The Black Beast by Nancy Springer Page A

perhaps? I did not ask.
    â€œGood,” I said slowly. “I can go more easily, knowing that you will have a care for him, my lady. But tell me, why do you cleave to him?”
    â€œWould you have me do otherwise?” she parried.
    I answered her with honesty that I think neither of us expected. “I would have you feel my love,” I told her softly. “I follow my brother, whom I have loved since I was born. But why do you? Surely you owe him nothing, and he scorns you.”
    â€œHe is kingly in his grief,” she said angrily. “He will be Sacred King when he is well.”
    â€œHe is mad,” I said.
    â€œThere is divine vision and compassion even in his madness!”
    â€œHe has shown you no compassion, and little enough to me.”
    â€œWhy should he?” she cried passionately. “You are nothing but a pup next to him!” She turned away, and I rode into Vaire with her words burning like hot iron in my mind.

Book Two
    FABRON OF VAIRE

Chapter One
    I am Fabron. I was king of the canton of Vaire in Vale when I was alive. I came to my throne by virtue of threats and greed, but I tried to be a good king. I wanted to be well remembered. I rode the rounds of my canton yearly, hearing my people’s concerns, and when I was in my castle at Ky-Nule I held court daily. Any of my subjects, rich or poor, could come before me if they wished and dared. I tried to be just, but pettiness angered me, and I think my people respected my anger. Everywhere I went they cheered me. I tried to give them a procession worth shouting for, though I was not a young man or a handsome one. I was short, half hidden by my beard, but I rode tall, and every horse and retainer of my entourage wore ornaments of my own making, most of them gold. For myself I wore a breastplate all in link of iron chain, and a chain belt to my sword, and the staghound, the emblem of Vaire, leaping on my helm. I dressed in sober velvets to set off my artistry. Jewels and brooches show better thus.
    But it was not in such array that Frain first saw me. Spring had come and was turning into summer, but I was not holding court or preparing to ride through my domain. Mela, my wife of many years, lay ill with a wasting fever, and I stayed constantly in her chamber, seeing no one. She did not know me. Indeed she had turned dead to me many years before, after we had sold Frain. Not that she was cold or disobedient—she was ever an obedient wife—but something had died inside her. I did not understand; I thought we would have many babies, and what matter was one the less? Abas had need of a child to prove his continuing fertility, to keep his vassals content. He paid me dearly for it, first in gold and later in power when I threatened to expose him. But I paid dearly, too, over the years. Frain was our first child and our last. I had not reckoned, perhaps, on the anger of the goddess who abides in all women.
    So Mela lay moaning and did not speak to me or cry out my name, and I could not help her. I felt somehow to blame—I always felt to blame for any ill in her life since I took Frain from her. The door opened. I looked up wearily, expecting another officious servant. But it was Wayte, my captain of guards, with an iron dagger at his throat. Other guards were milling about outside the door like beleaguered sheep. They were armed, of course, and so was Wayte. But they risked his life if they drew a weapon.
    It was Frain who held the dagger on Wayte. I knew him at once, for I had made shift to see him a few times during the years, standing behind a buttress and watching him in the courtyard at Melior when he was too young and careless to notice me. He was a sturdy youth now, with auburn hair and high, freckled cheekbones and an earnest, open look about him. He hardly seemed more dangerous than the toothless baby I had given for gold. Yet there he was with his arms locked around Wayte’s shoulders and the dagger at his