Shadowborn (Light & Shadow, Book 1) (17 page)

“
She has a hard road to
walk,” Roine said now. It was something she said often. I shrugged
and said nothing. Miriel’s life was new dresses and dancing
lessons; it did not seem difficult to me. Miriel had never in her
life been punched in the stomach, thrown down a flight of stairs,
and then expected to win a fight. While I was learning to defend
her, she was learning to flirt with her fan. While I learned the
antidotes to save her, she was having her hair dressed with strands
of pearls for a banquet. Even when we lived at the Winter Castle,
Miriel might never have felt the cold; she had stayed inside, away
from the wind, but she had worn fur-lined robes and velvet all the
same, while I shivered in homespun.

“
You think I am wrong?”
Roine lifted an eyebrow. “Now, don’t mash that. You only need to
bruise the leaves. Here.” Her hands steadied my own. I tried to let
the tension out of my shoulders, and she craned around to look into
my face. “I don’t mean to be hard on you Catwin, but you of all
people should know that new clothes to wear and food in your belly
does not make an easy life.”

“
It’s different,” I said,
my pride pricked.

“
You should ask yourself
why the Duke has her here,” Roine said sternly. “You told me she’s
for the King. Do you think that was true?”

I paused, then nodded. It fit with
everything I had seen: Miriel’s absence from court in her youth and
her strange seclusion from the other girls now, the Duke’s
insistence that she be perfect in every way, how he had instructed
her to be irresistible and yet untouchable. The Duke wanted to make
Miriel into the perfect woman by the time the King came of age, a
woman untouched by the court’s spite, a woman no other man could
have.

“
Ask yourself why he
intends that,” Roine said. “You can bet money on the fact that it’s
not for her benefit.”

“
It’s for him,” I said,
without thinking. That fit as well—even in the few weeks since I
had come to court, I had noticed that his title gave him wealth,
but little else. Servants whispered about “the upstart,” nobles
sneered at him, and ladies of the court steered their daughters
away from Miriel. The Duke had done a great service for Heddred,
and had been ennobled, but still he was reviled for his common
blood, his advice disregarded. This was revenge, of a
sort.

“
What I wish I knew…” I bit
my lip, then pillowed my chin on my arms. “Why has
he
never
married?”

“
What?” Roine frowned at
me.

“
His sister failed him, and
so he decided to use Miriel to gain power. But he could use his own
heir, if only he married. And he could marry, there are nobles
who’d marry their daughters to him. He could have a dozen heirs of
his own by now.” Roine had paused, her brow furrowed.

“
You’re right,” she said
slowly. “I had never…” Her voice trailed off. Then she shook her
head, shrugged her shoulders. “Well, no matter. This is all for
him, anyway, you were right. So you watch Miriel,” Roine advised.
“You’ll see the strain.”

“
I do nothing
but
watch her.” My voice
was sharp. I had decided that it was nothing to me if the Duke
intended for Miriel to catch the King’s eye. Every noble had the
same plan. I should have known better, but I was too exhausted by
my training to think properly. Roine did know better, but she did
not say so, she only shrugged.

“
At least you have me to
talk to. Who does Miriel have?”

One of Temar’s first pieces of training had
been to be quiet about watching people. No use noticing another
assassin, he had said, if you gave yourself away. Then you lost
your advantage. So I forced my hands to keep moving slowly,
bruising the leaves as Roine had instructed. I kept my tone light,
and somewhat bitter. For sure, Roine was no assassin, but I assumed
that the basic principle would hold.

“
Worried that Miriel is
lonely?”

I got nothing for my subtlety. “No,” Roine
said. “But you should be. A lonely person is drawn to others like a
moth to flame. Miriel will attach herself to the first person she
finds who pays attention to her.”

I put down the pestle and stared at her.
“And so?”

“
You had better be that
person,” Roine advised. “Who else can you trust?”

Roine’s words alarmed me,
and in the weeks that followed I tried to become, if not a friend,
less Miriel’s outright enemy. I had no wish to be nicer to a girl
who belittled me at every turn, but the words,
at least you have me to talk to,
rang out like a warning.

When I was exhausted, angry,
despairing—then, I ran to Roine. I spoke to her in complete trust,
as a fellow servant of the Duke. I knew that when I spoke to her,
my words went no farther. My disloyal sentiments would not be used
against me, and I could speak freely of my role, no need to hide
behind the usual disclaimers that I was only the Lady Miriel’s
servant, nothing more—a girl, of course, as the Lady was so very
proper, very like the Dowager Queen.

But where did Miriel run when she was angry,
when she was afraid?

For I was sure, now, that Miriel was afraid.
Everyone was afraid now; the word “war” hovered unspoken in every
conversation, the men of the council were missing at dinners, and
the whole court had been called. Courtiers who were more wont to be
with their families in the country were here in great numbers; the
great hall was packed full each night, the minor nobles turned away
from dinner. Instead of the few children who might usually be at
court, Miriel was surrounded by the children of each high noble and
minor noble who held any stake in Heddred.

Reports came in daily, some whispered as
rumor: raids on the border villages in the mountains, the
ascendency of Duke Kasimir, the second heir to Ismir behind Prince
Vaclav. Worse were the reports from the heart of Ismir itself, from
the spies placed as servants to Ismir’s council. When those
messengers came, they were taken to the council room at once, and
what they said, no one knew. Were there traitors here? the court
wondered. How else could Ismir hope to fight back over the
mountains? Everyone watched the Council members, and they walked as
if they scented betrayal and intrigue in the air.

A show of unity would have put the court at
ease, but the tensions within the council itself had worsened with
the onset of war talk. Each council member had his own faction to
advance, but there were only three seasoned generals in the
council: Guy de la Marque, husband to Elizabeth Warden; Gerald
Conradine, husband to Anne Warden; and the Duke.

It was hardly a contest. The majority of the
men had massed behind Guy de la Marque. A general, of course.
Married to House Warden, of course. The man the Dowager Queen
herself had chosen to be the Boy King’s guardian. Of course. Better
than Gerald Conradine, for sure, for who would trust a Conradine
with House Warden’s army?

And better than a merchant’s son, however
high his title. Guy de la Marque had few true adherents, that was
clear, but the council was eager to blunt the influence of the
Duke. Never mind that Isra, the Dowager Queen, paid scant heed to
the Duke. Never mind that Henry’s passing had all but halted the
Duke’s rise. Never mind that the present King was hardly in a
position to grant favors. The Duke had a dukedom—he, a commoner
born. It was not to be tolerated. Henry’s mistakes must be
unmade.

“
Fools,” Temar murmured
under his breath, as we passed by a pack of noblemen singing Guy de
la Marque’s praise.

“
Why
specifically?”

Temar waited until we were well clear of the
men. “Better de la Marque than a Conradine, they say.
Nonsense.”

“
Because he married
Elizabeth?”

“
Just so.” Temar nodded.
“He has the Kleist men to rally to his standard.” I nodded, not
needing him to explain any further. Guy de la Marque could command
the soldiers of House Kleist, by dint of Elizabeth. And here was
the piece that no one other than the Duke’s faction seemed to
consider: Guy de la Marque had more soldiers now than House Warden
could command as the Royal Army, and House Warden had no true
commander.

And what was then to stop de la Marque, the
man with the full trust of the Dowager Queen, from doing the same
thing that Arthur Warden had done only two generations past? It had
been an unwinnable coup but for House Kleist’s support, and what
was now to keep the dog from turning on its master?

None of the nobles asked themselves this.
Whatever heroics Gerald Conradine had performed in the Bone Wastes,
stemming the tide of Ismir’s influence, they would be wiped away
for the taint of his name. Regardless of the fact that the Duke had
won the single decisive battle of the war, his actions could be
countered with his low birth—so who was left? Clearly, only de la
Marque; the other two now had the council ranged against them.

Into this pit of poisonous sentiment, the
Duke placed Miriel. Each day, she was forced to walk into a room of
people who despised her. She started from nothing, from less than
nothing; only Cintia, Gerald’s daughter, could claim a social
status so strange. Miriel was provincial, she was only a
half-blooded noble, and yet the Duke had told her that with only
her wits and her beauty, she must become the finest of courtiers.
Even knowing that Heddred itself might fall, starting with her
homeland of Voltur, she must focus only on being witty and
charming.

Somehow, she managed it, the impossible
task. She put on a good show. As her uncle had ordered her to be,
Miriel was a charming courtier. She was unendingly pleasant, with a
practiced half-smile on her lips. When she was out amongst the
courtiers, it always seemed that she was delighted with her
surroundings, and could not think of a finer place to be.

The opportunities for her to excel publicly
were few enough, for children did not dance after dinner, nor flirt
with fans, nor—generally—get asked their thoughts on military
history, or the populist uprising in Mavlon. Only those of us who
served Miriel, or taught her, knew that she could ride with
consummate skill, could perform pairs dances with the same light
grace she brought to the children’s jigs and reels, and could speak
seriously and insightfully on theology, history, or politics while
simultaneously steering the conversation away from unpleasant
topics. And she could sing, as well, in a smoky alto that put me in
mind of brandy on a cold winter’s night.

But no one knew this, and so the balance of
Miriel’s talents lay in reserve. For now, she was being polished
and honed like a beautiful weapon, and the Duke required constant
reports from her tutors, each one hand-picked, loyal, able to tell
the Duke which other young ladies would be Miriel’s rivals.

What we did not know was how Miriel would
behave if she were to be at the center of the court. We could only
wait to learn that. In the meantime, Miriel displayed her first
stroke of genius: she refused absolutely to pursue the friendship
of the well-bred, favored daughters of the court.

On her father’s side, Miriel’s blood was
equal to any of theirs: her father had been the second son of the
DeVere family, older even than the Conradines. But the Lady was a
Celys, a merchant lifted on the tide of her brother’s heroics and
her pretty face, and every one of the young ladies knew it.

From Temar’s relentless drilling, I knew
their names: Alexandra Dulgurokov, the queen’s niece, Anna and
Linnea Torstensson, Evelyn DeVere, Elizabeth Cessor, Maeve of
Orleans, Marie de la Marque—and others, a flock of girls with
everything to play for. All pretty, all well-taught, all of good
birth. I had seen them laugh and dance together when the maidens
withdrew to their chamber each night after dinner.

The Dowager Queen kept a strict court,
sending the gentlemen away to the King’s Rooms on one side of the
great banquet hall, while she and her ladies retired to her own
rooms, on the other side of the building. The gentlemen might beg
leave to dance, or sing, or watch an entertainment, but it was only
the Queen’s acquiescence that gave them license to mingle with the
ladies.

The older maidens, those who must now
navigate the difficult waters of courtship, were allowed to the
Dowager Queen’s rooms as well. They were able to catch the eye of
the Queen, as the rising nobility, so that she could watch them and
learn of them, and they were also sheltered by her fierce scrutiny:
courtship could take place with a strange freedom, the young women
protected from rumors of scandal by the Queen’s presence.

The younger maidens were deemed unfit even
for the strictly controlled world of the Dowager Queen’s rooms.
They were to withdraw to the maidens’ rooms, under the watchful eye
of the Queen’s servants, where they might practice their music or
dancing, or listen to sermons from the Queen’s chosen priests. They
were to be separate from the gossip and scandal of the court, kept
pure.

In truth, they gossiped as much as any of
the courtiers. Without the long years of practice in sifting truth
from lies, they spread spiteful, wild stories about each other. And
of all of them, Marie de la Marque was the most spiteful, the most
eager to remind Miriel of her place. She was the daughter of Guy de
la Marque and Elizabeth Warden, quick to remind others of her royal
blood. She had thick golden hair and blue eyes, the very picture of
female beauty, and her father was besieged with requests for her
hand in marriage.

It seemed that every night at dinner, Marie
managed to remind everyone that Miriel was not simply the heir of
any commoner, she was the heir of The Commoner, the enemy of the
Council. Every girl who waited on the Dowager Queen knew that
Miriel was not favored by those who held power. Marie was the
ringleader, and she had spoken: given a chance, each and every one
of the best-bred young ladies—and a few who thought they were
better bred than they were—would gleefully have excluded
Miriel.