by Melanie Rawn
No one had dared speak to him this way since Tilal had spat out his venom after the battle at Goddess Keep. Sorin’s name had come up then, too. “I knew and loved your brother. For the first time, I’m glad he’s dead.”
His anger changed then. It was still directed at her, but no longer for her insight. Rather, it was for her inability to understand the most fundamental aspect of his character. Not that she was unique in this; it had been happening to him all his life. Why did no one ever see what he truly was?
Sorin had. Sorin was dead these nine winters. Andry had been alone ever since.
“My dear,” he said softly to Jayachin, “I know you won’t understand this, but I’ll explain it to you anyway. You are correct that Feruche is a symbol. It was my brother’s creation, his dream in stone and steel. It is precious to me for that alone. But despite being within Princemarch’s borders, it is a place of the Desert. Of my home. And that is why I will defend it and demand nothing in return from Pol.” He smiled as her brows arched eloquently. “Not that I expect him to believe me, either.”
Jayachin shrugged. “Does it matter to you whether anyone believes you or not?”
“Oddly, yes. But not Pol—and certainly not you.” He arranged pillows and pulled up the quilt. “You know the location of the door? Good. Use it.”
“But it’s the middle of the night!”
“Yes,” he agreed pleasantly. “Get dressed and return to your own bed, my dear. Doubtless your little boy is wondering where his mother is. Oh—speaking of children. Just in case you plan to claim that you are pregnant by me, be assured that I know your cycle. You won’t be fertile for another six days. You see, I do know the way your mind works.”
Chapter Seven
“I understand,” Rialt said quietly, “that you were the one who asked for my release from custody.”
“I did.” Mevita began stripping the bed where she had spent the last five nights alone.
“So you went to Halian.”
“I did,” she repeated, bundling sheets into her arms.
“And apologized.”
“Somebody had to, and you weren’t inclined.”
“Damn it, Mevita—”
“This chamber is cold enough. Naydra told me about the one Chiana picked out for you. Over the stables, with two guards outside the door. Hardly fit for the Regent of Waes.”
“He told me you pleaded with him.”
“The Regent of Waes couldn’t, so his lowborn wife did,” she snapped. “Why are you angry? You had five whole days to indulge your pride.”
“At least one of us has some!”
“Yes, and it just might get you killed.”
Rialt snorted. “Halian doesn’t have the guts.”
“But Chiana does. And that slimy son of hers.”
“I’d rather rot forever than watch the two of them gloat over Rohan’s death—and plan which of Pol’s daughters Rinhoel will rape first!”
Mevita flung the sheets onto the floor and whirled on him. “Don’t be such a fool! If that’s his aim, you can’t stop him by sulking! You’re right, I’ve no pride where my aims are concerned—and right now I aim to do something before the Vellanti army arrives!”
“What are you talking about? What have you heard?”
“Not too proud to set your wife to spying for you, my lord?”
He ground his teeth. “I’m sorry. Tell me what you know.”
“Swalekeep is being readied for war—really readied this time, not the half-hearted show Chiana put on all autumn. Naydra says the Vellant’im are expected any time now—with Prince Tilal and Lord Ostvel camped not a day’s ride to the west.”
“Then it’s as I expected,” he muttered, beginning to pace the room. “They’ll fight Chiana’s battle for her. Whoever wins, she’s safe.”
“And you know who she’ll be cheering for.”
A bucket was in his way, filled with the ceiling’s offering of last night’s rain. He exercised massive restraint by not kicking it over.
“Well?” Mevita asked. “What are you waiting for? You’re free now to come and go. So go!”
• • •
Rialt timed that afternoon’s encounters as precisely as a battle commander sets a plan of attack. First he met Naydra “by chance” in the garden where she had taken Polev for some air. She stood with him, watching the child play with a litter of striped kittens, and they talked of the day’s welcome break in the rain and how long the sunshine might last.
In between banalities she conveyed her information. Chiana and Rinhoel had been closeted in the former’s chambers last evening. Naydra, restless and bored, had gone to Halian’s private library for something to read. There, she found a steward shuffling maps. Her offer of assistance met with respectful thanks and a quick refusal. Too quick.
“I left after choosing a book, but I saw which maps he was interested in,” she murmured. “Detailed drawings of the terrain for a hundred measures around Swalekeep—and the same for Dragon’s Rest.”
“I’m not surprised. The Vellant’im have taken Stronghold. Dragon’s Rest is Pol’s seat of authority. Due to be next. I think—is that another rainstorm coming down from the north?”
Naydra appeared not to see the courtier who bowed to her on his way past. The man was not offended; he obviously didn’t expect acknowledgment. Like Chiana, she was Roelstra’s daughter, and he was beneath her notice. “I do hope not. Even when I’m snug in my own rooms, I feel drenched to the skin.”
His next talk was with Cluthine, when he took his son back inside for an afternoon nap. Rinhoel had been bribing Polev lately with chess pieces to make him go away. It was the wrong tactic to use with a clever child who knew how far he could take his pestering. Polev had almost the whole set of white pieces now, and wanted to play with them.
“Later, my lamb,” Cluthine said firmly, depriving him of a castle, two squires, and a Sunrunner.
“I want him to give me that dragon in Princess Chiana’s room,” Polev complained. “But he won’t. It’s gold with bright red eyes—much better than this one.” He gave Cluthine a little figure of carved and painted wood, scorning its outspread gilt wings.
“You shouldn’t have bothered Prince Rinhoel in his mother’s rooms,” Rialt chided.
Polev shrugged. “He wasn’t in his. And I wanted another piece.”
“You really mustn’t plague Rinhoel. One day he’ll grow angry.”
“He was today, when I asked for the gold dragon.”
“I can imagine,” Rialt murmured. “Close your eyes, hatchling.”
He sat with Cluthine in a window embrasure along the sunlit corridor outside her rooms, ostensibly to savor the warmth. Instead of the weather, the topic was Polev’s schooling. By the time the shadows had moved a finger’s width, Rialt had learned that Tilal had sent a messenger to Halian informing his fellow prince of his presence. Halian reacted with surprise and pleasure, but was puzzled that Tilal seemed to think there might be some danger to Swalekeep from the enemy. Chiana, echoing his sentiments, had cautioned that the place was already stuffed to the seams with refugees and there was no room to house an army. Halian’s reply to Tilal was an invitation to camp outside the walls and come with Lord Ostvel to stay inside Swalekeep.
“Which they must not do,” Cluthine finished nervously.
“Don’t worry. They’ll be able to refuse without insulting Halian. They’ll also—my lady, is it only fatherly pride, or am I right in assuming that my son is a potentially brilliant scholar?”
Cluthine blinked her startlement. His hand on her wrist prevented her from looking around to see who belonged to the approaching footsteps. “Umm—yes,” she said blankly.
“Cousin,” said one of Halian’s bastard daughters, and it was safe for Cluthine to turn her head. “Surely you could find a more suitable companion than this criminal.”
Rialt stretched his lips from his teeth. “And a pleasant day to you as well, Lady . . . uh . . . Lady—”
; “Salnys,” Cluthine supplied in a loud whisper, eyes sparkling as her kinswoman tensed with fury.
“Yes, of course. Lady Salnys.” Rialt widened his smile. “How are you and your younger sisters today?”
Honestly unsure of her name, he knew very well that she was not the eldest of the three. She sucked in an outraged breath and for a moment he thought she would compromise her dignity by slapping him. Instead, she decided not to have heard him, and stalked off.
Cluthine stifled a giggle. “I have so many relatives that I wish weren’t!”
“I sympathize, but can’t agree. Your connection to Halian is proving very useful to us, Thina.”
“I hope so. What were you going to say about Prince Tilal?”
“Only that he’ll also have to refuse whatever spot Chiana has picked out for his army to camp in. It’s sure to be a trap.”
“Their scouts must have seen the Vellanti host by now.”
“Yes. But there are other things they need to know.”
“Such as?”
“Where Chiana’s own troops are placed within the walls. And from what I saw this morning on my stroll, it’s not something that would be obvious to a Sunrunner taking a look at the place. Arms are hidden inside houses and shops or in carts on the streets. Soldiers are disguised as gatherings of family, or farmers from the same part of the countryside. I wouldn’t have seen any of it if I hadn’t known what to look for.”
“So we must get word to Prince Tilal and Lord Ostvel. But how?”
“I’m working on it,” he promised her—even though he hadn’t a clue.
His third encounter was equally well-planned, though the lady didn’t know it. Mevita had noted that Lady Aurar went out riding most days, even when it rained. The same groom accompanied her each time. From him, through roundabout means, Mevita learned that about ten measures south of Swalekeep, Aurar always left her groom behind and went on a long gallop.
Aurar was beautiful in the way her aunt Chiana was beautiful: proud, autumn-colored, attractively sultry when she chose. She did not choose with Rialt. She barely deigned to acknowledge his existence. That afternoon he compelled her to by dropping an inkwell so it spattered her riding boots.
“Clumsy idiot!”
“Your pardon, my lady. The cobbles are slick—”
“Damn you, this is the finest dragonhide! You’ve ruined it! What are you doing with an inkwell in the stables anyhow?” she demanded, furiously scrubbing at the stains with a parchment snatched from his grasp.
“I was making an inventory of the fodder, my lady, so that if we must withstand a siege. . . .” He trailed off with a shrug.
“A siege? What nonsense!”
“The Vellant’im cannot be too far away. Everyone knows they left Faolain Lowland long ago—and Swalekeep is a rich prize.”
“Meadowlord is uninvolved in this war.”
“Officially, yes,” he replied. “But Princess Chiana has been sending aid downriver as often as she can.” Through his efforts, much of that aid in foodstuffs was tainted or rotten. He knew who was meant to receive it. He hoped Chiana’s allies were growing angry with her for cheating them.
“If they know she’s been helping,” he went on, “I fear for our lives.”
“Yours, perhaps,” Aurar said. “You’re Pol’s creature. But I am my father’s daughter, and they will recognize my name.” She smiled sweetly. “Who knows but that I might be able to save Swalekeep and all Meadowlord?”
Rialt bowed to hide the disgust in his eyes. “My lady . . . I ask nothing for myself. But my wife, my son—”
“I’ll consider it. Ah, here’s my horse.”
“Allow me to help you to mount, my lady.”
As he did so, boosting her lightly up into the saddle, the dark green cloak wrapped to her throat fell loose. She bent over to accept the reins from her groom and something bright and silvery on a long chain swung free.
Rialt grabbed for it. “Careful—it might catch on the pommel and break the chain, my lady.”
Aurar took the pendant back calmly and tucked it into her tunic. Clattering out of the stableyard on a big Kadar Water gelding, she made a pretty picture with the sunlight gleaming on her auburn hair.
Rialt frowned, thinking about the little pendant on the chain. Why would Aurar of Catha Heights be wearing a symbol associated with the Desert rulers she loathed? What significance was there for her in a dragon?
The empty inkwell gave him the excuse he needed to abandon his project—which had been an excuse in itself—and return to his chamber. By the time he got there, he’d puzzled it out. Shutting the door and leaning back against it, he waited for his wife to glance up from mending their son’s shirts.
“I know what it means.”
“What what means?”
“Aurar goes out riding. She leaves her groom behind, disappears Goddess knows where. But she always rides south—where the Vellant’im are. She comes back, she bathes, she goes to Chiana or Rinhoel for a private talk. The next day she rides again. And the dragon token she wears around her neck is her passage through enemy lines.”
Mevita was nodding slowly. “And the one Polev keeps after Rinhoel to give him appeared after that strange visitor came and went. If we’re to get a message safely to Prince Tilal, someone will have to steal Rinhoel’s dragon.”
• • •
Pol hadn’t been back to Feruche since learning what had transpired at the old castle there—the castle where Rohan and Sioned had been Ianthe’s captives, the castle of his own birth, the castle Sioned had destroyed with Fire. Some sort of fortress had always stood guard over the pass between Princemarch and the northern Desert. Sorin had rebuilt on the same site, fashioning a keep made equally for defense and splendor. The new Feruche looked nothing like the drawings Pol had seen of the old. Yet Rohan had refused to set foot in it, and on his rare visits stayed in the garrison down below. At the time, Pol had thought it rather odd—he would never have permitted himself to use the word “foolish” in reference to his father. When he knew the whole story, he had understood. Now, approaching the tall towers, he shared Rohan’s reluctance.
And didn’t hesitate to call it foolishness. Skybowl was incapable of supporting so many. Feruche—huge in and of itself, and with the garrison able to house half an army outside the walls—was his only choice.
The stout wooden gates opened to him and his. They revealed Sorin’s intent here: power and beauty woven together as gracefully as an accomplished Sunrunner wove light. The gates were two hands’ spans thick and braced with heavy wrought iron, yet the wood was polished to a golden glow and the iron was patterned as delicately as a lace veil. Dragon’s Rest had been designed to convey a different kind of power, and found its strength in its position in a bottlenecked valley. No one had ever called Stronghold beautiful, built as it had been for war and acquiring comforts only at his grandmother Milar’s insistence. But Feruche was as close to perfection as a castle could be. It wasn’t Sorin’s fault that Pol’s nape itched at the sight of it.
The wide circular courtyard filled rapidly behind him. He dismounted, tossed his reins to a groom, and waited for Meiglan and the girls to join him before starting up the steps to the keep. Ruala was already at the main doors, conferring with her steward. All that was required of Pol was that he go upstairs, bathe away two days of travel, and show up in the hall for dinner at dusk. Chayla and Hollis were overseeing the settlement of the wounded; Maarken was down at the garrison organizing the able-bodied troops; Isriam was practicing patience by shepherding the Dorvali merchants; Meath was taking care of Sioned.
Pol found himself necessary to only three people: his wife and his daughters. And after the last terrible days, they deserved his attention.
Instead, he received theirs. Jihan took charge of removing his armor while Rislyn hurried to get his bath ready and Meiglan unpacked what little they had been able to bring with them. It was a pleasant domestic scene, one that reminded him of the days they used to sp
end at the little cottage he’d built with his own hands at Dragon’s Rest. That cottage was cinders now, just like Stronghold.
“Papa?” Jihan was tugging at a buckle on his leather-and-steel breastplate. “It’s stuck.”
“I’ll do it, sweet.” His squires had punched a new hole in the strap back at Stronghold to make the fit more snug around his waist, and the hide was still stiff. “Give it all to Kierun and Dannar to clean,” he said, shrugging out of the armor. “I won’t be needing it for a while, so there’s no rush.”
“Tell them to replace the chest straps, Jihan,” Meiglan said. “You complained that they were too tight, my lord.”
Stripping off tunic and undershirt, he rubbed the place high on his ribs where the buckle had dug into bone. “Thanks for reminding me, Meggie.”
Rislyn came out of the bathroom—every chamber reserved for highborn guests had one, an elegant and welcome luxury that had driven Sorin’s architects half mad in the planning—and reported the tub filled and waiting. Pol stood, hitched his pants higher around his hips, and stretched.
“Hurry, Papa,” Rislyn urged. “Before it gets cold.”
He eyed his daughters. They wore torn trousers, filthy shirts, and scuffed boots, their hair was tangled and dusty, and they were thoroughly adorable. He picked up one in each arm and carted them into the bathroom.
“Papa! Put me down!” Jihan demanded.
“‘Papa’? Last I heard, I was father to a pair of princesses. What I see right now are a brace of dust storms with half the Desert in their clothes.” He tickled and they squirmed. “See? I shake them, and sand falls out!”
Rislyn giggled as he held her over the tub. “You’re as dirty as we are! And you smell awful!”
“I suppose I do, at that. But I know for a fact that underneath the stink and dirt is a prince. I’m not so sure about you two. What do you think, my lady? Are there princesses here somewhere?”
Meiglan laughed and took Rislyn from his grasp. “Give us a little while in here, my lord, and I might be able to find out. But whatever they are, they’ll turn your bath into a mud puddle.”