Pol stayed in the bathtub a long time, needing the refuge. If anyone else spoke to him before his headache eased, he’d reach for the nearest blunt instrument— hardly in keeping with his new role as wise and even-tempered High Prince. But gradually the water soothed him, and he was able to think past the vicious pounding in his skull.
At Dragon’s Rest he’d come to appreciate water in ways different from his Desert childhood. Here, it was the feel of it in a bath, the sweet coolness of it on lips and tongue, the fleeting scent of it in the dry air. But he had learned water’s sounds at Dragon’s Rest. Drumming rain, rushing river, lapping waves on the lakeshore—all the soothing music that the Desert never heard.
He missed listening to water. Immersed to the chin in the bath, he closed his eyes and dreamed of home.
Or tried to. He had trouble imagining it, even though he had planned every stone and window and pathway. So much lay between him and the last time he’d seen home. The whole world had changed. Nothing would ever be as it was. Not even Dragon’s Rest.
Foolish to think that way. It had always been understood that eventually the palace would become the center of the princedoms, and not just at Rialla time. Those who had once journeyed to Stronghold to gain the ear of the High Prince would instead come to Dragon’s Rest.
But not so soon. Not like this. Goddess, not like this.
A few days ago he would have wrapped himself in rage and ridden out to kill someone. But the anger was feeble today, and he resented Tobin for stealing it from him. He needed it. Fury was preferable to this deadening despair.
Slowly a single comfort came to him in the silence. Meiglan. I’ll go find Meggie. At least when I’m with her, I can just be myself. I won’t have to fight so hard. I won’t have to go out and kill someone.
As he dressed, he deliberately envisioned a quiet day at her side. Sunlight gleaming in her hair as they sat together by a window, he with a book and she with her needlework ...no. For all its sweetly familiar domesticity, that image felt wrong to him now. Since Stronghold he had hardly ever seen her without a sewing basket and garments to hand. Ruala had provided clothes for them all, but nothing really fit. Meiglan had been busy.
He shifted the mental picture to include a lute for Meiglan instead. But the instrument and even the book he saw himself with would also be borrowed. The toys his children played with, the food they ate, the beds they slept in—it was intolerable. He was the richest man in all the princedoms, but his every possession was at Dragon’s Rest.
Everything except what really mattered. His wife, his daughters. Power, and the rings that betokened it.
And one of those rings was an emerald-circled topaz, as borrowed as his sword, as his title of princely power.
Tobin was wrong. He was perfectly capable of lacerating his soul himself. He didn’t need Sionell to do it for him—although he suspected she would make a truly fine job of it.
Well, she had a right to. He ought to have known that Birioc would enlist Vellanti help in the north. He ought to have kept watch on the Sunrise Water and seen the ships well in advance.
That brought him up short. Why had no one looked? Usually faradh’im kept watch whenever there was light, reporting back and forth to each other at various castles and manors. They warned of everything from threatening storms and potential flash floods to rockslides and scavenging wolf packs. In this season of war, they ought to be watching and warning on whatever light they could weave.
He’d have to talk with Andry about that. When the Sunrunners no longer fulfilled their primary function of communication, Tiglath happened. It was Andry’s responsibility to enforce discipline among the court Sunrunners. Maarken and Hollis and Meath and all the rest of them here had other duties; they couldn’t be expected—
Pol shook his head. Excuses. Easier to blame Andry than to admit the failure was his own.
Still, he thought as he dressed, events had broken the usual luminous chain of faradhi communication. It must be reforged. Andry was the one who would have to do it—when and if he could be found.
Damn him, how could he have disappeared so thoroughly? Someone would have to go looking for him— Maarken or Hollis, as he was still speaking to them so far as Pol knew. The Lord of Goddess Keep must order the Sunrunners to greater vigilance. The High Prince couldn’t (although imagining his cousin’s reaction if he tried it afforded a certain satisfaction).
Clean, clad, and more or less clear-headed, Pol started downstairs to do something about the Sunrunner problem. The castle was empty and gratingly silent. When he reached the main doors and looked out into the courtyard, he discovered why.
*
Meiglan had dressed very carefully that morning. She borrowed an emerald silk gown from Ruala and a pair of heavy silver earrings that dripped amethysts nearly to her shoulders. Her hair was pinned atop her head to give her a little more height; heeled shoes lent a little more. Cosmetics subtly emphasized her eyes and lips. Her mirror had confirmed what her startled daughters had told her: that she was the perfect image of a High Princess. Not for nothing had she observed Rohan over the years, on those occasions when he transformed himself from plainly dressed scholar to powerful High Prince.
She stood on the top step of the gatehouse, with Riyan, Maarken, and Chay just below her. Their presence lent her added authority—not that she required it today. The people of five castles had assembled silently in the courtyard at her summons, not theirs; all eyes were on her. The High Princess. It was terrifying and exciting and her stomach was in knots. But when the three captive lords of Cunaxa—Miyon’s sons, her half-brothers— were brought before her in chains, she forgot her nervousness and said what she knew she must.
“These men are traitors,” she began in a firm, carrying voice. “They have taken up arms against us, they have allied themselves with the Merida, they have summoned the Vellant’im to their aid—for all it gained them against the courage of the good people of Tiglath and—and our beloved Lord Tallain.” Her voice faltered at mention of him, but she managed not to look up at the window of the chamber where Sionell was, she hoped, still sleeping.
Reminding herself once again who she was, she went on, “They have done irreparable injury, causing such grief that no Hell would be punishment enough. I won’t make one for them, as my lord did with those who followed them. I don’t know how to make them suffer enough for what they have done.”
She gestured. Kazander came forward into the space between the prisoners and the steps, and from a leather satchel produced Birioc’s head. Zanyr, Duroth, and Ezanto had not known of their brother’s death; one of them turned his face away, one closed his eyes briefly, and one cried out.
“Silence!” Chay growled.
The chains rattled softly as the men trembled.
Meiglan addressed the crowd once more. “That man was kin to me in blood. So are the three men you see here today. I ask your pardon for it.”
“Hardly your fault,” Chay observed.
“None can blame you, gentle Lady,” Kazander told her.
“Thank you, my lords. I—“
Suddenly one of her father’s sons spat at her feet. She held herself from a flinch. Kazander growled low in his throat, like a dragon.
“Kill us,” her half-brother invited. “But the Vellant’im came to our call at Tiglath. The High Warlord himself will come from Stronghold to avenge us.”
“He will have to get past the High Prince first,” Meig-lan said flatly. “I’m sorry that I’m not strong enough to kill you myself. I wanted to. But the Lord of Feruche, the Battle Commander, and the korrus of the Isulk’im have claimed the privilege.” She raised her voice. “I am the High Princess, and I order these traitors executed!”
With that, Maarken and Riyan and Kazander unsheathed their swords. Death was immediate: simultaneous thrusts through the heart. Meiglan watched it done, still as a stone even when blood splashed her skirts.
“For Jahnavi,” Riyan said, dark eyes glinting like Fire in the night.
“For Tallain,” Maarken added fiercely.
“For their wives and daughters and sons,” Kazander finished.
Meiglan descended the steps delicately, lifting the hem of her gown above the blood-soaked cobbles. A path was made for her through the grimly approving crowd. Her even strides checked only once—when she saw her husband standing in the doorway of the keep.
Willing herself to calm, she mounted the stairs and paused before him. “I hope you think this rightly done, my lord,” she murmured. “I only knew that I was the one who must do it.”
Pol looked stricken. Meiglan touched his arm and saw her fingers tremble. She took her hand away.
“Meggie—“
“Pol, I had to!”
“I know,” he whispered. Then he moved past her into the sunlight and called out, “Kazander!”
Meiglan turned. The Isulki approached Pol, still holding Birioc’s head in his left hand. “My prince?”
“This High Warlord deserves a little token of our es- teem. Wrap that up and put a ribbon on it, and have it delivered to him.”
Kazander grinned. “At once, most high and noble prince!”
Pol nodded, and returned to Meiglan’s side. High Prince and High Princess, she told herself—until she saw his eyes.
“Pol, please,” she began. “You must understand—“
“I do. That’s the Hell of it.”
*
Andry departed Swalekeep having no more than glimpsed Ostvel within the castle gardens. He didn’t trust himself to speak to the man, for what he would have said was, You idiot! How dare you send her where you know Chiana will be?
Wearing the face he’d shown the innkeeper, Andry rode past the low castle walls and beyond them saw the Lord of Castle Crag. Ostvel walked amid the bare rose trees, a scribbling servant tagging behind him to record his every word. Andry watched for a few moments, admiration mingling with anger. Only Ostvel could turn so assiduously to making well-fed order of a potentially chaotic famine. How he could do this while Alasen headed straight into danger was beyond Andry’s understanding.
Well, he wished him luck with the work. Feeding Swalekeep and all its war-augmented population for the rest of the winter would be a task and a half. The font of information who masqueraded as an innkeeper had told Andry that the food warehouses had been fouled by mysterious means popularly attributed to the Vellant’im. It was a major reason why so many had gone out to fight the enemy. Andry suspected another hand in it, though. If Tilal had lost, the Vellant’im could have resupplied themselves with those food stores. He wondered if Ostvel had looked into it yet.
The innkeeper had also talked this morning about plans to bring grain and other necessities from untouched, empty Waes. Andry supposed it was workable, but he didn’t envy the caravan of wagons and packhorses the coming weather. The last half of winter was always the worst.
For himself, he intended to find some nice, remote place for Chiana to spend it in. But first he had to find her.
That she would find no welcome at Dragon’s Rest was a given. He was determined she wouldn’t get within shouting distance of the place—partly because she wanted it so much, mostly because Alasen would be there.
He left Swalekeep by the eastern gate, unremarked by anyone but the guard, and turned north. A measure farther on, the road curved around an orchard of nut trees that screened the way from sight of the city. Andry urged his horse to a fast trot—all the speed he dared on the half-frozen mud—and asked himself yet again why he didn’t just catch up to Alasen and persuade her back to Swalekeep. She was only a day ahead of him; a rider alone was always swifter than many in a group; surely she would listen to him.
Almost surely, she would not.
No, he would seek Chiana and Rinhoel instead. Driven out of Swalekeep with only the castle guard for an army, they were dangerous now because they had nothing to lose. If they did manage to get into Dragon’s Rest, Goddess alone knew what they and Miyon of Cu-naxa might concoct.
With Alasen there, in easy reach,
He slowed at the orchard and was about to dismount and tether his horse to a fence when he heard voices deep in the trees. So Ostvel had sent people out to tend neglected crops, had he? Andry approved, though it meant he must ride on until he found a sheltered spot where he could ride the sunlight unobserved.
Farther down the road he saw men and plow-elk struggling through brittle fields that should have been turned half a season ago. The labor would be backbreaking, but at least the land would be ready for spring planting. Andry returned their calls of greeting with a wave of his hand. A tidy place, Meadowlord, with good people land that deserved better rule than Chiana’s. It had survived her, as it had the wars of many princedoms fought here on rich soil unlucky enough to be a convenient battleground. The land always survived.
Toward midmorning Andry spotted an abandoned farmhouse just off the main road. As good a place as any to find cover—and comfort, on the little wooden bench just outside. But with his first glance through the open door, he stopped cold. Despite the difference in location and circumstance, he was forcibly reminded of the old woman’s cottage in the Veresch.
There, he had found that strange mirror and an unsent letter revealing what Pol was. Both items were now gone—the mirror shattered when it showed him the blankness that meant death when he spoke Brenlis’ name, the letter burned long since. He hadn’t dared take it back to Goddess Keep, for no matter how well guarded, someone might have found it and learned what he had learned.
Here, in a simple dwelling in Meadowlord, he found no mirror, no letter. But the herbs hanging from the rafters spread the same fragrance, and the homey details of cookpots and crockery and wood near the empty hearth were the same. Andry shook off memory and helped himself to hard cheese and stale bread from the larder, washed it down with swigs from his wineskin, and relaxed for a few moments before going back outside.
The sky had cleared nicely, as if preparing for him. He thanked the Goddess and the Father of Storms, then settled comfortably on a wooden bench in the sunshine and wove light in a search for two women. One was dangerous because she was desperate. The other was dangerous because, despite all the years and the changes—despite even Brenlis, whose name would always ache in his chest—in spite of it all, he still loved her.
*
“But we can’t send them home in this weather,” To-rien protested.
“It can’t be much worse traveling in the rain than having to bail out a tent twenty times a day,” Jolan countered. “They’re not our people, Torien—and they’re eating us down to dregs and parings.”
Valeda nodded agreement, gesturing around the refectory at the tables being set for the midday meal. “How long do you think we can continue to fill our plates and theirs, too? We have our own farmers and herders to think of. We can’t support so many if this war goes on.”
“Waes is secure enough from attack,” Jolan said with an air of finishing an argument with an irrefutable fact. “The Vellant’im are withdrawing from the rivers. People can return to their homes without fear. And they’d best do so as soon as possible.”
Torien regarded his wife with a scowl. “We have enough. We can’t turn them away—because you’re wrong. They are our people, Jolan.”
The two women exchanged glances. Valeda shrugged and said, “With Andry gone, you’ve had to take over his duties. You haven’t been tending the accounts the way you usually do. But Jolan and I have been keeping track. At the current rate, we won’t have enough to last until spring.”
“Even then,” Jolan added, “even if the war ends and trade resumes, it takes time to transport goods. What will we eat until then? And this is assuming the war does end. There’s no certainty it will. I know you don’t like it, but there it is. We can’t afford these people anymore.”
“You’re not listening to me!” he exclaimed, pacing a few steps from them and then whirling around. “We can’t turn them away, and not just because it’s wrong. They were exiled from their home by princes—or denied refuge by other princes. We took them in. What would be said of us if we exiled them, too? The Goddess does not turn her back on those in need.”
“But there’s no reason for them to stay!” Valeda nearly took him by the shoulders to shake him. “Waes isn’t in danger! At least send those people back where they belong—or pretty soon we’ll be the ones in need!”
“The Goddess will provide for all of us,” Torien replied.
She waited for Jolan to speak in her support. But the other woman was looking thoughtful and Valeda realized she’d have to say it herself. “What she can provide are ships to carry them home. If you’re so worried that their feet will get wet, send to Arlis’ Sunrunner at New Raetia. Not all the Kierstian ships went to Einar. Two or three would do to carry these people back to Waes.”
“Through a bay swarming with Vellanti ships?” He shook his head.
“It’s only a day’s sail. If they hugged the coastline—“
“No. We won’t send them away. It wouldn’t be right.”
Jolan finally spoke up—but not with words Valeda wished to hear. “I hadn’t considered it that way, Torien. In that sense, we can’t send them away, you’re right. But that doesn’t address the question of feeding them.”
“The Goddess will provide,” he said once more, and started for the door.
“Lovely!” Valeda hissed at Jolan. “You’d have us all starve for political expediency!”
“And you’d have us lose a priceless chance to gain loyalty throughout the princedoms for your personal expediency! My husband was too polite to say it, but I’m not. You despise Jayachin and want her gone.”
“Too right! You know what she’s after, don’t you?”
“Andry?” Jolan shrugged. “She can have him, for all I care.”
“Oh, really?” She pointed to the high table. “I gather you’d enjoy watching her sit up there dispensing wisdom and justice as athri of Goddess Keep?”
“Andry’s not a fool. He’d never—“
“Everyone outside the walls uses ‘my lady’ when they talk to her now.”
Jolan was nothing if not jealous of faradhi rights. It took six rings to earn the courtesy of “my lord” or “my lady.” Valeda watched this sink in and believed she saw her ally returning to her.
She was sure of it when Kov burst in the door—nearly hitting Torien in the face with it—and blurted out, “Lady Jayachin is here to see you, my lord!”
“Wonderful,” Valeda muttered. “It only needed that to make our day complete.” Crossing the flagstones beside Jolan, she went on more loudly, “You mean Master Jayachin, don’t you, Kov?” Her tone said that he’d better.
The boy turned crimson. “Uh—yes, my lady. Master Jayachin.”
“I thought so.”
They met the unofficial athri in Andry’s audience chamber. Jolan insisted that Torien take the chair reserved for the Lord of Goddess Keep. She loved her husband devotedly, but in practical terms his was not a forceful enough presence to quell Jayachin’s pretensions. When the Waesian merchant was admitted to the room, Valeda saw her note the placement of persons within it— Torien in Andry’s chair, flanked by the two Sunrunner women—and the fact that Kov denied her the title she craved.
Every word Jayachin spoke confirmed the drain on Goddess Keep’s resources. More tents were needed to replace those made uninhabitable by the recent storm; more food was needed; more barrels to collect fresh water; more blankets; more soap; more firewood; more, more, more. With nearly four thousand people to provide for from stores meant to supply six hundred, Jayachin wanted more.
Do you expect us to conjure these things out of thin air? Valeda wanted to shout at her. She held her tongue. Jolan, standing at her husband’s right hand, was easy to read for once: she was weighing the abstract of political expediency against the reality of this woman’s demands. Jayachin was losing.
Torien heard her out, asking no questions along the way. Valeda approved; it was what Andry would have done. The so-called athri grew nervous as her list of needs met with silence. She began it again, adding explanations to lend weight to what she must know were im- possible requests. Torien let her get halfway through it before he lifted one hand to quiet her.
“I understand,” he said. “I’m sorry that this recent storm has been such a hardship. We’ll do all we can to help.”
Valeda nearly groaned aloud.
Jayachin nodded, smiling her relief. “Thank you, my lord. But it occurs to me that some of the difficulty could be alleviated.”
Don’t ask her how, Valeda begged silently.
“In what way?” Torien said.
“Those who live in the precincts of Goddess Keep have returned to their cottages,” Jayachin pointed out. “The rooms where they stayed within the walls are now available, are they not, for—“
“And you’d be the first to move in!” Valeda snapped, outraged beyond caution. “Why don’t you come right out and ask for the Lord of Goddess Keep’s own chamber? It’s empty, too!”
Jayachin gave a pretty show of shock. “My lady!”
Torien had gone rigid in the sunburst chair. Valeda had no fear of a rebuke—though she’d earned it by making this open warfare instead of the nice, polite, infuriating chess game it had been thus far. Torien would never reprimand her in front of this woman.
But what he said made Valeda first blink, then struggle against a grin.
“You know,” he murmured in his quiet, musical voice, “I think we can do better than that. If Prince Arlis can be prevailed upon to lend us a few ships, and I’m sure he’ll be willing, then very soon you can be back home in Waes.”
“You must long for your own hearth,” Jolan added with sweet sympathy.
Jayachin longed for nothing of the kind, and turned all the colors of the rainbow in the effort to control her reaction.
“You mustn’t worry about the Vellant’im,” Torien went on, and repeated Valeda’s own words about holding close to the coastline for safety. Jayachin’s complexion settled to a sickly greenish-white that did not become her. “We’ll send to the Sunrunner at New Raetia this afternoon,” he finished. “You’ll be notified of when to prepare for the journey.”
Valeda allowed herself a smug smile. So much for the athri of Goddess Keep. “Don’t try to thank us,” she urged. “We understand.”
Jolan said, “I’ll do the Sunrunning myself. Last night’s rain has cleared nicely. If you’ll excuse me, my lord—“
Another voice—breathless, high-pitched, and frantic— squealed a warning an instant after the door crashed open. “My lord! Oh, my lord, they’re coming! The Vel-lant’im are sailing for Goddess Keep!”
Valeda swore under her breath. Crila, youngest and newest of the devr’lm, had had the watch that morning. Her youth was reflected in the panicky way she blurted out the news; her inexperience, that she did so in front of Jayachin.
The master merchant recovered herself. This was the best thing she’d heard all day. “The Vellant’im! Quickly, my lord, we must sound the horn and gather everyone inside the shelter of Goddess Keep!”
“Oh, yes,” Crila gasped. “They’ll be here tomorrow or the next day at the latest, we must get ready for them!”
“Calm yourself,” Torien ordered. “They’re running away from Prince Arlis, no doubt. But we gave them a lot to think about the last time. I doubt they’ll try for Goddess Keep again.”
“Make sure they don’t,” Jayachin said. “Call your devr’im together and—“
“It doesn’t work like that!” Torien stared at her as if finally seeing her for what she was. A little late, Valeda reflected sourly, and ground her teeth.
“Are you going to wait until they’re marching across the fields? Use your powers, Sunrunner! Don’t even let them land. Slay them in their ships!”
“We will defend Goddess Keep. We will not attack. We—“
“—swore an oath not to kill with your gifts? You killed neatly enough the first time the Vellant’im were here!
What’s the difference if they come to you for the slaughter or you take it to them?”
“You’re not faradhi. You can’t understand.”
“I understand that the enemy will come and people will die! People Lord Andry charged me to protect! I am his athri and in his absence—“
Of its own accord, Valeda’s hand went to her belt knife. “You intend to give the orders?”
Jayachin hesitated. Valeda hoped she’d risk it and give Torien an excuse to slap her down. But she was more cautious than that. “I’m sure Lord Andry would hope that his athri and his chief steward would agree on the correct course of action.”
“You have no authority within these walls,” Torien reminded her, and Valeda wanted to kick him. A person with power did not warn others that they were powerless; he left it to his subordinates to state the obvious. Valeda had already done so, obliquely. Repeating it was a sign of insecurity in power.
Jolan knew it, too. In her best forbiddingly pedantic voice she said, “Whether they mean to make for Goddess Keep and another attack or join the rest of the Vellant’im elsewhere is as yet unclear.”
Her husband took the hint. “Master Jayachin, we don’t know what they’ll do. We will watch and make our own plans. But there will be no ingathering. Unless you think your four thousand would prefer to spend the next ten or twelve days packed inside Goddess Keep, waiting for an attack that might never occur?”
Jayachin bit her lip and shook her head. But it was as much a pretense as her shock at the mention of Andry’s own empty chamber. Watching her take her leave and stride from the chamber, Valeda knew a time would come when she would not be silent, when she would not meekly depart.
“I hope they do attack,” Jolan said once the door was closed. “After we’ve dealt with them, we can vise ships to send her home in.”
“Only if we make sure her’s sinks,” Valeda agreed.
“Stop it, both of you,” Torien said, rubbing his fore- head wearily. “I think we’d better send for soldiers. If the Vellant’im land, we can keep them out—but they can also keep us in. Jolan, you take Summer River. Prince Velden won’t help us, but his son Elsen has a conscience, I think.”
“Kadar Water is closer,” Jolan said. “Four days’ ride.”
“Kolya is Tilal’s man, and you know what Tilal thinks of us.”
“I’ll try anyway.”
He nodded. “I’ll send to Athmyr myself.”
“Have you lost your wits?” Valeda demanded. “To Princess Gemma?”
“She’ll enjoy rubbing Andry’s nose in the fact that we need her help.” His dark Fironese face—a diarmadhi face, though almost no one knew it—hardened with resolve. “This is Goddess Keep. It’s our right to demand the protection of any prince or athri we choose to call on—and it’s their duty to respond.”
“Athri!” Valeda spat. “Goddess, I’m sick of that word! If Jayachin uses it one more time in my hearing—“
“She’s useful in her way,” Torien replied.
“An annoying way,” Jolan corrected. “I’ll go see what the sun’s like over Grib. Tell Fesariv at Athmyr that he still owes us a bottle of wine.” She bent to kiss her husband’s brow, and left.
Valeda watched Torien sag back in Andry’s chair. “You know Gemma will refuse.”
“I hope she won’t, but I suspect she will.” Shifting, he complained, “Andry’s right, this thing is Hellishly uncomfortable.”
“Then why are you asking her? Why admit our weakness?”
“Because Andry will never forgive Tilal for taking An-drev as his squire.”
“I don’t see the connection.”
“Don’t you?” He looked up, a tiny smile quirking his lips. “Gemma’s refusal will be legal excuse for revenge— served up on a golden plate with wine sauce.”
*
Tilal had seen this land once before. Just after its creation he had seen it, smelled it, been sickened by the sheer brutality of what had been done to it. His father Dawi had flinched whenever anyone alluded to it; even his quick-tongued and quicker-tempered brother Kostas had been unable to find words for it.
But someone had given a name to this place in the thirty and more years between. Haldenat. The meadow dead with salt.
A rich Syrene field, fully two measures around, had been sown with salt and flooded with a diverted tributary of the Faolain River. Haldenat was Roelstra’s work, Tilal reminded himself. His nostrils twitched and his eyes stung at the bitter, rotting stench of a breeze that had been soft enough a few measures back. By rights, Roelstra’s work ought to bear Roelstra’s name.
“We’ll move on,” he told Chaltyn, and the older man nodded vigorously.
“It’s getting late, but I wouldn’t spend a night here if it meant my life.” Squinting at the western hills, he added, “We can manage another few measures, my lord, before full dark.”
“I don’t care if we have to go on all night. I won’t be within smelling distance of Haldenat.”
It was full dark and more by the time the stink was only memory. Andrev had used the last of the sunset to find the Vellant’im, two days’ march down the river. Deciding to flank them, Tilal had lost some ground, but he was betting they’d make for the Faolain and cross to the Desert, where their High Warlord and the main army were.
Chaltyn had given over his place to Andrev now. Tilal had stopped thinking of the boy simply as Andry’s contribution to the war effort. They’d been through a great deal together since Andrev had sneaked out of Goddess Keep. Besides, it was impossible not to like him, with his earnest pride and eager honesty and a wide smile that revealed a crooked front tooth. He had something of the look of his grandfather about him; once he had grown out of adolescence he’d have Chay’s devastating effect on women, too. That tooth would always lend a boyishness to his face, though. But from the look in his eyes recently, he’d already left boyhood behind.
“Those trees, do you think?” he asked suddenly, and Andrev glanced over at him. “Shall we go have a look?”
A fingerflame suddenly danced off to one side to light their way. Tilal’s mouth quirked.
“Who’s been giving you lessons on sunlight? Hollis?”
“Yes, my lord. I made Tobren show her my colors. But she won’t teach me much more than this,” he complained. “If I knew about moonlight, I could be of better use to you.”
“You’re doing just fine as you are. Take it slow, Andrev. With your bloodlines, you’ve more power than most, but that also carries more risk and responsibility.” And a pretty pass he was in, to be giving a lecture on how to be a good Sunrunner to the son of the Lord of Goddess Keep.
Andrev, however, considered Tilal right up there with Chay and Tobin, perhaps a step above Sioned and Pol, and coequal with Andry—who was in arm’s reach of the Goddess. He nodded gravely and said, “I’ll remember, my lord, and be careful.”
The fingerflame lit their way off the road and into the trees. As Tilal had hoped, there was a clearing not far within, protected from the worst of the rain by overhanging branches, perfect for about a hundred people to sleep in relative comfort. The rest would guard the horses, find places under the trees, or walk sentry duty. He was about to say so to Andrev and start back when he heard a twig snap over to his left, and the flutterings of frightened birds.
Andrev doused the tiny Fire at once. Tilal cursed himself for letting the boy use it; everyone knew what the Vellant’im had done to the Sunrunner at Faolain Riv-erport. The darkness was near-absolute, and the sounds were of soldiers all around them in the trees.
He could feel them coming closer, steps muffled now by the cushiony loam of dead, rain-damp leaves. He reached into his pocket to palm Rinhoel’s ruby-eyed dragon. The wings and tail bit into his flesh until he forced his fingers to relax.
“Hold!” he called out. “Friends!”
A delicate shard of ice touched the left side of his throat. He could barely see the silvery glint of a sword in the darkness. His gaze followed it down to the breathing shadow that held the hilt.
Slowly, Tilal opened his hand to set the little dragon free.
His horse trembled between his knees, shying when a torch flared to life amid the trees. He averted his eyes from it, knowing it would dazzle them, and looked down into a broad, fair, clean-shaven face above a cloak-pin designed with the silver apple of Syr.
Mutual shock kept both men silent for a few moments. Then, without even clearing his throat—if he moved, the sword would clear it for him—Tilal murmured, “Point that thing somewhere else.”
The guard was shaking so hard he nearly sliced off his own fingers putting the blade back into its sheath.
Later, with his troops comfortably settled and with a hot meal inside him, Tilal had come to see the humor of it. Saumer was still shaking in his boots at what his sentry had almost done. When the young prince apologized for the fifth time, Tilal laughed aloud.
“What are you so upset about? I’m the one who nearly ended up breathing through my neck.”
“My lord, I had no idea. We’ve been without news so long, no one knew you were coming, and—“
“Forget about it, Saumer. No harm done. And you can stop calling me ‘my lord.’ It’s a generation or three back to Kierst for me, but we are cousins. Andrev, any chance of more wine? All this will make a long telling.”
They were in what had been Kostas’ tent and was now Saumer’s as commander of the army of Syr. After cleaning out enemy patrols along the Catha River and halfway up the Pyrme, he had marched across the princedom toward the Faolain. He would stay there a day or two, giving his exhausted troops a well-earned rest, before going to High Kirat. He was furious to learn that he’d missed the Vellant’im fleeing from Swalekeep by less than a day.
Starved for word of his family, his friends, and the war, Saumer listened as between them Tilal and Andrev told him everything they knew. He glowed with pride as they told of his brother Arlis’ victory off the coast of Einar, and fairly trembled with excitement during the tale of the battle of Swalekeep. But that was almost all the good news. The deaths and defeats gradually bowed his shoulders down, and when Tilal finally asked to be told how Kostas had died, Saumer’s golden-brown eyes were wet with tears.
Later still, when Tilal lay in his brother’s camp cot watching candle-shadows on the tent walls, he let his own tears fall. For Kostas, for gentle Danladi, for their son Daniv who was now Prince of Syr at barely seventeen, for his own son Rihani who had acted with such quick courage in killing the assassin. Rihani was at High Kirat now, recovering from his wounds.
Duty fought with fatherhood half the night; Tilal slept only when he had decided that Pol would just have to forgive him. Saumer had proven himself an able leader. He could add Tilal’s soldiers to his own and march after the Vellant’im. Tilal was going to High Kirat to see his son.
*
At about the same time Tilal was feeling the cold of a sword at his throat, his wife was wishing she had one to hand, and Andry there to use it on.
Her children, Sioneva and Sorin, were accustomed to their mother’s temper, and waited silently for it to run its usual course. So did the court Sunrunner, Fesariv, whose words had been the source of her rage. Lord Allun of Lower Pyrme had less experience of Gemma’s character. He and his family had been at Athmyr since autumn, after fleeing their castle in Gilad half a day ahead of the invading Vellant’im. When compelled to bestir himself, Allun was a clever man. Rather than abandoning Lower
Pyrme to the enemy’s use or its destruction, he had laced it with deadfalls to trap the enemy—an idea copied to excellent effect at Remagev. But what he did now was not clever. In fact, it was the worst thing possible. He tried to soothe her.
She turned on him, snarling. He spoke soft, reasonable words. She reached new heights of invective in cursing Andry in particular and Sunrunners in general. That was when Sorin spoke up with all the artful innocence of a nine-year-old.
“But, Mama, Sioneva is a Sunrunner, too.”
The court faradhi smirked a bit.
Gemma stopped in her tracks in the middle of a gorgeous dark green rug featuring the golden wheat sheaf of Ossetia. At one corner, just as Goddess Keep perched at the tip of the princedom, was a circle of ten tiny, linked silver and gold rings. Gemma had dug her heel into it on purpose a few moments earlier. Now she stared at it, and then at her son and daughter.
Sorin was blond and gray-eyed, a plump, sunny-tempered child Named for Andry’s murdered twin brother, whom Tilal had loved as much as he now reviled the Lord of Goddess Keep. Sioneva at nearly seventeen was growing prettier by the day, with blue eyes of remarkable serenity beneath a broad, smooth brow. She was a Sunrunner, and to become what the Goddess had meant her to be, she would have to be trained at Goddess Keep.
By Andry.
Gemma’s temper flared all over again. She’d send her daughter to Maarken and Hollis, or Sioned, or Pol. Anyone but Andry, who had let so many Ossetians be slaughtered just so those left would be witnesses to the power of his Star Scroll spell. To his own power, damn him.
Lord Allun cleared his throat. “You must send someone, Princess Gemma,” he said, still sweetly reasonable. “After all, if they land at Goddess Keep, it is Ossetian soil they march upon.”
“It is Goddess Keep’s soil,” she snapped. “There’s even an athri now to govern it!” She whirled on the Sunrunner. “If Torien or even Andry himself crawled all ten measures of the Athmyr Road and begged me from sunrise to sunset, I wouldn’t send so much as a kitchenboy with a rusted carving knife to their defense!”
Fesariv, not appreciating the prospect of sending this reply back to Goddess Keep, rubbed at the ring on his thumb and said, “Your grace, I am instructed to say that in the event of your refusal, I am to leave Athmyr.”
“Fine,” she retorted. “I’ll lend you a horse.”
“I am to leave Athmyr,” he repeated stubbornly, “with as many of your guard and the general populace as respect their duty to Lord Andry and Goddess Keep.”
Incredibly, Gemma smiled. “Try it, and I’ll cut the rings from your fingers myself. Get out.”
The Sunrunner—his hands fisted protectively close to his sides—obeyed with unsurprising alacrity.
Sorin turned to his sister. “Looks like you’re it, Evvie. When you go Sunrunning, can I watch?”
“She doesn’t know how,” Gemma said. “And there’d be nothing to see if she did. I’ll have Kolya send his Sunrunner down from Kadar Water. We need information more than he does.”
“But won’t Torien have asked Lord Kolya to help, too?” Sioneva ventured. “Will you forbid him to go?”
Gemma shook her head. “I won’t have to. He’s got no force to speak of. Almost all his people went with your father.” She glanced at Allun. “Well, my lord? What’s the dark look for?”
“My lady, I hesitate to say it, but Lord Andry is a proud and powerful man. He may consider other means of ... umm ... reprisal.”
This time she laughed. “Not while his eldest son is my husband’s squire!”
*
“I can’t go any farther! I’ve been riding since morning and it’s nearly sundown and I just can’t ride anymore!”
Chiana was close to hysterics. Rinhoel lifted a hand as if to slap her, not caring if his troops saw him bullying his own mother. He was the ruling Prince of Mead- owlord. He could do as he liked. But the threat no longer worked; though she cringed back from him, she kept on sobbing. So he did hit her, a sharp crack across the face.
A mistake. She lost all control and screamed again and again until a second slap nearly knocked her off her horse.
“There’s a lesson for you!” he shouted. “Don’t make me repeat it!”
Ten nights ago they had escaped Swalekeep. In that time they had traveled a little more than one hundred measures—thirty of them in that first desperate gallop for freedom. Dragon’s Rest was still many days away. And it was all Chiana’s fault.
Her back hurt. Her feet were frozen. She was hungry. Her arms ached from handling a horse too strong for her. She was soaked to the skin and must get dry and warm or die of a chill. She needed rest or she could not go on.
For the first eight days, Rinhoel had endured her complaints. He had found an abandoned farmhouse or an empty barn or evicted a crofter and his family from their dwelling each night so his mother could sleep in comfort. But he was tired and hungry, too. He was the ruling Prince of Meadowlord and he was reduced to skulking arouniJ his own lands while others lolled in his castle. They had attacked without provocation, driven him out of his rightful place, and forced him to run in fear for his life after telling lies about him. He had earned the right to do some complaining of his own—and he would do it to Pol, through the Sunrunner at Dragon’s Rest. He was a prince; they couldn’t refuse him shelter. And nothing that had been done couldn’t be explained away.
Pol would believe anything of Chiana.
“Your grace! Someone’s coming!”
Rinhoel left his mother—mercifully silent but for a few annoying whimpers—and rode back to the rear of his household guard. Ten of them had surrounded a single man on a fine Radzyn stallion. Rinhoel had no need to ask whether the new arrival was for him or against him.
The dark face with its dozens of golden beads woven into the beard told him all he needed to know.
“Come to apologize?” he spat. “Or did you lose your bearings while you were running away from the battle?”
The man blinked. “With better slowness, great lord— I am having little of your words.”
Rinhoel ground his teeth. A thousand and more Vel-lant’im in Meadowlord, and he had to end up with an idiot. “Did Lord Varek send you to me?”
“I am speaking Rinhoel-son-of-Roelstra?”
“Grandson of Roelstra, you fool! Of course, I am! Anyone else would have killed you by now! Do you dare ask me for proof? You stupid barbarians with your stupid dragon tokens—“
“Dragons, yes!” The warrior nodded vigorously, the gold beads glinting in the sunshine as if he polished them every day. “Great lord, not to go Place of Sleeping Dragons!”
“What? Where? Oh—Dragon’s Rest? Why shouldn’t I go there?”
“To be Rezeld is better, great lord.”
“Why?”
“Lord Varek says, time of years past is knowing to him. Rezeld good waiting place then, better now. Vellant-‘im go here—there?” He broke off, frowning, then shook his head and started over. “Lord Varek says, Vellant’im to be Rezeld. Great lord waiting ten, twenty days, we come.”
Rinhoel chewed his tongue for a moment. “We’re to wait at Rezeld for him to come with another army? And then we’ll march on Dragon’s Rest? The way my mother did nine years ago?”
“Yes! Yes! Great lord is wise! Rezeld is better!”
He thought it over. Rezeld was only two days away. Pol had never named an athri to replace Lord Morlen after his death in the attack on Dragon’s Rest. There was but a steward at the manor now, and all the able-bodied who worked the fields and herds would be with Ostvel.
He narrowed his eyes at the Vellanti. “And what about the others? Your friends here? Will they come this time as they did last time?”
The man looked utterly blank.
“The diarmadh’im!” Rinhoel exclaimed, totally out of patience with this lackwit. “Will we have the aid of the sorcerers against Dragon’s Rest?”
“Yes! Diarmadh’im, yes!”
“Very well. We’ll turn for Rezeld Manor, then. Go back to Lord Varek—wherever he’s hiding after losing Swalekeep for me!—and tell him I’ll be waiting. Twenty days, no longer. Is that understood?”
“Twenty days, great lord.” The warrior bowed from his saddle, then lifted a tentative dark gaze to Rinhoel’s face. “Great lord? It is empty, there.” He touched his stomach.
“You could have eaten your fill at Swalekeep if you’d won the battle. You’re wasting time. The sooner you start back to Lord Varek, the sooner he’ll know my orders.”
With a stifled sigh, the man bowed again. “Yes, great lord,” he said, and rode back the way he’d come.
*
Five measures down the road, Andry resumed his own face and laughed himself completely out of breath.
I’m glad to find you so pleased with the world, my Lord, a sardonic voice said to him on sunlight. Care to share the joke?
Valeda? He glanced about like a one-ring Sunrunner for the person to match the voice. What are you doing?
What you taught me how to do so well. But quickly, because there’s not much sun here, and it comes and goes. What was so funny?
He told her, and they both laughed. He made it so easy! Hells, I could have told him to go back to Swalekeep, all is forgiven, and he would’ve believed me!
You’ve bought twenty days. What will you do when they’re up, and no Vellanti army arrives at Rezeld?
Damned if I know, he replied cheerfully. But it’s not my problem.
Well, something here is. Or perhaps I should say someone. Jayachin is being even more obnoxious than usual,
By the time she finished explaining, he had lost all urge to laughter. You tell her for me that Torien gives the orders both inside and outside the walls. And what ails him, anyway?
I think he’s feeling your absence. I told you it was a bad idea.
And I told all of you that Goddess Keep’s safety can’t depend on one man. Not even if it’s me, Valeda.
We’ll do our best. How’s your leg?
Nearly mended, he lied. How are the children?
Merisel is still Nialdan’s shadow. Chayly is learning the harp. And Joscev wants to know why he can’t go be a squire to a great prince like his brother Andrev.
Succinct, if tactless. But that was Valeda. Kiss the girls for me and tell Joscev he’s only seven and that’s too young. And don’t you ask why I’m not following Tilal to take Andrev back, either.
I don’t have to ask. I already know. She’s about fifty measures out of Dragon’s Rest.
Valeda—
But she was gone down the strands of sunshine, and he was left alone at the edge of a field.