“You have already changed your mind?”
“Listen,” she said. “You simmer like a fire. Soon you will flare like a blaze.”
“Why does this upset you?”
“What will history remember you for?” She splayed her fingers on his rough shirt. “You have so much goodness within you. But the capacity for evil is there, too. You live on the edge between your own darkness and light. What will drive you across these lands? Will you become a tyrant?”
Cobalt knew he had problems with his rage. “Anger alone does not make a tyrant.”
“What if a person angers you? A village? A country? What will you do when there is no one to stop you?” She shook her head. “You say a price must be paid to achieve your visions. Who decides what price? When does it stop?”
He couldn’t fight her with words. But this differed from his verbal battles with his grandfather. He needed to answer Mel fairly, and that made it much harder.
“If ever I go too far,” he said, “pull me back.”
She paled. “You have no idea the task you put to me.”
“I can think of no one better for it.”
“Do not ask me to be the conscience of a conqueror.”
“I cannot stop being what I am, Mel. If you would call me a conqueror, then so be it.” He lowered her onto the pallet and lay next to her, half at her side and half on top of her body, propped up on one elbow so he could look at her. “Be my wife. My adviser. My queen. The mother of my heir.”
“Stop.” She set her palm against his cheek. “When you do this, when you touch me, I can’t think straight.”
Cobalt caught her hands and brought them down to the pallet, one on either side of her head. He pinned her there. “I do not wish to think right now.”
“I will not do this with you. Not now.” But her voice had that husky quality it took on when they lay together.
He kissed her forehead, nose, lips. “Your body and your voice say otherwise.”
“It does not matter.”
He might take over the world, but it seemed he could not conquer his wife. “Do you truly see such evil in me?”
“No!” Her eyes were doing what he dreaded, filling with tears. “I see the man who can best the most accomplished swordsman among his men one moment and hold a purring kitten the next. I’ve seen your kindness to your mother, your men, your staff. I’ve known the Cobalt who can be gentle to a scared bride one day and bring alive her passion the next. I’ve seen the way your face lights up when you laugh, those rare, rare times you laugh.” A tear leaked out of the corner of her eye and ran down her temple. “I’ve seen the good in you.”
He had no name for the sensations welling within him. He released one of her hands and touched her tear. “Why do you cry?”
“Because I cannot leave you.”
His heart felt strange. Breakable. “Why?”
“I can’t—”
His voice caught. “Why, Mel?”
A tear escaped her other eye. “Because I am falling in love with you.”
The armor around his heart cracked then, and she stormed the citadel he had built to protect his emotions.
“Do not cry,” he whispered.
“Cobalt—”
He put his finger over her lips. “If I could live ten centuries, still my life would be meaningless without what you have just said.”
“I don’t want you to live ten centuries.” Her voice caught. “Just one lifetime. With me. Without all this conquest and ambition.”
“I cannot be other than what I am.” He kissed her, more softly now. “I do not know if I am capable of loving a woman. But when I am with you—” He wrestled with the words. “I know I am the most powerful man alive, that I could live forever, that I would make the stars fall to the ground at your feet. And I know that if I ever lose you, I will die a thousand times over.”
She touched his lips. “I cannot leave you.”
“And this makes you weep?”
“Ah, Cobalt.” She pulled her other hand out of his grip and put her arms around him. “Just love me.”
He touched her sword and smiled. “You are armed, my lady. I fear I take my life into my hands.”
She laughed then, and her blue eyes filled with tears.
In the hour of dawn, he made love to his wife. He died in the circle of her embrace and came alive again, and his life would never be the same, for he had let this woman topple his defenses and in doing so he had given her the power to hurt him. Why that terrible deed created such joy within him, he would never understand.
17
Blueshire
On the thirty-second day of their march, in early spring, the two armies reached the southern border of Harsdown, which it shared with the tiny country of Blueshire. The Dawnfield army stopped, massed on the border, while the Chamberlight forces crossed into Blueshire. Mel sat with her father high on a ridge and watched the elite of the Chamberlight cavalry riding below. Muller was holding the reins in a grip tight enough that his horse picked up his tension and stepped agitatedly beneath him.
“I wish you would reconsider,” Muller said, again.
“Would you?” Mel asked. “In my place?”
He let out a tired breath. “No. I wouldn’t.”
“Will you stay here?” Mel asked. The border between Blueshire and Harsdown wasn’t a long one, extending only along the southeastern edge of Harsdown. Shazire curved around Blueshire and bordered the southwestern edge of Harsdown.
Muller answered grimly. “As long as your husband’s army is marching, we will stay here to protect Harsdown.” He watched her as if his heart were breaking. “Be careful, Mel. Come back to your mother and me. Live to make us grandparents.”
Her smile trembled. “Even if the father of my child is conqueror of the world?”
“Even so.” His voice caught. “Be well, Daughter.”
“And you.” She wanted to hug him, but she felt constrained with all the warriors riding by them. Although none looked up at the ridge, they all knew she was here with the king of Harsdown, the man who had taken Varqelle’s throne.
Blueshire was so small, the Chamberlight army could have crossed it in one or two days. It took only two hours to reach Oldcastle, the city that served as the seat of the government. While the Chamberlight forces spread out in the hills surrounding Oldcastle, Varqelle entered the town with two hundred cavalry, including Mel and Cobalt. People watched from houses and shop windows, but whenever Mel looked up at them, they pulled their shutters closed against her gaze. No one ventured into the streets.
The Blueshire army waited in the town square—all fifty of them, twenty men on horses and thirty on foot. Baker Lightstone, their king, sat astride a white horse at the head of his tiny cavalry. He was more of a mayor than a king, but he had the royal title and a lineage that went back two centuries. Blueshire had also been part of the Misted Cliffs and had broken off into a separate country at the same time as Shazire. Lightstone was an elderly man, neither tall nor husky, and Mel knew he walked with a limp because one of his legs was slightly shorter than the other. She had always liked him. He and his daughter were chess experts, and his wife played the harp beautifully. Mel had spent enjoyable evenings at his country estate. She hated coming here this way, with an occupying force.
Lightstone waited with his wife on her gray mare to his right and his daughter on her chestnut to his left. Varqelle walked his dark stallion up to the Blueshire king, flanked by Cobalt and Colonel Tumbler. The rest of the Chamberlight column filed around the plaza and encircled the Blueshire army. Mel stayed with the cavalry, but close enough that she could hear Varqelle.
“You are Baker Lightstone of Blueshire?” Varqelle asked.
Lightstone lifted his chin. “I am.”
Varqelle spoke without fanfare. “Your House no longer holds sway here.”
Lightstone answered tightly. “You come for Chamberlight?”
A muscle twitched in Varqelle’s cheek. Mel doubted h
e appreciated that his victories would be possible only because the man who had kept him from his family for so long now gave him an army. In the end, it didn’t matter. Varqelle would take the throne here. She doubted he had much interest in Blueshire; it just happened to be a splinter on the way to Shazire.
“I come as the House of Escar,” Varqelle said.
Lightstone glanced around the plaza at the two hundred men who had confined his “army.” Then he looked out at the hills that rose beyond Oldcastle and the mass of humanity that blanketed them, six thousand strong.
Lightstone’s shoulders slumped. He turned to Varqelle. “Will you accept our surrender?”
Relief poured over Mel. If Lightstone had chosen to fight the invasion, it would have been a slaughter. But he was a man of proud heritage. Had it been only his life in question, she had no doubt he would have defied Varqelle no matter how futile the attempt. But his fifty men were loyal and would follow whatever decision he made. It didn’t surprise her that he chose the one most likely to preserve their lives.
Varqelle said, “I accept your surrender.”
Cobalt walked with his father through the dusk. The lurid sunset had faded into a crimson line on the horizon. Tents and fires dotted the hills outside of Oldcastle, but an open strip of land here offered a buffer zone between the city and the army.
“I left a company of our men to guard Oldcastle,” Cobalt said. “Plus the fifty men in the Blueshire military.”
Varqelle frowned at him. “You left the opposing army in charge of their own city? Whatever for?”
His father’s challenge was oddly refreshing. Stonebreaker would have made an oblique insult to Cobalt’s intelligence, then gone behind his back and undermined his authority with the men until they doubted his decision. Varqelle did none of that; he just came out with his objections and expected Cobalt to support his decisions or change them. He did it constantly, until all the talking made Cobalt’s head hurt, but dealing with him was easy after Stonebreaker. Varqelle listened when he spoke and actually made effort seem worthwhile.
“The Blueshire soldiers aren’t going to fight us,” Cobalt said. “They swore allegiance to you today. They aren’t really an army, anyway; they’re more of a police force. The people here trust them. We are more likely to hold Blueshire if we don’t trample their people the way we are trampling their hills.”
Varqelle snorted. “We would hold Blueshire with our thumbs tied behind our backs.”
“Well, yes. But this way, its people will resent us less.” Cobalt cocked his head. “I found out a lot, talking to the soldiers. Many families here have histories from when Blueshire was part of the Misted Cliffs. Although the people like being independent, they also seem to miss the security and affluence they had when they were part of such a powerful country.”
“You worry too much about how they feel.” Varqelle waved his hand toward the outskirts of the city. “Why do you need so many soldiers to guard this little town?”
Cobalt indicated the Chamberlight warriors encamped all across the hills. “The guards will keep the rest of our warriors from getting out of hand.”
Varqelle lifted his finger in front of Cobalt as if he were teaching a schoolboy. “Our men need a release and the town has good taverns. Women, too.”
“All the more reason to make sure our forces behave.”
“I fail to see why.”
Cobalt scowled at him. “Because we are civilized people. Not a horde of plundering barbarians.”
“Tomorrow we march on Shazire. The men will have little chance to release all this pent-up energy before then.”
“What pent-up energy? They have been marching for twenty days. They need sleep.”
Varqelle crossed his arms. “And I suppose you would have me let King Lightstone and his family go into exile?”
“Yes.”
“Cobalt, you sorely bedevil me.”
“Why?” Cobalt knew, but he intended to stick with his recommendation anyway. “You even have to ask?” Varqelle lowered his arms. “Jarid Dawnfield was a fool to let me live. Mind you, I am glad to be alive and gratified I have such a magnificent son who would free me from that hellhole.” He glowered at Cobalt. “Would you have King Lightstone someday go free and come after you?”
Cobalt couldn’t help but smile. “With his fifty men?”
“It is not amusing.”
“Where would Lightstone get this army to attack me?”
“Jazid. Taka Mal.”
“How would that be any different from our situation now?” Their intention to engage Jazid and Taka Mal would be the same regardless of whether Lightstone asked those countries for help.
“It changes their stance from defense to offense.”
Cobalt shrugged. “Either way, they have the same armies.”
“There is also Aronsdale.”
“We have the treaty with them.”
Varqelle snorted. “Do not assume they will honor this treaty just because you married one of their women. If the House of Dawnfield joins with Taka Mal and Jazid, we will be hard pressed to overcome them.”
“I have studied the history of these lands.” It had always fascinated Cobalt. “Jazid and Taka Mal have never allied with Aronsdale. They have trade relations, yes, but they are otherwise cool in their dealings. The cultures are too different. My marriage to Mel will make them even more suspicious of the House of Dawnfield. An alliance is possible, but unlikely. Jazid and Taka Mal have much stronger ties with Shazire, yet our scouts report nothing about their forces moving to defend that country.”
“They haven’t had time,” Varqelle said.
“This is true,” Cobalt admitted. Yet Muller Dawnfield had known, and with time enough to gather both Harsdown and Aronsdale forces. He suspected Mel had had something to do with that, though she would never admit it. He couldn’t fault her for defending her family and her country. Although he would never tell his father, it had relieved him to find Harsdown so well defended. Treaty or no, he wasn’t naive enough to believe Varqelle would overlook an opportunity to reclaim the Jaguar Throne.
“Jazid won’t ignore us,” Varqelle said. “Neither will Taka Mal.”
“Eventually we will have to deal with them.” Cobalt spoke thoughtfully. “How we conduct this campaign matters. It will affect how other countries respond to us. Send Lightstone and his family into exile. Show humane treatment. Not barbarism.”
“Perhaps,” Varqelle grumbled. “I still don’t like it.”
They were walking along the edge of camp, near a campfire, and its light delineated the planes of Varqelle’s face. For Cobalt, it was like looking into a mirror thirty years down the line. He found it hard to believe his father was sixty-three; Varqelle was as fit as men half his age and had almost no gray in his hair.
“Eighteen years in the Barrens,” Cobalt mused. “It is a long time.”
Varqelle grimaced. “I don’t know which was worse, the imprisonment or the boredom.”
“They treated you ill?” It hadn’t seemed that way, but Varqelle hadn’t talked about it much.
“Not really. I just had nothing to do.” Varqelle looked around the camp with the same edgy need to move that Cobalt often saw in Admiral, his horse—and in himself.
“We are much alike,” Cobalt said.
Varqelle didn’t respond, and Cobalt thought his father must deem him presumptuous for such a comment. Just as Cobalt was about to withdraw the statement, Varqelle said, “Very little in my life has mattered enough to me that I would die for it. Only two things.” He gazed at the campfires scattered over the hills like blossoms of flame in the night. “One is the Jaguar Throne.”
“It will return to the House of Escar,” Cobalt said. “In one generation.”
“But not in mine.”
Cobalt had no good answer. He could do a great deal for his father, and would gladly, but he couldn’t put him on the throne. He had done his best and it felt like a failure. If he couldn’t give his father H
arsdown, he would bring him an empire.
“What is the second thing?” Cobalt asked.
Varqelle spoke quietly. “My son.”
Cobalt felt again that disquieting sensation that had come over him when Mel spoke of love. It was terrifying and magnificent at the same time. “I am honored.”
Varqelle stopped and laid his hand on Cobalt’s shoulder. “A man, a king, and a father could not ask for a better son.”
Cobalt tried to answer, but the words failed him. He tried again and his voice came out low and intense. “I, too, for you.”
Varqelle smiled, an unusual expression on his ascetic face. “Well.” He lowered his hand. “Now we must see to your having an heir, eh?”
Cobalt thought of Mel and felt warm. “Yes.”
As they began walking again, his father spoke musingly. “I would never have imagined my grandchild would be half Dawnfield.”
“It is a good line.”
Varqelle snorted. “Pretty, anyway.”
Cobalt supposed it would be asking too much for his wife and his father to deal well with each other. But he wondered about Dancer. “You and Mother have not done so poorly, living at the keep together.”
“By avoiding each other.”
“Father—”
“Cobalt, no.” Varqelle shook his head. “She robbed me of all those years with you. And for what? Were you better off with her father? I think not.”
Cobalt was beginning to accept that he might never learn Dancer’s reasons. But he knew his mother. If she said she had acted on his behalf, she believed it. He either had to let go of his anger or turn away from her. He could never repudiate her, nor had he ever doubted she loved him, so he would have to find a way to live with never knowing the rest.
“Wives can be confusing,” Cobalt said.
“Yours is rather disobedient,” Varqelle said sourly.
Cobalt laughed. “That she is.”
“You think it is funny?”
“I think it is maddening.”
“You should deal with her more firmly.”
Cobalt winced. “I would rather face an oncoming horde from Taka Mal, Jazid, and Shazire combined.”