Rider of the Crown

by Melissa McShane

  She’d promised she’d think about it, but she couldn’t face it right now. How could she train to be her sister’s Warleader from deep inside Ruskald? How could she train to be anything in a country where women barely had rights, let alone permission to be warriors? And she’d be away from her family for five years. Much as she groused about how annoying they were, she loved her siblings and she would miss them. Torin and Neve might both be married by the time she came back.

  “Imogen. It’s your turn,” someone said, nudging her, and she opened her eyes and walked Victory onto the track. A timed run would give her a real workout, but she wasn’t in the mood to push Victory hard through the curves. As they passed the starting line, she shouted to Victory, who went from a walk to a gallop in the space of five breaths.

  This was what life was really all about, she reflected, the horse under you, the wind in your hair, the ground racing past. She leaned into the first turn, felt Victory go wide, and corrected for the next turn. On the final turn, she leaned out, snatched up a waiting javelin in her left hand, and hurled it toward the target; it glanced off the frame, and she cursed. Time for more throwing practice.

  Her horse was one of the finest bred by the Kirkellan, and Imogen shouted for joy as Victory quivered, bunched up her muscles and flew—there really was no other word for it—over the first stile. Imogen loved that moment when they left the ground behind almost as much as she loved the moment when Victory landed and a jolt went through Imogen’s body, the earth reasserting its grasp on them both.

  She took the final straightaway at speed and let Victory slowly come to a halt rather than reining her in hard, even though that meant leaving the straightaway for the last fifty feet. She heard cheering behind her and turned Victory in a tight circle to see the riders waiting at the track’s head shouting and waving their arms. When she trotted back to meet them, the man at the head of the line said, “That’s the fastest anyone’s taken the straightaway all day. Victory, right? I’d say I’m jealous if it wouldn’t hurt Dawn’s feelings.”

  Imogen was still flushed from her ride. “She’s the best, that’s certain,” she said, and stroked her horse’s mane. “I wouldn’t trade her for anything.”

  “You want to make a timed run?” said one of the others waiting in line. “You look like you could use it.”

  Was it so obvious, the turmoil in her heart? “Thanks,” she said, “but I’m ready for a slower pace now.” She nudged Victory, and they rode away from the track, away from the camp, off westward where she wouldn’t encounter anyone, Kirkellan or Ruskalder.

  The long, slow ride was as much to give Imogen time to think as to let Victory cool off. I know what the drawbacks are, she told herself. The benefits? I get to serve my country. She made a face. Why couldn’t she serve her country as Warleader? I keep Neve safe. I…what else? I get first-hand diplomatic experience. Mother’s been saying she thinks I could stand to learn something other than fighting and riding. I get to experience a wonderful new culture…no, I can’t keep a straight face just thinking that to myself. She shook her head. I can bring peace to two countries.

  She brought Victory back to the paddock just as the sun was setting, cared for her needs, then trudged through the camp to the matrian’s tent. Inside, she found her mother writing in her journal under the flickering light of a lantern that cast the matrian’s shadow, huge and deformed, against the far wall. She put the book aside when Imogen entered and sat looking at her in silence.

  Imogen took a deep breath. “I’ll do it, on two conditions,” she said. “Victory comes with me. And so does my tiermatha.”

  Chapter Two

  Imogen paced the confines of the midway tent, waiting for her betrothed husband to arrive. It was half the size of her family tent and as creamy white as that tent was black, supported by two poles as thick as her wrist. Father sat on a camp stool, watching her pace, restlessly moving his bad leg as if he wanted to join her. Mother sat at the negotiation table, four folding legs topped by a rare and precious sheet of planed ash, pretending to read the documents outlining the terms of the treaty. The Ruskalder and the Kirkellan languages were close enough to be mutually intelligible, but there was no sense in not being careful with something as important as this. Caele stood in the tent doorway, watching for Hrovald’s party. None of Imogen’s other siblings were there, but then this wasn’t the kind of marriage you wanted a lot of witnesses for.

  Having made her decision, Imogen was ready for the whole thing to be over with. Or, more accurately, for the whole thing to begin. She’d explained her decision to her tiermatha the previous night, nervous about their reaction—she had, after all, sealed their fate as surely as she’d sealed her own. They might decide five years in Ranstjad surrounded by Ruskalder warriors was too much for their oath’s sake, let alone for the demands of friendship. And they had been angry, but not at her.

  “It’s a barbaric custom,” Saevonna had said.

  “As if we’d let you go alone,” Kionnal had said.

  “I’m surprised you thought you needed to ask,” Areli had said.

  All twelve were in agreement, though Imogen thought their agreement might have been helped by the knowledge that they wouldn’t have to leave their horses behind. Their unqualified support relieved Imogen’s mind, though only temporarily. Now, waiting in the midway tent, she was angry and nervous and uncertain all at once. She’d never met Hrovald, even in battle, but she knew him to be ruthless, hard, and a ferocious fighter who led from the front. Mother said he was cunning as well, that their negotiations had been fierce, requiring all the matrian’s skill to keep the terms of the peace fair.

  “Stop pacing,” Mother said, not looking up from her documents.

  “It’s either this or I run out of here screaming.”

  “Stop exaggerating, Imogen,” her sister said. “It’s not the end of your life.” But her lips were white, and Imogen knew she didn’t believe a word of it.

  Father grabbed her hand as she passed him, arresting her in mid-pace. “There will be runners back and forth between Hrovald and us,” he said. “We’ll write often, and you’ll write to us. Assuming you know how to write, that is.”

  Imogen rolled her eyes at him. “Thank you for your confidence in me.” She squeezed her father’s hand, and he released her. She went to the tent’s back door and looked out at her tiermatha. They looked back expectantly. “Is he here yet?” Dorenna asked. Imogen shook her head. They went back to talking quietly to each other and to their horses. Imogen envied them their calm.

  “Hrovald will think you belong to him,” she said. “He won’t believe a woman could be in command of a troop, even a small one.”

  “Let him think that,” Dorenna said. “It might be useful to us, later on. And it’s not like you really command us. We just let you believe it so you’ll feel good about yourself.”

  “Funny, Dor. I just think you should be prepared for him to order you around.”

  Saevonna stopped stroking Lodestone’s neck. “You don’t suppose he’d order us to bed him, do you?” she asked, horrified. “He’s not going to believe any of us women are real warriors.”

  Imogen was equally horrified. The thought had never occurred to her. She ducked back inside the tent. “Mother, what if—”

  “They’re here,” Caele said, turning away from the front door and going to stand next to her mother, who remained seated. Imogen bit her knuckle. Her stomach was leaping about as if she and Victory were taking jump after jump across the track. She went to stand behind her mother, trying to look serious and forbidding, though she was afraid she only looked ill. Mother continued to study her paperwork as if her daughter’s life wasn’t about to change forever.

  Two Ruskalder warriors in full gear, leather armor reinforced with steel plates, and armed with the short and long swords they traditionally carried into battle, entered the tent and scanned its interior. Satisfied, they held the flap open and a small group of men ducked through it. Imogen’s eye i
mmediately went to the man in the center. He was shorter than she was—all right, many men were shorter than she was—and his eyes were cold and his lined face forbidding. He carried himself with the kind of confidence that only came from having won many victories in personal combat. She guessed he was in his mid-fifties. He wore battered, stained leather armor, and his long, greasy, graying hair was tied back with a leather string. He surveyed the tent, his eyes passing over Imogen as if she meant nothing, and for a moment she agreed with him. Then common sense reasserted itself and she shifted into a fighting stance, daring him to meet her eyes again. She would not let him frighten her.

  Hrovald stared down at Mother, who still hadn’t risen. He said nothing. Mother shuffled the documents into a neat pile and tapped the edges on the table. She finally stood and met Hrovald’s eye. “A fine day to make peace,” she said. She spoke Kirkellish, a show of defiance just this side of a challenge.

  Hrovald snorted. “That remains to be seen. Is that her?” He nodded at Imogen, a swift jerk of the head. “She’s fat. Got hips made for bearing children.” He spoke his own language, but harshly, as if it were a foreign tongue even for him.

  Imogen sucked in her breath, ready with a stinging retort about the likelihood of her letting him touch her, let alone bearing his children, but her mother overrode her. “The banrach does not include bedroom privileges, as I’m sure you remember,” she said coldly. “It will simply make our families kin, as if you and I were brother and sister. If she returns to us with a child in tow, we will trample your army under our hooves.”

  “Brave words,” Hrovald said, and smiled the way a predator might. “I accept your offer of kinship. Have we agreement on the treaty?”

  Mother handed him half the pages in her sheaf. “Cease hostilities along the border. Favored trading status. A gift of fifty horses to you to show our goodwill. And the hand of Imogen of the Kirkellan in the oath of the banrach for a period of five years, to bind us in kinship.”

  Hrovald didn’t even pretend to read the documents. He slapped them down on the table and took the pen lying there, and signed at the bottom with a flourish, then signed Mother’s set as well. Mother scrawled her name on both copies, shook them to dry the ink, and handed one back to Hrovald. He passed it to one of his men. “And the marriage, this thing of yours with the unpronounceable name, we do it now?”

  Mother glanced over her shoulder at Father, who got heavily to his feet. “Sit on opposite sides of the table,” he said, and Imogen sat in the seat her mother had vacated. One of Hrovald’s men, a skinny youth with unkempt hair and bad skin, brought another stool which he set down awkwardly in front of Hrovald. Hrovald cuffed the young man around the ear, more of a token than an actual blow, but the youth staggered backward as if he’d been punched. Hrovald sat down and looked at Imogen as if she were the least interesting thing he’d looked at all day. Imogen tried to keep her countenance blank. Those empty, hard eyes frightened her a little, and showing fear to this man would probably prove fatal.

  “Clasp right hands,” Father said, and Hrovald put his elbow on the table and offered his hand as if he wanted to arm-wrestle her. Imogen took his hand. It was dry and as hard as his eyes. She could smell stale sweat and rancid oil coming off him in nose-clenching whiffs that made her skin feel greasy and itchy; she scratched her arm with her free hand and resisted the desire to pinch her nostrils shut.

  Father took a strip of pale red cloth from inside his jerkin and wrapped it loosely around their joined hands. “The banrach binds two people in a marriage of the spirit rather than the body. Each participant makes oath before the other, and the terms of the oaths are binding upon the participants and their families. If one of the oaths is broken, the banrach is dissolved and the oathbreaker must make reparations to his or her spouse’s family. If a participant chooses to end the banrach before its term is concluded, that person must make reparations as well. Do each of you understand what you are about to undertake?”

  Imogen nodded. Hrovald looked at Father and grunted. Father laid both his hands over their clasped ones and bowed his head for a moment. Then he looked at Hrovald.

  “Hrovald, King of Ruskald,” he said, “will you accept Imogen of the Kirkellan as your wife in spirit under the terms of the banrach, giving her all rights and privileges accorded to a wife of the flesh, except those forbidden by the banrach?”

  “Yes,” Hrovald said. Imogen felt him grasp her hand more tightly and wondered what he was thinking.

  “Will you support her materially and sustain her spiritually?”

  “…Yes,” he said, and Imogen guessed he was taken aback by “sustain.” She was leery of it herself. She barely wanted contact with the man and she certainly didn’t want him sustaining her in any way.

  “Will you join her family as son and brother, and receive all due rights therefrom?”

  “Yes.”

  “Will you treat with her family in honor, keeping all the oaths you have sworn in this treaty between our peoples?”

  “Yes.”

  “Imogen of the Kirkellan, will you accept Hrovald, King of Ruskald, as your husband in spirit under the terms of the banrach, giving him all rights and privileges accorded to a husband of the flesh except those forbidden by the banrach?”

  “Yes,” Imogen said. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Hrovald turn his attention on her. It was unsettling.

  “Will you accept his material support and sustain him spiritually?”

  “Yes.” There was no way Hrovald would accept material support from a woman.

  “Will you join his family as daughter and sister, and receive all due rights within?”

  “Yes.”

  “Will you represent the Kirkellan in honoring the oaths sworn in this treaty between our peoples?”

  “Yes.”

  “I bear witness to watchful heaven that—”

  “We don’t worship your heretic faith,” Hrovald growled. Father looked surprised at the interruption.

  “Is it acceptable if I ask for the approval of both?” he asked. Hrovald nodded.

  “Then I bear witness to the gods of the Ruskalder and watchful heaven that the oaths made by Hrovald of Ruskald and Imogen of the Kirkellan are made without duress and are binding upon both. You should each of you treat the banrach as seriously as any marriage ceremony, not to be dissolved lightly. You are now husband in spirit and wife in spirit.” Father removed his hands and unwrapped the cloth. Hrovald released Imogen immediately. Imogen quelled the urge to wipe her hand on her trousers.

  “Let’s go,” he said, and rose, knocking over his stool. Imogen stood up, startled.

  “But…right now?” she protested.

  “Nothing left to do here. Make your goodbyes.”

  Mother said, “Two hours, to fetch her things. After all, we came to this not knowing if you would accept.”

  Hrovald shrugged. “Two hours. We’ll wait at the border.” He gestured to his men and strode out, the lanky youth bringing up the rear, glancing once at Imogen as if frightened.

  Imogen took a deep breath, trying to keep from crying, but then her father put his wiry, muscular arms around her and she couldn’t help herself. She cried quietly, not wanting Hrovald to hear her weakness. “There, lilia, there, it’s not forever,” he said, and she clutched at him desperately. She heard Caele curse and fling open the tent flap and storm outside.

  Mother said, “Connor, we don’t have much time.”

  “Show some compassion for once in your life, Mairen,” he said in a low, cutting voice.

  Imogen lifted her head from her father’s shoulder to look at her mother. She looked as if she’d been slapped. “Father,” she said, and stepped away from him.

  He closed his eyes briefly, shuddered, and turned toward his wife. “That was uncalled for,” he said, “and I didn’t mean it.”

  “You think I don’t know what this means?” she whispered. “I just sacrificed my own daughter for the sake of peace. If that doesn’t make m
e a stone cold bitch of a woman, then I don’t know what would.” She held out her hand to Imogen, who took it and let herself be drawn into her mother’s embrace. “I’m sorry,” Mother said. “I did the best I could.”

  “I know,” Imogen said. “It’s only five years. I can bear it for five years. Then I’ll come home and you can throw me a celebration that lasts five nights.”

  Mother released her daughter and smiled at her. “You’re strong and smart. The time will fly by like nothing. And I’m comforted to know you’ll have friends with you.”

  “Me too.” Imogen wiped her eyes. “We’ll have to ride fast if we want to get to the rendezvous in two hours.”

  “Go. And take our love with you.”

  The tiermatha set off for the border in the orderly formation they were still perfecting since their newest members had joined them just two months before, two warriors watching the rear, the rest in ranks spaced evenly around Imogen, who rode point. They passed an unusual number of patrols, and Imogen realized the Kirkellan had turned out to bid her farewell, which almost made her cry again.

  The Ruskalder King’s camp was nearly dismantled by the time they reached it, half an hour after Hrovald’s deadline, but Imogen reasoned they wouldn’t leave without the King’s bride. The Ruskalder had settled on a rise near the border, or at least what Imogen assumed was the border. The plains here, carpeted with tall green grass and speckled with tiny three-lobed white flowers, looked no different than they did anywhere else. It made the idea of border negotiations seem absurd, like fighting over an invisible line in a dark tent when both combatants were blindfolded. For a moment, Imogen felt angry, as if she were being sacrificed for something that didn’t exist. Then she remembered that however invisible the border might be, it was real enough that people had fought and died over it for the last five years. Real enough to make her sacrifice necessary.