Ghost in the Yew: Volume One of the Vesteal Series Page 27

  We moved to our places, mine at the top of the carriageway stairs with Fana. She and I were wearing the clothes of simple serving girls, though they were more revealing than usual. I did not entirely like the role the prince had cast us into but agreed with Fana that we were certain to be the distraction that was needed. If it meant Kuren’s demise, I would walk naked along Bessradi’s wharfs.

  My prince and Urs stood just below, next to Thell. The old groom was dressed in clothes from Barok’s closet that Umera had altered. The pocketed azure vest made his gray eyes leap out, and the high-collared white silk beneath it gave his outdoorsman’s skin the look of being bronzed. I had not realized how tall Thell was, but maybe it was the clothes that made him look it. Everything, including the expression on his face, said he was a nobleman of superior stature.

  Gern waited at the bottom of the stairs with another guardsman, the smaller lad dressed as a nobleman’s page. They had hold of a pair of horses, one of them Clever.

  Gern signaled that they were close, so Barok and Thell started down the stairs as Kuren and thirty of his soldiers came into view on the carriageway. Their number surprised me, and I hoped my prince had contingencies in his planning to take care of so many. Kuren was very distrusting. He was also very ugly. His crowning baldness was surrounded by curling snarls of black hair, dyed I could tell, even from that distance. His hands, nose, and neck were blemished, and the size of his stomach made me wonder if his horse was in pain. I had expected a greasy little thief or a miserly old man, not a balding brute. I remembered the faded yellow and muddy brown his soldiers wore from the silly-looking, ram-emblazoned flags flying above Almidi. The brown color looked like it was made from the husks of black walnuts. It was a very poor dye. Kuren was not from the Kaaryon.

  I prepared a smile. Fana was grinning already. She was very fortunate both her nervous and amused expressions were very pretty ones.

  Barok escorted our unnamed nobleman to his proud horse and bowed low to him before the page led them down the carriageway at a canter. Kuren bowed to Thell from the saddle. It was a dangerous looking maneuver, and I hoped his bulk would tumble to the ground. It did not, but the feat earned him nothing. Thell rode by without even a glance.

  When my prince greeted him, he was startled.

  “Who was that?” Kuren demanded suddenly.

  “No one important,” the prince replied, waving Gern to take hold of Kuren’s horse. “Should I have your horses stabled?”

  “No,” he replied, his eyes still on Thell. “We will not be here that long. Where is my gold?”

  “Have you eaten?” my prince asked, a slight nervousness leaking through. I was not sure if it was on purpose. “I am sure the road has made you hungry, and you and your men are more than welcome.”

  The horsemen made cheerful murmurs, and Kuren’s eyes moved up the stairs onto Fana and I. She blushed, and the brute actually grinned up at her before looking back at his men. Urs, very much to his credit as my prince’s servant and against his nature as a father, did not so much as twitch.

  Our visitor used the same ugly tone when he replied to my prince’s question. “We eat. You pay. We leave.”

  My prince bowed and gestured for Kuren to lead the way. The brute liked that considerably, and once in the great hall, he took the seat at the head of the table. My prince sat on the other end with Urs while Kuren’s men plunked themselves around the table and began to play with the cutlery. What rubes.

  I went halfway back down to find the food already on the way up.

  Well done, ladies.

  We surged up the stairs, and I helped Pemini and the Dame set it all out on the table. There would be enough.

  Kuren’s eyes followed me and for a longer time Fana while we filled bowl after bowl with filets of fresh fish and peppered yellow beans. The crop had ripened just enough for the occasion. Several large bowls full of stewed apples went out next, followed by bread and the last five bottles of wine left over from the festival.

  Kuren’s men let out happy exclamations as it was presented. The arilas held out his cup, and while I filled it, I felt his hand reach up under my skirt. I yelped innocently when he gave me a squeeze high up the inside of my thigh, and I shot him a blushing smile. His sweaty hand was fat and cold. My prince’s brow slanted darkly toward his nose and his nostrils flared. I thumped Kuren’s shoulder with my rump and continued to smile into his eyes and let his grip linger so he would not notice my prince’s anger. It was a distracted man we wanted after all.

  I was happy with Barok’s reaction. He had not fully considered what my role would invite. Either way, a suitable apology would be in order—such as him bathing me for a span of days. That and visions of how Barok would later kill the pig made the smiling easy.

  The empty glasses of Kuren’s men my excuse, I maneuvered out of his slimy grip and continued out of his reach. His soldiers, meanwhile, were scooping down the food with abandon. If Kuren was trying to bluff his wealth, his men’s hunger gave him away.

  “Who was your visitor?” he mumbled through a mouthful of beans, his eyes still fixed on my breasts.

  “Just a business associate.”

  “What business?” he growled, gulping down the cup of wine. Fana took a turn filling it. Kuren grinned at her, and she blushed hotly. His free hand, thankfully, was on the wrong side of his body to get a grip on her. She was not ready for such a rude groping.

  My prince did not answer the hanging question, and when Kuren finally noticed, he turned away from Fana and glared down the table at him. The prince shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

  “Orchards,” he replied. “Apples.”

  Kuren twirled his wine glass in his fat fingers and asked, “What Enhedu orchards have a noble from the Kaaryon here?”

  “How did you know he is from the Kaaryon?” my prince asked.

  “You just told me,” Kuren laughed. His men paused their gorging to join in the laughter. Kuren enjoyed the moment.

  I opened the second to last bottle of wine and began filling more cups.

  Kuren drank his down and spat, “Answer my question.”

  My prince jumped in his chair and wiped his brow. “There aren’t any orchards yet, just a number of trees. A man I know learned about them. He found some investors and approached me to begin developing the trees into orchards.”

  Kuren and his men began to notice the bowls of stewed apples and dished it out until they were empty. Kuren gulped down a third cup of wine, lifted a spoonful, and asked, “Are these the ones?”

  My prince nodded, and the fat man sucked down the sweet fruit. He pawed at his mouth, leaned back into his chair, and raised a thick eyebrow. He looked around at his men who enjoyed it similarly.

  “I want in,” he declared.

  “I have only a minority interest in the venture. I do not have the authority to add new partners.”

  “How much are you in for?”

  “I am bound not to say.”

  “Tell me,” he yelled, and threw his spoon at my prince. It missed his head by the width of my hand, though I was sure he had meant to hit him. My confidence waned for a long moment. My prince had one of his swords set on the fireplace mantel behind him, but against thirty, I was not so sure he would be victorious. I was also on the wrong side of the room to escape. I spotted an abandoned eating knife on the table and decided to stay close to it.

  “I bought in for 700 weights,” my prince replied, a bit of his rage seeping through. Kuren scowled back at him.

  I made eye contact with Barok and tried to tell him to calm down. We could not let things get out of hand. I filled Kuren’s cup again and gave him the sweetest smile I could muster.

  My smile or perhaps my smell soothed him, and his face softened. He set his large hand around my waist. I put my free hand gently on his shoulder and changed my grip on the wine bottle—just in case. I should have been an assassin.

  He asked my prince, “700? Why so much for an orchard?”

  “Mo
st of it is to set up things at the capital,” my prince replied, with a hand gesture I had learned from him, one we hoped Kuren would know. The arilas nodded. It was a bribe, the gesture said. My prince’s partners were buying access to the large Bessradi market—maybe even buying a monopoly. The brute’s grin widened, and he paused in his pawing of me. We almost had him.

  My prince volunteered, “That is what my visitor today will be taking care of. There are four others, but I have only a one-eighth share. There are already a number of trees, so we will be delivering a crop to Bessradi this autumn.”

  Kuren snatched a new spoon, scooped down more of the apples, and greedily extended his empty cup toward Fana. All of Kuren’s men had gotten a good taste. Barok and Urs’ cups were still empty, by design, and Fana crossed to the arilas. She filled his cup to the brim and upended the bottle with a giggle to let the last few drops fall. He ogled Fana’s breasts before grinning back at my prince.

  “You are out,” he declared.

  “What?” my prince stammered.

  “I am taking your share of the business instead of the gold. I am your new silent partner.”

  “But I can pay the sanction.”

  The brute laughed at his protest. “I do not care if you can. I will take your share of the business, instead. Have a copy of the accounting made and a letter signing over your share sent to me. If I do not have them by the date the sanctions are due, I will send a thousand men to drag you out of here by your hair.”

  “You cannot,” my prince said sadly. Urs reached out and put his hand on Barok’s shoulder to console him.

  “You little worm,” Kuren laughed. “You do not understand, do you? Even if you had paid me the money, I would just sanction you again. I can do whatever I want to you. Be glad for those trees, boy. They are all that is keeping you out of irons.”

  My prince hid his eyes and nodded.

  Kuren stood and groped my breasts roughly before he shoved me backward, flipped his bowl onto the floor, and stomped out of the hall. His men were not as rude. As soon as he stood, they scooped their food furiously into their mouths and gulped down their wine.

  My prince stayed in his chair, Urs’ hand still on his shoulder. Fana and I were on the far side of the room from the stairs so did not have to suffer Kuren or his men as they made their way out. I straightened my clothes. I needed a bath.

  Urs whispered, “You know he wants the accounting so he can learn the names of your partners.”

  “Yes, the bastard. He wants to contact them and get me cut out of the deal completely so he can sanction me again. He is crafty.”

  The reeve hunched into the table. He had not caught my prince’s sarcasm. “What are we going to do?” he asked. “He will know he has been lied to when he sees Enhedu names on the land sale document instead of titled men from the Kaaryon.”

  My prince patted him on the shoulder. “Fear not, Reeve. There are many ways to keep names off of ledgers and contracts, and the moment I sign over my share of the business, he could not sanction me again if he wanted to.”

  Urs’ happier, though still slightly vacant expression, asked how. I sat, wanting to know as well. Barok grinned, taking great pleasure in some details of his plan he had not previously shared. He had never been more attractive to me.

  “Kuren hasn’t realized it yet, but if he wants to sanction me again, he will be asked how I paid the first one, and until he can contact our non-existent investors and get their leave to take my share of the business, he will not be able to reveal his new orchard interests for fear of angering unknown noblemen from the Kaaryon. His name is worth little enough there already. So as far as the Council of Lords will ever know, I paid Kuren the full amount.”

  “Your years of study seem to have paid off,” I said and gave him such a smile he almost blushed.

  Fana was unconvinced. “It still seems like he won. He is going to get all of the profit from the orchards.”

  My prince smiled at her. “Only from my share, and all of the orchard’s expenses will be booked against my account. The rest of the profit will go to its other owners—Thell and all the men who will work it. If Kuren can decipher that from the complicated contract and accounting I am going to send him, he is smarter than any of us imagine.”

  My breast was smarting from Kuren’s grip. I decided I needed something more direct than a bath to get the ogre out of my mind. I slid my toes up my prince’s leg under the table.

  Urs asked, “What happens when he does find out?”

  “We only need to keep him from attempting to enforce the sanction again until the timber contract expires. If he waits to complain until after the apples are harvested, it will be too late.”

  The reeve clasped my prince’s shoulder tightly. “You did well by Enhedu today, my lord.”

  Gern led everyone else in, and Barok explained our good fortune. They cheered, and he said to them, “There is no wine left to toast with, but if you will all join me, there is still plenty of food.”

  We made good use of what remained, and when the meal was over, I led my prince to our room and made him apologize many, many times.

  It occurred to me I still had not taken my dose of mangor root, but I let the thought pass and enjoyed my prince.

  42

  Arilas Leger Mertone

  The Waning Days of Spring, 1195

  I was glad I had volunteered to watch the road and light the signal fire. I needed as much time and space from Dia as I could find. She had turned out to be something other than what I first thought, and I was not about to let her pile on any more hurtful words or tell me again that she thought Fana should be made Barok’s second whore. I stayed in Urnedi just long enough to see the Chaukai’s efforts better organized and to hire three more men to help Urs restock my emptied store before I rode out alone.

  I did not get to chew on my anger very long. Kuren Pormes arrived sooner than anticipated and with more men than expected. Their number did not concern me. The Chaukai were ready to take care of the lot if it came to that.

  Thell and the dressed-up guardsman made it down the road late that afternoon, and the three of us doubled back down a series of hunting trails. Thell could not stop grinning, and I couldn’t blame him. In one day, he had gone from the old man in the stable to Enhedu’s second largest landowner and overseer of the orchard he’d been tending his whole life. I was glad I’d be back in time to welcome the men who would work it with him.

  His happiness was refreshing, but it did not get me free of Dia’s words. One woman and two oaths—I did not know which bothered me more, that she thought me incapable of being faithful to one woman or that she was right about the oaths. To be bound to both the Yentif and the Vesteal was madness. And worse, I had long since betrayed my oath to Lord Vall. I had led men to their deaths to see him upon the throne. Now I worked to undo him. A true bondsman to the Exaltier would have revealed the existence of the yew forest and exposed the Chaukai at all costs—not endeavor to become one.

  A search for distraction put Dia’s insult back in my mind. “What is wrong with having only one woman?”

  “Nothing at all if everyone plays by the same rules,” Thell replied.

  I had not meant to ask the question out loud, but his reply called my melee of thoughts to a truce.

  “How do you mean?”

  “Well, it is hard for the common man to be happy with one woman when any man with title and gold can have as many as he can catch or buy. Half are unhappy because they only have one, and the rest go broke or mad trying to please many. The saddest of the bunch, though, has to be the sons of the Exaltier.”

  “Pardon?”

  “Well,” Thell continued with a shrug, “excuse an old man for speaking out of turn, but how would you like it if you could have any woman you wanted but could not have a single wife or son? Choosing not to is one thing, but to not be able to? I cannot understand why they put up with it.”

  A prince having children. I tried to remember if Dia had
ever mentioned taking the women’s medicine. Rot. A new anxiety dug deep into my belly. Two seasons in, and not once had I thought about it. I was a very bad alsman.

  No, wait. She had worked at the palace. It would have been given to her when she arrived, the priest’s brew, not just the mangor root.

  Rot. That meant it was permanent. Dia would never have children. What would Kyoden and Sahin think about that?

  “Alsman,” Thell said, “you look a little green.”

  “No, no, I am fine.”

  “Hmm,” he said with a shake of his head, “whoever she is, you better go and get her. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a man so in love it made him sick.”

  I did not know how to explain that Darmia was not in my thoughts, but then suddenly she was—her kind voice, her fingers upon my arm, and the smell of cherries as she hurried by.

  I looked up to see Thell’s patient face. My horse had stopped, and my eyes were threatening tears. The guardsman was far ahead of us.

  “What is her name?” Thell asked.

  “Darmia.”

  He nodded and scratched at his nose. “Is she lost to you?”

  “Dead? No old man, but I might as well be. She would never have me.”

  “Married to another?”

  “No.”

  “Bore another man’s child?”

  “No.”

  Thell gave me a long, hard look. “Then what is your problem? Do not tell me you never told her.”

  I did not know what to say, and Thell scoffed. “Lad, you are a bigger fool than I, and that’s saying something for sure. If I were you, I would figure out a way to let her know and quickly, before a real obstacle is placed between you.”

  “She is in Bessradi.”

  “Distance? That is a coward’s excuse. If you love her, go and get her. I promise you’ll regret it all the days of your life if you do not.”

  I expected anger, but none came. Instead I felt small and scolded, like a boy who had left an axe out in the rain because he did not know it would rust. I smiled.