Royal Exile (4 page)

‘Yes, majesty,’ the man replied. ‘Er, Father Briar awaits.’

The king nodded, waiting for the servants to shuffle out at Freath’s murmured orders.

‘Why were these people allowed in my chamber? I can understand Physic Maser, but the others?’ Iselda asked through her tears as she counted almost eight others being herded out by Freath.

‘I must be honest with you, my love. I had no idea how you were going to react. I needed people here for various contingencies. But as always you surprise me with your courage.’ She watched him hug their vacant little boy close to his chest and inhale the scent of his freshly washed hair. She was glad Piven did not have the mental capacity to understand any of this.

‘I don’t feel very courageous, Brennus, and I am sure the real pain has not yet hit me. I feel too numb right now.’

Brennus nodded in shared pain. ‘There will be no shame if you prefer not to see her, but I have had our daughter brought up from the chapel. Father Briar is outside.’

‘He has her?’ Iselda asked, tears welling again.

‘I thought you might like to hold her, have some private time with her,’ Brennus said, choking as he spoke. ‘I’m so sorry, my love. I’m sorry I’m not being strong for you.’

‘I have always maintained that one of the reasons I have loved you, Brennus, 8th of the Valisars, is because you are capable of such emotion, and are not ashamed to suffer it. I’m surprised you’ve been so open with it in front of others, just now. But you don’t have to be outwardly strong for me, my king.’ Iselda reached out to stroke his beard. ‘Just be strong for our people. What’s ahead is …’ She shook her head. ‘Unthinkable,’ she finished. Then a hint of her private courage ghosted across her pale face as she stiffened her resolve. ‘I would like to hold her and kiss her again. Please ask Father Briar to come in.’

The king nodded, touched her hand and rose from her bed. ‘I’ll fetch him.’

* * *

Iselda’s heart began an urgent ache for the sister Leo would never have, for the daughter she would never fuss over gowns with, for the little girl Brennus would never know the special joy of being a father to, for the realm that would never have the glamour and excitement of the first living princess in centuries … but especially for the future. Because there wasn’t one. Without a royal line — and Leo would surely be put to the sword if Loethar found him — Penraven and the prosperous era of the Valisars was destroyed for ever.

She watched her husband usher in the priest, and trembled to see him lightly carrying a bundle draped with cream silks. Giving herself entirely over to her grief, Queen Iselda took the tiny corpse of her infant daughter and cradled her tightly against her breast, praying with all her heart that the long dark lashes would flutter open. Her prayer fell on deaf ears. The child’s eyes remained determindedly closed; her lips were now blueish in colour. Tufts of hair escaped the silken cap, their darkness making her dead daughter’s waxy skin look even paler, when only a couple of hours earlier she had been a dark pink with her efforts to be born. Iselda wanted to touch the fairy-like fingers and toes again that had looked so perfect, so tiny, earlier. She was unaware that she was sharing her thoughts aloud.

‘We wrapped her up in the silks you’d made,’ Brennus admitted, then shrugged awkwardly. ‘It seemed right to do so.’

Iselda watched with a broken heart as Piven gently curled the little girl’s dark hair around his small fingers and smiled at his mother before he bent and gave the corpse a loud wet kiss on her forehead. His father eased him back onto his lap to give the queen a chance to say her final farewell to her daughter.

Iselda stroked the silken cape she had sewed and then painstakingly embroidered through her confinement the last three moons of her pregnancy. ‘I unpicked this rosebud so many times,’ she admitted ruefully. ‘Just couldn’t get it to sit right.’

Father Briar stepped forward, bowing again. He glanced at Brennus, who nodded permission. ‘She was blessed, majesty. She died gently in the arms of our king — a little sigh and she drew her final soft breath. Lo has taken her, accepted her soul with love.’

The queen grimaced. ‘I wish he hadn’t, Father. I wish he’d given me even just a few more hours with her. I had barely moments before she was whisked away from me and now she’s dead. I can hardly remember how it felt to hold her while she breathed or fix a picture in my mind of how she looked when she was alive.’

Father Briar shifted uncomfortably. ‘Forgive me, highness. Perhaps it is Lo’s way.’

‘You mean our god deliberately steals her memory from my mind to make it easier on me when he steals her soul?’ Iselda asked, her expression hardening, lips thinning.

The priest looked between king and queen before awkwardly saying: ‘Yes, that’s a rather nice way to put it, your majesty. I may — if you’ll let me repeat that — use it in a sermon sometime.’

Brennus blinked and Iselda knew this to be a sign of frustration at the priest’s clumsiness. ‘Thank you, Father,’ the king said. He turned to her. ‘Enough?’

She shook her head, not even conscious of her tears. ‘I could never have enough of her.’

‘Just remember we have Leo to think about. He must be worried, confused as well. I don’t think he needs to see her but he will want to see you, know that you are safe.’

She sniffed, unable to tear her gaze away from the child. ‘You’re right. I can only imagine what he’s thinking. Bring him to me, Brennus. Let me smell the hair and kiss the pink skin of the living.’ She sounded resolute and Brennus thanked her with a squeeze to her hand.

‘Shall I take her?’

Iselda nodded, too frightened to speak, fearful that treacherous tears and fresh, uncontrollable emotion would threaten her fragile resolve. She bent and kissed the baby’s forehead. It felt like marble and her tears, which splashed onto the infant’s skin, rolled off, barely leaving a trace. No, there was no warmth, none of the porousness of life present — of that she was sure now and the tiny irrational flicker of hope guttered in her breast and died too. She gave her daughter a final squeeze, hating the stiffness of her tiny body and suddenly grateful to Brennus for having the child swaddled so tightly. She knew now that was his reason for doing so — so she would not have to feel rigour claiming her daughter.

And finally she handed the doll-like infant back to its father. ‘All this time I haven’t asked and you haven’t offered,’ she said sadly.

‘What, my love?’ he enquired, looking ashamed, she presumed because he genuinely didn’t know what she meant.

‘Share with me the name you gave our daughter.’

He found a sad smile and whispered it for her hearing alone.

‘Very beautiful,’ Iselda admitted. ‘A choice I certainly approve of. But I would now ask a favour of you, Brennus.’

‘Anything, my love.’

‘Send out an edict that no child of Penraven will ever bear that name from this day. It belongs only to her.’

He nodded. ‘It will be done, I promise.’

‘You’d best ask the funerary to prepare our tombs, including Leo’s. I can’t imagine we are long for this earth.’

‘Come now, Iselda. Rally, my queen, for the sake of your son. All is not lost. Loethar will have a tough time breaching our walls.’

‘How is that supposed to cheer me? Loethar has only to sit us out. Our supplies will dwindle soon enough.’

‘I promise you this: whatever happens, Leo will escape the tyrant’s touch.’

‘How can you know that? In the same way you knew that the barbarian could never succeed in taking the Set?’ It was a low blow but well deserved. He shouldn’t have been so arrogant to Loethar. The warlord had called his bluff. She wasn’t finished with him yet. ‘And your other son?’

‘The barbarian will not bother himself with the boy.’ Brennus took her hand.

She shrugged it off. ‘If you could keep that promise I could go to my death happy. But how can you be so sure?’

Brennus paused. She imagined he was weighing telling the truth against saying something to make her heart beat easier. ‘I have already taken steps for Leo’s escape. He doesn’t know it yet, of course, but should Loethar enter the palace, no matter what else occurs, Leo will be protected. In time he will carry the torch of the Valisars against the tyrant. We, my love, are expendable — as is Piven — and I intend to see that Loethar burns all his energies on enjoying my demise, while our healthy son slips his net.’

None of it sat easy in her heart, especially the betrayal of Piven. He was an invalid but he could still feel pain and fear. She was weary of grief. ‘Perhaps her death is for the best then,’ she said, as he opened the door to leave.

‘Why do you say that?’ he asked, glancing at the dead girl in his arms.

‘Because she would have been a complication to your plan. If she hadn’t have died, you might have had to have her killed … to be sure she would not be used as Loethar’s tool. I would offer Piven the same courtesy if I only had the courage.’

Brennus blanched, stared at her with such apology in his painful glance before he left wordlessly that in that heartstopping moment of his pause Iselda believed she had stumbled upon the real truth of her daughter’s demise. As the door closed on her chilling revelation the Queen of Penraven knew she had no further desire to live — the Valisar name and its sinister secret suddenly no longer mattered.

2

‘My sister’s dead,’ Leo said in the bald way that any twelve year old might comment.

Gavriel nodded. ‘I’m sorry for your family … for you, majesty.’

‘I was hoping for a brother — not like Piven, but one like you have.’

‘Girls are fun too,’ Gavriel replied, knowing the youngster probably wouldn’t catch on fully to his innuendo.

Leo screwed his nose up. ‘They’re not much good at fishing, archery, riding, fighting —’

‘Ha! Don’t you believe it, majesty,’ Gavriel said. ‘They’re pretty good at most things and very good at others.’

‘Like what?’

‘Er, well, like looking beautiful, smelling nice …’

The boy obviously thought about this for a few moments as Gavriel helped to hoist him up to balance perilously on his shoulders. ‘Get that one, your majesty,’ he said, pointing to a particularly fat, ripe-looking pear. The pear landed in Gavriel’s outstretched hand. ‘One more, over there.’

As he stretched to reach it, Leo continued, ‘Smelling good isn’t much help in a battle, though, is it?’

Gavriel liked the way Leo’s mind worked. He still had that direct, slightly unnerving manner of all children but the crown prince was a thinker and often amused Gavriel and Corbel with his opinionated insights. He was maturing fast, too. Gavriel was still young enough to recall how quickly one could turn from a youngster disinterested in anything but boyish pursuits into a young man whose every thought seemed to focus around women and enjoying them.

Gavriel could almost yearn for that carefree way of even five anni previous but it was lost to him. And not just because of the toll of years; Loethar was stealing the Set’s future, might well steal their lives if he was gauging the mood of his father and the king correctly. The palace was preparing for siege, and the word was already going out that, impossible though it seemed, Barronel’s fall was now inevitable. Penraven’s people should flee, preferably via the sea, since Loethar had no ships, and no sailing prowess even if he could secure vessels. Penraven’s coastline was so vast that anyone who wanted to leave the realm could, finding safety in the Taramanian Isles to the west, or in the eastern kingdom of Galinsea.

But there would be no escape for the De Vis brothers. The sovereign was counting on them to behave as men now; the innocence of childhood was a luxury long behind them.

Leo leapt down from Gavriel’s shoulders, ignoring the hand of help. ‘Eat your pear,’ Gavriel said, crunching into his. He wondered how he was going to live up to the task asked of him by his king, but was quickly reminded of what had fallen on Corbel’s shoulders and shuddered. His brother’s task was far more daunting.

‘What do you mean?’ Leo asked.

‘What?’

‘You said you wondered how he could kill something so tiny.’

Gavriel realised he must have spoken the final thought about his brother aloud. ‘Nothing. I don’t remember.’

‘You remember everything, Gav. Dates, debts, all sorts of facts.’

‘Quite. And speaking of debts, you owe me two trents.’

‘I haven’t forgotten. Where’s Corbel?’

‘Running an errand for our father,’ Gavriel answered, suddenly unable to swallow his mouthful of pear. He spat it out.

‘Worm?’

‘No, just suddenly tasted a bit acid.’

‘Mine’s sweet, just like Sarah Flarty’s backside,’ Leo said, then burst into laughter at Gavriel’s astonished expression. ‘Well, you told me so.’

Gavriel sucked in a breath at the notion that he’d probably never pinch Sarah’s pert bottom again and her promised tumble in the hayloft was likely not to happen, now that he was a full-time babysitter to the crown prince.
Every hour of the day you
watch him, you guard him
, his father had impressed after the king had told him what it was that they expected of Gavriel.
He is
never to be far from you. And when the time comes you must
disappear with him. No farewells, no packing, no notes left behind. He
is all that matters. Protect Leo with your life. Raise him
.

Raise him?
He wasn’t ready to be a father figure. He wasn’t even sure he knew how to see to the boy’s needs for a full day. He often still felt like a child himself, usually deferring to Corb’s cunning. And now his brother was gone.

‘Did you see your sister?’ Gavriel asked, not meaning to ask something so blunt but needing the image of his brother close. How would they manage without each other?

‘Mother doesn’t know but father allowed me to see her because I wanted to. She doesn’t — didn’t — look like me. Did you see her?’ Gavriel shook his head, unable to utter the lie. ‘Well, she had dark hair. Father told me to kiss her but —’ he made a sound of disgust — ‘I didn’t want to. She felt stiff, cold.’