Page 52 of The Cornish Princess
Indeed, it wasn’t until he’d revealed his true self that she’d decided he wasn’t worthy of her admiration—not when he so oft felt inclined toward smugness, and most of it was directed at her. Only why? What had she ever done to him?
Like a lodestone, her gaze was drawn to the lone door separating them. In the antechamber, she heard more noises and wondered what he was doing.
During these past few days, whilst he was gone, she had found it far easier to pretend she was pleased with her betrothal, but here and now, withhisabominable presence, it was impossible to feel aught but misery—and he was surely the cause. His presence was like a dark shadow hovering over her life—if only he would go.
Instead, she would sleep here, in this bed, and he would be… out there… doing whateverelfkinddid by night.
Creeping about?
Too close for comfort.
Verily, something about performing personal intimacies with Málik Danann so near, struck her as—not wrong, precisely, but discomforting.
Even now, fully dressed and doing naught more than sitting on her bed, she was entirely discomposed by his nearness.
More cacophony.
By the eyes of Lugh, what was he doing?
Doubtless, making himself at home, and the prospect made Gwendolyn gloomy. Her belly grumbled in protest, and she decided it truly must be nerves—all because ofhim.
Already, after one altercation, she hadn’t the fortitude to endure another, and that she would suffer this contentious association every day from here forth—until she arrived in Loegria and was free to replace him without answering to her father—was enough to make her ill.
If for no other reason but for that, her marriage was a blessing, because soon she would be mistress over her own life. And in the meantime, if only to keep the peace, her one concession to her father wasMálik Danann.
He who bore the designation of the Tuatha’an, and who dared to torment and tease her, despite that he hadn’t the right.
He who had betrayed the only friend he’d ever made in this city.
All too easily, he’d forsaken Bryn as he had Gwendolyn.
And really, though he was supposed to be the best swordsman in the realm, and Gwendolyn’s father was the first to attest to his reputation, Gwendolyn had discreetly inquired and found no one—not one soul—who knew anything about the so-calledfaein their midst.
So then how was it possible that this man, so utterly mysterious and so full of contempt for the King’s own heir, could find himself as the head of her father’s army, training men to defend not merely her beloved city, but her family as well.
Curious, that. And suspicious as well.
If only for a moment, Gwendolyn’s thoughts returned to the First Alderman. It had been years now since anyone was slain within the city limits. Naturally, there were deaths aplenty, and sometimes people came to her father’s hall to complain over petty crimes—the theft of a goat, or the ruination of a man’s daughter, or the swindling of a few pieces of copper. There was so little crime to speak of, thanks to her father and his alliances. But somehow, Málik had been a guest in their city for scarcely over two moons, and here they were, investigating the death of a respected alderman—a man who, by the by, must have surely taken his turn in training with Málik Danann, as had Bryn, and most of her father’s guards. After all, wasn’t that Málik’s initial charge? To bring the King’s men to heel after too many years of being idle? Particularly now, when all their plans were reaching a crowning moment?
Gwendolyn’s mind reeled with questions—such as, why was Bryok skulking about that smelting house during her Promise Ceremony? The location where his body was found was nowhere near the courtyard, nor the Treasury, nor was it close to his home. So what was he doing there in such a remote part of the city, when her father had declared the evening to be a public holiday?
There were several blacksmiths in Trevena, all of them quite well esteemed, but that shop boasted the only forger who knew how to work with Loegrian steel, and he was also the only blacksmith who ever received Loegrian ingots—not a clue, precisely, but curious just the same.
The cooper was next door as well, with the furrier and tanner two doors down, although most of the merchants were on the opposite side of the city, closer to the barracks and the market and city pool.
What Gwendolyn really wished to know was why that bloody hammer was left in perfect view of anyone who could find it? Why had Bryok been seeking the tincture of hemlock? For himself? Was he, as Alderman Eirwyn claimed, so despondent over the abandonment of his family that he had intended to end his life? If so, why go about it so publicly, even so far as requesting the use of the cook’s house for some unknown party suffering with mania?
Howbeit if, by some odd turn of events, Bryok really was inquiring for someone else, and was poisoned—intentionally, or else wise—that hemlock should have done the worst on its own. There was no need for violence, unless the hammer was meant to let blood, to attract wolves no one even suspected were in the area.
In truth, wolves had been absent from these parts for quite some time, and though they could still be encountered in the northern woodlands, why would anyone bother with such malefaction, when any weapon would have sufficed on its own? The hammer, or the poison—not both.
Really, the wolves could be a simple matter of ill timing, but it felt to Gwendolyn as though too much effort had been exerted into hiding the true cause of this man’s death.
But then a thought occurred to her as she sat, considering the Alderman’s widow—Ia was a woman Gwendolyn had long admired. Younger than her husband, she was perhaps a few years older than Gwendolyn, but already she’d born the Alderman four healthy children in the space of a little over four years. It simply didn’t ring true that she’d left him, and neither could they have loathed one another so vehemently and still made so many babes.
Any good apothecary could easily have taken care of that. Although it wasn’t sanctioned, Gwendolyn knew many women who’d sought a dose ofsilphiumfor this purpose.
Even their ancestors had abandoned unwanted babes to the cold and the will of thefae. Sadly, unwanted children were not to be suffered.
