Child of Flame

Lady Waltharia entered the chamber alone. She halted a few steps in, surveying with an ironic smile the empty bed, the silent pallets, the table laid with a pitcher of cider and three silver cups, and the sleeping child. The door closed sharply behind her and she jumped, startled, and whirled around to see Sanglant laughing silently behind her.

She chuckled, sweeping her hair back over her shoulders. Somehow, between the hall and this chamber, her braid had come undone to reveal waist-length hair, still crinkled from its recent confinement in the braid.

“You haven’t changed,” she said as she crossed to sit on the edge of the bed, tying back the hangings so they didn’t get in her way.

“Haven’t I?” he asked, not moving from- his place beside the door.

“You once told me you would never marry.”

“Only because my father forbade it. I was captain of the King’s Dragons. It was not my right to marry. Then.”

“Maybe I’m wrong,” she observed, rising to go to the unshuttered window. “You are not what you were.” She leaned out on the ledge, hands braced on the wooden frame set into the stone opening. From the trundle bed Anna could not see what Waltharia was looking at, if indeed she was looking at anything except the sky and the stars. It was probably warmer outside than in. The stone walls had a way of holding damp and chill jealously inside them.

“What is she like? Your wife, I mean.”

“Do you envy her?”

She turned. “I suppose I would have, once. But you would have been too much trouble, even if I could have had you. My father was right about that. I needed a more compliant husband.” Because he remained silent, she grinned delightfully and sat on the ledge. Wind stirred her hair. “He’s a good man, Druthmar. Good enough.”

“He acquitted himself ably today.”

“So he did. But he isn’t you. You’re the best stallion in the king’s stable. I can’t help but admire so much handsome flesh. Especially when I discover it standing half naked at my trough.”

He laughed. “I needed a wash.”

“You can wash here. I can have water brought up.”

“You’re the one who hasn’t changed.”

“Perhaps not. In the old days before the church of the Unities saved my ancestors from the Abyss, it was said that certain priestesses of my people mated with stallions in order to bring good luck to the tribe. I must be descended from one of them.”

He came forward finally and threw himself down on the bed, lounging on his back with casual grace as he watched her. From her place in the trundle bed, Anna saw him outlined in lamp glow. The mellow light gave his tousled black hair a silky sheen.

Waltharia remained seated at the window. “You married a woman who claims to be the great granddaughter of Emperor Taillefer and who has also been excommunicated and outlawed for sorcery, one who hasn’t been seen since she left Werlida in your company. In truth, nothing remains of her but the child. The same could be said, I suppose, about your mother.”

His lips curled, although not in a smile. “What a great deal you know.”

“Do I? It seems to me that the person who believes she knows a great deal most likely knows very little.”

“A wise saying.”

“My father taught me well.” She walked to the table to pour herself a cup of cider, letting the rim of the cup linger at her mouth as she examined him over the lip. “What happened to your wife? Did you abandon her?”

His expression grew stiff. “More like she abandoned me. I have reason to believe she still lives. Whether she cares to return to me and the child I do not know. But you are right. The same could be said about my mother. How have you learned so much, out here in the marchlands?”

“I received a message from my father some weeks ago.” She paused suggestively, lowering the cup. Anna almost sat up, eager to hear what would come next, but just in time she remembered that she was pretending to sleep. “He suggests that I support you as well as I am able.”

“What does he mean by that?”

“What do you think he means? Why did you leave your father’s court and turn your back on your father’s authority?”

“Because he wouldn’t listen to me. There is a cataclysm coming, and we must prepare for it.”

“The folk who work my estates think the Quman raids are cataclysm enough.”

“So they are, but they are nothing compared to what we will have to face.”

She set down the cup and simply watched him for a while in silence. Anna examined her profile: a strong face, as proud as a margrave’s heir must be but also clean like unstained linen. She had faint scars along her jaw below the mutilated ear, and a wine-colored birthmark in the hollow of her throat, easy to see from this angle, but nothing evil in her face, no hidden hatreds or petty jealousies. She knew what she possessed, and she wasn’t afraid to rule what was hers.