“TIMING,” said Draza, “will be everything.”
Kerluthan, staring hard at the map spread on Ostvel’s camp cot, was more blunt. “You’re going to take a beating downriver if this doesn’t work the way you plan.”
Smiling at him, Tilal said, “That’s why you’re going to lead the cavalry.”
Kerluthan looked surprised, then proud. “Thank you, my lord!”
“So,” Tilal went on, “if we all know what we’re about, let’s get to it.”
The map was rolled, the two young lords departed, and Ostvel deigned to express himself with a vast sigh.
“That’s two,” Tilal said.
“I beg your pardon? Two what?”
“Two sighs. Also a grunt and three grimaces. Would you care to elaborate?”
“Goddess, to be their age again,” Ostvel said. “Draza thinks he’s going to have a wonderful time. He probably will. And Kerluthan is straining at the bit to prove himself the warrior his father wasn’t.”
“I just hope he doesn’t get so involved in his charge that he won’t be where I need him when I need him there.”
“If he isn’t, your sweet lady wife will have him for dinner.”
“Roasted on a spit, with mushroom gravy,” Tilal agreed cheerfully. “Speaking of wives, yours will use my hollow bones for wind chimes if anything happens to you. Must I make it formal, Ostvel?”
“No.” Another sigh. “I’ll just watch.”
“You and Andrev.”
“He won’t much like that.”
“At least he’s a squire who’s sworn to follow orders. I thought you’d put up a fight. Thank you for being sensible.”
“It’s not sense. It’s age. Believe me, the one doesn’t come with the other. My brain has been through as many winters as my body, but doesn’t seem willing to acknowledge it.” He flexed his fingers inside gloves that afforded scant warmth in the damp and chill.
“I’ll have you in Swalekeep by tomorrow evening and you can take a good hot soak.” With a tight grin he added, “In Princess Chiana’s very own tub. They say it has solid gold spigots.”
“And an indelible ring of slime. Thank you, no. Not unless Andrev can rinse it out with Sunrunner’s Fire.” He stretched and stood up. “I know you won’t sleep, but at least lie down and pretend for a little while. It’s good for morale.”
“Chay used to tell Rohan that, back when we were fighting Roelstra.”
“I know. That’s why I said it.” Ostvel ruffled the younger man’s hair, smiling. “It also happens to be good advice. Follow it.”
When he was alone, Tilal extinguished the lamp, encouraging belief among his people that he was serene enough in his mind to sleep. But if sleep was impossible, serenity was a joke. He knew what might happen tomorrow.
He’d been using everything learned from that long-ago campaign against the armies of Princemarch and Syr— Good Goddess, thirty-three winters ago, almost exactly. Though he’d been only a squire, his service had required constant attendance on his prince. And so he’d been privy to plans and conferences and late-night talks between Rohan and Chay, in a tent not so very different from this one. Sometimes his father had been there, too. Dawi had not been a soldier, but he had led his troops as a prince should, and fought bravely. Tilal had been proud of him for that, but prouder still of the Prince of Syr he’d become.
I’m like him, I suppose. I’d rather rule my princedom in peace. But I’m the better soldier. And Kostas was better than either of us, the way he sliced through the enemy like a knife through soft cheese. But those of us who were taught by Rohan don’t find much to be proud of in being that kind of prince.
Kostas would call that nonsense. He told me once that if we forget how to make war, we make ourselves weak. Easy targets. And I suppose that’s true. But I don’t enjoy this, even though it has to be done. It makes me tired and sad. Like it did Father and Rohan—and, after a while, even Chay.
Now, standing in the silent half-dawn, he could imagine them seated here, taking a moment for quiet thought before the next idea was presented, discussed, accepted, rejected, or set aside for later consideration. Tilal had tried the same method, but Ostvel knew little about war, Draza even less, and Kerluthan was the type who drew his sword first and thought about it several days later. If at all.
He envied Pol. Maarken and Chay were with him; Walvis was within reach of sunlight. All I have is what I remember. What I learned. I hope it’s enough.
“My lord? Are you asleep?”
He spun around, peering at the drawn tent flap. “Princess Naydra? Please, come in.” He relit the lamp, fumbling a bit with the flint. Manners instilled first by his mother and then by Sioned took over; he offered her wine, a chair, another cloak against the cold.
She refused all of it. “I need nothing, my lord. Actually, I’ve come to give you something.”
He found himself holding a little gold dragon with ruby eyes.
“It belongs to Rinhoel. I borrowed it—well,” she corrected with a little smile, “stole it. It’s a Vellanti token of safe-passage through their lines.”
“Like the one you say Aurar used?” He turned it over in his fingers, admiring the workmanship. “I’ve seen ones like it, but I didn’t know what they were for. You may need this one to get back into Swalekeep.”
“No. Branig will see to it. I want you to have this. I feel certain you’ll think of a way to use it to better advantage than I.” She smiled again, weariness carving more lines into her face. “I’ll make sure that chambers are waiting for you and Lord Ostvel in Swalekeep. Good night, my lord.”
“My lady—“ he began, but she was gone. He looked down at the dragon. The eyes glowed in the lamplight, but he saw neither threat nor evil. In fact, he mused, ruby was the gem of success in war.
*
His arms lashed tightly behind his back, Rialt stumbled up countless steps, prodded by the man-at-arms behind him when he tried to stop and catch his breath. The cellar’s icy damp had clogged his nose, and a dirty cloth had been shoved halfway down his throat. He followed the broad-shouldered guard, trying not to suffocate, not to lose his balance again, not to look at the painful brightness of the torch. But he was as starved for light as he was for warmth.
They emerged from the cellars into a windowed stairwell. He had worked the cloth out with his tongue and spat it on the floor. Tottering over to an open casement, he drank in fresh, cold air and the sight of the sun. It was barely dawn outside. A few people hurried to their duties in the stableyard; a breeze fingered the trees and blew overnight clouds south. After his years at Dragon’s Rest serving a Sunrunner prince, he automatically felt better at the prospect of a clear day. But he was no faradhi, and there was no help for him in sunlight.
“That’s enough,” one of the guards said. “Hurry it up. His grace doesn’t like to be kept waiting.” He approached with the gag, and Rialt shook his head.
“Not necessary,” he coughed.
The other man shrugged. “Even if he yelled, nobody’d hear him in the back halls. Leave it.”
“Thank you,” Rialt said, meaning it. He was taken down an empty corridor, up servants’ stairs, and by a privy entrance to chambers belonging to the ruling Prince of Meadowlord. Halian, who never got out of his bed much before noon, was dressed, brushed, and waiting impatiently. He wore slate-gray trousers and a handsome wool tunic to match, embroidered in gold oak leaves.
“Untie him,” the prince ordered.
The rope was removed. Rialt massaged circulation back into his arms, gradually warming in the overheated room. He longed to spit out the foul taste in his mouth, but one did not spit in the presence of princes. Neither did one ask for a cup of the fragrant mulled wine on a nearby table—not when the prince in question was glaring in fury.
Halian dismissed the guards with a gesture. When they were alone, he said, “Why is my niece dead?”
Rialt started. “Cluthine? My lord, I—“
“Dead!” he shouted. “A Lady of Meadowlord, daughter of my own dear sister Gennadi—they showed me her body where the knife went into her heart!”
Twin fireplaces blasted heat from either side of the chamber, but Rialt shivered again. “Your grace,” he began, “I don’t—“
“You do! And you’ll tell me why!” Halian approached, eyes flashing. “Tell me, you traitor, or I’ll have the same thing done to your wife!”
Terror unmanned him for an instant. But with the next breath he was livid with rage. “Look to your own wife instead! She’s the traitor here!”
“Do you think me a fool, to be distracted from your crimes by more accusations? You tell lies about my son, threaten my daughters and now my wife—“ The prince fisted one hand under Rialt’s nose. “I asked you a question and you’ll tell me the truth, by the Goddess!”
“By the Goddess, you are a fool!” He batted Halian’s arm away and went to the nearer hearth to warm his shaking fingers. “You don’t even know what questions to ask!”
“Answer me!”
He swung around. “Answer this! Why haven’t the Vel-lant’im attacked? Where does Aurar go when she rides out alone? Who are these people Chiana and Rinhoel have met in secret? Why imprison me and my wife? Why fortify Swalekeep’s walls on the west, where Tilal is camped?”
“Forti—? What are you talking about?”
Rialt told him.
Halfway through the onslaught, Halian groped his way to a chair and collapsed. Rialt never stopped talking— about the murdered Sunrunner from Waes, Aurar’s country excursions, the visitors from Cunaxa and the Vel-lanti army, the stockpiles of arms, the shipments of foodstuffs downriver. He ended with, “Now I have a question only you can answer. Who brought Lady Cluthine to you?”
“What?” Halian asked numbly.
“Who showed you her body? Did they also show you the little dragon she carried?” Blatant incomprehension greeted his words. “It was to be her safe-conduct if she encountered any Vellanti scouts! Did she still have it?”
“I don’t—I don’t know, how should I know such a thing? You’re not making sense. Vellanti scouts? They’re nowhere near Swalekeep. I don’t understand.”
“That much is excruciatingly obvious.” Rialt poured a large cup of wine and drank deep. “Put simply, your wife and son are conspiring with the Vellant’im. And the Vellant’im are close enough to see the smoke from these hearthfires. By Chiana’s and Rinhoel’s invitation!”
At last he had said something Halian could grasp. “That’s insanity! We have an agreement with them not to attack Meadowlord—just as my father would have wished, to prevent our becoming a battleground again!”
“Good Goddess, man, half the continent is a battleground!”
“But the Vellant’im want only the Desert. They took the coastline and the rivers so no one could come to Rohan’s defense. They don’t want anything from us except our neutrality. Chiana says—“
“I’ll just bet she does! Don’t you see? How could she know what they want unless they’ve been telling her all along?”
“It’s evident from their military strategy.” The prince had rallied, his look condescending. “You’re nothing more than a merchant, for all your title. You can’t be expected to understand such matters.”
“I understand two things well enough—there’s a Vel-lanti army taking its ease not three measures from Swale-keep, and Cluthine was killed because she was riding to tell Prince Tilal what I’ve just told you!”
It was not the wisest reference; Halian was reminded of his anger. “How do you know that?” he demanded.
“I sent her.” Rialt slumped. “I’m responsible for her death.”
“I knew it! From the moment you arrived in Swale-keep you caused trouble! Your lies twisted her to your own purposes and now she’s dead!”
“I accept the blame.” He met Halian’s gaze again. “How was she killed?”
“I already told you! A knife in her heart!”
“But how? Where was she found?”
“What does it matter? She’s dead and it’s your doing!”
“Think, dammit!” he cried. “You saw her body! Was her hair damp, as if she’d been outside? Were her boots muddy? Was she wearing a cloak?”
“Cloak?” the prince echoed blankly.
His absolute stupidity made Rialt half-insane. “If she was killed outside the walls, there’d be mud on her boots and on her clothes where she fell! But if she was killed outside, who found her? Why would the Vellant’im even allow her to be found? They’d want us to think our courier got through!”
“Your courier—a Lady of Meadowlord!” Halian snarled.
“Open your eyes! Don’t you understand who killed her?”
“You did! You admitted it yourself! You sent her to Prince Tilal. The Vellant’im discovered her—“
“I don’t think she even made it to the stableyard.” Suddenly exhausted, sick with guilt, Rialt drained the wine down his throat for whatever spurious warmth it could lend him. “Who brought her to you?”
“My son, of course. He couldn’t bear for anyone else to touch her. He was so fond of his cousin—“
“Goddess forgive me.” Rialt set down the cup. “You don’t see it, do you? No, of course you don’t. Someone caught her with the dragon—“
“On your treasonous errand!” Halian cried, surging to his feet. “You’ll be brought before my justice this morning and—“
“My lord? What’s all this commotion so early in the day?”
Rialt spun on his heel. Princess Chiana stood in the doorway to the outer hall, sleep-rumpled and softly beautiful in her bedgown and heavy velvet robe. All at once she put a hand to her throat, lace cuff falling back to reveal the scars left by a sorcerer’s shattered mirror.
“Oh, no! Have the Vellant’im attacked?”
It was a touch overdone, but subtlety would have been lost on Halian.
“No, my love.” He assisted his wife to a chair and she melted gracefully into it. “I’m sorry the noise disturbed you.”
Rialt clenched both fists. “You have no authority over me. I am sworn to the High Prince and he alone can try and sentence me.”
Chiana gasped. “Sentence? My lord, what is he talking about?”
“Well, merchant?” Halian drew himself to his full height. “Do you have the courage to repeat your accusations in her grace’s presence?”
If he did, he was a dead man.
Chiana was all big eyes and pretty bewilderment. “Halian? What do you mean? What sort of accusations?”
“Nothing to bother you, since he won’t be making them again. He will be tried for conspiring in the death of a Lady of Meadowlord. He—“
“Cluthine?” she echoed, horrified. “Are you saying Cluthine is dead?”
“Forgive me, my dearest, I’m sorry you had to hear it this way. I thought Rinhoel would have told you.”
And Rinhoel undoubtedly had—unless Chiana had been the one to tell him. Deciding he was probably dead anyway, Rialt wondered what his chances were of skewering her with a fireplace iron. Might as well die to a good purpose. He took a step closer to the hearth.
Then he thought of his wife. His son.
“Not Cluthine! Oh, how terrible! What happened?”
“She was on her way to Prince Tilal, at this filth’s orders,” Halian said, then went to the concealed door and told the guards to take Rialt back down to the cellar.
As Rialt was bound and gagged once more, a smile flirted with the corners of Chiana’s mouth. She withdrew from the pocket of her velvet robe a small twinkling thing of silver. She held it in her open palm for Rialt to see, then fisted it quickly as Halian returned to her side to soothe her.
*
There was a thin wooden bridge half a measure below Swalekeep. Naydra and Branig had crossed it last night without incident. But this morning their horses’ hoof-beats were frighteningly loud, even with the wind shaking the nearby trees. Surely the Vellant’im would hear when hundreds of horses and troops crossed in a little while— if the bridge even survived the weight. But Tilal seemed confident of his plans. Before she left the camp at dawn, he’d explained that he would come in this direction to get at Swalekeep itself, then attack the Vellanti army.
He said it in Branig’s hearing. He started to tell her more, but she silenced him with a smile. “I’m sure it’s a brilliant plan, my lord, but the fine points are completely wasted on me.”
She wondered if she should have warned him about Branig. But neither Cluthine’s death nor Rialt’s imprisonment had any bearing on the coming battle. She knew the really important information was accurate. She had done what she had set out to do. If she failed to return to Swalekeep, no matter. Branig had served his purpose in getting her this far. Still, even knowing that her success had been due to his help, she could not bring herself to trust him.
She had never trusted any man in her life except her husband and High Prince Rohan. With a father like hers, who could blame her? But now Branig was asking her to trust him and his people—whoever they were. It made no sense, for even if he had spoken the truth, she was Lallante’s daughter, and Lallante had been of the faction opposed to Branig’s in this strange, unsuspected conflict between diarmadhi factions.
They were safely in the wood now, where sound did not carry. Naydra’s curiosity was suddenly stronger than the dull misery of aching muscles and jarred, frozen bones. “Branig? Did my father ever know?”
He didn’t need to ask what she meant. “No. It was kept from him. Unlike Rohan, who knew what he was supposed to do.”
“Tell me how it happened.”
Branig turned in his saddle and smiled. “It’s a very long tale, the kind that should be saved for an evening around a fire—with lots of wine to make it sound more plausible. But since a night like that won’t be available to us for some little while, I’ll give you the short version.”
Naydra forgot the cold as she listened, amazed by the arrogance and appalled by the ruthlessness of her forebears.
Roelstra’s first choice of a wife had settled on either of the twin daughters of Anheld of Catha Freehold. As the name of his property suggested, Lord Anheld was sworn to no one—except, vaguely, the High Prince. Power ran in his family; Roelstra wanted a faradhi son. But Lady Milar took an instant dislike to him, and Lady Andrade—already a Sunrunner—openly loathed him. So he returned to Castle Crag furious and determined to oppose the Sunrunners for the insult dealt him.
After a time, Lallante was brought to his attention. Young, lovely, and intelligent, she was clever enough to let her family think she shared their ambitions for her.
It was intended that she become High Princess and teach her sons in secret about the sorcery that was her legacy. But Lallante’s own intent was to be only the High Princess, and teach her sons nothing. Her family could rage as they pleased; safe and unassailable as Roelstra’s wife, she would escape all diarmadhi plots for power.
“Hers was an intriguing character,” Branig mused. “Being of the opposing faction, we never knew her, of course. I don’t think her own family did, either. She managed to fool them long enough to get herself wed to the High Prince, and after that she did as she liked.”
“I don’t remember her very much,” Naydra said. “My father never spoke of her to us. He never said her name, that I recall. Lady Palila made the mistake of asking for her rooms once and he hit her so hard it nearly broke her jaw.”
Branig shrugged. “Perhaps he loved Lallante. Who can say? She may have loved him. She may have merely used him to escape her family. They waited, you know, for a son—just as your father did. I’m told that after Pandsala was born, they attempted to join the suite of servants around you princesses. None of them succeeded.”
“Because of my mother?”
“Because there were people like me watching for it. We couldn’t prevent the marriage, and we feared what it might produce, but at least we could try to prevent mischief. Your mother didn’t use her power. She was well-trained, we know that much—but it seems she rejected what she was. It must have shocked her family witless. Actually, they gave up on all of it, especially after your mother’s death. Until Mireva began to think seriously about lanthe’s sons.”
She wondered suddenly how her mother had died. In childbirth, she’d always been told. But—Branig’s side, Mireva’s side, her own family—what means would any of them scorn to achieve their desired ends? She began to understand Lallante’s withdrawal from the whole power-hungry mess of them.
“Anyway,” Branig continued, oblivious to Naydra’s suspicions, “Mireva got the three boys out of Feruche and raised them—well, the rest you know. We didn’t see that coming, I’m ashamed to say. They’d been quiet for so long, and we thought they’d lost their will and ambition. We should have known they were only waiting.”
“And now?”
“Chiana,” he said succinctly.
“But she’s not my full sister. Rinhoel isn’t diarmadhi.”
“No. But he is your father’s grandson. Useful for the basic claim to Princemarch.”
“So it all starts up again?” she demanded, horrified. “Some poor girl will be found to marry him, someone more biddable than my mother, and—“
“Yes. That’s how it reads to us. We do what we can. It’s more difficult now, because diarmadh’im are known again. Before, we were barely a distant memory. Now we’re real, we exist. Lord Andry wants us destroyed and he doesn’t make distinctions.” Branig stared at the road for a long moment. “He killed my grandmother’s sister, back in 728. She was nothing but a harmless old woman living in a cottage in the Veresch. I visited her once, when I was little. He had her killed, and burned that sunburst sign on the door—that was how we knew it was him.”
“One might think that because of this, you’d support Pol simply to oppose Andry, and for no other other reason than that.”
“Perhaps for some of us, that’s true,” he admitted. “But Andry’s persecutions aren’t new. We’ve survived similar things. What’s dangerous is the prospect of a High Prince loyal to Mireva’s line. They would dispose of the rest of us and the Sunrunners as well. All we want is what anyone wants: to be what we are, and live in peace.”
Naydra heard this wistful plea and thought of what Branig was willing to brave in order to fulfill it. Not just this perilous journey through the night, but years of enduring Chiana’s court, the constant danger of discovery, the giving over of his own desires for his life to the larger plan—if plan it was. It didn’t seem so. All his people did was attempt to foil the plots of Mireva’s faction. They made no moves of their own.
She hadn’t even done that much. She’d never needed to. She had been allowed to be what she was—Roelstra’s daughter, Narat’s wife—and live in peace.
But now she was Diarmadh’reia. With the title came power. She had no idea how to use it. But perhaps she wouldn’t have to. Perhaps being Diarmadh’reia would be enough...
To accomplish what?
Branig was talking again, and his words were an eerie echo of her own thoughts. “What we’ve always done is wait. All of us, no matter which side. We’ve hidden in the shadows of faradhi making. We can’t anymore. We have no princely powers, it’s true. But we do have our magic. If the faradh’im would allow us to use it, then perhaps we might help in this war. These are our lands too, your grace,” he finished with simple dignity.
“It’s all very convoluted, isn’t it?” she said, just for something to say.
“Isn’t it just? Balances shifting this way and that, back and forth, over and over again until nobody’s sure of anything. I like order, my lady, and nice, neat patterns to things. Perhaps that’s why I teach mathematics,” he ended with a smile.
Naydra didn’t respond to the humor. “Three kinds of power, all mixed up,” she said. “Can they be untangled, Branig?”
“Is there a nice, neat equation to solve it, you mean? I don’t know,” he said, but from the way his gaze met hers without wavering, she knew he was lying. Some people couldn’t look one in the face when they lied; others— her sister lanthe came immediately to mind—lied plain-faced, straight-eyed, and without a single flinch. Branig was one of these.
“You’re diarmadhi,” she pressed. “Even if you’re not of Lallante’s faction, surely you don’t want to see the Sunrunners in such power as they now have. Pol is a Sunrunner, and High Prince. You say you trust him. But what if he decides that you’re all the same, you and those you oppose? The fact remains that these Vellant’im do have something to do with the sorcerers.”
“I don’t know that this is fact at all, my lady.”
“I’m not a fool, Branig!” she exclaimed. “The Merida are their allies—and the Merida were your trained assassins!”
He reined in his horse at the edge of the woods and stared across the flat fields to the bulk of Swalekeep. “Your pardon for being blunt, my lady, but if we are all to be held accountable for what our ancestors did, then you have more to worry about than most.”
Either she was more exhausted than she thought or the cold was affecting her mind, because all at once she laughed. He frowned, then smiled uncertainly as she said, “You’ve got me there, Branig! If I forgive you the Merida, will you forgive me my father?”
“For siring you? Never,” he replied, grinning.
“I’d like to hear about your family, and how they broke off from the other sorcerers. What happened to cause the disagreement?”
“Another long story, and one I think I’ll save for that hearthfire and wine. We ought to hurry down this last stretch, my lady. Swalekeep is quiet for now, but soon it won’t be. I don’t want you caught in the fighting.”
*
“I still don’t think it’s fair,” Andrev muttered.
Ostvel cast him an amused sidelong glance. “I quite agree. But at least you can be of some use. All I am is a skinful of old bones on horseback.”
They were riding together with a pair of guards and several couriers to a hill overlooking the Faolain and Swalekeep. They wouldn’t be crossing the river until Tilal had won the battle. He’d been tediously adamant about keeping them out of harm’s way.
“And no protests from you, either, Andrev,” he’d said. “You’re more valuable to me as my Sunrunner than as my squire right now. When you tell Lord Ostvel what you’re seeing, he’ll analyze it and send me word.”
Which was the reason for the couriers on swift Radzyn mares. Ostvel’s brawny, feather-footed Kadar Water gelding snapped occasionally as the others danced their impatience for a run. There was no soothing the big brute; all Ostvel could hope was that the Radzyn horses sidestepped fast enough.
Chiana expected an attack from the west. That was just what she’d get. But Draza’s contingent would come from the north and east as well. And Kerluthan would lead a flanking charge to the south, wedging himself between the Vellant’im and Swalekeep. Attack everybody, indeed! Ostvel thought with a mental snort.
It was the enemy’s mistake, and Chiana’s, that they had not occupied the town or gotten close enough to defend it. Chiana had insisted that they stay back to make things look legitimate. So there was a nice chunk of land between the Vellanti army and Swalekeep, and once Kerluthan was on it, Draza would join him and help him push the enemy into Tilal’s waiting army.
As Draza had observed, timing was everything. And to ensure that people were where they were supposed to be when they were supposed to be there, Andrev would ride the winter sunlight and Ostvel would dispatch couriers.
Andrev had suggested signal fires. The terrain was such that there were no direct lines of sight available; he would have had to light them at strategic locations chosen beforehand. But he was nowhere near fully trained, as Ostvel gently reminded him. Sunrunning he could do; lighting torches a measure or two away he could not.
“Do you have enough light to take a look?” Ostvel asked, and Andrev nodded. He watched the wind tousle the boy’s silky blond hair, blowing it back from glazed blue eyes. How many times had he seen a Sunrunner work? Thousands, probably. He still wondered what it must be like to weave oneself into the sunshine, to taste and touch and smell colors as well as see them.
“It’s all going very well, my lord,” Andrev reported a few moments later. “Lord Draza and Lord Kerluthan are over the northern bridge and approaching Swalekeep. No alarms have gone up yet. Prince Tilal’s troops are halfway to the southern bridge. They should cross about the same time the walls are attacked.”
Draza’s soldiers were mounted double, with an archer behind each rider on thirty big Kadari horses. One of each couple was female; less weight. There had been much laughter when, once they were mounted, Ostvel had called them to attention and told them to keep their hands polite during the ride. “Unless, of course, you’ve ridden with your saddle-mate before—and not on horseback. Remember that, Camina, or I’ll tell your husband on you!”
They were all his own people, from Castle Crag and environs. He hated sending them out under another man’s banner, with another man leading them. But Tilal was right. He was too old for combat.
Kerluthan had taken only Radzyn mounts, for his would be lightning raids—“Like the Storm God snapping his fingers,” he’d said with a grin—before he left Swalekeep to Draza. Ostvel went over the plan once again in his head, hoping that both young men would recall that Swalekeep was fully five measures around, awash in mud, and inhabited by people who didn’t know that the object wasn’t to kill them but to secure their safety.
Draza was finding out about the mud. The double-mounted horses sank fetlock-deep in it. The road was a mire and the fields were worse. But at least he could spread his people out in a broad line so they wouldn’t be scraping hoof-thrown muck from their faces. Kerluthan’s people had to stay in tight formation at a hard gallop. It would be a wonder if they weren’t all blinded within the first half-measure.
He signaled his fellow athri with a raised hand as they came within sight of Swalekeep. “Goddess blessing, my lord!” he called. Kerluthan waved back, grinned, and ordered his riders to the charge.
It was perfectly done, and lovely to watch if one had a taste for such things. But nobody in Swalekeep saw it. They were either still abed, yawning over the first cups of taze and wine, or on their way to their daily tasks.
The first anyone knew of an attack was the sound of odd thunder from three different directions at once. But there were no clouds in the sky.
Draza was a little put out that nobody seemed interested. His ten groups of six reached the walls without anyone’s even peeking through the breaches to see what was going on. The archers jumped down and strung their bows while slipping through the mud before a single shout rose from inside Swalekeep.
“Get those carts out of the way!” Draza ordered. “No, don’t bother with your arrows, not yet! Once we’re all inside, then we can start fighting!”
“If they put up any fight!” someone yelled, shoving a shoulder against piled crates.
Draza had thought people would rush outside with swords and spears, and give him some exercise while clearing the openings in the walls for him. Instead, his archers were doing the work while the mounted soldiers milled about with nothing to do but wait.
Up on the hill, Andrev was fretting. “It’s taking too long, my lord. If their archers get up onto the walls, Lord Draza’s people will be vulnerable.”
“But this way he’ll lose fewer. I hope,” Ostvel added under his breath. “The only ones who’ll have trouble are the ones on the western side, where the bulk of the arms are hidden. What’s Kerluthan doing?”
“Waking up Swalekeep, my lord.”
*
“Have the walls been breached?” Chiana cried. “Are they inside?”
“Not yet, your grace.” The guards commander buckled the last strap on his breastplate. “We have people hurrying to resist their advance, but they seem to be everywhere at once. The household guard is saddling up to ride against Lord Kerluthan—“
“No! Not a single soldier leaves Swalekeep, do you understand?” She flung her hair over her shoulder and clutched her velvet bedrobe tight to her breast. “Arrange the guards—cavalry, archers, everyone!—around the residence.”
“As you wish, your grace, but that will leave the walls poorly manned. The population doesn’t know how to fight off an attack. Many will die.”
“What do I care for a few dozen common folk? And you shouldn’t, either. What are you standing there for? Hurry!”
The commander bowed and went to do as told. Chiana shouted for her maidservants to come and dress her at once. Giving orders in her nightgown was not encompassed in her image of a warrior princess.
“Find my son. I don’t care if he’s in his bath or in his current mistress, bring him here instantly!”
“Yes, your grace. And—and the prince, your grace?”
“Idiot! Of course, the prince!”
But who had the commander come to first? she asked herself as a silk shirt was buttoned at her wrists and a green embroidered tunic was lowered over her head. Not to Halian—to her. Chiana, Princess of Meadowlord, Roelstra’s daughter.
Roelstra’s grandson arrived in her bedchamber just as she was stamping her feet to fit them more snugly into her boots. “What in all Hells is going on?”
“Why are you wearing red?” she exclaimed. “Have someone fetch you a green tunic—no, wait! Violet!”
“Pol’s color? No, thank you!”
“Princemarch’s color!” She whirled on a servant. “My violet cloak—give it to his grace!”
“I won’t wear women’s clothes!” Rinhoel snapped. “There’s a dark purple tunic in my chamber. Go get me that. It’s close enough.”
“That will do.” Chiana made a gesture that sent all the servants fleeing, then clasped her son’s hands. “I can’t wait to see you riding at the head of our troops to defeat Tilal!”
“So that’s what’s going on! Get word to the Vellant’im. They must come to our aid.”
“Where’s Aurar?”
“We don’t have time—and I don’t want her claiming she’s responsible for saving Swalekeep.”
“The dragon Varek gave you, then,” Chiana told him. “He said to use it when we wanted to get a message immediately and only to him. Go get it.”
Rinhoel laughed with excitement and bent to kiss her forehead. “Thank the Goddess. The wait was maddening!”
Chiana watched him stride from her room, her heart swelling until she thought it must burst from her breast, take wing, and fly for sheer joyful pride. Her tall, strong, beautiful son, who would soon be High Prince in his grandfather’s place.
The father of her son was next into her bedchamber. He, of course, had on gray mourning for Cluthine. The sight of him made her lip curl in disgust. She turned to the hearth and picked up the riding gauntlets warming on the fender.
“You mustn’t be frightened, Chiana, I’ll take care of everything.”
Frightened? Suddenly all the years of enduring the Parchment Prince roiled up in her, and she laughed in his face.
“You’ll do nothing except what I tell you to do! Just like always, Halian!”
He stared for an instant, shocked, but his recent encounter with Rialt must have given him confidence. “You run my princedom nicely, Chiana, but this is war. Leave it to me.”
“If I’d left it to you, Swalekeep would be rubble by now! Who do you think kept the Vellant’im out?”
“I know it was you, to save Meadowlord from being laid waste. But now they’re attacking us, Chiana—“
“Goddess in glory! Didn’t anyone tell you? It’s not the Vellant’im at our walls, it’s Tilal of Ossetia! And with Vellanti help, we’ll beat him into the mud!”
He seized her arm in a bruising grip. “Their help? Against one of our own? Have you lost your mind? Chiana, what have you done?”
“Let her go.”
Rinhoel stood stiffly in the doorway, his high-boned face flushed with anger. After a moment’s hesitation, Halian released his wife’s wrist. Chiana rubbed at it, smiling her contempt.
“You have my leave to withdraw,” she said. “My son and I have important matters to discuss.”
“Yes, run along now, Father,” Rinhoel seconded. “We don’t need you.”
Halian looked from one to the other of them. “Then it was true,” he breathed. “Everything Rialt said was true.”
Chiana only shrugged.
“Which of you ordered Cluthine killed?” He grabbed her again, this time by the shoulders, and shook her. “Was it you? Did you tell them to kill her?”
“Take your hands off me!”
“How did she die? Tell me!”
Very quietly, Rinhoel said, “Let go of her.”
“Tell me!” Halian shouted, and Chiana yelped with the pain of his grip.
“She—she was caught trying to sneak out of Swalekeep. Stop it, that hurts! It was an accident that she died!”
“Liar! She was murdered!” He flung her toward a chair. “She never harmed you or anyone! Why kill her?”
“She didn’t matter.” Rinhoel started for his father, moving with the easy, long-limbed grace of a hunting cat. “And you know something else? You don’t matter, either.”
Halian paled and backed up a pace. “I’m your father. Your prince.”
“You are nothing.”
“Rinhoel...” Chiana whispered. “No.”
“It’s necessary,” he said, taking one of the polished fire irons from its gilded rack.
Chiana squeezed her eyes shut and clapped her hands over her ears and bit both lips between her teeth. It was only a few moments later that gentle hands touched her cheeks, coaxed her arms down.
“Mother.”
She couldn’t open her eyes. “He—he’s—“
“Yes. It needed doing.” He guided her blind into the solar. Only when she heard the bedchamber door close and the lock click did she open her eyes again.
“We have a problem,” Rinhoel said briskly. “I can’t find the dragon token. Someone must have taken it— probably that miserable little whelp of Rialt’s. We can either go looking for it, or take Aurar’s. But we have to get word to Varek at once.”
Something about him had changed, she thought numbly. Something was different. He was ruling Prince of Meadowlord now. That must be it. Of course.
“Yes,” she said mindlessly. “Whatever you think best.”