Fire of the Soul (21 page)

Calia was sure Mallory had ordered the
banners removed. Her brother would not want evidence of someone
else’s glory displayed in a hall where he was the master. He had
most likely found his own use for the family silver and the
tapestries, too. She very much doubted that any household adornment
was safely locked away in a storage room. Most likely, they’d all
been sold or traded, with Mallory reaping the benefit.

Before Lady Elgida could offer any further
comments on the state of her old home, Mallory and a young woman
appeared. Calia held her breath, but as far as she could tell her
brother didn’t notice her. He was looking from Garit to Lady Elgida
and the unholy light in his eyes terrified Calia. She knew at once
that Mallory’s recent good fortune had not softened his hard
heart.

He certainly looked the same as when she had
last seen him. Tall, with close-cropped black hair and dark eyes in
a narrow, hard-bitten face, he strongly resembled their father, a
fact that had always made it easy for him to control his sister,
who had spent too many years longing for her father’s approval.

“I am Sir Mallory, guardian of this castle.
My wife tells me that you are Garit of Kinath, once her step-son,”
Mallory said. Whatever his inward thoughts, his outward manner was
pleasant and assured. “Allow me to welcome you back to your
childhood home. I am pleased that you have returned while I am
here.”

“Sir Mallory.” Garit did not respond that he
was glad to be home. He offered his host only the slightest bow,
barely enough for the required politeness, before he turned to his
erstwhile stepmother. “Lady Fenella, it is a pleasure to see you
again.”

“I doubt that,” Fenella said, not deigning to
place her hand into Garit’s outstretched one. She barely glanced at
Lady Elgida. “Why are you here?”

“My grandson is escorting me, at my request,”
Lady Elgida answered the question. “I am here because I am your
mother-in-law.”

“Not any longer,” Fenella responded with a
cool lift of her chin. “Not since Kinen died.”

“I thank you for your kind letter that told
me of my son’s death and that assured me your grief matched my
own,” Lady Elgida said. “Fenella, I have come to Kinath in hope of
meeting my grandsons, your two boys. I would very much like to
spend a few days with them.”

“Why?” Fenella demanded. “You’ve never cared
to meet them before this day – or me, either, for that matter.”

“I should think my reasoning is obvious.”
Lady Elgida smiled at the younger woman, ignoring her rudeness.
“Just look at me, child. I am growing older. I have a longing to
see my son’s children before I die, to look into their little faces
and discover any resemblance to their father, or to my dearest
Belai.”

“Belai and Kinen are not here,” Fenella said.
“They are at Kerun City, where the royal court is presently
residing. They are pages to Queen Laisren.”

“Are they, indeed? How proud you must be of
them,” Lady Elgida said, sounding as if this was the first time
she’d heard of the boys’ appointment to the queen’s household.
“Fenella, I’ve traveled far by sea and I am very grateful to be on
land again. May I claim your hospitality for just a few days until
I recover enough to travel on to Kerun? Now that I am in Kantia, I
cannot return to Saumar Manor without meeting those dear boys.”

It was a request that no lady of any castle
could rightly refuse, hospitality being one of the great
obligations of nobility. Still, Fenella hesitated, pursing her lips
as she considered the matter.

Calia could see that the lady was no beauty,
though she was far from homely. Her reddish hair was worn in a
single braid and left uncovered, not hidden beneath a coif as was
the custom for married Sapaudian noblewomen. Her fair skin was
liberally sprinkled with freckles. She was short and sturdy, and
her grey gown was without ornament and not very becoming. But her
blue eyes were clear and quite lovely. And also quite expressive.
She looked at Lady Elgida with cool insolence, and then she glared
at Garit.

“We are preparing to leave Kinath the day
after tomorrow,” Fenella began, plainly intending to make an excuse
for refusing to entertain guests.

“Indeed we are,” her husband said,
interrupting with a smooth purpose that frightened Calia. “We are
planning to travel to Kerun to attend the royal court. Lady Elgida,
you and your companions are welcome to join us. Of course, you must
make yourselves comfortable here at Kinath until we leave. Fenella
will order rooms prepared for you. Won’t you, my dear?”

Calia thought that Mallory’s hold on his
wife’s arm had tightened painfully, for Fenella blanched and bit
her lips before agreeing.

“Of course,” Fenella muttered. “You are most
welcome, my lady, and so are your companions.”

“Excellent,” Lady Elgida said. “Thank you, my
dear. And thank you, too, Sir Mallory. I am eager to hear your
stories of life with King Dyfrig along the Northern Border. I’ve
been told that you have been his close friend for years, since well
before he became king.”

In the uncomfortable silence that followed
this speech, Garit began introducing the rest of his party,
beginning with Durand as the highest ranking member. For the first
time Mallory turned his attention away from Garit and Lady Elgida
to the faces of his other guests. His greeting to Durand was polite
if not especially warm. Then his gaze came to rest on Calia and a
wicked smile lit his dark, narrow features. Calia held her breath,
expecting to hear the words that would make Garit hate her. But
Mallory quickly repressed the smile and merely offered a cool nod
when Garit spoke her name. Anders was next, then the men-at-arms,
and Mallory’s look turned cold. Calia recalled how uninterested her
brother had always been in unimportant people who could do nothing
to advance him in the world.

“I look forward to seeing all of you again at
the evening meal,” Mallory said when the introductions were
completed. “Fenella, need I remind you of your duties to our
guests?”

“No, of course not, Mallory. Lady Elgida,
Garit, will you come with me, please?” Fenella pulled away from her
husband’s grasp and headed for the stairs.

Calia stayed close to Lady Elgida. All the
way up the steps she could feel Mallory’s gaze on her back. She
refused to turn her head and look at him. He’d find her soon enough
for a private talk. She knew she couldn’t avoid him. And he’d want
something of her, something that would be to his advantage.

Once again, Lady Elgida, Calia, and Mairne
were to share a room. It was built into the twelve-foot-thick stone
of the tower wall. A single, unglazed window looked over the cove,
where they could see
The Kantian Queen
resting at
anchor.

“This castle is so cold,” Lady Elgida
complained, wrapping her arms around herself. “Kinath was never so
unpleasant a place when I was mistress here. Calia, you had better
come into bed with me tonight, so Mairne can have the trundle bed.
If she sleeps on a pallet on the floor, she’s sure to develop an
ague from the chill. Mairne, I will need hot water for washing, and
I’ll want to wear my warmest woolen gown when we return to the
great hall.”

Meanwhile, Garit, Durand and Anders were all,
like the ladies, assigned to the same chamber.

“Was this really your room as a child?”
Durand asked Garit.

“Yes, and it was small then, too,” Garit
answered wryly. Two steps brought him to the window. The view
southward along the rocky coast was the same as he recalled from
his boyhood, but nothing in the room was the same. Fenella had seen
to it that all of the youthful belongings he’d left behind were
removed just as soon as she became lady of Kinath. She’d made a
point of telling him so on his first visit after his father’s
death.

“Do you want me to signal to Captain Pyrsig
to leave the cove?” Anders asked. “If it’s all the same to you,
Garit, I’d rather wait until tomorrow to send
The Kantian
Queen
away.”

“So would I,” Garit agreed. “Something here
is not right. Our host ought to have been chagrined to see me. I
arrived expecting Mallory to challenge me to hand-to-hand combat
for my part in his late father’s capture and execution. Instead, he
hasn’t mentioned his parentage. It seems he’d like me to assume
he’s overjoyed to have me as his guest.”

“Perhaps he wants us to believe he’s a
peaceful man,” Durand said, grinning in a way that showed he didn’t
think much of that possibility.

“If he’s anything like his father, he’s
likely to be plotting for an accident to occur somewhere along the
road to Kerun City,” Garit said. “Since Captain Pyrsig is willing
to wait in the cove for two nights and a day, I’ll keep that means
of quick escape available for as long as possible. Were I here
alone I’d be glad to stay and deal with whatever Mallory intends,
but I have to think of my grandmother and the other women.”

“A wise decision,” Durand said. “No point in
putting the ladies into danger if we don’t have to.”

“In that case, since you have no message for
Captain Pyrsig,” Anders said, “I’ll take myself off to the stables
to try to locate any old acquaintances of mine who are still there.
Perhaps I can learn what kind of master Sir Mallory is. Odd, don’t
you think, that he’s not calling himself Lord Mallory?”

“He wouldn’t dare,” Garit responded in
chilling tones. “Not until King Dyfrig grants him lands and a title
elsewhere. At the moment, my half-brother, Belai, is lord of
Kinath.”

“Aye,” Anders said with a frown, “and let’s
keep it that way.”

The evening meal resulted in the most
uncomfortable few hours that Calia had endured for years. She and
Mairne were seated at one of the lower tables, but even so, the
tension amongst the three men and two women at the high table was
apparent to her and, she thought, to everyone else in the hall.

“What do you think they’re talking about?”
Mairne whispered. “They don’t look happy, do they?”

“No,” Calia agreed with a sigh. She turned
her head to look at Mairne, thus breaking the spell of Mallory’s
amused gaze on her.

“Wish we’d never come here,” grumbled Winn,
the man-at-arms who sat on Calia’s right. He was one of the men
from Saumar and he was completely loyal to Lady Elgida. “This
castle ain’t no place for ladies, nor honest men, neither. Don’t
you go walkin’ alone around here, Calia. Nor you, neither, Mairne.
Keep one of our men with you at all times.”

“Is that why you’ve surrounded us?” Calia
asked. She had already noticed how two of Garit’s men sat to her
right and three more across the narrow table from her, while Anders
and a sixth man-at-arms sat next to Mairne.

“Aye, at Garit’s command,” Winn told her.
“Now, you mind what I’ve said.” Having dispensed his rough advice,
the man-at-arms returned to his meal of meat and vegetable stew
ladled into a bowl made of day-old bread.

Calia took up her carved horn spoon, but she
only pushed her own helping of stew around in the hard bread bowl.
Aware of the way Mallory kept watching her whenever his attention
was not diverted by conversation with his guests, she found that
she could not swallow. She hadn’t eaten since breaking her fast
aboard
The Kantian Queen
in early morning, so she hesitated
to take more than a few sips of ale, lest the drink muddle her
wits. Knowing Mallory, she feared she was going to need all of her
senses to deal with him.

“Where is Mairne?” Lady Elgida demanded. She
glanced out the bedchamber window as if she expected to spot the
girl on the deck of
The Kantian Queen.

“My lady, if you will sit down, I’ll remove
your coif,” Calia offered. She could tell by the weary lines in
Lady Elgida’s face that her mistress ought to be in bed. Instead,
Lady Elgida persisted in pacing around the guest chamber like some
restless, caged creature.

“Answer me, Calia,” she snapped. “Where is
Mairne?”

“I don’t know,” Calia admitted, unwilling to
say that she believed Mairne was with Anders. She tried a small
diversion. “Winn sat with us while we ate, and he warned both of us
not to wander around Kinath without an escort. I trust Mairne has
sense enough to pay attention to good advice, so she’ll come to no
harm.”

“When I was mistress here,” Lady Elgida said,
“when my Belai was lord, any woman, whatever her birth, could walk
unescorted anywhere in Kinath, at any hour of the day or night, in
perfect safety.”

“Unfortunately for the women of Kinath,
Mallory is not like your late husband,” Calia responded rather
sharply. She was tired, too, and she dreaded the coming
confrontation with her brother. She was sure Mallory hadn’t spoken
directly to her or announced their relationship because he
preferred to torment her, letting her fret and worry until her
courage was stretched so thin it would fail when the moment he was
planning for arrived.

But Mallory couldn’t be aware of the full
depth of her fear. After seeing him, Calia believed that he felt
secure in his own position, but he’d no doubt think she was afraid
of being exposed as the daughter of Lord Walderon. Mallory didn’t
know his little sister loved Garit. That was a detail she must
conceal for as long as possible if she wanted to avoid giving him
any power over her – or over Garit, who might feel compelled to
defend her.

“Very well, help me to undress and see me
into bed,” Lady Elgida ordered after a last glance out of the
window. She slammed the shutter and latched it, closing out the
night air. “If Mairne hasn’t returned by the time I’m ready for
sleep, I want you to find her. I have a few words to say to that
naughty child.”

“Yes, my lady.” Calia reached for the white
linen coif that covered Lady Elgida’s hair.