Читать книгу Royal Exile - Fiona McIntosh, Fiona McIntosh - Страница 5

1

‘Could he do this?’ he wondered, as yet another wail began. He knew he had no choice if the Valisars were to survive.

Two great oak doors, carved with the family coat of arms, separated King Brennus from his wife’s groans and shrieks, but despite the sound being muffled, her agonised cries injured him nonetheless. He knew his beautiful and beloved Iselda would never have to forgive him because she would never know of his ruthlessness at what he planned for his own flesh and blood. He looked to his trusted legate and dropped his gaze, shaking his head. They were all servants to the crown — king included — and serve he must by presenting the infant corpse in order to protect the realm.

‘It never gets any easier, De Vis,’ he lamented.

De Vis nodded knowingly; he had lost his own wife soon after childbirth. ‘I can remember Eril’s screams as though they were yesterday.’ He hurried to add: ‘Of course, once the queen holds her child, majesty, her pain will disappear.’

They were both talking around the real issues — the murder of a newborn and the threat that their kingdom was facing its demise.

Brennus’s face drooped even further. ‘In this you are right, although I fear for all our children, De Vis. My wife brings into this world a new son who may never see his first anni.’

‘Which is why your plan is inspired, highness. We cannot risk Loethar having access to the power.’

‘If it is accessible at all in this generation. Leo shows no sign at this stage … and Piven …’ The king trailed off as another agonised shriek cut through their murmurs.

De Vis held his tongue but when silence returned and stretched between them, he said softly: ‘We can’t know for sure. Leo is still young — it may yet come to him — and the next prince may be bristling with it. We can’t risk either child falling into the wrong hands. And as for Piven, your highness, he is not of your flesh. We know he hardly possesses his faculties, majesty, let alone any power.’

The king’s grave face told his legate that Brennus agreed, that his mind was made up. Nevertheless he confirmed it aloud as though needing to justify his terrifying plan. ‘It is my duty to protect the Valisar inheritance. It cannot be tarnished by those not of the blood. I hope history proves me to be anything but the murderer I will appear if the truth ever outs. Is everything in place?’

‘Precisely to your specifications,’ De Vis answered.

Brennus could see the legate’s jaw working. De Vis was feeling the despair of what they were about to do as deeply as he was. ‘Your boys …’ the king muttered, his words petering out.

De Vis didn’t flinch. ‘Are completely loyal and will do their duty. You know that.’

‘Of course I know it, De Vis — they might as well be my own I know them so well — but they are too young for such grim tasks. I ask myself: could you do it? Could I? Can they?’

De Vis’s expression remained stoic. ‘They have to. You have said as much yourself. My sons will not let Penraven down.’

Brennus scowled. ‘Have you said anything yet?’

De Vis shook his head. ‘Until the moment is upon us, the fewer who know the better. The brief will also be better coming directly from you, majesty.’

Brennus winced as another scream came from behind the door, followed by a low groan that penetrated to the sunlit corridor where he and De Vis talked. He turned from the stone balustrade against which he had been leaning, looking out into the atrium that serviced the private royal apartments. Breathing deeply, he drank in the fragrance of daphne that the queen had personally planted in boxes hanging from the archways and took a long, sorrowful look at the light-drenched gardens below she had tended and made so beautiful. Trying for an heir had taken them on a torrid journey of miscarriages and disappointments. And then Leo had come along and, miraculously, had survived and flourished. But both Brennus and Iselda knew that a single heir was not enough, however, and so they had endured another three heartbreaking deaths in the womb.

It was as though Regor De Vis could read Brennus’s thoughts. ‘Do not fret over Piven, your highness. If the barbarian breaches our walls I doubt he will even glance at your adopted son.’

Brennus hoped his legate was right. Brennus was aware that Piven had made it quietly into the world and had remained mostly silent since then. These days odd noises, heartbreaking smiles and endless affection told everyone that Piven heard sound, though he could not communicate in any traditional way.

And now there was a new child who’d managed to somehow cling on to life, his heartbeat strong and fierce like the winged lion his family’s history sprang from. There had been so much excitement, so much to look forward to as little as six moons ago. And now everything had changed.

The ill-wind had blown in from the east, where one ambitious, creative warlord had united the rabble that made up the tribes who eked out an existence on the infertile plains. It had been almost laughable when Dregon sent news that it was under attack from the barbarians. It had sounded even more implausible when Vorgaven sent a similar missive.

De Vis could clearly read his mind. ‘How something we considered a skirmish could come to this is beyond me.’

‘I trusted everyone to hold their own against a mere tribal warlord!’

‘Our trust was a mistake, majesty … and so was our confidence in the Set’s strength. It should never have come to this. And, worse, we haven’t prepared our people. It’s only because word is coming through from relatives or traders from the other realms that they know Vorgaven has fallen, Dregon is crushed and cowardly Cremond simply handed over rule without so much as a squeak. I’m sure very few know how dire the situation is in Barronel.’

Brennus grimaced. ‘Ormond might hold.’

‘Only if we’d gone to his aid days ago, majesty. He will fall and our people will then know the truth as we prepare to fight.’

The king looked broken. ‘They’ve never believed, not for a second, that Penraven could fall. Food is plentiful, our army well trained and well equipped. Lo strike me, this is a tribal ruffian leading tribal rabble!’ But as much as the king wanted to believe otherwise, he knew the situation was dire. He no longer had options. ‘Summon Gavriel and Corbel,’ he said sadly.

De Vis nodded, turned on his heel and left the king alone to his dark thoughts. Minutes after his departure, Brennus heard the telltale lusty squall of a newborn. His new son had arrived. Not long later the senior midwife eased quietly from behind the doors. She curtsied low, a whimpering bundle of soft linens in her arms. But when she looked at the king her expression was one of terror, rather than delight.

‘I heard his battlecry,’ the king said, desperately trying to alleviate the tension but failing, frowning at her fear as she tiptoed, almost cringing, toward him with her precious cargo. ‘Is something wrong with my wife?’ he added, a fresh fear coursing through him.

‘No, not at all, your highness. The queen is fatigued, of course, but she will be well.’

‘Good. Let me see this new son of mine then,’ Brennus said, trying to sound gruff. His heart melted as he looked down at the baby’s tiny features, eyelids tightly clamped. The infant yawned and he felt an instant swell of love engulf him. ‘Hardly strapping but handsome all the same,’ he said, grinning despite his bleak mood, ‘with the dark features of the Valisars.’ He couldn’t disguise the pride in his voice.

The midwife’s voice was barely above a whisper when she spoke. ‘Sire, it … it is not a boy. You have been blessed with a daughter.’

Brennus looked at the woman as though she had suddenly begun speaking gibberish.

She hurried on in her anxious whisper. ‘She is beautiful but I must warn that she is frail due to her early arrival. A girl, majesty,’ she muttered with awe. ‘How long has it been?’

‘Show me,’ Brennus demanded, his jaw grinding to keep his own fears in check. The midwife obliged and he was left with no doubt; he had sired a girl. Wrapping her in the linens again, he looked mournfully at the old, knowing midwife — old enough to have delivered him nearly five decades ago. She knew about the Valisar line and what this arrival meant. How much worse could their situation get, he wondered, his mind instantly chaotic.

‘I fear she may not survive, majesty.’

‘I am taking her to the chapel,’ he said, ignoring the woman’s concerns.

Their attention was momentarily diverted by Piven scampering up, his dark curly hair its usual messy mop and his matching dark eyes twinkling with delight at seeing his father. But Piven gave everyone a similar welcome; it was obvious he made no distinction between man or woman, king or courtier. Everyone was a friend, deserving of a beaming, vacant salutation. Brennus affectionately stroked his invalid son’s hair.

The midwife tried to protest. ‘But the queen has hardly seen her. She said —’

‘Never mind what the queen instructs.’ Brennus reached for the baby. ‘Give her to me. I would hold the first Valisar princess in centuries. She will go straight to the chapel for a blessing in case she passes on. My wife will understand. Tell her I shall be back shortly with our daughter.’

Brennus didn’t wait for the woman’s reply. Cradling his daughter as though she were a flickering flame that could be winked out with the slightest draught, he shielded her beneath his cloak and strode — almost ran — to Penraven’s royal chapel, trailed by his laughing, clapping five-year-old boy. Inside he locked the door. His breathing had become laboured and shallow, and the fear that had begun as a tingle now throbbed through his body like fire.

The priest came and was promptly banished. Soon after a knock at the door revealed De Vis with his twin sons in tow, looking wide-eyed but resolute. Now tall enough to stand shoulder to shoulder alongside their father like sentries, strikingly similar and yet somehow clearly individual, they bowed deeply to their sovereign, while Piven mimicked the action. Although neither Gavriel nor Corbel knew what was afoot for them, they had obviously been told by their father that each had a special role to perform.

‘Bolt it,’ Brennus ordered as soon as the De Vis family was inside the chapel.

A glance to one son by De Vis saw it done. ‘Are we alone?’ he asked the king as Corbel drew the heavy bolt into place.

‘Yes, we’re secure.’

De Vis saw the king fetch a gurgling bundle from behind one of the pews and then watched his boys’ brows crinkle with gentle confusion although they said nothing. He held his breath in an attempt to banish his reluctance to go through with the plan. He could hardly believe this was really happening and that the king and he had agreed to involve the boys. And yet there was no other way, no one else to trust.

‘This is my newborn child,’ Brennus said quietly, unable to hide the catch in his voice.

The legate forced a tight smile although the sentiment behind it was genuine. ‘Congratulations, majesty.’ The fact that the baby was among them told him the plan was already in motion. He felt the weight of his own fear at the responsibility that he and the king were about to hand over; it fell like a stone down his throat to settle uncomfortably, painfully, in the pit of his stomach. Could these young men — still youthful enough that their attempts to grow beards and moustaches were a source of amusement — pull off the extraordinary plan that the king and he had hatched over this last moon? From the time at which it had become obvious that the Set could not withstand the force of Loethar’s marauding army.

They had to do this. He had to trust that his sons would gather their own courage and understand the import of what was being entrusted to them.

De Vis became aware of the awkward silence clinging to the foursome, broken only by the flapping of a sparrow that had become trapped in the chapel and now flew hopelessly around the ceiling, tapping against the timber and stone, testing for a way out. Piven, nearby, flapped his arms too, his expression vacant, unfocused.

De Vis imagined Brennus felt very much like the sparrow right now — trapped but hoping against hope for a way out of the baby’s death. There was none. He rallied his courage, for he was sure Brennus’s forlorn expression meant the king’s mettle was foundering. ‘Gavriel, Corbel, King Brennus wishes to tell you something of such grave import that we cannot risk anyone outside of the four of us sharing this plan. No one … do you understand?’

Both boys stared at their father and nodded. Piven stepped up into the circle and eyed each, smiling beatifically.

‘Have you chosen who takes which responsibility?’ Brennus asked, after clearing his throat.

‘Gavriel will take Leo, sire. Corbel will …’ he hesitated, not sure whether his own voice would hold. He too cleared his throat. ‘He will —’

Brennus rescued him. ‘Hold her, Corbel. This is a new princess for Penraven and a more dangerous birth I cannot imagine. I loathe passing this terrible responsibility to you but your father believes you are up to it.’

‘Why is she dangerous, your majesty?’ Corbel asked.

‘She is the first female to be born into the Valisars for centuries, the only one who might well be strong enough to live. Those that have been born in the past have rarely survived their first hour.’ Brennus shrugged sorrowfully. ‘We cannot let her be found by the tyrant Loethar.’

De Vis sympathised with his son. He could see that the king’s opening gambit was having the right effect in chilling Corbel but he was also aware that Brennus was circling the truth.

In fact he realised the king was distancing himself from it, already addressing Gavriel.

‘…must look after Leo. I cannot leave Penraven without an heir. I fear as eldest and crown prince he must face whatever is ahead — I cannot soften the blow, even though he is still so young.’

Gavriel nodded, and his father realised his son understood. ‘Your daughter does not need to face the tyrant — is this what you mean, your highness … that we can soften the blow for her, but not for the prince?’

De Vis felt something in his heart give. The boys would make him proud. He wished, for the thousandth time, that his wife had lived to see them. He pitied that she’d never known how Gavriel led and yet although this made Corbel seem weaker, he was far from it. If anything he was the one who was prepared to take the greatest risks, for all that he rarely shared what he was thinking. Gavriel did the talking for both of them and here again, he’d said aloud for everyone’s benefit what the king was finding so hard to say and Corbel refused to ask.

‘Yes,’ Brennus replied to the eldest twin. ‘We can soften the blow for the princess. She need not face Loethar. I have let the realm down by my willingness to believe in our invincibility. But no one is invincible, boys. Not even the barbarian. He is strong now, fuelled by his success — success that I wrongly permitted — but he too will become inflated by his own importance one day, by his own sense of invincibility. I have to leave it to the next generation to know when to bring him down.’

‘Are we going to lose to Loethar, sire?’ Gavriel asked.

‘We may,’ was Brennus’s noncommittal answer. ‘But we can do this much for the princess. Save her his wrath.’ His voice almost broke upon his last word and he reached to stroke her shock of dark hair, so unlike Leo’s and Iselda’s colouring.

‘And Piven?’ Gavriel enquired.

All four glanced at the youngster. ‘I am trying not to worry about this child,’ Brennus replied. ‘He is harmless; anyone can see that. He is also not of our blood,’ he added, looking down awkwardly. ‘If anything happens to him he will know little of it and if he survives, nothing will change in his strange internal world. It’s as though he is not among us anyway. I am prepared to take the risk that the barbarian will hardly notice him.’

The De Vis family nodded in unison, although whether they believed him was hard to tell.

‘The queen, er …’ Gavriel looked from the king to his father.

‘Will be none the wiser,’ De Vis said firmly. ‘It is enough that most of us will likely die anyway. We can spare her this.’

‘Die?’ Gavriel asked, aghast. ‘But we can get the king and queen away, taking Leo and the baby across the ocean to —’

‘No, Gav. We can’t,’ his father interrupted. ‘The king will not leave his people — nor should he — and I will not leave his side. We will fight to the last and if we are to fall, we fall together, the queen included. But we cannot risk the royal children.’

Brennus took up the thread again, much to De Vis’s relief. ‘Piven is not seen as an heir but he is also no threat. And while I sadly must risk that Leo is found, tortured, abused and ultimately exploited for the tyrant’s purposes, I am giving him a fighting chance with you, Gavriel. That said, I won’t risk the possibility of my daughter falling into Loethar’s hands.’

That sentence prompted a ghastly silence, broken finally by Corbel, who looked uncomfortably away from the dark eyes of the baby that stared at him from the crook of his arm. ‘Tell me what I must do,’ he asked.

The king sighed, hesitated. De Vis’s encouraging hand on his arm helped him to finally say it. ‘Today, my daughter must die.’

Corbel stood alone with the tiny infant, hardly daring to breathe. He wasn’t sure she was even breathing, to tell the truth, and for a minute he hoped that she had stopped of her own accord. But her tiny fingers twitched and he knew she clung stubbornly to life.

He made no judgement against the king. He imagined that if he was hurting this much over such a traumatic task, then surely the king was hurting twice as hard to demand it of him. His father must believe him more capable of being able to carry out the grim request than Gavriel and he understood why. His father probably anticipated that he would be able to push his guilt into a deep corner of his mind, perhaps lock it away forever and never think about it, let alone speak of it. Corbel knew he gave this impression of being remote, capable of such hardness, but he was no such thing.

The baby girl, swathed in soft, royal birth linens, shifted gently in his arms. It was time. No amount of soul searching was going to get this job done and the responsibility rested with him alone.

Just do it, he urged himself. Leave the recrimination for later. His job was to hand the dead child to Father Briar, who would take her to the king so that he could allow the queen to say goodbye to her. Meanwhile his father would be waiting in the preserves cellar to brief him on where he must flee. Nobody must ever connect him to the dead child. He wanted to say goodbye properly to Gavriel but their sovereign and even their father had not given them time.

He picked up the blanket and said a silent prayer with his face buried in it for a few moments. Easy tears were not something Corbel suffered from but although his body didn’t betray him with a physical sign of his grief, he felt it nonetheless as he placed the blanket over the now sleeping, very weak child’s face and begged Lo to make this swift. He tried to blank his mind as he pressed on the blanket but thoughts of Gavriel surfaced. How would his brother protect Leo? Would they survive the coming conflict? He might never know; he was being sent away — far away…and he didn’t know if he would ever return. Accepting this felt impossible and grief began to mix with anger as he sped the child to her death.

Gavriel De Vis had watched his father leave with his brother. There had not been time for he and his brother to share anything more than a look, but that look had said droves about the terrible action that was about to be taken. In that moment in which he and Corbel had learned of the king’s plan, Gavriel had despised Brennus for forcing them into this corner. Perhaps Brennus sensed it for as the legate and Corbel left, the king had held him back.

‘Gavriel, a word if I may?’

‘Of course, highness,’ he said, curtly.

‘I’ve asked a lot of you today.’

‘You’ve asked me simply to keep guard over Leo, which is no trial, majesty. What you’ve asked of my brother is completely different. Enough to shatter anyone’s soul, if you’ll forgive my candour, highness.’ He felt proud of himself for saying as much.

‘You understand it could not be done by my hand?’

‘I’m not sure I understand it at all, your highness. But I will take care of Leo as my king has asked and because my father demands it.’

‘I know you will protect him with your life.’

‘Of course. He is the crown prince.’

‘There is something else I need to share with you. It is a delicate matter but I can share this information with no one else.’

Gavriel’s anger gave way to confusion. ‘Your majesty, whatever you tell me is in confidence.’

‘I mean no one, though, Gavriel. This information is for your ears alone — not your father, not your brother, no one at all. Not even Leo. I am entrusting a great secret to you alone. I would ask you to swear your silence.’

Gavriel frowned. ‘All right, highness. I swear you my silence. Whatever you share remains our secret.’

‘Not here,’ the king said. ‘I shall send for you. Come to my salon. Right now I must away to my good wife. Await my message.’

Gavriel bowed, baffled.

The queen’s convalescing chamber was attended by various servants and officials who the king had insisted upon. Its atmosphere was frigid, the awkward quiet punctuated only by the sounds of embarrassed shuffles or coughs over the mournful toll of a single bell. The only focus of activity or brightness was Piven, who gently stroked his mother’s hair. No one could be sure of the sound, but he was humming tunelessly as he did so.

‘And tell me again, Hana, why my newborn child is not at my breast and you cannot find my husband?’ Iselda demanded, her face wan from fatigue and worry.

Hana fussed at her queen’s coverlets before pressing a warm posset of milk curdled with ginger wine and honey into her mistress’s hands. ‘I’ve heard the king is on his way, your highness. Now I beg you to drink this without fuss. You need to regain your strength.’

In a rare show of anger Iselda hurled the cup across the room, its contents splashing in all directions. Piven sat back in what could only be described as amusement, while Hana flinched in astonishment. The cup shattered against the stone, the liquid soaking into the timber beneath the herbs that were strewn underfoot. Its heat instantly released the sweet smell of lavender mingling with mint and rosemary.

‘I shall take nothing, eat nothing, say not another word until my daughter is returned to me. Find her! Do you hear me?’ the queen yelled, coughing on the last word as she dissolved into tears. Piven returned to stroking his mother’s hair as though nothing had happened.

‘As does the entire palace, my love,’ Brennus said, finally arriving. Hana visibly relaxed at the sight of the tall, dark king whose beard had recently erupted new silver flecks, whose once broad shoulders now appeared to sag, and whose laughter, which had boomed around the walls of Brighthelm, was now only an echo.

‘Brennus!’ Iselda took his hands as he settled to sit beside her. Piven leapt onto his father’s lap. The queen accepted the soft kiss Brennus planted on her cheek, mindful of their audience, and pulled back to search his face. She found her answer in the set of his mouth, the grief in his eyes. She asked all the same. ‘Where is our daughter? Why the mourning knell?’

‘Iselda,’ Brennus began gently. The hurt in his voice was so raw it hit her like a blow and her eyes spilled, tears coursing down her cheeks and finding a path through the fingers she clamped to her mouth to prevent herself from shrieking her own grief. ‘Our baby died not long after her birth,’ Brennus finished. ‘In my arms.’

Iselda shook her head slowly, repeating the word ‘no’ over his soft words.

Brennus wiped away his own tears and over her denials he continued. ‘No daughter has ever survived. The Valisar line seems to have its own self-defence for the female line — but you already know that, my love.’ He took her hands, squeezing them, gently kissing them. ‘She didn’t suffer, my darling, I promise. She simply fell asleep as Father Briar blessed her with holy oil. She heard her name spoken and I’m sure she heard me tell her that we loved her with all our hearts.’

Iselda’s lips moved but no sound came. The death bell tolled mournfully through the difficult silence.

Brennus pressed on. ‘I knew this might occur and that is why I took her from you, my love. I needed her to be blessed before … before …’ He was unable to finish, his voice crumbling.

‘Before the devil stole her soul?’ Iselda asked, her voice suddenly hard, her cheeks wet. ‘Do you really believe that something so small and beautiful and pure would be ignored, cast aside by Lo? Is he really that cruel, this god we pray to and put all our faith in, to not only murder my baby but then refuse her soul passage into heaven?’ Her voice had changed into a hissing shriek at his apparent insensitivity. She was very well aware it was unseemly to unravel emotionally in front of the palace servants but she no longer cared. Three children were all Lo had given her to love; of those, one was a grotesque, and now her only daughter was already dead within hours of her birth. Precious Leonel, their hope, was likely as good as dead anyway.

‘Perhaps our little girl is the lucky one, taken by Lo peacefully. Where is Leo? Does he know?’ she begged, her voice softer now.

The king’s red-rimmed eyes closed briefly. ‘De Vis is with him now but will leave Gavriel with him.’

‘That’s good,’ she said, relieved, giving a watery smile to Piven. ‘Leo does love that family as if it’s his own,’ she added absently, before dissolving into quiet weeping.

The king cleared his throat, looking towards the queen’s overly attentive aide hovering nearby. Freath was a good man, only slightly older than himself and although not handsome in a traditional sense, there was an enigmatic quality to his dry, reserved manner that was appealing. ‘I think we’re fine here now, Freath. You can organise for us to be left alone.’

‘Yes, majesty,’ the man replied. ‘Er, Father Briar awaits.’

The king nodded, waiting for the servants to shuffle out at Freath’s murmured orders.

‘Why were these people allowed in my chamber? I can understand Physic Maser, but the others?’ Iselda asked through her tears as she counted almost eight others being herded out by Freath.

‘I must be honest with you, my love. I had no idea how you were going to react. I needed people here for various contingencies. But as always you surprise me with your courage.’ She watched him hug their vacant little boy close to his chest and inhale the scent of his freshly washed hair. She was glad Piven did not have the mental capacity to understand any of this.

‘I don’t feel very courageous, Brennus, and I am sure the real pain has not yet hit me. I feel too numb right now.’

Brennus nodded in shared pain. ‘There will be no shame if you prefer not to see her, but I have had our daughter brought up from the chapel. Father Briar is outside.’

‘He has her?’ Iselda asked, tears welling again.

‘I thought you might like to hold her, have some private time with her,’ Brennus said, choking as he spoke. ‘I’m so sorry, my love. I’m sorry I’m not being strong for you.’

‘I have always maintained that one of the reasons I have loved you, Brennus, 8th of the Valisars, is because you are capable of such emotion, and are not ashamed to suffer it. I’m surprised you’ve been so open with it in front of others, just now. But you don’t have to be outwardly strong for me, my king.’ Iselda reached out to stroke his beard. ‘Just be strong for our people. What’s ahead is …’ She shook her head. ‘Unthinkable,’ she finished. Then a hint of her private courage ghosted across her pale face as she stiffened her resolve. ‘I would like to hold her and kiss her again. Please ask Father Briar to come in.’

The king nodded, touched her hand and rose from her bed. ‘I’ll fetch him.’

* * *

Iselda’s heart began an urgent ache for the sister Leo would never have, for the daughter she would never fuss over gowns with, for the little girl Brennus would never know the special joy of being a father to, for the realm that would never have the glamour and excitement of the first living princess in centuries … but especially for the future. Because there wasn’t one. Without a royal line — and Leo would surely be put to the sword if Loethar found him — Penraven and the prosperous era of the Valisars was destroyed for ever.

She watched her husband usher in the priest, and trembled to see him lightly carrying a bundle draped with cream silks. Giving herself entirely over to her grief, Queen Iselda took the tiny corpse of her infant daughter and cradled her tightly against her breast, praying with all her heart that the long dark lashes would flutter open. Her prayer fell on deaf ears. The child’s eyes remained determindedly closed; her lips were now blueish in colour. Tufts of hair escaped the silken cap, their darkness making her dead daughter’s waxy skin look even paler, when only a couple of hours earlier she had been a dark pink with her efforts to be born. Iselda wanted to touch the fairy-like fingers and toes again that had looked so perfect, so tiny, earlier. She was unaware that she was sharing her thoughts aloud.

‘We wrapped her up in the silks you’d made,’ Brennus admitted, then shrugged awkwardly. ‘It seemed right to do so.’

Iselda watched with a broken heart as Piven gently curled the little girl’s dark hair around his small fingers and smiled at his mother before he bent and gave the corpse a loud wet kiss on her forehead. His father eased him back onto his lap to give the queen a chance to say her final farewell to her daughter.

Iselda stroked the silken cape she had sewed and then painstakingly embroidered through her confinement the last three moons of her pregnancy. ‘I unpicked this rosebud so many times,’ she admitted ruefully. ‘Just couldn’t get it to sit right.’

Father Briar stepped forward, bowing again. He glanced at Brennus, who nodded permission. ‘She was blessed, majesty. She died gently in the arms of our king — a little sigh and she drew her final soft breath. Lo has taken her, accepted her soul with love.’

The queen grimaced. ‘I wish he hadn’t, Father. I wish he’d given me even just a few more hours with her. I had barely moments before she was whisked away from me and now she’s dead. I can hardly remember how it felt to hold her while she breathed or fix a picture in my mind of how she looked when she was alive.’

Father Briar shifted uncomfortably. ‘Forgive me, highness. Perhaps it is Lo’s way.’

‘You mean our god deliberately steals her memory from my mind to make it easier on me when he steals her soul?’ Iselda asked, her expression hardening, lips thinning.

The priest looked between king and queen before awkwardly saying: ‘Yes, that’s a rather nice way to put it, your majesty. I may — if you’ll let me repeat that — use it in a sermon sometime.’

Brennus blinked and Iselda knew this to be a sign of frustration at the priest’s clumsiness. ‘Thank you, Father,’ the king said. He turned to her. ‘Enough?’

She shook her head, not even conscious of her tears. ‘I could never have enough of her.’

‘Just remember we have Leo to think about. He must be worried, confused as well. I don’t think he needs to see her but he will want to see you, know that you are safe.’

She sniffed, unable to tear her gaze away from the child. ‘You’re right. I can only imagine what he’s thinking. Bring him to me, Brennus. Let me smell the hair and kiss the pink skin of the living.’ She sounded resolute and Brennus thanked her with a squeeze to her hand.

‘Shall I take her?’

Iselda nodded, too frightened to speak, fearful that treacherous tears and fresh, uncontrollable emotion would threaten her fragile resolve. She bent and kissed the baby’s forehead. It felt like marble and her tears, which splashed onto the infant’s skin, rolled off, barely leaving a trace. No, there was no warmth, none of the porousness of life present — of that she was sure now and the tiny irrational flicker of hope guttered in her breast and died too. She gave her daughter a final squeeze, hating the stiffness of her tiny body and suddenly grateful to Brennus for having the child swaddled so tightly. She knew now that was his reason for doing so — so she would not have to feel rigour claiming her daughter.

And finally she handed the doll-like infant back to its father. ‘All this time I haven’t asked and you haven’t offered,’ she said sadly.

‘What, my love?’ he enquired, looking ashamed, she presumed because he genuinely didn’t know what she meant.

‘Share with me the name you gave our daughter.’

He found a sad smile and whispered it for her hearing alone.

‘Very beautiful,’ Iselda admitted. ‘A choice I certainly approve of. But I would now ask a favour of you, Brennus.’

‘Anything, my love.’

‘Send out an edict that no child of Penraven will ever bear that name from this day. It belongs only to her.’

He nodded. ‘It will be done, I promise.’

‘You’d best ask the funerary to prepare our tombs, including Leo’s. I can’t imagine we are long for this earth.’

‘Come now, Iselda. Rally, my queen, for the sake of your son. All is not lost. Loethar will have a tough time breaching our walls.’

‘How is that supposed to cheer me? Loethar has only to sit us out. Our supplies will dwindle soon enough.’

‘I promise you this: whatever happens, Leo will escape the tyrant’s touch.’

‘How can you know that? In the same way you knew that the barbarian could never succeed in taking the Set?’ It was a low blow but well deserved. He shouldn’t have been so arrogant to Loethar. The warlord had called his bluff. She wasn’t finished with him yet. ‘And your other son?’

‘The barbarian will not bother himself with the boy.’ Brennus took her hand.

She shrugged it off. ‘If you could keep that promise I could go to my death happy. But how can you be so sure?’

Brennus paused. She imagined he was weighing telling the truth against saying something to make her heart beat easier. ‘I have already taken steps for Leo’s escape. He doesn’t know it yet, of course, but should Loethar enter the palace, no matter what else occurs, Leo will be protected. In time he will carry the torch of the Valisars against the tyrant. We, my love, are expendable — as is Piven — and I intend to see that Loethar burns all his energies on enjoying my demise, while our healthy son slips his net.’

None of it sat easy in her heart, especially the betrayal of Piven. He was an invalid but he could still feel pain and fear. She was weary of grief. ‘Perhaps her death is for the best then,’ she said, as he opened the door to leave.

‘Why do you say that?’ he asked, glancing at the dead girl in his arms.

‘Because she would have been a complication to your plan. If she hadn’t have died, you might have had to have her killed … to be sure she would not be used as Loethar’s tool. I would offer Piven the same courtesy if I only had the courage.’

Brennus blanched, stared at her with such apology in his painful glance before he left wordlessly that in that heartstopping moment of his pause Iselda believed she had stumbled upon the real truth of her daughter’s demise. As the door closed on her chilling revelation the Queen of Penraven knew she had no further desire to live — the Valisar name and its sinister secret suddenly no longer mattered.