Reign of the eagle, p.83
Reign of the Eagle, page 83
The Sahasran woman took Donella gently by the arm. “Come now, dear. You needn’t worry about them anymore.”
Donella went along, and the bandits rushed to bring over her horse and her saddlebags. On the one hand, she wasn’t exactly sorry to leave these men. But on the other hand, these strange foreign hillichmagnars—which is what they must be—were pretty terrifying in their own right. She had a bad feeling that going with them would be a terrible mistake. But what else could she possibly do?
Less than a minute later, she rode out of the camp with the woman on her left and the man on her right. Like they were guarding her.
“Imagine the nerve of those fellows,” grumbled the man. “Ten Sovereigns? They must have thought we were idiots.”
“I was going to bargain them down to two shillings,” said the woman. “But then I used to work in a market, and I don’t mind haggling.” She turned to Donella. “I suppose introductions are in order. We know who you are, of course. I’m Pallavi. My friend here is Vikker.”
“Are you going to let me go?” asked Donella. It was best to know for sure.
“Sorry, dear, but no,” said the woman, with a genuinely apologetic look. “Henry was quite right—you are worth a lot. And in fact, you’re worth a good deal more to me and my colleagues than you’re worth to people like Henry. But chin up. At least you’ll be getting decent food and a warm bed now.”
Chapter 14
They were near the city now, Andras could tell. There was more traffic on the road, and there were scattered little hamlets here and there in the hills. But he was unprepared for the suddenness of their arrival. They were riding along the shores of a pure blue lake; then the forest seemed to part, and he was looking at a wild jumble of buildings in all the colors of the rainbow—vivid pinks and blues and golds—rising up a steep hillside like a fashionable crowd at the theater. Another few yards, and he started seeing houses up the hill to his right, too. Bigger houses, with walled gardens and high, tiled roofs.
“Keep your head down,” said Rada quietly, and she led him to the side door of a wide brick building beside a green and shady park. There was a deep gorge beyond, and Andras could hear what sounded like a waterfall nearby. “We’re going to duck in here for a moment,” she said, pulling him into a tiny back parlor with painted screens and low lacquered tables. Digging in a bag, she produced an enormous fake beard, black and bushy, along with a straw hat. “Put these on,” she ordered. “We’ve only got a little way left to go, but there are a lot of Myrcian exiles in this part of town, and we can’t have you recognized. At least not yet.”
He had been quite excited about reaching the end of his long journey, but a cold dread settled into the pit of his stomach at this reminder that he was, technically speaking, going into enemy territory. Any Myrcians he met here would be Sigor supporters, and none of them would be especially happy to meet a Byrne.
When he had on his ridiculous disguise, Rada went into the next room and gave a servant girl a few coins to run up to the gate of some palace and tell the guard, “The young bear is here.” Presumably this was a code phrase to let Elwyn and her family know they should expect him.
Andras changed his shirt and put on his best velvet doublet while Rada ordered some tea and cakes. But they had barely started eating when the servant girl came back and said a soldier had told her to say, “The falcon awaits her tercel.”
The notion that he and Elwyn were a pair of birds being mated by their falconer made Andras snort, which earned him a scowl from Rada, and a reminder to “Please behave yourself.”
They started out again, skirting the edge of the gorge, with gated mansions rising above them on the right. As Rada had anticipated, they passed a number of men and women who were obviously Myrcian, all richly dressed and calling out cheerful greetings to Rada as they saw her. Several asked who Andras was, and she introduced him each time as, “Sir Andrew, newly arrived today.” In five hundred yards, he had half a dozen invitations to supper, but fortunately Rada managed to get him out of each one by saying he had “a pressing engagement at the palace.”
Following the road, they came to a smaller hill—a kind of spur off the main slope, where there was a compound surrounded by a high whitewashed wall. Two Sahasran soldiers bowed as Andras rode in through the gate, and ten Myrcian knights drew their swords in salute as Rada led the way up a winding gravel path through azaleas and cypress trees.
“You can take off the beard now,” said Rada.
“Thank Earstien.”
At last, they came out in a shaded garden, where they passed a lily pond and a fountain, and approached a low, white house with a long veranda.
Two men in blue silk tunics were waiting on the front steps. Andras recognized one instantly as the Earl of Hyrne. It had been more than five years, and the earl had put on a few pounds, but his eager grin was unmistakable. As for the other fellow, thinner and younger, Andras didn’t know him at first, until he noticed the little gold circlet in the boy’s hair, and he realized it must be Edwin.
King Edwin. He had to remember this kid was his king now.
Dismounting, he bowed low to the young fellow, who rushed down the steps to shake his hand, almost bouncing with excitement. “It’s so good to see you, Andras!” he cried.
“And to see you, too, your majesty,” said Andras.
They must have been desperate for supporters, or at least starved for new company, because he and Edwin had never been especially close. They were eleven years apart, and when the Sigors had left Formacaster, Edwin had still been playing with toy soldiers in the nursery. Even so, it was nice to feel appreciated.
The earl came down and shook his hand, too, and then ushered him through the veranda and into a big, shady parlor full of mismatched wicker furniture and faded watercolor paintings. Servant girls in blue and white cotton dresses came in through a wide archway with trays of honey cakes and a big silver urn of coffee. Andras drank a little and tried the cakes, but he was too nervous to eat much. This was finally the moment he’d been waiting for. This moment would decide the course of his entire life, and maybe change the course of Myrcian history.
And yet, there seemed to be some sort of delay. After a few awkward minutes, as he stood talking about the weather with Edwin, the earl bowed and said, “You’ll have to excuse me. I need to...um, see how things are coming along.”
He left, and somewhere deeper in the house, Andras could hear raised voices and slamming doors.
Edwin took a deep breath and said, “My sister has been looking forward to seeing you.”
Quick footsteps came up the hall, accompanied by low muttering. Then a swish of fabric, and Elwyn appeared in the archway, with the earl right behind her. Both of them were rather red in the face.
She wore a close-fitting Sahasran dress of white silk, embroidered with pink and red cherry blossoms. Andras couldn’t help staring. Had she always been built like that, with those hips and those legs? It had been so long since he’d seen her that he had forgotten how attractive she was. She was slightly out of breath, panting through full red lips, chest heaving, with the tops of her little breasts rising and falling above her bodice. Her bright blue eyes were wide, as if she was startled to find him there. Andras found his mouth had dropped open, and he shut it with a snap, worried he would start drooling.
“So you’re here,” she said, crossing her arms.
He bowed. “Yes, your royal highness. I bring you greetings from my parents.” He had composed a little speech in his head during the long ride. “They wish for you to—”
“They wish for me to forget that they stabbed my brother in the fucking back?” Elwyn said.
That was more or less the gist of the speech, but she had said it more vividly. “Your royal highness, your majesty,” he nodded to Edwin, “We all hope that with the Sigor and Byrne families together once again, there will be a new era of—”
“A new era of bullshit, no doubt,” said Elwyn.
The earl cleared his throat loudly. “Perhaps, Elwyn, you might show Lord Andras the gardens.”
“Really?” She gave the earl a look of mock astonishment. “Are you sure? Why don’t we just skip straight to the point? Andras and I can get to it, right now, right here on the coffee table.” Turning back to Andras, she started to slowly hike up her skirt. “What about it, Andras? I’m game if you are. If we’re lucky, you can impregnate me before lunch.”
“Will you excuse us for a moment?” said the earl through gritted teeth. He grabbed her by the arm and pulled her back through the arch and down the hall. A door slammed, but their raised voices were still audible through the walls. The earl shouted something about duty and the princess was snarling about treason.
Edwin shuffled his feet and gave Andras a nervous grin. “Um...shall we have a seat out on the veranda? The, uh...breeze is nice this time of day.”
They went out and sat on big wicker couches, while the servants moved the coffee urn and the cakes again. There was indeed a lovely breeze rustling through the leaves, and between that and the splashing of the fountain, and the chattering of the birds in the jacaranda trees, Andras could barely hear the earl and Elwyn fighting back in the house.
He knew he should try to be polite. This was clearly excruciating for poor Edwin, but Andras couldn’t help saying, “She was looking forward to seeing me, was she?”
“She’s a trifle nervous,” said Rada.
“So I noticed.” Andras had never known the princess well, even back in the days when he had been at court as the Duke of Haydonshire’s squire. But in those few minutes in the parlor, she had more than lived up to her reputation for having one of the fiercest tempers in Myrcia.
“So...your family is well?” asked Edwin, out of nowhere.
“They’re fine. Thank you for asking,” said Andras.
They fell into awkward silence, sipping their coffee and eating cakes, just for something to do. Andras was annoyed at Rada. Sometime during their long ride from Pinburg, she might have warned him that Elwyn didn’t want this marriage. It would have been good to know ahead of time. It would have been even better if he’d known back in Formacaster—it would have saved him a trip.
And yet, as he sat there, and the agonizing minutes dragged by, he couldn’t help remembering how Elwyn had looked in that dress, and those barely-parted lips, and those perfect, round little breasts rising and falling in her bodice. He thought of her, and pretty soon he had to cross his legs and hold his coffee cup over his lap to cover the growing bulge in his trousers.
Edwin apparently decided to make another stab at conversation. “I think the important thing to remember, Andras, is that my sister is a very...spirited person.”
“That she is.” In his mind, he could feel her lips on his skin, sliding down his torso and then wrapping around him. He could see those breasts free and glistening with sweat, rising and falling as she rode him to climax. In spite of himself, he started to smile. This was not going to be easy, but then again, nothing worthwhile ever was. “It’s alright,” he said. “I like a challenge.”
Chapter 15
He “liked a challenge”? Earstien, what a prick.
Rada had been sitting there, actually feeling sorry for him and feeling guilty for not warning him about Elwyn’s attitude toward the match. But then he said that, and he completely lost her sympathy. He was one of those men—like Lord Anish—who went around boasting of how they liked “a filly with spirit,” and other, similarly revolting things. Unsurprisingly, Elwyn seemed to attract that sort of fellow. There weren’t many “fillies” with more spirit than her.
No, if Rada was going to feel sorry for anyone, she felt sorry for poor Elwyn. Rada could only imagine what she must be going through. The whole time they had been in the parlor, the princess hadn’t looked at Rada once. Maybe she was still upset about their misunderstanding. Rada’s heart still ached over it. If there was anything she could do to make Elwyn happy again, she would do it, no matter how hard it was.
In an instant, she knew her place was not out here with Edwin and Andras. Her place was with her friend. “Pardon me,” she said, jumping to her feet. “No, don’t bother to get up. I need to check on something.”
She met the earl in the hall. His face was almost purple with fury. “You try talking to her,” he said. “She’s gone up to her room, and she won’t listen to a fucking word I say.” Then he stomped past her and out through the arch, no doubt headed to join the men on the veranda.
In the airy upstairs corridor, lined with windows along one side and dotted with potted orchids in vases, she tried Elwyn’s door. Of course, it was locked. “Elwyn?” she said. There was no reply. “Elwyn? Are you there?”
In the room beyond, she heard footsteps, coming closer, then going away again, over and over. Elwyn was pacing. Rada knocked. “Can I talk to you, please?”
A loud, angry sigh. Then, “You can go fuck yourself straight to the Void. That’s what you can do, Rada Kaur.”
Rada bit her lip. “Um...maybe we could talk about it if you let me in.”
“I don’t ever want to talk to you again. Just go away.”
She nearly did, but at the top of the stairs, she thought better of it and came back. What sort of friend would she be if she left Elwyn alone at this moment? Clearly the princess needed her, whether she realized it or not.
She stepped up to the door and turned her gold ring around so she could press the opal with her thumb. Picturing the bedroom in her mind, she whispered, “Muka Cala.” The world went dark for a moment, and she felt stretched and pulled, like water being sucked into a siphon. Then there was light again, and she was in Elwyn’s room, on the other side of the door.
Some of the hunting trophies on the wall hung askew, and there were throw pillows and shoes littering the old, well-worn carpets. It looked as if Elwyn had been venting her fury, but she clearly had a good deal left. The moment she heard Rada take a step, the princess spun around, shaking her finger, hair coming loose in long dark strands.
“How dare you!” she cried. “How dare you use that damned ring to come in here!”
“Elwyn, if you’re still mad about what happened between us before I left, then—”
“Oh, I’m over that now. Trust me.” She gave a grim little chuckle. “I am so very, very over that. I thought you loved me, but now I know you’re an asshole like everyone else.”
“I’m sorry if—”
“Do you know, when you first left, I actually felt guilty?” Elwyn started pacing again. “And then I thought, ‘Well, it’s alright. Rada will know what to do.’ I was sure you’d find some way to talk Andras out of coming here. Or at the very least you’d shove him in the river or get him lost in the forest or something.”
Rada looked at the floor, ashamed of herself. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize that’s what you wanted me to do.”
“How in the Void could you not know that was what I wanted? Did I not make my feelings clear enough?” Elwyn picked up a red leather sandal and hurled it at the wall, where it snagged on the antler of a mule deer and hung there, swinging wildly.
“I really am sorry.” Rada’s eyes started to water. “Even if I don’t have...romantic feelings for you, I hope you know I really do care a lot about you.”
“Bullshit.” Elwyn came closer. “Bullshit. Last week, I happened to go by my uncle’s study late at night. He was in there talking to Edwin, and I heard your name.”
“My...my name?”
“Yes, and you see, at that point, I still thought you were my friend, so naturally I stopped to see what they were saying about you. And do you know what I heard?”
Rada shook her head, blinking fast to stop the tears.
“My uncle said you made him a love potion. And he said if I wouldn’t take Andras willingly, then he would use the potion on me so I couldn’t help falling in love.” Through gritted teeth, she asked, “Is that true? Did you really do that?”
The tears ran freely down Rada’s cheeks now. With a little shudder, she nodded.
“Get out.”
“Elwyn, he promised he’d only ever use it if—”
“Shut up. And get out.”
Rada left the conventional way, hardly able to see where she was going, and Elwyn slammed the door after her.
Of course Rada couldn’t go back out to the veranda in that state, so she went down through the guest wing and out into the back gardens, where hopefully no one was lurking at this time of day. There were a number of secluded little nooks back there, low benches in odd angles between hedges or half-hidden under willows. She picked the most remote of all—a crumbling alcove built into the back wall, faced with broken tile, like there had been a fountain there at one time. She slumped among the shards and dust and cried for Elwyn.
The princess had every right to be angry; Rada knew that. If their friendship was dead now, it was because Rada had killed it. True, the earl had lied to her and manipulated her, but she should have known better than to trust him.
At every step along the way, there were things she could have done differently, things that would have spared Elwyn this humiliation. She could have used magy to make the earl give her the potion back. She could have refused to go to Pinburg. She could have done her best to convince Pallavi that the marriage would never work. She could have told Andras that Elwyn didn’t want him, and advised him to go back home. She could have done any of those things, but she hadn’t, and now Elwyn would never speak to her again.
In Rada’s mind, betraying a friend was one of the worst sins possible. Worse than murder, certainly. Maybe worse than lying or blasphemy. That was why she had left Loshadnarod, after all, giving up a commission in the Queen’s Guard and an honored position in the queen’s household. But she couldn’t have stayed there after what those people had done to Daryna.
When the great hillichmagnar’s affair with Misha had been revealed, people had turned on them, driving them from the camp and hounding them to their deaths. Then everyone had felt sorry, and they sang hymns in Daryna’s honor again. But it was too late. Rada could never forgive them. She couldn’t sit there in the royal tents and drink tea with the crown prince and his awful, awful wife, pretending they hadn’t stabbed their best friend in the back.
