“Who were his friends, Ma’am?” Clovermead was nonchalance itself.
“A fair number of Yellowjackets. He got on less well with the lords. They didn’t fancy a commoner jumped up to be Lord Cindertallow.”
“Are any of them still around? I’d love to talk with them about Ambrosius.” Clovermead couldn’t call him Father. Father was Waxmelt.
“Most of them died during the war with Low Branding,” said Lady Cindertallow. She frowned. “None remain in Chandlefort. I sent his old friends to garrisons far away and told them never to return. The sight of them reminded me too much of him. I don’t want them back.”
“But, Ma’am,” Clovermead began, “I just want to talk with them.”
“It still hurts too much,” said Lady Cindertallow brusquely. “I won’t let them in my sight, Clovermead. That is final.”
Other people pay the consequences for her desires, the tall man had said. Don’t you know that about her yet?
Poor man! thought Clovermead indignantly. He must be one of the Yellowjackets that Milady exiled. I was right to keep silent about him. Outrage filled her—until she saw old grief furrow Lady Cindertallow’s face as she gazed at Ambrosius’ gravestone. For a moment Clovermead wanted to squeeze her mother’s hand, to hug her, to comfort her any way she could.
But she stayed still, suspended between anger and pity.
“What did you like about Ambrosius?” she asked after a minute.
“Everything,” said Lady Cindertallow. “The shimmer of his hair in the sun. The love in his eyes when he looked at me. The mischief in his smile and his unthinking bravery.” She thought for a moment. “He never let injuries rankle him or fester. I never learned that art. I tried to, but it wasn’t in me to forgive the way he did. I miss that most of all.”
“I wish I had known him, Ma’am,” said Clovermead. It was the first time she had let herself say that. “Are his parents still alive?”
“Dead some years ago,” said Lady Cindertallow. “Of nothing worse than ripe old age: He was their youngest child. I suppose his brothers and sisters are still in the Lakelands. I’m sorry, Clovermead. There isn’t much of him left behind.” Then she suddenly smiled. “I know! It’s just the thing. Now, do we have time? I believe we were supposed to go hunting in the Heath this morning.”
“Yes, Ma’am, same as always.” Clovermead tried to keep the boredom and distaste out of her voice. The two of them went hunting in the cool of the morning once a week, like clockwork. Her mother loved hunting, and she delighted in sharing her enjoyment with Clovermead. Clovermead had learned how to hunt in Timothy Vale, but she had never found it much fun. She liked hunting even less after a long spring slaughtering small animals. Still, she didn’t complain. Her mother was terribly busy as Lady Cindertallow, and Clovermead welcomed any chance to spend time with her.
Besides, Clovermead reflected. It could be worse. She could have liked counting her jewels with me or knitting sweaters together or boring me with stories about all the battles she should have won against the Mayor. I ought to be grateful it isn’t anything worse than hunting.
Lady Cindertallow looked at the sun. “We have an hour. Come with me to my rooms, Clovermead.” She strode off, confident that Clovermead would follow.
“One day you’ll turn around and I won’t be there,” said Clovermead irritatedly. She frowned and ran after her mother.
When they reached her rooms, Lady Cindertallow went straight to her wardrobe. From the top drawer she took out an old sword in a serviceable, plain leather scabbard. “This was Ambrosius’ sword,” she said. She hesitated a moment, looked it over lingeringly, then thrust the hilt toward Clovermead. “Take it.”
“Ma’am!” Clovermead felt tears springing to her eyes. “Are you sure?”
“I have other things to remember him by,” said Lady Cindertallow. “He’d want you to have this.” She put it firmly into Clovermead’s hands. “Now, this isn’t a royal blade, Clovermead. It’s just the sword and scabbard he got when he became a Yellowjacket. We don’t give our soldiers shoddy blades, but it isn’t anything out of the ordinary.” Clovermead drew the sword and swung it experimentally in midair. It had a good balance, though it was still a bit long and heavy for her. “The wood plaques are his. Take a look at them.”
Clovermead brought the sword closer to her. Where the hilt met the blade, two wooden oval medallions carved from pale birchwood were set in silver bands. On one side of the hilt, the first plaque showed a bear with her paw caught in a trap. A boy knelt by the bear’s side and opened the trap’s jaws. On the other side the second plaque depicted a young man who held a sword upraised to the moon.
“What do they mean?” asked Clovermead as her fingers traced the figures on the medallions. They were finely done, with spirit and compassion.
“He never told me.” Lady Cindertallow shrugged. “What matters is that Ambrosius carved them. He wasn’t a good man for furniture, but he had a talent for that sort of artistry. Look at them, touch them—there’s a good deal of him in those carvings.” Lady Cindertallow touched the plaque of the trapped bear one last time, then drew back her fingers.
“I’m awfully glad to have something of his, Ma’am,” said Clovermead. She sheathed the sword, ran her hand over the medallions once more, and smiled joyfully at her mother. “And his sword!—that’s the best thing of all.”
“I thought it might be. I’m told you’re rather pugnacious at fighting practice.” Lady Cindertallow returned her daughter’s smile. Then her eyes strayed toward the window and her smile grew wider. “It occurs to me that we could go hunting now and have breakfast later.”
Clovermead rolled her eyes. “Now I know how Father felt when I would drag him out of bed in the morning to go watch fawns in the meadows. I’ll come now, Ma’am—just let me get a muffin first.” She carefully placed Ambrosius’ sword at her waist. Its tip brushed against her calves. She held herself up straight. I don’t care if it’s the wrong size, thought Clovermead. I’ll wear it until it fits! “What do we hunt today?” she asked absently.
“Coyotes,” said Lady Cindertallow. “Not the noblest game, but a pack of them stole a calf the other day. The farmers will be glad if we thin their numbers.”
They went down to the stables and quickly attired themselves for the hunt. Lady Cindertallow picked up her own enormous yew bow from the bench where it lay. It was old and battered, but well-oiled and supple. Clovermead slung her own lighter bow and quiver onto her back. Then Lady Cindertallow and Clovermead saddled their horses, put on cotton caps to protect themselves from the fierce sun of the open Heath, and rode out from the stables. Ambrosius’ sword jounced against Clovermead’s leg, and she adjusted the way it hung. They rode out the Castle gates, through the surrounding town, and between the open town gates into the encircling fields.
From Chandlefort’s enormous spring, eight great pipes cut through the rose walls to carry water into the canals lacing the fields. Now that the war with Low Branding was over, Lady Cindertallow had opened the pipes; for the first time in years the thirsty land drank. Each canal was elevated above the fields. Every hundred yards, on each side, water flowed down into earthen ditches from outlets chopped into the canal walls. The ditches belonged to the individual farmers to carve as they would, and each farmer had engraved his land with a unique skein of glittering water, olive trees, and fields of pale wheat. Clovermead saw a gang of laborers clearing a sand-strewn road. Farther off, a dozen children gleefully uprooted the thorn bushes that had encroached on their parents’ land.
Happily Clovermead kicked her pony to a gallop. She reveled in the speed and the wind and the sudden distance that separated her from Chandlefort. Clovermead was away from the lords and ladies, away from the Castle walls, away from the baking heat of the sun on Chandlefort stone. The breeze blew, the fields were a lovely green, and the path underneath her pony’s hooves was honest dirt. Joy bubbled out of her and she could not help laughing.
Then they came to the
Heath, and Clovermead’s joy fled from her. The boundary between the Salt Heath and the green land was as sharp as if a great knife had cut through the earth: Where the canals ended, so too ended the fields. Ahead of them smoldering red earth turned into a slope of gravel that descended toward thorny bushes huddling in the shade of a boulder. Beyond was a dun plain, where patches of yellow grass alternated with cracks in the earth that exposed layers of burned red soil, and rocky chimneys heaved up to the sky. Eastward the Heath was bounded by the shady green trees of the Chandle Palisades, and westward the distant Reliquary Mountains promised cool relief from the baking heat, but straight ahead the sere, terrible Heath went on to the horizon.
Clovermead shuddered as the Heath surrounded them. I’ll never like this awful place, she thought gloomily. Dear Lady, I miss the cool green of Timothy Vale.
“I think I see coyote spoor,” said Lady Cindertallow, intent on the ground ahead of them. The desolate landscape did not bother her at all. “Let’s go this way.”
They rode farther into the Heath. While her mother wasn’t watching, Clovermead let her snout grow and her furry ears poke up. It was a relief to turn a little bearish. Lady Cindertallow didn’t let her turn into a bear when they were inside Chandlefort, and they only went outside the town walls when Lady Cindertallow took her hunting.
I suppose Milady’s right, thought Clovermead sadly. It does make Chandleforters nervous when I turn bearish, and I really shouldn’t do it where they can see me. Then laughter rumbled in her. I guess that first time I should have given some warning and not just turned into a bear right in the middle of the Throne Room. I wanted to surprise everyone, but I didn’t think they’d be that shocked! How was I to know that sourpuss Lady Turnbolt was going to faint? She sighed. Poor Milady, she spent days calming everybody. I won’t ever live down the reputation that gave me.
Now she could hear and smell all sorts of animals creeping about the Heath. There was a squirrel hiding behind a cactus, a long snake slithering along the bottom of a gulch, and two coyotes creeping behind a ridge to the left. It would be easy enough to find them and kill them. Not many animals could escape Clovermead, now that she could use both a bear’s sharp senses and a human’s even sharper weapons.
It would be cruel, she told herself disgustedly. They wouldn’t have a chance. She let her ears and nose go back to human. Milady can track them down by herself.
“Why do you like hunting?” she asked her mother abruptly.
“Good training,” said Lady Cindertallow. Her eyes were darting here and there over the landscape. “It exercises the body and makes it fit for fighting. It exercises the mind, too—you learn how to kill swiftly when you hunt. A Lady Cindertallow needs to know how to do that. You can’t hesitate when you’re fighting a real battle, or you’ll be dead, and your soldiers, too. Practice on the coyotes, Clovermead. You’ll need the experience when you become Lady Cindertallow.
“There,” breathed Lady Cindertallow, and Clovermead saw the two coyotes come out from behind the ridge and pad by the base of a light yellow bluff, eighty yards away. They walked slowly in the brilliant sun, their tan coats barely visible against the creamy rocks. “Shoot with me,” said her mother. “You don’t want to give the other one warning.” Her mother took her yew bow from behind her back and easily strung it, while Clovermead struggled to bend her own small bow. Then Lady Cindertallow notched an arrow and drew back the string. “Aim for the one on the right; I’ll take the one on the left.” The muscles of her mother’s arms bunched as she aimed at the coyotes.
Clovermead thought of sending the arrow at them, and it made her sick. I know how to order soldiers to fight, Milady, she said silently. Don’t you remember? The snow lay on the Salt Heath, and I ordered the bears and bear-priests to attack the Yellowjackets and the Mayor’s men. They screamed, the snow turned red, and Lord Ursus and I laughed with pleasure. I have more than enough experience killing.
Still she drew her bow, notched her arrow, and squinted through the bright sun at the distant coyotes. She didn’t want to disappoint her mother. Besides, she had just been reading in The Astrantiad how Sir Tourmaline enjoyed hunting sand foxes with the Reiver Prince, and it was exciting to feel her muscles tense as they held the bow steady, to calculate distance and altitude and wind as she guessed which way the distant coyote would move. She could see why her mother loved hunting so much.
“Now!” cried Lady Cindertallow. She released her arrow, and Clovermead—
Clovermead jerked her bow up half an inch, while her mother’s arrow went straight into the side of the left coyote, who howled once, then slumped over dead. Clovermead’s arrow went whistling over the right coyote to splinter into the rock above him. He whined with fear and scampered off in an instant. Within seconds he was hidden behind a hill. Clovermead heard him howl in anguished loneliness.
“You must do better,” said Lady Cindertallow harshly. “It’s kill or nothing when you hunt. That was nothing.” They cantered over to the dead coyote, and Lady Cindertallow swung down from her horse and nudged its body with her foot. It lay limp and still. “I’ll bring him to that last homestead we passed. Farmers like meat for their stewpots.” She hoisted up the coyote, carried it back, and began to tie its body to the back of her horse. “It was a good shot,” she added gruffly, not looking at her daughter. “If you keep on practicing, I’m sure you’ll hit the mark the next time.”
Clovermead nodded curtly, but didn’t reply. She hopped down from her pony and walked slowly to join her mother. She held the coyote’s paws while Lady Cindertallow knotted them together.
She looked up at her mother. Kill or nothing, she repeated to herself, and she shuddered. I think you would try to kill that tall man if I told you about him. Maybe you’d be sorry later, but that would be too late, because you’ve gotten used to killing swiftly. I don’t think you’re a villain like Lord Ursus or Lucifer Snuff, but you’re awfully dangerous. She remembered the berserker rage she had let sweep over her as she fought Sorrel, and she shuddered. That wasn’t the bear in me, Ma’am. That was you.
Over the hill she heard the mournful howl of the coyote her arrow had missed.
Chapter Three
The Midsummer Ball
Clovermead impatiently watched the swirling dancers from the side of the Ballroom that evening. “Do I have to stay here much longer, Ma’am?” she muttered to her mother. “This isn’t much fun when you don’t know how to dance properly and have to just stand and watch.”
“You are one of the attractions of the Midsummer Ball,” said Lady Cindertallow. She nodded politely to a passing couple, and Clovermead made a hasty curtsy. Her mother raised her hand, and a servant came hurrying to her with a cup of water. She drank, gave the empty cup back to the servant, and waved him away. “Let the lords and ladies see their new Demoiselle in her fetching new dress, so they will think fondly of you hereafter. Someday one of these young men will be an old man you have outraged with a new tax, but he will shrug and say, ‘She was so pretty in that yellow gown! Why make a fuss?’ But I think another half hour will do. Our guests will have drunk enough wine by then that I doubt they will remember anything from that point on.”
“I’ll just twiddle my thumbs,” said Clovermead dolefully. Then she looked down happily at her gown. It was simple and decorous, light yellow to match her hair, with long sleeves that covered the scar on her arm. It does look nice on me, she thought complacently. Not that I like dresses or anything, but I’m glad it’s this one if I have to wear one at all. She stole a glance at her mother. Lady Cindertallow was dressed in a far more elegant scarlet gown. Clovermead wondered if she would ever be able to get away with wearing clothing so magnificent.
Her eyes strayed to the dance. Eighty couples in four long lines filled the Ballroom. Lords peacocked in silvery tunics and jet-black trousers, and ladies swirled down the hall in gowns of lace and silk—blue, pink, and violet. Most of the dancers had disguised themselves in colored wigs and domino masks that cove
red the top halves of their faces. The windows were open wide to cool the hall, but the summer night was baking hot. The crowd of bodies exuded sweat, perfume, and dank heat; the dancers’ cheerful, laughing din filled the room; and the music rang out louder still. The floorboards had been polished till they gleamed, and torches roared from every sconce. Four musicians sat on a dais at the end of the hall, playing flute, harp, bagpipe, and fiddle, and the dancers leaped and whirled to the prompting of their furious, joyful tune. Clovermead’s foot tapped the floor restlessly, and she wished that she had tried harder in Saraband’s class, so she could join this giddy crowd. The crude farm dances she had learned in Timothy Vale were no preparation for these dances’ complexity, elegance, and sensuous charm.
Now the music drowned out the stamp of the dancers’ feet. Clovermead peered at the musicians on the dais. The bagpiper’s face was red, and all of the musicians gleamed with sweat. The harpist looked wan and tired. They stood at the far end of the Ballroom from the windows; what breeze blew in failed to reach them. Servants scurried around the edges of the room with glasses of ice water on trays, but none stopped at the dais.
“Will you excuse me a moment, Ma’am?” asked Clovermead. “I want to get the musicians some water. They look thirsty.”
“Go if you wish,” said her mother. She looked idly at the musicians, shrugged, then looked away again.
“They could faint in this sweatbox,” Clovermead said angrily. “Don’t you care?”
“Not particularly,” said Lady Cindertallow. “Musicians are just servants who can carry a tune.” She frowned at Clovermead. “Are you going to start singing to Lord Wickward’s tune? Every time I meet him, he gives me the same lecture. Give your pot-boys more pennies to waste on drink! Give your scullery-girls an hour to snore in the afternoon! Feed them plum jam and tuck them in at night! I’m tired of that nonsense. Do what you will, but don’t pester me about servants.”
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