Shadow Over Kiriath (8 page)
The ships had been sent out almost three weeks ago, and even accounting for the storm that had blown in the day after they’d left, if they’d found nothing they should have been back several days ago.
“They say the Gulls are Shadow-bound,” Leyton remarked blandly, speaking for the first time during the meeting. “Perhaps the barrier of mist that protects them has extended farther out than you counted on. Without wind, ships cannot sail.”
Abramm frowned at him, but agreed that could cause things to take longer than anticipated and decided to wait a few more days before sending out a fleet of search vessels. That decided, he informed the commander of Graymeer’s he intended to visit the fortress tomorrow to have a look at things himself. “But I want no special preparations made.”
Commander Weston’s militarily stiff bearing somehow stiffened even more. “No preparations, sir?”
“You and Brookes are the only ones who are to know I’m coming.”
Trap leaned forward, suddenly uneasy. “What are you thinking, sir? That we didn’t get them all?”
Abramm glanced at him grimly. “I’m thinking we’re dealing with Esurhites—sent by the son of our good friend Katahn ul Manus, who trained him well in the tactics of the games. It may be there’s nothing for us to find— but I’d like to preserve our advantage of surprise as long as possible. I’ll know more after Lieutenant Meridon finishes.”
“Sir,” Channon said, stepping away from the wall, “if you really think there might be a trap waiting up there—”
“I don’t. But rest assured I wouldn’t think of going without your protection, Captain. We’ll simply do so as returning soldiers rather than the king and his escort.” He glanced at Trap again. “I hope you’ll consider coming along, as well, Duke Eltrap.”
“Of course, sir.”
The door opened at that point, and a servant slipped in with a message for the king’s ear alone. At Abramm’s nod, he hurried out and was immediately replaced by Ethan Laramor, who also spoke to the king privately. Except that
his
whispered message caused Abramm’s eyes to widen as he turned to look full at the border lord who now straightened. “Gold, you say?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And you say it’s solid?”
“As near as we can tell without breaking it all apart. Do you want me to have it brought up?”
Abramm glanced around at his counselors, who watched him with unveiled curiosity. He said nothing to them, however, and finally turned back to Laramor. “Bring it up to the banqueting hall, when we’re finished eating.”
After he left, Abramm grinned at them and said, “This is definitely turning out to be a day filled with extraordinary events.” He paused, letting their curiosity deepen. Then the smile vanished and he returned to the matter of Graymeer’s, finished up a few last details concerning tomorrow’s expedition, then dismissed the fortress commanders, their assistants, and finally Leyton Donavan. Only then did he listen to Crull’s report on his visit with Gillard’s attendants and make arrangements to visit his brother’s bedside later that night with Simon and Trap.
Then, when it seemed to Trap that there could be nothing left to discuss, he leaned back in his chair, steepling his fingers before him, and tracked his gaze across his advisors, a smile pulling at his lips. “So, gentlemen, have you considered my suggestion of a candidate for First Minister?”
As all eyes immediately darted to Trap, he felt the hairs on the back of his neck lift with a horrible sense of portent.
“We have considered your suggestion, sir,” Simon said neutrally. “We all agree the man is reliable, trustworthy, experienced, and intelligent. Except for the matters of social standing, which we’ve already discussed, I believe he is well suited to the position.”
“And you would fully support his appointment?”
Simon’s eyes fixed upon Trap. “I would, sir.”
“As would I, sir,” said Hamilton.
Foxton and Whitethorne voiced their approval, as did Crull, adding, “The count gives his blessing, too. And a poll taken of the members of the Privy Council at large has resulted in approval by an overwhelming majority.”
Pox and plagues, Abramm!
Trap thought, looking full at his king.
You wouldn’t . . .
“Thank you, gentlemen,” said Abramm. “You are dismissed.” His shrewd blue eyes fixed upon Trap. “Save for you, Duke Eltrap.”
The others trooped out, exchanging sly looks and suppressed smiles. Trap’s sense of foreboding intensified. As the door snicked shut, Abramm clasped his hands on the gleaming table before him and looked at his friend soberly.
Trap’s stomach began to churn, and when Abramm said nothing, he finally broke the silence himself. “What is this, sir?”
“I’m sure you’ve already guessed, my friend.” The blue eyes held his own. “I want you to be my First Minister.”
For a moment Trap had a sensation of falling, of the room twisting around him while his stomach lurched and his ears rang. His teeth came together with an audible click and his chest seemed to have squeezed all the air from his lungs.
The king’s First Minister held the highest position of governmental rank, second to the king himself in power and rivaled only by the office of Royal Secretary when it came to access.
“You are not pleased,” Abramm said quietly.
Trap scowled at him. “You’d make me a poxed politician? When you know how much I loathe politics? And how unsuited I am to the eeling and subterfuge that goes with it?”
Abramm bore the outburst placidly. “I neither want nor expect you to
eel
. I need men with integrity to help me run this government. Men who are competent and trustworthy.” He paused. “There is no one I trust more than you, Trap.”
Directly across the table a wood-colored staffid suddenly folded its body lengthwise along the table’s edge and skittered toward Abramm. Barely had Trap noted its presence before a thin white thread of Light leaped from Abramm’s clasped hands to impale it. The creature flinched, clung briefly to the table edge, then fell away. He heard the small clicks of its legs and carapace on the chair, but soon those, too, faded.
Abramm had never taken his eyes from Trap’s face, waiting for his answer. Beyond him, outside the window, the trees’ newly budding branches waved gently in the breeze, their tops glinting with the warm late-afternoon light, the bottom two-thirds of them already steeped in shadow.
Trap exhaled sharply. “I appreciate the honor that you’ve given me, the regard in which you hold me . . . but, sir, I know nothing about being First Minister.”
Abramm’s brows arched with amusement as he leaned back in his chair. “You know more than you think, my friend. You understand men. And all of this . . .
politics,
I’m finding, is not so very different from the battles we waged with our blades in the gaming theaters. At the hilt of every blade there’s always a man. . . .” Abramm glanced down at his finger tracing the outline of the wood’s grain in the table’s polished surface. “Your reaction now and your words to me last night—those are precisely the reasons I want you.” He looked up again. “Who else is going to tell me to my face what they really think, Trap? Especially when they have reason to believe I’m not going to like it. You saw the way they looked at me when I came in earlier—as if I’m some sort of avenging god.”
“Well, you did put on quite a show today.”
“It’s not been just today.”
Trap met his gaze for a long moment, and the sight of his king’s resolve sent the first wave of terror sweeping through him. “Light’s grace, Abramm! I’m a swordmaster’s son! They’re having a hard enough time accepting me as a duke. Who would ever accept me as First Minister?”
“My cabinet, for one.” He paused. “And you’ve been more than a swordmaster’s son for some time.” Again Abramm watched his finger trace the lines of the wood’s grain. “However, if you really can’t abide it, Oswain Nott will be happy to take up the slack.”
Trap snorted, surprised by the strong aversion that rose up in him. “That’s not fair. You know what I think of Nott!”
Abramm kept his gaze on his fingers, the scars bright and vicious along his face. “He’s the only other duke we have. Indeed, since he inherited his position, he should have precedence. . . . I just don’t happen to think that makes him the hands-down expert in affairs of state he seems to think he is.”
“You’re twisting my arm here, Abramm.”
And now his king looked up at him, eyes twinkling. “Merely stating the facts, my lord duke.”
“Is that why you’ve made me a duke?”
The twinkle left at once, and Abramm’s expression sobered. “I’ve made you a duke because I wanted to express my gratitude for all you’ve done. I offer you this position on my cabinet because I’ve always had you to guard my back, and I need you more than ever.”
“Guard my back.”
He would have to use those words.
And it was no accident that he did, was it, my Lord Eidon? How can I refuse him now? Or you, for that matter?
Trap pushed himself back from the table with a sigh of resignation. “Oh, very well, I’ll do as you ask. As much as I’m able. I just don’t think I’m very well suited to this.”
Abramm grinned as he, too, sat back in his chair, blue eyes twinkling again. “I guess we’ll find out, won’t we?” Trap’s doubtful expression only made his grin widen and he stood up. “I don’t know about you, Duke Eltrap, but I’m starving. Let’s go eat.”
When Abramm entered the banquet hall with Trap in his wake, he was greeted by the creak and rustle of one hundred and six chairs pushed back across the carpeted floor as his guests sprang up to receive him. Four linenclad tables ran the hall’s grand length, while a fifth sat on a raised dais at the head of and perpendicular to the others. All chairs at that high table were occupied save the center two, reserved for Abramm and Trap. Madeleine, he noted happily, stood on the dais immediately to the right of the central chair, and he wanted nothing more than to stride up there at once to begin grilling her about the vision he’d seen during the ceremony. Instead, he bowed to the constraints of his office, taking his time to speak to those who stood along his path, many of them new-made Terstans as of today.
It was an odd thing to have urbane statesmen twice his age, hard-faced border lords, world-savvy merchants, and wealthy freeman landholders acting as overawed in his presence as young princelings. They approached him as if they expected the Light to flare again before their eyes, and many struggled to articulate their words of greeting.
“Eidon’s grace be upon you, Your Majesty.”
“May your reign be long and prosperous, sir.”
Some would hardly look him in the eye. And yet, as acutely uncomfortable as their awe made him, the pragmatic part of him knew he would be wise to tolerate it. For surely it would make them more amenable to approving the tax and conscription orders he would soon put before them.
The men and women at the high table were less intimidated than those on the floor, but even here he sensed a new stiffness. Everitt Kesrin, Ethan Laramor, Temas Darnley, Arik Foxton, Oswain Nott—even Uncle Simon—all seemed to regard him from behind some invisible barrier, the gap between him and them wider now than ever. Even Carissa, though she had beamed at him from the moment he’d stepped onto the dais, lost her smile as he stopped before her. Staring up at him wide-eyed and solemn, she dropped him a curtsey as reverently as if he were a stranger, and when she lifted her face to his again, her eyes gleamed with tears.
Unnerved, he stepped past her to his own place at the table, Trap’s empty chair to one side, Lady Madeleine and her brother, Crown Prince Leyton, standing on the other.
Madeleine’s curtsey was even more perfunctory and distracted than usual, and Leyton seemed to find the whole affair secretly amusing. But then, he always looked as if he thought life were a vast joke, the details of which only he perceived. He’d sat through the War Council meeting with the same expression he wore now, in fact.
A big man, he was several years older than Abramm and firstborn of the Chesedhan king’s brood. His weathered features were a coarser, stronger version of Maddie’s, his pronounced freckling testifying to his preference for the out-of-doors over palace halls. Shrewd, gray-blue eyes crouched beneath bushy, blond brows, watching Abramm with a keen light of appraisal and the ever-present amusement.
After receiving Leyton’s respects, Abramm stepped into the space between his chair and the silver- and crystal-decked table before him, the last to come to the table. Before and below him stretched the hall with its massive paintings and blazing chandeliers, the ranks of servants waiting along the wainscoted sides, and the bejeweled and satin-clad guests who filled it. To his surprise those guests now spontaneously burst into cheers and applause.
Quite a contrast to all that fuming over the treaty yesterday,
he thought wryly. And yet the outburst moved him deeply.
He let the applause continue for a few moments, then held out his hands for silence. After thanking them for coming, he offered a brief summary of what had happened at Graymeer’s that morning, stressing that the small group of invaders had been apprehended and that, for now, all was well.
“Eidon has delivered us with a stiff wind of impeccable timing, alert and courageous guards stationed on the fortress walls, and the much appreciated action of the vessels our Chesedhan friends have so graciously supplied us.” He gave a nod to Leyton and Madeleine as he said this last. Then, as was his custom, he asked Eidon to bless the food and the remainder of the day’s proceedings, and sat down. Everyone else followed suit, and the servants at last bustled into action.
As one of them reached past his left shoulder to set down a goblet of wine, he pulled his napkin into his lap and glanced at Maddie, happy to have her sitting on his right side where she couldn’t see his scars. And then he wondered at himself, since, of all people, Maddie must certainly have grown accustomed to them by now.
“Well,” he said conversationally, “this has been quite a day.”
Though she flashed a smile at him and agreed it had, he saw that something was amiss. She looked nervous, almost guilty, her gaze meeting his for only half a heartbeat before darting back to the crowd again. And when a servant reached past her to set her wine goblet on the table, she picked it up at once and sipped.
