TWOLAS - 05 - Grand Conspiracy

  Lysaer never wavered, never lowered his searingly candid blue eyes. 'Your trade contacts in Etarra, your connections in the east, your superb network of informants, and lastly, whatever means the Koriani say you have of hiding your plans from the eyes of arcane scryers.'

  Raiett jerked back with unvarnished surprise. 'You know me too well.'

  'I attend the ranking subjects in my kingdom,' Lysaer stated, his natural candor enough to knit back a seam cracked into primal bedrock. 'There lies my heart, and my focus of interest until the hour the Spinner of Darkness breaks the peace. You are the Mayor of Hanshire's brother. He has no love for the reinstatement of s'Ilessid monarchy, I know. But as I am the appointed regent for the next crown prince of Tysan, it is my place to ask: will you serve the wider cause of this land, for the Light, and for the sake of continued prosperity?'

  The pull was enormous, to give way in trust, to join with the serene power of this prince and win the absolute security of his protection. Raiett Raven was no green boy. He had the hardened years to resist starstruck awe; should have owned enough grit and world-weary cynicism to avoid being swept off his feet. All the same, the blind fervency ignited him anyway.

  'State your needs,' he said, shocked for the slip of giving his outright consent before even a pause for reasonable thought, or a grueling discussion of terms. Then, more surprising, the gush of relief that irresistible instinct had leaped past all sensible constraints. More honest in word than he had been in years, Raiett Raven completed his pledge. 'My resources might not be as deep as you think, but if Hanshire can benefit, you'll have them.'

  Two hours later, in circumspect talk with his nephew, Sulfin Evend, Raiett shook his head in bemusement. 'Your Blessed Prince had better have real gifts to back up the divine guidance he's claiming. For if he does not, his powers of persuasion are dauntless enough to set all this world marching in the blood and fire of his designed cause.'

  Spring 5654

  Inner Cabal

  The s'Brydion state galley docked at Avenor under the safe conduct of royal favor and disarmed the tense prospect of war. Fresh dispatches and news followed daily.

  Prince Lysaer sent word of his pending return amid a flurry of planning, his bellicose trade guilds and disgruntled craftsmen soothed over by his letter of decision to transfer the royal shipworks from the Riverton estuary to the close-guarded harbor of Hanshire. The crotchety mayor there had changed heart and become his close crony, rumor held.

  Princess Ellaine had no better means to gauge the contrary currents of politics. Her mannered requests to share in the contents of crown correspondence had seen swift rebuff by Gace Steward. Quietly persistent, she stood on her rank, until a more forceful refusal from Lysaer's High Priest of the Light, Cerebeld, forbade access to the council hall's secretaries. Too well bred to attempt obstructive argument, Ellaine retired, still determined.

  She engaged her woman's resources. Word filtered down from the merchant's servants, through the dressmaker's seamstress, that the crown train from Avenor now moved about in a flock of new advisors, all of whom deferred to the black-cloaked presence of Raiett Raven. Never a wayward spirit, but too intelligent not to chafe at her enforced state of ignorance, Ellaine sought the sage advice of her maid, and eschewed the colors of state that would be no boon to her complexion. She chose to greet her royal husband on his homecoming, gowned in a masterwork of damascened peach silk, a wrap of pearl lace on bare shoulders.

  The hour the s'Ilessid state galley reached port, the sun fell like thin honey from a sky of washed blue. The dockside pageantry of bunting and banners was snapped by a capricious westerly. The war fleet hove in, chased by that same brisk tail wind. Ellaine waited inside the lacquered royal carriage while the galleys shipped their flashing, wet oars and dropped anchor. The flag vessel, under command of her stout captain, completed her dashing run to the wharf. Dock lines were secured to a bustle of orders. The heralds stationed on shore for the fanfare battled the fierce tug on the banners draped from their shining brass horns.

  Ellaine bided, hands clasped, until the clarion blast from the trumpets announced Lysaer's presence on deck. Her soft voice delivered firm orders to the footman, and the liveried grooms held open the carriage's star and crown blazoned door. They bowed to her as she swept down onto the wharf. Then her guardsmen and entourage closed about her to shield from the buffeting press of the onlookers who crammed the harborfront breakwater. Behind, enclosed in a cordon of men-at-arms, the rowed carriages and the caparisoned horses were held ready for the prince and his high-ranking councilmen.

  Ellaine gathered her skirts in cool hands. Given no better recourse for her time than frivolous entertainment, she had arranged those arenas left to her control with meticulous practicality. Her mahogany tresses had been done up in combs, a judicious few ends set in dangling, pert ringlets that the wayward gusts finished to a look that was artfully saucy. Image was the only weapon she had, and, undaunted, she prepared to wring every advantage.

  Across the weathered platform of the wharf, men made the galley's lines fast to the bollards. Gulls screamed and wove overhead, while the officials on board gathered in impatience for the deckhands to run out the gangway. Acutely aware that the hats and high plumes showed no fair head among them, Ellaine stayed poised, willing her stilled hands not to fidget and wishing her gloved palms were not damp with anxiety.

  The plank with its posts and rope railing thudded home, shivering the wharf underfoot. The crowding officials did not press to disembark, but parted with sudden, obsequious energy as a figure emerged from the deckhouse behind them.

  This one wore white satin and ermine, and a presence to dazzle the unwary.

  The roar of acclaim from the onlookers rocked the waterfront. The Prince of the Light acknowledged the tribute with raised hands. Then he stepped out, the woven chain clasped at the waist of his doublet shining pale gold in the glancing fall of spring sunlight.

  Ellaine swept forward as he moved down the gangway, her curtsy pooling a billow of peach silk across his egress to the shore. 'My Lord Prince,' she addressed, her dulcet syllables thin as scratched crystal against the coarse adulation of the crowds.

  Prince Lysaer reached out a ringed hand and raised her. His clasp of embrace scarcely impressed any sensation at all through the thin cloth of her bodice, and his lips missed contact with her upturned cheek by an invisible fraction. His affection pure show, he guided her in step, no doubt intending to pass her off to her attendants with a sparkling flourish of mimed gallantry.

  Except that Ellaine had foreseen, and obstructed retreat. Her strategic forethought had positioned the s'Ilessid royal carriage such that her husband must take public leave and abandon her if he wished to go mounted to the palace.

  The prince accepted the defeat with equanimity, his smile gracious, and his poise tempered steel. He turned his head, said something to the dignitaries still on the galley that raised a spontaneous burst of laughter. Through the dazzle thrown off his sun-struck diamonds, and the matchless strength of his confidence, Ellaine searched for the object of his concern, no doubt the same circumstance that had his seneschal and his Lord Commander standing shoulder to shoulder in disapproval.

  Her gaze caught on a figure in sable whose lean face she did not recognize.

  'You will not have met the man who was once the Mayor of Hanshire's First Counselor,' Lysaer said, as though he had read her searching thoughts.

  Ellaine flashed him a quick, nervous glance. 'Not Raiett, the one known as Raven?'

  Lysaer tipped his head in acknowledgment, then caught her elbow to draw her away. At his heels, the man who claimed that fearfully powerful name remained to oversee the off-loading of an ironbound trunk that appeared to carry something precious, or an item of extreme fragility to judge by the number of men who clustered to nursemaid its arrival.

  Ellaine had heard Raiett's reputation linked with sorceries, as well as the darker policies set in place by the Mayor of Hanshire.

  Again
Lysaer read her, plainly as if her thoughts were inscribed on fresh parchment. 'You have nothing to fear.' He steered her up the carriage stair, quick hands gathering her lavish skirts and bundling them clear of the doorway as she sat on the velvet upholstery. The presence and the beauty of him, in that thoughtless courtesy, could not but sear her woman's heart. Nor could she stop the sped beat of her pulse, or the quick stab of longing that caught her as she observed him at close quarters, his effortless bearing as fluid as light as he settled himself by her side.

  No expression, no courtesy, no casual handling betrayed his seemingly chance-met intent to touch her as little as possible.

  Nor did he fail to smile at the groom who closed the carriage door, granting Ellaine the fleeting victory of a hard-fought few moments of privacy. She responded, hands folded to keep her humid gloves from imprinting telltale ripples in her silk. 'Do you really believe your fear can be helped by keeping me in total ignorance?'

  Lysaer turned from the glass window, eyes wide-open with a candor that held the passionless obstinacy of a glacier. 'I married a Westlands woman for the customs of deportment and propriety, that matters of state will not be broached in my bedchamber.'

  Ellaine flushed. Her fists clenched. She forced her gaze rigid, too aware that the least movement of her lashes might spill the hot flood of the tears she refused to shed. 'Then in your presence, I am the broodmare without a mind?'

  Lysaer leaned back as the vehicle swayed to the onboarding weight of its grooms. His own hands were stilled, his diamond rings like lit water, sparkling to the jolt as the driver on the box shook up the team and the traces creaked taut to the first rolling grind of the wheels. He cut her no slack. 'You will have no standing in this realm, except the earned grace you'll receive when you have borne this kingdom's next crown prince. Which brings us to the point, does it not? Are you bearing?'

  'What?' Ellaine's second, more violent flush chased her tears to anger and confusion.

  Lysaer regarded her, cat still. 'I asked, are you carrying a child for the realm?'

  Her color ebbed, pink to white on the cusp of her sharply caught breath. With restored composure, she answered, 'Not yet.'

  The carriage jolted over the marble curb and into the open street, to a muffled swell of noise from the onlookers. Perhaps for the benefit of those who might catch a glimpse through the carriage window, Lysaer took her hand, touched his lips to her glove, and inclined his head, smiling. 'Then, my fair bride, you will instruct your maids to bring spirits and fresh linens as they did on the night of your wedding. Expect me during the hour before midnight. This time, I suggest you drink enough brandy to be comfortable before I arrive in your bedchamber.'

  'I dislike the principle as well as the brandy.' Ellaine's voice shook as she strove to stem ebbing courage.

  'Do as you please, then,' Lysaer said, equable. 'For my part, the spirits are necessity.'

  If he had hoped to demolish her spirit, the attempt failed. Tears vanquished, Ellaine regarded him with the hurt blazing like a war banner in the depths of her deer-dark eyes. "That's sheer bad manners, if not straight cowardice, to unload your bitterness on me.'

  Half-turned to bestow another smiling salute to his admirers outside the window, Lysaer paused a fractional second, then completed his gesture on the strength of his inborn royal pride. When he faced her again, he was not vindictive. Instead, his face held a vulnerability whose depth of honesty was wounding. 'I will speak my heart to you just this once, Lady Ellaine. You are my wife, and the princess of this realm, and the mother who will bear the next high king. As such, your value is inestimable. Your worth as a weapon to my enemy's hand represents a prize behind reckoning.'

  Ellaine challenged. 'We are all no more than pieces upon the board of your war against shadow?'

  'This union we have made for the good of the land will not stand firm upon the foundations of your naivete.' Lysaer shut his eyes, not before a cutting slice of his inner pain showed through. the hand in his lap now was hardened into a fist of sharp rings and white knuckles. 'Lady, I do not hate you. But neither do I dare allow even small affection, for you must understand: if I am made vulnerable, my cause must fail. Once, I made that mistake. For my love of Lady Talith, the cost became thirty thousand lives, dead in cold blood in the dust of Dier Kenton Vale. You are the wife who will bear Tysan's heir. My trust in your hands, for the weal of mankind, demands that you never become the crack in the bastion that foes can use to let in the dark.'

  He did not turn away as the tears came and spilled silver rivulets down her cheeks. His hands were not cold, or remote, as he flicked out his handkerchief and deftly caught the runoff before it could splash her fine silk. 'You do understand,' he said, gentle enough to brand her forever as a needy, inadequate spirit.

  'I'm not so strong,' she admitted, striving to match the demand of his unbending royal stature. She discovered, in all ways, she lacked the unflinching nerve to brazen through the last steps of her game plan.

  Chill quiet reigned as Ellaine realized they had arrived. Lysaer's concerned gaze upon her suggested that, somehow, she was expected to recover her wits and stand up. They would need to step from the carriage together.

  Then, as a commander on a battlefield gauged the temper of his troops, the prince realized she was overfaced. A saddened, soft smile bent the corners of his mouth. 'It would seem we'll be giving the courtiers a show after all.'

  He bent, caught her close, and scooped her limp weight against his chest, then banged the carriage door open with an impatient foot. As if she were featherweight, he lifted her out, with her moist cheek sheltered against his neck. The grooms fell away in astonishment. Smiling guardsmen averted their faces as he bore her across the cobbled apron and up the marble stair to the entry. There he paused, head bent to hers. Through what every onlooker interpreted as the searing passion of his kiss, he whispered, 'Your handmaid is inside and ready to receive you. For both of our sakes, I beg you never to be so foolish as to attempt a repeat performance.'

  Another smooth stride saw the prince past the doorway. The firm click as the heavy double panel was pulled shut by the servants set final closure to hope and a dream whose fierce edge had turned inward to wound a girl's tender heart.

  Ellaine felt Lysaer's cool hands set her down, then melt back, leaving her supported by the anxious clasp of her handmaid. The tears still fell unchecked down her face, though for pride's sake she withheld from sobbing. In the hours that passed, retired in privacy, she endured the dull ache that burned through the tisanes the solicitous palace healer insisted would bring her ease.

  The drugged syrups gave no reprieve from the truth: that it had been her own defenses breached on that foray. If Lysaer s'Ilessid could refuse human feeling in the dedicated cause of the Light, she was made of no such stern stuff. Nor could her young heart be schooled to withstand even the brilliant, enameled fagade he granted the tradesman who gawped on the street.

  Beyond the sanctum of the princess's apartments, other needs laid claim to the Divine Prince's attention. The council hall at Avenor pulsed to the clamor of deferred politics. The residual public outcry over the burned ships resounded to thorny complaint over losses to trade, while the sea routes through Havish remained inaccessible to galleys bearing slave oarsmen.

  Having been too preoccupied to pay heed to the first breathless questions flung from the crowd lining the wharf as he landed, Lysaer s'Ilessid released his public statement, and a crown pledge to make disposition. He greeted the dignitaries still in residence from Erdane, and deflected Ellaine's father with sober confirmation that the dower gold had vanished with the shipyard. Then he dismissed social nicety to honor the demands of his guildsmen.

  He called an immediate session with the high officers of the realm, and those council members who had returned with his royal galley. To everyone's astonishment, he acceded to demand. With no war in the offing, excess troops would be disbanded. Funds reserved for new weapons and captain's pay would be reallocated. H
ard heads and hot rhetoric would hammer out terms for relief in coin weight sums and lowered tariffs.

  Hurled from hand-wringing despair to backslapping euphoria, Tysan's merchants never paused to question Prince Lysaer's stunning volte-face. If one or two among them showed concern for threat of shadow, Lord Commander Sulfin Evend raised no voice to back them. Worry for the uncertain future remained overshadowed by the heat of present crisis.

  At sundown, clad in shimmering finery, Prince Lysaer rejoined his princess, her peaked looks made presentable by her maid's skill with powders and paint. The newly wedded couple led the formal entrance to the state dinner held to commemorate the royal homecoming. The s'Brydion brothers Mearn and Parrien were given a prominent position in her train, a definitive indication their loyalty remained in the good grace of Tysan's crown interests. Once the banquet began, the princess departed to eat a light supper in private.

  The royal bed was made ready by soft-footed servants. Lady Ellaine endured through her disrobing, then retired, wrapped in new ribbons and a nightrobe of rose velvet scented with costly perfume. His Grace arrived later, his step too carefully firm and his diction precise as a scalpel as he excused her handmaid and servants.

  She had chosen the numbness of the brandy after all. Her yielding, limp sweetness granted a release that, very nearly, undid the locked cage on his heart. As Prince Lysaer completed his conjugal duty to the realm, only the aged handmaid who showed him the door afterward ever knew how nearly the lady had come to winning the hand fate had dealt her. She prayed to dame fortune, and to every power she knew, that Lysaer s'Ilessid, Prince of the Light, had not yet conceived the heir he desired for Tysan.

  With sorrow the handmaid understood: a hurried moment's work between the sheets might too easily become the last time that husband and wife met as intimates.

  * * *

  The full moon came and went. On Avenor's broad dales, the season warmed toward summer. The hardy foliage of the oaks spun the hills in glossy, new green, and the tiny, peridot knots of new apples took the place of bursting blossoms. The wedding guests who had enjoyed Avenor's bounteous hospitality departed at last on dry roads; trade moved as the thaws opened the high Pass of Orlan. The s'Brydion state galley cast off for home port in the east, and left behind a court representative who was a more distant blood relative to maintain the duke's pledge of alliance. The man was given quarters less lavish than his predecessor; nor was he made privy to the trusted inner circle secretly known to itself as the Cabal of Light.