by CS Hale
“If you were a child, we’d have put you up there bareback,” Calan said and clucked to Loenir. The other men mounted up and took up positions around us.
We headed off toward the trees, my pelvis swinging in rhythm with Loenir’s steps. The reason some cultures had women ride sidesaddle became clear. Battered and bruised and probably concussed, I’d not noticed the motion when I’d been squished in the saddle with Heymond. Then Loenir picked up a trot and slammed my lady parts against the saddle. Ow.
“Easy there,” Calan said, calming her. “She’s just excited,” he said to me.
I fought the urge to grab my now painful crotch. “I can tell,” I said, and hoped I wasn’t wincing.
“You’ve got a nice center,” Calan told me. “But we’ll just walk for a while and let you get used to the rhythm.”
I wasn’t going to complain, despite the pain. I was outside in the fresh air, sky and trees and grass all around me. And thanks to years of yoga, my body was already searching for how to balance in this new, moving space.
When my dangling legs began to drift against Loenir’s sides without squeezing, Calan stopped his mount and gave me the next set of instructions. “Your legs are how you control a darana, not the reins. Squeeze to go. Squeeze harder to go faster. Pressure right to turn left. Pressure left to turn right. Unless you’re using the reins.”
“What?” How could it be right one way and wrong the other?
“A darana is going to move away from pressure. Press against it with your left foot and it’s going to move right. If you press with your left leg and pull the reins to the left, its mouth turns left while its head moves away from the pressure of the reins on the right and the darana’s hindquarters move right like a pendulum.”
One of the other riders demonstrated, turning his animal in a circle, first one direction, then the other.
Calan clipped a rope to Loenir’s halter and threw me the reins. “Remember, pressure equals ‘go.’ Lots of pressure — the ‘hanging on for dear life’ pressure — equals ‘go very fast.’ Don’t do that if you can help it. I don’t want to be chasing you all the way to Fairfada or Lendurig, rope or no rope.”
I swallowed heavily and picked up the reins. “Right.”
“Other way, my queen,” Calan said, referring to my grip. He took his animal’s reins between his thumb and index finger. “Find the middle, take them in your left hand, let the extra drop over your thumb. Leaves your other hand free. Should you need to, or want to, you could use both hands. Just hold the reins this way.” He demonstrated the method. “Slack enough to give her her head, but if you tip your hand forward, you’ll pull the reins back. Enough to slow her down.”
“What do you say to stop?” I asked.
“Stöd.”
“Stöd,” I repeated, though I had a feeling I’d be yelling Whoa! if Loenir decided to take off.
Calan tied the rope to his saddle. A good fifteen feet trailed between us. Enough that Loenir was mine to control, but at least I wouldn’t end up miles away on my own. If I didn’t fall off first.
“Squeeze and click your tongue,” Calan said.
You wanted this, I told myself. You need this, my more practical side reiterated. I would not be a helpless woman being led from town to town at the mercy of others.
The image of the Cordair lined up along the ridge, the Hormani with them, came to mind. I’d had the chip implanted, I’d learned to hold my liquor, I’d learned to scroll through endless bits and pieces of information all to give me every advantage in my job. I could damn well learn to ride a horse — a darana — for this one. Even with all the confusing directions.
“Come along,” I said to Loenir and clicked my tongue. Then I squeezed with my legs and held my breath as she sprang to life beneath me.
“Ooch!” Daria stifled her giggles as I bit back the rest of the expletives on my tongue and gently lowered myself into the tub of hot water.
“You’re going to feel it tomorrow,” she said.
“Not helping.” The water came up over my breasts and I finally relaxed against the back. “How long do I have?”
“No more than half an hour.”
I whimpered. Everything hurt, even though I’d managed to stay on the horse.
Daria gave the bed a sidelong glance. I managed to silence a new groan. I would not have had to worry about “riding” again tonight if I’d been sidesaddle. Daria shook out my towel, fluffing it up before she placed it on the stool by the tub. “Maybe he’ll still be away tonight.”
“Away?” The water sloshed as I sat up. “What do you mean ‘away’?”
“The king left with Heymond and a few others shortly before you went out riding. Didn’t you know?” I shook my head. Daria hummed. “He hasn’t returned … that I’ve heard. Maybe you’ll have a night off.”
Maybe. But that left me alone at dinner with the court. For the first time ever. No confidant at the table. I sank back down until the water came up to my chin. If I could, I’d plant Daria at the table, right next to me. But I couldn’t.
In the end, I chose Padrid for my dinner companion. I expanded my knowledge of Aedenfal’s neighboring towns and villages. He didn’t comment on where Valemar had gone or the empty seat to my left.
I probably should have placed Laera next to me instead. While I had become an expected member of the solar, there was still an element of mistrust that seethed there. My decision to choose Padrid wouldn’t help that, but I was too sore and tired to walk the minefield of Laera’s expectations and listen to her thinly veiled criticisms.
My bed was empty when I went to my room and remained empty until the wee hours of the morning. The faint light of early dawn had given form to the shadows making up the room when a pressure next to me woke me.
I could smell the darana on him before I rolled over. Valemar sat on the bed, his back against the headboard. There were a thousand questions in his eyes but he didn’t ask any of them, just stared at me. There was one thing that would have changed how Valemar saw me. It had been loaded onto a cart and stored — I didn’t know where, but far enough away for a full-day journey.
I tried to lift a smile, but it kept slipping from my face. He looked at me as if I were a stranger. My eyes began to sting, and still he stared, the guarded expression on his face creating a wall between us. I forced the words out, though they were little more than air. “I’m still me. I’m the same girl Heymond brought to you. The same woman you’ve lived with these last few weeks.” Valemar reached out a hand and traced the shape of my face. “What you saw doesn’t change that.”
His face softened. “No, it doesn’t.” He pulled me onto his lap and began to stroke my hair.
What he’d seen, what he’d finally gone to see, didn’t change who I was.
But it did change how he looked at me.
FOURTEEN DAYS LATER we rode out the gates of Aedenfal bound for Torfin and, from there, a pilgrimage to Gladama. It was a five day journey to Torfin, renowned for its wine. Valemar intended to inspect the crops and the wineries. Part of me wondered if he just wanted to put space between me and the Cordair.
I knew he’d gone to inspect my ship that day, knew it from the trace of fear I’d seen in his eyes. I’d seen the same look on the faces of people in the history files, pictures of people on Earth after they’d discovered they were not alone in the universe. Valemar had received the reports, knew my ship was made of metal and contained strange technology, but he’d fit the information in with his expectations of the Moon Princess. That had all changed when I said I didn’t ride.
Part of him now knew that I was strange and terrible — though that didn’t stop him from coming to my bed every night. And part of him now realized just how great a threat the “strangers” were that were trading with the Cordair. His world had been shaken. And so we left Aedenfal as soon as the young karawack were old enough to travel.
I was proud that I rode on my own, though the long skirts that allowed peeing alongside the road
to be more private made climbing into the saddle more difficult.
It was a nice day for travel. The sun shone brightly and the morning air was cool. I’d pieced together from the maps I studied with Padrid that Aedenfal was situated about the same latitude as San Francisco or Athens on Earth but in Teridun’s southern hemisphere. The Lian Isles to the north had weather similar to San Diego, and Snow Reach to the south to the mountains of the Sierra Nevadas. From the state of the harvest, I assumed we were in summer, though at this latitude Bánalfar wouldn’t have a full four seasons. Vanerife, the capital city, had only one — a summer of varying degrees of hot and mild.
We were not a large party: Valemar, me, Daria, Padrid, the Mödatal, Heymond and a scant score of twenty knights, Ean and one of his assistants, and the drivers of two wagons. One wagon held trunks of our clothing, the other — cages of karawack.
Besides singing to them, we now let them out to fly for an hour every evening to build up their wing muscles. How the fully grown birds must hate their cages, for the instinct to connect with their imprint was so great that we often had to toss the birds aloft to get them to fly. It was quite the spectacle. The flock of young karawack circling around their imprint, alighting on them, bobbing their heads in curiosity, as if they couldn’t figure out why their imprint wouldn’t join them in flight.
I’d found it magical the first time mine had done so, being the still center in a blur of wings. It made me feel every bit a Cinderella — without the sleeping by the fire. And wasn’t I? For I had crashed down a nobody and now I was a queen.
We spent the first day traveling at an easy walk and spent the night at a manor house. I was met with some stares, eyes that lingered on my hair, before smiles were hoisted and our hosts became the image of graciousness. We cantered some the next day, playful races to break up the monotony, lunched under the shade of a tall tree while we waited for the wagons to catch up. We could have been anybody on the road. Certainly not what I’d expected of a royal party passing through the countryside.
It was when a lone traveler passed by us, headed in the opposite direction, as we lunched under the tree, that I remembered something I’d read years before. The man greeted us with a simple “my king, my queen” and a dip of his head as he passed, recognizing Valemar and, by extension, me. I’d read that heavy security when kings traveled was only a necessity when there was mistrust between a king and his subjects. The article had compared the exploits of England’s Plantagenet kings who’d ridden around the country with only a couple of trusted friends to the scores of knights necessary to ensure the safety of the Tudors. Security was tight at Aedenfal, but then it was only a hard day’s ride from Rock Dorach, the Cordair stronghold in the Archjarn mountains, near the eastern edge of the steppe. We were headed west, into the heart of Bánalfar.
The farther west we traveled, the fewer looks my hair received. The Alfari I saw still had hair in various shades of blond, with the occasional variation of some degree of red, but the mistrust I was greeted with faded with the miles. The warm cheers that greeted us when we rode through Torfin were as much for me as for Valemar.
The steward of Torfin and his wife greeted us at the main door to the High when we dismounted. “We are so glad to welcome you, my king and my queen,” Brinna, the steward’s wife said. “Both of you.”
Brinna was shorter than most of the Alfari I’d met, only an inch or two above my height. Her dark blond hair hung in a long braid down her back, decorated with a jeweled clasp that tied off the end. Her smile was the most genuine I’d seen in a long time, and it made me glad that Aedenfal was days behind me.
Brinna herself showed me to the room I’d be sharing with Valemar and had our trunks brought up and water fetched so I could wash the dust off. Daria she placed in a room just down the hall.
The Mödatal had left us soon after we’d ridden through the gates of Torfin, opting to stay at the Cair rather than the High.
“Why is that?” I asked Daria when she dressed me for dinner. “She comes with us but she doesn’t stay?”
Daria tied off my laces. “She’s traveled with the king for the last year, advising him. Ever since she received the message that you were coming.” A snort of disbelief escaped before I could stop it. “But you are here,” Daria said, meeting my gaze in the mirror. “She wasn’t wrong about that.” Daria bit her lip, and her gaze dropped. “Do you think she was wrong?”
We’d never talked about it, how I wasn’t the Moon Princess. Partially because I couldn’t bear to break Daria’s illusion of me. Partially because the things that Mödatal Shale knew about me were spookily true.
“What is the prophecy?” I asked Daria. I couldn’t remember the details.
“That the Moon Princess —” Daria frowned. “No, that’s not quite right.”
Startled, I turned around. Daria chewed on her lip. Her eyes focused on the floor as she thought. “She will fall from the moon. She will be the daughter of kings. Drive back the outsiders. And something about life.”
“I thought everyone knew the prophecy.” At least, that was what I’d come to expect.
“Oh, we’ve known there was one. There’ve been many over the years. But the one about you —” Daria smiled up at me then lifted the necklace I would wear tonight from its box — gems representing clusters of the fruit used to make Torfin’s famous wine. “When the strangers began appearing in Cordair lands, strangers no one on Crenfor had seen before, it began to be whispered. All of Bánalfar began to worry that the Cordair had finally found allies who would help them take back what they lost millennia ago.” She clipped the necklace around my neck and adjusted it.
“Have they?” Daria asked. Fear shone in her eyes. “Have they finally found allies who could undo it all?”
I had to swallow for my mouth had gone dry. “Yes,” I whispered.
“And you’ve come to stop them?”
It was the first time she’d asked. I’d told Valemar and the Mödatal that I didn’t know what I could do, but I couldn’t tell Daria that. She’d become my place of refuge in this crazy storm. I couldn’t crush her belief in me.
“They’re not from Crenfor —” as the Alfari called the planet, “— and neither am I. That will be their undoing,” I assured her. I only wished I were as certain as the Mödatal.
At dinner, Brinna sat on my right and chatted away; told me stories, asked for mine. Laera had never joined me at the high table. But then Garris, her husband, hadn’t joined Valemar, either. Here, in Torfin, Jaros sat on Valemar’s left, discussing the state of the crops. It was a change I decided to ask Valemar about. I’d been a part of Valemar’s circle at Aedenfal, but only his.
“Would you like to see the crops?” Brinna asked me. “The king and Jaros ride out tomorrow to inspect them. Would you like to go along?”
“I would,” I told her. “Everything about Bánalfar, and, indeed, Crenfor, is still new. Wine is made from so many different fruits. I’d like to see what is used here.”
“That settles it,” Brinna said, lilt in her voice vaguely reminding me of Gaelic or Galetean. Her eyes sparkled. “We’ll pack a picnic and join them.”
###
Daria left Valemar to undo my dress since he’d followed me out after dinner. He nuzzled my neck from behind before he began pulling the ribbons from the lacings.
“You never had Garris at high table in Aedenfal,” I said as the ribbons scritched their way free.
“No.” Valemar stayed intent on his task.
I looked over my shoulder. “Why was that?”
His eyes briefly met mine then returned to his work. “There were no reports to give. I had all the knowledge I needed.”
I turned and took his hands. “Is it an honor to sit next to you at meals?”
Valemar pressed his lips together. “It is.”
“Then why —”
Valemar took my chin and pressed my mouth against his, silencing me. He broke off the kiss then stroked my cheek with his thumb.
>
“I know you found it hard to fit in at Aedenfal,” he said. “You remind them too much of what they fear.” He kissed me again. “Would you have wanted that every night? Laera at your side with a look on her face like you’d mucked out the stables and hadn’t bothered to change?”
“No,” I whispered.
“So I put others at the table who you would want to talk to.”
“And quietly shamed the rest,” I said.
“And quietly shamed the rest,” he affirmed.
Valemar ran his fingers through my hair, then pulled me closer. He looked over my shoulder, down at the laces, and renewed his efforts to undress me. I giggled into his tunic.
“I have been on the road for five days without the opportunity to properly enjoy you,” he said. I thought of the nightgown made of gresánve in one of the trunks Daria hadn’t had a chance to completely unpack.
The ribbon came free in a rush. Valemar dropped it and slipped the gown from my shoulders where it fell to the floor with a soft whisper. His eyes ran hungrily over me and lingered on the swell of my breasts beneath the thin, nearly sheer fabric of my slip.
He brought my face closer for another kiss while his free hand began to gather up and raise the fabric of my slip. “How did I get so lucky?” His lips brushed against my cheek as he spoke.
“You had a seer to guide you,” I said, nearly as breathless as him.
“You could have said ‘no.’” His voice caught.
“I could have.” I brushed back his long hair and swallowed. I still thought him lethal. Having watched him at jaldun, I knew just how deadly he could be.
But his blades were mine. He’d meant every word of his marriage vows.
He’d offered me everything, and I could give him nothing. I couldn’t save his people. I couldn’t even give him a child. Here he stood, about to try again, hoping that soon he’d see my belly swell, and there’d be nothing.