The second Marloven party closed in from the north.
Ivandred saw within two heartbeats that he was going to win, for the Chwahir had no time to assemble into any kind of defense, and further, they did not know how to fight upward toward mounted warriors.
With the habit of years of war games, he scanned for their leader, spotting the tall figure the Chwahir all watched for orders just as Lasva tumbled out of his arms and fell with a splat into the mud. She flung the cloak back from her face and rolled over, coming to her knees as the tall man bent over her, hands out.
Instinct was faster than reason. Ivandred pulled a knife from his sleeve and spun it to Lasva, recalling as it left his hand that she was no Marloven woman to nip it out of the air. It might even hit her, or she’d squeal and jump out of the way, thus providing her assailant with a weapon. Maybe to use on her.
But as he leaped from his horse to her aid, she put up her hands.
She misjudged, for never in her life had she even seen a knife thrown. Her wrist turned in the fan sweep as if to knock it aside, but there was no fan in her fingers. The honed steel blade scored across her hand and wrist. Unaware of the sting of pain, she ducked down to snatch the dagger up from the mud.
Jurac stepped toward her, then rocked back when she dragged herself to her feet, her gown ripping, mud sliming her from hairline to heels. She held the knife with both hands.
“Touch me, and I’ll use it,” she said in a low, angry voice.
Her desperate gallantry caused Ivandred’s heart to constrict.
Jurac stared at her in anguish as she glared back, her mind veering between unconnected thoughts like a toy boat tumbling down a waterfall: her ruined gown—Prince Ivandred, how could he possibly be here?—Jurac all grown up and strange, so strange, right there in the middle of his bony face, those gooseberry eyes were Landis eyes. Sartor’s royal family stared back at her from those eyes.
“I offer you a kingdom,” he said numbly.
Lasva stared back, too stunned to speak.
Ivandred joined them in three steps, Davaud limping behind.
“That’s King Jurac, all right,” Davaud said, wheezing from renewed pain. “What do you suggest we do?” he asked Ivandred.
Ivandred flicked a look from the tall, dark-haired Chwahir with the aggrieved face to the grim, mud-covered princess. The Chwahir stood there empty handed, while all around, the fighting swiftly ended, both sides looking to their leaders, awaiting command.
Ivandred shifted his gaze away from Jurac’s anguish. He knew that face. Had felt it when he watched Tdiran Marlovair go.
He had no desire to kill this Chwahir king, but then he wasn’t the one who’d been wronged. He turned to Lasthavais to ask her judgment. Saw in her averted face, her shivering body, that she just wanted Jurac gone, which surprised him; at that point he was unaware of how little she knew of statecraft. Well, it was not his affair.
“Take off,” he said to Jurac. And to Lasthavais, “We’ll return to your sister.”
Lasthavais made a mute gesture of agreement. Now that the excitement was wearing off she was only aware of cold, the grit of mud, a searing sting across her hand and wrist, and a crashing headache from whatever it was she’d drunk. It took all of her dwindling strength to stand up straight, to avoid entertaining that staring Chwahir with a wild bout of weeping.
Davaud did know about statecraft. He watched, wondering if he ought to demand that they seize the Chwahir, but he was not sure the Marlovens would obey him. And anyway, he had no idea what they might do with a captured king, what Hatahra might do with him. Brandish him to the Chwahir? The idea of an entire kingdom mobilized to the kind of violence he’d just witnessed chilled him.
No, things were better this way. Hatahra could rant about missed opportunities if she wanted. At least her sister was safe.
Jurac looked around—his men disarmed, some disabled—his plans a ruin. He took one step, then another, each more painful.
Kivic had slipped behind a friendly oak at the first sign of trouble, watching in helpless dismay as his schemes for future influence crashed down with every exchange of steel. He slunk out, rapidly evolving plans to regain his position with his king—while Jurac, catching sight of him, thought angrily, This is all your fault. Retribution would start with Kivic, who’d promised it would be so easy.
“Let’s go,” Jurac commanded, and his men picked up their weapons and their wounded.
Jurac did not look back.
Ivandred held out a hand and helped the princess to her feet. Her touch, muddy and clammy as it was, sent fire along his nerves. He heard her breath draw in, and she lifted those wide blue eyes, and once again her gaze flashed heat through his entire body.
As the steady rain washed the last of the mud from her face she looked down at her bleeding wrist, the mud-sodden cloak hanging uselessly from her shoulders. Ivandred flicked it off, and she stood trembling in her wet cloud-gossamer gown that outlined every curve of her body, the knife held slack in her fingers.
With a quick, decisive movement he unfastened his knife belt and slung it to Haldren to hold, then he shrugged off his coat and set it around her. Last he wiped his knife on his clothing, resheathed it in his sleeve, and put his belt back on. A runner brought up a clean bandage, which he himself wrapped around her wrist. The only sounds were the thrummings of rain, and the thunk and squelch of the departing Chwahir.
Ivandred snapped his fingers and his horse danced up, head tossing. He lifted Lasva up to the saddle then mounted behind her, riding in his shirt sleeves. Davaud saw that he didn’t even wear mail.
The Marlovens all removed their helmets and slung them at their horses’ sides, then mounted up and resumed their formation. Their discipline was extraordinary.
Davaud winced and heaved himself back into the saddle, and they began riding south, back down the cart path leading past the dismantled palace.
Lasva’s awareness of Ivandred’s proximity blinded her to anything else. The musky smell of male sweat and his scent rising off the stiff, heavy coat sent the flame of desire through her to form a pool of hot fire low in her belly.
Jurac was already forgotten.
“Thank you,” she said, when she was certain she could control her voice.
“I am sorry about the knife.”
She gave a breathless little chuckle. “I’m sorry I didn’t catch it. Could I learn?”
His arm tightened around her. “You could.”
Then they heard the sound of horse hooves as the outriders ripped their swords from the saddle sheaths.
SIX
OF A LOCK OF HAIR
K
aidas knew before they sighted the towers of the palace through the rain that this rescue was going to be a disaster. He’d counted on finding fresh horses halfway, but there had been none anywhere. They’d all been claimed by those still streaming to the east expecting to witness the panoply of a heroic smiting of the despicable Chwahir. Kaidas and his troop plugged grimly on, their animals drooping, the warriors sodden and shivering from cold and exhaustion and hunger.
So when they sighted mounted figures riding out from between the aspen trees, Kaidas did not hand out any orders. He let his poor horse come to a stop while he squinted into the rain.
Two riders resolved out of the gloom first, wearing black coats of a military cut. These had to be the Marlovens he’d heard about. How had they got here? Of course they’d be the first to figure out the feint.
The fact that he’d been right gave him about a heartbeat of relief. Then came the worst blow. Behind the outriders was Davaud, barely recognizable hatless, his fine battle tunic sodden with rain, his gray hair writhing down onto his shoulders like worms. Finally, across the withers of the horse next to him, shrouded in a severe military coat, sat Lasva, her rain-washed face splendid with heightened color. What had to be the Marloven prince rode behind her on the same horse. He was dressed only in shirt, trousers, and boots.
“My lord duke,�
� Davaud called, smiling wearily. “You figured out the Chwahir ruse, I take it.”
“And I take it I am too late,” Kaidas returned.
Davaud bowed from the saddle. “The thought is taken as the deed. As you see, we are safe.” His glance fell on young Haldren’s helm and on the long curling hank of auburn hair that never was grown by creature of hoof, and he wondered what quality of “safe” he could promise the queen.
Kaidas paid the accompanying Marlovens no attention. He forced himself to face Lasva.
Equally determined, she braced herself to meet Kaidas’s steady dark gaze. His upper lip was long, his mouth tight.
How could she speak, when he rode there with that rain-sodden white ribbon hanging down from his hair?
“Return to the palace with us?” Davaud asked, gesturing.
Kaidas compelled himself to observe the two on a horse, for he knew that memory must be exact, or the questions would torment him the worse. So he noted the arc of the Marloven’s strong arm holding Lasva. It was an intimate grip, and she permitted it. She seemed to be leaning into his grasp.
Kaidas briefly met the cool light gaze of the Marloven prince, then he gave in to the overwhelming need to look away toward the marble towers of Alsais’s royal palace.
He recalled the question, and understood that they all waited on his answer. “Ride on, my lord,” he said to Davaud, grateful for the years of court training that gave him melende awake, asleep, and in defeat. “You seem to have everything well in hand. I must return to my wife.”
Wife. The word acted on Lasva like the sting of a lash, and she closed her eyes. Ivandred’s arm tightened round her, sending new fire along her lacerated nerves.
Oh, Lasva! Kaidas could not forbear one last glimpse, knowing it would be his last.
Just in time to see her turn her face into the Marloven’s chest.
It took the remainder of his strength but he rode eastward from the palace, and the canals, and the royal city, his tired, dejected troop with him. Presently he had to occupy himself with the little details of life: where they might stay, how he could get mounts, his lack of funds, how to arrange for more. Oh, but he was wealthy now. He had only to give his name, his new name, the Duke of Alarcansa, and he had instant credit, smilingly offered.
Rain fell steadily, and his mind ran on and on, making logistical decisions.
Only once did he give in to impulse when, following scouts’ reports, they arrived at the inn the Duchess of Alarcansa had ordered readied for her arrival. Kaidas’s valet was among the laboring servants and set about ordering a warm, clean room, and fresh clothes.
While his man was doing these things, Kaidas took out the knife that he’d never used and hacked off his hair, throwing it and the ribbon into the fire.
When his man returned, his eyes widened in surprise, but he said nothing.
No one said anything, except Carola, when she arrived later. Her mood was vile. She hated rain, and coaches, and isolation, all made worse by the royal road being clogged with nobles as well as commoners. Rumors were even more wild, the latest being that the Chwahir had abruptly vanished from the eastern pass.
She received with well-bred politeness the news that her duke had arrived before her. She readied soft words—not rebuke, never that, but a gentle question. Why did he not rejoin her yesterday? Might he have spared a thought for his wife, compelled to sit in that stuffy carriage as it jolted along behind the crowds?
The words vanished when she confronted the astonishing spectacle of short curls falling unkempt on his forehead and over the tops of his ears, his neck bare. Hair far too short to be tied back. It changed his face. Made it harder. Or was that her imagination?
She said in her sweetest tone, “My dear Kaidas, I am almost afraid to ask what happened to your lovely hair.”
“An act of war,” he said.
SEVEN
OF ROYAL VEILS
I
was still rolling along the road in Lasva’s carriage, wearing Lasva’s clothes, eating meals cooked and served for a princess, and sleeping in luxurious rooms. During those days in early spring when I’d taken those solitary walks in Lasva’s two outer robes and the domino veil, I always wore my own gown underneath. On this masquerade, Marnda insisted I put on the princess’s clothes lest some sharp-eyed courtier spot the plain linen. (For we did not then know about Kivic’s even sharper-eyed spies, constrained to watch our progress from a distance.)
When the first body gown fell to the tops of my feet without touching my spare form anywhere, it seemed as if I had become neutral, unwomaned. Though I view the world through a woman’s eye, and a woman’s hands worked below the level of my gaze, I wondered for the first time what others see when they see me. Not a man, certainly, but something between the two—a genderless scribe. And that led me to consider how much we define gender by our relations with others.
Marnda brought the dresser Anhar into the secret so that she might wear my clothes and pretend to be me. She was half a head taller than me. Surely her round face, which looked so Chwahir to me, could not possibly be thought to resemble my own at a distance? It had to be her light brown hair, similar to my own shade.
Anhar, so quiet and subdued in the princess’s chambers, turned out to have a sense of humor, and she loved plays. We had a good time talking in the coach, and she even admitted that, though she’d been trained as a personal dresser, she’d wanted to be a player. She went to The Slipper often. “Every time they get something wrong about court, my sister and I treat ourselves to a dinner at the Geese in Flight, and every time they get something wrong about the princess, we give ourselves a music dinner on a barge. We had four barge trips just this spring alone,” she said.
We speculated on what “Chwahir massing at the passes” might mean, but with the comfort of knowing that it was a matter for the queen and court.
So we were not prepared to roll into the inner stable reserved for the royal family’s use, to find a very senior, white-haired herald waiting among the expected stable hands and pages.
Waiting for me.
“I must change.” I indicated Lasva’s clothing on me.
She lifted her brows slightly. “And keep the queen waiting?” At my shock she relented. “She knows about the masquerade, Scribe Emras. There is nothing amiss.”
How unreal it felt to walk through the queen’s side of the royal wing while wearing Lasva’s lavender and silver! My gaze touched the golden inlay of lilies worked into the carved rosewood doors. I breathed in the scent of cinnamon and bee-balm wafting off the tended shrubs in pots below the high windows; I listened to the rapid tattoo of my heartbeat, in counterpoint to the hiss of our slippers on the marble floor. I did these things to restore a sense of reality, but I felt the more removed from normal life.
One, two, three, four doors (all opened by heralds, not pages) and for the very first time, I was alone with the queen.
Lasva’s gown rustled in folds about my feet as I pulled off the veiled hat and then bowed deeply.
“Come here, Scribe,” the queen said. Where Lasva’s voice had a slightly husky, breathy sound, her sister sounded gruff. “Ah-ye. Quite odd, to see your round apple of a face atop one of my sister’s gowns. Now, tell me about this.”
The queen threw onto a fine carved table a slim book bound with silk-covered stiffened paper. I glanced in puzzlement at the elegant, elongated Venn knotwork, then made out the stylized lettering: An Examination of Greatness.
Then I looked up at the queen.
People use the words “beauty” and “plain” and “ugly” but what do they really mean? Beauty is often likened to perfection, with discussions of symmetry, harmony of features, and dramatic coloring. “Ugly” is spoken of as distortion. “Plain” is me, harder to define—cheeks too round for my small chin, nose a mere blob. My lips are thin, my eyes just eyes below brows so unremarkable they are nearly invisible.
The queen’s cheeks are like mine, but squared, somehow, in a broad face
. Her nose is also broad, her eyes small and widely spaced, but their expression is called penetrating because she can stare you right in the eyes without fear of offending. Most of us just touch the gazes of others, then let our eyes slide to other features, or away, unless we are in love or in anger.
The queen leaned toward me, attention unwavering. I did not find her ugly, or even plain, but so intimidating my armpits tingled with perspiration, and my heartbeat sped as if I had committed a breach of protocol.
With a rapid flow that would have pleased Halimas, I gave a summary in under five hundred words: Lasva’s request that I find out more about the newcomers, speaking with Prince Macael Elsarion, Tiflis, her letter.
What did I leave out? Lasva’s and Ivandred’s exchange of glances, and my real motivation for sending the book, which was to make Ivandred’s suit easier, because I was so glad to see Lasva’s wall of grief broken.
When I finished, the queen thumped her hands on the arms of her satin-cushioned chair. “Laudable! And I hope your share brings you a stiff sum.”
My share of what? I dared not speak.
“I am very pleased when something turns out to benefit us all. You’ve done well, Scribe Emras.” She looked aside, then back. “Very well. If… ah, events transpire as I wish, you will be part of the plans. So. Go talk to Halimas. He will tell you what happened before your arrival, while I deal with the aftermath. I expect you will be in here again.”
She gave me a short nod of approval. I bowed myself out and followed the waiting herald, who refused to take me upstairs so that I might change. Wretched with embarrassment, I followed him to the scriptorium, where I found many of the senior staff waiting for me. As I made my bow, I spoke an apology for my appearance. As much as I had felt a private pleasure at being taken for the princess by those who did not know the secret, I was made equally ill-at-ease by being seen as myself in her clothes.
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