The Godspeaker Trilogy (66 page)

There was something almost … fevered … in his eyes. Abruptly uneasy, she took another step back. “Mr Jones—”

“Is Prolate Marlan trying to bully you, Highness?” he asked. “Is he … I don’t know … trying to force you to marry against your will?”

The sun was warm but she felt suddenly cold. “How do you know that? How can you possibly know—”

“I didn’t,” he said, a peculiar expression on his face. “At least, not exactly. It’s complicated. Let’s just say I put two and two together. More or less. And if I guessed right …” He shook himself. “Princess Rhian, do you trust me? Do you believe I’m your man, loyal and true?”

Dreamlike, she nodded. She did believe it. He was an ordinary toymaker, without rank or wealth, but she knew in her bones she could trust him implicitly, her unlikely childhood friend. “Yes.”

He looked so relieved it was almost comical. “Your Highness, you can’t stay in the castle. You can’t even stay in Kingseat. As long as you’re here Prolate Marlan and the others will browbeat you until you give in to what they want. And if you do that, I’m here to tell you: Ethrea will be lost.”

“Lost?” She shivered. “What do you mean?”

Mr Jones stepped closer. He looked, she realised, very tired. There were shadowed circles beneath his overbright eyes and his gingery hair was more wildly unkempt than ever.

“Princess Rhian, the prolate wants you to marry a man of his choosing. What do you want?”

She lifted her chin. Either I trust him or I don’t . “Mr Jones, I want to be Ethrea’s lawful ruling queen.”

Mr Jones blinked. “Oh dear. That’s awkward.”

“Why?”

“Because Ethrea’s not in the habit of crowning queens.”

“Then Ethrea’s going to have to get in the habit, isn’t it?” she said, belligerent. “I’m the king’s true daughter. I’m his sole living heir. I’ve a right to the crown, Mr Jones. As much of a right as my late brothers ever had. If I’d been born male I’d be a year into my majority and crowned already. I refuse to accept I’m unfit because I’m female. I refuse to have my life run by Prolate Marlan or the council or anyone but myself.”

“An admirable ambition, Highness,” said Mr Jones. “But, let’s be honest, not easily attained. How long before you must choose a husband? Do you know?”

She frowned. “There’s the funeral … the ambassadorial delegations of condolence … the official mourning period lasts one month. I can’t think they’d try to force an answer from me before then.”

“So we have a month to plan your escape,” said Mr Jones. “That’s something.”

Something, yes. But where could she go? She couldn’t flee the kingdom. She couldn’t turn to another nation for help. That would surely destroy Ethrea’s independence forever. It might even be against the law. And anyway, if she left Ethrea it would be as good as admitting defeat. Marlan would say she’d abandoned her inheritance. He’d say she’d abdicated her right to be the queen consort, never mind ruling monarch. Which meant the ambitious dukes would tear Ethrea apart, like dogs with a sheep.

No. If she was to fight for her inheritance she had to fight for it in Ethrea. So where must she go? Into hiding? Into exile, within her own kingdom? A terrible prospect …

But I have no other choice.

“Your Highness?” said Mr Jones, diffident. “Do you know of somewhere you’ll be safe, until this business of the succession is settled in your favour?”

Somewhere for certain? No. But …

“Duchy Linfoi,” she said. “I have a … friend … there.” I hope. Oh Alasdair … Alasdair … please God you’re still my friend .

The toymaker swallowed. “I see. That’s a long way from Kingseat, Highness. Do you have any idea how we’re going to get there?”

She stared. “ We? Mr Jones—”

“Princess Rhian, you can’t do this alone. And even though I know it sounds ridiculous, and I can’t explain it just now, I’ve been tasked with the duty of helping you. So yes. You and I and—” Mr Jones hesitated, and seemed to change his mind. “You and I will be running away to duchy Linfoi.”

“You’ve been tasked, Mr Jones?” She frowned. “Tasked by whom? Tell me. I think I’m owed an explan—”

“Of course you are,” he said hastily. “But do we have time for explanations right now, Your Highness? I don’t think we do.”

He was right. She’d stayed out here too long already. Helfred would surely return at any moment, complaining and chiding and herding her indoors.

“All right,” she said. “I’ll wait. But not forever. And the next time I ask I expect you to answer.”

“I will. I promise,” said Mr Jones, fervent. “Do you have any idea how we can reach the north safely?”

“Actually,” she said slowly, inspiration stirring, “do you know, Mr Jones … I think that I might.”

“Oh, good,” he said. “Because I have no idea whatsoever.”

But she did. Oh yes. She had an excellent idea … one that not even Marlan or the council could protest. Not without laying bare the baseness of their greedy ambitions.

I’ll thwart them yet, Papa! And yes, I’ll thwart you too. Not because I’m an undutiful daughter … but because I’m the daughter you raised me to be.

Despite the grief that devoured her she smiled at the toymaker. “You’d best go, Mr Jones, before you’re discovered. I’ll find a way for us to stay in touch. Don’t come here again. I fear it would be too dangerous, for both of us.”

Mr Jones bowed. “Your Highness—Your Majesty —I’m yours to command.”

Your Majesty . She felt a fresh rush of tears. “God bless you, my friend. I won’t forget this. I’ll be in your debt the whole of my life.”

She watched him slip through the garden gate, torn between relief and terror.

The whole of my life. But if this doesn’t work … if Alasdair fails me … I fear the whole of my life won’t last very long.

R
hian stood back from her full-length dressing-room mirror and considered her reflection. There was no question, scarlet and gold brocade suited her admirably. And the style of this gown, with its severe lines and uncompromising modesty, was unquestionably elegant, while the stiffened collar rising from the neckline shrieked with royal authority. Every inch of her looked like a queen.

She smiled grimly.

Be careful what you wish for, my lords.

The council—led by Marlan, of course—had forbidden her to wear mourning for longer than the traditional month. Sunrise had marked one month exactly since her father’s death … therefore she could no longer dress in black.

“Once your public grieving is ended you must assume your proper place in the world,” Marlan had told her when she met with the council the awful, blurred day that Eberg died. Around the table the councillors had nodded, even Henrik, like a group of Mr Jones’ obedient stringed puppets. “The ambassadors will be lining up to see you, Rhian. What they see must not alarm them.”

And a daughter mourning her lost father was alarming? Apparently so, if one could believe Marlan.

If he told me water was wet I’d doubt it.

Unfortunately, though she disliked him intensely, he wasn’t wrong. Not about this, at least. Until now, protocol had kept the other nations at bay. She’d not been forced to meet with any of their ambassadors except at her father’s lavish funeral and during the formal presentations of condolence.

But that was about to change. She was the face of Ethrea; being a minor in law didn’t alter that. She knew the great men of the world’s trading nations, Ethrea’s partners in prosperity and peace, gathered in shadowed corners and speculated on the future. Hers, and theirs: they were inextricably entwined.

If they knew I plan to run away I think they’d be frightened. I know I am … but I don’t have a choice. Now the push for me to choose a husband will begin in earnest. My official mourning is over and I have no more excuses. Ethrea must have a king.

If she had her way, that king would be Alasdair.

If he’s prepared to accept my sovereignty over him. If he still wants me. If he doesn’t turn me away from his door …

He hadn’t even written to her on the death of her father. Just sent a brief message through Henrik. Yes, his own father was dying. That might excuse him … or perhaps, with distance and time between them, he’d undergone a change of heart.

Please God, don’t let him have changed his heart. If I can’t marry Alasdair I’ll have to marry one of the others. One of the men named on that damned list.

And so would end the House of Havrell. Not one of those duke’s men would let her rule in her own right. She really would become a royal broodmare, good for nothing but birthing sons and keeping silent.

I can’t let that happen. Not without a fight, anyway. I wouldn’t be my father’s daughter if I didn’t fight for what was mine. If I must be a queen, and not a duke’s duchess, then I’ll be a queen on my own terms … if I can …

Though so much of her life was uncertain at the moment, there was one thing about which she had no doubt. Under no circumstances would she marry Marlan’s hope, Lord Rulf. She’d glimpsed the man at her father’s funeral. She’d seen most of her potential husbands there, but mercifully hadn’t been forced to meet with them. Henrik Linfoi, bless him, had seen to that.

Rulf is an idiot. Nothing more than Marlan’s puppet. Put a crown on his head and it’s Marlan who’ll be king.

The thought churned her belly. A kingdom strong in faith was one thing; a kingdom where the Church poked its nose in everyone’s business and its hand in every pocket was another matter entirely. Her father had strenuously resisted it, wherever possible altering the law to ease its grip on Ethrea’s people.

“The Church has enough income from its estates, Marlan, and the tithing practices already in existence. It can do without new tithes and unregulated levies and rents not overseen by government clerks. Surely your concern is with spiritual treasures.”

Marlan had railed against her father’s reforms. Railed without remedy, for the king had prevailed.

I can’t let him use me to defeat Papa now. Let Marlan take control of Ethrea through me and Mr Jones’ dire prediction will certainly come true.

Her face brooded back at her from the dressing-room mirror. Thinner than it had been a month ago. Older, too, in some indefinable way. Childhood was firmly thrust behind her. Now she stood on the threshold of adult decisions, bearing with them adult consequences.

If I’m wrong to trust the toymaker … if running away proves to be a mistake … well, Marlan will have the pleasure of saying “I told you so”. But I’m not wrong. I’m not. Crowned or uncrowned I’m the queen of Ethrea. The throne is my birthright, the care of its people my sacred duty. I won’t abandon them to the machinations of these men.

In the warm lamplight her gold and scarlet dress shimmered with promise. Clothes, her mother had often said, were as much a suit of armour as any collection of antique breastplates, greaves and gauntlets gathering dust in the kingdom’s cellars and museums. While such archaic male battle-wear was now dragged out only for ceremonial parades, women went to war in subtle and unsubtle fashion every day of their lives and it would be a good thing for Rhian never to forget it.

“Don’t worry, Mama,” she said, in the hope that somewhere her mother may still be listening. “I haven’t forgotten.”

“Haven’t forgotten what, Highness?” said her privy maid Dinsy, bustling back into the dressing-room, her arms laden with jewellery cases.

“Nothing,” she said, and turned away from her gold-and-scarlet self to consider the jewellery Dinsy was preparing to show her. “Not the opals,” she decided. “Not the emeralds. The pearls? Perhaps …”

She took the creamy rope of pearls. It had been her mother’s. A gift from the king upon Simon’s birth.

“Oooh, Highness, they’re ever so pretty,” breathed Dinsy. “I love pearls, I do.”

A dab of a thing three years her junior, was Dinsy. Traditionally a princess took as her privy maid the loftiest of her noble ladies-in-waiting. But she cared for none of them, stupid creatures forever dangling after the courtiers in hopes of a husband. Choosing Dinsy over them had ruffled a henhouse of feathers, but she didn’t care. Princesses were supposed to make friends of nobility’s daughters, but since they were children all they’d ever done was laugh at her behind their pampered hands because she’d loved riding and hunting and fencing and learning. Because she’d so often dressed like a boy.

Anyway, it had turned out to be positively providential, with three of them related to her would-be husbands. Dinsy lacked court polish, it was true. She was a plain country lass. But her heart was good and she could be trusted, absolutely. That was more valuable than the noblest of pedigrees.

Rhian smiled at the girl. “So do I love pearls, Dinsy,” she said and, turning back to the mirror, held them against her woefully flat chest. “But not this time.”

“No,” Dinsy agreed. “Them pearls have nothing to say to that dress and that’s a fact. Highness, I think it’s got to be the rubies, honest I do.”

Mama’s rubies, a gift from the king upon Ranald’s birth. Great carved things fashioned into glowing dragon’s eyes, and set in a chain of molten gold. Earrings to match; she could still see her mother taking them out of her ears with a huff of relief after court masquerades and thirty-course dinners for visiting foreign dignitaries.

Marlan wore a ruby ring. He liked to finger it when he thought no-one was watching.

“As usual, Dinsy, you’re perfectly right,” she said, and tossed the pearls into her privy maid’s waiting hands. “The rubies it is.” Putting them on, feeling their weight settle in her ears and around her neck, she felt like a knight of old girding for war.

“Oh, Highness,” sighed Dinsy, standing back to make sure every last hair on her royal charge’s head was settled into place. “You do look like that painting of your blessed mother. The one in the Grand Hall, when she was your age.”

Rhian blinked away a prickle of tears. “Really?”

“Oh yes, Highness. The spitting image. If the dear king was here he’d say so, I’m sure.” Dinsy’s hand flew to her mouth. “Your Highness. I’m sorry. My tongue runs away with me, I—”

“Hush,” said Rhian. “It’s all right. It doesn’t matter.”

A month since the funeral and the wound was still so raw. She hurt as much this morning as she had the day her father died. More, in fact, because it was impossible to pretend any longer that she could wake, as though from a dream. Her father, her brothers … Too much death in too short a time, and she was still angry. No matter what Helfred said it wasn’t in her to meekly accept her loss, or the need for the battle she was about to wage because of it.