The Falcon Throne (The Tarnished Crown Series) (13 page)

“They were indeed well-matched, my lord. But it’s a shame about the babe.”

“The babe was trouble, delayed,” Aistan said sharply. “Clemen’s safer with it dead.”

Vidar nodded. “Yes, my lord. It is.”

Which was why he’d risked his hope of Lindara to make sure the child died. For the sake of their sons yet unborn and the Clemen those sons would inherit, knowing Roric wouldn’t do it, he’d taken it upon himself to stain his hands with innocent blood. Assuming, of course, that any child born of Harald and Argante could be innocent.

Still… he was guilt-pricked. And he hoped, in truth, that Liam had died without pain.

“Did you know,” said Aistan, watching him carefully, “that Roric threatened to withdraw from claiming Clemen if Harald, Argante and the child were denied safe passage out of the duchy, and money to keep them in exile?”

“No, my lord, I didn’t,” he said. “But I can’t say I’m surprised. It’s because Roric’s not Harald that we’re content to make him our duke. Isn’t it?”

Aistan grunted. “Bastard or not, he’s Berold’s grandson. There could be no other choice.”

Not one that wouldn’t lead to bitter conflict. Clemen’s people set great store by bloodlines, its lords no less than any common man in a cow byre. Too many lived who remembered beloved Berold for any of Clemen’s barons to step over Roric in pursuit of the ducal crown. That was why Roric’s bastard birth would be winked at.

Aistan’s mail chinked as he shifted his stance and glanced upwards. “Roric and Humbert are taking their time.”

“Do you wonder?” Vidar said, shrugging. “I might’ve been barred from court but my ears weren’t stopped to gossip. I’m told Roric loved Liam. He’ll be deep in grief.”

Aistan grunted again, unmoved. Then he turned a little, his gaze narrow. “It was wrong that Godebert died as he did. I counselled Harald against execution. But even so, Vidar? Your father was guilty of stealing coin from Clemen’s coffers.”

“I know that, my lord. And I’m guilty of being his son.” He stared at Aistan steadily. “But not a single coin Godebert stole ever found its way into my purse.”

“Harald thought otherwise.”

“And you, my lord? What do you think?”

“Rolling his shoulders, Aistan frowned at Harald’s bloodstained corpse. “I think that in a few hours the sun will rise upon a different Clemen. I understand Roric’s sworn to reinstate you.”

“He has, my lord. Do you and your brother barons object?”

“I don’t speak for them, Vidar. For myself, I’d call it justice. There was no proof you ever were part of Godebert’s dishonourable scheme.”

“Fie, my lord,” Vidar said, temper rising. “You’ll turn my head with such heaping praise.”

“With your inheritance restored,” said Aistan, choosing to ignore the
pricking words, “you’ll doubtless be seeking a wife to give you sons. Have you made a choice, or does your eye still wander?”

He’d served a difficult apprenticeship in the guarding of emotion, these last four years. Had emerged from it a master in hiding his heart. Hiding it now, Vidar favoured Aistan with his blandest of smiles.

“In truth, my lord, I’ve not dared to give that hope wings. Let Roric keep his word and then I’ll dare to hope for sons.”

“You’re prudent,” said Aistan, approving. “And more than once before tonight you’ve proven yourself a man of courage. I have a daughter, Vidar, whom I love. Kennise. My youngest. Like you she’s been hurt. I’d think that would mean you’d deal with her kindly.”

Kennise was the daughter Harald debauched. So what was this? A great lord seeking to dispose of an inconvenient nuisance? Did Aistan think that a physically ruined man, one shadow-tainted by a treasonous sire, might well struggle to find a father willing to bestow upon him a pristine child? That being in his own way as debauched as this Kennise, he’d fall to his knees in gratitude and humbly take Harald’s leavings?”

“You astonish me, Lord Aistan,” Vidar said, still smiling. The effort that took nearly shattered his spine. “I lack the words to express how I feel. As I say, I can’t hope to hope for anything just now. But when I can, I’ll give your generous offer all the consideration it deserves.”

Aistan’s dark, forbidding face lightened. For a moment he looked almost vulnerable, nothing like the man who’d confronted Harald.

“She’s a sweet girl, Vidar. I don’t offer her lightly. But she should have a chance at happiness, and—”

A stirring in the hall cut short his protestation. Roric and Humbert were coming down the stairs. Roric’s face was a picture of resolute authority, but beneath the determined mask Vidar saw smothered shock, and grief. Treading the stone staircase behind him came Humbert, his expression impassive behind that grizzled beard.

“My lords,” said Roric, halting beside the Great Hall’s dais. Not touching Harald’s overturned and splintered ducal chair. Only standing near enough to it that no one present could miss the hint. “It’s with great sorrow I must tell you that my late cousin’s child is indeed perished. Lord Humbert and I have close-inspected the scene of his unwanted and deeply regretted death and we are both satisfied that the babe died by a sorry mischance.”

Aistan stepped forward. “Can you elaborate, my lord?”

“We can,” said Humbert firmly. “For one of our men-at-arms had a
few breaths of life left in him. Dying, he told us what happened. Hearing our men approach, the babe’s wet nurse panicked. One of Harald’s men, alerted by her shrieking, foolishly refused to surrender his sword when told. There was an affray–and in the mayhem all were cut down and a fire started. No one survived.”

Still huddled on the floor, Ercole lifted his tear-soaked face. “Liar.
Murderer
.” Wild-eyed, he stared around the hall. “Will none of you speak? Will none of you condemn this upstart bastard who killed my poor sister and her child?”

“Leave him be,” said Roric, as Humbert opened his mouth to chide. “Lord Morholt? See the lord Ercole to his chamber and sit with him till he’s more composed. My lords and ladies of the court—” His gaze swept around the hall. Lingered a moment on the childish pages, who’d collapsed by the cooling fireplace and drooped over each other like wilting daisies. “My friends. This has been a tumultuous night…”

Letting Roric’s soothing words wash over him, Vidar smoothed his face to blankness. So, did this mean he was safe? If the man he’d suborned was indeed dead then surely he was safe. Unless Ercole was right to call Roric a liar, and even now something sinister brewed for a private bubbling over. His heart was tripping again, the pulse in his throat throbbing like a wound. What a
fool
he’d been, to trust the brat’s necessary killing to any hand but his own.

Now all he could do was trust that the dice had fallen in his favour.

His soothing speech ended, Roric bade Harald’s guests to remain within Heartsong until the morning. As the stunned court began to withdraw from the hall, Vidar snatched Roric’s attention.

“Let me be useful, my lord. I’ll account for our men-at-arms while you attend to weightier matters.”

Roric shook his head. “No need, Vidar. Humbert will do it.”

But Humbert was tangled with Morholt, both men trying to persuade a distraught Ercole to let go of Argante’s body. He’d started keening. A terrible sound.

“Go, then,” said Roric, distracted. “Tell Belden to hold his men in the guards’ chamber and shackle any who might think to oppose us. Our men you can bring back here. And locate the castle’s steward. Bid him secure himself and the servants in their quarters till they’re sent for.”

“My lord,” he said, and left Roric to help deal with Ercole before he changed his mind.

Almost breathless with pain, he searched the castle. Heartsong’s steward, a sweating wreck who babbled nonsense about a heart-spasmed old cook, was swiftly dealt with. The servants too. Belden, unharmed and near to tears, eagerly promised his men’s obedience. That left only Roric’s men… and his own particular problem.

But though he looked in every chamber, he couldn’t find the man-at-arms he’d bribed to rid the world of Harald’s brat. Which meant either the man was one of those foul, charred bodies in the nursery–or else fear had encouraged Liam’s killer to flee under cover of confusion.

It made little difference. Either way, the deed could not touch him.

Light-headed with relief, almost able to forget the torment in his hip, he led what remained of Roric’s makeshift, borrowed army back to the hall. Ercole was gone. So were Harald and Argante. Their blood remained though, dried and dark red on the tiles. While Humbert and Aistan and the other lords wrangled before the freshly fed fire, Roric stood apart and stared at the place where his cousin fell.

“Wait here,” Vidar told the men-at-arms, and crossed to him.

Arms folded, chin lowered, Roric didn’t look up. “You saved my life, Vidar. I’ll not forget it.”

“Return what’s mine, Roric, and I’ll ask for nothing more.”

Roric’s sideways glance was sharp. “I said I would, and I will. You’d doubt my word? Now?”

“No, my lord. Of course not.”

“Good.” Sighing, turning, Roric lifted his head. “You’re weary, Vidar. You should seek a bed.”

“Before you?” He let his anger show. “I don’t think so.”

“Don’t be a fool,” said Roric, kindly enough. “You hide it well, but it’s clear to me you’re in pain. Go. There’s nothing more you can do tonight. The rest of this is council business.”

“And no concern of mine.”

Roric nodded. “As you say.”

“Very well, then. I’ll withdraw.”

“I’ll be starting back for Eaglerock tomorrow,” Roric added. “I’d have you ride with me, if you think you can. We must discuss the details of your inheritance.”

Vidar swallowed the hot words crowding his tongue. He would be a fool if he let a thoughtless insult imperil his future. “Thank you.”

“No, Vidar.” Faintly smiling, Roric touched his arm. “Thank you.
Now, good night. Sleep well and wake refreshed. For I give you fair warning, I’ll not be dawdling home.”

“My lord.” Vidar bowed, not caring that courtesy stoked his body’s pain to greater heights. Let Roric gallop from doorstep to doorstep, he’d keep pace with the bastard no matter the cost. “Until morning.”

Limping from the hall, feeling the great lords’ gazes follow him, he made sure to keep his expression suitably grave. But once he was alone, in a cramped chamber on Heartsong tower’s third floor, he thought of Lindara and laughed, until pain and exhaustion felled him like an axe.

Gently imprisoned within her father’s unfashionable Eaglerock townhouse, Lindara waited, and waited, and thought she might go mad. Two weeks gone, almost, since Harald died at Heartsong. Clemen was still in convulsions. Ten days since Vidar and her father and Roric had returned from the north. Three days since Harald, Argante and their babe were laid to rest without public ceremony in the grounds of Eaglerock castle. Two days since Clemen’s new council was announced, with Humbert at its head. So far she’d seen her father five times, Roric once and Vidar not at all. Every morning she came downstairs, full of hope that this would be the day her beloved came to claim her. Every night, disappointed, she snuffed out her bedside candle and wept because he hadn’t.

If only she knew why he was taking so long…

Biting her lip, she tied off a thread of green embroidery silk and held out her hand. “Red, Eunise.”

Eunise, her nurse turned lady’s maid, laid a length of red silk across her palm. She threaded her needle, fighting the urge to stab it in her eye.
Embroidery
. She was sick to death of it. Sick of dour old Eunise, this dayroom, her life. No wonder wild birds moped and died in a cage. Feeling savage, she jabbed the needle through the silk cushion cover she was stitching. What she’d not give for a gallop through Bingham Wood, following hounds in pursuit of a stag. But her father wouldn’t hear of it. She must stay indoors, with Eunise, till agitated Eaglerock was millpond calm again.

“And when will that be?” she’d demanded, fretted to unwise confrontation.

“How should I know?” he’d replied, scarcely heeding her. Not caring, it seemed, that she was close to tears. “Lindara, cease your carping. I’ve greater worries to task me than your fidgets.”

So here she sat, day after tedious day, stitching cushion covers. Going mad.

A knock on the dayroom door, then it opened. Gillie, the townhouse steward, crossed the threshold and bowed. “My lady. Lord Vidar is come, seeking Lord Humbert.”

“You should send him away, my lady,” said Eunise, uninvited. “Lord Humbert wouldn’t like him bothering you.”

Perhaps she could stab her needle into Eunise’s eye, instead. “Show Lord Vidar in, Gillie.” And as her prunish maid hissed under her breath, added, “Enough, Eunise. It would be impolite to send him away without a courteous explanation.”

Heart hammering, she waited. When the door opened again, admitting Vidar, it took all her strength not to leap into his arms. Not to drown in pity for him, take his tired face between her hands, kiss away the fresh lines of pain grooved deep around his eyes and his lips. Because she couldn’t, must seem indifferent, she tucked the threaded needle into her embroidery and handed it to Eunise, then smoothed the folds of her violet skirts.

“My lord,” she said, offering Vidar a distantly polite smile. Eunise bristled close beside her, a guard dog ready to bite. “I’m told you wish to see Lord Humbert. Alas, he’s trapped in Eaglerock castle, and I can’t tell you when next he’ll be home. Roric keeps him monstrous busy. But if you’d care to leave him a message I’ll be sure he receives it.”

Vidar’s smile was as distantly polite as her own. “A kind offer, my lady, but what I must say to your father is best said face to face.”

She nodded, the gracious hostess. “Of course. Eunise—”

“My lady?” said Eunise, suspicious.

“Bring me a pitcher of Evrish wine, a plate of sugar wafers and two of the red glass goblets. I’d not send Lord Vidar away completely unsatisfied.”

Eunise tucked in her whiskered chin. “My lady, Lord Humbert wouldn’t approve of that.”

“And I don’t approve of you disputing me! Will you go, or must I dismiss you?”

“My lady,” Eunise muttered.