Rider of the Crown

by Melissa McShane

  As they neared the former camp, two sentries in the ubiquitous Ruskalder leather armor blocked their way. “You don’t need an escort from here,” one said. The other eyed the tiermatha, particularly the women, as if assessing his chances against them if it came to blows and not liking his conclusions.

  “The honor guard is coming with me to Ranstjad,” Imogen said, daring the sentry to make an issue of it. “A wedding gift to the King.”

  The first sentry looked at her with narrowed eyes. Imogen stared back with the arrogance of royalty, which she realized she now was. Queen of the Ruskalder. What an unnerving thought. Maybe they don’t have queens, like in Tremontane where the ruler’s spouse is just a Consort. Finally, the sentry stepped aside. “Keep your hands off your weapons ’less you want the camp to turn on you. Don’t look like any wedding gift I ever saw.”

  Imogen nodded to the man and prodded Victory into motion. Every man they passed did, in fact, look at them as if violence was on his mind. Riding casually into the middle of a Ruskalder war camp, even one mostly dismantled, frightened Imogen, which made her angry; she stiffened her face so as not to give either of those feelings away. She would have to watch herself constantly to avoid showing signs of weakness. It was going to be a very long five years.

  Hrovald waited beside the remnants of his tent, mounted on a slim gray gelding beside which Victory looked enormous. He glanced at her horse, glanced at the tiermatha, and said, “You insult me by bringing a bodyguard into my house?”

  “It’s a wedding gift,” Imogen repeated. “A gesture of respect.”

  Hrovald grunted. “Generous gift indeed.” He removed his helmet, scratched his greasy head, and put the helmet back on. “They’ll take orders from me?”

  “They always take orders from their leader,” Imogen said, hoping the warriors behind her could keep straight faces and not draw attention to the fact that she hadn’t said who their leader was. Dorenna was right; if Hrovald believed the tiermatha was his, they might be able to turn that to their advantage.

  “And to think I didn’t bring you anything,” Hrovald said drily. “Let’s go.” He kicked his horse in the ribs and moved out at a trot. Imogen and the tiermatha fell in behind him. He shouted a command, and the warriors formed up around them. There were at least two hundred men, Imogen estimated, in the King’s warband, and this was only a fraction of his army. Even counting their horses, who fought as well as any warrior, the Kirkellan were seriously outnumbered. Peace was the best option. Imogen comforted herself with that thought as she rode into enemy territory, surrounded by enemy warriors, behind an enemy King to whom she was oathbound for the next five years. She straightened her spine. She was a warrior of the Kirkellan and she would show these people no fear.

  Chapter Three

  Imogen had never seen so many trees in one place before. They had quickly left the plains behind and now rode through a forest of evergreens, their dark green needles shading and cooling the path beneath them. Imogen and her tiermatha had to duck, frequently, as their horses were much taller than those the Ruskalder—the few who were mounted—rode. Imogen reached up to push a branch out of the way and wondered what this forest would look like in winter. Behind her, Revalan protested as the branch she’d deflected sprang back to skim across the top of his head.

  She wanted to ask how far it was to Ranstjad, the capital of Ruskald, but was reluctant to draw Hrovald’s attention to her in any way. After they’d left the camp, he’d mostly ignored her and communicated with her in grunts and gestures when he didn’t. She couldn’t tell if he was dismissive of her because she was a woman or because she was a foreigner; it might have been both. In any case, he exuded menace, as if he were always just two breaths away from exploding into violence, and she wasn’t convinced the terms of the banrach would keep him from turning that violence on her. Then she’d have to fight to defend herself, and though she was a good fighter, younger than Hrovald, and possibly heavier, she wasn’t certain the fight would end well, especially if she wasn’t mounted. Even so, a part of her wished to test herself against the belligerent King. Let him dismiss women fighters when he was spitting teeth.

  They came out of the forest and made camp on the flat ground surrounding a low hill, bulbous and rocky under its patchy growth of shrubs and grass. In the distance, Imogen saw a wide, slow-moving river and colored specks that might be boats headed downstream. She thought about climbing the hill to get a better look, but the idea of leaving Victory behind made her anxious. She contented herself with riding through the camp, ignoring the stares, until Hrovald shouted at her to come back in a peremptory tone that embarrassed and angered her.

  The tiermatha was outfitted as if for a long-range patrol, carrying one tent for every three people and plenty of rations, but these turned out to be unnecessary. Hrovald gave up his own tent to his bride and provided another for “his” tiermatha, and they ate what the warriors had killed in the way of their march. The rabbit was tough and gamy, but Imogen was hungry enough not to care. After sunset, she retired to Hrovald’s tent and lay sleepless, fully clothed, wondering if despite her mother’s warning he would come to her that night. There was nothing to stop him but his oath, and suppose he didn’t mean to keep it? She fingered the knife at her side and twitched at every sudden sound, every flicker of movement across the tent’s canvas. Eventually she drifted off into an undisturbed sleep.

  They reached Ranstjad late the following afternoon, their path gradually converging on the river’s until they were marching beside it, listening to its chattering voice. They and the river emerged from the crowded green forest abruptly into a broad, flat lowland so perfectly circular it had to be artificial. The city lay several miles away across the grassy plain, dominating its surroundings and defying the forest to overwhelm it. Imogen had never seen a permanent city before and gaped at it in wonder. As their company approached the city, she was even more astonished at its size and, surprisingly, its beauty. A stone wall some thirty feet high surrounded Ranstjad, its stones rough-hewn granite that sparkled when the sun’s rays struck them at the right angle. The gray-green river passed the city on the right, where docks supported by enormous gray logs thrust upright into the deep river bed emerged from the walls. Brightly painted boats of all sizes lined up to receive cargo and, Imogen assumed, passengers. She had seen no boats traveling upstream and wondered how any of the shipmasters returned home from their journeys downriver.

  To the left of the city lay tents and picket lines and corrals so familiar a lump rose in Imogen’s throat. She controlled it by reminding herself this was no doubt the Ruskalder warriors’ camp, and only superficially similar to her home, but it was hard not to look for the great tent and her mother’s flag flying over it. A shouted command, and the warriors peeled off from the formation and marched in loose columns toward the camp. Imogen had to admire their discipline even though, treaty or no, she still thought of them as the enemy. The men in those marching columns had harried her people for too long for her to forget the conflict easily.

  Hrovald, his advisers, Imogen, the tiermatha and about thirty warriors continued across the plain toward the city gate. She wondered why there wasn’t a road leading to the city. She knew permanent settlements built roads for quicker travel, so why wasn’t the capital of Ruskald so provided? It was obvious where travelers had passed by the places the grass was bent and broken at the roots, but that was all. Imogen gave a mental shrug. She was only going to be here for five years; who cared how the Ruskalder got from place to place?

  The double gate was made of thick, tall gray logs bound upright by pitted metal bands the width of Imogen’s two palms. At the gate, two guards in leather armor saluted the King with much less formality than Imogen thought Hrovald would demand. Unseen hands sent the gates swinging slowly open, and Hrovald’s party passed through.

  Imogen gawked openly at the city beyond, knowing she looked foolish but not caring. She was an outsider, a foreigner, and there was no point trying to
conceal that fact. The road beyond the gate was made of packed earth and was wide enough for four horses (three, if they were Kirkellan mounts) to ride abreast. Tall wooden buildings with steeply slanted roofs covered with shingles stained dark brown lined the road, all painted in what would have been bright colors had they not been so weather-beaten and chipped. Fresh paint would have been cheerful; this was depressing and a little ominous.

  The buildings leaned toward the road like vultures, as if waiting for a predetermined signal upon which they would fall on whoever was foolish enough to stop beneath them. They made Imogen, born and bred on the treeless Eidestal, feel as if a weight were pressing down on her. All bore small windows lined with thin paper or in some cases paned with glass, something Imogen had rarely seen because it didn’t bear up well under the strain of the Kirkellan’s constant traveling, and all the windows had heavy shutters that would keep the buildings warm during the heaviest snows. The doors were also painted, though with fresh, undamaged coats of paint, and all bore symbols of the Ruskalder gods just above the latch, a circle with a diagonal line through it, or a U balanced on a horizontal line, and rarely the rough shape of an eye, two curving arcs and a pinpoint dot at the center. Imogen knew nothing of the Ruskalder religion except they still believed gods ruled in heaven. No doubt she’d have plenty of opportunities to learn more.

  The street was thronged with more people than Imogen had ever seen packed into one place, talking and laughing and arguing. Women stood outside their doors and swept, or called out to neighbor women across the way. Children ran across the street, not noticing the oncoming procession, and were pulled out of the way as one by one the Ruskalder registered first that horses were coming down the street, and second, that their King was among the riders. Men bowed, women swept the street with their curtseys instead of their brooms, and children stared openly at the Kirkellan horses and the men and women who rode them. The Ruskalder raised their heads after their King passed and stared at Imogen. She looked down at angry, awed, frightened faces and had to look away. Here, she was the enemy.

  They traveled down the streets and drew silence in their wake. Hrovald seemed not to notice his subjects’ reaction, or maybe he simply took this respectful, or possibly fearful, silence for granted. He led his little group to another wall, shorter than the first but made of the same glittering granite and equally imposing. The guards at this gate seemed more fearful of their King than the ones at the city gate; they opened it quickly and stood at rigid attention as Hrovald’s party passed through.

  Beyond lay three large wooden buildings painted an unscathed green and yellow, surrounding a hard-packed earth courtyard on three sides. The buildings to either side of the courtyard looked like boxes, unadorned wooden boxes dropped into Hrovald’s courtyard by a whimsical heaven, or possibly by one of the Ruskalder gods. Each was two stories tall, built of planed wood and dotted with glass windows in two rows. There was a single door in each building that opened on to the courtyard, both of them standing open at the moment. The two buildings were tucked under the eaves of the larger central house as if they’d been an afterthought, which, as Imogen considered the main house, was probably true.

  The central house was built not of lumber but of yellow-brown logs stacked atop one another to create a building that looked more solid, more real, than anything Imogen had ever seen. The black-shingled roof sloped shallowly to either side until it fetched up against the boxes, whose steeper roofs of gray-brown shingles continued the unbroken line all the way to the ground. It had no windows, nothing to break its forbidding uniformity except a couple of chimneys made of brick rather than the metal Imogen was used to and a wide door made of the same yellow-brown logs and iron bands. The house glowered at the front gate and at anyone who dared to pass through it. Imogen glared back at it. She didn’t intend to let Hrovald intimidate her and she certainly wasn’t going to let his house do it.

  The courtyard was nearly empty, with a few women crossing between the box-buildings and a handful of warriors standing near the central house’s door who came to attention when the King rode in. Imogen relaxed, aware of how tense the hostile crowds had made her that she was able to relax in the presence of Ruskalder warriors. Hrovald dismounted, and Imogen and the tiermatha followed suit. He handed off his horse’s reins to an approaching groom, who led the animal away around to the rear of the right-hand box. Imogen made as if to follow the groom and was startled when a man stepped into her path and held out his hand. “What?” she said, too weary to be polite.

  “I’ll take your horse, madam,” he said. Imogen sucked in a horrified breath.

  “Take my horse? I’ve cared for Victory since she was a foal!”

  “You’re my wife now. It’s beneath you,” Hrovald said. He was halfway to the door and sounded impatient.

  “The horses of the Kirkellan are like family,” she spat at him. “Seeing to Victory’s needs is no less beneath me than…than a woman caring for her child. I will not give her over to a stranger, however you may trust him.” She nodded at the groom; after all, this wasn’t his fault.

  Hrovald glowered at Imogen. She stood her ground, fingers gripping Victory’s reins as if to keep her from slipping away. “You think you’re in a position to make demands, wife?” An evil light glittered in his eye.

  Sick fear began roiling in her stomach. She could feel the tiermatha drawing close around her, prepared to defend her, and she had a terrible vision of how this might end: her friends, herself, bloody and dying on the hard earth of Hrovald’s courtyard. There was no one to force him to honor the treaty here, nothing to spare her but his own whim. But to give Victory to another’s care, to show weakness to him…she drew herself up to her full height and glared back at him.

  He pursed his lips in thought and examined her coldly. “Savages,” he said, turning away. “Do as you wish. Attend me when you’re finished, wife.” He went into the building. Imogen relaxed. She looked at the members of her tiermatha, who followed her around the side of the courtyard to the stables.

  The stables were a pair of long buildings with sagging roofs like the wrinkled faces of a couple of men who’d once been warriors and were now just old. Imogen wrinkled her nose at the faint smell of ammonia rising from the ground. They were also nearly empty, which was fortunate because the stable master was struck dumb when he saw thirteen Kirkellan horses file into his domain. “I hope we have room,” he said when he’d gotten over his fit of astonishment. “They’re well behaved, I assume?”

  Every member of the tiermatha gave him the same disdainful look at once. “Better than your animals, probably,” said Kionnal, patting Revelry’s neck. Revelry showed his teeth as if he thought the question was stupid, too.

  Each stall was equipped with a rusty bucket for water hanging on the wall and a long, narrow wooden manger for hay on the floor. Victory only barely fit into her stall, backing gracefully but with an expression Imogen knew meant she was plotting trouble if she had to stay cooped up for very long. Imogen traded glances with the others; something would have to be done about this if it was going to be long-term housing for their horses. Victory didn’t seem any more enthusiastic about settling in than Imogen was at settling her there. Imogen spent more time than was necessary comforting her horse, brushing Victory’s coat and checking her feet for stones until Victory protested. She began to shift nervously, picking up on Imogen’s mood, and Imogen soothed them both until she felt able to face Hrovald for what was effectively the first time since they’d left the Eidestal, with its rolling plains, for this looming wooden city surrounded by pines.

  Finally, she couldn’t delay any longer. “I wish you could come with me,” she said.

  “Why can’t we?” Revalan asked.

  “He only told me to attend him, not you. I don’t want him angry with you.”

  “With his personal tiermatha? You think that’s likely?” Dorenna said.

  “I don’t know what to think. Just—tell me when you find out where you’
ll be billeted, all right?”

  The tiermatha exchanged glances. “I don’t like it,” Dorenna said.

  “She didn’t ask us to like it,” Kionnal said. “We’ll see you soon, Imogen.”

  So Imogen left the stable and crossed the courtyard to the great house alone, pretending she had an army at her back. The door opened directly into a room bigger than any Imogen had seen in her life. She reflected there were a lot of things she’d never seen before embarking on this “adventure.” The enormous yellow logs of the walls fitted neatly together at the corners and were swabbed with pitch to cover the cracks. A vast open hearth ran the length of the back wall, easily big enough to hold a whole tree, or three or four oxen. Two long trestle tables planed smooth stood perpendicular to the hearth, with benches pulled up on either side. A smaller table stood parallel to the fireplace, chairs lined up along one side with their backs facing the fire. Imogen thought it might be comfortable during the winter, then wondered if it mightn’t scorch your back instead. The log walls rose to meet the ceiling high above, which was made of planks and stained dark with old smoke, suggesting the giant fireplace wasn’t as efficient as it might appear. Imogen remembered a camp-stove that had been improperly cleaned one spring and how it had driven her family out of the tent, coughing, when it was first lit the next autumn, and thought despondently of how much more space there was for this fireplace to fill with smoke. There were no windows, and Imogen wondered how warm the room would be in winter. Then she remembered she’d be there to find out.