Neit had favorites in nearly every northern city, and liked men, large or small, quiet or noisy, but the one characteristic she found unattractive was anger. Maybe because she’d grown up avoiding the tempers, and on the practice field a brutality scarcely this side of actual war, practiced by many of what her da had warned her was part of the disbanded Nighthawk Company. The worst of those was Halrid Jethren, but as he was the best of all the lancers, Jarend, the kindly jarl, had always said, “Give them time.” As soon as Neit saw in mouths, eyes, shoulders, hands the signs of hidden anger, any attraction doused instantly. Even in boys as pretty as Keth Jethren, Halrid Jethren’s son, or the ice-eyed, silent boy everyone called Moonbeam, Keth’s shadow.
Connar was angry. She sensed it, and found it all the more unsettling because she didn’t see it.
Noddy set his cup down. “Vana told me, no one works on Midsummer Day as well as the Restday before it.”
“True enough,” Neit said. “So ride down to Lindeth! There’s music, and dancing, and games, and the eats are prepared weeks in advance, excellent brews of all kinds. You’ll love it. I promise.”
Though none of that sounded particularly inviting to Connar, he was restless enough to give in to impulse. “Why don’t we both go?”
Noddy beamed. “Yes.” Then his brow puckered. “How many do we take?”
Connar shrugged. “A wing, for the two of us? Same as we came?”
Noddy thumbed his bottom lip. “Are we riding back at night, then?”
“No! Why would we?”
Noddy had learned a great deal during these weeks that he had not given a thought to before. “I think landing nearly a hundred extra on the garrison during this festival, with no warning, is going to be rough on Nermand. Might even take insult, I don’t know. I haven’t met him direct.”
Connar was used to camping in the field, and had never had any interest in logistics. That was Fish’s business. “So we quarter ‘em on the town!”
“During a festival? When everyone within a week’s ride is crowded there?” Noddy turned his hand down flat. “They’d gouge us a year’s pay for the entire garrison.”
Connar stared, reflecting that Noddy would never have fussed about such things before. “So?” And at Noddy’s grim look, he remembered that someone would be reporting to the royal city. Suddenly they were boys again—with someone over them, watching in judgment.
Then Neit said, “Why don’t I ride for Lindeth and ask? I can get there and back by morning.”
Noddy said, “You’ve already ridden it once today.”
Neit snorted. “Lindeth? Eh. I go twice that far on a long ride. I’ve got most of a moon tonight. You could read by it.”
Noddy fell into a brown study, and Connar glanced at Fish. “Where’s Lineas?”
And laughed inwardly at the tightening in Fish’s face as he said, “I’ll find her.”
Down in the baths, while her hair dried in the warm wind ruffling down one of the tunnels, Lineas washed out her other outfit and carefully laid it over a spoke on one of the clothes trees to dry.
Fingering her hair into braids, she walked slowly upstairs, aware of her growling stomach. But when she reached the landing outside her room, there was Fish, leaning against the wall, arms crossed.
As she topped the last step, he glowered her way. “He wants you.” And ran downstairs.
She paused long enough to finger the last of her frizz into its braid, then slipped down in Fish’s wake.
She found the princes together in the reception room of their suite, the remains of their supper being carried out by Vanadei. Neit sat with Noddy, sparking a smile of welcome from Lineas, which caused a grin and a flip of fingers in salute from Neit. Noddy’s slow voice rumbled in various contingency plans, if Nermand could not accommodate a wing.
Connar was still in his dusty riding clothes. When he saw her, he got to his feet, unaware of interrupting Noddy. “I’m tired—been up since long before dawn.”
He held out his hand to Lineas, who laid her palm in his, smiling happily as she followed him into his room.
Neit watched them go, waited, and when Noddy (used to being interrupted) didn’t pick up the thread of his discourse, asked, “Did she get any supper?”
Noddy glanced her way, and she sensed that he’d noticed, too, but all he said was, “She might have eaten in the baths.”
Neit bent down to kiss Noddy. “I’ll ride out now, and see you in the morning.”
FIVE
Neit was back before they woke. “The Commander said to thank you for sending me ahead, and he can take in a wing, but it’ll be hot cots.”
Connar grimaced. Then reflected that as commanders of Larkadhe, he and Noddy wouldn’t be expected to sleep in beds night-duty men had just gotten out of.
Neit went on, “He said that the night duty men will do half-watches through the night at the sentry stations along the boardwalk, as most trouble is from sailors on liberty. Your wing will have until dawn.”
“Then it’s settled,” Noddy said.
Connar agreed to sit with Noddy in the hereto empty wingback chair in order to help dispatch as much business as they could before the festival day. Connar found the elaborate ritual confusing, the stilted language tedious. He could see that it all worked—no arguments burst forth—but by midday, he would have welcomed a duel breaking out in preference to the mind-numbing succession of chalked-up slates and papers and beads of the stringers, whose exact accounts of moneys in several values everyone but him seemed vitally interested in.
Connar was ready to set fire to the entire room by the end of the long day, and stared in disbelief as Noddy and Lineas (who was so quiet Connar scarcely noticed her over in her corner, scribbling away) packed up papers and withdrew into that inner chamber, ready to spend yet more hours in going over, again, minutiae of testimony and long lists of numbers.
Hauth wanted Connar to murder Noddy, Da, and who knew how many others in order to call himself king and deal with this kind of shit! As Connar downed a few swallows of cellar-cold, dark brown ale, he reflected that if Hauth walked in right then, he’d smash the ale tankard over his head and use a shard to cut his throat.
The only improvement was that Connar had slept better in those few days. Lineas’s presence somehow returned him to that calm forest pool. He slept, he woke refreshed.
So, that last night, when the two princes met for dinner, Connar told Noddy that Lineas should accompany them to Lindeth, an unexpected declaration that thrummed through her, igniting the white fire of joy all through those next few days.
That dimmed somewhat the next morning, when she found Neit next to her, looking unwontedly sober as they saddled their horses in the light of lanterns, the sky bluing in the east.
They hefted saddles, Lineas’s loose sleeves falling back, exposing her wrist knives.
“You go armed, I see,” Neit said with approval. “Better to have than want to have.” She patted the sword in her saddle sheath.
Linet blushed. “I promised Quill I’d always wear them if I rode away from Larkadhe.”
“Good man, Quill. Maybe a little too much of that Old Sartoran foolery, but everyone has at least one bad habit.” Neit added in an undervoice, “I know it’s none of my affair, but it might be good for Connar to snap his fingers once, just to find you busy with another lover.”
Lineas dropped her hands from the saddle girth and stared, her wideset eyes round. “I don’t understand.”
Neit glanced to either side, and finding no hovering ears, said, “I guess we’re all different, but I wouldn’t put up with any man, even an emperor, expecting me to be at his beck and call without ever asking.”
Lineas flushed bright red. “I love Connar,” she whispered. “Always have, ever since I was small. And I don’t want to...I can’t be with someone I don’t love.”
Neit whistled softly. “Oh. You’re one of those.” Her face was mostly in shadow, but Lineas made out the lineaments of pity before they sep
arated to finish their work, leaving Lineas wondering if once more, she’d stumbled into Not Normal.
Except, what was the problem? Connar had thought of her, wanting her to enjoy the festival, which was so much better than this other idea Neit seemed to be suggesting, that she ought to get lovers just because he had them. Her skin crawled at the thought of being intimate with somebody she didn’t love.
She had told herself repeatedly over the past five years that she would accept it if Connar found someone else to love, for there should always be more love in the world. But she knew it would hurt terribly if he shut her out. As he must if he made a ring vow....
Noddy gave the signal and the trumpets blared, jolting her to the present. Foolish, to let such thoughts start to ruin a festival day! Her favorite festival in a new place, with new people and maybe new customs.
They rode out, leaving Ghost Fath and his company in command of Larkadhe.
Lineas’s joy was back, mixed with anticipation—and the sight of Lindeth, decorated with garlands everywhere, proved to be everything she’d hoped for.
They rode to the garrison first, where the animals were stabled, and the men dismissed for a day’s liberty, with orders to be ready to ride in the morning. Then the princes and their runners set out on foot for the boardwalk, as the streets were thronged with people.
She’d seen the sea once before, the spring she accompanied the gunvaer to Algaravayir. She and her twin cousins, Noren and Hadand, had accompanied the gunvaer and the Iofre to the harbor, but it had been windy and cold, with rain coming. She remembered the ocean as gray. So she was unprepared for the vastness of sparkling blue reaching all the way to the horizon, the tang of salt on the fresh breeze, the cry of shore birds overhead as below, people gathered in knots of hilarity and anticipation to watch the games, or dance, sing, eat, flirt, and chatter.
Central along the boardwalk, giving the best view of the ships floating in the harbor, was a structure with a sunshade, to which they were directed. Here, they were met by Tanrid Olavayir’s wife Fala, daughter of Commander Nermand and his Iascan wife. Fala, a comely young woman early in her second pregnancy, and equally comfortable among Iascans and Marlovans, welcomed them with the easy friendliness that made her so popular.
“Come, sit and have something to drink! You must have had a hot ride,” she fluted in a high voice. “Tanrid is off judging one of the games. I’d introduce you to my little boy, but he hates any change in his day as much as his da and grandda, so I’m here quite alone, and would love the company.”
Connar and Noddy returned a polite answer, Connar refraining from pointing out that they’d already met Fala’s and Tanrid’s son, who was not nearly as fascinating to anyone else as he obviously was to his besotted parents.
“Go ahead,” Connar said to Noddy, whose hand was unconsciously tapping his thigh as he watched a group of drummers finding their rhythm for a group ready to sing ballads. “I’d as soon stretch my legs.” And as Fish made a motion to follow, he waved him off, saying in an undervoice. “Do what you want. If I can’t defend myself from a bunch of drunks, I deserve to be gutted.”
Fish, expertly assessing his mood, saluted and backed away, gazing out to sea as he counted under his breath. When he reached ten, he set out, and soon spotted Connar’s glossy blue-black horsetail as the prince made his way southward down Lindeth’s main street, parallel to the boardwalk.
Connar and Noddy had chosen to wear their riding coats rather than their distinctive blue and gold House tunics, but even so, Connar was never going to be anonymous. Fish knew what his slow and painful fate would be if anything happened to the second prince and he was not there.
Fala gave a mental shrug and, including Vana and Lineas in her friendly gaze, said to Noddy, “We have an extra drum if you’d like to join the singers over there.” And to everyone, “Who wants something to drink?”
Out of sight, out of mind.
Connar forgot them all as he strode along, his impatient gaze skimming the crowds, the brightly decorated booths before many of the shops, and the strolling hawkers and performers. He was in the mood for a scrap or a screw, either would do—both would be better.
His eye caught on a curvaceous young woman perched in a low window. She strummed some kind of stringed instrument as she sang a ballad. Connar paused, his gaze roaming appreciatively over her ribbon-tied curls and down her voluptuous form, which was enhanced by pink and azure filmy stuff tied with a lot of silver ribbons. He slowed, taking in the half-circle of husky sailors vying to catch her eye; when she finished the song, she glanced down at a cap set at her feet.
Promptly the would-be swains jostled one another in their haste to cast coins into it. The bright glint of gold shone against silver. The woman’s lazy eyes took in the pile, her generous lips curved, dimples deepening at either side, and she started another ballad, as Connar imagined untying those ribbons one by one.
When she finished the second song, again the audience scrambled to please her. Connar stood alone, arms crossed, daring her to look at him.
She did.
After the third song, and he hadn’t moved, she said in a sultry voice, “Don’t like my singing?”
“Would I be here if I didn’t?” he retorted, being expert by now in avoiding all questions about music.
“But...” she prompted, glancing at the coin-filled cap.
“I had another reward in mind,” he said.
“Which would be?”
“A kiss.”
Scoffing comments rose around, but not too heated when the other men took in Connar’s stance, and the muscle evident in those crossed arms.
“Oh?” she asked. “Would that be worth more than a tinklet?”
The avid watchers laughed as she named the lowest piece of coinage common along the coast.
“You’d have to decide that,” he said.
She strummed idly, watching beneath her eyelids. She had an idea who he might be, and wondered if a prince’s wandering interest could be parlayed into better earnings than usual. Setting aside her instrument, she crooked a finger. “Let us assay,” she said.
Two of her most persistent would-be swains cursed, and she suppressed a smile as Connar advanced. He closed, they kissed.
He knew what he was doing.
He let her go, and whispered into her lips, “Well?”
She was ready for a break anyway. Wondering how deep his pockets were, she inclined her head toward the inn across the street. “Let us discuss it over a meal. You pay,” she added. And to the others, “I’ll be back.”
“In two turns of the little glass,” one fellow cracked as she took Connar’s arm and towed him across the street.
The woman drawled over her shoulder, “Do you think I’d let that happen?” Her laughter floated behind.
A very agreeable interval later they lay side by side in a room miraculously cleared after Connar offered a handful of gold to the proprietor. She considered how she could benefit further, then said idly as she twirled a lock of his hair around her finger, “I almost hate to say it—professional pride—but your voice is easily as good as mine. Shall we essay a duet or two?”
He had been considering whether he was ready for another round. “I don’t sing,” he said.
“You don’t? Or you can’t? I don’t believe the latter. You have a singer’s voice.” He still hadn’t told her who he was. She was ready for this to go either way.
“Can’t. Don’t. What does it matter? The truth is, music to me is just noise. To both of us, actually—my brother and me.” (Which he believed was true, without considering that Noddy had followed him in this as in many things; left to himself, Noddy enjoyed a rousing ballad, though not with any passion.)
She couldn’t prevent a little gasp. “Really?”
Connar sighed. “It’s not like we’re missing it. I hate that reaction—either pity, or a look as if I’ve broken some kind of rule.”
She rose on an elbow, and dropped the languishing m
anner. “You really can’t hear music as...music?”
He shrugged, already losing the mood. Time to move on. “A rhythm, yes.
I love the drums. But the rest, it’s always been noise. I thought that was the same for all. Put up with it the way you put up with traditions, because that’s what we do.” He got up to splash himself clean in the lukewarm basin of fresh water he’d asked for when the proprietor cleared the room.
She saw that she wasn’t going to keep him, and shrugged off her plans. “I think I’d almost rather give up a leg than give up music,” she said as she rose and shook out her tumbled under-gown.
“That’s because you’re a musician.” Connar kissed her again, quick and valedictory. “Thank you.”
“Mmmm, I thank you in my turn,” she responded. “A poignant interval, from which I believe I feel a ballad forming. I’m not quite certain if it ought to be a lament.”
“And that,” he said, shoving his feet into his boots, “is as good a signal as any to be on my way.”
He shut the door on her laughter, and left her to sort her ribbons. As he ran downstairs, he was aware that the good mood she’d given him had soured. He made an effort to shake it off. It wasn’t as if the general prejudice in favor of music was any surprise, especially from a musician. He’d walked into that ambush on his own by admitting to it instead of keeping his mouth shut.
He got outside, to discover the hubbub increasing to the pitch of drink-loosened hilarity. The shadows had melded, and in the western sky the magentas and oranges were fast fading as stars emerged overhead, snuffed again by the stronger light of lanterns being lit up and down the street.
He glanced down narrow alleys toward the harbor, unaware of Fish, straightening up from his distant vantage and falling in at a circumspect distance. Out in the harbor, ships rocked, their geometries lit by clusters of colored lanterns.
Connar had seen ships lit by lanterns in the harbor at Parayid. Once was enough. He moved farther down the street, into an area with bigger and more elaborate houses, many with husky guards guarding the tables out front, with apprentices in their festival best handing out samples, or selling small items. From open windows above, voices drifted down, laughing, singing.
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