She smiled and covered one of his hands with her own. “I’m not angry. Please, don’t think I don’t trust your ability to manage this, and I promise not to rage at any of you again like that. I don’t want to become my mother. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have several other apologies to make tonight. And one huge one to make.”
***
After finding Capar and Evka places in the picket lines and seeing to their dinner, Zaraki went in search of his wife. His chest ached after their fight. He hated the fury and hurt and betrayal he had seen in her eyes when she finally looked at him as they rode north, but he understood. She loved her home. How would he feel if forced to leave her or Capar behind? He hoped he never found out.
He saw her sitting alone in their tent and steeled himself for more of her anger. But when he came in, she stood, looking bereft.
“I’m so incredibly sorry,” she said in a whisper before he could say anything. “You were right. You always are. Abandoning Lida hurt my pride and I’m so stubborn. Can you forgive me?”
He blinked at her, surprised at this admission, and then wrapped his arms around her. Relief flooded him as she relaxed into his embrace. “Of course I can. I would forgive you anything. I know how much it hurt to leave.”
“It’s no excuse for the way I acted, for the things I thought and said. I love you. I’m so sorry.” Leisha opened her mouth again to tell him about the visions, the plans for her, the agony and torture. But now did not seem the time, not when he needed reassurance all was well between them. “I’ve already apologized to Symon, Ani, and Andelko. I can’t believe myself today.”
“This is all new for you. When has Leisha Tahaerin ever lost?” he teased, then stroked her hair and kissed the top of her head. “You’ll find your footing. Now, camp is quiet, everyone is settled. Let’s get some rest. Tomorrow, we have to move fast.” Taking her hand, he spun her around and helped her out of her gown.
They crawled into bed together and she reached out to touch his face. He caught her hand and kissed her fingertips. “Read my thoughts, Leisha. I promise you won’t find any hurt or anger there.”
“No, I believe you,” she said.
***
Sounds from camp woke Zaraki in the middle of the night, as a patrol rattled past in their armor. He had not slept well since the night slavers killed his family when he was a boy. Leisha, on the other hand, slept nestled against his side unmoved by the noise.
Outside, fires burned, and Zaraki looked at her in the soft light. He loved her, more every day. Even with apologies made and accepted, he ached from their fight and would give anything to erase it all.
Her dark hair lay everywhere, and still the smell of lavender lingered. Brushing it aside, he bent over and kissed her neck. He slid one hand under the short shift she usually wore to bed and pushed it up over her hips. When Leisha exhaled and rolled towards him, his hand went higher, cupping one small breast.
“Make love to me?” he asked, and she heard uncertainty in his voice.
She smiled, still half asleep, though that never mattered. They rarely ever said no to one another, and she loved sex as much as he did. Her hands reached up to pull his mouth down to hers as she filled his mind with love and longing.
Afterwards, they lay together, legs and hands entwined. “It doesn’t matter what happens, as long as you still love me,” she whispered, giving voice to a rare fear.
Zaraki kissed the top of her head as it lay on his chest. “I waited all those years for this. Nothing will change how I love you.”
Moraval
The next day, as they continued their ride north, Andelko made good on his promise. Bringing his horse alongside Evka, he explained why he chose her castle at Moraval. “First, as I mentioned before, Branik is not a defensive castle. It can hold out against a siege for a while, but it was never meant to be the first choice. There are city buildings and houses coming right up to the walls. Moraval is isolated and it sits right at the edge of the rocky cliff above the ocean. So in the event of a siege, the attackers can only really approach it from two sides. Using a passage down to the water, it can be supplied from the sea. Branik, of course, sits well back from the port, and you saw how easy it was for them to cut us off from that.”
Leisha nodded, feeling more and more foolish. She had lived her entire life inside two castles and never paid much attention to their functioning. No one ever attacked the palace in Arnost as she grew up there, and the siege at Branik by her uncle had been unorthodox. Castles felt like pretty homes to her, not buildings meant to repel an army.
“Finally, Branik relies on a city wall with several gates to protect it, while Moraval has a full curtain wall and the gatehouse with eight obstacles for an enemy to get through,” Andelko continued. “I never bothered much with the defenses at Branik because attackers can reach the curtain wall from the buildings outside. At Moraval, they have to pass through a gauntlet of gates, portcullises, and archers. So, Moraval makes more sense.”
“Can you teach me more?” Leisha asked, genuinely interested.
Andelko grinned at her. “Of course. When we get there, you’ll see. We can walk around and go over it all there.”
***
For six days, their army dashed for the safety of Moraval. They rationed the supplies they brought to limit the need to stop and forage, but with half the train on foot, it still took time to reach the castle. Their enemy seemed content to unload their ships and dig in, because, as an unhappy Andelko said, they came to stay, not plunder. Gerolt intended to use Lida as his new capital.
Leisha’s castle at Moraval sat exposed on a rocky promontory jutting into the same wide, deep bay that lapped against the shores at Lida. Where the capital city enjoyed fair weather due to the arms of land cradling it on two sides, storms and tempests frequently blew in off the water to lash at the great stone bastion here. Tradition said the Queen’s Horse and Queen’s Guard trained here because the weather toughened them. Looking at the bleak, rock-strewn landscape, Leisha wondered if previous kings sent them here as punishment.
Due to its close proximity to Lida, Moraval had long been a favorite of her family. Davos regularly withdrew here to get away from her mother. Her grandfather preferred to hold court here rather than Lida and her great-grandfather spent the last ten years of his reign here hawking and beating back attacks from one noble or another. Even though it lay only a few days’ ride away, as with most of her other holdings, Leisha had never once found time to come and visit.
Now, as the castle appeared ahead, Leisha sat in her saddle, tired and aching after so many days riding. For once, she wished for a carriage.
The castle itself echoed Branik in some of its design. A tall curtain wall ringed the courtyard, protecting a plain, rectangular stone edifice and a collection of smaller buildings ringing the inner courtyard. My ancestors were not possessed of a great creativity, she sent to Zaraki, who chuckled next to her. He once told her Branik looked like someone stole a piece of a mountain and tossed it near Lida. While the central building at Moraval was not pretty or delicate to look at, it did reflect the history of the Tahaerin kingdom.
Three hundred years ago, ships appeared on the coast far south of Lida and disgorged a people who would give rise to the Tahaerin kings and queens. They plundered their way up the coast, taking lands, evicting the rightful rulers and forging a kingdom of aggressive, war-mongering nobles and royals. However, they held few loyalties to each other, and more to the love of conquest and conflict. Castles sprung up, overnight it seemed, to defend one noble from his neighbor and a king from his vassals. No spirit of cooperation ever existed here, and only a vague sense of loyalty to their kingdom. On the death of her father, Leisha inherited this realm and continued the unbroken royal line stretching back to those first invaders.
Leisha watched as Andelko sent a few riders ahead to make sure the gates stood open and servants were ready to receive them. No family member had visited Moraval in over eight years. From here, her father
left to visit his private hunting island, Svec. This is where he was returning to when a storm blew in and someone shoved him overboard. Now, his only child and the last in the Tahaerin line fled here to escape an invasion. It seemed inauspicious.
Riding near the front, Leisha wished she came to visit for better reasons, but she promised herself she would not dwell. If she wanted a chance to repel the Deojrin and retake her city, she could not despair or lose hope. Tonight, they would settle into Moraval. Tomorrow they would begin planning.
***
It soon became apparent a royal visit on this scale would tax the castle to its limits. The barracks, stables for the warhorses, training grounds for the troops, these were all in impeccable condition, but everything inside the castle grounds showed signs of disuse. Always conscious of what she paid out and with no reason to visit, Leisha had reduced the staff to a bare minimum. The Yard Marshall called on castle servants to supplement the stable boys. They did not have enough hands even to manage the horse traffic in the courtyard.
Once inside, Symon sighed as he set about assigning tasks to the attendants brought with them from Lida. None of them knew the layout of Moraval, but at least they could help bring in baggage. The task of organizing the kitchen to feed the household made Symon despair and miss his neatly ordered life at Branik.
Andelko disappeared along with his captains to inspect the Queen’s Horse and Guard. These companies of soldiers comprised the only standing part of their army. All the rest of the troops needed to repel the Deojrin would come from the lords and from peasants who might choose to join on their own.
“Are you all right without me?” Zaraki asked once he saw to Capar and Evka. “I’m going to go help Ani write letters to some of her agents. We have to get word to the ones outside Lida, recall some to observe, that sort of thing.”
Feeling lost and bewildered, Leisha assured him she would be fine. She claimed her father’s rooms for them. Without looking at them, she knew she favored her father’s things over her mother’s gaudy, overdone apartments. Her memories of her mother were few, but in her mind she remembered a vain, cold woman who cared more for appearances than for the tiny daughter she ignored and then sent away.
Once she chose a place for them to sleep, Leisha stood in the middle of the bedroom watching Danica direct the servants dragging in chests and trunks. Pola and the other maids rushed to unpack linens and gowns, hairbrushes and combs. All the things required by a queen. As her maid imposed order on the chaos, Leisha realized they did not need her here.
How am I supposed to act now that I’m a queen at war? she wondered to herself. Nothing in her life had prepared her for this. She went to stand in the gallery overlooking the entrance hall, observing the chaos as all around people moved with purpose. Not for the first time, she wondered what she would contribute to this war.
***
Danica arrived early in the morning and offered to braid her lady’s hair back while Pola chose a gown for the day. While Zaraki dug clean clothes out of his chests, Leisha sat on a low stool thinking she needed to cut half her hair off again. If this war lasted, she would have no time for this nonsense. But for now, she needed to appear as she always did. With all the upheaval, she represented stability for those around her.
Refreshed and dressed in something more formal than her riding gowns, she called everyone together over breakfast. She would not think about Lida or Branik or anything else lost to her. “Eat and talk, please. What’s the situation here?”
Finishing a mouthful, Symon said, “Supplies are short. We can’t expect to stay here longer than a week, maybe two, if the Deojrin decide to dally in Lida. From here I believe Tolmein is your closest property.”
Leisha knew most of the food arrived here from Lida. No sizable towns or villages existed nearby to provide the amount of food their army would need. Further north along the coastline the town of Tarnow owed its existence to fertile fishing grounds. Without Lida as a base, agents would now scour the countryside to find supplies to feed, clothe and equip the army. That meant they could not stay in most places too long without exhausting all of the resources in the area. Leisha expected her lords, allied or not, to pay levies of men, or weapons, food or clothing, whatever their army needed to survive and beat the invaders. This transient life did not sit well with her.
“The next issue,” Andelko began, sounding sour. “Right now, your army consists of the Horse and Guard. One hundred horsemen and three hundred foot soldiers. All professional and well trained, but not enough to fight a war with. Given we are now withdrawing north, we can’t count on troops from the south. We need to call up levies from the lords north of us before Gerolt gets there.
“Tarnow is a week’s ride from here and we count Fridrick as a friend. Lord Rikard is close by at Vaja. There are several smaller holdings between here and Tolmein, as well. We should send letters to all of them immediately.”
Writing sternly worded letters to her nobles was something Leisha could do. “I’ll have them ready to be sent out this afternoon.”
Andelko pushed his plate away and stretched, as stiff and sore as everyone else. “It sounds like Tolmein will be our next stop, so tell Rickard and Fridrick to have their levies meet us there. For now, we need to move north, build our army and stay out of the Deojrin’s reach. I’ll look at our likely route and have a list of holdings and what we can levy from each for you tonight or tomorrow.”
“One other thing,” Symon said. “The former Lord Ladvik is below in your dungeons, Leisha. What do you want done with him?”
She rolled her eyes and sighed, thinking there were bigger decisions to be made than what to do with one traitor. Several years ago, Zaraki and Aniska dismantled a plot by Ladvik to assassinate her. At the time, Leisha ordered him imprisoned rather than executed because, in truth, the plan was terrible. She allowed his wife, Astra and their children to stay at Tarnow under a regent, Fridrick. Now, if she left Ladvik here, he would starve to death when they moved on or the Deojrin would find a helpless man in a cage. On the other hand, she did not relish the idea of dragging a traitor along with them as they fled north.
“What do you all think?” Leisha asked. “I don’t really like the idea of leaving one of our own to die. He’s still Tahaerin.”
“We might consider taking him along. He does have some military experience,” Andelko volunteered.
Aniska wrinkled her nose, knowing Ladvik’s confinement would fall to her if they brought him along. “Does he?”
“Yes,” Andelko said. “Ten years ago there were quite a few incursions across the northern borders by the clans from the north. I fought there with him for several seasons. He’s used to leading men and could be useful if he’s willing to help against the Deojrin.”
“I would hope so,” Leisha said, finding it hard to imagine any of her nobles siding with the invaders. “I’ll go down and talk to him later. I’ll make my decision afterwards.”
***
The weather along this stretch of coast rarely cooperated, and this afternoon would be no different. But seeking a bit of solitude, Leisha would not be deterred by the chilly wind blowing off the water or the low clouds that threatened rain. With a heavy, woolen cloak draped around her shoulders, she slipped out the little wicket gate. Crossing the courtyard, she climbed a set of stairs to the top of the wall.
Leisha loved the friends and family she had collected since returning to Lida, but for someone raised as she had been, isolated and ignored, their constant presence overwhelmed her at times. She knew they would not leave her alone here for long. Someone would follow, to check on her, to make sure she had what she needed, to keep an eye on her. Right now, she wanted to look over the wall at the tumbling waves and think.
The wind raced in off the sea and up the sides of the curtain wall, whipping at her clothes and tearing her hair from the combs that held it back. She tried to keep it under control, but finally gave up and let the gusts have their way.
All her life,
as far back as she could remember, Leisha knew she would one day be queen. She made promises, to herself and to someone precious, to rule wisely and fairly. She appointed court officials because they demonstrated skill and aptitude, not because of family ties or money paid to her. She chose those closest to her because she trusted them implicitly and because they displayed the same commitment to fairness and care for others she felt. Years spent hunched over books on bookkeeping, theories of monarchy, agriculture and a dozen other topics important to ruling a kingdom attested to her commitment. At any point, she could have turned her back on her studies or work and spent her days at leisure. Instead, she involved herself intimately in all aspects of governing.
Now, a madman wanted to torture her to death, her beautiful city had fallen, and invaders threatened the trajectory of her entire life. She wondered if any of her friends would abandon her if the war turned against them.
As the sun sank behind a bank of grey clouds sat just over the horizon, Symon came to stand next to her. Touching his thoughts, she saw only his concern for her, and she could not be annoyed with the interruption.
“Your father loved it here,” he said after a few minutes spent staring over the wall with her. “I’m not sure I ever shared his regard for such—” he stopped, searching for the proper description. “Desolation. But he found it lovely.”
They stood together, watching waves roll in and the sea birds wheeling and diving above the surface.
“Symon, I’ve often wondered. Were you and my father lovers?”
The man froze and then snapped his mouth shut, pressing his lips together. He refused to look at her, staring out over the wall at the grey sea and listening to the sound of the waves pounding the rocks below instead. Even after eight years together, she could still surprise him with her questions.
“That’s your answer, I suppose,” he admitted finally, knowing she could see the truth in his thoughts if she looked. “Yes, I loved your father for years. He married your mother because he needed an heir and because of Shola’s beauty. But he and I were lovers from the time we were young men.” If it surprised her or made her uncomfortable, she showed no sign of it.
As Dragons from Sleep (The Tahaerin Chronicles Book 2) Page 8
