“My lady does not like wine?” Lyrna asked the Lady Governess, turning her back on the counsellor’s scrutiny.
“Can’t stand the stuff.” Reva smiled in discomfort, hands clasped together and head slightly lowered. It was plain she had only a scant knowledge of etiquette and kept forgetting the necessary honorifics, something Lyrna found irked her royal person not at all.
“Your uncle was something of an expert, as I recall,” she said. “I remember he could take a single sniff of a glass and tell the year of bottling, the vineyard and even the direction of the slope on which the grapes had been grown.”
“He was a drunk. But he was my uncle and I miss him greatly.”
“Especially tonight, I’d guess.”
Reva gave a short laugh. “It’s . . . not what I’m used to.” She frowned in annoyance before adding, “Erm, Highness. Sorry.”
Lyrna just smiled and glanced back at the banquet. It was a subdued affair, the conversation muted, the guests preoccupied with the horrors they had witnessed or the friends they had lost. However, the wine was going down well, especially with Nortah Al Sendahl who sat on the manor steps, arm draped over Brother Caenis’s shoulders as he held forth, wine sloshing from his glass with every expansive gesture. “Iss beautiful, brother. Big open spaces, fine view of the sea and”—he nudged the Lord Marshal with a wink—“I go to bed with a beautiful woman every night. Every night, brother! And you’d still rather stay in the Order.”
“That man is very annoying,” Lady Reva said. “Even when sober.”
“He’s certainly talkative for a corpse,” Lyrna replied. She looked at the other guests, noting one significant absence. He had taken himself off to his army’s camp after the first hour of the banquet, pleading tiredness which certainly could not be questioned. Lady Dahrena had left with him, causing Lyrna to realise her unwelcome pang of jealousy towards the Lady Governess may well have been misdirected.
“What happened to Lord Vaelin?” she asked her.
There was an evident reluctance in Lady Reva’s expression, a tenseness to the porcelain mask of her face. “He saved us.”
“I know. But I can’t help but recognise the manner of saving has left its mark. My lady, please tell me what happened to him.”
A thin hiss of breath came from Reva’s lips, her mouth twitching at an unwelcome memory. “He led the forest folk into the city and they killed the Volarians. All of them, in the space of a few moments. By the Father, I wish we’d had them with us during the siege. I found him when it was done. He . . . was bleeding, a lot. We spoke and he fell. It seemed . . .” She trailed off, raising her gaze to meet Lyrna’s. “It seemed that he’d died. Then the Lady Dahrena came. The way she moved was very strange, her eyes were closed but she walked straight to him without a stumble. Her skin was so pale . . . She fell onto him and I thought they had both perished. I prayed, Highness. I prayed to the Father in a scream, for it was so unfair. And then . . .” She shivered, hugging herself tight. “Then they were alive again.”
“Did anyone else see this?”
“Only the forest people. I could tell they didn’t like it at all.”
“It would be best if it was kept between us, for now.”
“As you wish, Highness.”
Lyrna touched her on the arm and started back to the manor. “Did you mean it?” Reva asked. “About burning their city?”
Lyrna paused and nodded. “Every word.”
“Before all of this I was so certain, so convinced of the rightness of my course. I had a mission, a holy quest blessed by the World Father himself. Now . . .” The young Lady Governess frowned in consternation, suddenly seeming so much older than her years. “I have . . . done things here. In defending this city I have done things . . . I thought them right and just as I did them, now I don’t know. Now I wonder if I mistook rage for right and murder for justice.”
“In war they are the same thing, my lady.” She returned and clasped Reva’s hand. “I have done things too and every one I would do again.”
? ? ?
“I should like to take a stroll, my lords,” she told Benten and Iltis a short while later. “To view my new army.”
Iltis gave a typically prompt bow whilst Benten was preoccupied with stifling a yawn. “Feeling the lateness of the hour, my lord?” she asked him.
“Apologies, Highness,” he stammered, straightening up. “I am at your . . .”
She waved him to silence. “Go to bed, Benten.”
Like many of the other guests, Orena seemed to appreciate the late Fief Lord’s taste in wine. “We’ll come too, Highness,” she said, slurring a little, her eyes somewhat unfocused. “I like soldiers.”
“I’ll put her to bed, Highness,” Murel said, taking the lady’s hand and tugging her towards the manor despite her plaintive whine, “Wanna see the soldiers.”
“Her mourning period didn’t last long,” Iltis noted, watching them go.
“We all grieve in different ways, my lord. Shall we?”
“I believe there is something I have to tell you, Highness,” the big man said after they had traversed the causeway. “Concerning Lord Al Sorna.”
“Really? And what is that?”
“I’ve made his acquaintance before. Twice in fact. Once at Linesh where he gave me this”—he touched his misshapen nose—“and once some months ago when I . . .”
Lyrna stopped, regarding him with a raised eyebrow.
“I tried to kill him,” her Lord Protector finished. “With a crossbow.”
Her laugh pealed out across the river as Iltis stood in stoic silence. “That’s why you were in the vaults with Fermin,” she said.
“It was a singular misjudgement. One I assure you I’ll not make again. My attachment to the Faith was fierce, unquestioning. I . . . have different loyalties now.”
“I should hope you do.” They resumed walking, following the bank where some corpses still floated in the reeds, bloated and rich with the odour of rotting flesh. In the aftermath of the rains, the air had taken on an unseasonal chill, misting her breath as she walked, even forming a thin layer of ice around the bodies in the river.
“Ice in summer,” she said, pausing to peer closer. “Late summer, granted. But still, very strange.”
“Never seen the like, Highness,” Iltis agreed, stooping to get a better view. “Not in all my d—”
The arrow took him in the shoulder, spinning him to the ground with a shout. Lyrna dropped as battle-won instinct seized her, the second arrow streaking overhead to punch through the thin ice on the river. They’re close, she surmised, judging the angle of the arrow’s flight. Iltis was lying a few feet away, teeth gritted as he fumbled for his sword. Lyrna shook her head, holding up a hand, eyes scanning the long grass. Iltis stopped moving, biting the cloth of his cloak to keep from voicing his pain.
Never be without it. She had strapped the dagger to her calf before the banquet, unseemly for a queen to carry a weapon. She drew it and reversed the blade, hiding the moonlit gleam under her forearm. Waiting.
Two figures rose from the grass a little over twenty paces away, one tall the other stocky. The tall man carried a longbow, arrow notched and half-drawn, the stocky man an axe. They advanced slowly, the stocky man issuing a laugh. “You should trust my word more, my holy friend. I told you the Father would guide us to her.” She could see him now, broad-bearded features and a bald head, teeth bared as he raised his voice, the tone rich with mirth. “Show yourself, Highness. We only want to offer our respects.”
A little closer. She lowered her arm, letting the blade fall into her palm.
“Oh, don’t be difficult,” the bearded man groaned. “We’re doing you a service. Do you really want to go through life with a face like that?”
Iltis sprang to his feet with a roar, sword scraping free of his scabbard, the tall man swivelling towards him, bow fully drawn. Lyrna glimpsed a narrow handsome face, drawn in hate.
It was her finest throw, the knife tumbling in a perfect arc to take him in the throat, the bowstring snapping as he fell, the arrow lost to the grass. Iltis charged towards the stocky man but could only manage a few steps before stumbling to the ground with a yell of agonised frustration. Lyrna rushed towards him as the stocky man closed, taking the sword from his limp grasp and swinging it two-handed. The steel rang against the axe blade and something smacked across her face, sending her sprawling.
“What a hard head you have, Highness,” the stocky man observed, flexing his fingers and stepping closer. “Perhaps I’ll have it mounted.”
He grinned as he hefted his axe, then blanched as something looped over his head and tightened about his neck. His shout choked to a crack as he was jerked from his feet, eyes bulging, the axe falling from his grasp as he clutched at the rope. Lyrna got to her feet, spitting blood, seeing a muscular, curly-haired young man dragging the stocky assassin away. The young man gathered the rope with quick, skilful jerks of his brawny arms, the stocky man’s feet drumming the earth as he was drawn backwards. When he had the assassin at his feet the young man placed a boot on his neck and tightened the rope further, his face like a mask the whole while. The stocky man’s choking rasps faded after a few seconds.