Sins & Virtues

Chapter Eleven: A Book of the World

Cairn

Evergreen, Laurel's Rise

' There are people in the north, rallying in the name of your brother,' Lady Anise Bergamot said, lying against the firm mattress and eyeing her lover through the iron bars of his footboard. He quirked an eyebrow at her, enjoying the image of her bare cream-coloured skin against his dark sheets.

' Rallying to what end?' he scoffed.

' I don't think they even know that yet,' she laughed. ' My cousin recently left to join them. He says they are rallying for justice...that your dear brother was taken from us maliciously.'

Cairn hummed. ' That's ridiculous.'

' Why is it ridiculous?'

' It was clearly malicious,' he said, taking a large gulp of his wine. ' Queen called for an inquest for a reason.'

' I'm worried it will spread. Everyone's so upset at the moment. I worry it's going to spread like a cold.' Anise admitted. ' Father says I'm being silly. Are you worried?'

' I'm not worried,' he muttered, draining his cup. He stood with a sigh from his sprawl atop the trunk at the end of his bed, to stagger over to the table and his array of flagons. Anise crawled to the footboard, resting her cheek on her arm. He could feel her eyes raking him up and down, as bare as she was from their previous activities.

' I'm sorry, I didn't mean to make you sad...talking about your family like that,' she said softly. He shook his head, carrying over his chosen flagon to fill her cup.

' Speaking of my family doesn't make me sad,' he grunted, lying back across the bed, propping a muscled arm behind his head. ' People refusing to speak of them makes me sad. To stop speaking of someone is to slowly forget them. The idea of my nieces forgetting about their father solely because speaking of him made others sad would be as much a tragedy as his death.'

Anise smiled, nudging him with her foot as she slowly sipped her wine. ' How very eloquent of Your Grace,' she purred.

' I have my moments,'

' You will have an heir soon no doubt,' she broke the silence that had fallen over them for many charged moments, setting down her cup on the trunk. Cairn looked at her with a frown. She laughed. ' Not like that. I mean your poor sister-in-law is due soon, isn't she? Everyone is certain she will produce a son this time. A nephew can be your heir, until you sire one of your own.'

Cairn hummed thoughtfully, his free hand playfully gliding up and down her leg, higher and higher each time. ' I think I will still name Juno my heir.'

' What? Really?'

' Really.'

' Why?'

' She is my brother's eldest child. Regardless of whether the next one is a boy or a girl...my bet is the latter.' Cairn shrugged. ' It doesn't matter to me if Juno is a girl. We're such an open culture, yet girls are still considered less.'

His deft hand brushed the apex between her thighs and she hummed her approval, moving to curl up against his side and kiss his throat. Her nimble fingers played with the talisman on the chain around his neck.

' You'll have all the girls chasing you if you keep talking like that,' she murmured in his ear. ' Is this the kind of king you'll be?'

' A king who's chased by girls?'

' A king who sees every one of his people.'

' It's the kind of king Cade would have been,' Cairn said. Her fingers stilled on the talisman and he plucked it from them, holding it up to the light. It was a round disc of ironstone, hand engraved with a bear on one side and an owl in flight on the other, the runes of the Hillock Gods around the edges.