Crown Duel

by Sherwood Smith

  Blue and black and white tunicked riders thundered down through the trees toward the wagons. On the other side of the road, another group rounded the rise, and within the space of ten heartbeats, the wagons were surrounded by nine ridings of warriors, a full wing, all with lances pointed and swords at the ready.

  One of them flashed a grin my way—Nessaren!

  Then the wing commander trotted up and bowed low over his horse’s withers. “Your orders, my lady?”

  He was utterly serious, but the impulse to dissolve into helpless laughter was shaking my already watery insides. “These gentle people may unload their stones, and pile them neatly for the locals to collect,” I said. “And then the drivers and their companions are yours. I think local villagers might be hired to drive the cargo of the wagons down to the sea. Brine-soaked kinthus won’t hurt anyone and becomes mere wood. The wagons then might be offered to said villagers as partial payment.”

  The wing commander bowed again, and issued orders. I noted from the salutes that Nessaren had risen in rank—she now appeared to have three ridings under her.

  Within a short time, the prisoners were marched off in one direction and the wagons trundled slowly in another, driven by warriors.

  All except for one riding. Nessaren presented herself to me and said, “My lady, if it pleases you, I have specific orders.”

  “And they are?”

  “You’re to come with us to the nearest inn, where you are to sleep for at least two candles. And then—”

  I didn’t even hear the “and then.” Suddenly, very suddenly, it was all I could do to climb onto my pony. Nessaren saw this and, with a gesture, got her group to surround me. In tight formation we rode slowly down the mountain.…

  And I dismounted…

  And walked inside the inn…

  I don’t even remember falling onto the bed.

  oOo

  The next morning I awoke to find a tray of hot food and drink awaiting me, and, even better, my wet clothes from my saddlebag, now dry and fresh.

  When I emerged from the room, I found the riding all waiting, their gear on and horses ready.

  I turned to Nessaren. Until that moment I hadn’t considered what it meant to have them with me. Was it possible I was a prisoner?

  She bowed. “We’re ready to ride, my lady, whenever you like.”

  “Ride?” I repeated.

  She grinned—all of them grinned. “We thought you’d want to get caught up on events as quick as could be.” Her eyes went curiously blank as she added, “If you wish, we can ride to the city. We’re yours to command.”

  An honor guard, then.

  I rubbed my hands together. “And be left out of the action?” They laughed, obviously well pleased with my decision. In very short order we were flying southward down the river road on fast horses, scarcely slowed by a light rain. We made excellent progress. At the end of the day’s ride, we halted on a hill, and Nessaren produced from her saddlebag a summons-stone. She turned slowly in a circle until it gleamed a bright blue, and then she pointed to the northwest. We rode in that direction until we reached an inn, and next morning she did the same thing.

  That afternoon we rode into an armed camp of orderly tents, the warriors in battle tunics of green and gold mixing freely with those in the blue with the three white lily-like stars above the black coronet. As we rode into the camp, sending mud flying everywhere, people stopped what they were doing to watch. The closest ones bowed. I found this odd, for I hadn’t even been bowed to by our own warriors during our putative revolt. Attempting a Court curtsey from the back of a horse while clad in grubby, wet clothes and someone else’s cloak didn’t seem right, so I smiled, and was glad when we came to a halt before a large tent.

  Stablehands ran to the bridles and led the horses to a picket as Nessaren and I walked into the tent. Inside was a kind of controlled pandemonium. Scribes and equerries were everywhere that low tables and cushions weren’t. Atop the tables lay maps and piles of papers, plus a number of bags of coinage. In a corner someone had stacked a small but deadly arsenal of very fine swords.

  Shevraeth sat in the middle of the commotion, dressed in the green and gold of Remalna, with a commander’s plumed and coroneted helm on the table beside him. He appeared to be listening to five people talking at once. He issued quick orders one by one, and they vanished in different directions. Then he saw us, and his face relaxed slightly. Until that moment, I hadn’t realized he was tense.

  The rest of his people fell silent as he rose and came around the table to stand before us. “Twenty wagons, Lady Meliara?” he said, one brow lifting.

  I shrugged, fighting against acute embarrassment.

  “We’ve a wager going.” His neatly gloved hand indicated the others in the tent. “How many, do you think, would have been too many for you to take on single-handed?”

  “My thinking was this,” I said, trying to sound casual, though by then my face burned like a Fire Stick. “Two of them could trounce me as easy as twenty wagons’ worth. The idea was to talk them out of trying. As well Nessaren and the rest of the wing arrived when they did, or I suspect I soon would have been part of the road.”

  Shevraeth’s mouth was perfectly controlled, but his eyes narrowed with barely-hidden laughter as he said, “That won’t do, my lady. I am very much afraid if you’re going to continue to attempt heroic measures you will have to make suitably heroic statements afterward—”

  “If there is an afterward,” I muttered, and someone in the avidly watching group choked on a laugh.

  “—such as are written in the finest of our histories.”

  “Huh,” I said. “I guess I’ll just have to memorize a few proper heroic bombasts, rhymed in three places, for next time. And I’ll also remember to take a scribe to get it all down right.”

  He laughed—they all did. They laughed much harder than the weak joke warranted, and I began to suspect that events had not been so easy here.

  I unclasped his cloak and handed it over. “I’m sorry about the hem,” I said, feeling shy. “Got a bit muddy.”

  He slung the cloak over one arm and gestured to a waiting cushion. “Something hot to drink?”

  A young cadet came forward with a tray and steaming coffee. I busied myself choosing a cup, sitting down, and striving for normalcy. While I sipped at my coffee, one by one the staff finished their chores and vanished through the tent flaps, until at last Shevraeth and I were alone.

  He faced me. “Questions?”

  “Of course! What happened?”

  He sat down across from me. “Took ‘em by surprise.” He gestured in a lazy circle. “That part was easy enough. The worst of it has been the aftermath.”

  “You captured the commanders, then. The marquise and—”

  “Her daughter, the two mercenary captains, the two sellout garrison commanders, the Denlieff wing commander, Barons Chaskar and Hurnaev, and Baroness Orgaliun, to be precise. Grumareth’s nowhere to be found; my guess is that he got cold feet and scampered for home. If so, he’ll find some of my people waiting for him.”

  “So the marquise is a prisoner somewhere?” I asked, enjoying the idea.

  He grimaced. “No. She took poison. A constitutional inability to suffer reverses, apparently. We didn’t find out until too late. Fialma,” he added dryly, “tried to give her share to me.”

  “That must have been a charming scene.”

  “It took place at approximately the same time you were conversing with your forty wagoneers.” He smiled. “Since then I have dispatched the real mercenaries homeward, unpaid, and sent some people to make certain they get over the border. What they do in Denlieff is their ruler’s problem. Fialma is on her way back—under guard—to Sles Adran, where I expect she’ll become a permanent royal Court pest. The Denlieff warriors I’m keeping in garrison until the ambassador can squeeze an appropriate trade agreement from his soon-to-be apologetic king and queen. The two sellouts we executed, and I have trusted people comb
ing through the rest to find out who was coerced and who did the coercing.”

  “Half will be lying, of course.”

  “More. It’s a bad business, and complete justice is probably a dream. But the word will get out, and I hope it won’t be so easy to raise such a number again.”

  I sighed. “Then the Merindar threat is over.”

  “I sincerely hope so.”

  “You do not sound convinced.”

  He said, “I confess I’ll feel more convinced when the courier from Athanarel gets here.”

  “Courier?”

  “Arranged with my parents. Once a day, even if the word was ‘no change.’ Only she’s late.”

  “How late?” I asked, thinking of a couple of measures, or maybe a candle, or even two. “The rain was bad yesterday—”

  “A day.”

  Warning prickled at the back of my neck. “Oh, but surely if there was a problem, someone would either send a messenger or come in person.”

  “That’s the most rational way to consider it,” he agreed.

  “And of course you sent someone to see if something happened to the expected courier? I mean something ordinary, like the horse threw a shoe, or the courier fell and sprained her leg?”

  He nodded. “I’ll wait until the end of blue, and make a decision then.” He lifted his gaze from his gloved hands to meet my eyes. “In the meantime, do you have any more questions for me?” His voice was uninflected, but the drawl was gone.

  I knew that the time for the political discussion was past, for now, and that here at last were the personal issues that had lain between us for so long. I took a deep breath. “No questions. But I have apologies to make. I think, well, I know that I owe you some explanations. For things I said. And did. Stupid things.”

  He lifted a hand. “Before you proceed any further…” He gave me a rueful half smile as he started pulling off his gloves, one finger at a time. When the left one was off he said, “This might be one of the more spectacular of my mistakes—” With a last tug, he pulled off the right, gold glinted on his hand.

  As he laid aside the gloves and turned back to face me, the glint resolved into a ring on his littlest finger, a gold ring carved round with laurel leaves in a particular pattern. And set in the middle was an ekirth that glittered like a nightstar.

  “That’s my ring,” I said, numb with shock.

  “You had it made,” he replied. “But now it’s mine.”

  I can’t say that everything suddenly became clear to me, because it didn’t. Just one fact, that he was the Unknown . . . and my reaction, both horrified and relieved. There was too much to say, but nothing I could say.

  As it turned out, I didn’t have to try. I raised my gaze from the ring to his face. He was smiling. As usual, he’d been able to read my face easily.

  By then my blood was drumming in my ears like distant thunder.

  “It is time,” he said, “to collect on my wager.”

  He moved slowly. First, his hands sliding round me and cool light-colored hair drifting against my cheek, and then softly, so softly, the brush of lips against my brow, my eyes, and then my lips. Once, twice, thrice, but no closer. The sensations—like starfire—that glowed through me chased away all thoughts save one, to close that last distance between us.

  I locked my fingers round his neck and pulled his face down to mine.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  I didn’t want that kiss to ever stop. He didn’t seem to, either.

  But after a time, I discovered the drumming sound I heard was not my heart, it was hoofbeats, and they were getting louder.

  We broke apart, and his breathing was as ragged as mine. We heard a camp guard stop the courier, and the courier’s response, “But I have to report right away!”

  A moment later the courier was in the tent, muddy to the chin, and weaving as he tried to stand at attention. “You said to return if I found Keira, or if I saw anything amiss,” he gasped out.

  “And?” Shevraeth prompted.

  “Streets are empty,” the courier said, knuckling his eyes. I winced in sympathy. “Arrived…second-gold. Ought to have been full. No one out. Not a dog or a cat. No sign of Keira, either. Didn’t try to speak to anyone. Turned around, rode back as fast as I could.”

  “Good. You did the right thing. Go to the cook tent and get something to eat. You’re off duty.”

  The courier staggered as he withdrew.

  Shevraeth looked grimly across the tent at me. “Ready for a ride?”

  oOo

  It was well past sunset before we got away. All the details that couldn’t be settled had to be delegated, which meant explanations and alternative orders. But at last we were on the road, riding flat out for the capital. The wind and our speed made conversation under a shout impossible, so for a long time we rode in silence.

  It was just as well, leastwise for me. I really needed time to think, and—so I figured—if my life was destined to continue at such a headlong pace, I was going to have to learn to perform my cerebrations while dashing back and forth cross-country at the gallop.

  Of course my mind snapped straight to that kiss, and for a short time I thought wistfully about how much I’d been missing. Though it was splendid in a way nothing had been hitherto and I hoped there’d be plenty more—and soon—it didn’t solve any of the puzzles whose pieces I’d only recently begun to comprehend. If anything, it made things more difficult.

  I wished that I had Nee to talk to, or better, Oria. Except what would be the use? Neither of them had ever caused someone to initiate a courtship by letter.

  I sighed, glad for the gentle rain, and for the darkness, as I made myself reconsider all of my encounters with Shevraeth—this time from, as much as I was able, his perspective.

  This was not a pleasant exercise. By the time we stopped, sometime after white-change, to get fresh horses and food and drink, I was feeling contrite and thoroughly miserable.

  We stepped into the very inn in which we’d had our initial conversation; we passed the little room I had stood outside of, and I shuddered. Now we had a bigger one, but I was too tired to notice much beyond comfortable cushions and warmth. As I sank down, I saw glowing rings around the candles and rubbed my eyes.

  Shevraeth flicked me one of those assessing glances. Then he smiled, a real smile of humor and tenderness.

  “I knew it,” he said. “I knew that by now you would have managed to see everything as your fault, and you’d be drooping under the weight.”

  “Why did you do it?” I answered, too tired to even try to keep my balance. Someone set down a tray of hot chocolate, and I hiccupped, snorted in a deep breath, and with an attempt at the steadying influence of laughter, added, “Near as I can see I’ve been about as pleasant to be around as an angry bee swarm.”

  “At times,” he agreed. “But I take our wretched beginning as my own fault. I merely wanted to intimidate you—and through you, your brother—into withdrawing from the field. What a mess you made of my plans! Every single day I had to re-form them. I’d get everyone and everything set on a new course, and you’d manage to hare off and smash it to shards again, all with the best of motives, and actions as gallant as ever I’ve seen, from man or woman.” He smiled, but I just groaned into my chocolate. “By the time I realized I was going to have to figure you into the plans, you were having none of me, or them. At the same time, you managed to win everyone you encountered—save the Merindars—to your side.”

  “I understand about the civil war. And I even understand why you had to come to Tlanth.” I sighed. “But that doesn’t explain the letters.”

  “I think I fell in love with you the day you stood before Galdran in the Throne Room, surrounded by what you thought were enemies, and glared at him without a trace of fear. I knew it when you sat across from me at your table in Tlanth and argued so passionately about the fairest way to disperse an army, with no other motive besides testing your theories. It also became clear to me on that visit t
hat you showed one face to all the rest of the world, and another to me. But after you had been at Athanarel a week, Russav insisted that my cause was not hopeless.”

  “Savona? How did he know?”

  The marquis shook his head. “You’d have to address that question to him.”

  I rubbed my eyes again. “So his flirtation was false.”

  “I asked him to make you popular,” Shevraeth admitted. “Though he will assure you that he found the task thoroughly enjoyable. I wanted your experience of Court to be as easy as possible. Your brother shrugged off the initial barbs and affronts, but I knew they’d slay you. We did our best to protect you from them, though your handling of the situation with Tamara showed us that you were very capable of directing your own affairs.”

  “What about Elenet?” I asked, and winced, hating to sound like the kind of jealous person I admired least. But the image of that goldenwood throne would not be banished.

  He looked slightly surprised. “What about her?”

  “People—some people—put your names together. And,” I added firmly, “she’d make a good queen. Better than I would.”

  He lifted his cup, and there was my ring gleaming on his finger. He’d worn that since he left Bran and Nee’s ball. He’d been wearing it, I thought, when we sat in this very inn and he went through that terrible inner debate on whether or not I was a traitor.

  I dropped my head and stared into my cup.

  “Elenet,” he said, “is an old friend. We grew up together and regard one another as brother and sister, a comfortable arrangement since neither of us had siblings.”

  I thought of that glance she’d given him when I spied on them in the Royal Wing courtyard. She had betrayed feelings that were not sisterly. But he hadn’t seen that look because his heart lay otherwhere.

  I pressed my lips together. She was worthy, but her love was not returned. Now I understood why she had been so guarded around me. The honorable course for me would be to keep to myself what I had seen.