In the King's Service (29 page)

“Oh, you . . . !”

“No, you!” Alyce countered, as she glanced at Marie and Vera and the three of them pounced on Zoë for a bout of tickling that continued until all four of them were breathless with laughter.

“Oh, stop, stop!” Zoë begged. “You’ll have Lady Jessamy in here, wondering what on earth is going on!”

Her caution was enough to deflate their brief digression into childishness, though all of them were grinning as they ranged themselves against the fat pillows piled at the head of the bed and caught their breath.

“How I do love all of you,” Alyce murmured, when she had caught her breath enough to speak. “Promise me that we shall always be friends and sisters—regardless of who Zoë marries!”

“We promise,” the others said in unison, taking Alyce’s hands and joining them, clasped in their own.

“Friends and sisters forever!” Vera added. “No matter what happens.”

 
 
ONCE returned to Rhemuth, the four friends settled quickly back into the routine of the court, now with Vera as a welcome part of their circle. Now relieved of some of the tutoring duties that previously had occupied her. Alyce found more of her time freed up to pursue her own interests, returning to her explorations of the royal library and in the scriptorium. And these were interests shared by Zoë.

During their absence in Cynfyn, the first returns had begun to trickle in from the king’s commissioners of inquiry, and were being compiled by a battery of scribes and copyists now filling the chancery and several additional chambers in one of the garden wings. As she and Zoë became acquainted with the compilations now starting to take shape, and recognized the scope and importance of such a survey, the two of them began to conceive a fitting acknowledgement of the king’s foresight in ordering such an undertaking.

“This really will be an incredibly useful document,” Zoë said, when they had pulled out several scrolls from King Malcolm’s commission of inquiry and compared selected entries against the current commission’s findings.

“It will, indeed,” Alyce agreed. She leafed through another packet of parchment scraps bundled together by baronies and townlands. “I wonder if the king might like to have a special, illuminated extract of the collated returns from some small area, perhaps with fine calligraphy and some illumination—nothing too ambitious. If we started right away, we perhaps could have it ready to present to him at Twelfth Night court.”

“This is still very early in the process,” Zoë replied, holding one of the slips closer to a candle to read its heading. “What area did you have in mind? What area is
complete
enough, at this point?”

“I know it can’t be perfect,” Alyce said. “Compiling
all
the returns will take several years. I think King Malcolm’s inquiry took more than two, and some returns were still missing when they stopped working on it. But I thought we might start with Dhassa. For some reason, that seems to be fairly complete.”

“I’ve heard they’re very punctilious in Dhassa,” Zoë replied, scanning the cramped lines on an irregular scrap of parchment. “I suspect it comes of keeping track of all those tolls to get into the city, because of the pilgrimage sites. But we could do an illuminated cover page, and fancy capitals for the sections dealing with the actual shrines. Have you ever been to Dhassa?”

“No. But there must be people at court who have.”

“We can talk to them, then, and get some descriptions. It would be fun to incorporate some of the local features. But no scrawny lions!”

Alyce grinned. “I promise—but only if you promise not to include any fat squirrels.”

“Agreed!”

 
 
THEY enlisted the patronage of the queen to assist in their undertaking, and had the thin volume ready for Twelfth Night court. Alyce had compiled the text and copied it out in her best court hand, Zoë had done the illuminations, and Marie and Vera bound it in crimson velvet embellished with silk and gold laid-work on the cover and along the spine. They had wrapped it in white linen tied with a length of creamy yarn, and Alyce hugged it to her breast as the four of them waited at the back of the great hall.

But first came the business of the court: the formal enrollment of new pages, including a proud Prince Brion—Prince Blaine and Krispin looked on jealously; the pledging of new squires, and several knightings, though the girls knew none of the newly dubbed young men.

Late in the day also came Sir Rorik Howell to report the death three days before of his father, Corban Earl of Eastmarch, and to pledge his fealty to the king, thereby obtaining the right to enter into his inheritance.

“We receive this news with much sadness, Sir Rorik,” Donal told the muddy, exhausted young man who knelt before him, offering up his father’s seal as earl, as a sign that he acknowledged the king’s right to confirm the succession. “Nonetheless, we understand that your father was ill for many months, and that release will have been a blessing, for him and for his family.”

“God grant that he now rests in peace, Sire,” Rorik murmured dutifully—and Alyce could Read that his regret was genuine. “I pray that I may be as wise a guardian of his people.”

“They are now
your
people, Rorik Howell Earl of Eastmarch,” Donal said, enfolding the young man’s joined hands in his and raising him up. “Accordingly, before these witnesses, I hereby receive your pledge of fealty and I confirm you in your lands and honors. Go to bed now, young Rorik, for I know you have ridden solid for three days, and probably will have ruined several good horses in the doing of it. Tomorrow, when you have rested, we shall make more formal acknowledgement of your new status.”

A murmur of sympathy and approbation followed the new earl as he bowed and retreated from the hall, followed by a squire who had been directed to see to his needs. There came next an announcement by an emissary of the Earl of Transha that the wife of young Caulay MacArdry was lighter of a son and heir, born the previous October and christened Ardry. The news of the birth somewhat lightened the sober air left in the wake of the sadder news brought by Rorik of Eastmarch, and left the king in mellower mood by the time the formal business of the court had ended. As he and his queen retired to the withdrawing room behind the dais, for a break and light refreshment while the hall was set up for feast to follow, the girls followed at the queen’s beckoning.

“Sire, I have conspired with the demoiselles de Corwyn and their friends to produce a special Twelfth Night gift for you,” the queen said, as she and king settled into chairs before the fire and the girls hesitated at the door.

“A gift?” the king said, setting aside his crown and running both hands through his thinning hair.

“Aye, my lord. Ladies?”

At the queen’s gesture, the four of them came to kneel at the feet of the royal couple, Alyce still clutching their precious manuscript to her breast.

“Sire, you will be aware that Twelfth Night marks the Feast of the Epiphany, when, by tradition, three kings brought gifts to the newborn Child in Bethlehem. This is why we give gifts at this season, in memory of their gifts.”

“That is true,” the king said patiently, smiling faintly.

“This past year has marked the giving of another great gift: your Majesty’s great commission of inquiry, by which the rights of lords and commons throughout this land shall be safeguarded and preserved.”

Tremulously she offered up her package in both hands, placing it in his.

“In the spirit of this season, then, the four of us decided to create a modest memento to commemorate the importance of this latest inquiry—an extract of the findings concerning the city and environs of Holy Dhassa—and we have set it forth in a form befitting its importance in the history and preservation of our land, and hopefully pleasing to your Majesty.”

She watched as he untied the yarn holding the linen wrappings in place, his eyebrows rising as he turned back the linen and caught his first glimpse of what lay within.

“My lord,” said the queen, “Lady Vera and Lady Marie created the binding and its fine embroidery. The illuminations are Mistress Zoë’s work, and the scrivening was done by Lady Alyce. The balass rubies and the gold bullion thread for the binding were my own humble contribution. I hope you are pleased,” she concluded, as the king opened its cover, greatly touched, and turned the first page slightly toward the queen.

“What a truly remarkable gift,” he murmured, as Richeldis ran an appreciative finger along a bit of the binding. “I shall look forward to finding the time to examine it properly. Dear ladies, I thank you. Now, where is my new page?” he added, turning to look for Prince Brion, who was standing proudly behind his father in his page’s livery, craning his neck to see.

“Boy, take charge of this, please—and mind your hands are clean! Ladies, I see a squire lurking by the door, waiting to unleash petitioners, but I shall charge my son and heir to guard this well for me.” He leaned forward to kiss the hand of each of them, then nodded to the squire as he put his crown back on.

“Let’s have the first one, Gerald. “I should like to see everyone that I must, before the feast is served.”

 
 
AFTER Twelfth Night, the rhythm of life at court settled back into its usual routine. The first months of the new year were marked by heavy storms and freezing cold, leading to a late spring. Perhaps because of the sharp lesson of two years previously, Meara was still quiet, but Iolo Melandry, the royal governor, warned that the peace was precarious, and might not hold.

The peace did hold, all through that season, but word came early in the summer that the newly married Countess Elaine, a bride of less than a year, had died in childbed after delivering a son. The boy’s father had christened him Kevin Douglas McLain.

“What a tragedy,” said Queen Richeldis, hugging the infant Nigel to her heart when she heard the news.

“Was she even sixteen?” one of the other ladies asked, shocked.

Alyce shook her head sadly. “No.”

“Her husband is to blame!” another muttered.

“No, she was unfortunate,” the queen replied, for both she and Jessamy had borne their first child younger than Elaine.

“Indeed,” Jessamy said quietly. “Sadly, such is often the fate of our sex.”

Chapter 17

—MICAH 2:2

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
THE peace looked likely to hold in Meara that summer, perhaps partially because Duke Richard made a progress into Kierney and Cassan, to show the royal presence at the courts of Earl Jared and Duke Andrew. In May, he had ridden up to the red walls of Jared’s seat at Castel Dearg only hours before the birth of the McLain heir—and had mourned with Jared when pretty Elaine slipped away soon after. He would stay on patrol along their Mearan borders for several months.

The king took advantage of the respite to spend time with his young family—fortunately, as it happened, for trouble flared unexpectedly toward the end of summer: not in Meara, as one might have expected, but in Corwyn, on the opposite side of kingdom.

“Torenthi raiders crossed the river at Fathane and harried as far south as Kiltuin,” Sir Sé Trelawney reported, addressing king and council in emergency session on a steamy August evening. “Scores were killed or injured, and Kiltuin town was looted and burned. It—ah—has even been suggested that some of the raiders were princes of the blood, and that rogue magic was employed. Ahern will be investigating those claims,” he added, with a speaking glance at Alyce and Marie, who had been asked to sit in on the session. “The bishop is said to be livid.”

As his council muttered among themselves, Donal cast another glance over the report Sé had brought from Lord Hambert, the seneschal of Coroth. It was the same that Hambert had sent to Ahern to inform him of the raid, and was stark in its assessment of the situation.

My lord, your father would not have allowed this to go unpunished,
Hambert had written.
The raiders destroyed most of the town, looting and burning with abandon, and even violated many of the women. In some cases, women and children were ridden down in the streets. I chanced to be traveling in the region soon after it happened, and was told by the town’s headman that those responsible were definitely of Torenth, and had boasted that none could bring them to task for their actions, since the king is an old man and his brother is occupied with affairs in Meara. They also believed that, with Earl Keryell dead, you would not be able to take up Corwyn’s defense, being young and unfit. . . .

“Lord Hambert and the Corwyn regency council have already sent stiff letters of protest to the court of Torenth, deploring the incident,” Sir Sé was saying, “and Ahern will be in Kiltuin by now, carrying out further investigation. But this is not the first such border violation, as we all know. One would think that the Torenthi would have learnt their lesson in the Great War.”

“’Twas clearly a blatant venture of opportunity,” said the Archbishop of Rhemuth, forging directly into the discussion. “They know that the king’s attention has been focused on Meara, and that Corwyn is in the hands of regents for its duke, who is a minor and a cripple to boot!”

“More agile a cripple than many a man with all his faculties intact,” Sé said pointedly. “And crippled he was in the king’s service.”

“Let be, Sir Sé,” Donal said mildly. “What concerns us at this time is a fitting response in Corwyn—which Lord Ahern and his regents seem to have begun quite nicely. Kenneth, how many ships have we at Desse?”

“I don’t know, Sire, though I can have that information for you by morning.”

“Fair enough,” the king agreed. “Jiri, how quickly can we raise sufficient troops to take a policing force into Corwyn?”

“That depends on how many men you have in mind, Sire—which, in turn depends on what ships are available.”