Son of Avonar Read online

  Duke Evard tossed back his fair hair and fixed his attention on my face, and I felt my color rise as if I’d actually yelled out a soldier’s lewd blessing or dropped straw on Tomas’s head as I might have done in teasing one short year ago. I dropped my father’s arm and gripped the rail of the balcony. To my breathless astonishment, the duke pulled out of the ranks and waved his troops on forward while he positioned his mount just beneath me, stood on his saddle, and reached for our iron trellis that was thick with the dark green leaves and orange blossoms of trumpet vines. As agile as an Isker acrobat, Duke Evard shinnied up the trellis and over the rail until he stood on the balcony beside me. Bowing gallantly from the waist, he presented me with a bouquet of white lilies some admirer had thrust into his hands.

  Cheeks burning, I accepted the flowers and was scarcely halfway through my curtsy when he scrambled over the rail again. To a laughing roar from the crowd and his troops, he leaped into the saddle and spurred his charger forward, retaking his position at the front. Neither he nor Tomas looked back.

  Evard claimed he was my slave from that moment. It did not occur to me at the time that the daughter of the oldest house in the kingdom would make an excellent match for one with royal ambition. And neither Evard nor Tomas nor any Leiran ever mentioned that his bloody victory had exterminated the entire population of the lovely, refined Vallorean city he had conquered. Years went by before I learned that part of the story.

  My father died when I was eighteen. His passing was a mercy in so many ways, both for him—a great man before his grieving decline—and for me. Though Papa was only forty-one, the tally of noble deeds we had the priests engrave upon his memorial stele in Annadis’s temple comforted us that the Holy Twins would not forget him or our family when telling stories of earthly heroes. And I could not be betrothed in the year of mourning.

  During that year I learned a great deal about Evard. He spent much of his time with Tomas at Comigor Keep, our musty holding on the northern downs, sparring in the fencing yard and making himself at home in our grand old library, drinking my father’s brandy and talking of those who would stand between him and the throne when King Gevron died. I had listened to men’s politics since nursery days, more than ever since my mother’s death. And so there came a time when my curiosity prodded me to question Evard’s certainties.

  Year 28 in the reign of King Gevron

  “But Evard,” I said on one evening, “doesn’t the law say that when only nieces and nephews are left, it’s the children of the king’s eldest sibling that will inherit?”

  “Don’t trouble yourself, my duchess,” he said. “When the time comes, there will be no one but me. I have information, you see. My aide Darzid—a truly valuable addition to my staff—has discovered that Vennick has troubles with his estates. I do believe the good earl has failed to pay his levies for ever so many years, and, in fact, evidence will come to light that he has unlawfully diverted the taxes of his vassals . . . to his own purposes.” He widened his eyes in shock, then he and Tomas burst into laughter that I didn’t quite understand. I didn’t quite approve of it, either.

  “And my cousin Frederic. Have you heard the rumors?

  It’s being said he’s a bastard, that my Aunt Catherine was never legally married to Colburn. Why, the whole brood could be turned out onto the streets if a witness was ever to be found to the matter. Dear Aunt Catherine, who would ever have picked her for a common whore? I couldn’t bear to see her made to do public penance, though. The thought of her shaven head nauseates me!”

  “You can’t be serious! Lady Catherine?” My mind stretched yet again into unfamiliar realms.

  “And I don’t think Martin is a serious contender. He has very strange friends.”

  Martin, Earl of Gault, was one of my favorite people in the world. He was about forty-five and, like all Leiran men, had been a soldier. He now held a powerful position at court. A distant cousin of my mother, he was a wise, cultured, and witty man. On my seventeenth birthday, Martin had issued me an invitation to join him and some guests for a few days at his estate, assuring my father that I would be properly chaperoned. He hosted these “salons” for three days in the first week of every month, inviting a variety of fascinating and unusual people, and providing his guests with charades and plays, jugglers and mimes, word games, puzzles, and lively debates about anything and everything. Martin thought no one too young to participate if the person could make good conversation, which he defined as anything beyond fashion, horses, and the war of the moment.

  I had spent my childhood with horses and dogs, playing at war with Tomas, listening to my father and his friends talk of battles and conquest, politics and managing estates. I was sure that every intelligent person in Leire believed the same as they on every matter of importance. But every day spent in the stimulating company at Windham advanced my education a whole level. There I began to learn of history, art, philosophy, and music, to question the certainties of politics and piety, and to experience the pleasures of sharp wit and well-considered disagreement.

  I thought Martin would make a marvelous king, but I never said so to Evard or Tomas or even to Darzid, Evard’s charming, cynical aide who began accompanying Evard to Comigor that summer and quickly became my favorite dinner companion. Tomas disdained Martin, saying that anyone who would dress himself up as a beggar for a Long Night entertainment had too little dignity to be a sovereign. When I told Martin of my brother’s comment, he said, “It does me good to dress as a beggar now and then. Gives me wondrous understanding of my tenants and my soldiers, having to do without boots in the cold.” Though he tossed it off lightly, I knew that he meant what he said.

  It was at Windham, Martin’s sprawling country house, that I met Julia, countess of Helton, a brilliant and elegant young widow. Julia was the first woman I had ever known who could hold her own in serious conversation with men. From the first evening of our acquaintance, I wanted to be like her. Fortunately, Julia’s rank made her a chaperone of impeccable credentials, for my father—and later, my brother—would never have allowed me to continue in such liberal company without.

  Julia and Martin were passionately in love. They could not marry because Julia’s dead husband’s powerful family refused their consent. Martin would have had her as his mistress in an instant, but as he was third in line to the throne, Julia would not permit him to compromise his reputation. Certain influential Leirans required behavior in their kings-to-be that they did not require in their kings, she told me. Though I never saw them so much as touch hands, their intimacy was such that on occasion I felt like a crass intruder just watching one offer the other a glass of wine.

  Resident in Martin’s household were two brothers, Tennice and Tanager, second and third sons of a minor baron who had too little property to share among his children. Only military service or the priesthood were considered suitable occupations for landless noblemen. The baron, unwilling for his sons to reap the scorn reserved for men who would choose temple service over arms, had sent them to serve the earl. Martin had discovered in the two a depth of talent and loyalty that quickly raised them out of the ranks and into his inner circle.

  Tennice was the elder, serious and scholarly, his thin face forever pushed into a book unless one made a chance remark about law or politics within his hearing. He had a remarkable memory, which had imprinted on it everything he had ever read. He was Martin’s chief counselor, and thus accompanied the earl on all his business.

  On one occasion, after an intense, three-day discussion of matters of royal succession and the peerage, Tennice invited me, quite sincerely, to read law with him. Perhaps I could move in with Julia, whose estates bordered Martin’s? I was overwhelmed by the compliment, for it was unheard of for a woman to participate in such intellectual pursuits, and I was surely no scholar. Of course, I had to refuse. My father was newly buried, and Tomas would never permit me to leave home unmarried for such a purpose. But as soon as I returned to Comigor, I began to receive books on
law and politics and philosophy, and copious notes in Tennice’s own handwriting. I studied them intensely, so I could discuss them on my next visit. I was determined to deserve his regard.

  Tanager was Martin’s aide and bodyguard and the very opposite of his brother, muscular and rash, exaggerated in every way. No one would plunge into Martin’s enterprises with more enthusiasm. His broad shoulders would bear a donkey’s head for a Long Night farce or bloodstained armor in his lord’s service with equal willingness and enjoyment. Again and again he would lavish his heart and his attentions on a woman, only to plunge into deep depression when she discovered his lack of fortune and abandoned him. The others teased that he should wear his armor in Martin’s drawing rooms, as no one ever came out of the conversational battles more bloodied than Tanager.

  By the autumn that I turned nineteen, I felt more at home at Windham than at Comigor. . . .

  Year 29 in the reign of King Gevron

  I arrived in early evening, breathless with the chill wind of the open carriage. Julia met me with a kiss and swept me toward the fire, snatching off my cloak and tossing it to a manservant. “Dear Seri, I’m so glad you’re here. I’m in desperate need of an ally. Your cousin is being an ass again.”

  Martin and a portly noble of similar age were pro-pounding their dismay over the recent visit by one Baroness Lavastre to the Council of Lords. The formidable woman had intruded on the Council’s deliberations, insisting that she be allowed to offer opinion on a property ruling being considered by the body, her husband being away at war and his man of business recently deceased. “It’s true the woman had an excellent grasp of tariffs and the subtleties of trading-company acquisitions,” said Martin, clasping his hands behind his back and shaking his head with such gravity, one might think the woman had suggested Leire surrender a city or two to a wild-haired Isker warlord. “I discussed the matter with her in this very room only last spring. But if we allowed her to speak to the Council, why then next month she would want to vote her husband’s shares!”

  “And why should she not?” Julia riposted as we joined Tennice, Tanager, and several other younger men who had settled on the couches and chairs near the fire. “A good mind for business with a few fresh ideas could increase everyone’s profits.”

  “Perhaps, if women were allowed to speak, some consideration might be given to the smaller shareholds whose masters are younger and thus all away at the war,” I added, not even pausing to give Martin his usual peck on the cheek before joining the fray. “As it is, only those too cowardly or too old to serve are voting. They’re running smaller trading companies into the ground. . . .” It was an old argument, and Martin always started it up again whenever a fellow member of the Council of Lords showed up in his drawing room. Did he believe his own pronouncements? I was sure I had heard him argue exactly the opposite way on earlier occasions when Tennice had brought out the points of law that prohibited women’s voices being heard in the Council chambers.

  We pursued the matter until supper was announced. Almost everyone in the fireside circle had seen his ideas upheld or trounced, and had been called variously a fossil, a libertine, or an anarchist fit only for the mad speakers’ corners near the Royal University in Valleor. Only one observer had stayed quiet throughout the discussion—a slender, dark-haired stranger, who stood leaning on the corner of the tall marble mantelpiece, arms folded across his chest. His blue eyes and high cheekbones gave him a slightly foreign look, though I could not guess his origins. He was clean-shaven, and conservatively dressed in a black doublet, high-collared white shirt, and slim black breeches, though in any Leiran house he would be inevitably conspicuous for the lack of a sword at his side. When the supper truce was called, and Martin bent over me for his greeting kiss, my cousin flicked his glance to the man. “Did I not tell you we had a lively forum here, my friend?”

  The stranger looked from Martin to me, crinkling his eyebrows as if making a serious study. “Are all the women in Leire so opinionated, or is it only those with fire in their hair?” He spoke in a soft, melodious baritone. “I’ve lived among many strange cultures, and in few are women allowed a voice until they’re at least eighty. Now I think I understand why.” If his marvelous eyes had not sparkled with good humor, I might have been offended.

  Martin almost choked on smothered laughter. “Lady Seriana Marguerite, duchess-daughter of Comigor, may I present my good friend Karon, a gentleman of Valleor. He is a traveling historian and archeologist on leave from the University, come to study the people of Leire and our peculiar customs. Karon, you must call her Seri or you’ll never have a chance to get in a word of your own. . . .”

  The gentleman bowed and took my hand, raising it to his forehead in the Vallorean way. I had never seen a man so graceful. He was of an age with Julia—late twenties—and I plagued him shamelessly with questions throughout that evening, even more forward than usual as his air of mystery intrigued me so. But he remained vague about his origins, saying only that he’d spent most of his life moving from one place to another after the death of his parents when he was very young. By the end of my three-day visit, I realized that I had done far more talking than he.

  The ensuing months passed much too quickly. Once having met Karon, I never looked back to Evard. Karon’s intellect and interests were wide-ranging, embracing subjects far from his specialties. Martin had taught me how to argue, how to poke and prod my opponent with strange ideas and bits of information, twisting and turning words into knots and puzzles, until both of us came out panting with the mental exertion. The purpose of it was never the winning or the losing, but only the exhilaration of the contest. Karon was never averse to taking a position far from his own simply to further the enjoyment of the fray. He reveled in the game, while Evard was interested only in winners and losers.

  My year of mourning was almost over, but I was not ready to give up the freedoms it had granted me. When the months had shrunk to days, I decided that I must speak to Tomas.

  “The year is up next week,” I said one evening, as we sat alone in the Comigor dining room.

  “So it is. Will Evard offer for you?” Tomas seemed more interested in the slice of roast pork he was carving to refill his plate.

  “You know his mind better than I.”

  “His mind is on the succession. Gevron grows more feeble each day.”

  I pushed a compote of currants and blackberries within his reach, watching a drop of the deep purple sweetness soak into the white table linen. “What if Evard doesn’t win as he expects?”

  “He’ll win.”

  “But what if he doesn’t, and I’m betrothed to him?” My own meal sat untouched on my plate.

  My question clearly set him thinking. Tomas would feel it disloyal to speculate on Evard’s failure—and Tomas was anything but disloyal—but a rich, virginal, and reasonably attractive young duchess was a considerable asset, not to be thrown away even for friendship and loyalty. I knew my worth.

  “An interesting question.” He said nothing more about it that night or any other night following. But when the year was up, Evard did not offer. After some weeks, I broached the subject once again, but Tomas said only that Evard had agreed he had no time for betrothals or weddings or wives. Not until his position was secure.

  That was enough for the moment. I lived for my days at Windham and harbored no illusions about my future. I was a key to Tomas’s fortune every bit as much as his strong sword arm. Many brothers would have forbidden the freedom I had, so I treasured my friendship with Karon and all Martin’s circle, and I acknowledged nothing beyond it.

  Year 31 in the reign of King Gevron

  King Gevron fooled everyone by lasting two more years. Though Evard chafed, he was not idle. As he had predicted, an astonished Earl of Vennick was found guilty of diverting tax revenues into his own pockets and retired to his country estate in disgrace. And a witness signed documents avowing that the priest of Jerrat who had presided at the wedding of Gevron’s sister Lady Cat
herine to Sir Charles Colburn was an impostor, unknown to any temple in Leire. Therefore Lady Catherine’s son Frederic, Duke of Warburton, was a bastard and had no claim to his uncle’s throne.

  With no little unease, I watched Evard bind Tomas ever more closely to his fortunes. Evard told my brother that it was time he named his own military staff. As the lord of such a vast holding as Comigor, Tomas should replace the old Comigor captains who were beholden to our father with younger men who would be loyal to him alone. Evard even offered to loan him Captain Darzid.

  To think of my father’s loyal commanders thus dismissed, seven fierce and honorable warriors who had dandled me on their knees when I was small, who had taught me to shoot a bow and still brought me exotic gifts from their travels, was insupportable. In the past year, as Tomas and Evard had become more engrossed in their intrigues, I had spent a great deal of time with Captain Darzid. I enjoyed his wit and found his ever-sarcastic observations of Leiran courtiers amusing. So, on the night before the change of command, I sought him out at his townhouse and explained my feelings.

  He pressed wine into my hands and, once done with his delightful renderings of my brother’s shock and the scandalized court ladies’ gossip at my secret venture into a bachelor’s house, seemed sincerely interested in my pleas. “What would you have me do, my lady? I am ever at your command as you well know. But my refusing the post will not help the old curmudgeons. Nor should it. Duke Tomas is absolutely right; your own safety depends on his control of his troops.”

  “You’re clever, Darzid. I know you care for no one but yourself”—we had discussed this many times—“but for this once, bend your wit to a kindness. I’ll think of something magnificent to reward you. I swear it.”