Bloodleaf (Bloodleaf #1)(11)
We used to have a game in which I’d tie a colored ribbon someplace he would see it—?on a door handle, or the branch of a tree, or a staircase spindle—?which meant that somewhere nearby I’d hidden a prize or a treat. The color of the ribbon told him where to look: yellow for up, blue for down, red for north, green for south, purple for east, orange for west. Black meant it was within ten paces and hidden from view, white meant it was within twenty paces and in plain sight. When he found his prize, he’d hide one for me using the same rules. It was an excuse for me to spoil him, really. I showered him with candies and riddle books and little toys I had to sneak out to the market-place to purchase. When his hands were busy, he found it easier to focus during lessons and lengthy state functions, so I got him puzzle boxes, tiny gyro spinners, a ring that concealed a small compass, and—?my favorite—?a walnut-size figurine made of metal and magnets, with parts that could be twisted and rearranged into the shape of a half dozen different animals.
It was our own secret pastime, and I reveled in it. While it lasted.
But it was inevitable that Conrad would eventually cross paths with the whispers about me. It was clear that somewhere in the last months he had heard the rumors, understood them, and begun to believe them. He didn’t trust me anymore, and I knew it was only a matter of time before that distrust soured into something worse. I could hardly bear it, and so I coped the only way I knew how: I avoided him.
After my mother and brother were seated, the rest of us followed, and soon servants were scurrying around us, filling goblets and lighting candles. The seat to my left was unoccupied; it was my father’s chair, and would remain empty until Conrad ascended the throne. The seat to my right was where the toothless, doddering marchioness of Hallet usually sat, too senile to speak to me (or complain about me). But the marchioness was not in attendance; her seat was instead occupied by a man in an austere black Tribunal coat.
“You look lovely, Princess,” Toris said. “That color suits you.”
“Thank you, Toris,” I said through a tight smile.
He absently straightened the place setting, his rings—?of which there were five on each hand, one for each finger—?glinting. Mother said he’d been an academic once, a man with an unquenchable curiosity for history, who’d traveled far and wide collecting myths and artifacts, who had won her cousin Camilla’s love with his humor and wit. Losing his wife changed him, Mother said. But I remembered Camilla well; she was sweet and kind and lovely as a summer’s day. The Toris of my memory was exactly as detestable as the one currently straightening the silverware into precise and even parallels. If ever there had been a different version of this man, it was gone before I was old enough to recall it, long before Camilla died.
When the seafood fork was exactly one inch from the soup spoon, he said offhandedly, “I saw you this morning, dear Princess, somewhere you shouldn’t have been.” He leaned forward on his arms and turned a stare on me. “You’re getting rather reckless, don’t you think? You’d do well to be more careful.”
“I already heard this lecture from my mother.”
“You should listen to her. A great woman, your mother.”
I felt my lip curl. In the eight months between Camilla’s and my father’s deaths and my brother’s birth, Toris insinuated himself into my mother’s circle. Weren’t they both grieving spouses? But everyone knew there was more to it than that; because Renalt’s crown could only be passed to a male inheritor, our position would have become instantly precarious if the baby was a girl. To remain in power, Mother would be forced to marry, and marry quickly. Toris was the logical choice. Everyone said so.
I was thankful every day that Conrad turned out to be a boy. With a son to inherit, there was no need for Mother to marry; indeed, doing so might weaken Conrad’s royal claim. Conrad’s birth saved me from a lifetime with Toris as stepfather. Or king. I didn’t know which one would have been worse.
Toris was looking at me with his most concerned, paternal expression. “Because of my position inside the Tribunal, I have been able, at your mother’s behest, to steer them away from you on more than one occasion. Now that these last two cases, Mabel Doyle and the other—?Harriet, I think it was?—?have been resolved, I’ve little doubt I’ll have to concert my efforts on your behalf once more.”
“Hilda,” I murmured. “Her name was Hilda.”
“Why would you remember her name?” He looked down his narrow nose at me. “That is exactly the kind of thing that makes people wary of you. Your sympathies are suspect. Be warned, it’s only a matter of time before I run out of Hildas to distract them with.” A smile crept across his face. He’d convicted a woman who was almost certainly innocent, and he wanted me to be thankful that he’d done it, and would do it again. I gripped the stem of my goblet so tight, my fingernails bit into my skin. Hilda would haunt her daughter-in-law, but I shared the blame in her death.
“Lisette arrived today and should be along shortly,” Toris said, cheerily changing the subject. Quietly, so Kellan couldn’t hear, he said, “She has been so very anxious to see Lieutenant Greythorne again. She has a particular fondness for him, I’m told.”
It was a special talent he had, to send a needle straight into my heart through the tiniest flaw in my armor. It wasn’t that Lisette cared for Kellan that way—?I sincerely doubted she did—?but that Toris knew I did. I took a breath. Well, I now knew a few of the chinks in his armor, too.