Valdemar 05 - [Vows & Honor 02] - Oathbreakers (22 page)

Warrl jumped down from the hillside to her right to interpose his bulk between her and the spirit.
: Mindmate
—
this
is help!:

“Peace upon you, lady.” The voice of the one astride the strange white beast was
not
that of a spirit; nor, when Tarma allowed a corner of herself to test the
feel
of him, was there any of the tingle she associated with magic. The man's voice was not hollow, as a spirit's normally sounded; it was warm, deep, and held a tinge of amusement. “Your four-footed friend came looking for aid, and we heard his calling. I did not mean to startle you.”

Tarma's arms shook as she resheathed the blade. “Goddess bless—
warn
a body next time! You just about ate six thumbs of steel!”

“Again, your pardon, but we could not tell exactly where you were. Your presences seem rather ... blurred.”

“Never mind that,” Kethry interrupted from behind Tarma, her voice sharp. “Who are you?
What
are you? Why should we trust you?”

The man did not seem to be taken aback by her words. “You're wise not to take anything on appearance, lady. You don't know me—but I
do
know you; I've talked to your friend mind-to-mind, and I know who you are and what you wish. You can trust me on three counts.” He and his horse moved in to stand nose to nose with Ironheart. Tarma saw with no little surprise that even in the fading light the beast's eyes were plainly a bright and startling
blue
. “Firstly—that you are no longer in Rethwellan; you crossed the Border some time back, and you are in Valdemar. The enemy on your backtrail will not be able to pass the Border, nor would I give you to him. Secondly, that the man you seek, Prince Stefansen, is Valdemar's most welcome guest, and I will be taking you to him as quickly as your tired beasts can manage. And thirdly, you can trust me because of my office.”

“Look—we're tired,
we don't
know anything about your land, and our friend, who might, is not even half-conscious. ”

So
that
was what was making Keth's voice sound like she was walking on glass.

“I seem to be making a mess of this,” the man replied ruefully. “I am Roald, one of the Heralds of Valdemar. And you may believe your large, hairy friend there, that any Herald is to be trusted.”

:They are, mindmate,:
Warrl confirmed.
:With more than life. There is no such creature as a treacherous Herald.:

All right
, Tarma thought, worn past exhaustion.
We've got no chance out here—and you've never been wrong before this, Furface.

“Lead on, Herald Roald,” she said aloud. And wearily hoped Warrl was right this time, too.

T
arma clasped her blue-gray pottery mug in both her hands and sniffed the spicy, rich aroma of the hot wine it contained a trifle warily. The stuff was too hot to drink; not that she minded. The heat of it had warmed the thick clay of the mug, and that, in turn, was warming her hands so that they no longer ached in each separate joint. And the heat gave her an excuse to be cautious about drinking it.

She blinked sleepily at the flames in the fireplace before her, trying to muster herself back up to full alertness. But she was feeling the heat seeping into her bones, and with the heat came relaxation. The fire cast dancing patterns of light and shadow up into the exposed rough-hewn beams of the square common room, and made the various trophies of horns and antlers hung on the polished wooden walls seem to move.
She
didn't want to stir, not at all, and that had the potential for danger.

She was wearing, bizarrely enough, some of Roald's spare clothing, all of her own too thoroughly soaked even to bother with.
A Kal‘enedral in white
—
Warrior bless, now that's a strange thought
. Roald was the only one of them near to her size; off his horse he was scarcely more than a couple of thumblengths taller than Tarma, and was just as rangy-thin. He was exceedingly handsome in a rugged way, with a heavy shock of dark blond hair, a neat little beard, and eyes as blue as his horse's.

I thought I'd never be warm again.
She settled a little more down into her chair and the eiderdown they'd given her to wrap around herself, and blinked at the
kyree
stretched out between her and the
flames.
Warrl was fast asleep on the red-tiled hearth at her feet, having bolted a meal of three rabbits first.
He trusts th
e
m. Especially Roald. Dare we?

Her chair was set just to one side of the fireplace, practically on the hearthstone. Directly across from her, Kethry was curled up in a second chair, wrapped in eiderdown, looking small and unwont tedly serious. She'd been summarily stripped of her wet gear, the same as Tarma, but opted for one of Lady Mertis' soft green wool gowns. Jadrek had been spirited away as well, and regarbed in Stefansen's warmest—heavy brown wool breeches and tunic and knitted shirt.

If Roald hadn't come when he did
—
Star-Eyed, we came perilously close to losing him. If I'd known he'd taken enough of that painkilling stuff to put him out like that—

Jadrek was pacing the floor beside the two chairs and within the arc of heat and light cast by the fire. He limped very badly—walking slowly, haltingly, trying to shake the fog of his medicines from his head so that he could talk coherently again. He was moving so stiffly that Tarma hurt just watching him.

I wonder; he knew we were in bad trouble when we stopped that last time. I wonder if he didn't dose himself on purpose, figuring that we'd either find shelter and he'd be all right, or that we wouldn‘t, and while he was unconscious the cold would kill him painlessly and get him out of our hair. That's something a Clansman might do. Dammit
—
I like this man! And he has no reservations about Stefansen and this Herald. But I do. I
must.

Stefansen's wife, Mertis (
that
had come as a shock to Jadrek, that Stefansen had actually wedded), was seated in another chair a bit farther removed from the fire, nursing their month-old son.
I like her, too. That's a sweet little one—why do I have to distrust these people?

Stefansen, who resembled Idra to a startling degree, (except that on a man's face the features that had been harsh for a woman were strong, and those that had been handsome were breathtaking) was talking quietly with Roald, the two of them sitting on a pair of chairs they'd pulled up near to Mertis. A most domestic and harmonious scene, if you could ignore the worry in everyone's eyes.

This turned out to be Roald's own hunting lodge, which, since it was not exactly a
small
dwelling, told Tarma that whatever else he was, the Herald was also a man of means. It was now the “humble” abode of the Prince-in-exile, his bride of ten months, and their infant son. Valdemar had given Stefansen the sanctuary he needed, but it was a secret sanctuary; the King and Queen of Valdemar dared not compromise their country's safety, not with Rethwellan sharing borders with both themselves and their hereditary enemy, Karse.

The wine was cool enough to drink now, and Tarma had decided she couldn't detect anything dangerous in it. She sipped at it, letting it soothe her raw throat and ease the cold in the pit of her stomach. While she drank, she scrutinized Mertis again over the edge of the mug.

Tarma watched the gentle woman rocking her son in her arms, studying her with the same care she'd have spent on the reconnoitering of an enemy camp. Mertis was not homely, by any means, but not a raving beauty, either. She had a sweet, soft face; frank brown eyes that seemed to demand truth of you; wavy, sable-brown hair.
Not
the kind of woman one would expect to captivate an experienced rake like Stefansen. Which meant there was more to her than showed on the surface.

Then again—Tarma hid a smile with her mug as she thought of the moment when Roald had brought them stumbling up to the door of the lodge. Mertis had been everywhere, easing Jadrek down from his grip on Kethry's saddle, helping him to stumble into the warm, brightly lit lodge, building up the fire with her own hands, issuing crisp, no-nonsense orders to her spouse, the Herald, and the two servants of the lodge, without regard for rank. That just
might
have been her secret—that she had been the only woman to treat Stefansen like a simple man, a person, and not throw herself at his feet, panting like a bitch in heat.

Or it might have been a half dozen other things, but
one
was a certainty; Tarma knew love well enough to recognize it when those two looked at each other. And never mind that Mertis was scarcely higher in birth than Kethry.

“Jadrek?” Stefansen called softly, catching Tarma's attention. “Have you walked yourself out yet?
I'd
rather you got a night's sleep, but Roald seems to think we need to talk
now.”

“Not just you two—all of us, the mercenaries included,” the Herald corrected. “We all have bits of information that need to be put together into a whole.”

Stefansen is looking wary again. I'll warrant he didn't expect us to be included in this little talk. Ah well, duty calls.
“Just for the record,” Tarma said, unwinding herself from the eiderdown, “I'd tend to agree. And the sooner we get to it, the less likely one of us will forget some triviality that turns out to be be vital. My people say, ‘plans, like eggs, are best at the freshest.”'

Kethry nodded, and got up long enough to turn her chair in a quarter-circle so that it faced the room rather than Tarma; Tarma did the same as the men pulled theirs closer, and Roald brought in a third chair for Jadrek. Mertis left hers where it was, but put the babe back in the cradle and leaned forward to catch every word.

Tarma watched the Prince, his spouse, and the Herald as covertly—but as intently—as she could. Warrl trusted them, and she'd never known the
kyree
to be wrong. He trusted them enough that he'd eaten without checking the food for tampering, and was now sleeping as soundly as if he hadn't a worry in the world. Still, there was a first time for everything, even for the
kyree
being deceived.

Jadrek spoke first, outlining what Raschar had been doing since Stefansen's abrupt departure. Tarma was surprised by the Prince's reactions; he showed a great deal more intelligence and thoughtfulness than rumor had given him credit for. He seemed deeply disturbed by the information that Raschar was continuing to tax the peasantry into serfdom.
He looks almost as if he's taking it personally
—
huh, for that matter, so does Mertis. And I don't think it's an act.

Then Tarma and Kethry took up the thread, telling the little conclave what they'd observed in their week or so at the Court, and what they'd noted as they passed through the southern grainlands of Rethwellan.

The Prince asked more earnest questions of them, then, and seemed even more disturbed by the answers. He plainly did not like Kethry's report of the mages lurking in the Court—and the tale of the attack on Jadrek shocked him nearly white.

And that is not an act,
Tarma decided.
He's more than shocked, he's angry. I wouldn't want to be Raschar and in front of him right now.

And finally all three spoke of Idra—what Jadrek knew, and what the partners had heard before she'd vanished.

That changed the anger to doubt, and to apprehension. “If she headed here, she didn't arrive,” Stefansen said, unhappily, the firelight flaring up in time to catch his expression of profound disturbance.
“Damn
it! Dree and I had our differences, not the least of which was that she voted for Char, but she's the one person in this world that I would
never
wish any harm on. Where in hell could she have gotten to if she didn't come here?”

Tarma wished at that moment that she could have Warrl's thought-reading abilities. The Prince
seemed
sincere, but it would have been so very easy for Idra to have met with an accident once she'd crossed into Valdemar, particularly if Stefansen hadn't known about her change of heart. He could be using his surprise and dismay at learning
that
to cover his guilt.

At the same time all her instincts were saying he was speaking only truth—