Senneth hadn’t expected their pleas to hold Amalie in place forever. In fact, she was surprised they had worked this long. Amalie, though the most agreeable and easygoing of monarchs, was unbelievably stubborn when she believed she was right. And she was determined to be the people’s queen, accessible to all her subjects.
But with the realm still so unsettled . . .
“It’s a risk,” Senneth said. “Especially if there are really outlaws crowding all the thoroughfares of Gillengaria.”
“I’ll take a few guards with me,” Cammon said.
“A few!” she exclaimed, before realizing he was joking.
“You and Tayse. The two of you alone could keep me safe. Queen’s mystic and Queen’s Rider.”
Senneth pressed her lips together. “I’m not the mystic I once was,” she said quietly.
He held his hand out and she slowly gave him hers. Her skin was still warmer to the touch than his—than anyone’s—but it burned at nothing like the fever pitch that used to scorch others when her magic was at its hottest.
“I haven’t seen you call flame for a couple months now,” he said. “Are you getting stronger?”
She pulled her hand away. “A little.”
“Show me.”
She clenched her fingers a moment to feel the heat build in her veins, then splayed them fast. Fire danced from every fingertip and encased her arm like a writhing red glove. She touched her hand to a pile of papers on his desk, and they went up in flames. She leaned toward the window and set the curtains on fire. The temperature in the room rose appreciably, and the smell of smoke was very strong.
“These days I can’t set anything on fire unless I put my hand to it,” she said. “I used to be able to fling fire halfway across a city.”
“Can you still put out any fire in the vicinity just by willing it?” he asked.
“Oh, yes,” she said, and curled her fingers again. Every blaze in the room went out. The curtains, the papers on the desk, showed no sign of charring. “But that’s not quite as satisfying as causing an inferno to begin with.”
“I’m wondering,” he said, “just how much additional power you might be able to summon if you were in a desperate battle.”
She gave him a somewhat sour look. “I’ve wondered the same thing, but since I’ve no wish to be in a desperate battle, I hope I don’t find out.”
“At any rate, you have plenty of magic for what I need,” he said. “Which is to accompany me on a tour of the southern Houses.”
“And you want to do—what? Visit Gisseltess, Rappengrass, and Fortunalt? Go looking for malcontents? What are you going to tell the marlords and marladies as you start poking through their properties?”
“I’ll say I’m trying to determine how safe it would be for the queen to make such a tour later in the year.”
“Cammon!” Now she practically jumped out of the chair. “You don’t mean that, do you?”
He gave her a limpid look. “Of course I do. You know Amalie wants to travel throughout Gillengaria. She won’t wait much longer. But I’d like to know that the roads—and Houses—are secure before she sets out.”
She took a deep breath. Tayse wasn’t going to like this. Although Tayse was always practical. If the queen insisted on touring the southern Houses, Tayse, too, would want to make sure the countryside was swept clean of brigands and rebels. “Well. Naturally Tayse and I will come. Do you want to wait till Justin comes back from the Lirrens? You know he won’t want to be left out.”
Cammon gestured. “I’ll let him know he should meet us at Gissel Plain.”
“I don’t know how many Riders Tayse will want you to have—and then a whole complement of royal soldiers in addition—well, we’ll just let him decide the numbers,” Senneth said. “Isn’t there some law about how many Riders have to always remain with the king or queen?”
“That’s what Amalie says,” he answered. “There must always be forty Riders available to guard the monarch. So I guess I could take nine with me.”
Forty-nine Riders, Senneth thought. There should have been fifty, but eight had died in the war and four had left the royal service once the fighting ended. Not unexpectedly, there had been a host of candidates who presented themselves in Ghosenhall, auditioning for this most prestigious post, but Amalie had only slowly rebuilt her elite guard. It was a tight, almost mystical bond, the connection between ruler and Rider. Riders were unswervingly loyal, more dedicated to their king—or queen—than to their own lives; in return the monarchs trusted their Riders absolutely. It was not a casual thing to accept an individual into such intense service. It was a compact that had never been betrayed, and as far as Senneth knew, a Rider never left his ruler’s service unless he or his sworn liege was dead.
There had been plenty of promising young soldiers eager to fill that fiftieth slot, but Amalie had stopped auditioning new candidates. “I have a full complement of Riders,” she said if anyone asked. Everyone knew that there was one missing. Everyone knew that Amalie would not replace her.
“Well—nine Riders—surely you’ll be safe then,” Senneth said. “How quickly do you want to leave?”
“How quickly do you think Tayse can put together a detail?”
She grinned. “Within the hour, liege, if you’re in a hurry.”
He laughed. “I think we can take a day or two to organize ourselves. At any rate, I can’t leave for two weeks, because there is that dinner Romar wants me to attend.”
She came to her feet. “Then that gives Tayse plenty of time to prepare. I’ll tell him to plan his route and pick his men.”
“And women,” Cammon said.
She gave him an inquiring look.
“I think Janni should come with us,” he said.
“Certainly. Any particular reason?”
He considered. “I think she’d enjoy the trip.”
So there was a reason but he didn’t want to tell her. For someone who made it impossible for others to conceal their thoughts, Cammon could be maddeningly uncommunicative at times. But there was no hardship in including Janni on any long excursion. The young Rider was cheerful, skilled, and able to hold her own with anyone, verbally and physically—even Justin. “Anyone else you’d like us to invite for crucial but unnamed reasons?” she asked sweetly.
He just gave her that boyish smile again. “I don’t think so.”
“All right. We’ll be ready to leave whenever you want us.”
Chapter 8
WEN STOOD OUTSIDE THE TRAINING YARD AT FORTUNE and watched her new recruits with a critical eye.
They were not, so far, much to look at. Well, neither was the yard. She had insisted on having a couple acres of the perfectly well-tended lawn ripped up, fenced off, and turned into a practice field where the men under her command could hone their skills. Now the field was churned and muddy, just as a training yard should be—more so today because of the rain the night before.
The men gamely battling it out were already covered to their knees in wet dirt, and more than one had slipped on the slick surface and gone crashing down. Good. Plenty of skirmishes were fought on unfriendly terrain. They had to be prepared for bad weather and unforgiving ground.
Though at the moment, they didn’t look prepared for anything. It had taken Wen a week to assemble this lot, presumably the best Forten City had to offer. She had rather enjoyed the recruiting process, for she had what amounted to unlimited funds and a prestigious position to offer; the men she had approached in taverns and along the docks had listened with interest as she outlined her proposal. I want twenty-four of the best fighters in Fortunalt to come work for the serramarra Karryn. You have to be prepared to work harder than you ever have before, and you must swear absolute loyalty to the House. But you’ll be amply compensated, and you’ll have pride in your work. . . .
She’d dismissed the sorry remnants of the guard who had been at the House when she arrived. Although she had invited them all to audition for the new force, none of th
em had—but more than a hundred strangers had taken up the offer. A handful of them were women, which pleased her because Wen had specifically sought to add a female element to the guard. She knew from her own experience that a woman’s physical strength could rarely match a man’s, but many times an encounter depended on agility, guile, and speed, in addition to training, and the women among the Riders had always been exceptional on those counts. Besides, she thought it would be good for Karryn to see women among her soldiers. It would remind the serramarra that just because she was female, she shouldn’t consider herself helpless.
It had been easy to winnow out the applicants who were completely unqualified. And it was not particularly hard to pick out the ones she had no interest in hiring—the arrogant, the untrainable, the evil-tempered. The real trick was finding the raw material that she could mold into a fighting force: the young woman who’d never held a sword but had an uncanny aptitude, the brawny brute who had never learned to temper his strength with finesse. Most of the time she was just guessing.
On a whim, she’d invited Bryce to attend the final auditions to see if he had any observations to offer. He seemed gratified by her trust and planted himself on the top rail of the raw wood fence encircling the yard, and he sat there all morning with his face screwed up in concentration. When she had the fighters take a break around noon, Wen hopped onto the railing next to him and mussed his red hair.
“Well? Any thoughts?”
He looked apologetic. “I can’t tell who’s any good,” he said. “I thought I’d just be able to know who ought to be a fighter, but it’s all too fuzzy. There’s too much spinning around.”
Wen was a little disappointed, but she grinned at him. “That’s all right. I can tell who the fighters are. I just thought you might know—” She shrugged. “Something about them that’s important,” she ended lamely.
“Well, I know who I don’t like,” he said.
That was more like it. “Who? And don’t point. We don’t want anyone to know we’re talking about them.”
“That big man. Who doesn’t have any hair. He’s mean.”
Wen glanced casually at the large bald fighter who, even at the meal break, was practicing his two-handed swings. He was one of the better combatants on the field, certainly one of the more experienced, and she’d mentally put him on the list of finalists. “Everybody seems mean when they’re fighting,” she said.
“You don’t. And he’s just—he reminds me of Howard.”
She knew it was a common thing for a private guard to include a few bullies and outright sadists—the soldier’s life attracted folks who reveled in violence. But the best soldiers had no taste for cruelty. They could be ruthless; it went without saying that they were willing to kill. But they never killed lightly, or enjoyed it, or found excuses to inflict pain. Tayse had always been her idea of the perfect soldier, extraordinarily skilled, absolutely fearless, yet deeply thoughtful. Tayse would not tolerate a vicious man in his barracks.
Neither would Wen. She nodded at Bryce. “Thanks for telling me. We don’t want men like Howard in our guard.”
He gave her a shy smile. “Maybe I’m wrong.”
She shrugged. “And maybe not. Anybody else you don’t like?”
“No, not really. Oh, but I’ll tell you who I do like. That mystic woman.”
She gave him a sharp look. “What? Who’s a mystic?”
“The woman over by the fence, cleaning off her shoe.”
Wen let her eyes travel around the yard until they came to rest on the woman Bryce had indicated. Huh. She was a few years older than Wen, a few inches taller, and a few pounds heavier. She’d acquitted herself well enough, but Wen had considered her a little too slow to ever make a top-flight soldier. But if she was a mystic . . .
“What’s her power?”
“I can’t tell. Does it matter?”
“I guess not.” Wen watched her awhile longer. The woman carefully checked her sword and carefully sheathed it before joining the others at the lunch cart. Thoughtful. Cautious. Both good traits in a guard. “Anybody else? What do you think of that boy over there? Looks like he’s not much older than Ginny.”
“I think he’s smart,” Bryce said.
“And that man? The one with the red vest?”
She led him through the fifteen or so she’d picked out as her best prospects and found that—with the notable exceptions of the bald man and the mystic woman—their impressions mostly tallied. She couldn’t decide if she should be more pleased with Bryce or with herself for their ability to read other people.
After the lunch break, she slipped back into the yard, paired up combatants again, and chose the big man as her own opponent. She hadn’t gotten this close to him before, and now she focused on trying to determine personality through fighting style. He was reckless, and he wasn’t intimidated by the fact that, if she hired him, she’d be his captain. In fact, the sneer on his face as he bored in for a mock kill made her think he probably had no high opinion of female soldiers and probably wouldn’t take orders from her all that well. It was a problem she expected to have with most of the men, at least at first. Once she’d defeated them all a few times on the practice field, she’d have earned their respect.
She knew that because that was how she’d been forcing male soldiers to respect her for pretty much her entire career.
This fellow was pigheaded, though; she could read it in his face. As she led him through gradually more brutal exercises, breaking through his defenses every time, his sneer grew more pronounced. He couldn’t believe she would continue to outfight him; he was determined to smash her down. His swings became wilder and his intention more obvious. The second time Wen stepped hastily away to avoid having her skull split in two, he gave her a wolfish grin.
“Afraid?” he said, his tone taunting. “Thought a professional like you could beat back any of us.”
“Careful,” she warned. “You’re pushing it to the point where one of us is really going to get hurt. I’d just as soon not have my shoulder broken the first week I try to get my guard in shape.” What she really meant was, I’d just as soon not have to open up your guts right here in front of everybody, but she was trying to phrase it politely.
“Hazard of the career,” he said, and swung mightily.
She didn’t even try to parry. She ducked back, waited for the momentum to carry him too far, and then darted in to carve the right side of his rib cage open. He howled in fury and staggered sideways, clapping a hand to his bloody side. “You bitch!” he cried. He took a few stumbling steps toward her, but she wasn’t worried. A man like him couldn’t fight with a wound like that. Tayse could have—Tayse could have cut her down if his right arm had been sawed off, and Justin wouldn’t have even bothered slowing down for such an injury. But this man was made of weaker material.
“I thought I made it clear that no one was going to try to kill anyone,” she told him calmly, as he gasped to a halt before her. Everyone else had stopped fighting to watch the encounter. “Looked to me like you were trying to land a real blow.”
“You crippled me!” he cried.
Wen motioned over the footman who had been assigned to her, to carry messages, run errands, and look after her money. “You’ll be paid for your time and inconvenience,” she said coolly. “But I think it’s time you were gone.”
He blustered, cursed, and threw down his borrowed sword before stomping out of the yard. His performance put everyone else a little on edge, but Wen allowed no trace of her own temper to show on her face. “Back to partners,” she called out, and the fighting began again.
Before long, she picked her way through the grunting bodies and singled out the mystic woman. “Take a few rounds with me,” she said, and the woman’s opponent peeled away. “What’s your name?” she asked as they fell into position.