Shadow Over Kiriath (40 page)

She turned abruptly and yelped in surprise as she nearly ran into Byron Blackwell, who lurched backward with a cry of his own. Then his eyes widened. “Lady
Madeleine
?”

She felt her face grow hot. “I’m just returning this book.” She held it up, realizing as she did that she was now going in the wrong direction.

“Ah . . .” His lips quirked as light flashed off his spectacles. “Well, I suppose I can understand why you might be wearing that cloak
tonight
. . . .”

Her flush deepened. “I . . .” But all she could think was how foolish she must appear, a notion reinforced by his openly curious regard.

Then he smiled. “That was a magnificent performance you gave tonight, my lady. I have to admit, when I asked you to do it, I thought the king had lost his mind.” The smile deepened. “Obviously he knew what the rest of us did not.”

She stared at him, embarrassed by his praise and uneasy with the dual meaning that could be derived from his words.

“I’m surprised you haven’t performed more often,” he added.

“It is not fitting for members of the royal family to perform in public in Chesedh.”

“Well, that is not the case here in Kiriath. I hope we’ll be hearing more from you.” With that he gave her a nod and continued on his way.

Shortly thereafter she was hurrying past the back stair to the royal apartments when it occurred to her that she could drop the book off in the hidden library. That she could, in fact, even stay awhile. So far as she knew, only she, Abramm, Haldon, and Philip knew of its existence. There was sure to be no one up there now, for Abramm would still be involved with his reception and, if she knew him at all, would be up late into the night plying Katahn ul Manus with questions. And even when he did return, he’d have no reason to enter the library tonight. These days Philip was the only one who used it. She could slip in and no one would know she was there. Leyton wouldn’t be able to find her and perhaps she would have peace enough to think all this turmoil through.

Part of her was aghast that she would even consider this.
You cannot go into his chambers tonight. Are you insane? Do
you
want to ruin the treaty?
If she was caught
this
time, Briellen would never forgive her. Or Abramm.

But the voice of protest was weak before her growing desire to hide there.

She turned and went back to stand at the foot of the stair.
There’s sure to be a guard, though. How will I get past him?
She looked at the book in her hand. It would be dark in that back hall. Phil had been coming and going regularly and at odd hours. . . . So long as she kept her face in the shadow . . .why wouldn’t he think she was Philip?

Crazy as it was, the more she thought about it, the more she liked it. And as it turned out, when she eased the door open, the guard was gone. A dim light shone out of the servants’ wait room down the short hall, washing over the man’s form where he stood in that doorway, listening to the excited conversation of those within. She heard Haldon’s rumble and Jared’s higher tones intermingled with the unfamiliar voice of the one who had brought the gossip. She heard her name, Abramm’s . . . and then Briellen’s and felt her face flush again as her middle squirmed. The voices lowered, drawing the guard farther into the wait room, and she seized her chance, slipping into the hall and quietly closing the door behind her. Then she darted for the bedchamber.

The voices grew louder and abruptly clearer. “He said Briellen thinks the king’s really in love with Lady Madeleine!”

“Well, she’s not the only one to think that,” Haldon said dryly.

Ears burning, Maddie hurried through the dark bedchamber into the study. The niche table and statuette had been replaced with a tapestry which she now lifted aside as she stepped through the wall behind. The cold-lard sensation of the illusion gave way to the dusty book-lined room she’d found weeks ago. Moonlight filtered through the tall windows at its far end, the weak light insufficient to penetrate very far into the shadows. It smelled mustier than she recalled, and there were no longer any books on the table, but her suspicion that the room had remained largely undisturbed since its discovery seemed accurate.

Unwilling to make a kelistar for fear of being discovered, she made her way slowly and carefully toward the window. And as her excitement waned, she was struck with an almost overwhelming sense of Abramm’s presence. It was so intoxicating she wondered if perhaps, beneath all her other rationales, that was the real reason she’d talked herself into coming here. To be near him in the only way she could now.

She sank down on the window seat, staring at the river with its nine bridges, chains of red-gold light arching across the dark surface, the barges drifting up and down between them. The wind rushed against the window and whined in the eaves, and from somewhere out of sight behind the palace, moonlight illuminated thin fingers of cloud spun out by the wind over the city.

How can everything have gone so bad, so fast? How could Briellen believe those things?

Because she heard your song tonight, perhaps? Because she saw the way he looked at you while you sang?
The memory of that took her by storm, rolling sharp and vivid into her mind. She put her hands to her face, overwhelmed with the rush of emotion it evoked. In those moments it seemed he had seen her soul as she saw his, the two of them resonating together as if part of the same chord.

A deep, aching sense of need and longing crept over her, tightening over her heart and chest until finally she bent over her lap and put her face in her hands, giving voice to her misery.

“Oh, Father Eidon, sometimes I think I won’t be able to live another day if I can’t see his face and hear his voice, and I know that is wrong because he’s only a man and it’s you I should love more than all others, but . . . but I want him, my Lord. More than I have ever wanted anything.”

She fell silent, and although her voice had been barely above a whisper, she felt suddenly aghast and embarrassed at how helpless she was before her own desires.
But why does it feel so much in every way that he is the one you have made me for . . . when everything is against us ever being together? Am I just deluded?

For a moment she sat there, listening to the wind outside, frustration like a hard lump in her throat. Then a new and startling thought formed in her mind:
Do you want him so much, then, my daughter, that you’d give up your freedom to become his queen?

She lifted her head, stunned. Was that an answer? Was that the choice she must make?

Heart pounding, she stared blindly at the streamers of moonlit clouds drifting over the city.

Of course it was the choice. What did she think? Even if somehow Abramm did not marry Briellen, he was still a king . . . in every sense of the word. Whoever he married, she would have to be his queen.

The thought drove into her heart like a poniard of ice, and she hugged herself miserably, letting the tears come.

————

Those in the Crimson Reception Hall remained in a state of frozen silence for what seemed a full minute after Briellen had stalked out with Trap on her heels. Then Maddie hurried after both of them, and people began to move again. Abramm sat on his throne, watching them blindly, wondering when he was going to start feeling something. That she had shocked him was an understatement. That she had hurt him . . . undeniable. To be told by a woman to your face, in front of more than half your courtiers, that the sight of you made her shiver with revulsion could hardly do less than hurt. And yet he felt nothing. In fact, if anything he felt a sense of satisfaction. Of rightness.

Once they began to move, the courtiers began to talk, uttering quiet exclamations of astonishment, disbelief, and dismay. Those first drops swiftly became a torrent, as astonishment turned to indignation and indignation to outrage. Everyone had his rendition of what was said, his opinion of what was meant, and soon the room resounded with a roar of sound that Abramm finally silenced, offering to them his own view on the matter, which ultimately was the only one that mattered.

“The Words command us to bear the burdens of others and forgive,” he said, his voice echoing over the crowd. “None of us knows what the princess has endured this day. Nor in the days preceding her arrival here, but it can’t have been easy nor pleasant. We are also commanded not to gossip and malign, and I will expect you to hold to that where this matter is concerned.”

With that he decreed the party should continue, received a goodly number more of his courtiers in audience before finally taking leave of the group in the company of his closest advisors. Once alone in the gleaming halls, Simon sputtered with outrage of his own. “Forgiveness is all well and good, as is refraining from gossip. But plagues, Abramm, you cannot ignore a draft horse when it is standing in your sitting chamber. She had no right to—”

“What? Would you have me imprison her as I did Father Bonafil?”

“Perhaps it would drive some sense into her vacuous little mind! I cannot believe you intend to marry this woman. Nor am I the only one.”

He ranted on and Abramm let him go, for it was not unexpected and Simon didn’t understand. He finally left in a fit of helpless exasperation.

After that Abramm returned to his apartments with Trap and Katahn, who presented him with the two Ophiran books he’d brought, and further information about Esurh. They sat in the sitting room until the wee hours, drinking brandy and talking until Abramm finally noticed the older man’s fatigue and had mercy. But as soon as he was gone, Abramm understood at least part of why he’d been so indefatigable in his questions and suppositions. With Katahn out of the room, he was left alone with Trap. And Trap had been far too quiet and watchful this night.

Indeed, they weren’t alone more than a handful of breaths before his friend said, “Well, that was quite a diatribe your betrothed let loose tonight.”

Abramm studied his brandy snifter and frowned.

“I have to say, though,” Meridon went on, “your reaction has surprised me. I’d have expected you to be more shocked and hurt than you seem.”

“I
am
shocked.”

“But not hurt.”

Abramm looked up testily. “What is this? I’m not upset enough for your taste, so you’re trying to stoke the fire a bit? Why should I be hurt? I’m well aware she dislikes me.”

Trap grimaced. “I suppose you have a point.” He paused, fingering his own snifter, then said, “I thought Maddie did an astonishing work with that song. She does her music no service by giving it to others to perform.”

Which took Abramm so completely by surprise there was no way he could stop the blood from rushing into his face. “Yes,” he said tightly, “it was beautiful.”

Beautiful. Haunting. Intimate. The song and voice had tapped into powerful, deeply buried feelings—felt first in Esurh as the White Pretender and felt now as King of Kiriath: alone, trapped, and yearning with all his soul for that which he could not have. Home and freedom and the joy of true love. With that peculiar propensity of hers, she had once more invaded his soul, finding all the right strings to pluck, playing his heart as expertly as she’d played her lirret until everything in him resonated with the piece.

Nor had he failed to notice how fetching she looked in that peasant girl’s costume, with its low, wide neckline and the tightly cinched bodice.

Across from him, Trap sighed and said quietly, “What kind of game are you playing here, Abramm?”

Abramm turned to him sharply, frowning. “I’m not playing any kind of game!”

But Trap only met his gaze evenly for a long, breathless moment. Then he snorted and looked away. “That’s what I was afraid of.”

Abramm’s frown deepened. “I have no idea what you’re talking about, and frankly it’s been too long a day for this.”

“Indeed it has, my lord. I shall take my leave, then, if you wish.”

“Do that, sir. I will see you tomorrow when the cabinet meets.”

But then he was left alone with his thoughts, and that was even worse. Hal helped him remove the doublet and cravat and put them away. Finally, stripped down to breeches and shirt, he sat and looked through the books, trying hard to keep his mind off all the events of this very full day and most particularly off Maddie and her song.

“And I dream of the meadows, green gold ’neath the sun, sweet with the dew of the morn. . . .”

After pacing awhile, he decided he should see the books safely ensconced in the library before he retired, and went to do that. Stepping through the illusion-cloaked doorway into the quiet mustiness of this hidden place was like a balm. There was a sense of peace here that wrapped around him like a warm blanket. Even the mustiness appealed. Maybe he would never reveal its presence. . . .

Smiling at the thought, he laid the books on the nearest desk, and then, instead of turning round and stepping back into his study, he moved toward the window.

He stood before it, staring at the city, the river with its scattering of barge lights and the nine bridges arching over it. Moving rafts of clouds hung low overhead, blown in on the wind since sundown, shifting and shredding against the full moon now high in the sky. The same wind whistled through the eaves and beat against the window glass, the trees tossing before it in a dark, crawling sea of movement below.

Something seemed to unwind in him, leaving him feeling bruised and battered. It wasn’t true that Briellen’s outburst hadn’t hurt. It had, probably more than he realized right now. But it had come at a time when it didn’t . . .matter.

He touched the scars on his face, stroking the slick, raised length of them, thinking of the woman who called them badges of honor, who said they spoke of his courage and his pain. . . . The melody from Maddie’s ballad rang through his mind, carried by her sweet, haunting voice.
“And I long for the green and the sun on my face and my true love who waits for me there. . . .”

The words she sang seemed to have come straight from her heart . . . a communication she dared not make any other way. She loved him. Deep down, he’d known it since the day he’d faced the morwhol, but yesterday’s incident with the bedgown scarf had made him acknowledge it as he had refused to do before. And in acknowledging that, he had to acknowledge the other part of it: her love was not unreturned.