“You needn’t speak to me as if I were five.”
“I had no such intent. I just believe that it’s a shame when any things so fine as these soldiers are left idle. Someone ought to use them, whether to give military insights or just for the pure pleasure of playing with them.”
“No one plays with them.”
“More’s the pity,” I said.
“Who are you?”
“When your mother is awake, we can be properly introduced.”
“One of her friends. I might have known. Are you here to steal something from us?”
“It’s not my habit. Have there been a rash of thefts in the neighborhood, that everyone here seems to suspect a stranger of thieving?” I drifted to my left, trying to get a glimpse of the boy in the niche, but the glare from the window behind him left him in shadow.
“Why else would anyone come here?”
“To visit your mother?”
“No one enjoys visiting her. And now she’s a widow. Not worth knowing.”
“To visit you, then?”
“I can grant no favors yet.” How old was this child?
“Then perhaps to visit this marvelous house and the beauteous lands of the north?”
“No one-”
“No one would consider them marvelous or beautiful? I’ll not dispute your assessment of your mother or even of yourself, but I will argue with any attempt to discount the attractions of Comigor Keep. Once you’ve held one of the Guardian Rings and imagined what it was like to be chained there for months on end with everyone you valued depending on your faithful watch, or hidden in the secret room in the north tower and watched the colors of the hills and sky change or the lightning dance across the roof as a summer thunderstorm rolls through… Well, I’ll hold it up to you for marvels any day of any week. But for now, I’ll leave you to your business. Excuse me for intruding.”
Without waiting for a response, I left the library, narrowly avoiding a collision with a young footman who bore a tray loaded with jam pots, butter, and steaming oatcakes. “I’ve changed my mind,” I said. “I’ll sit in the music room. Leave the door ajar, if you please, so I can see if anyone looks for me in the library.”
The footman set the tray on a low table, and I sat where I could see the library door. After only a few moments I saw a thin face peep out of the carved double doors that led to the library.
Tomas had said his son had our looks. There was no disputing that. The boy could have been his father as a child or a masculine version of myself at ten or eleven. Deep brown eyes, too large for the immature face, a body gangly and bony, already starting to get his height. Shining hair that waved about his face, hair of the same dark brown color with the tinge of red as my own. Bitter resentment at fate’s cruel jests took a moment’s grip on my heart. My son might have looked just the same as this boy.
The boy surveyed the hall and seemed annoyed at finding no one about. He threw something to the floor and ran toward the stairs, out of my range of vision. Such an odd child. So angry.
I restored my equilibrium by devouring Nellia’s oatcakes until some half an hour later when a chambermaid scurried across the tiles to the library doors. I jumped up. “Are you looking for me?”
“Aye, miss. The mistress is waked. Nancy’s sent me to find the lady in the library.”
“Well done. Tell her I’m coming.”
The girl hurried away, and I followed more slowly. Halfway across the black and gray tiles, I saw a lump on the floor and stooped to retrieve it. It was the silver king, his bent crown now totally askew, and his mighty blade twisted so that it could never harm his enemies, only himself.
CHAPTER 2
When I arrived at her room, Philomena was yelling again, but not for pain or fear of dying. A stooped, middle-aged man, soberly dressed and unremarkable, was the recipient of a diatribe being laid on like a flogger’s cane. “How can there not be enough silver to pay the wine merchant? You’ve likely put it all in your own pocket. I’ll have you hanged!”
“But my lady-”
“Comigor is the richest hold in the Four Realms, and you are paid exorbitantly to manage it. Perhaps if we were to take your wage out of your flesh, you would find what’s needed.”
“But, if you please, my lady, we have spent… prodigiously… in the past year: the new furnishings, the gem dealer, the dressmakers. And now the roof is leaking in the west wing and the forge is unusable since the fire, and we cannot even hire laborers-”
“How dare you accuse me! My husband denied me nothing, but my steward dares tell me ‘no more’? I suppose you would have me wear rags. I suppose I am to suffer completely.”
“But my lady, the rents are eight months overdue.” The steward blotted his forehead with a wide kerchief.
“Then get them, fool. Must I hold your hand?”
“Duke Tomas-may blessed Annadis write his name- left instructions at the first of this year that my lady must see to collecting the rents, as he was to be away on the appointed day. The Lords of Comigor have honored their covenant with the tenants for more than five hundred years. Only the lord or a member of his family may receive the rents. The tenants are not permitted to deliver their coins to anyone else.”
The bruised patience in the steward’s voice gave me the sense that this was not the first time for such an argument.
“You insufferable prig. It was certainly not my choice to rot here while my husband went charging all over the Four Realms, but of course he never consulted me in this or any other matter. ‘For Gerick’s inheritance,’ he said. ‘To keep the vultures in Montevial from getting any ideas.’ As if I knew nothing about inheritance and ambition. At least he can’t pester me about it any longer. A new lord rules here-though he listens to me no better than his father.” The painted fan that Philomena had been napping like a pennant in a gale fell still, and her rosy face beamed with sudden inspiration. “Of course! My son can do it! He is the castle lord now. I’ll command him to collect the cursed rents.”
The long-suffering steward replied patiently. “Until he comes of age, the young duke cannot collect the rents, Your Grace. He is too young to be held to account, and therefore he cannot fulfill the terms of the covenant.”
Philomena uncorked a silver vial she had snatched from her bedside table, inhaled deeply, and closed her eyes for a moment, then motioned to one of her maids. “Even if I could escape from my bed, I would not spend an entire tedious day nodding and smiling to filthy peasants. I care nothing for their nasty children or their cows or their wheat. Find some other way to get the money. Send the soldiers. Take hostages. I don’t care.”
“My lady, please… the dishonor of it…”
The steward seemed on the brink of tears, but Philomena turned her attention to a silver-backed mirror a maid had brought her, instantly rapt as the girl began to brush her golden hair. The steward stood his ground for a few moments, but when the lady began directing the maid in how to braid her tresses, he bowed and slunk out of the room.
I knew well of the Comigor Covenant. How many times had I been forced to dress in my stiffest clothes and sit in endless boredom beside my mother and Tomas as my father collected his rents? The ceremony played out like an elaborate dance figure. On the first day of every year, Covenant Day, the line of tenants would stretch through the great hall, across the outer ward and far into the outer bailey. One by one they would step forward, and my father would graciously invite the man to sit with him at a small table, offering him the glass of wine that sat on the table. Inevitably, the man would refuse the wine. The tenant would inquire politely after the health of the lord’s family. We were always “quite robust,” even when my mother was so weak from her last illness that she had to be carried up the stairs at the end of the day. Then my father would inquire after the health of the tenant’s wife and his parents and the progress of his children, each of them by name, and ask whether the man needed new tools or a new goat. After a suitable time, the tenant would stand and bow, and, almost as an afterthought, offer his coins to his lord. My father would salute the man and wish him a good season, then turn his full attention to the next man and begin the dance again.