The Fall of The Kings (Riverside) (47 page)

He said, “Will you dance?”, noting that it took her a moment to acquiesce. Then he drew her away from the crowded ballroom, leaving the girls to whisper with delight.

“Oh!” Genevieve looked back at the brightly lit room, as he led her into the shadows of a quiet corridor. He had never been alone with her before; it had never been permitted. But no one came after her. He turned her, and it was like a dance, so that she was facing him, her back to the wall. He did not let go her hand, and he felt it warming in his grasp.

“You look beautiful,” he said. “I thought so the very first time I saw you.”

She smiled. “I remember. It was at the Lassiters’ ball. I was wearing my willow cream silk, and I was afraid it made me look sallow.”

“No. You had your hair up very high.” With great care, he reached out his hand and touched one lock of hair over her ear and raised it up. “Your ears were exposed, just like this, and I wanted to kiss them.”

“Kiss my ears?”

He showed her. She stiffened when she felt his lips, and then she laughed, and then she leaned into his arms. Her ears were pierced, hung with huge pearl drops. He sucked one into his mouth, tasting her and smelling her at once. He made a noise in the back of his throat, and her tiny fingers gripped the cloth of his jacket. He worked his tongue around her earlobe, feeling the pearl clatter against his teeth. She clung to him harder.

He had never kissed a noble girl before. She smelt of powder and perfume, gold wire and silk and her own sharp sweet sweat. The tops of her breasts glowed like twin moons pushing out of her gown, held there in perpetual temptation by her corset. He kissed her parted lips, and then he pulled away.

“I think,” he said, “if we were married, we would”—he paused for breath—“we would enjoy one another.”

Her mouth quirked gently. “Would you eat
all
my jewelry?”

He said, “Perhaps. Will you marry me?”

“Everyone wants me to.”

“I want you to.”

“Well then, I will. Yes.”

“Yes?” He looked into her eyes, where his mother told him the truth resides. She looked back at him, bright and clear and young. Theron nodded. He took a ruby ring from his finger. “This is mine,” he said, “and my family’s.” He slid it over her forefinger, where it was still too large. “You keep it. Wear it for me.”

Shyly, she kissed his finger where the ring had been. “I will like being married to you,” she said, keeping her eyes on his hands.

“I hope so.”

“They tell me you are wild,” she confided to his hands, “but I don’t think so.”

“It’s true. I am wild, or I have been.”

“Oh,” she said, glancing up swiftly. “I don’t mind. That is—it sounds as if you’ve had an exciting life.”

He smoothed his thumb over her fingers. “I will try to make you happy,” he heard himself say, just like a bad romance.

She looked into his eyes, her face aglow. “When we are married,” she said, and he said, “Yes?”

“When we are married, there is one thing I would like.”

“What is it?”

“I was thinking . . .” She dropped her eyes and blushed. He waited. “I was wondering, perhaps, if I might see your hair unbound.”

Swiftly he raised his hand and undid the clasp. His long hair came tumbling down around his shoulders, down his back, a smoky waterfall. Like a child who cannot resist a sweet, she reached for it, tangled her fingers in the silky mass. “Oh,” she cried. “How I would love to brush it!”

He almost laughed. Instead he said, “Well, help me gather it back up, or I will start behaving as if we are already married, and I’m told contracts have been broken over less.”

It felt good, the way she ran her hands through his hair, smoothing it out, neatening him up, her fingers fumbling at the clasp in the dark for a moment before it closed.

“Don’t lose the ring,” he said. “Your parents have to see that you’ve accepted it from me, and then they can announce our engagement.”

“I know,” she said; “it’s next week. The Montague banquet, Mama thought, because everyone will be there.”

“Next week? Why not tonight?”

“It isn’t proper. They always wait a few days before the formal announcement, in case—well, to give people time to get used to it, I suppose.”

“Or in case you want to change your mind?”

“Or you change yours,” she said.

“I wouldn’t dare. My lawyers would have me killed.”

To his surprise, she looked alarmed. “Is there trouble? With my dowry?”

He said gently, “If there were, I wouldn’t be here now, no matter how beautiful your ears.”

But everyone must have known, and the announcement would be a mere formality, for the heir to Tremontaine danced with the Randalls’ daughter three times that night, and three times more, and the other girls flirted ferociously with him, now that he was safely bound, while their sweet-hearts and brothers welcomed him as one of themselves at last, drinking with him so deeply that he forgot all about a promise he had made to a man on Minchin Street.

BASIL WOKE AS DAWN WAS SILVERING THE CITY. HE was slumped over his table, cramped and cold and weary. He was aware of a sullen rage burning in him like a banked fire, and the unwelcome fact that he had a lecture to give. He pulled together his notes, jammed a hat on his head, and stopped by the Nest for something hot on his way to LeClerc.

His lecture that morning was more discursive than usual, its subject being the fabled wizard Guidry. A forest of legends and stories had grown up around the name, obscuring everything but the undeniable fact that a wizard named Guidry had served every king of the North from Simon Thunderer to Alexander Ravenhair, spanning some two hundred years.

“Later historians have assumed,” St Cloud said, “that the original Guidry, Simon’s Guidry, founded a dynasty of wizards who shared their master’s name as they shared his statecraft and magical pre-eminence. But there’s an earlier source. You will remember that Hollis mentions a
True Chronicle of the
Wizards and Their Deeds,
written before the Union by one Martindale. The
True Chronicle
was very popular in the early years of the Union and was among the first books to be printed. Bits of it are quoted by Hollis and Placid, but Fleming states absolutely that no copies survived the Fall. Now I have found one, and very interesting it proves to be.”

Massed on their benches, St Cloud’s inner circle turned to each other with mouths agape. Who had managed to turn that treasure up? And why hadn’t he claimed his victory? But Blake and Vandeleur and Fremont and Godwin and Lindley all looked equally astonished. Basil saw no need to tell them that the gift had come from Theron Campion, a penitent Theron, making up with him after the Riverside debacle.

“I found it at home,” Theron had said, “propping up a table leg, can you believe it?”

Basil believed it more likely that the boy had taken it from the Riverside library, but he had been too thrilled to do anything but thank him and kiss him for his gift. Now that Theron had failed him again, he wondered if he could expect another such find. He wondered if it was worth it.

“According to Martindale,” Basil continued his lecture, “Guidry lived two hundred years without growing old. The description is a striking one.” Basil referred to his notes. “ ‘Tall as a bear, and thick of neck and thigh like unto a forest tree was the Wizard Guidry; hair and leaves grew upon him close, ancient in wisdom and love of the Land. Power ran in his seed and strength in his hand, and whatsoever Little King he chose, that one endured his trial and survived to be chained with gold and give his blood and bone to the Land.’ ” Basil looked up. “Martindale’s style is colorful, of course. Hollis did not scruple to call his predecessor ‘a golden-tongued rogue,’ which Delgardie and his crew took as evidence that Martindale, who saw at least one wizard Guidry with his own eyes, was a liar.

“Now. As we know from our copious dealings with the gentleman, Delgardie’s definition of a liar was simply someone who did not see the world as he himself saw it. So what are we to make of Martindale’s assertion that after two hundred years choosing and guiding the kings of the North, Guidry did not die, but hid himself away in a magical grove where he would sleep until the Land was in need of him?”

Here St Cloud paused, as if waiting for an answer, savoring the attention of his acolytes. They were a good group, strong-hearted and devoted to the truth, to the Land, and to him. One of the most promising, young Lindley, stood and said, “That it is a great mystery, magister, and like all mysteries, both true and beautiful. I would that I might live to see his return.”

The laughter began even before he finished this quaint speech, breaking the spell that had begun to gather. Basil laughed as heartily as any before saying, “It is a mystery, Lindley, but I suspect Martindale has taken poetic license in this passage to signify that Guidry’s magic will live forever, perhaps in the lost Book of the King’s Wizard. Which teaches us something about poetic license and about the ephemeral nature of books.”

All in all, it was an exhilarating morning, but an exhausting one, after a long and fruitless night. Afterward, Basil was of two minds whether to return to his books, or accompany his students to the Nest and spin out the heady feeling of power that buoyed him. He was still trying to decide when he came out of LeClerc, surrounded by his informal guard: Blake, Vandeleur, Fremont, Lindley, Godwin. An unlikely group, he found himself thinking—more townsmen than countrymen, but passionate, each in his way, and ambitious. They would have made good wizards, in a different time and place.

“Watch out there,” Vandeleur snapped.

“What shall I watch for?” a lazy voice drawled. “The Lord High Doctor of Scholarship? I’ll step aside for none less, University boy.”

Basil came to himself with a shock, saw Vandeleur and Blake confronting a small group of young men with cropped hair and lace at their throats—nobles out slumming.

“Lay off, Perry,” said one of them. “Won’t find out anything if we don’t ask politely.”

The young man made a scornful gesture and stepped aside; St Cloud and his entourage moved forward, only to be blocked by another of the group—a sturdy young man, square-faced and flushed above his foaming lace. “Beg pardon,” he said. “I’m looking for a teacher, and I thought—well, are you Doctor St Cloud? My mother wants—that is, I’m so interested in—in the kings and all. I’m Clarence Randall, by the way. My father’s Lord Randall. A Northern title, you know.” He stuck out beringed fingers, seized the magister’s hand, and pumped vigorously.

St Cloud merely looked at him, and at their joined hands, which Randall was still pumping. Randall, oblivious, chattered on. “I’ve wanted to attend your lectures ever since I heard about the challenge. Felt shy about looking you up, not being used to University ways. But here you are, dropped out of the sky. So. May I come?”

Several thoughts went through Basil’s head at once. He loathed cocky, stupid, presumptuous young puppies like Clarence Randall; his challenge was making him known beyond the University, just as Rugg and Cassius and Elton had said it would; he was in no position to send young Randall off with a flea in his ear.

“Lord Clarence,” he said, temporizing. “I don’t know if you realize the term is almost over. You’d be plunging into deep waters indeed, were you to begin your studies now. Still, if you read my
Origins of Peace,
you will have the bare bones of it. If you want to know more, you are free to come to me next fall, when I will begin a new course of lectures.”

“
The Origins of Peace,
you said?” Randall turned to his friend. “Remember that, will you, Perry?”

Perry laughed. “Remember it yourself. Whence the sudden interest in ancient history, Randall? I’d have thought cards and drinking more your line.”

Randall turned positively crimson. “Oh, it’s some notion of my mother’s.”

“Ah,” said Perry. “I see. Then you’d best ask Campion to remember it for you. He’s interested in history, too, and he’s practically a member of the family, eh, Campion?”

It was only then that St Cloud realized that Theron had joined the gaudy crowd, a crow among peacocks in his black scholar’s robe. As Perry spoke, Basil caught his lover’s gaze past Randall’s head. Theron’s green eyes shifted, veiled themselves under the heavy oval lids. He put his arm around young Randall’s broad shoulders. “I’ll remember anything you like, my dear,” he said, “as long as I don’t have to do it in the middle of the street.” And he led the boy away.

Simple bewilderment rooted Basil to the spot, followed close by rage. Someone was repeating his name; Justis Blake. St Cloud shook him off impatiently and strode off toward Minchin Street. A dry, soft breeze ruffled his hair. Winter had masked itself as spring today. There’d be another frost— there always was—to slick the streets with ice and blast the early crocuses. But true spring was not so far behind, bringing the end of the term and the Festival of Sowing and his meeting with Roger Crabbe upon the Great Hall steps. He’d been wasting his time on dalliance while his honor hung in the balance. Well, he’d dally no longer.

Back at Minchin Street, Basil sharpened his pens and mixed fresh ink and prepared to marshal his arguments concerning the wizards and the reality of their magic. He knew just what he had to say, and how, but he wrote and crossed out sentence after sentence, wrote and crumpled page after page, until at last he found himself sitting amongst a snow-drift of spoiled sheets, plagued by the memory of Theron’s face turning from him. He knew that Theron was hiding something important. Confronted, Theron would undoubtedly lie about it, try to charm or kiss his way out of an explanation. Basil thought he could bear anything better than Theron’s false protestations of love and innocence.