Allegiance (River of Souls 3)

“Done.”

She kissed Nadine lightly on the cheek. It was a tentative kiss, as though Tatiana were not certain of its reception. Nadine laughed breathlessly. She let her hips sway forward—just a brief contact—then slid her hand around Tatiana’s back and pulled her into an openmouthed kiss. “I shall have to repay you for the bribe,” she murmured.

“You shall,” Tatiana whispered back.

But as Nadine accompanied her companion to the baths, her mind ran upon politics rather than things sexual. I must listen harder, she thought. I must make my own plans and not let the future catch me unawares.

CHAPTER SEVEN

THE DAY BEGAN well before dawn for Armand of Angersee, king of Veraene.

He flung himself from his bed, screaming, arms flailing, trying to fend off the monsters swarming in from the fog-bound realms of dreams and magic …

Armand, Armand, wake up.

He twisted away from those cold hands. It was his father again, stinking of wine. His grandfather …

Baerne of Angersee’s face hovered over his, like a dull brown cloud against an autumn sky. The old man’s eyes were bright with madness, his lips black from chewing lime and bitter weeds. He muttered something about Lir and Toc, and the necessity for true allegiance, unalloyed by house or province. Only when you sever the flesh, he whispered, can you truly be certain of your allies.

Armand gasped and struck out at the ghostly face.

His fist met flesh.

A voice cried out. A woman’s voice.

Armand recoiled. Yseulte. Not his father or grandfather. His wife.

Above the roar inside his skull, he heard the echo of many voices. His guards. Others. Then, Yseulte shouting them all down, saying that it was nothing but a dream. An unfortunate dream was all. They were to leave the bedchamber at once.

I hate them, Armand thought, twisting the pillow between his fists. They would not say anything of the king’s nightmares for fear of execution. But they knew.

Yseulte returned to their bed and knelt beside him. “They are gone,” she said softly. “No one else is here. No one. You are safe.”

She brushed the sweat-soaked hair from his forehead. Her hands were cool and soft. Just like his father’s. He shuddered, remembering those other nights. It bothered him that he could remember almost nothing of his mother, except for the scent of lavender and a single image of her sitting by the window, a silhouette of dark blue robes against the brilliant sky. He allowed Yseulte to stroke his cheek and hair, to soothe him into the semblance of calm. She understood. Above all the reasons of state, above all other political considerations, he had married her because she understood and still loved him.

“Sleep, my love,” she whispered.

He closed his eyes and breathed in rhythm with his wife. He told himself his father and grandfather were dead. He was alone with Yseulte. Their three children were several rooms distant from this dreadful huge bedchamber. They would never, he swore, never dream of monsters as he had.

Yseulte cradled him in her arms, rocking him as though he were one of the children. Armand gratefully leaned against her, breathing in the strange conflicting scents that were hers alone. Rose and linden flower. The milky scent from nursing their youngest child, which she had insisted upon, even though a queen might summon any number of wet nurses. Her skin was warm and soft—silk touched with magic—and her pulse beat steady against his temple.

“I love you,” she said.

Yseulte was not his mother. He was not his father.

He told himself that was enough.

* * *

BY LATE MORNING the nightmares had receded to trembling shadows. Those he was used to. Memories of the dreams and their aftermath lingered at the edge of awareness, however, like the dark oily waves he had witnessed in the south, the remnants of a storm.

Like the smothering darkness in your bedchamber, the one your mother decreed safe against your father’s sickness, your grandfather’s madness. You screamed until they lit an oil lamp. You screamed even louder at the wriggling shadows. Nothing worked until Lord Khandarr lit a steady flame, powered by magic, that swept away the darkness.

He decided he was fit to conduct the day’s business, starting with his usual public audience. It was an unexceptional day. Minor nobles from outlying provinces, hoping to insinuate themselves into Duenne’s Court. An envoy from Versterlant, here on behalf of her nation’s council. Representatives from certain banking guilds in Ysterien, which required higher fees before they lent money to the crown, and another from Fortezzien, with their perpetual demands for lower taxes. Toward the end of the hour, a trade delegation from Melnek City, in the northeast province of Morauvín.

He spoke with great politeness with his Ysterien visitors. He needed funds unattached to any obligations. The Fortezzien delegates he dismissed with a vague promise to consider their petition. When the trade delegation presented itself, he greeted them politely, but was glad when the other members withdrew bowing, leaving their leader to address the king.

“Your name?” Armand inquired, though his steward had already provided a synopsis of the man’s title, holdings, and his history within the guild.