The Fall of The Kings (Riverside) (32 page)

Theron put himself to the task of calming her, which wasn’t hard, her tempers being as brief as they were rare. He wrote a contrite note to the duchess promising to come as soon as he was decent, and rushed up the stairs, stripping off his filthy coat and shirt as he went. He burst into his room where Terence was waiting with a bath before the fire and the razors laid out. “The suit is ruined,” he announced, “and I’m as filthy as a dockman. Can you turn me back into a duke’s son again in less than an hour?”

Terence, who was fond of his rackety and generous young master, frowned sternly. “I might contrive, sir, if you do as you’re told and don’t distract me.”

Not much more than an hour had passed before Theron presented himself to his mother, clean and rosy and freshly clothed in fine blue wool. Sophia embraced him warmly when she saw him, but all she said was, “Where is your hat? You’ll catch your death, going out with wet hair.”

Theron bit back an objection and stepped into the chair waiting at the door without saying that he’d rather walk to the Bridge where a carriage waited to take him up the Hill to Tremontaine House.

The sledding had ended with the short MidWinter day. When Theron came into the tall and glowing entry-hall, children of both sexes and every age between five and fifteen were running up and down the long, shallow sweep of the grand staircase, screaming at the tops of their lungs. Marcus’s wife, Susan, stood at the bottom with her hands folded at her waist, watching them.

“We just came in,” she said in greeting. “They’ll all collapse soon. Katherine’s in the library, Theron. If I were you, I’d leave your high horse at the door.”

Theron kissed her round cheek. “I’ll leave it here for you to keep an eye on. Is she very angry?”

“Livid,” said Susan calmly. “Andy, watch that little boy. He’ll be over the banister in a minute.”

Theron composed himself and entered the library. His mind and body were still flushed with love; and the hot bath and careful grooming, the crisp, fresh linen and the hot brick in the carriage had done nothing to dispel his sense of well-being. He had no idea what the duchess was in a tear about, but he’d find out soon enough. I’ll give up anything but Basil, he thought.

Katherine’s cheeks were still scarlet from the sledding. She looked Theron up and down and smiled icily. “Transformation,” she said. “From young thug-about-town to noble scion of Tremontaine. It’s wonderful how you do that, Theron.”

A cold spot grew in his spine. “Cousin,” he said formally, “whatever ill you have heard of me has gravely upset Sophia. She can’t even get the words out.”

“Don’t you think,” Katherine answered civilly, “that it’s time you stopped hiding behind the affection we all feel for your mother?”

He felt the blood leave his face. She was a woman, she was his kin and his superior in rank. He could not strike her. “Are you going to tell me what I’ve done, or just insult me?”

“I am waiting for an apology.”

“For
what,
in god’s name?”

She drew a deep breath. “Theron. You’ve never lied to me—and believe me, I would know. That leaves only the equally unsavory possibility that you were so outrageously drunk on Last Night that you have absolutely no memory of leading a gang of drunken students on a rampage through University and out the North Gate, terrorizing citizens and pulling down property as you went.” Her clear eyes gazed at him, leaving him no grace.

“I don’t—” he stammered. “It wasn’t like that.”

“What was it like, then,” she said snidely, “the Battle of Pommerey? At least you don’t deny it. That’s a good place to start. Which is nice, since quite a few people saw you at the head of your little army. Some of your scholarly friends have been picked up for questioning; I’m surprised you don’t know that. Your intelligence isn’t very good, I guess, or you just don’t care. But you may thank me, when you’ve a mind, for keeping you out of the Chop along with them. Or if you’ve no mind to thank me for anything, thank the House of Tremontaine. By god, Theron!” she exploded. “It’s not as though we ask much of you. You have your books, your studies, even your colorful assortment of sweethearts—nobody says a word, we deny you nothing—all we ask is that you keep our name clean. And you repay us by making yourself into a civic menace!”

She stopped, hands clenched on the back of a chair, waiting for Theron to say something. Theron returned her glare for glare, choked on the unfairness of her accusation. All he ever did was worry about keeping the family name clean. He’d pulled back a hundred times from serious misdemeanors of the kind his friends indulged in; he even went to boring parties on the Hill when he’d rather be studying or lying in the arms of someone he loved. But what could he tell her?
I
didn’t lead them; I was being chased.
Or maybe,
I didn’t start it.
They did
.

“There’s more—” he began. “More to it than that.”

“More?” she asked, nostrils flared. “How much more?”

He drew his shoulders back. “Speak to Peter Godwin. Or to Sebastian Hemmynge. They were there, too; they saw. You have no regard for me or for my word. Ask them.”

“I may,” she said. “Meanwhile, have you any objection if restitution is made to the city out of your Highcombe revenues? I hold them in trust, and I want to be scrupulous.”

“Of course.” It wasn’t as though the students actually responsible could pay for anything, he knew. Dimly, he wondered what sort of damage had been wrought in the chase through the city streets. Wood, probably, for that awful bonfire. He had known nothing but the exhilaration and terror of the hunt.

“Good. And I do trust your word. I will have it, in fact, that for the remainder of the holiday you will confine yourself to Riverside House.”

“What? Oh, no.”

“Oh, you are free to attend all the parties you’ve already accepted invitations for, or to go about on visits with your mother.”

“What purpose would my going out in society serve, if I’ve already been exposed as a thug?”

She looked surprised. “But you haven’t been, Theron. That’s what I’ve been telling you. We’ve made sure that as few people as possible know of your involvement in this.”

“Thanks to Tremontaine.” It came out more bitterly than he’d meant.

“If you like,” she said dryly. “Have I your word?”

“I— No. I cannot give it.” Katherine waited, eyebrows raised. “I have a friend—a lover, at University. Not . . . one of the rampaging gang. A magister. He would take it very ill if I were to abandon him now.”

“You may write him a note.”

“He wouldn’t understand. He thinks—he believes a nobleman is master of his own life. And, unlike you, he believes me a man grown.”

“Does he, now?” Her contempt was palpable. “Well, we wouldn’t want to disappoint him.”

Theron had been in trouble with her before, but it hadn’t been like this: she’d never fully unleashed her cold, pure power on him as if he were an adult, an equal, an enemy. “Katherine.” He held out a hand toward her. “Please. I am sorry—most heartily sorry—to have offended you and . . . to have done what I did on Last Night. I promise, it won’t happen again, or anything like it.”

“See to it.” She turned away, her business done—but then relented. “Theron.” She leaned across the table to him. “You may piss away the duchy if you like—I don’t have to threaten to deprive you of Tremontaine, you know as well as I do what steps you might take to lose it. But don’t make us all ashamed of you.”

His eyes pricked with foolish tears. “I think of you,” he said, “more than you know.”

She held out her hand, and he took it and kissed it, without flourish.

LORD NICHOLAS GALING HAD NOT SENT A NOTE TO SAY he was coming, and perhaps he should have. But he felt that the less time Ysaud had to prepare herself and her studio against his visit, the more he would have the advantage. What advantage, he was not sure—but it was always nice to have one. Especially where Ysaud was concerned. He was just pleased that she was still in town and working during the MidWinter Festival, instead of off enjoying the hospitality of some patron’s country house.

It was a gray day, and late. She’d be running out of natural light at any moment. He was counting on it. Meanwhile, Galing threw another stick on the fire her servant had left him with. Nothing but sticks—no logs. Tiresome, and vaguely insulting—but one couldn’t mind that with Ysaud; it was a part of doing business with her.

“Would you care to see my latest?”

He straightened swiftly. The artist stood in the doorway behind him, letting in a draft. The small woman, dressed in a gray robe lined with squirrel fur, was not troubled by it. “I doubt it would appeal to you, though: nymphs. I’m doing a whole frieze of them.”

“Oh? For whom?”

She smiled. “You’ll see. It will be very grand: a staircase. I’ll cartoon it, and let some apprentice do the painting.”

He followed her into her studio. It looked as if it had been a ballroom once, with long, uncurtained windows and tall mirrors lining the walls to make the most of the light. It was cluttered with canvases at various stages of composition and a model’s stand and a sofa and closed stoves set up in the marble fireplaces—hardly elegant, but workmanlike and warm. As it would have to be, if Ysaud’s models were as naked as the work on the easel. She was right; it didn’t appeal to him. “Not your usual,” he said.

The artist shrugged. “ ‘My usual.’ What’s that?”

He looked closer. “This is nothing but shapes. Lines and shadow.”

“Well, it
is
going to be a frieze. I see it as a timeless dance. Beautiful women—with nowhere to go.” She laughed.

“It’s all . . . form,” Galing concluded. “There’s no drama. Usually your pictures imply a story, even if you’re not referring to an actual historical event.”

“Oh. You mean like this?” She strolled over to a large canvas facing the wall, and pivoted it on one corner till it faced Lord Nicholas.

He was looking through a frame of dark, painted leaves: oak, mostly, and some holly, densely layered. The scene at the center was a glade: pale moonlight, and a bonfire with dancing figures flashing black and gold around it. The figures were naked, young, the leap of their long hair echoing the leap of the flames. The leaves crowded around them, hiding shadows: a stag, a bear, a wolf, a boar. Except for the shadows, it might have been a rustic Last Night—or a group of drunken students dancing in the wood.

“This is new,” he said, careful to hide his excitement.

“A few months. I thought it might be in your style.”

“Why mine?”

She grinned at him, her pointed face foxy. “Lord Nicholas, really. I remember your specifications perfectly well.”

“Truly,” he went on, ignoring her reference to his last commission; “it’s quite wonderful. Have you got any more like it?”

“Nearly two dozen. But not for sale.”

“Oh? Private commission?”

“Hardly. Where would anyone put them all?”

“What are you going to do with them?”

She frowned. “I’m really not sure. It was enough just to have done them. For now.”

She pulled out another. Even with the huge windows and the mirrors, the fading light made things look powdery and illusory. Curiously, the paintings seemed more alive than any other thing in the studio. The second canvas was a more reasonable size. It showed a man’s torso, lit by moonlight, rising from behind a holly bush. The head was out of the frame— but beyond the figure, on the ground, was the shadow of a stag’s antlers.

Galing felt his skin crawl. “What is this?” he breathed.

“You mean,
who?
” she said smugly. “That’s just it, isn’t it? Nice-looking fellow.”

“Oh, come.” He was suddenly annoyed. “Everyone knows who, if it’s last year’s work. It was all over town.”

“Be nice.” She considered another canvas, then made a great show of putting it back unseen, and instead opened a portfolio and presented him with a demure sketch: a young man, fully dressed in antique clothes. His face was arresting: she’d captured an odd mix of the sensual and the austere. Galing studied it for a long time.

“You know my young friend, then?”

Galing could not swear he’d never seen Lord Theron Campion. It was more than likely that they’d been at the same balls or parties—he might even have spoken with him. But he certainly had never seen him through the eyes of the artist.

“I know of him,” said Galing mildly. “This is quite remarkable. May I see the final work?”

“It didn’t come out. I painted over it. This was the best of the studies.”

“A historical piece. One of the old kings?”

“Yes, he was good at kings.”

“I expect it’s the hair. The old kings always look like today’s scholars to me.”

“Oh, if it’s hair you like—” Ysaud wrestled with another canvas, propped it against the wall for his inspection. But the light really was going, now; all he could discern was a pattern of light and dark. She brought forward a branch of candles, and the scene sprang to life.

A pool in the forest, flat and bright. A man knelt by it, naked from the waist up. He seemed to be gazing into the pool; his face was hidden by a fall of hair, some of it braided with ribbon. His arms were braced against the pool’s edge; his hands were tense. What he stared at so intently, reflected back from the water, was the muzzle of a deer. A stag.