The Queen's Consort (30 page)

             
The kitchen was in the back of the house. He'd find something there to feed his growing family.

             
He eased open the door and slipped through it, then pulled it closed behind him. Clairwyn needed her rest. He climbed over the rubble and there, in full arms and armor, stood his father and six of the King’s Corps.

Thirty-Three

             
No. It couldn't be. Ansel reeled at the sight of Beaumont and the king’s most trusted men, his most vicious and dependable killers. They couldn't be here, so close to Clairwyn. When they hadn't appeared last night, he'd assumed that his father was dead and the Corps dissolved.

             
Despair dragged Ansel down. He should have known better than to hope that Beaumont had died. Like a cockroach, his father was a survivor.

             
“Father.” Ansel forced the word out.

             
“Ansel! I'm glad to see you well, my boy!” Beaumont folded him a rough embrace and released him quickly. “We've lost the battle, son, but we can still win the war!”

             
Ansel stared at him.

             
“Come,” his father said. “Eat.”

             
They must have looted his kitchen because a veritable feast lay spread before them. On Ansel's hammered gold plates, of course.

             
“What do you plan?” Ansel forced himself to speak, to act casual. They couldn't know that Clairwyn slept in the room beyond. He had to get them out of here before she woke and came looking for him.

             
Beaumont grinned hugely. “Son,” he said, “we were just discussing how best to get you away from the witch.” He nodded toward the bedchamber door. “So we can kill her.”

             
Ansel felt as if he'd been hit on the head with a brick. He felt sick and dizzy and besieged. With a grim effort he pulled himself together. He had to find a way to get Clairwyn out of here.

             
“Obviously, she's enchanted you,” his father considered earnestly. “We don't blame you.”

             
No. Ansel forced himself to think. He had to do something.

             
“You tried to warn us.” Beaumont shook his head sadly. “If only we'd listened to you.”

             
Ansel's mind churned up and discarded one impossible plan after another.

             
Beaumont's face hardened. “She's trapped in the room. While you slept we blocked the windows. We can set fire to the roof—”

             
“No!”

             
“You're right, of course. That might give her too much time.” Beaumont wriggled his fingers. “For, you know, her to pull off one of her magic tricks.”

             
Ansel didn't have a plan. He'd have to appeal to his father's soft side. It was a terrible option, probably doomed to failure, but he had to try.

             
“Or,” Beaumont mused, “we could just rush in and butcher her before she wakes.”

             
Ansel stepped between Beaumont and the door that protected Clairwyn. “You can't kill her,” he said, “unless you kill me first.”

             
His father didn't seem surprised, and that surprised Ansel. “Now, son,” the older man said, “don't be like that.”

             
Ansel didn't move.

             
“You truly want her? You would die for her? She's pretty enough, true, but there are plenty of other women. You know that.”

             
“There is no other woman for me.” Ansel heard his voice as if a stranger spoke. “I love her.” Hearing the words aloud made it real to him. He did love her. “And yes, I will die for her.”

             
Beaumont nodded slowly, then gestured. One of his soldiers lifted a plate of bread and dried fruit and handed it to the king.

             
Beaumont offered the plate to Ansel.

             
Ansel made no move to take it.

             
“So suspicious.” Beaumont sighed regretfully. “All right. The fruit is poisoned. But it won't harm the woman. I promise.”

             
Ansel waited.

             
“It will kill her unborn child.”

             
“No,” Ansel gasped. Bile rose in his throat and he gagged. “The babes are
mine
, Father.”

             
“Babes?” Beaumont asked sharply. “She bears twins?” He paced back and forth, the plate swaying in his hand.

             
“Yes. Twins.” Would that somehow change his father's mind?

             
Beaumont stopped before him. “Ansel, we have magicians, too. They told me that her pregnancy is the source of all her power, all the magic she has used against us. End her pregnancy and she has no power, no magic. And we win the war.”

             
Ansel stared at him in horror.

             
“She is young,” Beaumont continued. “She can have other children. With you, of course. She'll be yours.”

             
She would never be his, never again. She would never forgive such treachery.

             
Beaumont shrugged regretfully. “Or we kill her. And the babes die with her. It's your choice, son.”

             
Ansel surveyed the faces before him. They were all resolute, without pity or mercy. They would kill Clairwyn, wipe their swords clean on her dress, then parade her body as a trophy of war.

             
Slowly, Ansel reached for the plate. His hand trembled as he turned toward the door.

             
“Wait.” His father poured clear springwater into a mug. “She'll be thirsty.”

             
Ansel nodded mutely and took the mug.

*****

              Clairwyn still slept. Ansel put the food and mug on the bedside table and moved to the windows. They were small and high, and he couldn't force them open. Desperate, he climbed on a chair to poke at the ceiling. He could find no weaknesses. The wall was solid and immovable, the door to the servant's entrance blocked.

             
They were well and truly trapped. By now Clairwyn’s Guard was scouring the city in search of her. On the other side of this wall she would be safe. To be so close to salvation, and yet so far, was almost as painful as what he had to do.

             
Ansel watched her for a long moment, memorizing the curve of her cheek, the sweep of her lashes. He knew he'd never look upon her face again. But she would be safe.

The fey had said that Clairwyn would only have these children. Surely she was wrong.
Another man—a better man, he hoped—would give Clairwyn a child to replace the children she would lose today. The children he would take from her.

             
A gentle tap on the door reminded him that Beaumont would not wait long.

             
Clairwyn woke as he eased onto the bed beside her. She smiled at him, so sweetly and with such trust, that his heart broke again.

             
“Oh, good,” she said, spotting the food. He watched as she ate. “Is something wrong?” she asked. “You seem troubled.”

             
He couldn't answer.

             
She took a deep drink of water. He set the plate away from her. She'd had two pieces of fruit. Perhaps less poison would hurt her less—

             
A strangled gasp startled him. He wheeled back to Clairwyn in time to see the mug slip from her grasp and hit the floor.

             
Her eyes rolled up into her head and she fell back onto the bed. Ansel wrapped himself around her as the thrashing started. Her arms and legs jerked uncontrollably and bloody foam dripped from her lips. He tried to hold her, to keep her from hurting herself. Surely this would pass soon. It couldn't last. She couldn't possibly survive much longer.

             
Clairwyn's face twisted horribly and her body bucked wildly, straining against his hold on her. He called her name, sobbing, begging her to stop, to live, to forgive him—

             
Finally, finally, she relaxed against him. He gathered her close as she dragged in a long, shuddering breath. Now, surely, the children were dead. But she would live.

             
He rocked her, murmuring words of comfort and promise. She exhaled and her body stilled in his arms.

             
No, no! He ripped her bodice and placed his hand over her heart. He felt no stirring of life within her. He turned her and pressed his ear to her chest, reminded horribly of Andromeda's death.

             
Not again.

             
He was too late. She was dead.

             
He held her tight and rocked wildly. She couldn't be gone. He couldn't have killed her.

             
Slowly, slowly, Ansel realized that he wasn't alone with her. He lifted his eyes to Beauregad. “You promised,” he said raggedly, “that she would not be harmed.”

             
Beaumont lifted an indifferent shoulder. “I lied.”

             
Very, very gently, Ansel released Clairwyn's body. He laid her down and closed her staring eyes. He arranged her hands modestly over her torn dress.

             
And then he lunged at his father.

             
The speed of the attack took the older man and his soldiers by surprise. Ansel's fingers closed around his father's throat and he tightened them mercilessly.

             
“You've lied for the last time, old man.”

             
A blow landed on Ansel's temple and rough hands pried him away from Beaumont.

             
Ansel fought the guards while Beaumont caught his breath. “I do believe the boy would have killed me,” Beaumont finally gasped. He sounded shocked.

             
The guards forced Ansel's arms behind his back and pressed him to his knees before the king.

             
“It had to be done, boy,” his father said, not unkindly. “She had to die, and it had to be by your hand. Yours, Ansel. Or her filthy get would rule my kingdom.” Beaumont's face twisted with rage and he spat on the floor in front of his son. “
My
kingdom.”

             
Ansel stopped fighting the restraining hands. Why bother? Perhaps they'd do him a kindness and kill him, too.

             
Beaumont wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “That's why I sent you to kill her in the first place. I never thought for a moment that she would bewitch and seduce you. Now that she's dead, the effects of the spell will ease. And I will have my son back.”

“No.” With the last of his strength, Ansel lifted his head and faced his father. “I love her. That is no spell, no enchantment. And I will never call myself your son again.” He shook free of the restraining hands. “I have no father.”

              Beaumont's face flushed purple with rage. He gestured at his men. “You heard him,” he said coldly. “He renounced me. He is no longer my son. Kill him.”

             
Shocked, his men looked askance at each other. Slowly, reluctantly, they reached for their weapons.

             
“Stay your hand.” Clairwyn's voice sounded strange as she rose from the bed.

             
Ansel started toward her, then stopped. Her eyes were pure silver now, no black at all. She looked at him as if he was a stranger.

             
“Clairwyn,” he started.

             
“Silence.” She said the word softly but with utter authority. “I have always known that I would die by your hand, my prince.”

             
Ansel's jaw snapped shut.

             
“I wished you'd
stayed
dead,” Beaumont muttered. “It would save me having to kill you again.”

             
She turned her fey gaze to Beaumont. “You lied to him,” she said in her strange, eerie voice. She rested her hand on the slight swell of her stomach. “The babes are not the source of my power. It is Ansel. It was always him.”

             
Me?
Ansel stared at her.
How could it be me?
  

             
“His feelings for me tore him to pieces. He loved me, he hated me. He wanted me dead, he would die to save me.” She tilted her head at him. “I tried to ease your pain, even as it fueled my power.”

             
He stared at her.

             
“And now, when you believed you had caused my death, your frenzy has pushed me to my full potential.”