The Godspeaker Trilogy (51 page)

“I’ll make you a new frame, my love,” he promised as he peeled off his clothes, dropping waistcoat and shirt and breeches and smalls and stockings in a pile by the door. “As soon as I’ve the time. I’ll paint it blue and gold, would you like that?”

Her silent smile lamented his untidiness, but gave no answer.

He dipped his toe in the bath water and sighed. Just right. Hettie would have added lavender oil and rose petals to it and laughed at his complaining. An unscented bath, breathing heat, deep enough for drowning: just what he needed at the end of a trying day. He clambered over the side of the tub and sank inch by inch into the steaming water until his beard touched its surface. Closing his eyes with a groan of pleasure, he surrendered to hard-won luxury.

“Dex? Dexie love, pay attention. This is ever so important.”

Heart thudding, he held his breath and cracked one eye open like a man unlatching his door to the tax collector.

“Hettie?”

She was standing before the hearth, not a moment older than the day he’d buried her, with her fair hair curling against her cheeks and her brown eyes warm with love for him. She was wearing her green dress, the one with pink ribbon threaded around the bodice. He’d always loved it on her. The small parlour smelled of lavender and roses.

A sob rose within him and he fumbled out of the bathtub, heedless of dripping water, of naked skin, wanting only to touch her, to hold her, to fold her into his empty arms. But he was too afraid …

“Hettie?” he whispered, hardly daring to believe. “Is it really you?”

“Yes, you great daftie, of course it’s me,” she said, her voice a familiar muddle of affectionate exasperation. Tears sprang to his eyes to hear it. “Now listen, for I’ve not much time and a deal to tell you. There’s terrible trouble coming to Ethrea, Dex. Darkness and despair the likes of which our folk have never known.”

“What do you mean?” he demanded. “What kind of trouble? And why are you telling me? There’s nothing I can do about it. You should be telling His Majesty, or the prolate.”

Hettie shook her head. “They wouldn’t listen. I can’t tell this to a dying king or a prolate arrogant and deaf in his office. You’re the one man I can reach, Dexie, and the only man who can reach the princess. This is her fight as well and she’ll need a good friend. As for your importance … well, you may be a simple toymaker now but in the days to come, my love, you’ll be the most important man in the kingdom.”

“Me?” he said, incredulous. “I don’t think so, Hettie. What I think is that Ursa’s plum duff on an empty stomach has given me the collywobbles! I’m dreaming . I must be.”

Hettie’s arms were folded under her plump bosom and her chin was lifted in the way that meant she was serious. “Dexie, it’s no dream. You’ve been chosen to aid Ethrea in its greatest hour of peril, when the future of this land and all its people, great and small, will hang by a thread no stronger than cotton. There’s no point fussing about it or saying you won’t because you must and that’s all there is to it.”

“Must?” he echoed. “Don’t I get a say in the matter? Who is it tells me I must ?”

Her eyes were sorrowful, as brimful of sadness as the day she’d kissed his hand and told him she was dying. “God.”

He laughed. “Lass, you’re addled. I’ve got no use for God.”

“Maybe you have and maybe you haven’t,” she replied, tart as unripe apples. “But God’s got a use for you, Dexterity Jones. Now listen . On the morrow, as the sun rises, go down to the harbour. Search out the slave ship with the red dragon figurehead and speak to the sailor with the triple-plaited beard. For a few coins he’ll let you on board. There you’re to find the man with blue hair and buy him, no matter what he costs.”

And that dropped his jaw all over again. “ Buy him? Hettie, don’t be silly. Slavery’s for uncivilised foreigners, not us.”

“Remember well, my love,” she said, and rippled like a reflection on wind-stirred water. “The ship with the red dragon figurehead. The sailor with the triple-plaited beard. The man with the blue hair. His name is Zandakar. You must take care of him till I can come to you again.”

She was fading before his eyes, he could see right through her to the fire-danced hearth and the mantelpiece and the cracked picture frame. “No, Hettie, don’t go!” he cried. “I don’t understand. Why must I buy him? What do I do with him? Is he the cause of our troubles? Hettie, tell me!”

She was smiling, and his heart was breaking. “Don’t be afraid,” she said, thinned almost to nothing. “Remember I love you.”

“No, Hettie! Don’t go! Don’t leave me, not again! Hettie! ” Desperate, he lunged towards her, threw his arms wide to catch her to him …

… and tripped and found himself half pitched over the side of the bathtub, choking and gasping and coughing in a tidal wave of cooling water that slopped onto the carpet and up into his face. Shaken and shivering he fell back into his bath and covered his eyes, his heart pounding as wild as the harbour waves at storm’s height.

Beyond that, the only sound in the room was the tock tick tock of the clock on the mantelpiece.

Minutes passed. After some time he felt able to uncover his eyes. The room was empty. Hettie was gone … if she’d even been there at all.

“Hettie?” he whispered to the lamplit room. “Are you there, Hettie?”

The curtains stirred as though tugged by living fingers, and in the air a sweet pungency of roses and lavender.

“Hettie …”

He sighed, a deep groaning of air. Mad, he was mad to think she’d been here. Red dragon figureheads and sailors with triple-plaited beards and men with blue hair. Whoever heard of a man with blue hair? Or with an outlandish name like Zandakar .

Dexterity Jones, chosen by God ? Chosen by indigestion was more like it. The whole business was impossible. Outrageous. Ridiculous.

“Ridiculous!” he said out loud, daring the shadows to contradict him. “It never happened. It was nothing but a collywobble dream. And I’m not going to pay a dream any mind at all. The only proper place for a man at sunrise is where he should be. In bed. And when the cock crows on the morrow, that’s where I’ll be. In bed.”

Then he sank himself to the bottom of the bathtub, to make his point to whoever might, or might not, be listening.

“
R
hian …”

Startled awake, Rhian dropped the book she’d been dozing over. “Yes, Papa? What is it? Do you need something?” Taking his hand between her palms she chafed the dry skin and tried not to think of his brittle bones, snapping.

“What time is it, Rhian?”

She glanced at the clock. “Early. Would you like the curtains opened, Papa?”

He nodded, wincing, so she slipped from the chair and drew back the windows’ heavy crimson drapes, spilling the sunrise all over herself. The spring light felt clean on her skin, chasing away the shadows of another long, painful bedside vigil.

They were alone. Ven’Justin had mercifully departed at midnight and was yet to return. But return he would, with his droning and his bead-clicking. If she and her father were to talk of things that mattered they must talk now. Although he was a little restored with sleep, his pinched face told her, unequivocally, she could no longer delay.

If I wait until later I might be too late. God, give me the words. Please give me the strength.

As she slid back into her chair her father said, “I wish you would not coop yourself in here with me.”

“What’s this?” she said, striving for humour. “Are you saying you’re tired of my company, Papa?”

With an effort, he stretched his hand towards her. “Silly girl. You know my meaning well enough.”

She had to blink away tears. “There’s no place in the world for me save by your side, Papa. I’ll be with you until the end.”

As he stirred on his pillows she could see the pain in him. It hurt her so cruelly that for a moment she couldn’t breathe. He said, “That end is almost upon me, Rhian.”

“I know,” she whispered, and let the tears fall.

“Rhian,” her father said when she had composed herself, “we must speak of what will happen when I die.”

I know what will happen, Papa. I’ll be alone . “Yes,” she said, and sat a little straighter. “I know we can’t put it off any longer. I’ve been thinking on the matter, I—”

“No,” said her father. “Where the succession is concerned you will vouchsafe no opinion, Rhian. I speak not as your papa now, but as your king.”

Oh, she wasn’t going to like this, was she? “Yes, Papa,” she said, and folded her hands. The early sunshine no longer warmed her. She felt cold and small and cornered, like some pitiful creature fighting for its life.

“Had God willed it Ranald would have worn the crown after me,” said her father, his sunken eyes fixed on mid-air, on the past. “Or Simon, had he survived that pestilential infection. But my heart’s hope was denied me when God took your brothers in their prime.” He paused to catch his breath, the air bubbling in his chest. “You are my only daughter, Rhian. You know what you must do, for me and for Ethrea. You must bear a fistful of sons. All that remains to decide is who will take my place on the throne.”

And sleep in my bed . Rhian felt the heat of anger flush her head to toe. He talks as though I’m a prized broodmare, and he the studmaster who must choose the best stallion. But I’m no fecund mare, I’m a royal heir as much as Ranald and Simon. The only royal heir now. Why will no-one recognise that?

“Papa,” she said, schooling her voice to a passionless murmur, “I feel I’m too young to marry.”

“Too young?” Her father frowned, displeased. “Your mother, God grant her peace, was two years younger than you the day we wed. Too young! ” Scorn withered his failing voice. “Such notions arise from an excess of bookishness and a want of attention to the womanly arts.”

She sat very still, her heart a drumbeat in her ears. “That doesn’t sound like you, Papa. That sounds like the prolate. It’s a wonder Marlan can pronounce on such matters, sworn celibate that he is.”

“Mind your tongue, Rhian!” her father said, sharp with anger even though he was dying. “Marlan is God’s chosen man. Do not take so lightly his office or the Godgiven wisdom of his preaching.”

She rose from her chair and walked back to the window, not daring to show him her face till it was the very image of contrition. He never used to speak like this. Before the boys died he had scant affection for Marlan and his mean-spirited pronouncements. Nor had he been overpious. But grief and illness had shaken her father to the bone. Cast him adrift on a sea of uncertainty.

If I’m not careful he’ll drown me with him.

“Forgive me, Papa,” she begged him at last, turning. “It’s wrong of me to criticise the prolate.”

Her father nodded, weakly. “Excessively wrong.”

“But Papa, Marlan is unfair when he accuses me of lacking the womanly arts. Mama took great pains to teach me all she knew of such things, while she could.”

Her father’s severe expression softened. “So she did, most excellently. No woman born had more gentleness, grace and breeding than your mother.”

“And after we lost Mama your own sister, God rest her, taught me everything else I should know.”

“Yes. Arabella was a fine woman, too.”

“Indeed. And as for excessive bookishness, Papa,” Rhian pressed, “upon whose lap did I sit every day in the library, learning my alphabet and then, in time, reading the great histories of Ethrea, the geographies and biologies and religious treatises deemed essential to the education of any royal prince?”

“I know full well I encouraged you to study every book you could lay your hand upon, Rhian, but—”

“Furthermore,” she continued, relentless, “who was it presented me with my first foil and taught me to fence like a master? Who gifted me with my first bow and instructed me in the finer points of archery? And who sat me on my first pony and pointed me after hounds?”

Her father’s sigh became a rattling cough. “It was me, it was me, I freely confess it,” he said, when he could speak again. “But that has nothing to do with—”

“Papa!” She returned to his bedside. “It has everything to do with it. All my life you’ve treated me as a third son. Never once did you send me away, saying ‘This pursuit is unwomanly, you may not take part’. I was Ranald’s shadow, Simon’s echo. You used to laugh about that! But now you would chide me?”

Her father groped for her hand with palsied fingers. “Rhian, my dear daughter. I do not chide you, I only remark that you have often favoured manly activities over and above the matters that should concern a young woman ripe for marriage.” Another pause, so he could catch his thin breath. “To be sure I took pride in a fancy riposte or an unbroken string of bull’s-eyes, but I hazard a prospective husband might look more favourably upon a fine piece of tapestry or a pleasant tune on the flute.”

“Papa,” she said, excessively reasonable, “tapestries and flutes are all very well but they have little to do with ruling a kingdom.”

He released her hand. In his face, weary understanding and the intent to deny. “Do not be foolish, child.”

“Why is it foolish?” she demanded. “I’m of the blood royal, a legitimate daughter of the House of Havrell! You’ve said it yourself, I’m as thoroughly educated as any prince. Truth be told I’m better educated than Ranald was. He never cared for books and learning. Don’t make a face, Papa, you know I’m right! If I were your third son I—”

“But you’re not, Rhian,” said her father. “And there the matter ends.”

“ Why does it end? Why am I good enough to breed a king yet somehow insufficient to rule as one myself?”

He did not reprove her rudeness or demand a more compliant demeanour. He loved her, and was sorry. “Rhian, be sensible. You’re barely nineteen, almost a year from your majority.”

“If I were a prince I’d have attained it already! That’s not fair either, Papa, I—”

“Fair?” Her father coughed again, harshly, an ominous wheezing deep in his chest. “You prate to me of fair, Rhian?”

She felt her cheeks heat. “Papa—”

“When you say such things I think your fine education was wasted!”

“All I mean,” she said, her fingers clenched, “is it’s galling to know that Prolate Marlan and the council consider me feeble just because I was born a girl. I’m not feeble, Papa. You know that. And they’ll know it too, before very long. I’ll be twenty in the blink of an eye!”