The Will of the Empress

Tris called the gale-force wind back to circle the watchdogs. It grabbed them, scrabbling in their clothes with greedy fingers. Tris did up the braid again, then gave the small gale another spin. It picked up speed, whirling around the watchdogs like a cyclone. Inside it they were blind and captive, unable to move or see. Tris gave the wind a last, hard spin, then freed it into the open air over Dancruan. It fled, leaving the pair behind. Briefly they wavered, then fell.

It took Ambros a moment to shake off what he had just seen. “You killed them,” he said nervously as Chime dropped down to land on Tris’s saddle horn.

“Nonsense.” Tris glared at Ambros. “I knocked them out. They’ll come around. I don’t go around killing people, you know. Not unless I have to.”

Ambros dismounted and checked for himself. He had to yank at the watchdogs’ disheveled clothing to uncover their faces and find if they were still breathing. They were. Ambros shook his head, covered their faces again, and mounted his gelding. “Let’s go, before they wake up,” he said, still shaking his head.

“I told you I don’t go around killing people,” Tris said fiercely. “It’s not exactly something I’d want to lie about.”

Normally Gudruny’s children were patient travelers, helping with chores and gleefully striking up conversations with passersby. But the closer their company came to the Blendroad crossing and its horse fair, the unhappier the children got. Sandry could understand their basic disgust at the slowness of their travel, the dust, the lack of consideration from others on the road, and the noise, but more than once she considered cocooning the children to silence them.

Zhegorz did not help. He still insisted on riding beside Sandry, his bony nose in the wind, whatever its direction. His declarations—“I hear the palace”—got to be maddening. The problem was that the empire maintained fortresses along the highway to preserve the peace. Could his palace sounds simply be the conversation of servants of the empire? He couldn’t say. From time to time he would go silent, but he always started up again. The only rest Sandry got from his declarations was if she chose to ride at the back of their group, when she got dust in her teeth. By the time they finally crawled into the overstuffed courtyard of the Blendroad Inn, Zhegorz was shouting his news, drawing stares from everyone who heard them, and Sandry had a headache.

“Zhegorz, will you please be quiet!” cried Gudruny as Sandry rode forward to talk to the innkeeper. “The children are bad enough”—she glared at her crying youngsters in the cart—“and I mean to paddle them if they do not stop it, right now! I will paddle you as well if you cannot act like an adult!”

Briar, too, was covered with dust and headachy with sun, but Gudruny made him smile. “Here I thought she was a mouse,” he remarked to Daja as Sandry passed them. “Seemingly she’s not.”

“I don’t think mothers are supposed to be mice,” murmured Daja. “Maybe that’s what Zhegorz needs—a mother.”

“I hear the palace,” Zhegorz called back to Gudruny. “Plots and betrayal and intrigue.”

“Hear them quietly,” Gudruny insisted. She gave her children one last glare. They at least had heard the tone of their mother at the end of her rope, and fallen silent.

“Clehame, I’m sorry, but we have not a single room. You see how it is—every house in Blendroad is full up for the horse fair,” the innkeeper stammered. He had to talk between two of Sandry’s guards. They would not let him get any closer to her horse. “All who travel the highway this time of year know of the fair. I will turn folk out of their rooms, being as you’re a clehame, but it will cost me guests I depend on every year.”

Sandry rubbed her temples. “No, please don’t do that on my account,” she told him, hating herself for caring about such things when she just wanted a bath. Why can’t I be like other nobles, and demand he look after me and mine right now? she asked herself petulantly. I can’t see Berenene caring if he loses customers or not, as long as she gets a bath.

“Just like a man, not to offer a solution!” scolded a woman—obviously the innkeeper’s wife—as she thrust her way through the crowd. Reaching Sandry’s fence of guards, she curtsied. “Clehame, forgive my silly clunch of a husband. He’s forgot the Canyon Inn. It’s just ten miles down Deepdene Road.” She pointed to a road that led west. “Truly, it’s far better for a refined young lady and her household. ’Tis small, quiet, not well-known, but well-kept. My sister-in-law owns it. They’ve some guests now, but not enough to fill the house. My sister-in-law is not so good a cook as I am, but no one grumbles about her fare.”

Daja leaned on her staff and looked the woman over. “If this place is such a gem, why isn’t it full?”

“It’s ten miles off, for one,” said the innkeeper, clearly relieved his wife had stepped in. “And it’s more to the noble style and hunters’ style. They’re full when hunt season begins, sure enough, and with the fur traders in the winter, but less so this time of year.”

Sandry had borne enough. Her head was killing her. “Let’s go,” she ordered her companions. “The sooner I lie down, the better.”

One of the guards flipped coins to the innkeeper and his wife. Briar and half the guards followed Sandry, while Daja muttered for Zhegorz to be silent. He obeyed only briefly. Sandry was barely a mile down the smaller road when he cried, “Silks, brocades, swords—I see them on the wind!”