by Sharon Shinn
“I do not believe she will want to see me again,” he said quietly.
“And maybe I won’t tell her that I’ve found you,” Coe replied. “I don’t know. I haven’t decided yet. But, Kerk—you are part of my life from this day forward. You are my brother forever.”
“Sister,” he replied.
She jumped up then and he stood to accept her hug, as fresh and impulsive as a summer rainstorm. “Come back here tomorrow,” she ordered, “and we’ll figure out some kind of schedule for how we can meet.” She kissed him on the cheek. “I’ve only just met you and I adore you,” she said. She kissed him again, waved good-bye, and dashed out of the restaurant.
Bemused and a little battered, Kerk sank slowly back into his seat. She would take some getting used to, this gulden girl who had no trace of Gold Mountain in her veins. But she had captured his feeling exactly. He had only just met her, and he already adored her; he had already rearranged the furniture of his heart to accommodate Coe.
He looked up as someone approached and Jalci dropped into Coe’s vacated seat. “That seemed to go extraordinarily well,” she said, her face hopeful. “I was watching from across the room.”
“How long have you been here?”
“I saw you walk in.”
“Why didn’t you come over and say hello?”
She smiled at him warmly. “Maybe next time,” she said. “But I wanted you to meet her this first time by yourself. Did you like her?”
“She’s—” He shook his head. “She’s so happy. She’s so beautiful. It’s hard to believe she’s a part of me. And yet I had this sense, when she was sitting here. That we belonged to each other in a way that I cannot explain.”
“That’s how it’s supposed to be with family,” Jalci said. “So many times it’s not. But when it is—well, you understand what people mean when they talk about blood ties.”
“That’s what you have with your family,” he said.
She nodded. “That’s why I’m a wealthy girl.”
“This is one more thing I have to thank you for,” he said. “Finding my sister.”
She laughed and leaned back in her chair. “Good,” she said. “I guess you’ll be in my debt forever.”
He laughed back at her. “Perhaps there is some way I can begin to repay.”
“For starters, you can join me next week,” she said. “Aunt Bella wants to have a very small dinner party. Maybe twenty people. She’d like you to attend. Aunt Bella is very progressive—you wouldn’t be the only gulden there. No one will talk trade, of course, but everyone present will be in business of some kind. You could make a lot of contacts on Brolt Barzhan’s behalf.”
Kerk nodded serenely. He had often been Brolt’s deputy at business meetings in Geldricht, and he knew the kind of conversation that was expected. “I will wear formal attire and make my face very stern,” he said, assuming his most masklike expression. “I will listen, and nod, and offer very few observations, but I will be extremely polite. I do not think you will have cause to be embarrassed by my behavior.”
Jalci laughed again, impulsively reaching out to take his hands where they lay on the table. “Oh, I don’t think I will have cause to be the least little bit sorry I have found you,” she said. “You will intimidate everyone—and fascinate everyone—and cause everyone to start whispering about what wild thing I might try next. Kerk Socast, I can’t wait to see their faces when I take you home.”
Gold
One
Finally Orlain stopped. I looked around in disbelief.
We had been traveling for two days, first on horseback through the green countryside of Auburn, then on foot along the overgrown pathways through Faelyn Wood. I was tired, I was hungry, I was afraid, my feet hurt, and I’d spent the last half hour thinking about grabbing a fallen tree limb and hitting Orlain on the back of the head as hard as I possibly could.
There was nothing in the current scenery to make me change my mind.
“Where are we?” I demanded. I tried to make my voice regal, but even I could tell it came out whiny instead. “This looks nothing like Alora.”
In fact, it looked exactly like the last ten miles of forest we had traveled through, so dense with interlaced tree branches that the sunlight trickled through like sand between tightly squeezed fingers. Actually, even that was an exaggeration. It was close to sunset; within a half hour, we would have no light left in the woods at all.
Orlain gave me a quick grin. He was about five inches taller than I was, and so even when he wasn’t actually laughing at me, he always seemed to be looking down at me with amusement. It infuriated me even more. “You’ve never been to Alora,” he replied. “You have no idea what it looks like.”
“Well, it doesn’t look like this,” I said instantly. “There’s more to it than trees.”
“Alora’s somewhere on the other side of the Faelyn River,” he said, pointing straight ahead of us. “But we won’t make the river by nightfall, and even if we could, the Faelyn River’s a spooky place to camp. I want to cross in the morning, when we can see what’s around us.”
“But I thought we’d get to Alora tonight,” I said, my voice rising. “I thought I’d stay at Uncle Jaxon’s house tonight, and sleep on a real bed, and eat real food. You promised you’d get me there in two days.”
“I didn’t,” he answered. “I said I’d try.”
“I hate you,” I said and burst into tears.
“So you’ve told me before,” he replied, not a trace of sympathy in his voice. “I’ll gather some wood. You just sit here and cry.”
He dropped his pack, tethered both of our horses to a tree, and left me! All alone in the forest!
I sank to the ground and completely gave myself over to tears. Truth to tell, it wasn’t the first time I’d wept during the hasty, scrambling journey. I had been crying bitterly yesterday morning when we rode out from Castle Auburn. I didn’t want to go, and it had taken my father’s unyielding insistence and my mother’s unmistakable alarm to persuade me that this was the best course of action. Rebel troops from Tregonia had been only a half day’s march from the castle; my mother and father were hoping to avert war, but Dirkson of Tregonia was clearly armed for it. Just as clearly, Dirkson hoped to secure one of three things in his assault on the king’s court: the keys to the castle, my younger brother, or me.
Keesen had been bundled up and shipped off to Cotteswold, where my mother still had family, and which was so far from Tregonia that it seemed unlikely Dirkson could ever track him down. I had been sent in the opposite direction, toward another destination that Dirkson would be unlikely to find: the hidden, magical kingdom of Alora.
In its own way, Alora would be more dangerous to me than Dirkson of Tregonia. But at least I would be unlikely to die there, even if I never returned.
I could hear Orlain’s footsteps crunching through the undergrowth as he came back, and I made some effort to pull myself together. Not because I cared what he thought of me, of course. But I was disappointed in myself. I usually didn’t act like a petulant little girl who hadn’t gotten her own way. Even around Orlain, who tended to bring out the worst in me for some unfathomable reason, I usually did not behave so badly. I sniffled and made myself stop crying.
Orlain dumped an armload of branches right beside me on the ground. “Remember how to make a fire?” he asked. He had shown me last night.
“No,” I said, trying not to sound sullen.
“Then I’ll start the fire while you unpack the gear. If you unsaddle the horses, you can spread one of the blankets on the ground and sit on that.”
See, this was one of the things I simply hated about Orlain. It didn’t seem to occur to him that a crown princess should not have to unsaddle the horses or gather up the cooking implements or fetch the water or bury the trash. Mind you, I was willing to do my share of these camp chores—though I flatly refused to dig the privy—but the fact that he expected me to galled me no end.
All of the oth
er men at court considered me a delicate flower, delightful, gamine, precious. I knew I was competent, capable, and inclined to take charge, but I loved to be considered waifish and adorable. Any other man from Castle Auburn would have spent this whole journey fussing over me, helping me on and off the horse, inquiring about my comfort, praising my bravery. Orlain wanted me to cook.
The fact that I could cook, and fairly well, did not make his attitude even marginally more acceptable.
On the other hand, I probably wouldn’t have trusted any other man from the castle to take me so far away from home, down such chancy roads, and deliver me safely to my destination.
Where I would not, in fact, be safe.
Scrubbing my fingers across my cheeks to clear away the last of the tears, I stood up and approached the horses. I was wearing some of my brother’s clothes—not just because they were eminently more practical for desperate flight than my usual elaborate dresses, but because Dirkson would be watching for a fleeing woman—and I found them very comfortable indeed. A little baggy in back. Not entirely flattering. Not that Orlain cared in the slightest how I looked.
I unsaddled the horses with some efficiency—my uncle Roderick had taught me that skill—and paused to pat their noses and give each of them a treat. Then I lugged the heavy packs to the circle that Orlain had already trampled out under the live canopy of the oaks. Blankets down, metal pans laid out, fruit and dried meat pulled from the side pouches. I nibbled on an apple while Orlain coaxed the fire to light. I had seen him give the same cajoling attention to a starving feral dog terrified of coming close enough to take a bite of food from his hands.
He’d tamed the dog. Kept him, too. No surprise the fire gained confidence under his hands and started frisking around the kindling.
Orlain sat back on his heels and gazed at me across the fire. “Hungry?” he said.
I nodded. “But there’s not much food left. One loaf of bread and a couple of strips of dried meat. Some fruit.”
“I can probably catch fish tomorrow in the river.”
“I don’t like fish,” I said.
He burst out laughing. “No, I don’t suppose you do. You can have the rest of our provisions, then, and I’ll just forage for myself.”
I frowned. “But you’ll have to have food to make the trip back,” I pointed out. “We can’t eat all of it on the way.”
He grinned. Firelight picked out the blond streaks in his otherwise unremarkable brown hair. He had a broad face, wide features, and an invariably cheerful expression. More than once I had wished he wouldn’t go out of his way to make me want to kill him. More than once I had wished that he actually liked me.
But because he didn’t, I often put some effort into making sure he really didn’t like me.
“Is the princess worried that the guard might starve upon the road?” he inquired. “I hadn’t expected such solicitude! I thought she was only concerned for her own needs and comforts.”
“Normally that would be the case,” I shot back. “But I want you to survive so you can get back to Castle Auburn and help my parents defend the throne.”
“Well, then,” he said. “I shall eat as heartily as I can.” He gestured in my direction. “Hand me the bread. Throw that meat in the pan and add a little water. We can make a somewhat tastier meal than we managed last night.”
We ate very fast in almost total silence. When the last drop of sauce had been wiped up with the last crust of bread, Orlain handed me his plate and utensils.
“I suppose you’d prefer cleanup duty?” he asked politely.
The other choice, I had learned last night, was digging—for various reasons. “Yes,” I said with a modicum of dignity.
“Try not to use all the water,” he advised. “We’ll be at the Faelyn River in the morning, but we don’t want to be completely dry till then.”
In another half hour, we had completed our camp and were once more seated on the blankets on either side of the fire. Now there was nothing to do except stare at the flames and try not to quarrel. And worry.
“What do you suppose is happening back at the castle?” I asked in a low voice, after we had passed some time without talking. “Is Dirkson’s army there yet? Has there been any fighting? Has anyone—has anyone been killed?”
Orlain shrugged. “No way of knowing,” he said. “So no point in thinking about it.”
“I can’t think about anything else,” I said.
“Your father has troops coming from all seven of the other provinces,” Orlain said. “More than enough to hold rebel forces at bay.”
“Six of the other provinces,” I said in a subdued voice. “Goff of Chillain has sent soldiers to Dirkson.”
“Ah,” Orlain said. I couldn’t tell by his tone of voice if he’d known that already but just hadn’t mentioned it, or if it came as news.
“Why would anybody want to throw my father off the throne?” I burst out. “He’s the best king of the past seventy-five years!”
“And how would you know that?” Orlain asked lazily. “You’ve only been alive for seventeen.”
“It’s what everybody says,” I replied. “Including people who are seventy-five years old.”
“He is a good king,” Orlain admitted. “And even if I didn’t know that by my own observation, I’d think so because that’s what my uncle Roderick says.”
“He’s my uncle Roderick, too,” I snapped.
Orlain grinned. “So he is,” he said. “I always forget.”
Despite this strange connection, Orlain and I are not related by blood, a fact for which I am everlastingly grateful. It works this way: My mother’s sister fell in love far below her station, and married an ordinary guardsman named Roderick. Well, Roderick is not so ordinary, in my opinion. He’s thoughtful and smart and loyal—and good-looking for someone who’s so old—and I never mind it when he teases me because it’s always clear that he likes me anyway. Orlain is Roderick’s brother’s son. So Roderick’s brothers own farms and work the land. His in-laws sit on the throne. He straddles the divide with more grace than most men would show, I think, but he doesn’t have to do it often. He and my aunt rarely come to Castle Auburn, preferring to spend their time on the estates that she inherited from my great-uncle Jaxon when she married.
“But some people don’t care whether or not a good man sits on the throne,” Orlain was saying. “They’re only interested in power for themselves.”
“Dirkson claims he’s fighting on behalf of the illegitimate prince,” I said.
Orlain shrugged. “And who’s to say he’s telling the truth?” he asked. “Who’s to say he wasn’t just lucky enough to find some red-haired boy in the street and decide to make trouble?”
“My father has met him,” I answered. “He said the young man looked like Bryan. He said he could understand why people might be willing to fight for him.” A chill passed over me, and I hitched myself closer to the fire.
“I wouldn’t trouble myself quite so much, if I were you,” Orlain said, his voice unwontedly kind. “There are two things people value more than any other, and those are prosperity and stability. King Kentley has brought both of these to the realm, and his subjects know it. A new prince might be exciting, but he trails trouble and uncertainty along behind him, and that’s a bad bargain. And Dirkson is not so popular himself that people will warm to the idea of installing him in the castle to guide a new king on his way.”
“Goff of Chillain seems to like Dirkson well enough,” I said, my voice muffled as I spoke into my updrawn knees.
“Goff’s a political man,” Orlain said. “He’s sparring for power and concessions. If your father offers him something he wants, he’ll take his armies and head home.”
“Like what? What could my father give him?”
Orlain was smiling again, an edge of mockery in the expression. “Well, now, what might an ambitious man want? A closer connection to the throne? Goff’s got a son about your age, doesn’t he? Maybe he won’t be coming t
o Auburn brandishing a sword. Maybe he’ll come waving a marriage contract.”
“Goff’s son is fourteen and hideous,” I replied. “The last time I saw him, he was half a head shorter than I was and his face was covered with blemishes and he was trying to put a spider down my dress. No one will ever marry him.”
Orlain shrugged. “All men at some point were short and pimply and fond of insects,” he said. “They grow up.”
“I’m not marrying him,” I said firmly. “I’m marrying for love. My mother promised me I could, since she did.”
“Oh?” he asked. “And have you picked out the lucky fellow?”
I hunched my shoulders, irritable that I was even having this conversation with someone as insensitive as Orlain. You didn’t talk about love with a stupid guardsman. You talked about love with your girlfriends and your aunt and sometimes your mother, when she wasn’t lecturing you about some slight imperfection in your behavior. “No,” I said shortly.
“Maybe I could help you look,” he suggested. “Are you set on someone noble? Because those aren’t the sorts that come my way often. But if all you’re interested in is a tall man who doesn’t play with spiders, well, I know a few of those.”
“He must be handsome and funny and intelligent and brave,” I burst out, goaded past endurance. “He doesn’t have to be noble, but he has to have an elegance of mind. And he will love me. He’ll shield me from the wind if it’s blowing and from the wet if it’s raining. He’ll—he’ll make great sacrifices to attain me, and he won’t care if those sacrifices put him in danger. It wouldn’t matter to him if I wasn’t a princess. He would love me just as much if I was a tavern girl. And he will never say an unkind word to me for as long as he lives.”
There was a short silence after I finished up my list of attributes. “Well,” Orlain said, “I’m surprised it’s taken you this long to find him.”
I turned away from him with what would have been a flounce if I’d been wearing the proper clothes. Why did I allow Orlain to nettle me this way? “So, no, I don’t think you can help me look,” I said over my shoulder. “I don’t think you’d be able to recognize such a man.”
