Court Duel (8 page)

He gave his head a shake. "Never ride in coaches. If you
want to know the truth, they make me sick. How about a
wager?"

"A wager?" I repeated.

"Yes," he said, and gave me a slow smile, his eyes bright
with challenge.
"Who
reaches Jeriab's Broken Shield in
Lumm first."

"Stake?" I asked cautiously.

He was still smiling, an odd sort of smile, hard to define.
"A kiss."

My first reaction was outrage, but then I remembered that I
was on my way to Court, and that had to be the kind of thing
they did at Court.
And if I win I don't have to
collect.
I hesitated only a moment longer, lured by the
thought of open sky, and speed, and
winning.

"Done," I said.

S I X

I WENT STRAIGHT BACK TO MY ROOM, SURPRISING Mora and one of
her staff in the act of packing up my trunk. Apologizing, I
hastily unlaced the traveling gown and reached for my riding
gear.

Mora gave me a slight smile as she curtsied. "That's my job,
my lady," she said. "You needn't apologize."

I grinned at her as I pulled on the tunic. "Maybe it's not
very courtly, but I feel bad when I make someone do a job
twice."

Mora only smiled as she made a sign to the other servant,
who reached for the traveling gown and began folding it up. I
thrust my feet into my riding boots, smashed my fancy new
riding hat onto my head, and dashed out again.

The Marquis was waiting in the courtyard, standing between
two fresh mares. I was relieved that he did not have that
fleet-footed gray I remembered from the year before. On his
offering me my pick, I grabbed the reins of the nearest mount
and swung up into the saddle. The animal danced and sidled as I
watched Bran and Nimiar come out of the inn hand in hand. They
climbed into the coach, solicitously seen to by the innkeeper
himself.

The Marquis looked across at me. "Let's go."

And he was off, with me right on his heels.

At first all I was aware of was the cold rain on my chin and
the exhilaration of speed. The road was paved, enabling the
horses to dash along at the gallop, sending mud and water
splashing.

Before long I was soaked to the skin everywhere except my
head, which was hot under my riding hat, and when we bolted
down the road toward the Akaeriki, I had to laugh aloud at how
strange life is! Last year at this very time I was running
rain-sodden for my life in the opposite direction, chased by
the very same man now racing neck and neck beside me.

The thought caused me to look at him, though there was
little to see beyond flying light hair under the broad-brimmed
black hat and that long black cloak. He glanced over, saw me
laughing, and I looked away again, urging my mount to greater
efforts.

At the same pace still, we reached the first staging point.
Together we clattered into the innyard and swung down from the
saddle. At once two plain-dressed young men came out of the
inn, bowed, and handed Shevraeth a blackweave bag. It was
obvious from their bearing that they were trained warriors,
probably from Renselaeus. For a moment the Marquis stood
conversing with them, a tall mud-splashed and anonymously
dressed figure. Did anyone else know who he was? Or who I was?
Or that we'd been enemies last year?

Again laughter welled up inside me. When I saw stablehands
bring forth two fresh mounts, I sprang forward, taking the
reins of one, and mounted up. Then I waited until Shevraeth
turned my way, stuck my tongue out at him, and rode out at the
gallop, laughing all the way.

I had the road to myself for quite a while.

Though I'd been to Lumm only that once, I couldn't miss the
way, for the road to Lumm ran alongside the river—that
much I remembered. Since it was the only road, I did not gallop
long but pulled the horse back into a slower gait in order to
keep it fresh. If I saw pursuit behind me, then would be the
time to race again, to keep my lead.

So I reasoned. The road climbed gradually, until the area
looked familiar again. Now I rode along the top of a palisade
on the north side of the river; I kept scanning ahead for that
rickety sheep bridge.

As I topped the highest point, I turned to look out over the
valley, with the river winding lazily through it, and almost
missed the fast-moving dot half obscured by the fine, silvery
curtain of rain.

I reined in my horse, shaded my eyes, and squinted at the
dot, which resolved into a horseback rider racing cross-country
at incredible speed. Of course it could be anyone, but...

Turning my eyes back to the road, I saw Lumm in the
distance, with a couple of loops of river between me and
it.

Hesitating only a moment, I plunged down the hillside. The
horse stumbled once in the deep mud, sending me flying face
first. But I climbed back into the saddle, and we started
racing eastward across the fields.

I reached Lumm under a relentless downpour. My horse
splashed slowly up the main street until I saw swinging in the
wind a sign with a cracked shield. The wood was ancient, and I
couldn't make out the device as my tired horse walked under it.
I wondered who Jeriab was, then forgot him when a stablehand
ran out to take my horse's bridle.

"Are you Countess of Tlanth?" she asked as I dismounted.

I nodded, and she bustled over to a friend, handed off the
horse, then beckoned me inside. "I'm to show you to the south
parlor, my lady."

Muddy to the eyebrows, I squelched after her up a broad
stair into a warm, good-smelling hallway. Genial noise smote me
from all directions, and people came and went. But my guide
threaded her way through, then indicated a stairway with a fine
mosaic rail, and pointed. "Top, right, all across the back is
where your party will be," she said. "Parlor's through the
double door." She curtsied and disappeared into the crowd.

I trod up the stairs, making wet footprints on the patterned
carpet at each step. The landing opened onto a spacious
hallway.

I turned to the double doors, which were of foreign
plainwood, and paused to admire the carving round the latch,
and the painted pattern of leaves and blossoms worked into it.
Then I opened one, and there in the middle of a lovely parlor
was Shevraeth. He knelt at a writing table with his back to a
fire, his pen scratching rapidly across a paper.

He glanced up inquiringly. His hair seemed damp, but it
wasn't muddy, and his clothing looked miraculously dry.

I gritted my teeth, crossed my arms, and advanced on him, my
cold-numbed lips poonched out below what I knew was a ferocious
glare.

Obviously on the verge of laughter, he raised his quill to
stop me. "As the winner," he murmured, "I choose the time and
place."

"You cheated," I said, glad enough to have the embarrassment
postponed.

"If you had waited, I would have shown you that shortcut,"
he retorted humorously.

"It was a trick," I snarled. "And as for your wager, I might
as well get it over now."

He sat back, eyeing me. "Wet as you are—and you have
to be cold—it'd feel like kissing a fish. We will address
this another time. Sit down and have some cider. It's hot, just
brought in. May I request your opinion of that?" He picked up a
folded paper and tossed it in my direction. He added, with a
faint smile, "Next time you'll have to remember to bring extra
gear."

"How come you're not all soggy?" I asked as I set aside my
sodden hat and waterlogged riding gloves.

He indicated the black cloak, which was slung over a candle
sconce on the wall, and the hat and gloves resting on a side
table. "Water-resistant spells. Expensive, but eminently
worthwhile."

"That's what we need in Remalna," I said, kneeling on the
cushions opposite him and pouring out spicy-smelling cider into
a porcelain cup painted with that same leaf-and-blossom theme.
"A wizard."

Shevraeth laid his pen down. "I don't know," he said. "A
magician is not like a tree that bears fruit for all who want
it and demands nothing in return. A wizard is human and will
have his or her own goals."

"And a way of getting them that we couldn't very well stand
against," I said. "All right. No wizard. But I shall get me one
of those cloaks." I drank some of the cider, which was
delicious, and while its warmth worked its way down my innards,
I turned to the letter he'd handed me.

The exquisite handwriting was immediately familiar—a
letter from the Marquise of Merindar. Under my sodden clothing
my heart thumped in alarm. Addressed to their Highnesses the
Prince and Princess of Renselaeus, the letter went on at
length, thanking them for their generous hospitality during her
period of grief, and then, in the most polite language, stating
that its writer must reluctantly return to her home and family,
and take up the threads of her life once again. And it was
signed, in a very elaborate script, Arthal Merindar.

I looked up, to find Shevraeth's gaze on me. "What do you
think?"

"What am I supposed to think?" I asked slowly, wondering if
his question was some kind of a trap. "The Marquise is going
back to Merindar, and blather blather blather about her nice
year at Athanarel."

"Wants to go back," he said, still mildly. "Do you see a
message there?"

"It's not addressed to me," I muttered, hunching up in
defense.

"Ostensibly it's addressed to my parents," he said. "Look
closely."

I bent over the letter again. At first my conflicting
emotions made the letters swim before my eyes, but I forced
myself to look again—and to remember my own letter, now
hidden in one of my trunks. Then I made a discovery.

"The signature is different from the rest of the writing,
which means she must have used a scribe—" I thought
rapidly. "Ah. She
didn't
write this herself. Is that a
kind of oblique insult?"

"Well, one may assume she intended this to be read by other
eyes."

Like my letter, I realized. Which meant...

"And since the signature is so different, she wanted it
obvious. Yes, I see that," I said, my words slow, my mind
winging from thought to thought. Did this mean that Shevraeth
hadn't
spied on me after all—that the Marquise
had sent that letter knowing he'd find out?

My gaze was still on the fine scribal hand, but my thoughts
ranged back through winter. Of course Bran would have told all
his Court friends that he was going home at last, and probably
with whom.

I gulped in a deep breath and once again tried to
concentrate. "But unless there's a kind of threat in that last
bit about taking up the threads of her life, I don't see any
real problem here."

He picked up the quill again and ran the feathered part
through his fingers. "One of the reasons my parents are both in
Remalna-city is to establish someone of superior rank there
until the question of rulership is settled."

"You think Arthal Merindar wants to be queen, then?" I
asked, and again thought of my letter and why she might have
written it.

Unbidden, Shevraeth's words from the day before our
departure sounded in my head: "... but you'll still be
approached if you seem even passively my enemy." Cold shock
made me shiver inside when I realized that the Marquise of
Merindar might have attributed my refusal to come to Court to
unspoken problems between Shevraeth and myself—which
would mean her letter was meant either to capitalize on my
purported enmity or to make him distrust me.

So did he?

"What is she like?" I asked.

"Like her brother, except much better controlled. She's the
only one of the family who is still a danger, but she very
definitely is a danger."

"She might be saying the same of you," I said, resolutely
trying to be fair. As before, I had no proof, and last year I
had gotten myself into trouble for making quick judgments based
merely on emotions, not facts. "Not that I think all that much
of the Merindars I've met so far, but they do have a claim on
the throne. And their marquisate, like Renselaeus, takes its
name from the family even if it isn't nearly as old."

It was impossible to read his expression. "You think, then,
that I ought to cede to her the crown?"

"Will she be a good ruler?" I countered, and suddenly the
shock was gone. My old feelings crowded back into my head and
heart. "
I
don't know. Why are you asking me? Why does
my answer make any difference at all, unless showing me this
letter and asking me these questions is your own way of making
a threat?" I got up and paced the length of the room, fighting
the urge to grab something and smash it.

"No," he said, dropping his gaze to the papers on the desk.
"I merely thought you'd find it interesting." He leaned
forward, dipped the point of his pen into the ink, and went on
writing.

The argument, so suddenly sprung up, was over. As I stood
there watching that pen move steadily across the paper, I felt
all the pent-up anger drain out of me as suddenly as it had
come, leaving me feeling tired, and cold, and very, very
confused.

Shevraeth and I did not speak again; he kept working through
his mail, and I, still tired and cold, curled up on a cushion
and slipped into uncomfortable sleep.

Waking to the sound of Bran's cheery voice and a bustle and
rustling of people, I got up, feeling horribly stiff. Though
I'd tried to stay with exercise through sword practice, I
hadn't ridden that hard all winter, and every muscle protested.
It did my spirits no good at all to see Shevraeth moving about
with perfect ease. Resolving that I'd stay in the coach the
rest of the way, crowded or not, I greeted Bran and Nee, and
was soon reunited with dry clothing.

The four of us ate dinner together, and Shevraeth was
exactly as polite as always, making no reference to our earlier
conversation. This unnerved me, and I began to look forward to
our arrival at Athanarel, when he would surely disappear into
Court life and we'd seldom see one another.