The Eunuch's Heir (35 page)

Fionvar gazed up at the new stars. “Is there anything else you need to tell me?”

As he lay considering the question, Lyssa sprang to his mind, kissing and caressing him. He cringed as he answered, glad of the darkness. “No.”

After a moment, Fionvar asked, “Are you lying to me?”

Wolfram sat up. “Yes.”

“That’s an interesting answer.” Fionvar’s voice grew hard.

“Sometimes it’s not about me,” Wolfram told him. “I’m not the only one who does things he regrets, remember?”

“I think I’ll regret saying that, actually. Great Lady, Wolfram, I thought something was happening here.” The ground crunched as Fionvar rose, his figure blocking the stars. “You can track your way home, I trust?” Without waiting for an answer, Fionvar crunched off into the night toward the temple.

Wolfram tried to think of another answer, another thing to say to keep Fionvar from leaving, but there was nothing, not without betraying Lyssa to her own brother and giving Fionvar another thing to feel guilty about, no doubt. The night grew suddenly cold around him, despite the burn of liquor in his throat. It was not the first time his father had left him, but somehow, it seemed the hardest. He couldn’t howl anger to the sky this time. He couldn’t storm off claiming not to care, claiming this time would be the last because he would do the leaving from now on.

No, this time Wolfram knew that he did not want him to go. And yet, he was powerless to stop him.

Pulling his knees in close to his chest, Wolfram felt cold, and small, and all alone.

IN THE
darkness, Fionvar made his way to the temple. At this hour, the congregates had left, and the priestesses had retired to their quarters. Only one light burned, a lantern visible under the curtain that still concealed the unfinished family chapel. Led by starlight, Fionvar found his way to the altar. He made the circle sign of the Lady and raised his arms before the altar. After a moment, he walked quietly to the outside wall and began to walk a circuit of the room. His footfalls seemed as thunder to him in the darkened space, covering the scratchy sounds of rats digging beneath the floor, complementing the ting and strike of Lyssa’s hammer.

Fionvar walked three circuits and sat on a back bench, near the Cave of Spirit. The smoke lingered from a few candles lately gone out, and he wondered who else had prayed here tonight and what they had prayed for. He had been so open, just now, so ready to take Wolfram wholeheartedly into his life. In the tale of Wolfram’s birth, he had told things he never voiced to anyone save Brianna. He laid himself bare before his son, and found himself unprepared for the blow so quietly delivered. He should have expected Wolfram to keep secrets, of course he would, and hadn’t Fionvar himself asked the next question? What had he hoped for, that his suspicion was unfounded, or that Wolfram would lie again in an attempt to assuage his feelings?

Brianna was right—even if Wolfram changed, too much would be the same. He might grow up, but still never control
his urges or reveal himself any more than he had to. “Bury it,” Fionvar muttered.

For this young man, he had forsaken his love and his queen. All his bold words dissolved like mist, leaving him alone. Would Brianna take him back after all he had said to her? Would he be humble enough to ask? She would marry again, get new heirs. There would be no Lord Protector. There would be no place for him.

“Oh, bloody earth!” Lyssa shouted suddenly from behind her curtain, accompanied by the crash of falling tools. “Bury it and lose the grave!”

Fionvar was halfway there before he considered what he was doing. Inside, he was that same boy too young to be a man, trying to hold his family together.

“Lyssa? Are you all right?” He pulled aside the curtain and found her sitting on the floor, nursing her thumb.

“Blast it,” she muttered, sticking the injured thumb back in her mouth.

“Cursing in temple? Not like you, Lyssa.” Fionvar crouched beside her, smiling. “What can I do?”

“Go away.” She glowered, examining her thumb. “Whacked it with the mallet—not bad, though, nothing broken.”

“I’m so relieved.” He let himself drop to the floor, picking up her fallen chisel and holding it out.

“What’re you doing here anyway?”

He sighed. “Wolfram and I burned the tiger skin. I told him everything.”

“You burned the skin? What on earth for?” She snatched the chisel and dropped it onto her leather tool carrier.

“He’s been having nightmares—night and day, I guess—that the tiger’s still after him. I thought that would help.”

With her thumb in her mouth, Lyssa stared at him. “You don’t think he’s going mad?”

“No,” Fionvar replied thoughtfully, then shrugged. “Maybe he is. Maybe he always was, I don’t know.”

“What happened to all your resolve? When we spoke a few days ago you were ready to throw away everything for him.”

Running his fingers over one of the inlaid tiles of the floor, Fionvar examined his sister’s work. Someday, the place would be beautiful. “He lied to me again.”

She snorted. “Did you expect otherwise?”

Shaking his head, Fionvar told her, “This was different. Something happened to him today, something that scared him. He wound up outside my office.” He paused. “My former office. He didn’t mean to, I think, but he accepted my hospitality. I could tell he was rattled, but he wouldn’t tell me what happened.”

“Of course not.”

“That’s not the lie that bothered me. No, later on, I asked if there was anything he needed to tell me—confessions, I mean, and he understood that. He said no.”

Lyssa blinked, wiping off her thumb and shaking it gently. “Naturally.”

“I asked him if he was lying, Lyssa, and he said yes. Why would he say that? Why would he acknowledge my suspicion but refuse to tell the truth? ‘It’s not about me,’ he said, like he could protect me from something.” Fionvar traced the pattern of leaves.

“Mmm,” Lyssa said, getting to her knees to start tucking away her tools.

“You don’t think that’s strange?”

Dropping the heavy case on her table, Lyssa said, “I don’t know what to say. I don’t know why it bothers you—he’s still a liar, isn’t that what upset you to begin with?”

Holding his arms about his knees, Fionvar said, “To begin with, yes, but I’ve been sitting out there in the dark. I made three circuits, and what I thought of was the way he looked at me when he said it. ‘It’s not about me,’ he told me, then ‘I’m not the only one who does things he regrets.’”

“Maybe you should let it go.” She took a wide brush and started sweeping stone dust from the table.

Coughing, Fionvar arose, waving away the dust and frowning. “You don’t have to do that now,” he complained.

Eyeing him, she dropped the brush. “Maybe he is protecting you. Maybe whatever it was doesn’t matter anymore.”

Waving more slowly, Fionvar said quietly, “What was it between you, Lyssa? Why won’t you talk to each other?”

“I told you.” She looked away, leaning her powerful arms on the table.

“Something to do with him and Melody; but I put that forward, you just agreed.”

She cupped her forehead with one hand, looking as if she’d like to have her long hair back, to hide her face. “Leave it alone, Fionvar.”

Slowly, Fionvar walked around the table, and stared down at her. “Lyssa,” he said, urgently, a tone of worry entering his voice. Suddenly he thought she might be right, he should leave it alone, forget it ever happened, whatever it was; but it was too late for that.

Her head propped up by her elbows, Lyssa’s strong shoulders shook. Silently at first, then with a growing keening terrible to listen to, she wept. Tears streamed down her arms, carving channels in the dust and splashing on the tiles below.

Fionvar stared. When Orie had died, she had not cried. When Wolfram was born, when Jordan was married—not since she was seven years old had he seen Lyssa cry.

Now she wept in great wrenching sobs, her face buried, the whole of her powerful body given over to this grief.

Across the table, Fionvar straightened, and felt himself turn to stone as he realized the truth.

After a long time passed, he exhaled. “How far?”

“Not that. Just…I never meant…” She sobbed, then shook her head. “Great Goddess, Fionvar, you have to know—”

Weak-kneed, Fionvar let the wall support him. “Did he know?”

“Not then, later that night. I swear, Fionvar, I never meant for anything to happen.” She looked up at him at last, her eyes swollen from tears, her face a mask of misery. “I was so glad to find him alive, to be able to save him. He was in pain, he needed…comfort.”

“But you knew, Lyssa. You knew who he was to you—even if he wasn’t the prince. Even if you weren’t a priestess.”

Wiping futilely at her eyes, she admitted, “He’s been after
me for years. I couldn’t discourage him. I didn’t want to push him away.”

“All those years of stone-carving lessons and swordplay,” Fionvar breathed. “Why didn’t I see it?”

“You never saw him clearly; Great Goddess, Fionvar, by that time you were barely allowed to see him at all. I was his friend.”

He gazed up toward the ceiling. “You were flattered. Here he was, all full of admiration, smitten with you like no one since Jordan.”

“What could I do? I thought he’d grow out of it—I knew he’d taken a lover, I thought—”

“Then what?” Fionvar barked. “You thought you’d let him live out his fantasy, to see that you weren’t as great as he believed?”

“It wasn’t like that! After the leopards, we fought back-to-back, he was hurt, and I had him brought to my room. I thought he would be safe there.”

Rounding the table, Fionvar looked her in the eye and felt her hot breath. “In your bed.”

Pressing a hand over her mouth, Lyssa wilted beneath his gaze, the tears seeping slowly down her cheeks.

He drew back, the fury and agony coursing through him. “After I finish cleaning out the study, I’m going to the manor. If anyone cares, that’s where I’ll be.”

“You can’t leave, not like this—”

“Shut up, Lyssa!” He turned his back on her and strode for the silence of his abandoned place.

LOOKING BACK
toward the castle, Wolfram saw the dark outline of the tower with the observatory at its top. With the sliver of moon in the sky, Dylan should still be there. He rose and went to the stairs, climbing their endless turns until his bare feet were cold and bruised with walking.

Knocking on the lower door, he waited. When he banged a little louder, he heard scrambling inside, someone making his way down the ladder.

At last, the door creaked open, and Dylan’s pale face peered around. “Wolfram, it’s you,” he squeaked.

Frowning, Wolfram nodded. “Let me in; I need to talk to someone.”

“Now? But the moon—”

“You can watch and listen at the same time, can’t you? This is really important, Dylan.”

With a sigh, Dylan pulled the door open the rest of the way, closing it as Wolfram mounted the ladder to the roof. Dylan followed resignedly, shutting the trapdoor when he reached the top. By his post were a small, hooded lantern and ready quill on top of a parchment already dark with notes and calculations. Next to his chair stood a tall clock, its brass works ticking away, gears ratcheting the tiny hands forward.

“That’s the new clock?” Wolfram went to peer at it more closely, but Dylan jumped before him, nearly knocking over the delicate machine.

“Don’t touch it!”

“I wouldn’t; I know how long you all were working on it.” Still, he retreated a few steps, then turned to overlook the landscape. “How can you make any measurements at this hour anyhow?”

“The mountain peaks, and a few standing stones. I have a chart with everything measured out to compare.” Dylan dropped heavily onto his chair. “What did you want to tell me?”

Wolfram turned back to his friend. “I finally heard the whole story, the truth behind the legend of King Rhys.”

“What’s that?” Dylan leaned over to peer through a brass tube toward the horizon.

“Well, for starters, he’s not dead.”

“Of course not.”

“What?”

“He was taken into the stars; he wasn’t really alive, but a guise of the Lady,” Dylan explained, then frowned. “You know all that, I mean, he’s your…” He shrugged and turned back to his tube.

“No, he isn’t,” Wolfram said firmly.

Dylan was silent, not looking at him.

Nervously, Wolfram started pacing the circular rooftop. “You should go to Hemijrai someday, to see the observatory there. They have this dome, a full sphere, really, and you can go inside. There are paintings on the walls that show great events in the sky and in their religion, and all these little holes where the sun or moon shine through. They think they can predict when their god and goddess will be reborn.” He stopped, considering the idea as he stood before the clock again.

Dylan, with his back turned, didn’t see Wolfram bend down to take a closer look. Two dull metal weights hung from a thin chain, clicking over their gears with the time. Shadows edged the chain links like dried blood, and Wolfram flashed to the chain at his throat and the two metal beads that gave purchase for the hands that would have killed him. A bolt of horror shot through Wolfram. “It was you.”

“What did you say? I didn’t catch—” Dylan turned and froze, his face eerie in the tiny, flickering light.

Wolfram surged to his feet and caught a handful of Dylan’s robe, knocking over the chair, dragging him down close to the candle to see his face. “It was you,” he shouted, jabbing a finger at Dylan’s face. “I broke your nose with the back of my skull.”

“What are you talking about?” Dylan bleated, his scholar’s fingers grappling with Wolfram’s strong hands.

Yanking him to his feet, Wolfram pushed him back against the wall. “Why did you do it? Why did you try to kill me, Dylan? You are my best friend.” The demon ripped at the inside of his skull even as grief welled up in his throat.

“Please, Wolfram, let me go, please,” Dylan gasped. “Your Highness.”

Growling like a mad dog, Wolfram heaved him off his feet, pulling his back over the low wall, leaning over him. “Why’d you do it?”

“She told me he wasn’t your father, that you were an imposter,” Dylan choked out. “She said it was mine, Great Lady, Wolfram. I loved her—I love her.”

“Say something that makes sense, Dylan!”

“Asenith. I love her, Wolf—please!”

Tugging Dylan back from the edge, Wolfram let him drop to the floor as he sank on top of the trapdoor. “Asenith.”

Nodding desperately, Dylan stroked his throat, red hair flopping over his eyes.

“The baby is yours,” Wolfram said.

“She said so, I don’t know, Wolfram. I don’t know if I can trust her. I did then. Sweet Lady, I thought she loved me. She was beautiful, older—she wanted me. She’s encouraged me so much…Sweet Lady.” On his hands and knees, he bowed his head, still trying to get his breath.

“You’re babbling, Dylan, tell me straight.” Wolfram kneaded his temples, practicing his breathing as he stared at his would-be murderer.

“Don’t kill me,” Dylan pleaded.

“I won’t kill you, Dylan.” Throwing back his head, Wolfram laughed out loud, even as he wanted to weep. “You’re my best friend, remember?”

Dylan sank down so that his forehead touched the stone. “I met her at a talk about the observatory. She was so interested, and she sought me out—me! I found out what she did—I wanted to marry her, Wolfram, but she wouldn’t. I don’t have any money. She had a plan, she said. That’s when she told me about you, that you are a bastard, that you should never inherit the throne. What would it matter, she said, if we played you along to get money. Then we could marry.”