In ten days they would reach the dark turn of winter. Kehera, like everyone else, hated the uncounted days of the Iron Hinge. Sensible folk avoided setting hand to any new endeavor during the Iron Hinge, for good rarely seemed to come of any such effort. This winter . . . this winter, the potential for misfortune seemed much greater than during a normal year.
But given that dusk would come terribly early, it seemed foolish beyond reason, now that the duke would be incapacitated for some unknown length of time, to press forward through this terrible stretch of road. She said firmly, “We will make camp now. Send for Caèr Reiöft. I’m sure he’s back with the first wagons.” Which carried the duke’s personal belongings and tent, and was therefore Reiöft’s proper charge. She paused and then added sharply, “Well?”
The nearby Eänetén soldiers looked from her to their duke and moved to obey. They moved tentatively at first, but no one could dislike the idea of canvas and fire. Riheir glowered at her, but he nodded abruptly, and his men, too, moved with fair alacrity to carry out these orders.
“I’ll help you with him,” he said to Kehera, moving to dismount.
“I have him,” Kehera said, more tersely than she had intended. “If you would see to everything else, Riheir, please?”
Riheir’s glower deepened, but he gave her a curt nod and turned away.
“That Harivin duke wouldn’t have—” Luad, at Kehera’s side, gave a tiny, illustrative twitch of his hand.
“He couldn’t be such a fool,” Kehera told him. “We all depend on Eänetaìsarè.” But she added, “Even so, please go find Captain Etar and explain what’s happened.” And if the senior Eänetén captain happened to want to assign a guard to his duke, here by this Harivin road where the land didn’t quite belong to any specific Immanent, she wouldn’t call him unwise.
A couple of hours later, Kehera sat, wrapped in furs and much more comfortable, just within the door of her own private tent, watching the rain slant down across the quiet camp.
Men were still working on the road, but the job wasn’t so brutal now that they could take their time with it. They worked in teams, with hot soup and spiced wine waiting for anyone who came in out of the cold.
Kehera’s tent was set at the western edge of the camp, on a small hill where the ground was not quite as wet, near the duke’s own tent. Her White Falcon standard stood before her tent; the duke’s people were punctilious about such matters even in this spitting drizzle that made all standards hang equally limp and unreadable. Her women were with her: timid Eöté and an older Harivin woman named Morain Lochan, whom Riheir had found for her, a placid woman who never seemed disturbed by anything and who was already proving a great comfort.
In a way, Kehera would have liked to sit with the Eänetén duke and just . . . make sure he was all right. She had been at his side for a while. As far as she could tell, Raëhemaiëth had never risen, which she assumed meant that Eänetaìsarè had not needed help defending its precincts. But she had wanted to stay close by the Eänetén duke, in case either of the Immanent Powers changed its mind. But the attack—if that was what it had been—hadn’t lasted so terribly long. When the Wolf Duke had drawn a shuddering breath and blinked, human awareness coming back into his yellow eyes, she had nodded to Caèr Reiöft and withdrawn, for decency’s sake, because she and Innisth terè Maèr Eänetaì were not, after all, married.
It seemed a trivial consideration, under the circumstances. But she was fairly certain no one of Harivir would agree.
Tageiny, leaning against one of the heavy poles that framed her tent, commented idly, “You know, this would be a pretty good time to get you away. If you wanted. Nobody’s watching. They’re all too busy cursing the mud or hiding from the rain or staring at His Grace’s tent, and the horse lines are right over there. Luad and I could get you straight north to your father’s door, if you wanted to give that order.”
Kehera gave him a look. “And let Methmeir Irekaì break through Meilin Gap?”
“Ah, well,” muttered Tageiny. “Yeah, that’s a point.”
“I appreciate the suggestion. But it hardly seems practical.”
“Hst!” Luad murmured warningly. “Here comes himself.”
Kehera frowned, not at all sure that the duke ought to be out in this weather.
But in a moment, he stepped under the portico of her tent and paused, ignoring Tageiny and Luad but studying her with close attention. He seemed untroubled by the cold, for his hood was back, and he wore no cloak. His austere manner showed her nothing besides a mild exasperation. Kehera suspected he was actually worried or tired. She studied him, but he seemed well enough. Probably.
But he surely shouldn’t be out in the cold. She said firmly, not really a question, “Your Grace, I’m sure you would like to come in out of the weather.”
The duke inclined his head in courtesy, and a little more to avoid bashing his head on the frame of her tent. “Your Highness.” He stamped mud off his boots and came in, folding his legs to settle among the cushions Kehera indicated. He said without preamble, “So the Winter Dragon has tried Eäneté. As we expected. And broken its teeth for its trouble. Did you feel Eänetaìsarè rise?”
“Not really. Not exactly. I knew it had. Raëhemaiëth didn’t help you. I would have felt that. It seemed more to . . . draw inward.”
“It is hiding from the Irekaïn Power—but it is hiding in ambush, not in fear.”
“Yes,” agreed Kehera, surprised, but feeling as soon as he’d said it that this was true. “Yes, I think you’re right.”
“Your Raëhemaiëth is more aware of itself and its purposes than most Immanences, I believe. That’s something else you’ve given it, I presume—you and your father and all those of the Elin line. An awareness of itself, and subtlety, and a sensible caution.”
He sounded coolly approving, but Kehera didn’t know quite how to answer this. She thought his Immanent gave Raëh something, too, something it otherwise lacked. Ferocity, perhaps. She said tentatively, “So your borders held secure and Eäneté is safe.”
“Eänetaìsarè has held,” murmured the duke. He met her eyes. His own seemed filled with fire. Kehera could feel it in him, burning beneath his skin. She could not look away. He said softly, “Eäneté is safe. But Methmeir Irekaì will strike soon at Meilin Gap. And we are here, even yet a day’s march or more distant. Too far.”
“Don’t blame Riheir for halting here. That was my decision.”
“Your decision was correct,” the duke conceded. “However, the halt would have been unnecessary had the road been kept in proper repair.”
Kehera sighed ostentatiously. “Please don’t start that again. The truth is, I would have ordered camp made even if the road were dry, smooth, clean, and shining under a clear sky. Don’t tell me you could have been carried in a litter. What if a litter-bearer had tripped and dropped you and poor Eänetaìsarè had been distracted?”
“In that event, I am certain your Raëhemaiëth would have put forth its strength. But as well it was able to remain hidden and subtle.” The duke hesitated. “And you . . .”
Kehera tilted her head, puzzled. “Your Grace?”
“I merely wished to assure myself that you remain well, Your Highness, and that Raëhemaiëth remains clear in your awareness.”
“Of course, Your Grace.” Kehera thought that was a remarkably silly reason to leave the shelter of his perfectly good tent and venture through the rain to hers, but she said only, “As you see, we are all quite well here. Now that we have been reassured as to your own continuing good health and the security of Eäneté.”
“Indeed.” The Wolf Duke rose, just a little stiffly. He hesitated a moment longer, then gave her a slight nod and withdrew.
“Well,” Kehera said after a moment, a little blankly. “What was that about?”
“I can’t imagine,” Tageiny drawled, shifting so that he could keep an eye on the quiet camp.
Kehera stared at him.
“He likes you and
wants to be sure you’re safe and values your good opinion,” said Morain Lochan, nudging her way past Eöté and glancing out at the rain without favor. “I expect they’ve more soup ready, and biscuit if we’re lucky, and maybe some of that spiced wine. Here, you, boy, you can help me carry the trays so’s I don’t have to make more than one trip.”
At Tageiny’s stern look, Luad smothered what was plainly going to be an outraged refusal. “Right,” he said meekly, and followed the woman out into the rain without further complaint.
“He likes me?” Kehera said blankly.
“You’re not afraid of him,” Tageiny said kindly. “I doubt he’s met all that many girls who aren’t scared of him.” He met her mute stare and shrugged. “Or that’s how I figure it. You should talk to that man of his—Reiöft.”
“Maybe I will,” Kehera said, still feeling rather startled, and stupid with it. He liked her? She admired him. . . . Would she go so far as to say she liked him? Surely not. Only now she was not quite so certain. She looked after the duke, as though the sight of him would help clarify her feelings, but he was already gone from view.
An hour after full dark, Caèr Reiöft came to her tent door, with an ironic tilt to his head that almost disguised his genuine worry. “I do regret waking you,” he told Kehera, after Morain Lochan had wrapped her in a robe. Reiöft’s tone was ironic too: light and amused. But she heard real concern behind the amusement. He went on in that same light tone. “I’m afraid your friend Coärin may have gotten himself into a bit of trouble, arguing about mud and roads and the hour of departure in the morning and the order of the march and who knows what else. His Grace’s temper is pushing him hard just now, you know, and I don’t believe Coärin quite realizes what kind of trouble he’s likely to get into.”
Kehera was not surprised that the two men had finally reached a crisis. She knew exactly who would win any contest too—and she wasn’t sure Riheir could stand to lose. She did not even like to take time to dress, and was grateful for Eöté’s swift assistance.
Before she left her tent, acting on a half-thought impulse, she caught up her box of tiahel rods and took it with her.
“You think those Coäran soldiers will let you by?” Tageiny asked, falling into stride beside her as she hurried out into the cold. “Or those Eänetén soldiers are more of a concern, I suppose.”
“They’ll all let me by,” Kehera assured him.
“Especially if you threaten to stand outside His Grace’s tent and scream,” murmured Caèr Reiöft.
“Exactly.”
Tageiny’s eyes crinkled with amusement. “Ah, well, yes, that should do it.”
“I’ll go in alone,” Kehera told both men. “You can wait, though. In case I call you. All right?”
“If you call anyone, I trust it will be me,” Reiöft said firmly. “He ordered me not to come until he called for me, but if you call for me, I expect that will do.”
Kehera gave the man a sideways look. She liked Caèr Reiöft. She trusted him, and she was glad he was with them, and she was grateful he knew Innisth terè Maèr Eänetaì so much better than she did, and she was not the least bit jealous of him. Or she thought not. Except that every now and then she was not quite sure.
None of the various guards tried to stop her from entering the duke’s tent. And the moment she did, Kehera knew Reiöft had also been right to ask her to intervene and that she had been right to hurry.
The duke reclined on one long bolster, surrounded by luxurious draperies and cushions and lanterns swaying from ornate wrought-iron stands. He looked entirely relaxed. Riheir Coärin, in contrast, down on one knee a few steps away from him, looked anything but relaxed. She could see the taut fury in the line of Riheir’s back from the doorway. And something else that she suspected was not exactly fury.
The Wolf Duke looked at Kehera without expression. Riheir looked at her with humiliated anger and something else, a kind of bewildered confusion that Kehera thought she understood all too well. She could feel Eänetaìsarè in the air, an inaudible deep hum that prickled across her skin, not unpleasantly.
Kehera flicked the catch on the tiahel case and scattered the rods and dice across the floor of the tent between herself and the duke.
“Those,” she said distinctly, “are game pieces. This, on the other hand, is a man.”
The duke lifted his gaze from the scattered tiahel rods to her face. His yellow wolf eyes held very little she recognized. “Perhaps, to me, there is no difference.”
His tone was faintly mocking and faintly amused. But behind the mildness was a deeper, more dangerous emotion. She was sure it wasn’t entirely his. So she said, trying to sound impatient rather than frightened, “Nonsense. You? As though I would believe that. I know: Eänetaìsarè is very strong now, and you’re very tired. But you can rule it.” She walked forward and sat down, uninvited, on a large cushion facing the duke. “Riheir, go away.”
Riheir Coärin looked at the duke, clearly both longing to get away and not daring to move.
The duke said gently, “Stay. Her Highness will retire.”
“No,” Kehera said with absolute finality. Of course, she didn’t have the authority or the power to insist. What she meant was, You had better think about whether this is really something you want to do.
The duke lowered heavy lids over his eyes, masking his thoughts.
“This is your man now, as he agreed and you accepted,” Kehera told him. She waited a moment for that reminder to sink in. Then she said, “He argued with you, I know. But he is allowed to argue with you. He didn’t defy you.” She hoped this was true, but wouldn’t add weakly, Did he? She said instead, “What you command, he will do. Isn’t that right, Riheir?”
Riheir Coärin gave her a furious look. But whatever he felt of Eänetaìsarè and the Eänetén duke’s strength, it must have impressed him, because he also muttered through his teeth, “Yes. My lord.” He bowed his head. Stiffly, but he bowed it.
“You see,” said Kehera. “He has yielded everything. He’s not happy about it, but who can blame him for that? You can afford to be generous. Are you going to try to tell me you don’t rule Eänetaìsarè?”
Profound anger glinted for a brief moment in the wolf eyes. Then, as the duke mastered it, the anger was replaced by reluctant appreciation. One corner of his mouth quirked upward in faint, self-mocking humor. Kehera couldn’t help but smile back. She thought she might truly like him when he was like this. At least a little.
He said after a moment, “You may go, Coärin. At dawn, we will continue north. I wish to reach Meilin Gap before noon. See to it.”
Riheir Coärin got to his feet. Jaw set, he jerked a short nod, not quite a bow, to the duke and then to Kehera, turned on his heel, and stalked out.
There was a pause. Then the duke said to Kehera, “He is recalcitrant.”
Kehera gave him a look. “Riheir has been my friend since I was a girl.”
“When you were a girl, I’m certain he was your friend,” the Eänetén duke agreed, a thread of humor coming into his voice.
Kehera sighed, shook her head, and moved to sit next to him—then hesitated and perched instead a little farther away than she had planned. “I imagine poor Riheir is very confused right now. Eänetaìsarè is not very . . . subtle.” She was not confused, or she thought not. But that suddenly made her more uncomfortable, not less. She was intensely aware of the cold outside, and the warmth of the tent, and particularly the warmth that seemed to radiate from the duke. She felt that she might have flushed. But she did not allow herself to look away.
For one moment the duke actually looked embarrassed. “Yes,” he said, a little stiffly, glancing away from her. “It is possible that I may owe you a debt of gratitude, in fact, for this particular interruption. Very well. I thank you. However, you may go back to bed. I will send for Caèr.”
Kehera wasn’t certain whether she was relieved or offended. But she said, following an impulse she only half understood, “I couldn’t
possible sleep now. I’m far too wide-awake. Would you mind keeping me company for a while?”
His gaze, curious and ironic but no longer angry, rested on her face. “If you like.” He glanced at the scattered rods and dice. “Perhaps a game of tiahel?”
“I think I’d like that.” That would be better. A game of tiahel, such as she had played with her brother. She could do that. She moved to gather up the game pieces, but the duke forestalled her with a lift of his hand.
“There is no need for you to trouble yourself,” he said, expression unreadable. “Please stay there.” He knelt himself, down on the floor of the tent, head bent as he searched through the rugs for the dispersed tiahel pieces.
There were thirteen rods in a tiahel set. Thirteen rods and four dice. In Kehera’s set, two of the dice were agate and two jasper; and six of the rods were blackwood and six blond maple. The King Rod was polished oak, the signs of the Four Kingdoms carved in careful relief on its faces and then painted. It had fallen with Harivir’s Red Falcon uppermost. Kehera picked it up herself and turned it slowly over in her hand, thinking about signs and symbols, about divination and the unknowable future, about winter dragons and winter storms. She turned the rod over and traced Pohorir’s double-headed Dragon with the tip of her finger. “I suppose we’ll need five-sided King Rods for tiahel, after this,” she said, not looking up. “If you succeed in your aim, I suppose there will be a fifth kingdom between Harivir and Pohorir, with the Gray Wolf as its sign and seal.”
“Or the White Falcon, perhaps.”
Kehera looked up quickly. The Eänetén duke met her eyes, his hands filled with tiahel pieces. There was an edge of mockery in his tone. But there was something else in his voice as well. Something harder to read and more disturbing. This time she was certain she blushed.
The duke did not seem to notice. Rising, he resumed his seat, laying out the rods in neat order, setting the dice in their shorter row above the rods. The air of predatory relaxation had passed off, but she could not read his expression. Or his mood. She said after a moment, “You had that banner made for me. That was your idea, not mine.”
Winter of Ice and Iron Page 40