Valiant (14 page)

“That’s a good song,” he whispered when I’d finished.

I smiled. “I told you.”

The chair behind me creaked as Lord Verras stood. We’d run out of time.

“I have to go now,” I said. “You won’t try to walk before you’re allowed?”

“Sure,” said Will. “But you’ll be back soon, won’t you?”

“I don’t know. It might be a few days.” I tried to sound
more certain than I was, but Will must have seen my doubt. He opened his mouth to say something, but I spoke first. “Listen for what they say about me or the giants. You can tell me when I visit next.”

“Whatever you say, Sir.” Before I could stand, his wiry arms wrapped me in a fierce hug. “Don’t let them hurt you.”

I hugged him back, pressing my cheek against his forehead. “I won’t.”

The last thing I saw before Lord Verras closed the door was Will’s pale face, like a moon in the dark room.

“Now what?” I asked Lord Verras.

“One more visit,” he said. “Your father.”

I rubbed my eyes with the heel of my hand. “The
Tailor
.”

Lord Verras opened his mouth, then closed it. “I had my men bring the trunk as you asked.”

I nodded and followed Lord Verras, too exhausted to notice the route we took. We finally stopped outside another door. The Tailor lay on the bed, awake. His eyes widened when he saw me. I walked to him, one halting step after another, until I stood at his side.

His mouth was white with fury, his eyes wide. He was angry. I didn’t take his hand.

“I don’t have much time, Tailor, but—” I didn’t know what to say, and looked over my shoulder at Lord Verras. Why did I think he could help me find the right words? “Do you remember how Will and I talked about giants? Giants came to Reggen today. They had Will, and I made them release him. So
I have to stay at the castle. I don’t know how long. But you’ll be safe here.”

I looked down at him.

“No …,” he said, venom in the rasping word. “No. No.” His eyes rolled as they took in the room.

My throat tightened, as if I still wore a cravat. I looked around the room for the first time. A cot sat in the corner, for whoever would tend to him. And the chest with the Tailor’s fabrics stood at the foot of the bed, where the Tailor could not see it.

“Why couldn’t Leymonn know about
you
? Ask about you? Will should be hidden,” I whispered to myself.

Then I walked to the chest and pushed it to the wall nearest the Tailor’s bed. It was very heavy, but my fury made easy work of it.

“There,” I said. “You can see it now. That’s what you wanted, isn’t it?”

He blinked once:
Yes
.

“Then—” I almost called him Father, but the word could not rise past the tightness in my throat. “I pray it comforts you, Tailor.”

W
eariness pulled at
me the moment I left the Tailor’s room. My anger had given me strength to see him, but it spent itself as quickly as it had sprung up.

The corridor tilted and I leaned back against the wall while Lord Verras pulled the door closed behind us. I’d never fainted before and didn’t plan to start.

“What do I do now?”

“Sleep.”

The rest of the evening blurred together: bending over a basin, sponging the red dust away, lads’ clothing scattered at my feet. The feel of a skirt catching and swirling around my ankles as I walked to my new maids’ quarters. Lying in moonlight, my body too tired to move and my mind unable to rest.

And finally: dreams. Dreams of dust and heat and crowds. Of giants with voices like thunder. And dragons, so many dragons. Too many to shoot from the sky.

I woke to someone shaking my shoulder.

“Will?” I threw back the bedcovers, looking for the cutting table and his nest of blankets.

“Who’s Will?” a girl asked, hands on her hips. She had pale skin, black curly hair, and a sweet expression.

I rubbed my eyes, not quite awake.

“You must have had quite a trip to Reggen yesterday.” She shook her head sympathetically. “You need to dress quickly. The princess is asking for you.”

Had something happened in the night? More giants? The duke?

Will.

I scrambled to my feet. “Is everything—is Princess Lissa well?”

I plucked my dress off its hook and tugged it over my head. I hardly remembered how to fasten a dress after wearing trousers and a shirt for so many months. The girl must have noticed my hesitation.

“Let me help you.” She stood behind me, and I felt her fastening the back of the dress. “The princess is well. And we address her as
my lady
.”

It was a short walk to Princess Lissa’s suite. The guards flanking her door didn’t even blink as Nespra, the princess’s maid, led me in.

I looked around the room, worried that I’d see more guards there, eyes sober with a night’s worth of bad news. But there was only the princess in a silk robe, sitting by the fireplace. She looked tired.

Nespra grabbed my arm and gently tugged me into a curtsy. I dipped down, wobbly and off balance, then quickly stood. I wanted to know about Will, about the giants. I stared at the princess, hoping for some hint.

Princess Lissa glanced at me, then reached for one of the pastries on a fine porcelain plate beside her. She knew that I wanted news. And she didn’t seem to care.

“Nespra,” said the princess. “I see you’ve brought Saville.”

Nespra dipped her head. “I have. Is there anything you would have me get for her? She has only one gown.”

Princess Lissa waved a hand dismissively. “I’ll have Kara tend to that.”

Kara, I decided, was the girl laying out a dress for the princess.

“In fact, Kara,” said the princess, “we shall see to Saville right now. Please arrange her hair. She can sit at the bench beside the window.”

I turned to the princess, astonished. A duke with an army of giants was camped somewhere near Reggen, and she wanted her servant to arrange my hair? The princess merely nodded at Kara, who led me to the bench and pointed for me to sit. A moment later, the ribbon was yanked from my head.

“Were you ill? Is that why it’s been cut?” Kara asked. “I’ve never seen hair cropped so short before.”

“Kara, I told you to arrange her hair, not comment on it,” murmured the princess as she poured a steaming drink into a small cup. “Saville, I hear you entered the city just before the giants. Tell me about them.”

I studied her. What did she want from me? “I hardly saw them.”

“My lady …,” prompted Nespra with a smile.

“—my lady,” I said.

Lissa looked at me, mouth set, eyes blazing. “Tell everything you noticed. I’m sure you know more than you think.”

Was this a test? “They were nearly as tall as trees.”

“Oh! The willows?” asked Nespra.

I shook my head, but Kara’s small hand clamped down ovoer my hair, preventing any further movement. “The oaks. They were as tall as the oaks. The … tailor didn’t reach their knees.”

“The tailor …!” breathed Kara from behind me. “Tell us about the tailor!”

Princess Lissa pinned Kara with a glare. “I wish to know more about the
giants
, Saville.”

“I heard their voices, just once,” I said, “because I was right next to the gates. They sounded like humans, only lower. And they moved almost gracefully. They looked slow, but they aren’t. One stride seemed to take several seconds, but then you realize they’ve just moved the length of many men.”

“They had human voices and long strides. How
fascinating
,” said the princess. “Surely, you can remember more important details.”

What more did she want? A description of their faces? Anything else would betray me.

I shook my head. “I wasn’t as near as the tailor, my lady. That’s all I saw.”

She half smiled, as if acknowledging a hit. “I wouldn’t have Kara die of curiosity. You may tell her about the tailor now.”

I was supposed to describe myself? I paused, trying to think of what everyone else had seen—what the princess had seen.

“He was dirty. He and the giants had been throwing … things.” I didn’t dare say more.

“Do go on,” said the princess.

“But when he was closer to the gates, I could tell that he was … average.” I tried to imagine how I must have looked to the crowd inside the gates. “Average height, brown hair. He seemed confused by the attention. But he had a good face, an honest one—” The words caught in my throat. How could I describe myself as honest after disguising myself for so long? Wasn’t this a disguise, too?

The princess tapped a finger against her mouth. Finally, she said, “Average … honest … a good description, Saville. The champion is also brave, truly. I have seen enough to know that. Though I wonder if perhaps he is a bit naïve, too.” She looked at me. “Time will tell.”

“He is a lucky tailor, Princess, to marry so fine a lady as you!” Kara said.

The door swung open before the princess could answer. Lord Verras stood in the entryway, looking worried. “Lissa, I must speak to you alone.”

Please don’t let it be Will
.

The princess’s eyes widened, and she motioned to Nespra and Kara. “Leave us.”

Nespra held her hand out to me. “Come, Saville.”

Lord Verras shook his head, ever so slightly.

“Stay, Saville,” said the princess. “I have an errand for you.”

Once the maids had left, the princess asked, “What is it, Galen? What’s wrong?”

“Is it Will?” I did not care that the princess glared at me for speaking out of turn.

“We may not have hidden Saville as well as I thought.”

I looked at the door, half expecting soldiers to burst through it. Instead, Verras walked to me and touched me lightly behind my ear.

I twisted away. “What are you doing?”

“What is that?” He pointed at the place he had touched.

My hand rose to where his finger had been … on the birthmark behind my right ear, just below the hairline.

“It’s a birthmark,” I said. “Why are you—”

“It’s Fate’s Kiss,” he said.

“What?”

“Fate’s Kiss. It’s what the crowd chanted last night. They didn’t want you to
kiss
Lissa. They wanted to see Fate’s Kiss.”

“You can’t be serious! They think it means something?”

He shrugged. “I sent a man out into the crowd last night to ask about it. Someone at the gates must have noticed the mark yesterday.”

I sat down on the window seat. “There were so many people when I first reached Will’s side. My hair was tied back
and I didn’t have a hat. Anyone could have seen it.”

Lord Verras sighed. “By the time night fell, half of Reggen was convinced you’d been marked by fate to save the city.”

I traced the spot with my fingers. It wasn’t even the size of a small coin. “I hated it when I was little! Mama used to tell me that—”

He raised his eyebrows.

Mama used to tell me that I’d been such a precious baby that she’d kissed me all over when she first held me. And one of her kisses, one just behind my right ear, had stayed. So I shouldn’t mind if other children made fun of it.

But I did mind, every jibe—until Mama died. After that, whenever I needed to remember how much she’d loved me, when the Tailor was especially bitter, I had only to touch the birthmark behind my ear.

Princess Lissa’s sigh brought me back to the present.

“She made me not mind it so much,” I stammered. “Besides, it’s so small.”

“It’s a way to identify you,” said Lord Verras. “Right now the champion is a thin lad about this high”—he held his hand up to his chin—“with brown or blond hair and a face that no one can remember, thanks to the hat I gave you. But they
do
remember the mark. They’ve named it! You have to take your hair—”

He didn’t have to finish. I tugged the combs from my hair, undoing all of Kara’s work. My hair fell to just above my shoulders, long enough to cover the mark. “I can’t let anyone see it.”

“No, you cannot.” He looked at the princess. “And I can’t risk anyone walking in and hearing me question Saville. I need to take her to my rooms.”

I smiled. No more talking about the tailor while the world outside the palace spun toward war. And Lord Verras wouldn’t expect me to curtsy.

“I’ll help however I can,” I said.

The princess eyed the combs that I’d dropped on the window seat. “I’d say you’ve helped quite enough already, Tailor.”

W
hat a relief
to escape! I would have faced giants again before telling him so, but I was glad to see Lord Verras. He might pepper me with questions, but he’d let me ask my own. I even enjoyed the bewildering path we took to his chambers beneath the castle.

Once inside the dark little room, he motioned me to a seat. Then he sat at his desk and found a pen among the debris. I thought of the tables in the Tailor’s shop, with shears and chalk neatly arranged, and the box of notions with small compartments inside. The Tailor didn’t have to look if he wanted an extra-fine needle or the long pins. They were always in the same place.

Was anything ever in the same place on Lord Verras’s desk? It was covered with piles of papers and books. He opened a drawer and pulled out a new sheet of paper. Then he moved a small pile, retrieved the inkwell underneath, and opened it.