Shadows Past Read online

  “All set, Your Majesty,” he said. “I’ve given both your messages to carry back.”

  Jusson nodded, but before he could say anything, the door reopened and Cais reentered, followed by the innkeeper. She stumped over to the table and plunked down a tray holding a covered plate and a large teapot with steam rising from its spout. My stomach cringed again in protest, but my nose twitched. As I said, I’d eaten the inn’s cooking. Sliding the plate and teapot off the tray in front of me, she whipped the cover off the plate, revealing an egg concoction gently folded over cheese and mushrooms, golden brown potatoes, a stack of flatcakes with butter, and a small pot of hot syrup from a local farmer’s sugar orchard. I inhaled and, almost without volition, smiled.

  “Huh,” the innkeeper said. With the tray dangling from one large hand, she folded her massive arms across her ample bosom. “Is this what you’d turn my boy into?”

  Startled, I looked up. “Mistress Inga?” I asked.

  One of the many victims of the fraudulent doings of the town’s leading citizens, Freston’s old posting inn had for years been closed and shuttered. Recently, though, the inn had opened once again, this time catering to the local citizenry with clean rooms, good food, and cheap rates. It probably would’ve continued indefinitely as the low-cost alternative to Freston’s other inn, the Hart’s Leap, except for Jusson’s discovery of the fraud and his subsequent removal of his entire household to the inn. Mistress Inga had seemed to take the royal occupancy in stride and last night she had calmly gazed out at my Nameday celebration from behind the bar, grimly benevolent as she kept us supplied with ale, hot mulled wine, and choice spirits. Now, however, all goodwill was gone as she glared down at me. My hands curled around my plate in case she tried to take it back.

  “Five years as a horse soldier in the Mountain Patrol, Sra Inga,” Suiden said. “He’s also fought at His Majesty’s side during the spring rebellion in Iversly.”

  A trio of serving lasses had slipped into the room behind the innkeeper and one now began rapidly clearing off the empty crockery while the other two waited with more plates, cups and saucers, steaming teapots, cream, honey, a pitcher of hot milk, and a plate of hot apple tarts. As soon as the old was cleared, Cais helped them set the table with the new, though Jusson didn’t wait for his majordomo to serve him. He snatched a tart from the platter, juggling it briefly before dropping it onto his plate. Thadro quickly followed suit.

  “Not to mention his fighting in Elanwryfindyll during the contretemps at the Fyrst’s court,” Javes added. He politely waited until after the king and lord commander to snatch his own pastry and, picking up the creamer, he poured the contents over it. “Very handy with his fists too. Just ask Magus Kareste.”

  I had fought my old master when I’d returned to the Border last spring. But that was because the mage had flipped over into the dark arts and was doing his best to take me with him. I wondered, though, what Kareste had to do with the innkeeper.

  “I’d heard about that,” Thadro said. He broke open the tart’s crust with his fork, breathing in its fragrant steam. “Three solid blows to the jaw, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes, sir,” Suiden said before I could respond. He was also busy with a pastry, though he took the time to nudge his cup towards Cais as the majordomo picked up a teapot. “Do not let his appearance fool you, Sra Inga,” Suiden said to the innkeeper. “Lieutenant Rabbit is a very capable soldier. And those who misjudged him have learned otherwise, to their detriment.”

  I blinked. Not only did I fight wicked sorcerers with my mere fists, but all of a sudden I was the scourge of evildoers everywhere. “Uhm—”

  “But even beyond Lieutenant Rabbit’s recent experiences, Mistress Inga,” Javes said, “he was in the Mountain Patrol for five years, fighting bandits and whatnot, and him just a boy when he joined. As Captain Suiden kept him safe, I’m sure the good captain will also keep your son safe.”

  I blinked again, then carefully blanked my face. While Suiden was wildly successful in bringing most of his lads back alive from our assorted skirmishes, safe was not a word I would’ve associated with my time in the army.

  “Huh,” Inga said again, eyeing my braid and robe. She then aimed her narrowed gaze at the table before nodding at the three serving girls. They all bobbed a curtsey—whether at Jusson or at the innkeeper was uncertain—and scurried out. Inga picked up a second teapot and poured me a cup as Cais hadn’t worked over my way yet. “When do you leave, Your Majesty?” she asked.

  “Four days,” Jusson said, his voice wistful as he took a bite of his apple tart.

  “I see.” Putting the teapot down, Inga stepped back and gave a small curtsey—no more than a slight bending of her knees. “We will talk about my boy then,” she said and, without waiting for royal permission, turned and stumped out of the parlor. As the door shut behind her, Cais circled around the table and, picking up a folded napkin, shook it out and laid it across my lap. I didn’t need the hint; I already had my fork in hand even as I kept my gaze on the four before me.

  “Your Majesty?” I asked. “Sirs? If I may ask, what’s going on?”

  “We need a cook for the troop,” Suiden said, his voice thick from the pastry, “and we’ve been talking to Sra Inga about her youngest joining the Royal Army. He baked these tarts.”

  The Mountain Patrol’s old cook, Trooper Basel, had been murdered during the same rebellion that I’d fought alongside the king. Basel had been a master craftsman, able to turn the meanest field rations and the most meager forage into feasts. But the cooks at the inn—all Mistress Inga’s sons—were God-inspired when it came to their art, and my eyes narrowed in thought. I was no longer attached to the Mountain Patrol, but as both Suiden’s and Javes’ troops were going with us when the king left Freston, there was no reason I couldn’t just happen to be present during mealtimes.

  “Oh.” I took a bite of the folded egg mixture. “Oh,” I said again, this time sighing. I forked up some cheese and mushrooms. “Do you need me to talk with Mistress Inga?”

  “Not now,” Jusson said. Washing down the last of his pastry with tea, the king picked up one of several dispatches in front of him. “We got you up for another reason. I’ve received word from the Qarant. They’ve agreed to act as intermediary between us and Tural.”

  Despite the crown prince sitting at our breakfast table, there had not been any diplomatic ties between Iversterre and the Turalian Empire for several months—which was inconvenient, as Jusson had a long list of pressing issues he wanted to discuss with His Glory the amir. I too had a list, though not as long as Jusson’s. In fact, mine just contained one name: Slevoic.

  I stopped midchew, lowering my fork. “When do we set sail, Your Majesty?”

  “Not certain,” Jusson said. “Even though the Qarant have agreed, there are still things to work out—including whether anyone from Iversterre will be included in the delegation.”

  I frowned. “But—”

  “While on occasion the Qarant agree to involve themselves in affairs of state,” Javes said, “they are first and foremost merchants.” He gave me his bugger-me silly smile. “They want to make sure that their acts of diplomacy do not upset any applecarts, what?”

  “Yes,” Suiden said. “Especially their own.”

  Javes’ smile merely broadened. “The most important cart of all, my dear captain.”

  “So we just wait, twiddling our thumbs?” I caught the looks on my superior officers’ faces. “Sirs?”

  My superior officers’ faces didn’t change, but Jusson did lift a brow. “You consider the work we’ve done here an exercise in futility, Rabbit?”

  I felt my own face heat a little. “No, sire. Not at all—”

  “Or perhaps you believe that we’re being foolish because we don’t charge pell-mell into a land not ours to look for someone who may or may not be there?”

  My face heated more. “No, sire,” I said again.

  “Or who would probably do a bunk the moment we did charg
e in,” Thadro added. “If he hasn’t already.”

  “That too,” Jusson agreed.

  “Yes, sire,” I said. I picked up my fork again, figuring food was better in my mouth than my foot was. “Does Laurel or Wyln know about the Qarant’s agreement?”

  “No,” Jusson said. “I’ve just received the dispatch and haven’t had time to tell the Faena cat. Nor have I informed Lord Wyln, though he was here when it arrived.”

  I kept silent as I cut into the stack of flatcakes, wondering at the secrecy.

  “I told him that I needed to speak with you in private.” Using his own fork to pick up the remaining crumbs from his plate, Jusson gave a slight shrug. “And I do, but not because of this. In fact, I will ask Lord Wyln and the Faena cat if the Borderlands wish the Qarant to represent them also, which would allow us to make sure that we are all working towards the same ends. The last thing needed is for another kingdom to blunder in where we seek to tread lightly.”

  “A kingdom with its own goals and agendas, sire,” Thadro said.

  A faint line appeared between Jusson’s brows. “Pox rot it, yes. Goals and agendas we still know nothing about. Lord Wyln and Master Laurel must practice being inscrutable in front of their mirrors each morning.”

  While the enchanter and the Faena did keep their thoughts close, I didn’t think either was working towards the demise of the kingdom. “Laurel did say that he wanted the same thing as you, sire,” I said, swallowing. “Iversterre strong and stable.”

  “No,” Jusson said. Picking up his teacup again, he considered me over its rim. “It’s not Iversterre he wants strong. It’s you.”

  That was very true. But Laurel knew I was thrice sworn to the throne, and even a fourth sworn to Jusson himself and the cat had acknowledged that to interfere with those oaths would be harmful to all involved. Even so, it was obvious that Jusson’s reservations about Laurel Faena continued unabated—and I wondered if he also had reservations about me, as I was as tightly bound to the Faena through covenant, rune, and feather as I was to the king with my quadruple oaths. Just as I was also tightly bound to the Enchanter Wyln who named me cyhn. But I knew where my first allegiance lay.

  “I am yours, sire,” I said, lowering my fork once more.

  Jusson’s face eased. “I don’t doubt it, cousin,” he said, his voice gentling. “Believe that I never doubted it. We haven’t had a chance to see each other much with all the bustle of the past two weeks. How are you doing?”

  Nameday and Harvestide celebrations notwithstanding, we had been very busy. But then, dealing with the aftermath of hell breaking loose was a time-consuming task.

  Jusson had come to Freston to meet me, Laurel, Wyln, and Captains Suiden and Javes and their troop units as we all returned from the Border—one stop among many in his progression through Iversterre after the failed rebellion of last spring. He’d expected to attend a few social functions, hold an audience or two, and generally remind everyone that he was king and they were citizens of his kingdom, before sweeping off to his next destination with me and the rest firmly in hand. What he got was another grab at the throne. This time, instead of ambitious nobles eager for their aristocratic arses to warm the royal seat cushions, the pretenders were His Honor Gawell, mayor of Freston and Ednoth, the head of the local merchants’ guild. It would’ve been laughable—and easily squelched—if it weren’t for the fact that Gawell and Ednoth had allied themselves with a very familiar enemy and the person on my short list: Slevoic ibn Dru.

  It had been the House of Dru behind the spring rebellion, fomenting unrest among Jusson’s aristos and fanning the already wildly burning royal aspirations of my cousin, Lord Teram ibn Flavan. But when the coup failed, Cousin Teram imprisoned, Dru dissolved and its members outlawed, Lord Gherat of Dru and his kinsman Slevoic ran for the Border—where they made a try for the throne of His Elfin Grace, Loran the Fyrst of Elanwryfindyll. When that attempt had failed, Lord Gherat and most of his cohorts had been captured. We’d thought that Slevoic had perished in the enchanted forest surrounding the Fyrst’s castle, but during the fight with Gawell and Ednoth we discovered that the Vicious had once more escaped to another country—one that was part of the Turalian Empire. From his new lair, he’d made contact with the corrupt mayor and merchant for another try at toppling King Jusson’s House—and at destroying me.

  And he very nearly succeeded. But that was because Gawell and Ednoth had summoned a demon. A demon that had raised walking corpses and infected the town with a killing madness. A demon that stalked me through my dreams, seeking a way into my soul. My soul, where the dying had been hid, away from the ravening, devouring demon. It had become very crowded in there.

  I lowered my gaze from the concern I saw in not only Jusson’s face, but also Suiden’s, Javes’, and, to my surprise, Thadro’s. I wasn’t ready to spill my guts to my king and senior officers. I didn’t know what would come out.

  “I’m all right, Your Majesty,” I said, tracing with a finger the wood grain on the table.

  “I see,” Jusson murmured. He put his cup down on the saucer with a sharp click. “Well, I received two dispatches. The first one was about the Qarant delegation. The second one, though, was a complete surprise.”

  I looked up as the king paused.

  “It was an offer of marriage,” Jusson said. “For you.”

  Two

  I was born in the Border, a loose and contentious affiliation of the fae and the fantastic north of the kingdom of Iversterre. Once the People were spread down to the southern seas in a network of city-states, small fiefdoms, territories, factions, tribes, and clans, all busily engaged in the fae pastimes of treachery, double cross, and betrayal. Then humans arrived en masse and immediately began their own favorite pastime of push, until the People found themselves shoved to the edges of what was once all theirs. That annoyed them so much that when Iversterre began another war of acquisition, the People finally united and came against the human kingdom with enough force to shatter the Royal Army in just one battle.

  But short wars and long animosity between the People and humans hadn’t deterred my parents, Lady Hilga eso Flavan and Lord Rafe ibn Chause, from moving to the Border. Settling in a back province, they changed their names to Lark and Two Trees, turned farmers and weavers, and bore eight children in between crops, believing all the while that if they didn’t bother their fae neighbors, their neighbors wouldn’t bother them. And they were right, but only because they had the good fortune to settle in Dragoness Moraina’s territory. The dragoness was firmly against any violence she herself didn’t start and she immediately put her taloned foot down—right on the first person who tried to work up a mob against us.

  Honored Moraina’s favor made for a calm life for my family. Well, as calm as possible while sharing territory with a dragoness, large cats, wolves, faeries, river otters, badgers, competing deer herds, philosophical boars, forest and water sprites, all sorts of birds, gnomes, dwarves, monks, priests, shamans, bards, mages, and other cantankerous folk. About the only race we didn’t have were elves, but they occasionally would travel through. (Whenever they appeared, my brothers and sisters and I were confined to the farm until they left. Elves did not like humans—and had very creative ways of showing it.) With all the diversity, any gathering of two was an argument in the making. Three was a fight.

  Except for mages. One mage was a minor war all by himself.

  Surrounded by so much liveliness, I hadn’t paid much attention to my ma and da’s tales of Iversterre. They were of the dim, distant once upon a time of my parents’ past, complete with unfamiliar names and places. I had known that my parents had left privilege, rank, and wealth to take up a much harder life in an unpredictable and many times hostile land, but I’d assumed it was a deliberate choice, not one forced upon them. I also figured that the memory of them in their homeland had faded—and even if it hadn’t, no one would care about the offspring of a younger son and a long-gone daughter, no matter their Houses. So, when I f
led my corrupt master, I had no qualms about running to the human kingdom where I became what I thought no one would expect: a horse soldier in the Royal Army of King Jusson IV.

  It had taken me five years to discover that my coming to Iversterre had set off clarion calls blaring all the way up to the king. And now my ma and da’s past was casting long shadows into my future.

  Shadows that were taking the shape of a bride.

  I could hear the trill of a bird heralding the coming dawn, but it was nearly lost in the sound of quickening traffic in the streets. Jusson’s stay at the inn had brought an expanding renewal to the poorer section of town and, beyond the bird and traffic, I could also hear increasing clangs, thuds, rattles, and shouts as the owners of long-closed shops and other businesses briskly prepared for when the Eastgate would once more be open to merchants’ trains and other opportunities that traveled the King’s Road. But that was all outside. Inside the parlor there was silence. Jusson’s eyes glinted as I tried to find both my wits and voice.

  “What do you know of the House of Mearden, cousin?” he asked.

  I was still on the marriage part. I closed my mouth only to have it fall open again. “What?”

  “Ah.” The glint became more pronounced. “You know nothing, then.”