Shadowborn (Light & Shadow, Book 1) (24 page)

“
What is my role, my Lord
Uncle?” Miriel queried. I could see her fairly quivering with
excitement. She had thought that it would be years before she was
able to catch the King’s eye. Now, she hoped that her uncle would
give her a chance to do so soon—and escape his power earlier than
she had expected.

I did not speak, but I thought I knew the
Duke’s plan. Miriel could make herself irresistible from the start:
the forbidden woman. Garad’s mother wanted to choose his wife, and
we knew now how keen he was to assert his independence, how poorly
he had taken de la Marque’s meddling. A word here, a smile there,
and Garad would never be able to forget Miriel.

“
I just think it would be
best if the King were to have his own reasons for opposing the
marriage to Marie,” the Duke said smoothly. “It is an advantageous
match. Certainly, she is of good birth. She brings an army with
her, and de la Marque is rich. But advantage means nothing to a
young man, when he is pursuing another woman.”

Miriel knew better than to speak. She stood
quietly, but with the air of a hunting hound that is only waiting
for a command.

“
The King is shortly to
learn that his guardians have been making plans without consulting
him.” The Duke’s mouth twisted in a smile. “The Council, also, will
learn this. It will complete de la Marque’s fall from grace—and the
matter of the King’s marriage will be opened to the court. They
will need to make a show of choosing a good bride for the King. All
of the unmarried women of the court will be shown off, paraded
under his nose.” His eyes narrowed.

“
You are to enchant him,”
he said abruptly. “You will turn his head from Marie. Your task—the
only thing you should focus on, from now until I tell you
otherwise—is to make the King fall in love with you. I will gain a
chance for you to have a private audience, but until then, you must
be the most charming, the most fascinating, the best of all the
young ladies at court. Your tutors tell me that you would be ready
for such a test,” he said. She did not waver under his gaze, and
without warning, he turned his head to me.

“
Catwin. Will she be
ready?” I nearly laughed, so ridiculous was the question. Miriel
enchanted everyone she saw. She was only waiting to step into the
spotlight of the court.

“
Yes, my Lord,” I
said.

“
Ah.” The Duke seemed
pleased with my response. “Well, then. I will tell you how to
dress, and how to behave, for any events that are planned. You may
go now.”

As we withdrew, Temar followed us into the
antechamber. “The guards will escort you back to your room, my
Lady,” he said politely to Miriel. When she was gone, he frowned at
me. “Will Miriel be ready so soon?” he asked. “Tell me truly,
Catwin.” I laughed at that, and his frown deepened.

“
I’m sorry,” I said.
Another giggle escaped me. “But, really, you should know—she’s
perfect.” I sobered for a moment, remembering the beatings she
received if she was not perfect.

“
We can trust her to behave
properly?” Temar asked, and I saw an opening. I had not been able
to convince him of Miriel’s trustworthiness, but this would be a
good moment to sow doubt.

“
You doubt her, too!” I
said, my brow furrowed. “Just like the Duke.” And then, temptingly,
I saw another chance. I was still curious about the Lady. “Why does
he doubt her? Is it because of her mother?”

“
An interesting question.
But, then—yes, you and she have a history, don’t you? Do you want
to know about her?”

“
Yes.” He had told me never
to ask directly for what I wanted to know, but there might never be
another chance to learn this.

“
She came to the court
after the Duke won the battle at Voltur, and was ennobled. She was
married to Roger DeVere. You knew as much, yes? She
was…self-seeking. Even when she was newly married, she was setting
herself forward, she would look at any man of higher
rank.

“
She shamed herself—and she
shamed the Duke, and she shamed her husband. When they found she
was pregnant, she was sent away to the Winter Castle before anyone
knew. They were not certain, the Duke and DeVere, that Miriel was
DeVere’s child. Well, that was clear enough in the end, she’s the
very image of him, but the Duke would never have brought her back.
Even when DeVere died, the Lady stayed in Voltur.

“
This is not,” Temar said
diplomatically, “a court that tolerates commoners. She was making
trouble for the Duke. He uses Miriel because she is his heir, and
she has qualities that make her…useful. But he watches her. Who
know what trysts she might be arranging? And, Gods know, her mother
had no head for intrigue. She chased any smile.”

“
She might have, but Miriel
is fourteen years old,” I said, annoyed. It was always me reminding
them of this. “She doesn’t think of trysts, she is a child. She
does think of marriage—and girl at court does. But she obeys the
Duke.” I did not add,
so far.

When I had said my goodbyes and was walking
back to Miriel’s rooms, I found myself thinking that if the Duke
were not so blinded by his dislike for his sister, he would see
that Miriel was just as self-seeking, but far cleverer. And instead
of being flighty, she was growing into a woman who knew how to hold
a grudge. Where the Duke might have made a powerful ally, he had
seen only a flawed tool. He was so blinded that he had blinded even
Temar—but the assassin, clearer-headed, knew something was
amiss.

He was right to be suspicious, and I had
nearly told him so. It would have wiped away my guilt. Gods knew, I
had no reason to give my loyalty to a girl who hated me, who would
have seen me beaten for her prank without batting an eye. The Duke
cared nothing for me, either, but he at least was powerful enough
to reward loyalty. Common sense dictated that I ally myself with
the Duke, and with his servant.

And Temar was the first one who had ever
seen me for more than a nobody, except, perhaps, Roine. When I had
first met him at the Winter Castle, his smile had warmed me
through—that, and the way he looked at me, as if I were someone
special, not just another servant, not just another peasant child.
I had thought that he would make me something more than I had
been.

It had all gone wrong, I thought miserably.
Temar was not making me something more. For all of his talk of my
education, for all that I could read and write and tumble and heal,
I sometimes thought that I was lower now than I had been born.
Temar and the Duke, between them, were twisting me into something
dark. Sometimes, in the deepest hours of the night, I thought that
I might not be quite human anymore.

Temar, for himself, I would have followed to
the ends of the earth, but as the Duke’s servant, I no longer had
any trust in my heart for him. There was only the longing to trust
him. We were on different sides now, and even though it was me who
had lied, I thought that he should have known. And the Duke should
have known. They had built me from nothing; they should see my
deceit in an instant.

With a shiver that I
knew
for a
premonition—even if I believed in none of that—I thought that the
Duke had made a very big mistake when he had given me to Miriel. He
had not really wanted someone to be for her what Temar was for him.
Away from Temar’s anger, in the clear light of day, I could see now
that Temar had been ordered to make sure that I would always be
less than he was. The Duke had thought that he would be able to
control Miriel through me, and me through Temar.

I did not think that was going to work out
well for him.

Chapter 20

As news of the Duke’s ascendancy raced
through the court, he made an outward show of preparing for his
march south. He spent hours upon hours in the Armory, overseeing
the selection of gear, watching the men drill, and exercising his
formidable memory for names and faces. He remembered each of the
men who had served with him, and they in turn were glad to sing his
praises to the other troops.

His long hours in Council meetings, and his
abundance of preparations for the war effort, did not mean that he
was too busy to oversee Miriel’s preparations for her debut. He
went to her lessons to watch her dance, he ordered a new wardrobe
for her in beautiful fabrics, and he drilled her endlessly on her
curtsies, pleasantries, and planned phrases on any topic. He was
determined that Miriel should be able to turn any topic away from
overly political waters with ease, subtly stressing the Duke’s
military career and her family’s loyalty before bringing the
conversation around to a lighter topic.

“
As if I could not do so on
my own!” she exclaimed. “As if I were not the best dancer, the best
at everything—everything!”

“
It’s not for long,” I
soothed her.

“
What does that mean?” she
snapped back. I tried not to rise to her.

“
Just that…what you said.”
I paused as the maidservant came through the room and curtsied to
Miriel. She left the room, carrying a sack of dirty linen to the
laundry, and I resumed. “As soon as you have the King—”

“
I don’t know what you
mean,” Miriel said shortly. “I think you are misremembering.” I
blinked, confused. Miriel’s uncle watched her closely, but even he
could not hear our words here. The rooms were empty now. I was
opening my mouth to tell her that I always checked the rooms for
intruders, and would have caught any spies her uncle had set on us,
when I realized what she really feared.

“
You think it’s
me
,” I said. I was
shocked. “You think…you think I’m reporting on you to the
Duke.”

“
I know you are,” Miriel
said coldly. “He calls you to his rooms alone, and he asks you
about me.” I stared blankly at her. She could not think…

“
You don’t trust me,” I
said, testing her. She looked at me as if I were an
idiot.

“
Of course not.”

“
But you know I’ve kept
secrets,” I said. I could feel my pulse beginning to pound. “You
know I have.” I could not even find words to tell her how angry I
was. I had never told her uncle about Wilhelm, I had never told him
that she had plans to escape him, and I had never told him about
Miriel’s impromptu meeting with the King. She looked at me, and she
never even wavered.

“
I don’t trust anyone,” she
said. “Everyone has a price. If you haven’t given up my secrets
yet, it’s only because he hasn’t offered you enough. And someday,
he will.”

“
I wouldn’t do that!” To my
shame, I felt tears coming to my eyes. I blinked them away and dug
my nails into my palm, trying to use the pain to distract myself.
“You trusted me enough to help you with disguising—“

“
That was a mistake,”
Miriel said coldly. She drew breath, but I did not want to hear
what she would say next. I walked away from her without even
bowing, hoping she had not seen my tears. I paced around her privy
chamber, trying to think. It had been a mistake to believe that she
might trust me, that she might ever appreciate the things I had
hidden from her. I had not only hidden her indiscretions, I had
lied to Temar about them—and all I had gotten was mistrust and
spite.

Confused, far from home, and feeling at once
terribly angry and terribly hurt, I did the only thing a child
thinks to do: I went to go find my mother. I went not knowing why,
not even knowing I was upset, and so when Roine opened the door to
her chambers, I surprised both of us by hurling myself into her
arms and bursting into tears.

“
Catwin—child—are you
well?“ I was sobbing too hard to speak, I could only shake my head.
Everything had been so far from normal, for so long, that I had not
shed tears over it. I had not cried on the nights when Temar taught
me a new killing strike and I awoke from dreams of using it. I had
not cried at any of Miriel’s taunts, or the Duke’s threats. It
turned out that the tears had only been waiting. Now that I started
to cry, I could not stop.

It was fully half an hour before I had
calmed down enough to speak. Roine, having held me in her arms and
made shushing noises, finally wrapped me in a blanket and went to
make tea. When she returned with the pot, she carefully brushed my
hair back from my face and re-braided it. She gave me a cloth
soaked in cool water for me to wash away the signs of tears, and
then pressed an earthenware mug of tea into my hands, wrapping my
fingers around it.

“
Now,” she said. “Tell me
what’s wrong.”

I felt the tears start once more, and only
by clenching my teeth did I manage to hold them back. I swallowed
painfully, and ducked my head to take a sip of tea.

“
I hate this place,” I said
finally. “I wish we’d never come.”

“
Why?”

“
Did you know it would be
like this?” I asked, and I sniffed. “Is that why you wanted to stay
in Voltur?”

She tilted her head to the side, and her
eyes were faraway. She wore her usual sad smile, and yet for once,
she looked hopeful. “No, that’s not why. I thought…” She sighed,
and pursed her lips, and I saw her for the first time as a
person.

It was a horrible thought,
to realize that I had never thought of her in that way before. When
she had said to me,
I
thought
, I realized then that I had never
wondered the
why
of her. I did not know where she had been born, or why she
had never married. I did not know why her slanted brown eyes were
always sad, or where she had learned to read and write, why she had
become a healer. Roine disliked being beholden to the Duke, she
spoke of the irresponsibility of nobles and healed servant women
without ever asking payment—I had seen all of these things and
never thought more about them.