OUR SMILING FRIEND
It was a warm summer's night in Corus. Gentle night air carried the scent of jasmine and lilac from the well-tended royal gardens to the balcony above where Roger of Conte stood relaxed in the shadows, elbows resting on the marble ledge.
He was unsmiling. This in itself was unusual, since his habitual expression, the face he showed in public, was an easy smile. One that showed he was better bred than everyone else in the room: too well-bred to condescend to those around him less favoured by the gods. The most charming man in Corus, the ladies simpered, and their lords resented him but knew it to be true.
Charming. Roger was fed to the teeth of smiling and charming his way through life; in truth it bored him witless. However, it was necessary for a while longer.
Granted from the cradle more than his fair share of natural gifts, Roger had learned the complex skills of becoming a noble and a Duchess's heir without ever really exerting himself. Courtier, knight, wizard, lover, manipulator; there was no physical, intellectual or human challenges that were out of his reach.
Except one.
Having been born the only son of old King Jasson's first child, a girl, he had a life's worth of harsh experience in learning patience. He would have been born the direct heir to the throne but for a single person: King Jasson's much younger second child, Prince Roald of Conte.
Gods damn him to everlasting misery! Roger's eyes narrowed unpleasantly in the darkness. A decade before Roger's birth, not content with a daughter, old King Jasson had finally produced a son with his third and youngest wife, a girl barely out of the convent. The old conqueror of the hotly disputed western bank of the River Drell, the foreign king who had succeeded in grinding down the proud Bazhir into acknowledging his rule—not that he particularly wanted their godsforsaken desert except that it made Tortall look more imposing on a map!—had fathered the male heir he desired. By the time Roger entered the world, Prince Roald was the acknowledged heir and a solid fixture.
But for Roald, Roger would have been King. It was something he could never forget. Handsome, intelligent, physically and magically gifted, a natural manipulator, Roger was born to rule. He was everything that King Roald-- a quiet, private man who loathed strife-- should have been but would never be. Mithros's teeth! He even dressed better than the man. And so Roger, Duke of Conte bided his time, smiling, always smiling.
Roger stared up at the almost-rounded moon, high in the night sky. It evoked a memory: Lianne. Her pale cheek turned away, shadowed eyes averted. She had been unable to even look at him, that last time they met in secrecy.
Never again, she said. I love my Lord dearly. This must stop.
The most beautiful woman at court, it had pleased Roger to seduce the Queen out of spite and boredom. Young and impatient, he had always been able to have whomever he chose, and Roald's wife had proved no different. She hated him as much as she desired him, and had offered private prayers of penitence in plenty to the Goddess before shame and guilt had driven her to put an end to their secret meetings.
Roger's delight at stealing something of Roald's, thief of his birthright, outweighed his outrage that a woman dared reject him (that privilege was his). Yet in the end the joke was on him. The gods in their infinite wisdom chose to grant Tortall an heir soon after—a single child where there had been none to bless the marriage before or after Lianne's illicit meetings.
Roger was positive Jonathan of Conte was his son. That young man certainly looked likely to inherit all the deviousness and power lust of the Conte line that had skipped Roald, but that Roger had in full. Not to mention the astonishing physical resemblance in young Jon, save for Lianne's blue eyes. Roger sighed inwardly at his short-sightedness. In taking a nice piece of revenge on Roald and his perfect queen, he had put yet another obstacle between himself and the throne.
Roger knew full well that the great gods opposed what he had in mind. Prince Jonathan was living proof of that. He also knew from years of peering into musty scrolls and dark secrets in Carthak that gods were not as invulnerable as they seemed.
The gods could choke on his wizard's rod when he sat the throne in Tortall for all he cared.
It was difficult, yet necessary for success, for Roger to move slowly. Roald had a strong base of support. A weak king who minded his own business was a gift from the gods to greedy nobles. They could tax the commoners who worked their fiefs within an inch of their wretched lives without interference from the crown. Old King Jasson had taken much of their power away, and only the riches won from fighting his constant wars of expansion had kept them busy and quiet.
Roald let his nobles be, and only the greediest and most power-hungry of them were willing to disturb the present balance. It was those that Roger worked on slowly and secretly, whispering promises to some, blackmailing others, converting them to his vision of Tortall. To all others, he showed a Player's idea of a Good Duke: loyal brother, charming courtier, chivalrous lover, accomplished warrior. When low-voiced courtiers spoke urgently to him of unrest in the Lower City and Tortallans who had never seen the face of their King, Good Duke Roger gently asserted his loyalty to his brother and King. And smiled. Charmingly.
"Stop skulking in the shadows."
Roger was startled from his contemplation, though he did not move or so much as turn his head. "Some day you will surprise the wrong person, my squire, and they will not be as forgiving as I," he said pleasantly.
Alex came up beside him cat-quiet in the dark. "You look very grim." His dark eyes gleamed in what little light there was. "And I haven't been your squire for years."
It was something Alex had said many times before and didn't require a response. The two men stood looking out over the moon-washed flowers of the garden in silence for a time.
Roger finally spoke. "It's done."
"Ah," said Alex softly. "So it's started."
It was impossible to tell if he was pleased or disturbed. Alex was worth ten of Delia of Eldorne. The lady thought she was subtle, but the unsavoury waft of her ambition out-stank her imported Marenite perfume.
Roger trusted Alex more than he trusted anyone—which was to say, not entirely. But Alex's desires and faults fell in so well with his own plans that he let him know more of his mind than any of the other conspirators. Alex would not betray him.
Silly boy. What he wanted was intangible; something so small in the scale of Roger's ambition that most people would find it incomprehensible. But Alex was the way he had been made. And so was Roger.
The rest was for the future. For tonight… Roger of Conte turned the full force of his practiced smile on Alex. "I have a particularly fine bottle of wine in my rooms I have been saving since my student days in Carthak. It has been waiting for the appropriate occasion. Perhaps you will help me drink it."
Alex looked back at him steadily with his self-contained air and athlete's grace. "I would hate for it to go to waste."
"Follow me then."
Exit Roger, Duke of Conte, smiling.
Fin