Shadowborn (Light & Shadow, Book 1) (23 page)

Lessons, always lessons. I rolled my eyes
and tried to think, drawing from Donnett’s angry words over the
past weeks, from my own training, from what I knew of the King, and
of Guy de la Marque.

He was, it was said, formidably intelligent.
He had a mind for war. And yet, any potential of his had been
blunted by his upbringing as the baby of his family, accustomed to
be pampered. He had not reclaimed it, he had not honed himself into
a weapon. All of his life, things had been given to him: a
priceless education, a wife of royal blood. Circumstance had given
him his brother’s birthright, and the guardianship of the king.
Life had been easy for Guy de la Marque, and that made him
impatient, and vicious.

“
Guy de la Marque does not
withdraw the troops,” I said. “He brought them here for a reason.
He wants something, and he does not want the Council to speak
against him while he tries to get it, so he’s trying to scare them.
Or distract them.”

“
What does he want?” Temar
asked softly.

“
Power.”

“
Too simple. Tell me more.
Does he want the crown?”

“
No,” I said, after a
pause. “The country would never stand for it. He must know that.”
It was true, even if de la Marque could force the King to abdicate,
he would never be able to control the Council. They would turn on
him in a moment—he had an army of his own, his wife’s men, but they
owed him no strong allegiance, and the Royal Army would splinter
into factions. So what could de la Marque be after?

“
He wants something that
only the King can promise him,” I said, “Something the Council
can’t deny once it’s done. He’s using the troops to scare everyone
else, but he’ll try to play it as a good thing for the King—say
he’s brought the troops in to help, and then ask a favor in return.
Is that it?”

Temar only watched me, his usual sardonic
smile on his face. I sighed.

“
Okay, so he’ll try to use
that as leverage. He will try to look like he’s not delaying, but
won’t send the rest of the troops to crush the rebellion until he
gets what he wants. Then Ismir readies for war, because they hear
that we have troops at the ready and they think we want to invade.
Then one of two things happens. First, nothing. Guy de la Marque
gets what he wants and marches the troops off to the south—Ismir
realizes there’s no war, things return to normal. Or, second, it
takes too long and someone finds a reason to go to war.”

“
The word is ‘pretext,’”
Temar informed me. “But what of the King? What of the King, in his
sickness—or health?” Neither of us mentioned that speaking of the
king’s health so casually was near treason. We were in the Duke’s
rooms. We only lowered our voices.

“
I don’t know, I can’t
see.” I shook my head. Thoughts were gathering, but I could not
voice them until Temar said,

“
You’re thinking of him
like a King. Think of him like a man, like de la Marque. He’s only
a boy, really.”

The thoughts fell into place. “He’s been
ill, he will want to prove that he is well. He will want de la
Marque to heed him. He will want to assert himself.”

“
And de la Marque?” Temar’s
voice was soft; I hardly heard him.

“
He will resent that.”
Anyone could, no man wished to be beholden to a boy. No
battle-hardened veteran would wish to accede to the ideas of a boy
who had not even been born when the last war was fought. It would
rankle, it would chafe even a sensible, loyal man; and if my
instincts were correct, de la Marque was neither.

I frowned. ”He will try to keep power,” I
said. “That’s what I cannot think—what is he playing for? How will
he keep power? Killing the King would do no good—then the throne
would pass to Wilhelm.” A thought struck me. “Unless…”

“
Unless?”

“
Unless the King were to
marry de la Marque’s daughter…” I tried to remember her name.
“Marie! And have a son by her. Oh, but she’s his
cousin.”

“
Second cousin. Royalty do
that, you know.”

“
Really?” Now that I
thought on the lineages I had read, I realized that he was correct.
“Oh. Well, then, Marie. But there still might not be a
war.”

Temar was actually smiling. “Oh, very good,”
he said. “Now, be truthful, did you know?”

“
Know what?” I basked in
the praise. For a moment, I could pretend that this was weeks
ago—before the fight between Miriel and the Duke, and the question
I still saw lingering in Temar’s eyes. He was proud of me now, and
I tried to let that moment wash away the others. I shrugged with
the obligatory modesty of the highly praised. “I might be wrong.
We’ll have to wait and see.”

“
Ah, but we won’t.” Temar
was still smiling. “You really didn’t know, then? Remarkable. Just
this morning, there was a fight between de la Marque and the
King.”

“
In public?” I knew my eyes
were round.

“
In a Council meeting. Much
the same. Everyone will know by this evening.”

“
What happened?”

“
The King told de la Marque
that he had endangered the country by displaying the army so
openly. He said that Heddred and Ismir needed peace and friendship,
not to re-open old wounds.”

“
What did de la Marque do?”
I was breathless. Things were happening, finally, after all the
waiting and wondering.

“
Made flowery apologies,”
Temar said grimly. “He said he only wanted what was best for
Heddred, and had wished to provide the crown with loyal soldiers
and generals.”

“
He never meant the Duke
would be disloyal.”

“
He could have meant
anyone. So no one could say a word against it. And the King is…”
Temar’s face twisted. “Soft. He did not press. He did not want to
make a scene.”

“
So is de la Marque in
favor with the King again?” It would be the worst thing for us. I
remembered, belatedly, that it would be wrong, also, for Heddred. I
believed it, truly, and yet when I remembered that the two things
were not the same, I felt the hairs on the back of my neck stand
up. I prayed that this was not a premonition.

“
No one knows. The King
keeps his own counsel, it turns out. Strange in a boy of his age.
Not one of the nobles of their spies knows what the King is
thinking.” I saw him watching me, but this time I had nothing to
hide.

“
And how do you know
that?”

“
How do you
think?”

“
You know what I mean. How
do you make those contacts? How do you build a web like
that?”

“
Why should you need one?”
His face was impassive. “We have one already.”

“
You said you would teach
me everything,” I said.

“
I said I would teach you
what you needed to know to protect Miriel. And you don’t need to
know this.”

“
But someday we might not
be in the same place—“

“
Enough, Catwin!” His hand
slammed down on the table, and I jumped. “You are a child. There
are things that you do not need to know, and this is one of
them.”

There were so many retorts
that I could not pick one.
But I can learn
to kill
? I wanted to cry.
I’m to learn to spy and poison, but I can’t learn
this?
But the look on his face stopped me
from saying more. I had never seen him angry before; I was frozen,
as much as I was angry.

“
I’m sorry.” I knew I had
to say the words; they would unlock his sympathy. I hated saying
it, and despised him for the smile he gave me. He looked at me as
if everything was wiped away, as if—like a child—I would forget
what had happened.

He should know better. Someday, I thought
coldly, he would realize that.

“
But what we do know,” he
continued. “What we do know—sit up straight, Catwin—is that de la
Marque met later with the Dowager Queen, and they discussed the
marriage of the King, and de la Marque left smiling. As you
said.”

“
The Queen agrees with
him?” My anger over our disagreement was pushed to the back of my
mind. This latest news was disastrous for us.

“
Why should she not?” Temar
asked silkily. “With her son well at last, should he not be
married? And Marie is of royal blood. De la Marque did his work
well: all the court knows Marie to be very pious, very ladylike. He
will have assured Isra that Marie would be biddable.

“
Catwin, think—do you think
that Isra wished to be queen only for a handful of years, and then
spend the rest of her time on the throne waiting for her son to
supplant her? How does she keep power when her son marries, save by
choosing a girl she can order?”

Temar rose up from his own chair and began
to pace around the room. His pleasure in my lesson had been
forgotten, as had his anger at me. He was as grim as I had ever
seen him. He turned to look at me, his eyes narrowed.

“
So, here’s a different
test. Now de la Marque’s plot seems to have worked, he has an army
camped outside the walls, and his daughter is the favorite for the
throne. And where does that leave us? How do we fix that,
Catwin?”

Chapter 19

The Duke called us to his chambers barely a
day later, and Miriel walked confidently ahead of me through the
bustle of the crowd. She had been watching Marie de la Marque
carefully, marking the way the girl seemed nervous, ill at ease in
the tense court.

“
There’s the lesson,”
Miriel said to me, as she dressed. Since our escape, and her
beating, she no longer spoke to me unless she wanted to tell me how
clever she was. “She’s waiting for the court to give her father
power.”

“
So?” I preferred my
lessons in politics mixed with dagger strikes and armies; I could
barely follow Miriel’s stories about who had snubbed whom with a
careful flutter of a fan, or who had flirted by swishing her
skirt.

“
So, the lesson is, when
she looks uncertain, the other girls do not behave as if she’s in
power.” Miriel waited for me to nod in understanding, and then
rolled her eyes when I did not. “Behave as if you already have
power,” she said slowly, as if speaking to a simpleton, “and they
will treat you as if it is yours. They will give it to
you.”

“
It can’t be that
simple.”

“
It is,” she had said
confidently, and since then she had been walking about as if she
were a princess herself. She never turned her nose up at others,
nor gave orders—but, in everything she did, Miriel looked
confident. She walked always with her head up and her shoulders
back, as if she were a woman grown, with power of her
own.

She was confident in every moment, save when
she met with the Duke. Then, Miriel stood like a girl. She looked
down at the ground and she spoke only when spoken to. Both of us
were wary, after our defiance and near-capture. When we entered the
Duke’s study and saw that he was smiling, both of us gave tiny
sighs of relief. I saw some small amount of tension melt out of
Miriel’s shoulders.

“
The King has given me
command of Guy de la Marque’s army,” the Duke said, without
preamble. He saw my wide, startled eyes. “Not for good. Simply for
the duration of the rebellion.” He smiled his predatory smile.
“This Jacces will soon be dead, and the rebellion finished. If
anyone asks you, you are to say—”

“
Excuse me, my Lord
Uncle…”

“
What?” The Duke did not
like to be interrupted. Miriel saw that she had made a misstep, and
curtsied.

“
My apologies, my Lord
Uncle. I was wondering, how did Guy de la Marque lose control of
the Kleist army?”

“
The King decided that de
la Marque’s ideas were sound. To leave troops here, and yet march
on the rebellion as well. However…” the Duke smiled. “Guy de la
Marque provoked the Ismiri, and the young King wishes to make it
clear to them that he does not approve of de la Marque’s behavior.
Why are you smiling, Catwin?”

I jumped, as I always did when he said my
name.

“
I’m very sorry, my Lord. I
just thought…well, it’s clever of the King.”

“
Oh? Why do you think
so?”

I tried to find a way to flatter the Duke.
“Well, he’s doing this to show the Ismiri that he won’t use the
troops for a war, so he’s pushing Guy de la Marque aside. But you
won the Battle of Voltur, my Lord—so it’s a warning to them,
too.”

The Duke actually smiled.

“
You may have been right,”
he told Temar. “She’s learning. You are correct, Catwin. This is a
warning to many people. It is a warning to Guy de la Marque, it is
a warning to the Ismiri, and it is a warning to this Jacces. Now.
Preparations. Miriel.”

“
Yes, my Lord
Uncle?”

“
We know from our spies
that Guy de la Marque has secured the Dowager Queen’s support for a
marriage between the King and Marie de la Marque,” the Duke said.
Miriel’s head jerked up, and I felt sorry for her. Miriel might
have suspected Marie as her rival, but she had not known how
favored Marie was. Now she stared, uncomprehending, at her uncle.
He smiled.

“
You have a role to play in
upsetting de la Marque’s plans,” he told her. He scowled at the
thought of the marriage. “He cannot be allowed to gain that sort of
power.”