Chapter 1

I’d known I must face Kiefan, in time, but Equinox came without word from him.

A hush spread through the chatting around me. I hardly noticed until Alice cut off her story mid-sentence and stared past my shoulder. Frida, sitting beside her, set her teeth on her lower lip. I twisted on my seat; the menfolk had carried my kitchen table and benches outside into the sunny afternoon so we could watch the children run and shriek while we drank small beer.

“Elect Kate?” A fourteen-year-old boy in a red royal messenger’s tabard stood at the mouth of the narrow alley between my shop and my neighbor’s. His horse stood two steps behind, its reins in his hand.

I shifted Rafe onto my shoulder and stood. “Yes?”

One of the fathers hissed an order and even the little ones screeched to a halt on the grass. Alice’s daughter Magda ran screaming in delight a little further before she realized nobody was chasing. My family, my few friends, half a dozen neighbors, all looked from me to the messenger as he unrolled his list of announcements. The hush deepened to silence.

“By order of Saint Woden and His Majesty the king, Elect Kate is to accompany Duke Vysokov’s reserve forces to the king’s camp at Straussweg. Duke Vysokov departs next morn.” The messenger surveyed my guests and asked, “Baron Rossweide?”

My father-in-law stood. “Rossweide is ready.”

The boy read the official message in any case. “By order of Saint Woden and His Majesty the king, Rossweide will muster its garrison and report to Captain-general Steif, to replenish the city garrison and remain under his command until further instruction. Theo Kaufmann?”

Theo had incited this Equinox party in my yard. “Here.”

“Expect further orders.” The boy rolled his messages up and bowed to me. I nodded to dismiss him.

My neighbors murmured, exchanged glances. Alice circled the table to be the first to hug me good-bye and said, “They just had to ruin Equinox, didn’t they.”

Linde put a hand on my arm. “It’ll be no trouble,” she said, heading off the question I meant to ask. She was the only woman I’d found who Rafe would nurse from. “Gar will be glad to have a brother until you’re home.”

Frida had gone to her husband and son first, grateful that they’d be staying here; I was next. “Mother Love bless and keep you,” she said while she squeezed me with both arms. When she loosened her grip, she kissed Rafe.

“I know you and Linde will keep him safe,” I said, wanting it to be true. If things went badly at Ansehen, if Arcea laid siege to the city again — I steered my mind from what might happen. Saint Woden’s war-craft, I trusted. Qadeem’s wit, I trusted. And all my preparations for this were well made.

“Keep yourself safe. A warm hearth waits for you here.” Frida put one hand on Alice and one on Linde, to include them. Linde was still rather overwhelmed by the force of Frida’s kind attention each time it turned on her, but she smiled bravely.

Frida began to sing the Mother’s benediction, and within a few words all the others had joined in. I didn’t sing along; it was for me, for m’lord Reinhardt, Will, and Theo who moved to stand with me. The baron listened with his chin lowered, eyes shut. He must’ve received this benediction several times, in his life.

My eyes misted. I was going to war and they loved me enough to sing. Most of them sang the friends’ verse. Frida stepped closer to take her husband’s and son’s hands and sing the mother’s verse to them. When they finished, each came to wish us well. M’lord Reinhardt clasped my hand with a sober nod. Even Theo’s wife Brynhilde, with their little girl Mina on her hip, did the same. My neighbors assured me they’d watch my shop, dust it weekly, and remind Linde to send word to me about Rafe.

When Will came, I gave him a quick hug and did the same for Adaliya — the young lady who Frida had found foolishly unattended during the Solstice banquet. Her father was one of the Russe barons riding with Duke Vysokov, and she was a squire herself. I didn’t doubt she’d earn her knighthood. Adaliya and Will had much in common and she had turned up for many Saint-day communal dinners at our Orderhaus despite the long ride from her father’s camp.

Frida pulled Adaliya away for a hug, as she’d be leaving with her father, and Will leaned close to my ear. “Should I ask her?”

“You think I can give advice?” I teased him back. They were both of an age with me; how did I know any more of love than they did? “It would thrill your mother.”

He considered, mouth pursing. “I’ll ask Father for the bracelet. If he agrees, I’ll approach her father tonight.”

As the heir, he had claim to the Rossweide betrothal jewelry. Anders had made my lamia-tooth necklace because he couldn’t offer me any such. My fingers went to the fangs at my neck, thinking of him.

Rafe squealed just by my ear and threw his arms up. “A word, first, sir, with your mother,” Theo said, stepping around me as Will moved off. Rafe thought Theo was great fun; he’d toss Rafe as high as he dared and catch him. My son was fearless. “Where do I send your baggage? To the infirmary, with the command’s, or will you make your own arrangements? Kaufmann teamsters’ rates are quite reasonable.” Theo added a smile.

I’d have a chest of clothes and herbs, but — “Baggage?”

“Tent, camp bed frame, mattress, linens, a home-wares kit, grooming gear… do you have a horse?”

“Yes.” I had discussed it with Reinhardt over the winter, and the buckskin gelding named Jenner was mine. He was young, quick, and tough; he’d been slated for courier service. Since Woden had said a few stern words to the queen and the castle chamberlain, I could draw extra money for such necessities.

“And a groom for it?”

There was that. “Send it over to the infirmary,” I said, though I was less than certain.

Physician Ada Brauer had spent the year running Duke Seagrace’s infirmary in the field. I had joined her briefly during that first large battle after the siege broke, and it had been sufficient to show me that I was only needed for the worst of the wounded. I had earned my keep as a surgeon as well, but she and her staff were well settled into the job. I saw no reason to meddle with Brauer’s infirmary.

I’d gladly heal the wounded, but Woden’s ongoing shield tutoring and Qadeem’s lessons were enough to tell me that they didn’t expect me to spend much time in the surgery this summer. Still, it had been my teacher’s infirmary. It tugged at me with memories of the first battle of Ansehen, a year and a half gone now.

“How big a tent?” I asked, thinking of the little one I’d shared with three Ters when I was Elect Parselev’s apprentice.

Theo shrugged. “A fair size for one. And fitting for an Elect, but I expected you didn’t want anything elaborate.”

“Do I need a tent at all?”

“Yes. Truly, it won’t make you feel cosseted.” He raised a hand to emphasize that. His voice lowered. “If my Papa taught me anything, it was how to match the wares to the customers. When the order came down I put aside a sensible but sufficiently fine kit.”

I frowned. “An order come down?”

“From the castle, early in the moon. From the saints.” Theo’s wife Brynhilde joined him with Mina sound asleep in her arms. I thanked her for coming, she wished me well again, and as they turned to go, Theo told me, “I’ll be leading the baggage, most likely. Look for me.”

I nodded, glad to hear it. Over the winter, he’d been very kind in checking on me — and not in the way my neighbors did. Theo could carry a conversation. All on his own, if need be. Brynhilde was more reserved, but polite. Despite how well I’d come to know them, their marriage was still a strange thing to me. She and Theo spoke easily, but rarely touched. He doted on Mina but it was Süssie — who was, as Anders had said, not a woman at all — that he loved. Süssie bound herself up in a tightly laced bodice to create what mild curves she had. Never the slightest shadow of a beard on her, and her eyebrows were immaculately plucked. If anyone else knew her secret, I couldn’t guess.

But even odd sheep were part of the Flock, so long as they served the saints.

Will and Adalev, Linde’s husband, carried my table back into my kitchen as the neighbors dispersed. I had packing to do and Rafe’s things to put together for Linde to take. My son gurgled on my shoulder as I followed my table indoors. I kissed his cheek and the sun-warmed smell of him stopped me for a heartbeat. Six months old, now, and he was finally sleeping through the night. His eyes were every speck as steel-grey as Kiefan’s. His hair floated, even without a breeze, so wispy and pale it was still invisible against his scalp. I took a deep lungful of his scent and kissed him again.

“I’ll miss you most, sweetling.”

Word had come a few days before Equinox that Kiefan had joined Duke Seagrace’s camp at Straussweg but I had still thought he would come home before beginning his campaign. I had thought he’d want to see me, I realized as Jenner kept pace with the infirmary wagons. Perhaps he didn’t.

His one short, melancholy letter was tucked away at home: he hadn’t been able to bear the thought of losing me, but believed that he had. I didn’t doubt that he’d never meant to hurt me but neither did I know what to write in reply.

It would seem there was no new queen to root our alliance with Caercoed. There’d been no word of what had been agreed upon in Knapptal, only that there’d been play-battles waged with snowballs.

Some corner of my mind wondered if Kiefan were now consort to the Crown. That didn’t fit him, though, unless it was purely a formality. A duty. What business of mine his heart was now… I wasn’t certain.

I wasn’t certain of several things between us. Was I lost to him, as he said?

That would need seeing him, talking, learning Anders’ fate, to know — but I was far from eager.

It was a dewy morning, warm even for this late in the Slush Moon. Days had been running warm since mid-Ice Moon despite the occasional snow squall. The slush itself was all but gone now. Under Jenner’s hooves, the Southbound Road squelched. Dozens of supply wagons and hundreds of hooves kneaded even its hard-packed surface into mud. Past the stone walls to either side, the grass-matted fields blushed with new green. Weeping willows along the Neva’s shore glowed golden in the sun, already beginning to bloom. In the cattails red-winged blackbirds sang and showed off their colorful shoulders.

Straussweg had been a tiny village a few miles north of Ansehen. It was three days’ walk from Wodenberg proper, at an army’s pace. The town had been burned when Arcea’s army first marched north through it and further destroyed when they retreated south through it. Only the village’s well remained, it was said. Duke Seagrace had made his army’s headquarters there this autumn past when Arcea had finally retreated behind their newly built fortifications around Ansehen.

Vysokov had invited me to dine with him, when we laid camp last night, and it had been a pleasant evening with his daughter and heir Nadya — also a squire, intriguingly enough — and the barons whose companies made up the reserves. One of those was m’lord Lesnikov, Adaliya’s father.

At table, Lesnikov had asked me what I thought of Will and whether he would inherit the barony of Rossweide. I’d answered that the youngest brother, Ein, was still two years from his Blessing and it was not for me to guess whether Saint Woden would make a disciple of him. Then I’d told the story from the last days of the siege of how Will had charged, alone and un-armored, into the closing circle around Anders and helped him cut free of the enemy. He’d taken a serious wound and I’d managed to patch him. That had earned some approving nods.

M’lord Lesnikov had been glad to hear that, as his daughter had blurted out a yes to Will’s proposal and kissed him before Father could answer properly.

That night, I’d charmed the ache from my breasts. This morn they still felt heavy but not so stiff as yesterday. I’d laid awake on my camp bed far too aware that I was alone. Spring peepers had replaced Rafe’s even breathing, and were louder. When I woke, early as always, there was no baby to nurse and no morning disciple’s dance. Only men’s clothing to put on as if I were back on that first mission once again. Hose were just as tedious now as they’d been — but I had to admit it did make for easier riding. And these fit better. Bless Theo and his good eye for sizing.

On cue, Theo rode by and asked me to dine with him and the teamsters tonight, and to tell them the story of the mission across the mountains. I agreed. With a smile I tapped Jenner to follow Theo’s horse. Theo had been complaining about how slow the army was to move out in the morning. His teamsters kept a far tighter schedule so as to minimize delivery times.

His wagons carried barrels of salt pork, jerky, oat flour, and sauerkraut from the northern half of the kingdom. Clothes and boots, quivers of arrows, swords and shields too. Seagrace had perhaps twelve thousand knights, armsmen, and archers camped outside Ansehen.

And a king to lead them.