The Sentinel Mage

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE





AS COMMANDER OF the king’s army, Duke Rikard had a large suite of rooms in the northern wing of the palace. Karel patrolled them, learning their dimensions, noting the doors and the windows: the antechamber, the large salon with its ostentatious furnishings, the formal dining room with seating for a score of guests, the duke’s study, with its locked door into the salon. And the bedchamber.

The bedchamber was sumptuously decorated. Karel averted his gaze from the wide bed, with its silver and midnight-blue hangings and the rumpled sheets. Anger burned in his chest, or maybe it was despair.

On one side of the bedchamber were a second door into the duke’s study and the door to his dressing room and bathing chamber. From the bathing chamber another door accessed a bondservants’ corridor, so the man who attended the duke could slip in and out. He’d been informed yesterday by the duke’s senior armsman that he was strictly forbidden to enter the duke’s private rooms. “The duke is our charge, not yours.” Karel had ignored the man’s hostility, the attempt to put him in his place.

On the other side of the bedchamber was the door to the princess’s dressing room and bathing chamber. The bondservants’ corridor could be accessed from these, too, but Yasma wouldn’t be making the trek to the bondservants’ dormitories each night; an alcove in the dressing room had been prepared for her to sleep in. And on the princess’s orders, no armsman was allowed to enter that room.

“Stupid idea,” the senior armsman had grumbled. “Pampering a bondservant like that!”

Karel had ignored that, too. He knew what the man was really complaining about: Yasma’s unavailability.

The door to the bathing chamber and dressing room was firmly closed. Yasma and the princess were behind it.

Karel took his post in the salon. The room was cluttered with rugs, wall hangings, tables. Contempt curled his lip as he examined the furnishings. His eyes lighted on a tapestry stitched with gold and silver thread, on a mirror framed in mother-of-pearl and ebony, on a cluster of gilded vases on a table. Individually, many of the pieces were beautiful. Collectively, the salon was gaudy, tasteless. Look at me! Duke Rikard was saying. See what an exalted position I hold in Osgaard’s hierarchy.

And now the duke had a new item for his collection: Princess Brigitta.

A door opened in the bedchamber.

Karel snapped to attention; shoulders back, head lifted, eyes staring directly ahead.

Princess Brigitta emerged from the bedchamber. She wore a loose robe of pale blue silk. Her hair was tied at the nape of her neck in a simple knot.

The princess didn’t appear to notice him. She walked across the salon and sat on a low, long settle underneath one of the windows. Her movements were slow, lacking their usual grace. She gazed out the window as if she were daydreaming.

Karel concentrated on doing his duty—scanning the salon, listening to Yasma move in the bedchamber—but his gaze kept returning to Princess Brigitta. Her calmness, her languor, was puzzling. No, it was more than puzzling; it was disturbing.

Above her head a bee batted against the window panes in a vain attempt to get out. He waited for the princess to notice, to open the window for it. In the bedchamber he heard Yasma putting fresh sheets on the bed, plumping the pillows.

Karel’s unease grew with each passing minute. Finally he wrenched his gaze away from the princess.

On the wall across from him were gilt-framed maps tracing Osgaard’s growth during the past two centuries. His eyes skipped from map to map, noting each subsumed kingdom: Horst in the south, Karnveld and Lomaly to the west, Brindesan and Meren in the north, and above them, a chain of islands stretching up towards the equator: Esfaban. King Esger was the only ruler who’d failed to add to Osgaard’s territory in seven generations. I hope that hurts, you whoreson of a king.

His gaze lingered on the Esfaban islands. On the map they looked like a string of beads. His memory supplied the details: the lap of waves on beaches of white sand, palm fronds rustling in the breeze, the heavy, warm rains, the chorus of frog song at night.

A surge of longing ambushed him, so intense that his throat closed.

Karel looked away from the maps. The bee still buzzed futilely above Princess Brigitta’s head. Her pose was unchanged—relaxed, dreamy, wrong.

Finally, after the bee had been batting at the window for nearly half an hour, Karel forced himself to move. His hobnailed boots sank into the rugs as he crossed the room. “Princess?”

Princess Brigitta turned her head and looked up at him. No, not at him, she seemed to look through him. Her eyes were slightly unfocussed, her pupils dilated. “Yes, armsman?”

“Would you like me to let the bee out?”

Her gaze turned to the window, and then away. “Oh, yes.” Her tone was vague, uninterested, as if she didn’t care about such things.

Karel frowned. “Are you all right, princess?”

“Perfectly,” she said. The word was slightly slurred.

Was she drunk? Drugged? Karel opened the window and let the bee out, then glanced down at her face. Princess Brigitta’s eyes were half-closed. She appeared to be dozing.

He walked back across the thickly piled rugs and took his position beside the door to the antechamber. From this vantage point he could see into the bedchamber: a slice of marble floor, the tasseled edge of a rug, one corner of the bed with its midnight-blue and silver counterpane.

Outside, the sun was high in the sky. The echoes of the sixth bell drifted faintly. He heard the sound of a door opening, closing, the clatter of boots on marble. The door from the antechamber swung open. Duke Rikard strode into the salon, followed by his armsman. “Stay out there,” the duke said.

The armsman retreated into the antechamber and closed the door.

Duke Rikard’s gaze turned to Karel. His lips compressed as if he wished to order him into the antechamber too.

Karel stared stolidly past the duke’s shoulder. I take orders only from my mistress.

The duke turned away from him. His gaze lighted on the princess, seated on the settle with her eyes closed and sunlight gilding her hair. “My dear princess.”

Princess Brigitta didn’t flinch, didn’t stiffen. She lifted her eyelids and watched him approach, her expression dreamy.

“You were asleep when I left this morning.” The duke took both her hands and kissed them. “Are you well?”

“Perfectly.”

Duke Rikard didn’t appear to hear the faint slur, the way she dropped the t from the word. He cupped her chin in one hand and looked down at her. “You’re not wearing your crown.”

The princess blinked slowly. “No.”

“I want you to wear it, always.”

She nodded, but Karel doubted she’d fully heard the words.

“Come.” The duke took Princess Brigitta’s hand and pulled her to her feet. “I’d like us to spend some time together.”

“Time?”

“Yes,” the duke said as he led her towards the bedchamber. He had the smile of a glutton about to indulge in a feast. “I’d like to spend time with my new wife.”

You’d like to rut her, you mean.

The princess didn’t demur. Her manner was acquiescent, her expression distant.

The door to the bedchamber closed behind them, and then opened again to expel Yasma. Rikard’s voice followed the maid, containing a hiss of anger: “I want her to wear the crown every day. From the moment she rises.”

“Yes, master,” Yasma said, abasing herself.

The door closed again with a loud snick.

Karel found himself unable to look at Yasma. Knowledge of what was happening in the bedchamber churned inside him.

Let me kill him. His hand gripped the sword hilt so hard the ridges of metal dug into his skin. The duke’s last words echoed, sharp-edged, in his mind: I want her to wear the crown always.

Always. Even when he was rutting her. Especially when he was rutting her.

Karel wanted to upend the lacquered tables, to smash the gilded vases against the wall, to shred the tapestries with his sword.

No, better to destroy the man, to castrate him, to cut off his head.

An image flowered in his mind, glorious: the duke’s head spinning as it tumbled, spraying blood, the man’s body falling heavily, striking the floor—

Movement caught his attention: Yasma, crossing to the settle where the princess had sat.

Karel strode after the maid, crushing the soft rugs beneath his hobnailed boots. “What’s wrong with her? What did he give her?”

“Nothing,” Yasma said, busily straightening the cushions.

“He drugged her!”

“No.”

Karel’s anger erupted. He took hold of the maid’s elbow, swinging her around to face him. “She’s been drugged!”

“The duke didn’t give her anything.” Yasnla twisted her arm, trying to free herself. “I did. It was her choice.”

“What was her choice?”

“Poppy juice.”

Karel released Yasma’s elbow. He stared at her, aghast. “But the danger—”

“He’s raping her,” Yasma said flatly. “Would you rather she knew what he was doing, or that she went into it with her mind numbed?”

Karel shook his head. “It’s too dangerous!”

“You’ve never been raped.” Yasma turned away from him. “You don’t know what it’s like.”

Karel looked down at her bent head. “My mother was a bondservant. She was raped.”

“If she’d been able to take poppy juice, she would have.” Yasma’s movements were almost fierce as she straightened the cushions. “Believe me.”

“It’s too dangerous,” Karel said again, but his voice lacked conviction.

Yasma swung around to face him. “You’re a man! You will never know what it’s like!”

Karel was silent. You’re right, I don’t know. He’d seen misery on women’s faces, seen despair, seen fatalism. I can’t even begin to imagine how it must feel to be that helpless.

He reached for her, putting his arms around her. “I’m sorry, Yasma.”

Yasma stood rigid for a moment, and then her head bowed. She let him pull her close, let her forehead rest against his chest on the polished Osgaardan breastplate.

“Did I hurt you?” Karel asked, stroking her hair. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to.”

“No.”

He stood in the sunlight, holding her, trying not to think about what was happening in the bedchamber. I hate this place. I hate what it does to people.

Outside, the sky was the pale blue of eggshells. Karel stared at it, wishing he was seeing that blue sky from somewhere else. I could take them away. The princess and Yasma. They could look at that sky from somewhere safe. Somewhere that wasn’t Osgaard.

But the course of his life was set, as was Princess Brigitta’s, as was Yasma’s. There was no escape.

“I know how you feel about her,” Yasma said in a low voice. “I love her too.”

Karel opened his mouth to protest—I don’t love her—and then closed it again.

“I’m just trying to make it easier for her.”

Yasma at least had done something. All he’d done was watch.

“How did you pay for it?”

“I took one of her coins.” Yasma’s head lifted. She met his eyes. “It wasn’t stealing. It was for her, not me.”

Perhaps it hadn’t been stealing, but it was perilously close to it. “Shall I give you some money? So you don’t need to use hers?”

He saw relief on her face. “Yes. Please.”

There was nothing else he could do to help Princess Brigitta, but there was one thing he could do for Yasma, a protection he could offer. “After two more years’ service, I can take a wife,” Karel said. “If you like...we can marry. I’m certain the princess will give permission.”

Yasma stiffened in his arms.

“I promise I wouldn’t touch you,” Karel said hastily. “Not like that. You’d be quite safe.”

No, that was wrong. She’d never be completely safe; not even the princess’s protection could give her that. If Duke Rikard should decide to rut his wife’s bondservant, Yasma would have to submit.

“Unless there’s someone else you’d prefer?”

He felt her shudder. “No. No one.”

The shudder turned his thoughts to the bedchamber, to Princess Brigitta and the duke. Anger rose inside him again. He barely heard Yasma say, “Thank you. That would be very kind of you, Karel.”

He forced his attention back to her. “How many years service have you left?”

“Thirteen.”

She’d only completed seven years, less than half her service.

“How old were you when you came?”

“Ten.”

The youngest a bondservant could be. Her family must have been desperate, to send her so young. His arm tightened around Yasma’s shoulders.

“I hate it here,” she said fiercely, bowing her head against his breastplate again.

Karel looked out the window at the white marble of the palace, the glittering gilded roofs, the clipped hedges and flowering rosebushes and lush green curve of a lawn. A facade of beauty, with ugliness beneath. “Yes,” he said. “So do I.” He gently stroked her soft black hair. His mother had been this young once, this helpless, trapped in a nightmare, earning her family’s freedom through her own slavery.

An idea crystalized in his mind. “Yasma...do you know of a way to stop her becoming pregnant?”

“What?”

“If the princess proves barren, Duke Rikard might annul the marriage.”

Yasma lifted her head and stared at him for a moment, her lips slightly parted, then she closed her mouth. Determination firmed her face. “Dung-root juice. If she drinks it, she won’t conceive.”

“Do you think she’ll agree?”

Yasma gave a single, emphatic nod. “I’m certain of it.”