“Goodwife Romarec said Mama and Uncle helped the men who came last year to Sutterdown and endangered the Princess.”
“Tried to kill everyone in that building including the Princess. And including Odard. He fought for her… fought beside her, and killed several of them at the risk of his life. I think that’s why we were left alone for as long as we were. Mother was getting a second chance that he bought us with the sword and his blood. And look what she did with it!”
His voice had changed too, deeper and rougher, and there was a different look in his eyes. They said he looked more like their father than anyone else in the family, and suddenly she believed it. Her father had been a hard man; never unkind to her, and she remembered him affectionate with her mother, but a very hard man in very hard times. People had been frightened of him; commoners never talked much about him in her presence. The Lord Protector had used him like a dagger held up the sleeve.
“But before she could tell me any more, Sir Garrick arrived and took over the castle,” Yseult said.
“Start at the beginning, then, Ysi. You and I are all of House Liu left here and we have only each other. You must tell me everything or I won’t know what to do or say.”
Yseult searched her brother’s eyes. He was the only one of them to get ones of their father’s dark blue, but with their mother’s open lids.
He’s only a boy! she thought, with a stab of remorse. I should.. .
She spoke aloud. “You’re my little brother! I should be protecting you!”
Huon laughed suddenly. “And if we had a kitchen or a solar, you’d be bustling around doing all the womanly things, taking baskets to the poor and supervising the weaving and getting the winter supplies done and the herbs put up and the accounts balanced. And doing it right!”
“Listen to the bearded knight!” she said gaily, then hugged him again. “Oh, this is good. I thought I’d go crazy… how have you been, over there in Mollala?”
Enthusiasm glowed from him; he was still only thirteen. “It’s great! Lord Chaka and the knights and their squires are strict, but they’re fun too, and the other pages are mostly good guys. I thumped a couple and a couple thumped me and we all know where we stand.”
Boys are weird sometimes, she thought, not for the first time. He went on:
“We train really hard and study, but there’s lots of hunting, they’re right on the edge of the Cascades there you know, and I’ve got a horse of my own and I’ve started again with the lance. And Lord Mollala says I’ve got a good seat and eye!”
“It does sound like fun,” Yseult said enviously.
She should have been a lady-in-waiting; for a year or more now. Learning skill and courtesy and the ways of another great house, with a kindly noblewoman to oversee her, and parties and hawking and some carefully chaperoned flirting, and seeing new places and people and making friends among the girls who’d be close to her all her life and link the families together the way page service and being a squire did the boys.
Huon grinned at her obvious thought: “And if we were under siege you’d be counting chickens and eggs and firing those deadly little darts of yours at the invaders.”
Yseult suddenly smiled. “I’m even better than Alex with the crossbow! Oh!”
“Alex? Vinton? He came back? I heard, but nothing definite.”
“I think so…” Yseult thought carefully and then told Huon everything.
It took some time, but she didn’t mind. I want the Spider… the Lady Regent… to know the truth! The truth is I didn’t know anything about treason! Neither did Huon!
It might not make all that much difference. The law spread guilt for treason throughout the kin. More than an hour later Huon said, very softly:
“Par le bon Dieu!”
Yseult nodded, letting her head fall back onto his shoulder. In the keyhole opening of the neck of his shirt she could see the little medal of St. Valentine Huon had always worn. There was another medal next to it.
“What’s that?” she asked.
Huon looked down and fingered the medallion. “Well, the Dowager Mollala gave it to me. It’s a Michael; the archangel, you know. Grand Constable of the Heavenly Host. Said if I wanted to be a warrior I needed a saint that could do more than just be a target and end up a holy pincushion.”
Yseult nodded. “Bernadette and Lourdes have been a great help to me.” “You always loved them.”
She nodded again, suddenly tired. All the tension that had been holding her together for the last five days drained out of her body and surprisingly, she found herself very sleepy but content as she hugged her brother. It seemed like a long time later when a thought floated up in her exhausted brain.
“I… it’s horrible, but I was… not glad, but, but, I wish I knew what words to use… when I saw Uncle Guelf’s body in the courtyard, I wasn’t angry he was dead. I felt like he’d deserved it and I was safer with him dead. How awful is that?”
Her brother sighed. “We probably are much safer with him dead and Mother under house arrest somewhere. They say to get out of a pit first you have to stop digging, and now he’s buried himself and Mother can’t do anything to make things worse. Where is Fen House? People just whisper about it when some noble really screws up and disappears.”
“Sir Garrick said we didn’t need to know. Do you know Sir Garrick?”
Huon looked down at her and shook his head. “The Protectorate is a big place, bigger than I realized. There’s a lot more empty space between the baronies than I realized, too. The Betancourts live in Bethany, up near Portland, a little west. It’s prime farmland, I think they have about a dozen manors, and vineyards in their demesne, too. A rich estate. But all the kids are a lot older than we are. Roderick and Garrick are the grandsons. I think old Lord Betancourt, the first of the line, is either dead or dying; though I might not have heard. They were Society people like Mother, but on both sides.”
Huon was quiet for a time. Then: “I can understand your not being sad that he died. I’ll bet the headless body gave you a shock, though.”
Yseult shuddered. “I don’t think it was the body. I’ve seen executions, after all. I think it was the unexpected sight, and knowing him. And he never used his head for anything but a helmet-rack anyway.”
She knew that the words were just bravado, but Huon laughed in approval and hugged her and she relaxed.
I’ve missed him; missed being able to share my feelings and thoughts. Missed it so much.
Huon pulled her closer. “It could be. He just knew he was smarter and better than Mother was and that he was supposed to be the regent for Odard, even though he loved Mother. And Mama loved Guelf, but she hated it when he tried to tell her what to do. I went to Loiston to be his page, remember? It was just for three months and I was only seven. Mother made me come home when I swore at her. And she and Guelf had one of their fights over his teaching me bad language.”
Yseult gave a watery chuckle. “The kind where we were scared they’d pull each other’s hair out by the roots? I remember that fight!”
“I do, too. But I saw that he truly loved Layella and cared for Aunt Theresa. He was really hard on Terry and Odo, but then I realized that he was really stupid about how he showed how much he cared, but he really cared. So, I understand your not being unhappy he’s dead. But I’m sorry; he did love us. I wish I knew what happened, that he abandoned his post.”
“Did he? Did he really? He ran away?”
That shocked her to the very core. You could forgive an Associate most things except cowardice.
And treason, her mind added.
“Yes, but that’s all I know. Walked out on all the men; just left them and headed back home… I don’t think it was cowardice, really. He was a fighter, at least. Everyone agrees he fought like a lion at Pendleton! Why? ”
“I was really sorry for Aunt Layella. I don’t know if she cared for him, but she was a good aunt to us and Chatelaine for him.”
She licked her lips; she was dancing around the most important question of all:
“Huon, why did Mama do this? What made her so mad all the time? She hates me. She’s always after me, always irritated, always angry. And Uncle’s… was… so much worse than he used to be, too.”
Huon started, eyes focusing on her again. “But she didn’t hate you!” he protested. “Mama loves you so very much. Don’t you remember the silk violet dress with the eyelet surcoat she made for you that Easter you led all the
