Page 7 of The Court of Venus

Once, Hal had sat in this chair. Swung his dirty boots up onto the table and laughed.

“Forgetting him.” Did he feel the ghost of who Hal could have been lingering here too? “If he were alive, the succession would not concern us.”

“Yet he’s not, and so it does.”

For a while, we were both quiet. Then Roland asked, “Do you think Hal would have been a good king? I don’t. And I say that as his closest friend.”

We both knew why; there was no need to say. Hal was too kind. No sharpness to him. Yet Roland’s question was irrelevant: Hal was born to be king, regardless of whether he would have been good at it or not. I told him so.

Roland said, “Mmm. To be so close to inept kings and suffer for it. That is a magician’s curse. So. If I tell you more about my plans, will you scurry away and sell my secrets to those who would pay a hefty price? Or is your loyalty to your own kind?”

“Are we the same kind?”

He studied me, his eyes absorbing my every feature, a slow, meticulous sweep. “Yes, I think so, Mouse.”

Both of us—desperate ivy clinging to the stones of this palace, the same as we were when we were small.

Every part of me wanted to break down the barriers built by time, to spot just a glimpse of the home I had known. To say: I remember how it was—don’t you? When we chased each other through knee-high grass, when we spat in each other’s food, when he fed a snake through the crack in my door and so I fed a larger one through his. When the three of us fell asleep in each other’s arms, despite it all.

But I said nothing. Our stare broke. I was still full of accusations, and this was not the court—and not the Roland—I remembered.

“At least I admit it,” he laughed, taking another swig of wine. “I admit I’m hungry, admit I’m ambitious. I admit it all, because I must stand to the side while an old man gets all the glory. I see your desire now. It’s the most I’ve ever felt in a person, apart from myself.”

He’d tugged on my curiosity. “What do you see?”

He counted on his fingers. “One. Your mind is full of this palace, and your memories. You want something you can only find here.” A second finger. “You want to find out how Hal died. You’re desperate to know. That’s interesting, isn’t it? Three.” His gaze lowered, a heavy weight. My lips parted slightly. “You want to try things you’ve heard talk of in the Lionessian court, rumors of my mouth on—”

“Enough.”

His smirk was far too satisfied. He settled back in his chair, wiping a spill of wine off the table. “After Hal’s death, the king was undone. Devastated. Some say he’s gone mad. You blame me for Prospero, but you have to understand, the king is paranoid. Whispers are enough for him to be convinced of plots.”

“Are there plots?”

His face twisted into a scowl. “Of course. Fulke Roet is biding his time, waiting for Richard to die. The Guildfords meet every night to jabber together. Listen close and the halls echo with Guildford prattle. First the Guildfords, then at dawn the birds begin to sing.”

“Is it paranoia then, if there’s truth to the fear?”

He considered this for a long while. Tapped a knuckle against the seam of his lips. “This coronation is but an example. It is all Wyatt Francis’s design. He’s been locked away with the king for weeks planning it. No expense will be spared for the new queen. It must feel as if there has never been a queen before her, you understand. There will be a magicians’ tournament, the first in nearly two decades. Three rounds, spread over the course of the festivities. A joust for everyone else, naturally, and hunting and banqueting—all the king’s favorite things.”

I frowned. “Was the tournament not your idea?”

“My idea?” On the table, his fist clenched, then released. “The entire coronation is a pattern of sunlight on the surface. A pretty distraction. Beneath are all the drowned bodies, floating in the dark. I’m beginning to think the tourney was only designed so I would lose it. Is that my paranoia?”

The bodies he spoke of rose to the surface of my mind. Bobbing there, waiting for acknowledgment. Alice Seton, the king’s mistress of five years, and his torment. Hal, the beloved heir—an accident, a terrible tragedy. Then the two wives discarded in quick succession: Queen Gertrude, Hal’s mother. The dragon’s truest treasure, she was still called, but only in halls far from court. No one here would dare.

And Eleanor Guildford, who had lasted but a single year on the throne. She was killed hours after Prospero, the king so apathetic, I was told, he played cards during the executions. All those who the king was said to love, then turned on in a single strike. Favor like weather—glorious until the clouds suddenly gathered.

Roland bowed, face in his hands, and said something else into his palms.

“What was that?”

He lifted his head. “I said, I wish we could go back. We hoped for such simple things before Hal died. All you ever wanted was for Hal and me to tell you where we were going, to bring you along with us. You were a nuisance. Oh, how we longed to be rid of you.” If I didn’t know any better, I’d say his smile had become fond, almost wistful.

The years flowed back and forth between us. I had leaned toward him without realizing it. “You’re wrong. I’ve always despised you.”

“Oh, yes?” he mocked, disbelieving. “And why is that?”

“Because your magic is a wasted miracle. You use it only for influence, to entice the richest and most powerful to drink at your table, so—”