As he neared the town, he realized it had no permanent buildings. Just tents. Even dusty and worn, they were beautiful, designed from dyed canvases, mostly red and gold, also some blue. Their peaked roofs overhung their walls. Tassels hung off the roofs and dangled in the wind, woven with sparkling threads.
Drummer rode down a lane of tents. Families had set up campsites, but in the heat of midday, none had fires. A few people sat in the shade or stood in tent entrances, with the flaps pulled back to let in air. It looked like a nomads’ village, temporary and easily moved. The men and the women wore similar clothes, billowing trousers dyed blue, red, or brown, with colorful shirts and vests. Their garments were well kept, and a gleam of jewelry showed here and there. They looked healthy, a bit thin but not starving, which he hoped meant they were less likely to attack a seemingly rich stranger. He nodded to the people he passed and they nodded back, but no one smiled or greeted him.
He soon saw why the nomads were here. They had set up a market along the riverbank and were doing thriving business. Customers probably came from leagues around to bargain and socialize. Near the market, he dismounted and led Vim. The first thing he needed, after food and water, were clothes that wouldn’t draw attention. People flowed past him and watched with veiled curiosity. Women smiled. In the past he would have flirted in the hopes of charming a kiss later, but it was no longer a game. After Jade, he had no interest in anyone else. Men rarely saw him as a threat as long as he left their womenfolk alone. His pale coloring and slender build made him look harmless compared to these weathered, toughened hulks. He had never thought much before about how anyone viewed him, but his life now could depend on his ability to put people at ease.
He strolled with Vim along a row of produce stalls, and his mouth watered. Fragrances of spice, oil, and baked goods wafted out from an open stand of yellow-white wood. As soon as the merchant saw him looking, he called out, “I’ve fresh bread with cinnamon from the Mazer Narrows, my lord! It will charm your lady and sweeten your dreams.”
Charm his lady indeed. Drummer doubted anything so simple could beguile Jade. He went over to peer at the breads and pastries, some steaming, probably fresh out of the oven in the stall. Drummer was salivating so much, he had to swallow. He hadn’t eaten since yesterday afternoon. He hadn’t wanted food earlier, with his stomach so queasy, but now he felt famished.
“It looks edible,” Drummer allowed.
“Edible?” The baker, a husky man with a black mustache and large belly, sounded scandalized. “You won’t find any better, not even at the palace itself.” He beamed at Drummer. “Seeing as you’re such a fine gentleman, I’ll give you two full rolls.” He indicated his succulent loaves of spice-and-butter bread. “Plus a pastry, all for only two gold tinars.”
Drummer almost spluttered. Two tinars could buy this entire stall. The baker probably thought he didn’t know Taka Mal coinage, since he obviously came from another country. Not that it mattered; he had no coins of any type.
“That’s ridiculous,” Drummer said. He pretended interest in nearby stalls, as if searching for better prospects than the baker’s woefully overpriced goods. He actually had another purpose in mind.
“Do you know the other merchants here?” Drummer asked.
“My lord,” the baker said with dignity. “I have superb bread. Better than anything else you will find.” He waved his hand dismissively at the other stalls.
“I’m not going to give you even a little piece of a tinar,” Drummer said. “Not for two clumps of bread and a pastry.”
The baker stared at him with dismay. “You wound me greatly.” Then he added, “But I will let you have them for one tinar.”
Drummer was tempted to laugh. The fellow was audacious in his extortion attempts. “I could eat better bread at home for free,” he said, which was true. No one could bake like his mother. He didn’t visit his parents often, though, because they were always urging him to settle down, get married, and make them grandparents. They were very specific about the order of marriage and then babies, which made Drummer think they feared he misbehaved even more than he actually did. He was no innocent, but neither had he wanted to mislead women into believing he sought a permanent tie. His dalliances rarely went farther than kisses and cuddling. Until Jade, when he had lost all his sense.
He shifted his weight, playing the bored nobleman with nothing to do. “Of course, I’m not at home right now.”
“My delicacies are just out of the oven,” the baker said. “So much more interesting to eat here, eh, than someplace you see all the time.”
“Perhaps.” Drummer stood as if considering his wares. “I’ll tell you what.” He pulled a gold cord off his shirt cuff. “I will give you this for a certain trade.”
The baker’s eyes gleamed. “What might that trade be?”
“Talk to your cohorts here.” He indicated the stalls around them. “Provision me for three days on the trail, plus get me good riding clothes that won’t stand out.” Drummer held up the gold. “For that, this is yours.” He was overpaying, if the gold was as pure as he thought, but it was worth it if the merchant would bargain while Drummer stayed out of sight.
“How do I know that’s real gold?” the baker asked.
“It is.” Drummer held it out on his palm so the baker could examine it. When the man tried to pick up the cord, Drummer snapped his hand closed. “After I get my provisions.”
“Done!” the man said, fast enough that Drummer suspected he could see exactly how much the gold was worth and wanted to agree before the bored lordling changed his fickle mind.
“How long to put everything together?” Drummer asked.
The merchant checked his timepiece, a scuffed watch on a copper chain. “I can manage in an hour.”
“Too long,” Drummer said. “Fifteen minutes.”
“Fifteen minutes! I can’t wrangle what you need out of these thieves that fast. Forty-five.”
“Thirty,” Drummer said.
“Thirty. Who can do anything in thirty?” The merchant sighed, but he also looked smug. “All right. Thirty.”
“Good. I’ll be back then.” Drummer broke off part of the cord and set it in front of the baker, between the spice-butter loaves. “For a loaf. If you have everything I need in thirty minutes, the rest is yours.”
“My pleasure, sir.” The baker picked up both loaves and wrapped them in a white cloth. “Take both. My compliments.”
“My thanks.” Drummer accepted with more gratitude than the baker would ever guess, and then he moved away, leading Vim. He couldn’t slink off to hide, lest a thief slink after him and cut his throat where no one could see. But he didn’t want attention, either. He stopped once to buy a battered watch, which he paid for with a little copper cube from his vest. After that, he wandered with Vim along the edge of the market, visible but out of the crowds. He kept his wits, which he had cultivated over the past ten years, and twice he outfoxed pickpockets who tried to steal jewels off his clothes. He knew the moves, having tried them himself a few times in his youth. He had spent several nights in jails as a result, but now his savvy kept him awake and aware.
The bread tasted heavenly. After half an hour, he returned to the baker’s stall. True to his word, the fellow had purchased him supplies for three days’ travel, also travel bags and sturdy but nondescript clothes. He accepted the rest of Drummer’s gold cord with enthusiasm, gave him all the directions Drummer requested, and effused at great length, bidding Drummer a pleasant trip.
When Drummer finally escaped, he found an outcropping of rock down the river from the market and hid behind it to change his clothes. He was soon on his way, his fine garments folded in his bags, his saddle covered by a threadbare blanket, and his yellow hair tucked into a worn cap. Although he obviously had a superb horse, he had otherwise disguised his identity, the wealthy and foreign visitor. It hadn’t been a real identity to start with, but that was who Baz and his men would look for.
Drummer ro
de west, toward the infamous Taka Mal Rocklands.
10
The Misplaced Minstrel
“Come back,” the man said. “You must come back. I cannot do this king business without you.”
Mel turned over, heavy and cold. Sand scraped under her cheek. Groggy, she opened her eyes and peered toward the voice. Her husband was crouched next to her, his hand on her shoulder. Her bodyguards stood behind him, and also Smoke, his coat sweaty.
Cobalt sat down and lifted her into his arms. He unfolded his legs so he could hold her body against his chest with his arms around her in an enveloping embrace.
“Cobalt,” she muttered against his vest. “Can’t breathe.”
“Oh.” He loosened his arms. “I seem to do that a lot.”
“What happened?” she asked.
“Smoke came home without you. So did two of your bodyguards. The other two stayed here, with you, after you collapsed. I rode Smoke back.”
She thought of the sweating horse. “I must tend to him.”
“I’ll do it.”
Mel closed her eyes. Nausea was bothering her, and she had to swallow the bile in her throat.
“You must stop these spells,” Cobalt said darkly. “They do terrible things to you.”
“I’ll be all right.” Softly she added, “I don’t think I’ve even reached my limits.” Such astonishing mage discoveries. Could she really be an indigo? She was a Dawnfield, as were the only other two indigos. But it seemed too incredible.
“I don’t like it,” Cobalt said.
“It is a good thing.” She paused. “I think.”
His arms stiffened around her. “You think?”
She nodded and just that slight movement caused her nausea to surge. With a jerk, she pulled away, leaned over his leg, and lost her breakfast into the sand.
“Mel!” When she finished, he spoke in a low voice, more to himself than to her. “Must tend my wife.”
Her lips twitched upward. “You make it sound like I’m a horse.”
“Mel.” He actually sounded relieved to hear her tease him.
He buried the evidence of her illness, then carried her a ways down the beach and laid her down. Smoke and her bodyguards stood over her while Cobalt went to the water. As Mel sat up, her guards tactfully moved back. Cobalt strode into the waves, pulled off his shirt, and dunked it in the sea. He came back in his loose undershirt, a half-dressed king with his wet trousers plastered to his well-muscled legs. Warmth pooled within Mel. Saints, but this husband of hers was pleasing to look upon.
He gave her his wet shirt, and while she cleaned herself up, he wiped down Smoke with reed grasses. By the time he finished, she was standing again and felt stronger.
Cobalt scowled at her. “No more spells.”
“I cannot stop doing them.”
“They hurt you.”
“Truly, Cobalt. I just need sleep.”
“I’ve never seen you be sick that way.”
“I’ve been feeling queasy,” she admitted.
“Queasy?” He froze like a stone-bird, which hid by not moving. “In the morning?”
“Morning? No, the afternoon—” She stopped, realizing his real question. “Oh. No, I’m not pregnant.”
“More than one moon-cycle has gone by since your last time.”
“It has?” That gave her pause. “Are you sure?”
He was watching her with the oddest expression, as if she had grown an extra arm. “You must see Velvet.”
Mel wasn’t ready to be pregnant. “Who’s Velvet?”
“The midwife at the palace. Come! We must hurry.”
She smiled at his frazzled expression. “It takes nine months, love. A few more minutes won’t matter.”
He was already swinging up on Smoke. “Ride behind me.”
Mel glared at him. “It’s my horse. You ride behind me.”
“What?”
She suspected that if she went on about what she believed customs in the Misted Cliffs symbolized about the subjugation of women, Cobalt would either stare at her in bewilderment or get annoyed. So she just said, “Help me up. In front.”
He helped her swing up, and she straddled the horse. Cobalt had changed the saddle to a riding blanket, probably realizing they might have to ride together. He put his arms around her as if she were breakable pottery, which she thought was exasperating and endearing, given how hard she had been training lately to develop her upper-body strength and her ability to fight on horseback.
They headed back to the palace to find out if the Sapphire Throne would soon have another heir.
Drummer saw the soldiers when he was on a ridge above the Tapered Desert. Seated on Vim, resting under an overhang, he looked across the land he had traveled earlier today. Twenty men were crossing the tawny desert in a dispersed formation that covered a wide area. If he didn’t get moving, they could catch him before evening. He had left no trail on the slabs of rock, which made it harder to track him, but he would be easy to spot on these ridges. To stay hidden he would have to slip from cover to cover, which would slow him down.
He shaded his eyes from the glare. His body hurt from all this unfamiliar riding. He felt worse than yesterday, and he hadn’t even reached the Rocklands yet. Sweat soaked his clothes. He had planned to hide up here and sleep during the afternoon heat, but that was no longer an option. It would take him days to reach Aronsdale, and he had no guarantee Baz’s men wouldn’t pursue him in his own country. They had kidnapped him from Aronsdale once before. He had to go now, as fast as he could travel.
He spent the rest of the day sneaking from outcropping to outcropping, slinking through the lengthening shadows. It wore him out, and he was covering less distance than he would have even if he had slept through the heat and then ridden in the open later in the day. His water was low and he feared he wouldn’t reach the next oasis before he ran out. Supposedly it wasn’t far beyond these buckled ridges, but if the baker’s directions turned out to be faulty, he would have no leeway with his water.
With the sunset flaming in the west, he finally crested the last ridge and looked down the other side. The Rocklands of Taka Mal stretched out before him, sere and flat. Stark. Gray. Foreboding. But a line of green on the western horizon marked the waterway he sought, the Saint Verdant River.
When he started down the other side, he was no longer in view of the searchers, so he rode in the open and made better time. Even with that, the sunset had cooled to embers by the time Vim reached the Rocklands. The moonless night darkened the land, and Drummer had no torch. He kept going as long as he could, but as the darkness deepened, Vim began to stumble. They had to stop; otherwise, he might cripple the horse. Miserable, he guided Vim off the trail and into an eerily jagged forest of rock spires.
It didn’t take long to find a hiding place in the cavities among the spires. He walked Vim into a ragged cave and did his best to rub down the horse, check his hooves, and otherwise care for him the way his father had taught him. After he gave Vim the last of his water, he hunched on the ground and pulled the saddle blanket around his shoulders. The temperature plummeted when the sun went down; he shivered even when he wore both his riding garb and the clothes Jade had given him.
In the distance, a blackwing called out its haunting, cruel song. Drummer huddled against the wall and wondered how he would make it to morning with no water, no food, and no warmth.
Cobalt had never been comfortable in the parlor outside the suite where Velvet saw patients. He didn’t belong in this female room. He feared he would break the delicate furniture or porcelain vases. He had almost never come here; just a few times to keep his mother company while she visited Velvet for whatever reason. Today he sat on the edge of a flowered divan, feeling oversize and brutish. At least the midwife had admonished his bodyguards to keep anyone else from visiting until she finished with the queen. No one else waited in the parlor. Only Cobalt. The king. The nervous king.
After an eternity, the inner door opened and
his wife appeared. She stood there with her yellow hair tousled to her hips, freed from its braid. He thought perhaps he would keel over from nerves. He couldn’t bring himself to ask what he wanted to know, so he said, “Where is the midwife?”
“I wanted to talk to you alone.” Mel came and sat by him.
“And?” He was too tense to say anything more.
Mel watched him with an expression he recognized. Affection and amusement. He never understood her views of him, only that he somehow liked them even when they seemed unflattering. Which made no sense. Nothing about loving Mel had ever made sense.
“What?” he asked. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
“I’ve seen you in combat,” Mel said. “I’ve seen you fight for your life and battle murderous highwaymen. In all those times, I’ve never seen you look so nervous.”
“Mel!”
Her face gentled. “Yes.”
“Yes?” His heart beat hard. “Yes what?”
Softly she said, “Yes, you’re going to be a father.”
He felt as if the room were spinning. “Saints almighty.”
“It startled me, too.” Her smile curved, full of mischief, the look of hers that spurred him in the night. “But given how ‘friendly’ we’ve been, it isn’t that much of a shock.”
Cobalt couldn’t smile. He couldn’t do anything. In fact, he was having trouble breathing. With a lurch, he roused himself and jumped to his feet. He had to escape. He strode away, across the room, until a gilt table blocked his way and he had to stop.
Mel came over and put her hand against his back. “Cobalt?”
He would shatter. A father. His boyhood memories were a nightmare of violence, both physical and emotional, of fear he would be beaten or locked in the closet or whipped with the same royal belt his valet had tried to put on him yesterday. The valet hadn’t understood why Cobalt yanked the belt from his hand and hurled it across the room. To that valet, the new king had surely seemed violent, harsh, even crazy. He didn’t know what that belt had done to a small boy cowering on a stone floor. Cobalt would never forget. Stonebreaker had forged him into a monster, and now Mel wanted to give him a child. He would die before he inflicted himself on a small, helpless human being.