The Still (6 page)

In the mournful distance, Elryc wept.

When I felt able, I got to my feet, gave Elryc a gruff embrace, pushed him away. “We’re in for it.”

“How do you mean?”

“I’m not crowned, and the best we can hope for is a regency.”

“The best?”

“Others covet the throne. Perhaps even you.” I threw him a crooked smile.

“Yes, me.” He sniffled, took a deep breath. “I’ve thought of it, Roddy. I’d make a good king. I’d set aside all the boring ceremonies and rituals, and spend our gold where it would serve better.” He rested his head on my arm. “But not by killing you. I don’t want a crown that badly.”

I shook him off. “Hold your tongue, simpleton. Never let it be known what you want. What if someone hears, and puts me aside, because you’re younger and more tractable?”

As was his habit, Elryc looked wise beyond his years. “More likely they’ll kill us both, and raise Pytor to do what he’s told. His mind isn’t yet made.” He peered out the window, at the trumpeters below. “I don’t want to die, Roddy. Protect me.”

“I can’t protect myself.” I sat again at the silent bed. “Mother, what do we do?”

No reply.

“Will the Power be mine, if I am King under a regent?”

The silent form waited for eternity.

I blurted, “If only I’d listened!” Always I’d been prone to interrupt her, impatient at the careful organization of her thoughts. “Forgive me, Madam.” I knelt, caressed once more the cold hand.

“Does Uncle Mar have the Power?” For a moment I imagined Elryc’s high voice was Mother’s.

“No, only a King can—” My eyes darted. “The Chalice and Receptor. Where did she keep them?” I ran past the trunk room into Mother’s dressing chamber, threw open the wardrobe, pushed aside the hanging clothes. Nothing. Once they’d been in the vault, but I recalled the day I’d been—what—thirteen? Mother had demonstrated the rite that summoned the Still, and like a foolish boy I’d been disappointed that no candles had dimmed, no thunder crashed, no velvet curtains swayed. Yet it couldn’t have been otherwise; Mother’s Power had long been extinguished.

That day, the Vessels had been set on the marble table. Mother took my hand and placed it in the proper place. Excited, still a child, I’d had no curiosity as to where the emerald-studded Receptor had been stored. I’d seen no clue, and had not asked.

“In a chest?” Elryc sounded hopeful.

I cursed; Mother had at least a dozen trunks and a vast collection of garments. The Vessels could be anywhere. I flung open the first, pawed among carefully folded clothing, slammed down the lid. “Check that one with the brass straps.” I crossed to the door, undid the bar, pulled him in. “Rustin! Help us find the Receptor and Chalice.” I waved to the trunk room.

“This is her chamber? I’ve never been admitted before.” When visiting the castle Rustin had the run of my quarters, and we roamed the ramparts without hindrance. But though Mother might receive family or intimates in her rooms, no others ever saw them, even my companions.

He opened a trunk, blushed at the undergarments within, resolutely plunged his hands to the bottom. “Not here.” He moved to another. “Where’d you see them last?”

“There.” I pointed to the pleasant salon under the high windows.

We searched on. A soft knock at the door, which we ignored. After a few moments, another, more insistent.

With a curse for which Mother would have boxed my ears, I flung open the door. Rowena and Hester not far behind. “Roddy, you left Duke Margenthar and the nobles at the stairs! He demands I open the outer door, and really there’s no reason I shouldn’t.”

“The reason,” spat Hester, “stands in front of you.”

I snarled. “Five minutes, tell him.”

“But you can’t—”

The old woman closed in on Rowena, murder in her eyes. I blurted, “Hester, we need you inside. Please.”

To the Nurse, mother took precedence over vengeance. She hobbled in and I slammed the door.

“Where’s Mother’s Power?”

She gaped. “In her soul, her essence. It’s—”

“The Receptor!”

She peered past me to the trunk room. “What do you louts meddle with, that’s none of your—
her clothes?
Elryc! Shut that lid or I’ll take a stick to you!” My brother leaped from the trunk. Hester brushed me aside, darted to the wardrobe, almost stumbling in her haste. “Have you no respect, no decency? Are you Llewelyn’s boy?” She snatched Rustin’s ear, led him yelping to the wall. “Your filthy hands touched my lady’s garments?” A cuff. “Out!” She herded him to the door.

Rustin’s eyes fastened on me in silent plea; it roused me from stupor. I said, “Hester, he’s helping—”

“Oaf!” The old woman stamped her foot. “What would Lady Elena think of these carryings on? Were she alive, she’d—” Again she stamped her foot, but no words came. Eyes brimming, she threw her hands to her face. Rustin rubbed furiously at his ear.

I motioned to Rustin, to Elryc. “In the salon, and shut the door.” They rushed out to escape her rage.

My voice was hesitant. “Please, Nurse ...”

Her hands came down. “Desecrator!” She slapped my face.

I chopped off my words, fought the humiliation and the sting. Then, quietly, “Thinkest that thou loved her more than I?”

Her finger stabbed at the garments strewn about by our negligence. “Is that love, or greed? Oh, you great coarse boy!”

“If you loved Mother, I beg you, help me. For Elryc’s sake and mine. We must have the Vessels.”

Her eyes studied my face a long while. Then she nodded, and spoke in my ear.

After a few moments I opened the door to the salon. “It’s well now. Hester says Mother sent the Vessels back to the vault.”

Elryc looked to Hester. She nodded. “Guarded night and day, by two men of my lady’s own choosing.”

Again, the demanding knock, at the door. I ignored it. “Will they open the vault for me?”

Hester shook her head. “Even if they had the will, they could not. The vault’s locked and wants two keys, held separately by your mother and the Chamberlain.”

That didn’t sound like the Queen I knew. “She wouldn’t put possessions so valuable beyond her own reach. What if the Chamberlain—”

“Don’t be a fool. Willem of Alcazar was raised in the castle. Your mother and he played together until they grew to the age where it was not seemly. He was her closest friend, and would no more betray her than—than would I!”

The knock, ever louder.

“We’ll have to let them in.” I ran to the bed. “Where’s the key to the vault?”

“She kept it always on a golden chain around her neck.”

I reached out, pulled back my hand as if burned. I couldn’t explore my mother’s body as if it were some dead bird I’d found in the field. “Could you—would ...” I gritted my teeth. This was my responsibility. Forcing down bile, I forced my hand to her neck, felt inside her garment.

“Don’t waste your time.” The Nurse scowled. “She’s already been washed and laid out. Think you they’d have left it on her?”

“Where is it?”

“In Margenthar’s hands, if Rowena had her way.”

We were lost. Dully, I sank upon the bed.

“But she did not.” Hester fished within the hem of her garment. Her wrinkled hand came forth, closed. Her eyes bore into mine. Then, in an instant, her fingers opened, bright metal flashed.

“YOU?
You had it, all along?”

“Aye.” She tossed the chain, and I snatched it from the air. “I knew not whom those ladies serve, and took it when their eyes were elsewhere.”

“To do what with?”

“Ere day’s end, to give to you, or Margenthar. I’d not made up my mind. You’re not much, but you’re better than he.”

I thrust the chain in my shirt, responded with the curtness she’d shown. “I thank thee. Rust, we’ll have somehow to get the other key. Let them in, and let’s try to slip out in the rush.”

Two doors to unlock; the inner, and the main door at the end of the corridor, by the stairs. I opened the inner door, slipped past the diminished flock of ladies, got no more than halfway along the corridor before Duke Margenthar and his entourage swept down on me. Had looks the power to kill, I were extinct.

“Let the kinsmen come forth!” My tones were regal, but this time Uncle Mar would have none of it. I scuttled aside before he ran me down.

“We’ll settle this later, boy!”

Toward the rear of the throng came Lady Rowena, her face triumphant.

I said, “You couldn’t wait five minutes?”

“You’d have asked five more, and ten beyond that.” She swept past. Then, over her shoulder, “He who would be King need show a king’s grace! Like your uncle!”

When the last of the household had passed I waited, until Rustin peered out, found me. He trotted down the corridor, Elryc in tow. “Now what?”

“We visit Willem.” I loped down the great stairs, Elryc clutching my hand with unfamiliar intimacy. Below, servants and hirelings had gathered, muttering among themselves and staring toward the Queen’s chambers.

I clapped sharply. “Have you no business? Is dinner ready, are the week’s chores done? Get about your work!”

Sullen murmurs. Grudgingly they made way, but they did not disperse. By the time we three had circled the stairs to the Chamberlain’s entry, they’d resumed their uneasy places at the staircase.

Rustin raised an eyebrow. “You’ll just walk in and ask? ‘Willem, may I have Mother’s key?’”

“Well, I ... um.” I hadn’t thought that far. “We’ll follow the quarry where it runs.”

At the Chamberlain’s door, I debated whether to walk in as if I were master of the place, decided I’d best knock.

A clerk opened. “Yes? Oh, Rodrigo. I’ll tell him you’re here.” He disappeared into an inner chamber, leaving me frowning through a side doorway at a room full of clerks on high stools, bent over their papers and accounts.

I paced the anteroom, fists knotted, feeling the boy who’d so often come to collect his stipend, preparing to endure the admonitions and censure that were part of its dispense.

Elryc, also accustomed to the place, took a chair meekly, hands folded in his lap.

Rustin studied the wall hangings. “We have a tapestry much like that at home. Do you recall?”

I nodded, having not the slightest idea what he was talking about. “I want you with me, when we confront him.”

“As you wish.” He took a book from a shelf, examined the gold-leafed adornment in the leaves. “Love Poems of Milibar?” A sly grin flitted across his features. “Ever read them? They’d make a gelding rise—”

“Rodrigo.” The stocky Chamberlain was framed in the doorway. In his velvet-trimmed robes he looked prepared for a meeting of state. “A terrible day. Come in.”

I passed through the doorway, Rustin at my heels. We settled ourselves in the stiff high-backed chairs set around Willem’s ornate desk.

He studied Rust. “I recognize you. You’re ... the envoy’s son, from Eiber?”

Rustin flushed. “No, Sir Willem. My father is Llewelyn.”

The man’s eyes rose. “Time races. Forgive me; the last time we spoke, you were so high.” He patted the desk, and dismissed Rustin from his mind. “I’m sorry, Rodrigo. She was a wonderful soul, and I’ll miss her more than you can know.” His eyes teared. Perhaps he even meant it. I waited, while his commiseration played out. “So, Prince Rodrigo, how may I be of service?”

I licked my lips, risked a glance to Rustin. He sat straight, eyes on the Chamberlain. “I want to enter the vault.”

His jaw dropped, then a chuckle. “So do many folk. Whatever for?”

I took the bit between my teeth. “To see if the Vessels are in their place.”

“Do you think she kept them there?”

“Did she not?”

“That’s not mine to disclose, Prince Rodrigo. If the Queen wanted you to know, surely she’d have told you.”

“They’ll be mine to wield!”

He nodded. “When you are King, yes. Soon, I hope.”

“I’m King now.” I wished I didn’t sound petulant. “Mother didn’t renounce me, and now she’s dead. I am King, crowned or not. I want to open our vault.”

“But why come to me?”

Rustin intervened. “How else would one gain entry, Sir Willem?”

The Chamberlain looked astonished. “You think the Queen let clerks such as myself wander freely among her treasures? I have no access.”

“You don’t?” Could Hester have made up the whole story, to divert me? Did she gloat over the Vessels, even now?

“No one entered the vault, save in your mother’s presence. She herself carried a key.”

I said, “And you—”

“Oh, Lord of Nature and his minions!” Rustin jumped to his feet. “The fitting! Roddy, we’re late. Did you forget your appointment for the mourning robes? Hurry; if the earls get fitted first you’ll have to wear that ridiculous sable that you’ve outgrown. Do you want to look a country lout?”

“What nonsense—”

“Make notes, like I do, and you won’t forget. When will you learn!” He hustled me protesting from my chair. “I’m sorry, Sir Willem, may we see you after the fitting?”

“It’s going to be a frightful day, youngsire. The funeral wreaths, the cortege to organize—”

“But you’ll find a moment for us, won’t you? Roddy, hurry!” He propelled me to the antechamber. Elryc gaped at our quick retreat, but followed.

Dumbstruck, I let Rustin drag me clear of the Chamberlain’s wing before I dug in my heels. “Let go, you lunatic! Have demons taken you? I was about to ask—”

His hand shot across my mouth. I swatted it away. “How dare you!”

A courtier strode past, on his way to see the Chamberlain. Rustin leered. “Outside, then, if you want to see who’s the stronger!”

Elryc rammed him with a bony shoulder. “Leave Roddy alone!”

Rust shoved me into the wall, aimed a kick at Elryc, dashed for the door. Cursing like one possessed, I gave chase.

Rustin charged up the rampart steps two at a time, just ahead of my grasp. He veered for the high towers manned only in time of war. I flew after, Elryc bringing up the rear. At the watchtower Rust made his mistake; he dashed up the stairs that had no exit, and I knew I had him. Grimly, I climbed the three flights. At the landing I shoved aside an empty barrel, swung open the door to the open deck, girded myself for the battle to come.

I rushed out into sunlight. Panting, Rust leaned against the battlement. “We should be safe here.”