Chapter VIII #2
Anger carried him through this particular feast. Neither Tribune Ataxis nor Ariana should have had to bleed because of Afon.
Orden let his fury seethe and fester, bearing him up when he might otherwise have succumbed to weariness.
He did not look Afon’s way. Did not acknowledge him.
The two sat, silent figures in a silent room, and waited.
As the sun rose, Lucian stood from where he’d lurked in the shadows at the banquet hall’s far corner and raised a glass in mocking salute to them both, before approaching the high table and its lone imperial resident.
“What is he doing here?” the spymaster said, bowing low over Orden’s shoulder and speaking in his silken voice, made for the telling of secrets. “Does he expect to forestall the war in some way, or find a weakness to exploit in us? Or does he simply wish to rattle your cage?”
“I pay you to find out such things,” Orden rumbled. “And am extremely out of temper that you haven’t done so yet.”
Lucian shrugged. “Not for lack of trying. Afon and his inner circle are tighter than a—”
The king shot him a warning look, and Lucian cut off one of his favorite and more distasteful turns of phrase.
“He’s a closed book, Majesty. Him and that moon-faced ambassador of his.
And there’s only the two of them at court now—they dismissed the guards that oversaw Ataxis after he was killed.
Sent them home to Caervallion, leaving me precious little scope for ferreting out information.
It was wise of you to declare war first and to send away so many of the more conservative courtiers.
Hadrian will eat from your hand so long as he thinks there’s a chance of getting his son back onto Honorian soil without offending Tyrus, so he won’t see what the others might have—that Afon Caervallin is everything the Invers once were.
Some would be drawn to such fire still.”
“Choose your words more carefully,” Orden said, his voice soft. The spymaster suddenly stiffened. Without appearing to move at all, Orden had laid hold of his pugio and shifted his arm so that the blade pressed against Lucian’s inner thigh. “You skirt perilously close to treason.”
“Majesty,” Lucian said, with a wounded note in his voice. “I always speak with care. Afon is everything the Invers were. Not what they have become, through your influence and august reign.”
Orden kept his knife in its place. “Bullshit, you little adder. Tell me about Gwylen, the ambassador. Why is she in Afon’s confidence?”
For the first time that he could recall, Lucian faltered.
Delight flooded Orden—he’d never seen the spymaster discomfited before.
“She is a master of poisons and their remedies. I believe Afon uses her as an assassin when it suits him—Gwylen serves as my counterpart, if you will. And Afon has needed her services to preserve himself a time or two, I’ll warrant. ”
“Has he?” Orden asked drily. “Perhaps that’s why you seem so incapable of killing the man discreetly at my behest. I’d like to speak to this Gwylen. Find a way to ensure the two of us cross paths in a private place. Preferably sometime today.”
Once again, that nervous look. “I will attempt to, Majesty.”
“What do you mean, you’ll attempt to? See it done.”
“Gwylen has… vanished,” Lucian admitted with great reluctance. “I believe she’s left the castle proper entirely, and possibly Inverlyn. A city guard may or may not have seen her departing one of the gates several hours ago, but the report is vague at best.”
At last, Orden sheathed his pugio, the movement so deft as to be invisible. “You mean to say your counterpart, as you call her, is loose in Honoria without supervision, making whatever mischief she pleases? You had best pray nothing comes of this, Lucian, or I will kill you myself.”
“Ah, look, Afon is leaving.”
“Perhaps he means to vanish as well. Better scuttle off like the spider you are and keep track of him, before you misplace him like his lackey.”
Finally rid of both the Caervallin king and Lucian, Orden shoved his chair back with a loud scrape and swept out of the room.
His guards fell in behind him, marching to keep up with their king’s long stride.
Orden wanted a cold bath to cool his burning spirit.
He needed to erase the image of Ariana bleeding not ten yards away from Afon.
“Ice water,” Orden snarled to his valet, as he reached his quarters and slammed the door in the faces of his guards. Miciah left swiftly to prepare the requested bath, and Orden was left in solitude, a rare and welcome occurrence.
He flung himself down in the carved oak chair drawn up to his ponderous desk and stared out the bank of windows that looked south and east, across the Solis Plains.
The sun was rising, glittering across the sea, and everything that stretched to the horizon, Orden was responsible for.
The awareness rested like a millstone around his neck.
So, too, did the thought of Ariana. She was the antithesis of all that Orden had been brought up to, and he wanted so badly to possess and protect her, and to lay the world at her feet.
Yet he worried that she would be safer back in her failing cloister, or among Dolenza’s folk, or across the sea.
If Orden faltered just once, there would be no mercy for his gentle queen.
The quiet sounds of Miciah directing servants and preparing the bath rose, and a few moments later, the valet appeared at the edge of Orden’s vision, signaling silently that his orders had been followed.
Rising, Orden strode over to the lifeless gray hearth.
A great copper washtub stood before it, filled near to the brim with water and chunks of ice brought down from higher up the mountain.
The king shed his clothes, waving away Miciah’s assistance, and stood naked for a moment, steeling his nerves against the coming shock of cold.
A ribbon of white scarring laced across one of his ribs, and another bunched ropily at the small of his back, the reminder of botched assassination attempts when he was a boy.
Failed poisonings had been worse by far, and left no marks—gods preserve them all if Gwylen could not be found.
Fainter scars crosshatched the king’s upper arms, though those were not the product of malice.
They were virtus marks, left behind by the Inver habit of inflicting pain upon one’s child in order to inure them against it.
Darias had been committed to the practice, rigorously applying it to both Orden and his elder brother, Carian, as the two most likely successors to the throne.
Stepping into the frigid water of his bath, Orden bit back a hiss and submerged himself to the shoulders. The cold shot through him, sharpening his senses and filling him with renewed vitality.
“Miciah,” Orden clipped out. “Bring Glora to me.”
He tried not to think again of Afon under his roof, or the foreign king’s hands on Ariana’s throat.
Worse still was the way Ari had looked in the audience hall—pale as death, and unspeakably weary, though nothing ever seemed to damage her preternatural calm.
Perhaps the page boy’s disdain had been right.
Perhaps this time, one heir would suffice to secure the Inver line, no matter how Ari protested.
If Orden could keep the child safe from some petty assassination, it would simplify things.
There’d be no need for one of his offspring to dispatch the rest in order to seize and hold the throne.
Only he himself would remain in the way, and the idea of dying at his son’s hands filled Orden with both dread and pride.
Would he could raise the infant to become such a man.
Glora appeared in the doorway and crossed the room as Orden beckoned to her. She stood stolid and unabashed at witnessing her king disrobed.
“Glora,” Orden said. “I’m sorry about Ataxis. He was an asset to the army, and I know he shared your bed while in Inverlyn.”
Glora nodded without feeling the need to speak. She was one of the castle fixtures and had earned the right.
“Were you attending Ariana before she went down to the audience hall yesterday afternoon?” Orden asked.
“Yes, my lord.”
“What was it that made her decide to come? She was meant to be resting. I’m not out of humor, mind—her presence is always welcome, but I’d have spared her seeing Afon for as long as possible.”
A frown crossed Glora’s face briefly before she regained her composure. “We received a summons from you, my lord. It was brought up by one of the staff. I looked it over carefully, and all was present and correct. A quick note, in your script, matched with your seal.”
Forgery, from someone who wished to toy with Ariana, no doubt.
He’d need a new seal, and a thorough investigation of the scribes and secretaries, as well as any guards who oversaw his private chambers and study.
It was not even close to the first time one of his people had attempted to tamper with the queen, though Orden generally managed to head them off at the pass, ensuring they met with a fatal accident or were dispatched to the frontlines in Vesper.
“For the remainder of summer council,” he said, “do not deliver a summons to the queen unless it comes to you from my own hand, or my own lips. Is that clear?”
“Perfectly.”
“You’re dismissed.”