The Eunuch's Heir (36 page)

“The meeting in the tavern, where she was being beaten, you set that up, didn’t you? You knew I wouldn’t let it happen.” He flipped up the eye patch and rubbed the ridge of bone around the empty place.

“She made the plans. My role was to get you there, a little drunk if possible. She would be grateful, you would be flattered.”

Wolfram wrinkled his nose. “You let me share your woman? Good grief!”

Glancing up, Dylan saw the scars on his face and looked away again. “What could I do, I was desperate. When I
worked the nights, you were with her. During the day—” His shoulders drooped, and he finally sat up, curled against the wall.

“Then she got pregnant. One last big take, she would tell you; am I right?”

Staring into the darkness, Dylan nodded. “We could finally be together.”

Wolfram shook his head. “I was such a fool, Dylan. You had me all the way.” Miraculously, as Dylan talked, the demon crept away.

“She wasn’t supposed to come to the castle. I was scared out of my wits when she came to my room. Wolfram’s running away, she said. ‘I told him about the baby, and he hit me, Dylan, he knocked me down and said I’d get nothing from him.’” His voice grew distant as he recalled her words. “I’d never been so angry before, Wolfram, I didn’t know what to do. You had assaulted a pregnant woman.”

“It wasn’t true,” Wolfram said.

From across the miles between them, Dylan studied him. “You’d been angry all that night. I didn’t know what to believe.”

“I offered to acknowledge the baby, Dylan. I gave her the proof she wanted to hold over the queen. She never planned to run away with you. She used me to avenge herself on my parents; she used you to get to me. With me dead, she had the only heir.”

“No,” Dylan protested, “that’s not all it was. She was so interested in my work, she knows all about the moon, how to watch, what measurements to take. She even asked for copies of my notes for her to study.”

“Why would a whore need all of that?” Wolfram mused.

“She had another plan; she always has, I can see that now.” Unexpectedly, Dylan started sniffling. “I am so sorry, Wolfram, please believe that. Great Goddess, I didn’t want to hurt you. I’ve been so confused and miserable.”

“I know,” he said, with a calm he had not felt since Deishima’s breathing lessons. “You didn’t try very hard that night. A little harder, and you might have done it.”

“No, I don’t think I could, really. I wanted you to win.”

Wolfram inched closer and touched Dylan’s arm. Dylan jerked away, the whites of his eyes glinting. “I won’t hurt you, I swear.”

“I’m sorry,” Dylan repeated.

“It’s a long time ago, now.”

Dylan took a deep breath. “It’s not just that, Wolfram.”

His headache faintly returning, Wolfram asked, “What else is there?”

“I know about the tiger that’s still stalking you, Wolfram. She told me they’d kill you, her friends. They need you out of the way. I wanted, I couldn’t, oh, Great Goddess,” he moaned, dropping his head to his hands.

Wolfram reeled, the night suddenly colder than before. “That day in my chambers. You were so nervous, and I couldn’t figure it out. Every time I asked a question, you jumped. You put a spell on me.” Then he grinned as the relief washed over him, it was neither madness nor mistake. “Will you lift it?”

His lips trembling, Dylan spoke a few strange words.

Wolfram felt the tension go out of his shoulders, as if he need not keep looking behind. He gave a deep sigh.

“She’s dying, Wolfram,” Dylan murmured. “After all of this, all I’ve done; she is dying anyway. Poisoned, she says. I’m not skilled enough to find out.”

Climbing to his feet, Wolfram stared down. “You tried to kill me—your best friend, your prince, no less—then you made me fear my own shadow, for a woman who used you, and now she’s dying.”

Dylan curled into himself, hugging his knees. “Will you ever forgive me?”

“I don’t need to hold it over you, Dylan,” Wolfram whispered into the night. “How will you ever look me in the eye again?”

Leaving his friend whimpering on the rooftop, Wolfram let himself down and wandered, unmolested, to his room and slept well past dawn without hearing a sound.

WAKING LATE,
and feeling fuzzy-headed, Wolfram decided to pay some visits. He dressed well, even replacing the coronet someone had returned to his room after he’d abandoned it in Fionvar’s office.

The first visit must be to the privy, and, as he stood, glancing at the hole through which wastes fell into a fenced pit a few stories down, Wolfram had the beginning of a plan that might confirm his suspicions. It might also ruin all his hopes, but that he could not control.

Before he could set his plan in motion, it was high time he paid a call on his mother at court, uninvited though he might be. They should see him speaking and acting as fair as he could, in case he pulled off his scheme and could finally share all the secrets he was keeping. The court hall was close by the Great Hall, but lacking in most of its grandeur, equipped with rows of cushioned benches. A few of these were the same that they had used in exile at the manor in Gamel’s Grove and were reserved for the finest of their citizens and visitors. Entering quietly, he found a place on a back bench, beside a rather surprised merchant. Wolfram smiled pleasantly and nodded a greeting to the man, who fingered his many rings as he bowed his head in return.

“I believe there are more of them every day,” a thin woman was saying to the queen, who tapped her fingers together as she always did when she was losing patience. The woman wore sturdy clothing, nothing fancy, and as she paced, Wolfram caught the flash of a badge at her hip—a new guild
mistress for the jewelers. “I don’t want them selling their wares, they’ve not paid dues, nor been licensed.”

“Yes, I understand, Mistress Weylin, the city guard have already been instructed that the Hemijrani are not to sell anything. They are doing their best to enforce the law.”

“But when will these people be gone? They should be routed!” She slapped her fist into her palm.

Queen Brianna replied, in the weary tone of the thousandth retelling, “They are gathering here for a feast day of their religion, after which they will be gone. The ships are already at harbor in Freeport to take them home. Just a few more days.” She straightened and addressed the room. “If anyone else here has a complaint against the refugees, please take it to the guard captain.” As her eyes scanned the faces, she stopped at Wolfram’s, her lips turning down.

Duchess Elyn, at her side as ever, heaved herself up on her cane, doddering a few steps down the aisle. “What’re you doing here, boy?”

With a throbbing in his head, Wolfram rose and bowed to his mother. “I do not believe I have been banned from court, Your Majesty. If I am mistaken, I will go.”

“You have fourteen days,” his mother replied. “Do with them what you will.”

“I thank you for your patience, Your Majesty,” he said, meaning it lightly, but her lips tightened.

“You’ve told him, haven’t you?” Elyn rasped, coughing into a cloth.

Wolfram examined the shaky figure that had once terrified him. “Told me what, Excellency?”

“About the marriage, the suitors.” Elyn flapped her thin hand to take in the full range of possibilities.

“I have,” said the queen. “My heir should be aware of such things, I believe.”

Turning back to the throne, Elyn cackled. “Fourteen days to prove himself, no, Your Majesty, you’ve given him a fortnight to kill you!”

The hush of the room grew deeper.

Wolfram felt heat rising in his face and all the eyes of the assembly upon him.

“Think, Brianna!” the old woman exhorted. “Think! If you can’t go through with it, or if you’re dead, we’re left with him and his bastard.”

Fury tightened his shoulders, but Wolfram stood his ground, flexing his fingers to prevent them making fists. “I am trying to live up to the bargain, Your Majesty. I have no wish to be crowned before my time.”

“In eight days,” Elyn crowed, thrusting out her stick, “your time is up!”

With all his heart, Wolfram wanted to stay. He wanted to prove his own patience by sitting back down, but one more word from the duchess would send him into a rage he could not control. Bowing curtly, he turned on his heel and left, the door standing open behind him.

Ignoring his aches, he walked off the anger, taking a long route around the several galleries and surprising a few scullions in the kitchen. Then, still stoked with this gathered energy, he found the room they had given Asenith. A maid sat outside the door, darning an old pair of hose. She jumped up and bowed.

“Let me announce you, Your Highness.” She knocked timidly on the door, darting him glances.

“You do that,” he said as she opened the door, “but tell her I’m coming in however she feels about it.” He grinned his most feral, and the maid nodded quickly, her eyes round.

A low murmur began in the room, the maid’s voice pleading, Asenith’s weak yet insistent.

Growing impatient, Wolfram pushed the door open, and strode in, taking the bedside seat as if he’d been expected. “Thank you,” he told the maid. “You may go.”

She bobbed a curtsy and scurried out.

For a long time, he studied the figure in the bed, even as she studied him. Her hair, growing out blond, was brittle and thin, framing a drawn and empty face. All the curves of her body had dwindled to nothing, leaving the bones of her shoulders and hips clearly outlined by the thin sheet that
covered her. Every breath lifted the sheet a little, revealing her ribs, then sank back again. Her breath smelled rotten, and he turned away from her for air.

“After so long.” She sighed, her voice the merest exhale. “What do you want?”

“Is your revenge as sweet as you had planned, Asenith?”

“Some parts…sweeter than others.” She gave a wan smile, a ghost of her seduction. “Did Fionvar tell you all?”

“Most,” he said. “All that mattered, I think.”

“Did he tell you of the birth? How he held my arms?” A strange expression crossed her face, regret perhaps, or a sudden wistful mood.

“It didn’t come up.”

The next question she whispered, eyes shut. “Did he tell you that he kissed me?”

No wonder the queen had been so hostile to her lover, but he had not spoken of it to Wolfram—regrets indeed.

When he did not answer, she opened her eyes again. “I can still surprise you. Good. Have you seen the babe?”

Discomfited by the question, which had not crossed his mind, he said, “Not yet.”

“She looks like you.” She smiled to see him squirm. “I’m dying, they must have said.”

“I’d heard that you were poisoned. It’s taking a long time, isn’t it? Maybe you just couldn’t handle the birth.” He watched the flutter of pulse in her neck.

“I handled everything, my lord.” She laughed without sound. “I handled you.”

“Nevertheless”—he tilted his chin up to scratch near the scar around his throat—“I’m still walking around, and you’re unlikely to ever leave that bed.”

Watching him gravely, she asked, “Did you do it?”

“What?”

“Poison me, somehow, some agent of yours.” Suddenly, she jerked upright in her bed, her eyes open. “Was it Dylan? Did he do this for you?”

“It was probably your own friends. What was the arrangement, that you or your child would rule here while she rules
in Bernholt? Why would she do that when she could take both?”

Asenith let herself drop back to the mattress, pulling up her sheets with feeble gestures. “I don’t know who you mean.”

“How long have you been planning this?” Then he considered more deeply. “Why now?”

“You speak nonsense.” She sighed again. “Leave me in peace.”

Wolfram rolled a few other questions around in his mind, but he did not want to give Dylan away. Killing the prince, no matter that he was on the outs with the queen, would raise suspicions, but if a young astronomer fell from his tower, who would question that? “Very well,” he said at last, and rose. Staring down at her, wasting away in the bed, Wolfram felt a touch of loss. He stooped again and kissed her very gently on her withered lips.

Asenith gave a little moan, and her vacant blue eyes tracked him as he left her.

Outside, Wolfram stood a moment just breathing, clearing the scent of her dying from his lungs. Curious, he followed the passages to Fionvar’s study and found it empty of all the Lord Protector’s things. Even the great desk had been removed and the small rosewood table returned to its place. With a dark foreboding, Wolfram sprinted through the halls to Fionvar’s quarters, finding a servant with a broom by the door.

“Where’s Fionvar? I have to see him.”

The man bowed, and answered, “Gone, Your Highness, just now.”

“Bury it, he can’t leave now!”

“If you’re quick to the stables, you may catch him.”

Taking off at a run, Wolfram reached the stables just as Fionvar’s tall bay horse was brought round. Dressed in traveling clothes, with a pack already slung on the horse’s back, Fionvar prepared to mount.

With a nod to the groom, Wolfram took the reins and steadied the horse, patting its broad neck as it snorted down at him.

Noting the change, Fionvar glanced over, his hands already on the saddle. Immediately, he turned his face away, with a quick breath.

The energy leaving him, Wolfram rested his head on the horse’s neck, his arm wrapped around, fingers entangled in the dark mane. “You know.”

“Yes.” Fionvar adjusted the stirrup leather.

“I did not know who she was to me,” Wolfram said.

“I know that, too.”

“Bury it,” Wolfram muttered. “I couldn’t just tell you. Great Lady, I didn’t know what to say. It wasn’t my secret.” He rubbed the twitchy skin beneath the patch.

Under lowered brows, Fionvar shot him a look.

“I’m sorry. Is that what you want? My apology? I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I’m sorry for every day of the last eighteen years.” He shook, biting the inside of his lip.

“All right,” Fionvar said, sticking his foot in the stirrup and swinging himself up. “Did you come here to stop me going?”

Wolfram buried his head beneath the horse’s neck, stroking its warm cheek, its breath steaming his neck. Why had he come after all? He looked up into his father’s face. “I came to warn you.”

“What is it this time?” Fionvar bit back whatever else he might say, taking control of the reins as Wolfram stepped back.

“I’m about to put my foot in it. I’m about to do something reckless and rash and stupid, and it might get me killed, certainly I’ll be exiled.” He shook his head, tilting it to the right to maintain his gaze. “I thought you should know.”

Leaning on the front of the saddle, Fionvar asked, “It’s no good warning you off is it?”

Wolfram gave a crooked smile. “I’m afraid not.”

Fionvar kicked the horse, which sprang forward, forcing Wolfram’s quick retreat. “Then thank the Lady I won’t be here to see it,” he called back, riding hard for the gates.

Head bowed, Wolfram kicked at the dirt. That sinking feeling had returned. All those years, he had been disappoint
ing some distant legend, flouting his royal father’s blessing, while his true father stood in the shadows watching every moment of defiance and holding every hurt. He had tried, he had wanted so much to succeed this time. Now, what did it matter?

“Bury him. Bury them all.” This escapade might well be his last, but his first one for all the right reasons. Turning his feet for the streets, Wolfram went in search of the equipment he needed, charging it back to the household, knowing he would pay in other ways.