Never could he have begun to imagine possessing all the things he possessed: fruitful lands, a prospering realm, relative peace and tranquility, two fine sons, and a wife who adored him, with whom he fell more in love each day.
And yet . . . for all his rejection of gloom and doom, he had to admit Kesrin’s words had gotten to him, too: “‘You are about to be cast into prison. . . .”’ the kohal had quoted from the Second Word. “‘They will all desert you, just as they deserted him, and there will be none to help you.”’
Was it a warning? He had heard those words before, but they had struck him differently tonight, set him thinking about Tersius in a way he hadn’t before. For all Tersius’s followers had deserted him when the time came to go to that hill outside Xorofin. He had to do it alone—bear the most awful suffering any man had ever born. Alone.
Eidon had also promised Abramm there would be suffering and trials to go with his blessings, and there had been. Things had gone wrong; campaigns had failed; tragedies had occurred. Blackwell’s sister Leona had gone mad and flung herself off Razen’s Point the day Simon was born; there’d been two Heartlander uprisings in the last two years; the borderlords were growing increasingly antagonistic; assassins still ambushed Abramm regularly; Ian had nearly died of the croup last year; and Carissa was becoming increasingly incapacitated by her melancholic moods. . . . It wasn’t like there weren’t problems.
“‘You are about to be cast into prison. . . .”’ That wasn’t for everyone . . . so why did his thoughts keep catching on it as if it carried some special portent? “‘They will all desert you . . . as they deserted him.”’
He could not imagine Trap, for all the prickliness between them of late, deserting him. Nor Simon, nor Kesrin. . . . And yet, to be conformed to Tersius’s likeness there had to be trials. Sometimes fiery trials. Trials you didn’t think you would survive.
But surely I’ve already had my trials. . . .
“You were unmarked when you were sold into slavery. Those trials were just to wake you up.” Not to conform him. Not to give him the opportunity—the privilege—of demonstrating his faith. . . .
“You’re not sleeping, love,” Maddie said.
“I’m thinking.”
“About what?”
“How blessed I am.” And how hard it would be to lose it all.
She pushed up to brace herself on her elbow so she could look at him. Then she frowned. “You’re not letting all that talk tonight about fiery trials get to you, are you?”
He smiled up at her. “No more than you, apparently . . . fearing I’ll be taken from you, indeed.” But though he smiled as he spoke them, the words struck a chill to his heart. Was it coincidence or sheer logic that both of them should have taken the same track of thought after tonight’s lesson?
She stayed where she was, that tiny frown between her brows. She knew he wasn’t telling her all of it, but she also knew enough to let him keep his thoughts if he did not wish to share them. And so in the end she settled again beside him, the warmth of her body especially nice after the cold of separation.
“Well, whatever happens,” she said, “we have Eidon and his Light and each other. We’ll face it.”
He looked down at the top of her head, lifted his hand to stroke her wavy hair.
“And no matter what else may happen,” she said to his chest. “I will not be deserting you. You can rest on that.”
He smiled again. That, of all things, seems as impossible to imagine as it would be to bear. But there were ways to be deserted without a person’s will being involved. And he knew what Maddie did not: that despite all that was going so well, evil still simmered beneath the surface. He had many enemies— Bonafil, Gillard, Prittleman, Rennalf—all of whom hated him with deep and self-righteous passion. He knew Oswain Nott was very bitter toward him because he’d appointed Trap First Minister instead of Nott himself, and there was Belthre’gar, too, whose hatred predated all of the others— save possibly Gillard. Many enemies, and now three more ways to attack him: his wife and sons.
And there was that army he’d seen when he was crowned, with the banners bearing his own arms combined with that of the Chesedhan royal line. . . . None of that fulfilled, none of it even making sense. As well the red dragon, whose mark he bore on his own flesh and still did not know why. War still loomed on the horizon, and if they’d had a five-year reprieve, he did himself no favors believing that would last forever.
No, he had the unshakable sense that something dreadful was about to happen, and that perhaps the greatest challenges of his life lay not behind him, but ahead. . . .
His attention was drawn away from those grim thoughts then, for his wife had apparently decided she’d not had enough of him tonight, after all. Indeed, it wasn’t long before she’d made it quite impossible for him to think of anything but her.
————
Trap rode in his carriage from the palace to his own home that night, where he changed his clothes before going out to saddle one of his horses. Then, cloaked and cowled, he rode through streets busy with the preparations for tomorrow’s parade and fair, taking a circuitous route to Princess Carissa’s prestigious hillside home. There he let himself in through the back door using his own key. Locking the door behind him, he stopped just inside the kitchen and listened carefully, all his arena-trained senses on the alert.
Some of the kitchen staff slept on pallets over by the pantry, their faint breathing and erratic snores the only sound to interrupt the night silence. He peered about the shadowed room, nonetheless, thinking it would be nice to have Abramm’s night sight just now. But he saw and sensed nothing and moved through the room into the hall. He patrolled around through the empty front rooms, then climbed the stairs, thinking their creaking was probably a good thing to let go for now. Assuming the intruder he feared would even use the stairs.
But there is no corridor here. We’ve searched and searched . . . and I don’t think he can fly. . . .
On the second floor he nodded to Cooper, who sat in a chair outside Carissa’s room, noted there was no light coming from under the door, and went up to his third-floor bedroom where he’d slept every night for the last three months. Ever since Abramm had left.
He conjured a kelistar for the pewter starstick sitting on the desk, then unbuttoned his jacket, wondering how in the world they were going to tell Abramm. He’d been thinking about it all day, and that conversation at the party had not made any of it easier. Still, they would have to tell him soon, and better he hear it from them than the gossips.
It was just that they both knew how angry he would be when he found out. Angry that they’d kept it from him for so long, and angrier still over the situation itself.
He draped the jacket over the back of the desk chair, then sat to remove his boots, which he placed upright beside the head of the bed, along with his scabbarded sword. Not that he was likely to need the latter. . . .
Finally he stretched out on the bed, staring at the low wooden ceiling above him and asking Eidon for the hundredth time why he had let things come to this.
INTERLUDE
FIFTH
“YOU SEEM EXCEPTIONALLY full of energy today, my lord,” said Hazmul’s valet as he ran a comb through his master’s graying, shoulder-length locks. “Up before dawn and fidgeting like a man impatient to conquer the world.”
“I feel like one, Duffy. Things couldn’t be better!” But Hazmul made an effort to quiet his rapidly bobbing knee and stop the fingers of his right hand from drumming impatiently on the arm of the chair. Didn’t want to appear too excited or Duffy might talk about it later. Particularly after the way today’s events should be unfolding.
Months ago he’d sent off his third successive request for authorization to proceed with his plans, stressing the urgency of his need. When it still hadn’t arrived by the time Abramm had returned from Elpis, he’d nearly gone insane with impatience and frustration, even giving thought to proceeding without authorization. The opportu
nities were coming together so swiftly he feared they would be lost or, worse, that the approval would come too late, leaving him accountable for a failure that could be laid wholly at the feet of those who commanded him.
After last night’s message in Terstmeet, he had seen that the moment to act had arrived, yet he was paralyzed for lack of that blasted authorization. Firing off yet another missive to his commanding arkag, he’d infused the rhu’ema who carried it with all the urgency he could muster. Then he’d spent the night pacing and fuming before Vesprit, whom he’d forced to attend him as much out of spite as to prevent himself from launching into another uncontrolled burning spree.
He knew how slow and stupid bureaucratic channels could be, knew, as well, that the Arkag of the Western Regions not only liked to make underlings wait but had a strong tendency to overlook the needs and requests of those stationed outside his immediate sphere of awareness. Which obviously had been the case with Hazmul’s earlier requests, despite the fact it must be obvious by now to everyone in the southland what a threat Abramm had become. Especially in light of this new offensive he’d cooked up with the Chesedhans. If Hazmul was not going to be given the freedom he needed to act, at the time he needed to do so . . .he had gotten very close to taking matters into his own hands.
But all his concerns and frustrations were resolved now. The messenger had arrived just hours ago granting him everything he wanted.
Already he’d sent Vesprit off with his orders, and as he submitted now to his valet’s ministrations, he marveled at the precision with which he’d brought all these elements to such perfect maturity. Years of effort and careful manipulation had lined them up in an unbroken, inevitable chain of cause and effect, simply waiting for the nudge that would set it all in motion. . . .
And then we’ll all see how devoted Abramm is to Eidon and his precious Words. When he finds himself betrayed by the very one he serves and looks his own death in the face, abandoned and alone . . . we’ll just see where his loyalties lie. He’s been turned once. He can be turned again. . . .
He meant to make that fateful nudge this morning, and he could hardly wait.
“Will you wear it loose or tied back today, sir?” Duffy said, drawing Hazmul’s attention back to his morning toilet. His leg was jiggling again, and he made it stop, then inspected his reflection in the mirror. The man had arranged his hair around his shoulders, and it shocked him anew the amount of gray that had come into it lately. The lack of color only seemed to accent the haggard, wrinkled look of the face, reminding him again how fast this body was aging.
“Pull it back,” he said, gesturing toward his shoulders. “The gray’s not so noticeable that way.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And I do think I’ll have you color it one of these days,” he said. There were ways of combating the wrinkles, as well, but that carried a stiffer price, and right now he had other things to do.
Duffy pulled his hair back tightly and fastened it with the standard black ribbon. After making a last bit of adjustment to doublet and cravat, he stepped back, and Hazmul leaped from the chair, snatched up his cloak and folio, and tried to keep his pace even as he left his apartments.
He knew exactly where he had to be and at what time in order to intercept the king. Then he would deliver his message, the perfect catalyst for a man primed to expect betrayal. Again he had to quench his bubbling excitement. You must be calm and deliberate, he reminded himself. Utterly relaxed. Above all, you must not allow this worthless piece of flesh you inhabit to smile while you’re telling him. You must be suitably solemn and even a little distraught. But not too distraught. . . .
He could smile now, though, as he boarded his coach and headed up toward the palace. This was going to be a splendid day. In fact, it should be the first in a series of increasingly splendid days. . . .
CHAPTER
35
Abramm started awake with a gasp, already half out of the bed and certain someone had been standing there watching him. He even thought he heard the click of the hidden panel as it closed in the bedchamber wall, and was standing upright on the rug before he remembered the opening had been boarded up. Even so, he crossed the room and pressed it, just to be sure. By then the rationality of increasing wakefulness had superseded the dreaminduced certainty of an intruder’s presence.
It was only a relic of what had happened in reality three nights ago, right after his return. He’d started awake then, too, shocked to find a small man with long, white-blond hair approaching the bed from Maddie’s side, a short blade glinting in his hand. The storm of protective ferocity that had surged through Abramm had taken even him by surprise. In a heartbeat he’d tossed off the cover and leaped over the wide bed to face the man, knocking the blade aside with his bare hand. The intruder had cried out as if he’d been dealt a savage blow, holding that hand to his chest and staggering backward, wide-eyed. At Abramm’s back Maddie had awakened and conjured a kelistar, its clear white light flooding around him into a strangely familiar face. Then Abramm had lunged, ready to throttle the life out of whoever he was for daring to come near his wife with a weapon. But the little man had ducked beneath his reach and scrambled around the bed, disappearing into the dark hole that gaped in the wall.
Seeing the open panel, Abramm had raised the alarm and a search had been instituted. It was then he realized why the man had seemed so familiar. The small stature had put him off, but the white-blond hair and pale blue eyes were definitely those of his brother Gillard.
Maddie wasn’t so sure. “Do you really think Gillard would scramble away like that when all you’d done was knock the blade from his hand?”
“I don’t know. He seemed hurt. . . .”
Although how Abramm could have hurt him that badly was another unanswered question. And when the search turned up empty, he wondered if he’d only imagined the similarities. He’d seen the man for less than a heartbeat, after all, his attention focused more on the blade and hands than the face.
In any case, the panel had been boarded back up and remained securely closed. There had been no repeat of that bizarre attack tonight. Only his own jittery nerves, uneasy with the prospect of having his small sons paraded through a crowd in which it was far too easy for his enemies to hide.
Because Maddie was in the room, the doors to the bedchamber were all closed, signaling Haldon and the others that it was not all right to come in. Thus Abramm dressed himself in the riding breeches, shirt, and leather jerkin Haldon had set out last night. He’d just pulled on his boots and was swirling his cloak around his shoulders when Maddie spoke to him from the bed:
“You going out riding?”
“Yes, love.”
“And you’ll stop by the nursery before?”
“I’m on my way there now.” The boys always wakened at the crack of dawn, and if he didn’t see them now they would be napping by the time he returned. “I’ll tell Pansy to bring them down to the stables once they’ve eaten. I know Simon will want to try out his new steed before he has to get ready for the parade.”
Maddie smiled at him from her nest of pillows and comforters, her fawncolored hair spread out around her in a most becoming way. “Maybe I’ll come down later, then, too.”
He stepped to the bed and bent down to give her a lingering kiss, during which he seriously reconsidered his plans for the morning—until she broke it off. Sliding her hand from the back of his neck to the front of his chest, she pushed him away. “Go see your horse and your sons, sir, or we’ll be here all day. Then what would people say?”
“I thought we didn’t care what people said.”
“I’ll see you down at the stables later,” she replied, turning onto her side and pulling the covers up over her shoulder.
Grinning to think of what had happened the last time they’d agreed to meet at the stables later, he picked up his gloves from the sideboard and left.
Byron Blackwell intercepted him on the way to the nursery, already up and energized to fa
ce the day. It would be a full one for him with the parade and the other festivities associated with the opening of the Spring Fair. His biggest concern, though, was the Terstans, who in Springerlan outnumbered Mataians two to one and had little toleration for their heretical ways. “The group over in Middlerise is complaining bitterly about it all, especially this consecration ceremony coming up,” he said as they walked together down the long west-wing hall. “There’s talk of staging a protest.”
Abramm sighed resignedly. “Middlerise is Nott’s group, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“I guess I’m going to have to talk to him about that. Maybe I can get Carissa to do it . . . he’d take it better from her than me.”
“I don’t think the princess would be a wise choice for that, sir.”
“Why’s that?”
Byron looked uncomfortable. “That was another thing I was going to tell you . . . but I’m struggling to find the words, frankly. Plus I know how much you hate gossip.”
Abramm frowned at him.
“Forget it, sir. I shouldn’t have brought it up.”
“Then why did you?”
“The tale’s been pervasive, especially after her not showing up yesterday. I thought you ought to know.”
“Well, I plan to visit her in the next day or so and find out for myself.”
“Of course, sir.” He paused, then took off on a new tack. “A dispatch rider came in early this morning from Simon. He’s confirmed the reports of those raids and added a new one. At least four settlements have been razed so far, three in Amberton, the fourth at Archer’s Vale. That’s a small settlement on—”
“On the border of Amberton and Northille. Yes, I’m familiar with the area.”
“That’s right. You served your Mataian novitiate up there. Anyway, that’s the farthest south they’ve come so far. . . . Simon’s out rounding up the perpetrators. He seems to think Rennalf may be personally involved—I guess there were some survivors at Archer’s Vale—but if that’s true, he could be back in Balmark already. Assuming they’re making use of the corridors.”