Lady of Mercy (The Sundered, Book 3) (39 page)

A few minutes later, Trethar gave up in disgust. Darin was asleep.

 

The sun had set hours ago. Renar tended almost absently to the oil in the single lamp of the study; it was burning low. Light caught his image and cast it against the wall in a long, thin shadow that made no struggle.

The strongest light gathered against the vellum of the city map. Several areas had been marked and countermarked by at least three different quills; Renar was no longer sure which marks were his own.

His eyes trailed the streets to the north gate and then followed them back to the palace.

His fists curled around the silent words and the images they conjured. Royal picnics, birthday parties, dinners, affairs of state—all attended by the duke, his uncle. A hint of velvet trailed across his cheek and brow like fire—how often had he hugged that man, sat in his lap, or listened to his endless, dynamic tales? His childhood became, for a moment, the sum of cupidity and naïveté, made so by the treachery of one man.

The one man who lived when all others lay, by his actions, in unquiet graves.

On the map, the palace was a flat set of lines, neatly and tidily drawn. Those lines bore no relation to the home that he had
known so many years ago. Or to the man that had taken it for the service of the Empire at such a high cost to Marantine.

It was quiet in the study, but the shadows held the hush of a crowd made suddenly aware that the executioner’s blade could fall. Tomorrow—or today, when the sun rose—he would speak with the Lord of Cosgrove.

He should sleep now. He would not get a chance later, and it was imperative that his mind be clear and fresh to the challenge. The lamplight deepened his frown.

“Renar?”

A second light entered the study. Renar’s brows rose a fraction as he saw whose hand held the lamp.

“Lady.” He bowed. “You should be asleep.”

“Yes.” She walked to the table and set the lamp down against the map’s surface. “I tried.”

It was true; even now she wore the bedrobes provided by Tiras. He gazed at her in the low light, thinking that she looked very small without the weight of her sword by her side. It was rare indeed when he saw her without it.

He looked at the map again, but this time he followed the route to the royal library: the home of the priests. This far, they would come together.

“You can’t sleep either?”

“No, Lady. But I admit that I have not tried.” He stretched, trying to ease the tension from his neck and shoulders.

Her silence waited upon him, as it often did.

Renar frowned again. “It’s the meeting tomorrow. It weighs on my mind.” His eyes turned away from hers, for he found them too bright, too green. They always shone so when he was at his worst, and instead of a comfort, it was a reminder. “I would almost rather fight the battle proper than go to meet Lord Cosgrove.”

“Why?”

Such a simple question. How to answer it as simply?

He shook his head. No.

He smiled bitterly.
The Cosgroves have always been survivors,
have they not?
Had the Cosgroves not acquiesced in some form, would they not have met the fate of the nine who resisted?

“Because,” he said at last, “Lord Cosgrove was my mother’s father. He is no stupid man. He must know that the duke arranged her death. Yet still he serves. Still.”

Erin walked over to Renar, reaching out to touch his shoulder gently. “Do you fear him?”

“Fear him?” He considered it, but briefly. “No.”

“No?”

“No. I was the youngest of four children, as far from the crown as any born into my family could be. My mother raised me as a Cosgrove. I summered with the family until I was sixteen. I had the training that she had had.

“And Lord Cosgrove would do nothing, directly, to harm his family or its members.”

He pulled away from the light touch of her hand, almost mistrusting it. “Gregory hated it. Hennet was less difficult, and Reynalan, for all that she was a spiteful sister”—here he smiled—“found it amusing. The training, I mean.

“My mother had pride—a Cosgrove’s pride. Her marriage meant that she had to disavow her family; her father—my grandfather—did not approve. I was the wreath of peace passed between them, many years later.”

He looked up at Erin. “She was his youngest. I know that he loved her very much. But he did nothing to find justice for her death. And I—I have done what little I can. I do not want to meet him on the morrow. And I do not think we can do this without his aid.”

“Maybe,” Erin said softly, “he did what he could to preserve his family for the future. For
this
future.” Even as she said it, she knew that she was speaking not only to Renar, but the ghosts of her own dead people. “Had he stood against the invaders in the beginning, he wouldn’t be here to aid us.”

Renar’s laugh was harsh and bitter, so different from the laughter that Ruth and Kaarel had evoked earlier the same day. “Erin, Lady, the lines might have had some such pure motives had they ever sought such a surrender—and they have not, at least not in the histories that I was taught. Do not think of my grandfather in a similar such light; you do not know him as I do.

“If, on the morrow, I cannot convince him of our greater chance of success, he will be of no use to us at all.”

Again, her silence came, but there was no waiting in it. She looked down at the lamp, picked it up, and walked to the door. There she stopped, framed by it, almost dwarfed by it.

“Renar?”

“Lady.”

“Did you love him very much?”

From anyone else, the question might have been cruel. But her voice was so open and low, that the hint of fear in it carried. He could not be offended by it.

“Yes.”

She nodded, as if to herself, but stood in the doorway a moment longer. “Love was like that with the lines as well.”

Before he could ask her what she meant, she was gone.

 

They met Lianar in the lower city. They were prompt, as was the servant of Cosgrove. He supplied them with both clothing and carriage.

“Thank you, Lianar.”

The old man nodded quietly, almost uneasily. “It’s a rough homecoming, young master.”

“But I am home.” There was more in those words than in hours of talk. Lianar was used to this from the Cosgroves. He nodded stiffly, turned, and then turned again, off-beat, and somehow off-stride.

“Young master? I offer you a word of caution. Mistrust your cousin, Verena.” And then he was gone.

The carriage was marked as merchant’s, but Renar did not recognize the emblem upon the doors. It was large, and the seats were well cushioned; the doors, unlike those of Borins’ cab, were large and more easily maneuvered. He guided Erin up the step and nodded to the coachman before entering himself.

“Remember,” he told her quietly, “if you are asked to wait, wait. Within the house itself we need fear no harm.”

Erin nodded; it was the fourth time that Renar had said this. She wondered if it was because he only half believed it himself. But she still had her sword; it was too long to be easily hidden, although the cloak covered it well when she walked. If necessary, she would use it.

Borins was indeed a terrible driver, at least if the ride here
was anything to judge by. Either that or the stones and holes in the road had been miraculously repaired in the last three days. She watched the buildings roll by beyond Renar’s stiff profile. On impulse, she reached out and caught his hand.

To her surprise, he returned the grip tightly instead of withdrawing.

Tenements became houses; houses became manors with large iron gates and guardhouses. In spite of herself, Erin pulled back as far as the cushions would allow.

The carriage eventually turned up the long roadway to a large, stone edifice. Guards stopped it; Erin could see them move into, and out of, sight. She heard muffled words and then the guards returned to their posts, satisfied. She let herself breathe again.

Renar smiled at her, but the expression was brittle. When the carriage rolled to a stop, he opened the door without waiting for the footman, and walked around to the other side to allow Erin to leave.

“This, Lady, is the Cosgrove Manor.”

Guards waited at the front of the building. They looked relaxed, but they were well equipped.

“This way, sir,” one said briskly.

“No time to view the grounds themselves, then. Perhaps later.” He offered an arm, and she took it. Both were trembling.

But she looked as she walked through the arches that led to the courtyard. They were high and grand, reminiscent of the great hall of Elliath, but newer and perhaps a little less clean. She felt dwarfed by the architecture, as no doubt some planner had intended.

So intent was she on the heights, that she nearly tripped when Renar stopped abruptly—stopped in front of a carved insignia in the flagstones.

“Bright Heart,” Renar said, through teeth that were suddenly clenched. “Not this, too.”

Erin closed her eyes, but not before seeing. The stones were blooded. Cosgrove was a house of the Empire.

She glanced at Renar out of the corner of her eye. He stood very stiffly, his face a pleasant blank, his shoulders slightly back. For the first time in Erin’s sight, he looked every inch the man he was: a prince of Marantine, returning home. She preferred the man she had come to know.

The guards made no comment; indeed they seemed not to
have heard Renar’s unfortunate words or the anger inherent in them. They were well trained; Cosgrove as a house must still have money.

The doors opened for them; they were wide double doors. The hall looked down upon them as they made their silent progress beneath its molded ceiling. Color was evident everywhere, but it was tasteful; tapestries lined the walls, and flowers—in winter, yet—stood in burnished vases before the evenly spaced mirrors. A hint of fragrance told Erin they had been freshly laid out.

They passed another set of double doors, these simple and dark. A candle flickered beneath a glass sphere on either side. It was for decoration, really, as the sunlight was strong enough to cast out shadows even as they progressed.

At last the guards stopped outside of a more modest door. Two guards, in like uniform, nodded and opened it.

Renar went through without comment, and Erin followed, brushing lightly against one of the men. No one sought to stop her, and she was grateful for it; to wait outside while Renar faced his grandfather alone would have been very hard indeed.

The walls of the room were tall and lined with shelves. Row upon row of leather-bound books dominated the scene; there was even a ladder on small wheels to allow access to them.

At the farthest end of the room was a large, plain desk. Behind it sat a man, the only other person in this library. He was older, his hair streaked with gray. Once it might have been black, but it was hard to tell. His brow was one long line of peppered hair that dovetailed in the center. He rose in silence to greet them.

The Grandfather of Elliath had never looked so forbidding.

“So,” he said softly, the word crisp and clear. “It’s true, then.”

Renar said nothing.

“Come. There are chairs; take them.” Lord Cosgrove waited until both Erin and Renar were seated. Then he smiled, and his smile was the winter of age. “It has been a long time, Renar.”

“Indeed, Lord Cosgrove. Long enough that much has changed within the family’s grounds.”

“Much has changed within Dagothrin.”

“Yes.” Renar looked at the polished surface of the desk. It
trapped his grandfather’s reflection, but softened the lines. “How is Lady Lisbeth?”

“Well.”

“And Lord Bretnor?”

“Also well.”

There was silence again, with its sharp little teeth and its towering walls between the kin.

“Lady Verena?”

“She is well.” Lord Cosgrove leaned back in his chair, his eyes never leaving his grandson’s face.

“And does she enjoy her new duties?”

At this, the older man smiled, his lips drawing up momentarily. It aged his face.

“She serves the family’s interests. As always.”

Erin watched them both, the young man and the old one. There was a resemblance in their faces, but she wasn’t sure whether it was due to blood ties or to the expression that each wore. They were wary; they belonged in the training circle, not in the stately library of a noble family. They circled each other with words, testing, feinting.

And with words, she thought, the older Cosgrove was the more capable. He did not have Renar’s anger—or Renar’s pain.

Yet it was the older man who spoke first.

“Renar, why have you come?”

“This was my home, Lord Cosgrove,” the prince replied. “Am I not welcome to return to it?”

It was the older man who rose first.

“You are welcome here, as always.” His eyes were dark. “And as always, when you are here, you are considered to be of Cosgrove, and not Maran.” He turned to the window, showing Renar the breadth of his shirted back. He wore no jacket and no crested finery—his presence alone conveyed his power. “The matters of the crown are not the matters of Cosgrove. Has this not always been the case?”

Without his grandfather’s eyes to goad him, Renar seemed to shrink at the words. But he did not rise, and he did not look at Erin. This was the old quadrille, this was a dance he should well know by now.

But he had not expected that it would be his grandfather who would take the first step to set it in motion.

“Who is your companion? I see that she bears a sword—is she a southern guard?”