“I know. I know, but she seems older. Remember, she has been a full adult in Verdeau for a decade—and that is much longer to Humans than to us. Though she is half-Elven, her...what?...her frame of reference, you might say, is entirely Human. Father, if you are suggesting we wait to wed, she will not wish it. Among men, she is nearly past the age of marrying!”
Shéovar looked skeptical. The swift cycle of Human life was difficult for one who had not walked among Humans to understand.
“Féolan, there is another thing that worries me, and it is not easy for me to say this to you. From what you tell me, you are the first Elf she has ever known. I see how deeply you love her and that you are resolved to bear the heartache of her early death. But is it fair to claim her pledge now? I cannot but wonder: might not a young girl feel herself in love with a stranger who sweeps into
her life and strikes a deep chord of recognition, understands her perhaps in ways no one else ever has? If Gabrielle were to discover, in time, that it was not you in yourself, but the deep pull of our race that called her, if she came to realize that another could have matched her heart better, none could blame her. Yet it would be a sorrow to you both, nonetheless.”
The very thought was harrowing. Féolan could find no words to answer his father. Almost he hated him for having raised such a specter. And yet...forcing himself to look square at the thing, uncolored by his own desire, it was an obvious concern. It shamed him that he had not once questioned how circumstances had pushed Gabrielle into his arms.
She is no moonstruck girl, he told himself. She knows her own heart. But the doubt remained.
There were no answers in the depths of the translucent tea cup, nor in the compassionate eyes of his parents. Féolan rose to his feet abruptly, half-raised his hand to ward off further words. “I need a walk,” he said and strode off toward the water.
D
ISGUSTING
. D
ERKH EYED
the pork scraps and potato skins floating on the viscid surface of the washtub, dipped them out with his fingers and flung them into the garbage. The royal family had, by the looks of it, fed a mighty number of people after the memorial services for Verdeau’s dead, and grief had not dinted the guests’ appetites. His dishwater had grown tepid and gray with grease, the washing running ahead of the hot water supply. He would have to wait on the fire. Derkh dragged the tin tub out the door and across the dirt yard to the ditch, where he tipped out the old dishwater. Pushing the sweaty hair off his forehead, he let the evening breeze play on his hot skin.
“Derkh.”
He looked up. It was the cook, and her sharp eye made him feel instantly guilty.
“Sorry,” he said, embarrassed as always by his awkward speech. “I wait for the new water.”
“That’s all right. I was going to say, why not run off now and let Jonas finish up? By the time he’s done with the floor, the water will be hot.”
“I can finish,” he protested, but she cut him off.
“It’s Jonas’s job. It’s good of you to help, and the heavens know we can use you, but you don’t have to stay till moonrise. That’s for the likes of us as gets paid to do it.”
Should he insist, or did she want to be rid of him? He couldn’t tell. Nodding abruptly, Derkh did as he was told. But he wasn’t about to go back to his room, not until the hallways were empty for the night. He didn’t want to meet up with anyone on the day of the Verdeau memorial.
Instead, he hopped the ditch, climbed the rail fence that closed off the kitchen and laundry yard and crossed the wide lawn behind the castle. A small unattended door in the stone wall that enclosed the castle grounds led to a footpath that wound up into the hills. Broad and gentle at first, it soon narrowed and rose steeply. Derkh climbed hard, pushing himself to go faster until his breath grew ragged and painful and the flesh behind his scar flared in protest with each step. By the time the late spring sun began to dip behind the line of hills, he was high enough to see the land for miles around glow under the last glances of rosy light and then darken into shadow. But he did not see, because he was crying—sobbing hoarsely with each gasping breath as he hadn’t since he was a child on his mother’s knee. Finally, legs, belly and
lungs all burning with exertion, he flung himself on the ground and gave himself up to it.
He cried for his own dead: for all the men he had trained, lived and fought with, if not befriended; for the father he had feared and sometimes hated and loved with all his heart. He cried from the constant strain of being an outsider, and although he did not cry with longing for his homeland, by the time the tears were spent he had decided. He did not belong here. He would go back to Greffier.
T
RISTAN
and Rosalie sat on the stone bench in the center of the garden, drawing out their last night together. In the morning, she and her father would return to Blanchette. Their courtship was official now. Solange had welcomed the news, as Tristan had known she would. André too, had given his immediate, if somewhat restrained, blessing. His agreement had left Tristan feeling slightly deflated, like a child who has prepared a great list of compelling reasons why he should have a treat, only to be given it before he asks. He wondered if his role in the war had elevated him in André’s eyes.
“I couldn’t shake the idea, after the last battle,” confessed Tristan, “that you would be married to someone else by the time I got back. It drove me crazy.”
“Actually, I did have one offer, from a very rich man. He owns half of Blanchette.” Rosalie’s tone was cool, considering. One look at Tristan’s stricken face and she relented. “He was horrible, Tris. I never missed you more than when I was enduring his company!”
“You little vixen, to torture me so!” Tristan flipped down his lower lip, squinted up his eyes and leered at her while a string of drool escaped his mouth and trickled to his chin. “Yuuu mush pay...whish a KHISSH!” He pounced. Rosalie squealed and struggled—but only until his face rearranged itself. She was happy, then, to make amends for her teasing.
“I will come to the coast as soon as I can,” promised Tristan. “There is still a lot to do here—you know, this war may not be over. There could be a second invasion, this summer or next year. We’ve left sizeable sentry forces guarding the passes, but we need to bring all four Basin countries into a common defense plan. Work more closely with the Elves too, I hope. Once we get things organized, Dominic will move his family back to Blanchette—and I’ll come along for a visit.”
“Work hard, then, and come soon,” said Rosalie.
They spoke but little after that, though the moon had traveled the sky and set before they walked the deserted streets back to Rosalie’s lodging.
R
OSALIE HAD NO
urge to recount to Tristan the details of her encounter with Pierre LaBarque. She was just grateful it had become a thing she could joke about.
Early in the spring, perhaps two weeks after the Verdeau army had begun its march north to the Skyway Pass, her father had received a visit from LaBarque, a wealthy merchant who traded in everything from Gamier fleece and textiles to the precious ores and salt of Barilles. In his mid-forties, still active and healthy, LaBarque had been on a trade voyage to Gamier at the time of the muster and thus missed the call to arms.
As niceties were exchanged, the topic of war inevitably arose. LaBarque shrugged. “It will turn out to be a fool’s errand, this great mobilization,” he pronounced. His deep slow voice gave each word weight, as though he were delivering a speech. “Meanwhile, I gather they have left us all but defenseless here on the coast, where the threat from sea raids is real. One can hardly believe our king has ties to Crow Island, given the way he neglects our interests.”
Rosalie had flushed red. Eyes wide, she had looked to her father to dispute this unfair condemnation. But if André shared her outrage he gave no sign. Always careful of speech, he looked mildly surprised, but said nothing.
LaBarque’s next topic of conversation was more shocking still. He turned to Rosalie’s father—never addressing her at all—and requested his consideration “as a suitable husband for your lovely daughter, Rosalie.” As coldly as though discussing a business transaction, he went on to detail his extensive holdings, the worth of his home and the solidity of his many investments, concluding, “I could most certainly promise your daughter a most comfortable and secure existence.”
Beyond speech, Rosalie stared at her lap and listened while André thanked the man graciously and assured him of their respect and esteem. “I will have to discuss this with Rosalie, of course,” he concluded.
LaBarque rose to his feet. “Well then,” he said briskly, “I leave you to it.” At the front door he paused, reached for Rosalie’s hand, puckered out his thin lips and kissed it with an awkward flourish. “We will want to know each other better,” he said. “Please dine with me at my home, a week hence. I will send a carriage at six.”
André interrupted. “Well, now, Pierre—”
LaBarque fixed his dark eyes on Rosalie’s father. “My dear André, you are not worried about the lack of chaperone?” He appeared amused. “I am not some wild young man. Such is the advantage of a mature suitor, surely. I give you my word she will be delivered safely home, say by ten bells?”
The door closed. Rosalie gave a sigh of relief. “Thank goodness he’s gone!” she exclaimed, looking back with a giggle. To her consternation, her father did not smile back.
“Rosalie,” he said, “Lord LaBarque has made a serious proposal, and you would be wise to consider it carefully. He is a very influential man.”
“He is too old!” she blurted out. “And his manner is, oh, awful! You can’t be serious.”
“Of course I am serious!” André snapped. He softened and tried again. “Rosalie, you know what I want for you is your happiness. I cannot and will not force you to marry. But I ask you not to dismiss this man on the basis of a fleeting first impression. I believe he has much to offer you.”
“But Tristan—”
“What about Tristan?” her father said bluntly. “Did he speak of marriage when we were last in Chênier?”
“No, but... Well, you hustled us away so quickly he wouldn’t have had time.”
“If he had really intended to, he would have made the time,” said André. “You have to think of the long term. A charming smile and a royal title do not make a good solid husband.”
“There is more to Tristan than that!” Rosalie flared, tears now pricking at her eyes. Her father, always a serious man, had become almost severe since her mother’s death five years ago. Rosalie, his youngest and his only unmarried child, thought longingly of the days when her mother and older sisters had filled the house with talk and laughter.
“Perhaps there is. I confess I have not seen it. Be that as it may, I ask you to go to dinner with Lord LaBarque and to keep your options open.” His voice grew gentle, and the words hurt all the more: “Rosalie, if there is an invasion—and in this I believe Pierre will be proved wrong—you cannot be sure of your Tristan returning. I am sorry to say it, but such is the harshness of war.”
So Rosalie had gone to dinner and made a dutiful effort to be gracious, but she could do nothing about the skin-crawling aversion she felt to Lord LaBarque.
He had taken her arm and toured her through room after room of his massive town house before sitting her in a dark, velvet-draped parlor. Like the rest of the home, it was richly appointed, even sumptuous, but gloomy and close. No breath of the new spring air had been allowed to enter here. Rosalie asked politely about LaBarque’s business—which obviously pleased him and led to a rather long accounting of his many financial ventures—and then about his “other interests,” which elicited only a blank stare. Serious men, the look seemed to imply, do not indulge in such frivolity.
After a long, awkward silence LaBarque asked, “And you? Do you have ‘interests’?”
“Well,” said Rosalie, “I love range archery, have done since I had my first lesson as a young girl. I hold the women’s championship for this area, actually.”
This time the silence was distinctly disapproving. “I deem,” LaBarque pronounced at last, “that the arts of war ill become a woman’s hand.”
At that moment a maid appeared, saving Rosalie the burden of a reply, and requested their presence in the dining room. As LaBarque armed her to the table, Rosalie let her mind wander to the time she had bested Tristan in a shooting match and been rewarded with his delighted laugh and the ceremonial presentation of his behind to kick. Oh, Tris, come home safe, she prayed. Though rumor of fighting had reached the coast, no official news had been heard.
Dinner crawled on, both tedious and nerve-racking. With the last course—apple dumplings and tiny glasses of syrupy
liqueur—LaBarque turned, as she had known he would, to the matter of marriage.
Rosalie had prepared her speech beforehand and delivered it carefully: “Lord LaBarque, I am most honored by your interest in my hand. But my heart is now in the keeping of another, and until I know how things stand with him, I do not feel free to consider marriage. I beg your pardon and your patience.”
Though his expression did not appear to change, a cold anger settled over LaBarque’s hawk-like face. The effect was so unsettling that Rosalie felt her skin draw up in ghost-flesh, as though the room had grown colder.
“Another,” he sneered. “That would be our dashing young princeling, off playing at war, I suppose? I’d be surprised if he even remembers who you are.”
Speechless with anger and humiliation, Rosalie set her lips together, determined not to give LaBarque the satisfaction of seeing her upset. There were rules for this kind of discussion, she raged to herself, and not even the most boorish country oaf would indulge in such insults.
LaBarque’s eyes narrowed, and his cold voice cut like a whip. “I am not accustomed to giving up my treasures to anyone, let alone royal brats who think the world is their toy. Nor will I hang meekly at the feet of a little fool who does not know her own best interest. I suggest you take just enough time to reconsider the reality of your position and not wait around for your young gallant to trade you for a Maronnaise princess!”