Seeds of Betrayal

Chapter Six

The duke had them up early the next morning, which dawned grey and cold, the air damp from a late-night rain. Fetnalla knew that Brail wished to be back in Orvinti for the celebration of Bohdan’s Night, the Night of Two Moons in Bohdan’s Turn, which was only five nights away. If they left that morning, they’d just make it, barring an early snow in the wood.

The duke had returned to his quarters shortly after she did the night before, offering a brief word of greeting to the guard standing by their rooms as he opened his door. The minister heard him from within her chamber and briefly considered going to speak with him. She still wondered why he had come to Solkara, though she had some idea, and she hoped that perhaps, having spoken with Carden, her duke would be ready to confide in her again. She had reached her door, and was resting her hand on the handle, when the memory of his harsh words on the road to the city stopped her.

Since the death of the duke of Bistari, she had noticed a rift forming between them, and with all that happened the day before, it had grown into a chasm. Astounded though she was by the speed with which their rapport had crumbled, she had no doubt as to the cause.

“I will not be spoken to that way,” he had said, “especially not by a Qirsi.”

Never before had he said such a thing to her or made her feel that the color of her eyes mattered to him beyond the powers it gave her to serve him. Certainly he had never given her the impression that he feared her.

Somehow, the murder in Bistari had made Brail suspicious of her, perhaps of all Qirsi.

In a sense, his refusal to answer her questions about this journey to see the king told her precisely why they had come. Her duke knew of the conspiracy, and while she hadn’t thought him bold enough to take such action, Fetnalla suspected that he had come to Solkara to ask the king directly if he had ordered Chago’s assassination. She would have given nearly anything to know Garden’s answer.

Unfortunately, the morning found Brail as withdrawn as he had been the previous day. Aside from instructing her to gather Orvinti’s soldiers in the castle courtyard and have the stable hands prepare the horses, he said nothing to her. He barely even looked her in the eye.

When all was ready for their departure, Brail led Fetnalla toward the king’s hall, intending to find Carden and Chofya, thank them for their hospitality, and bid them farewell. They were still in the courtyard, however, when the bells in the castle’s cloister abruptly began to toll, the sound echoing loudly among the stone walls. Almost immediately, the king’s guards swarmed into the courtyard, surrounding the men of Orvinti and demanding that they drop their swords.

“What is this?” Brail asked, striding toward one of the older men, who wore a captain’s star on each shoulder.

“My apologies, Lord Orvinti,” the man said. “I know only what I was told by the archminister.”

“And what was that?”

“That I was to raise the alarm and then find you and your men.” He glanced at Fetnalla, who had followed only a step behind the duke. “The minister, too.”

“You don’t know why?”

“No, my lord.”

Brail glanced back at Fetnalla, a question in his pale blue eyes.

“You say this came from the archminister?” she asked the captain.

“Yes.”

“Where’s the king?”

“The king is dead,” came a voice from behind them.

Fetnalla and the others turned to see Pronjed walking toward them, accompanied by perhaps twenty more guards. His white hair fell unbound to his shoulders and his face looked wan and lean. Wrapped as he was in a fur-collared cape, he looked like some yellow-eyed buzzard from the southern moors.

“Ean save us all,” Brail whispered.

“How did he die?” Fetnalla asked, shuddering slightly, as if Bian had brushed her cheek with a frigid hand.

“It would seem that he took his own life,” the archminister said. “Though I find that difficult to believe.” He faced the duke. “He used the crystal blade that you gave him last night.”

All the color drained from Brail’s face, leaving it as white as Fetnalla’s hair. “I’m so sorry,” he breathed.

“Are you?” Pronjed asked. “Perhaps you’d like to tell me what you and the king discussed last night. What did you say to him that would make him do something like this?”

“Nothing that I can think of,” the duke said, looking past the minister toward the windows of the great hall.

“What was it that brought you to Solkara, Lord Orvinti? What did you and the king talk about?”

Before Brail could answer, Fetnalla laid a hand on his arm and pointed toward the doorway at the base of the cloister tower. The queen was there, stepping into the courtyard with the prelate. He held one of her hands, and had his other arm around her waist as if he were supporting her. But it almost seemed to Fetnalla that she led him, and that he was the more frail of the two. Chofya’s face looked pale, but her cheeks were dry and her eyes clear. If she had been weeping, she hid it well. She still wore her bed robe, which she pulled tightly around her shoulders, and her dark hair was still tangled with sleep.

Seeing Brail, Pronjed, and the soldiers gathered in the middle of the courtyard, the queen hurried toward them, concern knotting her brow.

“Your Highness,” the archminister said gravely, bowing low.

The others did the same.

“We grieve with you, Your Highness,” he went on a moment later, “as does all of Aneira. We have lost a great man and glorious king.”

“Thank you, Archminister,” the queen said, her voice even.

Brail stepped forward and knelt before her. “Your Highness, I don’t know how to express to you how sorry I am for your loss, and how much I regret my role in this tragedy.”

Chofya stared at him, clearly puzzled. “Your role, Brail? Carden did this to himself.”

“With the dagger I gave him.”

She actually managed a smile, looking more beautiful in that moment than Fetnalla had ever seen her.

“He wore a blade on his belt as well, Brail. If the one hadn’t been at hand, he would have used the other. Now please stand. Your obeisance isn’t necessary.”

The duke stood slowly. “You are kind, Your Highness. The kingdom is fortunate to have you.”

She glanced around at the soldiers, her eyes coming to rest at last on Pronjed. “Why are all these guards here, Archminister?”

“The king is dead, Your Highness, and Lord Orvinti and his company were preparing to leave Solkara. I wished to speak with them before they did.”

“Do you intend to take them as prisoners?”

Pronjed’s eyes darted briefly to the duke before returning to Chofya’s face. “No, Your Highness. But the duke was the last man to see the king alive.”

“I thought a servant brought the king wine after the duke returned to his quarters.”

“Well yes, but-”

“So you don’t believe the duke is guilty of any crime.”

The Qirsi’s face reddened. “No, Your Highness.”

“Then dismiss these men.”

“I must object, Your Highness,” the archminister said, his voice rising. “Even if your husband was alive when the duke left him, Lord Orvinti was the last person to speak with the king before he killed himself. I think we ought to know what he said that might have caused His Majesty to do this.”

“I don’t believe the king killed himself because of anything the duke said.”

“But you don’t know that for certain.”

The queen straightened. “I don’t wish to discuss this in front of Carden’s men, Archminister. Please send them away.”

Pronjed nodded reluctantly, then commanded the captain to dismiss the guards. As the men slowly dispersed, a wind knifed through the courtyard, making Chofya shiver.

“Perhaps we should discuss this in the castle, Your Highness,” Brail said. “You should be by a fire.”

The queen shook her head. “I don’t want to go in there.”

They lapsed into an uncomfortable silence, still waiting for the soldiers to leave the courtyard. Fetnalla kept her eyes fixed on the queen, but she was conscious of Pronjed standing beside her, his hand resting lightly on the hilt of a short sword. She had known the archminister for nearly six years, and in all that time, she had never once felt at ease in his company. In part, this was because of his position. She might have been first minister in Orvinti, but he was the most powerful Qirsi in the kingdom, and he carried himself like a man acutely aware of his own importance. But more than that, he struck her as having more in common with Eandi nobles than any man or woman of her race she had ever known. Her mother would have said that he had a warrior’s heart. Like a young Eandi court lad new to his power, Pronjed always seemed to be eager for a fight, be it with another minister, another Aneiran house, or another kingdom. Most Qirsi in the courts of dukes and kings in the Forelands found themselves tempering the aggression of those they served. Pronjed, she was certain, had fueled it. It might have been why Carden chose him as archminister, but Fetnalla couldn’t help but think that he was a man to be feared, a man whose fundamental instincts were at odds with the needs of the kingdom.

“You may have heard, Lord Orvinti,” the queen began, when the four of them were alone in the castle ward, “that the castle’s master surgeon was garroted yesterday.”

Brail’s eyes widened. “What?”

“My husband ordered it. At the time I didn’t understand why he had done it, except to guess that the surgeon had given the king cause to grieve. There’s an old expression: ‘When a Solkaran grieves, others will as well.’ ”

“Was the king dying, Your Highness?” Fetnalla asked.

The queen let out a brittle, desperate laugh that chilled Fetnalla as much as the wind.

“It would seem so, wouldn’t it? Carden and I barely spoke after the surgeon was killed, but how else am I to explain all this?”

Brail shook his head. “But to take his own life…”

“My husband was a proud man, Lord Orvinti. Too proud to allow himself to grow weak and frail at so young an age. I think he decided it was better to choose the time of his own death than to linger while the kingdom watched him fade.”

“You truly think that he’d kill himself?” Pronjed asked.

“You surprise me, Archminister,” Chofya said. “You knew the king nearly as well as I. All he did was driven by his pride and his belief in his own power. Without those, he would have been lost. It may not have been your solution or mine, and perhaps if he hadn’t drunk so much wine, he would have thought better of it. But that was Carden, for better or for worse. I’d be lying if I said I could have expected him to… to do what he did. But I’d also be lying if I told you that I was astonished by it.” She looked at Brail again. “This was not your doing, Lord Orvinti. Neither your blade nor your words killed my husband. Be at ease, and mourn with the rest of us.”

The duke bowed his head. “You have shown me nothing but kindness since I arrived here, Your Highness. I am your humble servant. If there is anything I can do on your behalf, you need only name it and consider it done.”

“My thanks, Brail. As it happens, there is something.”

“Your Highness?”

“Perhaps we can speak of it later,” she said. “For now, I have a funeral to see to, and messages to dispatch to the other dukes. Worst of all, I have to try to explain to Kalyi what’s happened.” She paused briefly, staring back at the castle, her expression pained. Then, as if remembering the rest of them, she looked at Brail again. “You and your company are free to remain here until the funeral. As our guests, of course,” she added, with a sidelong glance at the archminister.

“Thank you, Your Highness. With your permission, I’ll send word of… of what’s happened to my duchess and have her inform the other nobles of my dukedom.”

Chofya nodded absently, as if her thoughts had already turned to other matters. “Yes, Brail, that will be fine. We’ll speak again later.”

She turned to Pronjed, giving the impression that their conversation had ended.

Brail led his company a short distance from the queen and archminister and looked at his soldiers, his brow furrowing as it often did when he was thinking. “Return our mounts to the stables,” he said at last. “Then report to the captain of the king’s guard. Tell him that your duke has placed you under his command for the next few days, to be used as he sees fit. You’re to consider an order from him as coming from me. Do you understand?”

The senior man among the Orvinti guards nodded. “Yes, my lord.” The soldiers bowed to him, before leading the horses back to the stables.

“What about me, my lord?” Fetnalla asked, fearing for just an instant that he might assign her to Pronjed.

“I want you with me,” the duke said, much to her relief. “We have a good deal to discuss.”

“Very well. You wish to return to your chamber.”

Brail hesitated. “My father used to say that no conversation was ever private in a castle. Why don’t we walk?” He gestured toward a stone path and they followed it through the central ward to a smaller courtyard, which held the castle gardens. Nothing grew there now, of course, and the pools had been emptied in anticipation of the snows, but the courtyard was empty, and sheltered from the fiercer winds.

Fetnalla watched her duke, waiting for him to speak, but for a long time, he merely stood by one of the dry stone pools, seemingly lost in thought. She guessed that he was still shaken by news of the king’s death, but when he finally spoke, he surprised her with the direction his musings had taken.

“Something about this bothers me,” he said, his voice low, as if he had forgotten she was even there.

“My lord?”

He looked up at her. “The time for games has passed. Aneira’s king is dead, as is its most powerful duke. I can’t spend my days wondering what to share with you and what to hide. I have to know right now, can I trust you?”

She felt as though he had kicked her in the chest. “You have to ask?”

“Yes,” he said. “In these times, every noble in the land has to ask. Are you a part of this conspiracy I’ve heard so much about?”

Fetnalla wanted to cry, but she refused to let him see how much he’d hurt her. She would have liked to rail at him for doubting her, or better yet, to just leave her life in Orvinti, never to return. She and Evanthya could go to Caerisse or Sanbira and find a noble who wished to employ both of them.

Instead, mustering what pride she could, the minister met his gaze and said, “No, I’ve no part in the conspiracy. I have served you as well as I could for six years, and will for as many more as you’ll have me.”

“I want to believe you,” he said.

“Then do. What cause have I given you to doubt me?”

The duke shrugged. “You’re Qirsi.”

“And you’re an Eandi noble. Does that mean you’re just like the king, or Mertesse, or the dukes of Eibithar? Not every Qirsi is a traitor.”

“Some are.”

“Yes. And some nobles are tyrants.”

“It’s not the same. A tyrant makes himself known with every act. He’s easy to spot. A traitor is more insidious, and therefore more dangerous.”

She started to argue the point, then stopped. Thinking of it from the perspective of an Eandi and a duke, she had to concede that this was probably true. “I’m not a traitor,” she said after a brief pause. “But if you don’t believe me, you should find another Qirsi to serve as your first minister.”

Brail looked away and shook his head. “I’m not certain that would solve anything.”

This she understood as well. Until the conspiracy was defeated-or until it succeeded-every Qirsi in the Forelands would be viewed with even more mistrust than usual, whether or not it was deserved. The duke had little choice but to keep her as his minister.

“Why don’t you tell me what you meant before when you said something was bothering you,” she said, as if coaxing an answer from a reluctant child.

His eyes met hers for an instant and darted away. “It’s probably nothing. I don’t know what to believe anymore, even when it should be obvious.”

“Just because I’m not part of the conspiracy, that doesn’t mean it’s not real, or that it can’t strike here in Aneira.”

“Do you think it has?”

Fetnalla hesitated. She didn’t know anything for certain, and she and Evanthya had agreed that they should do nothing to alarm their dukes until they had more information. But if she wanted Brail to trust her, she had to start confiding in him.

“I fear so, yes,” she admitted.

“Chago?”

The minister nodded.

“Tebeo and I think so as well.”

Her eyes widened at that, and she wondered if Evanthya had already spoken of this with her duke.

“And now you think the king has fallen victim to it as well?” she asked.

Brail rubbed a hand across his brow. “I don’t know. I find it hard to believe that he’d take his own life.”

“The queen believes it.”

“Yes,” the duke said. “And so does the archminister. I’m probably just being foolish. But even if he was dying, why would he do this so soon, before he had the chance to name a successor? As it is, he’s placed the very future of the kingdom at risk. It makes no sense.”

“Much as I agree with you, my lord, I must also say that such a death would be difficult to fabricate. If he did take his own life with a blade, there would be blood on his hands, his clothes, his knife. There are far easier ways to hide a murder, my lord, even for a skilled assassin.”

“You’re right. But when I spoke with him last night, he didn’t seem like a man who was about to kill himself. Talk of the conspiracy had him worried, and clearly something was troubling him. I even went so far as to ask if he was well.”

“What did he say?”

Brail shook his head. “Very little. And having spoken with the queen, I now understand why. But still…” He shook his head a second time.

“My lord?”

The duke smiled thinly. “You’ll think me a fool.” He took a breath and then said, “He threatened me.”

“What?”

“Maybe that’s too strong a word. It was more a warning than a threat. But he told me never to come to him unannounced again. Why would a man who intended to take his own life as soon as I left him bother with something like that?”

It seemed so small a matter as to not merit consideration. She would have expected the king to comment on Brail’s sudden appearance at the city gates-his pride would have demanded no less. Yet, she had no answer for the duke’s question. It did strike her as odd that a man intent on killing himself would concern himself with matters of propriety.

“You think I’m making too much of it,” the duke said, watching her closely.

“I agree that’s it odd,” she said slowly. “But I don’t think that this one comment is enough to prove anything.”

“You’re probably right. But tell me this: given what we know of his death, is there any way that Qirsi magic might have killed him?”

After all that had passed between them since their departure from Orvinti, Fetnalla could not help but hear an accusation in the question. Immediately, she shook her head. “No, my lord. None at all.”

The duke frowned. “I see.”

But already, the minister’s mind had moved beyond this first response, the direction of her thoughts turning her stomach to stone. For there was a way. It was one of the rarer magics, possessed by Weavers and only a few of the most powerful Qirsi. Those who did wield it almost never admitted as much, not only because it often made them objects of fear, but also because if a would-be victim knew of it, he or she would be less likely to fall prey to its powers. Still, the duke had asked only if there was any way magic had killed Carden, and indeed there was.

“Actually, my lord,” she said quietly, “I spoke too quickly.” She looked away, so as not to see how his eyes narrowed. “There is one magic that we call ‘mind-bending.’ A Qirsi possessing such power might have been able to do this.”

“Mind-bending,” he repeated, his voice thick.

“It allows the person who wields it to control the mind of another, though only for a moment or two.” Fetnalla swallowed, knowing how he would respond to what she had to say next. “We also call it delusion magic because it allows one Qirsi to lie to another without fear of discovery. But long ago my people learned that with your people, this magic could do more. It could actually twist the Eandi mind, so that those upon whom it was used could be controlled, instructed to do the Qirsi’s bidding.”

The duke had paled and he appeared to be holding himself still, as if fearing what she might say next. “So a Qirsi couldn’t have done this to another Qirsi. Only to one of us.”

She nodded. “That’s right.”

“Do you have this power?” It wasn’t an accusation; she could tell. He was simply afraid of her, of what she was, and of what else she might be. In a way, it was worse.

“No, I don’t. And it’s hard to know who does,” she added, anticipating his next question. “If one Qirsi knows that another has delusion magic, she can guard herself against it. The Qirsi usually tell as few people as possible what powers we possess, but this one in particularly must be kept secret to be effective.”

“I see,” he said dully. “So you could be lying to me.”

This was too much. “I’m not!”

“But you could be! Don’t you see, Fetnalla? I have no way of knowing for certain, particularly now that I know of this mind-bending power. Even if you were using this magic on me, I wouldn’t know, would I?”

She conceded the point with a single shake of her head. “But your king would have,” she said. “A lie we can hide. But if someone took control of his mind long enough to make him pick up the dagger and thrust it into his own chest, he would have known. He just would have been powerless to help himself. It also would have had to be someone he knew, someone he would allow to get close. This power won’t work from a distance.”

“Pronjed,” the duke whispered. “It had to be Pronjed.”

“We don’t know that, my lord. The king had other ministers. Besides, this is all conjecture. We know nothing for certain, and it would be dangerous to accuse the archminister before we do.”

The duke stared at her, until she feared that he would accuse her of some new crime. Instead, he said the one thing she couldn’t deny. “You’re afraid of him.”

“Deeply, my lord. As we all should be if he truly did this.”

It was well past midday before someone finally removed the king’s body from the great hall. Pronjed ordered soldiers to do it early in the morning, but the queen, at the urging of the damned prelate, insisted on having priests and priestesses of Ean bear him from the hall to the castle cloister. Of course, they had their morning devotions to see to first, and then they had to pray over the body for a time. All of which made it impossible for the servants to begin cleaning the table of the king’s blood until just a short time before the ringing of the prior’s bell.

Under most circumstances, the archminister wouldn’t have cared one way or another. But the longer the king remained there, hunched over the bloody table, the more likely it was that others-in particular the duke of Orvinti and his first minister-would think about how the king had died, rather than merely accepting that he was dead. So, claiming to be concerned for the queen, Pronjed kept the hall locked, opening the doors only for the men and women of the cloister, and the servants who were to clean the mess.

As it happened, the queen appeared to be just fine. She had yet to shed a tear in front of him, and she had already begun preparations for the funeral, dispatching messengers to all the dukedoms with word of Carden’s death. She was a model of strength and courage, more worthy of the circlet she wore on her brow than her husband had been of his crown. All of which made Pronjed’s next task that much easier.

Killing the king had been his idea. The Weaver, he felt certain, would have approved had there been an opportunity to discuss it with him first. But it only occurred to him at the evening’s meal, when Orvinti handed him the blade. He had heard of the garroting of the surgeon-everyone in the castle was speaking of it-and he could guess the reason. He was no fool. The king’s daughter would turn ten during the snows and there had been no child since. Not even a stillbirth. It should have been obvious to everyone, especially the king. The greater surprise was that they had a daughter at all. It was enough to make one wonder if Chofya had strayed all those years ago. But the others in the castle were either too circumspect to speak of it, or too dull-witted to see it. Whatever the reason, their silence and the king’s made the previous night’s murder possible. In the light of morning, the garroting of the surgeon looked less like the pique of an over-proud king and more like the desperate rage of a dying man.

More important, the king’s death assured Pronjed of great power and influence when the Qirsi finally put an end to Eandi rule of the Forelands.

The Weaver hoped to divide the land by killing the duke of Bistari and setting the king’s foes against House Solkara and its allies. Brail’s unexpected appearance at the city gates gave the minister cause to think that this plan might have worked, given some time. But that was the problem. Such unrest would build slowly. It could have taken a year or more to undermine Carden’s power enough to put his house at risk. Killing the king accelerated the process. House Solkara stood now with neither a leader nor an heir. Bistari’s duke was dead as well, leaving the field open for others to grasp at the crown. Mertesse, Dantrielle, Orvinti, even Rassor and Noltierre; any one of them might be bold enough to think that he could rule Aneira. If all went well, the land would be at war with itself before the plantings. Surely the Weaver would be pleased.

Only one piece of his plan remained.

Glancing into the hall once more, he saw that the servants had almost rid the table of Carden’s blood. Pronjed nodded his satisfaction and made his way through the castle corridors to Carden’s quarters, where he knew he would find the queen.

He very nearly let himself into the room without bothering to knock. With Carden dead, the minister almost felt that Castle Solkara belonged to him.

Smiling at the misstep, he knocked once on the door, waiting until the queen called for him to enter before pushing the door open.

She sat at the king’s desk, reading through the messages and scrolls piled upon it. Throughout his reign, her husband showed little patience for matters of state, preferring the pageantry and’s wordplay that came with the crown. The fees that aroused such resentment in Bistan had been levied at Pronjed’s suggestion. The archminister couldn’t help but think that he had done the people of Aneira a great service the previous night. No matter who ascended to the throne next, it had to be an improvement over Carden. Of course, the next reign promised to be quite brief. Once the Weaver rose to power, he would assign Qirsi to all the thrones in the Forelands.

“Archminister,” the queen said, looking up from the papers. With the windows shuttered against the cold, the room was dark, save for two lamps burning on either side of the desk. “I’m glad you’re here. Do you know if all the dukes have paid their fees for this turn? I see messages here from every dukedom but Bistari and Tounstrel. I can understand if Chago’s son might be late with his tribute, but I don’t want Vidor thinking that he can delay out of anger. Particularly now.”

Truly she was a wonder, as brilliant as she was beautiful. Dressed in a black gown, with her dark hair held back by the golden circlet on her brow and her oval face paler and thinner than usual, she looked every bit the grieving young queen. This was a woman who could win the hearts of a kingdom. If Aneira’s dukes took her lightly, she would crush them. But first she had to be convinced that she wanted to.

“Archmimster?” she said again, frowning slightly.

“Yes, Your Highness. The fees. I’m not certain who has paid and who hasn’t, but I’ll speak with the treasury minister.”

“I’d be grateful.” She gestured at a chair with an open hand. “Please.”

“Thank you, Your Highness,” he said, stepping to the chair and sitting. “You’re to be commended for your attention to these matters, Your Highness, but surely they can wait. Shouldn’t you be with your daughter?”

She stared at the desk. “Perhaps. I was with her for a time earlier. She’s still in the cloister, crying for her father and praying with the prelate.”

“That’s to be expected, Your Highness. She’s suffered a terrible loss. As you have.”

“It’s harder for her.”

“Only because she’s young, Your Highness. You’ve lost the man you love.”

She pushed herself out of her seat and began pacing behind the desk. “Stop playing games, Archminister. We both know better.”

Pronjed prided himself on knowing all that went on in Castle Solkara, be it in the feasting halls and working chambers, or the corridors and sleeping quarters. But this caught him utterly unprepared. “Truly, Your Highness, I don’t understand.”

“You know what kind of man he was. He didn’t marry me out of love any more than he married me to please his father.”

This much at least, the minister knew. Chofya came from an earldom in Noltierre, the daughter of a insignificant noble. Tomaz, Carden’s father, had wanted his son to marry the daughter of a duke, preferably one from Dantrielle or Kett. Such a marriage would have gone a long way to healing the rifts that had already started to divide the kingdom. But while journeying to the south for a hunt, Carden saw Chofya and, Pronjed had always believed, fell in love with her. When he returned to Solkara the young prince insisted that his father arrange the marriage. For a time, the king refused, but Carden was not to be dissuaded and finally Tomaz relented.

“I was a prize, Archminister,” she continued after a few moments, and to his surprise there were, at last, tears on her face. “I was a jewel to be worn so that he might dazzle others. The same pride that led him to take his own life made him want me as his queen. He wanted me for my beauty, and I wanted him for his power and his wealth. Our marriage was a calculated matter for both of us. I wouldn’t call it loveless, but neither would I call it loving. He had his dalliances, and it may surprise you to know that I did as well. So let’s not speak of love and other trifles. There are more important matters at stake here.”

“Such as?”

“The future of the kingdom, of course.”

Pronjed had to suppress a smile. Just a few moments before, walking through the castle corridors, he had wondered how he might turn their conversation to this point. He never imagined that she would do it for him.

“I believe, Your Highness,” he began, as if misunderstanding her, “that you are the future of Aneira. Whether or not you and the king loved each other, you are the queen. All the land sees you that way.” He waved a hand at the desk. “Already you’re applying yourself to the task of running the kingdom. It might not be easy to convince the dukes, but I can think of no better choice to succeed your husband.”

Chofya laughed. “You flatter me, Pronjed. Even I know that I can’t rule Aneira. There’s no Solkaran blood in my veins, nor even the blood of one of the other major houses. I’m from a low family. If I tried to claim the throne for myself, the other houses would band together and destroy me. No,” she said, shaking her head. “I’m not Aneira’s future.”

“If not you, then who? Brail? Tebeo of Dantrielle? The boy in Mertesse? None of them is worthy, Your Highness. We both know that.”

“I agree,” she said, surprising him again. “But there is one who is worthy, and who would continue the Solkaran line.”

It was more than he could have hoped. She had taken him just where he intended to take her. The minister found himself wondering if he had misjudged the queen. He knew how clever she was, and how long she had worked to educate herself in the ways of the court. But he hadn’t realized just how ambitious she was.

“Who, Your Highness?” Trying not to sound too eager.

“Kalyi, of course. I want my daughter to rule Aneira.”

“She’ll make a fine queen, Your Highness, but what I said about you applies to her as well. The kingdom hasn’t been ruled by a queen since the Time of Queens centuries ago, and that ended with the other dukes threatening rebellion.”

“I know that. But she’s Carden’s only heir, and as such has a legitimate claim to the throne.”

“You’ll need a regent, of course. That complicates matters as well. The dukes may oppose you.”

“Some might. But I believe I can convince Brail to support me in this, and if so, perhaps he can win over some of the others.”

“You’ve given this much thought, Your Highness.”

“I’ve thought of little else all day. The hardest part, as you say, will be choosing her regent. Obviously, I can’t be selected. It will have to be one of Carden’s brothers.”

Pronjed raised an eyebrow. “Ah, the brothers.”

“You know them?”

“Well enough, Your Highness. If I may be permitted to speak freely, I don’t think much of any of them.”

“Neither do I,” the queen said. “And neither did Carden. The Jackals and the Fool, he used to call them.”

“I remember.”

“I wouldn’t trust the Jackals with my daughter, not for a moment. Numar, the Fool, on the other hand, will be more easily turned to our purposes.”

Our purposes. Pronjed nearly laughed aloud. Already she counted him as an ally in this.

“Numar is the youngest, Your Highness. All Aneira will expect us to turn to Grigor. Tradition demands no less.”

Chofya stopped her pacing, shaking her head with such vehemence that Pronjed half expected the circlet to fly from her brow. “Grigor is a dangerous man. He’ll do everything he can to take the crown for himself, even if it means killing Kalyi.”

“Then we’ll have to watch him with great care. Against one of us or the other, his designs might bear fruit. But against both of us he won’t have a chance.”

She smiled at him, looking so relieved and so grateful one might have thought that he had already placed the Scepter of Tomaz in the girl’s hands.

“Thank you, Pronjed. All of this will be much easier with you at my side.”