Fire (Graceling Realm #2)(24)
Author: Kristin Cashore

'The lady queen and I speak freely with each other,' she said, 'and Brocker shares all he learns with me.

The question isn't why they should have mentioned her. It's why they've taken care not to.'

'Ah,' Garan said. 'This is a conversation about trust.'

Fire took a breath. 'And why should the child be kept secret? She's only a child.'

Garan was silent for a moment, thinking, now and then glancing at her. He steered her across the palace's central courtyard. She was happy to let him choose the route. Fire still got lost in the labyrinths of this place, and only this morning had found herself in the laundry when she'd been aiming for the blacksmith's shop.

'She is just a child,' Garan said finally, 'but her identity has been kept quiet since before she was born.

Brigan himself didn't know about her until she'd been alive four months.'

'Why? Who was the mother, an enemy's wife? A friend's wife?'

'No one's wife. A stable girl.'

'Then why—'

'The child was born the third heir to the throne,' Garan said, very low, 'and she was born to Brigan. Not Nash, not Clara, not I. Brigan. Think of the time, Lady, six years ago. If, as you claim, you've been educated by Brocker, you'll know the danger Brigan faced as he grew into adulthood. He was the only one of the court who was Cansrel's open enemy.'

This silenced Fire. She listened, shamed, as Garan unfolded the story.

'She was the girl who cared for his horses. He was sixteen, barely, and she was, too, a pretty thing; goodness knew there was little joy in his life. Her name was Rose.'

'Rose,' Fire repeated, woodenly.

'No one knew of them but four in the family: Nash, Clara, Roen, and I. Brigan kept her quiet to keep her safe. He wanted to marry her.' Garan laughed shortly. 'He was an impossible romantic rockhead.

Luckily he couldn't, and keep her secret.'

'And why was that lucky?'

'The son of a king and a girl who slept with the horses?'

It seemed to Fire it was rarely enough one knew a person one wished to marry. How unjust then to meet that person, and be kept from it because one's bed was made of hay and not feathers.

'Anyway,' Garan continued. 'Around that time Cansrel convinced Nax to throw Brigan into the army and send him off to the borders, where presumably Cansrel hoped he'd get himself killed. Brigan was angry as a hornet, but he had no choice but to go. Shortly thereafter it became clear to those of us who knew Rose that he'd left part of himself behind.'

'She was pregnant.'

'Precisely. Roen arranged for her needs, everything secret of course. And Brigan didn't get himself killed after all, but Rose died giving birth to the child; and Brigan came home, all of seventeen years old, to learn in one day that Rose was dead, he had a child, and Nax had named him Commander of the King's Army.'

Fire remembered this part. Cansrel had convinced Nax to promote Brigan far beyond his capability, in the hopes that Brigan would destroy his own reputation with a show of military incompetence. Fire recalled Brocker's pleasure and his pride when Brigan, through some impossible feat of determination, had turned himself first into a credible leader and then into an uncommon one. He'd mounted the entire King's Army, not just the cavalry but the infantry and bowmen. He'd raised the standards of their training and raised their pay. He'd increased their ranks, invited women to join, built signal stations in the mountains and all across the kingdom so that distant places could communicate with each other. He'd planned new forts with vast grain farms and enormous stables to care for the army's greatest asset, the horses that made it mobile and swift. All to the effect of creating new challenges indeed for the smugglers, looters, Pikkian invaders - and for rebel lords like Mydogg and Gentian who were forced now to take pause and reassess their own small armies and dubious ambitions.

Poor Brigan. Fire almost couldn't fathom it. Poor heartbroken boy.

'Cansrel was after everything of Brigan's,' Garan said, 'especially as Brigan's power increased. He poisoned Brigan's horses, out of spite. He tortured one of Brigan's squires and killed him. Obviously we who knew the truth of Hanna knew not to breathe a word.'

'Yes,' Fire whispered. 'Of course.'

'Then Nax died,' Garan said, 'and Brigan and Cansrel spent the next two years trying to kill each other.

And then Cansrel killed himself. Finally Brigan was able to name the child his heir, and the second heir now to the throne. But he did so only among the family. It's no official secret - much of the court knows she's his - but it's continued to remain quiet. Partly out of habit, and partly to divert attention from her.

Not all of Brigan's enemies died with Cansrel.'

'But how can she be an heir to the throne,' Fire asked, 'if you're not? Nax was your father, and you're no more illegitimate than she is. Plus, she's female, and a child.'

Garan pursed his lips and looked away from her. When he spoke, it wasn't to answer her question.

'Roen trusts you,' he said, 'and Brocker trusts you, so you needn't worry your monster heart. If Roen never told you about her grandchild, it's because she's in the habit of never telling anyone. And if Brocker never told you, it's probably because Roen never told him. And Clara trusts you too, because Brigan trusts you. And I'll admit Brigan's trust is a strong recommendation, but of course, no man is infallible.'

'Of course,' Fire said, dryly.

One of Fire's guards brought down a raptor monster then. It fell from the sky, golden green, and landed in a patch of trees out of their sight. Fire became aware suddenly of their surroundings. They stood in the orchard behind the palace, and beyond the orchard sat the little green house.

Fire stared in astonishment then at the tree beside the house, wondering how she'd failed to notice it from her window. She realised it was because she'd assumed from above that it was a grove of trees and never a single organism. Its mammoth trunk split off in six directions, the limbs so many and so massive that some of them bent with their weight down to the ground, burrowed into the grass, and rose up again to the sky. Supports had been built for some of the heaviest limbs to hold them up and prevent them from breaking.

Beside her, Garan watched the amazement on her face. Sighing, he walked to a bench beside the pathway to the house, where he sat with his eyes closed. Fire noticed his drawn face and his slumped posture. He looked washed out. She went and sat next to him.

'Yes, it's extraordinary,' he said, opening his eyes. 'It's grown so big it'll kill itself. Every father names his heirs. Surely you know that.'

Fire turned from the tree to glance at him, startled. Garan looked back at her coolly.

'My father never named me,' he said. 'He named Nash, and Brigan. Brigan did differently. Hanna will be his first heir even after he marries and has an army of sons. Of course I never minded. I've never once wanted to be king.'

'And of course,' Fire said smoothly, 'none of it will matter once the king and I marry and produce a jungle of monster heirs.'

He hadn't been expecting that. He sat still for a moment, measuring, and then half smiled, despite himself, understanding that it was a joke. He changed the subject again. 'And what have you been doing with yourself, Lady? You've been ten days at court with little but a fiddle to occupy you.'

'And why should you care? Is there something you want me to do?'

'I've no employment for you until you decide to help us.'

Help them - help this strange royal family. She found herself wishing that it weren't so impossible. 'You said you didn't want me to help you.'

'No, Lady, I said I was undecided. I remain undecided.'

The door of the green house swung open then and the lady with the chestnut hair walked down the path toward them. And suddenly the feeling of Garan's mind changed to something lighter. He jumped up and went to the woman and reached for her hand. He walked her back to Fire, his face alight; and Fire understood that of course he'd steered their walk in this direction intentionally. She'd been too wrapped up in their conversation to notice.

'Lady Fire,' Garan said, 'this is Sayre. Sayre has the misfortune of being Hanna's history tutor.'

Sayre smiled up at Garan, a smile that had everything in the world to do with Garan, so that Fire couldn't fail to understand what she was seeing. 'It's not so bad as all that,' Sayre said. 'She's more than capable. It's just she gets restless.'

Fire held out her hand. The two ladies greeted each other, Sayre exceedingly polite and ever so mildly jealous. Understandable. Fire would have to advise Garan not to cart lady monsters along on his trips to visit his sweetheart. Some of the smartest men had a hard time comprehending the obvious.

Then Sayre took her leave and Garan watched her go, rubbing his head absently and humming.

The son of a king and a woman who's a palace tutor?Fire thought to him, propelled by some strange joy into cheekiness.Shocking.

Garan lowered his eyebrows and tried to look stern. 'If you're desperate for something to do, Lady, go to the nurseries and teach guarding against monster animals. Get the children on your side so Brigan's daughter still has some teeth in her mouth next he sees her.'

Fire turned to go, a smile playing around her lips. 'Thank you for walking with me, Lord Prince. I should tell you I'm difficult to deceive. You may not trust me, but I know you like me.'

And she told herself it was Garan's regard that had buoyed her mood, and nothing to do with a woman whose significance had been reassigned.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

FIRE WAS, IN fact, in need of something to do, because without an occupation all she could do was think. And thinking brought her back, over and over, to her lack of occupation, and the question of how much help, in fact, she would be capable of offering this kingdom - if her heart and her mind didn't positively forbid it. The matter plagued her at night when she couldn't sleep. She had bad dreams of what it meant to trick people and hurt people, nightmares of Cansrel making Cutter grovel in imagined pain.

Clara took Fire sightseeing. The city folk adorned themselves with even more monster trappings than the court folk, and with much less concern for the aesthetic integration of the whole. Feathers jammed randomly into buttonholes; jewellery, quite stunning really, necklaces and earrings made of monster shells, worn by a baker woman over her mixing bowl and covered in flour dust. A woman wearing a blue-violet wig from the fur of some silky monster beast, a rabbit or a dog, the hair short and uneven and sticking out in spikes. And the woman's face underneath quite plain, the overall effect tending to an odd caricature of Fire herself; but still, there was no denying she had something lovely atop her head.

'Everyone wants a bit of something beautiful,' Clara said. 'Among the wealthy it's the rare skins and furs sold on the black market. With everyone else it's whatever they find clogging the gutters or killed in the housetraps. It all amounts to the same thing, of course, but the rich people feel better knowing they've paid a fortune.'

Which was, of course, silly. This city, Fire saw, was part sober and part silly. She liked the gardens and the old crumbling sculptures, the fountains in the squares, the museums and libraries and bright rows of shops that Clara led her through. She liked the bustling cobbled streets where people were so busy with their noisy living that sometimes they didn't even notice the lady monster's guarded walking tour.