Firebrand

by Kristen Britain

  “Thank you,” Anna said, but he was already on his way toward the castle. She thought maybe she ought to follow him, but worked up her courage to walk over to Rider stables.

  When she stepped inside and smelled the sweet hay and felt the warmth of the stable filled with horses, she quailed once more. She was trespassing. She had no business here. This time she really was going to retreat, but one of the stablehands caught sight of her as he pitched manure from a stall into a wheelbarrow.

  “You lookin’ for someone?” he asked.

  “No—no. Sorry.” She was about to run off when the object of her search, and terror, appeared from another part of the stables.

  “Hep,” said Captain Mapstone, “could you give me a hand with Loon?” Then, espying Anna hovering in the doorway, she said, “Hello.”

  Anna’s throat was too dry to respond. Perhaps it was the captain’s importance, or maybe her serious demeanor—at least she always looked serious to Anna—or maybe it was her red hair, but she was terribly daunting.

  Captain Mapstone gazed at her, head tilted as if trying to see her clearly in the gloom, a look of interest on her face. “Are you looking for me?”

  How did she know? Anna, her voice still betraying her, nodded.

  “Do you hear hoofbeats? In your mind? Like all you can think about is finding a horse and riding?”

  No, Anna thought. She hadn’t experienced anything like that. She shook her head.

  Disappointment flashed across the captain’s face, then recognition. “You’re the ash girl Karigan helped, aren’t you.”

  Finally finding her voice, Anna blurted, “Yes’m!”

  The captain looked into the distance as though she was trying to remember something. “Rinnah? Hannah? . . . Anna?”

  “Yes’m. It’s Anna.”

  “So, Anna,” the captain said, “why don’t you come and give me a hand while you tell me what you need. Then Hep can finish his chores without interruption.”

  “Yes’m,” Anna said with apprehension.

  “You sure, Cap’n?” the stableman asked.

  “Yes,” she replied. “Don’t forget you have a fence to fix.”

  He grunted in response and murmured under his breath something about the daftness of Green Riders.

  Anna followed meekly behind the captain down the aisle, with horses in the stalls to either side. Some watched her; others ignored her existence. They were big. People like her didn’t have horses. They walked. What in the world had she been thinking by coming here?

  The captain led her into another section of the stables where a spotted horse stood with his halter hooked to cross ties in the center aisle. He was taller than many of the other horses. She halted uncertainly some distance away.

  “I need help with getting this saddle on his back,” the captain said. “The rest I think I can manage.”

  Only then did Anna register that the captain’s arm was strapped to her body. Between being so nervous and the drape of the captain’s coat, Anna had completely missed it. She stepped forward hesitantly.

  “The saddle isn’t too heavy,” the captain said, “just awkward one-handed.”

  With directions from the captain, Anna helped her lift it into place on the horse’s back. All the while, the horse bowed his neck around to look at what they were doing.

  “So what brings you to see me?” the captain asked as she reached under the horse’s belly for the girth.

  The words tumbled out all at once: “IwanttobeaGreenRider.” Anna clapped her hands over her mouth.

  The captain turned to her in surprise, one end of the girth in her hand. “Did you just say you want to be a Green Rider?”

  Anna nodded.

  “Well.” The captain turned back to the horse, worked the leather tongues through buckles, and tightened the girth. When she finished, she faced Anna once more and rested her hand on the horse’s shoulder. “It is commendable that you wish to serve our king and queen. Are you sure you didn’t hear hoofbeats?”

  “Yes’m.”

  “Hmm. I can’t think of anyone who has voluntarily asked to join in many years,” the captain murmured. “May I ask why you wish to join us?”

  “Yes’m.” Anna then gabbled about Sir Karigan, about doing important work, and about traveling and seeing the country.

  “I see,” the captain replied. “Don’t you serve the queen now? That’s important work, too.”

  “Yes’m, but it’s not the same.” Anna hoped she did not come across as ungrateful.

  The horse blew through his nostrils as if bored by the whole proceedings.

  “Hush, you,” the captain told him. Then to Anna, she said, “I would like nothing more than to welcome you into our ranks, but there is a . . . a certain prerequisite Riders must meet, and it’s not exactly something someone obtains. It is inherent.”

  “Magic?”

  The captain looked surprised, then nodded as if to herself. “The day of the attack, Karigan told me she’d used her ability in front of you. Yes, Anna, Riders answer a call to serve, a magical calling, one that has been in place for as long as there have been Green Riders, but it is one we don’t talk about.”

  Anna looked at her feet. She had no magic. She was just an ash girl. She couldn’t be a Green Rider. “I understand.”

  “I’m sorry, Anna.”

  Anna curtsied to the captain and rushed out of the stables. She stood in the snow breathing hard. After all her trepidation, after all it had cost her to gather her courage and seek out the captain, she was not worthy. She’d never been worthy and never would be.

  She trudged on a few paces, then paused to glance at the paddock, and saw that the captain had brought her horse out and had somehow managed to mount him with the use of only one arm. The two seemed to be having some kind of disagreement near the broken fence, the captain reining him around, and he circling and bobbing his head in agitation.

  Hep suddenly appeared beside her, pushing his full wheelbarrow. “You’re better off not being one of them,” he told her. “Sensible. Look at the captain. See that broken fence rail?” He pointed at the paddock. “She broke it this morning with her shoulder when the horse got all squirrely and threw her. Shoulder is dislocated, she got a concussion. So, what does she do instead of going to bed? Drags herself back over here to give the horse a teaching, that’s what. Getting back in the saddle, she says. Lucky she didn’t break her head. Daft. They all are.”

  He then rumbled off with his wheelbarrow, and she watched the captain ride the recalcitrant horse around the paddock. Repeatedly he shied where the fence was broken.

  Hep, Anna thought, was likely right that she was better off not being a Rider, that the lot of them were most likely daft. But as daft as they might be, a part of her couldn’t help but admire the captain’s grit. Maybe there was some lesson for her in “getting back in the saddle,” but it was too hard to see it through the tears of disappointment that blurred her vision.

  THE INTERESTING PROBLEM OF ANNA THE ASH GIRL

  A dislocated shoulder, Laren learned the next day, did not get her out of arms training. Granted, Gresia went easier on her than Connly and Mara, but had called Laren’s injury an “excellent learning experience.” She was forced to fight with her right arm only, whether with a sword, a knife, a staff, or her bare hand. Her balance was off because of how she had to carry her injured arm, so Gresia made her work on a balance beam while parrying attacks. The training was reminiscent, she thought with chagrin, of what she and Drent had made Karigan do after sustaining an elbow injury. Laren found it all very ironic, as if it were some sort of divine retribution.

  The exercises she engaged in were made to jostle her shoulder as little as possible, but she was still shaking and in pain by the time she was done. Her “mild” concussion also kept her out of sorts with an achy head and unsettled stomach. It was a great
relief when the session ended, but short-lived for Drent entered the practice chamber just then and detained her. Mara glanced back in concern at her as she and Connly headed for the weapons room.

  “Yes?” Laren asked Drent.

  For a moment he just stared at her, then said, “It looks like the horse won.”

  Laren scowled. “Maybe the battle, but not the war.”

  “I heard it’s not the first time you’ve done battle.” His laugh was like sandpaper.

  Laren rubbed her shoulder. No, it hadn’t been, and she really wondered if Bluebird had told Loon stories about his younger days. Did horses do that? Tell each other stories?

  “I’d really like to get on with my day,” she said. “Is there something you wished to say to me?”

  Drent glanced around, but they were alone. “The boy has refused to attend his usual training sessions.”

  By “boy,” she knew he meant Zachary. “He’s been declining to do many things.” Like attend a public audience, she recalled.

  “What’s going through his head?” Drent demanded. “This is no time to shirk his duty.”

  She shrugged and winced. She supposed Drent was asking her because he knew she and Zachary were close. “Les Tallman thinks Zachary is nesting, that it is not unusual for an expectant father.”

  “Mmpf. I wouldn’t know anything about that. My father could’ve cared less about his family. He just liked the act of planting his seed.” Reflectively, he added, “It’s because of him I learned to fight. Got tired of getting knocked around.”

  Laren knew next to nothing of Drent’s history, but thought sadly that the little bit he shared probably was not uncommon. “I would guess men react in different ways to impending fatherhood. I am pleased Zachary has taken such an interest in his family, though I admit it’s unlike him to not maintain his schedule.”

  “The boy’s gone soft.”

  “If by soft you mean being an attentive husband and father, perhaps. We could use more like him.”

  “Mmpf.”

  “Was there anything else?” Laren asked.

  “Next time you see him, prod him, will you? Won’t take long for him to lose his edge if he doesn’t train.”

  “I am not his keeper, but I’ll let him know.”

  Drent nodded. “Good enough.”

  She left him for the weapons room. She did not know when she’d see Zachary next. He had not summoned her, and if he was in this nesting mood, then he might not appear at meetings for some time. However, he’d have to rouse himself sooner or later. His counselors might be able to keep the kingdom running for a while, but the king was its heart, and he was especially needed in the face of hostilities with Second Empire.

  She was pleased to find that Mara and Connly had waited for her, for she’d had something else on her mind to talk to them about ever since the ash girl, Anna, had come to see her the day before.

  Connly helped her with her coat. “You look like you could use a day off, Captain,” he said.

  And a dose of something to kill the pain, Laren thought. Oh, and a hot bath.

  When they stepped outside, she shivered, still damp with sweat from her session. There had been fair skies, but it still remained cold on castle grounds. Some of her Riders had mentioned it felt warmer just stepping across the moat into the city.

  As they walked, she asked, “Do you two know Anna, the ash girl?”

  Mara answered that she did, and Connly said he’d seen a girl tending the hearths in the Rider wing, but didn’t know her name. Laren told them about her encounter with Anna the day before.

  “That would have taken her a great deal of courage,” Mara said, sounding impressed. “Do you know what the other servants called her before she moved to the west wing?” When Laren shook her head, Mara said, “Mousie.”

  “She must have a bit of hidden steel in her, then,” Laren replied, “to overcome any fear she might have had to seek me out.”

  “Truly,” Connly said. “You can be intimidating.”

  “What? I can?”

  “Well, you are the captain,” he said. “You can be very intense and serious sometimes.”

  “Intense and serious?”

  “Yes,” her Riders chorused.

  Well, she thought, one learned something new every day.

  “It’s a wonder,” Mara reflected, “that she didn’t come to me or Daro. She felt strongly enough that she had to go to our scary captain.”

  “Scary! I am not—”

  “Terrifying,” Connly said. He grinned.

  “Damnation, but it does bring me to the point. Here is someone who, without being called to serve in the conventional manner, at least the conventional Green Rider manner, came to me out of her own desire to be a Green Rider, who wished to be one enough that she overcame her own apprehension to face me. It’s a calling of its own, and it seems a shame to turn away someone who seems eager and willing just because she lacks a special ability.”

  Mara shrugged beside her. “Not much that can be done about it if she doesn’t have one.”

  “And so it has been through the centuries, though frankly it’s rare that anyone tries to volunteer to be a Green Rider.” Her own daughter, Melry, might have been one for she was desperate to join, to become a Green Rider, but she also knew about the Rider call and what it meant that she hadn’t heard it. Laren, knowing the perils of the job, secretly hoped Melry never heard the call and found some other, safer, calling that drew her. What she said next, however, would be something Melry would jump at. “I have never seen any regulation requiring that a king’s messenger have a special ability.”

  Connly stumbled. “Captain, are you suggesting that we open the messenger service to—to anyone?”

  “Why not?” At his stricken expression, she added, “All right, we wouldn’t take just anyone. But people who have the same sense of duty and independent spirit that all Riders do. Look, when Lil Ambrioth formed the Green Riders, it was during a time of war. The brooches were created to call people with innate abilities to the king’s service, abilities so minor they were useless without a device to augment them. You could say the original Riders were misfits—too minor in ability to be of any consequence to those with real power, and yet unable to fit in with those who were mundane. Their formation as a unit was out of desperation during a time of war. Might the messenger service have looked different if it was formed during a time of peace? You don’t have to have a special ability to ride a horse and deliver a message. Much of what we do in the course of our duties does not require the use of magic.”

  They halted by her door at officers quarters.

  “It is difficult to know exactly what Lil Ambrioth intended when she formed the Green Riders,” Connly said. “That was a long time ago.”

  “Yes, it was,” Laren agreed. “And do we know for sure there weren’t Riders of mundane origin among their ranks?”

  “I can see the attraction of increasing our force,” Mara said, “but what would that do to our cohesiveness as a unit? Our abilities, the brooches we wear, bind us together, make us strong. Would bringing in outsiders weaken us?”

  “If we regard them as outsiders,” Laren replied, “yes. I am not suggesting we suddenly start recruiting and accepting people without magical abilities into our ranks, but I think it is worth thinking about and discussing. We’ll talk about it again, but I’d like the two of you to ruminate on it for a while. Then, if we decide it is worth pursuing, I’ll present it to the king. He is the one who would make the final decision, after all.”

  Mara and Connly exchanged uneasy glances. The idea of allowing people without abilities into the Green Riders was a radical one. She had not expected their enthusiastic endorsement, but it was good to get them thinking it over.

  She dismissed them and entered her quarters, sighing at the relative warmth within. She would make
some willowbark tea and rest, but afterward, she must throw herself back into the world of endless meetings and reports. She did not think, however, with even those distractions, that she’d get the interesting problem of Anna the ash girl out of her mind.

  THE POET’S VISIT

  Slee disliked the intrusion, but tolerated it because it filled the Beautiful One with delight, and when she was delighted, her radiance was nearly blinding. The poet sat in the chair opposite them sipping tea, and wrapped in her cloak for she said the room felt chilly. Slee felt the opposite, but he ensured the Beautiful One was wrapped in blankets so that she was comfortable.

  Slee did not see much in the person of the poet. She was round with ordinary brown eyes and faded hair, and in her middle years, but when she read her poems, Slee learned that words could be music the way they sounded together, and the images they rendered in the mind as fine as any painting by a master. It was song without music. Slee was not sure how to capture the beauty to add to his collection, for the words were ephemeral, drifting in the air, vanishing before him after providing the most intoxicating visions. The words were laid down in a book, but seeing them printed on the page seemed so prosaic. He was not sure he could recreate the magic of having the words read to him.

  “From where do you get your inspiration?” the Beautiful One asked.

  “Many places, Your Majesty,” Lady Amalya replied. “From couples who have had lengthy marriages, to young lovers like yourselves, if I may be so bold. One hears of how cold and loveless royal marriages can be.”

  The Beautiful One’s smile almost melted Slee. He had his arm around her shoulders and was really beginning to think of himself as the Zachary. He kept meaning to return to his lair to contend with the real Zachary, but he could not tear himself from the Beautiful One’s side.

  “In fact,” Lady Amalya was saying, “just seeing the two of you together makes me eager for pen and paper.”

  “Perhaps,” the Beautiful One said, “it is your words that have inspired us. We have been reading them to one another, haven’t we, dearest.”