And how.
It was for him that Cas summoned a smile. He bowed once again, in thanks. Before he straightened completely, he caught a glimpse of red. A girl at the high table, standing near the end. Recognition coursed through him. She wore a gown of wine-colored silk, a gold circlet on dark hair that fell loose around her shoulders. A far cry from the ill-fitting messenger’s uniform she had worn the day before. Lena, his horse thief. He had known she was no courier. But who was she to be sitting at the high table, beside an empty chair, one he was certain was meant for him?
Their eyes met. Smiling slightly, she lifted her cup and mouthed one word. Cassiapeus. Not Caspian, or Caspar. Suddenly, his smile no longer felt so false. Until King Rayan returned to his chair and said, “Joyful as we are, grateful as we are, we must ask you, Cassia . . . Where, in the name of all wretched things, have you been these past three years?”
Best to get it over with. “In prison, at first. In Brisa.”
Silence fell. King Rayan glanced quickly at Ventillas, who dipped his head in grim confirmation. The look he exchanged with his queen was harder to decipher. No longer smiling, he said, “How?”
Cas fought to keep his voice even. “I was sent to inspect the aqueducts, beginning in Palmerin and ending at the northern border. I, along with three others.” If the aqueducts were not maintained properly, there was a risk the water would be blocked by debris or siphoned off by thieves for personal use. He had traveled with three soldiers as his personal guard, friends, all of them lost. “It should have taken us months only to travel there and back, visiting neighbors along the way. We were ambushed by Brisan soldiers near the Cevalles Pass.”
More silence. All color had left the queen’s face. Then, “On whose side of the pass?” King Rayan demanded.
Cas knew the importance of his answer. The royal marriage was a new one. The treaty between the two kingdoms was as fragile as the parchment it was written on. To learn that Cas, a member of one of the oldest, most powerful families in Oliveras, had been abducted in his own kingdom and imprisoned abroad would do nothing to strengthen diplomatic relations. But Cas could not lie to his king.
“On our side, Your Grace.”
An angry buzzing filled the hall. The stares sent the queen’s way were unfriendly, the same looks he had witnessed yesterday after the naming ceremony. Resentment had risen like a stink in the air.
“Yes?” King Rayan said to no one in particular. He covered Queen Jehan’s hand with his. “Does someone wish to speak?”
No one did. The voices subsided. Ventillas gripped his cup, his knuckles white against the silver.
King Rayan said, “What happened, Cassia?”
“I was kept in a prison near the border. I don’t know for how long. Later, they sent some of us to the capital. A bridge had been destroyed, and they needed prisoners to repair it. I was put on as a diver, to lay the foundation, because I knew how to swim.” Cas had not minded the work. What he had not been able to bear were the nights in his cell, chained to the wall like an animal. He found himself looking at Lena, whose smile had vanished entirely.
“Cassia. How did you escape?” King Rayan asked. Beneath the table, the lynx had woken. It lay with its head on its paws, watching Cas with yellow eyes.
“I didn’t. Not really. I caught the plague.”
The uproar lasted mere moments, before his brother’s fist came down on the table, demanding silence.
Cas said, “All I remember is that I fell ill by the bridge. A year ago. I woke up in a hospital six weeks later. I was told that . . . the other prisoners and guards had also been brought in.”
Going to hell, am I? I’ll take you with me.
“They were not as fortunate as you,” King Rayan guessed.
“No. There were so many dying, or dead. No one cared when I stood up, found some clothes, and walked out.”
“Why has it taken you so long to return?” King Rayan asked, perplexed. “You could have found a ship and been home months ago.”
Ventillas lifted his cup and drank deeply.
“I could not pay for passage,” Cas said simply. There had been no Oliveran countinghouses in Brisa. No place to borrow against his family’s fortune. “Even if I did, the harbor was impassable. The cemeteries were full. They were burning bodies in the fields. And still, they could not keep up. One of the bishops consecrated the waters.”
Queen Jehan pressed a hand against her throat. Cas felt her horror. She had not heard. None of them had, even so many months later. The bishop, in desperation, had blessed the waters so that the bodies could be buried at sea. They had not been weighed down. There were too many of them. Cas wondered if he had considered how grisly a sight would result from his actions. Corpses bobbing among the cogs and galleys. Or that it would make sailing from the harbor an impossibility. The few ships that still had crews to sail them had not been able to maneuver around the dead.
More than one person pushed aside their supper plate, their appetites lost.
Cas said, “So I headed inland. I took work where I could until I earned enough to buy a horse”—another glance at Lena, whose expression was suffused with guilt—“and then I came home the same way I left.”
“Through the Cevalles Pass,” King Rayan said.
“Yes.”
We searched everywhere, Cassia, Ventillas had said. For all of you. We thought you had been attacked by bandits in the forest. Your bodies thrown into the river, the horses stolen. We found no trace of you.
The next question came from Queen Jehan. “Why did you not tell the guards who you were when you were first captured? Surely you knew your brother would have paid any ransom for your safe return.”
“I did tell them, Your Grace,” Cas said to her. “The four of us were separated from the other prisoners and treated well, relatively. I was told a messenger had been dispatched here. When the courier returned . . . he brought a letter stating that both lords of Palmerin were at home, and that whoever I was, I was an imposter. The men with me were killed immediately.”
Cas was trembling. It felt as if he were telling someone else’s story. He hardly knew that younger Cas, who had been so foolish, certain his family name would be enough to guarantee their safety.
“They were killed,” King Rayan said, his voice heavy. “But not you.”
“No, Your Grace. I don’t know why.”
“Did you see this letter?”
“I did not.”
Ventillas spoke for the first time, his tone flat. “There was no ransom demanded. Any courier would have been received by me or, if I was not here, by my secretary. They lied.”
But Cas was no longer listening. A movement to the right had him turning his head. He saw Faro by Sorne’s side, sweat beading his forehead. Faro, Ventillas’ private secretary, who would have received the ransom demand in his lord’s absence. Faro, who suddenly looked pale and terrified.