TheKingsViper Read Free Page B

Ailwyn
would not be sailing with them to the wedding, but following in another vessel.
A seafaring people, the Venn islanders had long established it as a rule that the
earl and his bloodline heir should never travel together by boat, for fear of
losing both together—even if that sole heir was only a woman.
    De Meynard nodded.
    Eloise waited for him to make some compliment about how well
he had enjoyed his time on Venn, but realized it was not forthcoming. “You
said…you had a private letter for me from the King?” she asked after an awkward
silence.
    “Ah. Yes.” He reached into his coat, next to his heart, and
retrieved a folded piece of paper. For a moment in her hand it still carried
the heat of his body. She glanced at it, noted the royal seal and cracked the
wax with her thumbnail. Scanning the first line, she read, My most esteemed
and beloved lady Eloise, inasmuch as it has fallen to me to make this choice—
    It went on in the same vein for some time, thick with
politesse but devoid of content. “Why did he choose me?” she asked. The general
hubbub afforded them a space as private as silence.
    “Pardon?”
    “You’re close to his majesty, they say. What made him choose
me for his queen, out of all the women at the ball?”
    “Your beauty enchanted him, my lady.” He said it dutifully.
    “You flatter me.” Her words came out sounding more
disbelieving than modest.
    De Meynard blinked, perhaps surprised. “And the Isle of Venn
will revert to the Crown upon your father’s death,” he answered baldly.
    “Ah.” Eloise bit her lip.
    “In addition, you’re young, you’re not ugly, and you will
be—he hopes—as fertile as your lands. He desires above all an heir.”
    Not ugly? Eloise felt the blood rise in her cheeks,
despite her professed abhorrence of flattery. De Meynard lifted an eyebrow.
    “Although your father rather gives the lie to that theory.
Which was not mine.”
    Was that intended to be an insult? She felt the urge to
defend the earl and snapped, “My mother died very young.”
    “Then he should have remarried,” de Meynard said, then
added, “Though he must not now, of course. That would be a terrible mistake. No
matter how much he misses his only daughter.” His unblinking eyes, as black and
empty as those of the sharks Venn’s fishermen occasionally hauled out upon the
docks, coldly drove the point home.
    “Of course,” Eloise muttered. She could feel hot anger
rising in her breast, but she didn’t want him to see it. “I will make sure he
knows that.”
    He nodded, and a half-smile crooked his lips. “You are a
dutiful daughter, my lady. May you make as excellent a wife and queen.”
    * * * * *
    By the time they sailed the seas were choppy and running
swift under a north-west wind and a gray sky, and the Kingsholme captain was arguing
with local men as to the wisdom of putting out into open water. Half a day
later the storm-front hit them, driving them south into gathering darkness.
    * * * * *
    Eloise was clinging to the pillar that ran through the
center of her cabin, wondering if she was going to be sick again before she
drowned, when the wood shuddered against her and a great grinding squeal ran
through the timbers of the ship. The boards that had been heaving beneath her
feet went still, and just for a moment it was a relief, until the significance
struck her storm-addled mind.
    They had run aground.
    Moreover, the pillar was the foot of the foremast. Even
though the sails had been reefed, there was a good chance now that it would be
toppled by the wind. Quickly she turned to the womenservants huddled miserably
in the angle of the narrow room.
    “Get up on deck,” she gulped. “It’s not safe down here.”
    The ship shuddered again.
    “Get up!” she shouted, regaining her voice. She swayed
across the room and began to pull at their wedged bodies. Just then the cabin
door flew open and Severin de Meynard fell through. There was a brandy barrel
under his