Prince of Fools (The Red Queen's War) (23 page)

I turned to see a young woman approaching: tall, slender but not weak, not a conventional beauty but she had something about her that filled me with unconventional thoughts. I watched her advance with sure steps. High cheekbones, expressive lips, dark red curls frothing down around her shoulders. I stood, ready with my bow. Snorri kept his seat.

“My lady.” I held her gaze. Extraordinary eyes, green but giving back more light than they took in. “Prince Jalan Kendeth at your service.” I waved a hand at the table. “My man Snorri.” Her dress was a simple thing but made with a care and understated quality that said she came from money.

“Katherine ap Scorron.” She looked from me to Snorri, back again. Her accent confirmed Teuton origins. “My sister, Sareth, would like the pleasure of your company for a light lunch.”

A grin spread across my face. “I’d be delighted, Katherine.”

“Well and good, then.” She ran an eye over the length of me. “I wish you a good stay and safe travels onward then, prince.” And she turned with a swish of skirts, making for the corridor. Nothing in her tone or pale face had suggested she thought my company might be a pleasure for her sister. In fact, a redness around her eyes made me wonder if she had been crying.

I leaned down to Snorri. “I sense sisterly conflict! Big sister got to dine with the prince and little sister’s pretty nose is out of joint about it.” My instincts in these matters are seldom wrong. The dynamics of sisterly rivalry are well known to me. Snorri frowned—a touch of the green-eyed monster himself, no doubt. “Don’t wait up for me!” And I made to follow the girl.

A big hand caught at my wrist, snatched back at the sharp crackle between us. Enough to stop me, though. “I don’t think that was an invitation of that sort.”

“Nonsense. A highborn lady doesn’t deliver messages. She would have sent a page. There’s more than one message here!” I could forgive the barbarian for his ignorance of court subtleties.

Katherine reached the doorway. It’s true that her retreat lacked the swaying come-on one sees in places like the Falling Angel. I found it tempting even so. “Trust me. I know castle life. This is my game.” And I hurried after her.

“But her arm—” Snorri called after me. Something about an armband.

I had to smirk at the thought of a hut-born Norseman trying to instruct me in the ways of castle women. She’d come without chaperone or champion, bolder than brass, taking a good look at all the prince on offer.

“Katherine.” I caught her in the corridor, yards from the hall. “Don’t run away now.” Lowering my voice into a seductive growl. I took hold of her backside in my cupped hand through the layers of taffeta. Smooth and firm.

She turned more swiftly than I thought possible in such a garment and— Well, the next eternity or so I spent in a blind white place full of pain.

I’ve always felt that the placement of a man’s testicles is an eloquent argument against intelligent design. The fact that a slight young woman can with a well-placed knee reduce the hero of the Aral Pass to a helpless creature too full of agony to do anything but roll on the floor hoping to squeeze the occasional breath past his pain—well, that’s just poor planning on God’s part. Surely?

“Jal?” A shadow against the white agony. “Jal?”

“Go. Away.” Past clenched teeth. “And. Let. Me. Die.”

“It’s just, you’re blocking the corridor, Jal. I’d pick you up, but . . . you know. Stann, get a guardsman to help you haul the prince back to his room, will you?”

Some dim awareness of motion penetrated my misery. I knew my heels were dragging over stone floors, and somewhere behind them Snorri was trailing along, engaging in cheerful banter with the people towing me.

“A misunderstanding, I expect.” And he chuckled. Chuckled! It’s in the code—when one man is wounded so ignominiously, all men must wince and show sympathy, not chuckle. “They probably do things differently down south . . .”

“Losing my touch.” I managed to gasp the words.

“I think you probably touched too much, knowing you, Jal! Didn’t you see the black armband? The girl’s in mourning!” Another chuckle. “Might have given him a proper beating if she hadn’t been! She’s got spirit, that one. Saw it the moment she arrived. Norse blood probably.”

I just groaned and let them haul me to my chamber.

“Damned if I’m going to see the sister. She’ll be a monster.” They lifted me onto my bed.

“Gently, lads,” Snorri said. “Gently!” Though he still sounded far too good-humoured about the whole thing.

“Damnable Scorron bitch. Ahh!” Another wave of pain shut me off. “Countries have gone to war for less!”

“Technically you
are
at war, aren’t you?” The chair creaked as Snorri lowered himself into it. “I mean, those men you heroed over at this Aral Pass, they were Scorrons, weren’t they?”

He had me there. “I wish I’d killed fifty more of them!”

“Anyway, the sister’s even prettier.”

“How the hell would you know?” I tried to roll over and gave up.

“Saw them both on a balcony yesterday.”

“Yes?” I managed to roll. It didn’t help. “Well, she can go hang.” I gave him the dirtiest look that would fit through my squint.

Snorri shrugged and bit into the pear he’d stolen off my side table. “Dangerous way to talk about the queen if you ask me.” All through a full mouth.

“Queen?” I rolled back to face the wall. “Ah shit.”

I
hobbled behind Stann as he led the way to Queen Sareth’s personal chambers. I wondered that the meeting had been arranged for her rooms but didn’t doubt that her virtue would be well guarded.

It struck me as peculiar that our path led through the underbelly of the castle, down steps and into a long corridor where kitchen stores lay stacked ceiling-high in stockrooms right and left, but I
had
told Stann to lead me by the shortest route owing to the delicacy with which I needed to walk. We ascended by a narrow stair, surely a servants’ passage for the delivery of meals to the royal quarters.

“The queen asks that you be discreet if questioned about any visits,” Stann said, holding the lantern high in a long windowless passage.

“Do you know what discreet means, boy?”

“No, sir.”

I harrumphed at that, not certain whether he was displaying ignorance or discretion.

Stann tapped at a narrow door, a key turned in a heavy lock, and we entered. It took a moment to realize that the queen herself had unlocked the door. I thought at first it must be a lady-in-waiting, but when she turned back to watch me emerge there could be no mistaking her. A lady-in-waiting would never have worn so fine a gown, and Sareth shared too many of Katherine’s looks to be anyone but her sister. I judged her to be in the midst of her twenties, a touch shorter than her sister, her face softer and more classically beautiful: full lips, waves of deepest red hair. She had green eyes too but without the peculiar inner light of her sister’s.

The other thing to notice about Queen Sareth, a fact that no gown short of a pavilion would be able to disguise, was that she had either recently swallowed a piglet, or she was quite pregnant.

“You may show Prince Jalan to his chair and pour his wine, Stann, then scuttle off.” She made a shooing action with her hands.

The lad plumped a cushion for me in a large chair acceptably far from the queen’s, which is to say in the opposite corner. In truth a properly acceptable distance would be one that put me out in the corridor, for no queen should be alone with a strange man in her private chambers, especially if that strange man is me.

I walked carefully to the chair, moved the cushion, and lowered myself onto it.

“Are you well, Prince Jalan?” A look of genuine concern furrowed the smoothness of her brow.

“Ah, just . . .” I settled. “Just an old war wound, my queen. It plays up from time to time. Especially if I’ve been too long without a good fight.”

Beside me Stann pressed his lips tight together and filled the silver goblet on the service table from a tall ewer of wine. His job done, he retreated through the servant door and the patter of his feet diminished into the distance. It occurred to me that if I were found here, unattended, then my life might well depend upon whatever story the queen decided to tell. It seemed unlikely that she would admit to extending an invitation, and I’m sure her vicious younger sister would paint an unflattering picture of my earlier advances if the whole matter were brought before Olidan. I resolved to extricate myself from the situation at the first opportunity.

“And how are you enjoying Ancrath, Prince Jalan?” Sareth’s accent kept more of the Teuton edge than her sister’s and recalled to mind the cries of the Scorron patrolmen who had tried to ride me down in the Aral Pass. It did little to calm my nerves.

“It’s a lovely country,” I said. “And Crath City is very impressive. Celebrations were in full swing when we arrived.”

She frowned at that, pursing her lips. Evidently, I’d struck a sour note. Pregnant or not, she was very pretty. “Scorron is a more beautiful land, and the Eisenschloss a finer fortress.” She didn’t seem aware that we men of Red March counted the Scorrons as our mortal enemies. No matter—I’ve long been a proponent of love, not war, though they often make close bedfellows. “But you are right, Prince Jalan, Ancrath has much to recommend it.”

“Indeed. I fear though, my queen, that I’m somewhat at a loss here. I think perhaps it would be more seemly if we discussed these matters this afternoon at court? Your beauty is talked of far and wide, and people might mistake my intentions if it were known that . . .” Normally I would be happy to cuckold any man foolish enough to leave a woman like Sareth wanting more . . . but Olidan Ancrath? No. And besides, her pregnancy and my present invalid status both helped to lessen my interest in the opportunity.

Sareth’s face crumpled in dismay, her bottom lip wobbled, and, hefting herself from her chair, she hastened across to kneel beside mine. “Forgive me, Prince Jalan!” She took my dark and callused hands in her slim white ones. “It’s just—just—we’ve all had such a shock what with the arrival of this dreadful boy.”

“Boy?” I’d had very little sleep for two nights now and none of this was making sense.

“Jorg, Olidan’s son.”

“Ah, the lost prince,” I said, enjoying her hands around mine.

“Better he had stayed lost.” And I glimpsed some steel behind her tear-stained prettiness.

Suddenly even my sleep-deprived mind couldn’t refuse to see the problem any longer. This returned prince couldn’t be Sareth’s son, she wasn’t old enough for that . . . A second wife, then, busy producing what she had thought would be an heir of her own?

“Ah.” I leaned forwards, my glance falling to her belly. “I can see his return might be a problem for you.” Her face contorted in misery again. “There, there, don’t cry, my queen.” And I pawed her a bit, the bluff hero comforting a damsel in distress, and perhaps running his hands through that wonderful hair.

“Why couldn’t the boy stay lost and wandering?” She turned those wet-lashed eyes on me.

“Boy, you say?” I’d thought the prince a grown man for some reason. “Just how old is—”

“A child! A week ago he was thirteen and forgotten. Past all care. Now he’s reached majority and . . .” Another flood of tears, her face buried against my shoulder. “Oh, the trouble he’s caused. The chaos in the throne room.”

“It’s a difficult age.” I nodded wisely and drew her closer. It’s an instinct. I can’t help it. She smelled gorgeous, of lilac and honeysuckle, and pregnancy hadn’t just filled her womb—her bodice overflowed with nature’s gifts too.

“In my homeland they call you the Devil of the Aral,” she said. “The Red Prince.”

“They do?” I tried the words again, removing the surprise from my voice. “They do.”

A nod against my shoulder. “Sir Karlan survived the battle in which you fought, and escaped to the North. At court he told us how you battled without fear—like a madman, striking down man after man. Sir Gort amongst them. Sir Gort was the son of my father’s cousin. A warrior of some renown.”

“Well . . .” I guessed some tales grew in the telling and that too much fear might sometimes look like no fear at all. Either way, the queen had given me a gift and it was beholden to me to milk it. “My people
do
call me the hero of the pass. I suppose it’s fitting that the Scorrons call me the devil. I will wear the name with pride.”

“A hero.” Sareth sniffed, wiped at her eyes, one slim hand on my chest. “You could help.” Soft words, almost a whisper, and close enough to my ear to make me shiver deliciously.

“Of course, of course, dear lady.” I caught myself before I promised too much. “How?”

“He’s a bully, this Jorg. He needs putting in his place. Of course, he’s too highborn for just anyone to deliver the lessons he deserves. But a prince could challenge him. He’d have to accept a challenge from a prince.”

“Well . . .” I breathed in her scent and covered the hand on my chest with my own. Visions of chasing those damnable bucket-boys through the back corridors of the opera house floated before me. I’d kicked a few backsides that day! A ragged thirteen-year-old princeling, returned cap-in-hand after a month starving by the waysides before hunger defeated his pride and he came home to Daddy . . . I could see myself delivering a sharp lesson to such a lad. Especially if it won favour with his lovely stepmother.

Sareth nuzzled closer, lips very near to my neck, her overfull breasts squashing against me. “Say you will, my prince.”

“But Olidan . . .”

“He’s an old man, and cold. He barely sees me now he’s done his duty.” Her lips touched my throat, hand sliding to my stomach. “Say you’ll help me, Jalan.”

“Of course, lady.” I closed my eyes, surrendering to her ministrations. Kicking an arrogant little boy-prince around the court would be fun, and by the time I came to tell the tale in Vermillion, Prince Jorg would be older and my audience would forget that he’d been a child when I taught him his lesson.

“I don’t mind if you hurt him.” She walked her hand two-fingered across my shirt, scratching at the buttons, playful.

“Accidents do happen,” I murmured.

That proved somewhat prophetic as the words inspired Sareth to explore rather more robustly and her hand plunged down into my trousers.

As any man wounded in the line of duty can tell you, a knee to the groin takes a while to recover from, and it may be several days before a prince’s crown jewels are ready for inspection once more. Sareth’s overhasty “cupping” reignited the earlier agonies, and I must admit that my cry of pain could be described as somewhat high-pitched. Possibly even . . . girly. Which would explain why the queen’s door guard took it upon themselves to crash in through her bolted door to rescue their charge from whatever fiend assaulted her.

Fear can be an excellent anaesthetic. Certainly the sudden appearance of two mean-faced men in Ancrath livery with bare steel in their hands gets rid of ball-ache double quick. A catapult could have ejected me from that chair no faster and I was clattering down the servant stair before you could say “adultery,” door slamming behind me.

I reached my room, panting and still in panic. Snorri had abandoned the chair I’d placed him in and now lay sprawled on the bed. “That was quick.” He raised his head.

“We should probably leave,” I said, realizing as I looked about for my belongings that I didn’t actually have any.

“Why?” Snorri swung his legs over the side of the bed and sat up, the structure creaking alarmingly beneath him.

“Uh . . .” I leaned back out into the corridor, looking for the approach of guardsmen. “I may have . . .”

“Not the queen?” Snorri stood and I became acutely aware once more of just how much he towered over me. “Who saw you?” Anger in his voice now.

“Two guards.”

“Her guards?”

“Yes.”

“She’ll buy them off. It will all be buried.”

“I’m just not wanting to get buried with it.”

“It’ll be fine.” I could see him thinking about that meeting with King Olidan, about all the lines I had sold him regarding knowing his enemy and getting the curse taken off us.

“You think?”

“Yes.” He nodded. “Idiot.”

“We could leave anyway. I mean. I spoke to the king’s magician last night and he wasn’t that helpful—”

“Hah!” Snorri sat down again with a thump. “That old dream-witch! We’ll have to look elsewhere for help, Jal. His power’s broken. The boy smashed Sageous’s totem a couple of days back. Some kind of glass tree. Jorg pushed it over in the throne room. Pieces of it everywhere!”

“Where—where do you get all this stuff?”

“I talk to people, Jal. While the queen’s sticking her tongue in your ear I’m busy listening instead. Prince Jorg undid Sageous’s power, and boldly. There must be some other sorcerer or wise woman who can help us. Sageous can’t be the only one in the whole country. We need King Olidan to advise us if we want this curse taken off.”

“Ah . . .”

“Ah?”

“I made a promise to rough up this boy-prince for Sareth. I’m hoping that won’t sour things with King Olidan. If he dotes on the child it could cause problems.”

“Why?” Snorri looked up at me, spreading his broad hands. “Why would you do that?” His axe lay by the bed and I toed it underneath, out of sight, just in case.

“You did see her, the queen?” I asked. “How could I say no?”

Snorri shook his head. “I’ve never seen a man who understands so little about women and yet is so led about by them.”

“So, this boy. Will it cause problems if I knock him around a bit?” I asked. “Since you seem to know all there is to know about the Ancraths.”

“Well. The father doesn’t love the son. I know that much,” Snorri said.

“That’s a relief.” I relaxed enough to sink into the chair.

“And I know you’re a brave man, Jal, and a hero from the war . . .”

“Yes . . .”

“But I wouldn’t be so sure about knocking this Prince Jorg around. You did see him at the Angel the other night?”

“The Angel? What are you talking about?”

“The Falling Angel. I know you had other things on your mind, but you might have noticed the place was packed with his band. The Brothers.”

“What?” The chair contrived to trap me in its clutches as I tried to stand again.

“The prince was there, you know? In the corner with Sir Makin.”

“Oh God.” I remembered his eyes.

“And banging Sally in the room next to yours, I hear. Nice girl. From Totten just south of the Lure.”

“Dear God.” I’d thought Makin’s young companion to be eighteen at the least. He couldn’t have been less than six foot.

“And of course you know what prompted him to take another trip so soon after his return to the Tall Castle?”

“Remind me.” I would have thought making a mortal enemy of a dream-witch would be enough to get most men planning a long journey.

“He killed the king’s champion, the Captain of the Guard, Sir Galen. That’s who Sareth’s sister was in mourning for.”

“You’re going to tell me it wasn’t by poisoning his mead?”

“Single combat.”

“We’re leaving.” I called it from the corridor.