The Rendezvous (Highmast Series)

Prince Odoro is dead. The streets of Highmast still throbbed with the news, from the hilltop of the Seasalt Palace, down to the festering docks themselves. Gleamingly alert guards glared at every street corner and Gregyr had placed the inhabitants of the Rat’s Nest, the gang’s underground home, on lockdown for three full weeks. Lay low. Better safe than sorry. All those other platitudes which sounded so wise and welcome in his head, but came out empty and hollow aloud. The Rat’s Nest, always cramped, was now feeling claustrophobic and stifling and, after the third consecutive fight in one day, Gregyr had agreed to venture above ground to see if it was safe once more.

He took a mouthful of windfall cider slowly, savouring the taste of it as he lingered outside the Wounded Hound ale-house. It was situated in the middle of the bustling city and it was a good place to take the temperature of the harbour city. Gregyr took in a deep lungful of the sharp salt air, and tried not to look like he was enjoying the crisp sea scent or watery sunlight too much. His shrewd grey eyes darted with well practiced efficiency over the bustling crowds up to the looming hilltop presiding over them all. The Seasalt Palace, preening smugly at the top of the harbour city, was dressed in mourning today, black flags flying from its towers, black pennants hanging from its battlements. Gregyr suspected it would continue to wear its grief aloud until the coronation of its newest inhabitant.

Three different contenders had already crowned themselves in the confusion that followed Prince Odoro’s untimely death. Odoro’s unclaimed son, Merin, was the strongest contender, from all Gregyr had gleaned. Merin might have been born on the wrong side of the bed-sheets, but he bore enough of his father’s face to put away any questions of who had sired him, and he had all of the charm Odoro had once boasted of. Then there was Wyllam, a second-cousin thrice removed, who was the closest legitimate male heir, but was a weak willed, scrawny bodied man who did not know how to inspire men to follow him. Then there was her.

Gregyr pushed all thoughts of her away quickly. That time in his life was long since passed. He could not return to it now, not for all the iris wine in Highmast.

Besides, he added to himself glumly. We ought to be worrying about our own succession crisis down in the Rat’s Nest, not concerning ourselves with crown politics.

Gregyr found his fingers were tapping out irregular patterns across the sticky table top and he pulled them into a fist quickly. His hands were always giving him away. When he had lived, Dryvus, the erstwhile leader of the Rat’s Nest, had had a gambler’s face. He could hide his thoughts so inscrutably that Gregyr had sometimes thought there must have been a glamour charm upon it, save that Dryvus had always been so set against magic. Somehow, Gregyr had never learnt that knack.

I am not made for leadership. We need someone more charismatic to fill the hole you left, Dryvus. Gregyr ran a hand over his chest weakly, hoping to scrub away some of the blossoming ache of grief still lingering there. Dryvus’ passing had still been so recent, so raw. The pain of it rose and fell within him like the waves that crashed upon the harbour walls, and just when Gregyr thought it was abating once more, another tidal wave of sorrow burst in icy crashes over him.

He looked down into the surface of the windfall cider, and his own reflection stared back at him uncertainly. He twisted his mouth in a grim smile at his own folly, drained the remnants of the cup and wiped his lips clean with the back of his hand.

He could not put it off forever. It was time.

Gregyr cast another glance around the streets as he rose. The armour-clad city guards were more alert than usual after the prince’s assassination, but they didn’t spare a glance for Gregyr as he strolled casually past them over the bridge, into the darker edge of town. He pulled the hood of his cloak high up over his head as he wended his way down Market Street and into the labyrinth of alleys beyond. Pausing in a doorway, he slipped a simple mummur’s half-mask over his face, pushed the straggly mop of iron-grey hair deeper into the darkness of the hood, and entered the tavern. It didn’t have a name, nor did it need one. Everybody who needed to know of it, knew it.

It was a lot less salubrious than the Wounded Hound was. His strange appearance didn’t draw a single glance as he slipped through the murky room, each table and nook filled with people making their own dark deals. There was a guard upon the back door, but he moved aside as Gregyr breathed the password.

She was waiting for him, sitting behind the table in the empty room with the same elegant poise she had always had. His breath abandoned him.

Pull yourself together, Gregyr. You are not the same lovelorn youth you were two score years ago.

Her hair was still the same vibrant gold it had been when they had been children together, though he suspected that what once was natural was charm-bought now. Her cheeks still held that same lustrous glow, her eyes that same sparkling wit, as if she alone knew the joke.

Of course she should be queen. There can be no other choice. He could picture her there, lounging with easy insouciance upon a throne, charming her courtiers, subjects, and the foreign dignitaries alike. She should have been made queen years ago. She has been robbed and what was taken must be returned. I swear that I shall spend every drop of blood I have to make this right, my lady.

Gregyr bowed his head to her wordlessly, trying to buy time to marshal his scattered thoughts back into line and she laughed, the same merry trill she had always laughed.

I have adored you half my life, Marda. The words echoed loudly through the back of his head, as if, if he could only think them loudly enough, they might actually come through this time. Of course, they did not. They never did.

She gestured him to the seat opposite and he took it, glad to be able to take the weight off of his wobbling legs.

“You were followed?”

“Of course not, my lady.”

“Are you sure? Perhaps one of your associates has let slip the location of our meeting. I have paid the price of having a traitor in my midst before.” Her voice slipped into bitterness for a heartbeat, and Gregyr nodded. He recalled.

The memories ricocheted through his mind as though they had happened only yesterday, not the forty odd years ago it had been now. He could still feel the phantom touch of her hand slipping into his, warm, small, and soft, the thundering crescendo of her heartbeat pounding through her fingertips, as he dragged her down the servants’ corridors, through the wyvern tunnels, out into the forests, away from the little sanctuary she had thought she would be safe in. The home that was rising in blazing flames behind her, sending angry smoke clouds spiralling skywards. They had fled through the night, the air cold and bitter around them, clinging to their skin, and when she could run no more he had carried her, until they had found a hollow beneath a tree. He had crept between those tangled roots with her, had held her close and covered her with his own cloak, had kept watch until he could keep watch no more, had fallen into an uneasy sleep with one arm wrapped protectively around her waist. He had awoken in the morning to find her gone, along with his cloak and his best knife. It had taken him three more years to get word of her again after that, and another five until he had seen her in person.

She coughed, and he blushed behind his mask, abruptly aware that he had slipped into his memories and was staring at her wordlessly.

“I told no one. I knew you wished this meeting to be a secret, Lady Marda.”

She nodded and smiled at him softly.

“Forgive me, I know it seems a little untrusting after all the good you have done for me, Dryvus, but one cannot be too careful.”

Gregyr flinched, as he always did whenever she called him that. It was folly, he knew, to pose as the deceased Dryvus, and yet when he had received a summons from Marda he couldn’t resist the opportunity to see her again, to speak to her, face to face. It wasn’t like any of these upperside people knew what Dryvus had looked like anyway. The infamous leader of the Rat’s Nest had always been careful to maintain his anonymity. The man dies, but the myth lives on. And Dryvus had been a living myth—again, Gregyr felt keenly his own inability to live up to his leader and his friend’s reputation.

“I have played these games before, my lady,” he said aloud.

“And you play them very well,” she laughed, pushing a cup towards him over the table. There was expensive iris wine within it, ink-black, cloyingly sweet and deadly if drunk in too large a quantity.

“Are you trying to poison me, my lady?” He tried to force a charming quip to his lips, but it came out wrong, sounding like an accusation instead of a jest. She laughed anyway.

“I fear I have not brought enough to kill either of us. I need to save my coin. Still, it was a night of celebration. I thought for one horrible moment that Odoro would survive his wounds, but I should not have underestimated you. You played your part well, and your people have brought the death of the usurper’s son at last. I thank you.” She picked up her own cup, also brimming with iris wine, and tilted it in his direction. “To effective partnerships and plans well wrought.”

“To you, my lady,” he replied earnestly, raising the cup to his lips and taking a deep draught. The rim of the cup knocked his mask upwards a little, and he hastily readjusted it. She laughed again and took a sip of her own wine. She pulled a little face.

“Though it is not fashionable in court circles, I must confess I prefer bitter ale to sickly sweet iris wine.”

“I recall,” he murmured. She blinked at him in confusion for a moment.

“You have been researching me? I suppose I should not be surprised. You do have a reputation for being thorough, Dryvus. Tell me, what else did you learn about me?” She tilted her head coyly to one side, those summer sky eyes sparkling at him merrily. Is she flirting with me? No, it is Dryvus she is flirting with, Gregyr thought darkly.

“I learnt that you are strong, and determined to reclaim your birthright,” he said. “That you have been running from those who have sought to kill you since you were fourteen years old, hidden away in your uncle’s keep. That…” he took a deep breath and then forced the words through, “that your uncle’s ward helped you escape through the wyvern tunnels when your uncle betrayed you, when the house was surrounded by his men and they sought to give your head to give to the usurper.”

She leant back in the chair, regarding him carefully and he found he could not tell what she was thinking.

“I never told anyone about my uncle’s ward,” she said slowly. “How did you learn of him?”

“I have my sources, my lady.”

She frowned slightly, staring out at the fire beside them, spinning her cup idly between her fingers.

“He was a strange boy,” she murmured aloud. “He was a year or two older than me, I recall, but he was always awkward and silent. Such is the way of teenage boys around teenage girls, I suppose. That night he lead me through the tunnels was the first time he had ever spoken to me, I think.”

Actually, it was the third. Gregyr had once asked her whether it had been cold on her afternoon ride, had had to screw up all his courage to do so, and had blushed and mumbled all the way through the sentence, and once he had asked her to pass the salt. Their fingers had brushed each other’s when she had complied, and he had felt like singing for the rest of the day.

But I was just an impoverished daydreaming fool, and you were the king’s daughter, before the usurper stole the crown and decided to take your life, too.

“The plan went well,” he said aloud, trying to crush the growing foolishness he could feel swelling in him. Dryvus would have said it was a fool’s errand to take on business so personal and the rest of the Rat’s Nest had thought it stupid to take a commission so dangerous, even if it did pay well. Only when Gregyr had lied, telling them that Dryvus had already set it in motion before his untimely passing, did the gang reluctantly agree to take the job. “It was dangerous to attack him at the funeral parade, but we knew we wouldn’t get another chance. Even my people could not take the Seasalt palace, I fear. The gamble paid off.”

“Yes, it went very well. Lots of chaos and confusion, and no one pointing the finger at me. Just the way I like it,” she laughed. “You have well lived up to your reputation, Dryvus. I think I will have cause to use you once more.”

His stomach churned at her words, and he was grateful for the mask hiding his expression.

“That would honour us greatly, my lady.”

She took her cup and raised it once more. “To new partnerships,” she said.

“To old friends,” he replied, knocking his own against hers. She drained her cup in one this time, and he hesitated a moment and then did likewise. The sweetness was overwhelming and almost made him gag. She withdrew a small leather coin bag and tossed it at him and he almost fumbled it.

“I think you’ll find it’s all in there,” she said as he peeked inside. “Unless there was something else you wanted?”

“A dance.” The words were blurted out courtesy of the iris wine, bypassing his brain entirely, and he felt his cheeks scalding. She raised an eyebrow at him and he coughed, wishing the ground would swallow him whole. He forced the words to come out again, trying to affect a nonchalance he did not feel. “When you have taken your crown, my lady, at your coronation, I would have a dance with you.”

She stood and came to stand around the side of the table with him. The scent of her was almost as sweet as the wine, rose-water clinging to her wrists and neck, and it made his stomach churn again.

“Well,” she said softly. “In that case, I think I ought to see who my illusive dance partner is, do you not think?”

He felt his breath catch painfully in his chest as her fingers reached forwards and slipped the mask upwards, but he was helpless to stop her. His throat was suddenly dry as he stared up at her, just the same as that besotted youth all those years ago. Her fingers stroked softly down his cheeks, her lips close enough to kiss, close enough that he could feel her breath slipping over his skin. His breathing panted painfully in his chest, but his limbs were heavy and sluggish. They would not move under his control. They stared at each other, exposed, seen. Well? Let her see all. Let her know, after all this time.

But no recognition blossomed in her eyes. They regarded him carefully, critically, taking in the shape of his face, the scars which lined his skin, those distinctive grey eyes, but she did not recognise it as the same youth who had saved her all those years ago. Disappointment ricocheted through him, but it was swept away as she bent and pressed a gossamer light kiss to his lips.

“I’ll make you a deal, Dryvus,” she whispered in his ear as he sat, frozen, to the chair, the world swimming blurrily around him in shock. “I will dance with you at my coronation, if you live long enough to get there.” She rose, snatched the coin bag she had given him back into her own pocket and left the room. As she did so she bumped against the table. The cup toppled on its side, and there, amongst the dregs of the iris wine, through rapidly blurring eyes, he saw chalky white tablet crumbs half-dissolved in the heavy liquid, and then the darkness swam up to consume him entirely.