Jihan! Stop that at once, you’ll get filthy!”
But, as usual, her daughter refused to hear her. Meiglan subsided back onto a carved stone bench, frowning as Jihan led the other children in a headlong slide down a grassy, rain-slicked rise. The bare earth at the bottom was soon trampled into a really good mud puddle.
Lisiel, sitting at her side, laughed. “They’re in for a good scrubbing later on! One day you must bring Jihan to Balarat so Tirel can show her how to do the same thing in snow.”
Meiglan smiled. “I don’t think she’ll need lessons. Are you sure you should be away from your rooms?” she added with an envious glance at Lisiel’s placid bulk.
“Quite sure, thank you. He hasn’t kicked all morning—I think he’s taking a nap at last!”
“How do you know you’ll have a son?”
Lisiel’s dark Fironese eyes grew dreamy as she stroked her belly. “I just know.”
“I wish—“ Meiglan began incautiously, then compressed her lips.
“The Goddess has been so good to you, Meiglan—she won’t deny you a son. Don’t worry. Have you heard anything else from Pol?”
Shaking her head, she stared at the shorn rose bushes. In the seven days since sunlight had allowed faradhi communication, she had repeated Pol’s words over and over in her mind, but hadn’t been able to imagine him saying them. She couldn’t, not when they had been relayed through Hildreth like that. The phrasing wasn’t even his. “You mustn’t worry or feel anxious, my lady. Soon he’ll be back here at Dragon’s Rest. He misses you and the princesses deeply.” Pol would have said it differently—but she couldn’t frame the words he would use or hear his voice in her head.
Her daughter’s voice, however, was loud and clear as she led the children in a game of tag. It was quite a little tribe that scampered through the gardens. Kierun, abandoning the dignity of his position as squire, became Jinan’s lieutenant in the pursuit of fun as the offspring of court retainers, from the cook’s four-year-old son to the Master of Horse’s thirteen-year-old daughter, swarmed the gravel paths and flower beds. The drizzling rains had let up this morning, allowing the children to play in the soggy sunshine. Catallen, the tutor, had been driven half mad by his restless charges, and compassion dictated that Meiglan free him for the day. Fresh air was good for the children after being cooped up inside; it was good for Lisiel, too, whose waiting had become intolerable.
Meiglan knew how that felt. She knew Pol belonged at Stronghold with his parents, that he had responsibilities to them and the Desert and the other princedoms. Awareness of his duties, however, did not lessen the weight of her own. Her servant, Thanys, constantly reminded her that she was a princess and must retain all authority here. She heard regular reports from all quarters of the vast estates. It didn’t matter that she understood perhaps four words in ten. It was appearances that counted. As usual.
Edrel and Laric saw to military things, but it was Meiglan’s task to make sure the palace was ready for a siege. Having perfected her mimicry of Sioned, Tobin, and Sionell over the years, she did not fear being found out in her ignorance. All she had to do was say “Do everything that needs to be done,” and it was done. But if a crisis came, they would look to her for orders that she was terrified would be the wrong ones.
“I admire you so much,” Lisiel said suddenly, and Meiglan nearly jumped. “Laric has told me how you’re doing everything yourself. I don’t think I’d be able to, separated from my husband.”
Meiglan said nothing. There was nothing she could say.
“I think if it came to it, I’d do what my sister did,” Lisiel went on softly. “She couldn’t bear to be without Ludhil. Of course, neither of us knows anything about war, being raised at Snowcoves. You must have seen your father ordering his troops to punish the Merida when they got too ambitious.”
Miyon had never dared military action against the Merida; the one skirmish she’d seen preparations for had been to seize the property of a vassal who had irritated him. She had also seen the man executed by her father’s own hand.
“I wish I could be more help,” Lisiel sighed. “I wish my son would hurry up and be born, so I can be useful to you.”
Meiglan nodded wordlessly, and tried to think up something to say. But in the next moment the princess gripped her arm and turned ash-white.
“What’s wrong?” she asked—then knew how stupid the question was. Lisiel’s long wait was over. Panic clawed her; the only labor she’d ever attended had been her own—and she had been in no state to learn anything but pain.
“Oh!” Lisiel gasped, bending over with one arm wrapped around her belly. “Meiglan—oh, Goddess, find Laric!”
“Kierun!” she cried, hating the high, thin note of fear in her voice. “Kierun!”
A short while later, Lisiel was back in her rooms. Meiglan was seated near the bed, her lute in her lap and music streaming from her fingers. Master Physician Evarin had asked her to play something soothing. She had doubted that any tune would be heard above Lisiel’s screams, but not a single sound had come from her yet. Meiglan couldn’t decide if the pain was truly nothing, or if the princess was simply prouder and braver than she herself had been. It was different for all women, Thanys had assured her; some suffered terribly, and others barely winced. Pol had not seemed ashamed of her, even though she’d shrieked her throat raw. But after she had lost their sons, he had been too relieved that wife and daughters were safe to have time for any other emotion.
Master Evarin announced himself delighted with Lisiel’s progress and Meiglan’s music, and sat down to take his ease. Laric, riding the perimeter of the valley with Edrel, had not yet been found. So Meiglan played while -Evarin and Norian listened, Thanys and another maid hovered, and Lisiel watched Meiglan’s fingers with wide, transfixed eyes.
Meiglan suspected that Evarin’s presence was at Andry’s order. Appearing at Dragon’s Rest eight days after the fall of Radzyn, he had told of outrunning Goddess alone knew how many enemy patrols and was abjectly glad to be safe once more. But she distrusted anything to do with Andry— though the purpose served by setting a spy where Pol was not could not be explained.
She plucked and strummed automatically, her mind disengaged from the skills of her fingers. Laric and Lisiel had been at Dragon’s Rest so long that the chamber bore their personal touches—combs, clothing, cosmetics, purchases from this year’s Rialla Fair, embroidered pillows Lisiel had stitched while waiting for the birth. But the cradle in the corner was Pol’s. Sioned had brought it from Stronghold during Meiglan’s first pregnancy. Big enough to hold triplets, it had been draped with Princemarch’s violet when Jihan and Rislyn were born. But although she willingly lent it to the Fironese couple, Meiglan had replaced the violet silk with its original pale green. No child not hers would sleep under Princemarch’s color—and Firon’s black was obviously unsuitable for a nursery. The ruby-eyed dragon spread painted wings on either side of the cradle, as if to protect the infant soon to sleep there. Meiglan longed to see Pol’s son and heir snuggled into the velvet coverlet. But the other day a tentative hope had been disappointed again. Eight years since the twins. She heard her lute give forth a plaintive melody that echoed her feelings, and stopped to retune the strings for a lighter song.
The palace physician came, was icily polite to the Sunrunner, and left after making sure all knew his resentment at the stranger’s usurpation of his rightful place. Again Meiglan wondered what the faradhi was doing here. Perhaps it was as simple as he’d said, and he wanted to be as far from the Vellant’im as possible. Certainly Dragon’s Rest was removed from the fighting. The Faolain was a long way away.
But so was Pol.
She was in the middle of a lullaby when Lisiel gave a sudden blurt of pain. The other women started. Evarin glanced at the water clock.
“Right on time,” he approved. “Your grace, this child may have been late in making the effort, but now he’s got the idea.”
“I hope you’re right,” Lisiel said between her teeth, panting for breath. “I was starting to think he’d changed his mind. Keep playing, Meiglan, please.”
She did so, faltering only when candles sprang to life around the room with the onset of dusk. The physician hadn’t even moved a finger to light them. By their glow,
Meiglan watched the other woman’s pretty face distort—lips drawn back, tilted eyes squeezed shut, brown skin flushed. Had she looked like that? she wondered, fascinated and repelled.
Evarin and Thanys suddenly blocked her view. Lisiel gave a single scream, followed the next instant by an affronted wail.
“A fine, big son, your grace,” Evarin said. “Over half a silkweight, and healthy—as your own ears can attest! In possession of all fingers, toes, and rather impressive equipment, I might add.”
Lisiel laughed wearily. “Takes after his father, like my first son. But his eyes are mine.”
Meiglan set down her lute and flexed cramped fingers. Lisiel and the child were transferred from birthing chair to bed, and the servants got to work. Meiglan nearly gagged as bloodied sheets were whisked away. She moved hastily to the bedside and looked at the child: dark-skinned, black-haired, wrinkled, and shrieking.
“Not happy to be out in the bright, chill world, are you?” Lisiel murmured. “It’s all right, little prince. You’ll like it here, I promise.”
Meiglan forced a smile. “He’s lovely.”
“Isn’t he?” was the complacent reply. Then Lisiel glanced up. “But why did Master Evarin think he had to tell me how big this baby is?”
Meiglan couldn’t help a giggle, and it loosened the spasm of envy.
“Lisi? Damn it, let me by! I want to see my wife! Lisi!”
Laric rushed in trailing a mud-spattered cloak, skidded to a stop, and lost his powers of speech. He stared at his wife and son for a moment, lips moving soundlessly. Lisiel laughed at him. Meiglan bit her lip, trying not to imagine Pol’s face in similar circumstances, and fled the room.
Lamps were being lit outside. She hovered at a window to watch the soothing ritual: two servants moving down either side of the water garden in the gathering gloom, lifting lighted wicks to the glass-enclosed lamps. They completed the circle of the inner walk, then turned and worked their way back along the outer arcs to the Princes Hall. Sometimes Pol waited until full dark and then lit all the lamps at once with Sunrunner’s Fire. Meiglan delighted in the sudden appearance of bright twin necklets around the fountain. She didn’t like to think too much about the other aspects of his power, but this was a skill she loved.
The torches ringing the fountain were now ablaze, completing the ordinary nighttime illumination. The Princes Hall stayed in shadow but for the thin rows of lights defining its shape. The towers on either side looked as though covered in quilts made of alternate dark and glowing rectangles. At the New Year, at Riall’im, on festival days, the whole of Dragon’s Rest blazed with colored light like a Sunrunner’s thoughts. Tonight there was only the soft golden gleam of ordinary fire. Peaceful enough, but lonely.
Meiglan turned at the sound of; footsteps, A tall, lanky figure appeared at the top of the stairs. The candlelit hallway shimmered dizzily around her and she felt all the blood drain from her face and all the strength from her limbs as a familiar voice—knife wrapped in velvet—called her name.
“Meiglan, my sweet flower! My precious treasure! Come give your adoring papa a kiss!”
Kostas’ squires, Rihani of Ossetia and Saumer of Kierst-Isel, were more closely involved in the fighting than either Isriam or Daniv. In fact, Kostas had given each command of fifty mounted soldiers—making sure that a seasoned trooper was there at all times to guide the young princes. They had acquitted themselves well on raids across Syr, but had yet to face a pitched battle. And might not for some time yet: the whoreson Vellant’im refused to come out of Catha Heights for an honest fight.
Kostas was getting angry. By this time he ought to be busy reclaiming the river, but Patwin’s betrayal was an offense that could not be overlooked. And if the enemy held onto the castle, they had a base of operations even if Kostas retook the whole length of the Catha River. Having started from High Kirat with an army of five hundred, with minimal losses in the dozen skirmishes along the road, he preferred to gamble on further losses in a decisive battle rather than leave enough of his army to pen the enemy in Catha Heights. Tilal was expecting him, and he did not intend to keep his brother waiting.
The eighth day after a Sunrunner’s eerie beacon had guided Kostas to this admirable field—and he thought he detected his aunt Sioned’s elegant touch there—he sent Saumer and Rihani on yet another raid. It angered him further that the land he scoured so methodically was his own, even though it was necessary to strip the surrounding countryside. The Vellant’im had to run out of food sometime and would then be compelled to forage. But sieges took too damned long. Seated within his tent, maps spread out before him, he had again come to the frustrating conclusion that a direct assault on Catha Heights would mean at least two hundred dead.
His senior captain shoved aside the turquoise wool tent flaps, breathlessly announcing, “My lord, you won’t believe it—your niece Lady Izaea is riding into camp!”
Izaea, Patwin’s eldest daughter, was Kostas’ niece through his wife Danladi, half-sister to the long-dead Rabia. Rather impolitic of the captain to mention the blood connection to a family of traitors. Kostas ordered her brought to him and rolled up his maps.
She was a medium-sized, plumpish woman coming up on her twenty-seventh winter, and looked vaguely like her full aunt, Chiana. Kostas did not invite her to sit down; neither did he offer wine or other refreshment. This was not a reception chamber at High Kirat.
“My lord,” she began, perfectly composed, “I have been sent to offer terms.”
Kostas laughed in her face.
“You’d best listen,” she advised coldly. “The offer will not be repeated.”
“And what offer is that? To surrender my troops for slaughter?”
“No. To return in peace to High Kirat, so that when the Vellant’im win, as they surely will, you and your family will live.”
“Is that what they offered your father in exchange for his treachery?”
She met his gaze levelly and said nothing.
Kostas wanted to know just one more thing. “You like the idea of becoming a princess of Syr, don’t you?”
Her answer was demure and damning. “I could not go against my father’s wishes, my lord.”
“I make you a counteroffer, Izaea. Give me all the information I need on the enemy within your walls, then go back and at midnight tonight open the postern gates to my soldiers. Do this, and / will let you live.”
Izaea smiled. “They can mire you down here forever, Uncle. And you’ll lose. No one will come from Medawari, where Prince Cabar has locked himself in his keep. He will neither help nor hinder either side in this war. But it’s no secret from you, surely, that there are more and more Vellanti warriors ready to come destroy you.”
“Let them try,” said Kostas, shrugging.
Her eyes, brown tinged with green, began to sparkle. “If you care nothing for yourself or young Saumer, Prince Arlis’ brother, I feel sure you’ll withdraw to keep Rihani safe.” After a slight pause, she added, “Princess Gemma’s son.”
Kostas’ face turned to stone.
“And Gemma herself, and her daughter. Did I neglect to mention that? One result of your return to High Kirat will be that Athmyr will be left alone.”
Over the years he had learned to care for pale, gentle Danladi. His youthful desire for Gemma had been comprised of one part lust and four parts ambition, and he knew it. Still, the blow to his pride had been a severe one, and even after so long he could not think of his brother’s wife without a twinge of uncomfortable emotion kept carefully hidden.
Izaea smiled serenely. “However, if you attack Catha Heights, the order will be given at Athmyr. I’ve provided very through descriptions so they’ll know which women to save for—shall we say—their amusement?”
Any man would have reacted the same way to such threats directed at any woman. He surged to his feet, grasped Izaea’s arm, and hauled her outside into the misting rain.
“Assemble the commanders!” he bellowed. Izaea didn’t try to shake off his bruising grip; she had succeeded in infuriating him, which had been her goal. She did not yet know what a mistake it had been, or what it would cost her.
The leaders of four major and six minor holdings came running. Titled “commanders” only through courtesy and convenience, for Kostas and his senior captain gave the only orders, they ranged from the middle-aged athri of Chalsan Manor to the twenty-three-year-old granddaughter of the ancient crone who ruled Pyrme Landhold. Some of their troops had come with them, and when the crowd swelled to about a hundred men and women, Kostas finally spoke.
“You may not recognize the Lady Izaea—it’s difficult rr-see a daughter of Syr when she wears traitor’s clothing. She offers me retreat or destruction. I choose neither! But as Prince of Syr, I do choose to judge and sentence her for her betrayal.”
Izaea flinched away from him, beginning to understand her danger. Kostas grabbed her around the waist from behind, pinning her arms as well. Holding her immobile to his side, he drew his knife and rested it against her throat. She screamed and twisted her face away.
“Gently—you’ll cut yourself,” he told her with an almost caressing menace.
“Kill her,” someone said.
To Izaea he whispered, “You have made a serious error, my lady. I am not as civilized as some.” She cringed again and he chuckled. “Shocking, isn’t it?”
“She deserves to die,” said another in the crowd.
Kostas nodded. “But I think I’ll leave her alive to remind others of what happens to those who listen to treachery.”
Deftly, he jerked the knife upward. Izaea shrieked as her left ear was sliced from her skull. Kostas released her and she toppled to the ground, her shrill cries increasing as she saw the blood streaming down her hands. With a flick of his wrist, the knife studded the damp grass beside her.
“Next time,” he said softly, “it will be your heart.” Turning to his captain, he ordered, “Bind the wound and put her on her horse. And when my squires return, send them to me at once. I’ve waited long enough to take back what is mine.”
Miyon hated Dragon’s Rest as much as he hated Stronghold, and for the same reason: neither belonged to him. His passion to possess the latter was perhaps a whit the more powerful for being of longer duration, but every time he saw the graceful sweep of Pol’s palace his guts ground with fury. His iron had helped build Dragon’s Rest, iron that Sunrunner witch Sioned had cheated him out of in 719.
But as deeply as he loathed and lusted after both places, Pol’s residence had a distinct advantage over Rohan’s: there were more secluded places in which to hold a private conversation.
He waited in one such location for Catallen to arrive. The tutor probably had not expected to be summoned so soon, but Miyon needed information before he could select his course of action. The tale he’d told Meiglan last night— fleeing for his life after the Merida had seized command of his army to effect the attack against Tuath—had explained his immediate presence, but there were many things he must know. Catallen had better provide some answers.
The tutor slunk by, glancing nervously around him. Miyon cursed quietly—the man could not have looked more the conspirator if he’d worn a craft sign—and Catallen jumped. After another swift look down the hallway, he slipped into the alcove and sketched a hasty bow.
“Pardon my lateness, your grace—Princess Jihan was slow to learn the day’s lesson.”
“My granddaughter’s education concerns me not at all. Sitting in this closet waiting for you does.”
“I’m sorry, your grace. I—“
“Enough. I want to know everything you know, Catallen. Every detail about Dragon’s Rest, the Desert, Waes— everything.”
“I don’t have access to—“
“I didn’t send you here to teach history to Pol’s children or new songs to Pol’s wife! I want information about Pol himself, and I want it now.”
Catallen talked for some time, and Miyon did not interrupt him. He learned that Andry had used some bizarre spell at Goddess Keep, and that a considerable village of refugees had sprung up there; that strange things were happening in Firon; that Ludhil was conducting a pathetic little war of his own on Dorval; that Kostas and Arlis had been more successful in their endeavors but that the former was currently frustrated by Catha Heights and the latter by bad weather; that Tilal and Ostvel were cooling their heels in Waes, waiting for Rohan to decide if Swalekeep merited an attack; and that Chiana was universally suspect but that no one had any proof against her.
Miyon also learned that his son Birioc now occupied Tuath Castle and had proclaimed himself its lord. He wondered sardonically what nicety of feeling had prevented the young fool from naming himself Prince of Cunaxa; perhaps one of his Merida uncles had explained Miyon’s plans to him and he had stopped preening himself long enough to understand.
Best of all, he learned that Rohan and Pol were pent up in Stronghold, possibly preparing for a battle. But, knowing Rohan, probably not.
Catallen finished and Miyon sent him on his way. Leaving the alcove some time later, he meandered around the lower gardens in the intermittent sunshine and considered his next moves.
First things first. The Prince and Princess of Firon were in his very hands. The banner of Snowcoves flying over Balarat could mean only one thing: Yarin had decided the time was right for seizing the princedom he thought should have come to him in 719 anyway, rather than to a distant descendant of a long-dead Fironese prince. The athri’s discontent had been carefully noted by Miyon some years ago for future use; the time to use the knowledge had come.
But how? He could warn Lark of his brother-by-marriage’s treachery, and thereby gain invaluable credit for himself. It had the additional advantage of removing Laric from Dragon’s Rest to go save his princedom—taking along with him a sizable contingent of Pol’s troops. Pity he couldn’t rid himself of Lisiel and her new son at the same time; the brat’s squalling had kept him awake all last night.
He could stay quiet about Yarin’s ambitions—except in a report to Chiana, who would pass it along to the Vellant’im. He had no need of proving his value to them, however; something else he had in mind would make him their valued ally. Besides, what did the Vellant’im care about the wastes of Firon?
Laric, he decided with a smile, would be going home. If a messenger was sent to Cunaxa now, in twenty-five days or so Yarin could be warned at Balarat to expect his sister’s husband. It would take Laric twice that long to get there. With luck, he might even die of cold or avalanche along the way.
Next on Miyon’s list was Stronghold. He didn’t want it destroyed. He wanted it for himself. But that blue-eyed dragon who held it would continue to do so unless a force vastly outnumbering his own attacked. He’d given up Radzyn and Remagev; Miyon guessed that faced with similar odds, he’d relinquish Stronghold, too. So the objective was to keep Tallain occupied—which Birioc seemed to be doing— and prevent anyone, mainly Kostas, from coming to Rohan’s aid. A little more luck, and not only would Rohan be dead at last, but Meiglan would be a widow. And who would protect her and her young daughters? He grinned again, tore a thin branch off a willow tree that got in his way, and wondered what price to ask for his little treasures from Chiana and Rinhoel.
But before that could happen, Kostas must be stopped. He tagged it mentally for his message to Chiana, and then turned his mind to the more interesting and immediate question: the price he could get for Dragon’s Rest itself. The palace was only two days from Stronghold—through a narrow, twisting pass unsuited to the movement of soldiers, true, but Dragon Gap would be the last place from which Rohan would expect the Vellanti army to appear. It would be tricky—handing it over to them without seeming to, preserving his role as innocent victim of circumstances as long as possible—but-he felt sure he could do it. With Laric gone and, say, sixty or so of Pol’s guard with him as escort, it would be easier to take the valley. Its natural defense of high-walled canyon mouth was formidable, but there had to be a way.
Edrel would have to be dealt with. Miyon turned the problem over in his mind for some time, unaware that he’d left the gardens behind and trudged through open fields until the damp soaked through the thin leather of his boots. But by then he cared nothing for the cold and wet. He had figured out a way to present the Vellant’im with Dragon’s Rest on a golden plate.
Seeing that he was nearly at the little cottage Pol had built for Meiglan, he decided to rest and warm himself there. He expected to find comfort, tinder for a fire, and perhaps something to eat or drink.
He did not expect to find saddlebags enough for fifteen horses packed for a journey.
By the time he’d inspected three sets he knew what was going on. Children’s clothes, food for a journey, even a map of the route to Stronghold—Miyon reclined in a large cowhide armchair and wondered how in the name of the Storm God he had sired so mortally stupid a daughter.
So she sought escape, did she? Or, knowing her, she sought Pol’s pretty face and big strong arms. Well, she would not find him. She must have started planning this almost the moment he’d arrived last night. It pleased him to think that he could still frighten her so much; she would be easier to control. This desperate bid for freedom and Pol was the best thing he’d learned all day.
He rested a little while, absorbing his surroundings with increasing amazement. Why a prince with so splendid a palace would want to construct something this vulgar—and with his own hands, too—was beyond him. There were two bedchambers and this main room where Meiglan undoubtedly relived her peasant childhood by cooking at the huge hearth. Ludicrous, that a prince wanted to live like the common ruck. But then, Pol’s head was stuffed full of strange notions; it was just as well he wouldn’t live to inflict them on everyone else as High Prince.
After a time Miyon rose, stretched, and found flint and kindling. He hated having to sacrifice his favorite cloak, but this had to look genuine for Lark’s and Edrel’s sakes. Meiglan was too thick to guess at once, but Miyon would enlighten her as to exactly what had happened—and why.
He lit a fire in the hearth and made sure it was drawing well—he had to admit that Pol had done a good job setting the chimney. Then he yanked the patterned quilts from the beds and twirled them into long ropes that snaked along the wooden floor from the hearth toward the smaller rooms. A storage chest yielded a jar of cooking grease, congealed in the chill but adequate to his purposes. Smearing it on his cloak, he laid one end to the big quilt and the other in the hearth. Flames guided toward the greasy material caught and burned. Art, he told himself, grinning. Pure art.
Miyon stayed within as long as he could in the gathering smoke. When all the coverlets and the floor beneath them were burning, he stumbled, coughing, out the door.
It was cold outside without his cloak, but knowledge of a task charmingly accomplished wanned him. And as he waved his arms and shouted for help, the blood flowed even more sweetly through his veins.
The first man up the little hill was the winemaster, who had been on his way back from an inspection of his vineyards. Miyon collapsed against the man’s chest, keeping a good grip on him so he could neither run for help nor attempt to put out the fire within. By the time others reached the cottage, it was too late. They managed to stop the total destruction Miyon had hoped for, but the place was left only a hollow shell of wooden beams and chimney. Nearly everything inside was cinders.
“I was chilled by my walk,” Miyon explained later from his bed to Meiglan, Edrel, and Norian as Master Evarin mixed a poultice for his smoke-reddened eyes. “The fire I built in the hearth was a little too warm. I dropped off to sleep—and woke up coughing myself half to death. I was sitting too close and my cloak caught.” He swallowed wine to ease an admittedly sore throat, and glanced up at Meiglan. “I’m sorry, my treasure, but though they saved the frame and chimney, everything within the cottage is gone.”
Her stricken expression was seen as shock at the loss of Pol’s gift to her; Norian patted her hand in sympathy. Miyon was surprised to find his daughter was smarter than he’d thought, to understand without his explaining it to her in words of one syllable.
Still, just in case, he added, “I know you value what you kept there. But don’t let the loss worry you, Meiglan dearest.”
“You must lie back now, your grace,” the Sunrunner physician said, “and put this on your eyes. I’ll mix a draught that will soothe your lungs as well.”
“I thank you for your skill, Master Evarin,” he said, and coughed. “It won’t make me sleep, will it?”
“No, your grace. Not even drowsy.”
“Good. I must speak with Prince Laric at once. On my walk—I have a habit of taking long walks alone, they allow me to think in peace—I recalled something he needs to know.”
The only walks Miyon was in the habit of taking were from one mistress’ bed to another, and Meiglan knew it. She stared at him with velvet brown eyes that had always reminded him of a frightened cow’s. Then long lashes lowered and she bit her lip. Miyon pretended a coughing fit to hide laughter, then said, “Lord Edrel, would you be so good as to find Prince Laric for me? This really can’t wait.”
Mirsath, his cousin Karanaya, and the Sunrunner Johlarian met in Faolain Lowland’s oratory. A simple room off the main hall, it glittered with the treasures of five generations: crystal wedding goblets, silver plate and a delicate container for salt, gold candlesticks, and—the High Prince’s gift on completion of the new keep—a gilt rack to hold vigil dies. Ordinarily these were lit only for a remembrance ritaal for royal dead; Mirsath had ordered candles kept burning here until Lowland was free.
No sunshine spilled through the colored glass skylights. The long row of tiny flames at the back of the room provided the only illumination beneath gray-black skies. Mirsath watched Karanaya walk back and forth in front of them, each pass bending the white-gold fires.
“We can forget any help from Kostas,” she was saying— another needless repetition of the obvious. In the days since Lord Maarken had summarized the war for Johlarian, they had hoped, beseeched the Goddess, and cursed the Syrene prince for adhering to war’s logic rather than Lowland’s desperate need.
“We have only ourselves,” Karanaya went on, still prowling, fingering the heavy golden chain around her neck. “Rohan can’t help. Kostas won’t.”
“Can’t,” Mirsath corrected wearily. “We’re only two hundred. There are thousands in Syr—“
“We’re the gateway to the Desert!”
“In case you hadn’t noticed, they’re already in the Desert,” Karanaya snapped.
“But what is it that keeps them here, instead of going around us?” Johlarian asked. “They want Lowland, but what for?”
“Could it be because we’re part of the Desert?” Mirsath asked. “They’ve destroyed every other place they’ve taken— but not Radzyn or Whitecliff or Remagev. Is it something about castles belonging to Rohan that—“
“There’s no sense in that,” said his cousin. “They destroyed Riverport and almost leveled Tuath, and they’re part of the Desert.”
“As much sense as risking your life to grab those pearls that night!” he snarled, out of patience with her.
She clasped both hands over her bodice, where between her breasts rested a tiny silk pouch holding the six iridescent black drops. “The Dragon’s Tears were my wedding present,” she began furiously, “the only thing I saved from the wreckage, and the only dowry I—“
“Assuming you live long enough to find another husband!”
“My lord, my lady!” Johlarian pleaded.
Mirsath ignored him. “Goddess, if only we could fight them!” He sank into a spindly fruitwood chair and crossed long legs at the ankles. “All we can do is wait for help. And block their efforts if we can. They’ve built a dozen bridging ladders, and lost every one of them to Sunrunner’s Fire. They’ve tried diverting the moat—sheer folly at this time of year, with the northern rains swelling the river. They’ve even poisoned the water, not knowing that we have our own well inside the walls.”
“All they have to do is starve us out,” Karanaya reminded him.
“But that wouldn’t take the hundreds who’re camped outside. Fifty or sixty, maybe, to wait for our surrender. Why don’t they use their strength and take us? They could. But they don’t. Why do they want Lowland?”
The same question was exercising the mind of Princess Tobin at Stronghold. The hardships of travel across the Long Sand had weakened her more than she would admit, but days of rest and recovery in her birthplace had gradually put some strength back into her limbs. Chay no longer shouted at her when she walked downstairs using her canes, although he did scowl horribly when she appeared one morning with just one to support her. Speech was still difficult, and succeeding days of overcast skies nearly drove her mad. But, trapped within her mind for the most part, she had plenty of time to think. And one of the things that puzzled her most was Faolain Lowland.
Tobin had always been a creature of movement. It frustrated her that her body would not respond with its former strength and suppleness to the energy of her mind. As tentative control returned, she took to walking up and down the center of the Great Hall morning and afternoon. Servants dodged nimbly around her, cleaning up after one meal or setting up for the next. Tobin would have gone outside to be out of their way, but courtyard cobbles and gravel garden pathways were difficult for her to negotiate. So across the smooth blue and green tiles of the Great Hall she limped on one good leg, one dragging foot, and her cane.
There must be something they weren’t seeing, some connection that had escaped them. Unlike Gilad Seahold and Faolain Riverport and dozens of smaller holdings, Desert castles still stood, for reasons unknown. More to the point, Lowland still stood—and had received an offer of peaceable
STRONGHOLD surrender, which Radzyn and Remagev had not. Wba: the value placed on these keeps that kept them mtact?
Radzyn was easily,explained: a secure base with the aaty safe harbor on the Desert coast. Remagev was more dffi-cult. It had no strategic significance. Lowland did, but the Vellant’im could have gone around it. They didn’t need it militarily. So why—?
She turned at the huge double doors and started back up the central aisle to the high table. Behind it was the immense tapestry, a stylized gold dragon on blue, an emerald set into the ring the crowned beast held. Two chairs—not quite thrones—were directly below it, carved with dragons. It was a powerful setting Rohan had created for himself, lacking only him and Sioned to complete it. No, she corrected, not for himself, but for others. She remembered the night he had been officially acclaimed High Prince, how Sioned had conjured a dragon of Fire to leap through the air and meld into that tapestry. A brilliant piece of dramatic management, flamboyant and effective. Rohan’d shown the same impulse the night of the escape from Remagev, pretending that Pol’s dragon had come at his call, playing it for all he was worth. No one could fault her little brother for lack of imagination...
But war was a grimly practical business. War depended on facts. Numbers of troops, directions of march, timing of maneuvers—war was as brutal and direct as the sword that hung near the tapestry, the sword Rohan had not touched for the length of Pol’s life.
And yet—Tobin’s thoughts whirled and she leaned on her cane, staring at the golden dragon’s outspread wings. The Vellant’im had fallen on their faces at sight of a dragon.
Tobin sacrificed pride to haste and snagged a passing servant to help her upstairs. She stammered badly with impatience while telling him she was quite well, merely fatigued, and wished neither husband nor physician to attend her. Alone in her chamber, she settled into a deep armchair and closed her eyes. Her own copy of the book had been offered up to necessity, but she had a very good memory and Sioned had taught her a few Sunrunner tricks for enhancing it. Thoroughly, methodically, she began to review everything Betheyn had read her from Feylin’s dragon book.
Kostas had small use for the gadgets Rohan enjoyed so much. Water clocks were interesting things, no doubt, but the day progressed whether one measured its passing or not; pens that held ink within them rather than needing to be dipped might save time, but the old ones worked just as well. On the twelfth day of Winter, however, Kostas had reason to applaud the High Prince’s fascination with innovative devices, and his habit of sharing them with others.
The Fironese who made water clocks also tinkered with other forms of glass. One of the results rested now in Kostas’ hands, lent him by Rihani, to whom Rohan had given it at the last Riaila. A long, thin tube with clear glass at one end and a lens at the other, it made the faraway loom close enough to touch.
Kostas sat back on his heels amid the trees, gazing once more through the lens at the swollen rush of the Catha River. A flatboat hugged the bank, not daring to venture out into the main current. It rode low in the water, as if wallowing with heavy supplies of grain and meat and other foodstuffs. Thick waterproofs were draped over lumps that could have been crates and barrels. On a thin pennant fluttering from short poles at the stern, the black deer of Meadowlord leaped on a field of light spring green. A nice touch; Saumer’s idea. Unhappily, it had been impossible to outfit the men on board with the appropriate tunics. Kostas hoped the flag would be convincing enough, and that none of the soldiers concealed beneath the tarps moved at the wrong moment. The slightest shifting to ease cramped muscles might prove fatal. And Goddess forbid a sneeze.
Taking the lens from his eye, Kostas tucked it in its leather case and crept back into the deeper shelter of the woods. “Only a little while until they reach the docks. Is everything ready?”
Rihani nodded. “Half the army at the roadside field, the other half on the rise Aunt Stoned guided us to.”
It could have been any Sunrunner, of course, but Kostas had chosen to attribute the Fire-tipped pine to the High Princess. It heartened the troops—and Kostas had had a feeling, anyway. He passed the lens to his nephew. “Keep watch for me.”
“Yes, my lord.”
Since sending Izaea back to Catha Heights, Kostas had worked on and rejected plan after plan for taking the keep.
But two days ago a scout had returned: boats were coming downriver. It had been too quick to organize a battle, though he’d sent archers to attack if possible while the supplies were unloaded and carted to the castle. But the event had given Kostas an idea. He’d ordered a similar craft made upstream, finding use at last for the six boatwrights from the Faolain who were among his soldiers.
Saumer’s notion about the pennant was truly inspired. The other three boats had carried no identification, but that meant little. If Chiana was sending supplies to the enemy, she could advertise it or not; all she needed to claim was that her good intentions had been thwarted by the enemy. But Meadowlord’s flag openly displayed might reveal much. Conspiracy with the Vellant’im would mean a peaceable unloading; armed efforts to seize the boat would prove Chiana innocent—perhaps. It could be that along with word of her cooperation had come orders to make everything look good for her sake. Kostas had his doubts about that, but Rihani thought it possible and the boy’s mind was a sharp one.
“My lord!” his nephew whispered, drawing his attention, and he scooted forward to the edge of the wood. Taking the lens, he peered through it and nearly yelped in delight. A mere five Vellanti warriors were coming down from the castle to the docks.
“So Chiana is guilty after all,” he murmured. “We’ve just given Tilal the excuse he needs to take Swalekeep!”
“I wish we had a Sunrunner so we could tell him,” Rihani said. “But with this sky, a Sunrunner wouldn’t be any help anyway. Shall I get a courier ready to leave at once, my lord?”
“We’ll wait until we can also send word of a victory.” He squinted through the lens once more, waiting, holding his breath as the warriors approached the arriving flatboat. “That’s it,” he encouraged softly. “Nice and humble, Saumer—you’re not a prince but a common boatman, scared half out of your wits by these savages—very good!”
Geography favored them beyond Kostas’ hopes. The docks were shielded by a stand of tall trees that provided cooling shade to workers in summer. Anything sailing downriver was seen from the castle long before it reached the docks, but once there it became invisible. He watched gleefully as
Saumer, ragged and rain-soaked like the other two men who had guided the boat, bowed before the bearded enemy. No one at Catha Heights saw when the three Vellant’im who climbed onto the boat had their throats slit, and the other two died on the dock with knives in their guts.
Kostas watched his twenty soldiers conceal the corpses beneath the waterproofs. “Right,” he said briskly, casing the lens once more.
“How long before Saumer opens the gates once he’s inside?”
“However long it is, we’d better get to our positions.” He clasped his nephew’s shoulder. “I know you wanted to go with him, but one of you had to take command of the second wing.”
“Saumer’s a better actor than I am, anyway,” Rihani grinned. “Goddess watch over you, my lord.”
“And you.” But it was not the Goddess he thought of as he returned to his horse and rode to join his main army. It was the Father of Storms, who had dominion over Air and Water. The freshening wind and light rain in his face might be taken as omens of approval—along with sudden thunder above the hills, as if the Storm God laughed in anticipation of a good fight, a fine victory.
Kostas laughed, too, feeling more alive than at any time in his fifty years. He had been born for this—not to preside over law courts or listen to tallies of yearly yield in wheat and cattle and wine. Rohan might deplore the use of swords to settle matters, but not every prince felt the same. And a good thing, too. It was Kostas’ kind that was needed now— unafraid of fierce battle, of killing those who dared take what was his. His sword would be wind-swift today, and the blood of his enemies would rain on the land.
“Madness!” Shaking her head vigorously, Thanys blocked Meiglan’s way to the larger of the wardrobes. “You know your father—you can’t escape him.”
“I will leave here and he won’t stop me!”
“Even if you succeed in leaving, he’ll come after you.”
“Not if he doesn’t know I’m gone until it’s too late.”
“My lady, what’s come over you?” Thanys cried. “You’re safe here at Dragon’s Rest!”
“If you think that, you’re as stupid as my father believes me to be!” She gripped the servant’s arms. “I can’t stand it here any longer. It was bearable before my father came, but now—I can’t stay, I can’t!”
“So you’d endanger your children—“
“Goddess help you, don’t you see? They’ll be safer at Stronghold under siege than here with Miyon! It’s not just for me, it’s for them!”
It wasn’t the exact truth, but Thanys had no need to know that. Meiglan simply could live no longer with her fear and without Pol. She wasn’t Gemma or Alasen or Danladi, to hold her keep while her husband was at war. Laric and Edrel would do better without her. In freeing herself from her father, she was freeing them to defend Dragon’s Rest— and against him, if necessary.
Miyon’s arrival and his destruction of the cottage had pushed her that final step to real panic. All that kept her from tumbling over the precipice was the feverish need to flee to the only safety she had ever known.
Instead of the fifteen she had thought to take, it would be just herself, the girls, and two guards. Instead of ample food and clothing, they would travel only with what they wore and enough for a sketchy meal on the road. Instead of taking the usual two days, they would ride as fast as they could without killing themselves or their horses.
Meiglan had told no one but Laroshin, the guards commander, of her original plan. He had not been happy, but as his liege lady she had given her orders and sworn him to secrecy. She knew that the fire had come as a relief to him, preventing what he considered a rash course of action.
This time only Thanys knew, and she would order Laroshin to have five horses saddled and ready at midnight, after Lisiel formally Named her new son, Meiglan would summon her daughters to her chambers after dinner to hear their lessons as usual. But she would tuck them up in her own bed, and when everything was ready hurry them through the hidden passage to their father’s rooms. Pol had long ago shown her the secret stairway there; she hoped she remembered how to open it.
Thanys sighed heavily and got out of Meiglan’s way. She busied herself refolding clothes the girls would wear tonight— warm woolen trousers and shirts, with matching dark cloaks— while Meiglan pulled out similar garments for herself, “My lady ... I wish you’d reconsider and take me with you.”
“I need you to stay and keep my father from this room as long as possible. Tell him—tell him the children and I have caught chills and can’t be disturbed. He can’t find out I’ve gone before noon tomorrow.”
“He will ride after you.”
“I’ve a right to go to my husband!”
“But in secret? In the dead of night? What will Prince Laric and Lord Edrel think? What will I tell them?”
“Anything you like!” She tossed clothes onto the bed and rounded on the servant. “I don’t care! Don’t you understand? This isn’t my problem, any of it! I don’t know what to do, what to say, how to keep my father from destroying us all if he gets half a chance! I want Pol! I want to be safe and know my children are safe and—and—“ Hearing hysteria in her voice, she clapped both hands over her mouth and shook.
Thanys embraced her, rocked her gently back and forth. “There, sweeting, there. You weren’t born to this, it’s not in your nature to be at war. When you married him, I sang inside. I thought, at last she’ll have the life she deserves, all elegance and joy and never an angry word from a husband who’ll cherish her. But he left you, and—“
“He had to,” Meiglan quavered. “This isn’t his fault, Thanys.”
“He should be here to protect you, little one. Hush now, hush. Just be brave, and soon you’ll be with him again, where you belong.”
The wind up from the southwest strengthened slowly— too slowly for Tobin’s temper. She needed sunlight, needed the clouds to blow away from Stronghold and Faolain Lowland. It was noon before the first wisps of sunlight threaded Desert air, but by that time she had summoned Sioned and in a halting, hesitant voice explained her idea.
“But that’s crazy!” was Sioned’s first reaction; her second, “Do you think it’ll work?”
“iNeed sunlight,” Tobin reminded her.
“And there’s none to be had at the moment, nor likely to be soon...” Sioned’s face changed subtly. -Let me 90 look something up.”
Tobin waited in a storm of restless impotence for Sraoed to return. She glared at the sky beyond her window, wffiiag the wind to strength and the sun to burn away lingering haze. The water clock in the corner indicated just noon when Sioned came back, Pol in tow and the translated copy of the Star Scroll in her arm.
“One of you is going to explain this, right?” Pol asked.
Tobin, understanding the fierce, gleeful light in Sioned’s green eyes, gave him her half-smile. “Patience,” she counseled, blithely ignoring the fact that she herself possessed precious little of that commodity.
“I need a deep, wide bowl, preferably pure metal,” Sioned told her son. “And a cup of strong wine.” Holding up a small velvet pouch, she finished, “I never have liked the taste of this stuff.”
Pol turned pale beneath his tan. “Mother—that’s dranath.”
“Of course it is. I’ve never done this before and I need all the help I can get. Now, the bowl and wine, please?”