The Eunuch's Heir (26 page)

“See?” Lyssa crowed, setting her hand on Wolfram’s arm.

It was Jordan who removed the hand, holding her back by the wrist, with something akin to fury growing on his face. “Don’t sell the horses, not yet. I will give you a room, and all the food you can eat. Clothing, too—my youngest is about your size.”

“She’s a heathen, and a sorceress, Jordan; haven’t you been listening to me?” Lyssa pulled against his grasp, but could not break it.

“I don’t think I have, no. Let’s find someplace to talk.” He jerked her off-balance and towed her out to the courtyard.

“Well, well.” Alyn sauntered closer. “You do know how to stir up trouble.”

“I’m not up to this right now, Alyn,” Wolfram said, as evenly as he could with the demon pounding inside his skull. He tried to remember the lessons Deishima had taught him, but they were swept away by waves of nausea.

“Oh, you’re always up to something, Wolfie, just never anything good.” Alyn stared at Deishima. “Is that what passes for a princess in Hemijrai? A bundle of rags and refuse.”

Wolfram rolled his shoulders so his back was to the wall. His temples throbbed, twitching the new scars unmercifully. With one hand, he held the hair out of his face. “I will not warn you again, Your Highness.”

Alyn paused a moment, then let his smile return, with that sickening edge of pity. “Why waste what little strength you have on such chattel as this? Even you generally show better taste.”

“Get out!” Wolfram bellowed. “Get out now before I rip your throat open with my bare hands!” He lunged forward, but Alyn was already dancing out of reach, retreating from the stable with more than a little white to his eyes.

For a moment, Wolfram stood, the power of his fury supporting him, then his knees buckled, and he pitched forward. Before Dawsiir’s arms caught him, and lowered him to the ground, he saw movement from the corner of his eye.

Deishima dropped to her knees, her arms outstretched, her hands shaking as if they resisted what she tried to do. She could not have caught him from there; she couldn’t even reach him, but the warmth of her offered palms touched him even so.

WOLFRAM’S NEW
room was on the ground floor—no more treacherous stairs if he felt the need to go gallivanting, or so Countess Alswytha had told him. She bent over him now, examining the scars on his side, prodding to see if he still felt pain. Since the healing, he felt a strange sort of kinship for the wizard—a factor of having her blood in his veins. Since he had blacked out in the stables the day before, one wizard or another stood guard over him. They needn’t have bothered; the bed suited him just fine as long as Alyn was banned from his room. Jordan had given Deishima a room just along the hall from this one, looking out onto the courtyard garden.

The wizard finished her examination and grunted, dropping into the room’s single chair. “Please tell me you’re done with running about the place, Your Highness.”

“Can I walk?”

“If you feel ready. You’ll be weak for a while yet. If that bite had been a bit higher, he’d’ve taken out your liver; a bit lower, and you’d be missing a leg. As it is, your pelvis stopped him from tearing a chunk out of you. It’s the intestines I worry about,” she grumbled, running a hand through limp gray hair. “I haven’t done much internal work like that—we’ll have to see how it holds up.”

Wolfram rearranged his blankets. “Does that mean I get more than broth today?”

She laughed. “Not much more.” She regarded him with a steady, pale gaze. “I’m sorry about the eye. We were too spent to do more than we did.”

Looking away, Wolfram trailed his fingers down his cheek. “I know.”

Alswytha sat a moment longer, silent, then rose and stretched her back. “Look, we’re pretty sick of watching over you. Can I trust you not to be an idiot?”

This made him smile, a little off kilter given the scars on his cheek. “Probably not.”

“Figures. No matter what tiff you two have had, Lyssa will have my hide if you leave any more injured than you came in, so try to keep the damage to a minimum.”

“You’re starting to talk like Jordan, you know that?”

Shrugging, the plain woman said, “You’re not the first to notice. Just wait’ll you find a bride.” She headed for the door, then turned to add, “Jordan wanted me to tell you this is the room King Rhys stayed in when Orie was the earl here. He thought you’d be amused.”

King Rhys, not “your father.” Wolfram called, “Wait!” and the wizard turned back again, looking wary. “You had something to do with it, didn’t you? How King Rhys disappeared that day?”

She shut the door. “It’s not my place to speak of that, Your Highness, as I think you know.”

“Was it a disguise? Some sort of illusion?”

“I’m sure there’s someone better to tell you what happened.”

“But who will? Next month is my eighteenth birthday: if they haven’t told me now, why should I think they ever will?” His empty socket twitched as if trying to blink, and he pressed it with his finger to make it stop.

The wizard bowed her head for a moment, massaging her neck with one hand. “How much do you know?”

“Plenty,” Wolfram replied, a little too quickly.

“Hah! That’s what I thought. You’ll not find out more from me, oh, no.” She shook her head, with a little smile. “Ask me something I’m at leave to answer, and I’ll do it, but this is a story for another.”

Wolfram wet his lips, then said, “I need to know if you can disguise me.”

Alswytha regarded him steadily, her eyes the color of old parchment. “I could hide your face as it is, Highness, but an illusion lacks expression and doesn’t age. The people who matter would know in an instant that you were hiding something—you’d be better to get used to it.”

Slowly, Wolfram shook his head. “That’s not what I meant. Other men have scars worse than this and have to live with them.” He gave a slight shrug. “It’s just my hair.” He pulled at the dark mop, clean but still unkempt. “You probably know they’ve been bleaching it all these years.”

She nodded, watching him closely.

“So I can’t go back like this, or the lovely secrets you’ve all been keeping will start popping out, won’t they? Can you change my hair?”

Relaxing, she came back to his bedside. “Is that all? I could do that in my sleep.”

“Well, then, Wizard of Nine Stars, will you give me hair the color of my legendary father’s?”

Her long lips quirked into a smile. “Interesting phrasing, Prince Wolfram.” Laying a hand on his head, Alswytha mumbled a few words, then withdrew. His scalp tingled. “It suits you.”

Wolfram found the mirror he had cajoled Soren into bringing him and studied his reflection. His hair was a tawny gold—not unlike Alyn’s, as he thought about it, a thought that made him wrinkle his nose. He drew his fingers again along the parallel scars, traced the rim where his eye had been. While he lay not sleeping for the aches that assailed him, Wolfram had struck upon a plan that might redeem him, at least in small measure, if his face didn’t ruin it. He frowned at himself. For once, he had not searched for a resemblance to King Rhys, nor recognized a resemblance to the man he knew had sired him. He fingered his nose and smoothed the blond hair back from his forehead. Studying the terrible wound, Wolfram tried his new, strange smile. For the first time, his face was his own.

Alswytha cleared her throat. “Are you satisfied?”

“Quite. Thank you.” He replaced the mirror on his side table. “I dread the day you call in all the debts I owe you.”

She laughed, turning at last to go.

“Leave the door open, would you? There’s a nice breeze.”

Still chuckling, the wizard swung the door wide. “Don’t go far, Your Highness, I haven’t the strength yet to save you again.”

Wolfram lay back on his pillows for a moment, running his fingers through his hair. That bitch Asenith had been right, dyed hair was much stiffer than the real thing.

He rose carefully, standing a long while before he left the bedside. In a small chest, Wolfram found linen trews and a tunic with a touch of embroidery awaiting his recovery. Slowly, he dressed, leaving his nightshirt where it fell. Winded, he leaned back upon the bed for a moment. A few other items lay at the bottom of the chest, and Wolfram let himself down to kneel beside it. A new leather belt coiled there around the hilt of his familiar boar knife. Gently, he picked them out, drawing the blade. Someone had cleaned and polished it, honing the edge sharper than it had ever been. Lyssa, again, trying to defend her prince from the tigers. When he shut his eye, he could still catch her scent upon it, mingling with the oil. Stone dust, and sweat, and something vaguely animal and infinitely enticing.

Wolfram took a deep breath and let it out in a sigh. He would go home, but it would never be the same.

Strapping on the belt about his tunic, Wolfram reached back for the last item: the painted eye patch Dawsiir had given him a long time ago. He slipped it over his face, fluffing his hair over the band. For a moment, he let himself believe that the darkness was due to that alone and he could toss it away as easily as pitching the thing across the room. Shaking himself, Wolfram let the image go. Someday, he would adjust. This would be simply a part of himself, unremarkable. Maybe he could forget that his vision had ever been true. Rising unsteadily, he misjudged the distance to the bedpost and stumbled.

“Goddess’s Tears,” he whispered, “how am I ever to get through this?” He took a deep breath and felt the rise of his
chest, the subtle drying of air over his lips. With the second breath, he drew his awareness deeper, past the scars upon his skin, past the torn and mended muscles, into the coursing of his blood and the white strength of his bones. Ashwadi, the Spirit’s Wind. He walked with purposeful strides out the door to Deishima’s room.

From a bench before the door, Dawsiir sprang up and made his customary bow, letting his grin tell all that needed saying. He wore new clothes a little awkward for their local style but clean and untorn. Deishima’s self-appointed guardian rapped softly at her door. Wolfram heard her cross the floor and whisper.

Dawsiir’s words were encouraging, and the door opened a crack, letting a sliver of sunlight illuminate Deishima’s feet, clad now in soft suede. The gown above hung loose over her slender frame and was topped with a new shawl, a ragged opening revealing her eyes.

“It is good of you to inquire after my well-being, Highness Wolfram.”

“Are you well, then?” He advanced a little, but stopped when she stiffened. Skittish as a fawn, she hovered just inside, with no place to run.

“I am, Highness. There is no need for you to concern yourself.” She glanced to Dawsiir and back, quick movements rippling the white shawl. “It is your own well-being you should see to.” Her dark eyes roved over him.

Self-consciously, Wolfram straightened his stance, trying not to let the twist of scars lean him to the right, nor to let the weariness show.

Two little lines appeared between her eyes, and he knew she was not fooled. “I should return to bed, Highness. I have not become used to your days here.”

“Then you should come out, into the sun. It’s the only way,” he added, flustered for no reason by those little lines of her concern.

She darted glances left and right, looking for enemies, or for the safety of the women’s quarter she had lived in all her life.

Suddenly dry-mouthed, Wolfram blurted, “You should at least see the grove, Your Highness. Will you walk with me?” He held out his hand, then knew his mistake and quickly took it back.

She vanished into the darkness of the room, but the door did not shut.

Bury it, he had to be more careful. This girl had nearly gotten him killed for touching her hair; she wouldn’t take his hand in a million years.

Stepping up, Dawsiir called something inside and listened to the answer. He gestured toward Wolfram and repeated his inquiry. He wanted to know what had been said, Wolfram realized, recognizing a few words he had heard before.

Moving up beside Dawsiir, Wolfram pointed toward the room, then himself, then the door at the end of the cloister, leading out to the grounds and the woods beyond. “I want her to come out. To go walking. Not far, I can’t go far,” he assured them.

Studying him, Dawsiir nodded, then touched the door with careful fingers and pushed it a little farther.

Startled, Deishima flinched from the stripe of light upon her floor. From the safety of her veil and her little room, she stared at Wolfram.

This was not her world, not any part of it, this place where men and women mingled freely, where even a stranger might take her arm. Before she met him, she had never walked upon the dirt, and now she had been forced to live in it. In that light, the very act of opening the door seemed like a daring display. Wolfram fought his impatience and felt the growing strain in his right side. If she was the skittish fawn, he must be a more cautious hunter. “Very well, if you won’t come out, would you mind if I sit down? I’m awfully tired.”

She nodded quickly, and he took Dawsiir’s place on the bench facing her door. “I think you would like the grove, Your Highness—is that what I should call you? Do you have another title?”

Beneath her veil, Deishima’s eyes frowned at him.

“It’ll have to do. Anyway, the grove is a lot like your gar
den. There’s a pond in the middle with tiny silver fish and a few lily pads. I think it’s a bit warm for the frogs to be out, but they make a bloody racket at the right time of day. Someone’s built a couple of benches, and the moss on them is so thick you think you’re sitting on furs. The grass is better for sitting, or lying down. I remember you liked to go barefoot in your own garden.” He was babbling, conjuring up images he didn’t even know he had remembered. If she stayed in her room, she might never come out again. He took a calming breath, but, before he could go on, Deishima stood on the threshold.

“What is it that you wish, Highness Wolfram?”

“I wish for you to walk with me out that gate, down to the grove. I want to see if everything is as I remember.” And to get away from anyone who might listen, but he did not tell her that.

Again, she looked to Dawsiir, her countryman and only supporter. He offered a smile and a shrug, spreading his hands to take in the brightness of the day as he spoke.

Deishima’s head rose, and she stepped outside the door. “I will walk for a small distance with you, until you have tired, Highness.”

As he carefully rose, she examined him from behind her shawl. Fearful, he did not look at her but spent a moment adjusting the fall of his tunic. He wore the belt loose over his hips rather than at the waist where it might rub.

“They have changed your hair also, Highness Wolfram.”

He sighed. “It’s a long story, and I don’t even know most of it myself. Someday, I hope, I’ll be able to explain.”

“This way, is it?” She waited for him to precede her with Dawsiir coming behind.

No matter how Wolfram tried, there was a slight hitch to his stride, which served him ill in combination with his strange new vision. He hoped the path was level and clear.

They emerged from the gate onto a strip of lawn surrounding the keep, crossing the grass toward a footpath leading into a gleaming birch wood. The white trees and their fresh, green leaves looked cool and inviting. Warblers
and sparrows flitted among them, maintaining a constant chatter. When he glanced back to her, Wolfram found Deishima looking all around her, eyes intent on this tree, then that bird. All the things he took for granted must be so new to her. These birds were drab and dull compared to the ones in her home, and the trees were stunted compared to the jungles he had seen there. On the other hand, Bernholt had no tigers, and no catamounts had been seen in these parts for decades while the wolves stuck to the deeper mountains of Lochalyn.

Deishima suddenly said, “There is no such healing in my country, Highness Wolfram. I am…surprised by your recovery. I would not have expected that you should be so well as to walk a matter of days after such an attack.”

“You thought I would die.” He turned to face her.

Ducking her head, she replied, “I did.”

“Then why did you come to me in the surgery?”

“In my country, you would not have survived. In your own country, I hoped otherwise.”