Reader and Raelynx (7 page)

I
T
turned out the royal receiving room was not just formal and uncomfortable. It was set up specifically to allow a courting couple the appearance of privacy without leaving them alone for a second. The central portion of the room consisted of a half dozen stiff-backed and heavily upholstered green chairs surrounded by thick-legged tables in some dark, forbidding wood. The walls were covered with decorative paper in a distinctive green-and-gold pattern—but the walls were fake, barely more than reinforced parchment. Behind them, around three sides of the room, ran a narrow corridor just wide enough to accommodate the body of a man. Here the various spies and guardians of the household would be set up to audit any visitor’s conversation.

Cammon, Valri, Wen, and Tayse were all in place a good half hour before Amalie’s suitor came calling. Tayse, of course, had prowled through every corner of the main room, checking for potential danger, before concealing himself behind the false wall. They had debated where each of them could best be deployed, and they had ultimately decided that Valri and one Rider would stand together on one side, Cammon and the second Rider on the other.

Cammon and Tayse were leaning against the true wall, waiting, when Cammon sensed Milo leading a procession up the hallway. He straightened and jerked his head, and Tayse came smoothly to an upright position. Cammon didn’t even have to look to know Tayse’s hand would be on his sword hilt. If it was humanly possible to protect Amalie from physical danger, Tayse would be the one to keep her safe.

The door opened and five people entered. Cammon closed his eyes and envisioned the scene on the other side of the barrier. Milo led the way, Amalie and the young lord followed, servants came behind them bearing trays of refreshments. No one seemed bent on malice. From the young Helven lord, Cammon picked up only nervousness and hope. There were the sounds of chairs being moved, trays being laid on tables, drinks being poured.

“If you have any need of me, Majesty, I will be within call,” Milo said, his voice heavy with significance.
And so will four others, waiting to leap to your aid.

“Thank you, Milo. I will let you know.”

Footsteps, rustling, the sound of a door closing, then Amalie’s light laugh. As always, Cammon found it annoyingly impossible to tell what she might be thinking. Was she, too, nervous at meeting a prospective husband? Was she intrigued? Indifferent? Contrary? He didn’t know.

“So tell me a little about yourself,” Amalie invited in a voice that was much softer than the hard chairs and grim furnishings. “I met you last summer, I think, but only briefly.”

“Yes—I was in Nocklyn and Rappengrass,” Delt Helven said in an eager voice. “You favored me with two dances.”

“No one can talk in a ballroom!” she said gaily. “So you must start at the beginning, as if we were strangers. You are marlord Martin’s nephew, are you not?”

“My mother is his sister. I spend a great deal of time at Helvenhall and my uncle trusts me absolutely.”

“I’ve never been to Helvenhall. Is it pretty?”

“It is the richest of the middle Houses, and everywhere you look you see fields of grain. My uncle has an interest in many of the brewing houses. Have you ever had a glass of Helven beer?”

“I’m not sure.”

“You will have to journey to Helven sometime soon and try all the varieties that are made there.”

He continued on in this way for quite some time, listing Helven’s advantages as if he were trying to make a sale of the House to a somewhat reluctant buyer. A couple of times, Amalie tried to turn the conversation back to more personal topics, but it was clear Delt Helven had been well coached about what information to convey, and he was not easy to divert from his script. After a while, Amalie stopped trying, although she remained gracious. “That is most interesting,” she said a number of times. Or, “Really? I had no idea.”

The tedious conversation dragged on for at least an hour before the tone of Amalie’s voice changed. “Goodness! It’s almost time to dress for dinner! How long will we have the honor of your company?”

“I will be here another day, perhaps two. I was hoping to take you riding tomorrow? Or escort you through the city? I would love to buy you a gift from one of the fine merchants of Ghosenhall. Anything you pick out. Anything at all.”

“What a most generous offer. I’m afraid I don’t get many chances to shop in the local markets, but we might certainly ride for a while tomorrow. There are a few trails on the palace grounds that are very lovely, though you cannot canter, of course.”

“Majesty, I would do no more than hold your horse’s bridle for you if that would please you.”

“Oh, no, think how dull. We shall ride. Or even walk. It will be most delightful.”

In fact, it would probably be even more awkward than this little encounter, since obviously Amalie’s retinue would have to be visible for such an outing. Unless—Cammon smiled—the Riders could perhaps hide behind various trees and follies along the route that Amalie planned to take, ready to leap out at any moment and rescue her from danger. But he saw no way he and Valri would be excused from such an expedition, and he imagined the queen standing on the other side of the room and mildly cursing.

Delt Helven said, “I live for the hour.”

T
HAT
evening’s entirely uneventful meal was followed, the next morning, by a chilly parade through the palace grounds. It was sunny but cold, and Amalie had elected to stroll instead of ride. She was prettily bundled up with a fur hat and a long wool coat, and Delt Helven actually looked a little more impressive wearing several layers of clothing to bulk up his body. Riders walked before and behind them; Cammon and Queen Valri were a few steps behind the trailing soldiers.

“They’re too far ahead of us. I can’t hear what they’re saying,” Valri said.

“I can’t, either. We could get closer.”

“No! It’s a relief not to have to sit through that dreadful chatter. Poor Amalie, I don’t know how she’ll bear it. There must be twenty-five young lords who want to come calling. Scheduling them so they don’t overlap has become Milo’s primary responsibility.”

“I hope they won’t all want to go hiking around outside when it’s twenty degrees out,” Cammon grumbled.

Valri gave him a smile as cold as the sunlight. “Really? I like winter.”

Without thinking about it, he held his bare hand out and she laid her own briefly on top of his. Her fingers were like ice. She dropped her hand and tucked it back into her pocket. “You like freezing half to death?” he said.

“I like—” She turned it over in her mind. “Everything shut down. Held in place. Still and quiet. There is so much less going on in winter that it is easier to keep track of it all. Keep track of it and control it.”

He made no effort to disguise his reaction. “That’s a very peculiar thing to say.”

She smiled again. “I suppose so.”

“What are you trying to control, besides Amalie’s safety?”

“At the moment, that’s all. That’s enough, don’t you think?”

They were passing by some ornamental bushes, stripped and shivering. Cammon snapped off a thin, brittle branch and began switching it methodically against his thigh. “I’ve been meaning to ask you,” he said. “You say you must stay near Amalie to protect her. But yesterday you wouldn’t even leave her alone with me. Do you really think
I
will harm her in some fashion? Do you really think
I
can’t be trusted?”

She focused her intense green eyes on him for a long moment, not watching where she placed her booted feet. “I don’t know,” she said. “Can you be trusted?”

“Not to harm the princess? I should think so!” he replied. “Or you’ve taken a very grave risk to bring me into the palace to watch over her night and day.”

Another one of those strange smiles, this one seeming sad rather than cold. “I do not believe you would offer her any kind of physical harm,” the queen said. “Fair enough? There might be other ways you could hurt her.”

“Well, I don’t know how. And I wouldn’t, even if I learned a way.”

Valri nodded and finally turned her attention back to the path before her. “Maybe. We’ll see. For now I believe Amalie needs me beside her no matter who else is in the room.” She made a sound that was halfway between a sigh and a snort. “Which means that you and I have many more torturous days ahead of us, listening to the inept wooing of aristocratic swains. At least you have a new wardrobe out of it. I think I shall ask Baryn for a bracelet or a ring. Something tangible to prove he is grateful for how much I have devoted myself to his daughter.”

A
FTER
dinner that night—during which Amalie kindly agreed to Delt Helven’s request to stay for another day—Cammon slipped down past the barracks to look for Senneth and Tayse. They were ensconced in their cottage, radiating a comfortable domesticity. Well, not entirely. Tayse knelt before the fire, an assortment of blades laid out before him as he methodically cleaned and oiled each one. Senneth sat on a sofa nearby, lost in thought. Her hands lay cupped in her lap as if she held a delicate bowl. Instead, flame wriggled between her fingertips as she idly watched it, sparking higher and dying down in a complicated dance.

The warrior and the sorceress enjoying a cozy night at home.

“I don’t care much for the Helven candidate, do you?” Cammon asked as he stepped into the room. “It’s hard to imagine him as a
king
.”

Senneth looked up with a smile and let the fire in her hands go out. “Just what Tayse was saying.”

Cammon dropped beside the Rider, disposing himself easily on the floor. “He’s
boring
,” Cammon said. “All he wanted to talk about was crops and taxes.”

“He’s right about Helven beer, though,” Tayse said, picking up a knife and examining it by the fire that still burned in the grate. “I’ve had it many a time.”

“I think Amalie needs to marry someone who has more assets than a few exceptional brew houses,” Senneth said.

“He’s too young,” Tayse said.

“I thought so, too!” Cammon exclaimed.

Senneth looked unsure. “Maybe. But an older man might feel he could influence or intimidate Amalie, whereas a younger man—” She shrugged. “He might be overawed enough to hang back. Let her develop her own style and her own strength.”

Tayse grunted. “Some truth to that. But if she takes the throne at a young age, a more seasoned husband could guide her through.”

“She’s got the regent,” Senneth pointed out. “He can advise her as long as she needs guidance.”

“Then why make her get married at all?” Cammon said.

“The succession,” Senneth said. “The marlords are worried about stability in the realm. If Amalie marries and produces heirs right away, there’s the stability they crave. It will perhaps provide a disincentive to war.”

“Unless she marries the wrong man,” Tayse said, holding up another blade to the firelight. “Then the rebels find it even more imperative to push her off the throne.”

“Yes,” said Senneth. “There is that.”

“So she’s not safe no matter what she does?” Cammon demanded.

Tayse glanced at him. “No king, no queen, no prince, no princess is ever entirely safe. That’s why there are Riders.”

Cammon groaned. Senneth laughed and changed the subject. “So, how close is Justin now?” she asked. “Can you tell?”

“They’re over the mountains,” Cammon said. “I think they’re in Kianlever. I’m guessing they’ll be here in about a week.”

“I need Kirra!” Senneth exclaimed. “We have work to do!”

Cammon felt surprise. “Oh, she’ll be right here. I thought you knew that.”

Tayse glanced up, trying to hide a smile; Senneth looked irate. “What do you mean, ‘right here’?” she demanded. “Give me a time frame.”

“She’s at the door.”

He barely had time to take in Senneth’s expression before there was a knock and the door was pushed wide. Kirra entered in a swirl of hair and laughter, Donnal a shadow behind her. “Hello? Are you home? Oh, look, it’s the newlyweds. Don’t you appear fat and contented. What a picture of domestic bliss!”

Serramarra Kirra Danalustrous tossed back her golden curls and dropped a few bundles on the floor. She was blue-eyed, beautiful, and utterly impossible to contain; even the stone walls of the cottage seemed to bow out and quiver at her entrance. By contrast, Donnal was a dark pool of silence, a well of deep stillness. Sometimes, when Cammon would visualize the two of them in his head, he pictured them as fuel and flame, or a meteor shower over black water.

Kirra came dancing in, pulled Senneth into a hug, and dropped a kiss on Tayse’s head because he did not bother to rise and greet her. Tayse always treated Kirra like an impulsive and reckless younger sister whom he had long ago given up any hope of controlling. Donnal followed in her wake, kissed Senneth on the cheek, and settled smoothly on the hearth next to Cammon and the Rider.

“Good trip?” Tayse asked.

Donnal nodded. “Easy.”

“Cammon!”
Kirra exclaimed and bounced over to give him a hug, too. “Look at you, someone’s dressed you up a bit. I like the look, but you need to cut your hair.”

“I just had it cut,” he said, grinning.

“Not by anyone with any fashion sense. Is there anything to eat? We’re starving.”

“Didn’t you pick up dinner on the road?” Senneth said. By
dinner
, she meant
wild game
, since Kirra and Donnal were shape-shifters who almost always traveled in animal form and hunted for all their meals.

“Tired of raw meat and stringy rabbits,” Kirra said. “If there’s nothing here, we’ll run up to the palace. One of the cooks will feed us.”

“You don’t have to go so far. Plenty of food at the barracks,” Tayse said.

“What? But—but—your new wife doesn’t make sumptuous dinners every night to please you?” Kirra demanded, affecting shock. “Doesn’t cook and bake and wait on you at the table just to prove she loves you?”

“She pleases me, and proves she loves me, in a sufficient variety of other ways,” Tayse said in the dryest voice.

Kirra burst out laughing, though Cammon could see the faintest blush on Senneth’s face. “See, if I needle him long enough, he’ll always break down,” Kirra said, a note of satisfaction in her voice. “I don’t know how he got a reputation as the most stoic of the Riders.”

“That title would belong to his father,” Senneth said. “Will you sit down? You’re fluttering around so much! You’re setting my nerves on edge.”

“I’m too hungry to sit.”

Donnal was on his feet. “I’ll go fetch food from next door,” he said, and disappeared.

Kirra bent over the bundles she’d dropped at the door. “I brought you a present,” she said, and pulled out what looked like a thick, flat square of cloth. “Do you like it? I had it commissioned by one of the weavers up by Danan Hall.”

Senneth took it with some foreboding, and then laughed and tossed it to Tayse. Cammon craned his neck to see. It was a finely worked tapestry designed to fit over a small pillow. The busy background of twining vines and flowers was overlaid with the initials “S” and “T” done in Brassenthwaite blue. “Very pretty,” Senneth said. “I’ll sleep with it always under my head.”

“No, no, you display it, you don’t ruin it by sleeping on it,” Kirra said. “I had one made for Justin and Ellynor, too, would you like to see it? I wasn’t sure what colors Ellynor might like, so I used the king’s black and gold. It turned out very nice, I thought.”

“I like that one even better,” Cammon said.

Senneth gave him a look of derision. “As if Justin would ever want a thing like that! That’s why she bought it, of course.”

“Well, of course he’ll make fun of it,” Cammon said. “But it will please him that she did it.”

And since they all knew that to be true, they laughed.

“He’s not back yet, is he?” Kirra said. “We’re not too late?” She appealed to Cammon. “I could tell you wanted us to return, and I could tell that it was because Justin was on his way, but I couldn’t actually sort out dates and times. You have a very strange way of communicating. It’s just this—odd feeling—this belief that something needs to be done. Right away. And it’s very clear what that thing
is
, but the rest of the details are murky.”

“They’re not here yet,” Cammon said. “But they’re over the mountains.”

Kirra clapped her hands together. “So they’ll be here in a few days! The king has granted them a cottage, of course. Have you done any work on it yet?”

Senneth shook her head and resettled herself on the sofa. “I was waiting for you.”

Something about Senneth’s movements had caught Kirra’s attention. “Oh, but what’s this?” she said, stepping closer to Senneth and bending down to inspect her throat. “You’re wearing a new necklace, aren’t you? Hold it up and let me see. You’ve got such a nice figure—I don’t know why you insist on walking around in high-necked shirts and
trousers
. When you could look so pretty!”

“You sound like my sister-in-law,” Senneth said, tugging at the gold chain just visible under the collar of her shirt. For years she had worn a necklace hung with a simple gold sun charm, but she had given that to Justin when he was wooing Ellynor and needed a gift with some history to it. “Tayse bought this for me. Had it made especially. I can’t tell you how much I love it.”

It was a small sphere made of many fine gold wires; inside the mesh cage was a tumble of jewels. Brassenthwaite sapphires, Danalustrous rubies, Fortunalt pearls—all the great Houses were represented. “Oh, yes, indeed, that is quite a marvelous piece,” Kirra said, examining it closely. “He must have spent a whole Rider paycheck on such a bauble! Clearly the man loves you.”

“It’s not like you needed proof,” Cammon said, and was a little annoyed when both women burst out laughing. “What?”

“Never mind,” Kirra said, reaching over to ruffle his hair. “And how are
you
? Why are you at the palace tonight? Merely to tell Senneth I was coming and ruin my surprise?”

“No, indeed, he gave us barely a second’s warning,” Senneth said. “I think he thought that because
he
knew you were on the way, we all did. Cammon is living at the palace now.”

“Really? In training to become a Rider?” Kirra said in a mocking voice.

“Much more specialized than that,” Senneth said. “Mystic’s work.”

Kirra’s eyes widened, but before she could ask another question, Donnal came back carrying a tray of food. “Wild Mother kiss you,” Kirra said fervently. “I have to eat before I say another word.”

Tayse stayed by the fire, but Senneth, Donnal, and Cammon joined her at the small table in the corner of the room. Dinner in the royal kitchen had been a long time ago, so Cammon helped himself to a bit of meat and a thick slice of bread.

“Where were you?” Senneth asked. “Danalustrous?”

Kirra nodded and talked around a mouthful of food. “Helping to plan my sister’s wedding. Scarcely two months away now. Impossible to believe.”

“You weren’t in Danalustrous the whole time,” Cammon said.

She glanced at him and tried not to laugh. “No, you’re right, of course. By all the sweet gods, Cammon, are you going to track my slightest detour?”