The Contract by Sandy Holden Page A

reminded me, “Bar the door.“I nodded again, bemused, as he disappeared from view as he closed the door.
    The King , I mused as I ran across the room to set the heavy bar. I pulled on my clothes and began to pace. Maximus was a Regent, which meant he had taken over several areas that used to belong to various lords. The land used to have several Regents, once as many as five, but now there was just one—Max. The land ruled by the king was large indeed, so large that to travel from one end of it to the other would take weeks, even if many fast horses were used.
    The King had been in power for only two years now, having taken over when his brother had died without heirs.  There had been talk when the change had occurred that pointed at the current King for setting an assassin on his brother to succeed him. Nothing was sure, and even if something was sure, it was too late now. The King had been crowned, and he was the ultimate power in the land.  The old King had counted on Maximus to keep the peace here in the land furthest from the capital city where the king resided. While doing this Maximus had obtained a great deal of power, some said almost as much as the King himself. But the old King had appreciated Max’s help and relations between the Regent’s land and the rest of the Kingdom were good, as was the relationship between Max and the King.
    Now there was a message of some urgency from the new King, and Max had felt it necessary to have me bar myself in again.  Was that simply because he still felt the castle wasn’t safe after the slaying yesterday?  I railed at myself for perhaps the twentieth time since Max left for not asking him to tell me what had happened.  Max and I didn’t seem to talk much—get us together, and we ended up either arguing or in bed.  Or on a desk, I thought, grinning to myself.
    The hour that Max had promised dragged as I waited for him. I was beginning to consider the wisdom of looking out into the hall when a knocking made me run to the door. “It’s me,” Max said. I threw the bar and let him in. He looked at me and said, “Katrina, I’ll take you to get bathed, and then to breakfast. After that, we need to talk.”
    “About what?” I asked.
    “About your father,” he said, but wouldn’t tell me any more no matter how I pestered him.I bathed and sat at the table with Devlin and Max. Callista came slightly late, her face flushed. “I’m sorry, my lords,” she said. “I was talking with another lady and lost track of the time.” She slid in next to me and gave me a significant look.I tried not to look at Devlin, hoping to spare him any embarrassment if he was trying to watch Callista to see where her feelings lay.
    As soon as Max and Devlin were talking, she turned to me. “Kat, did you hear? The King’s messenger came early this morning.”
    “Yes, I know,” I said. “What did he want?”
    Callista glanced at Max and said quietly, “I don’t know, exactly, but…your husband was not happy at the message, and the messenger was kicked out of the castle without a reply.”
    This was not good. The messenger was the King’s man. To insult him was to insult the King. “The King’s messenger was told to leave?”
    “From what I heard, he was told to leave in no uncertain terms.” Again she glanced at Max. “The woman I spoke to said the man was lucky to have escaped with his life.”
    I looked at Max and Devlin, seeing now that they both looked tense.I finished my meal in silence, my nerves taut, wondering what was going on. There had been talk, Papa had said before he died, that Max was growing too powerful and the royals weren’t pleased. He’d speculated that it could eventually come to war if the royals felt threatened by Max. At the time I’d suggested that the Regent could just break up some of his area and that would make the problem better. Papa had laughed and said that while it would work, certainly, a man like Maximus who had gathered the power