In the King's Service (25 page)

During the week-long journey across the great plain east of Rhemuth, the two girls took turns keeping Ahern company, one sharing the wagon where he lay with his splinted leg pillowed and stretched before him, the other riding elsewhere in the party. Alyce made a point of varying her position in the cavalcade, riding sometime with the other ladies or Father Paschal and sometimes even at Duke Richard’s side, but Marie, more often than not, could be found beside Sir Sé Trelawney.

The weather turned colder as they traveled eastward from Rhemuth, with occasional sleety showers, but at least the snow held off. By following the southern bank of the River Molling, they managed to avoid the worst of the weather already sweeping down from the north. Though the temperature plummeted at night, and their horses crunched through a heavy rime of frost every morning, any serious snowfall held off until they were making their final ascent into the Lendour foothills.

They arrived at Castle Cynfyn but a fortnight before Christmas, under a soft curtain of gently falling snow. Entering the castle bailey through the outer gatehouse arch, the cortege passed upward along a narrow avenue lined with Lendouri archers drawn up as an honor guard to admit the late earl to his capital for the final time. Interspersed among them were many of his retainers from Coroth, come to pay their respects, for Keryell had also been principal regent for Corwyn after the death of his children’s mother, Stevana de Corwyn.

Deinol Hartmann, their father’s seneschal, was awaiting their arrival on the steps of the hall, along with the wife their father had taken some three years previously. Now twice a widow, the Dowager Countess Rosmerta stood icy and remote in her widow’s weeds, at her side a grown daughter from her first marriage, effusive in her greeting of Duke Richard, the king’s brother, but according her stepson only the barest of curtsies as Sir Deinol bent to kiss the boy’s hand in affirmation of his new status. Alyce and Marie she acknowledged hardly at all.

Keryell Earl of Lendour lay that night before the altar of the church within the castle walls, guarded by his men. The evening meal in his hall that night was a joyless, strained affair, with the bachelor Duke Richard seated in the place of honor at the right hand of the widow, whose attempts to engage his interest were politely turned aside; he and his knights retired as soon as could be reckoned seemly.

Alyce and Marie were not present to see it, for they took a sparser meal in Ahern’s room with Sé and Jovett. Later, while Father Paschal sat with Ahern, the two knights accompanied Alyce and Marie on a late-night visit to the church, where they were heartened to see the dozens of folk from round-about come to pay their final respects and offer up a prayer, for Keryell had been much respected in the lands he had ruled.

Father Paschal celebrated the Requiem Mass the next morning, after which Keryell was laid to rest beneath the floor of the castle’s private chapel, directly before the altar. Duke Richard lent an extra dignity to the affair by his mere presence, and let it be known how much his brother esteemed the sacrifice made by the late earl—and spoke, as well, of the courage and honor of the new one.

Ahern bore up manfully throughout, allowing himself to be carried to the church in a litter; but from there, for the interment, he hobbled the distance between church and chapel on his crutches, though the effort exhausted him. Keryell’s widow made much of her rights and prerogatives, so his daughters were mostly ignored.

That night, when the castle at last settled into sleep, the two sisters retired wearily to the chamber that been Alyce’s in childhood, bundling up in fur-lined cloaks as they huddled on a pile of sheepskins spread before the fire. Picking up a stick of kindling, Marie began poking among the embers.

“So,” she said. “Our father is dead and buried. And what shall become of us
now?
”

Alyce slowly shook her head. “Who can know? In the short term, I suppose we go back to Rhemuth after Christmas and Twelfth Night.”

“I wish we could stay with Ahern,” Marie muttered mutinously.

“You know we can’t.” After a moment, Alyce gave a heavy sigh, clasping her arms around her knees to rest her chin on one forearm.

“This doesn’t much change our situation, you know,” she said. “Until and unless Ahern has children, preferably sons, we’re still only heartbeats away from the succession of a dukedom and an earldom.”

“
You’re
only heartbeats away,” Marie replied. “You’re the oldest.”

“Yes, but if I die without heirs,
you’re
the heir.”

Her sister did not look up from her prodding of the fire.

“What if I don’t
want
to be the heir?” she muttered.

Alyce smiled bleakly and reached across to clasp her sister’s hand.

“Then, pray for our brother’s health—and mine,” she said.

 
 
AHERN mostly slept for the first few days after his father’s burial, leaving Duke Richard to begin shaping the council that would assist the new earl as he began taking up the reins of his new rank. Virtually everyone interesting was involved in the process, even Father Paschal, so Alyce and Marie spent the first few days re-exploring their favorite childhood haunts—and avoiding Lady Rosmerta. Which was not difficult, because the widow mainly kept to her own rooms.

But each evening, as the newcomers relaxed into the resuming pace of life at Castle Cynfyn, the sad castle hall slowly began to regain a softer air, as the gentle sounds of lyre and harp and occasional sweet voices were heard increasingly during supper, slowly lifting spirits into the hopefulness of the Advent season. Most of Ahern’s council were older, and preferred Duke Richard’s company to that of mere adolescents, but Sé and Jovett made certain that the new earl’s sisters did not lack for company.

Sometimes, on bright, clear mornings when the sun set the snow all aglitter, the four of them would venture out on brief, brisk rides through the surrounding hills, though always attended by at least half a dozen other knights. As Christmas approached, Alyce began to notice that her sister was often in Sé’s company, and almost always managed to ride beside him when they went on their outings.

But the two young knights were not often available in the daytime, and the weather was gradually worsening as Christmas approached. It was on a cold, blustery day that kept everyone inside, a few days before the Christmas Vigil, that Alyce found herself recruited with her sister to decorate the castle chapel for the solemnities of Christmas Eve, for the coming of the Holy Child was still an occasion for rejoicing, even if hearts still were heavy with Keryell’s passing.

“I think this needs more holly,” Marie said, though with little enthusiasm. “What do you think?”

They were huddled on a bench at the rear of the chapel with a firepot at their feet, surrounded by evergreen boughs and runners of bright ivy and sprigs of red-berried holly. They had already plaited the first half of a garland intended to adorn the altar rail, and Alyce was laying out the framework for the other half.

She glanced at her sister’s work and reached for another trailer of ivy.

“It looks all right to me.”

Marie gave a sigh and tucked in another sprig of holly anyway.

“I still wish we could stay here with Ahern.”

“Don’t you mean with Sé?” Alyce replied, arching a delicate eyebrow at her sister.

Marie blushed furiously and ducked her head closer to her work.

“Don’t try to deny it,” Alyce said. “I’ve seen the two of you, making eyes at one another.”

Marie glanced sidelong at her sister, trying unsuccessfully to control a grin. “Are you going to tease me forever, now that you’ve guessed?”

“Well, maybe not forever.” Alyce smiled. “But don’t get your hopes up, Mares. I suspect that the king has someone more lofty in mind for you than a simple knight.”

“He is hardly simple!” Marie said indignantly.

“Not in the sense I know you mean,” Alyce agreed. “But marriage with him would not advance any of the king’s concerns. Unfortunately, that’s what our marriages are for.”

“What if we ran away?” Marie said.

“And do what? Get married anyway? They’d catch you, Mares. And then they’d annul you, and probably lock you up in a convent somewhere until they married you by force to someone else. And Sé would be disgraced—maybe even found out.”

“You’re so mean! It isn’t fair!”

“‘Fair’ has nothing to do with it. I’m reminding you of realities.”

“
Fah!
for realities,” Marie muttered. “I
want
him, Alyce.”

“And I want lots of things, dear sister, but merely wanting is not necessarily enough.”

The sound of approaching footsteps stayed her from saying more, and she fell silent, glancing up distractedly as someone in a flash of saffron-colored skirts and a cloak of forest green came in and deposited an armload of scarlet ribbons and pine cones at their feet.

“I’m so glad you’ve used mostly pine and ivy instead of holly,” said a low, musical voice. “The pine has a much nicer smell. But I thought you might like to work some color in with it. Besides, I’m avoiding Lady Rosmerta.”

Both sisters broke into appreciative grins. In the months following Keryell’s remarriage, Vera Howard had been one of several well-born girls fostered to the household of his new countess—much to the indignation, at first, of Marie, who had tearfully suggested that perhaps their father’s motives had been more self-serving than altruistic, by installing half a dozen nubile young women in the very accessible context of his new wife’s boudoir.

“That sounds like jealousy to me, Mares,” Alyce had declared, trying to cajole her sister out of her mood. “I know you’re angry with Father, for sending us away; and I know you don’t much like the Lady Rosmerta—I don’t, either. But by that reasoning, we were living in the queen’s household for the convenience of the king—and you know that isn’t true!”

Marie had
humphed
at that, and flounced around the room for several minutes, but finally had agreed, albeit grudgingly, that Alyce was probably right. When, a few months later, the two of them had actually met some of their stepmother’s fosterlings, in conjunction with a brief visit by their father and stepmother en route to Twelfth Night court in Rhemuth, even Marie had actually liked the other girls.

They especially had liked Vera Howard, the one who had just joined them: a lively, well-spoken lass with honey-brown hair falling straight to her hips and gray-green eyes that recalled the luminance of sunlight on a tranquil sea. Vera’s father was Sir Orban Howard, a knight with lands not far from Castle Cynfyn, and her mother and theirs had been close friends.

“I’ve given up working with holly,” Alyce informed the newcomer. “It prickles your fingers to death—though it does have nice color. But the ribbons will be just what’s needed. I don’t suppose you’d like to give us a hand?”

“Actually, I did come to offer a bit of help,” Vera replied, “though not with pine boughs.” She quirked them a guileless smile and turned briefly to pull the chapel door closed, then sank down beside Alyce on the bench. As she stretched one hand before them and opened it, a spark of greenish light flared in her palm and quickly took on the shape of a winged gryphon less than a hand-span high.

The apparition turned its head as if to look at both of them; then, as it spread its wings, seemed to fold in on itself before disappearing with a faint
pop
that was more felt than heard.

“Who are you?”
Alyce demanded, though instinctively she kept her query to a whisper, for it was clear that Vera was Deryni like herself. Marie merely stared at the other girl in wonder.

Vera ventured another tentative smile. “Your father told me that I am your sister.”

“What?” Marie blurted.

Shaking her head, Vera laid one finger across her lips in an urgent sign for silence, cutting her off in mid-word.

“I promise you, it isn’t what you’re maybe thinking,” she whispered, humor crinkling at the corners of her eyes, “though our sire
was
quite the ladies’ man. Actually, you and I are twins,” she said to Alyce. “Fortunately, not identical, though I would love to have had hair like yours.” She nodded toward Alyce’s pale braid. “But if we’d been identical, our parents never would have been able to carry off the deception.”

“But—how is that possible?” Alyce whispered, stunned.

Again glancing toward the door, Vera delved into the bodice of her gown and withdrew a folded piece of parchment, well sealed with green wax.

“This is for you,” she said, holding it up so that the seal was visible.

The familiar imprint on the seal showed the Corwyn gryphon as an escutcheon of pretense over the arms of Lendour, as Keryell had used them in his capacity as Earl of Lendour and one of Corwyn’s regents.

“I see that you recognize the seal,” Vera went on. “Before Father left on this last Mearan expedition, he asked me to keep this for you, in case anything ever happened to him. He said I was to make certain you read it in a safe place, where you wouldn’t be disturbed, because it can only be read once.”

At Alyce’s look of bewilderment, Vera shook her head. “Don’t ask me more until you’ve read it—and I trust you’ve been Truth-Reading me while I’m telling you this. I know you can do that.”

As Alyce slowly nodded, Vera turned the packet of parchment to display writing on the side without the wax seals.

“You recognize the hand?” she asked, as Marie crowded closer to see it as well.

Alyce swallowed audibly and nodded.

“All right, here’s what you need to do.” Vera placed the packet in Alyce’s free hand and closed the fingers around it. “Take this up to the altar rail, as close as possible to Father’s grave. That way, if anyone should come in while we’re doing this, they’ll think you’re simply praying. Marie and I will continue making garlands, and if necessary, I’ll fend off intruders.”