Temmin spent another morning dragging his mother out to ride, and in spite of herself, she almost bloomed in the fresh air and sun. Temmin began to wonder if perhaps he should stay, but after breakfast, alone in his study, his vows to the Temple convinced him otherwise. Donnis would be here any day, and with Neya's Day so close he couldn't ask for further leave. When Donnis came he would be easier in his mind. He would make sure she continued prying Mama from her rooms into the wider world.
The mirror above his mantel wavered. He looked up to see Teacher in the Tower Library, hands open in inquiry; Temmin mimed a welcome, and Teacher swirled into the room. "Shall we hear more of the story today, Your Highness? It is our last chance for now. I have seen Lady Donnis. She arrives this afternoon. You may return to the Temple this evening."
"Oh. Well, it's for the best, I suppose."
"You are less enthusiastic than I expected. Are you concerned about your mother, or does another matter weigh on you?" Temmin hesitated. Teacher added, "I have never betrayed a confidence of yours, sir, nor will I ever."
"No, you've always been true to me, even when it's made trouble for you," sighed Temmin. "I'm having difficulty with my vows."
"You wish to leave?"
"No, no, but it's increasingly difficult." Temmin began to pace. "There is someone at the Temple…"
"Someone with whom you are in conflict?"
Temmin laughed. "It'd be easier if I were. I could manage that."
"Oh. Someone with whom you are in love, then. You find this troublesome."
Temmin nodded, eyes on the floor as he paced in slow steps. "It's against our vows and training. Only the love we should hold for everyone is allowed. Loving someone specifically, any exclusivity, jealousy—those emotions are not allowed."
"May I venture to ask upon whom your heart has settled?"
"No," snapped Temmin, "you may not. I will say only that—that it's the worst possible thing that could have happened, with the worst possible person, and I don't know how to make it stop."
"Have you talked with the Most Highs? Senior staff like Barik and Glaes? Allis and Issak?"
Temmin shook his head, loosening strands from his heretofore neat queue; they fell across his eyes and he pushed them back. "I can't tell anyone at the Temple. I don't want any consequences to fall on her—this person." He blushed.
"Ah," said Teacher.
Temmin realized he'd revealed himself and cursed inwardly. "There are times I wonder if I have learned anything at all in that pink heap as my father calls it."
"The Lovers' Temple of all places knows how to deal with such feelings. You must ask for help."
Temmin stopped in his pacing and peered at his counselor from beneath the stray strands once again crossing his face. I'm not altogether sure I want to deal with these feelings. He pushed the thought away with his hair. "I'll think about it. In the meantime, take my mind off it. Tell me more about the girl." He crossed to the library table; the old book sat where it had been left the day before. Temmin wondered why Harbis hadn't put it back on the lectern. That accursed valet must have known he'd want it on the table, damn the man. Temmin smoothed his fingers over the cover, opened it, and let himself fall in.
Lassanna and Yellow Hanni arrived at Brunsial, the seat of her mother's clan, after many days' travel; her uncle, his wife, their two sons and their daughter welcomed her as their own. "I will never understand the Tremontines," said Lord Williard ar Sial. "I told my sister not to marry that man. We should have gone into Whitehorse and fetched her back. Threatening to kill you—how is that honorable? Here you are an exile from home, and what of the child's father? I doubt any so-called dishonor has devolved upon him. No, you are welcome here, my dear."
"You haven't seen me since my childhood," said Lassa.
"You're the spitting image of your mother and grandmother. I would know you anywhere." Williard embraced her. "I will send word to your family. They must know you are safe. Your father will regret his temper soon enough."
But when the time came for the baby, no word had come from Whitehorse. Had she known how hard the birth would be, Lassa would have let her father kill her. As it was she almost died. "It grieves me to say you will never have another one, ma'am," said the midwife as she washed her hands afterwards.
"I am not grieved in the least," mumbled Lassa. She promptly fell asleep, her new little boy swaddled beside her.
Lord Williard gave the baby a name: Tennoc ar Sial. "He'll carry the clan name, none of this no-name business of the Tremontines." Lassa became Lassanna ar Sial after a letter from her mother warned her not to return to Whitehorse; her father had stripped her of his surname.
Lassa spent the first few spokes of Tennoc's life at Brunsial. She exchanged letters with her mother and Princess Inglatine—the former secretive and brief, the latter long and chatty. Inglatine gave birth to another girl. Alas, dear Lassa, she wrote, I am not to be free of the Prince any time soon, it appears! Why could I not have given birth to the son? Then we might live together away from court, you and I, and be comfortable. But no, I will have my own boy soon enough.
Williard ar Sial's country court at Brunsial was pleasant enough, but Lassa missed the brightness and pleasure of a city court like the Keep; she was still young, mother or no. She confessed to envy when King Dunnoc called her painfully shy cousin Flaryn to serve as lady-in-waiting to young Queen Hallia. "Oh, do come with me, Lassa!" wailed Flaryn. "Father says I must go to represent the clan, but Mother can't come with me and I can't go alone, I just can't!"
So Lassanna went to Gwyrfal, taking Hanni with her; the man refused to leave her and would have walked the entire way if she hadn't taken him. "My Lady Inglatine said serve you, and protect you I, Hanni, will do with my life!" He brandished the bow he carried whenever they rode out. Though Lassa remained unconvinced of his skill in battle, she had to admit the man was an unparalleled archer in more peaceful settings; if not for him, they might have starved on the journey to Kellen.
Lassa left Tennoc behind at Brunsial; the baby would do fine, everyone was sure. But not a spoke passed before Lassa sent for her son in a paroxysm of longing.
Even with the baby in company, she entered into life at Gwyrfal with a flair her cousin could not muster. Flaryn was the most beautiful woman at court, but so timid and overwhelmed that she faded into the background. Worse: cheerful, busy Queen Hallia made the poor girl nervous.
Not Lassa. Though she had no official position at court, she rapidly became a favorite. King Dunnoc and Queen Hallia set great store by her. Dunnoc was an older man, but Hallia was just Lassa's age and much like her in her love for merriment and music. As it is with so many mothers, though, their sons cemented Lassa and Hallia's friendship. Kenver was a year and a half older than Tennoc; as soon as Tennoc could reliably run, the two boys became fierce companions and the terror of the nursery—a terror briefly interrupted by the arrival of Kenver's little sister Gwynna. They were Kenver-and-Tennoc, one boy with two bodies.
By then Lassa's shy cousin had married an inland baronet and retired to a quiet life within a few days' ride of Brunsial. Lassa officially took her place as first among Hallia's ladies-in-waiting, and Tennoc took his place as companion to the royal children. Though the courtiers accepted and even loved Tennoc, he knew his place even at a young age: he had no father, and as the Tremontine king's bastard he was always suspect.
"So, bread, where's butter?"
Seven-year-old Tennoc squinted up into the sudden shadow over the rose bed where he was digging; the King towered over him, blocking the sun. "Ken? He's lookin' for good rocks—um, h'lo, Your Majesty." Tennoc always tried to remember the formalities, but here in the nursery and its attendant gardens he could not imagine the King as anyone other than the father of Kenver and Gwynna.
Dunnoc squatted down next to him. "Rocks, is it?" The King smelled of fresh sweat, leather and horses, so different from the usual nursery smells of oatmeal mush, wet woolens and chamomile tea. Was that what all fathers smelled like? Tennoc liked it, and the way the King's gray eyes crinkled at the corner when he was interested or amused.
Kenver had gray eyes like his father, and not for the first time Tennoc wondered what color his own father's eyes were. Where they blue like his? He resumed his excavations, suddenly self-conscious. "He should have come back by now. I wish he would. This bird won't bury itself."
"Bird?"
"Aye, Gwynna found a dead bird and cried so much over it that Ken promised her we'd build it a Hill. She's off picking flowers for it or something stupid." Tennoc lifted a worm from his trowel and gently patted it back into the dirt. "D'you suppose Harla takes the souls of birds, sir?"
"Hm. That's a good question, Tennoc, and one better asked of a Friend than myself. But I've always believed animals have souls as good as ours—most of my horses more so. So if you want an old soldier's opinion, yes, I believe She does."
"I hope so, otherwise Ken and I are going through all this for nothing," grumbled Tennoc, though to be truthful he and Kenver were enjoying this morose little pantomime. Kenver had even saved three of the bird's brilliant red wing feathers for their respective treasure boxes—even Gwynna's, though she lost things. Then again, she was five.
The King grinned. "No good deed is for naught, young Tennoc." He stood up, setting the brass rings on his leather tunic to jingling. He pushed his blue cloak back over his shoulder. "Where is the Queen?"
"She's with Mama," said Tennoc, not looking up.
"That would be where, little man?" An edge of exasperation tinged the King's voice.
Tennoc dropped his trowel and sprang up, wiping his hands on his tunic. "I'm sorry, sir, they're drinking wine beneath the willow trees yonder. Mama says Her Majesty isn't feeling well in this warm weather."
"This far along women with child don't feel well in cold weather. They're miserable until the child comes, so they make everyone else miserable. But you'll find all that out in due time. Hallia will be right as rain again any day now."
Tennoc stood at near-attention until the King patted him on the shoulder and walked off to find the Queen. When he was sure the King had forgotten him, Tennoc cast about for Kenver—there he was, solemnly approaching the rose bed with his sister, tow-headed Kenver with an armful of rocks, strawberry blonde Gwynna with a little bundle wrapped in a scrap of red cloth and a basket of flowers over her arm.
"We have to do thith right or Harla won't take her," said Gwynna. "I'll thay the words and you thay the other parts."
"Do you even know the words? You've never even been inside a Hill. I have," said Kenver.
"What about the bird's final bath?" added Tennoc.
"I cried on her," sniffed Gwynna, adding, "you dug the hole too deep, Tennoc." She lay the little body in the grave, added a few strands of her pale red-gold hair, and got most of the burial ceremony right; the boys gave the proper responses with a seriousness that surprised Tennoc even as he spoke them.
Kenver stacked the rocks atop the red bundle and mounded them up into a satisfying, out-of-proportion monument to the deceased bird; Gwynna arranged her homely little bundle of dandelions, daisies and pinks atop it. "That's that," said Kenver, dusting off his hands.
All three children turned at a cry from the willow trees. Kenver and Gwynna ran to the willow's shade, Tennoc close behind. "What'th wrong, Mama?" said Gwynna.
"It's time for the babe, that's all, sweetheart," said her father.
Queen Hallia leaned against him puffing, a strange look between a grimace and a smile on her face. "Don't worry, my darling," she said when she'd caught her breath. "After the two of you, this baby will come quickly. Then you'll have a little sister or brother."
But the baby did not come quickly, and in the end both the tiny baby boy and Queen Hallia died.
Kenver-and-Tennoc became Kenver. The boy retreated into himself, leaving Tennoc sitting in the garden alone with Gwynna most days. "What did I do? How come he doesn't like me any more?"
"You've thtill got a mama and we don't." Gwynna's lisp had worsened. "I want my mama, Tennoc!"
"Oh, Gwynna, don't cry!" He threw his arms around the little girl. "Look, you can borrow my mama. She can't have any more children, and I don't have a father anyway to give me a brother or sister, so there's lots of her left over and I'm sure she'd like a daughter, so please don't cry!"
"I want my mama!" she sobbed. Further persuasion made her cry harder. Tennoc finally took her to her grandmother the Dowager Queen and went in search of his mother.
Mama dressed in black now—everyone did. Tennoc didn't like black. It didn't suit her; it dulled her eyes and made her skin look sallow and pale. He burrowed against her until she let him into her lap. "I don't like it here now," he grumbled. "Gwynna cries all the time, Ken won't talk to me, everyone wears black."
"Well, my sweetheart, we may be going back to Brunsial in any event. I represented Clan Sial in the Queen's court, and with her gone…" Mama grimaced, close to tears. "Now that she's gone we have no reason to be here." She hugged him tight.
Leave Gwyrfal? He'd said he didn't like it there any more, but leaving was another matter entirely. "I don't remember Brunsial. Is it nice there?"
"Oh yes. Lord Williard—our uncle, you know—he's very kind, and your great-grandmother is there. She is very, very old now, and I know she would love to see you. Home is very nice."
"How can you call Brunsial home? Gwyrfal's home, not Brunsial. Oh, Mama, I'm sorry, don't cry! What did I say? Don't cry!"
"I'm sorry, Tennoc!" she sobbed. "Hallia made this place home for us. Now that she's gone I don't know where we belong. We can't go to our real home, ever. That's Whitehorse. Your grandfather…I shouldn't be talking to you like this, I'm sorry, darling. I'll stop." She controlled her tears and wiped her red, puffy eyes.
His mother never said much about Lord Grandfather. He knew from gossip that the Duke had tried to kill his mother before his birth. If Lord Grandfather hated Mama, then he hated Lord Grandfather. He didn't know what to think about his father. If his mother said little about the Duke of Whitehorse, she said even less about King Andrin. The closest he'd ever come to a father was King Dunnoc. "Mightn't the King let us stay if we ask him?" he faltered. "You and he are good friends."
Mama shook her head. "I can't, sweetheart. I really had no business being here in the first place."
Lassanna did her best to adjust to life back at Brunsial. Her grandmother went into ecstasies at their return, and everyone doted on Tennoc. "It is past time and past you got married, niece," said Williard. "The boy needs a father."
"The boy needs a father, indeed," she retorted, "and if I find a man I like who will accept Tennoc as equal to his own children, then perhaps I shall."
Many suitors came to Brunsial just to be turned away, some gently and some not. None would accept Tennoc as his own. The final suitor came at the midpoint of the year: King Dunnoc and his children arrived for a long visit, setting the small castle a-boil as a beehive.
After a brief awkwardness, Kenver and Tennoc became Kenver-and-Tennoc again, tearing through the hallways and raiding the kitchens until the seneschal threw them outside to pester the stablehands and dig up the garden. Two weeks into the royal visit, Lassanna and the King sat in a sheltered grove overlooking the long, rolling grasslands leading to the Western Sea and the white chalk cliffs that gave Brunsial its name. Tennoc, Kenver and an outclassed-but-game Gwynna were fighting among the trees, using fallen branches for swords; Yellow Hanni, long promoted from horse-herder to child-herder, oversaw the matches, pronouncing the outcomes in his comical Kellish.
"It pleases me to see the children so happy again," said Lassanna. "Tennoc has missed Kenver greatly. How…how are they doing now?"
"Since Hallia died? Don't be afraid to say her name, you of all people—her dearest friend. As long as you and I and the children live, she lives. Speak her name. It gives me comfort." Dunnoc shifted on the stone bench. "It gives me comfort just to be near you, to be truthful. You remind me of her, and the good times. It's why I came to Brunsial. Ken and Gwynna miss you and the boy. I miss you." He took Lassa's hand, and she turned from watching the children to the man beside her. "Lassa, I want you to come back to Gwyrfal."
Return to Gwyrfal? She wanted nothing more! Lassa's heart expanded, but past experience stayed her immediate answer. "At the risk of presumption, may I ask in what role, Your Majesty?"
Dunnoc laughed. "Older and wiser, eh, my lady?" At her darkening expression he added, "Nay, nay, don't think ill of me. It was a bad attempt at jest. Forgive me. I will speak honestly. I have put great thought to remarrying. I am lonely. Mistresses do not suit me. I never took one while Hallia lived, and I have found no comfort in them since her death though I have tried. As for Beloveds, well, you can't bring one home to warm the bed at night, can you?"
"Are you asking me to marry you, sir?" said Lassa in disbelief.
"I am asking you for permission to court you. I have asked your uncle for his blessing and he has given it, but only if you are willing to consider me."
Lassa stared off toward the sea, glittering in the distance; the children had changed their sticks from swords to horses and were galloping from the grove onto the open sward, Hanni strolling behind them. Their trails through the tall grass wove together in a loose braid, the three paths coming apart and crossing again. "What about Tennoc? What rank would he hold?"
Dunnoc raised his eyebrows. "Rank? Surely you're not asking me to make him equal to Kenver and Gwynna."
"No, of course not." Lassa brought her gaze away from the children and back to the King. "But I want to make sure your lords understand he is to be respected and that he is not to be treated with contempt or as anything less than honorable. He is not to blame for his birth."
"So you will consider my suit?"
"What will be Tennoc's rank?" she insisted.
Dunnoc frowned and released the hand he'd been holding. "I don't understand your concern. Tennoc has always had royal favor and has been accepted in court."
"Tennoc is a sweet-faced little boy right now. In ten years he'll be a man. I don't want your nobles guarding their daughters when it comes time for him to wed, or conspiring to cast him out somehow."
"You know it is less that he is fatherless than that he is the son of the Tremontine king—the only son. How many daughters has Queen Inglatine given Andrin now?"
"Five, poor Tina. Every letter is full of how badly she wishes to be done with him."
"Were she my wife, I'd set her aside and marry again. Send her to the Mother's Temple to be a priestess, preferably a contemplative somewhere praying for our souls. It would make them both the happier, Dear Amma knows. Is King Andrin so very bad, then?"
Lassanna set her mouth; talking about her former lover came hard to her. "Before Tennoc came, he was good to me," she said slowly.
"So were he to set Inglatine aside and call for you?"
"He will never call for me. In Tremont I am damaged goods, as they say. No one would marry me, let alone the King. When I was a stupid girl, I thought he might, d'you see. I thought…" She recalled Eddin's whispered words: You will be the mother of a king. "My mother raised me more like a Kell than a Tremontine. I was foolish. I thought An loved me. He never said it, but I thought his actions proved it. I believed what I wished to be true. He has never written me, never inquired after his son, never moved to protect me from my father so that I might go home."
Dunnoc let his gray eyes wander over her face in a way they never had before; she blushed. "Gwyrfal is your home, not Whitehorse. Come home, Lassa. Serve as the mistress of Gwynna's household and let us come to know one another better, not only as friends but as lovers. I know I am older by a good twenty years, but I am as ardent as any a younger man. You will be welcome in my court whatever may come. As for Tennoc, as long as he swears fealty to the Kellish throne, I will give him a holding and find him a wife. I swear to both on my honor as King."
"Consider his suit, niece!" said Lord Williard that night. "There's nothing you can bring to a royal marriage from a political standpoint, and you bring more than a bit of trouble considering Tennoc's father. There's many a lord angling to place his daughter in Dunnoc's bed—he must already love you at least a little. Probably a good deal more than a little."
"I remind him of old times, sir, nothing more," answered Lassanna.
In the end, she and an ecstatic Tennoc returned to Gwyrfal. Though Gwynna had rejected a borrowed mother the year before, now she clung to Lassa if not as mother then as a beloved aunt; Kenver, nearly ten years old and his tow hair darkening, held himself a little more aloof but not for long. Lassa was soon a part of the royal family to all its members but Dunnoc, through no fault of his.
Dunnoc made a respectful, determined assault on her. Her favorite dishes appeared on every menu. Music and dancing reappeared now that public mourning for Hallia had ended, and Lassa's favored musicians appeared at Gwyrfal. To Dunnoc's dismay, she kept herself from merriment, preferring to live quietly near the children. This was so unlike her, for while Hallia lived Lassa was the merriest of ladies imaginable, much given to dancing and laughter. That was the Lassa he wanted, and the Lassa he missed.
He took another tack. Gifts began arriving in Lassa's bower with alarming regularity, everything from rare silks from the Western Isles to even more rare incensewood combs from Sairland.
In return, Lassa gave respectful, determined regrets to Dunnoc's invitations to walk with him, dance with him, ride with him, hunt with him, until finally he came to her bower, dismissed the women and children, and thudded into the chair opposite her. "Lady, you give me no chance to press my suit and I grow impatient. Are my attentions so very unwelcome?"
"Your Majesty, may I speak freely?"
Dunnoc leaned forward. "You may always speak your mind, Lassa, I have ever allowed intimacy between us."
"While your gifts are intended with the utmost kindness," she began cautiously, "they are…reminiscent of an earlier time in my life, when luxury blinded me into making unwise decisions."
"What are you saying?"
Lassa lifted her chin. "Do not try to buy me, Dunnoc. I was bought before, and buying myself back cost a great deal."
"Buy you!" Dunnoc stood, his sword sheath banging against his leg. "Lady, those presents were tokens of my esteem alone! To throw them in my face—"
"I'm not throwing them in your face. I have accepted every one of them."
"You reject every attempt I have made at greater intimacy!"
Lassa reached for his hand; he paused, but gave it to her. "I will be more obliging if you stop this shower of goods. I know you mean no harm, but it reminds me of Tennoc's father." She examined the hand in her own. His fingers were long and square-tipped, his hand stiff with scars gained from both war and hunting—quite different from Andrin's smooth, almost girlish skin that had never seen real struggle. "If I come to you, I wish it to be free of past memories and present obligations. Can you understand that?"
Dunnoc sank to one knee, the better to meet her eyes. "Then come riding with me, come walking with me. Talk with me, Lassa, as we used to. I own I have perhaps wooed you the wrong way. I am no sophisticate, merely an old soldier. But when the ghost of that bastard Andrin rises before your eyes, remember this: I have never required your attendance on me, though by rights I could have—I could have required much more of you than that. I hold you in higher esteem than ever he did, or ever will."
Lassa examined the older man's face as she had his hand. Sun and salt wind had tanned his skin and carved lines around his eyes; gray was just beginning to dominate his sandy brown beard. This was a fighting king, hardened in skirmishes against the Tremontines and the would-be Sairish rulers of the continent, and his own sorties across the border into Corland. She wondered if Temmin the Great had been this sort of fighting man; certainly his great-grandson wasn't, though rumor had it that Tremont intended to take the castles along the border with Sairish-held Valleysmouth. Andrin would rely on magic, his own and Teacher's, and stay well away from the fighting. Dunnoc held Kellen's magic, a lesser magic than Tremont's as Kellen was the smaller, but still strong enough that he didn't have to follow his men into the worst of it—and yet he did.
Dunnoc's brows drew together; his expression reminded her of Kenver worrying he'd done something wrong and wondering if he'd be forgiven. Lassa cradled his cheek in her free hand. "You are twice the man Andrin of Tremont is, Dunnoc."
His face lost its uncertainty and came to abrupt attention. "Then will you dance with me tonight?" he whispered.
"I will," she answered.
They danced every night, rode every day, and hunted in fine weather. In the spring they married. Perhaps, thought Lassa, she might miraculously bear Dunnoc a son and fulfill Eddin's prophecy. No, for it would mean something would happen to Kenver, and she loved the boy almost as much as she did her Tennoc. Perhaps the prophecy meant Kenver—he was her stepson.
She didn't want to think about Tennoc being the prophecy's fulfillment. How could he be? Inglatine had written; Andrin had finally set her aside after the births of two more girls, and she lived comfortably at Marsury Castle in Barley with the youngest four of her seven daughters. The new Queen would surely give him a son.
Despite her own certainty, Dunnoc's lords remained unconvinced. "I don't like it," said young Lord Daevys ar Ulvyn one night not long after the wedding. The men drinking around the fireplace in his Gwyrfal apartments grunted in agreement. "Bad enough she spread her legs for a man before she was properly married."
"Eh, I seem to recall your firstborn arriving into the world a wee bit earlier than is common, Ulvyn," snorted Lord Bryth ar Brennow to general laughter.
Ulvyn glared. "I married her. This boy is the only son of the Tremontine king, and far too close to the Prince."
"You fear for Prince Kenver's life?" said Sian ar Lifris.
"No, no, only the influence the Tremontine boy has over him, and the new Queen has over the King. Tremont wants Kellen, there have been skirmishes between us since before the days of the first Temmin."
"They are far too busy with the Sairish colonies along the Valleysmouth border to worry us," scoffed Bryth.
"Not forever. What if the Tremontine bitch gets her hooks so deeply into the King that he looks to a Tremontine princess as a wife for Kenver?"
"Then perhaps Kenver's son becomes king of Tremont as well as Kellen. We take the country in marriage, since so far Andrin has no Heir but the bastard Dunnoc has taken to his bosom," said Lifris. "There's much to recommend the idea."
"There's nothing to recommend the idea," growled Ulvyn. "Tremontines are barbarians. The children of princesses are not in the succession. Tremont is three times our size, and if they succeed in grafting a Tremontine wife onto Prince Kenver, Kellen will become no better than an occupied territory, with nary an arrow nor spell cast. A hundred years ago, Whitehorse and Barley were independent. Now look at them. Do you want Kellen to fall without a drop of blood? Then sit at your ease while Tremont takes us from within!"
"What should we do?" said one.
"There's nothing we can do but counter their influence as we may," shrugged Bryth.
"There's more, but we must be canny," said Ulvyn, "canny and patient. Individually our power is weak. We each have only so many men, and so little magic. But were we to pool our men and magic… When the time comes, and it will, we must be ready, whether it is to oppose Dunnoc or his son."
"This wouldn't be because you're Dunnoc's cousin and next in line after Kenver?" said Bryth.
"You have said enough among this assembly to hang with me, Bryth. You all have. If you support me, help me in coming years. If you oppose me, go and say nothing." The lords shifted uneasily; a few took long pulls from their wine. None left the room.
Temmin left the book uneasy. "They never leave you alone, do they?"
"Elaborate, please," said Teacher.
"Well, plots and plots and more plots. Is any king ever safe?" He ran his hands through his hair to scratch his scalp; his queue's fastening fell to the floor again. "Pagg damn it, and this thing takes forever to tie. I'm still not used to it, I like my hair shorter."
"The Temples are conservative in all things, sir. And to answer your question, no king is ever completely safe. There are always those vying for power, especially in the days when the Tremontine kings wielded magic directly. Now one might say the competition is for me, as strange as it sounds."
"No, I understand what you mean. But this was Kellen, not Tremont."
"Kellen had its own magic then, and not all magic was concentrated in the hands of one man—remember, even Gian of Valleysmouth had his little bit. The lords of Kellen had their little bits as well. Over time Tremont's magic became concentrated in the hands of the King, and now it is wholly mine. I hold it for your family. More than magic drives men to reach for power, though. Women, too, but they must reach for it through their men. There are few outlets now for them."
"Now? Was it ever different?"
"Once, long ago, women had their own power—enough to guarantee many of them an independent place in this world. Those days ended with your—your—" Teacher slipped from the edge of the library table, gripping its edge. Temmin reached out his hands but was waved away. "Too close, I fear. When you are king I may tell you," Teacher wheezed. "I must wish to tell you very badly to risk the pain so often."
Temmin patted his tutor's shoulder, feeling boyish and ineffectual. "You never get the urge to talk with anyone else about…forbidden matters?"
"Oh, I speak with few people in any event—your father, Mr Winmer, the heads of the Temples occasionally. In the past, your sister Sedra. We had wonderful conversations. I wish your father were more liberal in his views on female education," said Teacher wistfully. "You might think after nearly a thousand years I would be more circumspect, but in truth it does not come up very often. The only ones with whom I may speak freely of those times are your father and Connin."
Temmin brushed his loose hair back behind his ears, frowning at the mention of the Travelers. "They are the same as you, aren't they? Connin and his mother, I mean. Immortal. They were in Emmae's story, and that happened some 700 years ago." Connin's mother the Traveler Queen cursed Emmae to return the desire of anyone who wanted her, a horror softened by forgetfulness of her proud past; the Queen granted that mercy when Emmae gave Connin her virginity. "How did Connin end up with a royal name? Was the Traveler Queen one of those ambitious women?" he said, thinking of Lassanna and her initial eagerness to be the mother of a king.
"I can tell you nothing about that."
"How do ambitious women seek power now?"
"They enter the Temples and work their way into positions of authority—Ibbit is an example of such. Those who marry ambitious men help them in their cause however they can. Some women who have married more phlegmatic men goad them into striving for power. Some content themselves with social power. Others pin their hopes on their sons."
"Like Lassanna? But she didn't seem to want her son to be king. Why?"
"She saw it as a dangerous path. As a bastard, Tennoc might face opposition, possibly armed opposition, from all sides unless he showed strength."
Temmin considered the table top, brows raised in thought. "She wanted a title for him, though, and a noble wife." He rose and stretched his long frame. "I wonder what Mama wants for me."
"She wants for you to be happy and safe. There are few mothers as devoted as the Queen."
Temmin thought back on his childhood, living as normal a life as Mama could give him. He'd had no idea assassins had stalked him even then. For the first time he wondered how much she must have worried and suffered on his behalf—and still did. "I'll never be safe," he murmured.
"She knows this, and so she wishes for you to be happy most of all."
He didn't know if that was possible either. "I suppose if Donnis is due any moment I had better ready myself to return to the Temple."
"I have made inquiries, sir. The Temple's Own has secured the building and only Sisters personally vetted by Sister Imvalda are in service at the Lovers' Temple."
Temmin nodded. "All right, then. I'll just have to trust Donnis and the girls to help Mama from here on out. Actually," he considered, "Donnis will do more for her than any of us might."
Lady Donnis Provisa, Dowager Marchioness of Petras, looked nothing like her younger cousin. Her eyes were nut brown, her hair the same color though lightly threaded with somewhat wiry white; her skin less like a dainty porcelain creamer and more like the pottery the cream arrived in from the farmyard; her face broad, ruddy, and good-natured. Miss Hanston muttered that the Marchioness might dress more fashionably now she was in the City, but the lady's own maid retorted that her mistress wasn't stupid enough to follow every ridiculous trend the Capital's dressmakers might invent to gin up custom.
When she arrived, Donnis went straight to Ansella's drawing room still in her traveling clothes after the long journey from the southern Bellesian coast. The moment Ansella laid eyes on her she burst into tears. "What's this?" said Donnis. "Dear cousin, whatever it is, it'll be all right. Come and tell me."
Donnis led her to the soft blue sofa, where she collapsed against the Marchioness's comfortable side; she told all and left nothing out, for Donnis was one of the few people in the world who held Ansella's entire confidence. Donnis encircled her with plump arms. "Oh, Annie, your passions always gallop away with you, don't they? Goodness, you're nothing but bones! We shall amend that." She stood up and rang for tea.
"I'm not hungry, cousin, really," sniffed Ansella, dabbing at her nose with a handkerchief.
"Who said it was for you? I just came from the road and I'm famished!" Donnis ordered tea and a small meal she secretly planned to cajole down her cousin, and said, "I'm going to change, I'll be just a moment." She paused at the door. "Annie, Berto has quite grown into his father's shoes and doesn't need me to help manage things now—and I dare say my daughter-in-law enjoys my absence though we get on well enough. Two women in the same house is never easy, is it? I am here for as long as you need me." She closed the door behind her.
On one side, Donnis exhaled in shock at her cousin's condition; on the other, Ansella breathed easier knowing her oldest and dearest friend had arrived. Each thought things could only get better now.
Temmin returned to the Temple and Ansella gradually rejoined life, faster than anyone expected. In her heart Ansella still grieved, but daily rides with Donnis led to eating with the family and then to making public appearances on the Promenade and in the Temples. Ansella had always been quite observant, but during Sister Ibbit's tenure she'd neglected regular services at the Temples of Eddin, Pagg, Farr and especially the Lovers. Temmin's investiture had been the sole exception to her neglect, though she'd stayed just long enough to let him know she'd been there. The open, shameful disrespect had nagged at her, but Ibbit insisted this was the proper path, and so she'd walked it blind and deaf to her own beliefs.
The equally reverent Donnis now hustled her to all the Temples on each God's name day—to the Lovers' Temple on both Nerrday and Neyaday. "Sometimes we even get to see Temmin there," said Donnis, jollying up her cousin before the trip into town. "Going to Temple every day isn't forever, just until you feel more like your old self. Making strict Temple rounds has anchored you in hard times before. Always turn to the Gods in times of trouble, my dear."
One Paggday in the new regimen's second week, two City gentlemen on the Promenade paused to goggle at a smartly-driven curricle, a light complement of Guardsmen before and behind it. "The Queen's a rare whip hand," said the ginger-haired gentleman. "Drives that pair of grays as well as anyone. Better. Fine-looking woman, too, ain't she?"
"Especially compared to the rawbones next to her," remarked the dark-haired gentleman.
"That's her cousin the Dowager Marchioness of Petras. Shame on you for calling her a rawbones, she's old enough to be your mother. What are you doing looking her over in the first place? Like 'em on the ripe side, do we?"
The dark-haired gentleman ignored the dig. "You don't suppose Her Majesty's decided to compete for the King's affections after all this time, all his women?"
"What d'you mean?" said the ginger-haired gentleman.
"Well, she's been in town for a year but she's hardly seen except at state occasions. Then that Shelstone chit rises to prominence like no royal mistress since the King's father's time, and here comes the Queen, every day on the Promenade."
"She's making her devotions."
The dark-haired gentleman snorted and dug his elbow into his fellow's ribs. "I'll believe it if she shows up at Neya's Day. No, old boy, something's afoot. This is a public challenge."
Whether the Queen intended it or no, Harsin found his wife unexpectedly captivating. Chatting with Donnis and his daughters over the day's events at dinner, Ansella seemed almost happy. Wise Sedra to send for Donnis so quickly.
He might have sent Ansella home to Whithorse Estate. Harsin knew Ansella hated the City, but he couldn't let her go, not without children to keep her there. It would look as if he'd set her aside, and that would cause him troubles however much she might wish to leave. Her departure at this juncture would create a void quite different from her past absences, one of power and position as well as affection. It would stir up more virulent ambitions among the families and hangers-on of his mistresses. Competition to take the Queen's place on her throne as well as in his bed would erupt. The odious Elbig Shelstone came to mind. His naked ambition more than made up for his daughter's complete lack of it. What did the man want, and would Twenna Shelstone be compensation enough to grant it to him?
As charming as she was, Twenna moved to the back of his mind. Ansella looked beautiful tonight in the lamplight, much younger than her 42 years even as pinched as she'd become. The bloom he'd always loved was just returning to her cheek. He'd heard she'd begun riding again; he wondered if she would ride with him now. Should he ask? No, surely she would say no. Things might be different now, though, mightn't they? Ibbit was gone—he should have put an end to that when it started. Never again would anyone share his wife's bed but him.
Harsin realized he'd caught Ansella's attention; she turned toward him, a query in her eyes. He smiled. She colored, ducked her head and returned to her conversation with Ellika. How long had it been since he'd made her blush, since she looked at him with anything other than cool disdain? How far might he go on that blush, he wondered.
Ansella returned to her rooms from an evening spent playing crib with Donnis to find him nursing a brandy in her private drawing room. "Hello, Annie."
She drew back until she realized who it was. "How you startled me, sir. I do not like surprises."
"Is it such a surprise to find me in my own wife's apartments? We have not spoken privately in some time. I thought perhaps... Are you well, Ansella?"
She faltered. Her fingers found the pulse point in her throat, a gesture he knew well, and he stepped forward into her softness to pursue his question. She dropped her hand, hardening again before he could reach her. "You are concerned, sir? I find that unusual." She brushed past him, but he caught her arm with his free hand.
"I am always concerned about you."
"Are you, now?" she said, a familiar blaze lighting her blue eyes. "You were not so very concerned about me when you acknowledged Twenna Shelstone in front of every eye in the City."
Harsin released her. Of course she would have heard. The day Twenna took the public way through town to the Lodge, that night Harsin had arrived late as usual to the Duke of Corland's box at the theater to find Twenna there for everyone to see; Corland claimed he didn't know the King had still intended on coming. In Harsin's surprise he'd made a rare slip, greeting her with a kiss on each cheek—the same greeting he gave Lady Corland. Everyone saw him acknowledge her. While they'd had words later on the propriety of her conduct, he'd forgiven Twenna; the fault was her father's. Still, he'd acknowledged her in public, and Ansella had found out.
He put his brandy down atop a nearby console. "Who told you?"
"Never mind who told me. Please leave."
"Annie, it won't happen again," he cajoled, advancing again.
"Oh, you intend to stop seeing her?"
Harsin's blood came up, heating his face. "Do not presume to tell us what to do."
"'Us,' is it?" she laughed. "I suppose it's the royal prerogative to bed every woman in the Kingdom. I am tired of this argument, Harsin." Ansella snatched his brandy off the console, downed it in one gulp and smacked the snifter down so hard the stem broke. She bobbled the snifter's bowl in her astounded hand before putting the remnant next to its stem. She fled to her bedchamber before he could stop her.
"Pagg's balls!" Harsin picked up the broken snifter and threw it into the fireplace; the glass shattered with a satisfying shriek. He stalked back to his own rooms, wondering why everything always ended in shards with his wife.
Ansella had never adored him, even at their passion's height. She had always seen him as he was: worthy of respect, even love, but not adoration. He'd always assumed the respect remained, but perhaps he was mistaken. It galled him. He knew—knew—she still wanted him despite everything, but Harla take him straight to the Hill if he would give up his prerogatives.
His thoughts returned to Twenna Shelstone. He needed a refuge, and in Twenna he found one. He wondered if and how he might win back his wife's respect, but in the meantime he would take shelter and solace where he found them.
Embis Winmer was straightening papers on the desk he shared with his master when the King entered their office. "Ah, Winmer. Just when I need you. Might we get Miss Shelstone admitted to the Neya's Day Spectacle?"
"I don't know, Your Majesty," answered the secretary, correctly interpreting the question as a command. "There are several barriers to her guaranteed admittance, not least her unmarried state."
"I find it hard to believe there's anyone in the City who thinks she's a virgin because she's unmarried," chuckled Harsin.
Winmer gave a sliver of a smile. "Oh, most certainly not, sir. I believe she is well known. Perhaps the best known of your intimate friends ever."
Winmer had been Harsin's secretary since before the King had ascended, when Harsin was the eighteen-year-old Heir and he himself was a young clerk of twenty-two. That year Prince Harsin and Lady Ansella married, and a turbulent time it was. The Prince had kept to his new wife's bed, and Winmer had rarely seen him.
Once the Queen had given him a son as well as two daughters, she'd insisted on staying at the Estate full time, with Teacher's support. She'd begun to repeat "We were not a love match," and when the sanctimonious Sister Ibbit arrived, the Queen shut her door against her husband.
To be fair, His Majesty hadn't given up his other women, but did any ruler keep to one bed? And the King had always been quite solicitous of Her Majesty's honor.
Since that night at the theater, His Majesty had been less so. He saw Miss Shelstone in private, intimate gatherings with friends and their own mistresses, but he'd also had Winmer arrange for Twenna to be present at every social event he attended—far more than with other mistresses. True, she might be the most beautiful of the women who'd shuttled through his bed, but still…and then the Queen seemed at her most vulnerable, and Winmer valued her highly.
In this thoughtful mood Winmer said, "Sir, may I ask why? I do not now nor have I ever questioned your choices in anything let alone companionship, but..." His grimace crumpled his neat mustache. "Given recent history between you and the Temple I believe it will require a certain amount of effort to gain Miss Shelstone's rather irregular admittance to the ceremony. Effort that I will of course expend, sir, but..."
"You wish to know what I see in her, eh, Embis?"
Never had His Majesty taken such an unsophisticated girl to his bed for more than a romp. Yet the girl had such an attractive innocence and sweetness that even Winmer wished to protect her. Poor child. Perhaps it lay in her eyes, such enormous eyes and so very blue. "I have no right to ask, sir."
"Nor does anyone, but I'll tell you anyway." Harsin reclined against the partners' desk. "Anyone can see she's desirable—she's beautiful. Flawless skin. Those eyes. But more, she loves me. She loves me with all her heart. No pretense, no plots. Unlike her father. Shelstone is ambitious and I'll tolerate his ambitions to a point. She has none beyond my happiness. Do you know how rare that is for a man in my position?"
"May I speak frankly, sir? Her Majesty once did."
A shade passed over the King's countenance. "Not for a long time, Embis, and I don't know if I deserve such devotion from her in any event. No," he said, standing straighter and leaning toward his secretary, "something in me wants to protect Twenna. She's an innocent. She makes me happy. I feel younger when I'm with her. I want her at Neya's Day. Make it happen."
"I will, sir," said Winmer. "How far may I go? The lottery is notoriously hard to influence."
"I give you great latitude, but there's no sense in not using connections if we can. We will start with Temmin and work our way up. I'll spare you the first round and ask my son to procure the invitation myself."
"I thank you, sir. He does not care for me."
"He doesn't much care for me right now, either. I don't expect my request to be fruitful, but the attempt must be made, eh?"
The attempt did not bear fruit. Temmin pruned The King's request so completely, and yet so skillfully, that Harsin wondered just how much training in diplomacy his son might be getting. Perhaps these two years would not be a complete loss.
Up the chain the request went, ending in the laps of the Most Highs. They feigned reluctance, but in the end the first donation the Temple had received from the royal purse since Temmin's investiture, and a promise for a great deal more, conquered all. Twenna Shelstone received a guaranteed place at the Spectacle.
Everyone else, high and low, had to enter the ticket lottery, including Elbig Shelstone. "Infuriating!" fumed the former tailor. "That I should have to enter the lottery! Demand that the King procure me a ticket!"
"Papa, I can't do that," said Twenna. "I would give you mine, but it would anger him. I really shouldn't be going at all, though, should I?"
"Should you?" shouted her father. "Of course you should! The King is more taken with you than I thought. Your presence there will be the most public declaration anyone's ever seen from him. Every door will open to us. Ha! I wonder that Her Majesty will even show her face this year!"