Shadowforged (Light & Shadow) (10 page)

“Someone mentioned the other day that it was not uncommon for a King to have mistresses. That it was not so uncommon for a King to marry for duty, but take his pleasure where he pleased.” I closed my eyes briefly. A political marriage, and a mistress. In one feel swoop, the King would have ruined Miriel, and would himself be free to marry another daughter of the court.

“Was it Gerald Conradine who asked?”
My voice was bitter.

“Efan of Lapland. But you’re not far off. He has…”

“…a daughter?” I guessed, and Temar nodded. “Again, close enough. They align themselves behind the Torstenssons, even though it was the other way around long ago—before the Conradines, Efan’s family ruled a portion of land. Without the Conradines holding the West, the old allegiance is slipping away. Could be, the King would see a chance to unite the West while he faces the east.”

“And so I am to keep Miriel from being compromised by the King, so that she remains fit for marriage.”

“Exactly.” Temar’s eyes gleamed. “More than that—she must be beyond even his reach. Only one thing keeps a smart man from recognizing what’s to his advantage, and that’s the chase. So you keep Miriel out of his grasp.”

Chapter 10

Not a few nights later, I was summoned into the Duke’s presence once more. The outcome of the last meeting gave me no comfort—coupled with the Duke’s relative kindness since our attempted murder, it added up to too many odd things. I feared that this meeting would be the end of such civilized behavior. I was tempted to meet with Temar, and demand that he tell me if I was in danger, ask what the Duke suspected.

Then I realized that my paranoia was due in part to my deception; how obvious would such a thing be the man who had taught me everything I knew about lying? And—I must face this—I no longer trusted Temar to take my side. Every time I remembered that, I wondered if it had been worth it to use up his trust in the way we had.

So I was on my own. I used a breathing technique that Roine taught some of her patients to use when in pain, and I felt my heart stop racing quite so quickly. At the door of the Duke’s rooms, I unclenched my hands and tried to ignore the fact that my dinner seemed about to escape. Then I squared my shoulders and went in. As the door to his guards closed the doors behind me, I bit my lip.

“Welcome, Catwin. Please, have a seat.” The Duke waved to the chair that Miriel was now permitted to use. He was smiling at me, and clearly attempting not to terrify me by doing so; that put me on edge, even as it gave me the disrespectful urge to laugh. Given how uncomfortable the Duke looked, it must have been years since he had tried to smile like this.

Half-fearing some sort of death trap, I walked over to the chair and sat down gingerly. No blades dropped from the ceiling, no trapdoors opened below my feet, and I exhaled as softly as I could. I looked around myself. The room seemed to be empty but for the two of us, and I wondered if Temar was hiding somewhere, watching me.

“Temar tells me that you are progressing well in your studies,” the Duke said, with a trace of his usual brusqueness.

“Yes, my Lord.” Certainly, my dedication to my craft had been honed by my brush with death. Temar might not speak to me with kindness any longer, but I knew that I was doing well. He could not stop taking pride in his training, and when I excelled, I marked the approving gleam in his eyes; I marked, too, the flicker of apprehension when I outmatched him in sparring. There was the dark sense between the two of us now, that any fight could be to the death. I wondered if Temar’s fighting was improving even as mine did; I saw him using the techniques on me that I had used to win against him.

He watched me. He watched me as if I could become an open adversary, and when I saw that look, I sometimes felt that I could see farther into his soul than I ever had before. At such times, I wondered who Temar was, and where he had come from. I had studied his features, but I could not match them to anyone else I saw, even at the Palace. Someday, I thought I might venture out into the city and examine the traders and travelers to see if I could find dark eyes like Temar’s, curly black hair. I could ask that person who they were and where they were from, and I could begin to unravel the puzzle of Temar. I could have a fighting chance of knowing what lay behind his eyes, and what desperation drove him to—

The Duke’s voice called me back.

“You are to be commended. I had my doubts that a—well, never mind.” He heaved a breath, and I had a moment of amusement; it was taking him much effort indeed to beat around the bush. “You have acquitted yourself well.”

“Thank you, my Lord.” The assassination attempt hung, unmentioned, in the air. I could not think what he wanted to ask me.

“I once asked you to consider your loyalties,” the Duke said to me. He steepled his fingers together and stared piercingly at me. “It has occurred to me that, although you once hid the actions you used to do so, you have
always worked in my interests. My niece is safe, and her reputation is unstained. You have done well.”

“Thank you, my Lord.” I was growing more wary with each compliment.

“You have also prospered from my patronage, have you not?” He gestured to my fine clothes, to the well-crafted weapons I carried. I was sure, now, that he was having me watched. He was within one quick lunge, and only one man in the world knew me well enough, and moved quickly enough himself, to stop such a thing.

It was a dizzying thought. I could kill the Duke—

“I have prospered, my Lord,” I said, steadying myself. He smiled again and spread his hands out.

“And so,” he said smoothly, “what profit to us being enemies?”

“Were we enemies, my Lord?” Always, when speaking with him, some piece of bluntness rose in me to match his own. He smiled now, as he always smiled. The fact that he found my rudeness amusing was one of his most terrifying qualities.

“I think you know,” he said. Then he must have remembered that he was trying to be nice to me. “I was…displeased…that you had hidden knowledge from me. I was not your friend. But we are practical people, we do not need to carry grudges. You will agree that there is no reason we should be at odds with one another.”

“Yes, my Lord.” No reason, beyond the fact that Miriel planned to destroy him one day. No reason beyond the fact that I would never trust him, and I knew from Temar that the first rule of surviving was remembering that an untrustworthy person was an enemy. That list now included Temar, and the Duke.

“You are a clever child, Catwin. You know that I can make a good friend.”

It came clear in a flash: he was not trying to convince me to guide Miriel’s loyalty, he was trying to lure me away from her. He knew now that Miriel had her own ambitions. Alone, her ambition was no match for him, but she had me now, and he had seen what the two of us together might do. The only way the Duke could convince himself that he had not made a terrible mistake would be to convince himself that I was loyal to him.

Tell me the truth, Catwin—you’ve always been good at seeing people and knowing what they’re thinking, haven’t you?
Temar’s voice echoed in my head.

Following quick on the heels of the first thought came another. I was the tool that Miriel could use to achieve her own ends, and Miriel could be the Duke’s enemy. Logic dictated one thing: if I was not the Duke’s servant, I should be destroyed. One did not arm one’s enemy. The Duke was a seasoned commander, he would know this; it was by his patronage that I had learned it.

These thoughts went through my head in a moment; there was no room for hesitation.

“I know it, my Lord. I did not think you could forgive my error in judgment. But if you are saying that you can…” I took a moment to stroke my fingers appreciatively over the arm of the chair. Let him think that he could buy me away from Miriel with such a sop as this.

“It is forgiven,” he assured me.

“Thank you, my Lord.” I added, with heartfelt honesty, “I do not want to be your enemy.”
Your open enemy, your declared enemy.

“And so?” His eyes glittered. I made a private vow that one day, I would tell him that he would have had a chance to win my loyalty if he had only asked for it.

I shrugged, as if at a loss for words. “I will be a friend to you,” I said. “Although my friendship is not…” He raised his eyebrows. “…much to brag of, for a Duke.” He laughed in careless agreement. He did not think I knew how much I was worth to him.

“I am glad we had this talk,” he told me. “I will make sure that you stay well informed. You will do the same for me.”

“Of course, my Lord.”

“And, Catwin—“

“Yes, my Lord?”

“Tell Miriel to find out from the King where he is searching for Jacces. Tell her to plant the idea that it may not only be Jacces’ funding that comes from Mavol. The more we search, the more I think he is not in the Norstrung Provinces at all.”

It was all I could do to keep my face straight—that last sentence had given me the missing piece of the puzzle: Jacces was not in Norstrung. There was a reason there were no printing presses to be found in the peasants’ houses, no stashes of books, no troves of learning. Nilson’s men had looked everywhere, the Royal soldiers had questioned anyone they could lay their hands on, and no one had known. Of course, of course.

No one had seen what was right in front of our eyes. And that information had laid the other clues bare for me to see; Miriel was correct, it had been in front of my face the whole time.  And so, trembling with relief and new knowledge, I bowed to the Duke, and went to find Miriel and tell her of this new development.

“It’s the High Priest,” I hissed to her, as I came into the room. She looked up from her studying with a ready grin, and I began to laugh. I could not even be angry at her for a moment; we reveled in the knowledge together.

“Just so,” she said, simply. “And so, now that you know…I have a letter for you to take to him.”

“
What
?” Her ready jumps from information to action had always baffled me.

“It’s not signed,” Miriel said. “Just letting him know that someone at court has figured it out…and is an ally.”

“You idiot, what if he has you killed?”

“It’s not signed,” Miriel repeated. “And I would think I could trust you to deliver a letter without him seeing you.” Her voice was sharp, and I threw up my hands.

“Think about it—he’s been smuggling his letters out of the Capital without even Temar seeing. He’s got a spy network, he’s been planning a rebellion for years. And,” I added pettishly, “he tried to kill you once.”

“For leverage against an enemy,” Miriel countered. “Catwin…I am still leverage against his enemy, and after that meeting in court, he knows that I have the ear of the King. We know he’s willing to kill to further his ends. Is it not wise to show him that we are his allies?”

“Oh.” I sat down and pondered. “I hadn’t thought of that.”

“I thought not. And I’m glad you’ve figured it out at last. We couldn’t have waited much longer.” She drew a letter out of a purse at her waist, and held it out to me. I pocketed it, reluctantly.

“I have news, too,” I told her. A plan had formed in my mind: give the Duke some useless tidbit. Not something that would get her in trouble, but something that she would not have told him herself, something that would prove my loyalty and gain me a small portion of his trust. I had not been able to think of something, but I was sure that between the two of us, we could contrive to come up with an idea. Miriel proved, to my surprise, intractable. She refused absolutely. At this inopportune moment, Miriel was suddenly unwilling to deceive.

“We have to tell him
something
,” I said, frustrated. The conversation had wound on for an hour. I was hungry, and tired, and beginning to be genuinely angry.

“Oh? Why? Why can you not let it rest?”

“I’ve explained three times.” My voice grew sharp, to match hers.

“Yes—that you throw me on his anger to make yourself look good!” Miriel glared at me. “Well, I don’t agree to it.”

“You know as well as I do that he’s waiting for something. He suspects you, he thinks you will defy him again. You’ve played on that before, yourself! If I hadn’t suggested this, you would have.” That thought made me particularly bitter. “You would have thought it a clever plan if you had come up with it.”

“But you suggested it,” she pointed out, agreeing without hesitation. “It benefits
you
.”

“It benefits both of us.”

“You would doubt me, if it were the other way around.” She justified herself without looking at me, but I saw from the stubborn set of her jaw that she felt her position was growing precarious.

“Give him this,” I said, trying to be patient, “and he won’t go looking for something else. Just this one thing.” She did not calm down, she flared up.

“What did he offer you?” she demanded fiercely. “Tell me the truth.”

“I told you, he only said—“ I broke off, unable to look into her eyes, and then I hopped down from my perch on the sill and pushed my way past her, out of her bedroom. How many times would it take me to learn this lesson? First Jacces, now this. Miriel trusted no one, and while I had learned to trust her, she would never let herself trust me. She demanded my trust, she would not rest until she had my secrets, but she made games of what she knew. She had never wanted us to be a side together, only to have me on her side—and she would always be waiting for me to betray her. In the rising tide of my anger, I conveniently forgot the dreams she had shared without hesitation, the secrets she gave me, the theories we came up with together. She had given me enough to ruin her a dozen times over, but I could not remember that with fury beating its rhythm in my temples.

“What are you going to tell him, then?” she asked nervously. She was hovering in the doorway, nervous and yet, as always, framed perfectly by her surroundings. I opened my mouth to tell her that I had no second plan, not having anticipated her anger.

“I haven’t decided yet,” I said. It was an attempt at the prevarication she did so well. “I’ll go deliver your letter now,” I added, as insolently as I dared. And, as I would never be able to spar away my anger with her, herself, I went off to find Donnett.

“Ye can’t be too hard on her,” Donnett said, sometime later, as I poured water on a scrape. He snorted when I looked at him. “Lad, ye may be able t’sneak well enough, but yer as subtle as a boar when yer angry.”