Adora kept her tone civil. Just. “How may I serve you?”
“Serve us?” the woman said. “Serve us?” The tone rose an octave.
“Easy, Marya,” the man said. “We’ve been running at full retreat for the last three days. She doesn’t know who we are.”
The Talian whirled on him. “And she didn’t bother to seek us out either, did she, Garet.”
Adora straightened with an effort. The motion sent a stab of pain through her skull. “Am I addressing the council of Haven? Please accept my sincerest apologies. The haste of our retreat precluded meeting.” She allowed a hint of iron into her voice. “Once again, how may I serve you?”
The woman’s eyes, dark like her hair, blazed. “You can sign the writ of recognition the priest promised us, Your Highness.”
She leaned forward. “The writ of recognition is meant to acknowledge your kingdom as a sovereign nation in exchange for the cooperation of your military forces.” It might have been the fatigue that precipitated her response or perhaps a reaction to the Talian’s manner, but she couldn’t stop herself. “Forgive my blunt observation, but you no longer appear to have either.”
With a brusque gesture she waved an arm that included her advisors. “At this moment we’re discussing how to keep your people alive and out of the hands of the enemy.”
Even Waterson and Rokha winced.
“Go easy, Your Highness,” Liam said. “They have lost much.”
Adora’s eyes widened in spite of her effort to maintain a detached demeanor. She sighed. Had she ever been this tired? “Please forgive me, fatigue and disappointment weigh heavily upon me. Yet the question remains, to what end shall we sign the accords?”
Marya drew herself up, but Garet laid a hand on her arm, and she retreated to stand with the rest of the council, leaving him to face Adora alone. “Because it was promised,” he said.
His appeal touched her where Marya’s indignation didn’t. She took a deep breath. “If we are to be allies, then I think it only fair for you to hear our deliberation, if you wish, but be warned, I’ll put no restraint on my advisors’ counsel just to spare your feelings.”
“Agreed,” Garet said. Behind him, Marya gave a single nod.
“Count Rula,” Adora said, “what is your opinion on this matter?”
The count knuckled his mustache. With shoulder-length hair and the lean build of a swordsman, the count served as a continual reminder of his nephew Naaman Ru. In the presence of his great-niece, he exercised restraint. Rokha’s fierce love for her father, in spite of his faults, and Rula’s enmity toward him sometimes made for a tense atmosphere.
“The church will demand an accounting, Highness. The benefices are pragmatic. In the absence of an army, it would be more expedient to simply rule the shadow lands rather than recognize it as a sovereign country.” He inclined his head toward Adora. “And they will expect you to know this as well.”
Adora nodded. The count’s thoughts mirrored her own. “So you recommend against recognition?”
Rula shook his head. “No. I merely state what I believe to be the church’s position. As Rodran’s sole descendant, it is your place to honor the intentions of the kingdom, inconvenient or not.”
Adora shifted. “Lord Waterson?”
He stepped forward with a shake of his head. “You can sign the treaty if you want, Your Highness, but there’s not much left of the shadow lands or their army.” His mouth pulled to one side. “Unless you want to count me and a few thousand like me. I’m sorry, we’re not enough to make a difference against the Merakhi. We’re not enough to warrant a treaty.” If his possession of a strange dual citizenship affected his response, Adora couldn’t tell.
She nodded, tried to ignore the stricken looks on the faces of Garet, Marya, and the rest of their council. “Captain Liam?”
Liam stepped forward. Garet and Marya faced him and jerked in surprise.
The shadowlanders, their eyes wide, bent to each other, whispering as though something about the captain shocked them.
Liam waited until he had their attention, though they continued to stare at him in wonder. “Lord Waterson and Count Rula present cogent arguments, Your Highness. I might argue the kingdom should honor its promise, but doing so under the present circumstances offers little in the way of mutual advantage.” He turned from Adora to the council. “The treaty with the shadow lands must be a secondary consideration to safeguarding the refugees with us. Do you agree?”
Garet, Marya, and the rest nodded assent, but every line of their posture showed wariness.
“The present need of our two peoples is to evade the Merakhi forces behind us.” He turned to Adora. “Perhaps if the council could offer some means of accomplishing this, it would provide the justification Your Highness requires for fulfilling the kingdom’s promise.”
Garet and Marya eyed Liam with a mixture of wonder and distrust, as if he held the means of some secret they meant to keep hidden. Adora shoved that thought aside. She didn’t have time for such ruminations.
She turned to the council. “Do you know what Captain Liam speaks of ?”
Garet stepped forward, hesitant. “The council may have the ability to hinder the Merakhi in their pursuit.”
“Are you saying you have the ability to mask us from the Merakhi and their spawn?” She didn’t have the time or patience for word play. “Can it be done?”
Garet nodded. “It is possible.”
Adora stood. “If you can do this thing, I will sign the accords. But hidden or not, we will begin our retreat in the morning. Food and survival lay to the west.”
Garet and the rest of the council bowed to her, but she couldn’t help noticing that they bowed more deeply to Liam.
The next morning, Adora and Rokha watched the chaotic mass of humanity from a small rise. The sun, two hours into the sky, warmed Adora’s face, and a southerly wind foretold mild temperatures for the day.
They still hadn’t broken camp.
Pain in her hands reminded her to unclench her fists from around her horse’s reins, but a knot of frustration remained at the delay.
“They move like a bag full of cats,” Rokha said. Every soldier, watchman, and guard in camp was positioned in an attempt to bring order to the throng of refugees as they began their journey west, but to little avail.
“At this rate the Merakhi army will catch us before we break camp.”
“It’s not that bad, Your Highness. Even within my father’s caravan, the first day out from camp brought inevitable delay. If we managed to get under way before noon, we counted ourselves lucky.”
She pointed to their right, where Nob, their quartermaster, jockeyed the few carts and the multitude of mules into order. “He knows what he’s about. After today, those people will be ready to march with the dawn. You’ll see.”
She sighed. If Rokha saw no need to panic, there probably wasn’t one. Lieutenant Jens approached, reined his piebald stallion to a stop, and gave a perfunctory bow. “Your Highness, the council has requested that we alter our course.”
“Why?”
Jens balked at the question, and his gaze wandered the landscape instead of meeting hers. “They wouldn’t give a reason, Your Highness. They only said it was necessary. Captain Liam has given his provisional agreement.” He gave her a hopeful look.
“I’m sure he has,” Adora said. Something in the request set her hackles on edge. “Where are we to go?”
“Northwest,” Jens said. “Captain Liam and Count Rula say this will bring us to Escadrill.”
“Wretched place,” Rokha muttered, “but probably our best bet to obtain food before the stores run out.”
Adora nodded. “Why do I get the feeling that there’s something else at play here?”
She twitched the reins, and her mount came about to face east. In the distance, spread out in an arc facing the river, stood Haven’s council, all twelve of them on foot.
“Everyone holds secrets, Your Highness,” Rok
ha said.
“Lieutenant Jens,” Adora called over her shoulder, “tell Captain Liam and the rest of the watch I approve of the plan to move northwest, and have them plot the quickest route to Escadrill.” She turned to Rokha. “You know the town. Will there still be food merchants there?”
Rokha nodded. “It will cost you every gold crown those bandits can squeeze out of you, but I expect so.”
At the end of the third day, Rokha voiced her approval at the distance they’d traveled.
“How far?” Adora asked.
Ru’s daughter pursed her full lips before she answered. “About five leagues. Deas willing, we’ll be able to maintain it.”
Adora’s heart labored under a weight of disappointment. “We have to find a way to go faster.” She shook her head, trying to deny Rokha’s assessment. “If we do not, we will run out of food, or the Merakhi column will slip past us to the south—assuming the council can mask our route—and block the passages into the Arryth.” She beat a fist against her thigh in frustration. “I could make ten leagues on foot in one day.”
Rokha sighed. “But you’re not a creeping mass of humanity, Princess, and you wouldn’t be able to hold that pace day after day. Look.” She pointed to the wagons. “Every one of those wagons is filled with the very young and the old. Everyone without a horse—and that’s most of them—must walk.
“Consider that an army takes time to move as well. Two hours after the vanguard begins the day’s march, the rear is still motionless. The Merakhi army will not be so fast as you think. The larger they are, the slower they move.”
“You called me Princess again.”
Rokha shrugged. “You were being stupid.”
On the fifteenth day, Nob came to see her. “We’ve got to cut the rations again.” That he failed to duck his head or use her title told her the seriousness of their situation.
She winced. Bad news sent pain through her temples like one of Sevra’s kicks. “How many days until we reach Escadrill?”
Nob smacked his lips as he thought. “Another week, Your Highness.”
Rokha nodded confirmation.
Adora’s stomach growled its resentments. She’d been subject to rationing just like everyone else. “Cut the rations for every man on horseback and every adult in the wagons—and cut them hard. Leave full rations for nursing mothers and children.” She turned to Rokha. “Flog anyone caught stealing food.”
Four days from Escadrill the slithering mass of humanity in the vanguard stopped. With a jerk of her reins, Adora pulled out of the middle of the formation and sought Lieutenant Jens. The people close to the front milled around like bees without a queen.
After a moment she spotted the watchman riding back to her.
“Your Highness.” Jens bowed from his position in the saddle. At her apparent frustration, he hastened to explain. “We’ve encountered another band of refugees.”
Adora’s hands jerked in irritation. “You know what to do, Lieutenant. Assign the old and young positions in wagons and get someone to take a tally of their food stores.”
Jens sighed. “That’s just it, Your Highness. They refuse to give up their food stores.” He shrugged. “More accurately, their leader refused.”
Rokha snorted, and she eyed the lieutenant’s sword until he blushed. “What do you think you have that sharp pointy thing at your side for?”
Jens answered her with a glare. “He’s a priest. I work for the church, not the other way around.”
Adora clenched her teeth, then thought better of it as pain lanced across her skull. “We don’t have time for the niceties of church relations right now, Lieutenant. Where are these people from?”
Jens jerked his head in a nod. “The Sorland province, Your Highness, from the village of Callowford.”
27
Antil
BANDS SQUEEZED HER CHEST until spots danced in her vision and dizziness threatened to pitch her from the saddle. Rokha called her name as if from a great distance. When her vision cleared, Lieutenant Jens had backed away. Her hands ached, and she looked down to see her knuckles standing out from their flesh.
“There’s more than one priest in Sorland, Your Highness,” Rokha said.
Adora whipped around to face her. “You doubt? Who else could it possibly be?” Her lips trembled, and tears of frustration and rage gathered and spilled from her lashes. “When has Errol ever been spared?”
Rokha reached over to grasp her hands, but Adora shook her off with a flip of her reins and dug her heels into the flanks of her horse.
Hooves thundered behind as Rokha and Jens struggled to catch her. The press of bodies prevented them. People turned at the sound of her approach, their eyes wide at the sight of her riding through the crowd, heedless of those scrambling to get out of her way.
At the front of the caravan, near a train of carts, shadowlanders and Illustrans came together like opposing waves, but in the morass of humanity, she could see no obvious center that would indicate Antil’s presence.
A need for haste she couldn’t control drove her forward.
She reached down to grab the nearest soldier and spun him by his arm. “Where is the priest?”
He gaped at her, then snapped to attention and pointed. “Over there, Your Highness, next to the largest cart.”
Adora rushed for the wagons, squeezing her way past a burly pair of teamsters into the space where two of the watch confronted a man in a dirty cassock.
Antil.
She’d never seen him, had never wanted to see him, and deep in her heart had nourished the hope that he would somehow fail to escape the flood of Morgols who had poured into his province. Inside, she railed at Deas. Was there no wound too deep for Errol to suffer? Must he endure this as well?
“Antil.” She waited for him to turn.
A hint of dimples in his cheeks was the only resemblance she could see. His nose had been broken at least once and his eyes were too haunted to compare, but the hair still held a hint of the deep brown where gray had failed to mar it.
Recognition spread across his face.
She must be sure. “Are you . . . Antil?” Almost she had used his title, but she would not cheapen the work of other men who labored faithfully for the church.
The man before her, the one responsible for Errol’s pain, nodded.
She launched herself at him. He flinched, the whites of his eyes showing around brown irises. Her hands shook with rage, and the shock of blows shook her arms in time with her heartbeat. Blood poured from the ruin of Antil’s nose.
A blur of color like a flash of lightning caught her arm, held it, and forced it down. The momentum of her swing carried her into Waterson’s arms, and his hands tightened on her wrists, squeezing until her fists unclenched. She jerked and struggled, but he refused to let go.
“Unhand me,” she screamed. “Do you forget who I am?”
Still struggling with her in his grasp, Waterson shifted to address Antil, who stood with his hands pressed against his face. “I think there’s something about your presence, priest, that annoys the princess. You should probably contrive a reason to be elsewhere.”
“Let me go!” Adora spat.
“Not likely, Your Highness,” Waterson said. Strain touched his voice as she fought to get loose. He turned to Jens, who stared at her. “Get that priest out of her sight.”
Jens grabbed Antil by the arm and began to lead him away, out of her reach.
Adora yanked to free her arm, but Waterson kept her pinned. He leaned close until she felt his breath on her ear. “If you have to beat this priest, for Deas’s sake do it in private. All the discipline we’ve managed to impose on this rabble will fall apart if you continue.”
Rokha leaned in from the other side. “Is this really the weapon you wish to use? Think, Princess.”
As if a bucket of cold water had caught her unaware, Adora calmed. She relaxed her struggle against Waterson, who paused, wary, before releasing her. She straightened and adjusted her
clothes before raising her voice to address Lord Waterson loudly enough for the retreating forms of Lieutenant Jens and the priest to hear.
“Lord Waterson, please convey Pater Antil to the rear of the caravan.” She looked at the wagons and carts that clogged the road to Escadrill. “And assign these wagons to their proper place.” She tried not to notice the peasants’ fear as they scrambled to obey.
Walking with as much of her royal demeanor as she could summon, she remounted and rode back to the center of the train. Rokha pulled in alongside, her lips pressed together but not quite suppressing a smile.
Adora stared straight ahead, refusing to hold that gaze. “Does everything I do amuse you?”
Rokha shrugged and tossed her blue-black hair over one shoulder. “Not everything, Your Highness, but hitting the priest ranks high on the list.” She laughed enthusiastically. “What did you hope to accomplish?”
She inhaled. “I wanted him to feel every stroke he put on Errol’s back.” Her breath escaped her in a sigh of powerlessness and regret. “I’ve lost my chance to avenge him.”
Rokha’s fresh laughter caught her off guard. “If so, you have a limited imagination for retribution, Your Highness.” At Adora’s look, Rokha held up a hand. “That’s probably for the best, but were I the last princess of the kingdom, I could imagine many ways my power could be used to avenge someone short of death.”
Waterson rode up to her a short time later, his eyes wary but his mouth pulled to one side in a mocking grin. “I’d forgotten how much I disliked priests,” he said in a conversational tone. “That one managed to remind me.” He bent from the waist to give Adora an exaggerated bow. “If the laws of the kingdom were different, I would owe you an apology, Your Highness. I don’t think the church would be eager to defend that one. It’s a pity I stopped you.”
A Draw of Kings Page 28