She had been mourning for so long, lost to the world, that she couldn’t have known such a thing for herself. These were his own words coming back to taunt him, those he had spoken to her in their darkened bedchamber as she lay in a stupor, too aggrieved, he had thought, even to hear him.
“No doubt,” he murmured.
“What will you tell him?”
“I’ll refuse, of course.” What choice do I have?
“Refusing a king is no small matter. Are you ready to face the royal army?”
No, but there’s nothing else I can do. I’ve led Kentigern down a path from which there are no turns. “I don’t think it will come to that.”
He hated lying to her, but the truth was too appalling, too humiliating.
“I always know when you’re keeping the truth from me, Aindreas. You know that, and yet you still persist in these lies.”
“I spent all of the harvest and the snows protecting you,” he said, grateful for the opportunity to speak the truth. “I’m finding it’s a habit that’s not easily broken.”
She nodded, even managing a smile. “So there is more to the message than you’ve told me.”
“Yes.”
He expected that she would demand to know what it was, but instead she stood, kissing him lightly on the cheek. “I hope that soon you can find it in your heart to speak to me of such things as you used to. But I won’t press the matter. Do what you must, my lord duke, and guard the pride of our house.” She walked to the door of the great hall, then paused, glancing back at him, the look in her dark eyes almost shy. “It’s been some time since we lay together as husband and wife. But if you still desire me in that way. .” She shrugged, the small smile still on her lips.
“I do,” he said, his voice suddenly rough. In truth he had never thought to share a bed with her again, so far had she gone after Brienne’s murder. Just her words had stoked a fire within him he thought had long since died.
She smiled again, deeper this time. “I’ll be waiting for you in my bedchambers.”
When she was gone, the duke closed his eyes, tightening his fist around the parchment as if it were Tavis of Curgh’s neck.
But the boy didn’t do it. Kearney’s message didn’t say as much. It didn’t point out that Aindreas had pushed the realm to the brink of civil war for no reason at all. It didn’t have to. All that and more was implied in what he had written.
The note was short and direct, the language plain, almost pungent.
We hold in the prison tower of Audun’s Castle a woman who admits complicity in the murder of your daughter. She is a member of the Qirsi conspiracy and claims that Brienne’s assassination was intended to foment civil war among the houses of Eibithar.
You will ride to the City of Kings at once so that you might question this woman yourself and discuss her revelations with the realm’s other lords and me. Your failure to do so will be considered an act of treason and will provoke an appropriate response.
That was all, save for Kearney’s signature and the royal seal.
He wanted to dismiss it as a trick, an attempt by Glyndwr and Curgh to draw him to the City of Kings so that they might imprison him, perhaps even kill him. But he knew better. If they wished to lure him to Audun’s Castle, they would have done so with offers of reconciliation, promises of belated justice for Kentigern. They wouldn’t have resorted to threats and such a bold claim.
No, this woman was real. She might have been lying, though for the life of him Aindreas couldn’t imagine why anyone, even a Qirsi, would tell such a tale.
He felt something brush his shoulder, and looking up, saw Brienne standing beside him. Aindreas reached for her hand and smiled. Her fingers were so tiny and delicate, like a child’s.
“Your mother looks well, doesn’t she?” he asked.
The girl nodded, a smile lighting her face.
“When you died, I thought I’d lost her as well. But it seems she’s come back to me.”
“You have to tell her.”
Aindreas shuddered. “It would kill her.”
“She must know the truth.”
He frowned. “The truth? What does this message tell us of the truth? Glyndwr and Curgh have lied to us before. They may well be lying again.”
“You know better.”
“You can tell me,” he said, his eyes widening. “You’re the only one who knows what really happened.” He turned in his chair and took her other hand as well. “It was the boy, wasn’t it? They’re lying about this woman.”
Brienne shook her head, her expression grim. She looked even more lovely than he had remembered.
“You misjudged him, Father. From the beginning.”
“No!”
She nodded.
Aindreas dropped her hands and stood, spinning away from the table to pace the stone floor. “I refuse to believe any of this! The message, this woman, even you. It’s all an illusion. Kearney is doing all of this to trick me. He wishes only to rule the realm. He doesn’t care about honor, about truth!”
He turned to face her once more, but already the image had begun to vanish, growing thin and misshapen, the last wisps of smoke from an extinguished candle.
“Brienne!” he cried out. “I didn’t mean it! I know you wouldn’t deceive me! Please stay!”
But it was too late. A servant stood near the table, gaping at the duke, eyes wide with fright.
“Go to Kearney, Father!” The voice seemed to come from a great distance, as if it were the final breath of thunder from a retreating storm. “Save yourself. Save Kentigern.”
Aindreas felt tears burning his cheeks. “Brienne,” he said once more, a whisper. Long before now, he should have sought her wraith out at the Sanctuary of Bian. He should have asked her who had killed her. She could have told him and put all his doubts to rest. But for too long he had been so certain that he felt no need to ask. And then his doubts had begun to grow, and he had come to fear her answer. Now it was too late.
He drained his goblet of wine, then threw it against the wall so that it shattered, scattering shards of clay across the floor. The servant bent to clean the mess, joined a moment later by a second boy. Aindreas paid them little notice. He wasn’t about to go to Kearney, not after all that had passed between them in recent turns. Even if Javan’s boy wasn’t guilty-impossible! — Glyndwr and Curgh had made it clear that they couldn’t be trusted, that their contempt for him, for all of Kentigern, overrode their sense of justice.
But there was another he could find, one who could tell him how this had happened.
One of the servants straightened, facing the duke as if it took all his courage to do so. He was a yellow-haired boy whose eyes flicked nervously from the duke to his companion, who still cleaned up the broken goblet.
“A-are you well, my lord?”
“I’m fine,” Aindreas said. He snatched the parchment from the table before striding toward the door. “Go to the stablemaster, boy. Tell him to have my mount saddled and ready. I ride within the hour.”
“Yes, my lord.”
Aindreas was in the corridor before he had finished. He walked first to his chambers, where he retrieved his sword and dagger, fastening them to his belt. He thought briefly of Ioanna and knew a moment of regret. She would be expecting him. But he was in no state to lie with her this night, and if he took the time to tell her so, she would demand an explanation, which he couldn’t possibly give. Not about this.
As an afterthought, he took a pouch of gold from a drawer in his writing table. Finding the woman wouldn’t be easy. It might well take a bribe or two.
He left his chamber and made his way to the inner ward. The night was clear but cold, and for just an instant he considered returning for his riding cloak. Then he thought better of it and walked on to the stables.
The stablemaster himself had come down to see to Aindreas’s horse, as was appropriate.
“My lord,” he said, bowing. “Your mount awaits.”