwhile, the fortress defenders had surprised the invaders in the tunnels on their way up from the sea and captured all of them. The prisoners had arrived at Wetherslea Prison in Springerlan shortly before the coronation proceedings had concluded. Kildar’s commander confirmed there’d only been the two galleys, no larger attack force waiting out in the fog. Hopefully Philip Meridon would find out just what they’d intended to accomplish.

“The thing that troubles me most,” said Abramm, “is how they got here. We’ve had no sightings, so it’s unlikely they came up the coast. That casts suspicion on the Gull Islands, no matter how barren and unnavigable we believe them to be.” He glanced at Admiral Hamilton. “As does the continued absence of your scout ships.”