Guardians of the Keep Page 4

“I’ve only met the boy today.”

  Philomena’s aunt appeared at the top of the stair. “Sir physician, your dallying is insupportable. The duchess awaits.”

  Ren Wesley called up to her. “Madam, I have journeyed for most of a day to wait upon the good lady. Inform Her Grace that a portly old man, stiff from a long carriage ride, does not move so quickly up the stairs as sylphlike creatures such as yourself. Only a moment more and I shall be at her side.” His scowl gave way to a raised eyebrow and a twinkle in the eye as soon as he turned back to me. “I would speak to you on the boy’s behalf, my lady. Now, if no other time is available.”

  Unlike my nephew, I had never been the master of my own curiosity. “You should go up,” I said. “I can postpone my departure for a little while. I’ll be in the music room.”

  “Thank you, my lady. I will rejoin you as speedily as may be.”

  I sent word to Renald that our departure was delayed and returned to the music room. Sadly, this room was more neglected than the library, cobwebs draped over a standing harp as if the spiders were trying to add new strings to it. I straightened the portrait of my mother that hung over the hearth. My fragile, lovely mother had brought music and grace to this musty warriors’ haven. She had been afraid of war and hated talk of it. When she had died so young—I was but nine years old—people had said that life as a Leiran warrior’s wife had been too harsh for her. I had vowed to be stronger. Strange how things work out.

  I ought to go. No need to concern myself with the child. By spring Philomena would be mobile again and would take her children to Montevial. Though I would be sorry to see Comigor left vacant, perhaps it would be better for the boy. Surely in the capital city some friend of Tomas’s would take him under his wing.

  As I picked idly at the strings of a lute that hung on the wall, that consideration led me to think of Darzid, Tomas’s cynical, unscrupulous military aide. Darzid was an enigma, a charmingly amoral man who had attached himself to my family eighteen years before. With only flimsy proof, I was convinced that Darzid’s mysteries were connected with my brother’s terrible deeds, and, ultimately, with the soulless Zhid warriors who had killed Tomas and tried to destroy D’Arnath’s Bridge. Darzid was unlikely to concern himself with Tomas’s child. But the possibility that Philomena might turn to him for the boy’s tutelage kept me in the music room waiting for Ren Wesley. If I could discourage any such association through the good offices of the physician, I had to do so.

  Almost an hour later the leonine head poked itself through the music-room door. “May I?”

  “Please, come in. I hope everything is well with my sister-in-law.”

  Heaving a massive sigh, the physician lowered himself to a high-backed chair that creaked woefully at the burden. “As I expected, the duchess needed only a good measure of reassurance. I’ve recommended that she keep close to her bed this time in hopes we may bring this child into the world for more than a single day. The last two arrived well beforetime, and, as such infants will, they lacked the stamina to survive more than a few hours. Every day we can prolong Her Grace’s confinement gives the little one a better chance. But I ramble. You desire to be off.”

  “I do, but it’s not for lack of interest in renewing our acquaintance. I’ve nothing but good memories of our evening’s encounter.”

  The physician clucked his tongue. “What dreadful dinner parties the countess concocted! That particular evening was the only one in my memory when I did not return home swearing to renounce society completely. I looked forward to meeting you again. But the next time I saw you, you were in a witness box before the king, vowing it was possible for a healer to bring his patient back from the dead.” Elbows resting on his thick knees, chin propped on his clasped hands, Ren Wesley examined my face as if I were some rare symptom to be added to his store of knowledge. “Ah, madam, do you understand what questions your story raised in me? The appalling truth of my own ignorance . . .”

  “Surely you know that to discuss such matters would put us both in violation of the law.” His frankness was disarming, but I had lived too long to ignore the consequences of unbridled speech. Any door or window could conceal an informer. Only sorcerers were burned alive, but those who countenanced sorcery, even by speech, likewise paid a mortal price: beheading or hanging, according to their rank. So Leiran law had stipulated for four hundred and fifty years.

  “Yes . . . well . . . there are those among us who listen and think somewhat more independently than we have the courage to display. But in the interests of timeliness as well as safety, I will concede. Truly your nephew is of more immediate concern. You say you’ve met him?”

  “He’s the reason I’m here. . . .” I told Ren Wesley of my promise to Tomas and the message he had sent to his son.

  “They did not get on, you know,” mused the physician. He leaned back in his chair and took out a pipe, proceeding through the rituals of filling and tamping. “Gerick clearly admired his father a great deal, yet from the time the child left the nursery, he would scarcely open his mouth in his father’s presence. The duke was quite concerned. Knowing I had sired six sons of my own, he consulted me several times, even asking me to examine the boy for any sign of disorder.”

  “And what did you find?”

  “Never had the opportunity to discover anything. Twice I attempted an examination, and twice the child went into a fit, almost making himself ill.”

  Just as he had in Philomena’s room.

  The physician tapped the unlit pipe in his large hand. “Many children throw tantrums, especially children who are wealthy and indulged and permitted to be willful. But what’s so worrisome is that the boy is not at all prone to such behavior. Your brother was a good father, and unless I attempt to examine him, Gerick is invariably polite and respectful to me, just as he was to Duke Tomas. He is very much in control of himself. Too much so for a child of ten.”

  “I noted the same. That’s why I was so surprised at his outburst.” I told the physician about the boy’s terror when I revealed my identity. “I assumed that the tales he’s been told of sorcery and my connections with it were just too frightening for one so young.”

  “For any other child you might be correct, but Gerick is not subject to foolish frights. No. The boy has built a wall about himself and will let no one beyond it. When anyone attempts to breach his defenses, he throws himself into this morbid frenzy. It’s not healthy. He needs someone to take him in hand, someone who cares for him.”

  I sat on a cushioned stool beside the standing harp and began brushing cobwebs off the tarnished strings. “Why are you telling me this? I’ve just met the child. Though I grieve to hear of his trouble, surely there are better ears to hear of them.” Someone who did not begrudge the boy’s life. “His mother—”

  Ren Wesley harrumphed like a volcano belching fire before its eruption. “I wouldn’t trust his mother with the training of my dogs. But the woman isn’t stupid, either. Where it comes to her abiding interests, she’s been known to listen to reason. When I spoke with her just now, I took a great liberty. The duchess was complaining of a problem with the tenants and the rents. . . .”

  “I heard it. I hope she can be made to understand the importance of the Comigor Covenant.”

  “What she understands, madam, is how painful is her lack of silver and how her own position depends on the security and prosperity of her son’s inheritance. I told her that it was important to her health to ease these worries . . . certainly true. And I told her that I could see only one solution to her problems.”

  “What was that?” A blindly innocent question.

  “I told her that you must collect the rents.” His great eyebrows leaped skyward.

  “You’re mad! Philomena would never consent to such a thing.”

  “On the contrary, my lady, once her eyes were opened, she began to think it her own idea.”

  “Then she’s mad.”

  “Not at all. Consider. The boy is not of age. The traditions
of this house require that an adult, a member of the family or a guardian appointed by the king, carry out this covenant. His mother sees dealing with the rents as tedious and common and would as soon hang the tenants as shake their hands. But by persuading you to stay, she can have money in her pocket at the turn of the year without putting herself out in the least. I told her that your familiarity with the castle could perhaps relieve her of a number of burdens and allow her to concentrate on her health.”

  I was not sure whether to laugh hysterically or throw the harp at the monstrous eyebrows that waggled in delight at my discomfiture.

  “I apologize for failing to take into account whatever it is that currently occupies your days, but the opportunity presented itself. I cannot but think the boy would flourish in your care.”

  The only thing that kept me from laughing at his foolish presumption was the way my heart warmed, even as I accused him of madness. I fingered the rose-colored, thumb-sized stone that hung around my neck. At some time in the coming months, so I’d been told, the stone would glow of its own light, its unnatural chill grow warm, and then Dassine would bring Karon to visit me in hopes I might provide some small help as the sorcerer restored Karon’s memory.

  I had no good plan for what to do with myself while I waited. I could not bear to return to the primitive life I had lived for ten years in Dunfarrie, nor, even if I had the means, could I resume the life of aristocratic dabbling that had been interrupted by Karon’s arrest. For the past few months I had been caught up in events that shaped the universe, and now neither sphere felt like home. I hadn’t believed that I belonged at Comigor either. But if I could do some good with the time, shore up Comigor’s neglected future, then staying here might be a decent way to spend my time. As for the boy . . .

  “If I allow myself be talked into this foolishness, whatever would I do about my nephew?” I said. “He was trembling at the sight of me.” And to think that I, of all people, could break down the boy’s unnatural reticence . . .I could scarcely endure looking at him.

  The furrows in the physician’s broad forehead deepened. “A gamble, to be sure. If he cannot come to tolerate you, we’ll have to reconsider. I told the duchess that I would speak to him.” His last words were phrased as a question. He cocked his massive head, waiting for my answer.

  I couldn’t seem to think of another argument. “You’re a wicked man, Ren Wesley. You remind me of another I met just recently, a healer, too, who with his conceits sets himself up to order the fate of men and women and worlds. I don’t think either Philomena or her son will thank you for this. Nor will I.”

  The physician burst into thunderous laughter. “It should be a match of historic proportions. I might have to set myself a regular schedule of visits just to make sure you’ve not murdered each other.”

  So it was that the Duchess of Comigor sent me an urgent message, requesting me to delay my departure so she could set me a proposition. While I stood in the window of a second floor sitting room, waiting for my interview and wondering at the change a few hours could make, I watched Ren Wesley stroll about the inner ward. Hands clasped at his back, he examined the crumbling sundial that marked the exact center of the castle. He was just moving toward the curved border of the well when he spun on his heel. My nephew hurried across the courtyard, bowed politely to the physician, and joined him on his walk. Gerick stopped after a moment and seemed to be making a point, shaking his head vigorously. But he displayed no hysteria, no screaming or other irrational behavior, and soon the two resumed their stroll, disappearing through the arched gate into the fencing yard. A short time later, a maid brought the physician to me.

  “Your nephew is greatly disturbed by your presence, my lady,” said a bemused Ren Wesley, “and he repeated his accusations that you are—pardon my frankness—condemned and wicked. He says that his father banished you, and that you have no right to be at Comigor.”

  “That’s that, then. He’s absolutely correct. I’ll go at—”

  “But when I told him that your stay was in the best interests of Comigor and his mother’s health, he accepted the decision quite reasonably. Unquestionably something about you disturbs him, but I don’t believe he is half so terrified as he acts.”

  A bit later, when I was invited to Philomena’s room, my sister-in-law sweetly begged my pardon, claiming that her lack of welcome earlier was due to her anxieties over her health. Her husband had obviously trusted and forgiven me, for she had received word of the royal pardon granted at Tomas’s behest. Truthfully, said the duchess, in blushing humility, she had been quite taken by my words to Gerick about the honor and responsibilities of the family. When the physician had given her the dire news that she must abandon all serious thoughts and occupations such as the running of the household, the only thing that prevented abject despair was the realization that the Holy Twins had sent me to be the salvation of the family’s honor and my nephew’s heritage. After an hour of Philomena’s wheedling and an hour of serious negotiations touching on my rights, duties, and privileges while in her house—the woman indeed knew her business where it came to matters of inheritance and ambition—we agreed that I would stay.

  By nightfall Ren Wesley had departed, and my driver had been dispatched with letters to my friends in Dunfarrie, informing them of my change in plans. I had no need to send for my things. The few articles of clothing that I had acquired on my return to city life had traveled with me. By midnight, I lay again in the little room in the north wing where I had slept from the day I left the nursery until the day my brother had forbidden me to come home again.

  CHAPTER 3

  The autumn days quickly fell into a routine. I breakfasted with Nellia in the housekeeper’s room, and then spent the morning either with the steward, going over the accounts or inspecting those parts of the castle in need of repair, or with Nellia, poking into the storerooms, guest rooms, linen rooms, or pantries. I had agreed with Philomena that in exchange for my help in collecting the rents, I would be allowed to put right what was needed with the house and estate, setting it in good order for my nephew.

  Though the servants were universally shy of me—the infamous, corrupted conspirator of sorcerers, allowed to live only by the king’s grace—my respectful manner to Giorge and his clerks quickly soothed the anxious steward. After a few awkward sessions in which I demonstrated both my understanding of the estate’s complex finances and my regard for the unique arrangements between the lord’s family and the tenants, the steward became my most ardent defender save for Nellia. With delight he dispatched his assistants to every tenant, notifying them that the world was in order once again. Covenant Day was set for the first day of the new year.

  Afternoons I reserved for myself, walking out every day to enjoy the northern autumn, a luxury I had sorely missed in my impoverished exile, when autumn labors might be the only thing to stave off starvation in a hard winter. I returned from my walks to write letters on estate business or work on some household project: taking inventory of the linen, or showing the maids how my father’s maps and books should be cared for.

  I had agreed to spend an hour with my sister-in-law every evening after dinner. At first, Philomena required me to expound upon the most minute details of my activities and investigations, from how many napkins I had found in the dining-room cupboards to the state of the hay supplies in the stables. After a few days of verifying every item with Giorge or Lady Verally, her sour aunt, she must have satisfied herself that I was dealing with her honestly. I never again got beyond, “Here is what transpired today. . . .” without her saying, “Good enough, good enough. Let’s talk of more interesting matters.”

  As I knew no court gossip and had no insight into current fashion, her “more interesting matters” seemed to be the private details of my life with a sorcerer. She wheedled and teased, calling me boorish, stupid, and cruel for refusing to amuse a poor bedridden woman, but I was not at all inclined to provide anecdotes to titillate Philomena’s friends when the
duchess returned to society. One night, in exasperation at our abortive attempts at conversation, I asked Philomena if she would like me to read to her.

  “Anything that will pass this interminable time,” she said. I suppose she thought that to dismiss me early would grant me some mysterious advantage in our contract.

  After rejecting the first ten titles I brought as too serious or complicated, she allowed me to begin one of the books of romantic adventure that had been my mother’s. Soon she was wheedling me to read beyond our hour’s time. I always shut the book firmly; one hour of my life a day was all I was going to give her. But reading made these interludes more than tolerable and set our relationship on a reasonable, if not intimate, course.

  Which left me to the matter of my nephew. An uncomfortable and unclear responsibility. My love for my brother was built in large part on our common history. We had been two very different people connected by the people, things, and experiences we had shared as children in this house. Yet our attachment had been much stronger than I had ever imagined, surfacing at the last after so many horrors seemed to have destroyed it. But I could see no way to stretch my affection for Tomas to encompass this strange boy. Someone needed to discover what was troubling the child, but I didn’t even know how to begin and was little inclined to try.

  Any presumption that casual interaction might break down Gerick’s barriers was quickly dismissed. My nephew seemed to have abandoned all the public rooms of the house. Except for an occasional glimpse in the library, I saw him only at dinner. Formal and genuinely polite to the servants, he spoke not a word to either Lady Verally or me.

  “Has Gerick a tutor?” I asked Nellia over breakfast one morning. I had never lived around children. A tutor might serve as a source of advice or insights.

  “He’s had a number of them,” she said, “but none for long. He tells them how stupid they are, how he can’t abide them as they’re no better than beggars. If they’re stubborn and put up with that, he’ll start with the mischief, putting tar in their ink pots or lamp oil in their tea. Or he’ll put on screaming fits with the duchess to make her send them away. Out of all the poor gentleman, only one ever stuck at his post for more than a week. But didn’t the boy carry a tale to his mother that the man was getting overly friendly . . .in a nasty sort of way, if you take my meaning? So, of course, the man was dismissed right off. That was almost a year ago, and none has taken up the position since then.”