The Will of the Empress

8

Rizu, Jak, Fin, and Caidlene arrived with the dawn, just as the hostlers were bringing out horses for Sandry and her escorts. They all greeted one another sleepily. No one was inclined to conversation at that hour. Zhegorz, who had shown a tendency to talk rapidly in bursts the night before, huddled silently in the patched coat they had found for him. He rolled his eyes at the sleepy-eyed cob who had been saddled for his use, but once he was on the sturdy gelding’s back, he seemed to do well enough.

Ambros, pulling on his riding gloves, frowned as he looked at their scarecrow. “How shall we explain him?” Sandry’s cousin wanted to know. “You can’t just go around adding strangers to your entourage without questions being asked, Cousin, particularly not when you came to us without a single guardsman or maid.”

Sandry looked crisp in her blossom pink riding tunic and wide-legged breeches, but her brain had yet to catch up. “Ambros, how can you even think of such a thing at this hour?” she demanded, and yawned.

He gazed up at her as she sat on her mare, his blue eyes frosty. “Because there are going to be at least two spies outside the gates, and more on the way,” he added. “Young women in Namorn do not enjoy the license they appear to do in the south, Cousin. There are good reasons for that.”

Jak leaned drowsily on his saddle horn. “Can’t we just let the spies guess and decide when we’re awake?” he asked.

Ambros glared at him, his mouth tight.

“I think we’re probably supposed to be spies, too,” said Caidlene, who had been lively enough the afternoon before. “Which is silly, because we’d have to be awake to be spies.” She sipped from a flask that steamed in the chilly spring air. “Tea, anyone?

“He’s my secretary, all right?” demanded Sandry, out of patience with it all. “I didn’t realize what a complicated social life I should be leading in Namorn, so I had to hire a Namornese secretary, Cousin—will that satisfy you? May we get on with our lives?”

Ambros snorted and mounted his gelding. Zhegorz looked around at his traveling companions and their guards. “Secretary? I don’t even have pens, or ink, or—”

Briar leaned over and slapped him on the shoulder. “I’ll set you up in style,” he reassured Zhegorz. “You’ll be a king of secretaries.”

As a pair of guards opened the gates, their company formed up in pairs to ride through. Leading the way with Ambros, Sandry heard Zhegorz complain, “I’m not sure I even know how to write.”

And here I thought Tris was the one who was always bringing home strays, thought Sandry, shaking her head as they rode onto High Street. Now she’s got Daja and Briar and me doing it, too. She glanced sidelong at Ambros, whose long mouth was tight. She couldn’t help it: Her own lips twitched. I would love to hear Ambros explain how I can have a social secretary who can’t write.

Just as Tris had vaguely warned them the day before, rain began to fall as the servants closed the house gates behind them. Ambros halted their party, looking at Sandry as Rizu moaned and Caidlene sneezed.

Sandry turned in the saddle. “Tris?” she asked.

Tris, who already had a book in one hand, looked up, startled. Sandry indicated that water was falling from the sky—though surely even Tris would notice when her book got wet! she thought.

The redhead glared up at the clouds. Though Sandry saw or felt nothing, the soft rain parted, streaming to either side of their company, just as if they were protected by a glass shield. Tris looked around, making sure that everyone, including their guards and packhorses, was included under her protection. Then she raised her eyebrows to silently ask, All right?

That’s our Tris, thought Sandry, resigned to her sister’s eccentricities. She nodded and turned to Ambros, who stared at Tris, unnerved. Sandry nudged him with a booted foot. Remembering where he was, Ambros set his horse in motion, though his eyes followed the curve of the rain as it rolled away over his head. The others followed, though the guards and the courtiers visibly hesitated.

Sandry caught up to Ambros. I hope he learns to take odd magics in stride, she thought. He’ll be seeing them all summer, and they aren’t all going to be nice, quiet ones like redirecting the rain.

Given the early hour, there was very little traffic on the streets around the palace. They found more as they wound down into the commercial parts of town. There the big wagons that supplied the city came in to unload their burdens of produce, meat, eggs, and cheese. Their party slowed still more approaching the gates, and on the roads that led from them. Once they had traveled some miles from the city, however, the traffic thinned. They made very good time overall. Sandry wondered at the amount of room they were always given on the road, until she realized that anyone who had the time to notice that invisible shield over their heads moved as far from their party as they could while still remaining on the road.

At midmorning they halted at a good-sized inn where Ambros was recognized and given prompt service. The riders dismounted for hot tea and fresh-baked rolls, while the hostlers rubbed the horses down. Once they were back in the saddle, everyone was awake and feeling more cheerful, despite the gloomy weather. Caidlene took Sandry’s place next to Ambros, talking about court news and about Ambros’s four lively children. Jak rode with Sandry, pointing out landmarks. Fin and Briar rode together, talking about horses. With Tris absorbed in her book and Zhegorz inclined to huddle between the packhorses and the rest of their guards, Rizu and Daja soon fell into conversation. Rizu had an endless fund of court stories. It wasn’t long before Daja realized many of the stories were also cautionary tales about different figures at court, particularly the empress. The picture Rizu drew of Berenene was one of a woman who was determined to have her way.

“Are you afraid of her?” Daja demanded as they reined in at a second inn. It was well past midday by then. Everyone was starved. “You sound like everyone fears and loves her at the same time.”

“Because they do,” Rizu explained. “She is a great ruler. Like most great rulers, what she wants, she will have.”

Sandry, dismounting nearby, heard this. “But that must be dreadful for her character,” she remarked. “No one can have everything they want. It gives rise to overconfidence, and arrogance.”

Daja looked at Sandry’s round chin, which was set at its most mulish angle. “I don’t think she’ll appreciate a lesson from us,” she warned, letting a hostler take her horse. “I’d as soon not have to leave in a hurry, thank you. It’s a long way to any border.”

“I don’t care to leave places in a hurry, either,” Briar said as he followed the ladies into the inn. “One of these days I won’t be fast enough on my feet.”

A woman bustled forward to guide them to tables. “Remember old Saghad Gurkoy?” Ambros asked as they took seats in a private room. “Beggared, him and his entire family.” His blue eyes glinted as he looked at Fin. “Your father was the empress’s chosen beneficiary in that matter.”

Fin shrugged. “If you want to try to stand between her and what she wants, Saghad fer Landreg, I will wish you well. I promise to burn incense in the temple of your choice when you’re gone,” he informed Ambros, who was not at all offended. “She was going to do as she willed. And if it pleased her after that to give what she had taken to my father, well, she really didn’t like it when Gurkoy told her no, either.”

“No one is all-powerful,” insisted Sandry.

“Maybe, but you’d be surprised how much damage can be done by someone who thinks he is,” Briar said bitterly as maids put mushroom and noodle soup and herring salad in front of them.

“What on earth happened to you?” demanded Tris, glaring at Briar. “You’ve done nothing but hint since you came home. Either tell us outright or stop hinting!”

Briar glared at her. “What do you care? You don’t bother with what’s real—only with what’s in books.”

The Namornese were good at pretending they hadn’t heard an outburst from one of their companions. They must have a lot of family dinners like this, thought Sandry. Or maybe even imperial ones.

The rain continued as they took the road again, still mostly dry under Tris’s shield. Now the courtiers were truly awake. Soon everyone but Zhegorz and the guards were playing silly games like “I See” and “Fifteen Questions.” The group continued word games as Ambros led them off the main road at last onto a smaller, well-kept road paved in stone like the main highway to keep wagons from making ruts.

After another hour, Briar demanded, “So when do we get to these precious lands of yours?”

Ambros looked back at him with a smile. “You are on Clehamat Landreg,” he told Briar. “The extended estate, at least. Grazing and farming lands. We’ve been riding over them since we left the highway.”

Briar looked at Sandry. “You never said.”

“I didn’t remember,” she answered. “The last time I was here was ten years ago. All I remember was that I was bored to tears. Nobody would play with me.”

At last they reached a stone wall that stretched as far as the eye could see. Another road led through a framed stone opening in it. This new route was stone-paved as well, but only the center was as well-kept as the roads they had followed to get this far. Stones were missing from the edges, and stones in the roadway were cracked and broken. As Ambros turned onto it he called back, “Now we are on the Landreg lands that are part of the main estate.”

It was another hour before they saw more than isolated houses, or fields green with the spring’s planting. Eventually they came upon a massive herd of cows at the graze, then shepherds and goatherds with their flocks. They passed apple and pear orchards that already showed small green knobs that would become fruit, and cherry orchards where the fruit was starting to turn orangey red. At one point Briar reined up and squinted at a distant field where glossy brown animals grazed.

“That’s a lot of mules,” he said to no one in particular.

Ambros replied, “It’s only one herd. The entire Landreg family is famed for the mules we breed and sell.”

“It’s been a family specialty for more than two hundred years,” Sandry added with pride.

Briar, Tris, and Daja exchanged glances. It was Daja who grinned and said it aloud: “That certainly explains more than it doesn’t.”

“I am not listening to you,” Sandry told them loftily as the courtiers laughed. “Do you notice that I am not listening to you?” she continued. “Mark it well. I ignore you.”

“And I feel ignored,” said Briar, rejoining them. “I am so ignored and unheard that I know it won’t matter if I say, Why does it not surprise me, that the Landregs breed mules?”

When they came to a river spanned by a bridge, Ambros led their party onto a small, muddy, rutted track that bore away from the bridge. Sandry drew her mount up. “Wait a moment,” she called, frowning and confused. “I remember this bridge. We ride over that and we come to the village not long after, and the castle after that.”

Ambros turned his mount. “In better times we would,” he said heavily, something like shame weighing down his shoulders. “But the bridge is not safe. It’s old, and it’s needed work for some time, replacements on the roadbed and the supports. Then two years ago we had heavy flooding that weakened the supports more. It’s not safe. We must ride six miles downstream to the ford.”

Sandry didn’t like the sound of that. “I don’t understand. This is the main castle road. Why hasn’t it been repaired?”

Fin said, “Are those ripe cherries over there? It’s early, but I want to see. I’m a bear for cherries.” He rode toward an orchard nearby, passing out from under Tris’s shield and into the rain. Without a word, the other three courtiers followed him. The group’s men-at-arms drew back out of earshot. Zhegorz fidgeted, obviously not knowing what to do, while Briar and Daja exchanged glances. What’s going on here? Briar seemed to ask Daja with his eyes. Her shrug said, I have no idea. Tris hadn’t seemed to be paying attention, hut she closed her book, holding her place with a finger.

Ambros rode back to Sandry’s side. “Forgive me. I didn’t know what else to do,” he said, his cheeks slowly turning red. “I’d put off doing the work, that was first. And then we had so much flood damage everywhere that year, and late that summer the taxes went up. I could not repair the bridge, pay the taxes, and send you the usual amount. Your mother’s written orders are clear. She, and then you, must receive that exact sum every year, without fail.”

Sandry tightened her fingers on her reins. I knew Mother’s instructions for our income, she told herself, ashamed. I knew she didn’t leave any room for the steward to exercise his judgment. But I thought he would, anyway. I thought ...

She suddenly remembered those columns of dry, boring numbers: the ever-increasing tax sums, the estimated costs of the flood damages, and the profits from the estates. If she had done all of the additions, gone over the accounts entry by entry, she would have seen that there wasn’t enough money for everything.

“I thought we could manage the bridge repair last year,” Ambros continued, his quiet voice strained, “but Her Imperial Majesty raised the taxes again, to cover fighting on the Lairan border. Again, it was a matter of repairing the bridge or sending what we are ordered to send to you. Our obligation to you comes first.”

“What of the taxes?” demanded Sandry, her voice trembling. “You paid them.”

Ambros looked surprised that she had even asked. “The taxes must be paid. I went to moneylenders last year. This year, the gods willing, I should be able to pay it back if I raise the mill taxes and the wool taxes on the tenants.”

Sandry leaned closer to him. “You should have told me,” she said fiercely. “Not relied on me to refigure all of your accounts.” She could feel her cheeks blush hot with shame. “You should have said the problem in so many words! I have more than enough money for my needs. I could have foregone the payments both years and never even noticed!”

Slowly, as if he feared to anger her, Ambros said, “Your mother, Clehame Amiliane, was most clear in her wishes. Those monies are always due to the clehame, whether the year is a good one or not. And I did not know you well enough at all to ask. I still don’t know you that well.” Very softly he added, “Cousin Sandry, the penalty for a steward who shorts his master—or mistress—is the lopping off of the thieving hand. Not only that, but I would lose the lands I hold in my own right. My family and I would be penniless.”

“I would never insist on such a thing!” cried Sandry.

Daja glanced back at the courtiers. If they had heard, they did not so much as turn around in their saddles.

Ambros rubbed his head wearily. “Clehame—”

“Sandry!” she snapped.

Meeting her eyes steadily, Ambros said, “Clehame, imperial spies are everywhere. The imperial courts are all too happy to uphold such matters on their own, particularly if there is a chance they may confiscate lands for the crown. It is how Her Imperial Majesty grants titles and incomes to her favorites.”

Taking a breath to argue, Sandry thought the better of it and let the breath go. “Let’s just ride on,” she said, feeling weary in her bones. I should have paid attention. I should have fixed this years ago. Thanks, Mother. You’ve shamed us both. And I have shamed myself. “Tomorrow, if it is safe, Ambros? Please start work on that bridge at once. Repay the moneylenders all that you owe. Don’t send me anything for the next three years. I’ll write a note to that effect, and have it witnessed.”

This time she led the way down the muddy track to the ford, emerging from Tris’s shield to get wet. Briar turned. The moment he put two fingers in his mouth, Tris plugged her ears. Zhegorz and Daja both yelped in pain as Briar sounded the piercing whistle that he had once used to summon the dog who had stayed at Winding Circle. The courtiers heard, turned their mounts, and trotted back to the main group, the guards falling in behind.

As Daja swore at him in Trader-talk, Briar grinned at Tris. “You remembered. How sweet.”

She shrugged. “It’s not a sound I’m likely to forget. Besides, that’s how I could get Little Bear to come to me when he and I traveled together.” She tucked her book in a saddlebag so he couldn’t see her face. “It kept me in mind of you while I was away.”

Briar rode over to elbow her. “You just reminded yourself how quiet it was without me to pester you when you were away,” he said, joking, actually touched. “You ain’t foolin’ me.

She actually grinned at him.

In time they crossed at the ford and returned to the road on the other side of the unsafe bridge. Fifteen minutes after that, they crested a slight rise to find a good-sized village below them on both sides of the road. It boasted a mill, an inn, a smithy, a bakery, and a temple, in addition to housing for nearly five hundred families—a large place, as villages went. On the far side of the village and the river that powered the mill rose the high ground that supported the castle. From here they could see the outer, curtain wall, built of granite blocks. Behind that wall they could see four towers and the upper part of the wall that connected them.

“Landreg Castle,” said Ambros as they rode down toward the village. “Home estate of the clehams and clehames of Landreg for four hundred years.” As they followed him, the rain, which had slackened, began to fall harder. Tris sighed and raised her shield again just as someone in the village began to ring the temple bell. People came out of their houses to stand on either side of the road. Others ran in from outer buildings and nearby fields.

Sandry checked her mare, then caught up with Ambros. “Cousin, what are they doing? The villagers?”

Ambros looked at her with the tiniest of frowns, as if a bright pupil had given a bad answer to a question. “You are the clehame,” he said gently. “It is their duty to greet you on your return.”

“How did they know she was coming?” asked Briar.

Ambros raised his pale brows. “I sent a rider ahead yesterday, of course,” he explained. “It’s my duty to send advance word of the clehame’s return.”

Sandry’s mare fidgeted: The young woman had too tight a grip on the reins, dragging the bit against the tender corners of her horse’s mouth. “Sorry, pet,” Sandry murmured, leaning forward to caress the mare’s sodden neck. She eased her grip. Without looking at Ambros, she said softly, “I didn’t want this, Cousin. I don’t want it. Please ask them to go about their business.”

“Bad idea,” said Jak. Sandry looked back at him. The dark-haired nobleman shrugged. “It is,” he insisted. “They have to show proper recognition of their sovereign lord. You can’t let them start thinking casually of us, Lady Sandry. Peasants should always know to whom they owe respect.”

“I don’t need ceremonies for respect,” snapped Sandry, growing cross. Her cheeks were red again as they passed between the outlying groups of villagers; she could feel it like banners telling the world she wanted to crawl under a rock. As she rode by, the men bowed and the women curtsied, keeping their eyes down. “And it’s not me they should be bowing to,” she insisted quietly, feeling like the world’s biggest lie. “It’s my cousin here. He’s the one who works for their good. Do they do this for you?” she demanded of Ambros.

“They bow, if they’re about when I pass, but I’m not the clehame,” Ambros told her, keeping his voice low so the villagers would not hear. “You don’t understand, Cousin. We have a way of life in Namorn. The commoners tend the land, the artisans make things, the merchants sell them, and the nobles fight and govern. Everyone knows his place. We know the rules that reinforce those places. These are your lands; these people are your servants. If you try to change the rituals for the way in which we live, you undermine all order, not just your small corner of it.”

“He’s right,” said Fin. “Trust me, if they didn’t pay you proper respect—”

Rizu cut him off. “Lady Sandry, custom isn’t just enforced by the landholders. Rebellion in one village is seen as a threat to all nobility. They would have imperial law-keepers here in a few days, and then they’d pay with one life in ten.”

“On my own lands?” whispered Sandry, appalled.

“Lords have been ill, or slow in mind, or absent,” Ambros replied, his voice soft. “Order must be kept.”

“I can’t tell them not to do that again?” Sandry wanted to know.

“Only if you want to weed the cabbage patch,” joked Fin. Caidlene poked him in the ribs with a sharp elbow.

“Well, that’s what we call ’em at home,” the young nobleman protested. “Cabbage heads. All rooted in dirt, without a noble thought anywhere.”

Weed the cabbage patch, thought Sandry, horrified. Kill peasants.

She looked at the villagers, trying to glimpse their faces. It took her a few moments to realize that while the rain was falling heavily, the people on the ground were not getting wetter. She looked up. The space covered by Tris’s magical umbrella had spread. It was so big, she couldn’t see the edges, only the flow of water overhead, as if the village were covered by a sheet of glass. She’s still reading, thought Sandry, looking back at Tris. She can hold off all this rain, and still keep reading.

A smile twitched the corners of Sandry’s mouth. She thought, Somebody’s been practicing.

They crossed the river, passed through the fringe of houses on the far side, then began the climb up the hill to the castle. Halfway up, they heard the rattle of a great chain. The portcullis that covered the open gate was being raised. The drawbridge was already down, bridging a moat too wide for a horse to jump. On top of the wall, men-at-arms in mail and helmets stood at every notch, watching her. One of them, standing directly over the gate, raised a trumpet to his lips and blew it. As Sandry and Ambros rode first over the drawbridge, golden notes rang out in the sodden air.

Inside they found the outer bailey, where many of the industries that supported the castle household were placed. Everywhere men and women dropped what they did to line up along the curved road that led to the gate to the inner bailey. As their group passed, they bowed or curtsied.

Uncle Vedris would never allow them to waste time at work on this nonsense, Sandry thought, outraged, though she hid her true feelings to nod and smile at those who lined the road. He’d jump on you quick enough if he thought you were disrespectful, but he didn’t need all this, this stupid ceremony to prove it. I’m so glad he can’t see me now.

As they clattered through the inner gate, Sandry’s jaws began to hurt. She was actually grinding her teeth in frustration. With an effort she made herself relax, working her jaw to loosen the tight muscles. She glanced back at the others and saw something that made her grin. Little Chime sat on Tris’s saddle horn, wings unfurled, chin held high. The glass dragon obviously thought all of this celebration was for her.

And so it is, Sandry thought with a grin. It’s not for me—it’s for her.

With that idea in mind, she was able to smile more naturally at the men-at-arms who waited by the inner gate, and to nod at the groups of people who stood inside, in the court in front of the main castle. Her smile widened as four little girls, their ages ranging from five to twelve, broke free of the servants to race toward Ambros, shrieking, “Papa! Papa!”

He laughed and dismounted, kneeling in the mud so he could hug all four at once. “You’d think I’d been gone for years instead of a few days,” he chided, his eyes glowing with pleasure. “What is your cousin supposed to think of such hoydens?”

Sandry dismounted before someone could help her to do it. “She thinks they are delightful,” she said, walking over to stand beside Ambros. “She thinks their father is blessed to have such lovely girls.”

“Their father is,” said Ambros, getting to his feet. “Girls, this is your cousin, Clehame Sandrilene fa Toren.”

Reminded of their manners, the girls all curtsied to Sandry. The one who looked to be about ten thrust a bouquet of slightly wilted flowers at Sandry. “I picked them myself,” she said.

“And I thank you,” Sandry replied, accepting them. “I love to get flowers after a long ride.”

“Good, because doubtless they were picked in your own garden,” Ambros said, an arm around the oldest girl’s shoulders. “And chances are, they were picked when someone should have been at her lessons.”

“But Papa, I was finished,” protested the flower-bearer. “I was!”

Ambros had just finished introducing his daughters when a tall woman, her hair more silvery than blond at an early age, came forward, still wiping her hands on a small cloth. “And this is the most beautiful flower in the castle gardens,” said Ambros, his face alight. “Clehame Sandrilene fa Toren, may I present my lady wife, Saghada Ealaga fa Landreg.”

Sandry and Ealaga curtsied to each other gravely. Then the lady smiled at Sandry. “You and your companions must be dying for a hot bath,” Ealaga suggested. “A dreadful day to ride—you couldn’t have waited for better weather?” she asked her husband as hostlers rushed forward to help the riders dismount and to take the horses’ reins.

“I wished our cousin to have time to thoroughly review the state of things here before she must return for Midsummer,” Ambros explained. “The will of our empress is that Clehame Sandry bear her company for most of the season. As you can see, my dear, she sent four of her young courtiers to bear the clehame and her friends company until it was time to return.”

“Wonderful,” said Ealaga with a smile. “Rizu, you’re always welcome, and Ambros, you ought to remember Caidy is my mother’s own great-niece. And Jak and Fin I know quite well.” To Sandry, she explained, “He’s always positive we are spinning wildly out of control, when he is prepared for everything. Really, what can you do with such a man?”

Sandry laughed. “It seems as if you married him.” There was something about Ealaga that reminded her very much of Lark, one of the four’s foster-mothers. To Sandry, it was enough to make her relax.

“You’re not supposed to be here,” a thin, short woman informed Tris as the redhead was putting her book in a saddlebag. “Servants around to the side entrance, my lord should have told you. We need you to tell us which luggage belongs to the clehame.”

Tris looked down her long nose at the speaker. “I’ve been demoted, seemingly,” she answered, her voice extra dry. “From traveling companion to maid. Do I look like a maid to you?”

The woman brushed her own russet brown dress and embroidered apron with one hand. Tris looked down and realized that a sensible navy riding tunic and breeches so wide they might be skirts could resemble a servant’s clothes.

“Ah. Well, I’m not,” she said. “Sandry doesn’t have a maid.”

The woman’s eyebrows went up; her jaw dropped. “No maid?” she asked, appalled. “But how does she dress?”

Tris bit her lip to stop herself from saying, “One piece of clothing at a time.” Instead, she rethought her answer, then said, “The clehame is accustomed to looking after herself.”

“But that’s indecent!” whispered the woman. “Who presses her gowns? Who stitches up any rents in her clothes?”

“She does it,” Tris replied, unbuckling her saddlebags with a glare for the hostler who had come to do the chore. Slinging the bags over her shoulder, Tris told the woman, “No one mentioned your clehame is a stitch witch? Trust me, if you handled her clothes, you’d only mess them up. They never wrinkle or tear.” Helpfully, enjoying the sheer bafflement on the proper servant’s face, Tris added, “She weaves her own cloth, you see.”

A blunt-fingered hand rested lightly on Tris’s sleeve. “ Viymese Tris, I just wanted to thank you for keeping us dry in all the wet today,” Rizu said. Her large, dark eyes danced with amusement. “I’ve never known anyone, Viymese or Viynain, who could hold protection like that and still read.”

“Viymese!” exclaimed the servant woman. Her voice squeaked a little on the last syllable. “Forgive me, Viymese, I didn’t mean to, to intrude .... I must assign a maid to the clehame, and to yourself, of course, and—”

“Viymese Daja and I don’t require maids,” Tris said, pointing to Daja, who was grinning at Rizu. “And I think you’ll find Clehame Sandry will only be grumpy if you give her one.” The woman must be a housekeeper. “Surely you have someone who would be happy to attend Saghada Rizuka fa Dalach and Saghada Caidlene fa Sarajane.”

The servant dipped a rushed curtsy and scuttled away. “You looked like you needed rescuing,” Rizu commented, smiling. “Servants get more wedded to the social order than nobles do, I think.”

“Licking the boot that rests on their necks,” grumbled Tris, her eyes still on the fleeing servant.

“Oh, no, we dare not rest it someplace that they might not like,” protested Rizu, mock-serious. “They retaliate so deviously. Before I learned better, I found all my hose tied in one big knot, and the maid who was assigned to me had gone home to care for a sick parent. I went six months with hose that fell down because they were stretched all out of shape. Mother said that truly noble people didn’t hit their maids with a brush, and made me wear the hose until they were worn out. I missed two birthday cakes that year because I was out tying up my hose, again.”

Tris smiled, but her eyes rested on Zhegorz. He started twitching again while we rode through the village, she thought. He’s hearing things still, even behind these walls. Castle gossip, I expect. Tris had gotten so good at ignoring voices on the wind that she had to concentrate to hear them clearly. She did so now, registering a bit of kitchen gossip, almost drowned out by the clang of pans and a shriek of dismay over burned oatcakes. Here someone scolded a dairy maid for dozing off over the churn; here hostlers commented to one another about the new horses they had to care for. It was all commonplace, but Zhegorz flinched as if each sentence were a dart sticking in his flesh.

Making up her mind, Tris excused herself to Rizu and went in search of the housekeeper. Daja caught up Tris. “It’s my crazy man, isn’t it?” she demanded. “You’ve been watching him like a hawk all day, even when you pretend you’re reading. You’re certain he’s got what you have, aren’t you? Hearing things?”

A blast of wind threw an image over both outer walls into Tris’s eyes: A cow struggled in a bog. Three men tied ropes to her so they could haul the wallowing beast out of danger. Tris whipped her head around in time to see Zhegorz. He stood just downwind of her. “Maybe that, and maybe more,” she said. “Look, will you steer him over by the wall, out of any breezes? I’ll see about getting a room for him.”

“He stays with me.” The girls turned. Briar stood behind them, his hands in his pockets. “You looked at the insides of his wrists, either of you? He stays with someone, and unless you want people talking about your reputations from here to the north shore of the Syth, it’s got to be with me.”

“What’s wrong with his wrists?” Daja wanted to know.

Tris marched over to Zhegorz, who faced into the wind that blew from the cow, his pale eyes wide and fixed. Tris seized his wrists and turned them so she could see the insides. Broad stripes of scar tissue, some old and silver-beige, others recent and reddish-purple, streaked the flesh between his palms and the insides of his elbows.

Zhegorz blinked, trying to see past the vision on the air to the person who handled him so abruptly. Tris yanked him around, turning him until the breeze struck his back, not his eyes. “Briar’s right. You stay with him, Zhegorz. No more of this nonsense,” she said, stabbing a finger into one of the scars. Zhegorz flinched. “Listen to me.” She still didn’t want the others knowing of her latest skill, but she needed to reach this man, to convince him that his visions weren’t the product of madness.

Too bad he didn’t have Niko to tell him that madness is a lot more interesting than rescuing cows, she thought as she dragged Zhegorz into a corner of the yard, away from Briar and Daja. “I see things on the wind, understand?” she asked quietly. She stood with her back to her brother and sister to keep them from reading her lips. “Pictures from places the wind passed over. A moment ago we both saw a cow trapped in mud, and three men trying to free her.” Zhegorz gasped and tried to tug free. Tris hung on to his arm with both hands. “Stop it!” she ordered. “You’re not mad. You’re a seer, with sounds and with seeing, only nobody ever found you out because they were too busy thinking you were mad. Now you have to sort yourself out. You have to decide what part’s magic—are you listening?—what part’s understandable nerves from thinking you were out of your mind, and what part’s had so much healers’ magic applied that it’s muddled everything else about you. I know what you saw because I learned how to see like that. But you never learned it, did you? It was there, from the time you were just a bit younger than me, only the magic sniffers missed it, or your family never even gave you a chance to show you were in your right mind.” She talked fast, trying to get as much sense as she could fit into his ears, past his years of flight, hospitals, medicines, and terror. Slowly, bit by tiny bit, she felt the tight, wiry muscles under her hands loosen, until Zhegorz no longer fought her grip.

“Real?” he whispered, his voice cracking.

“As real as such things get,” Tris told him. “Keep the seeing things part between you and me for now. Briar and Daja already guessed that you can hear like I can, but they don’t know about me seeing things.”

“Why not?” Zhegorz asked simply. “They love you.”

Tris sighed, troubled. “Because the chances of someone learning to see on the winds are tiny. They’ll think I think I’m better than they are.” Seeing the man’s frown, Tris grimaced. “They gave me a hard time all the way here about going to university,” she explained. “And other mages—when they found out I could do it, when so many fail ... they decided I was prideful, and conceited. I don’t want Briar and Daja and Sandry to be that way with me. And Briar already said having a credential from Winding Circle isn’t good enough for me. This would just make it worse. You know how family gets, once you turn different.”

Zhegorz nodded. “Maybe you’re too sensitive,” he suggested.

Everyone felt better after hot baths and clean clothes. Best of all, Ealaga was too wise to subject them to a formal banquet after a day’s travel. Instead, they took their suppers in a small, informal dining room rather than in the great main hall with its dais, hangings, musicians’ gallery, and massive fireplace. That treat was reserved for the next night.

For that night’s meal the courtiers provided light talk, jokes, and news for the company. Rizu managed to coax a funny story about learning to skate in Kugisko from Daja, while Jak flirted and teased Sandry until she laughingly talked about Duke Vedris and some of the mishaps her student Pasco had gotten into. In the withdrawing room after supper the servants brought wine, tea, and fruit juice for them all, as well as cheeses and biscuits. Chime enchanted them with her flights in the air, candles and firelight throwing brightly colored flashes from her glassy body. When the travelers began to show weariness, Ealaga instructed the maids to show them to their rooms.

Sandry was asleep the moment she crawled under the blankets. She didn’t know how long she stayed that way before someone grabbed her hand. She sat bolt upright, ready to launch a fistful of power against her attacker’s clothes, and opened her eyes to darkness.

Dark! she thought, horrified. Someone’s grabbing me and it’s dark, where’s my light, my lamp!

Then she saw a nimbus of light around the darkness over her. The person who had woken her stood between her and the chunk of crystal that was her protection against ever being left to wake in the dark. Sandry pushed the person back a step, allowing more light to flow over the intruder’s shoulder. A woman of thirty or so stood beside Sandry. Her face ran with tears. She continued to hang on to one of Sandry’s hands as if her life depended on it.

“Clehame, I beg you, don’t call for the servants!” the woman begged softly. “Please, I mean you no harm, I swear it on my mother’s name!”

“You silly creature!” the girl snapped, trying to tug free. “ I don’t have to call the servants—didn’t they tell you I’m a mage? I might have hurt you! Especially when you got between me and the light, for Mila’s sake.”

The woman refused to let go of her. “Please, Clehame, I don’t know if they said you were a mage, but it wouldn’t make any difference. I would be better off killed by magic than live on as I live now!”

Sandry pushed herself upright until she could lean over and grab the crystal with her free hand. Holding it, she brought the light closer to her captor’s features. The woman flinched back from it, but her grip on Sandry’s hand did not ease, and her haggard dark eyes never left Sandry’s face.

The stranger looked as if she’d been lovely as a girl, and had not yet lost all trace of her looks. Her hair was light brown and coarse, tumbling out of its pins. Her nose looked as if it had been broken once, and deep lines bracketed her nose and wide mouth. She wore a coarse white undergown and practical dark overgown, short-sleeved and calf-length to reveal the embroideries underneath. The clothing was good in its weave and stitching, the embroideries well-done. With her power Sandry could tell the cloth and embroideries were well-made. Her guest may have been a peasant, but she was not poor.

“How did you get in here?” Sandry demanded. “The castle gates are closed.”

“I came in this afternoon, with a shipment of flour,” her visitor replied. “I smuggled myself up here. I hid in one of the wardrobes so I would not be sent home before the gates closed for the night.”

“Then why not reveal yourself while I was awake?”

The woman hung her head. “I have slept badly all week, fretting over this,” she confessed. “It was warm in there, and there were folded comforters under me. I ... fell asleep,” she confessed. “Truly, I did not mean to frighten you, but I had to speak to you before, before anyone comes to find me.” She was rumpled enough to have spent hours folded up in a wardrobe.

“I don’t know what you think to accomplish by this invasion,” Sandry told her sternly. “I’m only here for a short time.”

“But you can help me!” the older woman whispered, her grip so tight that Sandry’s fingers began to ache. “You’re the only one who can. If you don’t, I will die by my own hand, I swear it!”

Sandry scowled. “I really don’t approve of drama, Ravvi—at least tell me your name.”

“Gudruny, Clehame,” the woman whispered, her head bowed. “I will not give you my married name, because I never wanted it and wish to be rid of it through your mercy.”

Sandry shook her head with a sigh. “I don’t see how I can help you there,” she told Gudruny. “But in any case, let me put on a robe and slippers, and let’s get some real light in here. You can tell me all about it. Now please let go, before my fingers break.”

If anything, Gudruny’s hold tightened. “Swear it on your ancient name,” she begged. “Swear to me by all the gods you will not call for the guards.”

“I swear. Though, really, my word as a noble should be enough!” From the way Gudruny’s eyes scuttled to the side, she didn’t share Sandry’s opinion of a noble’s word. Sandry shook her head, then asked, “May I now have my hand?”

Gudruny released it as if it had turned into a hot coal. Sandry massaged her aching fingers, then started to get up. Gudruny leaped to her feet and fetched Sandry’s robe, helping her into it while Sandry thrust her feet into her slippers. Before Sandry could move, Gudruny knelt before the fire, poking the embers into flame and adding fresh wood. Even though it was spring, the air was chilly.

Sandry lit a taper from the flames, and with it lit the wicks on a branch of candles. She had to be desperate, to do this, she thought, remembering the way her Namornese companions had spoken of dealing with the peasants who didn’t pay nobles the proper respect. I doubt they’d be very kind to someone who crept into a noble’s bedroom. The least I can do is hear her out, and make certain she comes to no harm. Once they had decent light, she nodded to one of the two chairs that framed the hearth. “Seat yourself. Should I ring for tea?” When Gudruny half-leaped to her feet from the chair, Sandry grimaced. “Very well, no tea. Please stop leaping about like that.” As Gudruny settled back, Sandry took the other seat. “Now,” she said, folding her hands in her lap. “Tell me what brings you up here. A direct tale, if you please. I’ve been riding all day, and I want some rest.”

Gudruny looked down. “Ten years gone I was considered quite the beauty,” she said, her voice soft. “All the lads were courting me, whether they had prospects or no, and even though I had no fortune of my own. And I was vain, I admit. I teased and I flirted. Then Halmar began to call.” She swallowed hard and added, “Halmar Iarun. He was in his twenties, and I in my teens. He is the miller, like his father, and he’s done well as miller. He said he’d had his fun, and it was time for him to be setting up his nursery, and he’d decided I would do.” Gudruny sighed. “I would do,” she repeated. “As if he had a field of choices, and I met most of his requirements. Oh, I was angered. I sent him off with a host of insults, and went back to my flirtations.”

Tears trickled down her cheeks. “One day my mother sent me out to gather mushrooms for supper. I went to the woods three miles from here, where I knew there were edulis mushrooms—my favorites. I was gathering them when Halmar came for me. He ran me down on horseback, caught me, and took me to a shepherd’s hut up in the hills. There he kept me, according to the custom.” Gudruny’s lips trembled. Sandry found a handkerchief in the pocket of the robe and passed it over.

“He did not strike me, not then,” Gudruny whispered. “He said he wanted me to love him. He said I would love him and agree to marry him, or I would never see my parents again. He tied me up while he was gone, and he came back to me each night, to feed me and to tell me how much I was missed, until ... until I signed the marriage contract. A priest took our marriage vows, or rather, Halmar’s vows, since they didn’t need mine. I am his wife now, and the mother of our two children.”

Sandry listened to this astonishing tale in silence, fury rising up from her belly until so much of it was collected in her throat that she could hardly breathe. “You married a man who would do that to you?” she demanded after Gudruny had been silent for at least a moment. “You live in the house of a man who would treat you that way?” She jumped to her feet to cry, “Where is your pride? How could you bear him children? How could you share his bed?”

Gudruny looked at her as if Sandry had just started to speak Old Kurchali. “I had no choice,” she whispered, her lips trembling. “He would have kept me there forever. Other men do worse to make women sign the marriage contract. And once it is signed, the wife has no rights. Most marriages are not made with a contract for that reason. But in west Namorn ...” She shrugged, her bony shoulders dimpling the cloth of her gowns.

Sandry stared at Gudruny, her hands clenched on the back of the chair. “But you can run away,” she pointed out.

“And with a contract he can ask anyone to give me back,” snapped Gudruny. “The only way a woman can be freed of the contract would be if she petitioned her liege lord to set it aside.”

“Then why didn’t you?” Sandry wanted to know. “Cousin Ambros is a fair man. How could you not go to him?”

“Because he is not the liege lord here,” whispered Gudruny. “Your mother rode by me, twice, when I tried to ask her years ago. Now I come to you. Please, Clehame. I will do anything you ask, if you will but free me of him.”

Sandry realized she was trying to shrink away from Gudruny. Surely she had not just said that about her mother. Sandry had known for years that her mother was a pleasure-seeker, a pretty woman who cared only about her husband, her daughter, and having fun. She had never considered that those things might make her mother a very bad noblewoman. “What about your own family?” Sandry wanted to know. “Surely they protested. Didn’t they search for you while he had you captive?”

“My family was just my parents,” replied Gudruny. “My sisters had married away from Landreg, and I had no brothers. People in the village searched for me, but ... there are signs a man leaves, to show he has taken a woman for a horse’s rump wedding. That’s what we country folk call it. Mostly it is a harmless way to get past an overbearing family, or to avoid waiting to wed, or to add spice to a runaway marriage. He told them that I’d decided he must court me, and they believed him. I had made enough mothers angry, toying with their sons. They were glad to think I would marry this way.” She thrust a hank of hair back with a trembling hand and looked curiously at Sandry. “You truly did not know of this custom? To kidnap a woman, or pretend to, and hold her in a secret place until she escapes, or is rescued, or signs the contract and is wed?”

“I’ve never encountered anything like it before,” Sandry replied grimly. “Gudruny, if you are lying to me ...”

Gudruny slid to her knees. “The custom comes to us from old Haidheltac.” She named the seed country from which the Namornese empire had sprung. “You might even inquire of the empress, if you dared. It was done to her twice, but she escaped both times before she could be forced to sign the contract. The punishment visited on her captors, once she was free, made all men think twice about trying such things with her.”

“But wouldn’t she react the same if it happened to other women?” demanded Sandry, feeling as if the safe and level earth were swinging wildly under her feet.

Gudruny wiped her eyes again as tears spilled down her cheeks once more. “She said, when a noblewoman came to her, that any woman foolish enough to be caught was a caged bird by nature, and must content herself with a keeper.”

Sandry shivered. That sounds like Berenene, she thought unhappily. It would be like her, to despise other women because they didn’t manage to escape like she did. “Well, there’s nothing we can do right now with the gates closed for the night,” she told Gudruny. “In the morning I will set this right for you, Gudruny.” She bit her lip, to stop it from trembling with shame. When she felt she could speak without her voice betraying her, she said very quietly, “I beg your forgiveness for ... my family. For our not doing our duty by you. You deserved better.” She cleared her throat, quickly wiped her cheeks, then said more briskly, “There’s a trundle bed under mine. You can stretch out there, at least.”

Gudruny pulled out the trundle as Sandry banked the fire again. “What of your children?” Sandry asked once she had climbed back into bed. “What happens to them?”

Gudruny smiled wanly as she sat on the trundle. “They will remain with me,” she said, turning to blow out the candles. “The children belong to the mother, as they do everywhere.” She took off her shoes by the glow from Sandry’s crystal, and crawled under the blankets of the trundle bed, which had been made up for the maid Sandry didn’t have. “The father may pay—must pay—for their keeping, but the children are the mother’s. That is something the empress approves. I will get to keep my children, since she has decreed that the only bloodlines the law need concern itself with are the mother’s.”

“Of course,” murmured Sandry, her eyes sliding closed. “So the fathers of her own daughters cannot claim the throne in their name. I’ll have to hear testimony,” she murmured. “Hear what those who know you have to say. After so much has been done wrong here, I must be sure to do right.”

If Gudruny answered, Sandry did not hear. She was fast asleep.