The Eunuch's Heir (31 page)

“If you knew it was stupid to touch her, Wolfram, why did you do it again? Why did you put a knife to her throat?”

“They wanted to stop me from leaving the ship.” He stared at Deishima, willing her to look at him, to give him a sign.

“What did they tell you they wanted?”

At this, Wolfram frowned, looking back to his mother, and he remembered.

“Well?”

“They wanted to provide me with an escort to return home,” he mumbled.

“They wanted to provide you an escort,” the queen repeated, “to come home. Are you starting to understand why I am angry with you, Your Highness? They were taking you home, and you were so eager to get away that you took a knife to a defenseless girl.”

Not exactly defenseless
, Wolfram thought. “That’s not how it happened.”

“What have I missed?”

Rubbing his temple, Wolfram slowly got to his feet and turned to face her. “You said I would tell my story, you said you would listen to me.”

“What have I missed, Wolfram? Tell me now.” She stared him down from her throne. “I would like to believe it was different, but they have a dozen witnesses. One of them is Lyssa, who has no reason to be against you.”

“How did the tiger get loose? Why did it come after us?” The fury swirled within.

“It was a tracker, Wolfram, like you are. It found the princess, and you killed it.” She raised a hand to recognize the obvious objection. “It’s understandable that you felt you had to defend yourself; how were you to know the beast was trained? Faedre has demonstrated with some of her other pets.”

“Then it could have been trained to kill, did you not think of that? Jeshnam?” He sought her out, but the Hemijrani party stood close together.

“Perhaps we should be going, Your Majesty.” Faedre ducked her head sadly when she glanced at Wolfram. “We do not wish to interfere in a family matter.”

“You believe her”—Wolfram pointed at Faedre—“and not me. I’m your son, doesn’t that mean anything?”

Queen Brianna clasped her hands in her lap. “When have you ever given me cause to trust you, Wolfram?”

“I’m trying to change; I tried to put it right by asking her to marry me! Bury it!” He whirled back to the veiled women. They were filing out the door and he lunged toward them. “No! Deishima, help me!”

The guards caught him firmly by both arms, pulling him away from the door as her slight figure, nearly hidden among the others, ran through.

Wolfram struggled to break free, the demon rage howling in his throat.

When they dragged him around to face her again, the queen was weeping. “Look at you, Wolfram. How can I trust you when you get like this? I don’t know what happened to you, maybe it was my fault—”

“They’re lying, can’t you see that? Can’t you see what’s going on?”

“I am supposed to believe that everyone’s lying except for you, Wolfram. Why? Because you are my son? I’m sorry, but that’s not good enough.”

His arms pinioned, the fury draining away, Wolfram hung his head. The little key dropped from his grasp to wink upon the floor.

WATCHING THE
proceedings from his chair by the throne, Fionvar found himself assailed by doubts. Now, seeing the queen’s face change from grief to disdain, he could keep silent no longer. He recalled another throne room, where King Rhys held court in exile, and another Wolfram was brought before him, held captive. Rhys had not seen an enemy but a friend, abused and mistrusted, and he had not hesitated for an instant.

“Brianna.” Fionvar was on his feet, placing himself before her.

She bristled at this interruption. “What is it?”

“If you cannot listen to him, then listen to me.” His voice held a calm he did not feel as he spoke. “Wolfram has just come home; tracker or no, that tiger nearly killed him, and he has not even had a day of rest. Don’t make a decision now, based on what’s happening here. Give it a fortnight. The Hemijrani will have their meeting and go home. The prince will have fourteen days to prove he can control himself. It’s been eighteen years; isn’t it worth a few more days to be sure? Give him a chance, Brianna.”

Even as he urged patience, he knew it was not for Wolfram alone that he argued, but for himself. If she exiled her only heir, she would need another, and soon.

The queen transferred her imperious gaze to him. “Why give him another opportunity to dishonor me, and the memory of his father?”

Her words, so coldly spoken, struck a dart of pain straight
through him, pain that quickly turned to anger. Fionvar’s hands balled into fists. “Clear the room,” he said.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Clear the room, Brianna, or I will not be responsible for what I am about to say.” He linked his fingers about his wrist, their sign for the secrets they held between them.

“I will be happy to speak with you at another time, my lord—”

Their eyes locked, and an anger he had not known he could contain swelled within him. “The time is now, Your Majesty.”

“Very well, but I will be speaking to you about your behavior lately. Go on, Catherine.” With a wave of her hand, she dismissed Duchess Elyn, who grumbled out the door with Lady Catherine.

The guards released their hold on Wolfram, but hesitated. “We’re concerned for your safety, Majesty.”

“I am the Lord Protector, and I will not let anything happen to her, understood?”

Unhappy, the two men bowed and left, shutting the door behind them. On his knees, Wolfram kept his head bowed, bringing his hands together before him. Trancelike, he reached out for the key and slipped it into his sleeve.

“Your Highness,” Fionvar said. The blond head shot up, the still-unfamiliar face closed and wary. “Please, take a seat.”

Carefully, Wolfram rose, with a slight bend to his right side and limped to the chair that had been left for him.

“Enough preliminaries, Fionvar, you’ve made me look like a fool.”

“No, Brianna, you did that to yourself, shouting your questions, calling your witnesses, without even giving him a voice. What did you expect him to do? What would anyone have done in that position?”

“It doesn’t take provocation, Fionvar; you saw him at lunch yesterday, threatening Prince Alyn, unless I’m very much mistaken.”

“He has a temper, we’ve always known that—if I didn’t
know better, I would think you’re trying to make him do something reckless to justify your own conscience.”

“How dare you say that!” She rose and stared him down. “I’ve done the best that I can for him. Maybe if Rhys were here—”

Thrusting his finger at her, Fionvar said, “If I ever hear you saying he dishonors his father, ever again, I will march to the market square and tell the world who his father really is, do you understand me?”

She froze, her eyes wide, then snorted. “Oh, for pity’s sake, Fionvar, you know what I mean. He’s a prince, he has a legacy to live up to regardless of his parentage.”

“Your King Rhys is a lie and a sham, and I am sick of it.” Fionvar folded his arms, feeling as if a great weight had been lifted. He heard a little sound of dismay behind him, and turned to Wolfram. “You know some of the truth, Your Highness, and I know you didn’t feel ready for more, but I’ve been waiting eighteen years, and I can’t take another minute, if you’ll excuse me.”

Looking dazed, Wolfram nodded, settling back in his chair.

“I know we’ve had to keep up the charade in public, Brianna, of course we have, but lately you’ve been denying me to my own face.”

“If this is a personal discussion, then let us retire someplace and chat, Fionvar. If not, get to the point.” She folded her arms as well, sinking back on the throne.

“Every time Wolfram makes a mistake, you’re there with this legend looming over you, waiting to pounce because he doesn’t live up to it. Only two people in the world ever expected that from him; you’re one of them, and Wolfram is the other. Stop trying to make him something he’s not; you’ll both be a lot better off.”

She waited a moment, then arched an eyebrow. “Is that all?”

“Not quite, no. A long time ago, I was an advocate for Rhys when he was afraid to speak for himself.” Fionvar stood between the prince and the queen, staring at the woman he
loved. “I am asking you now, you brought him in here and set him up to explode; do you intend to listen to what the prince has to say?”

“I don’t know what more you expect—”

“Do you,” Fionvar repeated coldly, “intend to listen?”

Brianna unfolded her arms and toyed with the bracelet about her wrist, then glanced toward her son. “If he can talk in a civilized fashion, I will hear him.”

STUNNED BY
what was unfolding before him, it took Wolfram a moment to realize that his turn had come. He had never been struck dumb before; the demon had always been ready to roar. Now he needed the demon’s silence, for this might be his only chance. Carefully, Wolfram rose, and Fionvar ceded the floor, going to sit in Elyn’s place.

“If repentance is possible, Mother, then I have repented. I rushed headlong to accept my disasters and never thought to avoid them. My Lord Protector will have told you about my hair”—he waited for her nod—“and the proposal I made to Deishima. I am trying very hard to change. I can’t promise that I will succeed.”

“If you assaulted her, why should she agree to marry you?” Brianna asked.

“Lady be my witness the only time I acted violently toward her was when I took her from the ship. If you spoke to Lyssa, then you know I also tried to set her free.”

“She also told me that you thought the girl had been kidnapped.”

“I did believe that, and I still do. Deishima would not have left without telling me.”

“Then how do you account for her presence here, with the freedom of the castle? It doesn’t make any sense, Wolfram.”

“I can’t explain it, not yet. If you give me time…” He gasped as the ache in his side cut into his breath. As he schooled his breathing, pushing away the pain, he thought of the veils, and Deishima’s eyes. “Have you heard her speak? Is she truly at liberty?”

“She goes about with Faedre—”

“A woman not to be trusted,” Fionvar muttered, earning a black look from the queen.

“But I have seen and heard her. She spoke in defense of the men condemned in Erik’s death.”

“What?” The words were a blow. He ran to escape his own crime; it had not occurred to him that that might make it someone else’s.

“Erik was murdered the night you left, in the fight at the gates. A few refugees died as well, but we captured five. We were awaiting the results of Lyssa’s embassy to Hemijrai before executing them.”

“But they’re innocent,” he blurted.

Queen Brianna studied him gravely. “Tell me what you know, Wolfram.”

Tugging free the ties at his throat, he pulled away the collar of his shirt to show the scar. “That night, someone tried to kill me. I heard someone call my name, and I turned. He dropped a chain around my neck.”

Flinching, Brianna turned aside to look at Fionvar, who kept to the edge of his seat, listening and watching.

“It seemed halfhearted; if he’d been more serious, he would have succeeded.”

Brianna frowned. “It was Erik who tried to kill you?”

“I thought so at the time; it was dark, confusing. I thought he was coming at me.” He squinted remembering, crouching slightly as if anticipating the attack. He leaned back, turned, touched his throat, and recalled looking up to see Erik’s shouting face. As if on command, the knife was in his hand.

The queen gasped, but Wolfram let out a rush of breath and straightened up, looking down at the knife, not the dagger he had used that night, but just as sharp. He might have sliced himself a piece of the silence that filled the room.

“You killed Erik,” Fionvar murmured. “It was you.”

Wolfram met his gaze. “Yes.” He should have argued, repeated the threat against himself, but he looked at his father, and his throat constricted.

Shoulders sagging, Fionvar’s head fell to his hands, and he let out a sound like a moan or a sob.

Swallowing, Wolfram felt a new pain growing into the hollow places. Quietly, he laid his knife at the queen’s feet and gave himself to the guards outside.

THE ROOM
remained silent a long while, then Brianna slowly walked toward Fionvar, still crumpled in his chair. She hesitated, then placed her hand on his shoulder.

“Sweet Lady, Brie, what happens now?” he murmured, shifting one of his hands up to cover the warmth of hers. It seemed an age since they had touched.

“Oh, Fionvar, my love, you have to let go.”

Raising his head, he let his other hand drop to his lap. “I don’t understand.”

Setting aside her crown, Brianna knelt before him, her warm eyes roving over his face. She stroked his cheek, and he leaned into her touch. “You say that I demand too much, wanting him to live up to the legend of Rhys.” She blinked, and he caught a teardrop on his fingertip. “Have you never thought your own expectations too high for him?”

“I want him to succeed, to find a way to live within himself, not have to lash out all the time, that’s all I want,” he whispered.

“What if it’s too much? He will never be the son I want, Fion, I’ve let go of that in the time he’s been gone. What if he cannot be the son you want either? Not only unworthy of the crown but unworthy even of his freedom?”

Before she’d even finished, he was shaking his head, catching her fingers in his grasp to take them away from his face. “No, Brianna, I cannot believe that.”

“He killed his own servant, a man who had no harm in him at all, Fionvar.”

Fiercely, he replied, “He was under attack; he didn’t know whom to trust.”

“He never does. He wounds indiscriminately; you, me, Lyssa—there is not a member of this household who has not
been hurt by him. You are his father, you cling to this hope that he will someday, somehow be better than he is.” She sighed, ducking her head. “I’m his mother, Fionvar. I used to share that hope.”

“But no more?” he asked, stroking her hair.

Brianna moved closer, laying her cheek upon his knees. “I am also the queen, Fionvar. I cannot hold on to hope when it may lead to the ruin of this country. Even for my son, I can’t do that. I had to let go.” She lay silent a moment, her breath a moist heat upon his thigh, stirring him even now. “And so do you.”

Fionvar leaned his head back against the wall and sat, cradling her head, stroking her hair, feeling all the heat and life of her. Shutting his eyes, he saw her twenty years younger, wandering into Gamel’s Grove, following the sound of his fiddle and smiling at him. In the grove that brings the Heart’s Desire, they had found each other. Last week, his son had walked there. His reckless, brash, and uncouth son had coaxed a lady from her room to walk with him in that same grove. For a moment, Fionvar could picture Wolfram kneeling before this foreign princess—hiding the pain it still caused him to move—and asking her to be his wife.

For a moment longer, Fionvar held his love, then he spoke. “No,” he told her on a sigh, “I cannot let go.”

A new moisture seeped to his skin, and her shoulders quivered.

“If there is a chance for him, even if it takes a miracle, Brianna, then I will not let go.”

“He’s a murderer, a liar, a scoundrel by every account, Fionvar, including his own.” A pleading quality had crept into her voice, but Fionvar slowly shook his head.

“You may have”—his voice cracked, but he went on—“another husband, other children—other chances, Brianna, but he is my last, my only, do you understand that?”

She pulled away from him, her hair draping over her face. “Is this about Orie, about how you think you failed with him?”

“No,” he said too quickly, then, “I don’t know. I don’t
know if I can trust him or even like him sometimes, but if I am the only person who still has hope for him, then how can I take that away?”

Shaking back her hair, Brianna met his gaze, and her eyes flared. “And if he never changes, Fionvar? If he never grows up or learns to stop himself before he kills again, where will you be Fionvar? Where?”

Slowly, Fionvar rose. “Where I should have always been, Your Majesty, beside him.” He slipped from his neck the chain of office and let it fall.