Dhulyn chewed on her lower lip, turning slowly to look over the ground and rock around them. “So. If it is not the time of day that has changed, and this is the late afternoon . . .” This was Dhulyn’s Scholar’s voice, and Parno relaxed.
“Then it is the direction of the sun’s path that has changed,” they said in unison.
“East is west, and west is east,” Dhulyn said.
“Here, wherever ‘here’ is, the sun rises in the east and sets in the west.”
“And we have been traveling in the wrong direction.” Dhulyn nodded, looped Bloodbone’s reins more closely around her wrist, and set off again, this time with the carved face to their right. They had gone only a few paces, perhaps a quarter of a span, when they found the turf under their feet had been cut.
Parno squatted to examine the phenomenon more closely, alert to any clue it might give them. It looked as though someone had taken a dagger and cut a design into the turf. He glanced to one side. Yes, there were the pieces which had been removed, tidily placed at the bottom of the wall.
“Well?” Dhulyn said from where she stood guard to one side.
“A moment, my heart.” The design looked familiar, rounded edges, perhaps a loop . . . Parno felt his face heat as he recognized the shape. Grunting, he straightened to his feet. “It’s a badge,” he said. “The shape of a Mercenary badge cut into the grass.”
“It took you that long to recognize something you look at every day?” Her tone was lighter than the words would have suggested.
“Something I see, not something I look at,” he said. “And besides, without the colors, and cut so large, the pattern is not so very easy to descry.”
“But it means our Brothers have been before us, and we are on the right path.”
And that was why, Parno thought, Dhulyn’s tone was so light.
From there it was as if the badge brought them luck, and the Path was working with them. They turned only two corners, both to the right, and suddenly they were standing in a grass plain. Parno looked back and forth, stepped to one side and looked back in the direction they had come.
“My heart,” he said. “There’s no archway here, no marking of the Path.”
“Riders approach from the north,” Dhulyn said.
Alaria had no trouble finding her way down to the stable yard. Even if she had not remembered the route through Falcos Tarkin’s royal palace, she now had two guards with her to show her the way—though she knew very well that was not their primary function. Again Dav-Ingahm, the Steward of Walls, had shown enough sense to assign her female guards, and she had been pleased to recognize one of them as Julen Egoyin, the stable master’s daughter. Other faces were already becoming familiar to her, she realized, as she returned bows and curtsies with a smile and an inclination of her head.
The normal morning bustle of the stable yard was as familiar to her as her own home. She felt the tension ease from her shoulders. Two grooms were unwrapping a bandage from the right fore hock of a tall chestnut horse while a third stood back and watched, hands on hips. Younger boys and girls were striding back and forth with buckets of water and handbarrows loaded with pots of steaming mash. It took her a moment to realize there was about the same amount of noise and work as there would have been in her own mother’s stables— perhaps less. Nothing like the bustle and commotion she’d seen in the Tarkina of Arderon’s House. Alaria was reminded of the empty stalls she had seen a few days ago. Still, there were stalls occupied here, and they were already being cleaned, so Alaria picked up her pace. It had been three days since she’d last been down to check on her queens, but surely Delos Egoyin would have understood, would have known that this was the first chance she’d had. With Cleona gone—Alaria cleared her throat and squared her shoulders.
Alaria knew something was different the moment she entered the block of buildings that made up the stables themselves. She had not expected to find her queens still in the special front stall, where they had been made ready for a ceremony that had not taken place—and now never would. But a quick glance was enough to tell her that none of her horses were even in this part of the stables at all. Her heart thumping, Alaria relaxed the hands that had formed into fists and turned to her guards.
“Where might I find your father at this hour?” she asked Julen.
The guard frowned, sending short, sharp glances around the enclosure and out into the yard. “His rooms are in that wing, at the end of the yard,” she said finally.
They were making their way back through the yard when the figure of Delos Egoyin appeared out of the middle of the stable block, wiping his hands clean on a scrap of cloth.
“Ah, there you are, Princess.” The older man bobbed his head in the sketch of a bow. “I was wondering why I hadn’t seen you before, though of course we know of your loss—our loss, I suppose I should say, if it comes to that, though I only laid eyes on your cousin the once, when I picked out her mount for her. And now they’re both gone, cousin and mounts, and Essio as well.”
Alaria almost smiled. It seemed that for Delos the loss of the horses was almost as important as the loss of the people. She understood his feelings and sympathized. But she had other horses on her mind.
“Where are my queens, Delos Egoyin?” she said. “Who has moved them without my knowledge?”
The older man rubbed at his upper lip with a rough finger. “I wouldn’t have moved them, you understand, Princess. And it was against my advice it was done. Not that they’re so close to their time, but with so much at stake—I wouldn’t have moved them.”
Which meant someone else had, someone with greater authority here even than the stable master. Her hands formed into fists again, and this time she let them. Time for everyone to learn that there was only one person in Menoin with authority over Arderon horses, and that was the remaining Princess of Arderon.
“Who requested the transfer?”
“Notice came down with the Tarkin’s mark on it,” Delos said.
Alaria crossed her arms and took a deep breath, letting it out through her nose. “Where is the Tarkin now?” she asked Julen.
Her eyes round, Julen Egoyin glanced at her father before answering. “It’s time for the morning audience, Lady of Arderon, for common folk and foreigners.”
“Well, Caids know, I’m foreign enough. Lead me.”
The waiting room of the Tarkin of Menoin’s morning audience chamber was larger than Alaria expected. There were seats, pitchers of ganje kept warm over small pots of oil paste, with watered wine and glazed clay cups on the small tables that were scattered around the room. The floor was tiled in large squares of black and white, the walls were patterned in green, red, and white tiles to about shoulder height, and painted above with scenes of what looked like ceremonial games: javelin throwing, archery, and the like. The coffered ceiling showed signs that a master carver had been employed to work on it. All this Alaria saw in a quick glance, as the dozen or so people waiting all got to their feet when she came through the open doorway.
“Please,” she said, making a sitting motion with her hands. Her fury was subsiding, and she began to realize that she was intruding on the legitimate business of the people of Menoin. As she hesitated, however, the senior page attending on the inner door beckoned her forward.
“I will wait my turn,” she said, approaching him, but the scandalized look he gave her—mirrored on the faces of the people waiting nearest the door—showed her that she had better go in, and quickly. Gesturing her acknowledgment of the inevitable and murmuring her thanks to the others in the outer room, Alaria allowed the door page to escort her into the audience chamber.
Falcos Akarion was just grasping hands—shaking hands they called it here—with a petitioner in a beautifully embroidered robe as she came in. The room steward stepped forward to lead the man out, and he announced Alaria at the same time.
The face Falcos turned to her was paler than she remembered it. She had not seen the Tarkin since the Mercenary Brothers
had entered the Path of the Sun, and though his eyes were bright, and his thick black hair still hung in perfect waves over his shoulders, he seemed tired. Somehow, his beauty struck her as less inhuman than she had felt it to be.
This room was smaller than the waiting room, but it had two windows in the right-hand side that gave on a courtyard full of flowers and sculpted trees. Between the windows was a desk where two men were seated, one writing. Clerks, Alaria thought, who would be recording the Tarkin’s judgments.
Falcos stepped down off the shallow dais to greet her as an equal, extending his hand. Alaria was so taken aback by this that she was shaking hands with him before she quite realized what she was doing.
“Lady of Arderon,” he said, leading her to take the seat next to the throne-like one on the dais. “How can I help you?”
“My horses,” she said. She didn’t want to sit down, but she knew enough about courts and courtesy to know they would get down to business faster if she did. “They have been moved from their place in the royal stables, moved from the care of Delos Egoyin. Why has this been done? Why was I not informed?”
“I know nothing of this,” Falcos said, his blue eyes narrowing.
“It was my doing, Falcos.” As soon as he spoke Alaria realized that the man she’d taken for the second clerk was in fact Epion Akarion. She hoped her surprise and confusion was not evident. A male clerk, that was only to be expected, but what was the Tarkin’s own uncle and first counselor doing sitting down at the same table? He had risen and now came out from behind the worktable, inclining his head to her as he came, a rueful look on his pleasantly craggy face. “They are not needed at present for any ceremony, and I was not happy with them there in the outer stables, accessible to all the curiosity seekers, especially now that they are so close to foaling.”
It was a reasonable explanation. In fact, that had been Alaria’s own purpose in going down to the stables this morning. But somehow Epion’s very reasonableness rubbed at her.
“And why was I not informed?”
Epion’s eyes grew round and he looked from Alaria to Falcos and back again. The look on his face reminded her of the expression her tutors had when she hadn’t grasped some point of logic, and Alaria stifled the urge to apologize.
“But, my dear Princess,” Epion was saying. “Why should you be troubled with the disposal of the Tarkin’s horses, any more than you should be troubled with the news that his clothing had been sent to the laundry?”
Alaria gripped the arms of her chair and raised her chin to look Epion straight in the eye. The very reasonableness of his tone was grating. “Because unlike his clothing, those horses are not the Tarkin’s property,” she said, in as measured a voice as she could muster. “They were a bride gift for a marriage that has not taken place, and as such, they still belong to Arderon. To me, in fact,” she added, “as the only representative of Arderon in this court.” She turned to Falcos. The Tarkin was watching them, his face carefully neutral, but Alaria swore his eyes were twinkling. She straightened her spine.
“I require the return of my property,” she said.
“Really, Falcos, I had no idea—”
The Tarkin cut his uncle off short with a raised hand. “Kalyn?” he said. The older man, the real clerk, rose from his place at the worktable and came forward.
“It is as the Princess of Arderon says,” he said. He had his hands folded in front of him, but he looked each of them in the eye as he spoke, and his tone was not a servile one. “The horses were not a personal gift from the Tarkina of Arderon—one ruler to another—but rather they were a bride gift accompanying the Princess Cleona, which would pass to the crown of Menoin only if the marriage took place. Seeing as that is not the case,” the man cleared his throat, the corners of his mouth turned down. “The mares and their foals remain the property of Alaria, Princess of Arderon, as her cousin’s heir.”
Alaria turned immediately to Epion. “Where are my horses?”
“I but moved them to the inner courtyard, where they might be more secure,” he said, with a slight bow. There was nothing but concern on his face. “And if I have anticipated the event, I’m sure I beg your pardon and indulgence.” Here he bowed more deeply.
“What event?” Falcos had the question out before Alaria could ask it herself.
“Why, your marriage to the Princess Alaria, of course.” Epion looked between them, brow furrowed in a frown. He seemed genuinely worried, genuinely concerned—was it possible? Then the import of his words penetrated.
“Marriage?” she stammered out. “Marriage to me?”
“Why yes.” The older man looked once more between them. Alaria thought she saw her own shock mirrored on Falcos Tarkin’s face. “Surely you realized? Naturally the treaties and agreements between our two nations are still of vital importance—perhaps even more so now,” Epion said. “Of course, nothing has been said in the wake of this terrible tragedy, but I assumed—that is, it seemed to me logical that after the passage of a suitable, and short, mourning period, a marriage must take place between the two of you.”
“The Princesses of Arderon are not interchangeable game pieces,” Falcos said.
Alaria felt her ears grow hot. Of course not. She was not as close to the throne of Arderon as her cousin Cleona, though the Caids knew there could very well be no one closer. She shivered as an unpleasant thought occurred to her. Was this the real reason she had been allowed to come? In case something unforeseen had happened to one of them, there would still be an Arderon princess to offer to the Tarkin of Menoin? The more Alaria thought about it, the more the idea made sense. It had not occurred to her before because Cleona had at least been a first daughter, and Alaria was used to thinking of herself as a younger child, a nobody at court. She realized through the buzzing in her ears that the Tarkin was speaking to her.
“I merely meant—” Falcos appeared to be blushing. “I merely meant that you had not come here with that purpose, that you might prefer to return to your own land, to your family.”
For a moment Alaria saw her home again, the hills behind her mother’s fortress, the fog burning off the valley floor as the sun rose. The color of the grass with the year’s first frost on it. Then she saw the harbor here in Uraklios, empty of trading ships, and the stables empty of horses. The small signs of age and neglect even on the walls of this room, and the outer one, that she had not really taken in when she’d first seen them. The joy and relief on the faces of the people who had come to the ship to greet them. The cheering with which they greeted a Tarkina who had come to save them.
“I know my duty,” she said the gooseflesh forming on her arms. “I will stay.”
They were in the saddle, swords loosened in their scabbards and throwing knives to hand, while the approaching riders were still only a sound through the earth.
“Sure we shouldn’t run for it?” Parno asked.
“Run where?” Dhulyn answered, knowing full well Parno didn’t need to be told. What would be the point of fleeing, when they did not even know who approached? They knew nothing of the surrounding land and would be easily run down and caught by those who did. And once caught, they would have to explain why they ran. There really was nothing for them to do but wait, politely, and hope to be given a hearing. Of course, if there were a great many with bows among the approaching riders, she might not live long enough to regret her decision.
“Think they might shoot first and ask questions after?” Dhulyn shivered at Parno’s eerie echo of her thoughts. She was beginning to wish they’d never chosen to walk the Path of the Sun. But that reminded her of the Common Rule.
“The path of the Mercenary is the sword,” she said aloud.
“The path of the sword is death,” Parno completed the chant.
She grinned at him. “In Battle,” she said.
“And in Death,” he answered.
The riders were close enough now to see that there were nine of them, riding practically elbow to elbow in a compact grou
p, and that they rode closely, and straight, as though they followed some trail in the grassland that Dhulyn could not see. But there was something else.
“Parno,” she said.
“I see it.”
Though it was late in the day here, the sun still shone, and it showed clearly the colors of the clothing of the riders coming toward them. And, unmistakably, the blood-red color of their hair, identical to her own. Not possible. Her mouth formed the words, but no sound escaped her lips.
“Red Horsemen,” Parno said.
Eight
DHULYN AND PARNO had done many hard things since they’d left their Schooling, but sitting still and watching as the Red Horsemen rode closer and closer was perhaps the hardest. Finally, Parno twisted in his saddle until he could push up the flap on his left saddlebag; he reached in and took out four crossbow bolts.
Dhulyn shook her head, patting the air between them with her left hand. “Let’s not appear more hostile than necessary. It may be they are merely riding in this direction. Perhaps the Path signals them somehow when it has been used.”
Parno shrugged, but he slid the crossbow bolts into the tops of his boots, as if he were unwilling to put them away now he had them out. “That will be useful for us, if they know who has come through and when.”
They knew the moment the Red Horsemen sighted them. With no break in stride or speed, four of the approaching riders split off from the main group, two to each side, spreading out in what was clearly a flanking maneuver. When the central group had advanced perhaps a span, one of the riders raised what looked at this distance like a spear and the Horsemen came on faster.
“Demons,” Parno said. “They’re not slowing. So much for not showing any overt hostility.” He snatched up his crossbow from its hook on his saddle and cocked it, forcing the string back by hand until it hooked over the trigger, pulled out the two bolts he’d slid into his left boot.
Path of the Sun: A Novel of Dhulyn and Parno Page 14
