The two notes from Nellia lay crumpled in Gerick’s chair, reminding me that I had not yet finished the business of the day. I thanked the wide-eyed servants, who came to clean up the mess and put the hall to rights, and started up the stairs to see Philomena.
Before I reached the first landing, a harried servant accosted me with a message from the chamberlain. A visitor was waiting in the small reception room, asking to see the duchess on urgent business. Perhaps Lady Seriana could see the man. I decided to get rid of the visitor first, leaving me uninterrupted time for Philomena and Gerick. I couldn’t imagine what might bring someone to Comigor so late of an evening, so with curiosity as well as impatience, I hurried into the plain anteroom that was used to receive messengers and low-ranking visitors.
“Good evening, sir,” I said to the cloaked figure that stood by the fire with his back to me. “Please tell me what is your urgent business with the duchess.”
“Only if you happen to be the duchess,” said the man in a supercilious tone that one did not usually hear from those consigned to the small reception room. He turned toward me as he spoke, and my retort died on my tongue. A handsome man of middle years, narrow face, dark, close-trimmed hair, conservatively dressed in garb suitable for a soldier of middle rank with connections at court. He had let his beard grow longer since I had seen him last, but I could not fail to recognize him. “Darzid!”
“You!” He gathered his self-control quickly, but I had seen astonishment, displeasure, and yes, an undeniable streak of dismay before he donned his usual mask of detached amusement. It gave me an unseemly jolt of pleasure to see him discomfited-even if only for a moment. “Lady Seriana. Never in all the vagaries of time would I have expected to find you settled in your brother’s house. Has her ladyship gone mad?”
Wariness kept my loathing on a tight rein. Only hours since Karon and Dassine had walked in a Comigor garden, and now here was the man I believed the most dangerous in the Four Realms. “Her Grace is not receiving visitors this evening, Captain. State your business, and I’ll do what I can for you.”
I had once considered Tomas’s darkly charming guard captain no more than a clever and somewhat amoral courtier, one who found cynical amusement in hanging about the edges of power and observing the foolish antics of those with high ambition. We had been friends as much as Darzid’s nature was capable of friendship. But I had lost interest in Darzid as I became involved with the greater mysteries of falling in love with a sorcerer. And then the captain’s amusements had taken a murderous turn. He had been instrumental in Karon’s arrest, trial, and execution, and those of our dearest friends. Darzid himself had brought my dead infant to show me, observing my grief as if I were some alien creature with whom he had no kinship. And on the day Karon had first returned to this world in the body of D’Natheil, Darzid had come hunting him in the company of three Zhid-sorcerer-warriors from the world of Gondai. Whether he was a pawn, a dupe, or a conspirator, I wasn’t sure, but he was certainly not innocent.
He stepped close, uncomfortably close, for I could smell anise on his breath from the sweets he favored. But I did not retreat. “Oh, this is very amusing,” he said, studying my face, “a twist in the paths of fortune that could never have been anticipated. But my business is quite urgent. A critical opportunity, I might say. The lady duchess will have someone’s head if it passes her by-yours, I suppose.”
“Either I deal with the matter or it will have to wait. The duchess has given birth to a daughter today.”
He smiled broadly, his cheeks flushed. “A daughter, you say. Poor Tomas. His last try at immortality comes only to another girl. And is this one as weak as the others?”
“I don’t see that as any of your business, Captain.”
“A fine thing he got a son the first time, is it not, else who would carry on the holy Comigor traditions?” He burst into entirely incongruous laughter. If he had not been standing so close, I might have missed the unamused cold center of his eye.
“Your urgent business, Captain? The hour is late.”
He flopped on the high-backed wooden bench beside the fire, his thin, sprawling, black-clad legs reminding me of a spider. “I’ve brought the duchess the answer to her prayers, but clearly circumstances have changed. Perhaps my news is out of date, undesired, or unnecessary… Tell me, my lady, how fares your nephew?” His voice was casual, drawling, but his gaze did not waver.
“Why would the young duke be of concern to you? When my brother died, so did your relationship with Comigor. Tomas forged no contract with you.”
Darzid smiled broadly. “Have no fear, my lady. I’m not here to insinuate myself onto the Comigor paylist, but only to do a last favor for my late, esteemed master. Deeming me unworthy to tutor a lord’s son, the duchess asked me to make some private inquiries as to proper fostering. Indeed, I have found someone who is both of sufficient rank to satisfy the duchess’s pecuniary ambitions and of sufficient tolerance to take on the task of making a man out of your brother’s, let us say, uniquely difficult progeny.”
“And who might this person be?” As if any selection of Darzid’s might be appropriate!
“Oh, you will delight in this. It is a matter of such delicacy that I shouldn’t tell anyone before I inform the duchess, but the chance to see your reaction is just too amusing. Can you not guess who might agree to such a responsibility?”
I didn’t answer. My skin burned where his eyes rested. I folded my arms tightly, so perhaps he would not notice my involuntary shudder.
“You will not give me the pleasure of a joust? Ah, lady, I do regret- Well, too bad.” He leaned forward. “It is our king himself who offers.” And then he sagged back against the spindled arm of the bench, smiling hugely.
“Evard wants to foster Gerick?” Only the fatigue of the long day prevented my disgust from exploding.
“Who else? His feelings for your brother were quite fraternal, and he wants to do for him as any brother would. I’d say that there’s a good chance young Gerick will get a royal bride out of the arrangement, if he can be made civil. Ironic, is it not? Comigor linked to the Leiran throne-the connection Tomas most wanted, only a generation late. And he is far too dead to appreciate it.”
It was not out of the range of belief; that was what was so appalling about the idea. Evard, King of Leire, had indeed loved Tomas, as much as a shallow, ambitious, unscrupulous man could love anyone. He might well be persuaded that if he were to give a home to his friend’s son and groom the boy as a suitable mate for his only child, the Princess Roxanne, then he would be ridding himself of two irksome responsibilities at once. And there would be no stopping it. The offer was, as Darzid said, the answer to Philomena’s prayers.
Darzid sat awaiting my response like the crowd before a gallows awaits the springing of the trap. No use for artifice.
“You’ll be delighted to hear that I have no say whatsoever in this matter, Captain. But I wouldn’t condemn the most deprived peasant child to life with Evard, so I’ll do everything in my power to convince the duchess that her son needs a mentor with some rudimentary concept of honor…”