TheKingsViper (17 page)

“Let go!” he hissed in her ear. “Swim!”

He pulled her away from the log and she felt it draw past
them, swinging to scrape her hip. She took a breath and struck out, swimming
hard. It was harder than sea-swimming. She seemed to be lower in the water, and
the rope was cutting into her waist.
Current against my right cheek
, she
thought, her cold hands plowing the river, her breath squeezed out of her
tightening chest. It was too dark, too chaotic, too cold. She could feel
herself starting to lose sense of time. They seemed to have been in the water
forever.

Then her shins barked another rock and her hand whacked
against a submerged branch. To her right there came a gasp and a splashing. The
rope went savagely tight; it took her a moment to realize Severin was hauling
on it, drawing her to him. When her skin met his she was so numb she hardly
recognized his hands. But he was braced against a rock with his head and
shoulder clear of the river, standing in the shallows under the north bank. He
put his mouth to her ear.

“Come on! We’re nearly there!” His breath felt scorching
hot.

They half-swam, half-waded out of the river, tripping and
slipping on the algaed stones, panting with exertion. Eloise’s clothes seemed
to weigh a hundred-weight. She was glad to be down to her underskirt, at least
until she was out of the water and on dry land, and then she wished she had far
more layers on, because the night that had felt warm and still on the other
bank felt horribly cold now.

She bent, panting, to wring out her skirt, then hugged
herself. Severin was busy cutting the rope. He groped for her shoulder in the
dark and clasped her face with both hands.

“All well?” he whispered.

She nodded, shuddering, although things could hardly be less
well, so far as she felt. She wished she was dead—as long as death did not
involve going back into that river.

Quickly Severin stripped off his leather jerkin and helped
her slip it on. The hide was soaked and heavy, of course, but blocked the wind.
Taking her hand, he led her up the bank.

There was little cover this side of the river. The land was
less steep and Ystria kept woodland cleared from all along its borders. They
found themselves climbing through coarse grasses and low, thorny scrub. Eloise
was concentrating all that was left of her awareness on her footing when she
became vaguely aware that someone had shouted.

Instantly Severin stopped. He shoved Eloise to the ground
and walked away, sideways and forward.

“Who goes there?” the call was repeated. Ystrian words,
strange sounding after all these weeks of Mendean.

Light flared in a long beam, a bull’s-eye lantern. Peering
up through the grass, Eloise saw Severin suddenly silhouetted, facing away from
her, his hands out at his sides. His clothes hung dark and dripping upon him,
his hair was plastered to his head. She could see nothing of whoever it was
holding the lantern, but she could hear more than one male voice.

“Hey you! You there!”

“Stand, you bastard!”

“Who are you?”

“In the name of Arnauld,” Severin called back, his voice
hoarse, “his majesty, King of Ystria—stay your hand!”

“Who are you? Who the fuck are you?”

Severin jerked his chin up. “Baron Severin de Meynard, the
King’s own man, by royal command and prerogative. Oppose me and you oppose the
King.”

Someone came forward of the lantern, just a little. Eloise
could see enough of his outline to make out that he was wearing armor and a
military tabard, and had a crossbow aimed straight at Severin. “De Meynard’s
dead!”

“Not yet, I’m not. Grievous though that news will be to
some.”

“De Meynard’s dead, you lying bastard!”

“Take me to your captain and tell him that,” Severin
growled.

“He drowned at sea!” The voice was almost screechy.

Oh dear God
, Eloise said to herself.
They’re only
youths. And they’re panicking. They’ve probably never had anyone cross the
river before.

“I’m certainly a little wet,” Severin admitted, dripping.
“But as you see, not dead. You will take me to your captain. I need to speak to
him. Now.”

“You don’t look like a baron to me! You look more like some
Boscian spy!”

“You just crawled out the river, you sewer-rat!”

“Lift your hands! Lift your fucking hands!” The stock of the
crossbow jerked.

They’re going to shoot him
, she thought.
After all
this, he’s going to be killed by idiot boys.
So she stood up. “He’s telling
the truth!” she called. “He’s de Meynard!”

The lantern wobbled, grass-shadows sweeping, the light
suddenly glaring into her eyes so that she flinched and averted her face. She
was aware that, apart from Severin’s open tunic, she was obviously and
incongruously female. Her wet skirt clung to her thighs like a second skin, and
her linen blouse was plastered to her breasts.

There was a moment’s stunned silence.

“Who the fuck is she?” said one of the soldiers, in a much
quieter voice.

“That,” answered Severin, in a voice that sounded like
despair, “is the Lady Eloise of the Isle of Venn, daughter to Lord Ailwyn of
Venn, the King’s betrothed, our Queen-to-be. I’ve brought her home.”

Chapter Five

By late morning of the day after they crossed the river,
Severin had vanished. There was no sign of him at the dining table when the
household broke their fast. When Eloise plucked up the courage to ask—she
thought the question was natural in the circumstances and would hardly arouse
suspicion—the knight in whose hall they’d been lodged shook his head.

“The Baron de Meynard has ridden on ahead to Kingsholme, my
lady. My wife and I have been charged with your care until a proper escort is
sent for you.”

After that, she took little notice of what happened to her.
None of it seemed real, though in the days and weeks to follow she was bitterly
impressed by the accuracy of Severin’s prophecy. Everything fell out just as he
had predicted. A troop of soldiers headed by three mounted knights in full
heraldic barding arrived within days, and she was put into a horse-litter—as if
she were an invalid, she thought—for the journey north to the capital. The
night before her arrival at Kingsholme she was quartered with the family of an
earl, and there she was washed once more and combed, painted and perfumed and
rouged and dressed in a gown of green silk all embroidered on the sleeves and
hem with flowers of garnet and emerald, for her final presentation.

It was like some dream from which she couldn’t awake, even
though she knew it wasn’t real. One of those dreams one has after going to bed
bitterly hungry—the hunger stays, gnawing at the belly, even when one stuffs
one’s mouth with dream-food. Eloise’s hunger, an aching need for Severin’s
touch, never left her for a moment.

She entered Kingsholme in an open litter, through streets
thronged with cheering people. Knights, with their household pennons
fluttering, rode before her and soldiers marched behind. Flowers were thrown
down on the cobbles before the procession. Everywhere she looked she could see
a sea of open-mouthed faces, grinning or gawping or cheering as the mood took
them. The noise was frightening, but she straightened her shoulders and tried
to appear serene as they marched on into the great courtyard of Kingsholme
Palace.

The crowds waiting there were of a more refined sort
altogether, their clothes brightly colored and rich. They didn’t cheer her like
the people of the city, but as she alighted from her litter and turned toward
the dais at the far end of the courtyard, they began to clap. The applause rose
around her as she stepped forward on a carpet of sweet rushes interwoven with
fresh yellow roses—Arnauld’s family symbol—and the gray gull feathers that
symbolized Venn. There were people awaiting her on the dais. Eloise lifted her
chin and wished her dress did not weigh so much, that her shoes didn’t pinch,
that she could be home now, back on the island, in her father’s house and away
from all this clamor.

As she drew closer to the dais she realized that out of all
the people in the crowd there were only two, other than the guards, who were
not applauding her. One was King Arnauld who stood to the fore, crowned and
with his palms out-turned in welcome. The other was Severin de Meynard, who
stood to the King’s left and a little behind like a dark hole cut into the
bright scene, his arms crossed over his chest to hide his heart.

Oh—it’s him! He’s here!

Eloise’s own heart turned over inside her as she saw him.
She was glad of the makeup that plastered her cheek, hiding the rush of blood
there. In the pit of her belly a hot plume of recognition gushed. For the
briefest of moments she allowed herself a hungry look at his face. He wore an
expression of studied satisfaction, she thought, as if at a job well done. Then
she snapped her attention back to the King and, reaching the bottom step, sank
in a low curtsey before him. For the rest of the ceremony she did not dare look
elsewhere.

I saw him. He’s here. It must suffice.

There were kisses and speeches of welcome. There were
rituals of thanksgiving—the release of white doves, the sprinkling of
rosewater, the sending out of riders with baskets of coins to throw among the
populace cramming the outer streets. Eloise, a picture of modest silence and
gratitude, shifted her gaze between the King and the ground before her, never
elsewhere. Then the lords and ladies of the Court retired indoors, to where a
sumptuous banquet awaited in the great dining hall of the palace.

None of this is real,
she told herself.
He warned
me, it will not last. It’s all for show. For the sake of the King’s honor
.
She picked at the roasted and gilded songbirds on the platter before her and
listened to Arnauld’s small talk and smiled whenever she remembered to. And all
that time she made sure that she didn’t look to her left along the high table,
no matter how strong the pull of instinct, for fear of seeing the quiet dark
man seated beyond Arnauld.

When, toward the evening, the eating was done—though her own
plate was all but untouched—Eloise was taken to a suite of rooms high up in the
palace that were to be her own. There half a dozen ladies-in-waiting busied
themselves settling her in, removing the stiff formal dress and replacing it
with a fur-lined gown, combing out her hair, playing the lute, turning down her
sheets.

Just after the watch-bell tolled, the door to her chamber
opened and Arnauld walked in.

There was a polite, muted fluttering and cooing among the
ladies-in-waiting, as if the room were a dove-cote, as they all drew back to
the walls. Eloise stepped forward and curtseyed to the floor, bowing her head.
“Your majesty,” she said, thinking,
What has he come here for?

“Please,” he said, “let us not be formal. I would talk
candidly with you, my lady of Venn. Please, stand.”

Biting her lip, she obeyed. Her inner voice of warning—and
she recognized that voice as Severin’s—was already suggesting a number of
different threats this new situation presented.

“Leave us,” he told the attiring-women mildly. As they retreated,
Eloise let herself meet Arnauld’s gaze full on, almost for the first time. He
smiled, but his expression was more troubled than cheerful beneath the
pleasantry. She thought once again that he was a very handsome man; his skin
browned by the sun until it was darker than the wheat-straw of his neatly
cropped hair, his youth on the cusp of giving way to a craggy maturity that
suited him very well. A part of her saw clearly that if it hadn’t been for the
shipwreck and what came after, she would have fallen in love with this man
swiftly and easily. Her life would have been entirely different.

If.

But now she loved Severin, a far lesser man in the eyes of
the world, and the golden king would never own her heart.

“Well,” Arnauld said when they were alone. “Are you content
with your chambers, my lady?”

“Very much so, your majesty.”

“I ordered the spinet to be brought here myself.” He
indicated the musical instrument with a wave of his hand. “I would not have you
missing any of the diversions and comforts of your own home.”

Eloise was momentarily nonplussed. Her occupation at home on
Venn had largely consisted of attending her father, who had wanted her to be
familiar with all the business of the island earldom in order that she might
teach her future husband—she’d never had much time to spare for such
accomplishments as music. She managed, however, a grateful smile. “Thank you,
your majesty.”

“Will you join me if I have a cup of wine?” He stepped
toward a jug upon a side-table.

“It’s I that should be offering to serve you, your majesty.”
She reached the table before him and poured wine into gilded goblets. Her hands
were hardly unsteady at all, she noted, surprised. Perhaps no man could make
her as nervous as Severin had. The fact was that the King of Ystria hardly
seemed to matter to her, in comparison to his dark vassal.

“Please, my lady, sit down.”

She perched herself upon the linen press at the foot of her
bed, but Arnauld did not sit either next to her or in one of the high-backed
settles provided with the room. He paced up and down the rug instead, his cup
dangling from his fingertips.

“I would have you,” he announced, “tell me in your own words
about your journey here.”

Eloise inhaled, slow and deep. This was it—the first
occasion for the recounting of her tale. If what Severin had warned was true,
it would not be her last. She must be sure to get every phrase right, every
detail irreproachable. There must be no contradiction, neither with Severin’s
report nor her own subsequent retellings. “Of course,” she said in a low voice.
Then she began. She kept it simple, not mentioning names, taking it slowly and
pausing every so often to allow Arnauld to break in with questions. She made
sure she confessed to everything that was genuinely unclear to her—the ship’s
course, the passage of days, their route home.