“I know you would have.” It was Markhos’ turn to sit back, laying his forearms along the armrests of his chair. “And for the sake of his father’s memory, I wish he’d been willing to accept the offer. Unfortunately, Yurokhas was right; Cassan’s mind simply doesn’t work that way.”
There was more than a hint of anger in the King’s voice, Tellian reflected, and wondered again how much of Markhos’ willingness to support his own proposals stemmed from the King’s memories of Cassan’s...incautious efforts to control him in his early days upon the throne. There were those—Tellian among them, to be honest—who were of the opinion that Yurokhas had been gifted with a significantly sharper brain than his royal brother, but there was nothing wrong with the head in which Markhos’ brain resided. In point of fact, it was remarkably level, that head, and if he was slow and methodical—maddeningly so, upon occasion—when it came to making up his mind, there was nothing hesitant about him once he had.
“I don’t suppose there’s ever a major policy choice in any kingdom where the great nobles’ rivalries don’t factor into the decision process, Your Majesty,” the baron said after a moment. “And I suppose it would be unfair—or at least unrealistic—to believe there wouldn’t be rivalries between them, no matter what else might be true or how sincere they were in their disagreements. It doesn’t necessarily need avarice and ambition to breed conflict...or hatred, for that matter. Which isn’t to suggest all three of them don’t play a role in this particular rivalry. I think Cassan and I would’ve detested each other even if we’d both been born peasants, but having the two of us as barons can’t have been easy for you.”
“Oh, you’re right about that, Milord,” Markhos agreed with a knife-thin smile. “There’ve been times I’ve actually found myself wishing one of you would just go ahead and kill the other one off, to be perfectly honest. Of the two, I’d have preferred for you to be the one still standing, although given Cassan’s...devious nature, I’m not sure I would’ve been prepared to place a wager either way. But at least if one of you’d won, I’d have had a few moments of peace after the state funeral!”
Tellian snorted, although he knew the King was as well aware as he was of Cassan’s efforts to accomplish precisely that end. Not that Markhos could ever officially admit anything of the sort without absolute, irrefutable proof—unless, of course, he wanted to bring back the Time of Troubles.
On the other hand, his extension of a royal charter is a pretty clear inclination of what he actually knows, whether he can admit it or not. Shaftmaster’s revenue estimates and Macebearer’s arguments in favor of our increased influence with the Spearmen are all very well, but there’s a part of him that shares the real conservatives’ suspicions of Bahnak and the hradani. Come to that, it’s his responsibility to share those suspicions, given all the bloodshed lying between us and them. Despite which, I doubt anyone in the entire Kingdom’s going to miss the subtext of his proclamation or doubt for a minute that he sided with Bahnak, Kilthan, and me at least in part because it lets him hammer Cassan the way the bastard deserves to be hammered.
And, for that matter, I should probably admit there’s a nasty, vindictive side of me that bought into the entire idea so enthusiastically because I knew exactly what it was going to do to Cassan if we pulled it off.
Fortunately, for all his keen intelligence, Tellian Bowmaster was given to neither second thoughts nor self-deception. He knew precisely what was going to happen to his most bitter rival’s political and economic power, and he was looking forward to it. None of which kept him from truly regretting the way in which their decades-long struggle had overflowed onto the Kingdom as a whole and the King in particular.
“Well, Your Majesty,” he said, reaching for his surviving bishop and interposing it between his king and Markhos’ queen, “we may not have killed each other off—yet—but there’s a pretty good chance sheer apoplexy will carry him off when he finds out about your decision!”
The King laughed. There might have been just an edge of sourness in that laugh, but it was genuine. And probably owed something to the fact that the move of Tellian’s bishop allowed him to exchange one of his knights for the baron’s remaining castle.
“I would like to see his reaction,” the King admitted, setting the captured castle to one side. “Unfortunately, not even a king can have everything.”
* * *
The sheer, wild exhilaration filled her mind and heart with a fiery intoxication.
The fiercest gallop upon the back of the fleetest warhorse ever bred paled to insignificance. Perhaps—perhaps—a warhorse might have touched, ever so briefly, that headlong, booming, drumroll speed, but it could never have sustained it, never maintained it for more than the barest handful of minutes. Yet the mighty muscles continued to stretch and play, the matchless heart thundered not simply with exertion but with the untamed, unquenchable power of a courser’s dauntless will, and Gayrfressa’s link to the energy which formed and sustained the entire universe burned like a coil of lightning. It poured that energy into her, and her hooves spurned the earth not for mere minutes, but for hours.
Leeana Hanathafressa was part of those booming hooves, shared those straining muscles, tasted that energy and felt it pour through her. She was submerged within the wild rush of speed, feeling it as Gayrfressa felt it even as she felt the wind of their passage whipping at her braided hair, bringing tears to her eyes. It was the first time since their bonding that Gayrfressa had truly loosed the incomparable speed and endurance of her kind. They’d touched moments of such swiftness, yet until this moment, not even Leeana—a wind rider herself, wife and daughter of wind riders—had truly grasped what it would be like. Now she knew...and as she rode the tornado named Gayrfressa, she and her hoofed sister merged on an even deeper, even more complete level.
Dimly, in the back of her mind where her own thoughts resided separately from this driving charge across the Wind Plain, she understood that part of the magic was her own love of running. Her delight in the speed of her merely human feet, of the deep breaths pulsing in and out of her lungs, of the steady, elevated beat of her heart. She knew that love for herself, and so she truly shared Gayrfressa’s passion to outrace the wind and give herself to the thunder of her hooves—to gallop until even she could gallop no more. And as that thought wended its way through her own mind, she felt Gayrfressa touch it with her and sensed the mare’s agreement, exalted and joyous despite the gravity of their mission.
She raised her head, green eyes slitted against the wind, gazing ahead. Few creatures on earth could match a courser’s sense of direction. Gayrfressa knew exactly where they were headed, and she burned her way across open fields, vaulted dry stream beds and small creeks, slowed just enough to maintain her footing as she forged across a broader watercourse, carrying both of them arrow-straight toward their goal. Leeana knew the land around Chergor well, if not so intimately as the terrain around Kalatha, yet she could never have picked out the shortest path to her father’s hunting lodge as Gayrfressa had. She wondered how the courser had done it, yet that was something not even Gayrfressa could have explained to her. The huge chestnut mare simply knew where her destination lay, and no power on earth could have deflected her from her course.
Now Leeana blinked on tears, and her heart rose as she recognized known landmarks. They were no more than a quarter-hour from their goal, the way a courser galloped, and she lowered her head once more, lying forward along Gayrfressa’s neck, cheeks whipped by the courser’s mane, and laid her palms against her sister’s shoulders and the bunchy, explosive power of her deltoideus muscles. She flattened herself, molded herself to the courser, and they and the wind were one.
* * *
Tellian stroked his beard, looking down upon a chessboard which had done nothing but grow progressively (and inevitably) worse from his perspective.
“Mate in three, I believe,” the King said genially, and the baron snorted.
“I believe you’re correct, Your Maj
esty. And in the interests of moving on to allow you to do something more worthwhile with your time—”
He reached out and tipped his king over, conceding the game.
“I won’t pretend I’m not savoring this moment,” Markhos told him with a smile, beginning to reset the pieces. “Of course, I’m sure you would never be so undutiful as to point out that I’d need to do this no more than...oh, another couple of hundred times to pull even with you.”
“I don’t think it’s quite that bad, Your Majesty,” Tellian corrected with a smile of his own. “It couldn’t be more than a few score games—certainly not hundreds.”
“You’re making it ever so much better, Milord.” Markhos’ blue eyes glinted with amusement.
“It’s not that I don’t—”
Tellian cut off abruptly, jerking upright in his chair. The King looked up quickly, his eyebrows rising in surprise, but the baron didn’t even see him. His eyes were unfocused, his expression that of a man listening to a voice only he could hear. And as King Markhos watched, that expression transformed itself from one of sheer astonishment to something far, far darker.
* * *
The ornamental wall barely topped the fruit trees Baroness Hanatha had had planted along the wall’s foot as Gayrfressa slowed her hurtling pace at last. The trees of Chergor Forest rose beyond the lodge, climbing the gently rolling hills between its eastern wall (such as it was) and the northernmost reaches of the Spear River. Leeana had always loved the vast, leafy hunting preserve, and the graceful, airy architecture of the timbered lodge itself, with its leaded windows, breezy verandas, and steeply pitched roof had offered a far younger Leeana a wonderful contrast from the grim, indomitable battlements and turrets of Hill Guard Castle. But as she watched that low, purely decorative wall show itself above the apple trees, she found herself wishing fervently that it was twice as tall and three times as thick.
Gayrfressa pointed out, and Leeana nodded.
“I know, dearheart,” she agreed, catching the glint of a lookout’s polished steel helmet from the top of that damnably low wall. “I know. But I wish—”
She cut herself off with a grimace. She knew how she wanted the King’s Guard to react, but there was no sign they were doing anything of the sort.
I don’t suppose I should be all that surprised they aren’t, either, when all they have to go on is the word of a war maid, even if she is a wind rider, she thought.
Gayrfressa said grimly in the back of her brain.
“Unfortunately, we’re not,” Leeana replied even more grimly. “We don’t always think of the rest of the herd first, and you can always count on someone to argue, no matter how sensible your suggestion might be. And,” she conceded unwillingly, “this has all come at them completely unexpected. It’s not too surprising that there might be a certain amount of...disagreement on the best way to respond, I suppose.”
Gayrfressa snorted, slowing still further, to the fast, smooth walk of a courser, as the two of them approached the open gate in the outer wall. It wasn’t much more of a gate than the wall was of a wall, Leeana reflected. It had seemed much more substantial when she’d been younger, and she wished fervently that her childhood memories could have changed the reality.
A knot of men stood waiting as the courser swept through the gateway, ducking her lordly head to clear its intricately carved and painted lintel, and came to a graceful stop. Even she was sweating heavily after her driving run, but she stood tall and proud as Leeana swung quickly down from the saddle and bowed deeply to the redhaired man at the center of the small cluster.
One or two of his companions—predictably—looked more than a little contemptuous as she gave her monarch a “man’s” greeting, though just how they expected her to curtsy in riding breeches was beyond her.
“Your Majesty,” she said. “I apologize for intruding without an invitation.”
“Indeed?” Markhos’ tone was cool but courteous, and she raised her head to meet his eyes. “Given the news your companion sent ahead and the message you bear, invitations would seem to be the least of our concerns.”
“I’m afraid so, Your Majesty,” she agreed, and reached into her belt pouch. One of the armsmen at the King’s back stiffened as her hand disappeared into the pouch, but he relaxed again—slightly—as it emerged again with nothing more threatening than a piece of paper. “From Lord Warden Lorham, Your Majesty,” she said quietly.
The King accepted the hastily written message with a small nod, broke the seal, and scanned it rapidly. Then he handed it to Sir Jerhas Macebearer. The Prime Councilor read it as quickly as the King had, his face tightening, then passed it across to Tellian, in turn. Leeana watched from the corner of her eye as her father read it, but she’d never moved her own gaze from King Markhos’. The King’s blue eyes were intent, narrowed with concentration as he looked back at her measuringly.
“It would seem Lord Lorham confirms everything your courser already relayed to Baron Tellian’s brother,” he said, ignoring—as law and custom alike demanded—the fact that “Baron Tellian” was also her father. “He says, however, that you were the one who found Master Brayahs?”
“That’s so, Your Majesty,” Leeana confirmed. “Gayrfressa”—she reached up to lay one hand on the mare’s shoulder—“smelled the smoke, and we went to investigate.” She shrugged ever so slightly. “We found him, but it was Arm Shahana who healed him. I think he might very well have died without her, and he would never have regained consciousness in time to warn us if she hadn’t been there.”
“How fortunate she was there, then,” a slender, golden-haired man of perhaps thirty-five said. He was richly dressed and an inch or so shorter than Leeana herself, and his tone, as he stressed the adverb, was nicely seasoned with a courtier’s venom.
“I agree,” her father said in a very different voice, and the blond-haired fellow’s blue eyes flashed as they locked with Tellian’s. That flash might have been anger, Leeana thought, but it could also have been...satisfaction.
“My Lords.” King Markhos said the two words quietly, and the two men looked at him instantly. “Master Brayahs is a valued servant of the Crown, Lord Golden Hill,” the King continued softly. “Anything which preserves him for future service to the Kingdom is, indeed, fortunate.”
“Most certainly, Your Majesty,” Golden Hill replied.
Markhos held his eye a moment longer, then shifted his attention equally to Macebearer, Tellian, and a man Leeana recognized as Sir Frahdar Swordshank, the commander of his personal guard. Swordshank had just finished reading Trisu’s note for himself, and he passed it to another of his officers as he returned his monarch’s gaze.
“Suggestions?” the King inquired.
Tellian started to reply, then stopped and looked at Swordshank. The Guard commander looked back at him, and the baron gestured for him to speak first. No one could have called that gesture discourteous, but there was an undeniable curtness to it.
“My opinion remains the same, Sire,” Swordshank said. He twitched his head in the direction of Trisu’s note. “We know very little, other than that Master Brayahs believes sorcery has been at play in Halthan and that it’s apparently been used to influence Baron Borandas’ seneschal.”
“Forgive me, Sir Frahdar,” Sir Jerhas said a bit tartly, “but we also know sorcery came within a hairsbreadth of killing Master Brayahs when he attempted to wind-walk to us here to warn us of what he’d discovered!”
“You’re correct, of course, Milord.” Swordshank gave the Prime Councilor a respectful half-bow. “The question, however, is whether that sorcery reacted to his attempt to reach this particular place or to his attempt to reach His Majesty, wherever he might have been.”
“In either case, it was obviously intended to prevent him from warni
ng the King,” Tellian pointed out in what struck Leeana as an oddly neutral tone.
“Granted,” Swordshank said, giving the baron the same abbreviated bow. “But we have no way of knowing what else might be afoot.” His gaze lingered for just a moment on Tellian’s before he looked back at the King. “I think we must assume Lord Trisu’s fear that this is a part of some larger and more complex plot is accurate, Sire. That being the case, I would greatly prefer to keep you here, safely inside these walls, until Lord Trisu and Arm Shahana arrive to bolster our strength. With only forty men, I fear we might find ourselves hard-pressed to protect you properly if we should meet an organized attack in the open. Especially if that attack might be supported by sorcery.”
“Surely your armsmen should be able to protect His Majesty long enough to get him to safety at Hill Guard!” Sir Jerhas retorted sharply.
“With all due respect, Sir Jerhas,” Golden Hill said, “no one can predict where even a stray arrow may strike, far less one which might be aimed at a crowned head. Indeed,” he looked sharply at Tellian, “Baron Tellian himself can testify to that, given his experience earlier this year.” He returned his gaze to Macebearer. “Here, at least, His Majesty is within a wall, protected from that hazard. Once Sir Frahdar has been reinforced by Lord Trisu’s armsmen, we would be far better placed to move His Majesty safely to some place of greater security.”
He’d managed to avoid mentioning Arm Shahana, the Quaysar Temple Guard detachment, or Kalatha’s war maids quite handily, Leeana observed. That was the first thing she noticed; then she saw the way her father’s nostrils had flared ever so slightly and the tiny, almost invisible muscle tic at the corner of his right eye. She’d seen that tic only rarely as a child, but she’d known to brace herself whenever it put in an appearance, and she wondered exactly what had brought it on this time. Then she realized it had been Golden Hill’s last five words.