The Fall of The Kings (Riverside) (34 page)

“I do beg your pardon, Karleigh. Do you know that boy in gold brocade?”

The old man followed Galing’s gaze to the clump in the corner. “Puppy with the long tail?” he asked jovially. “That’d be the Lady Sophia Campion’s boy—I misremember his name. Something outlandish. Theodolite?”

“Theron,” Galing murmured. “Lord Theron Campion.”

His body had recognized him if his mind had not, telling him with certainty that he had seen this man naked and desired him. As who would not? he thought as he threaded his way through the crowd toward his quarry. Ysaud had taken good care that anyone looking on those paintings would long to possess their subject. It would be the height of imprudence, of course, especially if Theron proved to be mixed up in the Northern affair. Lord Arlen would not approve. Still, the boy was very beautiful.

Galing stepped into Campion’s line of sight and bowed. “Lord Theron Campion, is it not? I believe we met last year, at the Filisands’ Daffodil Ball.” It was a safe bet; everyone on the Hill attended that one. Galing saw the puzzled frown on Theron’s face, but, gamely, the boy pretended to remember.

“Oh, yes. How are you?”

“As you see.” Galing smiled self-deprecatingly, winning a polite smile in return. “We spoke then of University. I see you still attend.”

But this time he had pushed it too far. The handsome face closed up. “That’s common knowledge.” Poor young thing! His every thought was reflected on his features for the world to see. Galing could see what the appeal was for Ysaud, and how she would have played with him. His manners were atrocious. Galing couldn’t resist trying if he could overcome them with charm.

“Ah,” he said, “but common knowledge is so . . . common.”

This amused the boy. “It is, at least, a basis from which to start,” he agreed. “Now: we have established that I study at University.”

“And your subject is—?”

“Rhetoric.”

Galing burst out laughing. “The elements of speech, in fact! And I’ve just put my foot in it.”

A rueful smile. “You have, rather. Though it was a prime use of antanaclasis: the repetition of a word whose meaning changes in the iteration.”

“I see. Far over my head. Now, me, I would be more likely to study something a bit less . . . strenuous. Geography, maybe, or history. Who would you recommend for history?”

Lord Theron frowned. “Well, Doctor Wilson isn’t very strenuous. But Doctor Roger Crabbe, in Farraday, enjoys a following among the nobles.”

Galing noticed with interest that Lord Theron did not think of himself as a noble. “Really?” he said lazily. “I’ve heard Crabbe is a bit of a bore.”

“He’s not especially known for his originality.” Theron paused. “You might prefer Basil St Cloud, then. He’s in LeClerc. Just remember, visitors must sit in the gallery so they don’t bother the serious students. Alternate mornings at nine.” Theron surveyed Galing up and down, from his polished shoes to the fashionable embroidery on his collar. “Too early for you, perhaps.”

“Perhaps.” Really, the boy was practically begging for a set-down. But Galing wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. He wondered what Theron had made of that quick survey of his body. He thought of what the young nobleman was hiding under his shirt collar, and took a steadying breath. “But perhaps not. I may see you there some day?”

Theron said quickly, “Oh, I’m not a historian.”

“I may see you elsewhere, then.”

“At another MidWinter ball, no doubt.” The clear, light voice was cool, reserved. He couldn’t be bothered to flirt—not with Nicholas, anyway. It rankled, knowing what Nicholas knew of the boy’s body, abandoned and louche on the paper locked in his desk. Playing the prim little scholar with all his might, this son of a notorious rake, cousin of a public scandal, heir to a title that was a byword for madness. Nicholas could not resist. “I’m surprised you don’t give a ball at Riverside House,” he said; “though it would be hard to surpass the parties of the last duke there.”

He had scored, and handsomely. The boy’s face paled with rage. “If ever,” he said tautly, “I do make the attempt, I will be sure to invite you so that you can check it for accuracy. You don’t look old enough to remember them, but perhaps I am mistaken.”

Galing showed his teeth. “Yes. I’m afraid you are.”

So there was to be no amorous pursuit, Galing thought as the boy turned and walked away. No loss; it was another sort of chase Nicholas had in mind, with higher stakes and graver consequences. If Lord Theron proved to be involved with royalists in any way, bringing him to justice would be a positive pleasure.

A little while later, Galing saw Campion again, dancing with a girl like a porcelain figurine, all soft dark hair and stiff white lace. Ysaud was small and dark, too. At least this time he’d chosen one who wouldn’t bite.

THERON WAS ABLE TO DANCE ONCE AGAIN WITH Genevieve Randall. A third time would have aroused comment, and so he took many other partners, including a bouncing blonde whose dancing he enjoyed thoroughly, although her flirting alarmed him. He never knew how to respond to noble girls who flirted with him; he was always sure that he would say the wrong thing. One thing he particularly liked about Genevieve was that she didn’t flirt. She answered his questions in a soft, pretty voice, and laughed when he ventured a mild joke. After handing his last partner back to her mother, Theron went in search of the Randalls again, thinking that he might talk to Genevieve and look at her, even if he couldn’t dance with her. But the Randalls, mother, daughter, and son, had gone, as well as the bouncing blonde. No longer hungry or thirsty, Theron suddenly longed for bed, the warmest bed he could find, which was in a small room on Minchin Street.

KNOWING HIS LOVER WOULD NOT COME TO HIM THAT night, Basil set himself to the long-delayed task of sorting through the papers that had migrated in unrelated piles from his bed to his worktable. A phrase in his own hand caught his eye: “Anselm the Wise was beyond doubt the last of the kings who was entirely sane. He was also the last of the kings whose chief wizard-advisor was trained in the North.”

Was that true? What about Anselm’s heir’s wizard, what was his name? Ranulph? Abandoning the table, Basil rooted through old lists, diaries, letters, until, some hours later, he established to his satisfaction that Ranulph had indeed been the first Southern-born wizard to pursue his training entirely at the University. It had been part of Anselm’s new rulings, he remembered, that the wizards “make themselves of Use to the Kyngdome, All its People, through our Schole of Studye, by teching their Practices and oder Wisdomes there.” He was speculating happily on why Southern-trained wizards might not have turned out as powerful as their Northern-trained teachers when footsteps on the stairs outside stopped at his door. The latch lifted, and a perfumed gentleman appeared in the shadows.

“Oh. Am I disturbing you?”

“No.” Basil shuffled his notes together, closed the inkwell, rubbed his cramped fingers. “No. I was just winding down. You look cold. Come in by the fire.”

“There isn’t any fire. You’ve let it go out.”

“So I have, so I have.” Basil peered in the wood-basket; it was empty. “Sit down and take some brandy while I fill this. Here,” snagging the quilt from the bed, “wrap this around your legs. I won’t be a moment. Did you know that the University as we know it could be said to have been established by Anselm’s wizards?”

“I don’t want to hear it just now,” said Theron petulantly.

For the first time, Basil looked straight at him. “Oh, my dear,” he said. The boy looked like a doll, white face and glittering eyes above an elaborate costume.

“I’m tired,” he said. “Please let me lie down.”

“Are you all right?”

“Yes—but never mind the fire. Just come and warm me.”

Basil undressed him, save for his chain and rings, and covered them both with every blanket he possessed, as well as both his scholar’s gowns and Theron’s rich cloak. “There,” he said when the boy stopped shivering. “Better?”

“Yes. I’m sorry; I should not have disturbed your work. But I’m cold and weary and my cheeks ache from smiling. All I want is to rest quiet and warm.”

Basil said, “Why must you go out at all? Can’t you just stay home and read a book sometimes? It’s too much, all this running back and forth, staying out late and leaving early. Lord knows what you’ll do when term begins again.”

“I have to go. I can’t just disappear into University, into my studies, however much I want to.” Theron had never told Basil about his conversation with his annoying cousin Talbert, much less about the Duchess Katherine’s latest threats. They were a side of his life he did not see any reason for Basil to have to encounter. But he tried to explain it simply. “Someday I must take my place among the nobles of this city. They have to know me. My mother put up with a great deal of nonsense from these people over my birth and my inheritance. I owe it to her, and to my family, to do the thing properly.”

“You speak as though you were not one of ‘them.’ ”

Theron gave an embarrassed shrug. “I am, by birth. Someday I shall take my seat in Council. . . .”

“But you don’t look forward to it.”

“There is so much I want to study first! So much to learn!”

“But, Theron . . .” Basil fingered the chain around his neck. “Theron, you are no scholar.”

“What?”

“Not a real one,” Basil went on gently. “Not by temperament. You must know that.”

“Not a scholar?” Theron tried to make light of it, but Basil could hear the pain in his voice. “When I’ve spent almost as many years here as Master Tortua?”

“Oh, yes, you’ve amassed a great deal of knowledge, and you are well read. But scholarship—scholarship is a discipline, Theron. It is a single-minded pursuit of a construct of reality, a dedication to discovery and analysis. Your mind is bright and quick, quicker than many. You have a great range, and a great sense of the world.”

“But I’m a cuckoo’s egg in the University nest,” Theron finished bitterly.

“Hardly a cuckoo.” Basil smiled. “A nightingale, perhaps; or a swallow. It will serve you well, this knowledge, in years to come.”

Theron turned his face away, but Basil kept on. “Why can’t you be proud of what you are? A great noble, from the seed of kings . . .”

“
Damn
your kings! Sometimes I think you take me only because Alexander Ravenhair’s not available!”

“Hush.” Basil gave the chain a tweak. “I am trying to tell you something important. The kings no longer rule. You nobles have taken their place, and must strive to be better than they were.”

Theron sighed, burying his face in Basil’s chest. “I know. I do know. But it is hard, being two people all the time. I wish I could . . . hire someone else to go to parties for me—to remember people’s names and families, and to be charming when I don’t feel like it.”

“You mean a wife?”

Basil meant it ironically, but the young nobleman answered seriously, “Yes. I’ll have to marry someday, for the title and the lineage and all. Already they are circling, the mamas with eligible daughters. I don’t know what I will do! Marry, I suppose, and get it over with.”

“The kings didn’t need wives,” Basil said dreamily. “They had their wizards.”

“Oh, really?” Theron sounded annoyed. “How did they reproduce?”

“You’ve read Hollis. The wizards chose their women for them. The early kings’ lives were brief and turbulent; during his reign, a young king was sent out in the autumn to give his seed to the land—in other words, I suspect, to beget as many children as he could while he reigned.”

Theron murmured, “What an extraordinary amount you do know. So tell me, Basil: in the end, did the wizards corrupt the kings, or was it the kings corrupted the wizards?”

Basil opened his mouth to explain about the South and Queen Diane and the influence of the nobles, and realized that he knew a better answer. “Neither,” he said. “Both. There was no corruption as long as they loved one another.”

Theron drew back. “Now, love, my dear—love is one thing I think you are
not
qualified to lecture on.”

“Whatever do you mean?”

“I mean,” said Theron edgily, “it is ‘not a word to pass between your father’s son and mine.’ ”

Basil sighed, twisting Theron’s chain in his fingers. “That was before.”

“Before what?” Tantalizing, Theron held the chain out of his way.

“Before I—before the—it was a long time ago.”

“Weeks.” Theron drizzled the links of the chain onto Basil’s chest.

“Weeks. I’m a quick study. I love you.”

“What?”

“I love you. Mind, body, and soul, I love you. I can’t help it.”

Theron stretched and grinned. “Have you ever loved anyone else?”

It was not what Basil had wanted him to say. “No,” he answered, rather sharply. “Never.”

“Never?” Theron tweaked the chain. “Not very experienced, are you?”

“I never pretended to be. I’ve had other lovers, of course.”

“Really? How many?”

Basil tabulated his actual conquests, added the ones he might have had if he had cared to try for them, and answered, “Eight. Or so.”

“Eight. Or so. And you never told one you loved him?”