The Falcon Throne (The Tarnished Crown Series) (9 page)

“An’ it please His Grace the Duke,” the page piped, “but he’s wanting supper served.”

Because she had to, because this was a favoured lord’s son and she was common as muck, Nelda spread her apron and bobbed a curtsey. “An’ it please His Grace the Duke,” she answered, “fetch the other pages, sir, for you see the duke’s supper is here ready and waiting.”

“I see it,” said the page, his eyes wide with greed. “I shall return in a moment.”

“There now, Ellyn, you’d best go,” said Nelda, as the page scuttled out. “For in a tricket I’ll have him and his friends underfoot like mice. Aunt Cook, Aunt Cook—” An urgent hand shook the heedless woman’s shoulder. “Supper for the duke, Aunt Cook.” She turned to the kitchen brats. “Come on, you little toads! On your feet!”

Wrapped once more in her coarse woollen cloak, Ellyn left the old woman snorting awake, the kitchen brats cramming the last of their bread and Nelda pushing her bastard brat to safety beneath the long
kitchen bench, and made her own way with Liam back to their eyrie. One pause on the minstrels’ gallery, to snatch a last glimpse of Duke Harald. For all his smiles he looked weary, packed about with pushing lords and ladies. After him for favours, always, they were. No matter what the duke gave them it was never enough. Never enough for the lady Argante, either. Greedy bitch. All the fine things he’d given her, and not once did she open her mouth to the duke if it wasn’t to ask for more. She was in his lap down there, wriggling. What a cock-tease. The poor duke. He couldn’t see her for what she was. Sick in love with his son, he was babe-blind. Why were men so stupid?

Holding Liam close, feeling the ache in her breasts that told her she was too full of milk, she hurried up the spiral staircase then along the stone corridor that led to the nursery. The man-at-arms, Emun, he was in his rightful place again. He saw her and rolled his eyes, finger pressed to his lips.

Slowing, she felt her heart thump.
Morda?
she mouthed, and he nodded. Sighing, she smiled her thanks. He smiled back, not such a bad man, Emun, even if he was rough. He’d not had to warn her. Could be he’d like a kiss sometime. He’d earned it. Sucking in a deep breath, she stepped into the nursery.

“
Slut!
” shouted Lady Morda, leaping forward with bony arms outstretched. “Give the babe to me, you drabbish lightskirt!”

Even as Liam woke, Ellyn clutched him tighter and half-turned away. “Please, my lady, you’ll—”

Liam opened his gummy mouth and howled. It was his angry cry, his hungry cry, and her aching breasts spurted milk at the sound. Lady Morda stepped back. She knew that cry too. And she knew that whatever the duke’s son wanted, that came first. Always.

The old cow pointed at the nursing chair. “Sit,” she hissed. “Feed him. I go downstairs to the duke. He will be told what you’ve done. Expect a whipping, at the least.”

Ellyn sat, unlaced her tunic, bared her breast and set Liam to suckling. Outside, in the corridor, Lady Morda was berating Emun. She’d see him whipped too, and perhaps a hand taken for good measure. Or an eye put out, his cock sliced off. He’d be sorry he let the sluttish wet nurse past him. Hating her, Ellyn stroked Liam’s downy head. She’d speak up for Emun, she would. Tell the duke she’d waited till the man-at-arms had needed a piss, then slipped out of the nursery. She’d say she’d not meant to cause trouble, Liam was fussy, wanting
a walk, and she was hungry. No harm was done. Duke Harald would listen. He gave her many kindly looks–and he had little care for Lady Morda. The old bitch wouldn’t have the pleasure of maiming poor Emun.

Liam made happy little gurgling sounds when he sucked. Charmed by them, adoring him, Ellyn closed her eyes. Her lamb, her precious lamb. She’d keep him safe from Lady Morda, and every other harm.

Trapped in his chair, near-deafened by that old bitch Morda’s shrieking rage, Harald felt his fingers itch for a sword. A cursed pity the court’s niceties demanded a lack of naked blades and bloodshed. He couldn’t even summon the serjeant to kill her for him, since Morda was cousined in some distant degree to Argante and so was thrust out of his reach. To his lords’ and ladies’ tittering amusement, and threatening to drown out his minstrels, the old sow was demanding the hide of Liam’s wet nurse.

“But my lady,” he said, when the hag paused to draw breath, “would you have me a tyrant? How can I chastise without cause?”

Morda’s pebble-grey eyes bulged. “Without
cause
?”

“Morda…” Standing beside him, slender fingers lightly rested on his arm, Argante favoured her kinswoman with a cool smile. “His Grace is right. In your dismay you’ve not told us what the girl has done to earn this demanded whipping.”

“She took your son from his cradle!” Morda spat, her miserly dugs heaving beneath the green brocade bodice covering them. “She wandered with him about the castle like a drab, heedless of the hour and chill, and if she did not show her privy parts to every man-at-arms in passing I am not a true servant to His Grace and that babe!”

More tittering. The court’s pages, holding silver trays of cooling food, stared at the bitch and each other. Two smothered giggles. Harald felt his teeth grind. Morda was making a fool of him.

“You saw her drabbish? With your own eyes, this very night?”

“Saw her?” The high colour in Morda’s sallow cheeks faded. “No, I did not see her, not this time. Your Grace,” she added, warned by his glare. “But I tell you truly, the wench is a—”

“Silence!” he said, thumping his fist to the arm of his chair. Of course the wet nurse was a slut, delivered of a bastard planted in her by some cowherd. But her milk was rich. Liam drank from her till he was bursting, and thrived. And she was a prime piece of flesh, young
and eager to open her legs. He’d caught her looking at him more than once. Had Morda not haunted the nursery he’d have had the little wagtail pinned against a wall long since.

The bitch knows. She’s jealous. If there’s been even one man eager to thrust his cock between her skinny thighs I’ll eat my best destrier. Raw
.

“My lady Morda, your care for my son cannot be faulted,” he said sternly. The court must not think him chastened. “But I fear you wrong his wet nurse. She dotes on the child, as all of Clemen dotes. If she walked him about the castle, then she did so with my leave. You well know Liam can be fretful of a night. Walking settles him.” Without looking at Argante, he eased his arm from beneath her fingers and closed his hand about hers. “Is that not so, my dove?”

“Indeed, my lord,” she replied. “But perhaps—”

Still smiling, he tightened his hold. “There, lady Morda. You hear my son’s mother. And now we are done. Return to the nursery and think no more of my son’s wet nurse.”

No curtsey from Morda, only a stiff-necked nod. “Your Grace.”

He would accept the implied insult, this last time. And in the morning he’d dismiss her. Let Argante pout. Did he not pour food, wine and coin into the open cesspit that was Ercole? For a half-brother, he’d do it. But not for the dried-up old bitch withdrawing in offended silence from his presence. The pages were still snickering, even as they continued serving their betters. Who did they belong to? Ah, yes. Meriet and Udo. He must devise a particular punishment, then. Sending to his court sons with no more breeding than a mucked hog.

Argante was yet to move, her hand still prisoned within his fingers. She knew better than to pull free, with so many eyes upon them. “Harald…”

She might sound pleading, she might have gasped a little when his hand took hers, but in truth she didn’t fear him. The first two women he’d made his duchess had feared him. He could break them with a look. Water in their veins, not blood. Argante was full of blood. Full of temper and life. The kind of woman to breed strong sons.

“Harald,” she said, “shall we enjoy another dance?”

He was weary. His chest hurt. But she was right, they should dance again. They should show the court that Clemen’s duke and his duchess were as one in all things. There were no Harcian merchants here to send tales home to Duke Aimery and his ill-mannered heir, but Clemen tongues wagged too. And not even he could cut them all out.

He stood. “A slow measure, yes. So I might savour your beauty.”

“And I your strength,” Argante replied, her smile brilliant. No other man in the room would know, as he knew, that behind the smile were surrender… and forged steel. She knew she’d lost Morda. And he knew she’d find a way to make him pay for that loss. It was the dance between them that did not end.

At his signal, the minstrels in their gallery shifted to playing a
chibinay
. And because he and Argante were dancing, everyone danced, and the pages were left to stand adrift and watch and not touch the uneaten morsels of food they held, on pain of losing their fingers.

Without warning, the music stopped.

As the patterns of the
chibinay
fell apart, Harald released Argante and stepped back. Tipping his face to the minstrels’ gallery, he glared.

“I gave no command for you to cease your playing! Begin again or forfeit your coins! Forfeit your supper also, and the comfort you find beneath my roof!”

Still no music. A stifled gasp turned his head to the confusion of lords and ladies milling in the hall. Then a clatter, as one of the pages dropped his silver tray to the flagstones. Eggs in aspic burst wetly, scenting the air with expensive spices.

“Foolish, wasteful boy!” Argante snapped. “Think you too highly bred for whipping? I’ll choose the birch myself and—”

“Whip a child for a moment of fright?” someone demanded. “For shame, Argante. Will you whip your son the same?”

The tangle of lords and ladies parted, hushed and staring.

“Roric?” Frowning, Harald watched his cousin’s slow, steady approach. He was flanked by Humbert and crippled Vidar, some half-pace behind. In the stunned silence, Vidar’s halting footsteps sounded loud. All three of them wore mail, held naked swords, looked warlike. “Roric, what means this? Is it the Marches? Or does unprovoked Harcia bare its rotten teeth?”

Roric’s unfashionably close-clipped dark hair was dirty. Smears of dried mud marred the high cheekbones gifted him by Guimar, and his deep-set brown eyes, the eyes every man could see in a painting of their grandsire, Duke Berold, were clear and cold. Unfriendly. He halted, mail coat chinking, the unsheathed sword a threat in his hand.

“No, Your Grace,” he said softly. “Harcia doesn’t threaten us, though we both know their duke is often sore provoked.”

Even as he felt a prickle of warning across the back of his neck,
Harald lifted his chin. “Cousin, you talk in riddles. Speak plainly. Is there trouble, or not?”

“Yes, Harald. There’s trouble,” said Roric, his face so grim. “And we’ve come to discuss it. No–no, don’t bother to call the serjeant. Belden knows his duty and has done it. Your rule of Clemen is ended.”

Disbelief, then a surge of crushing pain. Half-blinded, Harald fought to hide it as Argante stepped forward.

“
Ended?
” she echoed, her beauty twisted into rage. “It is not
ended
, you bastard, nor will it ever be. Harald was born your duke and will die so. This is treason! And before the sun rises Harald will see every one of you dead!”

“–have softened His Grace, girl, but be warned! My cousin Argante knows you for what you are, and
I
know you! We’ll be rid of you soon enough!”

Ellyn waited for Lady Morda’s closet door to bang shut behind her, then pulled a hideous face. “Miserable old cow,” she muttered. “His Grace will cast you out before he sends me away.”

In her arms, Liam heaved a huge sigh. Ellyn glanced down at him and breathed out her own sigh. Praise the spirits, he was sleeping at last. With all that milk in his belly, with luck he’d sleep until daylight so she could drowse a while herself. Stealthily she eased out of the nursing chair, then settled Liam in his cradle. He didn’t stir, not even when she tucked his scarlet blanket around him. Looking into his innocent face she felt a love so fierce it was like a pain.

As she did every night when it was only the two of them, no Morda to carp, she dropped to a crouch and whispered her way, one by one, around the charms strung onto her precious lamb’s cradle.

“For health… for happiness… for keen eyes… for strong heart… for strength in battle… for wisdom… for love…”

With each whisper she kissed her fingertip and touched it to a gold disc, calling on its purpose and power for Liam. Trusting more to the old, half-forsaken ways than ever she would to what the Exarch’s prosing priests said. It was Harald who put the charms on the cradle. Just one more reason to love the duke.

Last of all she touched the heavy gold ring, set with rarest tiger-eye from Agribia. Not a proper charm, not really. But it was the great Duke Berold’s ring, his name written on the inside of the band. So that was a charm too, in its way.

When she was done, the spirits reminded of their duty to Liam, she fetched the nursery pot and pissed out the ale she’d drunk, grateful she didn’t have to freeze her arse in the wintercold garderobe, like Emun. Then she curled up on her straw pallet, and closed her eyes to sleep.

Roric had to admire Argante’s fluent fury. A torrent of abuse and she’d hardly paused to draw breath. Where had she learned such inventive curses? From Harald? Certainly he didn’t seem surprised to hear the foul words tumbling from his youthful wife’s tongue. Nor did he seem inclined to speak for himself. To the casual eye he was relaxed as he stood before them. A man who didn’t know better might think him amused.

“Roric.”

And that was Humbert, his prompting spat from the corner of his mouth. He was right, of course. Argante’s spittled tirade had lasted long enough.

“Have conduct, cousin! You sound like a bawd. Clemen’s court is owed meeker manners than that.”

Stumbled to silence, Argante stared. “I am not your cousin, I am the Duchess of Clemen,” she snarled, recovering. “And I won’t be schooled in manners by a snivelling, treacherous
bastard
.”

“No?” Roric shrugged. “Then find someone acceptable to teach you, Argante, for you’re as much a disgrace as your husband.”