Page 60 of The Castle & the Cloister

Letting out a steadying breath, Orden thought of Ariana. Of the way she looked, standing on the narrow balcony between their chambers, aglow with half-reflected starlight. The storm rising within him settled, but only a little.

Fia did as she was ordered without question or remark. While he waited for her, Orden walked to the river. It was a little slip of gray-green water, cutting its way between mossy banks. Beside it, Orden removed his ornate embroidered doublet and carefully rolled up the sleeves of his fine linen shirt. He unbuckled the sheath and pugio from around his forearm, setting them aside. Then he found himself a handful of pebbles and tested their weight.

When Fia returned with Crispus, Honoria’s king had worked a smile onto his face as he loosely skipped one stone at a time. Crispus bowed and cleared his throat.

“My king. You require a physician?”

“I do.” Orden nodded. He beckoned to Crispus and held out a half dozen pebbles. “I’m in need of a little advice.”

Crispus puffed up with importance, his round, florid face growing beatific. “Then it is my honor to lend you what expertise I have, Majesty.”

Orden glanced down the river, to a serene patch of calm water. He let a stone fly, and it skipped across the glassy surface, once, twice, three times. The exercise calmed him and kept him from lashing out. He would be kingly. He would be circumspect. He would be self-controlled. “I’dlike to know what might cause a woman to slip two babes before her time and bleed near to death after birthing others.”

“Ah.” Crispus looked sympathetic. If he was anxious at all, it did not show. Orden glanced at him sidelong but could see no nervousness in him beyond the sweat beading his forehead and staining his doublet, which could as easily be due to the oppressive heat. “Majesty, childbirth is a perilous undertaking. Many women die during their trial, and the queen is small in frame, while you yourself are regal in your build as well as your demeanor. Rather than asking why Her Majesty has suffered in her quest to procure you heirs, you might rather wonder that she’s survived this long.” Crispus said the last with a practiced, self-satisfied air, clearly intended to direct credit to himself, but his face was redder than ever. Removing a handkerchief from one pocket, the physician mopped at his brow.

“I do wonder that she’s survived this long,” Orden said, still quiet. The Chief Physician swam in a sea of crimson now, and the rushing in Orden’s ears was rising to a roar. “I cannot quite work out what your aim has been. You haven’t killed Ari outright. You haven’t prevented her from getting me an heir. Most of the court views her as weak already. What possible purpose could it serve, making her bleed?”

Crispus sputtered, and his effrontery, in Orden’s opinion, was overdone. “I do not make women bleed, Majesty. You might as soon say that I turn the tides, or cause that which is dropped to fall. The gods bring women’s blood, and I can only work within their will.”

Orden seized on that, fixing Crispus with an unwavering gaze. “Very well, then. Let us work within the will of the gods. I’ve been told you are the cause of my queen’s weakening. You claim you are not. Whoever can shy the most stones into the rotted-out stump across from us has the truth of the matter, and the gods on his side.”

There. If he was to be a tool for Mortis, he’d ensure he did so fairly, rather than seeking to justify his own unchecked temper.

Crispus’s sputtering grew frantic. “Majesty, you can’t be serious. A game, to decide the merits of such a grave accusation? I assure you, my word can be trusted.”

“Play the game, Crispus,” Orden said softly. “It is your only chance to walk away from this riverbank alive.”

This time the physician blanched, as Orden had never seen him dobefore. A potent blend of dread and anticipation unfurled within the king’s chest. It would not be rage, if the gods favored him. It would be well-considered justice. He’d do what he’d done unnumbered times before and protect himself and his dynasty.

Crispus threw first, and his aim went wide. Orden went next, taunting the physician with a rock that bounced off the rotting stump. He and Carian had played at shies a great deal, close in age as they were. Carian had been fond of betting on the outcome and enacting various cruelties on Orden when the younger boy inevitably lost. So Orden had taken to practicing obsessively until his aim was true as a huntsman’s arrow. It hadn’t stopped Carian from tormenting him, but it had at least forced his brother to choose some other method of doing so.

By the end, Crispus’s hands were shaking, and his shots fell woefully short. The last of his stones fell into the river and left small ripples. The physician watched the place where it sank with a fixed, desperate expression on his face.

Orden tossed his last stone with no apparent effort. It arced gracefully over the river and into the rotted-out stump, like a homing pigeon returning to its roost.

“Well,” he said, brushing off his hands. “It seems the gods have spoken. I’m going to drown you in this river now, Crispus.”

The physician dropped to his knees, gibbering and pleading. Orden hated when they did that—he much preferred a stoic mark. With a practiced grip, he grasped the odious man by the collar and dragged him to the water. Crispus did not even put up a proper fight, used as he was to fine living and deference from those around him. Oh, he struggled and thrashed as Orden shoved him down into the moss, but a knee in the small of the back and a hand at the scruff of his neck was enough to overpower him. Water boiled around Crispus’s head and his frantic efforts to raise his face enough to take a breath. Orden allowed it, then shoved him back under. No need for this to be overly swift. Not if the gods were with him.

He saw it all through a haze of crimson and could hardly hear the tumultuous stirring of the waters. Pleasure rose in Orden, sharp and vicious, and one he forbade himself except on the rarest of occasions. He would be a wise and temperate ruler, rather than another Inver sadist orwarmonger. He would master himself first, and someday, his offspring would master an empire.

But for now, the gods were with him. Another long submersion, and Orden drew Crispus back up, gagging and retching river water.

“I don’t even care how or why you damaged my queen,” Orden growled. “But you will never touch her again, and I will see that your name is made a curse.”

“I care,” a frigid voice rang out. “I care very much how or why he damaged the queen. Let him up now, before he takes that answer to his grave.”

Orden turned in disbelief, livid at having the king’s justice interrupted. But Fia stood motionless, a rock for his anger to break on.

“You know there’s wisdom in that,” she said. “Heed it and bring him to me.”

Still crouched at Crispus’s side, with the man soaked and flopping in his grasp like a wretched fish, Orden considered. Even in the sea of red, he kept his wits about him, rather than becoming mindless with the force of it as he’d seen Carian do. He could have Lucian ferret out the physician’s motivations after the killing was done, but he’d also wanted to take a measure of Ariana’s new serving woman. Perhaps now he’d manage to avenge his queen and parse the nature of her wet nurse all at once.

Scrambling up, Orden dragged Crispus back along the bank and over to Fia.

“Make him kneel,” she said, and Orden did not have to force it—Crispus fell into the position of a supplicant.

“Please,” Crispus begged. “I claim sanctuary from you and your goddess. Let Raea offer me a haven and save me from a mad king.”