Slee nodded. “Yes.”
“You are the perfect portrait,” Lady Amalya said, “of love, the strong warrior king and his lady, the enchanting queen. Would it be permissible for me to use you as inspiration? To immortalize you in verse?”
“What do you think?” the Beautiful One asked. “Should we be immortalized in the poetry of Lady Amalya Whitewren?”
Her eyes hypnotized him. “Yes, my love.”
“That is wonderful,” Lady Amalya said. “You are very gracious to a humble poet.”
When the Beautiful One’s gaze left him, the light dimmed in Slee’s vision just a tiny bit.
“Will you write it in a sonnet?” she asked the poet.
Lady Amalya leaned forward as if to tell a secret. “It may seem scandalous, but I’ve been experimenting with—” and here she whispered, “free verse.”
The Beautiful One brightened once more. “Truly? That is very daring of you.”
“Art, my lady, should be daring. For too long the old graybeards of the literary world have held sway in their judgments of what is art and what is not. It is time to break the mold, so to speak.”
The two carried on an animated discussion that Slee was content to just watch. It was not out of character for the Zachary to sit back and be remote, to listen thoughtfully and speak only when he had something useful to say. So Slee mainly watched his Beautiful One, the light in her eyes, the curve of her neck, the way she smiled.
Before long, the visit came to a conclusion. Lady Amalya left them signed copies of her latest works, and curtsied with promises to visit again. Her presence had not been unpleasant, but Slee was only too glad to have his Beautiful One back to himself, alone.
“Thank you so much for asking her to come,” she said. “It was a wonderful surprise, and Lady Amalya is a delight.”
“Anything for you, my love.” It had been a surprise to him, too.
“Oh!” she exclaimed suddenly. “Your children must have liked her, too, for they are all stirred up.”
She let him slide his hand over her belly to feel tiny feet kicking. What was it like inside the womb? How did they look in there? Slee had stolen enough infants to know what they looked like after they’d been birthed. This was the first time he’d really gotten to know some while they were inside. They would be innocent and as glorious as their mother. They were his.
“Sire?”
Slee had placed his face against her belly to feel the movement of the babies against his cheek. Now he sat up, displeased to find one of the black-garbed guardians standing before him.
“What is it?”
“An envoy from Rhovanny has arrived.”
Slee searched the thoughts of the Zachary. This was an important development, but he did not wish to leave his queen’s side.
“Tallman and Javien can handle it.”
The Weapon shifted uncomfortably. “Sire, it may be considered an aspersion if you do not honor the envoy with your presence.”
Slee was about to argue, but the Beautiful One placed her graceful hand on his arm. “Zachary, you must go. You have been waiting for this for a very long time.”
“But—”
“I will be fine, and will await your return.”
Slee struggled with himself, but nodded. It would not do to arouse their suspicions. He would go and play king for a while, and yes, she would be here when he returned.
“Come,” Laren said in response to the knock on her door. She was struggling with her longcoat when, to her surprise, the Weapon, Fastion, and not a Green Foot runner, stepped inside her quarters.
“Fastion? I heard the envoy from Rhovanny has finally appeared. Have you come to fetch me?”
“Not to see the envoy.”
He stepped around her work table to assist her with the coat, and then helped her buckle on her swordbelt. It was disconcerting, to say the least. She felt like a child needing help to get dressed, and that that help was a warrior in black . . . ?
“Doesn’t the king need me?” she asked.
After a considered moment, he replied, “Most likely, but it is the queen who wishes to see you. She asked me personally to bring you to her.”
“The queen? Whatever for?”
“I do not know.”
It was something that he looked uncertain, almost as if he wanted to speak his mind, but discipline stayed him. In their walk over to the castle, he revealed nothing.
The castle entrance was clogged with the envoy’s entourage and attendants, in addition to castle servants coming forward to aid them. Laren was rather astonished by the number of people and horses, and wondered what dignitary of Rhovanny had made the journey to see Zachary. To avoid the crowd, Fastion took her through the servants entrance and through the back corridors until finally they reached the west wing and the queen’s apartments. She found Estora standing before the hearth, her hand pressed against the small of her back. She looked plump and rosy.
“Your Majesty,” Fastion said, “Captain Mapstone is here to see you.”
“Thank you, Fastion. Please see that we are not disturbed.”
He bowed and left them, and Estora turned to Laren. “Good heavens, Captain, what happened to you?”
Apparently word of the mishap with Loon and the fence had not reached this far. “An argument with a horse, my lady.”
“I am so sorry. Please, sit down. Should you even be out of bed?”
Laren took one of the chairs across from the sofa and smiled, thinking she’d done everything but rest in bed. “I ache, but I am well enough.”
Estora seated herself on her sofa, and drew a blanket over her lap. “Usually I think of Green Rider danger occurring out in the world, and not from their own horses.”
“I am ashamed to admit it happened in the paddock outside Rider stables.” Laren smiled briefly. “You wished to see me, Your Majesty?”
“Yes, Captain. I don’t quite know where to begin . . .”
“Is it about Zachary?”
Estora nodded. “Yes. It is rare he is away from my side, so with the envoy distracting him, I thought this a good opportunity to have you here. In fact, he is so attentive that I admit to feeling a little smothered.”
“I was wondering. He’s declined to attend his public audience and meetings.”
“I once wished for such attention,” Estora replied. “There were times when he was distant and I ached to have him close with me. Now he is the opposite.”
“Les Tallman says he is nesting.”
Estora smiled. “Vanlynn said something similar, and perhaps I should relax and revel in his attention while I have it. But it’s a little like he’s besotted.”
“Seeing you in bloom as the mother of his children may have moved something in him. He may not seem it, but he is quite sensitive.”
“Yes, but, Captain . . . Let us not mince words. He did not marry me out of love, but duty. He has been fond of me, yes, but not in the same sense as he loves Karigan.”
Said so bluntly, it took Laren by surprise, especially to hear it from Estora. “People change. Perhaps he has seen what is really before him.”
“I do not know, Captain. It does feel hypocritical to complain about that which I once desired, but it—he feels . . . wrong. I had wondered if you noticed him acting differently.”
“I haven’t seen him in days to notice.”
“Because he has been with me,” Estora murmured. “If you do notice anything, please tell me. You have been close to him for a very long time and would notice anything unusual.”
Laren could not even begin to fathom what could possibly be off, except this whole nesting business, but who was she to know anything about the behavior of expectant fathers? Estora’s sense of wrongness, however, was enough to concern her.
“I will seek him out later and see how he seems,�
�� she said.
“That is all I ask,” Estora replied.
Laren paused a moment before taking her leave of the queen.
“Is there something else, Captain?”
“I was going to speak with Mistress Evans,” Laren replied, “but since I am here, I thought I might address it with you directly.” She told Estora about the visit she had had from Anna, and the girl’s request.
“She is so quiet,” Estora said, “that I would not have guessed she had so adventurous a soul.”
“Unless she hears the Rider call, I cannot bring her into the messenger service, but I was thinking, if you and Mistress Evans approve, that perhaps she could join in on some Rider training. I hate to crush the ambitions of one so eager.”
“What training do you have in mind?” Estora asked.
“Beginning riding, basic arms. I know she is receiving lessons in reading and figuring, but if it can be worked into the schedule, there are lessons in geography, history, and etiquette, as well.”
“It sounds,” Estora said quietly, “as if you wish to turn her into a Green Rider even if she can’t be one.”
“Does it?” Laren asked, trying to sound innocent. “It may turn out that none of it appeals to her after all, and she will become more content as a servant, perhaps eventually meet a young man, and carry on a more or less traditional life. Or, if this interest of hers is real, she may come to serve her king and queen in some more useful capacity.”
Estora smiled. “More useful than tending my hearth?”
Laren smiled back.
“Very well,” Estora said. “I will speak to Mistress Evans, and I will see what can be arranged.”
“Thank you,” Laren replied.
They spoke for a while longer, then Laren excused herself. As she walked through the corridors of the royal wing, she found herself pleased with how receptive Estora had been to the idea of allowing Anna to participate in Rider training, but disquieted by her words about Zachary. Was he simply nesting as Vanlynn suggested, or was something more at play? Perhaps it was nothing and the arrival of the Rhovans would stir his intrinsic sense of duty and motivate him to return to more usual patterns. If not, Laren would get to the bottom of it. After all, war was upon them and it was no time for him to indulge in capricious behavior no matter his fatherly impulses. It would neither impress their allies nor instill confidence in him as Sacoridia’s king.
As she descended stairs to the lower level, she was certain Zachary would snap out of it, whatever it was, and continue to guide the realm with a steady hand. If he did not, they were in trouble.
NORTH
Unfortunately, to Karigan’s line of thinking, Estral had not changed her mind about going to North, and as they drew closer, the dense elder woods of the Green Cloak with its grand pines gave way to newer, spindly growth bare of leaves, and thence to an open expanse of stumps and scrub half buried by wet snow where the forest had been clear-cut.
They worked carefully around the broken branches of snags that poked out of the snow like the ribs of a skeleton, and avoided pits where trees had been removed by the roots. Every time Karigan glimpsed Enver’s face beneath his hood, he looked more and more disturbed. She couldn’t blame him, for it was a desolate scene, and it did not help that the low dark clouds were unloading a torrent of rain. Mist rose from the snow-clotted land like ghosts awakening.
She shivered. Even her excellent greatcoat wasn’t keeping the damp out. It was saturated. The horses looked as dank and miserable as she felt. Perhaps the only one who wasn’t sodden and gloomy was the cat, who rode beneath Estral’s coat. He poked his nose out now and then with a twitch of his whiskers, but quickly retreated into his warm and dry refuge.
Karigan had expected to leave the cat behind when they departed Eli Creek Station, that he would surely return to his owner, but as they left, he leaped right onto the packs that burdened Bane. He’d ridden there until the rain. What Bane had thought of his unexpected passenger, he did not say.
The only thing that kept Karigan’s spirits at a reasonable level was the thought that after they took care of business in town, they could head for the waystation and dry out. Unlike Eli Creek, the North waystation was active and kept well stocked.
But first, town. When the hooves of their horses splashed into the half-frozen river of mud that was the North Road, she resigned herself to the inevitable. They plodded westward along the road that would lead them over the River Terrygood and into the town itself.
• • •
The horses slogged through the main thoroughfare in North, their legs and bellies caked in mud. Except Mist who, even with her white coat, remained nearly pristine as if she magically repelled all dirt. Few townsfolk were out in the downpour, and those who were hurried along beneath the overhangs in front of shops. Karigan guessed that few took any notice whatsoever of three drenched and bedraggled travelers.
Karigan took the lead, riding past brothels and noisy pubs, searching for the sign of the Fallen Tree Inn. The present seemed to merge with the past as she remembered riding down this very street five years ago, albeit in the opposite direction, and not in the rain. She had encountered a horse cart that first time, with the body of a dead Green Rider, Joy Overway, in the back. Karigan remembered the scene well, Joy’s hand flung out, fingers slightly curled, the glint of light from a nearby inn shining on her hair. Two black-shafted arrows protruded from her chest. The arrows were soul-stealers used by the Eletian Shawdell to control the spirits of the dead.
Karigan had recovered Joy’s brooch and given it to Captain Mapstone. It was most likely the same one Trace now wore, for she shared the same ability as Joy, to communicate with the mind. Connly was the other with the ability, and he and Joy had been very close. While Karigan had resumed her schooling in Selium after her first Green Rider adventure, Connly had traveled to North in what must have been a heart-rending mission to claim Joy’s remains and take her home to Oldbury Province, where she was interred in her family plot. He’d found no sign of the black arrows, however, and Karigan felt a sense of a story left unfinished. Did Joy’s spirit still suffer with the arrows left unbroken? Or, had the defeat of Shawdell dissolved the spell of the arrows?
Pain, a breath of air seemed to whisper.
She shook herself and focused on finding the inn. It was where she had stayed during her first journey through North, for it was known as more orderly, less raucous, than other establishments in town. It was also where she’d found a minstrel of Selium named Gowen. When they finally came upon the inn, she reined Condor into the courtyard and was met by a stableboy.
Karigan dismounted and told him, “We won’t be staying long, but see to the comfort of the horses. Get them dry and warm.” She produced a couple coppers for him.
“Yes, ma’am,” he said.
Ma’am again, she thought in bad humor.
Before he could lead Condor and the others away, she removed her longsword from the saddle and slung it over her shoulder. She was not going to let any of her weapons out of reach. As Estral and Enver joined her, she watched the strange sight of the cat riding on Coda’s saddle into the stable. Maybe the cat would like it there and become a mouser. She couldn’t see him joining them on their journey to find the p’ehdrose.
She headed for the inn’s main entrance and said, “I think you should keep your hood up, Enver.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know how the people here would react to an Eletian.”
“Why don’t you worry about how I might react to them?” he asked.
Estral laughed.
“They outnumber you,” Karigan replied, “and this is not Sacor City, but North, which is not particularly civilized.”
Enver shrugged, the rain rolling off his shoulders, but he kept his hood up when they stepped into the inn. It was a relief to escape the constant pound of rain. The inn’s common
room was shadowed, but warm with a cheery fire in the hearth. Many people, mostly men, huddled about it, drinking from tankards. A good many of the tables were full.
The innkeeper approached them, and Karigan remembered him, the spindly man with his thinning red hair. Even more thin now, she reflected. Wiles was his name, she recalled. He looked them up and down as if to assess their character.
“King’s messenger?” he said in surprise.
“Yes.”
“There are no rooms available tonight.”
“We are not looking for rooms.”
“Then you may sit at a table if that is what you are here for. We take only currency, no credits from the king.”
Karigan nodded curtly, and Estral was already heading for one of the tables. “Innkeeper,” she asked before he could get away, “do you have a minstrel who performs here?”
“He is on break. He’ll be back soon. Is there something you need with him, Rider?”
“I was just wondering.” She left him for the table Estral had chosen. There was no reason why Innkeeper Wiles should know their business.
When a server came to take their order, Karigan asked for whatever was hot, which turned out to be chicken in a thick gravy with dumplings, and a pot of tea. With a warm, full belly, and her uniform starting to dry, she began to relax a little. A few patrons gave her dark looks, but most, on the whole, ignored her. She espied a tall, muscular fellow watching the common room from against the far wall, his meaty arms folded across his chest. Karigan guessed he was the innkeeper’s enforcer, who kept order over rowdy patrons.
When Estral’s attention shifted from her food, Karigan followed her gaze. A man entered the common room with a lute and sat on a stool by the fire.
“Do you know him?” Karigan asked her.
“Yes,” Estral said. “Barris Griggs. He made master a few years ago.”
The minstrel tuned up, then launched into some rousing folk tunes, the sort of which were often sung in common rooms, and which were so well-known the audience could sing along. Estral’s lips moved to the words though she uttered no sound that Karigan could hear. Enver watched and listened with great interest. If he wished to learn the fireside customs of Sacoridians, he was now witnessing them in full form.
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