The Sentinel Mage

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN





KAREL WOKE AT dawn. The sound of the first bell drifted in from the courtyard. Two hours yet before he had to rise.

The bunks around him were occupied, the other armsmen still asleep. Daylight crept in through the half-open shutters. He stared up at the ceiling, seeing shadows, cracks, cobwebs.

Today she marries Duke Rikard.

Something clenched in his chest.

The first time he’d seen Princess Brigitta he’d taken one look at the golden hair, the sky-blue eyes, the rosebud mouth, and dismissed her as a pretty doll. Shallow. Spoiled. Worthless.

The scene spun in Karel’s mind as he stared up at the ceiling: his first day as a royal armsman. He’d trained for that moment for five years. Five years while they’d tried—and failed—to break him. Princess Brigitta had been his reward. He, an Esfaban islander, had been assigned a royal charge. He was one of the elite.

“Your new armsman, princess,” his commanding officer had said, and the princess had looked at him and smiled politely.

You stupid fool, Karel told himself savagely, throwing back his blankets. There was no point in remembering these moments—the first time he’d seen her, the first time he’d realized who she was as a person. She was a princess and he was an armsman, an islander. He was wasting his time thinking of her.

Karel dressed quickly, quietly, and left the bunkroom. He had two hours until breakfast, three hours until he was due in the training arena. He could practice his archery, mend the hole in his second-best tunic, sharpen his dagger and sword.

He did none of those things; he sat on one of the long benches in the courtyard, in the morning sunshine, and polished his breastplate, his gilded scabbard and the buckles on his sword belt, his greaves and wrist guards, the hilts of his dagger and sword. Today was Princess Brigitta’s wedding day and as her armsman he would honor her by looking the best he could.

Lastly, he polished the silver torque that said he was sworn to her, that he was hers.

The torque had shone this brightly on his first day as an armsman. Pride had stiffened his spine and triumph had swelled in his chest as he’d worn it, but the emotion he’d felt most deeply that day was hatred. Hatred for the country that had conquered his people. Hatred for the royal family of Rutersvard. Hatred for Osgaard.

Karel’s hand slowed as he buffed the torque. Everything had been new that day, everything a surprise, the princess especially so.

Stop it!

Karel put aside the buffing cloth and fetched his bow and a quiver of arrows. Bowmen hadn’t patrolled the walls surrounding Osgaard’s palace for a century, not since King Harald had been assassinated by one of his own archers, but armsmen were still expected to practice—as long as the bows never left the training arena.

The targets stood on the far side of the arena, in shadow this early in the morning. Karel nocked the first arrow, drew back the bow string.

Pfft. The arrow buried itself in the straw-filled target.

His bow came from the islands. He’d used it as a boy, hunting birds, wild pigs, water rats, anything to put in their cooking pot. Usually the smoothness of the wood beneath his hand brought memory of Esfaban—the sound of fishermen singing as they laid their nets, the warmth of rain on his skin, the smell of fermenting palm sap—but today the memory of his first day in Princess Brigitta’s service intruded.

Pfft.

He’d followed the princess and her maid through the long marble corridors of the palace. The maid had been an islander like himself, but wearing the iron armband of a bondservant, walking one pace behind the princess, carrying her mistress’s cloak.

Pfft.

He’d been watching the maid, not her mistress, as they’d entered the king’s private atrium, a place of trickling water and lush ferns, marble statues and gold-embossed vases.

Pfft.

The cloak the maid carried had unfurled slightly, had fluttered and brushed a vase.

Thwack. Karel missed. The arrow smacked into the stone wall behind the target and rebounded, broken.

He gritted his teeth and drew another arrow from the quiver.

Memory marched inexorably. He saw it in his mind’s eye: the vase bursting as it struck the floor, fragments spinning across the marble flagstones. A piece shaped like a curving dagger had come to rest beside his right boot. The porcelain was so thin it was almost transparent and the gold leaf on it had sparkled brightly in the sunlight.

Thwack. Another miss.

Karel lowered the bow and stalked across the dirt and sawdust of the training arena. Memory followed at his heels: the long moment of silence, the horror on the maid’s face.

Karel jerked the arrows from the target. Two lay ruined on the ground. He picked them up, remembering the king striding across his atrium, his face livid with rage. “You stupid bitch!” he’d cried, striking the maid across the face. “That was priceless. Priceless!”

Karel turned and walked back across the arena. He nocked a fresh arrow, drew the bow—

“Have her flayed!” King Esger had bellowed, gesturing to one of his armsmen.

Thwack. The arrow missed the target.

Karel blew out a hissing breath. He nocked another arrow, but all he could see was Princess Brigitta stepping forward, her face as pale as her father’s was flushed. He heard her voice clearly: “It was my fault, Father. I knocked it over. I’m sorry.”

Thwack. He loosed the arrows quickly, trying to block the flow of memory. Thwack. Thwack. And finally, Pfft. One hit the straw-filled target, piercing its heart.

Karel lowered the bow, remembering how the king had stared at his daughter, how his hand had clenched as if he thought of striking her, how he’d turned away. “Clean up this mess,” he’d screamed at one of the servants.

They had stood in their tableau, unmoving, as a cowed bondservant swept up the shards of porcelain. The king’s rage had vibrated in the atrium. Dust motes had spun in the sunlight, as if dancing to the sound of the trickling fountains. Beneath the sound of falling water had been the sound of the servant: the shush of the broom, the quiet clink of broken porcelain.

When the servant had finished, the king turned to his daughter. “You’ll forfeit your horses for this.”

Princess Brigitta had bowed her head. “Yes, Father.”

Karel reached for another arrow, his lips pressed together. Blind, that’s what he’d been. Blind. He’d looked at the princess and seen what he’d expected to see, not the truth. Pfft. The arrow struck the target, burying deep in the straw.

He nocked another arrow, drew back, loosed it. Pfft. Princess Brigitta had shown him who she was that first day, and she’d shown him a thousand times since. Pfft. He’d watched her lay sheets of parchment on the table by the window and teach Yasma to read and write—forbidden skills for a bondservant. Pfft. He’d watched her read aloud to her half-brothers, watched her spend hours drawing pictures for them to color in. Pfft. He’d watched her rescue worms and spiders, beetles and butterflies.

He’d watched—and he’d come to learn that it wasn’t her face that made Princess Brigitta beautiful; it was her heart.

His hands clenched on the bow. Duke Rikard will never see that.

The third bell began to ring, chiming out across the training arena, across the palace. He heard the stir of movement in the barracks, the sound of voices.

Karel set down the bow. He strode across to the target. He laid out the day in his mind as he collected the arrows: breakfast and training, and then he’d scrub the sweat from his body, dress in a fresh tunic and the polished breastplate, and relieve Torven of his duty of the princess.

And then he’d watch her marry Duke Rikard.