Chapter 26
The next few hours raced by. After a quick stint in the bathing quarters—during which William appeared with new clothes and weary frustration, “Oh, I’ve aged twenty years this morn, milord, I must tell you. Twenty!”—Richard was prepared to see off the Frostheim delegation.
He received chiding looks from the High Council, who’d gathered in the outer courtyard—no doubt wondering where he’d been when the Estaran and Naradeshi delegations departed—but Richard ignored it all to focus on his old friend.
She stood ready to leave by a cluster of horses.
Frostheim travelled lean. No carriages—only riders and pack beasts.
Richard was relieved to see none of his siblings there. Kaelen, too, was absent from Dain’s side—likely preparing for his mission.
“There he is!” Seola crossed the distance in three long strides and crushed him to her, lifting his feet from the ground. “I feared you had fled the realm, old friend!”
“Friend. My bones,” he wheezed.
“Bah.” She set him down with a snort. “You act as if you are a hundred.”
“I had not the chance to apologise about Galdran—”
“No need.” She waved a gloved hand. “He shall fall. They always do. Recall you are not alone in this. Frostheim will sail when the call comes. You have my word.”
Richard clasped forearms with her. “Thank you.”
“Our realms’ friendship endures while I hold breath. And as to the First Creature, we shall investigate the matter of the Great Squid. I shall hunt it myself should its heart prove of value.”
Richard frowned at her. “You will have care.”
“Care?” Seola grinned. “You know me better than that. I’d sooner be drowned by a magnificent creature than die a doddering old woman.”
From behind Richard came a scoff. “Nothing wrong with being an old woman, lassie. My bones may creak, and my breasts sag to my hips, but I live yet to go on adventures.”
Richard sighed and moved sideways so Seola could meet Lady Agnes’s glower.
“I have no wish to live until my breasts sag, old lady,” Seola sniped, folding her arms. “I’d rather cut them off.”
Agnes cleared her throat and spat into a handkerchief. “Cut them off? Well, there’s a thought, there is.” She trailed her gaze down to Seola’s chest. “Don’t appear to be much to cut, I suppose.”
Seola spluttered, raising herself to her full height and going for her sword. “You crone! Dare you think my small breasts an insult? They are beautiful as they are and fit perfectly in my wife’s hands—”
“My Lady of the Nine Tails!” From the nearest horse came Ragnar’s groan. “Princess, please, let us depart before you challenge a white-haired elder to a duel.”
Seola muttered a curse, flicked Agnes a rude gesture and mounted her horse. Her eyes softened as she clasped arms with Richard once more.
“Farewell, old friend. May the Great Raven guide your steps.”
Richard tightened his grip, suddenly aware of the fragility of a future meeting. “Farewell, Seola. Stay safe. Stay well. I will see you again.”
* * *
The rest of the afternoon devoured Richard. An hour was spent consoling Lord Byrom, who wept over his decision to hire the witch violinist.
“Your Majesty—oh, Your Majesty, I cannot—I—it was I, Sire, I who hired that woman. I who signed the writ, I who placed her name upon the list! Oh by the gods, I shall never sleep again. I shall resign, Your Majesty. I must resign. I shall take my family into the wilderness and tend to the bees—”
It took time to remind Byrom that he had, in fact, tried to check with Richard about the violinist. It took more time after that to convince Byrom to take back his resignation letter.
Thereafter, Richard had to face Lady Kestrel’s gloom as he signed repair quotations, and as the sun set, he walked through the back garden with her and Lord Gregory to watch the faun pavilion come down.
Gregory chattered endlessly about the splendour of Naradesh’s exit, and Richard’s stomach twisted on learning of Ravi’s final kiss.
“Quite the spectacle in the courtyard, you missed, Your Majesty. Young Lord Ravi—what a handsome lad, really, those eyes, that hair—he sought out Sir Kaelen before mounting. Marched right up to him, bold as brass, in front of all assembled. And then kissed him—held the back of Sir Kaelen’s head and went all for it.
” Gregory chuckled. “Everyone hooted and whistled, and Sir Kaelen dipped the Naradeshi lord and gave back as good as he got. Oh, what a farewell! It left all the young nobles swooning.”
If Gregory noticed Richard’s rigid frame or fisted hands, he made no mention of it—rushing instead to help Lady Kestrel collect her spilled ledgers.
Once darkness came, Richard dawdled near the training grounds. It was as he crossed the first-floor gallery that he overheard Briony arguing with two familiar voices. Richard peered around a pillar and saw his sister passing her sketchbook to Isolde and Godwyn.
“—and so I try to draw the two paths the creepy animal tells me. But when I picked the old oak, I killed my parents—”
“You didn’t kill them, you daft goose,” Isolde said, flicking through the pages. “How could you have known? Tell her, Godwyn!”
“Um.” The hulking boy, with fair hair and a crooked nose, stared at the sketches. “Um. I think—I think—” He hummed. “I think if you draw a horse, the horse is not—is not—a real horse. Because it is a drawing of a horse. And so—”
“Oh, that is excellent, Godwyn.” Isolde rolled her eyes. “Truly.”
Godwyn gave her a bashful smile. “It is?”
“No.” Isolde slammed the book shut and passed it to Briony. “Listen, you were only nine when those animals came into your dreams. And I do think you rather”—she paused and squinted suspiciously, as if trying to determine if Briony would laugh at her—“rather brave for dealing with it by yourself.”
Briony’s jaw dropped as she hugged the book to her chest. “Brave? Me?”
Isolde shrugged, winding her plait around her hand. “Yes. It all sounds very eerie. I would have wet myself if I’d had one of those dreams.”
Godwyn nodded earnestly. “Oh, me too. Rabbits with no eyes? Deer with too many eyes?” He shuddered. “Oh, I could not bear to think of it, Briony. It would frighten me terribly.”
Briony blinked at them, then lifted her chin.
“Why, yes. You are right, of course. I am a princess, and so bravery runs through my veins—especially being that I am the daughter of Haldric, who slew the Dark Necromancers of Joplin.” She sniffed and cupped her cheek.
“It was awfully tragic of me to keep my dreams to myself. I did not wish to frighten anyone, you see, on account of my kind and gentle heart.”
Isolde gave her a withering look. “Yes, well. Don’t let it go to your head.”
As the three descended into a discussion of which dream animal was creepiest, Richard watched a wide, delighted grin light up Briony’s face and, with some relief, thanked the gods.
* * *
Elara and Corwin came for him a couple of hours before midnight.
Richard had known they would, and for a long while, had debated sleeping in the herb cabinet again. But he could not prolong a confrontation forever, and his back still ached from where the cabinet had jutted into his spine.
Nevertheless, his guts coiled as Elara and Corwin entered without even a knock. They settled by his study desk, Elara with her arms crossed, and Corwin slouched by her, his hands buried in his pockets.
“Speak, then,” Elara said.
Richard stood from where he’d been reclining on the bed. “There is nothing to say. I weighed the matter and decided that telling you served no purpose. Had I placed that knowledge upon you, one of you would have acted. Corwin might well have ridden for Estara in the dead of night.”
“So you decided,” Elara said slowly, rapping her fingers against her arm. “For all of us.”
“I did.”
“You had no right—”
“I had every right.” Richard met her eyes. “I am king.”
Corwin snorted. “King. Of course. There it is.”
“Our parents were murdered, Brother.” Elara’s eyes glistened, her words coming out through gritted teeth. “Murdered. And these past two years, you have had us smiling at Marius’s envoys, signing his trade writs, letting us play at diplomacy with his people—”
“Yes.”
“—and you have the gall to sit there and tell us it was the proper course?”
Richard walked to the fireplace. Above the mantlepiece hung the portrait of his parents, and he willed their smiles to give him strength.
He turned to Elara. “Do you see now why I could not let you travel to Estara? Why I could not place you in a hall where the man who butchered our parents might offer you wine? Tell me, what will you do about Penelope? You have the truth. You know whose daughter she is. Will you sever ties as you should?”
Fire crackled along Elara’s wrists. “How dare you use her against me in this—how dare you—” Her voice splintered, and a tear tracked down a cheek.
“I love her, Brother, more than I have ever loved anything in my life, and I could not kiss her goodbye this morn. Do you understand? Our hands touched, and I could not—I could not bring my mouth to hers because all I could see was Maranbog, and the trolls, and Mother and Father, and I do not know how to hold all of those things at once. I do not know how to look at her without seeing him, and oh, Brother, you have ruined—”
“I have ruined nothing. This is merely the facts—”
“And she made you a wolf.” Elara sobbed.
“A little grey wolf. She crocheted it for hours. She wanted to give it to you. She asked me how to approach you because you frighten her so, and I had to tell her not to bother because you look at her as though she is a splinter in your thumb. And now you use her as—”
Richard’s chuckle came out ugly even to his own ears.
“Do you hear yourself, Sister? You feign outrage on behalf of our parents, and in the same breath, you defend their murderer’s daughter because what?
Because she has a gentle disposition? Because you have bedded her enough times over the span of a few years to decide that constitutes love—”