“I felt so awful when I finally recognized you. I didn’t think you could ever change enough that I wouldn’t know you anywhere.”
Elspeth yawned. “I feel better now. Stronger. I always do when I’m with you.”
Her words made the last of Owen’s burden lift away. “Sleep,” he told her, “and we’ll take our time in the morning, and everything will be fine.”
“Eventually,” Elspeth said, sounding drowsy. He held her and stroked her hair until they both fell asleep.
The room faced west, so when morning came, it was as a soft, blue-edged glow that suffused the room, waking Owen gradually. Elspeth still slept, and he craned his neck to look at her. She looked healthier than she had in days, her skin rosy, her long dark lashes resting on her cheek like a fringe, her chest rising and falling gently as she breathed. Her short hair framed her face like a golden halo. Her beauty continued to astonish him as if he were seeing her for the first time, though it had been most of a year since they’d met. He closed his eyes and let out a deep, satisfied breath.
Elspeth stirred. Then she rolled over to face him. He opened his mouth to tell her good morning, but before he could speak, she put her arms around his neck and pulled him close for a kiss.
Startled, at first he didn’t respond. She kissed him again, her lips soft and insistent on his. “Owen,” she murmured, “don’t tell me you’ve forgotten how.”
“Is this a good idea?” he asked.
Elspeth looked up at him, her brown eyes enormous. “I don’t know,” she said. “But I want to feel something other than fear. I love you, and I want you to touch me—you, do you understand? Not anyone else.”
He thought he did understand, a little. He brushed her hair back from her face. “I love you,” he said, though the words felt inadequate to express everything he felt. “I—”
She silenced him with a kiss, which he returned with all his heart. Her hands gently touched his chest, hesitating on the light scar tissue where the crossbow bolt had struck him. “We’re neither of us unmarked,” she murmured, “but we’re still ourselves.”
“Still ourselves,” he replied, and then they no longer needed words.
***
Later, Owen traced the curve of her back, all the way to her bottom, and felt her shiver. “Too sensitive?”
“It tickles. Why, is that something you enjoy?” She ran her fingers over his chest, and he let out a quiet moan of pleasure. “I guess it is.”
Owen regarded her as she continued stroking his chest, his eyes half-lidded. “Let’s stay like this forever,” he suggested.
“I’m too hungry,” Elspeth said. “Aren’t you hungry? I feel as if I could eat an entire cow. Cooked, of course. I’m not that hungry.”
“That’s a relief.” Owen disentangled himself from her and stretched. “Food, and then I have to see about hiring a carriage. That horse ride was too hard on you.”
Elspeth stood and began dressing. “I would say I’m strong enough to ride, but I’m sensible. Not like you, wounded and pretending you could stay upright on a horse—do you remember that?” She laughed. “I watched you so closely that day, ready to grab you if you fell, though of course you’d just have taken me down with you.”
He’d almost forgotten that. “I wanted to look strong and manly in front of a beautiful girl.”
“You mostly just looked pale and pinched around the lips. And handsome.”
Owen paused in the act of pulling on his trousers. “You must be thinking of some other Ruskalder warrior. The best anyone’s ever called me is moderately attractive.”
Elspeth’s lips quirked in an impish smile. “I thought you were handsome from the moment I first saw you.”
His eyebrows climbed to his hairline. “What, bedraggled from running through the forest, with five days’ beard growth and no doubt smelling to the heavens?”
She crossed the room to stand in front of him, dressed only in her undershorts and one of the new shirts. “And still worried about my safety even though you were desperate and I was a stranger. You ran toward me, intent on stealing my horse—”
“Borrowing.”
“And I knew,” Elspeth went on, “that my life would never be the same.” She kissed him lightly on the lips. “We’ve made a good start, Owen, but I still…it’s going to take time for me to be fully myself again. I hope you’ll stay by my side, because I don’t think I could bear to do this alone.”
Owen took her in his arms and held her close to his heart. “I will never leave you alone again.” It was a promise he felt no fear of making. For the first time in months, he felt nothing but peace.
Jeffrey/Rider of the Crown: Introduction
(Rider of the Crown, Spring 928 Y.B.)
I had trouble writing the second section of Rider of the Crown, in which Imogen comes to Aurilien to be the ambassador of her people. It just didn’t work, and I couldn’t figure out why. Of the many things I tried before settling on the final form, the one that I’m still pleased with, despite the fact that technically it’s another failure, is the version I told from Jeffrey’s point of view.
Because the first Tremontane novel I wrote was Agent of the Crown, King Jeffrey was originally nothing more than Telaine’s powerful uncle who was more or less a background figure. (Her Aunt Imogen was even less of a character, because at the time I was still focused on the protagonists of the series being directly descended from one person, and I thought Telaine’s mother Elspeth would be the main character of the second book. Foolish of me.) So when I realized that Imogen and Jeffrey rather than Elspeth and Owen would be the central couple, I had to do a lot of rethinking. And in the first draft of Rider, Jeffrey was too distant to be a compelling romantic interest for Imogen. So telling the story from his point of view gave me much-needed insight into his character.
And, as it turned out, it was fun. I got to explore my own pain at Jeffrey’s father Anthony’s death vicariously through this second son who’d never been intended to rule, who was the youngest North ever to take the Crown, and who was muddling through learning who he really was and what kind of King he would be.
This section has the first ten chapters of Jeffrey’s version of the “Tremontane” section in Rider of the Crown, as well as a handful of later scenes I wrote from his point of view. Those first ten chapters are a window into that original, scrapped version, and I’ve left intact things I changed later, such as Jeffrey keeping his magical talent a secret from his mother and the absurdly small sizes of the armies (something I played with as a response to something else I was reading at the time). The other sections were written after I discarded those ten chapters, hence Imogen living in the embassy.
I don’t know why it took me so long to realize that Imogen as ambassador would never be given rooms in the palace, and to understand what a powerful role her tiermatha plays in her life. It turned out making those two changes was key to figuring out the story as it exists in its current form. But Jeffrey as he appears in this section remains one of my favorite characters.
Jeffrey: Chapter One
“You are not going,” Jeffrey said in a low, level voice, “and I don’t want to hear another word about it.”
“Then you will not,” Owen said, anger making his Ruskalder accent thicker.
“Don’t play that game with me, Owen. It would be suicide.”
“You have a plan? Tell it to me. I want to hear this great plan and then I will give up on my foolishness.”
Jeffrey swore and turned away from his friend. “Hrovald can’t keep her forever,” he said. “He knows it will be war if he stops pretending she’s his guest. We wait, and then we send in a neutral party—neutral, do you hear me?—to bring her home. There’s no reason—”
“Every reason!” Owen shouted. “She saved me. She kept me sane. She is to be my wife. I cannot bear it that she is trapped in that madman’s house, enduring whatever he chooses to do to her—”
“Hrovald isn’t going to touch her. And don’t
think your right to defend her trumps mine as her brother and her King. Damn it, Owen, she’s the heir to the throne! Yes, I want her back. Hrovald has the whole country by the throat as long as she’s there. But he’s going to go on pretending this is all an innocent twist of fate for as long as he can. Give me time to figure something else out. Don’t go after her yourself.”
“It is what he asked for,” Owen said. “It is easy. I give myself to him and he lets Elspeth come home.”
“He’ll kill you.”
“And if she is not here? How will my life matter?”
Jeffrey threw up his hands. “Heaven save me from lovelorn romantics.” He paced the confines of his tent, which was big, but not big enough for him to vent his frustration and anger. Owen watched him pace, standing at ease with his hands behind his back as Dyrak’s soldiers had been wont to do. Owen had served Dyrak for years before Hrovald staged the coup that put himself on the throne and made Owen a wanted fugitive.
Owen would never say what he’d done to earn Hrovald’s personal animosity, but whatever it was, it had made Hrovald furious enough that when the crown princess of Tremontane fell by accident into his hands, the only thing he wanted in exchange for her was Owen Hunter. One man, when he could have extracted a legion of concessions from Tremontane’s king for the return of his sister and heir. One man who was Jeffrey’s best friend and his sister Elspeth’s betrothed husband.
“Two weeks,” he said, turning back to Owen, “two weeks for me to figure out an acceptable alternative. She’s been gone for five months. Two weeks isn’t much to ask. Please, Owen. Swear to me you won’t do this. Elspeth won’t thank you for sacrificing yourself.”
Owen said nothing. His lips were set in that hard, straight line that said he didn’t want to see the sense of what Jeffrey was saying. “Please,” Jeffrey repeated.
“…I swear I will not do anything foolish,” Owen said finally.
“Thank you,” Jeffrey said. “Would you give me a minute alone? Marcus and Diana will be here soon and I need to prepare some notes for our meeting.” Owen nodded curtly and left the tent. Jeffrey put his hands on the edge of the table in front of him and bowed his head, and exhaled slowly.
He’d known where she was the whole time, of course. Had known it even before the message came from Hrovald, the delicate but oh-so-clear statement of his demands. He’d had to pretend to be worried all that week before the message arrived, couldn’t even reassure his mother that her youngest child was alive and, he hoped, well. The magical talent that let him know where any member of the North family was at any time had to be kept secret; it was a small thing, certainly no threat to anyone, but suspicion of inherent magic was still strong enough that his fitness to be king could be called into question if anyone knew the truth. And he felt his grasp on the Crown was shaky enough as it was.
He missed his father so much. Three years gone, and it no longer hurt the way it had, but there was never a day that he didn’t wish his father were there to advise him. Though, of course, if his father were there, he’d be king and Jeffrey wouldn’t need advice. He’d been the superfluous younger brother all his life, then Sylvester announced he was adopting into his wife’s family and abdicating his position as heir, and less than a year later Anthony North dropped dead of an aneurysm and Jeffrey, unprepared and uncertain, was suddenly king of Tremontane.
It wasn’t as if he was totally untrained. He’d received the same instruction as Sylvester, had the same tutors, and Father had treated them both as if they were equally capable of doing the job. But it was different, growing up without that expectation, and even if he had the training he sure as hell didn’t have the…the what? The certainty? Yes, that was it. The certainty that he knew what he was doing, that he deserved to be where he was.
“Your Majesty,” Marcus Anselm said, ducking through the tent door. He was one of the few men in the camp who were as tall as Jeffrey, but where Jeffrey was slim, Marcus was built like a brick wall. Behind that façade, however, was a sharp mind and quick eyes that missed nothing. Jeffrey’s father had built an impressive array of advisers that Jeffrey had been grateful to inherit; Marcus Anselm, general in chief of the army of Tremontane, was one of the best of that cadre.
“Marcus. What’s the news?”
“There’s some restlessness among the troops now that the weather’s turning warmer. They’re devoted to the princess, you know, and they were willing to fight through that unexpected snowstorm to get to this position, but now they’re ready to move on Ruskald. I’m going to institute some drills, some war games to keep the edge without driving us over one, if you take my meaning.”
“It would help if we could advance our position,” Diana Ashmore said as she entered. She had an elegant face with a long, straight nose and eyes that were too close to it, giving her an air of superciliousness that was belied by her calm, friendly voice and pleasant smile. “Give them a sense of accomplishment.”
“I won’t cross the border into Ruskald until it’s absolutely necessary,” Jeffrey said. “We’re all still pretending this isn’t a hostage situation. If we’re the first to aggress on their territory, it gives Hrovald an advantage, and we have so few advantages I’m unwilling to let any of them slip through our fingers.”
“I understand the situation, your Majesty, I’m simply pointing out an obvious solution,” Diana said. Her barony of Daxtry abutted directly on Ruskalder territory, and she was responsible for the part of the army that guarded that border. Of the three, she probably had the most direct experience fighting Ruskalder, but Jeffrey felt she was sometimes bolder than a situation warranted. Even so, her advice was worth listening to.
“It hasn’t come to that,” Marcus rumbled. He and Diana were not friends. “And pray heaven it doesn’t.”
“You’re not afraid of fighting Ruskalder, are you?” Diana said, sounding amused.
“Don’t try to twist my words, Diana. You’ve only fought border skirmishes. You’ve never seen the Ruskalder army en masse. They outnumber us by nearly two to one, and their warriors are bloodthirsty savages. The only edge we have are our rifles and those new projectile Devices, and that’s not much of an edge. So no, I am not afraid of fighting Ruskalder, I am afraid of going against them head to head. I’d prefer a war of attrition if we can manage one.”
“And I’d like to avoid war altogether,” Jeffrey said. “Diana, what news from your scouts?”
“The border is still clear,” she said. “We haven’t seen any Ruskalder, either scouts or warbands. We have seen a couple of Kirkellan warriors riding the border, but they’ve ignored us so we’ve ignored them.”
“Is there any danger they’d throw in with the Ruskalder if it came to war?”
“I doubt it. Their matrian, Mairen, has some kind of treaty with Hrovald, but it’s a mutual non-aggression pact and I don’t think they’d feel obligated to back him if he attacked us. If we attack Hrovald, that’s another matter.”
“Damn.” The Kirkellan weren’t numerous, but they were fearsome warriors who rode enormous horses that were almost warriors themselves. If they had to go up against the combined might of the Ruskalder and the Kirkellan, Jeffrey might as well hand over the Crown right now and save them all a lot of bloodshed.
“Let’s not borrow trouble,” Marcus said. “I’ll take care of the army’s restlessness, give you time to come up with a plan. Hrovald’s not going to come marching around the mountains tomorrow morning.”
Jeffrey nodded. There was a scuffle outside the tent as if the guards had prevented someone entering. “I need to see the king! It’s important!” said a girl’s voice.
Jeffrey lifted the tent flap. One of the pages in North livery stared up at him. She seemed too young to be a page, but then they all seemed too young these days, even though Jeffrey himself wasn’t more than twenty-two.
“Your Majesty, the scouts reported a disturbance on the north line,” she said, and for a moment Jeffrey absurdly heard that as “North line” and wond
ered what new threat had come to his bare and branchless family tree. “Owen Hunter and two scouts took horses and rode away before anyone could stop them. They crossed the border into Ruskald.”
Jeffrey stared at her in astonishment for a couple of heartbeats, then he closed his eyes and cursed, fervently and violently. When he opened his eyes the girl was looking at him in terror. “Thank you,” he said, and she took it for a dismissal and was out of his sight like lightning. He turned back to look at Marcus and Diana, both of whom shared the same look of horror. “Spread the word,” he said. “We move out at first light.”
At dawn two days later, Jeffrey lay awake on his cot and focused his attention on the spot of light that was his sister. He’d never tried to explain how his talent worked to anyone, mainly because there was only one other person who even knew he had it, and she lived on the other side of the country, in hiding to protect her own talent. But it was as if he could see the whole world at once, not from above as a bird does, but from underneath, as if it was part of his skin. The Norths lay sprinkled across it like bonfires.
There was Elspeth, still presumably at Hrovald’s house—he could only sense geography, not manmade things like cities or national boundaries. There was his mother, waiting in the place he knew Aurilien to be; he really ought to send her word of what had happened, but he hated to have to tell her, yet again, that Elspeth hadn’t been recovered. There was…Mistress Weaver, far away on the coast; he didn’t dare even think her true name inside the privacy of his own head. That was all. His father was dead, his brother wasn’t a North anymore. Four Norths where once there had been a palace full of them.
He hadn’t slept that night. They’d moved the camp across the border into Ruskald, some fifty miles north of its previous position, and if nothing happened Jeffrey planned to push it another twenty-five tomorrow. Every mile was another poke in Hrovald’s eye, and eventually he’d have to respond. Marcus assured him they were ready, and Jeffrey hoped it was true.
Tales of the Crown Page 14