Prince of Fire and Ashes: Book 3 of the Tielmaran Chronicles (23 page)

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Authors: Katya Reimann

BOOK: Prince of Fire and Ashes: Book 3 of the Tielmaran Chronicles
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With that, she was gone.
Gaultry had an uncomfortable feeling about Dervla’s words. She could not believe the woman had meant her last words as a pure compliment—there had to be a hidden meaning. There always was, with Dervla. The thought of her own actions meshing well with anything related to the High Priestess … Could that be good for anyone beyond Dervla?
But Dervla had been defending the Brood in her absence, and seemed determined, in her own right, to seek the Kingship path. That, Gaultry hoped, descending the stairs and heading back toward her own rooms, could well be something to build upon.
The bell at the kitchen gate rang again, unmuffled here as it had been
in the salon, and insistent. Gaultry, hurrying through the unfamiliar territory of Martin’s townhouse kitchen to answer it, jumped at the noise and knocked her hip hard against the trestle table. “That has to be Mervion,” she muttered, fumbling open the kitchen door and crossing the few steps of neglected garden to the back gate. Her sister’s impatience was uncharacteristic. “Benet isn’t due for hours yet.”
But there were two figures, not one, waiting when Gaultry opened the battered green gate into the dusty alley. For one moment, Gaultry thought the cloaked figure at Mervion’s side must be Coyal, and she drew in her breath in disappointment. Then the deep cowl turned to face her, and Benet’s eyes flashed upon her.
“Am I early?” he said levelly, a touch of iron in his voice. “I trust I have not inconvenienced you.”
“My liege!” She bowed, then shot a glance at her sister. “Mervion. Please come in.”
Her sister’s pale features were set in a rigid expression, revealing—to Gaultry’s sisterly eye—carefully suppressed anxiety. The Prince, heated and sweaty in his unseasonable long cloak, was likewise distressed and openly impatient. His hand lingered on the bell-pull, as if pulling it again would have made her come faster.
“What took you so long?” he demanded, glancing along the alley as Gaultry struggled with the gate’s archaic latch.
“My liege,” Gaultry greeted him again, a little recovered from her
surprise. “The house is half-closed, and there was no one in the kitchen. We didn’t immediately hear the bell.” She peered into the rubbish-filled alley. “Where’s your escort?”
Mervion, standing behind the Prince, made a small gesture of bafflement, expressing that the particulars of their arrival had been entirely outside her control. “We’re alone,” she said. “The Prince left them at the palace.”
Benet, propelling Gaultry backward in his haste to be out of the alley, stepped inside the gate, drawing Mervion with him. “They would have been a hindrance to our business,” he said shortly. His expression grew downhearted. “Melaudiere has gone. If I had not come now, there would be no chance for me to escape the minutiae of her funerary arrangements. So let us complete the business of this boy of yours. My time will not be my own again until after Melaudiere is in the ground.”
Gaultry sucked in a sorrowful breath. Benet gave her a sharp look. “I know,” he said. “It’s hard to believe. But it makes it all the more important that we settle the business with your boy. She would have been your strongest voice on the ducal council. I want this resolved before it moves to the quagmire of arguments and a cabinet vote.”
“I understand.” She nodded. “You will not regret that you have come. Tullier is still recovering from his wound, but he should be able to assure you that his intentions in Tielmark are honorable.”
Gaultry fumbled to close the gate’s latch. Her hands were shaking, and the gate hung awry. Benet watched her, making her clumsiness worse.
“I spoke with Lady Mervion as we came,” he said abruptly. “She told me of her own business here with you this evening. A fascinating revelation. I understand at last how the pair of you conspired to overmatch the power of Llara-Thunderbringer’s Sha Muira poison.”
Gaultry’s fingers stilled on the latch, hope dying that she and Mervion alone could settle the not insignificant matter of the Glamour-soul business between Mervion and Tullier before Benet even learned of it. “There was no conspiracy,” she said, as levelly as she was able. She closed the latch, her fingers dexterous and certain at last, in her need to prove that his discovery did not daunt her. “Merely the need—and the act—to save a life.”
“The very echo of your sister’s words.” Benet’s expression was impenetrable, which usually meant he was displeased. “I will be most interested,” he said, “to see how willingly your boy gives up the power that Lady Mervion so graciously shared with him.”
“He is willing,” Gaultry said fervently. “No question there.” She had wanted so badly to talk to her sister—alone—before Benet came to speak with Tullier. But from the way Mervion kept to Benet’s far side as they crossed the little yard and entered the house, Gaultry could see that her sister did not intend to exchange even a few words privately. “My liege,” she added politely, trying to cover the quandary she felt she was in with Mervion. “Our dinner was delayed—we were eating when you rang. I must apologize for what little hospitality we can offer.” An understatement that neatly bypassed description of the fire young Melaney had started in the kitchen chimney while attempting to heat their evening meal on the long-cold range.
“I have already supped,” Benet said. “I wish only to see your boy.”
They swept into the salon without warning. The scene that greeted their arrival was thus predictably informal. Tullier lay propped on the chaise by the window, disheveled. Aneitha, thankfully, was out of sight somewhere up on the floor above, probably making a greasy mess of Martin’s fencing gallery. The Sharif and Melaney were at the small table where Gaultry had left them, finishing their meal. The young squire, recognizing the Prince, scrambled up and dropped an appropriately respectful bow. The Sharif, taking her cue from Melaney, made a slow courteous nod in the door’s general direction. Setting aside her bowl, she unfolded her long frame from behind the table and rose to her feet. Your Emir? she asked, bowing her head to Benet in a outlandish but obviously formal obeisance.
My Prince.
Gaultry paused
. Blessed of the Goddess-Twins Elianté
and
Emiera to rule Tie/mark.
She glanced around the room, sensitive to its worn, musty, and overheated aspects. Martin’s roughly kept soldier’s lodgings, well-used and faded, seemed suddenly insufficient to the occasion. Benet was accustomed to grander surroundings, and to court-regulated exchanges—save, perhaps, for the time he spent at sea on his own ship. It was for her to play host, but she had a poor idea of who she was supposed to introduce to whom, and in what order of precedence. “His Royal Highness, Prince Benet of Tielmark,” she announced aloud. A quick glance at Benet’s blank expression told her that could not have been right. “And Mervion Blas, my sister.” If she could not be correct, she would at least be clear. “Please be welcome to our lodgings. This is the Sharif, late of Ardain, a valiant comrade who joined my company in Bissanty.”
Benet gave the Sharif a curious glance. “Lady Gaultry speaks highly
of you,” he said graciously. The Sharif, responding to his tone, acknowledged him with a solemn inclination of her head.
“And Tullier—you’ve met Tullier before, but not as Tullirius Caviedo, son of Siri Caviedo, Bissanty’s Sea Prince and the Emperor’s own uncle.”
Benet shed his cloak and handed it ceremoniously to Mervion. Beneath he wore a blue-and-silver coat, very formal and grand, making a clear statement that official business was his intention. “Nothing else?” he asked, unexpectedly curt. “Nothing you would care to add, by way of setting all allegiances clearly upon the table?”
“I don’t think so,” Gaultry said, puzzled by his tone. He was formidable in his shining coat, moreso amidst the salon’s faded furniture. “My liege, I am not familiar with the courtly forms. If I have offended—”
“Perhaps I need offer assistance with your introductions,” the Prince said grimly. “As matters stand in Bissanty today, your young friend is considerably more than the Sea Prince’s son.” His wrist brushed against the hilt of the beautifully ornamented sword that hung from his belt, an involuntary hint at dampered animosity. “He is Caviedo the Fifteenth, Bissanty’s newly designated Prince of Tielmark, fifth in line to the Imperial throne. Recognized of the Goddess-blood, in direct descent from divine Llara, the great imperial forerunner. Making him, not incidentally, the Bissanty counterpart to my own power,” Benet finished sharply, in case Gaultry had missed this point.
“How can that be!” Gaultry reached for the nearest chair and sat, or rather collapsed, into the time-softened canes. Utter shock washed over her. It could not be true. The Bissanty Emperor wanted Tullier dead, not elevated as a potential rival. Surely this could only be a fresh ploy to flush the boy out, to make him vulnerable. Yet Benet seemed so certain!
“Tullier is a fugitive,” she protested. “Not an honored Prince. They hunted us for him all through our flight from Bissanty. We saw the bounty postings—a price had been set on his head. Alive or dead. The Emperor didn’t care which.” Tullier had gone utterly stiff on his sofa, his ice green eyes bright with—disappointment? Defeat? She had promised him safe haven here in Tielmark, thinking that, at least, was a promise she could see completed. “I would not have brought him to Tielmark if he could have remained safely in Bissanty,” she said. “Matters in Tielmark are complex enough without this!”
“She did not know.” Mervion’s voice cut like hot steel on ice through
Gaultry’s confusion. “Your Highness, I would swear to you by Elianté and Emiera together that she did not know.”
“But did he?” the Prince asked sharply. “He could have deceived her.”
“Tullier would never—” Gaultry said.
“I could not say—” Mervion said, both at exactly the same moment.
Gaultry stared at Mervion, finally understanding the distance her sister had maintained since her arrival. “He asked you to judge if I’m telling the truth,” she said furiously. “And you agreed.”
Mervion stared back calmly, as if from across a great gulf. “We are not at cross purposes,” she said. “We both are sworn to serve Tielmark. You have nothing to fear from me.”
“It’s not you I fear,” Gaultry snapped. She had forgotten how angry her sister could make her. Since that moment in Bissanty when she had discovered that coercing Mervion to save Tullier’s life had necessitated Mervion risking half the strength of her Glamour-soul, Gaultry had been lost in guilt. Columba, Lukas Soul-breaker’s subordinate twin sister, had accused Gaultry of dominating her twin, of echoing Lukas in her propensity to use her sister’s powers as if they were her own. The grain of truth in Columba’s words had been more than Gaultry wanted to accept.
Now, as she looked into her sister’s face, it came flooding back, the huge number of reasons why she had been able to reject Columba’s judgment. Where the stakes were high, Gaultry’s impetuous nature could compel Mervion to premature action, but Mervion, given time to reflect, could almost invariably outtalk her.
“I’m not afraid,” Gaultry said again. But if Tullier really had been invested as one of Bissanty’s Imperial Princes, what did that mean to his plea for sanctuary here in Tielmark? He was no longer a thorn in the imperial side—he was an Imperial insider, set up as a rival claimant to Benet’s throne. “Though it does wound me to discover myself so thoroughly untrusted.”
“We lent our power to a foreign Prince,” Mervion said. “However unknowingly. Our Prince is wise to consider carefully our motivations.” She crossed the room to Tullier, and touched the yoke of the boy’s shirt. The recent sweat of his fever had dampened the cloth, but not discolored it. “It’s hardly believable that it’s true,” Mervion marveled. “But you really
are
no longer Sha Muira. The poison has run its course.” The Sha Muira Goddess-poison was so pervasive and strong that it permeated even the cult members’ body fluids, tainting them black, making it poisonous to touch them—and denying them physical contact with anyone outside of
the sect. As her sister touched Tullier’s collar, Gaultry remembered the moment the boy had first cried clear tears. Those tears, miraculously, had washed clean tracks on the dark sweat on his face.
It had been at least a day after that before she had first been able to touch him.
“Was it our power, finally, that saved you?” Mervion asked the boy softly, “or your Goddess’s will to relent?”
“Great Llara does not know mercy,” Tullier answered, defiant. “That is her strength. It most certainly was your power.”
Mervion, shaking her head, stood back from the boy and turned to Benet.
“My sister’s loyalty is yours, my liege. I do not need to read her face to tell you that. As for this boy—if he is faithful to the Bissanty Emperor, that is now a matter of choice, not physical necessity.”
Tullier and the Prince regarded each other across the length of the salon with distinct displeasure.
“By all the Twelve, then,” Benet said. “Are you Empire’s man?”
“I owe you no answers.” Tullier bristled, arrogant even in his supine state.
“I could have come here with soldiers,” Benet said equitably, pacing across the salon toward him. As he passed the unshuttered windows, a flash of light from the setting sun momentarily lit his face. “I chose to come alone, on the security only of Lady Gaultry’s word. If you choose not to parlay with me directly, I can retire and call soldiers in to question you.”
Tullier squirmed. “What does my answer matter to you? If my glorious father—” he stopped, too late to swallow the Sha Muira epithet for Emperor which rolled so naturally off his tongue. “—If my Imperial cousin has politicked to raise me as your rival, what choice do you have but to expel me?”
“I certainly won’t be sending you home with half of one of my Glamour-witches’ power,” Benet responded. “I am here tonight, as I have belatedly discovered,” he shot Gaultry a quick critical glare, “to ensure at least that. But you have not answered my question.”

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