Heated now, my hands flailing, I stop, struck by the knowledge that the king is Kipp’s father. That he could be the king one day, if he accepted the man’s offer.
“Have you thought of it, even for a moment? That you could be the next King of Meria?”
“No.”
He’s such a liar.
“Not even for one moment? As you lay your head down at night, dreaming of all that is possible? You’ve not considered it once?”
Kipp’s amusement is evident. “Dreaming of all that is possible? Is that what you do?”
I roll my eyes. “So what do you think of as you fall asleep?”
He gives me an impish grin that immediately conjures thoughts of Vanni. Of the way he felt on top of me, moving inside of me . . .
“Incorrigible,” I murmur.
“While we were in Midenear, there was a widow named—”
“Save your thoughts for the pillow.”
Kipp’s laugh lifts my spirits as it always does, and reassures me I’m making the right decision. I could never leave him. Or Father. Certainly not for a man who presumes to make decisions for me despite having only known me for a sennight.
Even so, the thought he may have already left Murwood . . .
What will happen to him if the Voyagers pledge their support and Edingham attacks? Kipp will not participate, I know, but he does not control the others. And what if the king’s nephew gains enough support to successfully challenge the king’s successor, whomever he chooses? What will happen to Vanni then?
“Aedre?”
I push aside thoughts of a problem I cannot solve.
“We will both remain in Murwood End,” I say flatly. If part of me questions it, there’s nothing for it. There is no other decision to make.
Kipp raises his mug. “Let us drink in memory of Amma. No talk of Meria or your commander or the king. Aye?”
I lift my mug too, though it feels heavy. “Aye.”
With naught left to say, we drink in silence.
Chapter Thirty-Two Vanni
This meeting with the queen’s commander is reminiscent of the one I had with Aldwine. Same inn, same table. Stokerton gives off the same air of confidence, even, and is approximately the same age.
But the similarities stop there.
Whereas Aldwine is reticent and suspicious by nature, Stokerton is anything but. Every time we’ve come in contact before, I’ve been left with the impression that, were we not enemies, the commander and I could be friends.
Good-natured, often smiling or jesting, he is well-liked by most, including the queen. The rumors of Queen Cettina and Lord Stokerton rival even the most scandalous stories about the Merian court. Some say they’d be married already if she were not a queen.
Thomas and I stand to greet the commander and one of his men.
My mind should be firmly on this meeting and what I hope to gain from it, and yet I find my thoughts straying to Aedre. I deliberately did not seek her out last eve, knowing she was wroth with me. But I went to her house this morning, expecting to find her, only for her father to tell me she’d spent the night at Nord Manor.
It was as if her father had punched me in the gut. An unmarried woman, staying overnight as a guest of an unmarried man?
As Aedre herself would tell me, the rules are different here, or rather there aren’t any. And I’ve observed myself that she and Kipp act like brother and sister. Which might comfort me more if the two were related in any way.
A jab in the arm from Thomas pulls me back to the present.
“Lord d’Abella. Sir Thomas. What a fine meeting place you’ve chosen,” Stokerton says. He nods to his companion. “Sir Alex McGreghere.”
I shake the older man’s hand. As is typical for a Highlander, his grey hair is worn long and loose. But I know better than to discount him because of his age—behind his bushy beard are intelligent green eyes, striking in their color.
“We met once before,” the knight says, “many years ago at Castle d’Almerita. I believe it was the very year Galfrid welcomed you there. There was quite a bit of talk about the young boy whose sword skill would someday be unmatched.
Despite myself, I like the man already. He deftly avoided saying the year your parents died, and though it amounts to much the same, I appreciate his tact.
“I am sorry to have forgotten it, McGreghere.”
We sit then, the two men across from us, a tankard of ale and four mugs already gracing the table.
“You were a boy. And this”—he pulls on his beard—“was more brown than grey then.”
“And this,” I say as Thomas pours ale into our mugs, “is Sir Thomas Hawthorne.”
“The best amongst us,” Stokerton says, “for he pours the ale.”
My attention shifts to the commander.
As in Meria, the members of the queen’s Curia retain their titles for life unless otherwise decreed by the monarch. Which means he will remain as the second commander until the first commander dies. The duties are similar, as evidenced by the fact that we are both here, in Murwood, to do our liege’s bidding.
The purpose of this meeting is for me to learn what, exactly, their liege has bid them to do.
“We were surprised to learn of your presence,” Stokerton says, getting straight to the heart of the matter.
“As were we,” I admit. “You first?”
His laugh makes it impossible not to smile.
“D’Abella is not one for niceties,” he explains to McGreghere. “But the rumors are true. He is quite deadly with a sword.”
Since there is no hint of malice, I thank him for the compliment. “Unfortunately, it seems I will be forced to use it before I would wish.”
Stokerton does not flinch.
“Perhaps if you’d not sent a ship full of your best men against us, such things could have been avoided.”
He says it as if reporting that day’s weather.
“Word reached the capital quickly. As usual, Breywood
