15. Chapter 15
Chapter 15
G reyharbor belied its grim name today, Julia thought, gazing around, as though for the first time. As though she had not stayed up yesterday night, looking and directing and lending a hand in the preparation for the longest day of the year.
The stone-echoing halls were adorned with garlands of roses, and the serving-girls sported flower crowns upon their heads.
“I thought it would be a fine thing to give them a free day for the first day of the Midsummer Feast,” Julia said, feeling neither warmth nor the joy in the things she helped to create. “The castle is about as ready for the coming of the guests as it can be. Especially since, let us be true, the families staying the night would likely bring their own featherbeds, and their own retainers, too.”
“That’s unusual,” her husband did not meet her eyes, and it was clearly not simply because he was so taken with the ornaments.
“It might be so, but plenty of worthwhile things are. Mercy tends to be very unusual indeed in this life. Kindness even more so.”
“Is this a reproach to me, my lady?” The polite coldness of the last address was hard to mistake for anything else.
“Triad forbid.”
They had barely talked since that fateful, cursed night over the notes. Athelstan’s excuse of being too taken with working through those was not entirely false, that much she knew - he really did stay up late in his study, and it was well into the night when Julia usually heard his footsteps in the corridor upstairs.
His footsteps, heading for his own bedchamber.
Which was how she knew that it was an excuse after all.
Roxane did not take what happened well, either. She said her brother did not hurt her the way he could have; the way most lordly men would have punished disobedient younger sister who besmirched their noble name by engaging in dangerous and lowborn pastimes.
Which was not to say she wasn’t hurt.
I only sought to protect her , Julia thought defensively. That was the only reason for her keeping her secret.
And yet…
The diving was madcap, even she could not deny that. Her husband was right to worry. She, Julia, had promised him honestly after that first sword-sparring, too.
She looked away to prevent her expression from betraying any of those thoughts.
“Give them a free day, if you wish,” Athelstan shrugged, his mind clearly elsewhere.
“You are the most indulgent of husbands,” Julia tried to make herself smile, and failed.
At this, his eyes finally lingered on her, taking the expression in. For a second, it looked as though her husband wanted to say something.
Then he simply nodded, as though accepting a praise that he knew to be false, and one that therefore brought him no pleasure.
Julia busied herself about the place, now checking on the ornaments, now on the airing of the guest bedrooms, now on the preparation of the marzipan confections that were meant more to delight the eye than the palate - although, from what she had heard on her travels, at some courts beyond the Glittering Sea, these could do both.
All the time throughout, she could not help but glance at the water-clock - one of the few technological eccentricities one could find in Greyharbor, like brought sometime from the same faraway courts - and feel her hands grow cold.
Stop it, Julia told herself. Your husband was right - there is nothing they can do to you now. It’s not as though they are going to drag you back home.
But with the northern threat, no one would blame your husband for send you away to your family for your own safety. Why, some might even praise him for his care for his spouse.
The thought made her hands grow cold in horrified realization, for all that it was a height of summer.
It was closer to the sunset when Julia heard the sound of hooves and the clatter of wheels from the courtyard.
She forced herself to smile.
Her husband was already by the doors, all grim readiness to go out and face the guests he had no desire to see.
At least they were united in that opinion.
Julia almost sped past him when he put his hand on her arm. There was no viciousness in the touch. No gentleness, either.
She turned to him and nodded wordlessly. She did not need a lengthy explanation. Of course, they were going to pretend at a united front, a perfect harmony, if only in front of the guests.
Her heart beating in her chest like a bird squeezed in someone’s fist, she descended into the courtyard, graceful on her husband’s arm.
Descended, and watched the door of the carriage - slightly ramshackle, commissioned in her father’s youth way before the usurpation - open, and a couple get out.
Lady Milburn looked elegant and unruffled, despite the obviously lengthy journey. Her pale hair was concealed modestly beneath an elaborate hood - no allowance for saucy strands to escape it, but plenty of ornamental pearls glinting along the edges.
Lord Milburn helped his wife to the ground. His courtesy has always been flawless, if to a point. If a lady deserved it, of course he would be glad to assist her. If she, in his opinion, had fallen from that pedestal... well, then she had better things to worry about than a lack of polite gestures.
“Your Lordship,” he addressed his host, disregarding his daughter. “I hope you are well.”
“As well as can be.”
“Given this weather, I suppose. I’ve always wondered how was it that people celebrated Midsummer Feast in colder climes”.
“We manage finely enough”, Athelstan replied, his expression studiously deadpan.
Despite the situation, Julia could not prevent herself from smiling a little - she knew that her husband was fighting himself not to retort something similar about the indolence of people raised among the bountiful golden wheat, in a land where summers were warm and the winters mild.
She knew she made a mistake as soon as she saw her mother’s expression. She knew this gaze, a thing of cold, suppressed rage.
Julia knew how often it appeared when she said something boastful or immodest in company. She knew, too, what it signified for when they returned home.
She dug her fingers deeper into her husband’s arm.
Except there would be no return home, here. There won’t. Would there?
“May I ask what do you find funny?” Lady Milburn asked, her smile sickly as poisonous honey.
“Nothing,” Julia swallowed.
Triad, you’ve faced sea outlaws. And fought among them, too. You cannot even withstand your family now?
“You are smiling at nothing again, then? I would have thought you had gained a greater control over the disorder of your thoughts, now that you are a married lady.”
“She is a married lady indeed,” Athelstan said with what, for his voice, passed for mildness. “And her husband finds her thoughts orderly enough. I am not entirely sure why would your opinion on the subject would weigh more, Lady Milburn.”
“With all due respect, my lord...”
“Indeed. People who want to show any respect due to their host don’t berate him or his wife under his own roof.”
“Oh, I would never presume to berate you - “
“You seemed to have only heard the first part of what I said. Perhaps, it is your own thoughts that remain in chaos.”
“A consequence of the long journey, no doubt,” Julia added. She intended it as something to smooth the situation over.
But the way it came out of her mouth, it had a suspicious ring of a kind of vengeful glee.
***
Athelstan Waite was not a man well-versed in pleasantries - he would have been the first to admit as much. Neither did he have much time for people who set his teeth on edge. Lord Milburn was undoubtedly once such person.
He thought so even back in the courtyard, when his father-in-law did nothing to tell his wife to hold her horses in front of their only child. Athelstan had no children, but he struggled to imagine remaining silent if Orwyn ever spoke to Roxane with such naked venom.
Now, Lord Milburn rounded off his unwelcome impression by intruding into his study.
“Do forgive me,” the courtesy was perfunctory. “I did not know you could still be working on the eve of the Midsummer Feast.”
“What did you expect I would be doing?” Athelstan could not keep a certain gruffness from his voice. “Dancing in the meadow with my lady-love?”
“I suppose it is true. If the rumours of your troubles are no mere fables...”
“What rumours?”
“One hears things at court. Your letter to His Majesty had caused a great deal of stir.”
“I hope so. It was meant to. It failed to cause any stir in a useful direction, though.”
“Please, my lord, His Majesty is a man whose thoughts never leave the commonwealth of the realm.”
Yes , Athelstan thought, and you are a man whose thoughts never leave the commonwealth of yourself and your precious position in the world.
“He refused to send us ships,” he said aloud, curtly. “When he knew his shores can be attacked at any moment.”
“They hadn’t been so yet. Have the northmen’s ships been sighted in any closeness to the shore? Any convenient position?”
“My lord Milburn, if the northmen’s ships had been sighted in any such spot, it would have been late to send for anyone and anything but the Fate’s mercy.”
“Believe me, I did my best to explain the seriousness of the situation to your royal brother.”
No, I won’t believe you. You are clearly one of those men who are only thundering in the presence of the weak.
“Naturally,” Athelstan lied, with considerable effort. “Was that what you have come to tell me?”
“I wanted to talk about my daughter.”
“Your daughter is a formidable lady. But I understand if you are worried about what would happen to her should the invaders come. I assure you, she is in no danger...”
“I actually meant,” Lord Milburn interrupted him, “to ask if she does not displease you”.
“Displease me?”
Vex me, definitely. Hurt me, Triad damn her, yes. But displease me? What is she, a servant of mine who does not sweep the fireplace clean enough?
“I know that Julia can be... difficult,” his father-in-law sighed. “She had always had a wild streak. Always been one of those girls who laugh too loudly, argue too often, and always try to prove they are right, however much their mothers try to teach them wisdom and modesty.”
Was she, though? Athelstan thought of all those moments when his wife fell silent suddenly, grew skittish, trembled at nothing.
“I find your daughter to be the best of wives.” That wasn’t the whole truth. It smarted sharply, her silence, her lies, her covering his sister’s escapades. But he would sooner damn himself in the sight of the Fate than admit as much to this man - this man, who would have gleefully dug into that scrap as a proof of her vile nature.
“Do you?” The surprise sounded genuine.
“I do. Certainly a better wife than I could have hoped for. Now,” Athelstan nodded at the door without much subtlety, and none intended, “if that is all you wanted to tell me, I would be grateful if you left me to my work.”
For a second he wondered if Lord Milburn would look closer and notice that the pages upon his desk did not have Athelstan’s handwriting - or any amateur’s handwriting, so clearly were they written by a trained scribe.
However, his father-in-law did not seem to spare it more than a glance. Which was just as well. Athelstan did not want to deal with his reaction to the search for wisdom - and, more to the point, practical solutions - in the writings of the heathen ancients.
He knew now that there was little chance of discovering the secret of the Undying Fire - Julia’s suggestion had been plainly madcap. It was a miracle his frail little sister even survived the perilous diving to this day. However, he knew there must have been something here worth learning.
He just needed to find out what.
***
Athelstan wished for a second he was seventeen again. Not because he was still young and unbloodied, but because back then he could still afford to absent himself quietly from grand events such as these, and allow his older brother, who enjoyed the attention far more, to handle the duties. However, wishes never made anything better, and there was no possibility of him, the lord of the castle now, to slip away from the people gathered in his own ballroom for the evening of Midsummer Feast.
Well, ballroom was, perhaps, too great a name. In its usual incarnation, this chamber was a great hall. Less than a century passed since hunting dogs had been allowed scraps from the table. The roughness of stone walls still spoke of that time, however much later Lords of Greyharbor tried to soften it with tapestries. The tapestries themselves, too, were a harsh thing - not enough courtly hawking scenes on them, and too many ship battles and sea monsters writhing across the weave for comfort.
The night beyond the windows was only just now subsiding into blue darkness. This was, after all, the longest day of the year, when the forces of the Triad reigned supreme, and every pious man and woman could celebrate its moment of victory over the forces lurking in the night. That moment of triumph was brief; but then, all moments of triumph were.
“Your Lordship,” the stout man approaching him was the age his father would have been had he been alive. “I just wanted to pay my compliments. The Fishmongers’ Guild would remember your generosity and great hospitality”.
“You are too kind.” This was the kind of thing one said in these situations. At least, that was what Julia insisted it was. She had also insisted on them inviting the grandees of the Guild along with the Waites’ noble vassals. The men in question did well out of the war, she said, and their power was growing. It would have been foolish to disregard them.
“Not at all. I am not the man for courtly dances, but my son is enjoying himself greatly.” The merchant nodded at an adolescent boy, who looked rather awkward in his modish doublet, attempting a lively galliard with a minor heiress - the eldest daughter of the Woodstones, if Athelstan remembered correctly.
“So I see. I am sure you are enjoying the spectacle, too,” he could not quite prevent himself from saying, then remembered the man’s name. “Master Heneage?”
“I dearly hope you are not accusing me of something, Your Lordship.”
Only of brazen social climbing , he thought, but this time did not say.
“Of course not”, he assured the older man aloud. “Only that - I suppose it’s a comfort to see your son grow up so”.
“You are talking as though we were men of the same age, Your Lordship, if you would permit me the bold observation. I thought younger brothers in great noble families were supposed to be rakish and brilliantly irresponsible?” His brows shot up in what was clearly a joke.
“Perhaps, in great noble families that can afford such a blow.”
“Nonetheless, you are cannot be older than my Willem by more than a decade. Her Ladyship your wife is a woman of great loveliness, too. I am quite surprised you are not spinning her the way Willem does Lady Adela.”
It would have been the easiest thing in the world to use the difference in their stations to shut this line of questioning up, but it was not as though the Waites” noble-blooded neighbors were any better.
People who thought that a younger brother to the king could do as he liked had clearly read too many stories. Or, at least, chroniclers” tales of wayward younger sons, brilliant as falling stars and just as short-lived.
Athelstan Waite had no desire to be a falling star. No, he was a man who built in stone, and hopefully for centuries.
It looked like part of that building included being seen out and about with his well-matched wife. He had accepted the notion of presenting united front to the guests while the festival lasted; he did not anticipate how hard it was, to be seeing her, laughing in red taffeta, the fires from the braziers throwing flickers on her face, and think of the way she betrayed his trust again .
But needs must.
His legs felt wooden as he approached Julia, and not just because he knew he was far from a good dancer.
“My lady,” Athelstan proclaimed for the others to hear. At least his voice was deep and resounding enough. “Would you do me to honor of this dance?”
“Of course”, she laughed, and her laughter almost did not sound forced. “Especially given what dance it is.”
He realized what she meant once he heard a few more of the opening notes.
The volta.
Triad, no.
He hoped for something serene and impersonal. Not the kind of dance where he had to -
“Have you forgotten the stance, my lord?” Julia whispered.
“I know it well enough; I might be dreadful at it, but I am not ignorant in every field of courtly conduct”. To prove it, he placed his left hand above her right hip, as the volta demanded. Oh, it was a purely practical thing, his brother’s friends assured him. How else were you to assist a lady with her high jumps required by the dance?
Athelstan could think of a couple of other ways. But he was not so absurd as to think the assistance was really the point.
She was warm to the touch, as though the taffeta and the linen layers beneath were as nothing; as though he only had to press harder to touch his wife’s bare skin.
She grasped his back with her right hand, her left one clutching the skirts of her gown to prevent them from flying.
Then she jumped.
It wasn’t a great leap, not the kind he expected from her.
A forward step, both at the same time.
“I thought you would be bolder.” The words left his mouth before he could think them through.
“Is that a reproach?” A slight smile. “I have little practice in it.”
“Is lack of practice the only reason?”
“My family is watching.”
They were more than watching, Athelstan could see now. Lord Milburn and his lady were glaring from the corner of the room, their gaze such that it could burn holes in the tapestries, damage the hulls of the woven ships like Undying Fire of their own.
“They are not going to harm you.” Athelstan hesitated, then added, “Not while I am here.”
“Do you promise?” She sounded eager as a child in that moment.
“I do. You must know, I never break my oaths. Your father came to talk to me this morning.”
“Did he? What did he want to know?”
“Mostly if you were a satisfactory enough wife and helpmeet.”
“I see.” She jerked a little at that, concealed it by a jagged leap. “What did you say?”
“The truth.”
“Oh...”
“That you are the best of wives.”
“Now, there was no need to lie.”
“I did not. I rarely do. Without you...” There was something he wanted to say, but could not force out of his throat. “Without you, this evening would have been a brief and dismal affair.”
“Well. I am glad you liked the spices on the braziers. You didn’t think them a heathen touch?”
“Are they?”
“The ancients honored their goddess of love with smoking spices and the blood of sacrificial doves”.
“Sounds familiar.”
“Layers of the earth.”
“Layers of the sea, too?”
She opened her mouth to reply, then fell forward. He caught her, clasped her into his arms. He looked down into his wife’s eyes, briefly wide with the sudden fright.
“The floors had not been waxed well enough,” he diagnosed.
“It’s nothing.”
“It’s not.”
They were hemmed in by a moving, breathing, glittering crowd. The feet of gallants stomping merrily. Jewels flashing in the firelight that once would have honored the goddess of passion.
“I am sorry,” Julia murmured, her hand still upon his back, her fingers stronger than they looked. They always were. “I truly am.”
“My lady...”
“I shouldn’t have deceived you. Roxane is a child, but I was a woman grown. I should have known the danger, and the underhandedness of it. I am sorry.”
“You will drive me into an early grave, Julia”.
Her smile was bright as a sun on the sea.
“You called me by my true name.”
“Well, it belongs to you.” He could not kiss her, not here. He had never belonged to the sort of men whose affection was for all the world to see. It did not mean he did not feel it.
It did not mean he did not want her.
“Is this a “yes, dear wife, I forgive you”?” The smile was turning playful upon her soft lips.
“It is.”
Julia laughed at that, and for a second her fingers tightened upon his back, and she leapt as though airborne.
And he held her fast until the dance ended, and the last notes of the merry melody dissolved into the air.
He was not sure what had stirred his steps towards his parents-in-law after that. Some determination, some sense of business unfinished. Julia’s hand squeezed his arm a little harder than before, but she did not protest. Her face was still flushed after the volta, and her look was resolved.
“My lord; Lady Milburn,” Athelstan looked from one to the other, their expression little changed. “I had a slight notion that you disapproved of my conduct. Very well; I am here. You can tell me what is it you found reprehensible to my face.”
“No, Lord Waite, you are mistaken,” the father of the family shook his head. “We were simply surprised that a man as steady and virtuous as yourself allowed yourself to be roped into something so shameless.”
“Roped? I was the one who invited my wife,” he stressed the last two words, “to give me one dance.”
“It is not as though I am unfamiliar with the wiles of women...”
“These don’t include telepathy, Lord Milburn. Besides, it was a courtly dance, not a bout of fornication in the middle of the ballroom.”
His father-in-law looked uncomfortable at this frank remark:
“It is still unseemly. One of those ill-advised novelties from beyond the Glittering Sea. I wouldn’t be surprised if it comes from the Parthan court; most lewd things seem to”.
Lady Milburn threw her husband a suspicious look. Was there something particular beyond his words, apart from the common complaints on the wickedness of foreign fashions? Some newcomer to court, those fashions given flesh and blood?
He opened his mouth to ask, when he heard his wife’s voice. It was softer than he had been accustomed to hearing it, and affected by a slight shiver. But it was clear nonetheless:
“Even if it were as lewd as you describe, father, it can be no sin to do such things with one’s husband, can it?”
“You are, as ever, unable to hold your tongue,” Lord Milburn replied.
“Why should I?” Julia’s grip on her husband’s arm grew tighter still, but she did not fall silent. “You have no power over me, father. Nor you, mother. Nor anymore.”
“How very dramatic. Have you no gratitude for our love for you?”
“Love? You fashioned a monster, and dressed it in glittering clothes, and called it by the name of love. Am I to be grateful it did not kill me?”
His arm rose swiftly, in what must have been a quick habit.
It did not fall - because Julia stepped deftly out of its way, and because Athelstan caught it.
“You tried to raise a hand to my wife.” He did not release his father-in-law, and the curious silence he could now hear around their little circle did not deter him.
“Lord Waite, you must forgive me, but...”
“No, I will not forgive you. And, if you ever attempt anything of the kind again, our new kinship would not prevent me from challenging you to a duel. I have studied your career, my lord Milburn. From what I’ve learnt, I would not have any great trouble in butchering you like a hog on the Blood-Day”. He let his adversary’s arm fall only upon the last word, and gave the silently outraged Lady Milburn a grim look. “I have done my duty, and given you my home and hearth for the Midsummer Feast. It would be no breach of it if I ask you to ready your entourage for the journey tomorrow morning.”
***
There was a sheen of sleep in the eyes of all but the youngest of the guests when he saw Roxane approach Julia.
His little sister had spent the evening mostly under Julia’s watchful eye - and his. Fight or no, he would never allow anyone to tease his little sister for not being able to dance.
There was probably not much danger of that, now that her very oldest brother sat the throne of Craerenth, Athelstan grudgingly acknowledged. But such a position carried with it seeds of danger of its own.
He kept an eye out for this, too. However, it seemed that the worst enemy Roxane had to contend with tonight was boredom.
He saw her tug on Julia’s sleeve, still a child trying to attract an adult’s attention.
“I have something for you,” Roxane whispered dramatically - dramatically enough for Athelstan himself to hear.
“A gift for Midsummer Feast? That’s sweet”, his wife smiled warmly. “I can come to your room after the ball, and...”
“Can you come now? Please? I know you would be tired, after. Everyone would be tired. I want...” The girl trailed off, but it did not take a genius to realize that she wanted to see the delight in Julia’s eyes when she saw the present.
“May I come along?” Athelstan raised his eyebrows.
“It’s not some ploy,” Roxane’s smile dimmed. “I can promise you that.”
That rankled.
“I am not trying to catch you out, either.”
“You can, of course. Yes.” Roxane walked with her usual slowness out of the ballroom, and into one of the candlelit corridors; then up the stairs.
In the rooms beyond the walls of stone, Athelstan could hear the laughter of couples. The voice of the fishmonger’s son was not among them, but that could be simply because the lady he was clumsily trying to court had a stronger sense of propriety than that.
Roxane lit the candles in her own darkened room deftly. For some reason, it made him wonder how many times she had to cope with tasks far more menial than that, left to her own devices during the siege.
The thought seemed to have dimmed the firelight.
Julia walked into the room proper, her gown made crimson like oxen blood by the murk. He, Athelstan, remained on the threshold.
For a while, Roxane knelt in front of her chest, rummaging within. Then, with an exclamation of triumph, she pulled out a thin, shimmering length of cloth.
No - not a length of cloth.
A scarf.
“It won’t be much help for winter”, she fumbled, turning to Julia. “But it might be nice for summer. If you want to make your neck pretty.”
“Did you buy it in town?” Athelstan asked. “I know there was a cloth fair not so long ago...” He trailed off. The question was stupid. He knew the answer. He knew the answer, because he knew the material.
The sea-silk. Nothing else was shone as brightly in the light of candles.
“I’ve gathered it over many months,” Roxane’s cheeks were just as bright now, if for other reasons. “Then wove it, and... well, it wasn’t hard to sew. I thought to embroider it with seashells, but I’ve only just started practicing my embroidery. I am not very good at it yet.”
“I have no doubt you would become excellent at it.” Julia’s voice sounded strange. She reached out and stroked her little good-sister’s dark hair, and, for a second - perhaps, it was a trick of light, or, perhaps, simply their similar coloring - they looked as nothing so much as a mother and a daughter. “You do so in every subject you really put your mind to.”
“It must have been very dangerous,” Athelstan interjected. He had never felt as this much of an interloper before. “To gather enough sea-silk, even for a scarf...”
“It’s only a matter of skill. And habit.” Roxane looked very earnest, as she always did when she tried to speak like adults. “Ask the women in the villages. I was in very little danger. It’s not as though I was doing this alone”.
“I will ask, doubt it not,” he grumbled. At the same time, he could not help but notice that, in the short-sleeved festive gown, it became obvious that Roxane’s arms were rather notably more muscled than those of a highborn girl her age. A highborn girl any age, really.
Julia hugged her, turning a little, and Athelstan could see the slight gleam of tears in her eyes.