The Scarecrow (Master of Malice Book 1) (15 page)

First Minister Levant sighed deliberately, drawing a fierce look from Elias.

“Go on, then, Rendan,” growled the King, “say what you’ve got to say.”

Levant ignored his sovereign’s belligerent tone. “Was that really necessary, Elias? Vassa’s only doing his job, and you’re determined to make it difficult for him. It’s hardly his fault he’s not Brynne Sullyan.”

Elias halted in his tracks, staring at the shrewd and honest face of his most trusted advisor. He had the grace to flush slightly before glancing away. “Am I that obvious?”

Levant smiled. “Only to me. Although I can think of another who’d see through you in an instant.”

“Yes, but if she were here I wouldn’t be behaving like a small boy deprived of his favorite puppy, would I?”

The King continued down the hall.

Levant raised his brows and his grin widened as he followed. “Now there’s a thought. What’s it worth not to tell Senior Master King’s Envoy Colonel Sullyan that you just described her as your favorite puppy?”

“Go to hell, Rendan! You know what I mean.”

Levant caught Elias’s arm. The King halted, but would not meet his minister’s sympathetic gaze. “You have to stop this, my friend,” Levant advised softly. “It’s doing you no good. Why can’t you settle for her friendship and service? You know it can never be anything else.”

The King twisted away from Levant’s touch. His minister’s use of the phrase “my friend” recalled memories of Sullyan saying it and the emotions it always engendered in his breast. Hearing Levant utter those words was almost too much to bear. He was about to snap some ill-tempered retort when he heard his daughter’s voice calling imperiously. Pulling himself up with an effort, he turned around. Levant stepped prudently away.

Princess Seline marched up to her father and stopped in front of him, chin raised defiantly. Elias sighed, recognizing the signs of petulant determination when he saw them. Seline had the trait from both her parents, although Elias believed the haughtiness that went with it was wholly Sofira’s. He could hear Seline’s nursemaid, Bessie, panting up the stairs behind her charge, and realized they must have had yet another battle of wills. He found himself hoping he could side with Bessie on this one, and then felt guilty for the ungracious thought.

He looked down at the sulky face of his daughter and reflected that, distant as they had become lately, they were both suffering the same malady. He pined for Sullyan’s company while Seline pined for the young swordsman, Tad. This was Seline’s first infatuation and Elias thought she could have found a worse hero to worship than Tad Greylin. He liked the youth, who was well-trained, polite, and respectful. Tad, realizing he was the focus of Seline’s tender young love, went out of his way to be careful of her feelings without encouraging her unduly. Elias had cause to be grateful for the young man’s consideration.

“Well, Seline, what is it? The hour is late, I am tired, and you should have been in bed long ago.”

“So I keep telling her, your Majesty, but she just won’t listen,” puffed Bessie, arriving at Seline’s side.

“Oh, be quiet, Bessie! I said I would go to bed and I will, but I want to speak to my father first.”

Elias raised his brows at his daughter’s tone and saw Bessie flush with displeasure. He really ought to have words with Seline. The girl was becoming far too waspish. Far too like her mother ….

Elias strangled that thought. He was depressed enough tonight. Thoughts of Sofira would make him resort to the brandy bottle again and he could do without that.

“Very well, daughter, I am listening. What’s so urgent it couldn’t wait till morning?”

Seline held her father’s gaze defiantly. “There’s a fair in the city tomorrow, in the merchants’ market. I haven’t been out of the castle for days. I want to go.”

It wasn’t lost on Elias that his daughter wasn’t actually asking his permission. He shot a look at Bessie’s long-suffering face and decided a day out at the fair would benefit her, too. He knew how difficult she found it looking after his ungrateful and haughty daughter—especially in the absence of the affectionate Prince Eadan—and although Bessie was well paid for her trouble, he wasn’t above giving her the odd treat as well. He smiled at the plump nursemaid and nodded to his daughter.

“Very well, Seline. I’ll get Denny to detail someone to accompany you.”

The Princess’s face turned thunderous and she stamped her foot. “
No
, Father! If you do that, you’ll spoil the whole thing! I know I can’t go alone, but I want to go with just Bessie. How can I enjoy myself with your soldiers trailing around behind me? Can’t I go into our own city without some great lumbering bodyguard getting in the way? What do you think is going to happen, anyway? I’m hardly going to get snatched by demons, am I? I’m not going to start another war!”

Elias went white. Seline’s spiteful reference to his disastrous invasion of Andaryon shot straight to the hurt in his heart. It was exactly the kind of wounding comment Sofira would have made, and it turned his soul to stone.

“Very well, Seline,” he ground out, the words like broken glass on his tongue. “You may go to the fair with only Bessie. But you are to be back within the castle long before dusk, do you hear me? Any later and I will rouse the garrison to fetch you back. Make no mistake that I mean what I say!”

Seline glared at her father. She knew he would carry through with his threat. She didn’t make a fuss, however. She had what she wanted. She turned away, a smug little smile on her face. Bessie cast a deeply apologetic look at Elias, but he barely noticed. He had already dismissed his cold, defiant daughter from his mind and turned to resume his interrupted walk toward his chambers. He’d just conceived a pressing urge to spend time with a certain bottle of brandy.

+ + + + +

S
eline marched back to the nursery, Bessie trailing behind. It really was high time she had her own suite of rooms, she thought. She was seven years old now, far too grown up to be sleeping in the nursery. Once this little trip into the city was out of the way and her father realized she was capable of getting her own way from now on, she would demand her own rooms. And the services of a
proper
maid. But until that time, she had her secret place.

She ignored Bessie’s attempts to see her into bed and firmly dismissed the nursemaid. Seline could manage very well. She could dress and undress herself, brush and arrange her own hair, and she was more than capable of taking a bath on her own. She smiled with satisfaction when she heard the door to Bessie’s room close, and she listened carefully to the noises of washing and undressing coming from inside.

When she was sure Bessie had gone to bed, she removed the tiny key from the secret pocket she had sewn inside her gown. It was really only a slit in the fabric, just the right size to hold the little silver key. Then she took out her private box from under her bed and unlocked the lid. She had done this several times in Bessie’s presence so the nursemaid could see the box held only a few pieces of gold ribbon from one of her mother’s gowns and a bundle of her mother’s letters. The Princess removed the latest letter she’d received and unfolded the square of parchment, smoothing it over her knee. As she reread the words from her mother her eyes misted over, and she scrubbed irritably at them.

She was sure she had her mother’s meaning right, but even if she had misunderstood, she would enjoy a trip of rare freedom tomorrow. Finding the passage she wanted, she went over the words one more time.

Do you remember, my dearest daughter,
going to the merchants’ fair last year? How we enjoyed strolling around the booths and watching the peddlers calling their wares? I especially recall how you enjoyed the antics of the man trying to sell those strange curved fruits from Beraxia. Do you remember him? I wonder if he will be there at this year’s fair? I feel very sad that I will not be able to go there with you. Perhaps you can persuade Bessie to take you. If you do, be sure to look out for the man selling curved fruits, and if he is there, think of me.

Yes, thought Seline once she had read it through, she was certain her mother was telling her to go to the fair and to visit the stall of the Beraxian fruit seller. Her mother was well aware this man was a regular attendee, so the part about wondering if he would be there this year was completely false.

Seline smiled. Her mother had told her before she’d left that she would try to find a way of communicating with Seline without her father knowing, but this was the first time Seline had discovered a hidden message behind her mother’s words.

Sofira knew Elias never attended the merchants’ fairs. He was always too busy for such activities and left the provisioning of the castle to Madam Delinna, the chatelaine. He would have no idea what was sold among the stalls. But Sofira had often taken her daughter along, to accustom her to the processes of bargaining and provisioning, and she knew how Seline loved the whole experience. It would be the most natural thing for the Princess to ask to go.

Seline trembled, half with excitement and half with nerves. What would she find at the fruit seller’s stall? What would happen there? Despite her earlier scornful reference to demons, the thought had already crossed Seline’s mind that perhaps her mother wanted to spirit her away from the castle. That’s why she had been so determined to dispense with her bodyguards. Her success in that had surprised her, but it also empowered her. If she could sway her father so easily in that respect, what else could she do? If kidnapping by her mother wasn’t the object of tomorrow’s jaunt—and Seline was intelligent enough to realize her father would turn out not only the castle garrison but probably the Manor as well if her mother tried anything like it—then she could think of many other demands for freedom she could try her hand at. Any or all of them would make her lonely life at the castle a bit more bearable.

Laying the letter aside, Seline emptied the box and picked at the base with her fingernail. It was a tricky catch, but if you angled it just right … she was rewarded by a click as the bottom of the box came loose. Prizing up the thin wood, she gazed triumphantly at the linen wrapping revealed under the false bottom. She took it out and unwound the scrap of cloth. A larger, heavier key fell into her hand and she clasped it tight.

Bessie would be asleep and snoring by now. Seline took great care to wear Bessie out and keep her up as late as possible when she intended to do this. It would spoil all her careful plans if her nighttime activities were discovered.

Rising from the bed, she took a dark cloak from her wardrobe, wrapped it around her, and opened the door of her room. She could just hear Bessie’s gentle snores. Smiling to herself, Seline soundlessly closed her chamber door, crossed the nursery floor, and opened the outer door. She slipped out into the deserted, dimly-lit hallway and ran swiftly on bare feet toward the iron-bound door that was now the only entry to the disused east wing. Seline inserted the key into the lock and pushed the door open. Unworried by the darkness that faced her, she passed quickly through and turned to lock the door behind her. As she moved down the passageway toward the oil lamp she kept on a shelf nearby, she suddenly froze. Straining her ears, she caught the sound of footsteps.

Heart hammering, Seline stood stock-still, hardly daring to breathe. When she realized the footfalls were coming from the hallway she’d just left she relaxed, letting out a silent sigh. She’d been fortunate. Another minute or so and she would have been seen. She felt herself go cold at the thought of discovery and tiptoed down the hallway toward her lamp.

+ + + + +

L
ord Levant was deep in thought as he came abreast of the locked door. He had finally persuaded Elias to go to bed rather than partake of yet another glass of brandy, but he’d seen the loneliness that still lingered behind the King’s eyes, unaffected by the amber liquid. He was worried for Elias, not knowing how to bring his monarch out of the depression that reared its head too often these days. He had been turning the problem over in his mind when his thoughts were broken by a faint scraping sound.

Levant stopped by the door, much as Sullyan had done a few weeks ago. Unlike the Artesan, however, Levant had no inner senses to rely on. And he was certain he’d heard something behind that door. He stepped closer and tried the latch, relieved to find the door securely locked. He knew Elias hadn’t ventured into the east wing since Sofira’s banishment, and there wasn’t much chance of him wishing to do so. That door was likely to stay locked forever unless there was a radical change of incumbent at the castle.

Levant stared at the door, wondering whether to mention the possibility of rats to Madam Delinna. If he did, she would have to go to Elias for the key, and that might stir up the King’s painful memories. If tonight was anything to go by, that was the last thing Elias needed right now. Levant decided to leave it. If there were rats in the east wing, they were welcome to it. There must be precious little for them to eat in there anyway.

He stepped away from the door and continued on down the hallway, heading for his own rooms and his bed.

T
he sixth bell had only just sounded when Sullyan heard the light tap at the door heralding the arrival of Frar Varian. If the elderly Frar was surprised to see all three of them dressed in their warm cloaks and ready to accompany him, he hid it well.

In truth, Sullyan herself was more than a little surprised. She had asked Ruvar for permission to attend the service mainly to satisfy a growing curiosity and her own theory as to the origins of this rocky bastion of faith, and she’d told Cal and Tad they were not required to accompany her. But as Sullyan woke, well before the sixth bell, and commenced her dressing, she heard the two men doing the same. They met in the living area, still warm from the banked fire, and as Sullyan stirred the embers in order to heat water for fellan, she cast them an enquiring glance.