Ambridge
“They’ll send Ulfin to Highpoint,” Myrne said when she and Polly sat together in rooms off of Hilda’s apartment. “It is the northermost point in North Hale, out on an island. The windows are open even in winter. He’ll die there. In misery.”
“They will not forgive us,” Pollanikar said. “The power of the Baldwins is not over. I see that quite clearly.
“Maybe we should never have spoken,” Polly said, “but I had to speak.”
“As did I,” Myrne said.
“Ulfin Baldwin is my father,” Polly said, simply.
“What?”
“I knew it when he looked into my eyes. He knew it too. My mother hinted at such a thing. He came to the women of the Rootless Isle to gain power, and my mother gave him a daughter, and his daughter has been his death. Maybe yours as well.”
Just then, the door opened, and a handsome, all too pleasant looking man with spiked, white blond hair and long features entered the room. Allyn Baldwin, and beside him was Queen Edith.
“Sir, Lady,” Myrne said, rising, “We have no quarrel with you.”
“Nor do we seek a quarrel with you,” Allyn said. He looked to Polly. “I would speak with the Lady Myrne.”
“Myrne,” Polly looked to her friend.
“Keep the Queen company,” Myrne said, nodding regally to Edith. “Sir,” she said to Lord Allyn, “let us walk.”
“My lady, I will be brief,” Allyn said. “I would propose marriage.”
“That is brief.”
“Does it surprise you?”
“Not… entirely,” Myrne turned to him. “The daughter of the Earl of Hale and the son of the Earl of North Hale.”
“Now the Earl of North Hale himself,” Allyn corrected.
“Yes,” Myrne said. Then, “No, the proposal does not surprise me. The timing does. Your father is barely on his way to prison.”
“We must look to practicalities.”
“Yes,” Myrne said.
“Edmund has no heirs.”
“The Lord Odo seems to think his brother is Edmund’s heir.”
“That is in question. When the Lady of Hale is joined to the Earl of the North, there would be no doubt who was King, and of course, who was Queen.”
“Yes,” Myrne said, folding her hands behind her back as they walked along the sunlit gallery, “Yes, I do see. But I cannot decide for myself. I must go to Hale and consult my father.”
“Absolutely,” Allyn agreed, going to one knee and kissing her hand. “I will send you with a wagon train of wealth.”
“She is a spirited girl,” Allyn said, “and a wise one.”
“The daughter of Herreboro, a Wulfstan, who was the one thing I held over the earl’s head,” Edith said.
“And now she is with us, allied to us,” Allyn said. “She will be a Baldwin, and my wife.”
“Will she be biddable?”
“She will be buyable,” Allyn said. “You ought to have seen the look in her eyes. She never thought to be a queen.”
Edith nodded, her eyes narrow, her mouth tight. Her fingers went to her throat before she murmured:
“Then why do I fear her?”
“Ward the room,” Pollanikar commanded before Myrne opened her mouth.
This far north there would have been no witches or wizards, and certainly none in Edmund’s court, but there might have been spies, hollow passages for listening behind certain stones, vents through which they could be heard. The women went about the room, making quick and ancient gestures, whispering words learned on the Rootless Isle, and looking for gaps in the walls before, finally. Myrne spoke, and spoke sitting close to the other woman.
“I almost spoke like a fool,” Myrne told Pollanikar. “I was nearly as proud and flippant as I was the day I met Wolf.”
“I almost told Edith I was her sister,” Polly said.
“So many secrets we have been holding,” Myrne said, “for so long.”
“Well,” Polly decided, “the time for secrets is ended. At least secrets from each other.”
“Yes,” Myrne agreed. Then she said, “When Allyn said his bit about being practical, I was about to say that I was never one for practicality. I was about to say that there was already a man I loved. But then as soon as I said that, every time they saw me speak to Wolf they would have known it was him, and they would have killed him.”
“Then you do love Wolf?”
“Well, yes, I do,” Myrne discovered. Then she said, sitting down, “The only way to get out of this palace safe, the best way, is to go north with them thinking I am asking to wed Allyn, to be his wife so that one day I will be Queen of the Three Kingdoms.”
“How strange,” Polly sat back. “This morning I did not know I would be the death of my father, and you did not have it in your power to be the next Queen. And to think… you are giving that up.”
Myrne was gazing over the whole of the great city, stone towers raising up from blocks of streets and wide plazas, the wide river busy with trawling ships. Now she up looked up at Polly, almost disgusted.
“I am giving Allyn up, that fox!” Myrne said. “That loathsome fish. And this damnable Ambridge. They can have it. But the moment he spoke of me being Queen…” Myrne shook her head. “It is I who have the royal claim, and he who thinks to benefit from it.”
In an even more quiet whisper, Myrne leaned in and told Polly, “Allyn has shown me one thing. I will not marry Allyn Baldwin, but I will be Queen. Pollanikar, do me a favor?”
“Yes.”
“Send for Hilary. I need her to bear a thing to Hilda for Hilda to bear to Odo for Odo to give Wolf. No one must even see me look at him.”
Wolf was cleaning his fingernails and thinking what they really needed was a good trimming when Odo entered, briskly, and said, “It’s time you hide that fancy sword.”
“Wha?” Wolf began.
“And you cannot leave this room until I am done with you. No one noticed you when you came here, and that’s the way it’s going to stay.”
“I don’t understand.”
Odo knelt before Wolf.
“Look,” he said, “our friends Myrne and Pollanikar have brought some attention to themselves. Myrne has accepted the proposal of marriage from Allyn Baldwin—”
“What!” Wolf almost roared, and he would have thrown Odo off, but the tall, wiry man was stronger than he looked.
“Be silent!” Odo cuffed him on the head.
“It is deception!” he whispered. “And I do not dare say a word more. Only…”
Odo reached into the great sleeve of his monk’s gown and pulled out a package.
“Open, read and burn the things you do not need to keep. I will stay here with you. When it is dark, I will sneak you out.”
Wolf frowned, and then the young redhead nodded and sat down under the window under the darkening sky, and opened the package that had come in so circuitous a manner from Myrne.
“By now you have been told the greatest part. Burn this letter if you can, immediately. Kingdoms count on it not being found. I have already sent letters to my cousins. You are to leave tonight, meeting Michael Flynn and Pollanikar, and head north to Kester, where we will meet again. I will leave in a matter of days. Even now I speak elliptically about many things I dare not write. I write of one who will be queen and the one who will, in time, be her king. More than that I cannot say.
-Myrne.
He knew she could not say a damned thing more, but he ached to hear more. He could not believe that this night they would be parted, but Odo was already saying, “I will dress you in a monk’s robe and lead you out with us to pray, and from the chapel, with two ofher monks, you will leave with Polly. Michael Flynn will be there as well. It cannot be known that Myrne loves you, or you are a dead man. It certainly cannot be known who you are.”
“Myrne… loves me?”
“You know this,” Odo said.
“Aye,” Wolf said after a time. “Still, it is good to hear.”
“As long as you hear the rest of what I am saying.”
Wolf nodded, and then he said, “But if Myrne is going to be Queen… to anyone…. She is a rival to your brother. She is… your rival.”
“She is not my rival,” Odo shook his head. “And Rufus already has a kingdom. And you are forgetting, if Myrne is to be Queen, it is because you are to be the King.”
