Fire of the Soul (3 page)

She came into the hall where the evening meal
was to be served, walking slowly with Lady Elgida’s hand resting on
her arm and smiling at the old lady with what appeared to be
genuine fondness. After observing her for a few moments Garit put
her down as the youngest daughter of some impoverished lord with a
large brood of children, who had been sent to a beguinage because
her brother, having inherited the family lands, couldn’t afford a
dowry for the last of his siblings. It wasn’t an unlikely
assumption; that sort of thing happened all the time.

Calia certainly wasn’t beautiful enough to
prompt a man to wed her without a dowry for her looks alone, or
even to offer to make her his mistress. Garit saw at once that she
wasn’t mistress material. Compact of figure, with a fall of
straight, dark hair that was left uncovered and tied with a leather
thong at the nape of her neck, and wearing a plain, dark grey
woolen dress, she did not look to be at all sensual. Instead, she
appeared capable. Her nose was a little too long and her cheekbones
were too harshly chiseled for beauty. Her hands were a bit chapped
and reddened, most likely from housecleaning or from her work out
of doors. Yes, Garit decided, she was an ordinary, unassuming
female, a creature of no particular physical interest.

Except for her eyes. Thick black lashes
framed twin pools of greenish-grey that held an odd hint of sorrow
– and Garit thought he discerned fear in her gaze before she
hurriedly lowered her lids. Now, what could she be afraid of, if
she meant well toward his grandmother?

Only then, upon looking closer, did he notice
how her clear skin was flushed rose and gold, as if by maidenly
embarrassment at his close regard. Faint lavender shadows showed on
her lids. Her dark brows were delicate wings, not plucked into
artificial curves like the eyebrows of court ladies.

Realizing that he’d been wrong about her
twice before she even spoke a word, Garit hastily revised his first
and second opinions of her. Calia was not an ordinary woman, and
not homely. He suspected her looks were the kind that would improve
once he knew her better. Obviously, there was more to her than was
suggested by her guise of humble spinster and noblewoman’s
companion.

“Calia,” he said, reaching out his hand as
Lady Elgida made the formal introduction. “Or, should I say, Lady
Calia?”

“No, my lord.” She did not offer her hand in
response to his gesture, but kept her fingers clasped tightly at
her waist. Her remarkable eyes widened as she looked directly at
him. Then she lowered her gaze again, this time to stare at a spot
somewhere in the middle of his chest. Her voice was musical and
precise, just as he remembered it from their brief meeting in the
field, the voice of a well-brought-up lady, despite her next words.
“I am not a lady. My parents were not wed.”

“I beg your pardon,” Garit said. “The
question was rude.”

“Yes, it was, and you a diplomat, too,” Lady
Elgida intervened. “I am surprised at you, my boy. Calia’s
circumstances are ordinary enough. Men have a habit of tumbling any
pretty woman they see, even a noble Sapaudian lady such as Calia’s
mother. Both parents are dead now, and Calia was kindly raised by
her older half-brother until family misfortune led him to send her
to Talier Beguinage, where your Aunt Adana took notice of her.

“And that, Garit my lad, is all you need to
know of a remarkably dull subject, so I beg you will not plague the
girl with any more intimate questions. Now sit, for heaven’s sake,
and let us eat before I faint from starvation.”

Garit obeyed, though all the senses he’d
honed in his years as diplomatic emissary from the king of Kantia
to the Sapaudian court were suddenly warning him that, while Lady
Elgida surely had not lied to him, she most certainly had
deliberately withheld important information about Calia.

He thought that Calia, too, was hiding
something. Her cheeks had turned scarlet at the description of her
origins, and her mouth had trembled in an oddly beguiling way. He
wished he could see those pink lips curve into a smile and watch as
her eyes sparkled with humor.

His curiosity thoroughly aroused by the
contradictions and secrets he perceived and fully aware that people
were not always what they appeared to be, Garit decided to learn
everything he could on the subject of his grandmother’s companion.
He had a few days of freedom before he must leave on the mission
ordered by the Lord Mage Serlion. A few days ought to be enough
time.

Calia picked at her food, her stomach
clenched into a knot so tight that it prevented her from
swallowing. Any food she forced down would likely come right back
up again as soon as Garit asked a few more questions and then began
to express his horror and disgust of her.

The man who would almost certainly turn her
out of Saumar sat between her and his grandmother. Garit was tall,
though not overwhelmingly so, and broad-shouldered, with sandy hair
frosted by a touch of silver at his temples. She thought the silver
was surprising, for she knew him to be just one and thirty years
old. Lady Elgida had told her so, along with much else about her
beloved grandson.

Perhaps his unhappy past had aged him. The
lines on his forehead and around his blue eyes would seem to
indicate such was the case and his air of cautious self-containment
added to the impression of a man who had seen and done much that he
wished he could forget. Certainly, his current expression was
downright grim. Overall, she found him a forbidding man.

And yet, Calia knew from his grandmother that
Garit as a boy had been quick to laughter, a child of warmth and
joy. Calia thought it was a great pity what life did to men.

And to women, too. She should have known the
safe refuge she’d found with Lady Elgida wouldn’t last long. She
was blessed to have spent two peaceful and useful years at Saumar.
With Garit’s arrival those years had reached an end.

She could not quite bring herself to curse
her parents, though this evening was one of many occasions when she
wished her father had never bedded her mother. Or, at least, had
never acknowledged that the child Lady Casilde subsequently bore
was his. Calia did not remember her mother at all, and her father
had been but an occasional presence in her life. The only blood kin
who would acknowledge her now was her half-brother, Mallory, but he
was the same brother who had sent her to Talier Beguinage despite
her protestations and her copious tears at the prospect. When she
had seen Mallory’s stern face and the way he turned his back to
her, she’d known that his ambition had flown off on a new course
that did not include an illegitimate half-sister who possessed
neither a dowry, nor important connections at any royal court.

“Well, now,” Lady Elgida said to Garit before
he’d had a chance to eat more than a bite of roasted game bird, “as
I told you earlier today, you are welcome to stay at Saumar as long
as you please, for the rest of your life if you like, though I
think that’s not your wish. In return for my hospitality, I’ll have
the latest news from you. I can guess part of it. After King
Audemer died last winter, the new king of Kantia most likely
decided he preferred to send his own emissary to the Sapaudian
court, rather than use the man his older brother had appointed, and
so he relieved you of your duties and sent another to Calean City
in your place.”

“Just so. I am now a man without an official
position.” Garit’s mouth clamped shut as if he would hold back a
torrent of words. He pushed his wooden trencher away, the action
suggesting to Calia that he had no more appetite than she did.

“But you must have visited Kantia recently,
to pledge yourself to King Dyfrig,” Lady Elgida persisted.

“I have not. I was last in Kantia two years
ago. Shortly after my father died, I returned to Kinath Castle to
settle his affairs,” Garit reminded her. “My stepmother made it
plain that she was not happy to see me.”

“Ah.” Lady Elgida nodded her understanding.
“King Audemer was still alive then, so I suppose Fenella objected
when he confirmed you as the new lord of Kinath? She wouldn’t be
pleased at becoming a dowager, not at her age. I warned your father
before he married Fenella that she was too young to make him a good
wife, but I was here in Sapaudia and he was across the sea in
Kantia, so it was easy for him to ignore my letter of advice. Lust
does strange things to the brains of men,” she finished with a wry
twist to her mouth.

“In fact, I never was confirmed,” Garit said,
not responding to the remarks about his father’s second marriage.
“I spent a few days at Kinath before King Audemer called me to his
court. Then, I had to rush off to Calean City almost immediately on
the king’s urgent business, so the matter of Kinath was never
resolved. And now my friend is dead and his brother, Dyfrig, is
king. A new king, with new friends.”

“I see.” Lady Elgida sounded as if she had
just bitten into a very sour green apple. “I know there’s more. Say
what you must, Garit. Whatever it is, I can bear it.”

“The man who took my place as emissary from
the king of Kantia to King Henryk carried a letter to me from
Fenella,” Garit said. “She has remarried, to a close friend of King
Dyfrig. Her husband has been appointed guardian of her sons and he
is to hold Kinath Castle until young Belai comes of age. Belai is
the new lord of Kinath.”

“Now, that is a vile insult!” Lady Elgida’s
hand slammed down on the table. “An insult to you after years of
honest service to King Audemer, an insult to your late father, and
to my dear late husband, too.”

“So it is,” Garit said mildly. “But then, to
answer your earlier question, I have not sworn fealty to King
Dyfrig.”

“Have you not?” Lady Elgida regarded him with
raised eyebrows. “Will you fight to regain your heritage? Or will
you move your heart southward as I did many years ago, and choose a
warmer, less treacherous climate?”

“Grandmother, I don’t want Kinath. The place
holds too many unhappy memories for me: my mother’s painful and
lingering death, my sister’s foolish marriage and my quarrel with
Father over her marriage, and then Father’s remarriage to a woman I
cannot like. I’m glad we made up our differences before Father
died, but the truth is, since I first became a squire most of my
life has been spent in Sapaudia. Frankly, I prefer Auremont, the
castle I earned with my own wits and blood. All in all, I count
Kantia as no great loss. You ought to agree with me on that.

“My fealty to King Audemer ended with his
death,” Garit noted. “I pledged myself to King Henryk when he
granted Castle Auremont to me. That oath still holds.”

“And since you risked your life three years
ago for King Henryk against the traitor, Walderon, Henryk cannot
doubt your loyalty,” Lady Elgida added. “So, you are a Kantian no
longer, eh? I don’t know whether to be proud of your good sense, or
angry with you for leaving my littlest grandchildren to fend for
themselves amongst barbarians. You ought to be their guardian. What
news have you of young Belai and Kinen?”

“While I was still in Calean City, I
questioned the new emissary about the boys,” Garit said. “According
to him, Fenella has become friendly with King Dyfrig’s queen and
has used her influence in her sons’ behalf. My brothers are royal
pages now.”

“Well, I suppose that can be counted a good
thing, though association with the Kantian nobles cannot improve
their characters. And I do question whether they will be safe,
since their mother is far from wise. Much depends on Fenella’s new
husband. Who is he?”

“My stepmother has married a Sapaudian exile
who pledged his fealty to Dyfrig while he was still only Prince of
the Northern Border,” Garit said. “When Dyfrig became king of
Kantia, Sir Mallory traveled to Kantia with him, as did many other
young nobles from several lands. Quite a few of those men have been
granted estates in Kantia and some, like Sir Mallory, have wed
Kantian heiresses. From the few, discreet complaints the emissary
revealed to me, I gather the native Kantians resent the
newcomers.”

Stunned into immobility by this unexpected
news, Calia felt the sudden, wild pounding of her heart. If only
she could move her limbs so she could run from the hall. But even
if her legs would carry her, she dared not flee. She must stay at
the table. She owed that much to Lady Elgida.

“I see,” Lady Elgida murmured, apparently
unaware of Calia’s discomfort at Garit’s revelations. “Well, what’s
done at the behest of a king is not to be questioned, only
accepted. I must remember that Fenella needed to protect her lambs
against those vile Kantian wolves, who think nothing of murdering
children if they see a chance to seize a useful fortress. Since you
say you don’t want Kinath for yourself, I suppose it’s just as well
for the castle to go to young Belai.

“What do you know of this Sir Mallory?” Lady
Elgida then asked. “I would like to learn more about him. I’d be
happier if I could be certain my grandsons are safe in his
custody.”

Calia was sitting still and silent beside
Garit. He glanced at her before answering his grandmother, as if he
wanted to be sure she hadn’t left the hall. She wished she could
leave, but she remained incapable of moving. Her earlier image
returned to her mind; like a bird in a snare, unable to help
herself, she awaited her fate. She wondered just how much Garit
knew about her and whether he was toying with her as her brother
used to do.

“I know nothing beyond what King Dyfrig’s
emissary told me,” Garit said.

“I will want to think about all of this.”
Lady Elgida took a last sip of wine from her silver cup before she
rose from the table. “Calia, will you see me to bed, please? No,
Mairne, stay where you are and enjoy the rest of your pudding. You
needn’t attend me this evening.