As if prompted, Connley and Regan swept in exactly then. Ban could hear her skirts against the rushes, and Connley called, “Ban the Fox, we’ve come, as you asked.”
Ban turned. Wet wind shoved at his back as he made his way forward. “My lord.” Tension edged his voice. He glanced at the iron wizard, who nodded and left.
“What ails you, sir?” Regan asked when they were alone. She reached for him with a lovely hand decorated with several slender silver rings that set off her winter-brown skin. Today she wore a silver-threaded violet gown, edged in white fur he suspected came from his animal namesake. Despite Regan’s distraction, her grief—the pink rimming her irises—Ban thought she was everything a queen of Innis Lear should be: powerful, sharp, beautiful, like a raw ruby mined from the guts of the island, set into smooth iron.
The lady touched his face tenderly. “Tell us,” she coaxed.
Connley put his hand against Ban’s other cheek, casual and intimate. “Tell us,” he said, more commanding.
Ban removed a letter from his coat. Unlike the last time he’d betrayed a family member with a letter, this one he’d not needed to forge. Once Errigal had returned to the Keep, the Fox had stalked the young star priest out of the Steps. He leapt upon him, killed him quickly, and took the letter Errigal had written to align himself with Aremoria, Morimaros, and Lear.
“My father has betrayed us,” he said, relishing the sharp stab of guilt and the thorny pull of triumph all at once.
Connley took the letter and spread the paper so his wife could share the view. She read more quickly than he did, or perhaps rage blinded Connley. Before Connley did more than drag fingers through his fine slick hair, Regan lashed out, catching Ban unawares. Her nails cut his cheek; her rings would leave a red bruise. “He names you, too, in this dangerous missive, Ban Errigal,” she said.
“Regan,” Connley said, voice strangled. “The Fox brought this to us.”
Ban held his gaze on Regan’s, face hot. “He does name me, but that man cannot speak for me anymore than your father can for you.”
Her smile was a vicious creature. “Well said, Fox.”
The duke crushed the letter in his fist, strode to the strong fire, and cast it in. “We shall see what your father will claim for his loyalties, or if he will lie.”
“We should hang him instantly,” Regan hissed.
“Leave him to my displeasure,” Connley said. “Ban, you may go. You need not witness this.”
“Thank you, sir, but I will stay.” He wanted to look in Errigal’s eyes and show the earl exactly what he’d wrought by never choosing Ban.
“Brave boy,” said Regan, lovingly, but Ban knew this was not courage.
Just then Errigal dashed through the open doors from the courtyard, cursing the rain that plastered his hair to his face, dragged at his beard, and turned his leather coat dark in long grasping streaks. “What is this storm? Unnatural, I say.” He looked to any of the others for an ally in commiseration.
They would not need to summon him, in the end, to his end.
“Not so unnatural as your actions,” Connley coolly returned.
“What?” Errigal stopped short, shaking off his hair like a wet dog.
“You have betrayed us,” Regan said.
Ban’s heart beat hard enough to break. Every stab against his ribs fueled Ban’s anger, drummed up his turmoil.
“No—never you, lady,” the earl said, changing instantly to a penitent, his hands out and palms down. “You’ve heard of the shelter I gave your father, but surely you must know the old king needed it. I’ve only brought him to Hartfare, so he might find rest with Brona—this son of mine’s mother. It was kindness to a king I have loved, my lord, my lady. That is all.”
“Is kindness what made you write to Aremoria and offer allegiance against ourselves?” Connley asked, smooth and low as a wolf’s warning growl.
“Filthy traitor,” Regan said.
“Lady, I am none!” Errigal stepped to place himself nearer Ban, who noticed it with a sick sort of satisfaction. He fought against a terrible smile; he mustn’t show his hand too soon, but remember when Errigal came to Hartfare and tore Ban from his mother, without a care to what Ban needed or wished; when he shoved his son onto a horse, taking him away from love forever, saying it was for their own good, that Ban was too low for Elia’s glory; every fondly applied description of base and so many hearty, easy laughing other sons, as if Ban would cease to exist if his father were to do so.
Connley said, “You deny your words?”
Errigal broadened his shoulders, ignored the remnants of rain trailing down his face and beard, and lifted his chin proudly. “I do not; though I deny—only—that they make me a traitor.”
“We thought you were our friend, Errigal.”
“You betray us by siding with my father!” Regan said. “You betray even murdering, terrible Lear and the entire island by turning to Aremoria!”
Errigal pointed a thick finger at her. “You betrayed him, and yourselves, and this island first, lady, by casting your king out, by treating him as the enemy—him who was nothing but father to you! You put yourself opposed to Lear and goodness, and the stars themselves, and so you opposed this island and its crown.”
“No,” Regan said. “My sister and I are crowned here. By the stars and our own father’s word, him who you obey like an unthinking dog.”
Ban caught his breath. Surely Errigal would leave, attack, something, now—he could not stand for such talk. Ban’s palms tingled for action. He realized he stood poised on the balls of his feet.
Errigal seethed through his teeth and said, “I would never allow a man—a father—to suffer as you have allowed it—it is cruel, unnatural as this storm! You are unnatural.”
“Draw your sword,” Connley commanded, drawing his own. “You will die tonight, at my hand.”
Only Errigal wore no sword.
“Son—” Errigal said, reaching for Ban’s.
Ban felt lightheaded, abuzz with lightning energy. He was the storm outside, and he gripped his sword, pulled it a handspan free, then stopped. He stared at his father’s desperate face, at the uneven line where beard hung from cheeks, the damp corners of his big eyes, the handsome nose, his still-youthful mass of dark blond hair. How many times had Ban been so desperate, and his father refused to see or care?
Ban shoved his sword home in its sheath with a sudden, sharp snick. “I’ve seen no sign from the stars I should help you, sir.”
This moment was the last drop of honey, the first whisper from a beloved voice. Worth every betrayal, without space for regret.
“Ban!” Errigal cried.
The Fox smiled.
“There is no place to flee,” Connley sneered. “For my retainers are here, and yours will follow the Fox.”
Regan said, “He is become Errigal, old man.”
Anger drained from Errigal’s eyes as he looked to his bastard. “Ban,” Errigal said, his voice a husk of its old rich self.
“They are your sun and moon now, Father,” Ban said, sickly triumphant, afire with revenge. “Your fate is in their star-sharpened hands.”
He could not stay, could not remain indoors, sheltered from wild nature and the reveling wind. Turning even from the duke and his lady, from the hot, raging fire, from the warmth of the room and his own father, Ban the Fox walked out into the storm.
ELIA
“WILL WE ARRIVE soon, Elia? I don’t know how much longer these thighs can hug this beast,” Aefa called from behind her. They rode single file, for this track to Hartfare was narrow. Branches reached down for them, while ferns and sharp bushes reached up, making a constant scratch at shoulders, knees, boots, and their horses’ backsides as they pushed through.