Rider of the Crown

by Melissa McShane

  “You’ll have to prove that,” Owen said, his voice tense, and Imogen finally looked at him and saw barely contained anger. He didn’t believe it either.

  “Proof enough when her belly begins to swell with my grandson,” Hrovath said.

  Imogen felt faint. This could not be happening. Everyone was looking at Elspeth now, watching her sob into her hands. Imogen left her seat and went to kneel at Elspeth’s feet, and took the girl in her arms. “Don’t feel ashamed,” she said in her ear. “It’s not the end of the world. You don’t have to marry him just because you had sex with him.” Elspeth shook her head vigorously. “I know you have these…sweet, wonderful ideas about sex, and marriage, but it’s all right if you made a mistake, I know it is.”

  Elspeth shook her head harder. “No,” she cried, “no, it will never be all right ever again!”

  Hrovald said, “Quiet your woman, Hesketh.”

  Imogen said, with a snarl, “Touch her and I swear I will rip your arm out of its socket and beat you to death with it.” Hesketh, who hadn’t moved at his father’s command, took a few steps back.

  “You know the tradition, Oujan,” Hrovald said triumphantly. “Take the woman’s virtue and you take the woman.”

  “A foul, outdated tradition only someone like you would want to resurrect,” Owen said. “And not one King Jeffrey will see as binding.”

  “Then let him come against me in battle,” Hrovald said. “By that time it will be too late. She will be bound to us by ties of birth and blood, and he will either have to repudiate her as heir or accept my son as her Consort-to-be. I wonder which way he’ll jump?”

  This was bad. Not only would Hrovald drag the Kirkellan into war with Tremontane, he would do it to make a play for that kingdom’s Crown. All he had to do was make sure the King died in battle, and he’d hold the Crown in his hands. Hrovald in control of two countries…it didn’t bear considering. And yet Imogen had to consider it, had to decide what to do, because she might not be matrian but she was the one on the spot. She took a breath, not sure what she was going to say, and Elspeth stood up out of her arms and dashed her tears away.

  “I didn’t want to,” she said, her eyes fixed on Owen. “I thought he was my friend, and I felt sorry for him because his father is so awful to him—” she stopped speaking briefly to glare at Hrovald without a trace of fear—“and I thought, if he only had a friend, if he only saw he wasn’t worthless, maybe he could stand up to him. I felt sorry for him, don’t you understand?” She was pleading now, and Owen’s face was expressionless. “I was so tired that day, I must have been sick already, and we were just talking, and—he kissed me. I didn’t like it. He kissed me again, and then he pushed me, and he kept telling me not to cry, but it hurt so much and, and I’m sorry, Owen, I’m so sorry, but I couldn’t make him stop….”

  It took Imogen a moment to make sense of Elspeth’s words. Those spots of blood. I was so stupid. Owen was quicker on the uptake. He roared and launched himself at Hesketh, who squealed, backed away, fell, and tried to scramble out of the way.

  Hrovald shouted, “Tiermatha, stop that man!” and Imogen saw them break formation and lunge toward Owen, who’d managed to get his hands around Hesketh’s neck and was squeezing until the boy’s eyes bulged. In seconds they would be on him. Imogen stood, drew a deep breath, and screamed, “Tiermatha! To me!”

  Chapter Eleven

  The tiermatha stopped in mid-lunge and grouped themselves in a semi-circle near Imogen. Elspeth was sobbing again. Hrovald shook with rage. “Kill him,” he demanded.

  “Sit down, Hrovald. Dorenna, make sure he does. Owen, let him go. I said let him go,” she repeated, as Owen either didn’t hear her or didn’t care to obey. She signaled to Kallum, who rapped Owen smartly on the head with the flat of his blade, then held the edge to his throat, but it was too late. There was a snap, and Owen released Hesketh, who fell to the floor, eyes staring, neck bent at an unnatural angle. Part of Imogen—all right, most of Imogen—rejoiced to see the little wart dead. But the sane part of her wished they’d stopped Owen, because she wanted to walk out of this room alive, and she judged Hrovald would be a lot more persistent about stopping them now Owen had murdered his heir in front of his face.

  “Traitors,” Hrovald seethed. “So much for your vaunted obedience.” He didn’t even glance at his son’s body.

  “You weren’t listening, Hrovald. I told you they’d obey their leader. I never said who that was.” Hrovald opened his mouth to shout and Dorenna set the edge of her extremely sharp knife along the soft part of his throat. He shut his mouth again. Imogen looked around for inspiration. So. Hesketh dead. Hrovald furious but restrained for the moment. Owen embracing Elspeth as if he would never let her go—there was something good, anyway. The tiermatha, looking to her for instructions. Right. She was the leader. Time to lead.

  “Owen, where is your escort? Owen. Pay attention. We still have to get her out of here safely.”

  Owen looked at her over the top of Elspeth’s head. “Who are you?” he said.

  “Queen of the Ruskalder, for a few minutes more.” She took a few steps and faced Hrovald. “The banrach is annulled,” she announced, speaking to the room at large but with her eyes fixed on Hrovald’s. “You broke the oath of treaty between our peoples when you made a play for the Crown of Tremontane. And I personally refuse to stay married to a man who would let his son rape a woman and tell her that made her married to him. Keep an eye on him, Dorenna, I’d rather not kill him if we can help it.” She turned to face Owen. “Where’s the escort?”

  “At the tree line, waiting for Elspeth to come out to them. You’re really the Queen of the Ruskalder? Why are you helping us?”

  Imogen rolled her eyes. “Let’s focus on getting out of this city alive, and I’ll tell you everything. And I’m not the Queen anymore. I’m Imogen of the Kirkellan, and this is my tiermatha.”

  She beckoned to the rest of her tiermatha and they gathered near the center of the room, leaving Dorenna to guard Hrovald. “You heard him,” she said quietly. “We need to get out of the King’s house, out of Ranstjad, past the camp and across the plain to the forest. Any suggestions?”

  “The problem is to keep the alarm from being raised,” Kionnal said. “We need to put Hrovald somewhere he can’t make a stink for a while, and hide the corpse. An hour would be a good head start.”

  “True. What else?”

  “Horses. We brought ours, but Victory’s in the stable and I don’t know what that man came in on. And Elspeth will need a ride,” said Areli.

  “Good. Owen, did you bring a horse? Yes? Good. There aren’t any other mounts in the stable?”

  “Nothing that will keep up with us. She’ll have to double up with someone,” Areli said. “Probably Kionnal, Revelry’s the biggest.”

  “Fine. Lorcun, Maeva, Kallum, go get the horses saddled. If Erek asks questions, tell him I’ve decided to visit with you for the evening, but I doubt he’ll say anything. I’m getting changed.”

  With no one to unbutton her dress, she tore at the seams until they shredded and she could step out of the remnants. She kicked them away sadly; she’d rather liked that dress. She donned her real clothes as fast as she could, regretted not having a weapon, and rushed back to the skorstala. The three she’d sent to ready the horses were still gone. Hesketh was still dead. And Hrovald was still furious. “Areli, go to the stable and get some rope. A lot of rope, not too thick. Don’t let anyone see you do it.” Areli grinned and slipped out the door.

  Imogen walked over to Hrovald and relieved him of his belt knife, wishing it were a sword. Hrovald glared at her. “When I catch you, I will drink your blood,” he snarled.

  “Really? That sounds disgusting. It’s a wonder your chiefs haven’t risen up against you yet,” Imogen said, absently, reviewing the layout of the great house and thinking about where she might stash Hrovald and Hesketh where they’d go undiscovered for an hour, or if they were lucky, two. “They’re already plott
ing it, you know,” she added.

  “They’re too afraid to plot against me,” Hrovald said.

  “You know, Hrovald, at some point too much fear overwhelms a person. They get to a state where they’re so afraid they forget to be afraid. I’d be worried if I were you.”

  “Trying to get me to doubt my chiefs? Only a woman would think such a transparent ruse would work.”

  “No, I’m just talking to pass the time until Areli gets back. But it’s too bad I’m never coming back here, or I’d wager with you about which ones are plotting to kill you.”

  Hrovald clenched his teeth and grated, “I should’ve forced you into my bed the first night I saw you, bitch, raped you until you lost that willfulness and behaved like—” Dorenna’s blade pressed harder into his throat and he went still.

  “You sure you want him alive?” she said. “I can make it look like an accident if you want.”

  “That’s all right, Dor. I don’t know what kind of conflict his death might create in Ruskald, and I don’t want my mother mad at me if it spills over into the Eidestal. Hrovald, if you think that threat changes anything, you’re even more sad and pathetic than I thought.”

  From behind her, Owen said plaintively, “No, really, who are you?”

  Elspeth laughed, a sound that relieved Imogen’s heart so much. “She is my dearest friend and she saved my life, and now she’s going to save yours. Owen, what were you thinking, walking in here like this? Jeffrey can’t possibly have agreed to it!”

  “I didn’t tell him. Did you think I’d let Hrovald keep you here, if I had the power to stop it?”

  Areli returned bearing a large coil of rope. “They’ve almost got the horses ready,” she said. “Kallum will knock when they’re outside. I can’t believe no one’s come to see what’s going on in here.”

  “Hrovald has everyone terrified of him. Too bad for him it means no one’s going to come leaping to his aid.” She took the rope and began cutting it into long sections. “Tie his hands and feet. Run a rope between the two, I want him hobbled. And I need a gag. You two, take care of the wet rag over there. We’ll throw him in with Hrovald.”

  Hrovald struggled, but he was no match for three Kirkellan warriors. Imogen went into the hallway and checked to make sure it was empty before returning to beckon her tiermatha to carry their bound charge into a tiny storeroom Imogen knew wasn’t used often. “Tie him to one of these shelves so he can’t bang on the door,” she added, then, when that was finished, leaned over to Hrovald and whispered, “I hope your gods drag you to whatever hell you believe in,” and slammed the back of his head against the wall so hard he sagged in his bonds, unconscious.

  Imogen led the way back to the skorstala, where Owen and Elspeth were continuing their reunion and the rest of the tiermatha looked restless. Imogen kept glancing over her shoulder, feeling as if Hrovald were going to burst through the door at any moment, followed by a hundred screaming Ruskalder warriors. It seemed like forever before Kallum knocked on the door, stuck his head inside, and said, “We’re ready.”

  The horses stood in the courtyard, their hot breath faintly visible in the cool early spring night. A couple of kitchen maids crossed the courtyard and entered the King’s house; Imogen focused on helping Elspeth mount. Those women wouldn’t find Hrovald, they had no idea anything was wrong, it was only her imagination that they’d looked at her little party suspiciously. It was perfectly natural for the Queen to go riding with the hostage Princess after dark. In trousers. With the entire tiermatha. Imogen mounted Victory and gave the command to ride out in a voice that wasn’t shaky at all.

  They kept a leisurely pace even though Imogen’s nerves were screaming at her to run, run through the dark streets and out the gate and across the plain to safety. At this time of evening, just after the supper hour, very few people were abroad, and those who were weren’t inclined to stop and gawk at the procession of thirteen enormous horses filling the dark street. Imogen, at the head of the column, kept her eyes moving, looking for danger. A shout two streets away caused them all to jump, and Revalan had to rein Rohrnan in sharply when the excitable gelding shied at a cat that darted across the street in front of him. But nothing interfered with their progress through Ranstjad. Imogen began to breathe easier when the gate came into sight. One hurdle down.

  The guards at the gate recognized Imogen and opened the gate without question. Two hurdles down. They might make it after all. They left the city and, feeling the eyes of the gate guards on her, Imogen signaled them to turn left as if they were going to the camp. It was risky, but she couldn’t be sure the gate guards wouldn’t be suspicious and raise the alarm. They walked along for a few minutes, then turned to cross the plain. Imogen signaled for everyone to continue and dropped back to talk to Owen. “Where did you leave your escort, exactly?”

  Owen looked at the sky, which was clear and cloudless and sparkling, then at the horizon. “Over there,” he pointed. “They have instructions to wait three days, then report to Jeffrey. So they’ll be there.”

  Imogen nodded. “You must love her very much, to trade your life for hers,” she said.

  Owen smiled. “More than you can imagine. She saved my life, once. I couldn’t do less for her.”

  The depth of emotion in his voice embarrassed her. “Why did Hrovald want you so much?” she asked. “Because you were one of Dyrak’s guards?”

  “The last of them. Hrovald hunted everyone else down and executed them. He was afraid one of us might turn out to be a rallying point for pro-Dyrak sympathy. I…sort of humiliated him, during my escape, and my death became personal, for him. But I didn’t think he’d be so obsessed he’d agree to a straight-across exchange. He had to know Jeffrey would give just about anything to get Elspeth back.”

  “Because she’s his heir.”

  “No, because she’s his sister. Though with him unmarried, her being his heir matters a lot. It’s just the two of them now. Jeffrey needs to start producing heirs of his own.” He laughed quietly. “Elspeth and I were supposed to be married at Wintersmeet. I—” His voice cut off abruptly, and she saw him turn his head to look at Kionnal, riding nearby. “We can talk more at the camp,” he said. She wondered what else he’d been about to say, but just nodded and rode back to the head of the line.

  They were almost far enough out that Imogen felt comfortable going faster when horns blasted from the camp, and shouts rang out across the plain. “That’s it,” Imogen said, “time to run,” and she urged Victory into a trot. She risked a glance over her shoulder. A mile from here to the camp, she thought, another five or six to the tree line, if we get enough of a head start, those warriors on foot won’t know how to follow us. She couldn’t see if the pursuit had horses, but she assumed at least some of them would. Nothing near our caliber of mounts, she thought, maybe a little faster because they’re lighter, but they’ll outrun their support and then we’ll tear them apart if they catch us up.

  Imogen kept glancing back, every now and then, letting Victory guide them both. There were dark shapes coming up rapidly behind them—so Hrovald did have riders, and they were far quicker to respond than she’d hoped. She urged Victory on faster, and the horse obliged; it was dangerous to ride in this darkness, but far more dangerous if Hrovald’s warriors caught up to them. They couldn’t afford to let the Ruskalder riders catch them, slow them down enough for the bulk of the troops to arrive and overwhelm them.

  There was a surrealism to the landscape, the pale dead grass emerging from the last snowdrifts of winter, the hard white stars above, the wall of black trees growing in front of them. Imogen felt as if she and Victory were flying, skimming across earth that flowed beneath them like water. She glanced back again. They were coming on far too quickly. Clearly Hrovald’s men were more afraid of their King than they were of horses tripping and killing themselves or their riders.

  No one was waiting when they reached the tree line. Imogen turned in her seat to look for Owen, but suddenly two people sto
od there as if they’d been trees until Imogen’s presence had called them into human shape. Imogen was impressed.

  “Rance, Cara, I have gotten her,” Owen said in Tremontanese, sliding awkwardly off Revelry’s broad back. His wasn’t much better than hers. “But we are being chased.”

  “Who are these people?” Cara asked.

  “Imogen of the Kirkellan and her tiermatha. Our rescuers.” In Ruskeldin, Owen said to Imogen, “I owe you more than I can repay. Will you go back to the Kirkellan? Because we could use your help getting back to the border, if you’re willing.”

  Imogen looked at her tiermatha. They each shrugged or nodded their consent. Kionnal added, “I’m not sure how they planned to get Elspeth home without horses, and I don’t see or hear any nearby.”

  It turned out they did have horses, none that could match a Kirkellan steed, but which would outpace the tiermatha over the short distance. They all mounted up and rode, Owen in the lead this time, pointing their way. Imogen took up the rear position. She looked back over the plain one last time before they ducked into the forest. There were at least ten shapes now, no more than half a mile behind and gaining fast. Well, they’d have to maneuver through the trees just like everyone else. She dug her heels gently into Victory’s side and followed the other riders.

  Under the thick pine needles, it was almost black, and only Thistle’s light gray rump kept Imogen from losing the group entirely. She was tired now, worn out from tension and worry, but still on edge listening for their followers. Their group made far too much noise for Imogen to hear anything else, like a warrior sneaking up on her. She wished desperately for a sword and even more desperately for her lost nine months of training. Years of battle experience couldn’t be erased so quickly, she knew, but here in the darkness, with the enemy who knew where behind her, she felt soft and doughy instead of hard and strong. Victory, sensing her discouragement, flicked her ears and whickered at her. Imogen stroked her neck. “I promise we’ll do real riding soon,” she said.