David Dalglish - A Dance of Shadows

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

“I would not worry about it,” Melody said later that day, both she and Alyssa holding thin glasses filled with wine. They relaxed in a private den of Stephen’s mansion, free from the bustle of the servants and the movers and the private guards.

“It’s hard not to,” Alyssa said, thinking of the way Nathaniel had collapsed amid his crying. It still gave her shivers.

“Your son watched rioters gather at the gates, determined to kill him,” Melody insisted. “And then he witnessed the slaughter as it unfolded. To go through all that, and then suffer the stress of moving into a new home, however temporarily? It is a lot for a boy his age. He just had a fit, that’s all.”

Perhaps, thought Alyssa, but she’d never seen Nathaniel act in such a way. He was always a quiet, thoughtful boy, not prone to crying or hysteria. Still, it had indeed been a rather awful week…

“I pray you are right,” she said, wishing to put the moment out of her mind.

“Indeed,” said her mother, “but to whom should you pray?”

At first Alyssa tried to laugh it off, gesturing with her glass. “To whichever god will listen,” she said, feeling slightly uncomfortable.

Melody leaned forward in her red leather chair, a sudden eagerness coming over her. “The gods are not playthings we should cast our whims upon, Alyssa. They are real, they are powerful, and their intervention will always come with a cost. I asked whom you prayed to. It is not a question I ask lightly.”

That slight discomfort became nearly unbearable. Alyssa focused on her drink, preferring that to the wide-eyed look of her mother. The gods… what did Alyssa know of the gods? Nothing.

Well, perhaps nothing…

“I do not pray to either of the brother gods,” she said. “I know not enough of Ashhur for it to be honest or wise. As for Karak”-she shook her head-“I do know of him. I’ve heard enough stories of his servants to last a lifetime.”

“Stories?” asked Melody, leaning back in her chair. “What stories? From whom?”

“Zusa once served in the temple,” Alyssa said. “For daring to sleep with another man, she was stripped naked, beaten, and forced into servitude. Many years ago, when I first met her, we were also chased by a man in dark plate mail. One of Karak’s paladins. He would have dragged me back to Veldaren, to a dungeon or to my death, I do not know. Zusa protected me from him, saved me from such a fate.”

“What you know of Karak is twisted,” Melody said, shaking her head. “The priests here, you must understand, they do not follow the right path. They do not understand the old ways…”

“And I don’t care,” Alyssa said, finally setting down her drink and looking her mother in the eye. “If you want me to pray to Karak, then you will be sorely disappointed. Pray to him yourself. In Zusa I have seen all I need to see of the perverse ugliness at the heart of your lion god.”

Melody looked away, then rose from her chair.

“Forgive me,” she said. “It is a bad time to discuss such things, and I am a poor vessel in my attempts.”

“You’re forgiven,” Alyssa said, but she had to force out the words. For some reason she felt absolutely furious.

“I’ll go see if our things are unpacked,” her mother said, heading for the door.

“Mother,” Alyssa said, stopping her before she could leave. “Never bring this up to me again.”

“You’re a grown woman,” Melody said. “I understand.”

“Nathaniel too.”

Melody winced as if someone had pinched her neck.

“Of course. He is your son to raise.”

She left, the door shutting hard behind her. Alyssa looked to the door, to her glass, and then on an impulse flung it into the fire. The shattering of the glass did little to improve her mood, sadly. Slowly she rubbed her temples, wishing she could erase all of the past two weeks, wishing she could go back to her simple life of her and Nathaniel, slowly growing older together as she prepared him to succeed her. Why did everything have to change, and so fast?

When someone knocked on the door, she wanted to yell for them to leave her be, but better manners prevailed.

“Yes?” she asked.

The door crept open, revealing Terrance Gemling’s ashen face.

“My lady,” he said. “I… there’s something I must talk to you about.”

“Then come in and talk,” she told him. “It seems today is a day for me to listen to awkward talks.”

Terrance clearly didn’t understand, but he stepped inside, closed the door behind him, and then stood there. Alyssa gave him a look, then gestured to the chair before him.

“Sit,” she said. “You’ll just get on my nerves if you hover there by the door. Or must you prepare yourself for a fast retreat?”

She was trying to calm him down, but instead it seemed to make him all the more nervous. He started to talk, stammered, then stopped so he could sit down in the chair. Taking a deep breath, he put his hands to his face and slowly exhaled. Alyssa could hardly believe what she was seeing. He looked ready to cry. He was a bright man, and good with numbers, but before her was a shocking reminder of just how young he was.

“Terrance,” she asked. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

“I take full responsibility for this,” he blurted. “If you wish, I’ll go right now to the king and demand all punishments to be on my head.”

Zusa’s warning echoed in Alyssa’s mind, and immediately she knew what it was that bothered him.

“What did you do?” she asked quietly.

He was crying fully now, and that made it difficult to understand him.

“My father’s always insisted it was never a concern, and countless other lords get away with it. The gold we mint at our mines in Tyneham, and the taxes we’re to pay on it… the numbers of what we’ve minted I’ve always kept low by depositing portions of it in John Gandrem’s treasury in Felwood on the wagons’ trips south.”

Alyssa felt a chill spread through her chest.

“I take it the coin is later sent to us by John under the guise of something else?” she asked.

Terrance meekly nodded. “Gifts or payments for materials he never receives,” the young man said.

Terrance hung his head as if preparing himself for the executioner’s ax. Which, in truth, wasn’t far off. Alyssa wanted to reprimand him, but that’d come later. He was a good man, and she’d trusted him for years now to manage her wealth. Compared to her previous adviser, Bertram, he was a genius. Plus, Bertram had attempted to stab Alyssa to death, whereas Terrance worshipped the ground she walked on. It was her own fault for not keeping a closer eye on things. She had very little doubt that what Terrance described was done by hundreds of others. Only hundreds of others didn’t have a madman with an agenda poring over their every transaction page by page.

“Will Henris discover this?” she asked.

Terrance shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know. I’ve always kept a second set of books with the real amounts, and when Henris first arrived I kept him distracted, then destroyed the other books that night. But there’s still the shipping records from John’s castle. Henris is staying with Victor now, and those records are with him. I’ve disguised the gold as best I could on them, but if Henris looks closely…”

His voice trailed off. Alyssa swallowed, and despite the bitter irony, she said it anyway.

“Then we’ll have to pray he doesn’t take a closer look, won’t we?”

Haern woke to the sound of scraping steel. He bolted upward in his bed and immediately regretted it. A moment of vertigo doubled him over, and he coughed and heaved as his insides twisted. Beside him Brug sat up in his chair, dagger and whetstone in hand.