Green Rider

by Kristen Britain

  Karigan told him everything she could remember, including Torne’s and Jendara’s references to the king’s brother. This time she found an absorbed, avid listener, rather than the unpredictable and nonchalant Intrigue player.

  “Why were they after Coblebay?” he mused. “His message was worthless.”

  Karigan shrugged, her opinion of the king now bending toward pity. She had no brothers of her own and so couldn’t fathom the betrayal he must feel.

  “I trust you will be in the city for a few more days,” he said.

  “No, actually I plan to leave—”

  “I see. When will you be returning?”

  Karigan gaped. “Excellency, I don’t plan to return. I’m going home to my family. My father is a merchant. It’s spring, and he will need me.”

  The king’s expression froze, and she wondered what he did not want her to read. As a king, he must be a master at masking his expressions, or otherwise possess no political leverage, just as a merchant must maintain a neutral gaze during a transaction.

  “Are you sure?” he asked her. “After all, you are a Green Rider now. At least in name if not legally sworn in.”

  “I’m not a Green Rider,” Karigan said, maintaining her self-control admirably, she thought.

  “I could command you to sign papers to become a Green Rider, to work in my service, but I don’t think that will be necessary, and I can only guess how much you would resent it. Coercion is not my usual tactic. Laren—Captain Mapstone—informs me that being a Green Rider is more a matter of spirit than desire, a compulsion, if you will. Something about hoofbeats.” Zachary strode across the balcony to the telescope and bent down to peer up at the moon. He pulled back, blinking. “It’s bright.”

  Karigan blinked, too, as if struck. King Zachary had reminded her of someone, the someone she had seen in the brass telescope of the Berry sisters. Images she had seen, of a man much like Zachary, with brown almond-shaped eyes, but slightly older with careworn lines on his brow, imploring her not to . . . not to go away; that he needed her and could not bear to lose her. Karigan trembled. A future vision? Blood drained from her head and she wobbled.

  The king steadied her. “Are you all right?”

  “No! Yes. Please, just stay away. I’m leaving. I’m not a Green Rider and never will be.”

  Driven by a fear that the future might happen if she stayed there with him, with his hands on her arms, she ran from the balcony without bowing, ran past the Weapon Fastion who stood in the doorway, his usual stoic expression scandalized. When she erupted into the glare of the ballroom, a few heads turned to look, then resumed conversation and sipping wine. The orchestra tuned up, and the sound of off-key notes clamored in her ears.

  Alton D’Yer tugged at her sleeve. “Karigan, are you—?”

  She yanked her sleeve away from his grasp and pushed unapologetically through the guests in desperation to leave. She broke free near the entrance and looked back over her shoulder. King Zachary stood by the balcony doorway watching her with a bemused expression, Alton D’Yer was lost in the swarm of aristocrats, and the Eletian, though in the midst of a group, seemed to stand apart, almost godlike with his golden hair and perfect features. He caught her eyes and smiled. That smile of secrets! She was not warmed by it, and without looking back, she darted into the darkness of night.

  King Zachary, indeed! she fumed. Needs me, does he? Humph! Yet, inside, she shook. The thought of it, the king needing her, overwhelmed her. It terrified her.

  She stalked down the corridor to her room. The silver moon spread shadow bars across the floor from the many-paned window. All else was submerged in darkness. From her pocket she pulled the moonstone, which illumined the room to the darkest floor cracks, seeming to draw moonlight from outside until all was cast in silver. Karigan watched in wonder until a tiny gasp from behind startled her.

  Sitting in the chair by the table, was a woman cloaked and hooded in black. A length of black silk veiled all but her eyes, and she looked like one of the wives of some lord of the Under Kingdoms. Were there tattoos under the veil? Karigan reached for a sword that was not there, and considered hurling the moonstone at the intruder.

  As if guessing her thoughts, the intruder raised her black-gloved hands defensively. “Please, I am no enemy.” The accent wasn’t of the Under Kingdoms, but of some eastern province. Coutre, perhaps? When Karigan did not respond, she added, “I am Estora. You delivered the last letter from my lover, F’ryan Coblebay.”

  Karigan blinked, but did not relax her tense body. “Then why do you come at this hour? Why do you hide your face?”

  The woman’s green eyes glanced down, and she shuddered with a sigh. “My family would never permit a liaison with a commoner such as F’ryan. Our affair was a secret one. I hide myself even now. Should my family ever find out that I loved F’ryan Coblebay, they would be shamed and cast me out.”

  That was no way to live, Karigan thought, her own revelation about King Zachary as the image in Professor Berry’s telescope set aside. She relaxed and sat lightly on her bed, her hand passing over a woolen coverlet. “I’m sorry,” she said, not sure whether she meant F’ryan’s death or her family’s restriction.

  Lady Estora looked far away. “The Riders always helped. They brought me in secretly to see F’ryan. When asked, they knew nothing of us. And here you have helped again, by bringing this letter.” She drew a crumpled piece of paper from her cloak. “Mel tells me you were the last to see F’ryan alive.”

  “Yes.” Karigan had no wish to elaborate she had seen him after death, too. “He died bravely.” What else could she say? She died bravely, her aunts had said of her mother.

  “As I knew he would. Often I believed he was half crazy and too daring. Many times he risked death to visit me in my family’s house. It was reckless, but I loved him for it.” The woman’s eyes welled with tears, the veil darkening above her cheeks. “I’ve cried often, but could share my sorrow with no one. I just wanted to thank you for bringing this letter to me, and for finishing F’ryan’s mission. But . . .”

  Karigan cocked her head, waiting.

  “I don’t understand why he wrote this letter if he planned to see me upon its delivery.”

  “Maybe he knew he might not survive this last mission,” Karigan suggested.

  Estora’s thin brows were bunched together, her eyes troubled. “Yes, that could be, but still, F’ryan wasn’t one for writing letters. If ever one was intercepted by the wrong person, it would mean the end of all we had together. There are also certain details in the letter that aren’t quite right.”

  Estora stood up and paced the floor, her long black skirts flickering in the silver light. “I don’t have dark amber hair,” she said. “F’ryan knew that well. He spoke no end of my gold hair, of passing his hands through it.” She stopped abruptly and a blush spread just above the veil. “A summer wedding! He mentioned a summer wedding. We had planned no such thing, impossible as it was. We talked in whimsy, of course. He also mentioned a brother. F’ryan has no brother. There are other details of similar type. It is strange.”

  Karigan scratched her head. “Perhaps he was distressed when he wrote it.”

  “I do not think so. Very little distressed him.” Estora paused by the window with a sad sigh.

  Karigan straightened in inspiration. What was it Captain Mapstone had said about F’ryan bearing messages in code? “Are . . . are you sure the letter was meant for you?”

  Estora looked at Karigan as if she had suddenly sprouted horns. “Of course it was. Why, for all the mistakes, he does mention things that were known only between the two of us.”

  “There could be more in that letter.” Did F’ryan hide the real message in the form of a love letter and use the other message as a decoy? “May I have the letter?”

  Estora clutched it to her breast. “Whatever for?”

  “I would like to show it to Captain Mapstone. I think there’s more to it.”

  “I told you my famil
y would cast me out if ever my relationship with F’ryan was discovered.”

  “You said yourself that no Green Rider ever revealed the two of you, didn’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “I promise this won’t go beyond Captain Mapstone. I think it’s important.”

  Estora still held the letter to her. As she hesitated, F’ryan Coblebay appeared dimly beside his beloved. Estora did not detect him, and Karigan thought that of anyone, she should be the one to see him. F’ryan looked at Karigan with his somber expression, the arrows stiff in his back. He turned to Estora and whispered in her ear.

  Estora shuddered as if suddenly remembering where she was. “If you can return this to me when you are done with it,” she said, “I would like it back. It is all I have left of him.” As she handed the letter to Karigan, F’ryan’s hand merged with hers as if to help her. “Odd,” Estora said, “but I think F’ryan would have wanted me to do this.”

  The ghost cast Karigan another penetrating look, then faded out. “Thank you,” she said a bit breathlessly. “As I told you, this will not go beyond Captain Mapstone.”

  Karigan didn’t wait for Estora to leave. Rather, she flung the door open and strode down the corridor, out of the building, and across the courtyard where the officers’ quarters stood. Unlike the long wooden Rider barracks, the officers quarters was a squat stone structure made to house only a handful of people. The stone walls protected those within from fire arrows and catapulted coals. The windows were mere slits through which defenders on the inside could shoot arrows. Even so, Karigan was glad she was housed at the barracks with the large window that overlooked the pasture.

  The narrow windows were black. The captain was the only officer in residence, or so Mel had intimated. Karigan knocked hard on the thick green door. When no one answered, she knocked again. This time, light flickered to life in the windows, and a few moments later, the door groaned open on ancient hinges.

  “What is it?” Captain Mapstone squinted at her, a lamp in one hand, her unsheathed sword in the other. She stood barefoot, a flannel sleeping gown fluttering in a breeze. Her hair, the color of new copper in the silver moon, flowed unbound and loose down her back. When Karigan did not answer immediately, she snapped, “Well, don’t just stand there, girl. I was sound asleep. What do you want?”

  “I, uh . . . have this letter.” It was rather disconcerting to see the captain bleary-eyed and dressed in anything other than her smart green uniform. And the brown scar didn’t stop at the collar line, but continued in a ragged line down beneath the low neckline of the nightgown. Karigan licked her lips. “It belongs to Lady Estora. It was from F’ryan Coblebay. I found it in the pocket of his greatcoat after he died.”

  “Repeat that.” When Karigan did, the captain’s eyes seemed to pop open one at a time. “You mean you knew about this letter all along and you never mentioned it?”

  “It was a love letter. I never thought anything of it.”

  Captain Mapstone was now fully awake. “You had better come in and explain this to me.”

  Karigan followed her down a short corridor to her room. It was nearly as sparsely furnished as the barracks. A small bed, blankets rumpled and the pillow still depressed from the captain’s head, stood against one wall. The captain sheathed her saber and they sat in chairs beside a blackened fireplace.

  “Now tell me.”

  Karigan handed her the crumpled paper and watched as the captain read it. She explained how she had originally found it and vowed to deliver it to Lady Estora when she reached Sacor City. “I just left Lady Estora in my chamber. She told me there were peculiarities about the letter.” Karigan repeated their conversation. “I remembered that you said F’ryan Coblebay sometimes put his messages in code.”

  Captain Mapstone rubbed absently at her scar. “This must be examined immediately. It wouldn’t be unlike F’ryan to do this.”

  “I promised Lady Estora that there would be no connection made between her and F’ryan.”

  “Yes, yes, yes. I know all about that. You may leave now.”

  A little piqued at the brusque dismissal, Karigan left the chamber. As she stepped through the doorway, the captain was already removing her uniform from her wardrobe. What would the message reveal if the love letter was truly a message in disguise?

  Karigan walked into the wash of the silver moon, hands in pockets, tall dewy grass wetting her trousers. The ball should be about over. Hopefully it was the last such engagement she would have to attend.

  Across the pasture, a solitary figure waded through the tall grass. He was a dark shadow, even in the moonlight, darkness hovering over him like a shield. In fact, he seemed to repel the moonlight.

  Shawdell the Eletian’s lithe movements were unmistakable, his golden hair vibrant despite the shadow that shrouded him. He was doing what Karigan imagined all Eletians must do—walk in the moonlight, but she felt cold, wondering about his purposeful pace. She hurried to Rider barracks to escape the night.

  A SILVER MOON NIGHT

  “Pssst,Green Rider!”

  Karigan paused in the doorway and looked wildly about. At first she could discern only the shadowy bulk of shrubbery near the barracks building, then from one of these, a woman stepped forward into the glow of the door lamp, revealing the fine oval face of the Mirwellian with the Green Rider brooch.

  She stiffened. Brooch or not, the woman was Mirwellian, and Mirwellians had only caused her trouble and pain. “Something I can do for you?” she asked warily.

  The woman glanced about as if someone was about to leap out of the shrubbery. It had been a strange night thus far, with a silver moon to boot, and Karigan supposed anything was possible.

  “Please,” the Mirwellian said, “I’ve a message that needs delivering to—”

  “Look,” Karigan said. “I’m not a Green Rider. I’m not a messenger.”

  The woman snorted haughtily. “That is what you say now. Look at yourself. You wear the brooch.”

  “So do you.”

  The woman pursed her lips and folded her arms. It was unlikely she was used to such impertinence. Karigan was not schooled in the meanings of military insignia, and thus did not know what rank the epaulets on the woman’s shoulders signified.

  The woman took a step closer. “Listen, I don’t have time for games. I need your help. I—”

  “Major!”

  The Mirwellian’s eyes widened with fear for a moment. Then she mastered herself; her expression cooled. She turned to watch the approach of two Mirwellian soldiers. Karigan concealed herself within the doorway, hoping she had not been seen.

  The Mirwellian woman placed her fists on her hips and drew herself up into a forbidding posture. “What is it D’rang?”

  “The governor. He needs you.”

  “He always needs me. What is it now? Does he need someone to draw his bath?”

  “It’s urgent, Major.”

  “Very well.”

  Karigan peered around the doorway as the woman hastened away flanked by the two soldiers. She scratched her head. Now what was that all about?

  Mirwell sloshed out of the tub with the help of a wide-eyed servant. The tub was a behemoth of porcelain with brass beast’s feet. Very homey, but nothing compared to the sulfur water and plumbing of Selium. In time, he would acquire that place, too. It was far milder during the winter there than the far reaches of Mirwellton, and the hot springs couldn’t be surpassed for relieving old creaky muscles.

  “A-anything else I can do for y-you, my lord?”

  Mirwell chortled. The boy had gotten a good look at the ivory claw marks that crisscrossed his body and stood out especially well against skin flushed red by the hot bath. “Fetch me a towel before I die of the cold, boy.”

  “Y-yes, my lord.” The boy scurried across the private bathing chamber and returned with a sheet-sized, plush towel.

  “Now dry me, boy, and don’t rub my skin off.”

  “Yes, my lord.”

  The boy da
bbed so softly he barely touched Mirwell’s skin.

  “I’ll never get dry that way, boy. I’ll die of old age first. Now firm up, my lad. I’m not going to eat you.”

  “Yes, my lord.”

  The blotting grew more assured, but stayed gentle. Mirwell was used to the intimate ministrations on his body by others. He had grown up with servants attending to his every need, including cleanliness. Only, he had hoped that Beryl would attend him tonight, though she technically was not a servant. His personal servant’s slight illness had been a serendipitous excuse. And he supposed that, if Beryl were a man, or not even half as beautiful, he wouldn’t have even thought of it.

  The boy helped him shrug into his robe. Where was Beryl? She had escorted him back to chambers after the ball, but had slipped out during a moment of inattention. Here he had hoped they could spend a little time together, to let her get to know him in a different way other than “lord-governor.”

  “Slippers, boy, my feet are freezing.”

  “Yes, my lord.”

  The boy scuttled after the fur-lined slippers and set them by Mirwell’s feet.

  “Dry the bottom of my feet first.”

  “Yes, my lord.”

  Mirwell put a hand on the boy’s head to balance himself while the boy dried one foot, then the other. “Do you know how to say anything other than, yes, my lord?”

  The boy licked his lips. “Er, yes, my lord.”

  “What would you have to say that would interest me anyway?”

  “Nothing, my lord.”

  Mirwell laughed then, a surprising belly laugh. He took his hand from the boy’s head and allowed him to stand. “You would make a fine politician, my boy.”

  “Yes, my lord.”

  Mirwell dismissed the boy. With any luck, Beryl would be back and she could help him dress. He draped his towel about his neck and sauntered out of the bathing room and into the parlor. Beryl was back! But all fantasies of her dressing him were dashed.

  She sat in a straight back chair, and D’rang and that other soldier, what’s-his-name, pressed down on her shoulders so she could not rise. Beryl’s face was as cool and unreadable as usual.