Usha looked over her easel at the boys and winked. Thelan smiled, then swallowed it, seeming to remember he was angry at being trapped indoors with her.
“Almost finished,” she promised. And she was, thanks to all the gone gods! Despite all the wriggling and protest, she had a small series of sketches of each child and wanted only this one of the two together. In another moment, she released them and laughed to see them tear out of the room in a clatter of heels and a roar of delight.
Having made grateful use of a pitcher of cool water, a deep basin, and a stack of linen towels, Usha followed a young housemaid into the garden nearest the house, a long rose arbor so thick with blooms that they shaded the little stone tables and benches beneath and just allowed a glimpse of a small grove of apple trees at the western edge of the garden, and of the kitchen garden on the eastern side.
Lorelia Gance’s house had been in her husband’s family for generations, and it wore its history easily. The part facing the street was made of stone, and the steps leading up to the broad oak door were shallow in the tread. Here was the oldest part, and Usha thought it must have been a long time ago when this building was small kin to the Old Keep on the hill above the river, for the marks of generations showed in the shallow depressions worn into the stairs. Over the years, the family had added rooms and floors, some of the additions half-timbered, the most recent all of pinewood but for the foundation stones any sensible person used who lived near a river. Over the years, as the house grew what was a broad, upsweeping orchard running almost from the dooryard of the oldest part of the house to the crest of the hill above the river had become gardens as much of the orchard land was sold off to others. Of outbuildings, there was only a stable now.
Under the arbor the air was not very much cooler than indoors. The little stone tables and benches were warm to touch, but the fragrance of sun-warmed roses charmed. Usha had expected the garden to be loud with Lorelia’s whooping sons, but their voices came only faintly from the stable. She looked around, wondering where she must go to find Lorelia and her guests when a long-legged man walked into the arbor from the orchard end. He wore his yellow hair cropped short, sunlight darted off the black mail he wore over an open-necked black shirt and glinted from the jeweled pommel of a sword riding in the scabbard at his hip.
No man but a knight or soldier of the dark army wore weapons openly in Haven.
Usha’s heart thumped hard in her chest. She turned to slip back into the house then stopped when she saw a young woman walking beside the knight, her hand tucked into the crook of his arm. The girl laughed at something he said, a pleasant trill. His own laughter followed close upon it, a short, sharp bark. Shuddering, Usha knew the knight must be one of Sir Radulf’s men. Yet the girl, fresh and sweet as one of the tiny white roses she wore in her raven hair, seemed perfectly comfortable on his arm. Lorelia walked a little behind the two, head low and talking to a well-dressed man in his handsome middle years. His boots had the look of well cared for leather, his breeches were of wool and slate colored; his shirt of white broadcloth, open at the throat and wide sleeved. In his ear a diamond stud glittered. Dark haired, as the pretty young woman, he had more the look of Lorelia’s kin about him—straight-backed, long-jawed, and purposeful.
These were Lorelia’s guests.
Lorelia looked up in response to something her companion said, let go his arm and hurried to Usha. “My dear! There you are.”
The knight’s sharp glance fell on Usha, and he cocked his head, curious. His companion stopped. Unless he wanted to break her hold on his arm, he could go no farther without her. Usha smiled, recognizing the young woman’s move. If he was a courteous knight, a girl’s escort must stand if she did. And stand she did, for the girl with the rosebuds in her hair did not see a woman twice her age or more. She saw Usha, Irda-raised and surpassingly lovely, who looked no more than a young woman herself. The girl had no mind to let her knight come closer till she knew whether Usha was a threat to his attention.
Lorelia made introductions. “This is Mistress Usha Majere of Solace. You have heard of her, of course. She is a well-known portraitist, and she is painting my Thelan and Kalend. It’s very exciting and fortunate to have her. The first in the city to engage her service, I’ll have you know.
“My dear,” she said, putting her hand on Usha’s arm and drawing her closer to the others. “Here is my cousin, Loren Halgard.” The man she’d been walking with inclined his head in a small bow. “And his daughter, Tamara,” whose eyes grew distant, as though she were bored, “and this is Sir Radulf Eigerson.”
Usha made herself smile as the knight bowed over her hand with grave civility.
“Mistress Gance speaks highly of you, madam, though in Neraka, where I was lately stationed, we have not heard much about you. I look forward to learning more.” His blue eyes were sharp and cool. The hair rose on the back of Usha’s neck. “I do know of your husband, Lord Palin, however. But I did not hear that the head of the Order of White Robes is in Haven.”
The Order of White Robes no longer existed, as the knight well knew. Magic barely existed. Usha understood the barb and would not acknowledge it. Head high, her own look as cool as the knight’s, she said, “That’s because he is not in Haven, sir.”
“And not likely to make a sudden appearance to deprive my city of his wife’s charm and talent?”
Loren Halgard, till then silent, stood a little straighter, as though to raise objection to Sir Radulf’s characterization of Haven as his city. The line of his jaw, rather like the stubborn jaws of his two nephews, hardened. However, he said nothing, nor did Lorelia. It seemed Tamara, her eyes on the knight, couldn’t have cared at all.
Usha shrugged carelessly. “If it were likely, sir, Palin would have been here by now, and we wouldn’t be having this conversation. But we are, and you needn’t worry. Unfortunately, the state of my husband’s magic, gods-given or wild, is no better than that of any mage you might yourself employ.”
Voices on the path from the house warned that servants were coming. The scents of wine and fruit and cold meats hung to entice. Fluttering, Lorelia slipped between Usha and Sir Radulf. The knight bowed again and followed Lorelia as she ushered her guests toward the tables. Looking down her pretty nose, Tamara Halgard followed the knight. Usha shook her head, amused.
“Well,” said Loren Halgard, “they are a handful at that age, aren’t they?”
Usha nodded. “Indeed, they are. Though ‘a handful’ wasn’t often the way I described my own daughter. When she was your daughter’s age Linsha was… something more than a handful.”
Startled, Loren said, “Your daughter? Surely not? Why Lord Palin is a man of—” He stopped, tried to back carefully out of enumerating Palin’s many years.
“Lord Palin is my age,” Usha said, laughing at his confusion. “We are strange people, we Majeres.” She raised a brow. “Some of us stranger than others.”
Loren had the good grace to smile, then to offer his arm. “May I escort you to dinner, Mistress Usha?”
Between one word and the other of that invitation Usha thought she heard him begin to say “Mistress Majere.” If he recovered, he recovered well. She did not take his arm, but she accepted his offer. Watching Tamara and the knight, she said, “Your daughter is lovely, sir.”
Loren nodded. “Lovely, indeed. The image of her mother.”
“She must have been very beautiful,” Usha said.
“Yes, and not with us long. My wife died the year after Tamara was born.” He shrugged as though to dismiss old pain. “If it weren’t for Lorelia, I doubt I’d be seen outside my door unless on business. But—” he winked a smile—“my dear, she’s very good to Tamara, and she yanks me out the door from time to time, too.”
Gentle breezes ran through the rose arbor, cooling the afternoon. One could almost imagine this was a summer’s day like any other before the coming of Sir Radulf and his dark knights. Lorelia’s servants attended her guests unobtrusively. The sound o
f muffled traffic drifted over the garden wall—the clop of horses’ hoofs, the creak of a carriage wheel; once the soft, musical voices of two elves in conversation as they walked by. Usha lifted her head at that, for she had seen very few elves since arriving in Haven. Hardly any of those who had fled the Qualinesti forest with the help of Aline’s Qui’thonas remained so close to their imperiled homeland long enough to do more than find other places to live, often moving east to Solace or beyond. As she looked up, so did Sir Radulf, and their eyes met then glanced away.
“He is still considering your husband,” Loren said quietly.
“Do you think so?” Usha refilled their goblets from the bottle at their table. Blond wine the elves called one of their whites. This she poured was not elven, it was not blond, but to the lips of those who had never tasted wine from Qualinesti’s vineyards it must surely be counted good.
“He is wondering if Lord Palin is in Qualinesti,” Loren said, “or if he is somewhere else, soon to appear in Haven. I doubt he’d want that.”
Usha sipped the wine. “I don’t think he has to worry. Palin might be in Qualinesti, or he might be somewhere else. I am not privy to all his motives, and he doesn’t leave an itinerary. But Palin is not in Haven, so Sir Radulf can rest easy about that. His city is safe from my husband. Or anyone else who might challenge him.”
Loren raised an eyebrow. “You sound as though you think someone should.”
She did think so, though she hadn’t said it to anyone before now. Of the two of them, Dez had been the impatient one, restless captive in a captive city. Till now Usha had been spending thought and energy keeping them housed and fed. But now, her eyes on Tamara just then allowing the knight to lift her hand to kiss, Usha said, “The Lord Mayor and the Council don’t seem to put up much resistance. At least in Qualinesti they tried.”
Loren’s face flushed with sudden anger. “In Qualinesti they had no more choice than we do. Some escaped. Most did not. There is a rebel leader rising up now among the elves. Some runaway servant girl who thinks she is a warlord.” He shook his head. “Maybe she’s killed a few knights and will kill a few more. No doubt she is a pretty hope, but in the end she’ll be killed herself. The dark knights are the power, Usha. Men like Sir Radulf stand like stone, and all resistance breaks on them like waves at the foot of a cliff.”
In the shadow behind the arbor wall, Sir Radulf took Tamara’s hand once- more. He turned it palm up and kissed her more intimately than before, his lips brushing the tender skin of her wrist. The girl did not resist. Usha couldn’t see from this distance whether she blushed or not, but she could hear Tamara’s soft laughter.
“Why do you let him lay hands on your daughter?”
Again, Loren’s face flushed. “He does nothing improper. He pays her court.”
“Let us hope he pays her better courtesy than he did ‘his’ city.”
Loren sat quietly for a long moment, the muted sounds of the city slipped past the walls. Usha realized that Lorelia had left the gathering a little while before, trusting her guests to her servants or each other. From the stable the sounds of children laughing drifted, then one of the boys burst out into the sunlight, running; and so she knew where her hostess had gone.
“Usha,” said Loren. “Look at my daughter. She’s of an age to be married soon.”
She was. A lovely girl on the brink of womanhood, smiling into the chill blue eyes of a man who held her hand as though, should she ask, it would be he who decided if he let it go or didn’t. In her father’s voice, Usha heard quiet anguish when he said, “You can guess what will become of her in an occupied city. She’ll be prey to every knight or foot soldier. If they think she has Sir Radulf’s protection…”
“If they think so,” Usha said, “and if she keeps his interest. It’s a risky gamble, Loren.”
“Everything is a risky gamble. Half my ships languish in the river. Those still abroad have heard news of Haven’s fall and their captains will find safe harbor for a while. The Lord Mayor cooperates with the occupation. My cousin hosts the commander at her husband’s request, for the Council will show him a good face. And I will cooperate with Sir Radulf, as most of the merchants and the wealthy will. I hate it, but it means one day soon my ships will go down the river to the sea again. I’ll make money, the knight will tax us, but not too much, for he won’t want to choke a good source of tribute for his masters.
“There will be passes soon, Usha. The Lord Mayor and others, we continue to talk to Sir Radulf, and he doesn’t turn us away.”
Now it was Usha’s turn to sit silent, but only for a moment. During their conversation they’d spoken of Sir Radulf, but they hadn’t spoken of the other knight, she to whom Sir Radulf had given the power to judge the accused and levy punishment.
“It all sounds… so benign,” she said, her tone belying her words. “And yet there is the Lady Mearah.”
Lady Mearah. She of the pale skin, the whip-thin frame and midnight hair. She who carried her own banner, though no other man or woman of Sir Radulf’s army did. Red sword on black silk, her banner told anyone who knew Solamnic heraldry that she was of a noble Palanthian house—one that had long made honorable the red sword on purest white silk. Some in Haven said that perhaps it amused Sir Radulf or his masters to let a dark knight parade her betrayal of her own knighthood for another. Others wondered whether the Lady Mearah had the power, despite how things appeared, to make such a choice unmolested and without anyone’s approval.
“There is the Lady Mearah.” Loren’s were the eyes of a man withdrawing. “And order must—”
“Order must be maintained, yes,” Usha said dryly. “The occupation would have a great investment in order being maintained.”
Loren leaned across the little stone table, his expression never thawing. “For the sake of the people, yes, it must. Other towns have resisted the knights and their dragons, and they have been laid waste. There will be order, and things will get back to normal, or as close as can be managed. In Haven, there will be peace, of a kind.”
“Peace? How can you say that? Look around you.” She dropped her voice to a scornful whisper. “There is a dark knight in your cousin’s garden and he’s pretending to pay court to your daughter! They tried cooperation in Qualinesti, Loren. Look what it got them! A kingdom only now waking up to understand that it is tumbling into ruin.”
Loren jerked his head, a nod to say he knew this. “The fate of the elves doesn’t have to be Haven’s. I’ll do whatever I can to soften this terrible time for my city.” Tamara’s laughter sang like bells under the rose arbor. “And for Tamara. These are my people, Mistress Usha. Tamara is my child.”
A glint of challenge sparked in his gray eyes. As he had not flinched from her disdain, neither did Usha flinch when he said, “You are a mother. Wouldn’t you do the same?”
“I would not let—” Almost Usha said, “I would not let her jailor lay hands on her. I would not gamble for her safety with her future.” But she didn’t say it, for though she knew what was right, she did not truly know what she would do.
Silence lay uncomfortably between them, then Loren’s hand moved as though to reach for hers. He touched her fingers.
“It seems we can’t agree, but let it only be on this matter. You’re a stranger in Haven, and you must be tired of the fare at the Ivy. Come have supper with Tamara and me one evening.”
Usha moved her hand. Her voice cool, she said, “Sir, I have not said I am staying at the Ivy.”
The memory of his touch remained, ghostly, on her fingertips, and Usha did not remind him that she was a married woman. No mention of her husband was made by either.
“No, you haven’t said so, but my cousin has, quite a few times since you agreed to paint the portrait of her sons.” Loren’s voice softened. “Come to supper one night, will you?”
“You’re very kind, but I must decline.”
He accepted this and pressed no further.
On the way back to the Ivy Usha did
not think of him at all. During the evening while she waited for Dez to return from wherever she’d gone, she thought of Loren Halgard not even once.
In the morning Usha woke early, the scent of the river coming into the room on a small breeze. Dezra was gone, her narrow bed either unslept in or made up by her own hand. A longing to walk by the water in the shade of the overhanging willows took her, but the river and the willows lay outside the wall, and each of the small gates out of the city to the water was manned by a goblin in battle harness or a pair of human soldiers. Still, the morning was fresh and the sky brilliant blue. Usha went out, walking toward the wall and the river she could hear and smell but not see. She stopped at some distance from the goblin leaning against the gate. It laughed deep in its throat and leered at her. She ignored it as though it didn’t exist and looked for what she could see over the wall.
The wind fluttered a blue pennon hung from the top of a tall mast. Gray gulls skipped in the sky around the bellying curve of the topmost sail of one of Haven’s merchant ships. Usha looked along the line of what she imagined must be the river’s course and saw other ships, most known by small pennons or the tips of wooden masts. Each one, she knew, was occupied by a crew of Sir Radulf’s men. Haven’s famed merchant fleet tethered until the dark knight freed them again.
It would have to be soon, as Dez had said, or else the knight was wasting men and time and resources. His mistress was a greedy green dragon who would not wait patiently for this occupation of Abanasinia’s wealthy trading port to bear fruit. Sir Radulf would have to free the fleet from the wharfs and send them out with a closely guarded crew. Usha’s heart lifted at the thought of the proud ships flying, their white sails bellying with wind. They would sail past the stone bridge that spanned the White-rage River between Haven’s Vale and that part of Darken Wood that was sometimes thought of as Haven’s and sometimes not. Freed, the ships would fly with the prevailing winds and currents all the way to the Newsea.
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