The Shadow's heir

wonderin’-what do yeh actually think of me?”

“Look, Laela-”

“C’mon,” she said more softly. “I ain’t gonna bite yer head off. I’m just. . curious.”

He brightened slightly as he looked her in the face. “Ye’re direct, ain’t ye?”

“Er-”

“I like that,” he added. “I always liked that about ye, Laela, since the first day we met.”

Laela smiled. “Me dad always said that the best way to get somethin’ off someone is to stop foolin’ around an’ just ask for it, ’cause it’s amazing what people’ll do if yeh put them on the spot.”

Yorath took a sip from his cup. “That’s very true. I’m curious myself, though.”

“About what?”

“Everyone’s curious,” said Yorath. “About ye. Where ye really came from. Seems ye just appeared in the Eyrie one day, an’ no-one ever saw ye come in or knows how ye got into the King’s favour so fast.”

“Oh.” She had a feeling he had wanted to ask her about it for some time.

“Ye don’t have to tell me,” Yorath added. “I just thought I’d ask.”

The rest of the food arrived at this point, and Laela had a few moments to think while they ate. Well, why not just tell him the truth? She couldn’t think of anything else to tell him, anyway, and she didn’t want to be rude to him.

“I came ’ere from the South,” she said eventually, and braced herself for the reaction.

He started. “The South? Where in the South?”

“Nowhere special,” said Laela. “Little village not far from the Northgates. Sturrick, it was called.”

Yorath was looking at her with a new interest. “I thought yer accent sounded. . different. But if ye were born in the South, how did ye get here? An’ why did ye come?”

“I bribed the men at Guard’s Post,” said Laela, as casually as she could.

Yorath stared at her, and then laughed. “Ye gods! An’ then ye came to Malvern, eh?”

“Yeah.”

“Why, though? I mean, why come North if ye had a home?”

“I didn’t,” said Laela. “I grew up there with my dad. . well, he was me foster father, really. Never knew me mother. Then he died, so I sold our house an’ came North.”

“Shadows, that’s rough,” said Yorath.

Laela shrugged. “These things happen. I ain’t got it so bad.”

“So why did ye come North?”

Laela tried to smile. “’Cause I’m a darkwoman, that’s why. An’ where else can a darkwoman go?”

“True.” Yorath smiled again. “How did ye end up in the Eyrie, then?”

“I got into some trouble in the city,” said Laela. “An’ the King rescued me.”

“What? The King?”

“Yeah. He was passin’ an’ saw me.”

Yorath looked surprised but not overly so. “Didn’t know he’d been down into the city. He doesn’t do that much any more.”

Laela tore a piece of bread in half. “He brought me back here, anyway. We talked a bit, an’ he asked me a bunch of questions about what’s goin’ on in the South, an’ I told him what I knew, an’ afterward he said I could stay here.”

“That’s all?”

“More or less,” said Laela. “He just took a likin’ to me.”

“Huh.” Yorath rubbed his chin. “Well, he’s got eccentric over the years, no-one’d argue with that. I guess maybe he was impressed about how ye’d come all this way just t’live in his Kingdom.”

“Yeah, he said that,” said Laela.

“It’s just a bit odd, though,” said Yorath, half to himself. “All the mistresses he’s had before, they were all. . well, high-born. An’ they were. . well. .”

Laela gritted her teeth. “I know. Yeh can’t understand why he’d be wantin’ a peasant girl now. One with filthy Southern blood in her.”

Yorath jerked as if she had slapped him. “Laela-oh, gods, please, I didn’t mean-”

“Well, don’t worry about it,” said Laela, more sharply than she meant to.

Silence.

“Listen,” Yorath said eventually, “I’ll go. I didn’t mean. . I’m sorry. I’ll leave ye.”

Laela grabbed his arm. “No. Stay. Yorath, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to yell at yeh, I’m just. . feelin’ a bit out of sorts, like.”

He looked thoroughly awkward and unhappy to be there. “Gods, what would my dad say? He was over the moon when I told him I’d been asked to be yer tutor. Said it was the best opportunity I’d ever had. Told me a hundred times, ‘Don’t say anythin’ out of turn! Be polite as ye can! If ye put one foot wrong, ye could lose it!’”

To her own surprise, Laela took him by the hand. “Yorath, listen. Yeh’ve got it wrong. I ain’t angry with yeh. I. . well, I like yeh.”

He tried to pull away, but gently. “Laela, don’t. We can’t-”

“Yeah, we can,” she said impulsively. “Look, it’s fine for us to spend time together. The King won’t care.”

“Laela, if I do somethin’ to make him angry-”

“Yeh won’t,” said Laela. “Yorath, it ain’t. . we ain’t sharin’ a bed. The King an’ me ain’t lovers. Actually. .” She looked shyly at the tabletop. “Actually, I ain’t never had a lover. Never. Who’d bed a half-breed?”

Yorath gaped at her. “What? But the King said-”

“He was lyin’,” said Laela. “An’ yeh’ve got to keep it a secret. He told me never to tell anyone else. He said if I wanted to stay ’ere an’ be looked after, I should pretend t’be his mistress, ’cause it would be simpler, an’ everyone would leave me alone. I asked him if he wanted t’make it. . real-like, an’ he said no.”

“I’ll. . I’ll keep quiet,” Yorath promised.

“Thanks.” Laela let go of his hand. “The King an’ me ain’t. . well, we ain’t lovers, an’ we ain’t friends. He just decided he wanted t’take care of me. I dunno why.”

You remind me of myself.

She shut the memory out.

“The King doesn’t have friends,” said Yorath. But he looked less surprised now, and more. .

Laela blinked, puzzled. He looked oddly. . disappointed.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

“What? Oh. . nothin’.”

“Yeah, there is,” Laela said firmly. “So tell me. I hate liars.”

“It’s not important,” said Yorath. “I was just thinkin’. .”

“What?”

“The King’s done a lot for ye,” said Yorath. “Ye do know that, don’t ye?”

“Of course I do,” said Laela, more than a little taken aback.

“Do ye?” He looked her in the eye. “Do ye really?”

“Well-”

“He’s never done somethin’ like this before,” said Yorath. “An’ if he’s done it for ye now, without askin’ for anythin’ in return. .”

“What?” said Laela. She felt the same sick, frightened feeling in her stomach that she had felt the night before, by the tomb.

“I dunno,” Yorath said abruptly. “It just seems like. . maybe he is expectin’ somethin’ back from ye. An’ if it’s not yer body, then I dunno what it could be.”

Laela didn’t reply, and the rest of the meal passed awkwardly, with neither one of them seeming to know what to say. She wanted to talk more-about things other than the King-but a strange feeling of guilt and shame had come over her, and it was so powerful, it made her keep her silence.

When the meal was done, they took their leave of each other and began to go their separate ways. But at the last moment Yorath stopped and hurried back.