Redemption

“We have that in common then.”

  Robert rerolled the parchment. He had made the choice, long ago, to place his life in line before Aurelia’s. Had made that decision when he had first returned to the palace to investigate the assassination plot. Then when he had faced his cousin’s sword in the palace arena. Later, in the forest, when Robert had pledged her his fealty; and in the desert, when he had decided to return to the capital with her; and in Darzai, when their plans had changed and he had determined instead to join her in exile. Then finally with his choice to return home. For Tyralt.

  “Give her the list,” Thomas said.

  “You can give it to her yourself. Perhaps she would prefer you serve in a special position.” Robert tried to hand back the scroll.

  The other man shook his head. “The only way I can serve my country now is the same as any other man.”

  How could he be so certain of his role in this revolution?

  “She’ll be in the garden,” Thomas added. “At her mother’s grave.”

  • • •

  Another graveside. Robert’s chest recoiled as he hurried through the trees around the east end of the Fortress. His conscious must have repelled the idea, the memory of his parents’ deaths too raw. How long had she been there alone, facing the horrible emptiness of the burial site?

  A rustle of movement. He glimpsed a retreating figure in gray, the form moving too quickly through the trees for clarity. Not Aurelia.

  His focus returned to the shadows ahead. He broke his own path through the remaining trees.

  And almost ran into the tombstone. Its massive height and elaborate dedication to Lady Margaret mocked the simple markers of his parents. Yet in all the stone’s formally etched words, he saw no reference to who the lady had been before. No mention of Marguerite of the Valshone or her role as queen. Or her children.

  The graveside was vacant.

  Instead he found Aurelia standing at the garden’s center: her figure rigid, her torso erect, her head bent back as she stared blindly up at a shuttered window.

  He moved to her side. And found he had nothing to say.

  How many ways is it possible to fail?

  When her father had died, Robert had understood the connection. Had known that she loved the king no matter what he had done, because he had raised her. Perhaps, in his own way, he had loved her as well. Not as he should have—not enough to defend her in the face of public scrutiny. Not enough, Robert thought, to truly name her queen, though enough so that she could believe her father might have chosen her in the end.

  But her mother? This was a different kind of mourning.

  “I didn’t love her,” Aurelia whispered.

  She was already dead before you met her. Robert still could not speak. If he did, the words would betray his own anger. He had not known this queen who had abandoned her daughter and lived sixteen years in isolation, then died.

  But he knew she was to blame for Aurelia’s fear of love.

  In an awful way, he and Aurelia were level now. Both alone, having lost their parents. But in truth, he and she would never be level. Because Robert had lost parents who loved him. Who had raised him with the knowledge that under their watch, he would always be safe. That even when he pulled away—and he had had to pull away—they would still love him. Because they loved him more than themselves.

  Aurelia had never had that.

  And now she knew she never would.

  At last he knew what she needed to hear. “I love you,” he told her. Then wrapped her in his arms, as the rigidity collapsed within her, and repeated again and again and again. “I love you.”

  He wished desperately he could make her believe it.

  Chapter Twelve

  AN ARMY?

  The fire roared in the hearth of the Great Hall as Aurelia negotiated her way toward the flames and past dust-coated benches and tables. The room was all but vacant, devoid of servants or soldiers. Her hands were empty. She had left the scroll with Robert. The men who had been brave enough to use their own voices to enlist should not suffer from her decision to confront her stepfather.

  No one should suffer. Not the footman who had ultimately given way at the Fortress door. And not Robert, whose shoulders had stiffened and whose open gaze had looked pained when she had asked him to wait.

  Something clattered at the front of the room, and Aurelia followed the sound toward the portrait of her mother. Dark, painted eyes gazed into emptiness. Beneath that blank stare, a figure slouched at the head table. An unkempt beard bristled from the man’s jaw, and his once-muscled torso had degenerated into a sunken heap of bulky flesh. Dozens of wine bottles, most of them empty, covered the table’s surface. A half-full bottle rocked in the figure’s hand. Was this the opponent she had imagined ruthlessly barring the door against her? This drunk?

  “Your Lordship,” Aurelia said. She lifted an unopened bottle from the table and tossed it behind the grate. Crash!

  He squinted up at her, dark circles outlining his bloodshot gaze. “I had hoped,” he groaned, “that when you left two years ago, you had gone for good.”

  She yanked the half-empty bottle from his grip. “I apologize,” she said, “for that sudden departure. I promise I won’t sneak off this time without making my exit known.”

  “Wsht!” His large hand reached out for hers, missing by more than a foot. “Do you think you and your stableboy could have snuck off this estate without my knowledge?”

  The bottle wavered in her hand. “You allowed us to leave?”

  “Curses, girl, I funded it! Who do you think provided the gold pieces to get you over the Gate?”

  “B-But …” The second bottle dropped behind the grate with a less than spectacular clang. “Why would you?”

  “Because I thought you might do something with this life of yours, Aurelia Lauzon.” He stood up, wavered, then fell again to his seat. His head lolled back, his face lifting toward the portrait.

  Aurelia’s chest squeezed. “My mother … was she upset?”

  “She was the same.” He rubbed his face with the heel of his hand. “I would have been grateful if she’d been upset. It would have meant she had an ounce of fight left.” He chafed his forehead as though trying to create a dent. “For sixteen years she was always the same.”

  Compassion replaced the guilt that had gripped Aurelia’s chest. This man also had known the futility of wanting her mother’s love. And had tried to spare Aurelia from falling into that vacancy. Yet he, himself, had fallen. She was uncertain what to say. Could not honestly express sorrow for her mother’s escape from fear.

  His hand fell to the table. “Well, get on with it, girl! What do want?”

  She opened her mouth to answer.

  But he cut her off. “Planning to take that bloody crown, aren’t you?!”

  Again she tried to respond.

  And again he barreled over the attempt. “Believe me, your life is worth more without that iron weight.” He turned back to the portrait. “That’s what I told her the first time I sighted her, almost three decades ago at the ball for the king’s coronation.”

  Aurelia was unsure she wanted to hear about this man’s advances toward her mother, but a daughter’s loyalty on her father’s behalf could no longer matter to anyone other than herself.

  “She was a wretched dancer,” Lord Lester continued. “Those Valshone—they’d failed to prepare her up there in those mountains. Taught her all kinds of useless information: numbers, books, philosophy. Thought she’d have a real say.”

  “She did,” Aurelia whispered, stunned to find herself defending the woman she could not claim to love. “She fought for the people to be educated.”

  “That she did, girl. And the upper crust at court were none too happy. They never wanted to mix with commoners. Becomes a might more difficult to prove you’re superior when the washerwoman’s boy can outscore your little court dandy in arithmetic. But we weren’t talking politics. Fact is, your mother couldn’t dance the bourrée. And
the king was ashamed of her.”

  Aurelia swallowed at the reminder of her father’s flawed concern for appearances.

  Lord Lester continued, “I told her, right then, that she could have me instead. But that crown—it has barbs in it. They stick deep. Under the skin where you can’t see.”

  “I would not know,” Aurelia said.

  “It’s already got its barbs in you. If it didn’t, you’d be gone. Off across the water with your little stableboy. What’s his name? Vantauge. I’d have thought you’d have set him free by now. Off to gallop circles beyond the Gate.” His Lordship lifted an empty bottle and saluted her. “But maybe I’m not aware of all his talents. Is he planning to drive the coach for your coronation?”

  She snatched the bottle and crashed it into the fire. “Neither Robert nor I care a wit for the throne. We’re here to free Tyralt.”

  He snorted. “Idealism.”

  “Yes,” she stated and let the word echo throughout the room. This man had no love of tradition. He had married her mother, defied the monarchy, sent Daria’s husband to spy in the palace. And allowed men and women from across Tyralt to find refuge here on his estate, beyond the strictures of her father’s and now her sister’s harsh laws. Who was he to mock idealism? “It will require men,” she added. “An army.”

  “Rumor has it you already have one.”

  “Rumor exaggerates.”

  “Fine!” the man thundered. “Take the men who want to go. Them and that blasted courier of mine, who didn’t tell me, when I funded your last departure, that I ought to expect a revolution. They’re out there!” He pointed a shaking hand. “As many fools as you’ll find anywhere else.”

  “You trained them,” she said.

  “Yes, and fed them and housed them and gave them work, but they’re as blind as all those fools you had trek over the blasted Gate. Think something better awaits. Think they have to sacrifice for it. Think somehow it’ll all be worth it if they agree to die!”

  He pounded the table and continued, “Fools who don’t know the difference between sacrifice and suicide!”

  “It would be better,” she said, “if they had a general who did.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  WAR COUNCIL

  Crack! The repetitive volley of musket fire shredded Robert’s mind. I shouldn’t be here. If anything he belonged out among the drilling novice soldiers. Not sequestered in this enclosed council tent with a spiritual leader of the desert, a woman determined to free a nation, an Heir raised to be king, and a general who had built his own army to defend the former queen.

  Aurelia’s recruitment of Lord Lester had been brilliant. What she had said to her stepfather ten days ago remained a mystery, but the man had pulled himself from his drunken state, looked past any offense dealt by the enlistment and organized his “followers.” Robert had estimated that the royal army would need a full month to gather supplies, weapons, and wagons. His Lordship’s men had achieved that feat—and managed to rendezvous with the northern forces at Transcontina—in a week and a half.

  Even Valerian appeared to acknowledge the older man’s leadership. He hovered at Lord Lester’s shoulder and seemed to listen to every word. The Oracle, calm and watchful, also listened. If the desert leader was ill at ease during this discussion, in which firearms were valued higher than horses, he gave no sign of bafflement.

  Robert, on the other hand, was lost.

  Not that he couldn’t follow the words. He had studied at the palace, read about the great battles of the past, heard lectures from generals of the guard, the navy, the army. Robert had argued out battle scenarios with his cousin, his uncle, his father, and the young woman who now stood across from him, beside the adjacent corner of the large crate bearing a map he had drawn.

  But it was one thing to discuss strategy.

  It was another to take part in a real war council.

  None of the comments made sense.

  “We’ll split the force into thirds,” His Lordship was saying. He had bound his hair and wore the same forest garb as his men, save for the addition of an officer’s patch—a black-and-gold diamond signifying formal military training that Robert had not known the man possessed. Lord Lester walked up to the crate and motioned for both the Oracle and Valerian to join him on either side. “Each general with his own men. It’s the only way to manage a fight. Each of us knows our soldiers’ strengths. This will give us the chance to use them.”

  What about the frontiersmen?

  “We’ll divide the remaining men,” His Lordship added, “and put them in the rear, since they aren’t trained.”

  Robert’s chest turned at the blunt dismissal of the siege’s survivors.

  Lord Lester continued, “We’ll relay messages through Aurelia’s location at the back, behind any troop movement.” He leaned over the parchment map, lifted a nearby quill, dipped it in ink, and began sketching symbols. “I’ll take the center with the main force. Valerian, you will take the Valshone on the left. The Oracle will take the desert men along the right.”

  But the Oracle has only four hundred men.

  Aurelia was frowning, plucking at the neckline of a clean blouse she had acquired at the Fortress. She also wore a new beige skirt and a fresh pair of leggings. “What about the wall?”

  “Wall?” her stepfather asked as though the word had no meaning.

  “The Tyralian wall,” she replied, referring to the famous barricade around the capital.

  “Our first battle won’t happen at the wall.” Lord Lester tapped his quill. “It’s a remnant of the past, from the age of catapults and trebuchets. No wall can stand in the age of cannon.”

  Of which we have none except a single Anthonian howitzer designed for rough country. The Fortress arsenal had been designed to defend rather than attack. And no Tyralian foundry had the authority to sell cannon to a customer other than the crown.

  “There’s a slope,” His Lordship continued, again bending over the parchment and resting his pen below the row of upside-down V’s that signified the southern edge of the Asyan. “Less than a mile beyond the forest and along the rim of the Central Valley.” He drew a wide semicircle. “The slope’s more subtle than obvious, and it curves south, not north. But it will give the enemy a ridge to hide behind. They’d be fools not to use it.” He tossed aside the pen, then gestured to the space between the trees and the ridge. “So the battle’s likely to take place here. They’ll have the height, but we’ll have the space if we need it. Until we take that slope. Then we’ll have the advantage.”

  And how many men will die taking that one ridge? Robert’s gut went tight. His gaze hinged on the etched semicircle. He wished he were not here. Wished she had not made him come. Wished he did not envision the pile of bodies sure to litter the earth in front of that slope.

  Aurelia’s voice came from beyond his vision. “The Oracle’s men are all mounted. Wouldn’t it be better if they served as scouts?”

  The desert leader’s hand flattened along the slope’s edge.

  “To scout what?” Lord Lester asked. “We go south, assuming an entire army is waiting for us as soon as we come out of the forest. If they’re not, we thank Tyralt. If they are, we’re down one fewer scout we didn’t have to send forward.”

  “And before that?” Aurelia’s voice had gone terse.

  “You can’t fight a battle in the middle of a forest,” he replied.

  True. Robert’s gaze lifted from the parchment.

  Valerian was nodding.

  His Lordship had risen to an erect stance, his presence seeming to fill the whole tent. “I suggest we pull out of this basin tomorrow. The sooner we’re among the trees the better. Are we finished here?”

  No one disagreed.

  “Then we have a great deal to accomplish.” Lord Lester swept out of the tent. And Valerian followed him.

  “Barak ze Geordian,” Aurelia said, low but not under her breath. “Send three scouts. Today.”

  Subtlety. When had Au
relia acquired that?

  The desert leader’s palm remained on the map. His head was up, his gaze on her. “To the slope?” he questioned.

  “No,” she replied, “but at least to the forest’s rim.”

  Robert thought he saw approval in the robed man’s eyes.

  The Oracle nodded and lifted his hand, seeming to sketch a symbol in the air. He left the tent without another word, his figure slipping through the exit. Leaving a narrow triangle of light.

  Aurelia stepped toward it. Her body hovered beside the tent flap, her fingers wavering at its edge. Then she yanked the canvas tight. “Robert.” She whirled. Her face had darkened, her features sharp. “What is wrong with you?”

  Aside from the fact that she had insisted on his presence?

  She slapped the canvas, causing a wave of dust. “How could you say nothing? You were worthless.”

  Yes, that was how he had felt. Worthless.

  Crack! Another volley of muskets delayed his ability to answer.

  The air in the tent was stifling. “Aurelia,” he managed at last, “if you aren’t comfortable with me on your war council, just tell—”

  “I want you on the council, Robert. I want your counsel!”

  He pointed out the obvious. “I’m not a general. No one is following my back. I’ve never served in an army or fought in a battle or trained to fight in one. Those other men all have more military expertise—”

  “And less perspective.” She waved away his logic. “You disagreed with Lord Lester. I could read that much on your face.”

  Robert had never been good at disguising his emotions, but then neither had she. “You weren’t happy with His Lordship’s plan either.” He tried stepping past her. “You’re just angry with me because I didn’t read your mind and say what you thought.”

  She blocked his escape. “No, Robert. I’m angry because you didn’t say what you thought.”

  He felt the canvas walls closing around him. “I’m not a leader.”

  She crossed her arms over her chest. “You organized the medical wagon back in Darzai.”