The most obvious, of course, was the most direct; wait until the baby was born, and engineer an “accident” that would kill or incapacitate Selenay. There was no law in Valdemar that the Regent had to be a Herald; as Regent, it was even possible that he would have the same power as the Monarch, just without the title.
But that was only one of a number of courses he could take—
:Chosen, the Royal Guard Kimel is coming down the path,: Kantor warned, breaking into his train of thought. :I can’t imagine he’d be coming to see anyone but you at this time of night.:
Forewarned, Alberich got up to meet the young man as soon as he entered the salle, greeting him at the door. But it wasn’t until he got to Alberich’s private quarters that the Herald could see his expression, and it was both grim and troubled.
“Master Alberich,” the young man said, when he’d taken the proffered seat and been offered, and refused, any refreshment. “I overheard a conversation this evening that—that I do not much like.”
“Did you?” Alberich replied noncommittally.
The Guard nodded. “It was during the hour of dinner for the Court. I was on duty when I heard two voices raised in argument on the other side of the wall where I was standing—I happened to be in the gardens, and there was an open window right above my head.”
“Assume, I must, that you overheard something that might of importance be?” Alberich prompted.
“Two men arguing,” Kimel replied. “And one of them was the Prince.” He coughed. “I knew about what happened this afternoon, and I guess he’d gone to someone to complain about it.” He frowned as he concentrated on what he was going to say. “I didn’t recognize the voice, but he got not much sympathy. In fact, the person he was talking to gave him a regular dressing-down about it. The man said that the Prince was on the verge of ’spoiling it all,’ though he didn’t say what ’it’ was.”
“Go on,” Alberich told him. Surely there was more to this story!
“Well, then the Prince said something about the unfairness of it all, and the other man told him to be patient, and that Selenay was—” here Kimel blushed, “—well, anyway, what he went on to say was ’once the child is born, there is no law preventing you from becoming Regent, when something happens to Selenay. All you have to do is to be patient.’ And the Prince muttered something, and the man laughed, and they all went out of the room.”
So. There it was. “You may have done Her Majesty a great service, Kimel,” Alberich said gravely.
“I am in a position to do more,” the young Guard replied, to Alberich’s surprise. “So long as I wear my uniform, and look as if I am guarding something, no one ever notices me. I could make sure that if I am not on duty elsewhere, I can follow the Prince all over the grounds of the Palace. Perhaps I might discover who he was speaking with.”
“If you did, invaluable, it would be,” Alberich said, hardly able to believe the luck.
“Then I will.” That seemed to be all that Kimel felt urged to say on the matter; he remained a little longer, but not much, and excused himself.
:Well?: he said to Kantor when the young man was gone.
:I think we’ve gotten an ally, who will at least be watching out for Selenay. I don’t know how useful what he learns or overhears will be.:
:It’s better than nothing, which was all we had,: Alberich pointed out.
:Yes, Chosen. It is at that.:
19
Everyone knew the obvious that night—that the Prince had not attended the Queen at dinner. By morning, though, there was a better bit of gossip to take its place—that the Prince had not spent the night with the Queen, nor even (it was said) in the Palace.
By breakfast, that gossip had inflated further, with the addition that the Prince had returned at last, from somewhere outside the Palace walls. And he had gone to his own suite, not the Queen’s.
Valdemaran royal marriages, like most royal marriages, were not always for love. Hence, the Consort always had his (or her) own suite of rooms within the larger Royal Suite. It had its own entrance; the one who occupied it could come and go without disturbing the Monarch. It would not be the first time that the Monarch’s spouse had elected to take up residence in his own private space. The trouble was, this defection of the Prince would have gone unnoticed except that this was supposed to have been a love match. Selenay herself had virtually bullied the marriage through the Council. And now, it seemed, it was already falling apart.
So tongues were wagging from the first, and Alberich did not think it possible that Selenay was unaware of the gossip. She’d have to be blind and deaf, and she was neither. It made him sick inside to think how unhappy she must be, but there was little he could do about it.
She was paying a heavy price for her infatuation; this was going to be a very expensive lesson in thinking things through. However unhappy the Prince was with his wife and his situation, Alberich doubted that Karathanelan was going to relinquish what he did have willingly, once he realized the alternatives. Even if Selenay became so unhappy as to wish to dissolve the marriage, such a move could not be made without the agreement of the other party—and the Prince would never agree.
No, unless the Prince actually committed an overt act of treason, Selenay was stuck with her bad bargain. And if she was unhappy now, when the last of the infatuation wore off, she was going to be even less happy.
Alberich wished there was something he could do, but he knew that, in this case, there really was nothing. He was entirely the wrong person for her to confide in on two counts. First, the task required someone who was a close friend, which he was not—someone, perhaps, that was Selenay’s yearmate at the Collegium. Second, his sex was against him; he knew instinctively that to become a confidant and adviser in this situation, a man just would not do.
Which, unfortunately, left Talamir out of the running as well. Perhaps she was confiding in her Companion; perhaps at this point Caryo was about the only one she could confide in. He hoped that Caryo was wise enough to know not to criticize the Prince herself at this point—because Selenay would feel impelled to defend him, and that would only prolong the agony, so to speak.
The Prince continued to shun the company of his Queen; one or two days stretched into a week with no sign of him in or around the Palace from the time he rose until the time—which was usually very late—he returned from wherever he had just spent his day. Alberich grew increasingly weary of the words, “They say—” as the days passed. But not weary enough not to listen, for there were several nuggets of information to be mined from the dross.
One of them sent him out in disguise one evening, to an establishment known as “The Silver Horn,” which catered to “the discriminating tastes of gentlemen.” Or at least, it catered to those with money who cared to call themselves gentlemen; certainly you could find both the highborn and the monied lowborn there, although there were special places within the establishment to which money alone did not guarantee entrance. Alberich already had a persona established here, that of an elderly, semideaf gentleman with a substantial fortune—elderly, because that way he would not be looked on askance for not making use of the opulent rooms up the parlor stair and the ladies who inhabited those rooms, as jewels graced a setting. Alberich would, every now and then, dodder in, partake of a splendid meal, and sit enjoying the entertainments on offer in the more public rooms—generally scantily clad young ladies singing or dancing, though it was said that they performed far more interesting maneuvers elsewhere in the establishment—until he apparently nodded off. Then, if he had overheard nothing of importance, he would “wake,” and dodder off again. He found the place far more useful than the Court for obtaining information about the goings-on of the highborn.