Court Duel (29 page)

"My thinking was this," I said, trying to sound casual,
though by then my face felt as red as a glowing Fire Stick.
"Two of them could trounce me as easy as twenty wagons' worth.
The idea was to talk them out of trying. Luckily Nessaren and
the rest of the wing arrived when they did, or I suspect I soon
would have been part of the road."

Shevraeth's mouth was perfectly controlled, but his eyes
gleamed with repressed laughter as he said, "That won't do, my
lady. I am very much afraid if you're going to continue to
attempt heroic measures you will have to make suitably heroic
statements afterward—"

"If there is an afterward," I muttered, and someone in the
avidly watching group choked on a laugh.

"—such as are written in the finest of our
histories."

"Huh," I said. "I guess I'll just have to memorize a few
proper heroic bombasts, rhymed in three places, for next time.
And I'll also remember to take a scribe to get it all down
right."

He laughed—they all did. They laughed much harder than
the weak joke warranted, and I realized that events had not
been so easy here.

I unclasped his cloak and handed it over. "I'm sorry about
the hem," I said, feeling suddenly shy. "Got a bit muddy."

He slung the cloak over one arm and gestured to a waiting
cushion. "Something hot to drink?"

A young cadet came forward with a tray and steaming coffee.
I busied myself choosing a cup, sitting down, and striving to
reestablish within myself a semblance of normalcy. While I
sipped at my coffee, one by one the staff finished their chores
and vanished through the tent flaps, until at last Shevraeth
and I were alone.

He turned to face me. "Questions?"

"Of course! What happened?"

He sat down across from me. "Took 'em by surprise," he said.
"That part was easy enough. The worst of it has been the
aftermath."

"You captured the commanders, then. The Marquise
and—"

"Her daughter, the two mercenary captains, the two sellout
garrison commanders, the Denlieff wing commander, Barons
Chaskar and Hurnaev, and Baroness Orgaliun, to be precise.
Grumareth's nowhere to be found; my guess is that he got cold
feet and scampered for home. If so, he'll find some of my
people waiting for him."

"So the Marquise is a prisoner somewhere?" I asked, enjoying
the idea.

He grimaced. "No. She took poison. A constitutional
inability to suffer reverses, apparently. We didn't find out
until too late. Fialma," he added drily, "tried to give her
share to me."

"That must have been a charming scene."

"It took place at approximately the same time you were
conversing with your forty wagoneers." He smiled a little.
"Since then I have dispatched the real mercenaries homeward,
unpaid, and sent some people to make certain they get over the
border. What they do in Denlieff is their ruler's problem.
Fialma is on her way back—under guard—to
Erev-li-Erval, where I expect she'll become a permanent
Imperial Court leech. The Denlieff soldiers I'm keeping in
garrison until the ambassador can squeeze an appropriate trade
agreement from his soon-to-be apologetic king and queen. The
two sellouts we executed, and I have trusted people combing
through the rest to find out who was coerced and who not."

"Half will be lying, of course."

"More. It's a bad business, and complete justice is probably
a dream. But the word will get out, and I hope it won't be so
easy to raise such a number again."

I sighed. "Then the Merindar threat is over."

"I sincerely hope so."

"You do not sound convinced."

He said, "I confess I'll feel more convinced when the
courier from Athanarel gets here."

"Courier?"

"Arranged with my parents. Once a day, even if the word was
'no change.' Only she's late."

"How late?" I asked, thinking of a couple of measures, or
maybe a candle, or even two. "The rain was bad
yesterday—"

"A day."

Warning prickled at the back of my neck. "Oh, but surely if
there was a problem, someone would either send a runner or come
in person."

"That's the most rational way to consider it," he
agreed.

"And of course you sent someone to see if something happened
to the expected courier? I mean something ordinary, like the
horse threw a shoe, or the courier fell and sprained her
leg?"

He nodded. "I'll wait until the end of blue, and make a
decision then." He looked up. "In the meantime, do you have any
more questions for me?" His voice was uninflected, but the
drawl was gone.

I knew that the time for the political discussion was past,
for now, and that here at last were the personal issues that
had lain between us for so long. I took a deep breath. "No
questions. But I have apologies to make. I think, well, I
know
that I owe you some explanations. For things I
said. And did. Stupid things."

He lifted a hand. "Before you proceed any further ..." He
gave me a rueful half smile as he started pulling off his
gloves, one finger at a time. When the left one was off he
said, "This might be one of the more spectacular of
my
mistakes—" With a last tug, he pulled off the right, and
I saw the glint of gold on his hand.

As he laid aside the gloves and turned back to face me, I
saw the ring on his littlest finger, a gold ring carved round
with laurel leaves in a particular pattern. And set in the
middle was an ekirth that glittered like a nightstar.

"That's my ring," I said, numb with shock.

"You had it made," he replied. "But now it's mine."

I can't say that everything suddenly became clear to me,
because it didn't. I realized only that he was the Unknown, and
that I was both horrified and relieved. Suddenly there was too
much to say, but nothing I
could
say.

As it turned out, I didn't have to try. I looked up to see
him smiling, and I realized that, as usual, he'd been able to
read my face easily.

By then my blood was drumming in my ears like distant
thunder.

"It is time," he said, "to collect on my wager."

He moved slowly. First, his hands sliding round me and cool
light-colored hair drifting against my cheek, and then softly,
so softly, the brush of lips against my brow, my eyes, and then
my lips. Once, twice, thrice, but no closer. The
sensations—like starfire—that glowed through me
chased away from my head all thoughts save one, to close that
last distance between us.

I locked my fingers round his neck and pulled his face again
down to mine.

TWENTY-TWO

I DIDN'T WANT THAT KISS TO EVER STOP. HE DIDN'T seem to,
either.

But after a time, I realized the drumming sound I heard was
not my heart, it was hoofbeats, and they were getting
louder.

We broke apart, and his breathing was as ragged as mine. We
heard through the tent the guard stop the courier, and the
courier's response, "But I have to report right away!"

A moment later the courier was in the tent, muddy to the
chin, and weaving as he tried to stand at attention. "You said
to return if I found Keira, or if I saw anything amiss," he
gasped out.

"And?" Shevraeth prompted.

"Streets are empty," the courier said, knuckling his eyes. I
winced in sympathy. "Arrived ... second-gold. Ought to have
been full. No one out. Not a dog or a cat. No sign of Keira,
either. Didn't try to speak to anyone. Turned around, rode back
as fast as I could."

"Good. You did the right thing. Go to the cook tent and get
something to eat. You're off duty."

The courier bowed and withdrew, staggering once.

Shevraeth looked grimly across the tent at me. "Ready for a
ride?"

It was well past sunset before we got away. All the details
that couldn't be settled had to be delegated, which meant
explanations and alternative orders. But at last we were on the
road, riding flat out for the capital. The wind and our speed
made conversation under a shout impossible, so for a long time
we rode in silence.

It was just as well, leastwise for me. I really needed time
to think, and—so I figured—if my life was destined
to continue at such a headlong pace, I was going to have to
learn to perform my cerebrations while dashing back and forth
cross-country at the gallop.

Of course my initial thoughts went right back to that kiss,
and for a short time I thought wistfully about how much I'd
been missing. But I realized that, though it was splendid in a
way nothing had been hitherto and I hoped there'd be plenty
more—and soon—it didn't solve any of the puzzles
whose pieces I'd only recently begun to comprehend. If
anything, it made things suddenly more difficult.

I wished that I had Nee to talk to, or better, Oria. Except
what would be the use? Neither of them had ever caused someone
to initiate a courtship by letter.

I sighed, glad for the gentle rain, and for the darkness, as
I made myself reconsider all of my encounters with
Shevraeth—this time from, as much as I was able, his
perspective.

This was not a pleasant exercise. By the time we stopped,
sometime after white-change, to get fresh horses and food and
drink, I was feeling contrite and thoroughly miserable.

We stepped into the very inn in which we'd had our initial
conversation; we passed the little room I had stood outside of,
and I shuddered. Now we had a bigger one, but I was too tired
to notice much beyond comfortable cushions and warmth. As I
sank down, I saw glowing rings around the candles and rubbed my
eyes.

When I looked up at Shevraeth, it was in time to catch the
end of one of those assessing glances. Then he smiled, a real
smile of humor and tenderness.

"I knew it," he said. "I knew that by now you would have
managed to see everything as your fault, and you'd be drooping
under the weight."

"Why did you do it?" I answered, too tired to even try to
keep my balance. Someone set down a tray of hot chocolate, and
I hiccuped, snorted in a deep breath, and with an attempt at
the steadying influence of laughter, added, "Near as I can see
I've been about as pleasant to be around as an angry bee
swarm."

"At times," he agreed. "But I take our wretched beginning as
my own fault. I merely wanted to intimidate you—and
through you, your brother—into withdrawing from the
field. What a mess you made of my plans! Every single day I had
to re-form them. I'd get everyone and everything set on a new
course, and you'd manage to hare off and smash it to shards
again, all with the best of motives, and actions as gallant as
ever I've seen, from man or woman." He smiled, but I just
groaned into my chocolate. "By the time I realized I was going
to have to figure you into the plans, you were having none of
me, or them. At the same time, you managed to win everyone you
encountered—save the Merindars—to your side."

"I understand about the war. And I even understand why you
had to come to Tlanth." I sighed. "But that doesn't explain the
letters."

"I think I fell in love with you the day you stood before
Galdran in the Throne Room, surrounded by what you thought were
enemies, and glared at him without a trace of fear. I knew it
when you sat across from me at your table in Tlanth and argued
so passionately about the fairest way to disperse an army, with
no other motive besides testing your theories. It also became
clear to me on that visit that you showed one face to all the
rest of the world, and another to me. But after you had been at
Athanarel a week, Russav insisted that my cause was not
hopeless."

"Savona? How did he know?"

The Marquis shook his head, "You'd have to address that
question to him."

I rubbed my eyes again. "So his flirtation
was
false."

"I asked him to make you popular," Shevraeth admitted.
"Though he will assure you that he found the task thoroughly
enjoyable. I wanted your experience of Court to be as easy as
possible. Your brother just shrugged off the initial barbs and
affronts, but I knew they'd slay you. We did our best to
protect you from them, though your handling of the situation
with Tamara showed us that you were very capable of directing
your own affairs."

"What about Elenet?" I asked, and winced, hating to sound
like the kind of jealous person I admired least. But the image
of that goldenwood throne had entered my mind and would not be
banished.

He looked slightly surprised. "What about her?"

"People—some people—put your names together.
And," I added firmly, "she'd make a good queen. Better than
I."

He lifted his cup, and I saw my ring gleaming on his finger.
He'd worn that since he left Bran and Nee's ball. He'd been
wearing it, I thought, when we sat in this very inn and he went
through that terrible inner debate on whether or not I was a
traitor.

I dropped my head and stared into my cup.

"Elenet," he said, "is an old friend. We grew up together
and regard one another as brother and sister, a comfortable
arrangement since neither of us had siblings."

I thought of that glance she'd given him when I spied on
them in the Royal Wing courtyard. She had betrayed feelings
that were not sisterly. But he hadn't seen that look because
his heart lay otherwhere.

I pressed my lips together. She was worthy, but her love was
not returned. Suddenly I understood why she had been so guarded
around me. The honorable course for me would be to keep to
myself what I had seen.

Shevraeth continued, "She spent her time with me as a mute
warning to the Merindars, who had to know that she came to
report on Grumareth's activities, and I didn't want them trying
any kind of retaliation. She realized that our social proximity
would cause gossip. That was inevitable. But she heeded it not;
she just wants to return to Grumareth and resume guiding her
lands to prosperity again." He paused, then said, "As for her
quality, it is undeniable. But I think the time has come for a
different perspective, one that is innate in you. It is a
problem, I have come to realize, with our Court upbringing. No
one, including Elenet, has the gift you have of looking every
person you encounter in the face and accepting the person
behind the status. We all were raised to see servants and
merchants as faceless as we pursued the high strategy. I'm half
convinced this is part of the reason why the kingdom ended up
in the grip of the likes of the Merindars."