Rajanas bowed from the saddle, every line of his body expressive of irony in a distinctly courtly manner, a reminder that he could assume it when he wanted. Or maybe when he had to; his conversation, the way he saw the world, and his habits marked him as a warrior.
From the back of his own horse, Prince Geric bowed in precise mirror image, making me wonder from whom Rajanas had learned those courtly manners. These two obviously had more history than I knew.
Beyond Rajanas, in the second row flanking him, I glimpsed Oflan, sitting between two burly guards. Frizzy strands of pale hair lifted on the wind as her customarily impassive expression altered to a sardonic smile as she gazed down at Prince Geric, but then her gaze shifted.
My head whipped around and I spotted Pandoc, the curly-haired Gray Wolf, busy signing rapidly—too rapidly for me to gather anything but the gist of his report. And it was a report, stating that the Duke of Thann intended to gather the rest of the company and return home to Thann.
When he paused, gazing up, I realized that Oflan must be responding and turned my head, but I missed her response, and then I realized that I was missing the spoken conversation.
“. . . We join our two parties,” Rajanas was saying.
Without waiting for Geric’s response, he made a casual gesture with his hand, and the Blues advanced steadily until the two parties merged.
Tir circled around overhead, ruby eyes gleaming in the weak light as the bird watched us all. I was afraid to open that mental “door” again, though Tir communicated much more easily mind to mind than squawking out human words one or two at a time.
Hlanan rode by me, his gaze searching my face. I smiled and he smiled back, but Geric stuck to his side as the Guards separated out the Gray Wolves.
At the same time an equally burly “honor guard” of Blues surrounded Prince Geric. “There is no need for you to go thus out of your way,” he said to Rajanas. “I know we are beyond your border.”
If that was a hint that Rajanas had no right to interfere with Geric, it went by like a spent arrow. Rajanas said, “On the contrary. I believe our paths lie together, and there is strength in numbers, is there not?”
Geric frowned at him, glanced narrow-eyed my way, then spoke to Rajanas in Imperial Court Elras—
As I said before, for some reason I still did not comprehend, I could understand any language I heard, and that included the general courtly speech such as that Hlanan and Geric and the rest of them had been raised to speak. Imperial Court Elras was what I thought of as Elras for snobs. It was the same language everyone else in the empire used, but reverted to old-fashioned verbs, forms of address, and terms as old-fashioned as formal court wear (what they call High Court Array), dating back to when the empire first became an empire.
“The Prince of the Golden Circle would give his highness of Alezand to understand that the miscreant thief will have uttered falsehoods,” Geric said.
Did he think I didn’t understand? I writhed with annoyance at his implication that I’d lied about his villainy!
“The Prince of Alezand,” Rajanas drawled, “would convey to his highness the Prince of the Golden circle that such an eventuality might have been anticipated. And it is his desire to convey a conviction that to proceed as planned is perceived as timely.” A stylized gesture skyward with a gloved hand, fingers spread, thumb pressed to his palm as the little finger turned upward.
Was there a little irony in that last bit? Geric flushed, or it could have been the weather reddening his princely skin. Anyway, I gave up trying to comprehend the subtleties of courtly jabber. It was not like I’d ever have to use it.
Scarcely had I thought that when uncertainty, even guilt followed, and I glanced at Hlanan, tense and still, wearing that non-expression that I’d privately begun calling his Heir Face. I wondered if he would look like that as an emperor.
Emperor.
Until then I had not put much thought into what the future might bring if Hlanan and I were still together. I’d spent my autumn weeks alternately delighting in his presence and ignoring court ritual as much as I could, as I beetled about trying to learn magic (useless) and music (equally useless, but much more fun because Thianra and I talked a lot).
Hlanan’s focus wasn’t on me. His tension eased as Rajanas lifted his voice. “Let us proceed to the Pass.” Impatience sizzled through me as I waited for the Blues to sort everyone out the way they’d been commanded.
I wanted to ride with Hlanan, but not if that would cause a lot of nosy questions. We were done there, I hoped. Time to leave the lot of them.
Under gently drifting flakes of snow, we drew slowly into a long column as we headed up a narrow path. Rajanas had singled Hlanan out, which caused me to drop back, sighing to myself as Tir swooped and glided overhead.
The aidlar seemed to be looking intently at me. When I tipped my head back, Tir dipped down close enough for me to see the patterns of feathers along its head and neck, and squawked, “Follow Lhind!”
I gaped. That was Tir I’d sensed from time to time, during that awful ride with Prince Geric, while my shoulder was healing?
Tir flapped and shrilled, “Mind! Talk!”
“No,” I said. Aware of attention zooming my way, I didn’t dare say why.
Tir gave a long shriek and arrowed up into the sky, then vanished against the clouds. I stared in dismay, hoping Hlanan wouldn’t be upset that I seemed to have angered the bird enough to cause it to decamp. The temptation to open the mental door and call Tir back was strong, but far stronger was my fear of finding Dhes-Andis standing right outside.
Still, the guilt lingered as I watched those ahead of me and tried to get rein on the galloping tangle of emotions. The path wound sharply around a striated slant of rock, topped by white bedecked firs.
I caught sight of Geric, who had summarily motioned to Pandoc, probably to hear what Oflan had reported. He listened for a short time, then kicked his horse ahead, leaving Pandoc to rejoin the other Gray Wolves being guarded by the biggest contingent of Blues. I didn’t hear a word, of course, but one thing was clear. Prince Geric was not pleased at Oflan’s explanation for exceeding orders.
Geric reined his horse to ride alongside Rajanas. Though I couldn’t hear them, I saw Hlanan brush snow off one sleeve in two quick gestures, then Rajanas flick the fingers of his right hand as though chasing a fly from his chin.
The gestures were so quick, so subtle, I might have missed them had I not remembered what Rajanas had told me. Of course any code made up by galley slaves would have to be subtle. No overseer was going to tolerate complicated hand signs.
Maybe I’d even seen the two communicating aboard Rajanas’s yacht the previous summer and hadn’t recognized what was going on.
At any rate, before they vanished beyond a clump of pines Geric continued talking to Rajanas in a way that suggested that he hadn’t seen the signs either.
Let him blab, I thought. At least we were done with him.
Impatience surged through me again as I waited for a chance to talk to Hlanan. That didn’t happen until Rajanas gave the signal to camp. As the Blues divided up, some staying with the not-quite-prisoner Gray Wolves, some helping Kuraf’s forest green rangers in setting up the tents carried on the remounts, and a few riding off to secure a perimeter, I sidled up to Hlanan.
“Ready to leave now?” I asked in the language of Thesreve, which I hoped the busybodies nearby didn’t understand. “We’re done with Geric and his villainy, aren’t we?”
And watched his smile fade to the Heir Face. “Of course you want to go,” he said. “Geric has been painfully obvious with his threats against you.”
“I can take care of myself,” I said, impatient, longing, and most of all conflicted. “Though the easiest way is to get as much distance between him and me that I can. Aren’t you done, now that Rajanas is going to the Pass to deal with the rest of the Gray Wolves? There’s still Maita and her treachery.”
Hlanan said, “I used Ilyan’s notecas
e to report as soon as we combined parties. If I were to guess, the Mage Council is investigating at this moment. If anyone can find proof, they will.”
I’d completely missed seeing him send his message, which I ought to have taken as a reminder that he was very skilled at maneuvering. But I was too intent on my own matters. “You don’t trust Rajanas to deal with this mess?” I asked. “Or is there something else? If you don’t want to tell me, well, I understand. Rajanas has reminded me plenty about how untrustworthy I am.”
“Lhind,” Hlanan said softly.
I sighed. “All right, that was sulk,” I admitted.
For answer he smiled briefly, and we regarded one another. I could sense in his silence, his air of question, that his uncertainty matched my own. The truth was, neither of us knew how to manage a relationship. He’d been very careful after the Duchess of Thann trampled all over his heart in an effort to trick him into doing something evil, avoiding the closeness that would lead to emotional entanglement and the confession inevitable after that. And as for me? Except one very brief foray, I’d never managed any kind of relationship. My best defense had been my artistically cultivated stench to keep people at a distance, and if they noticed me anyway my second defense had always been to run.
But emotional entanglement had sneaked up unawares on us both.
So here we were on the brink of another not-quite-argument of the sort that had sent me flouncing off to the cascade with that borrowed harp.
“You could return to the safety of Erev-li-Erval,” he began in a tentative voice, but so slowly that it was clear he knew it was no answer. Then his expression shuttered again. “You are not happy there.”
“I’m not happy with magic lessons that don’t make any sense,” I whispered, sidling looks around. “You know I’m not used to rules, and finicky manners, and changing my clothes a lot. It’s all too new, but if you are there. . . .” No, that sounded whiny. I sighed, and looked again. Luckily no one was the least interested in us, or my sneaky peeks probably would have acted like honey to bugs, irresistible to ignore.
I turned back in time to catch a brimming look of not-quite-suppressed laughter. Then he sobered. “Until I met you, I never considered the qualities of freedom,” he murmured. “You have thought yourself free all your life, but it was conditional, lived on the run lest you be caught and your secrets discovered. My freedom has always been conditional as well, my first priority always duty.”
He sidestepped Nill helping a Blue carrying a tent to be pitched near where we stood. Nill was chattering away, paying us no mind, but we still retreated behind a just-erected tent and walked side by side to the edge of the woods. Then Hlanan said, “I am unused to choices that include my own heart’s desire. And I think it is the same for you?”
“Yes.” Some of the knot inside me loosened. “Yes. I never had to think about another person. I never wanted to. I still don’t know what is to happen to us. As an us. Does that make sense?”
“It does to me,” he said on an exhale, and I knew from his tone that he had been worrying at the same questions in a parallel fashion.
Somehow that made me feel better overall.
He touched the top of my hand, his thumb circling in a gentle caress. “Shall we talk further once we reach the Pass? But please be vigilant. If you need to run, do. Geric is still determined to use you as a bargaining counter with Dhes-Andis, I believe.”
“I’m not afraid of him grabbing me with all these others around.”
Hlanan glanced away, as if listening for the sound of Geric’s voice. “He’s desperate, if not about that, then about something.”
“He’s a knothole,” I said promptly.
“Desperate people are dangerous,” Hlanan replied.
The sound of horse hooves arriving at a fast clip caused a stir in the camp. A snow-dusted scout arrived, leaning down to speak to Rajanas.
Geric appeared from a tent, his lounging step not disguising the stiffness of anger in his shoulders and the way he held his head.
Hlanan trod toward Rajanas and Kuraf as one who had the right. I, aware of my lack of status—except as a target—slipped around the back of the nearest tents, where I could listen but stay out of sight.
Not that there was any need. Rajanas looked around, lifted his voice, and said, “We’ve located the Gray Wolf main camp. We should reach them in two days.”
EIGHT
No use in describing that trip. Two days uphill into increasingly high-piled snow? Of course it was miserable, especially as I was convinced that during any other season it might have been a pleasant afternoon journey.
There’s also no use in describing all the folderol that Geric offered, promised, hinted, and insinuated during the first day’s ride. He never quite brought himself to threaten Rajanas, who listened with his usual lack of affect but never agreed to anything.
I didn’t think about it at the time, but I was getting a lesson in how courtiers of Erev-li-Erval negotiate.
In court, everybody is supposed to appear refined, true emotions hidden behind those cool, urbane countenances. You don’t sweat at court. A belch would be a calamity. Any sign of emotion becomes a weapon used by the rest, or at least entertainment.
When we camped that night, Geric withdrew to his tent (he insisted on his own), while Oflan sat with Kuraf, Hlanan, and Rajanas around the fire before the command tent. Pandoc sat with them as interpreter, but I noticed that Rajanas and Hlanan were both getting more adept at signing.
The second day Geric rode alone, ignoring everyone. Again when we camped he made it clear he preferred his own company, but as I passed behind the group while looking for Nill, I saw Geric watching the same group around the campfire. His gaze was too intent to be idle.
Glad it wasn’t aimed at me, I thought nothing more of it as Nill appeared and offered to share their hoarded hot cider.
The third day we reached the Gray Wolves. They’d gathered in the center of their permanent campsite, aware that they were surrounded by Rajanas’s Blue Guard. I guess the scouts and outriders of both Rajanas’s and the Gray Wolves hadn’t bothered being stealthy, so our arrival was no surprise.
Jendo Nath, Oflan’s father and the chief of the Wolves, was a man with gray hair and a small, pointy beard. I’d first encountered him when he was chasing Hlanan and me on orders of Duchess Morith.
Chief Nath noticed Hlanan and me at the same time we saw him. His eyes narrowed, his gloved hand moving to his sword hilt. Then he shifted his gaze to his daughter, who was busy signing.
Rajanas halted, lifted his voice, and said so all could hear, “I have studied the history of Thann.” He glanced at Geric once, but he was talking to the Gray Wolves, Pandoc hastily signing to Oflan. “Your history parallels ours. No surprise. These duchies and principalities at this end of the valley share some characteristics. One of ’em is the right to challenge.”
Geric’s head turned sharply.
Rajanas grinned at him. “You know that. You once flung in my teeth how uncouth my ancestors were, my great-grandfather having challenged the previous prince. And won. Therefore, as you are now the Duke of Thann, I challenge you for the oath of the Gray Wolves. If I win, your company will swear oath to Alezand.”
Geric paled with anger. But he didn’t let any of it out. “I had not foreseen this treachery,” he said smoothly, softly.
“Your treachery,” Rajanas replied, “is expedience to some. And to others, justice.” He turned to Chief Nath. “You were lied to by Duchess Morith. Hlanan the Scribe was not, and never has been, any threat to Thann. Neither has this Hrethan.”
A sudden wave in my direction caused me to instinctively duck.
“If you like, you may put your questions to them both before we go any farther. But my challenge stands.”
The silence after these words was so complete that I heard the soft chuff of snow falling from a tree several paces away, and further down below the path, the snort of a horse on the picket line.
Jendo Nath took us all in, then inclined his head to Geric before speaking. “It is customary,” he said slowly, “to allow a night to pass before challenges are accepted.”
“As you wish,” Rajanas said. “We will camp on this slope here. The sentries will permit you to pass the inner perimeter, with an equerry accompanying, if you want to parley.”
Chief Nath bowed slightly again. Geric crossed the distance to him in two strides—forgetting to lounge—and began talking to him in a low voice. They vanished into the Gray Wolf camp.
As Rajanas’s and Kuraf’s people set up camp for the night I chose a tree to sleep in. As I made a nest of soft pine boughs on a broad branch, I mentally rehearsed all the things I’d say to any questions Chief Nath might put, complete to opinions about the Gray Wolves, Prince Geric, and the late and very unlamented Duchess Morith of Thann.
But Chief Nath had no interest in talking to me or anyone in our camp. I could see the glow of their fires rising above the sharp silhouettes of their brush and rock-reinforced tents. The only traveler between our camp and theirs was Oflan Nath, accompanied by a couple of burly Blues.
She returned a short time later, still under guard. Rajanas offered her a plate of food (the Gray Wolves having little to eat over on their side, due to Kuraf’s people having cut off their supplies) and she sat on a rock, her interpreter nearby. Pandoc joined her as well, accompanied by a young Alezand guard.
Despite the weird situation—not quite enemies, but certainly not friends—the atmosphere between the Gray Wolves and the Alezand Blues was surprisingly easy. I watched from afar as they chattered with voices and hands about travel, weather, and similar subjects. Rajanas kept up a constant conversation in sign, sometimes laughing at Oflan’s puzzled glances; she occasionally huffed a silent laugh at some of his signs, as did Hlanan.
Geric stayed out of the conversation. He sat near the fire, silent and watchful. I was careful to keep myself on opposite sides of the camp from him.