The Fall of The Kings (Riverside) (28 page)

Theron had already spent time alone in his rooms, composing his thoughts and his words carefully. Some years he wrote them as a poem, but this year he had drawn up a simple list—of his regrets, his mistakes, the things he wished the old year’s flames to burn away. Ysaud was chief among them; he’d even made a little packet to throw on the fire: a ribbon she’d given him and a lock of her hair, all wrapped up in a poem he’d written her once. He’d noticed that Katherine had taken down the painting by Ysaud that had hung in the front hall. It was kind of her. He felt for the packet in his pocket, then went to tell Alice how to spell “aggressive.”

WHEN THE UNIVERSITY BRAND LAID HIS TORCH TO THE piled wood, a great shout went up from a thousand throats, and then there was silence while they waited for the fire to catch. Far from the center of the Court, Justis strained to see the pale, smoky harbingers of the fire that would burn away the griefs and cares of the old year and rouse the Sun from his long drowsing. It felt no different from the same moment in his village—the sound of breathing in the dark, the anxious murmurs soon hushed, the sense of time suspended, waiting on a tiny tongue of flame to release it.

First came the crackling of new-caught kindling, and then a joyous shout sounded: “Death to the Old!”

Justis plumed out a breath he hadn’t been aware of holding and added his voice to the general roar: “Death to the Old!” Briefly, he thought of Doctor St Cloud, watching with the other doctors from the steps of the Great Hall, and wondered whether the traditional phrase disturbed him. Then he wasn’t really thinking any more, but fighting his way to the fire with the twist of paper upon which he’d written his year’s regrets and bitternesses.

THE TREMONTAINE BONFIRE WAS SOMETHING TO BEHOLD. The wood was all seasoned, with great logs sent up from the country expressly for the purpose. It was piled high behind the house in the garden overlooking the river (the duchess’s gardener having assured her that the peonies loved the ashes).

It was tradition at Tremontaine House for the youngest child to bear the brand to light the fire. When they were growing up, that meant it had always been Theron—a fact bitterly resented by the twins, who had come into the world a scant six months before him. But Theron in his turn had been supplanted by Beatrice, and Beatrice by Andrew, and Andrew now by Alice, a fact Andrew pretended mightily not to care about.

Alice marched importantly to the fire, her blazing brand held high. Theron had always hurled his into the center; but Alice was a careful child. Delicately she touched the flame to the bits of dry straw that stuck out at the bottom, watching them catch before moving on. Only when she had circled the entire fire did she step back and throw her torch as far into it as she could. Her mother let out a sigh of relief that only Marcus heard. He squeezed his wife’s waist and kissed her, a small outlet for the joy he felt rising in him sharp and strong as grief, his love and gratitude for the family he’d never imagined he would have. Now that Alice was growing up, he wondered if Susan might manage just one or two more babies. Why should Is and Di have all the fun?

The whole staff of Tremontaine House was gathered there, too; people were singing MidWinter carols and throwing their past year’s griefs into the flames. Katherine was embracing everyone and wishing them a healthy new year. New people began to arrive—friends and relatives paying calls, bearing fresh twigs and herbs to throw on each fire they visited. The Talbert cousins were among the first; as Katherine’s nearest kin, her brother’s children, it was only civil. Theron saw Charlie Talbert approaching and braced himself for another spate of horse-talk. But Charlie only saluted him on both cheeks, wished him a good year, and went off to flirt with Beatrice Ffoliot, whom Theron hoped knew better than to take Charlie seriously. Theron found Sophia indoors, settling Isabel in a chair. The girl looked tired and unhappy.

Theron bowed. “She blossoms like the MidWinter rose.”

“You’re an idiot,” Isabel groaned. “Carlos was right, I should have stayed home. Theron, are you going to Lord Godwin’s?”

“I suppose. We were invited.”

“Well, honor them with your presence long enough to find my husband, will you? The beautiful bastard behind the keyboards? And tell him I’m staying here tonight.”

Sophia squeezed her hand. “That will be best. I will send Molly in, to put you to bed.”

Sophia looked magnificent in a gown of black velvet with white lace and a collar of pearls. It was one of the few times in the year that she bothered to dress according to her rank, and Theron always took considerable pride in escorting her to the Last Night parties, as if she were some foreign princess, stately and proud, exotic in her rich simplicity, her dark hair piled high. Once, when he teased her about vanity, she replied very seriously, “Your father always told me I must look my best before them all.”
Them
—the nobles of the city—the people he belonged to, and yet did not. As for his own dress, Theron did not follow fashion: he paid his valet to do that. But he did love beauty, and the sleek fit of a good coat.

GODWIN HOUSE WAS BRIGHTLY LIT, THE FRONT HALL crowded with people coming and going. The past three generations of Godwins had each produced a Crescent Chancellor; the family was important, and everyone came to pay their respects.

Theron followed Sophia into the ballroom. A fire roared at one end of it, for people to cast their twigs into. The room was very warm, but one old man, splendidly dressed, sat close to the fire. He was wrapped in quilted silk, and the skin on his ringed hands was as thin and fine as a moth’s wings. With a rustle of satin and velvet, Sophia Campion knelt at his side and put one of her hands on his. He turned to look at her, and Theron marveled at the beauty that still clung to him. Here was an ancient king for Basil to admire! Michael, Lord Godwin, went back to Theron’s father’s time. Legend even had it that he himself had once fought the swordsman St Vier.

“Lady Sophia.” Lord Godwin smiled. His voice was papery too. “I know that you, at least, are not going to start shouting ‘Death to the Old!’ ”

“No, indeed. Theron and I are come to wish you good health.”

Lord Godwin looked up. “So this is Tremontaine’s boy.”

“Yes, my lord,” answered Theron, staring. His father would be nearly this old, if he had lived.

Lord Godwin took in Theron’s long hair. “A University scholar. Getting old for that, though—you’ll have to marry him off soon, my lady.”

“Yes,” said Sophia gallantly, “but your daughters are all spoken for, sir.”

The old man chuckled. “I’ve a great-granddaughter or two floating about somewhere—but I don’t know what their mothers would say about it. Have to ask them; I’m no longer in the business. Lovely to see you, my dear; come and call on me again, sometime.”

Theron helped his mother to her feet. She tucked her arm into his, and as they walked away, he bent his head down to hear her say: “Your father told me Lord Godwin was lover to your great-grandmother. But I am not sure I think so.”

“Someone should write a history,” said Theron dreamily, “a secret history—someone should ask him, or it will all be lost.”

His mother dealt him a sharp look. “Some things are meant to be lost. History is for knowing wisdom, not gossip.”

He thought of Basil again, and forbore to answer her. Instead he left her talking with an old acquaintance, and went off to the musicians to deliver Isabel’s message to her husband.

After reassuring the startled keyboardist that his wife was neither giving birth nor dying, Theron went looking for food. He found a table with roasted meats, and was helping himself to venison when someone touched his arm. It was his cousin Gregory Talbert, Katherine’s older brother, Charlie’s father. Gregory was a florid man who now headed the house of Talbert. Theron did not like him, and he suspected his father hadn’t either, or he would not have passed Gregory over in favor of Katherine for the duchy. Lord Talbert was not stupid, but he was annoying. He greeted Theron warmly, adding, “It is so nice to see you out and about!”

“I’ve not been ill,” Theron said, surprised.

“No, indeed. But at this time last year, shall we say you were a bit hard to find?” Theron flushed. He’d spent as little of the festival as possible on the Hill, rushing back to be with Ysaud. Talbert knew it, too: “I hear you were having your portrait done,” he said.

Theron refused to hide behind the duchess’s skirts, but he was not above playing her in a family hand. “Yes,” he said blandly, “Katherine wanted it painted.” Invoking her usually shut the Talberts up. But not this time.

“I hear,” said his cousin, “that it didn’t work out. Now don’t get starchy with me, my boy—I’m just trying to be a little helpful. It’s nothing that isn’t common knowledge, after all.”

“Is it?” said Theron starchily. “I didn’t know you listened to gossip.”

“Oh, I don’t, my boy, I don’t! But people will talk. Plenty of us have sat for portraits to her, but few have been invited to stay . . .”

Theron could feel his temper rising. “Excuse me,” he said, but his cousin laid his hand on his arm with surprising strength. “No, my boy, you listen to me. You may not like it, but what you do is noticed, and what’s noticed is discussed. That is the world, and there’s an end to it.” Miserably fascinated, Theron allowed himself to be drawn off to the side. “It’s one thing to enjoy tavern girls or your school friends or whatever you like, in moderation. But to disappear into the clutches of a notorious woman—and then, when she’s finally finished with you, to mope about in Riverside without showing your face on the Hill in Society . . . It’s not good. My sister has never understood about Society, but then, the Duchess Tremontaine doesn’t have to. And that Ffoliot fellow”—Theron’s jaw clenched—“I beg your pardon, but he’s not one of us.”

“He might have married your sister,” said Theron meanly, goaded beyond endurance, “and then where would you be?”

“Where would
you
be, you mean, if she had produced an heir? No, dear boy, don’t try to outface me. I am older than you, and I know the world. You do not come to see me, and I have not forced myself on you. But this is something you need to hear.”

“What is? That people talk about me? Believe me, I know that. Why else do you think I stayed in Riverside after the—after Ysaud? To avoid having to walk through a room full of types like you, all gossiping about my private affairs.”

“And I tell you,” the older man hissed in his face, “if you want to keep them private, then act as if they’re private. Live whatever life you want behind closed doors, but live one also in plain sight for people to see, one that’s
normal
.”

Theron stepped back, his mouth open. “Normal?”

Lord Talbert took his interest at face value. “It wouldn’t hurt you to spend more time with other young men of your own kind. You’re not a boy anymore. Now, I know Charlie and his friends are always glad to see you . . .”

Theron didn’t know whether to black his cousin’s lights or laugh in his face, but he knew both would get him in trouble. “Yes,” he said unsteadily. “Yes, I’ll have to try and do that.”

“Good man.” With another squeeze of the arm, Lord Talbert turned away, and then turned back. “Oh, and the hair.” One last squeeze. “Think about cutting it.”

Theron thought about Basil making a curtain of it for them to kiss in. “Thank you, cousin,” he said through gritted teeth. “Happy New Year.”

In search of a drink, Theron nearly ran into one of the Godwin boys—Peter, it was, with his scholar’s hair pulled back in a curly little tail, and with him, the geography student Lord Sebastian Hemmynge, eyes bright with drink.

“Campion!” The other noble students greeted him like a long-lost brother, and he returned their embraces. “We are dying of a surfeit of aunts and grandmothers,” Hemmynge declared, “and people who don’t know Placid from a broken pocket watch. The University bonfire’s on in the Great Court, and there will be whiskey and music and girls—and, of course, lots of fine rhetoric. Will you join us?”

“Nothing,” said Theron heartily, “that I would like better.”

And fifteen minutes of warm farewells found them out the door and heading down the hill with their bright torches, singing at the top of their lungs on the way to the University.

JUSTIS DIDN’T KNOW HOW MUCH TIME HAD PASSED SINCE the bonfire had been lit. Benedict Vandeleur’s flask of spirits was nearly empty. Alaric Finn was pulling from a skin of new beer; Anthony Lindley, who had no head for drink, had been sick. He still looked a little white around the nose, but he’d recovered enough to dance at the edge of the space cleared by the bonfire’s heat. He had braided dozens of bright ribbons into his red hair and tied them off with brass bells that glittered as he whirled like flying sparks.

Justis reached behind his head to pull off the cord confining his own sandy hair and shook it free. It felt wonderful.

“Pretty,” a strange student said, and pulled Justis’s head down to his for a kiss. Justis let himself be lost for a moment in the warmth of the stranger’s lips, the tang of ale on his tongue, and then he disengaged himself, laughing.

“You’re pretty, too,” he assured his admirer. “But I prefer hens to cocks. Don’t be offended.”

The student shrugged. “Don’t know what you’re missing,” he said cheerfully, and staggered off in search of a more congenial partner. His hair slithered across his back in a mass of tiny braids.

A hand gripped Justis’s arm and tugged him around to face a fellow historian—not someone Justis knew well. Cortney, he thought his name was. “Here. Have one of these.” He thrust a hard and lumpy object into Justis’s hand. It was a wooden leaf on a string.