Chapter One #2
Looking down the hill to the beach and the water beyond, all I could see of the ship that would carry me away were a few lanterns, bobbing like fireflies. A chill breeze ruffled my hair and slid up under the hem of my cassock to tickle my calves.
“Come along,” Ser Prendian called down, glaring at me from under the rim of his broad hat. “I won’t tolerate delay.”
The abbot sighed. “Write to me, Remi,” he said. “And the gods go with you.”
My throat too thickly choked with tears to permit me a single word, I merely pressed my lips together to hold in any betraying sounds, nodded, and climbed up into the back of the wagon.
We rattled our way down the hill. I gazed back at the abbey until the abbot became a dim gray speck.
Blinking back more tears, I turned away.
The peachy gray of dawn had begun to light up the sky behind the ship and cast a sheet of endless glimmer on the vast stretch of the sea to the east.
How many times had I gazed out this direction and imagined that if I strained my eyes, reached out with my mind, I could catch a glimpse of my home?
But I never had. And now I wouldn’t be going home at all.
To Calatria, yes, insofar as that was my home—but home meant people, not places.
My sister would be turning sixteen soon, and I hadn’t seen her since she’d been a little girl of only ten, clinging to me and weeping as the abbot’s envoy took me away.
We’d set sail within minutes of boarding the ship, and since then it had been three days of rocking, heaving, gurgling seas, and my rocking, heaving, gurgling belly, with Ser Prendian alternately ignoring my misery when I remained in my cramped cabin or scolding me when I didn’t.
The shipmaster had told us that the following morning would bring us to harbor in Calatria, and I prayed to every god whose name I knew that there’d be no delay.
Perhaps this seasickness had been Ennolu’s gift to me. No matter how nauseating the sight or touch of my new husband might be, he’d seem downright pleasant by comparison.
The ship tilted, paused—and rolled down more violently than before, the contents of my stomach following a horrid, crucial half second after.
“I cannot believe I must repeat myself!” Ser Prendian’s voice rang out, strident despite the whip of the wind.
I blinked up at him, and he took a step closer, staggering as the ship rocked but keeping his footing rather impressively for a man of his age.
“This is improper! No future son-in-law to the Lord Chancellor ought to be sitting here, on the open deck, observed by these leering common sailors!”
Tiiiilt. Paaaause. Oh, all the gods preserve me. As the ship rolled once more, I gave in to Ennolu’s will, leaned forward over the deck, and vomited up everything I’d eaten since I boarded this misbegotten overgrown bucket.
I subsided against the locker, smiling slightly for the first time in days, because the last thing I saw before I closed my eyes to rest from my labors was the disgusting spatter on the previously shiny tips of Ser Prendian’s shoes.
Hopefully my marriage would offer me even half as much satisfaction as the look on his face. But I wouldn’t hold my breath.
“No, you’ve managed excellently, Prendian. He’s just as I’d hoped,” the Lord Chancellor said, leaning back against the edge of his desk and stroking his gray beard.
I’d never been examined like this, like an object, a thing, as inanimate—if not nearly as beautiful—as the elegant marble statue of a nude goddess that stood in the corner of his study.
Honest lust might’ve been less disturbing, even given his position as my prospective father-in-law.
Ser Prendian bowed in acknowledgment of his lord’s compliment to his abilities, but his frown deepened another fraction.
“Won’t he need extensive assistance to be palatable to someone of Lord Stefan’s discerning taste, though?
” Ser Prendian asked dubiously, making me even more glad I’d taken my opportunity to throw up on his feet.
“And even with limited time, Lady Estella’s couturiers could surely do something to improve matters. ”
To my seething humiliation, my appearance absolutely justified Ser Prendian’s doubts.
After five days of sweaty nausea in this unchanged cassock, I’d been rushed from the ship to a stuffy carriage and then through a dizzying series of passages within the palace with no time to refresh myself.
My face had gone fever-hot, my pale skin surely a brighter red than my hair.
I doubted Lady Estella’s couturiers would be any happier to have me foisted upon them than Ser Prendian had been.
“No,” the Lord Chancellor said, “I think not. We’ll dress him plainly, as befits his recent departure from his retirement. He’s a novelty, Prendian. You understand?”
Ser Prendian made a sound that indicated he did. A novelty? As in, different from Lord Stefan’s usual companions? The clenching in my chest had to be my instincts telling me I wouldn’t enjoy full comprehension of his meaning.
The Lord Chancellor looked back at me and our eyes caught. The nauseating tightness moved down into my belly, sending bile up to burn in my throat.
That same unfeeling gaze he’d turned on me had rested on my father and uncle as they died under the headsman’s axe all those years ago, as their blood ran down through the cracks in the scaffold boards to muddy the dirt beneath.
The Lord Chancellor had stood by the late and little lamented Duke Treviso’s side during his descent into paranoid madness, and he’d kept his own family safe while so many, including mine, were destroyed.
The Lord Chancellor remained apparently oblivious, or perhaps merely deeply indifferent, to my hatred, gazing at me thoughtfully at his leisure.
At last he addressed me directly, saying, “Whatever your limitations, you will please Lord Stefan in every way, I hope.” Hope? No, “hope” meant optimism and pleasurable anticipation. This had the ring of a threat. “Prendian, leave us. Don’t allow me to be disturbed before I ring.”
Ser Prendian obeyed without a word—although he did contribute one of his obnoxious sniffs. He opened a door opposite the one that led to the courtyard, and the sudden rush of sounds of voices and movement struck me like a blow.
A whole throng of people, the court! Did any of them know my family? Would anyone assist me if I ran out the study door, asserted my noble birth and title, demanded an audience with the potentially less terrifying Duke Lucian, took matters into my own hands?
Almost certainly not. The way I looked right now, they wouldn’t believe me. I wavered long enough that Ser Prendian shut the door behind him, and silence fell once again.
“My secretary is highly efficient, and I trust his loyalty,” his lordship said. “But there are some discussions that ought to remain within a family, and since you are shortly to join mine, we ought to see eye to eye, don’t you think?”
He paused, clearly expecting a reply. I had to force down the lump of anger in my throat to be able to speak.
“Yes, my lord,” I said tightly. Too tightly to sound natural.
If my father hadn’t fallen afoul of Duke Treviso’s mania, and I’d come to manhood at court in sophisticated society rather than on a distant island weeding vegetables while wearing a brown sack, perhaps I’d have had the skills to properly handle a man like Lord Chancellor Ettori.
Or perhaps not. But now I’d never know. And the man before me bore part of the blame, an irony I really didn’t appreciate.
He hummed thoughtfully, nodded, and sighed. “I understand how you must feel. Remi? Is that what you prefer to be called?”
No, in fact, I’d have preferred open hostility to being spoken to like a child, but I’d have to choke on both.
My father’s blood, still vividly crimson in my mind’s eye after so many years…
this man had no scruples. And during the journey, I’d had plenty of time to consider all the ways he could prove it.
Yes, Duke Lucian wouldn’t countenance murder—but he had to find out about it to condemn it!
Lord Ettori could make me disappear without more effort than a few words and a sad smile.
So tragic, to fall overboard on the journey home to his own wedding…
My mother would guess the truth, but no one else would bother to ask any more questions.
Ser Prendian wouldn’t do more than sniff as he gave the Lord Chancellor’s orders.
The abbot’s stern advice rang in my head: You will do as you’re told, and you will keep your wits about you, and there’s nothing else for it.
“As you please, my lord,” I forced out at last. “My full name is somewhat cumbersome.”
Lord Ettori smiled, possibly intending to look friendly.
He failed. “Unsuitable for one of your youth and attractions, certainly. Very well, Remi. I do understand that this is sudden. And that you must be wondering why I’ve chosen you as a consort for my son, and why I’ve taken on the responsibility of doing so on his behalf at all, given that he’s not a callow lad just out of the schoolroom. ”
That understated it greatly. Abbot Junius had informed me that Lord Stefan was a good ten years my senior, an accomplished and well-traveled diplomat, and known for his sophistication and taste.
“The fact is, he’s been too busy and too intent on doing his duty to Calatria to take the time to think of his own needs,” the Lord Chancellor went on.
“I wish to help him by providing him with a consort who will please him, support him, and give him a sanctuary from the busy, ambitious world of politics.”
Abbot Junius had also hinted that Lord Stefan spent at least as much time enjoying the intimate company of a succession of experienced companions as “doing his duty to Calatria.” Had that not been thinking of his own needs?
Which meant the Lord Chancellor’s assessment of his son’s needs differed rather strikingly from Lord Stefan’s own.