At the Queen's Command (40 page)

“I do not read novels, Highness. They are persiflage that does not educate nor illuminate and seldom succeeds in amusing. Writers of such fanciful tales should find something useful and honorable to do with their lives, instead of filling their days writing lies.”

Vlad laughed aloud. “Yes, perfect.”

“What?”

“And you are a woman of strong opinions, not afraid to express them.”

She tucked a strand of blonde hair behind her ear, then picked up a firerake and reduced a log to coals. “I should think, for Mystria, this would be preferred.”

“I agree.” Vlad smiled. “My father’s most recent letter had explicit instructions for me to follow concerning my upcoming marriage. He began, of course, with the Church’s teachings. He cannot help it. He’s been a monk longer than he has been a father, but he tries at the latter. He told me that to marry someone I barely knew and didn’t like was a duty. In time, he said, we would come to understand each other. We might even get to the point where we tolerated each other’s company. If blessed, we might even be friends. He said our children would be a point of commonality and would reflect our shared values. But the idea of liking each other…”

“Or loving each other?”

Vlad looked down. “Yes, these were things, he said, dreamt of by fools and novelists.”

“Because of what your father wrote, you cannot believe I like you?” Gisella smiled and stepped closer to him. “You cannot believe I might love you?”

“It is, I think, far too early to be speaking of love, Princess, lest you commit foolishness for which you would condemn a heroine and the novelist who created her.”

“I should tell you, I do not think it is so.” Gisella reached up and stroked the side of his face, then turned away. The fire flooded her hair with golden highlights. “I was raised at court, my lord, where I did not fit in because that which attracted others bored me. Like you, however, I was prepared to do my duty. I would come here and marry a man I did not know. I would bear him children and I would hope he would go off to wars or to tour his lands. I would hope he was an ambitious man and that his ambitions took him far from me. And this is why I hate ambition.”

Vlad smiled. “Princess, I
am
an ambitious man.”

She turned, her eyes alight. “Your ambition is practical. Your laboratory shouts it. You want to know things, to discover things, to learn. You seek to make the world a better place. Ambition can be selfish or selfless, and you are the master of the latter form. For that reason alone I would like you; and certainly do love you.”

“But I am not…”

“Not what, my lord? Dashing and handsome like von Metternin? I would tell you that you are. Handsome, most certainly, and dashing, of course. Who else in all the world rides a wurm beneath the river? You enter worlds no other man has seen. Countless are the fools who charge into battle and think themselves brave because their enemies cannot shoot straight. Their foe’s incompetence somehow becomes a shining sign of God’s favor.”

Her face lit up as she paced. Even Mugwump stirred at her words, sliding his tail out of her way as she paraded. “Shall I tell you, my lord, why it is I love you, for I do love you, and it does not matter to me if you do not return that love? Knowing I have found a man worthy of being loved is enough. But do you wish to know?”

Vlad met her gaze and nodded. “I should be honored.”

“You are a man who deals in realities. You acknowledge that honor and glory exist, but you do not seek them as a hound seeks a fox. You see them for what they are. Glory will feed no one. Honor will keep no one warm on a night such as this. A bullet will kill the virtuous and brave as easily as the dissolute and craven—and often side by side with the same volley.”

She pointed back toward the house and his laboratory. “The model you have created, the men you have sent to scout it, none of these things are matters for the Governor-General. Your responsibility would have ended with sending reports to Launston. That would be your duty as seen by the Crown, but you see more. You see what is
necessary
and you execute.”

Gisella smiled. “And here, my lord, the fact that you have sent your wurmwright to bed while you stoke these fires, it pleases me. I can imagine you sitting up the night with a coughing child or…”

“Or a wife entering labor?”

“A silly girl who is afraid of how her body is changing?”

Vlad reached out, resting his hands on her shoulders. “I do not believe you will ever be described as silly. And I would tell you that I would thrash any man who dared say so. I also believe, my dear, you would have thoroughly dealt with such a foolish man well before I had a chance to intervene.”

She looked up, a tear glistening in an eye, but she smiled. “I have practiced my thumbs red with a dueling pistol, to my father’s delight and disgust.”

Vlad brushed the tear away, smudging her cheek. “Princess, my lack of belief in your feeling for me is no fault of your own. No, please, let me explain.”

He smiled, suddenly warmed by the memory of her sitting behind him on Mugwump, her arms tight under and around his shoulders, as the wurm first slid beneath the river. She had laughed with surprise, killing the sound as she closed her mouth quickly. She clung to him, her breasts pressed to his back, her body shaking. Only after he surfaced, tugging Mugwump up quickly, did he find her shaking with delighted laugher. Drenched, her clothing hanging from her, she did not care about appearances, but she wished to take a deep breath and go under again and again.

“I have spent so many years, Princess, dreading the day a bride would be chosen for me. I had hoped, honestly hoped, that my aunt would see the possibility of my having children as a threat to the throne. I hoped, and fervently believed, that when she did send a wife for me, it would be some old Morvian dowager duchess who would hate me, hate everything I do, and resolve to remain on the Continent while I stayed here.

“And here she has chosen someone who is perfect for me, who is intelligent and beautiful, practical and witty.” Vlad shook his head. “It is a dream which I fear will end.”

Gisella hung her hands around his neck. “Kiss me, Highness. I promise this dream will not end.”

His arms slipped around her, drawing her to him, pressing her tight to his chest. He lowered his mouth to hers. That first kiss, warm and firm, tightened his stomach. He held her closer, not wanting to let go, not wanting to break it, not wanting to even breath. And she held him tightly, not letting him go, not letting him break the kiss.

And she took his breath away.

He could not tell how long they kissed. Empirically he knew it had to have been less than two minutes, since he could only hold his breath that long. Realistically it didn’t matter. It could have been a heartbeat, but might as well have been forever. In that moment, a part of himself that had been shut away for so long became free.

The look on her face as their lips parted said she read it all in his eyes. He had no words for the emotions racing through him. The freedom, the towering joy. It was every bit as exhilarating as the first time Mugwump had dived beneath the river with him. It was the complete satisfaction of having found something he never even knew he had lost. And he wondered how he could have survived so long without it.

He laughed silently, then kissed her again.
Is this love?
He knew lust was involved, certainly, for hungry were their kisses and hot their desires. But he found more there, more that was frustratingly elusive. He could not measure it nor describe it—an ability for which he had to grudgingly admire the much-disparaged novelists. And yet, even though it escaped measurement, it existed because it quickened his pulse and brought him such great joy he could not stop smiling.

Reluctantly he released her. “I fear, Princess, Mugwump is a very poor chaperone.”

“This may be, my lord, but he is a silent one, which could make him a wonderful chaperone.” She laughed lightly and he adored the sound of it. “But we shall not do anything which would besmirch von Metternin’s honor.”

“It’s best we don’t.” He took her hand and led her back to the ladder. “And we need to refill the boiler.”

He bled the steam off, then opened the boiler. They took turns pumping water and hauling it to the boiler. When they’d filled it two-thirds full, he sealed it again, then climbed back down into the pit to stoke the fire.

She remained above, leaning on the rail, smiling down at him. “I find your working this way very attractive.”

He smiled, but stopped himself from preening foolishly. He raked the coals around and started laying in more wood.

“I have a question for you, Princess.”

“Ask, my lord.”

“In your family, the women bear strong children?”

She nodded, her golden hair shimmering. “Very, my lord.”

“So then, by three or four, my sons will be able to tend the boiler on cold nights?”

She grinned. “Only if, my lord, you excuse them from hunting jeopards, which they will want to do from two.”

“Very good, my dear, very good. We are splendidly matched. Perfectly.” Vlad beamed for her sake and tossed more wood onto the coals.
And I wonder, when my aunt discovers this fact, what she will do to ruin us.

Chapter Forty-One

October 15, 1763

Anvil Lake, New Tharyngia

"I
t’s time.” Owen threw back his bedclothes. “Quarante-neuf, we go tonight.”

The
pasmorte
shook his head. “It is too dangerous. It is too cold.” Owen stood and unlaced the leather covers over the shackles. “The wind will bury our tracks with snow. This is the only chance. I need your help.”

“You can hardly move.”

“This is why I need you to help me.” Over the last six weeks du Malphias had taken great delight in having
pasmortes
chase Owen down. Because Quarante-neuf would stop them from harming him, the game really had no purpose, but Owen played it anyway. His clumsy efforts gave du Malphias data concerning the magick shackles.

Quarante-neuf had learned through the exercises as well. He broke other
pasmortes
instead of reintroducing them to death. Repair made more work for du Malphias. The Laureate, in turn, taught Quarante-neuf enough magick to affect basic repairs, mending bones and flesh.

He pulled the sharpened nails from beneath the shackles. “Pull on your glove. Now, pinch the flesh at the back of my thigh. Get a good handful. Yes, now, shove one of the nails all the way through the fold.”

“I cannot. I would hurt you.”

“No, you’re preventing hurt.” Owen held nails out. “Please, you have to do this. I can’t.”

The
pasmorte
sank to a knee behind him. He grabbed a hunk of flesh and drew it away from the muscle. The nail popped through and out again, more of a burning sensation than pain, but nothing in comparison to the magick hobbling. Quarante-neuf repeated the procedure on the other leg.

“How does that feel?”

Owen took a step. He felt the tug at the back of his leg, and some of the magickal pain triggering, but less. Another step and another, longer each time. “The iron mutes the magic. I need more nails. Another above the knee. One below. One below the calf, and maybe at the small of my back. Please, my friend, hurry.”

“Yes. Let me prepare things.” The
pasmorte
quickly bent the nails into a gentle curve. He tore the shackle covers into rectangular strips and pierced them with the nails first. He used the strips to pinch the skin, then inserted the nails through Owen’s flesh and the leather. The wounds burned, and blood welled up to stain the leather.

Once all the nails had been set in place, Owen made several circuits of his cell. He moved more easily, but couldn’t run. Then again, with the deep snow, what could?
This will have to do
.

He dressed, careful not to catch clothes on the nails. He wrapped one thin blanket around him and saved a corner as a hood, then pulled on the leather tunic Msitazi had given him. They tore the other blanket into strips and bound his feet in several layers, then tied them in place with strips of canvas. The remaining canvas he pulled around him as a cloak, and used the last two nails to hold it closed.

Quarante-neuf nodded. “Ready?”

“Wait, I need Agaskan’s doll.”

The
pasmorte
produced it from a drawer and Owen tucked it inside his tunic. “Now I will be safe.”

Owen followed the
pasmorte
from his prison, hunching himself over. He moved haltingly, imitating as best he could the
pasmortes
circulating as sentries. He mimicked their awkward gaits and ducked his head as he turned north. The full brunt of the storm battered him. He snarled defiantly and forced himself toward the wall.

Snow drifted against the walls’ northern faces. He fought the wind and reached the stone wall construction inside the north wall. The open end and ragged line of stones allowed him to easily scramble up to the top. He crouched, searched through the blizzard for any sign of
pasmortes
nearby, but saw nothing.

He couldn’t see a dozen feet in any direction, but that hardly made him feel safe. He imagined du Malphias had some arcane means of piercing the storm’s curtain.
Or he might have a way to track me or Quarante-neuf.
That thought soured his mouth, but he dismissed it.

Knowing where I am and dragging me back are two different things in this blizzard.

He grabbed the wooden wall’s points and hauled himself over. He fell for a yard, then sank into snowdrifts. He floundered for a moment, then another body crunched down beside him. Quarante-neuf grabbed his arm and pulled him from the snow. The
pasmorte
wore no heavy clothes, but did have a pack on his back. “Come.”

Owen began wading through the snow. “You have to get me away from here. I will kill du Malphias if I stay.”

Quarante-neuf nodded. “Thank you, my friend…” His voice trailed off for a moment. “Is it that we are truly friends? Can it be?”

“Of course.” Owen leaned heavily on the
pasmorte
’s arm. “Why would you think we are not friends?”