Instead she turned to her side, flipped to her back, turned to her other side, and gave up. Coming to her feet, she threw her blanket across her arm and set off through the camp. Moving carefully and noiselessly, she picked her way past curled bodies and piles of gear, tiptoed around the looming bulk of the carriages, and aimed for the easternmost corner of the wall of flame. She had almost reached her destination when she saw a shape solidify from the undifferentiated shadows and head in her direction. Her heart gave a sudden bound of fear before she recognized Tayse. He came close enough to whisper.
“Anything wrong?”
She shook her head. “What are you doing up?”
“Just patrolling. Checking on everyone. You?”
She smiled at him. She had always assumed he could see in the dark; he could do everything else. “Lonely,” she said. “I couldn’t sleep.”
He nodded and moved off. She continued another few yards until she came across Donnal stretched out on the ground, head lying on his paws, nose pointed straight toward Senneth’s magical blaze. An extraordinary wolf, one that was not afraid of fire.
Spreading her blanket on the ground, she lay down next to him, close enough to feel the solid heat of his body against her back. It was summer, and the fire warmed everything a few more degrees, and she hadn’t been cold to begin with. But only now did she feel right. Only now was she able to close her eyes and let herself slide into dreaming.
CHAPTER
24
T
HEY got back on the road somewhat later than they should have the next morning, as everyone was a little stiff from the unconventional night’s sleep. Well, Kirra thought, perhaps the soldiers weren’t, and Donnal was certainly none the worse for wear the next day, but she felt achy, hungry, and crabby. They ate a cold, unappetizing breakfast and set out again on the road for Nocklyn.
“And the worst of it is, I can’t look any better than Casserah would after such a night,” she groused to Senneth. “I know how to keep my hair tidy and my face clean, but Casserah doesn’t have such tricks available to her.”
“And all the extra water’s gone to Amalie and the queen,” Senneth said, amused. “But you don’t look so bad. Braid your hair back and shake out your clothes. We can stop at the inn in Loben and wash up.”
“And get the door to the servants’ carriage repaired,” Kirra added. “The other women are riding in my carriage with Melly. They’re afraid the coach will hit a bump and they’ll fall out.”
“I don’t think the night on the road did us any harm,” Senneth said. “We might be a day late into Nocklyn, but we won’t miss the main event. And frankly, I’m not so sorry to be spared even a single night at yet another of the Twelve Houses. I can’t imagine whatever possessed me to tell Baryn I’d squire his daughter around as she made her debut.”
“Oh, but it’s been so much fun so far,” Kirra said. “You have to wonder how Mayva Nocklyn will be able to top Heffel Coravann.”
Senneth laughed. “I’m hoping she won’t even try.”
It was almost noon before they were close enough to Loben to realize there was trouble, and Cammon was the one to sense it. Donnal, loping along in wolf shape alongside Kirra, showed no alarm, even when Cammon suddenly reined in his horse and dropped back to where Senneth rode beside Kirra. His face was puckered with worry.
“What?” Senneth said instantly. “Is someone coming?”
He shook his head, his expression perplexed. “No, I—It doesn’t seem like we’re in danger. But something’s wrong. In Loben.”
“Should we stop? Should we go another way?”
“I don’t think so. It’s just—something bad lies ahead. Or something bad already happened. In Loben.”
Kirra glanced at Senneth then back at Cammon. “Illness?” she asked.
“Attack?” Senneth guessed. “Massacre?”
“I can’t tell. But people are sad.”
“Let’s go tell Tayse.”
Senneth and Cammon cantered off, past the carriages and units of soldiers, seeking the Rider in the lead. Kirra pulled her horse to a walk, allowed the other soldiers to pass her, and then retraced the back trail till she came across Justin, solitary in the rear. She noticed how straight he sat in the saddle, how closely he listened to the sounds around him. He spotted her immediately and spurred his horse forward.
“What’s wrong?”
“Not sure. Cammon says something happened in Loben. I’m guessing Tayse is going to want you with everybody else.”
He nodded and instantly urged his horse to a run, not even waiting for her to catch up. She rolled her eyes and followed more sedately until she had rejoined the main group. The whole party was still moving forward, but at a slower pace. Senneth, Cammon, and the four Riders were in a line before the lead carriage, conferring. Romar rode beside the first coach, apparently conversing with his niece through the open window. Donnal picked his way through the various riders to trot alongside Kirra again. The expression in his amber eyes was inquiring.
“Don’t know yet,” she said. “But it looks like we’re going on.”
It took an hour of cautious travel before they finally made it to Loben, a small, picturesque market town with a decent array of houses and small shops lining the main road. They were barely past the first tavern on the edge of town when Kirra caught the acrid scent of recent fire, and she lifted her head to try to track the source. But nothing appeared to be burning right now; the only smoke rising above the chimneys was white and lazy, curling up from kitchen cookfires.
They drew some attention as they traveled down the street, but not as much as they had in other small towns they’d passed through. The few people who were out were hurrying along as if determined to finish important errands. Some merely looked down at their feet as if they were too weighed with their own cares to wave to the passing princess or gawk at the sight of so many soldiers. The whole feel of the town made Kirra uneasy, as if she waded through the aftereffects of grief. She wondered how much more sharply Cammon was experiencing the emotions that even she was picking up.
When they reached the juncture where the main road was crossed by a secondary street, they came across the charred ruins of a fairly sizable building. Here the smell of smoke was strong enough to make Kirra gag, and she lifted a handkerchief to her mouth to filter out some of the scent. She couldn’t tell what the structure had been, but all that remained were foundation stones, part of a fence, a green corner of lawn, and blackened timbers. At least twenty people milled around in what used to be a courtyard. A small knot of mourners stood in one corner of the lawn and wept.
For some reason, Kirra felt even more uneasy. Senneth flung up a hand and their whole caravan came to a disorganized halt. Kirra pushed her way past the horsemen ahead of her, trying to get to Senneth. Amalie poked her head out the window and the noon sun turned her hair into a fiery halo.
“Casserah. What’s wrong?” the princess asked as Kirra rode by.
“I don’t know. I’m going to find out.”
Senneth had motioned one of the onlookers over, and he arrived at her side just as Kirra did. His sober eyes took in Casserah’s fine clothes and Tayse’s fine weapons, but Kirra could tell he didn’t really register anything as he stood in the street and stared up at them.
“What building burned here?” Senneth demanded.
“My brother’s inn,” the man replied.
Inn?
Kirra’s hands tightened so suddenly on the reins that her horse whickered and backed away. She nudged it forward again, listening.
“What happened? Did a fire start in the kitchen?”
The man shrugged hopelessly. “I don’t know. It was the middle of the night. Both the cooks were asleep. Maybe the fire started in the kitchen. Maybe it started in the parlor or one of the upstairs bedrooms. By the time the alarm was raised, it seemed like the building was on fire in three or four places. Even the roof was burning. We called out the bucket brigade, but there was no use. It had spread too far. The whole building was lost.”
“And the people inside?”
Now his face showed real pain. “Most of them dead,” he whispered. “My brother and his wife and his two girls. Dead. We think there were five guests staying on the upper floors, but we cannot find all the bodies. One of the cooks survived, and the downstairs maid, but they are both so badly burned we do not know if they will live till nightfall. It’s so terrible—so terrible—” His voice shook and he had to stop to try to compose himself.
Senneth waited a moment then spoke again. “And this happened last night?” He nodded and she continued, “I am sorry for your loss.”
“I don’t know what I’m going to do,” he said, clearly no longer talking to Senneth, nor to anyone but himself. “I don’t know what I’m going to do without him. We spent every day together. I worked beside him at the inn. How am I going to feed my own wife and my own daughter? How am I going to get by without my brother?”
A woman came up and put her arms around him. She was crying, too, her face red with tears, but she offered him what comfort she had left. Kirra felt her stomach harden with sympathetic despair. She could not imagine how she would feel if this had been Danan Hall and Casserah’s body lay inside.
Light flickered beside her and she glanced down to see Amalie out of the coach. The princess’s hands were extended; her own face was a study in woe. “I am so sad for you,” she said in her soft voice. “What a dreadful day.”
The man continued sobbing in his wife’s arms, but the woman turned to look at Amalie, and her eyes widened. She could not curtsey while she held her husband, but she bowed her head and dropped her eyes. “Majesty,” she whispered.
Amalie pulled something off her left hand and Kirra saw a ring sparkling in her palm. A diamond as big as a man’s thumbnail was clasped in a heavy circlet of gold. “Here,” the princess said. “It cannot buy back any of the people you love, but it will feed you for a while and pay for some rebuilding.”
The woman seemed too stunned to even protest. She put her hand out and let Amalie close her fingers around the jewel. “Thank you, majesty,” she said, her voice even more dazed.
Amalie looked up at Senneth. Her sweet face looked incredibly sad and incredibly determined. “Is there anything else we can do?” she asked.
Senneth glanced back at Kirra and seemed unsure of how to phrase her next words. “Apparently two women have been injured in the fire. I don’t know if anyone in town is a healer.”
The innkeeper’s sister-in-law spoke up. “No. We have a healer, but he left a few days ago to visit his mother. He’s a three-day ride away. I don’t believe they will live that long—” Her voice broke, and she stopped trying to talk, just rested her cheek against her husband’s head.
Kirra was already sliding out of the saddle. No one in Loben would recognize her, and Amalie could not know how useless Casserah was in a sickroom.
“My sister is a healer, and I know something about nursing,” she said. “If someone takes me to these injured women, I will do for them what I can.”
Two other men had come up, impelled by curiosity and not seeming quite as grief stricken as the innkeeper’s relatives. “They’re over at Lawrence’s. By the tavern,” one of these new-comers volunteered. “Sukie’s watching them, but she doesn’t know any medicine.”
“I’ll do what I can,” Kirra repeated. “Take me there.”
“We’ll both go,” Amalie said.
So that was another strange interlude in a trip that had already been altogether too odd. Where Amalie went, of course, the queen must go, and so must Senneth and the four Riders; and Cammon clearly did not want to be left behind; and Donnal, appearing respectable enough to pad through town as a large black hound, came as well. Lawrence proved to be a wealthy-looking merchant with what was probably the biggest house in the district. It seemed to have been a philanthropic gesture for him to take in the two injured women, so Kirra had to suppose he was either a kind man or running for civil office. She didn’t have time to talk to him. She was following his housekeeper up a narrow flight of steps and down a dim hallway to the room at the back of the house where the infirmary was set up. Amalie and the entire retinue were hard on her heels, but only Amalie, Senneth, and Valri entered the room behind her.