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Lady Jorunn lowered her spyglass and handed it to Elwyn, saying, “It appears to all be over now.”
They stood on one of the outer towers on the northern side of the castle wall, facing Abertref and Gleade Hill over the confluence of the rivers. It wasn’t quite a mile away, and even with the naked eye, she had been able to see the companies forming and attacking and coming apart. With the benefit of the little telescope, she could see the banners of the men marching triumphantly into Abertref. Gray banners with a black eagle on them.
“Oh, Earstien, no,” she thought, leaning forward and putting a hand to the nearby parapet to steady herself. “We lost. How could we lose?”
The Earl of Hyrne, so calm and reassuring in his letter, so confident of victory, had completely and utterly failed. There had been moments, here and there, where it looked as if the earl’s men might be gaining an advantage. But every time, Cousin Broderick had slipped away and taken up a new position. And then Young Broderick’s cavalry had come roaring over the hill with a rumble the court ladies could hear and feel even at this distance, and the earl’s army had been ripped to shreds.
Elwyn had never fought in a battle. She had never even seen one, though she had grown up during a war and watched all sorts of parades and tournaments. So she couldn’t claim to be an expert at soldiering. But it seemed to her that her “uncle” the earl had completely messed up. Even an amateur like Elwyn could see how Broderick had lured them in and separated the different parts of the earl’s army.
“Why is Cousin Broderick so clever,” she wondered despondently, “and our people are so dumb?”
Lady Jorunn and her student, Evika Videle, bowed their heads and said a quiet prayer for the dead.
A few yards away, Pedr Byrne stood with his mother, pouting. “You see?” he grumbled. “They’ve won the battle without me, and what if I never get to fight?”
Duchess Flora sighed. Her face was drawn and pale with worry. “Pedr, I’m not going to let you kill yourself to impress Muriel Gramiren.”
But these were the only somber notes. The other ladies at the tower were mostly from the Gramiren party—Anne Meriwether and her set of girls, along with Colonel Rath’s wife, Lady Elizabeth, and some of Baroness Muriel’s friends. Their undisguised glee at the defeat of fellow Myrcians made Elwyn nauseous. Karlina Selberssen and Genevieve Ostensen, Muriel’s two lady’s maids, danced giddily over and congratulated Elwyn on the gallant cavalry charge by her “dear future husband.”
“It must be lovely to know your man is so brave,” said Genevieve.
Elwyn glared at her for a second and then pushed past her toward the stairs. “Pardon me,” she said, “but I feel a trifle overwhelmed.”
No one tried to stop her as she went back across the garden to the palace. No one even followed her, though some of the guards bowed to her. Were they being polite, or was there a hint of mockery in the gesture? She didn’t even care. She had to get back to the royal apartments before her siblings and Rohesia heard this terrible news from anyone else.
Edwin, Alice, and the queen could have watched the battle easily from the outside balcony of Rohesia’s room. But they hadn’t. When they heard, in the early morning hours, that there would be fighting north of the city, Rohesia had gathered them in the larger parlor of the nursery, where she read to them out of the Halig Leoth and occasionally led them in prayers. At dawn, the nervous tension had been too much for Elwyn, so she had gone out to the wall to see what was going on.
They were still there when she got back, though Rohesia had, with heartbreaking hopefulness, made the children put on their best clothes to greet their uncle when he got there. Edwin had the little gold circlet on his head, too, and it slipped a bit as he looked up and said, “Elwyn, what’s wrong? What’s happened?”
She almost couldn’t bear to say it. She wished now she hadn’t left in the first place and hadn’t seen the battle. She wished she had sat there with them so she could hear it from someone else in a few clean, well-mannered words that completely hid the messy, stupid waste of it all.
“I’m sorry,” she finally croaked. “I’m sorry, but...the earl lost.”
They stared at her, until Alice and several of the ladies-in-waiting started crying. Edwin was the first to speak. He drew his little practice sword and declared, “I’m going to challenge Cousin Broderick to a duel. Single combat for the crown!”
Elwyn hurriedly shut the door of the parlor. “Edwin, dear, you mustn’t say things like that, even when you’re in the nursery!”
Rohesia, when she finally shook herself out of her daze, was no less defiant. At least at first. She rose and stalked up and down the room, hands clenching and unclenching, ranting that she would never, ever bow to Broderick as king, no matter how many victories he won.
“I will be dead before I bow to him,” she snarled. “I will go jump from one of the towers here, like the last Queen of Dunmagos did!”
Mrs. Ripley, the chief nursemaid, gave the queen a nervous look and bustled over, still wiping her own eyes, to corral Edwin and Alice. “Um, children, why don’t we go in this other room for a while?”
When the children were gone, and Elwyn was alone with her stepmother, she said, “I feel the same way about marrying Young Broderick. If you jump from a tower, so will I.”
Rohesia stopped and shuddered, then she sank to the floor. “It’s no good. It’s no good at all. There’s nothing we can do.”
Elwyn, fighting to keep from breaking down, glanced wildly around, and her eyes fell on the big, ornate copy of the Halig Leoth that the queen had been reading. It gave her an idea, and instantly, she fell to her knees next to Rohesia.
“Mother,” she hissed, “let’s go right now, while everyone is distracted. We can get down to the library, and we can look in Finster’s Book. You know the spell, Mother. You can open it. Maybe there will be something in there we can use to beat Broderick.”
“No, Elwyn, no,” the queen said through her clenched jaw. “It’s no use. The blasted book is never any use, and even if it were, what good would it do? We’ve got no army, and we’ve got practically no friends left.”
“Mother, stop,” said Elwyn, trying to restrain her. “Mother, we can’t lose hope.”
“We are beyond hope, Elwyn. All we have left is desperation.” She took a few long breaths and smoothed her skirts. “All we can do is try to keep Edwin’s claim alive. For the sake of your father’s memory, you have to help me do that. As long as Edwin lives, Broderick can never really be king.” She took Elwyn’s hands in hers. “Will you help me? Even if it’s hard and humiliating, will you help me?”
“Of course,” said Elwyn. “That’s all I’ve been trying to do since Father died.”
“Good. Now go get on your best dress. When Cousin Broderick returns, we have to be there to greet him.”
“You can’t be serious,” said Elwyn, recoiling.
“We’re past the time for defiance,” said the queen. “We mustn’t give him any excuse to move against Edwin.” She stood, straight and tall again. “Go get dressed, Elwyn, and meet me back here. Get the brightest Spring dress you have—something in yellow or light blue.”
“Mother! We’re still in mourning for Father!”
“No. I am still in mourning for him. When we get downstairs, you must pretend to be celebrating the victory of your future husband and future father-in-law. Now go change, and hurry!”
So Elwyn, with Phoebe’s help, put on a dress of pale pink silk with red and white lace over the bodice. She loved the dress, but wearing it now was utterly obscene, and she would have felt less self-conscious if she had gone down in her shift.
At the door to the stairs, one of Rath’s men tried to prevent Rohesia from leaving.
“I am the queen,” she thundered, “and when a Myrcian commander enters this castle in triumph, I must be there to greet him! Go tell your captain I demand my rights.”
The man went away and came back ten minutes later, red-faced, to say that her majesty would, indeed, be permitted out of the royal apartments this one time as a special favor from “King Broderick.”
“Did the Gemot vote and I missed it?” said Elwyn, unable to stop herself.
“He was proclaimed by the troops in the Immani fashion, my lady,” said the soldier.
Elwyn would have said more, but she felt Rohesia grab her arm, and she remembered the danger they were in now. As they descended the stairs, Elwyn heard her stepmother say, under her breath, “Now I know how Queen Merewyn felt, when they finally let her out of that tower.”
Down in the Palm Court, a spontaneous celebration had broken out, with young knights and ladies dancing to the music of a hastily-assembled orchestra. People cheered and called out congratulations to each other. But everywhere Elwyn and Rohesia walked, faces fell and crowds parted. No one, it seemed, wanted to talk to them, or even acknowledge their presence.
No one, of course, except for Duchess Flora. They came across her near one of the waterfalls, where she seemed to still be arguing with her son.
“Mother,” Pedr whined, “he may not be the de jure king, as the Immani say, but he is now the de facto king.”
“Is that what Muriel told you to tell me?” said Flora. Then she looked past her son’s broad shoulders and spotted Rohesia. “Oh, your majesty! Oh, Elwyn, dear.” She rushed over and gave them each a hug. “I wanted to tell you Pedr heard from one of Colonel Rath’s scouts that the Earl of Hyrne escaped the battle unharmed. I was sure you’d want to know.”
“Thank you, Flora,” said Rohesia. She blinked quickly a few times, then dabbed at the corners of her eyes, but that was the only sign of emotion from her.
Cousin Broderick and his son arrived soon thereafter, along with Duke Lukas, and they rode their horses right up the steps and into the Palm Court before dismounting, exactly as Edmund Dryhten, first king of Myrcia, had reportedly done. Muriel stood in front of the central fountain to greet them, dressed in a long, trailing gown of black and silver silk. She also had a little silver circlet on her head that looked like it was trying to be a crown.
When Broderick had greeted his wife and the crowd of well-wishers, and after wine had been fetched and a dozen toasts drunk to victory, and “a new chapter in Myrcian history,” and all sorts of other offensive things, Broderick happened to notice Elwyn and Rohesia, and he came over to greet them.
“I’m so pleased you could be here,” he said, bowing. “I am sorry your kinsman, the earl, could not be. I suspect he’s halfway to Keelweard by now.”
“I do hope to see him soon,” said Rohesia coldly.
“Sadly, I think the parting may be for some time,” said Broderick.
Rohesia, who had apparently reached the end of her patience for one day, plucked at Elwyn’s sleeve and whispered, “That’s enough. We’re going.”
But Broderick called out for Elwyn to stop. “My dear cousin, I wonder if I might have a brief word with you.”
Elwyn caught the queen’s eyes and gave a silent plea for help, but there was nothing Rohesia could do. Broderick led Elwyn through the party, out past the throne room, and into the empty and echoing Gemot hall. No one was there, except for a few servants who scurried away when they saw the captain general. All the banners had been taken down, all the gilded chairs had been put back in storage. It was just a long, plain room with rows of hard benches facing each other.
“I’m sorry it came to this,” said Broderick. “I really did not want to have to fight anyone.”
“If you didn’t want to, then you shouldn’t have,” said Elwyn.
“We’re all family. I don’t know if I’ve ever told you this, but I was a great admirer of your mother. I don’t mean Rohesia. I mean your real mother, Princess Leofled. I’m sorry you never had the chance to know her.”
Elwyn nodded, though she said nothing. She had often wished she could have grown up with a real mother, but it would have been horribly disloyal to Rohesia to say that. And she had a bad feeling that was exactly what Broderick wanted. They all had to stick together now.
“My mother, of course, was a different story,” he went on. “Maybe a sadder story, actually. You probably don’t remember her, do you?”
“I think...perhaps I met her once,” said Elwyn. She knew who Susan Gramiren was, or had been, but she had no memory of the woman at all.
“When she died, I had her buried at the church over in Abertref. I stopped and put flowers on her grave before coming back here.”
“How nice,” said Elwyn, trying to be civil.
“It was, thank you. She didn’t live in Abertref, you understand. She had a little farm the king had given her. I brought her down there because I thought—foolishly—that maybe my father and the nobles of the court might want to attend her funeral. Can you guess how many people showed up?”
“I can’t say.”
“Of all the people at court, only me and Flora Byrne. Well, and Colonel Rath. Pathetic, isn’t it?”
Elwyn shivered. “I’m sorry, but why are you telling me this?”
“Because you are a princess, and you were born at the top of this...,” he waved a hand toward the palace, “beautiful mountain of ours. You’ve lived at the top all your life, and you have no idea how very, very far down the chasms can go. Awful things happen to girls who fall.”
“Is that supposed to be a threat?”
He held up his hands. “I would never threaten my daughter, and that’s what you’re going to be. You’ll be queen one day, and the mother of kings.”
“My brother is still the rightful king, no matter what your soldiers say, and I have no desire to be your daughter.”
“I hope you understand after today that your brother can’t protect you. Rohesia’s family can’t protect you, either. Even if they could, they would sell you off in marriage the moment they needed to. And probably to someone much less pleasant than my son.”
“My brother would never do that to me,” said Elwyn.
Broderick laughed. “You can’t be foolish enough to believe that. Only I can keep you safe. I’m offering you a chance to join us willingly, and I hope you take it.”
If she had her hunting knife, she would have plunged it in his chest. She could have slapped him, at least, and she very nearly did. But she remembered Rohesia’s words. They couldn’t do anything to provoke this man.
With a stiff curtsy, she said, “Congratulations on your victory, my lord. Now, if you will pardon me, my mother will be worrying about where I’ve gone.”
She thought for sure he would try to stop her from leaving, but he let her go.