| |
If he hadn’t been so uncomfortable, Alfred might have slept all day. His back and his arms ached, and one of his shoulders stung where his mail had barely stopped a spear thrust.
A lot of the soldiers had slept on stone cobbles and rough-hewn boards. Fortunately, Sir Walter Davies had found a spot for Alfred and his staff to rest on straw mats under the counter of a hat shop near Emerson Square on Lewes Street. That had been an hour before dawn, after they had finally turned back the last enemy assault at the eastern barricades on Bast Street.
There was an eerie calm now in Leornian, as the river mist hung in the streets. The Gramiren forces had pulled back to the university and the shelter of the city wall. They would be attacking again; everyone knew they were coming sooner or later. But for now, the Sigor army had a brief respite.
As he walked around, checking on the men and the barricades, Alfred noticed no one was talking about the battle or the enemy. The news of Lady Veronica’s death had gone around, and the men were talking about that, instead. North of the cathedral, Alfred overheard two officers speculating as to whether the captain general would be so heartbroken that he would resign his position immediately. Was there a hopeful tone in their voices? Alfred barked at them to reinforce their section of barricade, even though it already looked pretty sturdy.
Grigory Sobol and Sir Presley Kemp were out checking on the fortifications, too. The good professor had all sorts of helpful ideas about how to support the defenders from the upper stories of the surrounding buildings, and Alfred had sent them off with Walter Davies to organize squads of archers and crossbowmen, as well as teams of civilian volunteers with bricks and rooftiles for ammunition. Dropped from a fifth or sixth-floor dormer window, an ordinary glazed tile would do more damage to a steel helmet than a mace or war hammer.
At the northeast corner of cathedral square on Walfisk Street, Alfred found Caedmon, walking along the walls of the buildings and the new barricades, muttering under his breath and waving his hand in some kind of benediction. The men stationed there looked very impressed, and more than a little pleased, muttering amongst themselves that, “We’ve got magysk spells now to protect us!”
A minute later, Caedmon took a break, looking weary and gray as if he had been running all night. Alfred went over to him and, in a low voice, asked if he was really putting protective spells on the barricades.
“H’m.... Is that what they are saying?” A slight smile played at the hillichmagnar’s lips. “I am placing shield and alarm spells so I know if this area is attacked by magy. I cannot protect our entire line against a determined assault, though.”
From Walfisk Street, Alfred went to the granaries to make sure food was being distributed on time to the troops. Then he decided he had probably better go back to the Bocburg and report to Queen Rohesia and the council. And to the captain general, too, if Earl Lawrence was in a fit state to command after learning his wife was dead.
At the Bocburg, the officer on duty took him to Duke Robert and the queen, both of whom looked as gray and worn as Caedmon. They took him next door to a small parlor where Lady Veronica was laid out under a sheet, and Earl Lawrence sat beside her, hunched over with his back to the door and holding her hand.
Alfred, feeling a profound pity for him and shame for intruding, cut short his report as much as possible. He finished by saying, “All the officers and men, sir, would want me to convey their deepest sympathies.”
The earl bent lower over his wife’s hand. In a halting voice, he said, “I will be back to inspect the front lines soon, Sir Alfred. Let everyone know I will be back in an hour. Two at most. Thank you.”
They left him with his wife and found runners to send to the forward commanders. Alfred pointedly did not say in his messages that Earl Lawrence would be back in an hour or two. There was no particular need for him at that exact moment. Let him take as long as he wished.
After that, Duke Robert said he wanted to view the barricades for himself, and the queen said she ought to see how little Helena was doing, as well as pass along Alfred’s report to the king. Left in the entrance hall amid a rushing tide of messengers and servants, Alfred wondered if he should go to his office, or if he should tour the front lines with the duke, or if—miracle of miracles—he could take a few minutes to bathe and change his clothes.
“Can I talk to you?”
Spinning around, he saw Princess Elwyn at the door of the library. She wore a brown riding dress, carried her bow in one gauntleted hand, and had a quiver of arrows over her shoulder. Strapped to her belt, she had an alarming array of hunting knives, dirks, and stilettoes. He might have been tempted to smile at all this warlike affectation, except that he had seen her shoot.
“Of course, your royal highness.” He bowed. “What would you like to talk about?”
She approached him slowly, indirectly, by a long, curving route, watching him warily from the corner of her eye, as if he might attack her. “Why did you leave the party?”
“The party?”
It took him a second to understand what she was talking about. He had been thinking about the battle and the troops and maybe finding a clean change of clothing. She was talking about court life. She was talking about Melanie Searle’s birthday party. Had that really only been five days ago? The sudden change in topic was disorienting, like he had walked from a dark, dank cavern into a bright sunlit garden.
“The party.” He bowed. “I was...not myself that evening, your royal highness. You must forgive me.”
One of her eyebrows shot up. “You were angry. I could tell. With everything that’s happened today, I knew I had to talk to you. I didn’t want to leave things the way they were between us.”
“There is no reason to trouble yourself, my lady. I am not angry.”
“You were. And you still are, I’d wager. As usual, I did everything wrong. I try and I try, and I always manage to fuck things up.”
He really didn’t want to have this conversation with her at this particular moment in this particular place, with housemaids and message riders walking past them and turning to look. He tried to placate her, saying things like, “It wasn’t your fault,” and, “You did a marvelous job with the party,” and, “I was worried about my work.” And the most egregious lie of all: “I’m not mad at you.”
Unfortunately, she realized what he was doing. A flash of pink appeared along her high, sharp cheekbones, and she snapped, “Don’t patronize me!”
She rushed away, up the stairs. He stood in the entrance hall, gritting his teeth and trying to let it go. But he couldn’t.
Storming up the spiral staircase, he caught sight of her and said, “I’m not patronizing you!”
A blatant falsehood, but he couldn’t think of anything better to say.
“Of course you are,” she shot back over her shoulder. “You’re treating me like a spoiled child, like everyone else always does!”
“Then stop acting like a spoiled child!”
They had come out on the third floor by his office. She stopped and turned in the corridor, glaring at him and breathing hard. “What do you mean by that?”
“You’re still worried about a party. Meanwhile, we’ve lost half the city, and hundreds of men are dead. And your aunt just died in childbirth, for Finster’s sake! Try to have some fucking perspective!”
“Fine then. Give me orders, my dear sir chief-of-staff.” She held up her bow. “Let me fight, if you’ve got the balls. Assign me a place on the barricade, and I’ll die defending it.”
“Don’t be absurd.”
Her lip quivered, and in a low, quavering voice, she said, “You fucking liar. How dare you.” Then she turned and stalked off again.
Against his better judgment, he followed her past the royal nursery. “What do you mean, I’m a ‘liar’?” he demanded.
At the door of her little apartment, she stopped and turned, leaning against the doorframe. “You said you loved me. You said you wanted to marry me. But you know absolutely nothing about me. You don’t know how I feel about Veronica dying, or about the battle. You know nothing at all. If you think I’m spoiled, you know nothing about my life. You don’t know what I’ve lost and given up. You don’t know...,” she paused, her voice growing ragged and her eyes glistening. “You don’t know the things I never had that everyone else takes for granted. Things I’ll...never have.”
“And do you think chasing people like Melanie Searle is going to make up for that?”
Her face twisted with rage for a second. She looked past him, glancing down the corridor. Then she grabbed the front of his tunic, pulled him through the door, and slammed it behind them.
“No, it doesn’t make up for it,” she said. “But it almost makes me feel like it does for a little while. That’s all I have.” She walked away from him dropping the bow and arrow by her dressing table and unbuckling the belt of knives. “I know what true love is, Alfred. I had it, and then I lost it.”
“Oh. I’m...I’m sorry.”
“She was an Immani spy. I met her right before we had to leave Formacaster. Her name was Lily Serrana. Everything was perfect and beautiful, and then she had to leave.” A long sigh. “There’s nothing between me and Melanie anymore, though, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“Then what do you feel for me?”
The princess turned and looked at him with a strange expression. Her jaw was set, her brow was furrowed, like she was angry. But her eyes were soft and sad. “I don’t know yet.” She walked closer. “But I would like to know.” Then she grabbed the front of his tunic again and pulled him into her bed.
After a frantic hour or so, they finally paused for rest, sprawled diagonally across the mattress amid tangled sheets and discarded clothing. It had been marvelous—hot and angry and forceful. It had made him feel gloriously alive after all the death of yesterday. But now the princess lay against his side, humming softly to herself with a look of absolute bliss on her face, and all he could see were problems.
Was this how she solved her problems? With sex? Alfred wasn’t sure how he felt about that. However pleasant it might be for him, it couldn’t be entirely healthy for her.
In a low, purring voice, without opening her eyes, she said, “Did you know that was my first time? With a man, I mean.”
“Oh.” He sat up in the bed, leaning toward her. “Oh. Well, in that case, honor demands that I ask—”
“Yes, yes.” She waved a hand like shooing a fly. “You’re going to ask me to marry you again. Let me ask you something, Alfred. Do you love me?”
“I...um, well I suppose I do.” There was no other answer he could make under the circumstances, and it felt right.
“You shouldn’t. I’m not worth the effort.” Her face fell.
“What in the Void?” He lifted her chin with his hand. “Of course you’re worth it.”
“No, I’m not. I’m a princess, and my duty in life is to make an advantageous marriage for the Sigor dynasty. My stepmother wants me to marry you because you’re going to be our new captain general. And that’s going to happen whether you love me or not. So why bother? Why expend the effort in trying to woo and win me if you and I will end up together anyway?”
“But wouldn’t it still be better if we genuinely loved each other? Love and duty aren’t mutually exclusive, you know.”
She kissed him and stroked his cheek. “Yes, but then we come to the real problem, which is that I’m not an easy person to love.”
“I’d like to try.” He kissed her neck, and his hands wandered down her body.
“You’re welcome to try,” she said, “but it’s only fair to warn you that you’ll fail. I never seem to be able to make people happy. I don’t know how.”
He pulled her on top of him. “I’m pretty sure you do, actually.”