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“You said he kept you close?”
Always so suspicious. But instead of taking offense, I simply state the truth.
“He did.” Then I turn the conversation back to him. “Is it so common where you are from for ladies to frequent such places?”
The shadow that passes across his features is as much a reaction as I’ve ever seen from him. Something about that question shook him.
Instead of answering, he turns from me. So very typical. And yet, I do not take offense. I am beginning to think it is his way, to be so brisk, even though I do not understand it.
A man who looks to be at least one hundred years of age shuffles toward Father Aiken. He whispers something to him and points to the corner of the room. When we are seated at the table, one separated from most others and adjacent to a roaring fire in the hearth, I inquire about the exchange.
“You know him?”
Taking down his hood, the Elderman seems to breathe easier for the first time all day. He looks around the hall and then back at me.
“Aye.”
It seems I will get nothing more from him. But then he surprises me by leaning forward, his gaze holding mine.
“We are safe,” he says confidently. “Nathan will fetch us a hot meal. And our quarters have been arranged for the evening. You will sleep in a bed this night, Lady Hilla.”
A welcome turn of events.
“Now tell me of the affair.”
He says the words so casually, I do not absorb them at first.
The affair. Does he mean . . . ?
“Father.” I sit up straight in the high-backed wooden bench. “Your question is beyond impertinent.”
The old man returns with a young serving maid, who plops two mugs and a pitcher onto our table.
“Many thanks,” he says, the man looking at me curiously before shuffling away. How very strange.
“If you’d have me believe that you did not conspire with your husband to facilitate an attack on innocent men and women in order to provoke the Merian borderers into a battle, bringing certain war between the kingdoms”—he pours an ale for us both and slides the pewter mug toward me—“I would argue your account of the events that led to you losing the crown to your sister, indeed, pertinent.”
No one has ever asked me such a question directly. Most whisper and stare and snicker, but none have asked for my account before.
Not even the husband I was accused of having cuckolded.
I’m unsure what to say. Certainly, the truth will not do.
“We have all eve,” he says, sitting back. “Do go on.”
7
Aiken
She’s already thinking of ways not to answer my question.
Some call Queen Cettina the most beautiful woman on the Isle. And indeed, that reputation is earned. Yet, I would venture to say her sister is even more so. Although there is not one feature, beyond those full lips, that I could point to as evidence of such a claim.
Or perhaps there is one.
Her eyes dart from me to the ale as she thinks. Considers my question. I’ve been trained to watch the eyes in order to learn a person’s true intentions. Words mean little. Anyone can speak them. The Prima, for instance, spouts platitudes about God’s will. He claims to love all, that his interest lies purely in saving souls.
Yet his eyes, his actions, tell another story. One of greed and a desire for power so great it threatens to undo all of the good that has been done before him. All of the strides that have been made to bring the kingdoms back to where they first began.
