The earl’s daughter by a second wife.., that could pose a problem.
The intricacies of Amefin titles were another source of headache, the thane of this and the earl of that, and the province of Amefel as a whole ruled over by the Aswydds, ducal in the Guelen court at Guelemara in Guelessar, and styling themselves aethelings, though discreetly, in their own provincial and very luxurious court ....
“Gods,” he moaned, the vixen proving she had teeth. The other threatened Tarien with the pillow, and he took the game for what it was, rolledTarien under and suffered a buffeting of feathers and a flank attack, Oriencomplaining she was slighted. Or was it, after all, Tarien?
He let himself be wrestled onto his back, and a furious battle ensued between the twins, in which he was the disputed territory, and in which he had an enchanting view of both well-bred ladies, before they smothered him in unison, and not with pillows.
He was taking random choice, then, perilous decision, when came c thump at the inner door, and a second.
And a third. Which roused his temper, which defeated other process in midcourse, and left him utterly confused between the twins, who wanted him to continue, and his door, at which some fool continued hammering assault.
“Gods damn you!” he cried, flat on the battlefield, overwhelmed and unhorsed. “Gods damn your knocking and battering, what do you war that’s worth your neck?”
“M’lord,” came from the other side of the doors. “Forgive me ...”
“Not damned likely!”
“...but there’s a stranger in hall. Master Emuin said you should hear this.”
“Master Emuin has no natural impulses,” he muttered, and drew pillow over his face, momentary refuge. “Master Emuin has now”
Thump. “My lord?”
He groaned and tossed the pillow aside. Orien—or was it Tarien?—kissed him on the mouth and clung to his arm. Her twin tossed a wealth of red-gold hair over a sullen shoulder and gathered the wine-stained sheet about her, rising.
He rolled to the doorward end of the bed, sighed as his feet found the fleece rug, searched blindly down the bed for remnants of his clothing.
“My lord?”
“Idrys,” he said to the batterer, “—Idrys, damn you, go down, tell them I’m aware, awake, bothered, duly alarmed, and duty-bound, I shall be there in a gods-cursed moment—I can dress myself, I learned at my lady mother’s knee, curse you all—”
Orien cried out as he snatched her by the wrist, squealed as he fell atop her and recovered his moment, at least enough to serve.
After which.., after which: “I’m duty-bound,” he said. “Tomorrow night.”
“Perhaps,” said Orien—he believed it was Orien. Lord Heryn’s sisters did as they pleased, and she would please herself again, or Tarien would, or both together. They played pranks on their lovers, which were more numerous than Heryn Aswydd accounted of ... but not many more, one could guess. Their lord brother, His Grace the Duke of Amefel, aetheling of the Amefin, was much about the court himself, in and out of this bed and that, trading gossip in every profitable ear.
One talked no affairs of state with the twins, who never asked gifts-least of all from him, whose acceptance they courted, oh, so gladly, since Luriel’s abrupt departure from the court.., but wager that this untimely knocking would clatter straight to Heryn’s ear for whatever value it had.
Emuin, about at this hour. A stranger, with some matter of import, enough to bring the old man from his bed.
Idrys, moved to rattle his doors to have him to some meeting.
Business with a stranger smelled of assassins, aimed at him or aimed at someone who wished to point a finger. Conspiracy was constant in this gods-cursed and often rebel district, and it could well wait until morning—late morning. Or three mornings hence for what he cared tonight.
The headache was recurring.
He pulled on his hose, struggled, servantless, with the boots, and found the shirt ... not overly rumpled. The doublet—no. He damned such formalities. He wore the shirttail out, splashed cold rose-scented water into his face, groped after the towel and blotted his beard and eyebrows dry—a cursory brushing of his hair, then, an apology to a braiding on his way out of the bedroom and to the door—the hell with it, he decided, and left the bedroom for the foyer doors.
A clash of arms resounded as, passing through the foyer, he left his apartment, four guards relieved at least of their nighttime boredom and mandated to endless discretion. The senior two went with him without asking. The junior and less privileged pair, with a second noisy salute, settled back to night-watch over his rooms as he went toward the east stairs.
The twins would dress and find their way out, and his guards would ignore their departure as they ignored their presence.
Such tedious games they played, when it involved dynasty, and heir-getting, Amefin ladies, and the Marhanen prince’s bed.
Avoiding gossip. Avoiding ... public acknowledgment of a known situation.
Down the hall he went with his guard about him, boots resounding on marble, and down the broad white stairs, on which the Guelen staff, instigated by his majordomo, made profligate expenditure of candles (your father the King, they began, when he protested the cost).
His father the King, in the capital at Guelemara, a province away, in the heart of the realm of Ylesuin, had an extravagant fear of the dark.
And of assassins.
Entirely justified, as it happened, by Grandfather’s example. Hence the guards. But it had not been for want of candles that Grandfather had died.
Clatter and rattle down the steps behind him: his bodyguard, ready to defend the Prince of Ylesuin from axe-wielding priests and jealous lovers.
Himself, he dreaded only the dank, after-midnight chill of the marble halls, undiminished by the candles. He walked, followed by clatter and clank, toward the open doors, the gathering of guards, the fuss and bother of wakened staff in the lower halls. A page overtook him, clearly wakened from sleep, having brought his cloak, which in summer and after the heat of his exertions he could well have done without, but the cloak was there, the air was always cooler in the audience hall than elsewhere, and he slung it on, freed his hair from it, encountered Emuin just inside the doors, along with a clot of night-staff and guards.
“This had better be worth it,” he muttered to Emuin, whose habit, in former years common cloth and perpetually inkstained, now was the immaculate gray of the Teranthine order—although within the court he wielded secular power his monastic and meditative order abhorred.
“I assure Your Highness ... “Emuin began, but he brushed past, sleepy, by now, and not in any good humor. “My lord Prince—”
His captain of the guard, Idrys, slipped up to him like a pike to a passing morsel, a black pike, wily, and veteran of hooks. Cefwyn waved a hand, a limp, circular signal that said to Idrys what he had just said to Emuin, in less polite terms, and stalked up the dais steps to the gilt, antique and unwarrantably uncomfortable throne, on which he disposed himself in no formality. He hooked a knee over the arm, heaved a sigh, and blinked, bleary-eyed, at the scatter of political expediencies that cluttered this midnight audience. He could list agencies that might be behind this undoubted ploy to obtain the unaware, uninformed state in which he found himself. Certain courtiers would have the stomach to play these games, such courtiers as aimed for his ear, his table, his bed, such noble families of the Guelenfolk from the capital as constantly plied their politics in this chamber; such of the Amefin locals as lurked in the aisles on feast days to catch his attention, hand him a petition—offer him an assignation with their sisters.
Little difference, one from the next, except he mortally loathed the ones that arrived after midnight, determined to have his ear privily and at unusual length regarding some piece of skullduggery gone awry before the other side of the business, no more nor less at fault, could counter it with appearances and protestations of their own.