Cal-raven had hoped to end the day by exaggerating tales of Tabor Jan’s brilliance before admiring palace ladies. But he could not pursue such leisure now, not while his father was drowning in drink and in woe. He stood, carried his bow to the doorway, set it on a rack between two tapestries, and silently, with a furrowed brow of apology, dismissed Tabor Jan, wishing he could offer an explanation for the darkness here.
He knew his friend would be patient. The king’s refusal to recognize the guardsman’s accomplishment would soon fade. Tomorrow Cal-marcus ker Har-baron would rise ready to praise Tabor Jan and celebrate the hunt. But the guardsman would already be back on a wide patrol, preferring to move on rather than stand around and ruminate on past deeds.
As Tabor Jan retreated, the guards pulled the doors closed, and Cal-raven took a long, deep breath. He set a compassionate hand on his father’s hard shoulder, then sat on the grand rug before the blazing arch of the fireplace. “It looks bad, this fever you’re suffering. The Bel Amicans—have they given you some trouble?”
“I’m finished with them.” The king, reaching down to massage the folds of Hagah’s heavy head, seemed somewhat relieved by the change of subject. “These Bel Amican ambassadors—they call themselves ‘seers’—are an untrustworthy sort. Do they really speak for the queen of House Bel Amica? Or are they planting the seeds of their own strategies? I fear Queen Thesere is just a plaything for meddling puppeteers. They flatter her, and her head swells too large for the crown, crushing her judgment. They are relentless bargainers. Everything is for sale, the way they look at things. And they have this ridiculous notion that we will help them build another fortress on the coast of some new land.”
“You refused.”
“I sent those ambassadors back empty-handed. I see no advantage in helping them. If Bel Amicans occupy a new kingdom in the islands, how will we know what they’re up to? Must we double our efforts in training spies? Must we buy the loyalty of boatmen? They think they can put our fears at ease if they invite us to help. But I do not trust them.”
“There was a time when you accepted Bel Amican bargains,” said Cal-raven. “You even defended Queen Thesere against Mother’s suspicions.”
“And now your mother is gone. There are only two ways about it—either we were so vulnerable that our queen was stolen from us, or we were so disappointing that she left. Whichever is true, we are a joke to the rest of the world. Others are taking an interest now, trying to learn what it would cost to claim all that we’ve built. No amount of flattery can hide the Bel Amicans’ desire for conquest. They would appear generous even as they invade, as though they could walk through our gates and offer us hospitality in our own rooms.” He withdrew his hand from the hound’s head and pounded a fist on the arm of his chair. “They should not have seen what they saw yesterday.”
Cal-raven’s pulse quickened. “What did the Bel Amicans see?”
King Cal-marcus rose, snatched a poker from the hearth, and paced a circle around his library throne, tapping its sooty tip on the floor while his worshipful white pet followed dutifully behind. “I…I worry when I hear reports that the only heir of Abascar has abandoned his troops to wander through the woods—especially as the forest is becoming more and more dangerous.”
“I was not out for a stroll, Father. The beastmen are becoming more dangerous, yes. But if I am not attentive to the wild, investigating their schemes, how will I defend us against them?”
“I’m not talking about beastmen. There are dangerous men in the wild. Men who know our secrets. Men who seek to weaken us.” He turned and pointed the poker at his son. “Men who lure my son into the open and then plant seeds of deceit in his mind.”
Ah. Cal-raven felt an old, familiar anger stir within him. “You’re talking about Scharr ben Fray.” His father must have heard reports that the mage had appeared beside him at the dig. “You’re talking about the good man who came to visit our troubled dig and cleared away the blacklode that could have cost us many days and resources. You’re talking about that kind of threat to Abascar?”
Cal-marcus let the poker drop to the hearth, and Wilfry snarled at it and tried to drag it away.
The king fell back into his chair. “How far will that resentful old fool go for revenge? With what forces in the forest might he conspire?”
“Conspire?” It was all Cal-raven could do not to choke. “Revenge? Will a ghost you’ve conjured from worry and guilt distract you from real danger? The beastmen grow stronger every day. Their decline is over. They are rising again.”
Cal-raven described the signs he had seen—marks of ambush, bloodshed, and the troubling image of bootprints alongside beastman scuffs. The thought of merchants, Gatherers, and Abascar traders being ambushed and dragged away alive to the Cent Regus dens—this should recalibrate the compass in his father’s fractured heart. “I can show you these signs. And I can show you how we can take back the woods around House Abascar. But we must convince our merchants to be more vigilant. We will need trackers and rangers and, yes…mages too. If anyone hates the Cent Regus menace with the same passion as you and I, it is our old friend Scharr ben Fray.”
Cal-raven stood, restless now, and watched his shadow stretch before him, leading him to the window. He was tempted to climb out. No, he could not surrender the evening, not like this. He was his father’s son, and sleep would not come to either if he left these wounds open.
As he stepped to the history shelves, Cal-raven heard Hagah snuffle along behind him, surely picking up traces from the last several days of wilderness hunting. The poor old hound’s senses were not what they had been in the days when he had run alongside King Cal-marcus’s vawn and brought down mercenaries and beastmen. And yet he was still intent on solving the mysteries of unfamiliar scents.
The prince shuffled through the shelved scrolls, rubbed dust between his thorn-scraped palms. Calm yourself. Hold back. Do not add fuel to this fire. He drew in slow breaths, waiting until he could count a slackened pulse before he spoke again, just as Scharr ben Fray had taught him to do so many years ago.
“We are not ready,” the king finally sighed. “We must build up our forces within the walls and prepare for a siege. It may come from the beastmen. But I am bracing for Bel Amica. And what of House Jenta, so silent and watchful? Who knows when they might advance and what shape such a siege might take? Scharr ben Fray was once one of them. Perhaps he is their spy.”
“Who is feeding you these lies? Does this have something to do with what happened at the Rites?”
The king rang the bell again and cursed. “Hagah!” he shouted at the old hunting dog. “Fetch the attendant.”
Hagah turned and looked at his old master, and his rump slowly thumped to the floor in front of the window.
“Go!” The king insisted, pointing at the corner where the curtains concealed the passage. “Fetch the attendant.”
Wilfry looked at the king, yapped, and shoved his way under the curtain to bound away down the corridor.
“You old fool, Hagah,” the king complained.
The hunting hound sighed again, extended his forepaws, and brought his chin down to the floor, his nose snuffling at Cal-raven’s boots with interest.
“I will tell you what happened,” the king finally conceded. “And since you speak of Scharr ben Fray’s concern, I will match your evidence with my own. At the Rites of the Privilege, I was defied by a girl. A Gatherer.” He spat out the word like a scrap of gristle.
“Was she a grudger? Was she there to stir up a protest?”
“I don’t think that was her motive, although it’s certainly what she achieved. And, yes, the grudgers dropped their guises and started a riot. If we had arrested them all, we’d have to dig another dungeon. But no, this one…she has her own purposes. We don’t have any record of her origins. But the Gatherers clearly adore her. There was one, a thief, Krawg—I granted him the pardon he has sought for many years. He is ailing and probably won’t last another winter in the wild.
But, kramm his spiteful heart, he stood up in her defense. I threw him back to the wilderness.”
Cal-raven gazed out toward the distant wall and the secretive, moon-dusted woods. “Abascar’s rejection has given them cause to grow their own society. They may be poor, but the Gatherers live freely, and some are even happy and well-behaved.” He fought off another sneeze. “They feed us, meat to fruit, and yet you talk of them as if they spend their time relieving themselves on your tapestries. Why let a troublemaker stir you into this…this rage?”
“I am angry because of what she brought into our midst. She claims to have made it, this cloak she wore.” The king made a tent with his fingers and stared into it, trapping the memory. “I do not believe it. I cannot believe it.”
Cal-raven approached his father as he had when he was a boy, eager for fireside tales. He lay down beside the chair and stared at the image painted across the glass of the ceiling dome—a silhouette of the first king in the Expanse, Tammos Raak, from whom the ruling lineage of all four houses had branched.
The king grew quiet, eyes misty, and said in a strangely reverent tone, “It is magnificent.”
“The cloak?”
“A cloak. A tapestry. A banner…something splendorous. All the colors of the realm and colors no one has ever seen. As vivid as a garden in bloom. I don’t know much about the weaver’s art, but…”
“Where is she now?” Cal-raven asked, caught off guard by tremors of memory. A girl, standing in a clearing, clad in a vibrant cloak of leaves. “I want to see this thing she made.”
The king swatted at the air as if annoyed by a botherfly. “The cloak? It is a flagrant insult to our laws. She offended me in front of the magistrates, the guests, and the Housefolk!”
“It’s only been law for twenty years.” Cal-raven could not disguise the sadness in his voice. “I can remember when the Housefolk could fill the courtyard with color.”
“I made a proclamation for the good of House Abascar!” The king was not speaking to Cal-raven, but to himself, or to whatever phantoms had been conjured by the drink. “Gah…where is that bottle?”
The prince bowed his head. “You say I am too…too sentimental. But what do you expect? We rule a colorless house and a people who await a day they suspect may never come.”
“Abascar’s Spring.” The words were bitter in the king’s mouth. “The very idea has made the Housefolk greedy. We have not yet prepared enough to repay them. And it’s too late to turn back now. Treasures are scattered, woven into the textures of this palace. We cannot give back what we took away, or the house will be seized by a fever of selfishness. Remember what happened the last time one of the great houses was possessed by greed. Its people turned beastly and became a waking nightmare.” The king rose and approached the dark, curtained corner. “We must be patient. When the River Throanscall flows through our house, we will have a new avenue of industry that can lift us up from where we have fallen.”
Your last, desperate attempt to appease your people. Cal-raven swallowed his ready retort.
“Where is my drink?” the king roared and stood still facing the corner. Then he turned and gasped, as if frightened by a spook. It was only his image in the moon-shaped wall mirror. “We must defend our laws,” he said to his haggard reflection. “If I surrender to the grudgers’ demands and announce Abascar’s Spring with no way to deliver it, I am declaring that my own Proclamation was a failure. What more can I do to show the world House Abascar’s weakness? Yesterday we revealed too much.”
“And where have you taken this disturber of the peace?”
“I have locked it away in the Underkeep. Our weavers will study it and learn…learn what it is made of.”
“I wasn’t talking about the cloak. The Gatherer, father…I would have thought you had thrown her back to the forest.”
“She has been…temporarily arrested.” The king pulled back the curtain as if he might hunt down the absent attendant. “Have we been compromised?” he whispered. “Are we vulnerable? My attendant does not answer.”
“You’ve arrested her?” Cal-raven laughed incredulously. “Father, a suspension, maybe. Cast her back to the Gatherers, yes. But…the dungeon?”
Cal-marcus stormed back into the firelight, glowering down at his son. “Scharr ben Fray sent her as a taunt. The Bel Amican governors laughed at me, prince of House Abascar.”
“That’s impossible.”
“I asked her, in front of all, who is your master? Who sent you to provoke me? I expected her to name that meddling mage. But he anticipated this. He convinced her to tell me that she was sent here by the Keeper. The Keeper! Now, tell me, oh sentimental apprentice of superstitious men, whose influence do you sense there?”
Cal-raven sat up, but he refused to rise and meet his father’s challenge. His gaze strayed to the shadow cast by his father’s chair, a wavering darkness like a sinister beast lurking on the edge of the firelight.
“That nonsense drove your mother to her wit’s end, Cal-raven. Notions of the Keeper unsettled us all when we were young. Most of us learn to drive them away. But for your mother, they persisted as nightmares. Scharr ben Fray encouraged such delusions because he wanted to make us feel vulnerable and small. It’s easier to manipulate people if they’re living in fear. And when this wretch stood before me and declared she had been sent…Yes, she is a danger, and delusional as well.”
“And so am I.” The prince grappled to unfasten the straps of his muddied boots.
“Close your mouth!” snarled the king. “You are a bored, lazy, overgrown adolescent who would sooner heed a fool than his own father. Now the name Auralia is on everybody’s lips, for she has made them anxious to be released from the restrictions, to revel in whatever expressions they please. I will hold her captive until we bait that traitor out of hiding. I will root out the grudgers. I will make my people loyal. And then, when the siege comes…however it comes…they will find us unbreakable and firm.”
A fireplace log burst in two and crumbled into the coals, deep blue and red climbing the orange bricks and the sooty chimney. Shadows shifted around the room. For a moment it seemed to Cal-raven that a ghost passed between him and the fire, moving toward the window. As he tried to follow its progress, the vaporous outline faded, a wisp of wayward smoke.
“Ark-robin had to force the people from the courtyard. They should have gone back to their homes raving about your Promised, who was welcomed so warmly. Instead, they went away raving about a Gatherer girl. Such a clever taunt it was. We will recapture their attention on the wedding day, winning them with feasts and festivities.” The king sighed. “Oh, you should have seen her, Cal-raven. Ark-robin’s daughter is certainly eager to spend time in the palace.” He made his best attempt to laugh, which triggered a fit of coughing. “She certainly revels in her good fortune. Prepare yourself for an enthusiastic bride. I have given her permission to wear a seven-colored gown. Knowing your opinion of my law, I thought that would please you.”
Cal-raven kicked off his mud-caked boots so that they landed near the glow of the fire. “I have forgotten her name.”
“How can you forget? What is wrong with you? I chose the daughter of Abascar’s most faithful, decorated soldier. A woman of extravagant beauty and a passion for our laws. Stricia will be a leader, and she will appreciate her freedoms.”
“Will Stricia walk in the woods or just entertain herself in the tower?”
“You should be glad she prefers the palace to the wild. The Cragavar woods had a hold on your mother, and she could never tear herself free. Even when she was queen, she had to wander. My father was right to warn me, and that’s why I’m cautioning you. Stricia loves House Abascar, and she will uphold our laws. She will not take risks in the forest. And she will not run away.”
“Mother loved her gardens because they were all that was left to her of the wild. I’ve told you this before. The palace made her lonely. It made her desperate and selfish.” Cal-raven took out his dagger and scraped i
t against a brick on the hearth. “It’s just as Scharr ben Fray believed—Mother slipped back into the behavior of a petulant merchant girl, and that jealousy…it possessed her. She did what any merchant girl would do when granted power and opportunity. She bargained. She bought herself a wilderness of riches, took them right out from under the Housefolk, and you fell for it.”
“She is dead, Cal-raven,” the king said, the deep freeze returning to his voice. “I’ve found a wife for you whom you will never have to mourn, who may live to bury you. And she will honor your memory and raise children to carry on our legacy.”
You’re trying to correct your mistakes by making my choices for me. Cal-raven stalked away from the chair, leaving Cal-marcus to scowl into the darkening ashes. “If my queen is going to be ignorant of the world outside these walls, then I will need an advisor who understands that the world is bigger than Abascar. Scharr ben Fray will be my—”
The king lifted something from the table and cast it across the floor. It broke into two pieces at Cal-raven’s feet. A sculpture: an arm and a disfigured hand.
“What’s this?”
“It was in the courtyard. It was part of the disguise that helped your blameless, law-abiding teacher trespass at our ceremony and escape our grasp.”
Cal-raven knelt down to touch the cold, cracked hand. He felt a chill travel from his chest down the length of his arm. And then, that intensifying of feeling as the power the mage had taught him seduced the stone into surrender. He gave the hand a proper shape—an open palm.
The effort exhausted him. He rose to his feet with his head pounding. “I think…I think I’ve caught a fever, Father.” He pressed his forearm to his brow and found it dry and hot.
In a triumphant explosion of yammering, Wilfry returned, running in circles around the king’s chair and standing on his hind legs to dance for Cal-marcus’s attention. A few paces behind, a small boy in a grey cap stepped trembling through the curtains. “My lord, I’ve been sent with the bottle you requested.”