by Karen Nilsen
"Is it them?"
"Give me a moment." He squinted. "I think it is. They're moving this way. There's a lot of dark shapes, a few glints of metal like harness. Or swords. Hell, Merius, what are we in for?"
"You can go back if you want. They're not your horses. Though if you stay, you'll get Silver's next colt."
Gerard waved an impatient hand. "I don't want a colt. Got too many damned horses now to feed. I'm just saying we might be outnumbered."
"Let's wait and see."
"If we wait too long, retreat will no longer exist."
"True. But why would warriors want to retreat?"
Gerard snorted. "You're calling Whitten a warrior?"
"No, but you and I and Peregrine are. And even Whitten's pretty good with a dagger. Remember that fight in the tavern with the sailors?"
Gerard clapped me on the back. "All right, Landers."
We slithered down to the bottom of the rock. I landed on the sand with a soft thump. "They're coming," I told Peregrine and Whitten. "Now, I don't want any killing if we can help it. We want live horses, not dead men.”
Gerard spat on a stone. "Before we take prisoners, do we have any rope to tie them?"
I reached in my saddlebag, pulled out a length of hemp, and tossed it to him. "There's some in Selwyn's saddlebags as well. We were using it earlier to round up stray cattle in the north pasture."
"I suppose we're set then. All we can do now is wait."
"I want Silver's next foal for this one, Merius," Peregrine muttered.
I shot him a narrow look, recalling last spring when Gerard and I had saved him from a nasty street brawl. "You'll get it. Hell, I bet she'll be so grateful to be rescued that she'll go into season right here for you, which is more than I can say for most of the girls you've chased."
Gerard guffawed, and even Whitten managed a snicker. Peregrine's gaze was cold, and I cursed myself. My mouth would get me in trouble yet, even after all my father's training.
Whitten held the horses near the path in case we had to mount in a hurry. The rest of us crouched in the shadow of the cliffs, time slowed to a trickle as we waited in silence, our swords and daggers drawn. When the first man rounded the edge of the rock, Gerard grabbed him and put a blade to his neck. He yelled, and the next one around the rock leapt at me, his sword tearing a hole in my sleeve.
I jumped back, and he dove towards me again. I brought my dagger up and blocked his sword. He dodged to the side, anticipating my lunge forward after the parry. I spun around, and our swords rang in a series of fast, deafening blows. He got in one hit, a nasty cut to my shoulder, and I swore, charging forward. He jumped aside, but too slowly, for I struck him on his sword arm, slashing him from elbow to wrist. The tip of my blade caught in the hilt of his, and he let go of his sword. I stepped on the blade before he could pick it up. He ran for the cliffs, clutching his arm, and I started after him.
Suddenly the cold metal of a blade tickled my throat. Someone clutched my shoulder. I plunged my dagger into the man's leg, and he let me go, gasping. I spun around. It was one of the weasel-faced grooms. He leaned against a rock, grasping his upper leg. Blood dripped between his pale fingers. He panted, his breath wheezing. Then he lunged forward. I cut his arm with my sword, and he bellowed, dropping his weapon on the rocks. I grabbed his shoulder and put my knife to his throat.
I dragged the groom over to Whitten. "Tie him!" I yelled. "Tie him now!"
Whitten hesitated, gaping. "Here." I reached for the rope myself, cuffing the groom when he tried to bite me. Finally Whitten moved. He grabbed the rope and bound the man's arms.
I raced away, searching for the man who had cut my shoulder. I paused in the shadow of the cliffs. The roar of the surf in the background dulled any sound he might make to give himself away. There were caves here, pockets of darkness where he could hide and ambush me.
I crept along the edge of the shadows. My eyes roved in every direction, my ears tensed for the slightest noise. There was a ripple in the darkness, the echo of a loose pebble the instant before he jumped out a mere yard in front of me. If I hadn't heard the pebble, his sword would have pierced my side. I sprang back, our blades glancing off each other as he carved a swath in the air.
My shoulder a throbbing reminder, I attacked fiercely this time, forcing him back down to the open beach. His arm injured, he didn't parry fast enough, and my sword tip caught him in the stomach. He fell on the sand with a groan, blood flowing out of him in a black pool that vanished in the surf, only to reappear again when the wave retreated. I swallowed and backed away. Did men bleed faster at night? It seemed so, watching him.
There came the muffled clamp of boots behind me, and I spun around. My sword met the second groom's sword with a clang. We swung at each other for a minute or two, but he had not the skill of his dead comrade. He took a careless cut at my shoulder, and I ducked away, bringing my blade back around in a giant arc that disarmed him. His sword flipped into the air, a dizzying swirl of silver that landed several yards away. I knocked him senseless with my hilt and left him for Whitten to bind.
Peregrine emerged from the shadows suddenly, his sword darting to and fro as he fought with the last of the thieves. The thief was a brute with a thick cutlass, several inches taller than me, and even though he wielded it with a quick skill, Peregrine’s rapier seemed an ill match to the sturdier blade. I raised my sword to help him, but he cut me off, trying to disarm the man with a jab to the wrist. “You arrogant ass,” I muttered. “You’ll never . . .”
At that instant, Gerard leapt on the thief from behind, and he and Peregrine soon had the man disarmed and tied up. “Thank you, but I could have taken care of him myself,” Peregrine said.
“Like hell,” Gerard sputtered.
"Looks like you killed one, Merius," Peregrine remarked, effectively ignoring Gerard and distracting him at the same time.
I nodded, my stomach tightening. "I didn't mean to, but he came after me."
"Self-defense," Gerard said. "Lemara can't be too upset about that." He jerked his prisoner up and forced him over to the huddled group by the horses. Counting the one I'd killed, there were seven thieves in all. We bound their wounds and our own as best we could, and then we loaded them on to mounts. Whitten and Gerard rounded up the horses for the trip back to Landers Hall. Peregrine and I escorted the prisoners to Lemara and his men in Calcors. Lemara was pleased with our work, probably because it meant less for him. Sometime, much later that day, I fell into bed after a long bath. If I had dreams, they were dark ones.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
"You were supposed to return to court two nights ago, Merius." My father stood looking out the window, his hands behind his back.
"Would you rather I let a band of thieves make off with our best horses?"
"That's what magistrates are for."
I stood up and began pacing the length of the library rug, measuring my strides so that my feet fit in the pattern of golden scallops. My toes were the perfect width to cover those ridiculous flourishes . . .
"Father, you know Lemara is too drunk most times to find his own horse, much less anyone else's. We never would have retrieved those horses if we'd relied on him.”
He turned his head and looked at me. His eyes were the gray of night shadows on snow. "To hell with the horses, Merius. That was a foolhardy thing to do, taking only three men with you to face unknown numbers. Besides, when I tell you to return to court, you return to court."
"But you told me to watch the estate as well. The horses are part of the estate . . ."
"By the time the horses were stolen, you should have been on the road to court. You should have left here at the latest by mid-afternoon, so what were you doing at the tavern at ten that evening?"
"Playing cards."
"Were you short of coin? Did you have to gamble your last copper to buy oats for your horse because he was too weak with hunger to travel?" His sarcasm cut like a whip.
"I had plenty of coin."
"So you disregarde
d my summons?"
"I forgot.”
"You what?"
"I forgot about court."
"You forgot a summons you'd received that very morning?"
"You send a lot of summons, Father."
"I see," he said, his gaze returning to the window. "My unreasonable requests for you to return when I ask and be punctual about it have overwhelmed you. My apologies, Merius--I forgot that you're four and unable to decipher a clock face."
"I didn't get your summons until noon. I was going to leave within the hour. Then some cattle broke out of the north pasture, and Selwyn and I had to help round them up. The bull knocked Lem Rivers off his horse and tried to gore him . . ."
"Why did you have to help the Rivers? The north pasture is theirs as long as they pay their rent, and I assume those loose cattle were theirs as well. Hence, it's their responsibility to round them up, not yours."
"They're tenants, Father. Our tenants."
"Ah, you had no choice but to disrespect your father and charge off on a reckless mission to save a few lost cattle."
"I wasn't disrespecting you. I just forgot . . ."
"Lower your voice. A man who has to shout has already lost the argument. Do you remember nothing from court?"
"Always court, always damned court."
"Stop pacing," he hissed, his eyes never once leaving the window. Only when I stopped, my hands clenched in my pockets, did he turn and face me, his gaze expressionless. "Yesterday morning, the council met with the Marennese ambassador. Do you know what we discussed?"
I pondered this a moment, my eyes skipping to the map of the known world hanging over the fireplace mantel. As always, my gaze first lighted on the lonely green blotch that marked Cormalen, cut off from the main continent by four inches of bright blue sea teeming with the artist’s fanciful sea monsters. I had been so disappointed when I had accompanied Father at the age of ten on my first sea voyage and seen no monsters like the ones on the map. Four inches of sea on the map translated to a week long voyage to Sarneth, our mother nation on the mainland--the Landers had been among the first Sarneth adventurers to subdue the old ones and settle Cormalen. Sarneth was a far larger green blotch than Cormalen--endless verdant plains and forests, presumably. Marenna, a grayish slash of mountains and metal and precious stone mines between Sarneth and the SerVerin Empire, the huge tan-colored desert that consumed the southernmost third of the map. Tiny oases, camels, and dancing girls dotted the desert--I would have enjoyed following this map artist around. He’d had some adventures, with all the sea monsters and dancing girls. I looked between the hard gray of Marenna and the bright green of Cormalen and immediately understood why the Marennese ambassador was in Cormalen instead of his home country. Cormalen didn’t have dancing girls but at least we had trees and growing things, unlike Marenna. All they grew there were rocks, apparently . . .
“Merius?” Father’s voice sliced into my thoughts. “Did you hear me?”
Oh hell--he hated it when I had one of my trances, as he called them. “You had a council with the Marennese ambassador,” I repeated what he had said, stalling for time as I frantically ran though the implications of a discussion with the Marennese ambassador. Cormalen and Marenna were bonded by a royal marriage between our princess and their crown prince but little else.
"The Marennese ambassador offered us half the mines in Marenna if we would take Prince Segar’s harpy sister back," I spoke my first thought aloud, desperate to say something, anything to fill the heavy silence.
"I'm ill of your jests,” Father snapped. “If you'd been at the council as you should have, you would have known that he begged for the assistance of our king's guard to quell the SerVerin slave traders on Marenna's southern border."
"What did the king say?"
"He hemmed and hawed and brayed like a royal ass. His Majesty's son Segar and I argued to send a small contingent of our best fighters to let the SerVerin Empire feel the nip of our teeth, and His Majesty bleated about that for a bit."
"What about Herrod?"
"He had the court treasury spent on war ships and swords before the Marennese man even finished his plea."
I smiled. "Always, Herrod itches to go to war. What did the council decide?"
"They didn't. There weren't enough council members there to take a vote. I had to explain afterwards to Prince Segar that my wayward son couldn't be bothered to attend council that day. If you ever disgrace me like that again-"
"Father . . ."
"Remember, I can disinherit you, Merius."
"It was just one council, Father."
He clenched the window sill. "It's never just one council. When are you going to understand that? Details, Merius. Details are the stuff of statecraft. And appearance. Appearance is everything. Snub a prince by missing his council, and a year later, he gives the ambassadorship that could have been yours to someone less heedless. And you're so damn heedless. Heedless and quixotic. A stolen horse, a tenant with a stubbed toe, an ace up some gambler's sleeve, and you're off on a damned quest. You'll never have any career to speak of if I don't rein you in."
"If I had returned to court and let those horses get stolen, you would be lecturing me about mishandling the estate," I said quietly. "What can I do to please you, Father?"
He ignored me. "I should stay here until Friday. Avernal and I need to decide which parcels of Long Marsh land we receive under the betrothal. I trust you balanced the ledgers while you were here?"
"Yes, sir. Only the Declans still owe us from last year's harvest."
"Good. Then I want you gone within the hour. And attend the court ball tomorrow, all week if you can. You're almost twenty-one. You need to make a suitable match soon." He walked out of the library.
I stood there for a few minutes, my hands braced on the mantel, staring at the ashes in the grate. His words appearance is everything hammered into my brain over and over again. I grabbed a glass vase off the mantel and hurled it into the grate. I straightened as it shattered, my headache fading.
Chapter Three--Safire
My hands tightened on the ledge of the coach window as we rocked and bumped on the stone roadway. "Dagmar, look. We're in the city."
"Shush, now. You'll make me lose count." Dagmar's lips were pursed as her fingers moved over yarn loops on her knitting needle. "Just as I thought. I dropped a stitch." Sighing, she began to unravel the row.
"How can you still be doing that?" I demanded. "Just look--we're passing through a street fair. That man's eating fire. Look!"
"You're like a little child," she grumbled, but she laid aside her knitting and leaned over to join me at the window. I laughed, delighted as a blue-faced man in motley ran up, holding a white rose.
"Copper for a flower," he panted.
I reached into my skirt pocket and slipped him a coin. "Safire!" Dagmar hissed, trying to grab my hand.
His blue mouth widened in a smile as he handed me the flower. "Put it in your hair, love. Two such beautiful things should go together." I laughed again and waved as he disappeared in the crowd. Then I settled back in my seat and tucked the rose behind my ear.
"I can't believe you." Dagmar shook her head. "That copper was to tip the manservant at court."
I shrugged. "I have more coin. Why, do you want the rose?”
"Hardly. You look ridiculous."
I grinned and touched the rose. My fingertips came away smelling of a dew-draped trellis in mid-summer, heady and exotic. The scene outside the window had changed from the market to houses and shops, mostly built of gray stone. "This city is bigger than Calcors, isn't it?"
"I should say so. Corcin's the largest city in Cormalen. It's the capital, the king's seat, the main port . . ."
I bet I can sell a lot more drawings here than on the Calcors docks. Unbeknownst to Father and Dagmar, I had packed my portfolio and sketchboard in the bottom of my trunk as well as my coin stash, and now I was glad I had. Humming to myself, I looked out the window. The houses were grander no
w, with colored panes of glass in the mullioned windows and carved pediments over all the doors. Suddenly, the coach made a sharp turn to the right. Dagmar sat up expectantly and put away her knitting. There was a tall wall before us with a double-hung iron gate. We passed through the gate into a huge cobbled courtyard that bustled with coaches much like ours and wagons of foodstuffs and wine casks. Liveried servants rushed everywhere, leading horses, carrying trunks, shouting at each other. As our coach stopped, a group of men wearing green and gold cloaks with swords on their hips marched past. "Who are they?" I asked.
"King's guard," Dagmar said. Boltan opened the door and helped first her and then me down to the ground.
"Boltan, why did you have to stop so near the stables?" Dagmar pinched her nose at the strong, earthy smell of manure. Not minding the odor as much, I stretched--it had been two hours of sitting since we had stopped at an inn for refreshments. Several servants appeared out of nowhere and inquired where they could take our trunks.
"Here, give me some of your coppers. Now wait with Boltan. I'll be back," Dagmar said. I barely had the chance to nod and hand her the coins before she was off with the men and our trunks.
I wandered to the head of the coach, where Boltan was unhitching the horses. "Can I help?" I patted the bay's velvety nose, realizing then how much I was going to miss Strawberry.
Boltan grinned. "That's all right, Lady Safire. You wouldn't want to get dirt and horse sweat on that fine frock."
"It's not that fine." I reached for the harness but he stopped my hand. "Boltan . . ."
He gripped my wrist. "I've been with the House of Long Marsh since before you were born, before your sister was born, so I'm taking the liberty of speaking to you like this for your own good. Listen, sweet, you're not in your father's house anymore."
"What do you mean?"
"You're a grown lady now, and you need to act like it, at least while you're here. You can't help with the horses and then go to dinner with stable smell on your frock. Servants are invisible and mute unless you have an order for them."
"I know that." I jerked my wrist from his hand.
