Forgotten - Kingdom Gone Book 3, page 3
“Sorry.” Farine offered a hand, steadied her maid and cringed at the scowl she earned.
“You might think my faith a joke,” Hajda huffed the words. Her stocky build and short stature left her out of breath on the walk up the stairway to their chambers, and the shock of her sudden jump had her panting. “But your fair mother showed it a great deal more respect. You’d do well to lower your voice here, for her sake if not mine.”
“I only cleared my throat!” Farine would have preferred to leave her mother’s memory where it belonged, fondly in the past, but Hadja had worshipped the queen nearly as much as she did the Powers, and she would not let the chance to mention her pass unused. “You over reacted.”
“You echoed like an avalanche.” Recovering from the shock didn’t take the maid long. She smoothed her skirts and squinted at Farine, then looked to the empty space behind her and to the sides. “Your father said you’d gone to buy your unicorn.”
“I changed my mind.”
“How’s that?” Hadja’s voice dropped to a shocked whisper. The tone made her seem far older than she was, and it gave her question a conspiratorial tone that Farine meant to kill quickly.
“I changed my mind. They were uglier than I expected.” She stuck out her chin. Hadja didn’t need to know everything, after all. She definitely didn’t need to know about the User, the rotten-souled User. Farine tasted anger again. He’d known full well what she’d see in the beast’s gaze. He’d goaded her into looking on purpose.
“Is that so?” Hadja saw right through her. The woman was too shrewd. She needed a husband, and Farine had tried on more than one occasion to interest her in the idea, if for no other reason than to give the maid her own children to coddle. She’d miss the woman’s company, but there were moments when she seriously considered pushing the issue, even though Hadja had shown no sign of willingness. It wouldn’t be many years before the woman was beyond marrying age. She flirted with that line already.
Now, she raised one thin brown eyebrow at the princess and stared her disbelief right through her.
“Yes. I didn’t like them at all.” She hadn’t liked what she’d seen, but didn’t intend to share it. The fury in the unicorn’s eye, the fierce intelligence, had made her sad somehow. It had wriggled into her belly and squirmed into her mind until the idea of owning one, of keeping such a creature in her father’s stables, tasted like sawdust and sorrow. “We have better mounts at home.”
“Indeed.” Hadja continued to stare while her evil eyebrow did its trick, whittling away at Farine’s resolve, daring her to confess.
But Hadja would bristle at the idea of the User, though she might agree with the man when it came to unicorns and Powers. The woman liked her magic to be humble and religious, and Users tilted that balance too much in their own favor for her tastes. Still, Farine’s will wobbled. She felt the story rising to her tongue, eager to give in to Hadja’s patient stare.
“An imp tried to rob me.” She started farthest from the events of import, as if the delay might save her from revealing the meat of the matter. As it turned out, it worked in her favor. A man’s gruff voice interjected before she could be drawn into the full tale.
“Did you inform the guard?” Malcolm had snuck upon them, even in his metal and leather regalia. “Is the criminal in custody?”
“No, Malcolm.” Farine sighed and turned, grateful for the interruption even in the shadow of his scorn for thieving. He had saved her from telling Hadja more than she wanted to…at least for the moment. “I hired him to take me to the pens instead.”
“Farine! Your father—”
“Would have given the poor thing his purse, and you know it.”
Malcolm couldn’t deny the truth of that. As Leopold’s favored guard, he understood the king well enough to know that she was right. He didn’t like it though, and his blond mustache twitched irritably. His cheek ticked and he swallowed whatever comment he might have made and fell back onto the purpose for his appearance.
“King Leopold has asked me to fetch you both. He is preparing for our return to the castle.”
“Already?” Farine couldn’t explain her disappointment. She’d no further business at the faire, and the whole day had lost its luster in the dark eye of her would-be unicorn. Just the same, she’d grown accustomed to arguing with Malcolm. “It’s still early.”
“The elves brought news that requires our immediate action.”
“Did they?” She leaned around him and peered across the faire as if she could find an elf and aim her frustration at him instead. “And why are you so stiff and dour then? I thought you and father adored all things elvin.”
“My mother said she saw you speaking to a strange User.”
Drat. Hadja made a noise that said they’d be discussing that later for certain. Mrs. Fairbright was a snoop and a busybody. She wasn’t very kind to her son, either, and despite his severity and the fact that she didn’t want to marry him, Malcolm was Farine’s friend.
“He only asked me for directions.” She saw the glint of jealousy fade from his eye. The User’s had been bi-colored, narrower and wiser, but with the sparkle of his magic behind them. “He was kind of a bother, really.”
“I could have gone with you.”
“Malcolm.”
“Well I could have, your father…no, Farine, I’m serious.”
“Both of you throwing my parents at me today, today when…when…” When something had happened to her that she couldn’t explain to either of them. The User had made her see more than the fury of a unicorn. She saw how Malcolm looked at her in a different light too. She saw the way Hadja averted her eyes demurely, almost like a maiden again. “Oh, I’m not feeling well at all!”
“Then it’s a good thing we’re going. Hadja, help me.” Malcolm took her elbow and steadied her while Hadja hustled up on her right. They posted themselves at her sides, her personal guards and truest companions. Even too sensitive about her Powers, Hadja was a better maid than any other in her father’s employ, and Malcolm, raised from his birth to be a member of her father’s guard, had looked out for her as long as she could remember. If her father stuck to the idea, Farine had to admit, she could do a lot worse for a husband.
“My mother had her fortune told.” He killed her thought, however, by mentioning the old bag.
“Yes. I saw her in the soothsayer’s lane.”
Hadja snorted, and Farine had to hide a smile behind her hand. Soothsayers rated just below Users on Hadja’s list of people who misused the Powers.
“Well.” Malcolm stiffened. He’d heard the snort and set his spine, proudly straight. “The woman told her that my children would be of royal blood.”
“What news did the elves bring?” Farine rushed him to the next topic. “That has my father so eager to be gone?”
“War.” Malcolm’s jaw tightened. “The Northern Glade has allied with Gault against the kingdom of Canton.”
“War.” Farine rolled the word around in her thoughts. “Are you certain? Father always says the Kingdoms are too tightly woven for war to sprout.”
“Perhaps, but it’s taken seed in Canton, and the elves are convinced it means to spread.”
“But father will stop it.” Farine leaned a little into Malcolm’s grip on her elbow. War sounded a lot larger today, darker and more like a real thing. “Father wouldn’t let it come this far.”
Theirs was the largest of seven kingdoms, and Leopold had always been a fierce defender of the peace. He quickly mediated any skirmishes between the Kingdoms as well as conflicts with the Gentry or outlying peoples. He sent his own men to assist even though his boundaries were, as ever, secure and without threat.
“I’m sure it will settle long before we have anything to worry about.” Malcolm soothed the fear. “Our borders are as strong as ever. If anything, Leopold will send troops to Gault. And our elves will do the same.”
They threaded between booths now, cutting crossways through the faire rather than weaving up and down the rows. There were finely woven brocades here, tapestries and bolts for dressmaking. There were vendors with stacks of blank scrolls, long feathered pens and a few, properly bound books made from the thin papers traded with desert merchants across the sea. Farine saw the glint of a sigil here and there, and considered pausing, dragging away from Malcolm long enough to at least look.
Hadja would have loved the books, and she felt indebted today, and a little guilty for her mouth earlier. She should get the maid a gift. But they continued forward too rapidly for her to act on the idea. Malcolm’s boots snapped with each pace, and poor Hadja had to churn her little legs to continue beside them.
The next row fell behind them and they entered the wide clearing at the faire’s front-most edge. Farine’s father stood, almost in the same spot she’d left him, but the tide of elves had swelled, and his own guard pooled in between to shield him. The conversation filled the area, a hive hum of muted tones, of secretive whispers and worried questions. Farine stopped dead, dragging on Malcolm and Hadja before she could un-stick her feet. She saw the crowd through new eyes, the eyes that had looked into a unicorn’s.
She saw what Malcolm had assured her couldn’t be. Her heart hammered it, and her mouth went dry at the knowing, but she saw it there in the sea around King Leopold the Mighty. She saw war swirling around her father, and she saw as clearly as the unicorn’s rage that that war was coming for them next.
Chapter Four
Payne turned away from the slot and refused to look again. He’d be waiting, staring up at her, his teeth flashing in an evil grin. How could he possibly know about the ring? He might have told someone, but something about the idea rang rotten. She couldn’t imagine the two of them together.
“You’re still listening,” he shouted. “Even if you won’t answer. I know you are.”
She leaned her head back against the stones and closed her eyes. Her fingers found the armband, traced the evil ring and took small comfort in the chill of it.
“My partner waits at the bottom of the path,” the man said. “We have horses and supplies. We can help you.”
“No one can help me.” She kept her eyes tight and, though her words sounded barely more than a whisper, she knew he heard them. She also knew she’d never leave with this stranger, not with his supplies and his mustache and his partner down at the bottom of the ravine. She wouldn’t go with him even if he handed over the key to her little silver problem. But she still might go. If he couldn’t help her, somehow he’d made it glaringly clear that no one else could either.
He moved around enough to let her know he still remained in her temple yard, but his conversation had come to an end. His petition had run out of words. Or perhaps, he knew he’d set the devil loose in her mind and now he meant to let it eat at her awhile.
When Payne finally spoke, she did it loudly and without allowing any tremble into her voice. “What is out there?” She remembered nothing outside the constant circle of stones. She’d believed the warning, it’s too dangerous, and she’d never asked for proof. It might have been paradise or hell beyond.
“A broken world.” He’d been waiting for her, and he had an answer ready. “And a dangerous one. You’d be wise to come with us. Eventually, someone else will find the pathway here.”
“And I’m supposed to think they’re more dangerous than you?”
“No. I can’t see you thinking that.” He gave her another moment while he restructured his plans. “I can only promise I mean you no harm, not now and not ever. But then, you have no reason to trust that promise, do you?”
“I do not.”
“Then tell me this much.” He padded across the stones again, coming closer, close enough to stand directly below her arrow slit, to lean against the wall, maybe. His voice dropped lower too, grew soft for all the power behind it. “What reason do you have to trust the man who keeps you here?”
Payne sucked in a breath. She pressed her lips tight and her eyes tighter. The stone at her back held her like a cold hand, like the prison that it was in the end. What kept her here? The walls or the man? Did she have a reason to trust either one, or a good reason to fear them both? If a broken world waited at the bottom of the path, perhaps there was a better place for a broken woman out there.
A rough cawing reached the heights, too loud to be natural. Payne heard a human voice in that call, and the man below confirmed it when he scrambled from the wall. She peeked again, found him standing on the wide altar with one hand held to shield his eyes from the sun.
“My partner signals,” he said. “Your keeper returns tonight, and so I must go…for now.”
“Go forever,” Payne called down in answer. “Don’t come back here. I don’t know who you are or what you want, but go away now and never come back!”
He jumped down and spun to face her spy hole. His shirt gleamed and he folded at the waist into an over-exaggerated bow. “I will come back.”
“Then you’re a fool.”
“Maybe so.” His laughter shook the pigeons loose again. His steps trod away toward the head of the path, but before he took to it, he turned back one last time to taunt her. “I might be a fool, but you see, I never leave a task unfinished. What I want is to help you, and who I am is Malcolm Fairbright, first guard to King Leopold the Mighty.”
Ý
Farine answered the knock on her chamber doors expecting Hadja or another maid. The morning meal had finished over an hour ago, and her hair was still down, unbrushed, and her dishes needed clearing out. She pulled the panel aside in a huff and startled poor Malcolm into a backwards shuffle.
“Your pardon,” he said.
“Oh, Malcolm. I’m sorry. I thought you were Hadja. She should have been here ages ago.”
“I saw her in the herb garden.” Malcolm’s mustache twitched. He stood even straighter than normal, had on his mail and the over-tunic emblazoned with her father’s crest. “Can I walk you there?”
She might have refused, but for the look on his face. His bright eyes rarely darkened into that serious shade, and his jaw was set hard. The three days since the faire had them all on pins and needles. Hadja was errant in her duties, something she never allowed to happen. Farine had left her hair stringy and her room a mess in defiance of the woman’s lapse and, though she knew it was a petulant and childish pout, she couldn’t bring herself to bolster her own mood enough to play nice.
A foul wind had entered the castle. A black emotion invaded through the cracks, speaking of fear and far away violence.
“Of course, Malcolm. Thank you.” She took the time to wind her hair up, but left the dishes for Hadja to discover later.
Malcolm waited in the hallway until she emerged from her rooms and then he escorted her to the wide stairway which led to the ground floor and main hall. Her father’s throne topped a dais at the far end of this. As they descended, Farine peered over the stone railing and saw that he held court. Mastral Weredewell, elvin seer and her father’s First Mage, stood beside the throne, and a crowd of elvin dignitaries ringed the room, drifting between the padded couches and adding to the air of panic that had permeated the old stones.
She wished they’d all go away.
Mastral wore the long, sheer garment of his people. His arms were ever exposed, and the faint blue-green vines of his birthmark, the tattoo of magic, wound over his pale skin. His black hair hung in a cascade to his waist, held back by a thin ring of silver and streaked only a touch at the temple with fine gray. His face showed little more age than Malcolm’s, though she knew him to be at least a hundred years old. The timeless elves escaped her understanding. They made her continually nervous, and her father liked to keep far too many at hand.
Since the faire, even those numbers had swelled, and the pointy faces that haunted the hall were unfamiliar more often than not. This morning, however, it was not the elves that captured her attention. A man stood in front of her father. He’d dipped into a bow, but as she and Malcolm drifted down the stairs, he stood. Even from this far away, she recognized him, even from the side, without seeing his oddly colored eyes.
“What’s that man doing here?” She said it far too softly for the sound to have carried to the throne, and yet the man turned at just that moment. His eyes found them and he didn’t turn back to her father, to the king, until they’d reached the floor.
“Your father is interviewing Users now.” Malcolm didn’t hide his disapproval, though he was wont to support the king in all things. The lapse was odd enough to stall her feet, and she looked the question at him. “I’m not convinced it’s safe, not even with the good Mastral to look after them.”
“But what does he want with them? He’s never kept Users on staff before.”
“Wait,” Malcolm caught the thread of her earlier remark and ignored the question. “Do you know him?”
“Of course not.” She might have answered too quickly, but he let it go. They’d reached the doors now, and the little step that would carry them from the room and out into the outer hallway. She tried to peer slyly toward the throne as they edged a few paces to the exit. It was definitely the same User, the same smug, nosy stranger who’d spoiled her unicorn purchase and done something…uncomfortable to the way she viewed the world around her. Even her reflection had paled after their encounter at the faire.
Now he ignored her again, speaking to her father in a tone respectful enough not to reach the doorway. Farine hesitated, let Malcolm sweep past her before following up and out through the arches and across the stone tiles. What did it matter if the User was here or not? He’d come to see her father. There’d be more, in fact. Malcolm had said interviewing, and so other applicants would come and Leopold would have the sense to choose someone else. How many Users could he possibly require?
“The king is sending me away.” Malcolm paused and frowned to find her lagging so far behind. His eyes drifted up, over her head to where the king interviewed a stranger in long black robes. “He’s set me a special task.”
