Shadow's End (Light & Shadow) (14 page)

Chapter 14

But Wilhelm refused to see Miriel.

She wrote him a simple note, saying that she must see him, that she had news of great importance, and I delivered it
for her. I slipped through the unfamiliar hallways, ill at ease, and tried to remember not to incriminate myself by looking over my shoulder. Once, I had been cynically confident that the court, absorbed in its own shallow pleasures, would ignore me and never wonder at my purpose. I had known what to say, and how to move, and what corridors to take, to escape notice entirely.

When I had spent my days in the Court,
I had been desensitized to the currents of tension and hunger—hunger for power, for prestige, for desire itself, hunger for more of everything—that eddied through the air. I sensed them as an old farmhand will sense a storm in the air. Now, I truly felt the country girl; I was on edge, terrified to think I might be watched, that someone would snatch at a chance for promotion by telling secrets of me. I was claustrophobic in the constant bustle of the Fortress; I missed the sunlight and the open air, and I even missed the crude speech of the rebel soldiers. The Courtiers, the servants, even the guardsmen talked with dizzying speed, loud jokes echoing in the corridors; I was overwhelmed.

The bustle faded as I approached the King’s chambers, and by the time I grew close, I was trapped in an eerie silence. The hallways were lined by members of the Royal Guard, glowering at me
as I passed, and at last I came close enough that they stepped into my path, lowering crossed pikes to block my way.

“What business?” one asked abruptly.

“A message for the King,” I said, reaching into the little pouch at my waist and drawing out the folded scrap of paper. They moved to take it, but I snatched it back. “It’s for his eyes only.”

“No,” one of them said, bored. “Go home, lad—lass—whatever you are.”

“He must see this,” I said, as strongly as I could. “It is of great importance. I must know that he has seen it.”

“What could you have to say to him that he would find important?” One of them demanded. “
In case you didn’t notice, he’s fighting a war.” He and his companions laughed in my face, but I only smiled. At last, I knew what to say.

“Precisely.” I held up the scrap of paper, and raised my eyebrows. “Are you sure you want to keep this from him?” The
ir laughter died away and they hesitated; they wavered.

“If it’s so important, you can let one of us deliver it to him,” the first one said, finally.
His face was set, and I decided that this was the best I was likely to do. I held the note out and he grabbed it from me, his pike still raised.

“I’ll wait here,” I said simply, and I walked to one of the arrow slits and peered out while they muttered to each other, and one of the men hurried away, around the curve of the corridor. It was hardly
five minutes before he returned. I turned at the sound of his footsteps, and saw that he was trying to hide a smile.

“He says to tell you: no,” the man said.

“What?” I looked at him, dumbstruck. The other men were starting to grin, and I could feel my face turning red with embarrassment. “He said what?”

“Just that. ‘No,’” the man said. I stood staring at him, and he waved a hand at me. “So go on, lad.” I did not move, and his face became menacing. “His Grace isn’t to be disturbed for such things, you hear?” I saw the rest of them sizing me up, flexing their hands. It was boring, being pent up here in the Fortress. They’d welcome a fight, for a moment of excitement
, no matter their target. I had no choice—I backed away, my face burning, and then I turned and ran, their laughter echoing in my ears.

“He said what?” Miriel asked, only a few moments later.
Even with her uncle called away to a Council meeting, she had been sitting and reading in her uncle’s presence chamber, the very picture of demure obedience. But her pleasant demeanor had been wiped away by shock, and, now, rising anger. “Why would he do that?”

“He might not have known what you meant,” I suggested. “Would he have known from the note that you meant…you know?” She shot me a furious glare, and I shut my mouth.

“It was very clear,” she said crisply. “Very. I said, ‘our greatest hope.’ It could not have been more clear.”

“I don’t understand,” I said, stupidly. I had never thought, for a moment, that Wilhelm would refuse to see Miriel. I had believed without a doubt that his indifference at dinner the other night had been feigned, and that he would be eager to see Miriel and know that she was well, and safe. If he would not even speak to her…

Miriel was pressing her fingers to her temples, either thinking, or trying to block out the worry that was coursing through her. This meeting was everything to us, there was nothing more important. This, above all else, Miriel needed. Easy enough to think that the messenger simply had not been able to reach Wilhelm before, easy enough to believe that his silence on the matter of the rebellion had been due to his sudden accession, the invasion from Ismir. Now, with the culmination of the rebellion’s hopes before him, he had denied his interest, he had turned away the woman he had once seemed to love more than life itself.

Miriel raised her head, looking stricken.

“Was it all a lie?” she asked, in a broken whisper. “Was every part of it a lie?” She was shaking her head no, but I knew that she believed it, with the contrary assurance of someone who sees her worst fear, and believes that it must be true—for there could be nothing worse.

“It can’t have been,” I said, after a pause. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

“Of course it does!” Miriel said in a harsh whisper. “Trick me to find out about the rebellion, kill Garad, kill us—he knew you’d suspect him—and then crush the rebellion.”

“But he hasn’t crushed the rebellion,” I objected.

“Not yet,” Miriel said darkly, and then, wildly: “I was wrong before, about Garad. I believed I knew who he was, and that turned to nothing. Perhaps I was wrong again. Wilhelm is a murderer, he only said what he needed to say, to make us plot with him.”

I shook my head, stubbornly. “No. This doesn’t make sense.”

“Can you think of another reason?” Miriel asked harshly. “
Any
other reason? A good reason why he would turn his back on the rebellion?”

“Perhaps he was with other people,” I suggested. “He could not say anything. Perhaps he will send a message later, when he is alone.”

It was something to hope for, enough to reassure me, enough to soothe Miriel. The tension fell away, and she grasped at my hand, smiling, shaking. Yes, we agreed. He would send her a message. They could find a way to meet, as she had always met Garad. I remembered the tolerant amusement of the Royal Guard, who had always been loyal to Garad first, and his mother second. I remembered that the guardsmen had let us into the royal apartments when Garad’s love of Miriel had been a great secret, and I remembered also that they had not betrayed us—and I was heartened by that.

And yet the
days passed, agonizingly slow, and no word came. The Ismiri army drew ever closer; the people of Penekket barricaded themselves behind their paltry walls and cursed the nobles who had shut themselves up in the Fortress. The Duke spent his days in Council meetings, and came back looking grim. We heard reports that the King had ordered the Royal Army to make camp outside the city gates. They would wait for the Ismiri, he had ruled—to move the army away from the city was to invite some treachery, and the Ismiri would be weakened from their march when they arrived. The one advantage the Heddrians had was to choose the field of battle, and they would take that.

The Court grew more and more frantic, and Miriel shut herself away, pleading that she was overwhelmed by it all after her capture and escape. She stayed within sight of her uncle, she went nowhere and sent no messages, and as she lapsed into dull silences and, at night, despairing tears, the Duke’s suspicion began to give way to bemused belief. I saw him wonder if it might not be true that Miriel had been kidnapped, that she had been in fear for her life, that her sudden freedom, the chaos of the court, and the fear of invasion were truly wearing on her.

I should have rejoiced that one of our most dangerous enemies was growing less suspicious of us, but I could take no joy in it when our plans were coming to nothing. I had learned, long ago, to push away my own panic and hide behind the mask of a servant. I could sit calmly and look as serene as a nun. But I shared Miriel’s despair. If Wilhelm would send no message to her, would not accept any ray of hope from the rebellion he had claimed to support, then perhaps I had been wrong, and Miriel’s fears had been correct: all of it had been a lie, and Miriel and I had wasted our escape on a failed uprising. We would be trapped at Court, Miriel married to a man she had no love for and both of us embroiled in a treasonous plot.

And then: a note. I saw it folded neatly in Miriel’s laundry, and my heart leapt. Trembling, I smoothed it out—and froze. It was not from Wilhelm, not the message we had hoped for. No, it was from
the High Priest. It was no more than the seal of his office, pressed into wax as black as night, but I knew a summons when I saw one.

So the High Priest wanted to speak with Miriel. I sat on the bed, staring at the scrap of paper in my hand, and bit my lip. I had not forgotten my fears,
my questions. Of the few things I had brought back with me to court, one had been the dark blade that Aron had carried when he tried to kill me. When I arrived, I had slipped it away at once, secure in its wrappings of linen, and I had tried to forget it.

F
or a time I had kept it hidden away, superstitiously afraid to look at it, but it was not only a fear of betrayal that kept me from bringing it into the light of day—I did not want to compare it to the dagger I had seen on the night of Garad’s murder. I was afraid to know the truth. But one day, unable to bear wondering any longer, I had rummaged through the trunk I had packed at the Winter Castle—carried back, without me, and dumped in Miriel’s rooms—and pulled out the little parcel wrapped in linen. I had unrolled it, shaking, and had stared at the twin daggers I held, identical in every way save the ripples of steel in the blades.

I had thought on that for days, my mind churning below the tranquil mask I wore. The false royal guards coul
d have served anyone who benefited from Garad’s death: the Conradines, the Ismiri, Guy de la Marque. Perhaps it had been the disillusioned Earl of Mavol, Piter Nilson, raging at his monarch’s seeming indifference to his plight. Nilson’s men would have been hand-picked from his lands, chosen from amongst the citizens of the Norstrung Provinces. It was likely enough that one of them should carry a dagger made in the town of his birth.

But this was not jus
t any dagger; I knew enough to see the interlocking circles on the haft and question if the blade had been made for the rebellion’s soldiers. And that led me back to the High Priest—Garad’s threat to the rebellion had been a threat not to punish the villagers, but to root out all sympathizers and kill them, and grind the rebellion to dust.

But after that, my theory broke down
. If it had only been Garad, I would not have questioned it. I would have accepted the duplicity of the High Priest; I would have hated him for such a cold-blooded murder even as I saw him strive to protect the rebellion that he held so dear. But why should he call for the murder of Miriel? If the High Priest wanted a Queen who would keep Wilhelm true to the rebellion, there would have been no better choice. Any reasonable man would have doubted that a boy, thrust suddenly onto the throne, would waver in his beliefs—never mind a boy guided by Gerald Conradine.  And above all—why should the High Priest call for my death? Why should he have any reason to believe that my death would necessary? I, who had served his interests?

Then again, I was forced to wonder: why should anyone think my death necessary? I was no one without Miriel, and Miriel had been broken to a nobody with Garad’s death. I was the servant of a former Queen-in-waiting, practically an orphan. It did not make sense. None of it made sense. And so, even if I no longer trusted the High Priest, I told myself sternly that there was no rational, sensible reason to fear him. A man with the power of the kingdom at his fingertips, with the leadership of the rebellion in his hands, should not trouble himself with me—if we needed his help, we should seek it.
This message was most lucky in its timing; whatever he wanted, we could bargain for his help in return.

I slipped the note into my pocket and, on a whim, took one of the two daggers and slid it into a hidden pocket. I could feel it dragging at the cloth, a reminder—but of what, I was not entirely certain. I took a moment to steady myself, then opened the door to Miriel’s rooms and went out into the Duke’s makeshift study. For once, he was there
, Temar sitting calmly at his side, and so there was no opportunity to tell Miriel where I was going. I only hoisted a hamper of Miriel’s sheets on my hip and slipped out the door. I took the sheets down to the laundry, and then climbed the stairs back to the floor just below the nobles’ apartments, panting slightly.

Even with the impre
ssive size of the Fortress, the chapel here was nothing to the great cathedral in the Palace proper. There, the buttresses rose to dizzying heights, and the stained glass windows spread jeweled light across the marble floors. No, this chapel was small, the ceiling low by comparison, all of the light coming from the lamps that hung from the ceiling. But it was richly appointed, with beautifully carved pews and jeweled lamps, an altar hung with silk cloth, and behind it, golden statues of the seven Gods.