Chapter Fifteen

 

 

Laeder attended dinner, aware that there was an unsettling feeling over the whole palace. The wards moved in pairs or trios through the halls, shrieking if a lord came too close. The male servants, even the boys, found a reason to leave palace grounds despite the fresh snow that had fallen. The female servants took their cue from Telm and shooed lords from the wards, but made no attempt to make the males more uncomfortable.

He spotted Telm a few times over the course of the day, never amongst people. She skirted around the groups and gatherings, a silent witness to what was happening. Never intervening, Telm was almost a spirit judging them all. She would motion to a lord who was coming too close to a lady and in the servants would swoop to usher him away on some business.

Never was a word spoken by Telm.

Laeder was tempted to approach a group of wards and see if he could elicit a reaction, to figure out what exactly was going on. As the thought crossed his mind, he looked across the dining hall and made eye contact with Telm, who was standing by the head table. The head of house was about to take her seat and reside over the dinner, as she always did. They locked eyes and Laeder shivered.

No, now was not a good time to try Telm.

The lords were served by silent female servants. They had been placed on one side of the dining hall while the ladies were safely tucked on the other side. The healers who had chosen to winter at the palace were all women and sat between the two groups. Some few of the lords muttered to one another about the healers being there in case a fight broke out.

Laeder knew they were a threat. If the lords attempted to disturb the peace during dinner a healer would dispatch him. The guards were male, and several of them stood sheepishly by the door but would come no farther. Something had made them ashamed of being male. Which was strange because Laeder did not have that inclination. Perhaps it was only the male creature of a certain sexual preference.

He shuddered again at the thought and looked up at Telm. The queen looked out over those dining, eyes darting between the two tables without judgement. Now there was no judgement. What had happened, had happened and passed. Now was the time to settle feathers and calm the women down.

What had happened to Aren? And why couldn’t Laeder feel it?

“If she wanted us dead,” slurred the lord beside Laeder, “she’d just kill us.”

Laeder stiffened, frowned, and turned to the lord ever so slowly. “I beg your pardon?”

An elderly lord across from the one who had obviously gotten into the wine cellar, harrumphed loudly. The drunken one laughed at the sound and downed the last of his cup, apparently having forgotten he had spoken to Laeder in the first place.

“That one’s dangerous,” the elderly lord muttered.

Age had left deep lines on his face, and his hair was a shock of white. Old enough to be Laeder’s grandfather, surely.

“All ranks are dangerous,” Laeder muttered in response, drawing another laugh from the drunk lord.

“When I was young, she was young,” the elder grumbled, reaching across the table to snatch the wineskin from the intoxicated lord when he produced it to refill his cup. The elder sat back down and worked the cork as he spoke. “She was a beauty, she and her daughter.”

Telm never had a daughter. No blood, Laeder couldn’t even find a bloodline to attach to her. The archivist had no record of Telm before thirty years previous. He had claimed there had been a fire which consumed several important documents. Included in these documents were Telm’s records and the papers sent for Mirmae Hue and Ervam Marilton.

“Daughter was as beautiful as the mother?” Laeder asked, without pointing out that the elderly lord was obviously wrong.

“Absolutely. It happens, sometimes. You can look at a woman and tell her daughters will be as beautiful as she is. That Lady Mar is like that. Gorgeous woman, and she’ll make adorable babies who grow into gorgeous women.”

“Telm looks good for being so old,” the drunk lord said before he started laughing again.

The elderly lord managed to pull the cork on the wine. He scowled as he helped himself to the other man’s drink.

“You don’t believe me. No one ever believes me,” the elderly lord grumbled as he handed over the wine to its rightful owner.

“I didn’t say I didn’t believe you,” Laeder said quietly. “Why don’t you tell me what you know?”

At the very least the lord was old enough to recall the time that the archivist had lost in the fire. Even if age had muddled the lord’s memories, he might still retain something that could be useful to Laeder. A bloodline or place where Telm had been born could be buried in that shattered mind.

“She was kidnapped from her village when she was young,” the elderly lord said. “Brought here during the last border skirmishes with the western marshes. Her mother was a westerner, her father a northerner, and the land they lived on was once part of the north.”

“The west has never lost a skirmish with palace lands,” the drunken lord said far too loudly.

“They weren’t the ones fighting the skirmish, the north was,” Laeder said quickly. “Wasn’t it? They, the north, doesn’t talk about the skirmish and the palace doesn’t like bandying it about that it forcibly took land from another.”

“Sends the wrong impression, the one who sat the throne said.” The elderly lord glared at his drunken companion for a moment before continuing. “She took the girl on as handmaid because they couldn’t send her home. Her parents were dead, her village raped and razed to the ground. By the time the leaves fell a new queen sat the throne.”

“And, what?” Laeder asked. “Everyone forgot about her?”

“Fairly well. The ranks did, anyhow. Each who took the throne was simply told that the girl was inherited with the throne, to be looked after and raised proper-like. When she came of age, she fell for some warrior at court and tried to catch his eye, but he only had eyes for the one who sat the throne.”

Laeder shrugged. “It happens.”

“Not the one who sat the throne at the time. He would cozy on up to anyone who sat the throne, and through four queens he went. Had some fancy title as well, though I can’t be bothered to recall what.” The lord huffed out a breath. “By this time she had a reputation as a beauty at court and others were chasing her. Throne was empty for a time—no one could understand why—and the girl, it was discovered, was fending it off. Said no to the throne.”

“But if she wanted him, why not take the throne?” Laeder asked.

“Called it a death sentence, was all she said in public. Suddenly she had everyone’s attention. A queen fending off the throne? For days? No one flaunted strength in those days. No one sat around judging the abilities of the feminine rank then. No one knew how strong she was. Not until it was too late.”

“You mentioned a daughter,” Laeder said.

“Oh, yes, yes—gorgeous daughter. Is about, oh, the age of the new master there. Older than the steward, the ugly fat one,” the lord said, hesitating for a moment. “Nice daughter he has, pretty. But not pretty enough to be called beautiful all her life and put her nose in the air as those ones are wont to do.”

Which would make the girl the lord was speaking about Telm’s mother, and Telm her daughter. Laeder took a moment to glance over the dining hall, trying not to draw any more attention to himself. Everyone else was engaged in eating dinner, focusing on their plates in a desperate sort of fashion.

He turned back to the elderly lord. “Who was the daughter’s father, do you recall?”

“Some warrior. Rumour said he was the one she wanted, not from palace lands, that one. A third warrior stepped in some years later and claimed the mother.” The lord nodded slowly. “Cannot for the life of me recall his name. The two did bond, as queen and warriors are supposed to do. Then one day he took her out to see her village. She was heavily pregnant at the time, he the proud father…”

The lord trailed off.

“Then what?” Laeder asked.

“Then nothing. She returned, rumour and whisper abounding. No child in her arms, no man at her side and distant suddenly. Took three years for anyone to figure out what had happened, and then she disappeared for a time. Still not certain what did happen.”

Laeder bit back a frustrated snarl, asking instead, “And what had happened?”

“He took her there to bind her to the land forcibly. Was a cousin of hers, but how was she to know? He had come to retrieve what was theirs and take it back to the broken village to help rebuild. Used some old magic to try to hold her there.” The lord sounded distant for a moment. “My brother was one of his friends; hadn’t thought much about the rumbling and grumbling, the rumours and drunken nights. When he discovered that he had accidentally had a hand in betraying a queen, he took his own life. Couldn’t live with himself.”

“What happened to the village?” Laeder asked.

“Cursed with a queen’s rage,” the lord said.

“What does that mean?” Laeder grumbled more to himself than anyone else.

“What does that mean?” the elderly lord hooted back at him. “Boy, when a queen rages, there’s no predicting what she, or her magic, will do. Perhaps it was nothing more than making the villagers shit themselves with fear, or perhaps she turned her magic in on herself and that was what happened to the babe. Maybe it was unleashed outward and now there is naught more but a gaping maw where the village once stood.”

“No one went out to check?” Laeder asked.

“Of course not! You want to venture into land cursed with queen’s rage, go right ahead, I’m staying here with the drunk, where I’ve got fire to warm my bones.”

Leader hesitated a moment, considering. “Very well. What of the daughter?”

“The daughter?” the lord asked. “Oh yes, the daughter. Whatever did happen to her? She was a queen in her own right. Went, uh, went up north for a visit to retrace her bloodline. Never returned. What was her name? Hrm. Olea, that was it, Olea.”

“Olea who?” Laeder pushed. “What was her bloodline?”

“Marilton,” the drunk beside Laeder rumbled out, rousing suddenly from his stupor. “She was the high lord’s daughter on a palace woman. One of the Marilton boys, one of the old baron’s sons, laid eyes on her and mated her then and there.”

“How do you know that?” the elderly lord demanded.

“I was there,” the drunk grumbled. “I’m the northern ambassador. Buggers left me here over the winter as an open hand to those at court.”

“You’re drunk, man,” Laeder said.

“You’d be too, if you could feel a queen proper enough,” the lord said, almost laughing as he did so. “Going to feel hungover in the morning no matter what I do, so might as well enjoy myself some wine.”

“Are you certain your Olea is the one of his story?” Laeder asked.

Perhaps the elderly lord had heard the drunken lord nattering at someone.

“Yes, yes.” The drunk nodded slowly. “Olea came to us from palace lands. She had good northern blood in her veins and her mother bred true. Doesn’t talk about her mother or her time growing up on palace grounds due to some event that happened before the old baron passed away.”

Laeder felt a trickle of fear passing over him.

“Everyone calls me a doddering old fool,” the elderly lord muttered.

“Unless you know another world-altering event that involved a queen and her daughter with just that background,” the drunk slurred out. “You’re not doddering, but you are an old fool.”

“Except there wasn’t a world-altering event,” Laeder said to the two of them. “According to the records and what I know about history, none of this ever happened.”