Champion of the Rose - Kobo Ebook (22 page)

Chapter Sixteen

No light but
Selune's
shall
ever shine in her temples
.

It was a difficult edict. During the day, the temples kept their windows shuttered and curtained,
and the entry hall screened by successively heavier layers of velvet
drapery. Candles, even ordinary
mageglows
could not be used, and many of the smaller
temples simply could not manage it, were constantly seeking funds for specially
enchanted orbs which stored the light of the moon. Otherwise, the temple remained dark until the
sun set, permanently a place of uncertain shadow.

Most of the larger temples followed the structure of a long
hall with walls of black and a pool-studded floor of white before a
ceiling-scraping
arlune
. Soren had already seen the temple through
palace-sight, had been fully aware that glows had been placed beneath the water
consecrated to the goddess, that the
arlune
had been
similarly enchanted so that the entire sweep of white shone like the shaft of
moonlight it represented. When she
struggled out of the mercifully dust-free curtains, the room still made her
gasp. It danced.

Halcean
remained outside, ready to
fend off intrusion, and palace-sight showed Soren two acolytes lurking behind
curtains to her left. She ignored them,
her attention flicking to Aristide and Strake as they passed out of the east
doors to the stables. She listened to
her
Rathen's
breathing, then shut him away as fully
as she was able. She had come to make an
offering.

It was invariably cold in a Moon temple, thanks to all the
water. In this case it flowed the length
of the walls along specially constructed channels to form a semi-circular
moat. A narrow bridge projected out into
the centre of this moat, terminating just short of the
arlune
in a densely padded prayer cushion.

The
arlune
itself was marble, far
removed from Carn Keep's carved sandstone painted white. It rippled like the water beneath, curving
out of the bracketing walls and flowing upward, narrowing to a pristine shaft
which touched the dark ceiling. Kneeling
on the prayer cushion, Soren looked up.

"Moon for birth and death, Sun for all the
rest." Soren had not often come to
the Moon's temple. When her brother's
daughter was born. The deaths of two of
her grandparents, a childhood friend, pets. She'd never felt so conflicted.

Gripping the edge of the prayer cushion so that she could
not be tempted to reach out and steady herself with her hands, Soren leaned
forward and rested her forehead against the chilly marble. Immediately, a faint headache she had not
realised she was carrying lifted, and the swirl of palace-sight retreated to
something distant and negligible.

To the Moon she gave two slow, sinking realisations. One spread black across a stable floor, and
the other solidifying out of the chaotic aftermath of the Rose's assault in the
Tongue. Painstakingly she reconstructed
her bewildered loss and slow-burning fury at sight of that pool of blood. To that she admitted a shrinking desire for
safety. Then she tried to piece together
the suspicion of pregnancy. A great deal
of that was anger and dismay, but despite it all she had to acknowledge an edge
of pleasure, that she was to have the child of this man she desired. Child of a King, child of her Rathen. An offering required honesty.

She felt it flow away from her, combined recollection of
death and conception, not erased from her memory but shared with the one who
meted out the world's souls, and gathered them home again. The Moon did not reach out to her supplicants
– there was no chance of the sudden, burning transcendence brought on by the
fleeting regard of fickle Sun. An
offering to the Moon brought more a reminder of a presence always there but
hardly noticed, as an oft-worn scent becomes edited out of conscious notice. A connection to something immensely distant,
remembered in return for memory. Mother's skirts. Comfort.

It could not bring Vixen back, but it would do.

-
oOo
-

"Let me
help."

"What?" Soren looked up at her aide. Not
willing to offer any more of her grief up for the Court's consumption, she'd
retreated to her apartments to leaf through the histories, searching out more
references to the killer while she watched the palace.

"Let me help,"
Halcean
repeated. "I'm your aide, good for
more than answering doors."

Halcean's
eyes were intent, full
of frustrated energy, but Soren hesitated. It didn't matter whether the woman offered out of ambition or sympathy,
Soren simply didn't want to talk, didn't want to prod at the mass of fear and
frustration tangled around her.

"What can you do?" she asked equivocally.

"I can be properly outraged!"
Halcean
grimaced,
and held up a hand to forestall response. "I – ever since I came to Tor Darest, I've been watching how
everything works. Learning who wants
what, and how badly. And how I could use
it to get ahead. I knew just what
strings to pull to get myself offered for this position, and it was fun to do
it. There's–" She hesitated, then hurried forward in a
rush. "You do what you can, to
advance your family, and most of the time I enjoy playing Court. But I don't think I've ever seen anything so
completely unnecessary as killing your horse. Whoever did that – well, I'd like to see them regret it."

"So would I." Soren looked down, then rubbed her fingers across a line of old text, a
fair description of a centuries-old death. "Who then?" she asked. "There are others to work out how it was done, to try and prove
it. Tell me who, who has reason enough
to – to hate the return of the
Rathens
so much that
they'd try and mimic this? Because if we
aren't facing the real monster, someone has to be willing to go on killing, to
make it look like the King's past has tracked him down. Who has so much at stake to do that?"

Halcean
bit her lip, her certainty
faltering. "It does seem
excessive," she admitted. "I
mean, if they're able to hide their tracks well enough for a single death, why
not just make it the King's and be done? Of course, the King's under better security, but they'd have to breach
that some time, and this kind of thing will only mean he keeps out of harm's
way."

"It would have to be a mage," Soren said. "Even avoiding the divinations cast for
Vixen requires that."

"Or someone wealthy enough to buy one. There's few enough local mages, but plenty
for hire elsewhere."

"So name your candidates. Whether or not you could believe them
contemplating a string of murders, who has the most to lose?"

"Well–" Sudden caution.

"Putting the name
Couerveur
at the top of the list won't startle me,
Halcean
."

The aide shrugged sheepishly. "There's no point denying they've lost
the most. Though Lord Aristide has
recovered a lot of ground. Really,
except for not being heir presumptive, he's in a better position now than he
was before the King returned. King
Aluster
has started making changes Lord Aristide has tried
to push through for years, and at the same time the mere presence of a Rathen
in Darest has increased the number of ships in port. And people are staying on, hoping to ride the
tide of new fortune. Lady Arista – well,
you don't need that situation spelled out."

"Aspen told me there's stories she's secretly living in
Tor Darest, keeping a close eye on things."

"Ha." The
corner of
Halcean's
mouth curled up. "I'm sure. But Lady Arista might be the key in another
way. Before King
Aluster
,
the Court had been shifting to Lord Aristide's banner, but there were a few too
fully invested in Lady Arista to do that. People who hadn't been exactly supportive of Aristide, or who he had
little use for. The stand-out candidate
for that would be Chancellor
Gestry
. Lord Aristide's never been overly fond of his
mother's discarded favourites, and he's already begun to move against
Gestry
."

"He has?"

"The Chancellor – well, he hasn't precisely been lining
his pockets from the coffers, but he's certainly used his position to his
advantage. Old gossip's been stirred up
this last week: minor sins coming back to haunt him, making their way to the
King. I doubt
Gestry
will be Chancellor for much longer."

Dominic
Gestry
was talking to his
husband, arms folded protectively across his chest, eyes shuttered and
unhappy. More than his political life
was falling apart.

"He's not a mage, is he?"

"No."

"Who else?"

Halcean
hesitated again, obviously
viewing the next candidate as possibly sensitive. She started to speak, paused, then said:
"The
Rothwells
."

That was hard to believe, and Soren's expression must have
shown it. "Not Lady
Francesca,"
Halcean
added hastily. "Her children."

The
Rothwells
were breakfasting in
the Baron of
Mogath's
apartments. This was hardly unusual, since Lady
Rothwell's lands were in
Mogath
.
Mogath
was a
stolid, taciturn man who rarely shifted from impassive reserve, but it did not
seem his guests were happy ones.

A frown was carved between Lady Francesca's eyes, and Varian
Rothwell was not hiding her frustration. Their attention was focused on the fourth at the table, Lady Rothwell's
son Everett. A year his sister's junior,
he was a refined male version of his mother's stately presence, and currently
in the throes of passionate speech.

"Why the
Rothwells
?"
Soren asked, fingering the pages of the book again to hide the way her
attention was divided. Strake and
Aristide had returned to the palace, were heading toward Fleeting Hall. "I thought Lady Francesca had some kind
of unstated alliance with Lord Aristide."

"The Diamond's a chancy bedfellow. And neither he nor the King seems inclined to
remain daggers-drawn with The Deeping."

"So – ah." Soren raised her eyes in comprehension. "Trade."

"A monopoly is a hard thing to give up, and while Lady
Francesca is hampered by a stiff sense of honour, Varian and Everett are
not."

Everett was trying to convince Lady Francesca of
something. Varian wavered. The Baron watched. Finally Lady Francesca delivered a short, obviously
discouraging speech and left. Brother
turned to sister, sister turned on brother. Watching the argument develop, Soren was glad she'd never been drawn to
Varian.

"Is Lady Francesca in danger?" she asked.

"I don't know,"
Halcean
said, as if that question hadn't occurred to her. "I don't know how far Varian would
go. I think–" She paused, a wicked grin lighting her
face. "I think Varian would far
prefer pursuing more attractive possibilities, like marrying you, than cross
her mother. Everett...he wants
everything, and he wants it quickly. A
man usefully bereft of moral check, as my own mother would say."

Brother and sister slammed out of the breakfast room, Varian
not quite able to fix a mask over her temper as she stalked toward a palace
exit. Everett said something evidently
vituperative to her back, then walked on. Before he turned the corner, he'd lost all sign of ill humour, was even
smiling. Left to himself, the Baron
continued his meal. But he did not seem
dissatisfied.

Interesting, but not illuminating. "You had someone else in mind, I
think," Soren said, looking back at
Halcean
. "Before you produced the
Rothwells
."

"I–"
Halcean
stopped, shook her head. "No. You said we were talking motive, and I don't know of one."

"Still–"

Fisk, despatched from Aristide's rooms, knocked at Soren's
door, and
Halcean
rose with an air of relief to
answer it.

It was time, according to the King, for breakfast.

-
oOo
-

Aristide's taste leaned to the spare and elegant, and Fors
Cabtly's
departure had been swiftly followed by the
transformation of the cluttered apartments of the Councillor of Mages. The rooms were large through lack of
furnishings, and the rugs quite distractingly beautiful beneath bare walls of
warm-toned oak. The breakfast rooms
afforded a different view on the same garden Soren's receiving room overlooked,
a discomforting symbol of Aristide's new position in the King's court. The Champion's apartments were bracketed by
King's and Councillor's. A cosy little
arrangement.

"It can't be scried," Strake told her, immediately
Soren seated herself at the table. "Divinations were useless, and the tracker can't sort out
distinctive prints."

"What were the tracks of the original creature
like?"

"I don't know." Strake grimaced. "What
little we found suggested something humanoid. It was intelligent enough to keep away from soft earth."

"Yet you succeeded in following it," Aristide
said.

Strake paused to look distractedly at the array of dishes,
his selections prompting Soren to put a warm roll on her plate and butter it.

"We tried using dogs," Strake continued, gaze on
her now. "Again with little
success. At times they seemed to sense
something, but their tracking always led nowhere, so we sent them back. We tracked it by the corpses." He watched Soren's hand waver, and shook his
head. "Small animals, torn
apart. Birds. At times the trees themselves were scored, as
if it could not help but claw at whatever it encountered. We'd find something like that, and then
Theremel
– our tracker – would laboriously search out every
bruised leaf and blade of grass and broken twig."