Trouble with Kings (32 page)

Jason stepped past me and disappeared.

Eleandra shook her hair back again, combing the fingers of one hand through it. She held the other out. “Thank you.” She smiled. “For holding my pledge-ring for me. I believe I will have it back now.”

Jewel’s eyes widened. She looked down as though discovering the sapphire ring for the first time, twisted it off and handed it to Eleandra.

The gems sparked and glowed in the leaping light as the royal heir to Dantherei put it on her heart-finger, then held it up to admire it.

“Handsome stones, are they not?” She lifted her head. “Flian. You must sit down. You look dreadful.” She pointed across the fire from where Jason had been sitting.

Jewel winced, touching her neck as though the movement hurt. Her eyes were concerned. “Flian! Euw, is that blood on your sleeve?”

I dropped down on the blankets that Jewel had set for me. “Never mind.” That was all I had strength for.

Jason appeared, carrying a steaming pot and four mugs hooked by their handles through one of his fingers. “You were right,” he said to his sister as he stepped past me. “Good job.”

“I’m not completely useless,” Jewel said, huffing.

“Well I am,” Eleandra stated, smiling. “And I have never regretted it more than today. But it was truly splendid, my dear, seeing you defeat Garian.”

Jason knelt before the fire, positioning the steaming pot on a flat rock. He seemed absorbed in the task.

Eleandra reached up to touch his arm. “Was it your version of justice, or mere caprice, that strike with the flat across his face?”

“A warning,” Jason said.

Eleandra looked across the fire at me, a slight frown marring her brow. Then she lifted a shoulder in a shrug and flung her hair back with a grand gesture. Strands of shimmering chestnut drifted over Jason’s arm.

“I take it Garian is not dead?” Jewel asked.

“No.” Jason poured out the last mug. “Here, hand this to Flian, would you?” He gave two mugs to Jewel.

She pressed one into my good hand. “Why ever not?”

“Because he didn’t kill any of you.” Jason drank some of his own. “I expect I know his limits now.”

“He came very close to stabbing Flian.” Eleandra looked from Jason to me and back again.

I remembered Garian’s expression, and the table’s edge grinding into my spine as I waited for him to strike. “No he didn’t,” I said. “Not today, though I believed he would. It was different than when I tried to kill him. That time he really meant to return the favor, and except for Markham, he would have.” I flicked my good hand, trying to express my relief. “To be perfectly fair, I can’t really blame Garian for that one, for I’d just tried to stick a knife into him. But last night…this morning…he made the threats, but he didn’t seem in any hurry to carry them out. Even at the end there.”

Jason sent me an appraising look, and then turned his attention to the fire. “True. He waited too long. He could have finished the job with the dagger at the same time as he blocked me with his blade, but he didn’t do that either. Truth is, he talks a bad line but unless he’s in a rage he seems to prefer to stop short of murder—at least with women. I expect it would have been different if he had gotten his hands on me.”

Eleandra gave a delicate little sigh. “You do take the romance out of it.”

I tried to hide a grimace. Jewel made no attempt to hide her disgust—not that Eleandra paid her the least attention.

“No romance in him killing me.” He smiled faintly.

“No! No! I meant—”

“Or in my killing him and having to contend with uprisings all over Drath.” Jason lifted a hand toward the back of the cave, taking in the entire principality. “He’ll be looking for ways to get back at me, but that’s less of a headache than the prospect of settling Drath.”

“I’m glad you have the strength to do that.” Eleandra scooted close to him again, and this time laid her head along his arm, her hair draping over his sleeve like a shining cloak. “All I know is, I longed for you to come to the rescue.” She sighed, her shapely bosom rising and falling. “I am, at last, safe.”

Jewel turned my way, rolling her eyes and making a face like she was going to be sick. I tried to smile, but the wretchedness I felt at the sight of them was worse than the pain in my shoulder. I got to my feet and walked out; behind me I heard Eleandra’s voice, tender with affection, and her musical laughter.

I wandered, scarcely seeing anything, until I reached the cavern where they stabled the horses. There I found a familiar tall, dark-haired figure.

Markham turned. “Princess Flian?”

My eyes ached, my head, my heart. “Markham, you can act on your own, can’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Take me home. Now. Don’t tell them. Just—take me home.”

“You’re not well.” He frowned. “You really ought to rest that shoulder.”

“I can’t.” I covered my face with my hands. I had lost everything that mattered—including pride.

“I will,” he said at last. “But not now. The searches will be too thorough. Here. I have a place. I will bring you food, and you can rest. I will tell the others you are asleep, for they all know your wound reopened. And we will leave before dawn, when the search-lines have moved their way eastward. The search to the west will be at best desultory. Herlester will expect us to ride home.”

Home
. I gestured my thanks, my throat too constricted for words.

And so that’s what happened. He led me to another side-alcove in that great, ancient warren, which was spread about with numerous bedrolls. I sank down onto the one he indicated, and waited there until he brought listerblossom leaf and food. I ate and drank, and fell into an exhausted slumber from which I woke at the touch of a hand.

I rose, my head aching abominably, and followed Markham’s silent form through the quiet camp. I could not see Jason—or Eleandra. I realized I was looking for them, just to make myself feel worse, and confined my gaze to Markham’s broad back.

Down the tunnel, away, away. I wept, for there was no helping it, but at least no one would see it now, except for Markham, and I trusted his silent impassiveness.

Markham had prepared a couple of mounts. He and I shared one, because I was not able to ride, and he led the other. We traversed several tunnels, only lit by the torch he bore in one hand.

We finally emerged behind a great waterfall and rode down a narrow, precipitous trail that afforded occasional glimpses of the farmland of Lygiera.

And so we journeyed westward, with no further adventures. It was a quiet trip, each of us absorbed with our own thoughts. Markham saw to everything; each day I was substantially recovered, at least in body, if not in spirit, and presently I was able to ride by myself.

Thus we arrived in Carnison at last. Markham stayed with me until we reached the courtyard of the royal castle. “You are now safe. I believe I will return home.”

“Please come in,” I responded. “My brother will wish to thank you and to repay you for the money you had to spend.”

“It is unnecessary.” He smiled faintly. “Do you wish me to be the bearer of any message to the king?”

I thought of Jason, of Eleandra and the ring she had decided to wear again. I remembered those last horrible words that had divided us, and shook my head. More words would only make the hurt worse.

Markham took the reins of my horse, wheeled his and rode slowly back down the royal avenue.

I stood where I was until I had control of the tears, and walked past the shocked stablehands, past the footman at the courtyard entry.
Home
, I thought,
I’m home. I’m safe, I’m home
. It didn’t make me feel any better.

Not long after I stepped into my bedchamber, there was my brother’s step behind me. He looked worried.

“Oh, Maxl,” I cried and threw myself into his arms.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

“I’ve spread the word that you were caught in that bad rainstorm a week ago. Got chilled, which turned into a lung fever,” Maxl said the next day.

We were alone out on my terrace, overlooking the rose garden. The morning was balmy, almost summer-warm, the breezes carrying the fragrances of late blooms.

Beyond the roses, atop a hill, I could see the gazebo where Spaquel had set Jewel and me up to be taken by Garian, beyond which Jason had stood, counting on Spaquel’s being too arrogant to notice that the men in blue weren’t his, and trying not to laugh at the absurdity of the situation…

I turned in my chair, so my back was to the garden.

Maxl frowned. “What is it, Flian?”

He sat on the edge of my table, his hands absently fingering the ironwork edging. I knew he needed to be elsewhere—probably half a dozen elsewheres.

“My arm aches.” I forced a smile. “Go ahead to your morning’s work. I’m certainly not in any danger here.”

“It can wait. I’m more concerned about you.”

Instead of answering that, I asked, “What happened to Spaquel? You didn’t say.”

“Nothing. I let him know that he’d be fine as long as he confines himself to court socializing and to governing Osterog. One step beyond and he’ll get an escort to the border, and his land reverts to the crown.”

“Ugh. I wish you had thrown him out.”

“He’s actually a good governor—if for no other reason than because he needs the revenue. But that’s going to have to satisfy him, unless his taste for mixing in royal politics is so insatiable he wants to indulge it by being lackey to someone like Garian. He won’t give up a dukedom and his family’s lands lightly, though.”

“I would have thrown him out. But then I already know my judgment is poor, so we can be glad that you were the oldest, and the heir, and that I am a disposable symbol for useful wealth.”

Maxl got up and turned all the way around, then he sat down next to me, his restlessness gone. He frowned at me. “I’ve never heard you so bitter,” he said at last. “It’s not like you. It pains me. What have I done? What have I missed?” In that moment, he looked unexpectedly like Papa. “What did you not tell me last night?”

I blinked my blurring eyes. “I told you everything that happened.”

Maxl ran his hand through his hair and gave me a puzzled frown. “Something is missing.”

“You reminded me of Papa just now. The news of his death is recent for me. And Maxl, I feel so badly that I was not here.”

“Except he was quite proud of you. When I told him you’d gone to Dantherei, his face lit like a candle. Like this.” He opened his eyes and smiled. “He was so very pleased that you had taken an interest in what he regarded as a diplomatic mission to strengthen the bonds between the two kingdoms.”

“I’m glad of that, but I can’t help regretting he believed a lie.”

Maxl sat back, crossing his arms. “Not a lie. When Tamara wrote back after my envoy carrying the news about Papa got there too late to reach you, she said several flattering things about you. And she wrote herself—it was not some unknown scribe who is employed to hand out empty compliments.”

“Empty—do you have any such scribes?”

“Yep. Four of ’em.” He grinned. “And they’re good at what they do, which is greasing the wheels of the social…” He waved a hand round and round. “What? I was going to say ‘intercourse’ but that’s a fairly nasty image.”

I choked on a laugh, most of it kindled by surprise, because Maxl had never spoken to me that way before.

“Social carriage race? I like that. Everyone racing around in a circle. Sometimes it seems we don’t actually go anywhere, but then Papa did hammer on the fact that the path of least resistance gets the job done better. I’ve since experienced resistance, and what I assumed was tired-old-man talk has convinced me that he was quite wise.”

I nodded. “He was, wasn’t he?”

Maxl got up, and his fingers were restless again, tapping on the balcony rail. The breeze fingered his blond hair, hiding his profile. “He also talked about how power and position warps otherwise normal human interactions. Feelings. Relationships. He said, ‘Better for the monarch to be beloved than to love
.
’ I used to think that was just bitterness about Mother. But of late I’m coming to see the wisdom of that. What can happen when a ruler throws royal strength and resources into acquiring what he or she wants most passionately, be that another kingdom—or a person.”

“A good ruler suddenly turns into a bad one?”

“Well, more like a good ruler makes a bad decision. Papa fell in love with our mother, and it was his single worst mistake. Though we wouldn’t be here. But there are some who would consider us mistakes as well.” Maxl’s brows lifted in irony.

“So you’re saying it’s better for us to marry without passion? To marry for political need?”

“It’s one path. Not necessarily the best. Look at the Szinzars. The old king forced his biggest rival into treaty by marriage, and that did not save his life or his kingdom, nor did it—from what Jewel said once or twice—make for a very enviable home life.”

“Did Papa want you to marry? Or is all this discussion meant for my edification?”

“For us both. I am trying to figure out what I ought to do in that regard.” He lifted a shoulder in a rueful shrug. “Supposing the opportunity comes my way. As for your situation, I’ve been trying to follow it from a distance.” He gave me a comical grimace. “Since you won’t write letters.”

“I still don’t trust words.” My voice started to go high, and I got an internal grip. “So far, experience has borne me out.”

Maxl moved restlessly to the rail, staring down at the late, autumn-blown roses nodding in the morning breeze. “I wish I understood why, because I sense something missing. Never mind. Specifically I have been wondering if, balked of her plans with Garian, Eleandra is going to remember that I am now a king, and come courting me. And if she does, what I ought to do about it. Is she still beautiful? I’d probably look at her and become a rabbit before the wolf.”

So why are you looking like a trapped rabbit—

Argh! Go away, memory.

My hands were in my lap, lying there loosely. Pride had reasserted itself. I would not burden my brother with my foolishness. “I’m afraid you’re too late. I told you last night only that she was safe, along with Jewel and their servants, when I left the border to come west. What I didn’t tell you was that she managed, in the time it took for everyone to dismount from their horses, to get to Jewel and reclaim the sapphire ring she’d once given Jason. That and some of the things she said while we were alone together make me fairly certain that her interest in Jason rekindled when she saw him circumvent Garian’s plans.”