Green Rider (40 page)

"The ring," he said.

"The— No. You can't have it." She covered it protectively.

The Weapon stepped forward. "The ring. Until your identity and purpose is ascertained, we will hold these things."

"No. Not the ring. All of these things, all except the brooch, were gifts. This ring was my mother's. I won't give it to you."

The Weapon took another step toward her, his face implacable.

Karigan stooped into a defensive crouch. "The gods help you if you take a step closer. I've about had it. All I've done is deliver a message to the king, yet all I get in thanks is trouble. Well I'll tell you, granite face, I've killed one of your kind, and if you take another step, I'll do my utmost to damage you."

That stopped him, though the threat didn't seriously concern him. He didn't even bother to draw his blade. "I doubt you could hurt any of us. If so, who was it?"

In a measured breath, she said, "His name was Torne."

The Weapon's brows knit together and his eyes flashed angrily. "Torne! A traitor of Saverill's ilk. A deserter. Keep your ring, then. These other objects will be returned to you if it is found you are not lying." With that, he turned crisply on his heel and glided out of the room, closing the door behind him.

Karigan supported herself against the table, her knees ready to buckle. What possessed her to challenge a Weapon? When she had killed Torne, F'ryan was in control of her body. She staggered across the small room to the bed and collapsed. Straw poked through the mattress ticking, but it felt, for all the world, like a feather bed to her overtaxed body.

A noise awakened Karigan. Someone was in the room bending over her bed, and it was too dark to see who. She reached out into the gloom and grabbed a handful of hair. Her assailant squeaked.

Karigan tugged harder.

"Ow! Stop it!" a girl cried out. "I'd like to keep my hair if you don't mind."

Karigan shook her head. The room was dimly lit by an oil lamp at lowest glow. Orange flickered around the edges of the stove door, and the room, she noticed, was quite cozy. She had slept well into the night. Her "assailant" was a girl of about twelve years old, dressed in messenger green. Her hands were on her hips, and her feet were spread apart, and to Karigan, it was like facing one of her own strong-willed aunts.
You won't finish dinner, eh? she
remembered. Aunt Stace wouldn't let her eat dinner for the next two nights.

"Uh, sorry," Karigan said. She let a handful of brown hair drift to the floor.

The girls' stance relaxed. "I'll accept your apology. Most Riders are jumpy anyway."

The girl's name, Karigan found out, was Melry Exiter, and she had been in the midst of checking on Karigan's condition.

"The nitwits around here don't have the head to take care of anything." Melry cleaned and bandaged the whip wound Immerez had inflicted on Karigan's shoulder. "
Look in on her
, says the captain. Well, what a mess I did find. You look like Condor dragged you all the way from Selium. Are you sure you were in the saddle?"

"Condor?"

"Yeah, F'ryan's horse."

Karigan had grown so used to calling him The Horse that she had forgotten he might answer to another name. Condor fit, though. Condors were not the most beautiful of birds, but they had the capacity for elegant flight. Karigan looked up at Melry's face and was surprised to see tears trickling down her cheeks. "What's wrong?"

"F'ryan's dead, isn't he? That's why you came on Condor, right?"

Karigan nodded. "Yes, he asked me to carry on his mission."

Melry wiped her nose with the back of her sleeve and sat in the chair. "They told me, but I couldn't believe it till I saw Condor. F'ryan's the closest thing I ever had to a brother. He played games with me, kept an eye on me, let me tag after him around the castle."

"I'm sorry," Karigan said. She knew it was inadequate, but it was what everyone had said when her mother died.

"Yeah. I knew it might happen sometime. I try not to get real close to the people 'round here 'cause they die. It hurts. Captain and F'ryan are the only ones I got close to."

They sat in silence for some time. "Aren't you a little young to be a Green Rider?" Karigan asked. Everyone seemed to think she was too young, and this girl was even younger.

Melry laughed, the tears miraculously drying. "I'm too young? You're too young! I was raised here."

"Here?" Karigan crooked a brow, disbelieving.

"Yeah, here. Captain found me in the stable. I was newborn, all wrapped in a blanket. Someone, my real mother, left me in the stable." Melry shrugged at the illogic of such an act. "They think my father was a Rider who got killed months before. He had a reputation with women… Captain took me in, named me after her grandmother, and she and the other Riders raised me. I'm not a proper Green Rider, I just help out at the stable, and sometimes I run messages for the Green Foot."

"The Green Foot?"

"Yeah. We run messages around the castle. Gives me a few coppers for fair days and Master Gruntler's Sugary. But I imagine I'll be a Green Rider when I get older."

What would it be like to know one's destiny? Karigan had always thought she would be a merchant like her father, but was now certain that she had never really known. "I'm sure you know what it's like to be a Green Rider."

Melry gave her a sideways look. "I'm sure you do, too."

"What?"

"Are you hungry? You're kinda pale."

"What do you mean I'd know what it's like to be a Green Rider?"

"You have a brooch, don't you? I can't see it proper because I'm not a Rider yet, but you have a brooch. That makes you a Green Rider."

"A brooch doesn't make me anything."

"Whatever you say. You want some food? After that, it's off to the baths for you."

Karigan perked up. "Bath?"

Melry chuckled and slipped out of the room. Shortly she returned, bearing a platter of steaming meat and potatoes, cheese, and bread. In her other hand she carried a mug of fresh milk. She watched in amazement as Karigan all but licked the platter.

"Your color's coming back," she said.

Karigan swallowed the last of the milk and wiped the milk mustache off with her sleeve. "Today drained me."

Melry leaned forward with an expression of deadly seriousness that only near-teenagers can achieve. "There have been rumors flying around all day about you, like you did something today that no one's done in a million years. Or was it a thousand?" Melry screwed up her face. "I'm not real good with numbers. Frustrates the captain a lot. Is it true?"

"I've no idea," Karigan said. "But I did have a strange day."

"What happened?"

How could she tell this girl that she had ridden with the ghost of her friend, F'ryan Coblebay, not to mention ghosts who were among the first to be Green Riders? "I—I don't feel up to discussing it."

Melry's face crumbled in disappointment. "Well, they said you traveled fast, whatever that means. Condor is fast, but not the fastest. That would be Ereal's Crane. Anyway, it's off to the baths for you."

Karigan followed Melry out of the room. A Weapon whom she hadn't seen before fell in step behind them. Melry rolled her eyes. The few Riders they encountered in the corridor goggled at Karigan as if she were some unknown creature from another land, but said nothing. One young man, with sandy hair, actually smiled at her and said, "Welcome, Rider."

"That was Alton," Melry said after he passed by. "He's always full of himself—aristocratic blood, y'know, but not a bad sort."

A steaming hip bath awaited Karigan in the bathing room. Several other baths were partitioned off by curtains, but the room was empty of other people. She stepped toward the bath, then hesitated, glancing at the Weapon.

Melry followed her eyes, and put her hands on her hips. "You mind watching things from outside, Fastion? Give Karigan a little privacy, will you? If you want to see a naked woman, go downtown."

Karigan's eyes widened that Melry would speak to a Weapon so, but Fastion's expression did not alter as he stepped outside of the room.

"I haven't decided whether or not Weapons are a natural phenomenon," Melry said, pronouncing the last word with special care. "The captain says that a lot."

Karigan smiled, something her facial muscles were no longer used to. "Thanks, Melry."

"Only the captain calls me Melry. You can call me Mel, if you like." She left the bathing chamber, whistling.

Karigan sank into the tub, her battered and bruised body easing in the heat. She nodded off, and woke up with a snort to discover she had dozed long enough for the water to become tepid. With a shiver, she stepped out of the bath, toweled herself dry and dressed. Tentatively she opened the door and found Fastion waiting patiently for her outside.

"I'm done."

He nodded, and they headed down the corridor. They arrived at the room simultaneously with Mel who could hardly see over an armload of green clothes.

"Thought you might need a change of clothes," she said, "so I stopped at the quartermaster's. He wasn't happy about being woke up so late, nor about giving up good uniforms."

Fastion took up his post outside, and Melry dumped the load on Karigan's bed. "Hope it fits, and I hope you don't mind green."

Karigan sighed, lamenting her wardrobe left in Selium so long ago. "I'm getting used to it." She held a familiar linen shirt to her shoulders for size. "I think this will work. I borrowed some things from the waystation near North."

Mel's eyes grew large. "You were there? That's wild territory."

Karigan nodded. "I read a notice that the quartermaster was to be informed when things are taken."

Mel listened attentively while Karigan listed the uniform pieces she had removed from the waystation. When Karigan finished, Mel yawned. "I'll take care of it in the morning. Quartermaster'll skin me if I wake him up again. I'm about done in myself, anyway. Have to get up early to feed the horses."

Karigan's eyes fell on the message satchel still lying on her table. "One more thing," she said. "F'ryan Coblebay wrote a letter to a Lady Estora. Would you mind delivering it to her?"

Mel's eyes nearly bugged out of her head. "Oh, no! Estora—she doesn't know about F'ryan yet."

"Then best she hears it from you and not a total stranger like me." Karigan took the letter from the satchel and passed it to Mel, feeling a great deal of self-satisfaction: she had achieved her mission, had delivered the king his message, and even the love letter. And she was still alive.

"I'll take it." Tears threatened to spill down Mel's cheeks again. "You're right. Best she hears it from me."

Mel left, and Karigan sagged in exhaustion to the bed. She kicked off her boots and wrapped a blanket around herself, and fell asleep as soon as her head touched the pillow.

STEVIC G'LADHEON