The Eunuch's Heir (24 page)

DARKNESS. THE
scent of Lyssa hovering over him—she had a scent, he discovered, though he must have always known it. He’d simply been too overwhelmed by the sight of her to notice. Other people came and went quietly, and he felt the softness of cloth and down beneath him rather than the wood of the table. Cloth draped him as well. His fingers traced the wrinkles splaying out about him, followed them up to his chest, to the bear claw necklace that still hung there. A new knot held the thong, so someone had found it and brought it to him. He caught a whiff of the tiger and felt a rush of fear, but soothed himself with the memory of its death.

His door opened again and ushered in light this time.

“Is it all right, the candle?” Lyssa asked, her voice subdued.

“Should be,” Alswytha said. “He’ll take some recovery, after what he’s been through. He’s lucky we put him back together in one piece.” A pause, then she added, “Well, almost.”

“Almost?”

“They didn’t tell you? No, I guess they wouldn’t.” The wizard sounded weary, and yawned. “The right eye. We didn’t know it was so bad. There wasn’t anything we could do by the time we looked.”

“Why didn’t you look sooner? I thought I could trust you.”

“You didn’t tell us what the damage was. It was probably too far gone even before he got here.”

“You’re telling me he’s blind.” The anger cracked in Lyssa’s voice.

“Just the one eye—the other’s fine.”

“Great Lady, will that be a comfort to him? Or to his parents?”

“Next time, my Lady, ride faster.” A rustle of fabric accompanied the wizard’s departure.

“Goddess’s Tears,” Lyssa murmured. She came closer and set down the candle on a table nearby.

Wolfram left his eye shut, trying to absorb what they’d said. He wasn’t ready to be awake just yet.

A whiff of familiar leaves entered the room, and Lyssa snapped, “What are you doing here?”

“I came,” Deishima began, then cut herself off. “No. I am sorry.”

“I thought I sent you home days ago. I can’t believe you’re still here.”

“Please, Ambassador—”

She crossed the creaking floor. “Not anymore; I wouldn’t go back to your country for a thousand horses. Get out of here.”

“Where have I to go, my Lady?” she whispered. Wolfram squinted with his good eye and turned his head a little to look toward the door. Deishima, clad in a long robe of local make, was trembling in Lyssa’s shadow, her head bowed beneath a scarf of wool.

“Home, or back to Faedre’s parade—What do I care?”

“My Lady, I am no longer able to go home, or to return to the Holy Mother’s gathering. I have spent a night with a man not my husband. As far as my father or my Holy Mother will believe, I am already dead.”

“Don’t be ridiculous! You were barely alone a few hours, and nothing happened”—she let out a snort of laughter—“so far as I know. But then, knowing Wolfram…” Lyssa trailed off. Her shoulders tilted back. “So you’re an outcast now? No longer a princess, no longer a holy whatever?”

“I am nothing.”

“Then go to a whorehouse, I’m sure they’ll find room for you.”

“If I have done any harm, this has not been my intention, my Lady.” Deishima glanced up for a moment only, toward the bed where he lay, then looked again to the ground. “Neither was it my intention, nor my wish that any harm should befall him, or anyone.” She broke on the last words and fled the room with the resounding slam of the door behind her.

Lyssa stood there a moment longer, arms crossed as if she would throw the girl out all over again, then she turned back to the bed and froze, jaw working, her eyes meeting his. “You’re awake.”

His lips twitched into a tiny smile. “I could hardly help that,” he whispered.

Coming nearer, she bent over him, studying his face. She couldn’t conceal the wince that crossed her fine features, and he reached up toward his cheek. Lyssa caught his hand. “Don’t.”

“It’s my face, Lyssa, I have to know the worst.” Again, he slipped that tiny smile. “And I don’t suppose you brought a mirror.”

“Very well.” She released him and flopped onto a chair.

Steeling himself, he reached up and found the narrow, parallel scars of the claws upon his face—a nice match for the ones the leopards had left him. He carefully followed them upward to the rim of his eye. Above the edge of bone, he found smooth skin, stretched flat—the wizards’ solution. Beyond that empty plain, the scars continued all the way to his scalp. He slid his fingers back down, lingering on the absence where his eye had been. “At least the beggars won’t bother me; they’ll be frightened.”

“How can you joke about this?”

“It’s not your fault, Lyssa.”

“Not mine, that heathen witch. You even told me she was magic.”

He let his hand drop back to the bedclothes. “Not hers
either. She didn’t summon the tiger. It came for her. Walked by me to get her.”

“Then how did you get in the way, Wolfram? Great Lady!”

Wolfram looked away. “You know how.”

She leaned on the bed, trying to recapture his gaze. “What were you thinking? She threw you to the leopards, or had you forgotten?”

“I could not let her die.”

“Better her than you.”

“Better for who?”

Lyssa flung her hands in the air. “Oh, for pity’s sake, Wolfram, suddenly you had to be a hero?”

He laughed soundlessly. “After all this time. Amazing, isn’t it?” He studied the table beside him and pushed himself up to pour a mug of water from the waiting pitcher. His side ached dully, the new skin protesting his movement. Taking a swallow, he looked back to her. Everything looked flattened and dull, even this woman he had been so in love with. “Could you have done it? Let the tiger pass you by?”

“To kill my enemy?”

“To kill anyone.”

Their eyes met again, and Lyssa shifted in her seat, then looked away.

“The Goddess abhors violent death without cause, you’ve told me that yourself, often enough.”

Lyssa rounded on him, eyes flashing. “You’ve been telling me that they want us in a war, that they’re after you. I think the Goddess would see just cause in the death of a heathen and a traitor to one of Her own.”

Dizziness sneaking up on him, Wolfram clumsily set down the mug. “Is this about me and the tiger, or about you and your brother?” he rasped, mustering the last of his energy. “You trying to figure out how to explain what happened when we get home?”

Bitterly, she shook her head. “Not when we get home, Wolfram, when he gets here. He’ll be here in three days.”

WHEN DARKNESS
fell, Fionvar forced himself to dismount and rest. His heart urged him onward, toward this meeting he had been preparing for these last six months, but he knew he needed to rest. He needed time to consider what happened next, how he would tell his son all that he had kept secret for so long. His son. After eighteen years of calling him “Your Highness,” Fionvar finally let himself speak the truth, if only in his own mind. That last encounter with Brianna still weighed heavily upon him. Would he now have to think of her as “Your Majesty?” They had grown apart these last few years, of course they had with the pressure of maintaining their roles alongside that of maintaining the kingdom, aside from trying not to tip their hand to the few courtiers who did not suspect their relationship. Ironic to think they had done better in the early years, when King Rhys was fresh in everyone’s minds and Brianna was his proclaimed successor. Back then, Fionvar’s closeness was only a facet of his devotion to the role. Of course he cared for the young prince: King Rhys had told him to.

When Wolfram began to run wild, when Fionvar was told to keep his distance for fear their growing resemblance would create the scandal they had tried so hard to avoid; that was when the rift between Fionvar and Brianna had begun as well. He wondered if Duchess Elyn had been whispering to her all the years since then that if she married again, the kingdom could have a new heir, one not sired by a peasant, one more biddable. Elyn obsessed over what would happen on her death, when Brianna had no advisor and might go astray. If Elyn and Asenith didn’t hate each other so much, he might suspect them of conspiring to put a child of Asenith’s on the throne. Fionvar laughed. How had he found himself surrounded by all these women? He pulled a blanket roll from the horse’s back and stretched out beneath a tree. He was on the nearside of the mountains now, and one day more would bring him to Wolfram’s side—all of this could wait at least until morning.

From the woods beyond a strange bird called, and Fionvar sat up, frowning.

The call came again. Fionvar shrugged out of his blanket and rose, whistling a response.

Out of the darkness, a Woodman emerged, the antlers of a stag decking his head while a cloak of wolf skin draped his shoulders. Pushing down a mask of feathers, Quinan came up and pressed his palm to Fionvar’s forehead. When the gesture had been returned, they settled on the ground and Quinan untied a thong at his neck, lowering his headdress to his lap.

“How do you fare, Quinan? Has the hunt served you well?”

“Many stags, many birds.” The Woodman plucked a pipe from his belt.

Rooting in his saddlebag, Fionvar came up with flint and steel and struck a spark to the fragrant herbs. “It’s been a long time, Quinan; tell me the news of your people.”

At this Quinan lowered his pipe and did not offer it to Fionvar. “You will not smoke with me,” he said, his voice rough on the strange language.

“What?” Fionvar frowned, holding out his hand for the pipe. “Of course I’ll smoke with you, why wouldn’t I?”

“Wolfram,” Quinan replied simply, watching for Fionvar’s reaction.

Fionvar withdrew his hand and cocked his head. “The first, or the second?”

“Yours, your Wolfram. Two full moons pass, I saw him.”

Confused, Fionvar gritted his teeth. “I’ve never known you to be coy. Tell me what you know. Why did you see Wolfram?”

“Sister’s daughter, called Morra, she sees him. No man for her, two winters, and no babies.” Quinan growled deep in his throat and spat on the ground. “Spirits bring this man for her, she say.” Quinan picked at a bit of moss on the antler of his headpiece.

“He lived with this woman, Morra?” Fionvar began to feel cold and drew the blanket up about his shoulders. The blanket did nothing for him.

“Five moons. Brother Gorn say he come to lodge, he speak death, he smoke, maybe she right about spirits?” Quinan shrugged, tossing his broad, rough hands.

Fionvar’s stomach turned. He dreaded the truth, and yet he demanded, “Tell me.”

Quinan put up a restraining hand, nodding resignedly. “He no speak. He see, this I know.” He rested a fingertip on his forehead, indicating the place of the knowledge he received from the Spirits. “He see, but he no speak.”

“What does that mean?”

Fiddling with the antlers, Quinan grunted. “He break faith—no speak.” He flipped his hand in a negligent gesture and made a quick noise to indicate that Wolfram had been thrown out.

So one part of a mystery had been laid to rest, only to give life to a few more. “Prince Wolfram was with your people for five months? Why didn’t I hear of this? You might’ve whistled—I would have come.” He scowled at the man he thought a friend.

Pressing his finger to his forehead again, Quinan muttered something in his own tongue. “My people—not my tribe, not me. Me, I only see two moons pass. Moving camp, finding food, talking spirits…” Again he shrugged to indicate all that they must do to keep the tribe alive and out of the way of huntsmen and rowdies who refused to grant the Woodman their due. “Why you don’t ask?”

Hanging his head, Fionvar rubbed his own forehead in consternation. “I know, I haven’t been out to see you. Since the prince vanished, there’s been so much to do, and we have all these refugees, foreigners—there’s always some problem or another.”

Grunting, Quinan took a puff and blew out wild smoke rings.

“He was with you, you didn’t tell me.” Fionvar shrugged in his turn. “Snow on the fire, now, Quinan. I’ll still smoke with you.”

Shaking his head, Quinan handed over the pipe, and said, “You tell prince his woman have a son.”

Fionvar coughed on the drifting smoke, and waved it away. “What?” he wheezed. “Great Lady, not another one!”

At this, Quinan burst out with a great guffaw and took several minutes to stop laughing and rocking back and forth. “But two?” When he had overcome his mirth, Quinan grew serious again. “This prince, he break faith. With tribe, with woman—she happy,” he allowed. “—not speak death. This prince, he should have different name.”

Lowering the pipe, Fionvar studied his friend. “He should have a different name?” he repeated softly.

“I know Wolfram, I know him!” Quinan thumped his chest fiercely. “This prince, he need different name.”

When Wolfram of Bernholt was killed and Fionvar left to hold vigil with the body, Quinan had come to him. Quinan, the longtime friend of the dead prince, had accepted Fionvar as his last, best friend, and taken him to the tribe to speak his own death. The Woodman had shown him a secret route back to Bernholt City and all that happened there. Eighteen years now, they had met in the woods, exchanging tidings and weather predictions. This man thought Wolfram was not worthy of his name.

Toying with the pipe in his hand, Fionvar examined the carved bowl with wild beasts and magic signs. “You know that he is my son, this prince.”

Quinan’s face fell. “I think this may be so,” he agreed.

Their eyes met as Fionvar hesitated. He could almost feel his life dissolving around him, his queen telling him she might remarry, now his friend delivering this gentle, unforgivable insult. “You think my son is unfit to bear his own name.”

Quinan picked up his antlered headpiece and nodded before placing it on his head.

Quietly, Fionvar passed the pipe back. “I hope to prove you wrong.”

“My hope also.” He took the pipe, still trailing a bluish stream of smoke, and stared down into it, then stood. Reaching up to a hollow in the tree, Quinan thrust the pipe inside, out of sight. “When we smoke again, you come. I find you.”

Fionvar, too, rose. “It has been good to smoke with you, Quinan. My son is not yet lost, and we will prove you wrong.”