Summers at Castle Auburn (24 page)

Once most of the mess was cleared away, Giselda went to the mother's head and patted her sharply on the cheeks. “Tiatza! Can you hear me? Tiatza, you have a nice strong boy.”

Tiatza? Where had I heard that name before?

The mother did not answer, just moaned and turned her head aside from Giselda's insistent hands. “Can you hear me, girl? A boy, and he looks fine and strong.”

Tiatza said something incomprehensible, then burst into tears. “Not at all,” Giselda said calmly. “You'll have to be a good girl now and do what you're told.”

Whatever that meant. I left Giselda to her ministrations and went to join the assistants, who were wrapping the newborn in lengths of white cotton. For the moment, he had ceased his wailing, so I thought I might be willing to hold him. “Can I see him?” I asked, peering over the unknown maid's shoulder.

“He'll look like his daddy, this one,” she said, and handed the baby to me.

At first, all I noticed was that his eyes were open, and that he appeared to be staring at something over my shoulder. The next thing I saw was that his head was covered with the finest, sleekest red curls I'd ever seen.

“Look like his daddy—?” I said stupidly, automatically rocking the little form against my chest. “And who's that?”

Nobody answered me, though both the assistants gave me long, significant looks and even Giselda glanced over at me from the bedside. It was all coming together for me now. The red-haired boy, child of a red-haired man. Tiatza, about whom Elisandra had inquired on her first day back from Mellidon.

In my arms I was holding the illegitimate son of the prince of Auburn.

 

I
STAYED IN
Tiatza's room another half an hour, helping Giselda clean her up and monitoring the drugs I had administered. Tiatza was sleeping now, exhausted by her labors and her screaming, but her breathing seemed normal and untroubled; I did not worry about the side effects of the halen root.

“I can leave some behind, in case she is in pain later,” I offered to Giselda as I packed my satchel.

The old woman shook her head. “I've got less tricky medicines to dose her with if she needs them. Thank you for your help, though. I don't know how much longer we could have stood her shrieking.”

“If you ever need me—”

“Lady Greta would not be pleased to know you have been midwifing servant girls,” Giselda said firmly.

I smiled. “Just let me know,” I finished.

Eventually I was out of the close, fetid room, but even the quiet hallways did not seem open and clean enough for me. I hurried down the corridors, down the stairs, and out into the fresh, limitless night. The stars were receding into the face of oncoming dawn, but I judged there to be an hour or more before the sun edged above the horizon. I was exhausted, but too tense to sleep. I felt hot and filthy and sick and old.

Hot and filthy I could do something about. I headed directly for the great fountain, murmuring with its constant waterfall, and paused only to take off my shoes and drop my satchel. Then I vaulted over the rim and straight into the cold bubbling water. I sank to my knees, then extended myself facedown, under the surface of the water. I wondered if I could float there forever, a water nymph, indistinguishable from the sprays of the fountain itself, quiet, calm, undisturbed.

I surfaced noisily, gasping for air and spewing water everywhere, then I ducked below the surface again. The night air was so warm that even the chill of the water was not enough to cool my skin. I wished I had soap and brushes so I could scrub myself thoroughly, scrape away the top tainted layers of flesh and hollow out the bones themselves. Giselda had done more of the bloody work than I had; I could not understand why I felt so unclean.

Twice more I came up for air, then settled into the water again. The fountain was so big that even its curve did not distort my body; I could lie in it almost supine. My hair drifted above me, curling and uncurling with its own wayward motion; my blouse and my skirts billowed about me where they had trapped air in their folds. If I could sink to the bottom of the fountain and find some handhold, a gargoyle's face, perhaps, or an iron ring embedded into the stone, I could stay underwater forever, invisible and serene. . . .

The next time I surfaced, Kent was standing beside the fountain, watching me.

I gave a little shriek and fell clumsily back into the pouring
spray before righting myself and trying to muster my dignity. In the graying light, his face looked serious and unsurprised.

“I saw you come up twice before, so I knew you had not drowned,” he said in a solemn voice, “but this time I was beginning to wonder if you were willing to make the effort.”

I put my hands up to my sopping hair and began to wring out the water. “What are you doing out here?” I asked.

He lifted his eyebrows. “That's a question I imagine might be more profitably directed at you,” he said politely.

I flushed. “I often roam the castle grounds at night.”

“So I hear.”

“Who tells you such things?”

He shrugged. “Servants. Guards. People who have seen you. It explains your morning absences—though nothing, as far as I know, has quite explained your midnight ramblings.”

Now I was the one to shrug. “I grew accustomed to these hours last winter in the village. I've discovered that some of the most interesting events occur when everyone else is asleep.”

“For a while, I thought you might be slipping off to meet some ineligible suitor by moonlight,” he said in a level voice.

I was instantly irritated. “And who might that lucky man be?”

He smiled slightly. “But since you seem to have such a low opinion of men—”

“Lower these days than most,” I said.

He held out his hand as if to help me from the water. I hesitated, and he dropped his hand. “And why would that be?”

I waded forward in the water and he extended his hand again. Carefully holding on to his fingers, I climbed from the fountain with as much grace as I could manage. This was not much, considering how the wet clothes dragged me back. Once I was free of the water, my blouse and skirts clung to my skin. I was suddenly embarrassed at how much of my body they revealed.

“Are you cold?” Kent asked suddenly, releasing my hand as soon as I had found dry footing.

“Oh—not really,” I said, but he stripped off his jacket anyway.
It was a plain cotton garment, well-worn and a little small for him; it must be like my ragged gray dress that I wore most of the time around my grandmother's cottage. I was grateful when he put it around my shoulders. It was kind of him to make the gesture. “Thank you.”

He took my hand and proceeded to walk me, slowly and with complete unself-consciousness, around the perimeter of the fountain. “Why do you hate men more than usual these days?” he asked again.

I sighed quietly. “I have just—by chance—attended the birth of Bryan's son to some servant girl named Tiatza,” I said. “I believe you are familiar with her situation?”

He peered at me in the dark. “A boy, you say? That is bad news.”

“And why? Why any worse news than the birth of a girl?”

He made an inconclusive gesture with his free hand. “Because bastard girls are not likely, when they are twenty years old, to try to win support for a bid for the throne. Bastard girls disappear to some country farmhouse with their mothers, or get married off to minor lordlings, or get raised by some priestess in Chillain. Bastard boys are much more troublesome.”

I withdrew my hand and stood stock-still beside him. It was growing light enough for me to see his face, and it was clear he had no idea what he had just said to me. “Some bastard girls don't care for any of those choices,” I said quietly. “And they didn't realize that was the category into which they were blindly thrown.”

Now he flushed and snatched at my arm. “Corie—I'm so sorry, forgive me. Corie—”

I jerked my arm from his hold and stalked a few paces away, but he instantly caught up and grabbed my arm a little more forcefully. “Corie, I'm sorry,” he said, pulling me around to face him. “That was a dreadful thing to say.”

“True, though.”

“Which makes it even more dreadful.”

I stared up at him. Through the thick cloth of his jacket, through the thin wet layer of my dress, I felt the heat of his hands; his face, as he stared back down at me, seemed so sincere and so sad. “What
makes you think,” I said slowly, “that I will do any of the things you and your father have decided I should do? I am not willing to marry to oblige you. There is no reason in this world that I should.”

“My father would say,” he replied carefully, “that there is every reason. That you have been fed, housed, dressed, and educated at his expense for the very purpose of serving his ends at some future date. He made you an eligible bride, and he expects some repayment for his effort.”

“I was not brought to Castle Auburn to be groomed for such a part. I was brought here at my uncle Jaxon's insistence—to get to know my sister, to be included in the life that was half mine by rights.”

“Your uncle Jaxon is a politician as savvy as my father. He may have loved you, and he may have wanted you to love Elisandra, but that is not why he brought you, year after year, to Castle Auburn. He will inherit some lands when your marriage settlement is decided—and Greta herself will receive a handsome fee for her part in the transaction. Your life here has not been free, Corie. It was your own innocence that protected you from realizing that.”

I could not tear my gaze away from his face. I felt like Tiatza—I wanted to shriek in rage and pain. His own emotions had been exorcised from his stark expression; his eyes gave nothing back but my reflection. “Is that what you expected of me, Kent?” I asked softly, no longer able to talk in circles. “To pay for my existence with my freedom? Were you in the room with your father and my uncle, plotting which noble I should wed?”

Now his face seemed to crumple, as if the emotions could no longer be kept in check; he looked away quickly so I could not see. “No,” he whispered. “Like you, for a long time I did not realize why you were allowed to run here like some kind of tame pet. That is not my father's usual way—certainly not Greta's. I was stupid. I did not realize how they planned to use you. Until recently. This summer.”

I remembered our first breakfast meeting, his oblique comments and watchful eyes. He had warned me as best he could, but I had not been taking too many hints just then. “And did you think those
arrangements were good ones?” I asked. “Did you think that was an excellent way to dispose of me?”

He watched me closely, his expression now closed and bleak. “No,” he said. “That is not what I would have planned for you, had the issue been mine to decide.”

I shook myself free of him, and he let his hands fall helplessly to his sides. I resumed my measured pacing around the fountain, and he matched me step for step. “Just what power
do
you have, Kent Ouvrelet of Auburn?” I asked presently. “You seem decisive and self-assured. You're an intelligent man with an impressive lineage. It would seem you could do whatever you chose. And yet, from the things you have said—”

“To some extent, I, too, am at the mercy of the court maneuverings,” he admitted in a low voice. “But if I chose, I could be entirely my own man. I have estates that I inherited when I turned twenty-one last year. Estates that only the king's or the regent's command could take away from me. I could retire to them tomorrow, run them with my whole heart, and never partake in the politics at Castle Auburn again. I could do that. I have considered it.”

“And why don't you?”

“Because I was raised to believe that every man has a responsibility, and the strongest man has the heaviest responsibilities. I believe Bryan will be a troublesome and erratic king. And I believe that if I am here at Auburn, I might be able to exert some influence over him. Although I believe that less and less these days.”

“What influence do you have over him now?”

He laughed shortly. “I have actually kept him from a rash pursuit now and then. I convinced him not to be rude to Goff of Chillain when he arrived for the ball. I convinced him to invite Thessala of Wirsten to attend the festivities. And he does ask for my advice now and then, on matters he does not dare discuss with my father. My hope is that if he likes me, he will trust me, and may once in a while—when it matters—be guided by me.”

I abruptly halted one more time and stared up at him. “You hate Bryan,” I said slowly.

He nodded. “I always have.”

“Then—but—there are things I am only just learning about him, but when he was young—when he was a boy—he was sweeter then—”

Kent shook his head. “You asked me once if I was jealous of him.”

“I did not!”

“Not in so many words. But that's what you meant. I've thought about it often ever since. Perhaps I am. Could I rule in Bryan's place, better than he could? I believe that with all my heart. But almost any man could. Bryan is vain. He is cruel. He is selfish—and he is dangerous. And he has been these things since he was a child. Because he was beautiful, a lot of people did not realize how unattractive he could be. I can't change him. I can't depose him. But if, in the smallest way, I can control him, then my place is here amid the politics that go on at court. I may still hate what happens. But I may hate it less.”