White Pagan, page 41
part #6 of Kestrel Harper Saga Series
Dissension echoed around the table, as Inness had expected. Women did not rule in Neth. Women held no power, publically or within the home. de Corrmick princes married kin or else noblewomen of no consequence with no claim to the throne by birth or blood. de Corrmick princesses were married to noblemen or wealthy merchants or officers within the army. By decree and practice, the children of a princess were never in line for the throne, but some de Corrmicks in the past who had either attempted to assassinate their way into power or who had successfully done so, had been exactly that…children of the matriarchal line.
“I am of royal blood. I am de Corrmick by marriage. This is my home, my family, my land. My actions since King Kjell’s death, my support of my husband, prove this. I am the only one here to…”
“No woman may…”
“I know Nethite law. Nethite history. Did I not serve in King Oska’s stead during his madness? Did I not prove myself capable?”
“Absolutely not!”
“Neth will never…”
“Regent then, until either Prince Jerit is found and brought back or King Oska’s son is born and comes of age.”
“Son?”
Eyes narrowed around the table, scrutinizing her. Her marriage to Oska had been long enough that it should have produced multiple children by now but there had been none. She was aware of the rumors claiming Oska to be incapable of fathering children because he was a cripple…or that Inness refused his bed because of his deformities.
Of late she had heard talk that her refusal had contributed to his madness.
Tipping her chin again, she stared at General Stone. “I am carrying his son.” Her eyes swept the faces around the table, seeking a swaying of their perception, their mood, but she determined nothing certain. “Send the physicians. Send for any midwife you care to ask. Confirm it if you must.” She paused for a breath before continuing. “Neth needs power consolidated in one voice if we are to survive. Someone strong enough to put down civil discord, to prevent factions from tearing the kingdom apart, to keep other kingdoms from devouring us. As long as I hold the throne, as regent or otherwise, neither Cordash nor Enesfel will attempt to overthrow and annex us. Rika loved her brother…and my mother would not dare…”
“Your mother is no longer the ruling…”
“I guarantee her voice is heard through Prince Merrek. So long as she lives and I am here, Neth is safe. This is the most reasonable…”
“Leave us.” Captain Fraen the Elder barked and waved his hand at her dismissively. Though the late King Merkar had killed his father, the son had survived and climbed the ranks to captain as quickly as he had been able. His name was the only thing that hindered him from becoming general, as the reminder that his father had attempted to assassinate Kjell had never been far from the king’s thoughts. His bitterness over the constant denial of promotion had led to a peculiar bond of sorts between him and Inness, and he was the only man of power in the room she respected. He was a man she trusted, as much as she did anyone, to act in her best interest.
She hesitated after the demand long enough to express that she would not be bullied or ordered about, that she would depart only when she was ready to do so, and then went to the door where she paused and looked back.
“Consider our course, gentlemen. This is in Neth’s best interest. I swear on my life, and that of Oska’s son, that I will restore Neth’s eminence if allowed to do so. We will again be strong and feared.”
Just as she intended she would be.
She left them then, retreating as far as the corridor to consider her options. She could not linger like an over-eager pup seeking to please its master or like a beggar awaiting handouts. Nor would she retreat to her private chambers like a timid mouse. While Neth’s advisors and lords deliberated, there was business to attend, matters within Neth that could not wait. Continuing as she had been, she increased the number of men seeking Jerit and Asta, believing them to have taken refuge in the streets of Glevum, believing that Asta would never have gone far without her husband and eldest son. Asta would have remained to right the injustice of Kjell’s, and now Oska’s, death and would seek retribution for both.
Inness was confident that Asta would make a mistake and that she and the prince would be found. What Inness would do when that happened, she had not yet decided.
Her actions would hinge upon the fate being decided for her by a collection of men she had no desire to be beholden to.
Preliminary plans were set into play that would call for the shutdown of the education venues Kjell had instituted so that the funds for such efforts could be diverted into creating a once more powerful military force. Decrees were refined which would recall all capable men who had received training during Kjell’s reign, to Glevum, to strengthen her core force. The common man would again be denied the right to bear weapons; the right would again be restricted to those who served the Crown. Should she gain the throne, an outcome she believed inevitable, whether as queen or as regent, she would give the people of Neth no opportunity to rise against her or undermine her intentions of increasing Neth’s might.
The hours of deliberation dragged. Inness’s indignation bloomed. Seeking an outlet for her frustration, she climbed the tower stairs, passed the pair of hand-picked sentries who served here during the day, snatching the keys from one of them as she strode to the thick wooden door strengthened with iron bands, a room without bars, with only a single high window for air and periodic light. With a torch taken from the wall to light her way, she unlocked the door and kicked it open with the toe of her boot. The grating of chain on stone joined the wheezing effort of a man determined to stand, bringing her face to face, as the door closed behind her, with the visage covered with dried blood and grime. Remaining out of his reach, she stared him in the eye, the flickering glow of the torchlight twisting his features into a distorted caricature. The stench in the room caused her nose to wrinkle but it was not enough to force her to retreat.
“You did this to him,” she spat, daggers of fire and ice shooting within her voice. This was the first time she had seen him since sending him here. Seeing him now, injured, weak, but still defiant in posture and expression, fueled her outrage. “You robbed him of strength, sought to deprive him of the throne that was his birthright.”
Kjell said nothing and asked no questions. Maybe he could not speak. Other than the wound his son had inflicted and the blow that had robbed him of consciousness, Inness did not know what other injuries he might have sustained when her men brutally hoisted him to the tower. The blood left at the scene of the crime, the destruction of the room, the forged letter claiming responsibility for the king’s death and the mutilated corpse later left at the palace gates had been enough to convince Oska of his father’s fate, enough to convince the royal advisors and the people of Glevum, all while the man was kept here.
Inness had no good reason for keeping the former king alive. She argued with herself that she might still need him as a pawn or guarantee, but she worried that he was a threat to her, and to Oska, as long as he lived. As her husband’s mental and emotional state had deteriorated, she often considered bringing him here, proving that he had not killed his father, that the man lived, and that the guilt driving Oska mad was baseless. But as he had said in those moments before his death, Oska had already reached the point of confession. If he had known his father lived, Inness had no doubt Oska would have recanted his claim to the throne and returned it to Kjell’s hands regardless of the consequences to himself or his wife.
No, she thought with a touch of remorse. Oska would have shouldered all of the blame for the uprising and attack. He would never have sacrificed his beloved wife. He would have protected her. That was the sort of man he had been.
He was nothing like his wife.
“You made him a coward. You filled him with guilt! You drove him mad! And now he’s gone!”
She shoved, knocking him back off his feet. “Do not think this is the end of it. Neth will rise from the ashes of ruin you burned her to…and I will dance beneath your swinging corpse.”
From his place on the floor, Kjell shed silent tears and watched her flee, not from the room, not from him, but, he thought, from herself. For if Oska was dead, however it had come to pass, then Inness blamed herself. As much as the idea appalled him, he realized she might have even had a hand in Oska’s death, as she had a hand in Kjell’s overthrow.
For his son’s innocent, tortured, too pure for the world soul, the captive king wept.
***
Ylár did not expect his inaugural act to be popular with his fellow gdhededhá when they learned about his decision. Whatever each one’s private opinions were of the White Bard, many respected Ylár’s antecedents, and the reversal of excommunication was even rarer than excommunication itself. Kavan had been the first to endure that fate since the height of the Zythánites activity, and no one could name, without resorting to Faith archives, men or women who had been barred from the Faith or were later accepted back into it.
But Ylár too was respected and better liked than either Tumm or Dórímyr and it was his right to make this choice as he set to task at the start of his term without the approval of anyone else. He signed the parchment carefully, stamped it with his seal of office, and when the ink was dry, he rolled it and secured it in a storage tube. On the other side of the desk, Hwensen held out his hand when the tube was offered, his eyes wide at the reversal. The writ was signed in secret, not out of fear but because Ylár wanted none to give Kavan the news before he could do so. Outside of the council chambers, Hwensen was only one of two men who knew and they had both been sworn to secrecy.
Others believed the writ awaited Kavan’s attendance, an interview to learn his position after so long outside of the Elyri Faith. Some would bemoan Ylár’s apparent reluctance to make use of his inaugural prerogative. None knew the act had already been completed, that the declaration of clemency was already in effect.
Hiding his smile with his bow at the k’gdhededhá’s nod of dismissal, Hwensen backed from the room, his mission now to file the writ where all important Faith documents were stored. For now, this was a secret he would gladly keep despite the bubbling temptation to go to Bhryell and share the welcome news with Kavan’s family.
***
“Well?”
The two physicians and the midwife sent to verify Inness’s claim looked at one another, one of the two men wiping his clean hands nervously on the smock he most often wore. He did not look at those with him, however, reluctant to show any weakness beyond the reflex he had been unable to control. As the chosen spokesman of the trio, he bowed before the host of advisors and nobles and stammered, “The signs are there. She is with child.”
Several faces frowned.
“You are certain?”
“We all concur,” the second physician added.
“A son?” someone else asked.
The midwife scowled. “There is no way to know that before birth, my lord. A woman’s intuition is often the best indicator; if she believes it is a son, it may be so, but we will not know until the child is here.”
Captain Fraen shooed the trio out of the room to allow deliberation to continue. No one thanked them.
No one was sure how they felt about the news.
As the door closed, the woman at the end of the corridor, who had followed her examiners here, hoping for swift good news, watched with the most dispassionate expression she could muster as they passed with barely a bow. She had not expected those three to have news, as those behind the closed door would have revealed nothing outright and would waste more time in talk. But she was hopeful and willing to wait, if necessary, to take further action to secure her place.
***
Fen frowned as he watched the woman at the window staring absently at something in the courtyard, or perhaps at nothing as even from his side angle he could see the vacancy in her. Though she had shared her news only with Merrek and Diona, such news could not remain secret for long.
Out of political necessity, it had been shared with Lord General Garran Declan, a young, ambitious knight who had proven himself often in tournaments and the breaking up of brawls and street fights. He had come to Diona’s attention through her husband but he had not been elevated to the status of general until the past winter’s bout of pneumonia robbed Enesfel of General Agis.
In turn, Asta’s news had been shared with both Fen, in the hopes that more details might be gleaned through his network of informants, and to Chamberlain McCábhá, who had the responsibility of overseeing day-to-day matters within the keep and who found himself shadowed by the young de Corrmick prince, answering a multitude of questions about his work and in turn being told what little Jerit knew about the events that had expelled him from his home.
As days turned into weeks, with rumors slowly trickling from Neth into Rhidam, bringing no concrete news but further stories that supported the likelihood that King Kjell had been killed in a coup, many in Rhidam’s castle endeavored to draw Asta out of herself, make her smile, offer her hope. Bhyrhán came closest, his easygoing mannerisms seeming to soothe her nerves as much as they did Diona’s. But those moments of levity were short-lived and Asta slipped again into melancholic stoicism.
She tended her son morning and evening, and spent unspeaking hours with her daughter, an effort, Fen believed, to reassure herself that her youngest and oldest children had not been taken from her as well. The rest of the time, however, the de Corrmick prince was left to fend for himself. He spent his time with the chamberlain, with Chancellor Dahl, or with Prince Lorant, the only other royal child, other than the infant Prince Conroy, in the keep.
Something had to change. Asta’s focus on silence and darkness was not healthy, and many worried about her state of mind. Last evening, when Elotti returned to the castle from his tour of nearby villages as he continued seeking details about the theft of the mantle from Hes á Redh and the murder of Cedric, Yóáná had presented an idea that Fen had not considered. He berated himself much of the night for not having come up with the possibility on his own.
He knew Asta. He liked her. He respected her talents. This suggestion should have been his.
He was here to offer it, after gaining approval from the queen, but had spent the last several minutes watching her, realizing more and more how far away she was that she failed to notice him there. As former inquisitor, she should be alert to her surroundings.
She appeared not to notice he was in the room.
When he opened his mouth to speak, she asked quietly, “How long will you stand there?” suggesting her unresponsiveness to his presence was a matter of apathy, not blankness or inattention.
“Someone’s come to see you.”
Her shoulders tensed and her jaw twitched but she expressed no intention of moving or speaking for several moments. Gradually the tension bled away and she got up, smoothing her tunic with absent gestures. She followed when Fen led the way and he wondered if she feared news about her husband or about her son on Neth’s throne…the son who had yet to reply to her messages. Her face was devoid of emotion, her steps even and normal, until Fen opened the stateroom and allowed her to pass. The light on her face when she saw the bounty hunter was the first positive expression he had seen since her arrival.
“Wace.” She hurried in and clasped his hands, refraining from an undignified embrace. “It has been a long time.”
“It has.” His enthusiastic smile brought more of hers to the surface. “Has Geli explained our situation?” He could have expressed his regret for recent events and support for what she was going through, but he believed he knew the woman better than that. She did not want pity. Asta needed a purpose, a distraction, and he and Fen intended to give it to her.
“Situation?”
Fen pulled out a chair and the three of them sat. “There was a bard here, Cedric O’Grady…brother of the duke and friend of Lord Cliáth’s. He was traveling through Rhidam on his way to Alberni, conveying what he alleged to be the mantle of Saint Kóráhm. He left it for safekeeping with the gdhededhá at Hes á Redh, but it was stolen…and Mr. O’Grady was murdered that same night.”
Wace slid a collection of pages towards her, notes he had made for the queen’s benefit which he felt would be more useful in Asta’s hands. “There’s no proof that the theft and murder are connected, except for his relationship to the mantle and the approximate hour of each incident. We’ve been searching locally, interrogating everyone who prefers the knuckle biter, everyone who has been in the náós but have made no progress. I intend to follow O’Grady’s trail backward to determine if he was followed, targeted, from the desert where his journey presumably originated.”
“Presumably?” Asta asked as she began scanning the pages.
“There are numerous legends in Cíbhóló lore of the mantle’s existence…of it being possessed by one tribe or another, of the healing it is said to bestow. If it has been in the desert since being taken from the site of his martyrdom…and if O’Grady crossed from the desert as Prince Merrek claims, then someone knows how he obtained it. If it was stolen, someone may have gone to great lengths to retrieve it.”
Frowning, Asta leaned back in her chair. Tracking such a rumor could take a lifetime, even for an experienced hunter like Wace. She did not know what he hoped to learn from that backward quest, but she trusted his judgment if he thought the trail worth pursuing. “Do you know it was here? That it was real or is it…?”
“It was in Hes á Redh,” Fen assured her. “k'dedhá Tusánt saw it, as did the other gdhededhá and several dozen townsfolk who swarmed the náós to be healed.”
“Healed?” she scoffed. Asta did not believe in the healing abilities of relics or objects. Elyri could heal, Kavan had been known to do so through k’Ádhá-granted miracles, but for an object to do so merely by being looked at or touched was absurd.
