Sons of the Falcon (The Falcons Saga) (12 page)

Rhoslyn dipped her quill and wrote,
“The taxes on silk are to be raised one percent and the revenue…” Pausing, she frowned
at the dull, frayed end of her quill, then rummaged through the desk drawers
for the sharpening blade.

Carah jumped up from her desk, announcing,
“Look, Mum, what I drew.” She spread her paper over the letters and minutes of
the Assembly.

Rhoslyn cast a smile at the torrent
of blue, red, and black scribbles, then continued sharpening her quill. “Tell
me all about it.”

“This is Da and you and Kethlyn,
and this is Mount Drenéleth and the four falcons.” Carah tilted her head,
troubled. “Do you think they like me for letting them go?”

Rhoslyn grinned. “I should think
they like you very much, indeed.” She glanced at the black-and-yellow bumps
that represented the falcons awing, and the sharpening blade slipped. Rhoslyn gasped,
and blood dripped onto the picture. “Oh, sweetling, I’m sorry, we’ll clean it
up.”

But Carah no longer cared about the
drawing. “I didn’t mean to, Mummy! I’m sorry.”

“It isn’t your fault, love,”
Rhoslyn said, drawing her close. “Mummy’s clumsy, that’s all. I wasn’t being
careful.” She held out her finger. “See? It’s just a little cut. I’m all right.”

Carah inspected the bead of blood
welling from the tiny line as grievously as if it were a severed limb. Then she
wrapped her hand around her mother’s finger. Rhoslyn’s spine jolted upright as
a spark of energy lashed through her. She tried to pry her finger away, but
Carah held on with terrifying strength and unbreakable focus. “Carah, let go!”
Her daughter didn’t hear her. A stinging, tingling sensation pulsed in
Rhoslyn’s fingertip, as if a bug’s spiky legs waltzed there.

Carah’s eyes fluttered shut, and a
knot of effort hardened between her dark eyebrows. A thin film of sweat glistened
across the bridge of her nose, and her little body trembled. When she released her
mother, the trembling increased. Carah’s teeth chattered and her eyes rolled
back in her head and she collapsed to the rug, convulsing.

Rhoslyn dropped down beside her,
shrieking her daughter’s name. The convulsions stopped as suddenly as they had
begun, and Carah lay limp and clammy and unconscious. Rhoslyn scooped her up
and ran into the corridor. Where was she to go? What to do? “Kelyn!” she
screamed. “Alovi!” The household staff appeared from corridors and parlors but
looked on, helpless. Rhoslyn ran into a dead-end hallway and sank to the floor,
wailing and holding her daughter fiercely. “Help me! Oh, Kieryn, help me.”

~~~~

R
hoslyn held her daughter’s
hand for a day and a night. Pale and unresponsive and, oh, so small in her
little bed, Carah seemed to fade. It was as if she were seeping through unseen
cracks into another world, a breath at a time. Every hour or so, Rhoslyn tried
to dribble water or broth down her throat. She swallowed out of reflex alone.
The rest of the time, Rhoslyn whispered her favorite stories or sang lullabies
or pleaded. To no avail.

When the nursery door opened and
shut, Rhoslyn grit her teeth. It was Kelyn or Alovi again, come to pull her
away or convince her to get some rest.
To the Abyss with you
, she wanted
to say.
Leave us be.

“But you sent for me, didn’t you?”

Rhoslyn whirled in her chair. Thorn
Kingshield stood among the strewn toys. Without his rich robe, he looked more
like his old, unkempt self, dusty and wrinkled. Mud and darker splotches that
looked suspiciously like blood smeared the front of the white linen shirt. He
offered a tentative smile. “I came as fast as I could. Saffron found me in the
middle of a hunt, I’m sorry. Kelyn tried to explain what hap—”

Rhoslyn smashed a hand over her
face and failed to restrain the sobs. “It’s my fault, Thorn. Please. Undo it.”

His jaw knotted, and he approached
the bedside where his niece lay bundled up in the pink lace. Mud and all, he perched
on the edge of the bed to feel Carah’s brow, her pulse. His expression of
befuddlement hardened into a frown. “Tell me everything, Your Grace.”

Her throat tight and aching around
the words, she told him what she could.

“Your cut?” he asked.

“Healed.” She’d been too worried
about her daughter to think to examine it. All that remained was a little white
line where the flesh had knit. “Completely healed.”

Thorn nodded, not at all amazed,
but nor was he less troubled. “Leave me alone with her. Mother and Kelyn are outside.
Go to them.”

Rhoslyn rose, reluctant, then gave
her daughter’s hand one last caress.

“Your Grace?” Thorn added. She glanced
down at his uplifted face, and her breath clogged in her throat. “I can’t
promise anything. If she doesn’t—”

She stopped him with the pressure
of her fingers on his shoulder. The fear in his eyes was too much for her to
bear. She hurried from the nursery.

W
ith a burdened sigh, Thorn bowed
his head. “Saffron, what am I to do? I’ve never seen anything like this.” Carah
wasn’t feverish, rather chilled in fact. How gray her cheeks; she might be a
corpse lying there, but for the faint breath Thorn detected on his face as he
leant close.

A golden glow appeared above
Carah’s pillow, no brighter than the lamp burning atop the armoire. A tiny face
surrounded by swirling yellow hair peered down at the child. “She’s lost in
there somewhere,” said Saffron. “You must find her. Remember when I taught you to
listen with your avedra ears, my Thorn? Try to find her instinctive place.”

“Right.” Breathing deeply, Thorn
heard his breath shaking in his throat. If he failed … no, he dared not think
about it. Above all, he couldn’t lose this little girl. Had he ever loved and
adored anyone more? Careful, he had to be so careful. If the delicate vessel of
Carah’s mind was cracked, might his intrusion shatter it irreparably? He placed
his fingers on each of her temples and a thumb to the pulse in her throat. His
eyes closed, and a dull pain tingled along his nerves as his awareness made
contact with hers. He had expected a place concocted purely of dreams, but what
he found was a place of the spirit as well. No wonder Carah appeared to be
dying. Her bright little soul had flown almost completely from her body. Thorn
followed the bright thread, as he had once followed that of his brother when
the demon attacked. Gently, gradually, he tracked her through a gray mist until
he came upon a bright invention of her imagination. The snowy summit of Mount
Drenéleth reared up from meadows so green and lush that they could exist only in
the mind. Four falcons raced about the crags, and Carah rode one of them.

There you are
, Thorn said.

Carah gave a little jolt under his
fingers, as if he had surprised her. He felt himself repulsed. Carah’s
awareness receded, as deft as a butterfly evading his touch.

Don’t be afraid, love.
Please,
don’t run from me!

Uncle Thorn? What are you doing
here?

A falcon shrieked,
Let us fly
,
and Carah implored,
Let me fly.
How could she have understood what she
was doing when she wrapped her hand around Rhoslyn’s finger? She had acted on
blind instinct. She simply knew she could make Mum better. But when her task
was finished, Carah had been unable to separate herself cleanly; instead of
returning to her body, her awareness kept traveling, taking her spirit with it.
Now she didn’t want to wake. Indeed, how breathtaking and delightful it must
feel, the speed of the falcon’s flight, the stone arms of the mountain and the
valleys of snow blurring away below.
Don’t make me come down,
she cried,
her little fists gripping handfuls of feathers.

How to convince her without forcing
her?
You’re not flying, love,
he said, sitting with her on the falcon’s
broad back.
You’re only dreaming. Come home with me and wake. Your mum and
da are afraid. They think you’re gone forever. Come show them that’s not true.

Carah’s large blue eyes peered up
at him. The wind blew her hair across her face.
Just a little longer?
Please?

Ah, this glorious freedom. Thorn
wanted to stay and fly forever, too, but his body, sitting in a chair beside a
little bed bedecked in pink lace, whispered, “No.”

Yes!
Carah insisted, and
storm clouds gathered about the mountain peak.

Ah, Goddess, help me
, Thorn
prayed.

A brilliant white light appeared
over Drenéleth’s spire and brushed aside the gathering storm.

She answers me,
Thorn whispered,
hardly able to believe it and feeling that he must now die from the longing
that ached in his chest.
When this age of kings is over…
But here she
was, so soon, and he raised a hand toward her. The falcon, too, careened toward
the light. Carah giggled and clapped her hands. A voice said,
Go with Kieryn
Dathiel, child. Kharah has work to do. Playtime is over.
Though the voice
was soothing and resonated with
Precious, precious to me
, the command
was not to be argued with. The falcon alighted upon the narrow summit of the
peak, and Carah drifted down to stand on her own two feet. When she turned, the
falcon was gone, and Thorn stood in its place. He lowered a hand, and she took
it.

Upon the pillow, Saffron smiled.

Carah whimpered, and she and Thorn
opened their eyes together. Her voice raw and faint, she said, “Uncle Thorn, it’s
not my birthday.”

The strength gone from his spine, Thorn
fell back in the chair, chuckling in relief. “You gave us a terrible scare,
love.”

“I did?” Confusion made her eyes
large and soulful. “But I was just dreaming.”

Thorn dried a cold sweat with his
sleeve and, as if the task were as arduous as scaling a mountain, he lifted his
niece into his lap and held her close. His arms shook with the effort. “Carah,
you must listen to me. Do you remember your mother’s finger?”

She frowned for a moment, then
nodded. “I painted falcons, and she bleeded on them.”

“Did you know that you healed her
finger?”

She nodded again, reluctant this
time. She seemed to think he was going to be angry with her.

“What you did for your mother was a
good thing, love. But you mustn’t do it again. Not until I’ve trained you.”

“Trained me?”

This was a new word to her. “Till I
teach you how to do it properly.”

“Oh. When?”

He brushed a hand across her brow,
across her cheek, and felt warmth flooding her face again. Healthy pink flushed
away the frightening gray color. “Sixteen. When I come for your sixteenth
birthday, we’ll begin your training.”

“Sixteen!” she exclaimed, her
vitality rebounding more quickly than his. “But that’s a hundred years from
now.”

“Well, maybe not
quite
a
hundred,” Thorn said. “But that’s my decision. Agreed?”

Pouting, fingers twisting the hem
of her blanket into a knot, she nodded. “Agreed.” She squirmed around until she
could wrap an arm around his neck. “But, Uncle Thorn?” she asked around a yawn.
“Can we ride the falcons again sometime?”

He would like nothing better.

~~~~

In the fall of 985 After Elves,
after five years without a sovereign, Fiera’s alabaster throne was occupied
once again …

—
Chronicle
of Kings

T
he perfume of exotic
incense drifted through Prince Nathryk’s chambers. A delightful Ixakan woman
with skin the color of teak danced like a snake before the blazing fireplace.
Sweat glittered between her breasts like scales. A drummer and a flutist played
a swaying sort of music, making Nathryk as dizzy as the wine.

Upon his sixteenth birthday, nearly
two years ago, King Bano’en granted him his own apartment in the west wing of
the palace. He had a view of Graynor Harbor and the sea beyond. Nathryk hated
the sea, but he had to remember that Leanians valued that damned expanse of
roiling water and ships that sailed upon it more than the clothes on their
backs and the wine in their cups. So he supposed Bano’en meant to honor him
with this particular view. With the allowance his Aunt Ki’eva sent him monthly
he had furnished the suite in dark silks and heavy brocade. Hardly a patch of
wall was left to be seen among the drapes and pillars rearing up like mighty
pavilion posts. Three dining tables were arrayed with fruit and cheese, brandy
and wine. Couches and settees surrounded the tables so that his guests had to
reach no farther than arm’s length for one decadent morsel or another.

More than adequate accommodations
for a prisoner of state. Walking into his apartment was like walking into
another world, a world where he could forget about his prolonged captivity. It
was almost over, thank the Mother. The grand andyr trees beyond his balcony had
started to turn burgundy, and their nuts drooped in heavy clusters. When the
snows lay thick on the branches, he would turn eighteen. Then, of his own free
will, he would return home, ride through Brynduvh’s gates in triumph, and climb
the dais to his throne. At last. At long last.

He drank deeply of the wine. The
silken feel of it in his mouth was almost as delicious as the hand caressing
his chest. “My prince is weary?” muttered the red lips near his ear.

“No, your prince is drunk,” he
replied, shoving her hand deeper into his robe. She was just a common whore,
but what couldn’t she do with her thumbs?

Proper courtesans who catered to
highborns were too expensive for his purse, but that was his aunt’s fault. He’d
pleaded time and again for more money, but she was no fool. He made do,
regardless, and his parties had made him popular among certain circles
throughout Graynor. Granted, they made him unpopular in others. How often had
King Bano’en personally chided Nathryk for his decadent lifestyle? How often
had Nathryk told the king that he could, at any time, send his hostage back
home and be quit of his company forever? The argument never worked. Apparently,
Nathryk hadn’t displeased Bano’en badly enough, not yet.

Were the king’s spies so
incompetent that they didn’t know the full extent of Nathryk’s activities? He
didn’t think so. No, Nathryk suspected that Bano’en was merely biding his time.
Easy enough to keep his mouth shut and his ward hidden away for a few more
months. At this point, Bano’en didn’t have to care if Nathryk got bastards and
diseases from the harbor doxies.

Even Prince Ha’el steered clear of
Nathryk. One would think a younger man might appreciate Nathryk’s appetites,
but Ha’el was as much a disappointment as his father. Last summer, after the
prince married Lady Endhal’s daughter, Nathryk asked him, “Haven’t you ever
wanted to take it from him?”

Ha’el’s piggy little eyes hadn’t
bothered rising from the chessboard. He was a dismal player, and Nathryk waited
patiently for the chance to pounce his king. “What are you talking about?”

“The throne, from your father.”

Ha’el looked up at that.

“I mean, he could live another
thirty years.”

“Never speak to me again, on any
matter whatever.” Ha’el knocked over his king and rose abruptly from the table.
“In my country we have penalties for inciting treason, and it would give me
pleasure to cut out your tongue.”

So Nathryk had to find
companionship among his inferiors.

It was easy enough to sneak whores,
musicians, and players into the palace. Pay the right sentries, clear the right
corridors at the right hours, and Nathryk could host parties for days on end
before anyone reported missing wine and lamp oil, and strange people creeping
about looking for the middens to vomit in. Even the most reluctant guards were
easily bribed with an additional incentive: “Come join us. I’ll expect you when
you’re off duty. There will be plenty of wine and women to go around. See you
there.”

The guard from West Market Gate had
accepted the invitation. His hairy arse pumped between the knees of a squealing
dock whore. “Careful, Rubart,” called Nathryk, reaching for the flask to refill
his goblet, “we’ve not had that one examined for rashes yet.” Sprawled on
cushions and couches, several of his guests snickered. A playwright with a hooded
boy on his lap quoted a line about loving a lady from the stews. But the guard
paid them no mind. Nathryk pulled a knife from a block of soft white cheese and
took careful aim. The wine made his vision wobbly. With a flick of his wrist,
the knife somersaulted over the drummer’s headdress and pinned the guard in the
buttocks. He yowled and danced free of the whore’s legs and jerked the knife
free. Drunk as he was, he stared at it for some time before he recognized the
item that had bitten him; by then Nathryk and his guests were holding their
bellies in laughter.

“Hey, now!” Rubart exclaimed. He
tossed down the knife, hitched up his pants, and advanced with fists doubled.

“Careful,” Nathryk said. The guard
stopped in the middle of the rug, at last heeding the slurring little voice in
his inebriated brain that warned him of striking a prince. He loomed over
Nathryk, blinking heavily. His fists relaxed. “If you’re going to make a fuss,”
Nathryk purred, “you can’t come to my parties anymore. Go get stitched up and
be grateful I gave you enough wine to numb the pain. Come again tomorrow, will
you?”

“Not if I’m gonna be His Highness’s
pin cushion.”

The guests thought that a lovely
joke and laughed. “You can be
my
pin cushion instead,” declared young
Edryd, Nathryk’s favorite fencing partner.

“Don’t listen to him,” said
Nathryk, soothing the guard’s ego. “Go on, shoo, and don’t forget to finish
yourself off before you pass out, or you’ll be in greater pain than I could
induce.”

The guard hobbled off, a hand
pressed over the bloody blotch blooming on his trousers. The abandoned doxie rolled
onto her belly and popped grapes into her mouth, untroubled by the
interruption. One of the acting troop’s mimes grabbed her by the hips and took
over the guard’s unfinished business, but the doxie didn’t mind that either,
just kept eating those grapes.

The swaying music wound down at
last, and the snake dancer dipped in a deep curtsy behind a peacock fan. Her
eyelids were painted gold. The drummer picked up a livelier rhythm and fingers flew
across flute and harp.

Just about the time the drum
matched Nathryk’s pulse and eased him into a warm haze, the woman nuzzling his
neck opened her damn mouth again: “Rumor says my prince is to be married.”

He shoved her off the couch. Her
arm darted up to shield her face. The music stopped. All eyes clung to him,
waiting for the tantrum and dreading it. These same actors, guards, courtiers, and
townspeople had seen enough crockery smashed, food dumped, and faces bruised to
fear the worst. Tonight, however, the wine seemed to have dulled Nathryk’s
temper rather than inflamed it. He sank back on the couch and said, “It might
be true. Such is the province of princes. Pity me.”

“Oh, we do, Highness,” cooed the
playwright. “Princes know no freedom.”

“None at all. Duty first. Always
duty first.” Nathryk tried to squeeze the dizziness from his head. The room was
damnably hot. “I don’t even know her. I glimpsed her only once. This morning,
in fact. Queen Pa’ella pointed her out to me. I was on one side of the throne
room and this … girl … on the other, and a hundred people separated us. I was
so angry, I fled the court.”

“Justly so,” said the playwright.

“What’s she like, Highness?” asked one
of the actresses. The top of her gown hung down around her waist.

“A milksop. Pale, spiritless,
likely lacking a single intelligent thought in her chubby little head.” He had
to marry, he knew that, and while he didn’t want a demanding, despotic queen to
trouble him, he didn’t want to marry a corpse either.

“How can you find out? You
can
refuse her, I mean?” asked the lute player.

His guests gathered close around his
couch, his own bawdy, ragged little court.

“Shall I spy on her for you?” asked
one of the handmaids to Lady Somebody Or Other.

“Like you spy on me?” Nathryk
retorted.

“I never!” The handmaid was almost
convincing. It took a whore in jewels to act properly coy. “I come because I
love you, Highness. You know that.”

Nathryk scoffed. Bloody damned
whoring spy.

“Send for her!” cried the
playwright with a flourish of his hand. “Let us judge for ourselves if our
prince should accept this girl.”

“Yes!” cried the rest.

Grinning, Nathryk reached behind
his couch and pulled a bell rope. In moments, his manservant entered the parlor
and bowed. “More wine, Highness?”

“No, no, Ansel. I require the presence
of … what’s her name? The lady whom Bano’en proposes I wed. Bring her.”

 Ansel’s eyes widened and darted
about the parlor. “Here?” He was a round, ridiculous man who knew better than
to argue with Nathryk.

“Yes, here! Where else? I will
interview her
here
. Now. If she’s awake.” He was losing his spine. “Wake
her, damn it! Her prince summons her, and do not return without her.”

Ansel scurried off.

Nathryk pried himself off the couch
and stumbled about devouring bread and gulping ice-cold water. In twenty
minutes or so, he’d be tolerably sober again. The girl appeared on the
threshold in less than ten. Eager to please was she? Good.

“Let us see, then, what kind of
queen Bano’en thinks Fiera should have,” he muttered, pushing himself away from
the dining table. Nathryk waved Ansel out and attempted his usual cat-like
glide across the parlor. The wine unsteadied his legs, however, causing him to
sidestep, but only once.

The girl was, indeed, shorter and
rounder than Nathryk liked, but her puffy sleeves and full skirts contributed
to the effect. Her waist, cinched tight, was actually smaller than he expected.
Her skin was unmarred by sun or scar, her hair a mass of golden curls gathered
over one shoulder, as if she had been brushing it out for the night. It made
him think of his cousin Istra’s hair. Her nose was a bit puggish and her lips more
thin than voluptuous, but it wasn’t an ugly face, truth be told. Small, soft
hands were folded modestly before her skirts, and her lashes fluttered low
against her cheeks. Was she too afraid to look up at him?

She hadn’t come alone. The girl’s
nurse stood staunchly at her left elbow. In her starched black dress and severe
white wimple, she reminded Nathryk of a battering ram. Hair on her upper lip
twitched as she cast a scathing scowl around the parlor.

“You may go,” Nathryk told the
nurse.

“I shall stay, Your Highness.”

“But you’re not invited. Shoo.”
Gently, he took the girl’s hand and escorted her into her parlor. Edryd, good
boy, was on hand to shut the door in the nurse’s face. Her muted demands drowned
under soft notes from the flute.

The girl tried to pull her hand
free. Her eyes, large and brown, darted over the naked women and drunk men
lounging about on pillows, and her mouth opened in silent outrage.

“Don’t be afraid,” Nathryk cooed.
“Let me look at you. I have to know what I’d be getting myself into, after all.
You, too, I suppose.”

The girl’s thin lips drew into a
tight, angry line, but she stopped struggling and let Nathryk turn her slowly
for the court to inspect. They whispered and giggled and nodded.

“I’ve forgotten your name,” Nathryk
said.

Stiffly, she replied. “Aleksa, Your
Highness.”

Queen Aleksa? It had a nice ring to
it, he supposed. “And what do you like to do, Lady Aleksa?”

“Read.”

He smirked. “Poetry?”

Her jaw clenched. “History. Law.”

“Ooo,” passed like a mocking breeze
among the guests.

“Law?” Nathryk drawled. “Goddess
forbid. Isn’t that a bit much for you?”

Aleksa raised her chin in an
expertly snobbish fashion. “I don’t think so, Highness. I am my father’s heir.
I will need such knowledge.”

“And what holding is that? Her
Majesty informed me, I’m sure, but it slipped my mind.”

“Seastrong, if it please Your
Highness.”

“Where?” He had lived in this
insufferable country for five years and never heard of it.

Edryd filled him in. “It’s between
Endhal and Wyramor, on the coast, Highness. A small holding.”

“Ah.” Non-influential, then, posing
a threat in neither arms or wealth. Yes, that must appeal to Bano’en. A Leanian
tie to the Fieran throne was desirable to him, of course, but this was a safe
little holding unable to reinforce Fiera’s military strength or prominence in
trade. Even drunk, Nathryk was aware of that much. What other, unforeseeable benefits
would this match bring Leania? “Your father must despise you, that he would offer
you to his enemy. Or he’s more greedy than is good for you. What is
his
prize when you have a Fieran prince in your belly?”

Aleksa’s face flushed as red as the
rugs under her feet.