The Shadow Within (24 page)

“You have a very active imagination, my lady. And if you spread this theory of yours around, I guarantee you’ll be laughed out of court.”

“Are you threatening me?”

“Not at all.” He straightened. “Tell the tale if you desire. But be prepared for the ridicule that will surely come your way.”

He could not tell if she believed him, could not tell what she thought. Only that she was still far too excited for his comfort. But arguing with her would only make her more certain she was right. Better to let the disbelief of the court work on her for a while and distance himself as much as possible in the meantime.

He stepped back and gestured to the door. “Have a pleasant day, my lady. I’m sure we’ll speak again.” He turned to Haldon and asked when his first meeting of the day was scheduled.

If Madeleine was nonplussed, he didn’t see it. He only caught her curtsey out of the corner of his eye and heard the rustle of her skirts as she was escorted back through the sitting room and out.

“Who’s the White Pretender, Sire?” Jared asked as the door closed behind her.

“A Kiriathan slave who was unexpectedly successful in the Esurhite games, Jared.”

“What happened to him?”

“He escaped from the great Val’Orda,” Haldon said, his eyes fixed upon Abramm’s face. “And later faced down Beltha’adi himself.”

Abramm gestured irritably at the room. “Don’t you people have something to do?”

Jared swallowed whatever he meant to say and hurried off. Haldon turned to plucking withered blooms from one of the flower arrangements on a table between bookshelves and Abramm returned to his uneaten twistbreads and now-cold cocoa. Annoyed, he called Jared back to bring him a fresh cup, but the boy had barely left before Abramm was again looking at the coat of arms and thinking that, while Madeleine had honed right in on the fact he had once been the Pretender, she had missed the greater significance. That the coat of arms had been waiting for him, with that device, long before he was ever born. And it was not just the dragon that astonished him but the golden shield, as well.

“How could this be, Haldon?” he whispered.

The old chamberlain was staring at it again, also. “I don’t know, sir. It certainly does lift the hairs on the back of one’s neck, though.”

Destiny. The hand of Eidon had him, no questions now. No getting around it. At least he knew without a doubt that he
was
supposed to be here.

And it would only be a matter of time before Madeleine got around to figuring this part out, as well. Then there’d be another song. He groaned.

“Sir?”

“I was just thinking of Lady Madeleine.”

“Ah.” Haldon held silent for a moment. “Are you going to let her spread the tale, then?”

“Can you think of any way to stop her?”

“Actually it might not be such a bad thing.”

Abramm turned sharply and saw his chamberlain struggling to suppress a smile. “You already knew about this, didn’t you?”

“You mean the White Pretender?” Haldon let a bit of the smile escape. “You didn’t get all those scars from your ink pens and books, my lord.” He paused. “How long exactly
were
you a scribe?”

“Four days.”

“Ah.”

Jared returned then with the cocoa; Abramm accepted it wordlessly and waited while the boy went back to the bedchamber to resume his chores before continuing the conversation. “But the tale is so fantastic, Hal—so completely implausible—I don’t understand how you could . . .”

“Even the most fantastic of tales spring from a kernel of truth. I suspected the moment I saw you in the bathchamber, and time has only borne out my suspicion. To say nothing of this.” He gestured at the tapestry, then turned his gaze to Abramm. “Why have you said nothing about it?”

Abramm went around the desk and settled into the chair, sipping his cocoa. “I don’t know. It just seemed—there was never an appropriate time. It’s not a tale you tell about yourself.”

“Well, now
you
don’t have to tell it, do you?”

Abramm’s head jerked up. “Is
that
why you let her in here this morning?”

Haldon did his best to look put out. “Sire, she is Second Daughter of Chesedh. She practically demanded audience. What was I to do?”

“I can’t imagine. I’m sure you were totally helpless.”

Haldon picked up a stack of books from the desk and began to reshelve them. “I really didn’t expect her to pick up on it so soon. In fact, she wouldn’t have, had the coat of arms not arrived. Had Jared not opened his mouth. Although—” He paused in the midst of sliding a slender blue volume between two larger gray ones. “I don’t think it was coincidence, my lord.” He pushed the blue book all the way in, then glanced again at Abramm. “Your people need to hear your story. Need to know how you defended them. It will give them heart . . . and make them love you even more.”

“Love me? They’ll laugh me out of court. Everyone will think I put her up to it. And may I remind you, Hal, I have no proof except my word.”

“The proof, sir, is all over your body.”

“Every slave has scars. And like mine, most are from the whip. Besides, if I show them the scars, I have to show them something else. Something that’s far too mixed up in this tale of the White Pretender to separate. For apart from it, I never would’ve escaped the Val’Orda, and certainly wouldn’t have defeated Beltha’adi.” He paused. “Do you think it is time my people learned of that, as well?”

Haldon concentrated on his books. “That is a decision only you can make, sir.”

And yet how could he make it? How was he to know the proper time?

His eyes went back to the coat of arms, the dragon and the shield there in scarlet and gold for all the world to see. How soon before people started to put the pieces together? Not long, with Madeleine out there leading the way.

Why have you done this, my Lord? Are you trying to tell me I can’t really be
king until I’ve acknowledged both? That I should come clean of all my secrets now
and let you handle the explosion that’s sure to follow?

But as with the matter of telling Simon, he got no clear answers.

CHAPTER

15

On the eighth day of Abramm’s reign, at ten minutes to two in the afternoon, Simon Kalladorne clattered up to the palace’s main entrance on his big bay stallion and dismounted. Flinging the reins at the first lieutenant of his escort, he pulled his document pouch from its saddlebag and jogged awkwardly up the stairway to the carved and gilded front doors, pulling off his gloves as he went. He stank of horse and sweat and road dust, but he was scheduled to see the king in ten minutes, hardly time to get there, much less wash and change. He’d spent all day yesterday at the Briarcreek Garrison, finishing up the details of his report for the king on the status of the army and had intended to leave for Springerlan early this morning. But all sorts of things had come up at the last minute, delaying his departure.

He was in a foul mood and he knew it. Seeing the new conscripts always did it to him. Conscription regulations had been filled with so many exemptions of late that the only men they could actually draft were peasants or outright criminals. With military service having fallen out of favor among the peers years ago, fewer and fewer of Kiriath’s aristocracy entered voluntarily. Not that the upper classes would be any better than the lower. Take that young fool he had encountered on the way here. The wheel had come off his buggy, stranding him, and the young dandy was in a dither, wringing his hands and screaming at his servants to fix it. When Simon and his escort had arrived on the scene, the peacock had all but fainted for fear they were bandits. A fine soldier that one would make.

Simon stopped at the entry to hand over cloak and gloves, brushing at himself in a futile attempt to remove some of the dust. As he straightened, Temas Darnley and a coterie of adoring young nobles crossed the domed atrium on their way to the east wing. Darnley nodded a greeting, not even noticing that Simon only scowled back. They were all the same, a flock of pigeons decked in ribbons and lace with their ridiculous wigs and scented gloves and silly canes. They made him sick and angry, and sometimes he wanted to grab them by those lace cravats and—

He cut off the mental tirade. Raging did no good, and they were not all like that. There were still real men within the peerage—in military service, too. And Abramm’s plans, if they were legitimate, would go far toward improving things. Even his person, if he continued to manifest the appearance and manner he’d adopted, would do that. Indeed, a number of the new men Simon had seen yesterday were there precisely because of Abramm, inspired by the way he’d dealt with both the kraggin and the court—to say nothing of his near miraculous escape from slavery. That they were also unemployed and suffering economic hardship likely had something to do with it, too, but at least they were claiming loyalty and admiration for their king. Simon just hoped Abramm would turn out to be worthy of it. Then frowned at himself for the thought.

He drew a breath and headed right, crossing the atrium to enter the spacious Hall of Mirrors leading to the west wing. Gold laced the marble floor and the mirroring of the inner wall, gleaming in the warm light of the row of windows opposite. He was halfway to the Fountain Court at its end when Leona Blackwell and her ladies-in-waiting emerged from one of the salons beyond the mirrored wall. A gown of magenta silk set off her ivory skin and flaxen hair to startling advantage and deepened the blue of her eyes, which today sparkled with an unusual animation. “Lady Leona,” said Simon, bowing. “How lovely you look.”

Her blush deepened as she curtsied and thanked him for the compliment, while he marveled anew at how much she favored her mother. He glanced around. “I thought the king had canceled the morning concerts and brunches.”

She sighed mournfully. “He has. And everything else, too, I’m afraid. Well, except for his picnic to the western headland day after tomorrow, but that hardly counts. I’ve tried to persuade him otherwise, but he is set on conserving funds for his military projects.” She affected an endearing pout. “The winter will be so very dull. . . . I don’t suppose
you
could speak to him, my lord duke. . . ?”

The pout had evolved into a coquettish plea. But Simon shook his head sadly. “I fear, my lady, that Abramm is right.” He was momentarily startled, hearing his own words, then went on. “It’s a sacrifice we all must make.”

“You really think those southlanders could be that much of a threat?”

Simon smiled at her. “Not so much now, my lady.”

Leona sniffed and tilted her head. “Lord Temas says they’re not. That Abramm’s unnecessarily paranoid. That it’s his Mataian background that’s driving him—all those years of denying himself and seeing pleasure as something evil.” She sighed again. “At least he has not canceled the Harvest Ball as he threatened to do.”

Simon frowned as something she’d said earlier struck him. “Did I hear you say you sought to convince him of these things, my lady? Have you met with him, then?”

“Oh.” A hint of pink touched her cheeks as she smiled. “I’m assisting him with the dances for the ball. We had our first practice this morning.”

“Ah. And how did he do? I expect your toes must be rather bruised.”

“It’s just the patterns he’s rusty on, sir. He’s actually quite”—her blush deepened and she averted her gaze—“athletic. He’s very athletic, sir.”

And only now did Simon recall how Leona had all but swallowed Abramm with her eyes at his reception the night the kraggin was burned. The court gossips must already be chattering of a budding royal romance. “I assume your brother approves of this developing relationship?”
Since as Royal
Secretary now, he’s no doubt set it in motion.

She blushed furiously, and her small hands fiddled with the ribbons at her waist. “I would hardly call it a
relationship,
my lord. I am only here to help with the dancing. As to my brother’s approval”—her hands fell motionless at her sides and pique crept into her voice—“I should imagine he would be pleased if such a thing as you are suggesting developed. He was the one to arrange my tutoring sessions, after all.”

“Ah.” Simon suppressed a smile. The younger Blackwell had much of his father in him—particularly the ability to manipulate people into believing his plans for them were actually their own.

Now Leona blushed again, and her hands plucked up her skirt. “Well, it’s been a pleasure speaking to you, my lord.”

“All mine, I assure you,” Simon said.

She swept away with her ladies, their skirts hissing, and Simon watched them go with a thoughtful smile.

“They’re already taking wagers she’ll be the next queen,” Ethan Laramor said from just behind him, “Chesedhan negotiations notwithstanding.”

Simon turned with an oath. “Plagues, man! You move like a spirit. Can’t you give me a little warning?”

Laramor grinned and shrugged. “I thought I had. Maybe the problem lies with your ears, eh?” He wore the standard Borderer jerkin and britches today, his clanlord earring glinting alongside his jaw.

“My ears are fine,” Simon growled. “And what the plague are you doing here, anyway? I thought you were avoiding the palace now that the Guardian-King has come to power.”

“I was waiting for you, actually. And you, my friend, are going to be late for your meeting.”

Simon scowled. “Is that a problem?”

“Unlike Gillard, Abramm is a stickler for punctuality,” Laramor said. “He’s already refused audience to several of the peers when they failed to arrive on time.” He gestured along the gleaming corridor. “Come, I’ll walk with you.”

As they fell into step Laramor came quickly to his point. “What are you planning to say about the border situation?”

Simon glanced at him sidelong. “Is there something specific you want me to mention?”

“I’d rather you go easy on the subject. Don’t give him reason to send his Mataian brothers up there to set things right.”

“It sounds to me like Balmark is treating with the barbarians, Ethan. I can’t very well not tell him.”

“We don’t know what Balmark’s doing,” Laramor said, hands clasped at his back. “And Abramm’s got enough to deal with. He probably won’t pick up on it if you don’t do it for him.”