The Women's War Read online

  Her barbed words missed their mark, for Delnamal showed no signs of having heard the insult. “Mark my words, I will see you executed as a traitor for what you’ve done.”

  Alys hoped she kept her expression impassive and unconcerned while a chill traveled down her spine. “I have done nothing,” she insisted. Not that her insistence would mean anything to Delnamal, not when he’d already tried and convicted her in his mind. Without needing a shred of evidence save his own personal dislike of her.

  “Father won’t always be here to protect you,” Delnamal said, deepening the chill at her center. “If I were you, I would pack up my family and leave Aaltah. You are still a reasonably attractive catch for some petty lordling in some backwater principality. Find a new husband as far away from here as possible. That is the only way you can escape the fate you so richly deserve.”

  Alys was speechless. She had given no thought to the possibility of remarrying, and if she had, it certainly wouldn’t have been as a means to escape her homeland. “I have done nothing wrong,” she said again, knowing it was futile. “I have no intentions of fleeing like a criminal.”

  “I hear Waldmir of Nandel is on the hunt for a new bride once more.”

  She suppressed a shudder. The Sovereign Prince of Nandel was famous throughout Seven Wells for marrying young and beautiful noblewomen and then discarding them when they failed to provide him the male heir he so desperately wanted. He’d already sent three wives to the dismal Abbey of Nandel in disgrace after divorcing them, and a fourth had met with the headsman’s ax. With his history, no woman in her right mind would willingly marry him, and since he’d already ruined or killed four wives without any fear of potential political repercussions, even the most ambitious family would hesitate to hand a daughter over to him.

  Of course, since Sovereign Prince Waldmir preferred his wives young, beautiful, and virginal, he would hardly be interested in a forty-two-year-old mother of two like Alys. “I will send him a proposal of marriage the moment I return home,” she said with scorn dripping from her every word.

  Delnamal raised his eyebrows in mock surprise. “Oh, did you think I meant to suggest you would make a suitable bride for such a great prince?” He snorted derisively. “I would never insult him by offering him a withered old hag. No, I had in mind your lovely daughter.”

  The blood drained from Alys’s face, and no amount of court-trained self-control could hide the horror his words provoked.

  “Jinnell is a lovely, nubile young thing,” Delnamal continued, his nostrils flaring as if he could smell her fear. “A king’s granddaughter, and born within the sanctity of marriage even if her mother was not. She is exactly the kind of bride Prince Waldmir desires, don’t you think?”

  Alys fought off a chill. She had learned to live with Delnamal’s hatred of her, and she’d known in a distant way that some of that hatred would spill over onto her children. But somehow she hadn’t dreamed even he would be cruel enough to threaten his own niece with a marriage to Prince Waldmir.

  “The king would never approve such a match,” Alys said. She was certain that was so, and yet she couldn’t stop the quaver in her voice. Just the thought of her daughter in that horrible man’s clutches was enough to make her sick.

  Delnamal shrugged casually. “Not today, I’ll grant you. But thanks to you and your bitch mother, my wife has lost our baby. It is possible that thrice-damned spell will prevent her from providing me with an heir, in which case I’ll need to find another wife—and another marital tie with Nandel. I could rid myself of her right now did we not need our trade agreements, you understand.”

  Alys swallowed hard. “Then perhaps you might try being kind to your wife. If I understand my mother’s spell correctly, Shelvon might be willing to give you that heir if you treated her like a cherished human being instead of like a dog that has soiled your rug.”

  “I believe you are missing the point of this conversation,” he growled. “How I treat my wife is none of your concern. But if she does not quicken again soon, the king will have to consider alternative ways to strengthen our ties to Nandel, and your daughter’s hand would make an effective inducement.”

  “He would never do that to Jinnell!” she insisted. “He loves her.”

  “Rumor has it he loved your mother once. But when it became necessary to form an alliance with Khalpar by any means necessary, he did not hesitate to divorce her and disown her children so he could marry my mother. As Father has always said, a king rules for the good of his kingdom above all else. And Father is a good king.”

  Alys couldn’t force a sound past her tightened throat. Delnamal had spoken nothing but the truth. She remembered her mother explaining the impending divorce to her while weeping uncontrollably. Her mother must have hated the king for his heartless decision, and yet she’d tried to justify it to Alys, tried to convince her that he was doing the right thing for the kingdom. Even when Alys had finally grown old enough to understand the reasoning behind her father’s decision, she’d never understood how a supposedly good man could divorce the woman he loved and condemn her to a life of privation, shame, and whoredom.

  Could he be heartless enough to send his beloved granddaughter to marry a monster? Alys feared the answer more than she could say. And she hated that she was giving Delnamal such a satisfying reaction, feeding his appetite for cruelty, but how else could a mother react?

  Having successfully struck fear into Alys’s heart, Delnamal finally allowed her to pass. She clasped her shaking hands together as she hurried to find her children and remove them from the poisonous atmosphere of the palace.

  Delnamal had admitted that their father wouldn’t be willing to sell Jinnell to the Sovereign Prince of Nandel just now. He still had every reason to believe that Shelvon would produce the required heir, and therefore would feel no urgent need to shore up ties to Nandel.

  The moment she returned home, Alys would begin in earnest the search for a suitable husband for her daughter. The faster Jinnell was married—preferably far away from Aaltah and her uncle’s reach—the safer she would be.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  “Lord Zarsha of Nandel is here to see you, Your Highness,” Ellin’s steward announced just as she had finally given up pushing food around her dinner plate. She had had all her meals served to her in her rooms today, unable to face more people than absolutely necessary. She’d eaten a few bites for breakfast, and maybe a third of her lunch, but after her meeting with Semsulin, eating more than a mouthful of dinner was beyond her. And a visit from Zarsha would not improve her appetite.

  “Shall I send him away?”

  Ellin sighed and pushed her plate away. Whatever her feelings about him, Zarsha had likely saved her life last night, and he’d been hurt in the process. She would have expected such danger to strip away his masks and reveal the ugliness she was convinced lay beneath, and yet he had acted selflessly and without thought for his own safety. Sending him away seemed…churlish. Or maybe just childish.

  “I’ll meet him in my sitting room,” she said. “I’ll be there momentarily.”

  “Very well, Your Highness,” her steward said, bowing.

  Ellin pushed back her chair and took a moment to examine herself in the mirror. Though she’d barely eaten, she checked to make sure there was no food stuck between her teeth and adjusted the brooch that held a soft black brocade shawl around her shoulders. Her ladies were hard at work putting together a mourning wardrobe for her, but so far the shawl was the only piece of black she owned. She used it to cover the dark purple bodice with silver embroidery that was far too festive for the occasion, and instead of wearing an evening gown, she wore a utilitarian gray wool traveling skirt that was too warm for the temperate autumn weather. She dabbed away a sheen of perspiration on her forehead and considered removing the shawl altogether. She doubted Zarsha would be offended.

  But in the end, she opt
ed to keep the shawl despite the heat. Zarsha might not be offended by her lack of mourning attire, but she was unwilling to disrespect the dead.

  Zarsha had his back turned, examining the titles on a shelf of books, when Ellin entered the sitting room. He wore what for a man of Nandel equated to evening attire: a granite-gray doublet over black breeches. A belt of earthy green brocade was the only nod to color, and a large gold signet ring was his only adornment.

  He turned to face her when he heard her footsteps. A barber had shorn away most of his blond hair—no doubt so that a healer could have better access to the gash on his head—and his face looked even more severe and angular without the softening of his habitually untidy locks. She had always found the blue of his eyes cold, but the sympathy in them this evening made him look much more approachable.

  He bowed. “I can’t tell you how sorry I am for your loss, Your Highness,” he said as he rose.

  A lump instantly formed in Ellin’s throat, as it did every time someone expressed condolences. She wasn’t sure she’d fully absorbed the loss yet, because every time someone mentioned it, it was like being slapped in the face with reality. She swallowed hard.

  “Thank you, my lord,” she forced out past the lump. “And thank you for what you did last night. You might very well have saved my life.”

  She expected the arrogant ass to preen at this mention of his heroics, but he surprised her by waving off her thanks.

  “I did nothing special. And if I’d acted sooner, or more wisely…” His voice trailed off and he shook his head, his eyes downcast.

  Ellin remembered the king bellowing for everyone to remain in their seats while Zarsha tried to urge them to flee into the building. “There was nothing you could have done.”

  “I should have tried harder.”

  Ellin was surprised to find herself sympathizing with Zarsha, which was an entirely new sensation. It was possible he was continuing his long tradition of putting on a performance to suit his audience, but rarely had those performances included any hint of vulnerability. It struck her that while she had always thought that, like her loathsome cousin Tamzin, Zarsha’s charming demeanor and handsome face hid a rotten heart, she had never actually seen any evidence to support the idea. Tamzin let slip the occasional glimpse behind the veneer—Ellin couldn’t understand how no one else seemed to notice—but with Zarsha, she had merely assumed the ugliness was there.

  “You saved me,” she reminded him. And she was going to reward him by going back on the marriage agreement he had reached with her father. She’d led Semsulin to believe she was still mulling over the question of whether to take the throne, but in truth she knew it was the only reasonable decision she could make. She could never live with herself if she refused the crown and thereby gave Kailindar and Tamzin an excuse to start a war. She was ill-prepared to lead a kingdom, and she harbored no illusion that hers would be an easy rule. Her uncle and cousin might not immediately march on the capital to wrest the crown from her head, but she imagined they might both be on the lookout for an opportunity. Especially Tamzin. Every step she took, every word she uttered would be under the utmost scrutiny, and a single mistake could lead to disaster.

  Zarsha acknowledged her words with a dip of his chin. “More than nothing, I’ll grant you, but less than I should have.” He moved a little closer and looked her up and down. “You are unhurt?”

  “I’m fine. And you?” She peered at the place on his head that had been bleeding so copiously the night before. There was an angry red line visible beneath the thin fuzz of blond hair, but the healer had obviously done a fine job closing the wound.

  Zarsha reached up and touched his head, fingering what would be a long scar when it had finished healing. “I owe my life to your healers,” he said. “I’m told my skull was cracked and there was bleeding in my brain.”

  Ellin gasped. She had blithely assumed that because he had regained consciousness by the time they were pulled from the rubble, he hadn’t been that badly hurt. She’d practically dismissed him from her thoughts and hadn’t even had the decency to ask after his health this whole day. Her callousness shamed her.

  “I’m so sorry,” she murmured. “I had no idea.”

  He shrugged as if it hardly mattered. “You’ve nothing to apologize for. Your healers took good care of me, and I’m told a man looks better with a few battle scars.” He gave her a crooked smile and stroked the line on his skull.

  This was just the tone of flippant amusement that had never failed to rub her nerves the wrong way over the last few weeks of his visit here in Rhozinolm, but for some reason she found herself returning his smile—and not having to force it. The smile quickly faded as she imagined telling him she would not abide by the marriage agreement. She could leave it to Semsulin, but after all the effort Zarsha had put into courting her, the least she could do was deliver the bad news personally.

  Zarsha sobered just as quickly, the smile fading from his lips as some grim emotion clouded his eyes. “Coming so close to death…” He shook his head. “It changes you. Changes how you look at the world.”

  Ellin knew she had come close to death last night as well, though not as close as Zarsha. She had no sense that it had changed the way she looked at the world. In fact, her mind could barely grasp how close she had come to dying along with the rest of the royal family.

  “May I sit?” Zarsha asked.

  “Forgive my manners,” she said, waving him toward a comfortable armchair by the fireplace and taking a seat across from him on a tufted velvet settee. She should have told the servants not to light a fire tonight when she was draped in a heavy shawl and wearing a wool skirt, but her mind had been elsewhere and it had never occurred to her that she’d find herself sitting in front of that fire. Perspiration gathered under her arms and below her breasts.

  Zarsha sat, and the flickering light of the fire carved interesting shadows into the angles of his face. He really was quite nice to look at, even in his decidedly drab dinner ensemble and with his now unfashionably short hair. Surely he would have no trouble finding a suitable bride, one who would find his good looks, good connections, and good humor appealing enough to brave the wilds of Nandel. In fact, Ellin should put some serious effort into finding an alternative marriage for him. She was the only eligible woman of the immediate royal family, but perhaps marriage with another noble house would be enough to help induce Sovereign Prince Waldmir to renew the trade agreements.

  “As I was saying,” Zarsha said, “almost dying has changed my outlook on life.” He met her eyes, and there was something in his gaze that trapped her so that she could not look away. “I know you have always been against our marriage.”

  She flinched and finally broke his gaze. She had tried her best to play the part of the dutiful daughter, to keep her objections to the marriage between herself and her father. She had bitten her tongue more times than she could count to stop herself from sniping at the man she’d been destined to marry, and she’d laughed—or at least smiled—at many a joke she didn’t find the least amusing. But she couldn’t say it was a great surprise to find she hadn’t hidden her feelings as well as she’d hoped.

  “It’s all right,” Zarsha hastened to say. “I assure you my ego can handle the blow.”

  For all her embarrassment, she felt her lips tip up into a smile. “Are you certain? I was always under the impression you were rather protective of it.”

  It was just the kind of cutting remark she’d often stopped herself from saying, but far from being offended, Zarsha laughed with what sounded like genuine humor. “It’s true, I am, but then I’ve got such a lot of it that I will hardly miss the small gouges your disdain puts in it.”

  She tilted her head to the side and regarded him with no small amount of curiosity. She’d expected him to puff up with indignation at the suggestion that he was egotistical, and here he was not only agreeing w
ith her assessment, but poking fun at himself. He grinned at the surprise on her face.

  “I am well aware of my flaws, Princess, and am not afraid to face them. Most women seem to find me charming, but I know you are not among them.”

  Ellin squirmed and looked away. She was not as comfortable acknowledging her own flaws. And if she were being perfectly honest with herself, it was hard to say how much of her dislike for Zarsha was genuine, and how much was merely a general anger that he was not the man she wished to marry. Not that she’d ever thought she could marry Graesan. Bad enough that he was illegitimate despite his father having gifted him with his name. But his mother had been a lowly maid, and his father’s support and name would never be enough to overcome such a birth. He had ascended as far as he could when he became her master of the guard, and when he married, his bride would be of the lowest orders of nobility. Certainly not a princess royal.

  “What I’m leading up to here is that I will not hold you to the agreement your father signed,” Zarsha said.

  Ellin’s jaw dropped in a most unladylike fashion. She hadn’t known where this conversation was going, but she certainly hadn’t expected it to be here. “Excuse me?”

  “That’s what my brush with death made clear to me,” he said. “I don’t want to marry a woman who doesn’t want to marry me.”

  Ellin opened and closed her mouth a few times, stunned. She’d been dreading telling Zarsha that circumstances had changed such that she couldn’t honor the marriage agreement. Not because she feared hurting his feelings—as smooth and facile as he was, he had never tried to pretend he was madly in love with her. His courtship had less of a sense of romance and more that of a business transaction. But she feared that like Tamzin, his true character would peek out when he was thwarted. And now, rather than turning on her, he had offered her a release from their engagement without any prompting from her. She was beginning to wonder if maybe, just maybe, she’d been unfair in her assessment of his character.