Temmin brooded in his study, saying little to either the nervous Fen as he juggled the luncheon service or Jenks when he came to check on his disciple's work. "What did he do to put you in a mood, sir?" said Jenks.
"What did who do—Wallek? Nothing. He's fine." Fen exhaled and dropped a fork. "A little less scrutiny, Jenks," smiled Temmin, rising from the table. "It's no wonder he's dropping things with you breathing down his neck."
Jenks propelled the trainee and the luncheon cart out the door. "Sir, if you need me—for anything—just ring. I will answer the summons."
"I'll be all right, Jenks. Teacher will be here soon to whisk me off into his fairy tales." Jenks lifted his eyebrows but continued into the hall and closed the door behind him.
Temmin thrust his hands into his pockets. He stood with his back to the hearth, the tails of his coat over his arms, and rubbed the Inchari rug's pile with the toe of his boot, a long-standing habit. Watching the color and luster of velvet, carpet—anything with a pile—change as he pushed it one way and then the other gave him something to stare at while his mind worked on things. Alvo was his most immediate concern, but the second and much larger was whether he'd learned anything at all at the Lovers' Temple.
To be sure, he now knew ways to handle almost everyone, to read their telltale body language and expressions well enough that he might match his words and actions to their needs, for their good or his own, but when it came to anyone close to him, he failed. He struggled to remain composed and unreadable around them and while he often knew their deeper states of mind, he didn't always know what to do about them. He always knew what Alvo was thinking. Anyone could see what Alvo was thinking. He hadn't known Alvo loved him, true, but that was two years ago, when he couldn't see past his own nose. He couldn't bring Alvo round his thumb any more, though; thinking on their strained conversation at the hill fortress, he cursed himself for his clumsiness, his tactlessness, his complete lack of technique. Mathanus Postulant could have done a better job of persuasion.
It wasn't just Alvo. Allis flummoxed him down to his bootlaces. He never knew what she was thinking or what she wanted from him unless she chose to tell him. Granted, she was the Embodiment of a Goddess and had been training to read and not be read for more than ten years now, but as well as he knew her and loved her, he should know her heart by now. She must know his. Everyone must know his. When it came to those he deeply loved, he was as transparent as Alvo Nollson.
He'd lost the last year of his mother's life only to fail as a Supplicant.
"You look introspective this afternoon, Your Highness," said Teacher's cool voice at the bedchamber door.
"I suppose I am," said Temmin as the advisor entered the room to stand before the fire. "I am wondering if I did the right thing in taking Supplicancy. I don't seem very good at it."
Teacher's brows raised. "The Most Highs and senior clergy tell me you are doing rather well. Your petitioners are grateful, and your fellow clergy respect you. What makes you think otherwise?"
Temmin scuffed at the carpet again until a sudden awareness that he looked like an eight-year-old made him stop. "I suppose I read people well, and I like them in general—I want to help, I like helping, and yes, all right, people seem to think I've helped them," he said, thinking of poor Meggan Esterill among many others. "But it only seems to work with relative strangers, or people I know and don't really care about—no, that's not right!" He didn't scuff so much as kick at the hearth rug. "If truth be known—and I say this to you because you've never betrayed me—it's like this. The more I…I love someone, the less devotional I get. I lose my way, I can't use what I've learned, I can't veil my heart, I can't stop feeling things I'm not supposed to feel!"
"Emotions are neither right nor wrong, Your Highness. It is what we do in their grip that is right or wrong."
"So they keep telling me, but it's not true. There are things we're not supposed to feel for one another at the Temple."
"Such as?"
Temmin flicked a guilty glance at Teacher and settled his eyes back on the fine wool scrollwork beneath his feet. Unlike most people, Temmin trusted more than feared Teacher. He could never have become a Supplicant without Teacher, who could have betrayed him any number of times but never had. "I am in love with someone."
"Loving someone is not impermissible at the Temple, surely."
"Loving someone in this way is."
"Ah. Exclusive love. What have your superiors told you?"
"To seek pleasure and affection elsewhere. I have tried, believe me—I'm never at a loss for either. But…" He trailed off, watching the flowers on the rug lean first to one side and then to the other beneath his toe.
"Does the object of your affection encourage you in your love?"
"No, oh no. At least—sometimes I think she might. But she is the hardest to read of all, she's so very good at what we do, so sympathetic and compassionate, but that's hardly surprising, I suppose."
"No, it is not."
Temmin realized he'd given himself away and took his hands from his pockets. "Teacher, you must say nothing, please, I beg you."
"No one knows you love Allis?"
"Everyone knows!" cried Temmin, taking up a path before the fire. "Everyone must know! She knows, Senik knows, Issak knows, Anda knows, the Most Highs know."
"That does not mean 'everyone' knows."
"You knew."
"You made it quite clear who you meant."
Temmin shook his head in irritation and scrubbed at one eye until he realized he was back to being eight again. "Well. Allis began avoiding me, and I hoped it would help but it hurt so much I couldn't bear it. Then right after last Nerr's Day the Most High Beloved lectured me on it, and I did as she told me. I took many lovers, I redoubled my efforts with petitioners and I became especially diligent in my devotions. I thought I was getting better but then Mama died and now it's getting worse and I don't know what to do. I pray and pray, but They don't seem to want to help me."
"And Allis?"
"I'm fairly certain Allis sent me here." Temmin stopped his pacing, pulled a chair close to the fire, sat down and put his feet up on the fender, though his right foot kept up a nervous rhythm that sent his knee jiggling up and down. "I don't know what that means."
"Did you not want to come home?"
"No. Yes. Merciful Amma! I just want some peace!" Temmin pressed the heels of his palms into his eyes. "But you're here," he said in a quick exhalation. "Did Tennoc find peace?"
"Kings are never at peace," answered Teacher.
"That's why I don't understand why everyone wants to be king, though it's dawning on me that princes have no peace, either."
"Princes and paupers all find peace elusive, Your Highness."
Temmin sat back in his chair. "Well then, go ahead, read on." Teacher opened the book, and the story began again.
Tennoc awoke alone in his pavilion the next day. He'd been stripped of his armor and bloodied clothing, and lay naked on his cot under blankets and furs. A small camp stove burned nearby warming the winter air; on its hob a can of water heated. He found a towel and scrubbed dirt and blood from his body; goosebumps rose on his wet skin. He dressed in clean clothes, placed a gold circlet set with ruby cabochons upon his head and a fur-lined cloak around his shoulders, and walked outside. Men huddled near fires came to attention as Tennoc passed. He ignored them and left the camp.
Tennoc found Teacher on the rise overlooking the battlefield. Sisters and Friends both Kellish and Tremontine who'd followed their respective armies moved among the dead and wounded. Scavengers human and animal had already moved in as well, gathering weapons, armor and—in the case of the animals—flesh from the dead. Kellish prisoners were digging three large trenches to use as graves; there would be no time to get bodies to Hills before they began to stink. One trench would hold Tremontines, another Kells, and a third the mercenaries who'd fallen; once the victor had become clear, the Western Islanders and Corrishmen had fled northward.
Soldiers were trundling up to each trench with carts full of the dead; they dumped them in, Friends sprinkled salt water over them in lieu of their final baths, and the prisoners shoveled dirt atop them. In a few years the Friends would return to take the bones back to Hills in each country. They would be with their comrades not their families, but their spirits would find rest. As long as one bone, even one tooth, rested in a Hill, so could a man's spirit.
"Where is Fallik of Whitehorse?" said Tennoc.
"Alas, we have not found him, Your Majesty," said Teacher. "I suspect there is nothing left to find. The Kells hated him—many were his incursions across the border. We found his banner and have set it aside to return to Whitehorse and Lord Gonnor. We must hope some of Fallik's bones will find their way into a Hill. However, we have found the bodies of fifteen Kellish lords, including Daevys ar Ulvyn and Bryth ar Brennow."
"Have they been buried?"
"No, sire. The men wished to do to them what had been done to Lord Fallik. I set a watch on them as I was unsure what you wished to do."
"Take me to them."
The bodies had been respectfully laid out on the ground, each man stripped of his armor and arranged on his back, his weapon atop his chest and his arms crossed over it. A cloth covered Ulvyn's split head. Atop Ulvyn's sword rested the battle crown of the Kells, now a mangled piece of metal; Tennoc's axe had nearly destroyed it. He picked up the twisted band. Some of the pearls, blue lapiz and jet set in the gold had been knocked out. It had been Dunnoc's crown, and the crown of many kings before him. Now it was Tennoc's. He handed it to Teacher. "Can you repair it?"
"Oh yes. What do you wish to do? Shall we bury the lords with the rest of the Kells?"
"No." Tennoc called for soldiers; he ordered the men to gather up the dead lords' weapons and banners, and set them aside.
"What are you going to do?" said Teacher. Tennoc gave no answer but ordered the soldiers to stack the bodies in a pile. "Your Majesty, what do you intend?" Teacher asked again.
Tennoc looked back at the camp and found what he was looking for: a cooking fire. He snatched at it, and flames rose in his hands. He swept his arms wide. Magic came easily now after the battle, and fire erupted in a wide arc between his hands. He threw it outward and it rushed at the bodies; the stack burst into flame and soon a sweet stench turned his stomach. "Not a single bone, a single tooth will I leave," he said in a dark voice that sounded alien even to himself. "They can wander the earth forever for what they've done."
"Their spirits may haunt you," said Teacher.
"Their deeds haunt me already."
When the fire finished its work and Tennoc dismissed it, he stirred the ashes with his foot; he found not a single scrap of tooth or bone. He walked away and left the rest of the dead to the Friends, but the weight on his heart remained. Perhaps when he reached Gwynna it would all be over and he might begin to live for more than death.
The towns and cities approaching Gwyrfal were almost glad to see the Tremontines, for the mercenaries fleeing the Forchyll Valley had overrun many of them. Tennoc made sure to go into each one with Cror ar Crymavon and Teacher beside him to speak with the townsmen. Only once did a town resist him; he killed its men singlehandedly and sent the women and children into permanent indenture. He let enough of them escape to spread the word: this powerful new ruler showed mercy if you obeyed him but none otherwise. No resistance came after that.
"The ones responsible for your mother's murder are dead," said Teacher in a gentle voice. "You cannot hold all of Kellen responsible."
Tennoc scowled at his advisor. "Do you question my actions?"
"I wonder at your ferocity."
"I wonder at my forbearance."
"Your actions make a point," said Teacher, "but it is not the point I would have you make."
"Which is?"
"That life under your rule will be better than it was before."
"It will be, but only if they obey me. That is my point."
Gwyrfal surrendered without a struggle as soon as Tennoc approached its walls. He rode through the gates, Hanni at his side, just as they had left the city almost two years before. "Mean you first to find our Gwynna, sire?" said Hanni as they rode through the city they'd once called home.
"I have to find Ulvyn's heir first," Tennoc replied.
"We will find the child with our Gwynna, no?"
Tennoc paused. "Perhaps." But he hoped not for her sake.
"What will you do, Lady?" said one of Gwynna's attendants as they looked out over the Tremontine armies gathered before the city. It seemed to Gwynna they went on past the horizon. Daevys must be dead, or else his forces so broken up that he could not regroup. If Daevys lived, Tennoc would hunt him down. She was or would soon be a widow, free to make her own choices.
She could not see the march into the city, but she knew Tennoc would come to claim her father's throne, and possibly herself. Nothing stopped them from marrying now—in fact, everything was in favor of it. But would it still be his wish? It had been a little over a spoke since she'd birthed another man's child, after all. Had he heard? Perhaps he'd already married Cariodas, if she'd lived to reach Tremont City. She'd always been his intended, after all. Cariodas, riding out of Gwyrfal dragging her father behind her: perhaps a girl as brave as that would make him a better wife. "I will prepare to meet our conqueror, is what I shall do," Gwynna said in the end.
"Should you not continue in mourning, ma'am?" said the attendant as she helped spread out the violet gown that set off the young Queen's eyes so.
Gwynna hesitated. She would never wear mourning for Daevys. Official mourning for her father hadn't ended, but she had a purpose beyond propriety. "No. I shall meet Tennoc in colors."
When Tennoc strode into the Great Hall, Gwynna stood on the dais, her dozen ladies deliberately arrayed around her, all but her dressed in black. They mourned not for Dunnoc or Ulvyn but for their husbands; these ladies were the wives of the lords who'd fought against Tennoc at Forchyll, and now they wept for their lives and those of their children.
Tennoc approached in light armor and no helm; lords both Tremontine and Kellish followed at his back. On his head rested the battle crown of Kellen. He'd changed in the two years they'd been apart; his blue eyes beneath their straight brows were still bright, but now held a feverish, frightening look that almost made Gwynna quail. His boyish face had gone hard, he'd added muscle to his once-slender frame, and his movements, while still graceful, were no longer those of a man who loved dancing as much as battle. Her gentle lover was gone. Only the soldier was left, and she was afraid of him.
"Princess—Queen Gwynna," said Tennoc. He stopped before the dais but did not bow.
Gwynna held up a hand as if to ward him off. "Your Majesty, before we proceed I must beg a favor from you, a very great favor."
Tennoc stopped mid-approach. "Ask it, you know you may have anything from me," he said in a softer voice than his face would have led her to expect.
Her heart warmed again and her fear retreated. "These ladies around me are the widows of the men who fought against you. I beg you to grant clemency to them and to their children. This war was none of theirs."
Tennoc frowned. "You ask a great deal. Perhaps I shall spare the women, but any boys—"
"If they are now alive, it is clear they did not fight against you," insisted Gwynna.
"I cannot let them live to fight against me later," he said.
Gwynna descended from the dais, holding out both hands. "What if they swear on their swords that you are their king? What if they kneel to you in Pagg's Temple and swear, if they're too young to have their swords yet? You said you would not deny me, Tennoc. As we both loved my brother, do not deny me this. Spare my ladies and all their children. Let those who swear allegiance to you live unmolested. Take the males into Tremont as captives if you must, but spare them from indenture and foster them among your lords instead—raise them as you were raised here at Gwyrfal."
"As I was raised?" Tennoc's mouth twisted. "Are so many Kells bastards, then?"
Now Gwynna's anger rose. "Until my father became ill you were treated the same as Kenver and I were, Tennoc, and you cannot say otherwise." She paused, thinking of the many slights he'd endured. "Those who ill-treated you are dead, yes?"
Tennoc nodded. "You are a widow, ma'am."
"I am glad of it," she spit as a grim joy filled her. "I am heartily glad of it. Your enemies are dead, and so you must show mercy and forgive these ladies their husbands' folly. Swear to me you will spare them, and…" She blushed. "And nothing of King Dunnoc's will be denied to you."
He took her hands. "Nothing will be denied to me in any event," he said in a low voice. "Nevertheless," he added for all to hear, "I will grant your boon. These ladies and their children shall remain unmolested, but their sons young and old must come to Pagg's Temple and swear allegiance to me. Any above age seven will be taken back to Tremont as you suggest but will not be indentured. If they themselves fought against me there will be no mercy, and if they fight against me in future I will wipe their houses from this earth, down to the last girl child. I am sworn." At this, the ladies in black wept anew in grief and gratitude; one fainted, but her fellows caught her before she slumped to the ground.
Most of her ladies meant little to Gwynna; some had been real friends, but most acted as Daevys's spies. Even so, the guilt belonged to their husbands and she did not wish them dead. Besides, granting her request proved Tennoc had changed without but remained the same within: an honorable man, merciful, kind-hearted and good, the man she and her brother had always loved. She knew what happened to the houses that stood against him; sparing the greatest of them proved he would do anything for her. She had no fear now that when she asked for mercy for her son it would be granted.
Gwynna removed the crown from her head. "Then I swear allegiance to you as King of Kellen and Tremont." She gave the circlet into his hands and made a low curtsey. He took her hand and raised her up; though her hand was steady, his trembled.
Air came back into the room. The servants began setting out the tables for the banquet to come. Formalities concluded, the assembly mingled and chattered among themselves; Gwynna's ladies retired to their grief.
Tennoc held Gwynna's hand in a strong, almost painful grip. "You will wear this crown again, you know, Gwynna," he said, his voice low and shaking. "You are all I have left. I will come to you tonight."
She blushed, terrified and exhilarated at the same time. "I wait on your pleasure, Your Majesty. I—I must attend to things now." He released her hand reluctantly.
The deposed Queen shocked the company when she next sought out Yellow Hanni among the attendants in the back of the room. He was much more weatherbeaten, though it had been just two years since she'd seen him last, and looked as troubled as she felt. Gray was just beginning to creep into his bright yellow hair. She embraced her old minder and kissed his cheek, whispering into his ear, "Has he changed so much?"
"Child of mine heart, he is broken," Hanni murmured in return. "To you it will fall to mend him."
Gwynna kept Hanni's words in mind as she waited for Tennoc that night in her bower. When he came to her, he'd taken his armor off, as well as Dunnoc's crown. He wore simple clothes and looked like her own Tennoc instead of the frightening Tremontine stranger in the Great Hall. They exchanged formal pleasantries until Gwynna excused her attendants and they were alone. "Oh, Tennoc, I am so very happy to see you well," she began, but before she'd taken more than a step toward him he'd crossed the space between them and seized her.
He had never touched her like this, never touched her at all apart from a surreptitious clasp of her hand as he helped her dismount and the like. His grip hurt her arms. She had time for one gasp before he pressed his mouth to hers as if he needed her breath as well as his own. She thought of drowning men who took their rescuers down with them, but she opened her mouth to him; he whimpered into it. "Gwynna," he choked as he kissed her neck, her cheeks, her eyes. "Oh, my Gwynna." Tennoc lifted her up in his arms and hurried into her bedchamber, where he set her on her feet and began forcing open the fastenings of her dress.
Gwynna stiffened. She had wanted this for so long; she had cried when Daevys and not Tennoc had been the first to unfasten her dress. This, however, was too quick for her. "Tennoc, my own love, please, calm yourself."
His hands slid down the thin chemise covering the bare skin of her back, but his movements slowed. "Just to touch you calms me," he said and kissed her again, this time more deliberately. "Tell me you love me."
"I do, I always have, but…" She'd given birth not long before; should she even be contemplating this? But to mention the birth was to remind him Ardunn was Daevys's son.
"Are you concerned I won't marry you?" he said, an unbelieving laugh in his voice. "You know I will. I would marry you tomorrow, tonight, this minute, but you deserve more than a sleepy Father and a string for a marriage cord." Gwynna's glance flicked before she could stop herself to the elaborately braided cord that had bound her to Daevys, still hanging over her bedchamber door. Tennoc turned his head, saw it himself and released her. He reached out his hand; the cord whipped across the room to him. "You don't need this any more." A ball of flame blossomed in his other hand; he dropped the cord into it and sent the resulting ashes into the fire warming her room. "Is that your trouble?"
Gwynna blanched at his display of magic; she was unused to it in his hands. Her father and brother had used it, certainly, but not so nonchalantly. Without its fastenings Gwynna's heavy dress kept slipping from her shoulder; in irritation she gave up adjusting it and simply held it there. "You…you know I bore a child, yes?" He nodded, his face clouded. "It's been just six weeks. I'm not sure…I should ask the Sisters…"
"Oh, Gwynna, I hadn't thought. I never mean to hurt you." He took her in his arms and kissed her again, and his gentleness this time melted her fear. "I will always love you, always want you. I never thought to have you at all." He slipped his fingers into the hair behind her ears. "Gwynna, may I stay with you anyway? May we just lie together—I won't force you to do anything, no, or even try to persuade you, but oh, I have been so lonely! It has been so hard, all of it has been so hard!" Then he was crying, his eyes nearly shut as he fought against tears. A sob broke from deep in his chest.
She'd always known she would lose Tennoc—he would marry Cariodas, and she would marry whomever her father chose—but losing him to exile had been worse. Watching her father lose his grip on his power, his kingdom and his mind had been worse still. Marriage to Ulvyn had broken her heart, and watching her brother's head follow their stepmother's into the executioner's basket had nearly broken her spirit. Gwynna matched his tears, and the two let their mutual grief overcome them.
They climbed onto the bed, still clothed, and held each other as they cried. When they'd recovered enough to speak, he took a cloth from a pouch at his belt, dried her eyes and nose, and then his own. They lay facing one another; she stroked his face and his hair in wonder. "I can't believe you're here."
"I swore when…" He paused, and Gwynna thought he might begin crying again. "When Cariodas came I swore I would return to you at the head of an army, and so here I am."
She gave a slight laugh. "Am I to believe this was all for me?"
"I would be lying if I said it was all for you, but my other motive I am sure you will approve of," he said with increasing intensity, "and that is to revenge my mother and Kenver. When things have settled I will go to Brennow and Ulvyn and level them to the ground. I will leave no child of those Houses alive. What is it, sweetheart? You've gone white."
Gwynna did her best to wipe the panic from her face. Please don't let him ask after Ardunn. "I don't like the thought of children dying, any child—even an Ulvyn or a Brennow."
"We don't have to talk about it now." Tennoc pulled her to him, cradling her against his chest. There had been an almost-innocent sea air tang to him before, but now he smelled darker, earthier and more masculine, mingled with a scent she'd always associated with her father—wild, unpredictable and terrifying, like lightning. He smelled of magic. "You're shaking—you're cold. Let's go to bed. Skin to skin we'd be warmer, you know," he smiled.
Gwynna was cold, and the idea of lying naked in the bed with a man she'd loved since girlhood warmed her in several ways. "I'd like that, but…"
"I still promise I will not persuade you to anything that might injure you or that you mightn't like. I just want to feel you beside me. Is that all right?"
They shed their clothes before the fire and slipped shivering into the bedclothes. Gwynna huddled in his embrace, his body heat smoothing away her goosebumps. He was true to his word; he did nothing but hold her. Her thigh brushed against his erection. She withdrew her leg quickly, but over time it relaxed of its own accord until it pressed against him. "Gwynna, that is unwise," he murmured. "I can control myself, but you make it difficult."
Daevys was Gwynna's sole experience of sex. He had tied her to the bedpost with the marriage cord and raped her in accordance with custom, though custom didn't call it rape and most married women went to their beds willingly or at least in resignation. Over the weeks she gave up fighting in favor of survival, and Daevys turned into a surprisingly gentle lover, if he might be called "lover." Gwynna was practical. Tennoc's return was improbable at best, but somehow she might escape Daevys if he trusted her enough to let her outside her rooms. He never had, and then had come Ardunn, and now Ulvyn was dead and here was Tennoc, his skin erasing Daevys's memory even as her breasts ached for her son. "It's all right to touch me," she whispered.
His arm was already beneath her; he slid his free hand down her back's curve, around her hip and up her side. His hand was warm and gentle, and would stop every few inches as if asking a question; her body would answer, and the hand would continue on until it asked for permission again. She gave it over and over without a word until his hand reached her milk-filled breasts. She moved it away to her belly, still loose from Ardunn's birth; Tennoc didn't seem to notice or care. A tautness crept over her.
"Gwynna," he murmured, "if we are not to go on, I must leave you."
"No, don't leave, not yet," she said, embracing him closer. His hand rested on her bottom, his hard cock just above her mound. He slid uncertainly against her until she wrapped her leg over his hip and pulled him atop her.
"You're sure?"
"I'm sure," said Gwynna, and he pushed inside her. Just knowing it was him—her Tennoc, so long forbidden and then gone—was enough to send ripples of happiness through her until frustrating, burning pain made her gasp, "Tennoc—Tennoc, stop, it hurts. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, you're hurting me."
He pulled out and rolled away, groaning. "I would never hurt you, I'm so sorry, we don't have to go on. We can do other things." Tennoc slipped his fingers between her lips to find her clitoris but removed them. "No wonder it hurt, you're dry. Did you really want this?"
"Oh yes! I can't tell you how much. So many nights I would lie awake thinking of you, and now that you're here—"
"Ssh, I have waited this long, I can wait longer."
Tennoc licked his fingers and slipped them just inside her again. He put one to each side of her clitoris and caressed her, the strokes almost lazy. At first the slowness reassured her, a sign she was not to be rushed, but as the pleasure increased her body demanded more.
A memory flashed over her of Daevys in her bed and she opened her eyes in sudden panic to find Tennoc whispering her name and looking into her face. His eyes were blue not brown, his jaw clean-shaven not bearded, he was her own, her beautiful Tennoc and not Daevys. She could not control her breathing; it matched her frantic heartbeat and the pulses of relief, delight and love that flooded her as she called out to him. When she finished, he took her into his arms and kissed her over and over while she gasped and laughed and trembled.
Gwynna's breath returned to her. "I want to try again."
"Are you sure?"
In answer, she sat up. The fire still burned in the hearth but did little to warm the room. Her nipples puckered and goosebumps rose on her arms; she giggled from nerves and the cold. She lay down atop him and he carefully arranged the bedclothes to cover them both.
This way she might control matters. If it hurt again it would be easy to stop, and she was no longer as dry so it mightn't hurt at all. She placed him at her entrance and slid down on him, her hands braced on either side of his chest. Tennoc let out a strangled cry; he twitched but stopped himself from bucking up into her, letting her set the pace. Belly to belly they moved together. She wanted him deeper, as if she might keep him with her always, but every time she tried her body reminded her the birth wasn't that long ago. There would be time. They were together now.
Tennoc didn't last long. He clutched her ass to his hips and pushed up into her as far and as hard as she would let him before he came. Though she did not join him this time, the warmth of his pleasure inside her made up for it, his happiness hers. Afterwards, he stroked her hair in drowsy contentment as they lay together, breath slowing. So this was lovemaking.
Within the quarter-hour, Tennoc was fast asleep; the new lines etched beside his mouth and between his brows disappeared as his face relaxed into the one she remembered. She herself was far from sleep; her heart was too full, and so were her breasts. She rose and threw on her chemise and a robe as she shivered near the fire. She crossed into her bower and from there into the little nursery where Ardunn and his nursemaid spent what time apart they must. The rarely-used cradle was empty; the baby and his nursemaid slept in a bed wide enough for the two of them and one other. When Ardunn could not begin the night with his mother, he slept here until she joined him. Usually the nursemaid brought him to her, but tonight she would stay with them, preferring to let Tennoc sleep. If she woke up early enough she'd rejoin him.
She shifted the blankets, settled herself into the bed, picked up her tiny son and put him to her breast. The sleepy nursemaid smiled at Gwynna. "Will he be kind to us, my lady?" she whispered. "Will he be merciful?"
Ardunn snuffled at his mother's nipple. Gwynna smiled at him, sleepy and content as he caught it and began to nurse. "Oh, yes," she yawned. "He has always been kind to everyone, and he loves me." She fell asleep to the baby's tiny, satisfied gulps.
Tennoc was gone when Gwynna awoke, tending to what must be an endless number of details now that he'd taken Gwyrfal. Now she sat in her bower amusing her babe. Ardunn had just begun to smile, and making him do so was her chief delight.
A rustle at the now-unguarded door made her pause; she stood up with the baby in her arms. Hanni slipped inside, a finger at his lips; his usual buffoonish demeanor had turned sober. He pointed toward the nursery, shooed her in and shut the door behind them. Tears shone on Hanni's cheeks in the weak sunlight just beginning to struggle through the windowpane's thick glass; Gwynna's heart began to thump; she wondered if Ardunn could feel it as he lay against her shoulder. "What is it? Is Tennoc all right?"
"Oh, child of mine heart! Run we must, and now, if you wish to keep your son!"
"Hanni, what's happened? Daevys isn't still alive, is he?"
"Nay, nay, Ulvyn is ashes on the winds of the Forchyll Valley. It is Tennoc. He intends to kill your boy."
Gwynna's head rang as if he'd boxed her ears. Ardunn sensed her sudden fear and whimpered; she dandled him up and down. "I don't understand—" she began, but Tennoc's words came back to her, coarse and dark: I will leave no child of that House alive. "Ardunn is my child, not just Ulvyn's! He would never do such a thing!"
"Dear, dear one, any king would do it."
"Not Tennoc, not to a child of mine!"
"He is not our Tennoc, not since Cariodas came to us with the chest. He will do it. He plans to call you away to attend him and take the child when you are not here. I know this, for he is wanting me to do it, and I will not. I helped his mother escape injustice, and now I help you. I am yours now, just as I belonged to my dear ladies Inglatine and Lassanna. I will not serve this stranger."
Gwynna had never seen Hanni so serious, as direct as an arrow from his own bow. "What are we to do?"
"Do you trust your woman?" Hanni had a stealthy hand on his dagger and stood a little more in the doorframe than before.
The nursemaid saw none of that. She clutched at Gwynna's arm and put a protective hand on Ardunn's back. "I will help you, please let me come with you!"
"Then come," said Hanni. "They will kill you if you stay, anyway."
"Where are we going?" said Gwynna.
"We cannot leave Gwyrfal in this weather," answered Hanni. "The Mother's Temple is the closest shelter. We must hurry. Tennoc rose before dawn and is at the Brother's Temple meeting with Kellen's Eldest Brother. When he returns, it will be too late."
They spent a frantic fifteen minutes bundling the two women and the infant into warm clothing; Gwynna disguised herself in some of the nursemaid's clothes and shoveled as much jewelry as she could into a sack. Yellow Hanni stuffed his telltale hair under a cap.
Hanni had timed their escape well; the early morning procession of vendors and entreating merchants there to see the seneschal was in full swing. Hanni hid Gwynna and the baby in a wheelbarrow covered in sacking and purloined turnips. The nursemaid walked beside him grumbling aloud to herself about the rudeness of the seneschal: "He wouldn't even look at our turnips!" Once clear of the castle, a two mile walk down the hilly road into the city surrounding it, they found a deserted, stinking alleyway, ditched the wheelbarrow and its turnips, and walked through the snowy streets to the Mother's Temple, where to the astonishment of the Mothers, Queen Gwynna, her child and her servant claimed and were granted asylum.
As a man, Hanni was not. "I leave you here, child of mine heart, where I know you and the little one will be safe."
"What will you do?" said Gwynna.
Hanni shrugged. "For now I go to Corland. I can stay nowhere in Tremont or Kellen—they are the same now, no? Tennoc will be angry and look for me. Perhaps I go to the Western Isles. From there?" He shrugged. "Years it is since I have seen my home in Leute. Perhaps I take a ship and go back there at last."
Tennoc returned to the castle, his step heavy but determined. He'd wrestled with himself over Ulvyn's child. Were it not Gwynna's he would have no hesitation; when a House set itself up in armed opposition to his own, he had to kill any male that might grow up to rebuild and revenge; it had gone against logic to spare the sons of the Kellish nobility, and he would never have done it had Gwynna not asked it of him.
Teacher disapproved of killing Ulvyn's son, to Tennoc's surprise, and Hanni had advised against it as well. The infant was Gwynna's. Hanni said she loved it. How could she love it? It was of Ulvyn! No, he had to do it. In time she would have other children, their children, and remember only her hatred of Ulvyn and not the lost child.
In the end after much argument Hanni had agreed to do the necessary, but he wasn't in Tennoc's rooms when the young King returned from the Warrior's Temple, nor was he in his own rooms. Tennoc stopped a Guardsman. "Find Yellow Hanni. I need him." To a nearby servingwoman he said, "Go and fetch Her Majesty. Tell her I wish to show her some preparations I'm making for our wedding."
The servingwoman came back alone. "The Lady is not in her bower, sire."
"She must be in the nursery," he said, starting toward her rooms.
"No, sire, I looked there next and she isn't. The little one and his nursemaid aren't there, either. If it weren't winter I'd think the three of them were out in the gardens, but no one would take a wee thing like that out into the snow unless—"
By then Tennoc had run down the stairs to the main hall, where Kellish Brothers were conferring with Tremontine Guards. "All of you, fan out. You must find Yellow Hanni, the Lady Gwynna or the woman who cares for Ulvyn's son. Search everywhere!"
"What's amiss, Your Majesty?" said Cror ar Crymavon, hurrying in from the courtyard.
Tennoc's fury rose up through his body, sweeping grief, shame and pain before it. "Hanni's betrayed me."
"He's here, Lady," the Kellish Little Mother murmured.
Gwynna stood up, the baby in her arms. "Where?"
"In the Worship Hall. He is alone," added the old priestess. "He wished to bring his men inside, but the Brothers would not allow it—they are ringing the Temple even now. Quite the argument he made, too. The Eldest Brother said he understood and even sympathized with the new King's…aims…but you'd taken shelter here and they could not break Pagg's Law. Do not be deceived—if you leave the Temple, the Brothers themselves will kill the child on the new King's orders. But they will not enter these walls on such an errand."
"I'm still unsure it's wise for me to see him."
"I made him vow before the Mother that he would harm no one in this Temple were we to let him inside, with magic or anything else. It's best you see him." The Little Mother held out gnarled, gentle hands. "You may leave the little one with me."
"No. Tennoc will see the one he wishes to kill."
As she walked to the Worship Hall and its many little altars to the Mother in all Her aspects, Gwynna wished she were wearing something a bit more regal than the nursemaid's practical wool dress. Lassanna always said bearing made a Queen—usually when she returned filthy from a hunt—and Gwynna's stepmother had been about the most queenly woman Gwynna had ever known, whether laughing and covered in mud, or with her head on the block. What would Lassanna think of Tennoc now, she wondered. Gwynna straightened her back, pushed her braids over her shoulders, and marched into the Hall.
At its far end near the doors stood Tennoc. He wore armor, his helm under one arm, and his face wore those haunted lines again. "Come home, Gwynna," he said without preamble.
"Not without your vow before the Mother that my son may live."
"You know I cannot do that."
"I know nothing of the kind!" she shouted. Ardunn stirred, and she took a moment to sooth him back down before continuing in a softer voice, "All I know is you would kill my child."
"Did you love Ulvyn as you love me, then, that you would keep it?"
Gwynna thought about her late unwanted husband, how she had loathed but borne his touch in hopes of better days. "Never did I love him, and as you have seen I do not mourn him."
"Then how can you love something of his getting?"
"He's my child, whatever his getting!"
Tennoc threw down his helm; Gwynna started as the sound of the metal on marble crashed through the Temple. "He's my enemy! Infant or no, when he is grown he will threaten our sons!"
"We can raise him as a Tremontine," pleaded Gwynna, "and he will love you as his father and our sons as his brothers if you treat him as you will your own. It's how you yourself were raised. My father loved you as his own!"
"How did that turn out? For any of us?"
Gwynna held herself up as high as she could and turned Ardunn so that Tennoc could see the sleeping baby's face. "Here is the innocent you would kill. His name is Ardunn. If you insist on doing this, there will be no children of ours. I will not marry you."
A white wave of rage built on his brow. "You will marry me if I have to tie you to the bedpost!"
"Then you are no better than Ulvyn!" she shot back.
Shock replaced rage on Tennoc's face. "How can you say such a thing—he murdered Kenver and my mother!"
"And you would murder my son—Kenver's nephew and Dunnoc's grandson—all we have left of them!"
"Being in Dunnoc's line as well as Ulvyn's is why he must die. Do not pretend you don't understand this." Tennoc picked up his helm and put it on; she could no longer see his face, and this upset her most of all. "When you leave this place, madam, my men will be waiting—I will be waiting. The moment you leave the Temple I will ensure the safety of whatever sons I may have, by whatever woman I marry."
"Then I shall never leave."
"If he lives past infancy, he will grow to manhood and then he must leave."
"There is time enough to consider the problem," said Gwynna. Tennoc spun away and walked toward the door, and she realized these were the last moments they would spend together in this life. "You will say no good thing to me? Not even goodbye, Tennoc?"
The helm turned toward her. In the shadows it looked empty, as if no man inhabited it, and Gwynna shuddered. He said something in Tremontine she didn't understand in a voice curt, harsh and hollow, so unlike Tennoc, and then he was gone. She had no one left in the world to her but Ardunn, and she grew so hollow, so fragile, that if someone tapped her in the wrong spot she was sure to shatter.
A gentle throat-clearing came from behind her. The Kellish Little Mother stepped from the shadows. "Forgive me, my dear, but I wanted to make sure you were safe. I believe the new King to be true to his word, but…" The old priestess let the thought hang.
Gwynna wiped her eyes on the none-too-soft wool of the nursemaid's sleeve. "I wish I knew what he said at the end."
"I speak the language," murmured the Little Mother. "He said, 'My name is Temmin.'"
Temmin shook his head to clear it of Gwynna's terror and rage. "I don't like to hear my name used by someone like Tennoc."
"How so?" said Teacher.
"To kill a child—an infant?"
Teacher leaned back against the mantel. "Politics is an ugly business. There is a very real fear in any regime change that someone with perhaps a better claim—someone like Ardunn—would become a rallying point against a ruler and must be eliminated early. Your uncles have no clear claim to the throne, but they have become such rallying points. Is it so strange that Tennoc would wish to secure his position? Especially as a bastard?"
"But you told him not to do it, and he ignored you."
"There were voices against me, Cror ar Crymavon's most notably. Crymavon was not a bad man, but he considered himself practical. Tennoc wanted Ulvyn's every trace erased. He wanted revenge."
Temmin sat up straighter. "And you told him revenge was a bad idea."
"Not at all. I have been known to mete out vengeance myself now and again," said Teacher with a smile that sent a draft down Temmin's neck. "But I revenge myself on the offenders, not their families. Sadly, the kings of Tremont usually have different ideas. Remember the archer who killed King Fredrik the Last of Leute in the story of King Warin and Queen Emmae," added Teacher, reaching down to tap on the book. "Warin slaughtered his family down to the last innocent child."
"I don't want the murder of children on my conscience," muttered Temmin, thinking of his future as king.
"It is easy to avoid, sir," said Teacher. "Do not murder children."
Middlemont, the Home County
The fourth day of Winter's Ending, 992 KY
A Sister midwife and her two lay assistants had taken up residence at Middlemont just in time for Twenna Shelstone's confinement. "Best send word to the King," said the Sister to Hallik the butler.
"How long will it take?" he asked.
"As long as it takes." The Sister closed the door to Twenna's bedchamber not a moment too soon for Hallik, who had no children of his own and had never heard a woman in labor. He hurried to his dayroom to write the message and call for a groom to ride to the Keep.
"Will you go?" said Winmer on presenting the message.
Harsin waved his hand. "After the baby is born. There is nothing I can do, after all. It's woman's work. And I've had my fill of Sisters and tears."
By the end, Twenna had had her fill, too. Water bathing her sweat-soaked body, hands freeing and brushing her hair, and then cool, clean sheets beneath her had never been as sweet as when she'd passed the afterbirth and was helped into her bed from the birthing chair where she'd pushed out a son.
He lay belly-down against her bare breast beneath the blanket. He'd already had his first nursing, latching onto her nipple "like a good 'un" as a midwife said approvingly, and now Twenna indulged in the sleepy new mother's favorite pastime: examining her baby. All fingers and toes accounted for; soft, golden fuzz stroked; his features searched for echoes of her mother, her father, his father. She saw few, but the midwives said babies changed from minute to minute well into their second year.
"Now you should sleep, dear, you've been up all night working very hard," soothed the Sister midwife. "We'll take the babe so you can sleep."
"So I can sleep?" exclaimed Twenna. "I won't be able to sleep without him!" She yawned and snuggled down further into the pillows; the baby didn't stir, but stayed splayed on her chest like a little pink frog. "Won't Harsin be surprised? He thought it would be a girl! I think he'll be happy it's a boy. Men like boys. I must think of a name." Twenna drifted off into a deep, pleased sleep.
Later she sat up in bed dressed in a pretty new nightdress, a blue ribbon matching her eyes pulling her hair from her happy face. As she had long hoped, the King arrived, his voice abrupt and clipped outside her door, and Mistress Hallik's voice agitated in response. He opened the bedchamber door with more force than was required. "Who is he?"
Joy burst over her. She hadn't seen Harsin in spokes. Now she'd given him a son, he would return to her, and the three of them could be happy. "We must pick a new name! I was thinking perhaps—"
"Name him what you please. He's none of mine."
Twenna opened her eyes wide in confusion. "What do you mean? I thought you were going to acknowledge him."
"I was going to acknowledge it when I thought it was mine."
"He is yours, Harsin, who else could be his father?"
"I asked you that when I came into the room, woman!"
What had happened to change him so? His red eyes glared; his dark, graying hair had come loose from its queue and now fell about his temples, covering the shorn spot where he'd cut the Queen's mourning lock. He was in mourning, of course, though she'd always believed his relationship with the Queen was more for show than anything else. Her Majesty was the mother of his children, though; her death had to have been a shock. The Prince and Princesses were probably upset and turning to their father more than usual. It wrung her tender heart. "Oh, Harsin, come see your little son, I hope he may ease some of your pain!"
"You are my current pain!" he roared, "and that child is no son of mine!"
She shrank against the pillows. "I don't understand. What are you saying?"
"All this time I've been waiting for the birth of a child who isn't mine, planning honors for you, elevating your greasy toad of a father, and for what? Betrayal! Who fathered that baby? Who is he!"
Twenna began to cry. "Harsin, there's never been anyone but you! Why do you not think he's your son? Yes, I know you thought it was a girl, but surely a son—"
"Teacher!" Harsin called into the next room. A black sliver with iron-colored hair and odd silvery eyes entered, and Twenna shivered as if the Black Man were drawing his fingers down her spine. "You're certain? You're certain this is not my son?"
"But how would he know?" quavered Twenna.
"Be quiet!" said Harsin. "Teacher?"
The frightening figure frowned at the lay midwife holding the baby. "I am certain."
"What?" cried Twenna. "No, no, Harsin, no, he's lying, I've never known another man, ever, this is our son! This is your son!"
"We're done here." Harsin turned on his heel, calling for Hallik as he strode out of the bedchamber. Teacher trailed behind.
The baby began to cry. "He's hungry, miss," said the lay midwife.
"In a moment, a moment!" Twenna stumbled from the bed.
"No, miss, no," said the Sister midwife, "you lost quite a bit of blood in the birth, you must stay in bed another few days until you've regained your strength!"
"I must follow him! He's wrong, that man is lying, it's Harsin's son! It's Harsin's!" She sagged into the Sister's arms and wailed.
"Shut those doors!" said Harsin from the hallway outside Twenna's apartments. "I never want to hear her voice again! Hallik! Where is Shelstone?"
"Sir Elbig is on his way, sir," answered the butler.
"I don't know any 'Sir Elbig,'" said the King.
A whiff of Elbig Shelstone's jasmine-tinged cologne hurried into the hall before he did. "Your Majesty! Felicitations on the birth of your new son, my grandson!" he beamed. "Why are you standing in the hallway? Hallik, take him in to see the little thing! He's perfect in every way, sir, resembles his father—"
"Whoever he is," snapped Harsin. "Do you know who Twenna's been dallying with? You must know, you're the one who put her in my way, aren't you? A pimp whoring out his own daughter." Shelstone opened his mouth in shock, but Harsin cut him off. "Was it Twenna's idea to laugh behind her hand at me? No, she's never had a single thought in her head. So whose influence did you believe more important than your King's, Shelstone? Whose favor were you currying?"
"Your Majesty!" sputtered Shelstone. "Sir, you've gone mad! I mean—sir, how can you believe these things? Twenna was a maid when you met her, and has been with no other man, I swear it! That child is yours!"
"The child is not his," said Teacher.
Shelstone made Amma's sign, but said, "I don't know what you'd know about it!"
Harsin turned to the butler. "Hallik, make a carriage ready to take Mister Shelstone and his daughter back to town immediately."
"Your Majesty, the lady is still too weak to travel," protested Mistress Hallik, who'd been hovering behind her husband. "Have pity, sir! In the time we have been here, there has been no man in the house when you yourself have not been, but even if there had been—"
"You lecture us?"
Mistress Hallik left the shelter of her husband's side and stood firm before the King, though her mouth trembled and she clutched her hands before her. "Amma commands me to, sir. I have served you from girlhood, and will serve you to my dying day even if that day is today, but I will not see a woman newly delivered of a child turned out of a house in the middle of winter!" Harsin glared at her, but she refused to drop her gaze.
"She is in the right, Your Majesty," murmured Teacher. "You may give Miss Shelstone some kindness at no cost to your consequence."
Harsin ground his teeth. "As soon as the Sister says Miss Shelstone can travel, she will leave. Send Mr Shelstone away this instant. Hallik, saddle a horse and send a groom along. The groom can take the horse to the Keep's stables once he's delivered Shelstone to his own door." He turned to the former tailor. "Elbig Shelstone, we strip you of your holding and your title. Anything in this house and at Menantola is forfeit. You will take nothing with you but the clothes on your back, and be grateful for them. Be grateful we don't have you flogged round the City! Teacher, take me home." Harsin stalked down the hallway into the rooms he used as his own when in residence.
Shelstone called after him, "You're taking Menantola from me? You can't! Your Majesty, this is a misunderstanding! Sir, you can't!" The hallway emptied as the Halliks left to attend to their tasks, Mistress Hallik wiping her eyes on her handkerchief.
Shelstone collapsed against the wall, rattling the paintings. "What am I to do?" he whimpered. "I am encumbered all around, no one to turn to, not a feather to fly with, and now…I shall go to the block! They'll indenture me! I cannot allow it, I cannot! I cannot stand in the Father's Temple to be auctioned off for debt while the whole City laughs! I cannot! Oh Gods—!" He fled to his rooms.
When Hallik and the groom came for him not half an hour later, they found him hanging from a rail in the wardrobe among his many perfectly tailored suit coats, quite dead.