CHAPTER NINETEEN
The days following the grim tidings of Thorgrin's death blurred into a haze of rituals and hollow ceremonies for Gwendolyn.
King's Court, once a beacon of unyielding light, now draped itself in mourning veils of black silk and silver-threaded banners, that fluttered in the chill autumn winds that swept down from the northern peaks.
There had been calls for a funeral, with plans for a grand affair on the cliffs overlooking the Western Sea, where his cloak, in lieu of his body, would be burnt on a huge pyre. But Gwendolyn, with the urging of Guwayne had resisted it.
Instead, she had arranged for a memorial service, quiet and private, for the King, along with a memorial of thanks and remembrance for each of the other members of that fateful expedition.
Gwendolyn had stood there, unyielding as the stone towers that rose behind her, her blue silk gown now exchanged for a widow's gray.
She had not wept then, nor in the nights that followed, when the castle's halls echoed with the footsteps of grieving nobles and the muffled sobs of servants.
Grief, she knew, was a luxury for the living; survival demanded steel.
Yet beneath her regal facade, a storm raged. The breaches in the Shield were still occurring. Few and far between, and quickly dealt with by the increased patrols, but often enough and deadly enough to ensure they were never far from people’s minds.
Gwendolyn was only too aware that the reason for Thor’s mission to the north had not been fulfilled.
Questions remained to be answered. And every day more questions were forthcoming.
She knew it wouldn’t be long before they would be directed at her and her ability to restore confidence in the Shield.
Gwendolyn moved through the court like a ghost in her own kingdom, issuing decrees with a voice whose steadiness belied the doubt and uncertainties that raged within.
She convened minor councils, doled out rations to the outlying holds, and penned ravens to distant allies.
All the time Guwayne was adamant that his father was still alive.
She tried to discourage such talk, fearing that he was merely putting off the grieving process.
Perhaps, she thought, this denial was his way of dealing with it.
But despite herself, his insistence that Thor lived was having an unsettling effect upon her.
With nobody, she found it hard to fully close the chapter on her husband's death.
While a sliver of doubt remained, that let an equal amount of hope in.
And hope, in this instance, was a terrible thing.
How could she move on while that remained inside her, even if she could not talk of it to anyone? Even Guwayne.
She had found herself trusting fewer and fewer people, and now sought council only in Sir Kellan. But even with Kellan, she suspected that he was conducting operations without her knowledge.
And yet, despite everything, the Kingdom had to be run, and she tried extremely hard to maintain a facade that everything was running smoothly.
It was on the eve of the Harvest Moon, seven days after the memorial service, that the fragile veil of normalcy was torn asunder. She was sitting in her private sanctum high in the White Tower when a soft rap echoed at the door.
"Enter," she called, setting aside the parchment she had been working on.
The door creaked open on silent hinges, admitting a figure cloaked in servant's gray: Lirael, her handmaiden for the first fifteen years of her life before she had been granted leave to nurse her sick parents.
Gwen, and indeed her father, had offered to find a comfortable dwelling in King's Court for the elderly couple, but they had politely refused, wishing to see out their days in the southern village they had spent their entire life.
She was a wisp of a woman with mouse-brown hair pinned beneath a cap. Her eyes and face were soft, matronly, but Gwen knew from first hand experience that there was a steely toughness beneath the surface.
“Lirael!” Gwen said, feeling the first rush of joy since waving Thor off on his mission north. “How are you? How are your parents? What brings you to King’s Court?”
"My queen," Lirael murmured, kneeling swiftly.
“They passed, but peacefully. I ply my trade at various houses in the realm. But more pressing matters, dark matters bring me back here, my lady.” She pressed a sealed missive into Gwendolyn's palm—wax stamped but with no crest. The handmaiden's face was pale, her thin lips bloodless, and a faint tremor shook her fingers as she rose. "Forgive the intrusion, but this... it cannot wait. From Blackwood Keep, one of Lord Aldrich’s piles. Two people risked their lives to get this to me as they know I may retain some trust or even favor in your heart, my Lady.”
“Of course, always Lirael,” Gwendolyn declared looking at this woman’s earnest face, ignoring the rolled parchment in her hand.
"Then I would beg you not to ask who put this into my own hands.
I have heard of sorcery that can extract the name once spoken from thine lips, so would rather never utter it.
Not for my sake but for theirs. I would also beg you to trust whatever is written in what I have just delivered, though I fear its message may not be to your liking. "
Gwen looked at Lirael for several seconds, seeing the earnest pleading in her dark eyes.
“Of course, Lirael.” She looked down at the roll of parchment in her hand for the first time, knowing that her life would almost certainly be changed irrevocably by the words contained within it.
Gwendolyn's heart clenched. She broke the seal with a thumbnail, her eyes scanning the cramped script—a stranger's hand, hurried and precise. The words blurred for a moment, then sharpened:
Queen's grace—eavesdropped from the postern gate as Aldrich spoke with Holt after the council’s assembly.
Aldrich and cohorts will arrive for the meeting on the morrow with but one aim: to kill the prince.
For the sake of your son, and the Ring, please believe these words even though they are scribed by a lowly stranger.
The parchment trembled in her grip. She had had her doubts about Aldrich and the council he had built so swiftly, but she had lacked any evidence to pin those doubts upon.
She held that evidence now in her trembling hand.
She looked at Lirael and if there had been any doubt remaining as to this missive’s legitimacy, it was gone in that instant.
This was not the vague shadows of rumor, but the cold architecture of betrayal.
Aldrich, that velvet-clad viper, riding to her very gates with death in his train.
The council meeting, ostensibly to discuss the Shield's mending, now a trap woven for her son's throat.
Guwayne, who sparred in the yards even now, her son, the last ember of Thorgrin's legacy, to be taken from her.
"Lirael," Gwendolyn whispered, “you are sure…?” But she knew she needn’t have asked. That look in her eyes told her everything she needed to know. “Do you know what the message says?”
“Not exactly your lady, but I know it bodes ill for you or Prince Guwayne.”
Gwen nodded solemnly, her mind still reeling. Then she turned and went to the drawer in a chest. "You must have something for your troubles…"
"No, my lady. The thought I may have played a small part in helping you is reward enough." She hesitated. "I should go, my lady, I don't want my disappearance to raise any eyebrows."
“Of course. Please go to the kitchen, you will find some familiar faces as well as a full larder. Avail yourself of both before you journey. As a favor to me.”
Lirael bowed, then turned and left, quietly shutting the door behind her without another word.
Gwendolyn stared at the door for several seconds, then read the message once more. Then she crossed to the narrow window, gazing out over the moon-silvered battlements, where torches dotted the walls like fallen stars.
What was she to do? If she sent Guwayne away, what message would that send?
That even King's Court was not safe. That the crown, and hence the Ring itself, was further weakened.
First the Shield, then the King, now his son.
The world that people had grown used to, had relied upon, was being dismantled brick by brick.
But knowing what she knew, how could she keep her son here?
She stared out into the night, but instead of seeing the city below, she saw her son’s face, and a blooded cloak.