Chapter 48
A small hand shook his shoulder hard, then half-choked him by yanking on his collar.
“Brother! Brother, wake up! Quick!”
Richard groaned and rolled onto his back. The pillow smelled of lavender—William had taken to dabbing the oil in the hopes it’d help Richard sleep better.
There was little chance of that when he had an imp of a sister.
Richard hauled the pillow over his head, but Briony wrenched it away. He groaned again and opened his eyes to sunlight pouring through the balcony on his left.
“Briony,” Richard mumbled. “If this is about Squire Isolde again—”
“No!” Briony was half on top of him, her knee digging into his ribs and her shoes mud-caked. “Hurry, Brother!” She jerked at his arm again. “Father is going to have a fistfight with Dain, and Sister says if we are late, we shall miss the first bloody nose.”
Richard squinted. “Why are they fighting?”
“Because Father said Dain’s punch has softened with age, and Dain said Father’s as slow as a slug.” Briony bounced on her knees. “So they have agreed to prove their skills, and Sister said she’d officiate, and Corwin has wagered three sugared buns on Father getting the first punch—”
“Oh, for—” Richard flung back the covers and swung off the side of the bed. “Find me my dressing gown. The blue one.” He went to the dresser for his circlet, perched atop a velvet cushion. The gold chilled his brow as he settled it into place.
Briony scampered across the rug with the dressing gown, brandishing it high. Richard shrugged it on, knotted the sash, and checked the tall mirror by the dresser.
Something about his reflection nagged at him. Wrong. The black hair looked wrong. The unblemished neck looked wrong. The crown, especially, looked wrong. A prince’s crown—too simple, too weightless—
“Brother, hurry! Hurry!”
Briony was already in the corridor, hopping from foot to foot, her grin altogether far too excited at the thought of their father brawling, and really, Richard should have a discussion with Haldric about the sort of messages he was planting in an impressionable young teen.
“Yes, yes. I am coming.”
Morning light washed through the hallways as Briony dragged him by his sleeve. The tapestries of their great-grandparents seemed to glower with disapproval. Servants flattened themselves against the walls as Briony sprinted past, crying, “Make way! There may be murder!”
Richard followed the girl into the inner courtyard. He heard the bellowing and laughter before he saw them. Past the arched entrance, beyond the climbing roses and flagged path, stood the great oak tree. And beneath its branches—Richard sighed—an absolute disgrace was unfolding.
Haldric was bare to the waist, his tunic and crown discarded by the tree. The muscles in his arms corded strong as he rolled his shoulders, and countless white scars decorated his back and sides—a testament to his victories.
Across from him, Dain, too, had cast aside his tunic and was cracking his knuckles. Though some flab rested around his middle, his stout chest and burly arms spoke plenty of his strength still.
Corwin stood behind Haldric, gleefully kneading their father’s shoulders, and Elara perched on the tree’s bench, one leg crossed over the other.
“—no biting, no eye-gouging, no use of any weapon,” she was declaring. “No involving the rosebeds for Gardener Hortense shall flay us all alive—”
“What about drowning each other at the fountain?” Corwin demanded.
“The fountain is fair game—”
“No, it most certainly is not,” Richard snapped, marching up the path.
Heads turned. The guards posted by the opposing archway, at least, looked relieved to see him.
But Corwin and Elara heaved sighs, and Haldric scraped a hand down his face, muttering something under his breath.
Dain rubbed his nape sheepishly, and by him, slouched against the oaken trunk, was Kaelen.
Richard’s heart thumped. The knight held Dain’s tunic and massaged his left temple with an expression of weary resignation. He sent Richard a rueful grin as if sharing the long-suffering of sons with rambunctious fathers.
Richard almost smiled back, but bit his lip and directed his frown at the two older men.
“Father.” He placed himself in between them and crossed his arms. “Dain. What do the two of you imagine you are doing?” He gestured at the servants peering from the upper balconies. “Have you no thought of how you appear? You are behaving like children.”
“Children?” Haldric boomed, hands on hips. “I’ll have you know, son, this is a matter of grave military and royal importance.” He jabbed a thumb at Dain. “Our Lord Commander, here, has spent the last week making sly remarks about my fortitude.”
Dain snorted, flexing an arm. “They weren’t sly, you sluggard. I said it to your face.”
“You see?” Haldric scoffed, moving into a ready stance. “A king must defend his honour, my boy.”
“That so?” Dain’s beard bristled. “Step aside, lad. Even a king must be reminded that he can be landed on his arse.”
“I’ll flatten you, Dain.”
“Try it.”
“Gladly.”
They glared at each other and broke out into matching grins.
Richard threw his hands up in disbelief. “Enough. The two of you are of sixty-two and sixty-three years. If you crack a hip, even Lady Selwyn would struggle to fix it.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Now, get dressed before I inform Mother—”
The rest of his words were drowned in loud jeers. Corwin and Elara booed, and Briony stomped her feet.
“But I want to see who wins!” she yelled, pulling at Richard’s elbow. “And Corwin wagered—” She paused, glanced through the archway they’d come from, and shrieked. “It’s Mother! Mother and Lady Selwyn are coming!”
The transformation happened in an instant.
Haldric lunged for his crumpled clothes, and Elara rushed to settle the crown on their father’s head.
Dain, meanwhile, wrestled his own tunic over his head, while Kaelen watched him with such mortification that Richard could not contain his laugh.
Kaelen’s eyes flicked to him, the sun pendant flashing at his throat, and Richard’s heart jolted once more.
“Good morn, gentlemen.” Aralynn swept in through the arch of roses. “Did I mishear the report, or were two old fools planning on tomfoolery in the garden?”
Selwyn stood at her side, clad in her healer’s uniform and bearing the thin lips of a woman with no patience left.
Haldric smiled, inching backwards in Dain’s direction. “My queen and my Chief Healer. What a delight.”
Aralynn’s eyes narrowed. “What is going on here?”
“Training.” Dain swung an arm around Haldric’s shoulders. “We were—um—running Corwin and Kaelen here through some forms—”
He trailed off as Selwyn levelled him a flat stare.
Haldric gamely tried to recover. “Aye, Dain’s right. Corwin’s hook is getting lazy.”
Richard had had enough. “Father and Dain were going to fistfight.”
The two men shot him betrayed looks. Briony gasped, bringing her hand to her mouth.
“Oh, Brother,” she said gravely. “You are a snitch.”
Richard ruffled her hair. “I should rather be a snitch than a widow’s son.”
The smile Aralynn gave Haldric was acrid. “Fistfight, is it? Before the children?”
Haldric ran a hand through his golden mane. “They are hardly children anymore, my love—” He swallowed hard as Aralynn’s nostrils flared. “I mean, if you will allow me to explain—”
“Oh, yes, do continue,” Aralynn said, her voice dangerously soft. “I am eager to hear what explanation exists for two old men to pummel each other before breakfast.”
“Explanation?” Selwyn laughed. “You expect too much of them.” Her laugh shifted into a glare, and Haldric and Dain stepped back in unison. “Fools, the both of them. Knock-kneed, lice-brained cretins.”
“We must not judge too quickly, Selwyn dear.” Aralynn swept her plait over a shoulder. “Their brains have clearly been addled by worms and age.”
“Now, really, my ladies,” Haldric huffed. “Perhaps we may all recall that I am king?”
Richard winced. That had been the wrong thing to say.
“King?” Aralynn advanced, her voice rising to a pitch that startled the sparrows from the oak’s branches. “KING?”
The servants disappeared from the balconies. Elara cackled from the bench.
“Did I hear that word leave your mouth, husband? Did you just stand here in our garden, before our children, and brandish your crown at me as if it were a writ of permission?”
Haldric paled. “I—my queen, I merely—”
“Selwyn, did my husband attempt to invoke his sovereignty upon me?”
“The boor certainly did, old friend.” Selwyn rounded on Dain.
“And note how mum my own husband has gone. Sixty-three years of age. His left knee creaks like an old gate every time he rises from a chair. Last winter, I had to poultice his shoulder a fortnight because he slept wrong, and now he means to brawl?”
“It would have been a friendly brawl, woman—”
“Oh, friendly!” Selwyn sneered. “As though a friendly brawl has ever, in the entire history of this castle, resulted in anything but a broken rib and a visit to my healing wing.”
“Precisely,” Aralynn said, hugging the healer’s arm.
“Selwyn, you ought not lift a finger for either of them. They may well hobble and have their joints turn purple. In fact—” she pointed at Haldric—“as my husband rejoices in inflicting pain on himself, I shall instruct every pillow be removed from our chambers.”
“My queen.” Haldric tried a charming smile. “Truly. You are radiant when you scold.”
“Do not.”
“I am undone by your beauty—”
“Do not, Haldric.”
“Yes, my love.” Haldric switched his smile to Selwyn. “And you, my friend, have never appeared more luminiferous.”
Selwyn cocked an unimpressed brow, and Dain muttered to Haldric, “Doesn’t work on her. I’ve tried.”
Briony was wheezing into Elara’s shoulder, and Corwin had slid off the bench from the force of his chortles. Richard found the corners of his mouth twitching. He peeked at Kaelen, and his stomach flipped to find the knight already looking at him.
Kaelen gave him a wink.
Richard’s pulse quickened, warmth rolling through his face. He stared at his slippers and drew in a steadying breath.
Tonight.
Tonight was the Summer Ball—a small thing with some nearby dukes and duchesses invited.
There would be wine and dancing, and the whole court would glitter.
Kaelen would no doubt look very handsome, and tonight, he would draw Kaelen aside and ask permission to court him. Properly. As Kaelen deserved.
Whatever answer came, he would receive it with grace. Though—Richard worried at his lower lip—if Kaelen refused him, he may find the nearest pond to drown himself in.
He lifted his eyes to steal another glance—
and stiffened.
The archway leading to the kitchens had turned white. A flat, milky white akin to a portal to some distant place. The herb beds and corridor beyond it had vanished.
Richard blinked.
The archway was an archway again. Herb beds. Flagged path. The corridor that led to the kitchens.
A trick of the eye, perhaps.
But it left him disquieted the rest of the morn.