“I came here out of curiosity. Why do they lock you up?”
“The king locks me up. He has no longer any use for me. He finds my weakness and infirmities unpleasant. I am content here with my own company. As you can see, it is a comfortable chamber. I do not have to make any decisions here, or be civil to visitors.”
It was an opulent chamber, but windowless, one of the rooms dug from the side of the mountain. He didn’t know how anyone could stand to be so trapped. He studied her pale blue eyes, faded to white around the edges, and wondered if she was mad.
“I suffer from a variety of ugly infirmities, young man. They linger from the plague that beset Dacia. I nearly died of it. I am comfortable here and not stared at. Roderica takes care of my needs and brings me the palace gossip.”
Teb stayed with her for some time, telling her lies about Thedria. Whatever she knew of it would likely be from her youth. Countries change. Roderica sat removed from them in a far corner, knitting, looking sour and resentful.
The queen told him Roderica had been with her since the girl was six, and was her only friend. She did not speak of the king again. There was something about the old woman that interested him, something that piqued his curiosity. Maybe she would tell him more if he asked no questions. She seemed uncaring about the affairs of the palace. When he mentioned war, as he described his horses, she seemed to cease to listen, staring down at her wrinkled hands and running one finger along her swollen knuckles. He left her at mid-morning, walking back through the dark, windowless halls with Roderica.
“She is lucky to have you for a friend,” he said. “She must resent being shut away from palace life.”
“She does not resent,” Roderica said sullenly. “The queen is of a very even nature.” She cast him a hard look, devoid of all the coquettish giggling he had seen at other times. “As for the queen’s interest in palace life, I bring her all the news she requires.”
“And she is never angry at being a prisoner?”
“The queen does not get angry.”
“Never?”
“Only if her meals do not suit her. I do the best I can about them. As to the . . . larger issues, the queen’s feelings remain removed from them. She does not believe in being . . . emotional.”
“I see. And you?”
“What is there to be emotional about? People will do as they please. Nothing will change them.”
His temper flared. He caught himself before he turned on her, biting back his words.
He studied the sharp shadows cast up her face by the lamp she carried. She puzzled him. She seemed a person who followed whatever cause suited her at the moment without any inner commitment—to good or to evil. As if she was little more than a shell.
Maybe the old queen would prove to be much the same, but for some reason he liked her better.
When Roderica left him, turning down her own corridor, he went directly to the stables to see to the tedious training of clumsy soldiers. As he saddled Seastrider he shared with her, in silence, his thoughts about the queen and Roderica. The queen was the more interesting of the two. She was abrupt, had made rude comments about some of the customs of Thedria, and seemed to soften only when he spoke of the talking animals of that land. She caught herself at once, though, and was surly again. Maybe she felt rudeness was a luxury of illness and old age.
He suffered a day of training, taking his three mounted soldiers down the hills toward the city, where they passed loaded wagons of grain bags and stores hidden in linen wrappings. Many wagons unloaded at a long building behind the stadium, and others made their way up the mountain to the palace, to be emptied somewhere behind the inner wall. Food, he supposed. But maybe weapons, too. Interesting that the country had deteriorated so much that it must import food rather than grow what it needed. All the land to the north was open. The farms there lay fallow, fields of crusted brown soil and weeds that could be seen clearly from the palace.
Teb used the sleep song again that night, and the dragons took to the sky like startled birds, not pausing until they were miles out over the sea, away from the palace and all connected with it. Below them lay the small land of Liedref, awash with the aura of dark.
On Liedref they found a young woman gone sour and evil under enchantment of the dark. She had once served the King of Edain as teacher and mistress of his children. He had helped her escape Edain with the children, believing she would keep them safe while he remained behind to battle the invaders. But she was weak, driven by small, greedy envy. The dark found her an easy mark. Soon she was its pawn, caring for nothing but its blood-lust. She murdered three of the king’s children and took the other two into slavery.
Even dragon song could not drive the dark from her. Teb fought for her, surrounding her with visions of warmth and caring from her past. But the dark was a mindless force within her. It roared a challenge that pounded in Teb’s mind, so his own voice faltered.
The dark won. The host it held was too weak and had embraced its evil too long. In one last, losing effort to free herself, the woman lunged at a dark disciple and stabbed him with his own knife, stood watching his fallen body seep out colorless blood. “I didn’t know they could die,” she whispered. “I didn’t know . . .”
Then she plunged the knife into her own heart, too weak to leave the dark, too filled with its ways to live without it. “I didn’t know they could die. . . .”
“They can die,” said Teb bitterly, as he held the dying woman. He was able to free the children. The two small girls came sleepily to Seastrider and put their arms around her nose.
All the rest of that night, with the lopsided moon hiding, then showing itself between clouds, Teb and the dragons sang. They freed the minds of the thirty-seven children and two dozen adults, saw consciousness come back to them and the knowledge of who they were. Teb felt their understanding as they were linked once more to their pasts. He felt the excitement of the children as, newly freed, they thought for the first time of real futures chosen without restraint. He felt Seastrider’s joy for the children returned from slavery to life. He gave her a hug and mounted. The dragons swept into the wind, racing dawn back to the palace. They dropped down onto the hills as the first gray light touched the sky. They changed quickly, to gallop back toward the stable.
But near to the stables the four horses paused, snorting and staring.
What? Teb said.
Someone hiding in the dark, said Seastrider.
A whole army?
One person.
Well, go on in. What harm can one person do?
The stable was still dark inside. Seastrider approached it warily, the other three crowding close, their ears laid back, their movements tense, ready to strike.
Teb stepped in quietly, filled with fear that someone had seen them in the sky.
Yet it was still very dark. And no one could have beaten them back to the stable. He lit a lamp far down the alleyway. He filled the water and feed buckets, patted Seastrider on the rump, pushed her toward her stall. She turned at once to stare back toward the dark corner near the stable entry. When he approached the corner, she followed him, ready to charge.
“You’d better come out,” he said evenly. “I don’t like being spied on.”
A slim figure stepped out of the blackness. It was Kiri.
She looked at him steadily. Neither spoke. He studied her dark eyes for any hint that she had seen the dragons in the sky, or seen the changing.
Her look was innocent, direct. She glanced past him toward the horses with the same yearning expression he had seen as she stood watching them from the almond grove with her Gram. He liked her thick, straight lashes and the way her brows looked like little wings. She seemed, Teb thought, more like a wild creature than a docile palace page. Watching her steady eyes and the set of her jaw, he wondered that she would take orders at all from the high-handed royal family.
“I came to see the horses.”
“I heard you weren’t allowed in the stable.”
“I’m not. But they’re too beautiful for me to stay away. Do you mind? May I speak to them?”
Before he could stop her, she moved past him to Seastrider, who stood with ears back and teeth bared. She laid a hand on the mare’s cheek, and Seastrider thrust her ears forward at once, then snuffled at the girl’s shoulder, her tail swinging lazily. Teb gaped.
When she went to Nightraider, he blew rollers into her neck, making her laugh, making a first-rate fool of himself. The horses had never acted like that, not with anyone.
“My father was horsemaster for the king, long ago,” she said quietly. “Not Sardira. A previous king.” Her look was steady. “I used to help him. When King Bayden died, Sardira sent my father away and appointed a new horsemaster. He said I was not to come near the stables. I guess I—” She went silent, her expression going cold as she stared past him toward the stable entry. Teb turned.
Another figure stood in the doorway, etched against the faint dawn light, her skirts swirled around her.
“I guess you made a nuisance of yourself in the stables, little cousin,” Accacia said. “I guess you tried too often to tell King Sardira’s horsemaster how to run his business.” She came across the stable alley holding her skirts up off the earthen floor, though it had recently been swept clean and smooth.
“You should not be here now, Kiri. Sardira would be interested to know you have disobeyed.” Accacia was dressed not for an early-morning ride, it seemed to Teb, but for a formal parade, in a lavender satin riding dress that rippled like water as she moved, shining black boots, and gold circlets binding her bright hair. “I think you had better run along, Kiri. You must not bother the prince. We are off soon on an important ride.”
Kiri turned to go, expressionless and straight-backed.
“Wait, Kiri,” Accacia said. “Perhaps . . .” She looked Kiri up and down. “If you will brush the straw out of your hair and make yourself presentable, you may serve as entourage page. I want four pages. Choose whatever three you like. We leave directly after breakfast.” She dismissed Kiri with a flick of her lace cuff.
The horses looked after Kiri eagerly as she left the stable, but when Teb sought in silence for the cause of their warmth toward her, they couldn’t tell him. Only that she was, in the sense of their thoughts, one to care about. Their expressions changed completely when Accacia approached them. When she reached to stroke Nightraider’s nose he scowled and bit at her, his teeth snapping inches from her face. She backed away, gasping, her hand raised to strike him, then forced a little laugh.
“Oh, they are spirited! I love a spirited horse!” She came to Teb quickly and laid a hand on his arm. “Might I ride that wild stallion when we go out this morning? I expect he would not be so challenging once I was on his back, with a proper bit in his mouth and proper spurs.”
“We are going out very early,” Teb said. “You seem dressed for a grand presentation.” He could hardly keep his mind on Accacia for wanting to go after Kiri, for wanting to question her. Kiri was not of the dark; the dragons had proved that. She did not seem to him a shallow person who would have no commitment at all.
“We leave in an hour, Prince Tebmund. I expect you will want to change from your . . . stable clothes.” Accacia studied his stained tunic with distaste. “Breakfast is served in the hall. I will have the grooms saddle your mare for you, and the black stallion, along with the rest of the mounts.”
“I will saddle my mare,” he said softly. “And it would not be wise for you to try any of my horses, princess. They have a strange and cruel dislike of any woman on their back.”
“I can handle any horse, Prince Tebmund. I will order a special bridle that—”
“Windcaller bucked off the female horsemaster of Windthorst’s western province and the woman was bedridden for six months with a broken hip. Nightraider attacked a visiting woman soldier from Akemada who insisted on riding him and broke her arm with one bite.”
Two red splotches flamed across her cheeks. “You are rude, Prince Tebmund. I tell you I can handle your horses.”
“I am only trying to protect you. You are far too lovely to be hurt or disfigured by an angry stallion. Come, shall we go to breakfast?”
She stared at him coldly, then swept out ahead of him.
Chapter 9
Roderica watched the party depart the stable yard dressed to the teeth, Accacia in her lavender satins, the king’s soldiers turned out in full uniform. From her high bedroom window behind the stable she could see them leave the main road and disappear over the crest of the first hill leading down into the city. Such a lot of fuss for a simple ride through the streets. Accacia’s idea, she thought, amused. Accacia found the visiting prince more than handsome. Well, let her. He was too involved with those horses to be really interesting. Accacia herself said he was not a very amusing conversationalist at the state meals. All looks and no fun, so why bother? Besides, it was more interesting to watch Accacia make a fool of herself. The queen would be amused at how she overdressed for a simple ride through the city, at how she threw herself at the prince.
Roderica lived as much on gossip as did the shut-in queen, the two of them chewing over other people’s lives but not involved in them. Why get tangled in stupid conflicts? Most of the passions that drove folk were pointless, she agreed fully with the queen.
Roderica couldn’t figure out what it was lately that made the queen act so strangely. Certainly it was not the secret she carried, at least it had never made her act peculiar before. Roderica had always known the queen’s secret, ever since she came to her as a small child. It meant little to her except it was a secret to be kept, a degree of loyalty she reserved for the queen alone. Besides, such a condition had no practical use. She watched the last soldiers disappear over the hill. The four foot pages at the head of the procession emerged farther down where the lane rose between ruined buildings. There was a scuffle, as if someone had attacked the pages; then they moved on. Roderica smiled at Accacia’s manipulation of little Kiri. How degrading to have to walk on foot, through mud and dung, before a line of mounted royalty and troops.
Accacia had taken Kiri to the stadium games several times, to wait on her where she sat in the royal box. The games always made the child deathly pale. Well, Kiri took such things far too seriously. She’d always had this weakness about animals. The queen had it, too. The old lady was getting worse lately, had taken to talking sentimentally about animals. That was bad enough, but now the queen had begun letting a fox slip into her chambers, thinking she was keeping it secret from Roderica. The dirty little fox came in through a hole in the stone wall that led to an old inner cistern. Roderica had seen it fleeing one night, then later had found its white fur caught on the stone.
She couldn’t imagine why the queen would suddenly allow such a thing, a dirty fox slipping in. What could a stupid speaking animal possibly have to say of interest? And why would the queen want to listen? The queen was her friend, should want to talk to her, not to a fox. Roderica hadn’t much liked Prince Tebmund going there, but at least he was a prince. But a fox—a common animal taking her place as confidant to the queen was quite another matter. Oh, it had been there often. Roderica had no doubt they exchanged confidences, from the look on the queen’s face sometimes, smug and secret. Roderica sighed. It wasn’t fair that she spend her whole life serving the queen, then be shoved aside for a fox.
She thought of trapping it and presenting it to the king for his stadium games, but that idea made her strangely uncomfortable. Well, she could trap it, pay a bargeman to carry the creature across the strait to Ekthuma or Igness—anywhere where it would not return to the queen.
When she left the window to find a suitable box trap, the procession was halfway down the hills into the crowded center of the city.
The royal party moved through the streets with precision, its green uniforms bright, Accacia’s lavender satin brighter, the horses clean, sharply groomed, and stepping at a measured pace. Ahead of the double line, the four p
ages cleared the way of chickens and pigs and small children. Teb watched Kiri, still consumed with curiosity about her.
She walked lightly with a lithe dignity, while the other three pages, all boys, marched with rigid precision, knowing the king’s soldiers observed them. Kiri had brushed her green tunic and cap very clean and bound up her hair in a bun at the nape of her neck. She wore her sword with grace, as if used to it. She led the party, on foot, with much more dignity than Accacia showed riding surrounded by soldiers.
They were a party of twenty-six. First came Prince Abisha and a captain of Sardira’s army, a broad-waisted man who sat his horse heavily. Then four more captains, two and two—the king had not accompanied them—then Teb and Accacia, and behind them the remaining soldiers. Accacia rode a sorrel gelding that matched exactly her tawny hair, a hard-mouthed horse, as she seemed to require, for she spent a good deal of effort spurring him up into the bit and jerking him, to make him prance. It was all Teb could do not to snatch the reins from those unfeeling hands and give the horse his head. Its neck was already white with foaming sweat, though the other horses were dry. Accacia was looking at the four marching pages with smug satisfaction.
“Sometimes,” she said, “people throw things at a royal entourage. It is good to have pages walking in front, to catch the mud and dung. Their swords can drive off troublemakers, too.” Then, glancing along the street ahead, she said casually, “Well, I see we have some new beasts of burden. Brought in yesterday’s shipping, most likely.”
Teb stared at the two blinded, maimed wolves pulling a heavy cart. They were speaking wolves, scarred and thin under the cruel chains, their proud manes cut to a ragged stubble. They walked hesitantly, heads down, blind eyes staring at nothing. Teb was sick with fury and felt Seastrider’s revulsion in her rigid walk. Maybe he could find a way to release them, find power to break the chains.
Yet blinded wolves could not survive easily, alone among hostile men. He must wait. He made a silent promise to the pitiful creatures. Soon they passed another speaking wolf, a great male hitched to a wagon of ale barrels. That animal turned his blind face to follow Seastrider’s progress, sensing her, sensing Teb, perhaps. Accacia spurred her tired horse into its perpetual prance as, ahead, two men in wrinkled, muddy clothes emerged from a tavern, arguing loudly, walking unsteadily. The pages pushed them aside with the flat of their swords, quick and skilled; the drunks faded into another doorway. The city still dropped toward the sea. To their left a long arm of crowded buildings stretched out along the river, ending at the curved bay tangled with docks and small barges and fishing boats. The wind from the river was heavy with fish and the stink of tanneries.
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