Ships from the West Read Free Page B

a sprightly ghost below him, snorting.
    ‘You just wait a moment—’ Bevan began, but he was already gone, leaving only a zephyr of dust behind.
    Lady Jemilla was a striking woman with hair still as dark as her son’s. Only in bright sunlight could the grey be seen threading it through, like silver veining the face of a mine. She had been a famous beauty in her youth, and it was rumoured that the King himself had at one time honoured her with his attentions; but she was now the dutiful well-bred wife of Hebrion’s High Chamberlain, Lord Murad of Galiapeno, and had been for almost fifteen years. The colourful escapades that had enlivened her youth were now all but forgotten at court, and Bleyn knew nothing of them.
    Murad’s fiefdom, tucked away on the Galapen Peninsula south-west of Abrusio, was something of a backwater, and the high manse which had housed his family for generations was an austere fortress-like edifice built out of cold Hebros stone. In the heat of high summer it still retained an echo of winter chill and there was a low fire burning in the cavernous hearth of Jemilla’s apartments. She was running over the household accounts at her desk, whilst beside her an open window afforded a view of the sun-baked olive groves of her husband’s estates like some brightly lit fragment of a sunnier world.
    The clamour of her son’s arrival was unmistakable. She smiled, losing ten years in an instant, and knuckled her small fists into the hollow of her back as she arched, cat-like, from the desk.
    The door opened and a grinning footman appeared. ‘Lady—’
    ‘Let him in, Dominan.’ ‘Yes, lady.’
    Bleyn blew in like a gale, reeking of horse and sweat and warm leather. He embraced his mother, and she kissed him on the lips. ‘What is it this time?’
    ‘Ships - a million ships - well a great fleet at any rate. They passed by Grios Point this morning. Bevan tells me that Murad is aboard, with the retainers he took to Abrusio last month. What’s afoot, Mother? What great events are sailing us by this time?’ Bleyn collapsed on to a nearby couch, shedding dust and horsehair over its antique velvet.
    ‘He is Lord Murad to you, Bleyn,’ Jemilla said tartly. ‘Even a son must not be too familiar when his father is of the high nobility.’
    ‘He’s not my father.’ An automatic snap of petulance. Jemilla leaned forward wearily, lowering her voice in turn. ‘To the world he is. Now, these ships—’
    ‘But we know better, Mother. Why pretend?’
    ‘If you want to keep your head on your shoulders, then to you he must be Father also. Prate to your friends all you want - I have them watched. But in front of strangers, you will swallow this pill with a smile. Understand me now, Bleyn. I am tired explaining.’
    ‘I am tired pretending. I am seventeen, Mother - a man in my own right.’
    ‘When you cease pretending, this man you have suddenly become will no longer have a life to be tired of, I promise you. Abeleyn will not tolerate a cuckoo - not yet - for all that that Astaran whore has a womb as barren as a salted field.’
    ‘I don’t understand. Surely even a bastard heir is better than no heir at all.’
    ‘It comes of the Civil War. He wants everything absolutely clear. A legitimate king’s heir, with whom no one can quibble. He is not yet fifty, and she is younger. And they have that sorcerer Golophin weaving his spells, coaxing his seed into her year by year.’
    ‘And all for nothing.’
    ‘Yes. Be patient, Bleyn. He will come to his senses in the end and realise, as you say, that a bastard is better than nothing.’ Jemilla smiled as she said this, and her smile was not altogether pleasant. She saw how it wounded him. Well and good - it was something he would have to get used to.
    She ruffled his dust-caked hair. ‘What is this about a fleet of ships then?’
    He was sullen, slow to answer, but she could see the curiosity burning away the sulk.
    ‘The whole battle fleet, Bevan says.