C. Dale Brittain (2 page)

He leaped onto the stallion’s back, and Goldmane began to run even before he had his balance again.
 
He lay sprawled across the horse’s neck, levering himself into position with his legs.
 
Goldmane whinnied and sprang upwards—clearing a wall or a ditch, he could not see what—almost losing him in the process.

“Good horse, good boy,” he muttered, seizing handfuls of mane to pull himself up.
 
“Are you still mine, or have you joined Gizor’s employ?”

But then he laughed, the night air whipping across his face.
 
Clouds tore away from the moon.
 
He could see now where they were, coming out of the lane onto the high road.
 
He slapped the stallion joyously and settled down to ride.

Even if the king’s warriors managed to get away from the manor without answering the questions the provost would doubtless pose them, they would never catch him before he reached the castle.
 
Goldmane was a stallion of voima, who had triumphed in every race against every horse since Roric had won him from the troll.

The king might be plotting his death in new ways within the week, but he was not yet an outcast, and he would see Karin again.
 
The moon floated in a clear sky as the stallion’s long strides ate up the miles.

It was dawn when he came out of the dense woods at the top of the sandstone cliff, and Goldmane slowed to a walk for the narrow and steep descent among the ledges.
 
Roric shifted his stiff fingers in the stallion’s mane, now matted with sweat.
 
It had been a long run even for a horse like this, but after the first mile all sounds of pursuit had been left behind.
 
King Hadros would not be expecting him unless he had had a raven-message, and Roric did not think Gizor One-hand was one who spoke to ravens.

The rising sun glinted on the sea, several miles off.
 
But as the road reached the cliff’s base the sun was hidden again.
 
Here oaks grew on sandy hills, with nothing but long grass between their massive trunks.
 
Roric urged his horse into a trot for the final stretch through the trees and across the stream on the old stone bridge.
 
Goldmane’s hooves rang hollow, but this morning there was no sign of the troll.

The hall of the castle and the walls that surrounded it were built of yellow sandstone from the cliff.
 
The whole great mass, including the weathered oak outbuildings within the walls, seemed to grow naturally out of the hill.
 
Smoke rose from the cooking fires in the kitchen as he clattered through the open gate and into the courtyard, then slid from his stallion’s back at the entrance to the stables.

Goldmane’s head drooped, and now that he had arrived exhaustion seized Roric as well.
 
The man—if it was a man—who had spoken to him, four hours of tense waiting, the long ride, were all jumbled together.
 
But he forced himself to stay on his feet long enough to rub down the stallion, put a blanket over him, and be sure there were oats and water in his stall.

His thought had been to burst in on the king in the hall, flaunting his escape from treachery, defying him openly before his sons and his other sworn men.
 
But at the moment sleep seemed even better.
 
He tried to remember precisely what he had planned to say.

As he started out the stable door, there was a quick step outside, and then Karin was in his arms.

She pressed her face against his chest, filthy and sweaty as he was, and for a second he felt her shoulders quivering under his hands.
 
But then she lifted her face, cheeks smudged but eyes clear.

“I knew you would escape alive,” she said in a voice that just barely did not tremble.
 
“I went to the Weaver who lives by the cliff and burned an offering.
 
But—
 
But dare you be here?
 
They’ll say you killed the men unprovoked.”

He pulled her back into the stables and kissed her slowly and thoroughly.
 
“I did not kill anyone.
 
Did the king boast to you that I would be dead?”

“Of course not,” she said sharply, as if irritated for a moment.
 
“It was only because he has been acting so oddly this last week that I was watching, and I saw Gizor One-hand and those thugs of his slip away—even Hadros may not have known when they left.”

“The king must have hoped at a minimum I’d be outcast for wounding or killing one of them.
 
Maybe he intended to get rid of Gizor and me at the same time.”

They were talking in low voices, their arms tight around each other.
 
“But are you sure they really meant to kill you?” she murmured.
 
“After all—
 
You escaped.”

He pulled his lips into a thin line.
 
“Are you doubting the strength of my voima when it’s three against one?”

She shook her head hard.
 
She had hair the color of wheat fields in July, gold tinged with russet, and it was undone and tangled as though she had been up all night.

“I ran,” he added, then stopped, feeling it was less than honorable to tell her this.
 
He shook his own head.
 
“Come, and we will face King Hadros together.”

But she stepped away from him as he went into the great hall.
 
King Hadros sat with his warriors and housecarls around him, finishing his morning porridge and beer.
 
Roric spotted the red hair of Valmar, the royal heir.
 
The king was bent over his flagon, his elbows out as though to keep the others away.
 
He gave a great start as Roric walked toward the table, and his brows rose sharply.
 
Although he managed to put the flagon down without spilling any more beer his eyes stayed round.
 
A strange expression went across his face—was it relief?

Roric changed all at once what he had planned to say.
 
“I finished my business at the manor more quickly than I expected,” he said loudly.
 
His heart was beating hard though he strove to keep his tone casual.
 
Exhaustion was gone.

“So I left last evening,” he continued, “and rode all night to be here today.
 
Oh, I happened to spot three of our warriors arriving when I was leaving.
 
One was old Gizor One-hand.
 
I hope they’ll think to bring Goldmane’s saddle home with them; I must have left it at the manor.
 
I expect they had come on some special errand or other, but I knew it could have nothing to do with me, so I didn’t wait to speak with them.”

He let it hang in a profound silence, wondering how many of them knew, letting them wonder how much he had guessed.
 
As long as he did not say openly that he had been attacked where he slept, he should be able to resume a normal life here at the castle.
 
King Hadros would not want his other sworn men to know he had plotted the death of one of them, and certainly not that his plot had failed utterly.
 
Not only had he escaped Hadros’s thugs alive, he had put the king in his debt by not accusing him here.

But as Roric played again with the star-shaped bone charm, he did not feel the triumph he had expected from facing down Hadros before his men, telling the king in covert fashion that he knew all and had outwitted him.

Maybe it was because running from danger suddenly seemed a dishonorable thing to have done, the act of a man without a family.

He pulled out the knife from his belt, felt a momentary surge of satisfaction when Hadros’s eyes for a second went even wider, tossed it into the air and caught it.
 
“But now I’m tired,” he said, deliberately turning his back on the king, who had still not spoken.
 
“If you have no more errands for me to run to any other manors this morning, I’m going to sleep.”
 
As he reached the door, feeling somewhat better, he turned back for a moment and bowed.

He slept until noon, sprawled on the straw in the men’s loft, and woke to find Karin sitting beside him.
 
“Is this wise?” he asked with a smile.
 
“If Hadros already wants me dead because he thinks your affections are turning toward me, what will he think when he finds you here?”

But then his smile faded as he looked at her face.
 
She was still pale, and her jaw was clamped tight as though to keep it from trembling.

“Gizor’s back?” he asked, sitting up abruptly.

“They came back a little while ago,” she said as though it was of no interest.
 
“They looked shame-faced.”

He put an arm around her.
 
“What is it, then, my own?” he asked softly.
 
“Were you so worried about me?
 
Don’t you see that I’m safe now, as long as I’m in the castle?”

“It’s not you,” she said, her eyes averted.

“Then who do you love better than me who can make you this sad?” he asked mockingly, then stopped all at once.
 
“Hadros—
 
He hasn’t dared—
 
If he’s forced you, then I don’t care if he is my sworn lord, I’ll—”

She squeezed his arm.
 
“It’s my brother,” she said, still not looking at him.
 
“I found out yesterday.
 
The messenger had come to Hadros the day before, but he did not tell me until after he had sent you off to that manor.
 
It’s as though he wanted you away from here when he told me.
 
And then last night I thought I had lost you both.”

He pulled her toward him and stroked her hair.
 
The straw crackled beneath them.
 
“Tell me what happened.
 
Your brother has died?”

“It was a shipwreck,” she said indistinctly.
 
“A calm sea, a clear crossing.
 
But they were all young men on the ship, and they had all been drinking.
 
They went right against the Cauldron Rocks.
 
There were no survivors.”

“I’m so terribly sorry,” he said, continuing to stroke her hair.

She pushed him angrily away.
 
“You don’t understand, Roric!
 
Of course I’m saddened to have lost my brother, but I hardly knew him any more—I hadn’t seen him in over ten years, not since I came here as a hostage.
 
And I’ve never been able to feel the same toward either my father or my older brother since.
 
After all, they gave me into the hands of the enemy.”

When Roric said nothing, she added after a moment, “I was much sadder back when I heard my younger brother had died, only a few months after I arrived.
 
He and I had been playmates …
 
But you wouldn’t remember that!” she finished brusquely.

“I didn’t really know you then,” he said, looking at her with his head cocked.
 
“You were just the pretty little girl that I understood had come to live with us.
 
You were an outsider—
 
I did not then realize that you and I were both outsiders here.
 
I do remember you crying, and I wondered why.”

“You still don’t understand,” she said through her teeth.
 
“Now that pretty little girl has become an heiress.”

He considered her in silence for a moment.
 
“So will you still love me when you’re queen?” he asked with a grin.

She gave him another push.
 
“Don’t joke, Roric!
 
You, of all people, should realize what this means.”

His attempts to take the anguish from her eyes a failure, he said soberly, “Then you’ll be important to a lot of people as well as to me.”

“Not just important.
 
Valuable.
 
I’ve been valuable all these years as a pledge for my father’s good behavior toward King Hadros.
 
Now I’m the heiress to my father’s kingdom.
 
That makes me doubly valuable.
 
A marriage would unite the kingdoms, ensure that war would never break out again between them.”