Shadowborn (Light & Shadow, Book 1) (35 page)

“
I had heard that you…you
wanted more than wars and intrigue. I wanted to meet you, and
then—I did, and you truly saw me.” There was a sob in her voice.
“The other men, they speak of nothing but hunting and clothes and
titles, and to find a man who might have listened…and then to have
him be you, someone I could never hope—“ She squeezed her eyes
shut.

“
My uncle will choose a
marriage for me,” she repeated. “And your mother will choose one
for you. It has been a waking nightmare, to see you always amongst
the other women, and know that you must choose one of them. There
are a dozen with better connections than I have, and we must both
marry to further our families. You must marry for peace. And so
this can never be, because any friendship we have must turn into
love, and then my heart will break when I must leave
you.”

I expected him to withdraw, to protest that
he had had not thoughts yet of love or marriage between them, but
he shook his head and leaned closer to her. Miriel had seen through
the glamor of the crown, and she had known what note to strike. She
did not seem to play on her beauty—though I knew that every curl
was placed just so, that every gesture had been practiced a
thousand times or more—and she did not simper and curtsy. She spoke
of the future of Heddred, she spoke of dreams for peace; Garad
could not help but be drawn in.

“
No,” he protested.
“Please—look at me.” She raised a tearstained face. “Do you know, I
heard your name spoken by the young men of the court? It’s true. My
cousin Wilhelm is quite taken with you.” She went very still, but
he did not notice. He smiled up at her, on her perch. “They spoke
of how intelligent you were, how charming, how you were kind to
everyone. I knew I must meet you, and it was fate that led us to
meet in that hallway. I was captivated from the first moment I saw
you.” He reached out to take her hand, and she drew it back away
from him. I tried to mute my indrawn breath.

“
This will ruin both of
us,” she told him. Her blue eyes were wide, almost luminous against
her pale face.

“
No, no, it cannot. I would
never ask anything dishonorable of you,” he promised her. “We are
still almost children, aren’t we? Although we are both to be
married soon.” She nodded, her head turned away from him. “But
don’t you see?” he asked her. “Becoming a wife is like becoming a
King.”

She looked back at him, her lips parted in
genuine confusion, and he looked up at her with pain in his eyes.
“I am nothing, my Lady. I am only blood and bone that they will
follow, and they do not even follow me. They thought I would die,
and before they even thought to grieve for me, they were planning
how they would rule the kingdom after my death. To them, I am an
inconvenience, a boy who did not die so that they could take my
place, a boy who is nearly old enough that they will find their
power much diminished.

“
I never dared to dream of
my future, but when it looked like I might recover, I began to
hope. I thought that I could bring the country to a golden age, a
peaceful age. I could make this land more prosperous, bind the
nations of the earth together. But that is not how it is—to rule is
to have a pit of dogs fighting over scraps, and any one of them
could turn on me at any moment. I had no allies who could share
such a vision—until you.

“
No one listens to what I
might think about how to solve the problems Heddred faces. When I
became King, I became no longer a person. Now, I think all they
want of me is for me to let them rule in my stead, and get them an
heir. And of course, all of them have daughters that they push
forward.” He bowed his head for a moment.

“
What I lack are those I
can trust. My cousin Wilhelm has been my friend since I was small,
but now they try to separate us, they do not trust him for his
blood. He is almost forbidden to talk to me. I have disappeared,
they see only the crown.” He clasped her hand in his, and this time
Miriel did not pull away. “Please, my Lady,” he said. “You were the
first one to look at me and see the man under the crown. I have
almost no one, I cannot face life without friends, and I have
precious few who wish to see me live. Your King asks you—will you
be a friend to him?”

Her face fell. “I wish that I could say
yes,” she whispered. “I do.” He stared at her, wide-eyed, as she
shook her head. “But I cannot,” she said. “It would be to
compromise you, and how could I do that to my King?”

“
No one need know,” he
protested.

“
They will find out,” she
warned him.

“
We will be discreet,” he
assured her. “And if they should come upon us, what will they see?
Two friends talking, nothing more.” He craned to look up into her
face. “Would you wall yourself up, my Lady, away from one who
understands what you see, and what you fear?”

She shook her head. “I…” I knew that for a
moment she was beyond coquetry, truly she longed to tell him what
she feared.

As she weighed her words, there was a rustle
from the dark, and my dagger was in my hand faster than thought. It
was only a young man, sandy-haired and blue-eyed, who emerged from
beneath the stairs. I raised my eyebrows as I recognized Wilhelm
Conradine.

“
The guard is changing
soon,” he said to the King. “We have to go now. My Lady.” He bowed
to Miriel, his eyes sliding away from the sight of her sitting,
hand-clasped with the King. She stared wide-eyed at him. For a
moment, caught by surprise, she forgot herself and I could see the
turmoil behind her eyes. It was gone by the time the King turned
back from his cousin.

“
Wilhelm helped me to come
to you tonight,” the King told her. “Tell me I can meet you again?
We can talk. I would hear your thoughts on the envoy.” She managed
a smile, and it was not all coquetry. She fairly glowed that he was
asking her advice.

“
How can I say
no?”

“
Indeed, I hope you
cannot.” His eyes were very warm as he lifted her down from the
barrel and bowed over her hand. At the door, he looked back, and
when he saw me peering into the darkness, he grinned.

“
The passageways run all
over the palace complex,” he said lightly. “Didn’t you
know?”

“
No,” I admitted. I
wondered if even Temar knew about these. The King smiled
again.

“
Keep her safe,” he told
me, and he bowed once more and was gone, leaving us to sneak back
to her rooms, where we slipped into bed silently and waited for
morning.

I, at least, slept little. I could hardly
think of anything save the King’s words, and Miriel’s clever
responses. Her dances, her curtsies to the court, I had seen—but
that was a moment only, like glimpsing a play from the edge of the
stage. In the cellars the night before, I had seen Miriel’s
abilities, and I knew now that they exceeded even my expectations.
She was masterful.

And she was not such a fool as to appear
smug in front of her the Duke. He had been well-pleased at Miriel’s
dance with the King, and had been taken the Dowager Queen’s malice
as a back-handed compliment. When the Head Priest preached on the
sin of adultery and the duty of honoring one’s parents at the next
service, I saw the Duke’s rare, grim smile. The noblemen
complimented him, insincerely, on Miriel’s good fortune, and he
smiled insincerely back. Everyone had seen that although the King
danced with every young woman, it had been an empty courtesy, save
when he danced with Miriel.

However much Miriel claimed not to have
noticed a thing, the girls still asked her. The men spoke of it in
the halls, and I heard from Temar that the odds on Miriel were now
2:1, above Marie de la Marque at 3:1 and Maeve of Orleans at 7:2. I
laughed, not believing him, until he showed me a scrap of paper
with Miriel’s name on it. Miriel was the favorite of the moment,
the rising star in the court, and her kindness and wit were much
remarked upon.

Still, the Duke was not easy in his mind.
Royal favor attracted enemies, like flies to carrion, and Miriel
had risen in favor even faster than he had dared to hope. Her
enemies were massing: the Dowager Queen was reported to be meeting
near-constantly with the Head Priest and with Guy de la Marque, and
the girls of the maids’ chamber were more spiteful than ever. A
week after the Winter Festival, the Duke called us to his study and
considered Miriel.

“
I would have waited to put
ourselves out in the open like this,” he said. “We can play it that
we’ve no more plans than any other family, but to have caught
Isra’s eye already is to attract trouble. If she manages to arrange
a marriage before his preference for Miriel is set, we have little
way to bring him back.” He tapped the desktop with his fingers and
looked at the far wall, thinking hard.

“
Continue your studies,” he
ordered Miriel. “I will arrange for the King to have a meeting with
you in a few weeks’ time, so that he will not forget you, and I
will give you instructions on how to behave. You may
go.”

We left; I had only narrowly avoided saying
that Miriel knew how to behave with the King, and that his
preference for her was very well set, indeed. There had been no
more public encounters, and so there should be no reason for me to
think that the King even remembered Miriel’s name.

I knew that he did, of course. In the week
after their first meeting, they had met twice more, Wilhelm
Conradine and myself standing in awkward attendance at the corner
of the room and saying nothing to one another. What did a commoner
say to the last heir of the former ruling house, when the present
King was having a clandestine meeting with an unmarried noblewoman
not ten feet from us? Clearly, nothing. I spent a good deal of time
staring at my feet and trying not to notice that Wilhelm stared at
Miriel as if she were a goddess.

The fact that the King and Miriel only ever
spoke of politics only added to the sense of the ridiculous. She
had been well taught, and she was the King’s match in any of a
dozen topics. It was like Miriel to consider a political puzzle and
quote philosophy, or cite a historical example, or even mention
theology. The King was eager to speak of trade and of the rise of
the merchant class, although he frowned when he spoke of the
uprising in the south.

What was the strangest to me was not that
the King had kept his word that the meetings would be
honorable—itself noteworthy—but how much joy they seemed to bring
to Miriel. I had been wearily impressed with her seeming
fascination during the King’s discussions with her, watching her
animated gestures and intent expressions with the jaded eye of a
courtier, and I had been genuinely surprised to realize that Miriel
had spoken the truth when she said that she had ideas on how best
to rule Heddred.

Now, with someone listening to her ideas and
offering his own for her consideration, Miriel had blossomed. Her
eyes might be shadowed from lack of sleep, but when she sank into
repose, there was a half-smile on her lips. I often caught her
staring off into the distance, and I knew that she was thinking of
the King and of good points to make in their next debate.

More and more, I wondered if she might feel
something for him beyond ambition, and if so, if it was anything
more than the intoxicating feeling of attention after so much
neglect. Her appetite for a partner, a match, a mind as quick as
her own, had been whetted by her conversations with Wilhelm. Now
she believed with all her heart that the King, brilliant in his own
right, was the man she sought. There was no denying the leap of
genuine pleasure on her face when she first saw him each night.

The King had been delighted to meet a girl
who could match him, and Miriel, in turn, was learning the joy of
speaking with a man to whom politics and philosophy were
intertwined, living subjects. Miriel had been taught to scheme, and
her education had been no more than adornment—she had been told to
leave her bookish ways behind. Now she was learning that there
could be a place at Court for her love of knowledge.

But whenever I caught her in an unguarded
moment, openly happy, I felt a twinge of disquiet. There were a
thousand dangers in the court, I told myself. I should worry about
a sly smile, or a threatening insult. Heddred was poised to slide
into war; there were rumors of peasant uprisings in the Norstrung
Provinces. But somehow, Miriel’s happiness seemed the most
precarious of the balances I watched each day. It was going wrong,
sliding somehow into darkness.

I told myself that if I suspected that the
man she truly wanted was not the King, but instead the King’s
cousin, well—it was neither my place, nor in the interest of my
faction, to tell the King that. And it was better for all of us if
Miriel could truly believe it, and be happy—for happy she was, and
it was the first time I had seen her so. I could not bring myself
to shatter that beautiful illusion. It was too precarious a
balance, just too close to the surface for me to mention it.

Certainly, Miriel never looked over to where
Wilhelm sat next to me, his head bowed. She did her best to forget
his presence in the darkened cellar, and even when they must make
their bows as he left with the King, she barely acknowledged him.
If one was looking closely, they would notice that she never met
his eyes. They would see that when he bowed over her hand, their
fingers did not touch—they hovered, barely apart; his lips touched
only the air over her hand. But the King did not notice, he had
eyes only for the serene beauty of Miriel’s face, and her face gave
away nothing.