DemonWars Saga Volume 2: Mortalis - Ascendance - Transcendence - Immortalis (The DemonWars Saga) (141 page)

Her relief was complete a short while later when Danube arrived at Chasewind Manor without Duke Kalas or Constance Pemblebury, or any of the other nobles that Pony had no desire to see.

He rushed into the room before he could even be announced, running past Roger and Dainsey without acknowledging them, and falling to one knee before the seated—and trying to stand up!—Pony, taking her hand in his and bringing it to his lips in a gentle kiss.

He looked up at her with his gray eyes full of regret and weariness. “I had to come,” he explained. “I cannot tolerate another day without you. Nothing matters beyond that—I cannot even attend to the affairs of state, because without you there beside me, they seem unimportant.”

Pony hardly knew how to respond. She did stand up, and used her trapped hand to guide Danube up before her—and he wasted not a moment in wrapping her in a great hug. In that embrace, Pony was able to look over the King’s shoulder,
to see the frowns worn by both Roger and Dainsey.

Those expressions reminded her, and she pushed Danube back to arm’s length.

“Do I need to remind you of all that happened?” she asked.

“Please do not. It would pain me too greatly,” Danube responded, and his voice was thick with regret. “Do not recount how I have failed you, as a husband or as a man.”

Pony’s expression softened considerably, and she clutched her husband’s hand tightly, even brought it up and kissed it. “You did no such thing,” she assured him. “You could not have anticipated the reactions of your friends in Ursal; and that alone, and nothing that you did, forced me back to the north.”

“For a vacation only,” Danube remarked, and Pony wore a doubting smile.

“Return with me!” the King insisted, “straight away, before the winter’s cold closes the river to transport. I care little for my supposed friends and their attitudes—I know only that I’ll not suffer another day without you by my side.”

Pony glanced over at Roger and Dainsey again, and it was obvious that they both disapproved.

But in truth, she was unsure at that moment. She certainly didn’t want to return to Ursal but neither did she desire the end of her third marriage. She had taken her vows in good faith, and if she couldn’t rightly blame him—and she didn’t believe that she could—then how could she forsake the duties she’d sworn to fulfill? Did she not owe Danube at least the attempt to make things better?

“Constance is back in Castle Ursal,” King Danube admitted then, and Pony’s frown was immediate.

“And I wish her to stay,” he went on. “That is her place, as it is yours.”

Roger started to say something, something far from complimentary, obviously, but Pony stopped him with an upraised hand.

“She has learned her place and will not interfere with our relationship,” Danube explained.

Pony almost blurted out about the poisoning, but she bit it back. There was no reason for him to know. It would bring him nothing but pain, and she knew that she had brought Danube enough of that already.

“I cannot make such a decision so quickly,” she said.

“Time grows short,” said the King. “Winter nears.”

Pony’s expression soured.

“You fear that Constance—” Danube began.

“Not at all,” Pony answered without hesitation and with all sincerity, for she feared nothing from Constance Pemblebury now that she understood the depth of the woman’s hatred for her. She could watch over Constance easily enough.

Her interruption made Danube step back and consider her even more carefully. “You do not feel the need to question whether or not I have resumed my relationship with Constance?” he asked.

Pony laughed, recognizing that she had jumped to a different, far more nefarious, conclusion at the beginning of his remark.

“The need to ask did not occur to me,” she said. “For if you had—have—resumed such a relationship, you would tell me, I am sure.”

The show of trust brought tears to Danube’s eyes, and he brought Pony’s hands up to his mouth and kissed them again and again.

He left her soon after, at her insistence that he give her the night to consider his words.

“You plan to return,” Roger remarked as soon as the King was gone, his tone showing his disapproval more clearly than his frown.

“I consider it,” she replied.

“How can you?” Roger asked.

“Perhaps I went to Ursal the first time without truly understanding that which I would face,” she said.

“And that ye’ll still face,” Dainsey said sourly.

Pony nodded. “Perhaps,” she admitted. “But never did I face anything in Ursal that I could not tolerate, as long as King Danube stayed by my side throughout it. I do have responsibilities to him, and I do not wish to hurt him.”

Dainsey started to say something more, but Roger grabbed her and quieted her. “Just promise me that, should you go, you will remember well the road home, and take that road if you need it.”

Pony walked over and placed her hands on her friend’s shoulders. “Or I will yell so loudly that Roger will hear and come to my rescue,” she said.

P
redictably, King Danube was back at Chasewind Manor at the break of dawn, having ridden hard from
River Palace
where he had spent the night.

He was waiting for Pony at the breakfast table, his expression caught somewhere between smiling eagerly and terror stricken.

“If I return, it will not be as it was,” Pony explained as soon as she sat down, before even piling the assorted fruits set out for her on her plate.

Danube merely continued to stare at her.

“I will be more your wife and less your queen,” she explained. “I will move about the castle as I desire, and it is likely that I will spend less time within than without. I will embrace my role as a sovereign sister and work with the poor and the sick, using gemstone magic to heal, and without the trumpet blare and military escort.”

“There remains a matter of security,” Danube started to say, but Pony’s incredulous look put that thought away before it could gain any real foothold.

“Then you will return?” the King asked.

Pony looked away, looked out the window at the gardens of the manor house. After a while, she looked back and shrugged. “If I return,” she said again.

The King nodded. “Come back with me, I beg,” he said quietly, “on whatever terms you decide.”

Jilseponie put her hand on his. She gave no direct answer, but her expression made her intent quite clear.

Danube’s smile was wider than it had been in many months.

R
oger and Dainsey, along with Braumin, Viscenti, and several other brothers of St. Precious, watched
River Palace
drift away from the Palmaris docks a few days later, carrying their friend back to that other world of Castle Ursal.

They had all argued with Pony not to go, but only to a point. Roger believed that she was returning ready this time, and though he feared for her, he trusted her when she assured him that if things got nearly as terrible this time, she would be fast out of there.

Still, Roger could not help biting his lip and second-guessing himself for letting her go, for not insisting that he go with her, as he watched the ship glide away from the docks and turn south.

Chapter 30
 

H
IS BEARD WAS GONE
,
HIS LONG HAIR NOW NEATLY TRIMMED OVER THE TOP OF HIS
ears. Marcalo De’Unnero looked every bit as fit and in control as he had in his glory days at St.-Mere-Abelle, except that his brown robes had been replaced by the finery of a wealthy landowner, including a gem-studded eyepatch covering his right eye and some rather distracting jewelry: a dangling diamond earring and a lip cup, a small golden clasp that fit tightly over half of his upper lip, a fashion that was all the rage that year among the wealthy of Ursal.

De’Unnero hated the jewelry and the eyepatch, but though it had been more than a decade since he had last seen any of the Ursal nobles, like Duke Targon Bree Kalas, he knew that his appearance hadn’t changed all that much, and he had to be certain that he would not be recognized.

It hadn’t been difficult to get to this point. A well-placed bag of gemstones had bought him the social sponsorship he needed. He was calling himself Bruce of Oredale, supposedly a visiting landowner friend of the Earl of Fenwicke, a small but wealthy region in the southernmost reaches of Yorkey County, abutting the Belt-and-Buckle. Bruce of Oredale had brought along his beautiful young wife and their peasant squire.

De’Unnero and Sadye attended their first ball—there was one every week!—at the end of their second week in the city. King Danube was on his way to Palmaris, so De’Unnero didn’t have to pass that test just yet. As for the other test … he spent half the night chatting easily with Duke Kalas, and the nobleman obviously had no idea of his true identity.

The couple returned to their lavish apartment, with Sadye seeming perfectly giddy, laughing and excited.

“What?” Aydrian asked her when she first entered, and she burst out in laughter.

“A bit too much boggle,” De’Unnero explained.

“Oh, but it is not true!” Sadye cut in, her voice a bit slurred. “I am drunk with anticipation! Aydrian, you cannot imagine the beauty of court—of your court someday! What a life we will find!”

Aydrian looked at her curiously, then turned his gaze to De’Unnero, who was grinning as well despite himself.

“This part of our plan has gone more smoothly than I could have imagined,” he explained.

“The King has not heard of you yet,” Aydrian reminded. “Nor has Jilseponie.”

“By the time Danube returns, I will be so established among the nobles that he will not think to question me,” De’Unnero explained.

“And if the woman returns with him?” Sadye asked. A dark cloud passed over
her face and over De’Unnero’s.

“We will see,” the former monk replied grimly. “Our plan is on schedule—ahead of schedule. Everything is in place: the soldiers, the weapons, the Abellican brothers loyal to Olin. When the opportunity presents itself, we will strike.”

“When?” Aydrian asked.

De’Unnero calmed himself in merely considering the word, the unanswerable question. He spoke of a plan as if everything had been written down, but in truth he knew that he and his companions were improvising, waiting for an opportunity to step forward and present their case for Aydrian. Even in the best of circumstances, however, Marcalo De’Unnero knew well that this would lead to conflict, likely to civil war.

With their unparalleled wealth, and with Olin’s tireless efforts to infiltrate their men into both the rank of the Church and the soldiers of the Crown, they would be prepared for even that.

“N
o, no, no!” the haggard woman, her hair more gray than its former blond, shouted, and she threw the pitcher she had been holding against the wall, shattering it into a thousand pieces and splashing water all over the walls.

She slammed her fists into her eyes and ran about in circles, howling.

Duke Kalas stepped in and forcefully caught her, holding her steady, wondering whether he had done right in coming to Constance with the news that Danube would soon return, Queen Jilseponie beside him.

“I cannot bear to see that witch again!” Constance wailed. “She has put a curse on me—yes, that is it! She has used her gemstones to make me ugly, to make my voice scratchy and weak, to make my limbs shake. Oh, she will see to my death and soon!”

Duke Kalas bit back a chuckle, realizing that his derisive doubts would likely break Constance then and there. It did hurt Kalas to hear his friend so obviously delusional. Jilseponie had put no curse on her, unless that curse was age; and if Jilseponie were the source of that common malady, then Constance would have to stand in a long, long line before getting her fingernails into the Queen!

“What am I to do?” she wailed, sinking to her knees and sobbing pitifully. “What am I to do?”

Duke Kalas stared at her for a moment, chewing his lip and gnashing his teeth, his smile long gone. He hated Jilseponie for bringing Constance to this pitiful condition, whether she had intended to do so or not.

“Get up!” the Duke commanded, grabbing Constance by the arms and hoisting her back to her feet. “What are you to do? Stand tall and proud, the Queen Mother of Honce-the-Bear!”

“She will rip my bastard children from the royal line!”

“Let her try, and know that a war would ensue!”

“Oh, Kalas, you must protect them!” Constance cried, grabbing him hard. “You must! Promise me that you will!”

Duke Kalas thought the request perfectly ridiculous. He knew that Queen Jilseponie had done nothing to harm the boys, had, in fact, been pleased that Danube had put them in the line of succession, even above herself, for Danube had excluded her outright. For all her faults, Jilseponie had never questioned that line, as far as Kalas knew, nor had she ever interfered with the formal training of Merwick and Torrence for their ascension, should that day come.

Constance didn’t want to hear any of that, he realized. She wouldn’t even understand his reasoning on that point. “Your children will be protected,” he assured her, and he hugged her closer.