Trouble with Kings (27 page)

“This is very fine, but I did not order a new gown. More to the point, I did not pay for one.” I felt a twinge of regret for all those fine gowns I’d worn in Dantherei, paid for by Ralanor Veleth’s treasury—which was not all that capacious—and then abandoned.

Berry smiled happily. “It’s a gift. From the others down in linens. Do you like it?”

“It’s wonderful,” I replied, surprised at a gift from people I had never met. “Please convey my thanks.”

“They wanted to thank you for what you did. Saving the king’s life.”

Thoroughly embarrassed, I made a fuss of smoothing out the gown and admiring the flow of the skirt. “I just hope that this lovely gown will not soon be covered in mud!”

“You will not be riding, I was told, Princess,” Berry said as she braided my hair up into a coronet. “But in case, I did pack a second riding outfit in the valise in the carriage, the more practical tunic and trousers.”

“Thank you,” I said again.

She gave me a nod, then her smile vanished. “We wish you a safe journey.” She whisked herself out the door.

When I got to the stable yard, I found waiting a high-structured racing carriage, built for speed and comfort, of the sort that hot-blooded young lords and ladies drove in races, only it was not open, but had a roof and sides and two windows. In front there were traces for four horses. As I walked round to the door, I saw fine gilding enhancing the smooth lines. The thing was evidence of wealth and I wondered who Jason had strong-armed into relinquishing it.

A footman about my age appeared, bowed to me and opened the door. “May I offer my wishes for your highness’s successful journey?”

“Thanks.” I tried to sound light. “I hope your wish comes true.”

He shut me in, then said through the open window, “I hope we put in everything you might need.”

I looked about me. The carriage seat was filled with several down pillows, hot bricks, another of those yeath-fur robes, and a basket of things that turned out to be bread fresh from the oven—so fresh it was still hot—and a flask of steeped leaf. Some fruit and cheese wrapped neatly in linen completed the contents.

“Thank you. I think I’m ready for a journey to Sartor!”

He gave me a serious look. “You saved our king’s life. And now you go to save his sister.”

Then he was gone.

The little window darkened, and there was Jason. I busied myself with rearranging all the good things in order to hide my red face.

He said to my bandaged shoulder, “Is there anything you require before we set out?”

“No.” I lifted my hand. “I didn’t expect such luxury! I thought we needed to make speed, and I am perfectly willing to ride.”

“This rig is fast enough,” Jason said.

“I suppose it’s inappropriate to ask, but did the owner get a choice in loaning it out?”

“It was offered for your use.”

“Oh.”

“If you have reason to stop, all you need do is wave. Markham and I will ride at either side.”

The courtyard behind him was full of activity. The coach jounced and moved as the driver mounted, and the horses were hitched up and the traces checked. Beyond them what seemed an enormous number of mail-coated and armed warriors were busy checking saddles, girths, weapons and bags. Some mounted up, others ran back and forth. Above the noise were occasional calls and laughs, the tones full of suppressed excitement.

“I’ll be fine,” I said to Jason, who seemed to be waiting for an answer.

He rejoined the others. He too was dressed for battle in the plain green long tunic over mail, and beneath that the quilted black-wool garments of his warriors. There was nothing in his outfit to mark him from the rest of them—he wore at his side the same long knife of plain black hilt, and his sword was stashed in a saddle sheath. His head was bare, his long hair tied back with a ribbon; that was the only difference, for most of his warriors had shorn hair.

He lifted a hand, and the stones rang with the thunder of hooves.

The carriage rolled out, picking up speed. Well sprung, it made me feel that I was floating over the roads. Long autumn grasses sped by, and the rocky terrain, marked occasionally by walled towns and distant hilltop mounted castles, became an ever-changing scene. Westward of the capital began the hills that would eventually rise into the mountains of the borderland in which Drath lay. Three times we stopped to change horses, and I did not get out of the carriage. By afternoon we rode in and out of deep needleleaf forest, and alongside rivers overgrown with cottonwood and willow.

At nightfall we stopped in a crossroads town below a great castle. Markham, windblown and dusty, opened the carriage door and helped me out.

A stout woman innkeeper awaited me, respectable from her clean white apron to her pleasant smile. She took me upstairs to a room that had a fine fire crackling merrily and a clean bed all turned down.

“I’ll have food and hot drink along directly, mistress,” she said. “Will the cleaning frame serve, or do you desire a hot bath?”

“Cleaning frame will suit me fine, thank you,” said I.

Mistress?
I thought after she had left. Jason must be doing one of his decoy tricks, sending all those warriors off in one direction, and we were riding anonymously. I thought about our appearance—two dark-haired men in plain warrior garb, escorting a young woman. We could be anyone, for warriors in Ralanor Veleth’s colors were certainly common enough.

The innkeeper came back bearing the tray herself.

I stepped through the frame and sat down to my lonely meal. I had napped off and on during the long drive, and I did not really feel like sleeping. There was nothing keeping me in that room, but when I thought about going downstairs I was reluctant—and my shoulder ached enough for me to excuse myself from examining the reasons for that reluctance.

So I sat on the hearth staring into the fire, but my thoughts were not good company. Finally I slept.

Early to bed means early to rise. When the soft knock came in the morning, I was already up and ready, my hair braided, and I’d stepped through the cleaning frame again. After a hasty meal, I trod downstairs to the carriage, which waited at the door.

And so went another day, ending with a night at another inn, only this time the curious innkeeper was an old man.

But the next morning the routine changed. When I went downstairs at dawn, slinging on the yeath-fur cloak against the cold, it was to find Jason and Markham in the stable adjacent to the inn yard. Three saddled warhorses waited, one of them pawing the hay-strewn ground. The two dark heads turned at my approach, and Jason said, “Here she is. We’ll ask her.”

Markham turned to me. “I am afraid, Princess, that you are not yet recovered enough to ride.” He glanced at Jason. “We will not be making great speed, for our route now is steep and treacherous.”

I pointed at Jason. “He made this same journey in the very same place not so long after
he
got stabbed, and his cut was much, much worse than mine.”

Jason turned away, then back to me. “We can call a halt any time you say the word. But from here on, it will be safer if there is no carriage.”

“I’ll go back and change into sturdier riding clothes.”

Chapter Twenty-Four

The air was sharp and cold and smelled strongly of pine. I breathed deeply as I pulled the cloak close. Markham handed me the reins of the roan. The horses sidled and tossed their heads, fresh and ready to go. We mounted up. At a word from Jason, they sprang at the trail winding up westward behind the inn.

The trail, or path, was narrow and difficult, zigzagging along the sides of great rocky cliffs and under tunnels of thickly branched trees. We passed through dark grottos where the air smelled so lushly of greenery you could imagine the legendary maulons passing through, singing down the sun; the sound of water, running, splashing, chuckling, was constant, though its source was as often as not unseen. We rode single file, with Jason leading. I noted he now had his sword slung across his back, and besides the knife at his belt, there was a hilt at the top of each of his riding boots.

Markham rode behind me, similarly armed. From time to time one or the other of them would make a quiet remark, Jason turning or Markham looking up at us. Neither of them talked past me, nor, at first, did they address me directly but I realized very soon that I was included in the conversation—if I so chose.

Though I’d avoided their company previous to this, now that we were all together the constraint I’d felt vanished. We whiled away the long morning with quiet-toned talk so our voices would not carry over the sound of tumbling streams or calling birds, or the constant sough of tall, wind-tossed pines brushing the sky overhead.

Not that the talk was anything memorable. Weather—snow early on the mountains—which types of horse best for trail riding—horse shoes—a couple references to history, to which I contributed my own observations. Easy talk, on insignificant subjects, the atmosphere quiet, amicable, curiously removed from danger, threat—or emotional turmoil.

I found myself enjoying Jason’s commentary, uttered in so dry a voice my reaction to his occasional humorous observations was sometimes delayed—which he and Markham in turn found funny. Markham’s prosaic responses were an entertaining contrast. Once I made them laugh, with a reference to the absurd red wigs that for some reason had been courtly fashion down in Sarendan, next to Sartor (in those days still under that terrible enchantment)—neither of them had known that, but my father had seen them on his single journey to the southern continent, when he was a prince.

Ordinary conversation, but it seemed to take on life of its own, no matter how insignificant the topic. The quiet, acerb humor brought Papa to mind, reminding me of his better days when I’d been younger. I still missed him, but the news that he had died in his sleep had eased some of the pain of his death.

But. I had forgotten the jolts and lurches of horseback riding—even when one didn’t have to constantly duck under low branches. After a time I put the reins in my numb left hand and slid my right up under my cloak to hold my shoulder. My responses were fewer. I was content to listen, wishing the pleasant talk would never end, even as my physical discomfort grew steadily worse. Mentally I chanted over and over:
You can hold your own. You can hold your own.

Late afternoon began to blend the shadows, making it difficult to see branches overhead, or ruts and roots. I was breathing slowly against occasional washes of faintness when my horse stumbled over a root on the edge of a precipitous drop. The horse’s head plunged, yanking the reins, which in turn wrenched mercilessly at my shoulder.

I might have made a noise. I thought,
ugh, not again
as clouds of darkness boiled up before my eyes and I began to waver in the saddle, clutching tightly to the reins until hands gently lifted me down.

When the blackness cleared, I found myself lying on a nest of cloaks in a mossy cave next to a campfire being set up by Jason and Markham. My shoulder ached with the sort of jabbing throb that I’d felt after Garian stabbed me, but otherwise I was unhurt. When the fire caught, Markham suspended a pan of water over it by a contraption of wires and good-sized rocks, then sat back. Jason dug in a pack and handed Markham something.

Slowly the throbbing receded. At last I heaved a sigh without even realizing it, and both heads turned.

“Flian,” Jason said, his voice the sharpest I’d ever heard. “If Markham hadn’t been watching you would have done Garian’s work for him.”

“I thought I could make it. Would have.” I grabbed onto my other arm, determined I would
not
whinny. “If my horse hadn’t stumbled.”

Markham moved between us, holding out the steaming water pan into which he dropped a pinch of leaves from a packet. I smelled strong listerblossom brew and gulped a stinging sip. My eyes burned, but as always the fresh steeped leaf felt so good going down.

Markham sat back.

I blinked the tear-haze from my eyes. Jason said, “I apologize. But why did you not speak up?”

I recognized the sharpness in his tone: not anger, or judgment, but worry.

“Because I hate. I loathe. I
despise
. Being weak.” My voice trembled on the last word. I looked away, at the fire, and drank more steeped leaf.

Markham murmured something about horses, obtaining fodder for the next stage of the trail. Jason responded in a low voice, occasional words like “outpost” and “courier” discernable. Their attention was on one another, leaving me to finish my steeped leaf in peace. Much of the worst pain eased, and I lay down again. My mind, released from the ache, seemed to float somewhere between my head and the fire.

I looked beyond the hypnotic flames to the two men. Jason was almost in silhouette. The ruddy gold flames fire-lined his cheekbone, an edge of his thin mustache, the veins and knuckles of one of his long hands as he raised a cup to his lips. On a couple of strands of his fine, straight hair that had come loose from his ribbon and lay, unnoticed, across his brow.

Markham was taller and broader, his long, bony face firelit, but his deep-set eyes remained in shadow. His hair was also black, but heavy, waving, worn loose to his shoulders in the style of an aristocrat ten years ago. They conversed in low tones. Neither had a cloak on—I probably had theirs under me. The fire highlighted the contours of their arms in the heavy black cotton-wool garments. A thin ribbon of fire gleamed along the edge of the sword lying next to Jason.

The fire leaped. Ghostly shapes formed in the flames, and faces. My brother’s. Jaim’s. Garian’s. The latter made me hiss.

Jason’s head turned, and again he spoke sharply, but this time I clearly heard the worry: “What is it? Are you ill?”

“No. I saw faces in the fire. Garian’s,” I added.

They exchanged glances, and Jason shook his head. “I don’t know what to make of that. Can you control it?”

“No. At least, I’ve never tried. It only happens sometimes, when I’m looking at water. Or fire.”

“Do you hear thoughts?” Markham asked.

“Never.” It took no special abilities to know that they, as well as I, were thinking back six years to the strange period during which the entire world had been under enchantment, during the Siamis War. We had learned that such abilities as mind-travel and mind-talk really had existed in humans before the Fall of Old Sartor many centuries ago.