Cooper grimaced and squinted back up the track.
“Ten or fifteen what?” Carissa asked and saw at once that something was wrong.
Cooper’s grimace deepened. “Riders,” he said finally, gesturing at the ground. “A sizable troop crossed recently.”
Fear dropped upon her like a net. “Heading for Raven Rock?”
“Heading away. And several days ago, from the look of it.”
She drew a deep breath. “We’re too far south for it to be Rennalf, though, right?”
“Unless he’s lost his mind, yes.” He kept his voice carefully neutral and now stepped back and around to tell the men accompanying them it was time to go. “Snow’ll be on us soon,” he said. “I can smell it.”
Elayne drew up at Carissa’s side, smiling fondly at him, though he didn’t notice, occupied now with his preparations. “It’ll be all right, my lady,” she said quietly, pulling on her gloves. “Eidon will make us a way. You’ll see.” At that, a puff of wind coursed down the rocky streambed, rustling the evergreens and showering them in fluttering gold leaves shaken loose from the aspen on the riverbank behind them. The world turned briefly golden, and for the first time in days Carissa felt that sense of promise she’d known so briefly back in Highmount, as sure and compelling as it had been that night. Go to your brother, a familiar voice breathed in her ear. He will protect you. . . . The voice died with the breeze as stillness returned.
She was just about to mount her horse again when she saw the owl, perched on the dead limb of an evergreen. It was one of the great gray ones, earless, round-faced, with large yellow, probing eyes. The moment she looked at it, a vision flashed in her head, something horrific and bloody, but then Elayne stepped between them, even as the orb on her breast grew hot, and the images vanished before she grasped them.
The bird blinked, its head swiveling away, gaze moving over the rest of the company, none of whom had yet seen it. Then it unfolded its great wings and launched into the air, bringing them all around to watch it flap soundlessly up the creek bed into the mist. Silence followed. Then one of the horses snorted and Cooper growled, “We’d better hurry. Weather’ll be turning anytime now, and the sooner we reach Raven Rock the better. Make sure you all have your slickers to hand.”
He was right about the weather. Barely had they crossed the creek when the wind stirred, and shortly after that, the first flakes fluttered to earth. By late afternoon they were falling steadily, frosting the road and the trees and the crests of the horse’s manes. In other circumstances Carissa would have been enchanted, for she had always enjoyed riding in softly falling snow. But now she was cold and wet and feeling grimier than ever, her discomfort bearable only in the knowledge that the inn awaited, with its bath and roast boar and hearth fire. She held those images in her mind, drawing from them not only strength but also the power to ignore the worry at the back of her mind.
Thus when they came around the bend and into the flat beneath the granite formation from which Raven Rock drew its name, she couldn’t at first make sense of what she saw. When she did, she wanted to cry.
The village of Raven Rock was no more. In its place stood a lumpy, snowdusted field from which protruded a few blackened timbers, the charred and tottering remains of one wattle-and-daub wall, and a huge soot-stained stone hearth and chimney—all that remained of the inn itself. There was no one here. No cheery hearth fire, no smiling faces, no warm food, no stout walls to stand against the darkness. Not even a place to take shelter from the storm.
Cooper and Hogart rode a quick circuit of the meadow and the village as the snow continued to fall. Carissa sat her mare and watched them, trying to accept a reality that seemed more like a nightmare, while Peri shivered and made little breathy cries of dismay at her side. The two men returned to confer with Elayne; then Cooper came to Carissa. “We have to move on, my lady. Get as many hours away from here as we can.”
His words hardly registered. “How could they have destroyed a whole village this deep into Kiriathan territory?”
“I don’t know, lass. But we’ve no time to speculate. The faster we get you south, the better.”
“You think Rennalf had something to do with this?”
“I don’t know. I am only sure that he is after us, and I like nothing that has happened this afternoon. That owl . . .” He shook his head. “We’ve got a few hours of light left and must make the most of them. The snow’s not falling hard enough it’ll hinder us yet. And the farther down we go, the less of it there’ll be. More important, it’s chased the birds to roost and the ells to their hollows. And it’ll cover our tracks.”
His meaning finally penetrated. She stared at him. “You’re talking about riding on now? Right-this-minute now?”
“Yes.”
“But we’ve been traveling all day—”
“I know.” He scanned the lumpy field again, his jaw tightening. He’d lost friends here. His wife had lost family members. “There’s a pack trail off this road before too much farther,” he went on. “We can take it down to Kerrey and on to Springerlan from there.”
“Springerlan!?” Alarm fired through her. “I thought the turnoff to Springerlan wasn’t until after we’d gotten out of the Highlands—past Breeton and Aely and Old Woman’s Well.”
“That’s the coach road. This is a pack trail. Traders and trappers use it.” He paused to let her absorb that. “Once past Kerrey we’ll be in lowlands— free of the snow, away from any of those cursed Dark Ways and out of Balmark’s reach.”
His reasoning was sound, but her heart constricted all the same. Springerlan! She had not expected to have to make this decision so soon. Choosing to flee south, away from Rennalf, was not at all the same as choosing to go to Abramm in Springerlan, despite the advice of the man in her vision—and the more recent voice at Owl Creek. If anything she’d been leaning toward Elayne’s suggestion of wintering in Sterlen. Now she frowned. “Riding down a pack trail in a snowstorm in the middle of the night does not sound like the best idea in the world, Coop. Not as tired as we are. And if the trail loses elevation as rapidly as you say, I can only imagine it’s precarious.”
Cooper’s face revealed that it was. “We wouldn’t go down it tonight.”
“Tomorrow when it’s covered with snow and ice hardly seems better.”
He shrugged unhappily. “If you’d rather take the long way through Breeton and down the Goodsprings Valley, fine. But I fear that’s the route Rennalf will expect us to take.”
“Or he might think I’d fly to Abramm as fast as I can,” Carissa countered.
“I’m sure he’s aware of how you feel about Abramm, my lady.”
The implication of his words jolted her. Did he know? If so, he must know her indecision, and thus couldn’t be sure what she’d decide at this point. And there was that treacherous trail down to Kerrey to consider, as well. What good would it do to go that way only to fall off the precipitous path to their deaths? And what if the path turned out to be impassable after the storm cleared? They’d have to come back or be stuck there in the middle of nowhere. On the Breeton road there’d be farmhouses to provide food and shelter. Maybe even help if they needed it. They wouldn’t have to worry about falling off a cliff, or getting lost . . . clearly it was the only rational choice. Clearly.
She looked up at him and exhaled as decision crystallized. “We’ll head for Breeton,” she said firmly. After that, well, she’d decide when she had to.
CHAPTER
24
“No, no, no!” Dance Master Aubury burst out yet again. “To the left, sir. To the left! The first turn’s to the right, the second’s to the left. Let’s try it again from the beginning.” He glanced over his shoulder at his trio of musicians as Abramm and Leona resumed their starting positions.
“He’s enjoying this,” Abramm muttered dryly.
“Yes,” Leona agreed with a small smile. “I believe he is.”
“And make sure you keep your shoulders squared, sir,”
Aubury added as Abramm held out his right hand for Leona to place hers in. “And your back straight.”
They were in the Queen’s Ballroom, and it was early on the morning of the Grand Ball of the Harvest, early enough, in fact, to make spectators unlikely, even if all the ballroom doors hadn’t been closed and locked. Abramm did not doubt there were those who would count it worth the effort to rise at this outrageous hour to watch him blunder his way through this final practice. And he was blundering, no question of that.
Already he’d stepped on the toes of all three ladies who’d turned out this morning to help him, had blanked so badly during the chingipan he’d actually had to follow Leona’s lead at one point, and now could not for the life of him remember that it was Left, you fool! Left! Not that Aubury would ever call him a fool to his face, or even with his tone. But he knew the man must want to pull his own hair in frustration.
He had three waltzes, a chingipan, and two circle dances—the paquay and the rondella—to know for tonight. The paquay he recalled from childhood, but it was this rondella that was driving them all mad. He wanted to go to the right because all the flow and momentum of the movement carried to the right. But it was part of the dance’s eccentricities that demanded he stop that flow at the precise moment when all looked completed and turn to the left, the movement echoed by every other dancer in what would tonight be a large circle of ever-changing partners. “A charming reversal,” Master Aubury assured him.
They tried it again, and this time he managed to check himself in time, though while he didn’t actually commit left, he still made an awkward bobble. And there must be no awkward bobbles tonight. Especially from the king.
So they did it again. And again.
The horns, loud and brassy in the wood-floored room, were giving him a headache. And the pastry he’d eaten this morning wasn’t sitting well, either. He would have been better off eating nothing today, knowing how nervous he would be until this ball was concluded. Ironically, it was not the potential for assassination that distressed him as much as that for social humiliation. He would be watched tonight as he had never been watched before—even as the White Pretender—scrutinized by hundreds of courtiers who’d made it their major tasks in life to observe, catalogue, and evaluate the clothing, manners, mien, and conversation of their peers, especially those peers who outranked them. Their new king, who had come in so brashly and canceled all their parties and games and dances for the last three weeks, would be under especially stringent observation.
It was commonly held that he’d canceled them because he feared to look the fool trying to compete with a court far more sophisticated and erudite than he could ever be. That facing down the Table of Lords and riding into Graymeer’s was one thing, but mastering the graces of culture and high society was quite another. He would be judged tonight as harshly as he’d ever been judged.
And all this bungling of the dance merely brought into crystal clarity the fact that of all the things he’d done, he had least confidence in his ability to handle not only chingipan and rondella but all the small talk and double-talk and endless suggestive flirting that awaited him this night. Then there were the rules of etiquette and proper address—so many, so convoluted, they made the rules of the Vaissana’s household in Qarkeshan seem simplistic. Fortunately, he had Blackwell to assist him; otherwise he would certainly be lost.
“To the left, sir!”
He switched midstep, again, and grimaced apology to Leona.
He never did get it perfect, and finally decreed they had practiced enough and would just have to hope for the best. A bobble in the rondella would not bring down the kingdom, after all. At least he hoped not.
He was surprised to see Lady Madeleine waiting alongside the wall by the door where Jared and Abramm’s guards, Will Ames and Philip Meridon, were stationed. She wore a gown of muted burgundy this morning, accented with silver stitching, and clutched a large hide-bound book to her breast, one finger stuck among the pages—a position that made her curtsey somewhat awkward.
“Lady Madeleine,” he said, joining her. “I thought we were done with the Suite.”
“Oh, we are, Sire. I’m not here about that.” She nodded to Leona, still at Abramm’s side. He now turned to the young woman himself and, removing her hand from his arm, thanked her for her assistance and bid her good day. She took her leave unwillingly, flashing Madeleine a tight-lipped glare, and he thought it a good thing this was the last practice session. Having a full schedule before him, and already behind on it, he suggested Madeleine walk with him back to his apartments. As they left the ballroom, Jared just a footstep behind him on the left and Will and Philip trailing farther, he sighed with heartfelt relief.
Beside him, she observed wryly, “Rough morning, huh?”
“I’d rather fight with Warbanner. And I don’t even want to think about tonight.”
“You’ll do splendidly, sir. It’s not as if you are unaccustomed to performing.” She glanced aside at him, one slender brow arched. “Or was that back there a performance?”
“Believe me,” he said grimly, “that was no performance. Maybe I’ll just plead the grippe and skip it all.”
“You know you can’t do that.”
“No. It would hardly be fair to Master Aubury or Lady Leona, after all the effort they’ve put in.”
“I’m sure neither of them regrets a moment of it. Aubury gets the pleasure of being able to order his king around, and Leona . . .” She paused. “She certainly does have her eye on you, sir.”
“Indeed.” He clasped his hands at his back as they started up the corridor, gray morning light flooding through the line of double doors running along its left side.
“And yet she seems unaware that her interest is not returned.”
He looked sideways at her, amused. “And you are not unaware?”
“Is her interest returned?”
“No. Though I’m sure she has set herself to change that.”
“With little hope of succeeding, I trust.”
Again he fixed her with his gaze, partly annoyed, partly amused. “And how is that any of your affair, my lady?”
She lifted her chin and said primly, “I am only looking out for Chesedh’s interests, sir.” An errant tendril of fawn-colored hair dangled against her cheek.
“I thought that was the ambassador’s job.”
“Cheede? He can barely manage to sugar his tea!”
He burst out laughing. “My lady!”
“Well, you’ve met him. Muttering and peering at the furniture. He reminds me of a mole.” She tucked the errant tendril behind her ear with her free hand, still clutching the big book with the other. “He hasn’t a clue what’s going on, and certainly has no intent of working anything to advantage. The only reason he was sent—oh, never mind.” She paused, cocking a brow at Abramm’s laughter. “I have amused you, sir?”
“Your pardon, my lady.” He restrained himself and indicated she should continue.
“In any case,” she said, “I stand ready to do my best to discourage any lady who happens to spark your interest.”
“I hate to think what that would entail.” As they reached the end of the corridor and turned left, he added, “Thankfully none of them have sparked my interest yet.”
“And you wanted them all to know it, so you chose me to be your partner for the Suite tonight. Don’t think I haven’t figured that out.”
“I had every confidence you would.” He glanced down at her sidelong, his bantering mood turned abruptly serious. “I did want to speak to you about that, though. . . . I had no idea the gossip would be as vile as it’s been.”
“For which we can thank Lord Prittleman, I believe.”
“And the debut of your new song the other night. It will only worsen from here. If you’d rather I find another partner, I’m happy to oblige you.”
She lifted her chin again, and the tendril of hair dropped against her cheek. “I will only withdraw at your direct command, si
r. As for the gossips, I would never give them the pleasure of believing they had chased me off.”
“You don’t care at all what they think, do you?”
She tucked back the tendril. “I learned long ago that caring only makes you miserable. People don’t like it when you’re different. You can change to be like them, or fret about their criticism—or accept who you are and go your way.” She glanced up at him. “It seems to me you’ve done your share of that yourself.”
“Never so consciously. And I can’t leave them and go my way.”
“Which is why I am grateful I will never be a king.” She lifted her chin in that prim way of hers and faced forward again. “Or a queen, for that matter. It’s Eidon alone I serve, not people.”
“And yet often it is in serving people that we serve him.”
She frowned slightly, keeping her gaze fixed on the vast, gleaming hall before them. “Well, thankfully he’s already shown me how he wants me to serve him.”
“Ah yes.” Abramm returned to the bantering tone. “Running about sticking your nose into other people’s business.”
The frown returned more deeply now.
“Only a jest, my lady,” he said, grinning. “You can’t deny it—so, please, do not take offense.” He waved a hand at her. “Why are you holding your finger in that book?”
She looked down at it. “Oh. I wanted to show you this picture I found. It seems like it might be a match for that monster you found painted on the wall down in Graymeer’s.”
She laid the open volume in his hands. The bottom half of the left page displayed an engraving of a huge beast with powerful shoulders and tapering hindquarters. A spiky bristle of hair sprouted from head and shoulders, framing the doglike snout and wicked teeth. Its one visible eye had been starred with white lines as if to make it glow. Just looking at it raised the hackles on the back of Abramm’s neck.