Shadowforged (Light & Shadow) (12 page)

“Please, your Grace, do not look so sad. This is the most wonderful news, surely nothing can be so bad as to cause you to frown.”

“Oh, my love…” The King dropped into his chair and sank his head into his hands. “I must ask something of you, and it pains me—and it pains me that you might mistrust my motives.”

“I could never mistrust your motives, your Grace,” Miriel said. “I am your loyal subject, you have only to command.”

“I would never command you,” he said. He leaned forward to her, his eyes pleading. “The Council besieges me with proposa
ls of marriage, and I must persuade them that I am open to reason, that my mind is not clouded by love.” From the distaste in his voice, I knew that he was quoting one member or another. “They have become quite obsessed with you, my dearest. They wish to know how often I see you, where we meet, what we speak of. I thought…I mean to say…”

“You must put me aside, your Grace,” Miriel said sweetly. She spread her hands. “If I am the cause of mistrust, if the council commands you—“

“The Council does not command me!” he burst out, and I marveled at her courage. She twisted the knife at the risk of his displeasure.

“Of course not,” Miriel soothed. “But I would not be the cause of unrest. If you and I must part…” her voice broke, and she squared her shoulders. “Oh, your Grace. I will not cause you any difficulty. You will hear not one word of complaint from me. It will be as if we had never met.”

“No, no!” He reached out and clasped her hands. “No, never say that we should part. Oh, dearest, I could never bear such a thing. Look at the tears in your eyes! No, it would be too painful for us.”

“Then what?” She looked bewildered, hopeful.

“I meant only that it might
seem
that I entertained other offers of marriage. I never would! Never,” he said emphatically. “I could not bear to marry another. But it would seem as if I could, as if I no longer watched you at dinner. I would speak nothing of you to the Council. I would meet you only when I was sure no one followed me—perhaps, sometimes, Wilhelm could carry messages to you. Would that be acceptable to you?”

I marveled at a King, asking forgiveness of a girl such as Miriel. She had him in her thrall as deeply as ever, and I knew she was itching to throw a triumphant smirk in my direction. I wondered if I would always be able to see beneath the mask. Certainly, Garad did not; he was flushed with worry. He could see only a woman who might be upset with him.

“Oh! Oh, yes.” Miriel smiled up at him. She took a deep, shuddering breath. “Of course, your Grace. Only tell me what I must do. I will do anything I can to help.” She blinked back the tears she had so conveniently conjured, and smiled once more. “And then, please,” she begged him, “tell me more of the meeting with Dusan?”

While we walked the twisting corridors back to our rooms, I stole a glance over at her and saw that her face was set not in triumph, but in frustration and fear.

“Why are you worried?” I asked, curiously. “He could not bear the thought of parting with you.”

“He thinks he cannot,” she said grimly. “But, right now—every decision he makes, he discusses with me.
That
is why he cannot bear the thought of parting. He thinks he cannot live without me by his side every moment.”

“But this is only a false separation,” I said, determined not to understand.

“No, he
thinks
it is false,” she said, trying to be patient. “He will think: I will not look over and smile at her, so that no one knows I am thinking of her, but I will still hold her in my heart and smile to think of her. And then the next night, he will think the same thing. And the next night, and the next night—and then one night, he won’t think it at all. And it will be the same with advice: first he will wonder what I would think, and write to me, and then one day that will be too much trouble. He will think nothing of it at all, but one day he will realize that he has been living without me at his side and he has not even missed me.”

Her voice had dropped as she spoke, and now it was only a trembling whisper. Her hands were clenched, and I saw that her frustration had been a refuge against real fear. Her eyes were wide, and I reached out to touch her shoulder.

“Don’t worry,” I said. “I don’t think he could ever forget you that way. And it won’t last so long—you’ll have him back at your side before there’s even a chance for him to forget you.” Miriel took a deep breath, unclenching her hands and straightening her shoulders. She nodded.

“I hope you’re right,” she said, but I knew she did not believe me at all.

Chapter 12

For a time, I truly thought that Miriel had been mistaken. The King sent whole sheaves of love letters, it seemed, pages upon pages of ardent prose—and, to my silent amusement, poetry—and Miriel sent back letters fully as lengthy. Despite herself, she was becoming caught up in his excitement for the upcoming event, and even I was impressed by the sheer spectacle of it. Garad was eager to tell Miriel every detail of his plans, and she was pleased enough to help him plan it all.

It would have been difficult to remain indifferent. The meeting of the Kings was to be an event to end all events. A call had gone out in the city, in the outlying towns, and craftsman came by the hundreds, clambering into carts to be taken out to the plains east of the mountains. With them were sent long wagon trains of lumber, stone, and plaster dust, for there, on the plains, a veritable town was to be built just for this: the Meeting of the Peacemakers. Miriel and I giggled over the self-importance of the name, and even the Duke’s mouth twitched when we told him of it.

Garad spared no expense; indeed, he was relishing the chance to show Heddred’s prosperity. Fields were bought from farmers and plowed under to make way for miniature palaces and elegant houses, stands of trees cut down to make way for inns, and then exquisite gardens built up around them. Royal servants were sent to be innkeepers, hostlers, pages, bakers. There was going to be a plaza paved with marble and inlaid with the crests of the two royal houses. Artisans set to work carving the sheaf of wheat, the symbol of House Warden, and the leaping fish, the symbol of King Dusan, into the woodwork of the mansions, adorning the lintels of the doors, the backs of the chairs. Everywhere one turned, there would be a gilded sign, a carving, a rich carpet, each with the two crests intertwined.

Royal servants were sent out of the palace to inspect the wares of the merchants who had flocked to the city. One could barely move out in the streets, so thickly did they line the roadsides. Furniture, lamps, cloth, rugs, and baubles of all kinds were hawked from the street corners, everything carved with the sheaf of wheat and the leaping fish. The servants went proudly, the royal crest on their tunics, to search out the finest wares; they were also sent, more quietly, to search out the finest of the whores, and offer them passage to the village as well.

The best goods were bought by order of the King and loaded into carts, an endless wagon train that now raised a cloud of dust one could see stretching on for miles. At the end of the train came wagons full of cured meats, whole wagons of onions or potatoes, casks of wine and dried fruits, sugar and oil. With them rode the royal cooks, looking put-upon and surly.

In the bustle, I heard many of the servants sighing and shaking their heads, making grand statements about the vanities of the rich and how nobles never thought of the trouble for the common folk when they made such farfetched schemes. They did not bother to lower their voices to me. Temar and I might be considered strange, secretive, unusually close to the nobles, and potential killers, but we were also servants, and that counted for something—enough, at any rate, that servants did not always stop their chatter when we approached.

Every day the complaints grew more prevalent, and the rumors grew more and more preposterous. In any given day, I was likely to hear a story or two on the fanciful side of plausible, and ten or more that could never have been true at all, at least one of which usually involved sorcerers or assassins. A few servants had even asked me to my face if I’d been told to kill any of the Ismiri nobles. Even as I rebuffed these, stories of the King’s tyranny spread unchecked.

“—and said that any plasterer as
didn’t
report for duty would be killed!” one servant hissed to his companion.

“Yer being crazy,” the other man said, heaving a bag of flour into the wagon. “How’d they know, then?”

Or: “And who’s to stay with the little ones, then, if we’re all to go? They’re leaving a palace of children, I tell you, and it’ll be burned to the ground when we’re back.”

And another woman: “All his Majesty’s furniture! I ask you, will he be needing all four presence chambers? And a piano? What will he be using that for?”

Not all of it was fairytale and complaint, of course. From the gossips, I learned that the King’s uncle Arman Dulgurokov would be smuggling his mistress along, disguised as a washer-woman, that no less than three of the council members had come to inquire about the availability of whores in the plains city, and that several of the young ladies of the court were atwitter about a masquerade ball that might allow them to slip away unnoticed with handsome men from Ismir. When I heard that last, I shook my head and resolved to speak to Miriel about it at once.

When I arrived in her chambers, the place was a riot of color, swatches and bolts of fabric strewn across the couches and her bed. Miriel herself was being fitted for a gown, a deep red—permitted, as it was the color of House Warden—and choosing swatches of fabric for another dozen gowns. Netting and ribbons trailed all over the room, and a veritable army of seamstresses rushed back and forth, offering different colors and cloths for Miriel’s perusal.

She shot me a look as I came into the room.

“Where have you been?” she demanded.

“Arranging your lodging with the stewards.” I leaned against the wall and folded my arms. I had wanted to advise her that half the ladies of the court would be trying to sneak into noblemen’s beds, and she had best be careful not to be accused of the same, but I was not about to do so with the seamstresses here. Seamstresses heard the best of the gossip, and they would be keeping an ear cocked to hear what the King’s reported mistress and her servant spoke of.

Miriel made a show of ignoring me. Her excitement had bled away in the past few days, and now she was half-crazed with worry about this event, having been called to her uncle’s rooms nearly a dozen times in the past few days. There were lectures on propriety, and the fine line between reminding the King where his heart lay, and playing the whore. First, the Duke had thought it best that Miriel should appear the most accomplished of the Queen’s maidens, so that the Ismiri might think her a natural next Queen—but then he had called us back the same day to say that perhaps it was better if Miriel were hardly noticed at all. We had enough enemies here. The day after, he called us back to tell us that Miriel
should
be noteworthy, but not when she danced—

On and on it went, and Miriel grew more and more frenzied and snappish. The King never failed to send messages to her, carried by Wilhelm Conradine, or passed to me by a Royal Guardsman. Still, in the flurry of preparations, the King was making good on his plan to appear finished with Miriel. He no longer looked at her at dinner, he did not stop to speak to her if he visited the maidens’ chambers after dinner, he no longer even met with her in the nights in case they should be watched. Instead, he danced with Linnea Torstensson and Maeve of Orleans, Elizabeth Cessor and Marie de la Marque, and from amongst the older girls he singled out Cintia Conradine.

Miriel had to bear her own fear of his growing independence, and also the gleeful rumor-mongering of the Court; she was always surrounded by whispered comments and hidden smiles. The Duke’s suspicion of the plan—he had worried aloud that it might be a sop, only to avoid a scene with Miriel as he cast her off—only worsened her fears.

She had started to take her frustrations out on me, snapping criticisms of every little thing I did, and our constant spats had only gotten worse. Every piece of spite and malice to which she could not respond at dinner was marked, totted up, and dealt back to me. It reminded me of the old days, her veiled insults and her anger, and no matter if she sighed and apologized, I was beginning to grow tired of it.

So now I strolled over to one of her upholstered seats, pulled the expensive bolts of fabric off of it, and plopped down, propping my boots on the table. At once she turned to glare at me.

“Get up.” She tossed her hair as she turned back to admire herself in the mirror.

“Why?” I stayed where I was.

“Because you need to be fitted for new clothes.” Her voice sharpened. “And because I told you to.”

“I don’t need new clothes.” I looked at her gown and shrugged. “No one will pay any attention to me anyway, not if you’re doing your job correctly.” Her eyelids flickered at the blow.

“You’re in my train, remember,” she warned. “People see you. We’re to be perfect. You can’t wear those britches and that tunic. And not those boots.”

I had a moment of pure horror. “You don’t mean to put me in dresses?”

“Don’t be ridiculous. You’d look a fool in a dress.” Only Miriel could take your words and slide them back under your skin without seeming to try. She smiled, sweet as poison. “But you could at least wear something better than that baggy old thing.”

This argument again. I froze. Since our last birthday, I had grown like a beanstalk, shedding the baby fat Miriel had so mercilessly teased me for. At first, I had become so thin that my ribs had showed. No matter how much I ate—and all the cooks’ threats could not keep a growing child out of a kitchen—I never gained back the roundness in my cheeks or the childish pudginess on my frame. Even with stick-thin arms and sticking-out ribs, I had grown enough the fine suit of clothes that had been commissioned for me had strained across my body, and in the past few weeks especially, I had noticed things happening that I wished would stop.

I had been terrified that Miriel would notice, and so I went to the armorer who, fed up with trying to clothe my still-growing frame, had agreed to give me a tunic far too big for me. Miriel had teased me about it for weeks, alternately exclaiming delightedly about how provincial I looked, and hissing that I made her look like a minor noble, one who couldn’t afford to dress her servants properly. Once, fed up with her taunts, I had hissed back that she was really just a merchant girl, her father a poor noble and her mother a new one, and I had earned a ringing slap across the face for my trouble. But she had let the issue of the clothing go, at least until now.

When she saw me hesitate, Miriel’s eyes narrowed.

“What? What are you hiding, then?” In a flash, as fast as thought, she was across the room, her hands ripping at my tunic, pushing it aside from my stomach as I struggled to back away. The seamstresses were not even bothering to hide their interest. They watched, wide-eyes, as—unable to push Miriel off me, not permitted to grab her wrists or throw her as I would another attacker—I was pushed up against t
he wall, her shoulder jabbed up to
press against my chest, her hands holding the tunic away from me. She stared at the bared flesh of my stomach, then back at me, her eyes narrowed. I was so wrapped up in my own embarrassment that it took me a moment to realize what she was looking for. When I did, I laughed in her face, I was so incredulous.

“You think I’m
pregnant
?”

“What else would you hide so?” she challenged me. “I expect it—you’re disgraceful! Flaunting yourself in britches and boots like a man, showing your legs! You’re out in the yards, wrestling with Temar, practicing with the men!” My face flamed, but I said nothing; I had heard the sharp note of jealousy in her voice, and she knew it. My freedom terrified Miriel, offended her, intrigued her. Her face colored, too, and she looked away, stepping back as I pulled the tunic straight.

“Well? Get down to your linen. Let the seamstress measure you.”

There was no gainsaying her. After a silent moment, I pulled the tunic over my head, and heard her indrawn breath as she saw what I had been hiding. I felt a flash of spite; of course she had not seen beyond the tunic, of course she had not thought to ask why I was wearing it. Miriel never asked why, not where I was concerned. This was the basis of our relationship these days, more so than my britches or her beautiful face: Miriel did not trouble herself to watch the servants, and I did not trouble myself to tell her that she missed much useful information that way.

Now, she stared at the linen bindings I had wrapped, as tightly as I could, over my chest. “You’re turning into a woman, then.” Her voice was flat, and I heard the match to my own disappointment, which was so sharp that I could not even bring myself to respond.

I was not a fool. I knew that these things happened to other girls, that they grew bosoms and that their hips widened and their waists narrowed. That was a good figure, good for childbearing, good for catching a man’s eye. But it was useless to me, who needed a clear draw on my bow, who needed a sword belt to lie flat at my waist, who needed not to catch any man’s eye, but instead slip unseen through the palace.

So when I looked down one morning and saw the fabric straining against my chest, I had not felt the glow of satisfaction that I was turning into a woman. I had felt horror. I had felt betrayal. This could not be happening, I told myself. It happened to other women—but not to me. Not to me. I was not really a woman, after all, as Miriel was so fond of pointing out, but some strange thing, half girl and half boy. I did not want to be a woman. I had run to Roine and begged for linen to bind my breasts.  Her lips had tightened, as they did when I asked for something that would help me continue in the Duke’s service, but she had acquiesced.

Every morning since, I had risen early, snuck out of the bedroom, and wrapped the
bandages as tightly as I could around my chest, one thought always in my mind: Temar could not see me that way. At the very thought of it, even weeks later, panic gripped me. Temar could
not
see me this way.