Elisha Rex (14 page)

“Buggers, aren't they? Earth and sky, could they be more obvious? I don't see how you can abide their presence, never mind letting them dress you.” Brigit shuddered as she slipped back her hood. She lifted the lid of the crock and inhaled deeply, her disgust turning to pleasure. “Mmm. May I join you?”

“I don't seem able to stop you,” he snapped.

Her green eyes flashed back up to his, her lips pressed together. The lid of the crock clattered back from her pale fingers. “Do you want me to go? Truly, you seemed so lonely the last time. Then that nightmare. You need someone. Someone close, who can truly understand what you're going through.”

“I have a confessor.”

“What, Father Michael? He's hardly worthy of your new status.”

“Do you know the best part of my new status, Brigit? I decide who is worthy. I choose.” He tapped a finger against his chest.

“Is that why you took the lords a-hunting? Is that why you've issued a writ about petty theft? For goodness sake, Elisha, either one of us could burn at any moment, and you are off hunting and worrying over bread!” She snatched up the loaf and tossed it into the fire where it sent a puff of smoke and ash.

“You have no idea what worries me.”

“Scotland, apparently—but not even Scotland. Do you think the Northumbrians will rise up in arms?”

“The royal clerks are already researching changes to the laws against torture, Brigit, I am trying—”

“Clerks and knowledge will not be enough to defend the magi. Haven't you seen enough by now to know the barons will never support you? Your laws will never get past the parliament.”

“We are a nation of laws, Brigit, this is how it's done.”

“But you're frustrated with how long it takes, even I can see that. You still bow to the barons when they should be bowing to you. Every
desolati
in the nation should be—”

Someone banged on the door, and a man's voice shouted, “Brigit! I know you're in there! For the love of God, you brazen whore!”

B
rigit's cheeks flared pink,
her mouth open, but no sound emerged.

“Sir! You can't just—” someone protested outside.

Elisha pushed back and crossed to the door, letting her father in with a bow, waving back the startled servants on the landing. He worried over what she might do if he didn't have an eye on her—but the risks of her eying him back had grown too much. What if she found out about his search for Thomas, that her hope of influencing the throne would be dashed if Elisha succeeded?

“Sir,” he told the man who swept by him, “I think you should take her.”

The man turned, even more red than his daughter as he gave a hasty bow. “Forgive me, Your Majesty—really, that was—I'm sorry. Unforgivably rude.” With his graying ginger hair and round belly, he bore only a slight resemblance to Brigit. Once the apology was done, he swung back to his child, puffing up his chest. In their reddened faces and curt gestures, the resemblance manifested.

“Come then, child. It's clear you're not wanted here.”

Brigit's voice fell low, her gaze swinging from one to the other. “You don't understand what's at stake, neither of you.”

“Aside from what little reputation remains to you?” Spreading his hands, the fellow inclined his head. “Your Majesty has not yet been. . . blessed with children. There was a time I should have wished for more of them.”

Elisha nodded vaguely, but his gaze stayed with Brigit; golden and glowing, the fury rippling from her like the lion's mane as the creature moved to pounce—and he wondered if opening the door to her father might not have been a terrible mistake.

“If you haven't a care for me or for our people, Father, the very least you might do is stay out of it!”

“I do care,” he protested, “Of course I do, but it does not give license for this kind of behavior. Sneaking to a man's bedchamber? Whisking off to visit your husband on the battlefield, yes, but this? And he not two months in the grave!”

The gathering inferno of Brigit's presence took on a tremor as her eyes widened, shifting toward Elisha and away. “You do not know of what you speak, Father,” she said, with a gesture pushing down her anger. “If you wish to berate me like a child, you might've chosen a better time and place.”

“You chose the place!” He pounded forward, bracing his hands upon the table. “You chose it. Don't forget why your mother died. Forgive me, Majesty, if forgiveness there might be for such unseemliness.”

Outside, a couple of page boys gaped. Elisha clicked the door shut between his chamber and the audience, and walked forward in her father's wake, a single word capturing his attention. “Husband?” he echoed. “Brigit?”

She took a step away to keep them both in view. “My mother died because she tried to show Prince Thomas how much better his land could be, if witches could work openly. We have a chance now, Elisha, you and I together. There is a way we can put the barons in their place and protect our people—”

“Brigit,” Elisha said sharply. “You never mentioned you were married.”

“Married to Prince Alaric she was, Your Majesty. And she's bearing his child, though that's still not widely known.” When he shook his head, his hair fluffed out, a nimbus of fatherly confusion. “After so long being outside of court, we came here to take her rightful place, to be acknowledged—then he died—God rest him.” Looking heavenward, he crossed himself with the precision of a marksman.

“It was Alaric who betrayed your mother, Brigit,” Elisha said, anger, hurt, and confusion interwoven. “Because he envied her attention to Thomas. When were you married?”

“Where did you hear that?” she asked, her attention keen, but her father cut his hand through the air between them, glowering.

“They married the end of April, Your Majesty.” At this, he ducked his head and toyed with the fat buckle of his belt. “It was a small ceremony, you understand. It was hard to know how the prince's father would take it, you see?”

Frowning, Elisha counted back in his head. “The night of the church fire.” His party moved toward the battle that night, stopping to help at the fire where he smothered the flames from Brigit's hair and helped the prince escape, not knowing who he was. The first night he had met either of them and had unwittingly become entangled in the affairs of the crown. Alaric's boyish face grinned in Elisha's memory. Trysting in the church the prince had said. Even when Elisha did not know who he was, and they had no expectation of meeting again, Alaric kept this secret. When Brigit had seduced Elisha to get pregnant, she was already married. And here she stood, trying to do it again.

Her father's face twisted, but when he lifted a knuckle to rub his eye, Elisha realized he was close to weeping. “The marriage was her mother's dream, you see?” he whispered. “And she not there to see it. Lord knows I never asked so much as for her to marry a prince.” His hand fell, slowly curling, fiddling with his buckle once more. “And then the fire broke out. Accidental, I'm told, although I shouldn't wonder if some envious acquaintance had a hand in that.”

“I thought you said it was a secret,” Elisha murmured.

“It was meant to be,” Brigit returned, folding her arms, “but Father couldn't help telling a few people, could he? ‘We'll be back at court soon, our expulsion was all a terrible mistake, you see?'” She put on her father's manner, then flung it aside. “Mother wanted to help our people, to craft a better nation by being close to the crown. But you undermined her every attempt.”

Dropping his hands from his belt, the old man growled, “She should have been more careful. It was the death of her once they knew the truth.”

She lifted her chin, that bare sweep of pale throat. “Elisha Rex is hardly likely to be the death of me.” For a long moment, she stood that way, then her brow arched a little, one eye glancing toward him again, but he said nothing.

“You're angry about Alaric,” she said with a brittle smile. “Of course you are. How many times must I tell you”—her next words echoed through his skin, as if she touched him, though she stood yards away—
“I should have met you first.”

From the first day they met, it was deception. Did that explain why her deflections worked so well? All he ever saw were her lies. “It's time for you to go.”

“You want to be a just king, Elisha, and I want to help you.”

“You cannot work for justice if there is vengeance in your heart.”

Her pose wavered, her face for a moment almost vulnerable, and he remembered she wept at his graveside, tears of genuine grief. She loved him in her way. A selfish love that watched him hang, that watched him buried, that would not hesitate to let him burn. “My mother's death is only part of this. Think of the old women who are dunked and drowned. Think of yourself: you healed a hundred people in the yard on Sunday, Elisha, how many more could be healed if you could openly share and teach what you know?” Her hands clasped together, her presence wavering between desperation, hope, and fear. But of what?

“How can I trust you?”
He asked, but not aloud. The child they shared, like the healing he shared with Mordecai, formed a bridge between them.

“If you don't, if you turn me away, you will face your enemies alone.”

“Are you threatening me?”

Brigit shook her head fiercely.
“You face dangers beyond the French, beyond the barons.”

“What makes you say that?”
He spread his awareness as carefully as he could but touched only the barest edges of her emotions, as if they seeped out past her careful wards.

“The nightmares,”
she said simply, but the question discomfited her.
“And the inquisition. Even if you defend the magi here, you cannot protect them from the Church. You really think the barons will approve a law to protect us? If you ally with me, we can both prosper.”

“With you as my queen.”

Her eyes flared, beautiful, green, flecked with gold, as if echoing the crown she longed for.
“Yes, Elisha. What could we not be, together? For the good of our people.”

Our people. At most, one in a hundred. What of the other ninety-nine, who had no magic? What of Thomas, and Randall, and Rosie? When he found the king, he would abdicate his throne, but Brigit would not leave it so lightly. “I cannot give you what you want.”

“Will not, you mean.” The color fled her cheeks and throat, the tide of hope swept away from her presence.
“I am not afraid to do what must be done. I will be queen, Elisha, with you, or without you.”

The old knight, her father, reached out and opened the door, where the handful of servants lingered to either side, eyes quickly averted.

“Your Majesty.” Pernel and Walter dropped into bows almost painfully low and rose without lifting their eyes. “Your Majesty, forgive us, we should have known. None should have passed us without your blessing. Please,” Pernel, always the more talkative, stammered his apology.

Elisha stood still, hands folded at his back, muscles tight. “My guests are leaving.”

“Come, child,” the old man said again, this time taking her arm, sliding his other arm about her shoulders. “Come away. We'll go to church and pray forgiveness.” His chin trembled, his eyes watery, and she suffered his touch, but turned her head as they reached the door.

“Fare you well . . . Your Majesty.” All sense of hope, desire, or regret washed away with her icy stare, then she turned her gaze forward, rejected her father's arm, and stalked down the stairs into the darkness.

“I have made an enemy today,” Elisha murmured.

“Just a woman, Your Majesty, and not one with many ties at court,” Pernel offered.

The two servants entered, shutting the door behind them. Walter drifted toward the table and found a little broom to sweep up the drift of soot that had flown out at the loss of Elisha's bread. “Not to your liking, Your Majesty?”

“She threw my bread in the fire. I'd like more.”

“Aye, Majesty.” Walter bowed himself away backward toward the door.

“I'm not going to punish you—either of you. But I am going to want you to stay close. Clearly the pages aren't enough. If you need to go out, send up one of the door guards.” He pictured the expression on Brigit's face. “Or two of them.”

As Walter went to get bread, Pernel stared thoughtfully after him, then back to Elisha. “Your Majesty seems concerned.”

“She's more powerful than you know, and now she knows I've been looking at Scotland.” Brigit seemed to think the child would give her leverage if everyone believed it was Alaric's. If she had suitable witnesses to the wedding, she might convince some of the nobles that her baby was the only remaining heir of the blood. He thought of Thomas's lost daughter, slain by witches, as Brigit's mother had been slain by men.

“She is no friend of ours, Pernel. Remember that, no matter what she says or does.”

The servant gave a short nod, but Elisha needed no special senses to know Pernel doubted the danger Brigit might present. Finally Elisha returned to his table, to the cooling soup. He reached to serve himself, but Pernel took up the ladle and spooned out a generous portion.

The soup caressed his lips with a hint of grease and tasted of bay leaves. When he had finished, sopping up the last of the soup with hunks broken off a fresh loaf, Elisha pushed back. “We need the map. I've wasted too much time already.”

In moments, the table was clear, the map replaced. “Walter, watch the door, if you please. Pernel, I need you to tell me everything you know about each of these places, in turn and slowly. I want to. . .” but how could he say what he planned, in terms that did not make him appear mad? Madder than he already seemed, at any rate. Elisha's fingers knotted together. Thomas was lost, without a word, and the longer Elisha sat in the king's chair and lay in his bed, the more their peril grew. Staring down at his joined hands and the scars that made him holy, Elisha knew what to say, though he grit his teeth before he spoke. “I'm going to pray about it, as you speak. To listen for guidance.”

Pernel's mouth made a little “o,” and he swallowed a few times before he spoke, pointing to one of the castle markings. “Kingstonhus at Greater Yarmouth. It's a pace back from the sea. Stone, not too big. Stopped off there once, when his royal highness had business in Norwich.”

As Pernel spoke, Elisha prepared himself, drawing the lock of Thomas's hair from his sleeve to press it between his clasped hands. He shut his eyes and remembered all that he could of that short, sharp vision he shared with Thomas. The smell of the ocean, the dank feel of the stone. He listened to the flow of Pernel's words and hoped for . . . he laughed silently to himself. He was, of course, like any visionary, looking for a sign.