The Element of Fire, Martha Wells [books for new readers .txt] 📗

was why they seemed to be intruding into her thoughts today.

The frid must have slipped in through one of the naturally occurring gaps between the individual wards. If it had blundered directly into one, the harmless powerless creature would have been eaten in an instant. If the motion of the wards was slowing, then the frid—and the golem for that matter—might simply have been lucky enough to slip through. The new sorcerer Braun might have been as incompetent at tending the wards since Dr. Surete’s death as he had been at defending himself from whoever killed him. Galen Dubell had only been back a day: not much time to make up lost ground with as complex an etheric structure as the wards.

However it had gotten in, Kade was fairly sure the golem had been sent for her. She had enemies enough among the courts of Fayre, without even considering those among the mortal sorcerers. There were many fay who wanted Moire’s strongholds, especially Knockma, and Kade was determined not to give them up.

Someone moving through the garden below reminded her that she was being followed, but the passerby did not glance up. Kade had dodged the men who were watching her, though they probably knew she was somewhere in this bastion. It didn’t matter; all she needed was a few moments’ privacy.

Seeing Roland and Ravenna again had stirred a whole nest of unpleasant memories. He stood there and said I cursed the name of our father, as if nothing had ever happened. As if I hadn’t held him while he prayed to the Church’s God for our father to die, she thought. Roland was only two years younger than she; he couldn’t fail to remember.

Fulstan had always been a frightening presence in their lives, but during Ravenna’s long absences from court in the last years of the Bisran War, he had been at his worst. Kade’s memories of those times were particularly vivid. The day Fulstan had beaten to death one of Roland’s servants, a boy no older than the ten-year-old Prince. Gods, how can Roland forget that. Those little bones breaking… In sheer terror Roland had sent away his other young servants, and even his pages, sons of high nobility meant to grow up with him and become his companions and advisors. Fulstan had permitted this, because it had left Roland alone.

Except for me, Kade thought. Looking back, she could see that they should have spoken to someone, that Roland could have sent a letter to Ravenna… As the daughter of the king’s supernatural and despised leman, Kade had had fewer options, but neither she nor Roland had been able to believe that a world existed where help was available.

Landlaw expected even a sovereign to be responsible for his behavior, even if courtlaw did not, but Fulstan had been careful. He had made the Cisternans his personal guard instead of the Albon Order, thereby ridding himself of the interfering presence of an Albon Preceptor. He had never done anything to Roland that would leave an outward sign. He had surrounded himself with sycophants and cronies, and he had been a terror to the palace women.

For a long time he had been wary of Kade, perhaps half hoping, half fearing that her mother Moire would return to claim her. He had treated his daughter with contempt, reviled her, held her up to the court as an object of ridicule, but he had never touched her. Until that day of her fifteenth summer, when he had pinned her in a corner of her room and told her that as she grew older her looks were almost passable…

The next day had been Midsummer Eve and the Saints’ Day episode in the cathedral. She had been banished to the convent, and six months later Fulstan was dead.

Kade cursed softly to herself, coming back out of the past to the cloudy day and the breeze lifting her hair. It’s no good to think about it; it’s over. If Roland hates you for leaving him, that’s his decision. You were a prisoner escaping a cell, and you took the first chance you had. At least that was what Galen Dubell had told her, two years ago at Lodun.

From the open window a few paces along the ledge to her left came the sound of a door squeaking open, then a moment later the muted thump of something heavy being shifted. That’s Galen, Kade thought, easing herself up the wall to stand on the ledge. The servants never moved anything.

She stepped around the elaborately figured window casement and onto the wooden sill. Galen Dubell was in a corner of his room, piling stacks of books atop a stout wooden chest. He finished and straightened his back with a sigh, turned, and saw her. “Kade.”

His expression was disturbingly neutral. She wondered at his lack of reaction. Even though she had never fallen off anything high enough to hurt herself, he hated to see her walk on ledges. She said, “I wrote and told you that I was coming back. Didn’t you get the letter?”

“No, I never received it,” he said slowly. “I would have tried to dissuade you.”

“You told me I should face my anger and that would help me get rid of it. I take it this wasn’t exactly what you meant.” Kade spoke with a sinking heart. And she had thought her decision to return to the palace to confront her past was sensible and wise.

“Perhaps I didn’t know what I meant.” He almost smiled. “Perhaps I’ve become too used to dealing with old men who would rather talk than act. But if this is the way you must do it, then I wish you luck.”

“But you don’t want me to involve you,” she said, and thought, How calmly that came out. The wooden window frame was rough against her hand and she realized she was gripping it very tightly.

He held her gaze gravely. “That might be for the best.”

It was not what she had wanted to hear. She had wanted him to look exasperated and say, That wasn’t what I meant at all, you little fool; now stop feeling sorry for yourself and come down out of that window.

“Something is going to happen here, Kade,” he was saying. “I don’t know what it is yet, but I have to be free to deal with it.”

And not be banished again because of me. She said, “I know. It’s someone called Grandier.”

He frowned. “What do you know about him?”

“He tried to kill you.” Kade shrugged.

“He failed.”

She shook her head, trying to put the anger away. “The lesser fay won’t even speak his name. They’re more afraid of him than they are of me. The ones from the higher courts say they’ve never heard of him, but it’s pretense. They wouldn’t tell me the truth anyway.”

“He’s in the city, perhaps closer than anyone realizes. Dr. Braun was killed last night. I’m certain Grandier had something to do with it, and that means he must have someone inside the wall already.” Galen let out his breath, his face weary. “I could use your help, but I dare not take it. Do you understand?”

“Yes, well, I suppose I do.” She managed not to say it with too poor grace.

He watched her carefully. “And you must give me your word that you won’t harm anyone here, no matter what provocation.”

Kade couldn’t look at him anymore. Her voice was more bitter than she intended. “You know I can’t promise that.” She slipped out of the window and began to make her way down the ledge to an unused balcony. Behind her, he called with a trace of his old exasperation, “Be careful, damn it.”

The guards spotted her again when she had reached the ground floor and was coming out of the entrance into the Rose Court. Kade picked up her skirt and bolted down one of the stone-paved paths between the rosebushes. As she reached the wall of the court, she heard heavy bodies crashing into the thorny and not-so-delicate hedges. The wall was rough and pitted and she scaled it easily.

Reaching the top, she crouched amid the tangled vines and took a quick glance around. As she had seen from above, the area between the bastion and the high walls of the Gallery Wing was a honeycomb of intersecting gardens and courts, some old and familiar and others that were recent additions. She ran lightly along the wall, jumped to a narrower intersecting wall, and ran along its length. She heard a yelp and a crash as the vines on the first wall gave way on someone. As she spun around to look, her lace underskirt caught on a lionhead spout on the wall’s rain gutter, throwing her off balance and forcing her to jump down.

She landed heavily in a pile of raked leaves. She was in a long and irregularly shaped garden, with a clipped lawn and overflowing flower borders, most of it rambling out of sight behind the wall and sheltering hedges.

Kade got to her feet and strolled toward the mossy fountain just around the curve of the wall, prepared to be mildly amused when they caught up with her.

In the fountain, water spouted from pitchers in the hands of stone nymphs. Kade wriggled her toes in the cool grass. The garden widened out from this point on, becoming larger and more grand than she had first supposed. In the wide area of lawn were yew bushes shaped into a scaled-down battlement with towers half-circling a large round mosaic of a massive sundial. Distracted, it was moments before her eyes focused on the man and the woman seated on a bench beneath a honeysuckle arbor only a few yards from her; the play of the fountain had covered their voices. It was Queen Falaise and Denzil.

Falaise saw Kade at almost the same moment. She stood, jerking her hand free of Denzil’s grasp, and hurried toward her. Kade, who was more used to catching people unawares than being caught, stood there and stared.

The Queen stopped a few feet from her, said uncertainly, “My lady Katherine…ah, Kade?” She wore a dress of rose and pearl and was clutching a small book in a white-knuckled grasp. like most aristocratic women would have been, she was out of breath from the exertion of walking quickly across the garden. Falaise hadn’t been crying, but there was something stricken in her blue eyes that amounted to the same thing.

Kade felt herself looking stupid. She said, “Yes?” hoping to provoke an explanation.

A little desperately, Falaise said, “We had an appointment.”

Kade realized that the Queen was not seeing her as a sorceress or as her husband’s mad sister, but only as another woman. “An appointment,” she repeated helpfully, nodding.

Denzil reached them and caught Falaise’s arm again. The Queen flinched and dropped her book, which barely missed the fountain. Kade stooped immediately to rescue it from the damp ground.

Denzil said, “Another appointment, my lady?” His smile was confident and amused. A brief glow of sunlight breaking through the cloudy sky touched his blond hair, the powder blue of has doublet, the gems ornamenting his sword. He and Falaise made a beautiful couple.

Falaise hesitated. “Yes, I…”

“I was late,” Kade said, brushing dirt off the little book’s sheepskin binding.

“Yes, she was,” Falaise agreed instantly. She stepped away from Denzil, the movement stiff and awkward.

He chuckled and bowed slightly to make the point that he was allowing her to escape. “Then I’ll leave you to your appointment.”

His arrogance was too obvious for Kade to leave well enough alone. “Do that,” she said.

Amused and ironic, he met her eyes and bowed. “My lady.”

They watched him