Champion of the Rose - Kobo Ebook (16 page)

Above Lord Aristide's head, several of the canes shifted, a
sinuous curling patently not caused by any breeze. The Regent's son looked up, exposing his
white throat, but Soren clamped down on unruly thought before there could be a
repeat of the briar noose episode. She
refused to make an enemy of the man until he made an enemy of himself.

The subtle line of Lord Aristide's lips had altered, but she
thought the resulting expression was more appreciative than anything. "I wished to pass on an observation,
Champion," he said. Shifting
position, he held one hand toward Strake's rose, as if measuring its size. "Black."

"Yes?" Soren managed to sound uncomprehending, but Lord Aristide's lips only
curved to full glittering enjoyment.

"I am not the only one who might seek meaning in the
colour," he continued, with the gentle tone used to explain a harsh world
to a disappointed child. "Inevitably, tomorrow, the day, week, month after, a whisper will
become rumour and then fact proclaimed in every alehouse and sitting room. A black rose. Inevitable death."

"Everyone dies," Soren said, though she was
shaken. These past two days, watching
Strake firmly take up Darest's reins while the palace whirled through her head,
it had almost been possible to forget the expression on his face when he'd seen
the rose. He had kept so unremittingly
to the task at hand, maintained such unwavering energy, that Soren had found it
difficult to credit the idea of his doom. He was not injured, showed no sign of failing. Whatever they had encountered in the Tongue
had certainly not followed them through the Walk to Tor Darest, and any local
hazards had to overcome walls and guards and Soren.

But the rose was still black. No wonder Lord Aristide had seemed so
completely unperturbed by Strake's return.

He was watching with an air of patience. Then, to her surprise, he said:
"Whatever else, I do not relish the uncertainty which the black rose will
bring. You need to plan for the
reaction."

"Won't it advantage you?" she asked, stupidly. He rewarded such heavy-handedness with a
weary expression.

"It wouldn't benefit Darest. I shall leave it to you to judge whether that
is of concern to me." He glanced at
the rose. "Since the threat to the
King has evidently existed since his sojourn in The Deeping, I would suggest
that he seek answers from the Fair."

She couldn't quite credit the idea of Lord Aristide giving
her advice to pass on to Strake and some measure of that response must have
shown on her face because his expression changed subtly, and when he spoke
again his voice was silk cut with razors.

"I also felt I should congratulate you,
Champion." Taking two steps, he
moved to stand just behind her. A low
tendril hung before his face and he gazed at the small cluster of red-green leaves
at its tip. "Such commendable
promptness," he added, as Soren stared at the heart of the cluster, at the
burgundy sepals of a mote-sized bud.

Lord Aristide must certainly have enjoyed her reaction,
which was to flinch, then send the bud shooting up above the stone arches,
tucking it completely out of sight. "My felicitations," he said. Glittering, glass-cut courtesy.

Soren stared at him. She had resigned herself to a nervous wait for her next woman's blood,
and this was probably the last way she would have wanted to learn that she
really was pregnant. Rather than make
any kind of response, she leaped to an abrupt tangent. "How was it you were there, that
morning?" she asked. "How did
you know to come before the bells rang?"

Star sapphire eyes glinted with renewed amusement. "I am a mage, Champion. I knew that the Garden was the first place
you'd go, if you succeeded in returning with the heir. Ordinarily, I would not risk establishing a
casting so near the Rose. But I wanted
to be there."

"Why?" It
had not been to attack. He had made no
move to do so.

Lord Aristide looked down the length of Fleeting Hall, to
guards wearing black and gold before the door of the throne room. His face was blank and closed and Soren
thought that 'Diamond' was not the right name to give to so opaque a man.

"Because I promised myself a long time ago that I'd see
my mother's reign to an end," he said, with cold honesty. "And now I have. I thank you for that, Champion."

With a dry, eloquent bow, he turned and walked away.

-
oOo
-

Seeking solace in the luxury of a bath, Soren clutched at
her knees and tried not to exist. It did
not seem possible to take in the reality of her pregnancy. There was no joy, not even any room to
think. She felt crowded, cut by Lord Aristide's
barbs and overwhelmingly crushed beneath the constant tide of the palace.

It wore on her even more than she had anticipated: all the
bed and bathroom visits, the strange things people did when they thought
themselves unobserved, the constant motion demanding her attention. People's lives, made petty by distance and
silence, sheer numbers and unrelenting observation.

Lying in water up to her chin, she watched Strake wake up
and make his way to the privy. Twenty-seven other people and a handful of animals were doing the same
thing. At least half the palace still
slept. The Chamberlain's husband was in
a borrowed room, working up a frantic sweat with a gangling young woman who
resembled the Baroness of
Runath
. An elderly woman had fallen down the stairs
of the west residences and a small cluster of scourers, all wide eyes and
flapping mouths, stood about her. Dolls,
waving their arms.

Every single Champion had watched the Court as she did. No matter how they felt, however wretched or
sick or tired or dismayed to be pregnant – they had no way to hide from the
intimacies of hundreds. It was a wonder
Rathen Champions did not have a reputation for going mad.

Yet the idea of returning to Carn Keep, of not living in
this place, of ignoring whatever responsibility she might have to King and
Kingdom and escaping a life for which she wasn't suited, seemed to be beyond
her. She constantly thought about it,
had ever since she'd first come to Tor Darest, but could not go beyond the
thought. Her head just did not want to
work that way.

The Rose again. It
had to be. Taking away choice, just as
it had taken away the control of her body, back in the Tongue. It had even stripped her of privacy along
with freedom, had displayed her pregnancy for anyone to see. For Aristide Couerveur to throw in her face.

Puppet Champion. How
could all the stories have been so wrong? Life-long servitude, where she couldn't even call her dreams her own.

What if Strake couldn't destroy the Rose? She had to accept that it might not be
possible, that she would spend the rest of her life in the palace crucible,
battered by the constant sight of everything. With people like the Diamond cutting her to pieces. Not to mention her King.

Enough.

Soren squashed all her helpless hurt into a ball and pushed
it away. Then she breathed deep and slow
until the useless self-pity receded. This life had become hers, and she could at least choose to be more than
a cipher while she wore the uniform of the Champion.

She could start with palace-sight. Horrible as it could be, it was a tool she
most certainly could use. Time to get
out of the bath and try and do her job.

Strake was talking to Fisk now, issuing a long series of
orders. One of them would be for his
breakfast, so Soren dressed in anticipation of an invitation. He was looking withdrawn this morning, gazing
out the windows of his receiving room at the neglected garden which lay at the
heart of the King's residence. Elsewhere, the Captain of the Guard and Lord Aristide matched swords, a
regular practice bout. Jansette
Denmore
arrived in the palace, walking purposefully toward
the western halls. The old lady who had
fallen down the stairs was finally carried off to the ministrations of a
physician. A cook was screaming at a
scourer
who stood among shattered dishes.

Lady Arista had left for
Ritmar
yesterday, as quietly as the movement of a Baroness' entire household could
manage. Jansette
Denmore
had remained behind, but Soren had not seen any sign of argument between the
former Regent and her lover and was duly suspicious. Jansette was a person who seemed to go
everywhere and talk to everyone. A
veritable mine of connections, who, frustratingly, had found rooms in the New
Palace, where Soren could not keep a close eye on her.

All the Barons were naturally next-most interesting. They'd been primarily concerned over how the
new King would deal with the ever-difficult question of taxes and the army
portion, and had invariably brought it up in the audience he had granted
each. In return Strake had been
uncommunicative, curt and demanding. The
King was fully aware of his station.

Not that anyone had objected. So early on, and with the Couerveurs at least
publicly compliant, they were all waiting to see what would happen. Waiting to see if this sudden gift of a
Rathen could turn the kingdom's fortunes, waiting for Strake to give them a
reason to think themselves better off without him. Making contingency plans.

Lip-reading was definitely a skill she would have to
acquire.

Combing her hair, Soren divided her attention between
Jansette
Denmore
and the table attendant who was
laying two places in Strake's receiving room. Both of them were beauties, and had dressed to display a sweetly
enticing curve of breast. Jansette was
far more exquisite, her skin so fine Soren could not help wondering what it was
like to touch, but it seemed this morning the
Denmore
talents were to be wasted on coquetting the Chamberlain, while the table
attendant worked at captivating the King.

Fretfully, Soren watched this first attempt to win Strake's
favour. She knew she was going to
witness many, many more, but this morning her situation seemed particularly
invidious. She wished she could stop
thinking of him as her Rathen. She
wished not to be carrying his child.

It took Strake some time to notice the attendant's display,
but he finally glanced at her and looked amused, then lazily appreciative. The woman immediately bent to adjust the fall
of the tablecloth so that her breasts bulged into handfuls just waiting to be
cupped.

The King of Darest's response was to stand and walk out into
the parched garden, where he stood staring at the brittle yellow weeds. His back was rigid, jaw set, brows drawn
together. All the muscles of his face
and throat stood stark and clear. Anguish. It was the first time
Soren had really seen him act like a man who had lost everything. Scarcely three weeks ago in his memory.

The attendant, horrified, said something and hurried away,
obviously convinced she'd angered him. Soren rather thought that she'd momentarily roused him, and now his
anger was directed inward. After the
loss of his betrothed, and then what the Rose had done to them–

Watching his grief hurt. Soren sighed and wished she knew whether she even liked her mercurial
King, and whether she could mend the fences between them. He had resented her from the first, and what
little accord they might have built had been shattered by the Rose. The last thing he would want was her
sympathy.

A short time later Halcean opened the door to Fisk, then
came to relay an invitation to join the King at breakfast. By the time Soren reached his receiving room,
any hint of loss was banished, and Strake was back to gazing moodily out at the
ravaged garden.

"Why has it been left in this condition?" he asked
as she came in. "It looks
disgraceful."

"It looked worse yesterday," Soren replied, making
an effort to be equable and detached and not nearly so battered and
unhappy. "They carted out a forest
of dead vine."

That simmering, baulked expression darkened his face when he
looked at her, but she was prepared and far less ready to quail. What had happened to them in the forest may
have made it nearly impossible for them to deal easily with each other, but she
wasn't going to spend the rest of her life creeping and cowering.

"I expect they'll finish clearing out today," she
continued, carefully ignoring his irritation. "If that isn't soon enough for you, I suppose I could pitch
in. What was it like before? It smells like a stillroom."

"An ornamental herb garden. There was a reflective pool with a
mosaic. Brilliant blue and green
stone."

Soren tilted her head, feeling the boundaries of the
garden. "The pool's full of
dirt. But it seems intact."

Strake was duly surprised and, to Soren's satisfaction, no
longer a thundercloud at the breakfast table. Not reacting to his irritation seemed the best way of handling it. A pity she would soon have to ruin the mood.

"That's not sight," he was saying. "How do you know?"

"It's part of the palace." She shrugged and sat down at the table,
surveying steaming pancakes and fruit compote. "It's like knowing I still have toenails.

He snorted. "Very poetic. Tell me, then,
what rooms are beneath the palace? The
structure of the Rathen enchantments is supposedly down there, and I'll need to
reach it if I'm to take it apart. But if
there's a way to access it, it was kept very dark. I don't particularly want to take up the throne
room floor getting rid of the Rose."

This proved more complicated than the garden, for, apart
from the wine-cellars and a couple of simple storage chambers used by the
kitchens, there didn't seemed to be anything beneath the palace. Aware of Strake's critical gaze, Soren
surveyed the sprawling building room by room.

"I can't see below," she said, eventually. "But there's a sealed chamber behind the
treasury, with a stair which goes down. Beneath the big bell."