The White Mists of Power (10 page)

Byron sat at a table near the door. Seymour sat across from him and resisted the urge to remove his boots again. Byron smiled sympathetically. Seymour realized that he hadn’t seen Byron limp since they stole the clothes.

Byron raised a hand, and the serving girl came to the table. “We’d like food and some ale,” he said. She nodded. In a few minutes, she returned with two large tankards of ale and plates overflowing with stew. The plates steamed, and the smell of beef and gravy made Seymour’s mouth water.

The outside door opened, sending chill air inside the room. A thin, balding man dressed in white came in and held the door as the Lady Jelwra and another man walked through. The lady’s white gown glimmered in the firelight. The man with her was elderly, and he bobbed as he spoke.

“…decision, milady.”

“I don’t care,” she said. “If he doesn’t show up tomorrow, I will annex those lands. I have the right to do so. I was trying to be fair.”

The elderly man bobbed again. “Have patience, milady. The retainer could have been wrong.”

“I certainly hope so. Chasing men with dogs. Barbarous custom. Someone should stop that man before he kills someone he shouldn’t.” The lady stopped near the stairs. Her gown swished against the wooden floor. “I mean it, though, Usci. I will take the lands. It makes no difference to me whether I pay for them or annex them. And Lord Dakin doesn’t seem to mind either.”

“Milady.” The elderly man put a hand on her arm. His voice shook slightly. “If you annex the land, you could have trouble with Lord Dakin.”

“Nonsense. I’ll get the king’s seal. You know that’s both easy and legal. Boton can–” She stopped and stared at Byron. A slow flush rose in her dark cheeks. Taking a step toward the table, she took a fan from the folds of her skirt. The fan was closed, and she caressed it absently. “Who might you be, sir?”

Byron stood, took her free hand, and kissed it. He did not release it when he was through. “Geoffry of Kinsmail, at your service, milady.”

Kinsmail? Seymour pushed his full plate aside. The nerves that had prevented him from eating all day had returned. He had heard of Kinsmail, but the stories were vague and old, like a half-remembered dream.

The Lady Jelwra smiled. The look transformed her face, made her seem little older than the boys they had found on the street. “Kinsmail does not exist,” she said.

“Beg pardon, milady,” Byron said. “It did exist once.”

“Indeed?” Her expression remained innocent, but her tone was skeptical. “You look like a titled man. But you’re probably lying to me. You’re probably one of Lord Dakin’s sons, sent to spy on me.”

Byron smiled in return. He still held her hand. “Lord Dakin has no sons. And I am no friend of his. He holds the title to Kinsmail land. It seems he annexed it.”

“If he is who he says he is,” the man said. “The Kinsmails and Dakins had one of the few land battles ever recorded in Kilot history. Seventeen men died defending Kinsmail land. They stopped it before it developed into a final time.”

“Mmm.” The lady tilted her head. Her ringlets fell away from her face, revealing diamond studs that ran along the outside edge of her ear. “Then if I’m successful in my bid against Lord Dakin, I would have to contend with you, Sir Geoffry. That would be ever so much more interesting.”

She gathered her skirts and started up the stairs, her small white shoes clicking on the wood. Byron didn’t move. He watched her with the same preoccupied expression Seymour had seen on his face earlier.

She stopped on the fifth stair and looked down at Byron. “Did I tell you that you look familiar?” She raised her eyebrows and her dark eyes sparkled. “Perhaps I danced with the Lord of Kinsmail and never even knew it.”

“Perhaps,” Byron said. She walked the rest of the way up the stairs. He didn’t move until the creaks stopped in the floorboards above.

Seymour reached for his plate. The food was cool now and he ate it automatically. The meat was chewy and tasteless, the gravy thick with flour. He ate because he didn’t want to talk to Byron, didn’t want to find out that Byron had been lying to him all along. Byron had been sent to the hounds because he was the Lord of Kinsmail, not because of some peasant uprising. That would explain his ease in the clothing and his understanding of the streets.

“How did you think of Kinsmail so quickly?” Seymour let the sarcasm creep into his voice. “I would have been stammering something about shipping or–”

Chapter 6

Adric’s head felt as if it were loose on his neck. His head snapped forward and back. He couldn’t get air, his throat was too constricted. Hay filled his nose and he wanted to sneeze.

“Wake up, you little thief!”

His shoulders ached, his whole body ached. He coughed, felt pain deep in his chest. The room was dark, but he didn’t want to open his eyes.

“Wake up!” A voice, not the voice of the stable boy, but deeper, harsher, filled with something raw, like anger.

“Be easy, Rogren. He’s hurt.” This voice was softer, a woman’s voice. Adric wanted to reach to it. It reminded him of his mother.

“He’s a thief and he owes me for a night’s lodging. Wake up, boy!”

Hands squeezing Adric’s shoulders were the cause of the shaking. Adric raised an arm, brushed feebly at the thick forearms that held him.

“He’s awake.”

Adric opened his eyes, blinked in the blurry light. The stable seemed grainy, covered with white spots that floated through the air like tears. Three people towered over him, a burly man who smelled of onions, a raw-boned woman with skin as faded as her clothes, and the stable boy, who hung back and watched.

The burly man dropped Adric. He fell back into the hay. It poked him, dug into his sores. “He’s not a thief. He’s running. Get him out of here, Cassie.”

The palace guard. Good. Someone to look for him. Someone to find him. Adric grabbed the woman’s wrist. “Please,” he said again, wishing he could get enough air to say more.

The woman looked at Adric’s hand, then at the burly man. “You were on the run once too, Rogren.”

The burly man grunted and stood up. He prodded Adric with his foot. “Fix him, then, Cassie, but if he doesn’t start earning his way soon, I’ll throw him out. You know that.”

The woman watched until the burly man went out the stable doors. Adric coughed. Something to drink would help. “Water,” he said.

The stable boy dipped a cup in a nearby bucket. Water dripped from the cup’s bottom onto Adric’s chest. The drops felt cool and soothing. He tried to sit up, but couldn’t find the strength. The woman supported his head, and he drank.

The water tasted stale but sweet, so very sweet. Adric coughed, surfaced, and drank some more.

“Can you get me some more water, Milo?” the woman said.

The stable boy disappeared. The woman leaned back and ripped the pocket off her skirt. She dipped the fabric in the water and wiped Adric’s face. The water felt cool. “You have a fever,” she said. “Someone beat you up pretty badly.”

The woman’s hands stopped at Adric’s chest. He saw her eyes, then remembered the ornate dove tattoo which the Enos had carved over his left nipple at birth. The sign of his family. He tried to lift his arms to cover it, but could not.

“Milo, come see this.”

The stable boy crouched next to him. Adric closed his eyes. Lord Ewehl said that people would hurt him when they knew who he was, hurt him to hurt his father.

Adric felt the panic leave him. She touched him some more, cooling him, soothing him. He was content to watch her work, wondering how such a washed-out woman could have such a soft and vibrant voice. But he didn’t dare be contented. He had to get to the carriage. His mother would be worried.

Chapter 7

i

Almathea opened the door to her room and stepped inside. What a hovel. A thick, padded bed, a single dingy window, a wardrobe, and two soft chairs were crammed into the small space. If her room was the best the inn had to offer, imagine the hole Sir Geoffry had. She smiled. Sir Geoffry had warm hands and the longest lashes she had ever seen on a man.

Alma opened the wardrobe. The wooden door squeaked. She pulled out a long satin dressing gown and tossed it on the bed. “Apparently Lord Dakin thought so too.”

She tugged on her dress, reached behind her neck, and began to unbutton. Usci watched, his expression unchanged. When she had first begun to travel with her mother’s old adviser, Alma tried to shock him by changing clothes in front of him, prancing naked around him, and sharing her sexual conquests with him. Usci did not shock. He gave her advice, warned her against standing before windows, and often helped her undress. When her disappointment at his lack of reaction disappeared, she was pleased at the freedom his manner allowed her. She moved in front of him now, and he finished undoing the buttons at the small of her back.

Alma shrugged the dress off her shoulders and stepped out of it. Then she took off the slips that gave the gown its fullness. She pulled the dressing gown over her head while Usci picked the garments off the floor.