Mystic and Rider

by Sharon Shinn

  “I think—we should see—how effective that has been,” she said at last, when her own body was starting to hurt from fighting the pressure of Tayse’s, when she was sure his hands must be tight and sore. Slowly he eased away from her, as if lifting his hand from a wound that might start bleeding again. She heard him fold his arms across his chest.

  She straightened up but did not make any other move, holding her head still, waiting for the misery to flood back. It did not. She felt odd, as if she had been dipped in fire and then battered with rocks—a few days ago—as if her body remembered such a recent pain that it did not want to move quickly to invite a new one in. And yet she did not actually hurt, not now. She just remembered hurting, and she was grateful that the pain was gone.

  She turned slowly on her knees, pushing herself around with her hands in the dirt. “Thank you,” she said, and even she could hear the wonder in her voice. “No one’s ever managed that before.”

  “I have strong hands,” he said. “Any time you need a task that calls for such a thing, I can help you.”

  “I can’t tell you how good that is to know,” she said.

  He regarded her a moment, though her back was to the fire and her face must be in total darkness. His own showed no particular softness. “Get some sleep,” he said. “You must be the most weary of all of us.”

  “Thank you,” she said again and came somewhat creakily to her feet. Even that motion did not bring back the pain; her brain felt remarkably light. She summoned a burst of energy to check her net around the raelynx, but it was sleeping peacefully beside Donnal and showing no inclination at all to run. Picking her way carefully through the three bodies around the fire, she found her own bedroll and lay down in utter exhaustion.

  CHAPTER 11

  TAYSE was far in the lead the next morning when he glimpsed the riders coming toward them. In this part of the country, the road looped around curves and up and down small rises of land; he was able to make out a few individuals in the party before they vanished again. One or two wore maroon sashes across their chests or braided into their horses’ bridles. They all looked well-dressed and well-fed.

  He wheeled back to look for his own fellow travelers, half a mile behind him. It annoyed him that, even after weeks of riding with this group, he had the same reaction every time he rejoined them after some brief absence: I thought there were more. Ridiculous. There were only six of them—there had been only five until they rescued Cammon—they had always been a small party. And yet they were so varied, so strong-willed and individual, that it was like riding with twice that number, or triple.

  But maybe this time he could be excused for his first quick thought. They might travel as a party of six, but there were only three of them on horseback as they headed toward him. Justin was somewhere to the rear; Donnal, he assumed, was still in raelynx shape, pacing a few feet off the road. Cammon led the extra horse.

  “Riders coming toward us,” Tayse said as he pulled up in front of them. “Maybe ten minutes away. Might be twenty of them.”

  “Soldiers?” Senneth asked.

  He shook his head. “There are a few guards in the group, but it’s not a fighting party. Maybe a lordling on a journey with some warriors alongside him.” He glanced at Kirra, the one most familiar with aristocracy. “They’re wearing the Rappengrass colors.”

  Kirra tilted her head to one side, and her hair rippled down her shoulder. He still wondered how she could keep herself so tidy on the road, her hair always clean and golden, her face always fresh. Magic, probably. Senneth did not seem to waste her energy on such inessentials.

  “This might be good,” Kirra said, “depending on who’s in the party. We want to find how the political winds blow in Rappengrass, but I don’t know that I want to ride up to the manor and ask Ariane to her face.”

  “How does she feel about mystics?” he asked.

  Kirra smiled. “I’m not so sure these days. About anyone. But she has always been somewhat fond of me.”

  “So we encounter these travelers as a Danalustrous party,” Senneth said.

  Tayse nodded. “Then let’s make ourselves look a little more respectable.”

  “Donnal!” Senneth called just as Justin came trotting up.

  In a few moments, they presented a somewhat more impressive front, the serramarra Kirra Danalustrous proceeding majestically down the road, a female servant beside her, four armed guards before and behind. The whole lot of them were dressed in the Danalustrous red and gold.

  Tayse spared a moment to wonder if Senneth had taken any extra precautions to contain the raelynx, who might be made even more restless when new riders approached.

  In a few minutes, they swept around a curve of the road to spot the other group coming toward them at a leisurely pace. Tayse did a quick count—yes, about twenty men, a third of them soldiers of some sort, and one or two that appeared to be servants. The rest were gentry, or near-gentry—wealthy young men wearing expensive clothes and carrying fine weapons.

  Tayse rather thought that the six soldiers and shape-shifters of his own party could take them all on—and win, if it came to that.

  But relations did not look like they were going to be hostile. The lead rider of the oncoming party held up his hand and called for a halt, and two of the noblemen picked their way to the front of the group to investigate the travelers. Tayse and his band had already come to a stop and edged to the side of the road. As the smaller group, they would naturally give way so the others could ride on by.

  But they did not want to ride on by.

  “What’s a Danalustrous sash doing so far south?” asked one of the noblemen in a pleasant voice. He looked to be in his late twenties, with fine chestnut hair and a smiling face.

  “Taking in the sweet country air,” Kirra replied, pushing her own horse forward, past Tayse and Justin.

  The young man dropped his reins and broke into a wide smile. “Kirra Danalustrous! By the eye of the Pale Mother! What are you doing here so far from home?”

  Kirra laughed and rode close enough to clasp his hand from the back of her horse. Tayse thought he saw the glitter of rubies buried in the tangles of her hair. “Mostly, shivering in an unexpected cold. Darryn, how good to see you! It has been ages since we last danced at a Merrenstow wedding.”

  A few of the other noblemen with him spurred closer then and said their hellos. She smiled kindly at all of them and spoke a few words, but Tayse was beginning to be able to hear the unspoken language of the aristocracy. These companions of the road were vassals’ sons or distant relatives, and not worth Kirra’s time. This Darryn was clearly Twelfth House, and therefore undoubtedly a son or brother of Ariane Rappengrass.

  Worth getting to know.

  “Have you had your noon meal yet? Let’s stop and share lunch, shall we?” Darryn was saying eagerly. “We got an early start—I’m sure my whole group is famished. Will it delay you too much to take a break now?”

  “No—I was thinking just the same thing,” Kirra said. “Sindra, could you—yes, thank you very much.”

  In another few moments, they were off the road and had made a very sketchy camp, just enough to clear a place for the gentry to sit down while their servants put together a meal. Senneth, Tayse noticed, was very wary of the attractive Lord Darryn. She kept her face turned away from him, even though she had put it through its subtle alterations, and she did not speak loudly enough for him to hear her. He wondered at this, but only a little. It had always been clear that Senneth had a fair understanding of the aristocracy, whether she had spent her energy studying them or serving them, and he guessed that she had sold her skills to more noblemen than Malcolm Danalustrous. This young Rappengrass lord did not look particularly perceptive to Tayse, but he did not know how well Senneth might have known him—and Senneth was never one to take a stupid risk.

  He thought of the raelynx, no doubt stalking the perimeter of the camp with frustration and longing. Well, almost never, he amended. Again, he hoped
her control of the wild animal was as complete as she believed.

  “But you still haven’t answered, serra,” Darryn said as Kirra and the noblemen ate their hastily prepared meal. “Why are you here at all? I can’t think our weather is any better than it is up north, where I have had the misfortune to spend a winter or two.”

  Kirra glanced around, as if unsure of how much to say in front of his friends. “Oh—my father,” she said, with a light laugh. “We argued, as we so often do, and I told him I would not spend another minute at his side to be insulted, and off I went.”

  “Ah, then,” Darryn said, a world of meaning in his voice. “You are here because of your father.”

  She smiled at him as if pleased by his cleverness. “Yes. But I must say, I was not prepared for such an—inhospitable—welcome as I have received.”

  “Is it the weather or the people who have been unkind?”

  She glanced around again, seemed uncertain, seemed to make up her mind to speak. “I have heard such strange tales since I have been south,” she said at last. “Tales of people turning against the mystics, of the growing power wielded by the Daughters of the Pale Mother. We have our little quarrels up north, you understand, and there are plenty of people in Danalustrous and Tilt and Brassenthwaite who don’t care for mystics—but I have not seen such animosity as this, anywhere else I have traveled.”

  Darryn sighed. “Yes, my mother is very concerned by this turn of events as well. Rappengrass has never had any cause to rue magic, and so we have never policed the mystics as they do in Nocklyn and Gisseltess. But now—there are strange stories coming from Helven and Fortunalt, and the word of the Daughters seems to be gaining more and more favor across the south. It makes my mother uneasy.”

  “Has she—prepared—in any way to meet trouble if it comes?”

  Darryn gave her a swift, serious look. “Would your father prepare if he saw a danger building in his backyard?”

  Kirra smiled. “He would.”

  “My mother and your father are not so unalike.”

  “Which has put them at each other’s throats more than once,” Kirra remarked. “But my father does respect Ariane.”

  “You might tell the marlord—when you mend your quarrel with your father and go back to Danalustrous—that this would not be a bad time to be tallying up allies,” Darryn said.

  “My father is always opposed to war,” Kirra said. “As a matter of principle.”

  “That is a very fine principle as long as the people around you feel the same way,” Darryn said with some grimness. “When you have Halchon Gisseltess as a near neighbor, you start thinking strategy.”

  “So how does Nocklyn bend in this affair?” she asked, toying with a piece of fruit. “Els Nocklyn was always a reasonably intelligent man.”

  “Els is sick, and his daughter has been running the estates,” Darryn said. “I do not know her well, but her husband—”

  “Is Halchon’s cousin,” Kirra finished. “I think that’s our answer.”

  Darryn speared a piece of meat with his knife but did not lift it to his lips. “I am sure of no one at this point,” he said frankly. “Your father’s sense of honor is legendary—I cannot think he would ever embroil himself in any stupid uprising—so I tend to count him on the side of rationality whenever I think we might be headed to combat. And Kiernan Brassenthwaite—”

  “Brassenthwaite will take the side of the crown,” Kirra said. “Brassenthwaite always does.”

  “Yes, and Kiernan has additional incentive for hating Halchon Gisseltess,” Darryn said. “There was that business with his sister fifteen years ago.”

  Kirra looked bewildered. “His sister?”

  Darryn waved a hand. “You might have been too young to hear the story. There was a betrothal, and a scandal, and the betrothal was broken. And the girl died, you know. I am certain Kiernan blames Halchon for the whole mess. And even though it was fifteen years ago or more—well, Brassenthwaite counts time by centuries, not decades. It is not likely that Kiernan has forgotten.”

  “I’ve never really liked Kiernan or Nate,” Kirra said with a little pout. Tayse thought she was trying to change the subject, put it back on a personal footing, perhaps. “They’re so—hard. Unflinching.”

  Darryn smiled at her. He didn’t mind getting personal. “Not like the friendly young heirs of the southern Houses.”

  She laughed. “Well, it’s true I’d rather spend a day at Rappen Manor than Brassen Court.”

  “I like Kiernan. At any rate, I trust him,” Darryn said. “I don’t want him as an enemy. I don’t want Halchon Gisseltess as an enemy, either, but I’m not sure I’ve got a choice in that. Your father, too, needs to look over the lists and see where he can trust and where he cannot.”

  “I will tell my father you said so,” she said solemnly.

  Darryn tossed back the contents of a goblet. Wine, Tayse thought. He seemed to visibly will himself into a change of mood. “And tell your father also how good I was to you when I came upon you on the road,” he said, a teasing note in his voice. “Tell him I fed you, and entertained you, and offered you the protection of my sword if you agreed to travel forward with my party.”

  “You have offered no such thing!”

  “I offer it now. I would be glad to have you travel with us.”

  Kirra seemed to consider it. “Where are you going?”

  “To Helven, and then Coravann, and last to Ghosenhall. You would be near enough to Danalustrous, then, you could make your way home safely from there.”

  “I appreciate your kindness,” she said. “I feel safe enough.”

  Darryn lifted his eyes and glanced at her small contingent of men. He looked straight at Tayse but saw only a body, not a person. Tayse spared a moment to realize that Kirra, Twelfth House though she was, never failed to mark the individual, even when she was doing such a quick assessment. “Four soldiers and a serving woman?” Darryn asked softly. “That would be enough on an ordinary day. But we are about to live in extraordinary times.”

  Kirra gave him her widest smile. “I have always had the power to protect myself well enough,” she said. “I do appreciate your concern, though. It warms me quite through.” And she put a hand to her heart with a melodramatic gesture and laughed at him.

  He did not smile back. “It is that very power that puts you at risk in the southern regions,” he said. “Take care, Kirra. Your father would not be the only one to mourn you if you were lost.”

  “Why, Darryn. I am truly touched.”

  The flirtation seemed to lighten the mood somewhat. “But I failed to ask,” Darryn said. “How is your father, except disgruntled with you?”

  “Well, as always. Stubborn, as always. Nothing seems to diminish Malcolm Danalustrous.”

  “And your sister?”

  Kirra laughed. “You should swing by Danalustrous way after you visit Ghosenhall. Casserah is even more beautiful than she used to be.”

  “Why has your father not married her off by now?”

  She laughed again. “Why has he not married me off? We are just as stubborn as he is. I think it is the thing he hates the most about each of us, and loves the most. But I could ask you the same thing, ser Darryn of Rappengrass. Why have you not been looking for a bride?”

  He took her hand and kissed it. “Perhaps I have begun my search.”

  A few more idle moments like this, then both parties came to their feet and packed up to move on. Darryn renewed his offer to absorb Kirra’s group into his own, but she smilingly refused again. With both hands, he helped her into the saddle, then swung up on his own horse.

  “Travel safely,” he said. “I think, if you get into trouble, you might apply to my mother for help.”

  “I will bear that in mind,” Kirra replied. “I hope I encounter you again soon—in my travels.”

  “Count on it,” he said and motioned his riders forward.

  Their own smaller group pushed on in the opposite direction, east and a
little south. They had ridden perhaps five minutes in silence when Senneth brought her horse alongside Kirra’s. Tayse, riding just a few feet in the lead, could hear their entire conversation.

  “I think somebody holds you in very high esteem,” Senneth said.

  Kirra’s voice carried a smile. “Darryn Rappengrass flirts with all the women, even the old and ugly ones. He’s charming but inconstant.”

  “Better hope he is not as inconstant as all that,” Senneth said with a certain sharpness. “Rappengrass seems to be the only truly loyal House we’ve come across so far.”

  Kirra sighed. “And we cannot be sure he speaks for Ariane. He is the youngest of five, and her clear favorite, but he has not been named her heir.”

  “We should press on to Rappen Manor, then, and ask her directly where her sympathies lie.”

  “Yes,” said Kirra, “I’m afraid we must.”

  A short silence followed this exchange. Tayse was about to spur his horse forward so he could watch the road ahead, when Kirra began speaking again.

  “Did you hear what he said? About Halchon Gisseltess and the Brassenthwaite girl? What did you make of that?”

  “There is bad blood between Gisseltess and half the Twelve Houses,” Senneth said.

  “Yes, but I never heard this story before, did you?” Kirra persisted.

  “I must admit, I am not entirely up to date on all the gossip pertaining to the aristocracy,” Senneth said in a dry voice.

  “But there was an engagement between Gisseltess and Brassenthwaite? And the girl died? Surely you might know something about a tale like that.”

  “I’m not certain Darryn Rappengrass had the story entirely right,” Senneth said. “I never heard about any Brassenthwaite girl who died.”

  “You don’t want to tell me the story,” Kirra said.

  There was a short pause. Tayse thought he could feel Senneth’s gaze lingering on his back a moment, as if she knew that he was listening to every word.