Shadowforged (Light & Shadow) (18 page)

“You planned this? For her to be his mistress?” He had been correct to call me a dullard, I should have known. Had I not heard him say that if her plans fell through, he had plans to keep her in the King’s eye? What else could he have meant? Now, he laughed in my face.

“What else? My niece may be mad for the title, but I have never been so foolish. Do you see Isra, girl? She has a title, and it means nothing. Power slips away from her. The Queen has never been the center of the court, not where there are dozens of pretty girls for the taking. But the power held by the Kings’ mistresses…you should study your history again, Catwin. Study it, and wonder whose voice it was that came from the throne.”

“And so you would control the King’s mistress, and be the power behind the throne in that way.” It made sense—and yet, it was such a strange idea that I must say the words out loud in order to believe them.

“Just so.”

“But she’s still not to let him…” I was blushing again, and he nodded, cool and impersonal.

“Not yet. I will tell you when.”

Bile nearly came up in my throat as I bowed. I walked alone back to Miriel’s rooms, dawdling all the way. I did not know what to tell her; I did not even want to let the words pass my lips. I wanted only to go to the baths and scrub myself until I could feel clean once more. I had to remind myself, every step of the way, that it was worth it to feign agreement with the Duke, with everyone who disgusted me. He was right: I should be less squeamish. But I did not like it. I did not like it at all.

Chapter 18

Miriel spent the next days in a frenzy of irritation: at me, at her uncle, at the King. As the court circled her, avidly desiring any clue she might let slip, she watched them all through her smiling mask, and then she came back to the room to spit accusations out through clenched teeth. She spoke against anyone I might mention, until I nearly shouted at her to ask if she suspected me, too. She pursed her lips, and eventually shook her head, but I saw fear in her eyes. She feared being a mistress, she knew what spite the court would level at her. She was clever with the rules, and yet—and yet. This was too much for her. She resented her uncle for planning this, knowing that he would not be the one to bear the shame and malice.

“If you want to be Queen, I will help you,” I told her.

“What do you mean,
if
I want to be Queen? I have to be Queen now,” she said. “Don’t you see? If I’m a mistress, he can cast me off any time he wants—and he came back to me from habit. He knows, don’t you see?”

“Knows what?” I asked, bewildered, and she stamped her foot at my slowness.

“He knows he can rule without me. He negotiated a peace treaty without me, didn’t he? And so now he loves me, but not the same way. He consults me, but it’s a habit, not need. Now it’s all his heart, he knows he does not need to listen to my advice in the same way. And if I don’t hold him somehow, his love will fade and he’ll slip away entirely.” I had the thought, disconcerting, that this was what her uncle had intended for Miriel. To seduce the King: blind the man with desire, and become once more his only confidant, his closest advisor. If Miriel had known my thoughts, there would have been a storm of shouting, but she was biting her lip and staring off into space. Quietly, she finished her speech.

“If I am a mistress, I will still need my uncle’s help. I will only be free of him when I am Queen.”

She fell silent, and I had no answer for her. The man who still had her life in the palm of his hand did not care if she was Queen or mistress. He could sign her over to the King, or he could even insist that the King choose another. As if we had both had the same thought, she looked up at me.

“Find out,” she ordered me. “You find out what he and the King speak of. Find out if he truly bargains for me, or against me. I have to know.”

“I’ll go now. You stay here. Don’t go anywhere. Don’t answer the door. Don’t meet the King.” She nodded at my wisdom, too distracted by her fear to snap that she already knew to do so, and I slipped out the door almost at once, making for the cellars and the tunnels. I would wait in the hallway, I determined, with the secret door cracked so I could hear people passing by, and I would see the Duke and Temar as they passed by. The Duke should be in a Council meeting, I knew, and Temar had told me that the marriage might be finalized today.

He had expressly forbidden me to leave Miriel alone for the duration of the marriage negotiations as well, of course. I bit my lip, and then shook my head to clear it of fear. Miriel had ordered me to do this, and I obeyed her over Temar. That was the way my loyalty fell now.

I wandered for most of the afternoon, hovering at the end of the hallway and peering down at the Duke’s rooms, asking servants of the Palace proper if the Council was in session, even making my way into the library on a pretense that I must deliver a message. It was close to time for dinner and I was returning, defeated, to Miriel’s chambers, when a servant told me that the Council had been adjourned, and the men returned to their chambers an hour past. I thanked him as politely as I could and raced off down the hall, slowing to a walk as I approached the Duke’s doors.

“Is his lordship here?” I asked, as politely as I could.

“He’s just gone,” one of his guards told me, and I nodded.

“Thank you,” I said. I walked until I was out of sight, and then broke into a run, making my way down to the wine cellar, and the secret passageways.

I hurried down the steps into the cellar, looked around to make sure no one was about, pulled the door to the tunnels open as quietly as I could—and stopped dead. I had a chance to follow Temar and the Duke, and hear what they discussed. But if I was caught—and who was I trailing, after all, but the best spy in the world?—I would almost certainly be dead. I wondered what Miriel would say to that, and had the uncomfortable thought that she would simply retort,
well, don’t get caught, then
.

After a few moments of warring with myself, I stepped into the darkness. This was what I had been trained for. This was why Temar had told me that the greatest skill of a Shadow lay not in killing, but in listening. I had agreed to be Miriel’s ally in this world, and that meant using my talents, not staying out of danger.

I sat on the stairs until my eyes grew used to the light. Even here, bits of light filtered down through floorboards and chinks in the rock. Then I got up and crept onwards. Months ago, I had spent a few hours exploring these tunnels, and then a few more nights learning the layout of them so that I could walk them in the dark. Temar had always told me that it was better to creep in the dark without a light—not only more stealthy, but the darkness would make my hearing more acute. I would notice potential enemies before they noticed me, he told me.

I knew the passageways well now, and so I crept through them pad-footed, without hesitation. My fingers trailed along the wall, to catch the markers I had learned, and I was able to devote only a small piece of my mind to finding my way, with the rest being devoted to any noise my ears might catch.

My vigilance was rewarded. Close to the exit that would take me up into the palace proper, I saw the faint glow of a torch and I heard voices. I froze for a moment, gauging the threat, and noted that the light and the conversation were growing fainter. My quick progress had led me into a problem. If they were not minded to move away from the entrance, I would be trapped, and would miss the Duke as he walked by. As I grew closer, however, I realized with a start that my companions in the tunnels were the Duke himself, and Temar.

I was tempted to turn and run. I could move quietly enough that Temar would not hear me over their conversation. I could get back to Miriel, knowing that they would not catch me, and she and I would be safe from their anger. But I had been taught too well, I was too curious. As if of their own volition, my feet moved to carry me forward, and I breathed as slowly and quietly as I could. I had to know what they were saying, when they did not think we would be listening.

“You can’t be serious,” the Duke was saying.

“She’s been right to be confident before,” Temar said reasonably. “She got further, faster, than you had anticipated.” I frowned in the darkness.

“She got nothing for that.”

“Not yet. But she might now, if you can sign the treaty today. It can be signed and sealed and public, and your blood will sit on the throne. I know you did not seek it, but to have your descendants be Kings
rather than a King’s bastards…worth a little gamble, perhaps?” Temar’s voice was so persuasive that my hackles went up. Even the Duke sensed something amiss.

“What are you hiding?” he
asked sharply. “And you remember your vow—I wanted the power of the throne for myself, not for that brat.”

I had reached a corner of the corridor and I strained to hear them as they continued picking their way down the long stretch, lit by the flickering light of their torch. I peeked around the corner for a moment and grinned at the sight of Temar walking patiently at the Duke’s side. He looked like I sometimes felt when I was constrained to walk with Miriel: like a wing-clipped falcon, like a caged beast. He longed to move quickly and quietly through the dark, a skill he had cultivated to serve the man who now hindered his progress.

Watching him, I wondered how the animals of the King’s menagerie felt, able to kill any of the puny beings that looked into their cages, yet bound back by bars of iron. I felt a strange darkness at the thought. I had no true cage, save my own thoughts. There was nothing to keep me from lashing out at any of the nobles who walked these halls. It seemed like a very thin barrier all of a sudden.

Shadow
. Temar had lied when he told me, “
there is more to this than the part you fear,
” for his training had warped the very core of myself. I stood in the shadows of the corridor and feared that a transformation had begun, and I would not be able to stop it. Then I heard Temar’s voice very faintly, and realized that the two of them had rounded another corner.

Shaking my head to clear it, I followed after them. Temar’s voice was bland, careful.

“I think only that Miriel and Catwin are correct to be confident. If Miriel is not made Queen, they will believe that you—we—meddled.” His voice grew chilly for a moment. “And I remember my vow well, my Lord.”

The Duke laughed, and I thought that his mirth sounded unkind. “So I can see. You never forget, do you? As for Catwin and Miriel…they can believe what they like, as long as they do what they’re told,” the Duke said. “I don’t want to hear those words from your mouth again—you’ve let Catwin blind you to Miriel’s failings.”

“You know,” Temar said, musing, “she almost never speaks of Miriel. And I am well aware of Miriel’s failings, but she has quite a talent for manipulation. You should be more wary.” No one else could have said that to the Duke and lived, but even when the Duke was irritated, he would listen to Temar. He said, testily,

“I am always wary. I do not trust the girl.”

“You think you know her motivations,” Temar observed. “And that is a kind of trust.”

“You think you know better than I do what she wants?” the Duke’s voice was growing dangerous again, but Temar seemed unperturbed. He was deep in thought.

“It’s why you accepted the bargain,” he said absently. “Any man can use blades, but very few can see into the hearts of others. I can. And I am telling you that Miriel wants something, something very specific, that you do not know of. She has spoken to no one about it. She keeps it hidden. But she is pursuing some goal.”

“She’ll have told Catwin,” the Duke said, and I shrank away, as if he could see me, as if he might know I was there with them.

“Perhaps,” Temar said evasively. I felt a moment of warmth that he might not want to question me.

“Enough of this. I have told you a dozen times—you owe Catwin nothing.”

“Yes, my Lord.” Temar’s voice was distant.

“So you will find out from Catwin what it is that Miriel wants.”

“Yes, my Lord.”

“And you will remember that your choice of Catwin is nothing like my choice of you.” Temar did not respond to that at all, and I narrowed my eyes, crept as close as I could to the corner. I barely breathed; I must know what he would say to that. I felt I was on fire, I was so curious. But he did not speak, and so the Duke said, normally,

“So. You think I should sign the treaty, then?”

“Of course.” They must have exchanged a look, for Temar’s voice took on a persuasive tone. “Say she’s unbiddable, then—you need her only as long as it takes for her to bear sons. Then she can have an accident.” After Temar’s protection of me, his words were jarring; then again, he had always hated Miriel on the Duke’s behalf.

The Duke was neither shocked nor offended. He laughed. “True. If she can hold him that long, then why not?”

Holding my breath, I backed away, and then, at the second corner, I turned and fled, as silently as I could, to Miriel. More knowledge, more plots—and some agreement between Temar and the Duke. A need, also, to blind Temar before he scented the whole of the truth. I was not such a fool as to think that we could turn Temar. I told myself that as I ran:
I am not a fool, not a fool
. Temar could have loved me and embraced the rebellion with his whole heart, and he would gut both of us at the Duke’s instruction. I had always known this, I told myself. But it hurt, even after all these months, and even the strange discussion of an agreement, a hint at last of
why
…that did not dull the hurt, either. Tears stung my eyes, and I was glad that I did not need to see to make my way back.

“It hurts to know that he would kill you,” Miriel observed when I had told her. I heard sympathy in her voice, and I sniffled and nodded, wiping my nose on the back of my hand like a child. Her sympathy was gone in an instant: “Well, remember how it hurts, and then be done with it. We don’t have time for you to be like this with an enemy.”

“You were like this over Garad,” I muttered, and her eyes flashed.

“Just so. And I cut him out of my heart when he betrayed me.” I thought of Wilhelm’s blue eyes, and how Miriel softened at the edges when she was in his company, and I thought that perhaps she had not so much cut Garad away as realized that Wilhelm was the man she wanted to be the King. Then I realized that perhaps she had not realized as much; I said nothing.

Miriel herself had sunk into repose. She was sitting on the window seat, staring out at the street below. The midday sunlight illuminated her pale yellow dress, and for a moment, she looked far younger than her sixteen years: delicate, porcelain-skinned. Then she looked back at me and the spell was broken. Her eyes were cold and hard.

“So I must get rid of him before he can get rid of me,” she said simply, and I did not know if she meant her uncle, or the King. I nodded.