“I am counting on you to behave today,” Maël muttered under his breath to her as he gathered his horse’s reins in one gloved hand. “I know you are upset with me, and I understand why, but I need you to impress today. We have an important audience.”
She gave him a prickly, baleful look and did not deign to answer, which was as much as he could hope for at the moment.
“My lord de Rocaille.” The young page in the royal livery came by. “We are gathering. Are you ready?”
As ready as he would ever be for this. He nodded and turned his horse toward the courtyard. As royal hunts went, it was relatively small and intimate, no more than twenty nobles gathered together with their fine horses and gleaming doublets, but these were D’Angeline nobility, so they still looked like one of the fairest assemblies to be found anywhere on the continent. Or surely the biased historians would say so. Maël had read far too many stories from far distant lands to be so obviously elitist, it was uncouth.
His gaze skimmed over the colors and heraldry on display as the other nobles laughed and chatted amongst themselves. Sebastien was in the thick of it, of course, with his purple doublet slashed with gold and his quiver of arrows fletched with feathers dyed purple. If he took any game, it would be clear by the arrow what was his victory. Another Siovalese lord, a lean youth with dark curls and a quiet solemnity to his air, nodded in recognition to Maël, who returned the gesture. He recognised the Perigeux arms stitched onto the young man’s breast, and it certainly paid to be on good terms with the ducal family of his province. While he might not know Lancelin personally, since the Perigeux family sent him abroad to study semesters in Tiberium and Aragonia, Maël knew he was the future Duc of Siovale. An acquaintance could easily be built up while they were both in residence in the City.
But Lancelin de Perigeux was not Maël’s quarry for the day. His target was spotted exactly where Maël had thought to find him, side by side with the young King-to-be. It was an expected place for a man such as he, and as such, with so many eyes still watching the King as he prepared to begin the hunt, Maël did not approach yet. The excitement of the hunt was in the thrill of the perfect timing.
So he found his place in the line of mounted nobles and followed as the hounds were released, and the hunt rode out of the gates of the city and into the surrounding countryside. The goal for the day was the wild deer. This was meant to be a relaxing day spent outside of the city, no one needed the danger of a wild boar hunt. The hounds bayed, the nobles laughed as they sat their horses easily, and the servants in the employ of the gamekeepers ran tirelessly to keep up as they followed the trails further away from the city.
As a hunt is wont to do, small groups separated out as the hounds picked up numerous trails. This was a social event like anything else the court did, so factions were easy enough to anticipate. Which meant Maël placed himself strategically so that when the call came up that another trail was found, he was able to follow his quarry in the pursuit of the prey.
“I believe you to have an unfair advantage, Your Grace,” he said with a smile as his horse trotted easily along the nearly invisible deer track winding through the rolling hills. “You know these lands far better than any of the rest of us. Shall I place a wager that you will be the first to take a prize today?”
Roland de Chalasse turned his attention briefly to the young man, gaze sharpening as his green eyes processed the auburn hair and family colors. His brow lifted and he greeted him, “Young Rocaille, how you’ve grown.”
“Children tend to, Your Grace. Haven’t you noticed with your own?”
“And the wealth of grandchildren,” Roland said wryly. He sat confidently in his saddle, not once snowing any weakness that one might expect from a lord in the onset of his twilight years. His pale hair—once a rich, honey gold but now liberally streaked with silver—was pulled neatly back into a crisp tail at the nape of his neck, and the epaulets at the shoulders of his doublet were embroidered with the honeycomb pattern of his House. The honey of the Chalasse estate was well known for being the best, and his vignerons elevated a simple honey-wine into a complex delicacy that brought him income from across the continent, so it was little wonder that his decorations featured his hardy workers and their hexagonal combs.
Maël flashed a bright, winsome smile. “You are certainly blessed with Anael’s abundance, though not of the malus variety.”
Roland’s gloved hands handled the reins effortlessly as they maneuvered around an out-stretched root. His tone took on the practiced boredom of one completing the expected small talk of society as he asked, “How is your uncle?”
“Not as young as he once was, but determined as ever to run the university himself.” Maël shrugged innocently. “Siovalese are stubborn.”
“So they always are,” the Duc de Chalasse agreed. His gaze flicked to the glove on Maël’s hand and Maël saw the flicker of genuine interest in his face—which was all he needed—before the duc schooled his tone back to casualness, saying, “But perhaps I should wager that you will take the first prize, young Rocaille. That is a fine bird on your arm.”
“Isn’t she?” Maël grinned, pleased, as he lifted his gloved hand slightly to display her better as they picked their way along the deer track. She beat her wings slightly to keep her balance and gave him another one of her baleful glares. Maël said, “She is still a little testy with me that when I returned to the city, she had to stay behind. I am hoping the hunt will sweeten her temper.” Which was of course the perfect time for Regan to snap her beak at him in a performative threat.
“She seems little mollified,” the duc said, studying the peregrine appraisingly. “What would have you risk her displeasure so?”
Maël answered deceptively casually, “I rode with his Highness when he was called back to the City last year.”
“School friends?”
“Someone needed to help him stay out of the kind of trouble L’Envers was always getting into.”
“A worthy endeavor,” Roland said, drawing his horse up as the hound and its keeper paused to try to find the deer’s scent again as the wind shifted. “I hear His Grace of Namarre attends university more for the entertainment of it than for his studies.”
“He is certainly more cavalier than His Highness,” Maël said, risking Regan’s wrath as he stroked the feathers at the back of her head. “Though both of them are excellent students, a pride to the university, of course.”
“I should expect no less.”
“We Rocaille do still have our own pride, of a Siovalese kind.”
Regan made a small, clicking sound, her head swivelling to follow the sound of something shuffling in the young bushes. Maël did not need to confirm the target himself, he knew Regan and trusted her hunter’s instincts enough that he unclipped her jesses without a thought, giving her the whistle command to fly. Before the sound had even faded from his lips, she took off, rocketing up into the clouds to begin her homing circles. And Roland de Chalasse finally turned his full attention to the lordling, levelling his emerald gaze firmly at him as they stood together in the dappled shade of a copse of trees.
“You have me alone, as you so clearly want, young Rocaille. Do not waste our time, the day is too beautiful for intrigue.”
Maël appreciated his directness, so he met it in kind. “Very well, Your Grace, I will speak plainly. The announcement of Her Majesty’s abdication and His Highness’ imminent ascension has caused significant ripples through the court. I have seen it, even though I am not so practiced in the art of politics as you, I have still seen it. I see the ambitious eyes that follow my friend and I know many see him as the uneducated and unprepared spare, thrown to the wolves.”
“Ah, you hope to protect him from those that seem to be a threat to him? How noble. Am I a threat, then?”
“I will not lie,” Maël said clearly, “You represent the factions of traditionalists and those that hold to more conservative political views. A young king may threaten your status quo. But I know better than to assume you to be a threat. No, Your Grace, you are a patriot at heart, and a loyal one. I see no reason to assume otherwise. No, Your Grace, I am asking for your help.”
Roland surveyed him, his own hands crossed and resting easily on the pommel of his saddle. He could not deny his interest was piqued by this young pup. Brazen though he was, and still a little unrefined in the art of courtly intrigue, Maël was nevertheless a dangerous young man—he reminded Roland a little of himself in his younger and more impulsive years. Perhaps that was why he was amused rather than insulted at how the young man described him so confidently.
So, with a small smile, he teased his lure out further, asking, “With what?”
“Protecting the King-to-be,” Maël said evenly. “I do not stand at your level, I am no member of the old guard within the elite. Even noble as I am, I am an adopted heir to my uncle and have more experience with books and exhausted academics than the courtiers that flock to Gustav’s side. While I can see the sycophants, I need help from someone with power and influence, someone like you. I hope our mutual love for the hunt will keep us allies as we flush out prey, but I am no idealist to trust blindly. I know how powerful you are and what a danger that could mean if you turned against me or against Gustav.”
“So you seek to offer me just enough rope,” Roland said lightly, “to see what kind of knot I’ll tie.”
Maël shrugged. “I can afford to be bold and presumptive, Your Grace, I have less to lose.”
“And yet,” Roland’s voice took on a careless, silken tone, “you are right about me, young Rocaille. I am influential, I have power, and I am much more experienced with court politics than you are. Why should I take your bait? Surely I have all the connections and positioning I need already at my fingertips?”
Regan shrieked her delight as she caught sight of her prey from her vantage point high above them.
Maël’s smile was just a shade too wide, a fraction too delighted, as he laughed. “Are you a betting man, Duc Roland? Because I will make you a wager. Give me one evening, one conversation, and I will prove to you why, at the end of the day, it is actually you who need my help more.”
Roland’s eyebrows lifted, he couldn’t help himself. “Arrogant, Rocaille.”
“You refuse my challenge?” What he knew of the Duc de Chalasse, he was a competitive man. It was a bold move to play now, but he had already gotten the duc’s attention, now he needed to keep it.
“Hardly,” Roland said, something cunning and clinical in his gaze as he studied this mirror-image of his younger self. He knew the young man was goading him deliberately, but he had certainly earned some of Chalasse’s curiosity. “One evening, then. Do not bother sending a carriage, I know the way to the Rocaille townhouse. I look forward to how you will try to convince me, boy.”
The rabbit screamed once and then was quiet as the falcon in the dive slammed her talons into its spine, capturing her prey.