Chapter 9

It was well past dark when Kiefan left the pavilion and Qadeem prodded me to follow him. Just outside, Captain Eith perked up at the sight of us; the King’s Guard nearest her put out an arm to stop her. “Majesty? A word, on Elect Teleri.”

Kiefan waved off the Guard. “Say it.”

“’Twas two days from Knapptal, she did ask me to bind her to her horse. Told me she’d take ill, but not to stop. Gag her if need be, but ride on.” The captain looked to me; she knew I was a healer. “I’ve seen many a sickness, but ’twasn’t. A palsy, mayhaps, but no Elect suffers such. ’Tis true?”

“So far as I know,” I said, honestly enough.

“Convulsions?” Kiefan asked her. “Rigor and agony?”

“And vomit. But no fever,” Captain Eith said with a nod. “And did pass by nightfall.”

Woden had stood over Kiefan, his right hand clenched in a claw, watching him writhe and retch on the castle floor. Punishing him for hiding the truth of my pregnancy on the day of his coronation. That anyone could suffer that for a whole day twisted my gut in sympathy.

“That changes matters,” Kiefan said. “Thank you.” He strode off toward the prisoner’s picket with Gregor in tow. I wanted to ask more but trotted to catch up.

When I got alongside Kiefan, I whispered, “As Woden inflicted on you?”

“Yes. Stringence,” he whispered back. Then, with a frown, “You never disagree with Qadeem, even?”

I shrugged but it was too dark to see that. “What would we disagree on?”

The picket was a pair of wide-spaced, deep-set stakes that held the prisoner’s chained wrists well spread. Captain Aleks stood beside Teleri, who had settled onto the damp grass. The nearest campfires were some yards off and the men sitting by them pretended not to watch what little there was to see. Above, clouds winked out a Flock moon here, another there.

Aleks straightened as we neared. When Teleri only looked up, the captain kicked with her peg-leg and I heard the whack from some paces off. “Get up!”

The elect got up, pulling on her chains to steady herself. Kiefan drew up a hush sphere in his hand, puffed it out wide around us all as he stopped a mere foot from Teleri.

“You’ve gone rogue. Your deal didn’t even have your saint’s backing,” he spat. He took her right hand and I felt him call the kir. Her patterns spun up, just in her palm, and there was no sign of a saint’s bond.

I was closer to her left, so I checked her other hand. Nothing. “She cut your bond? How have you gotten kir?” I asked.

“Do have some Blessed and discipled among the Tadhlon Guard,” she said. “’Tis simple enough to skim.”

“You lied to your captains, you led your sisters here with no hope of reinforcement —” Kiefan’s lip curled as he leaned closer. “Are there any you’ve not lied to yet?”

Teleri’s calm never rippled. “Elect Tannait does know the truth of it all.”

My heart sank at the thought of that wise elect turning against her saints. “Is she rogue, too?”

“What’s her part in this treason?” Kiefan snarled.

Teleri pulled her chains taut to answer in his face. Gregor bristled, hand on his sword. “We defend our land,” she growled as Captain Aleks yanked her away by one chain. “Against all. Our own saints, if need be. Pray ’tis never passed to you to do the same.”

A cold shiver touched me.

“The saints are the land,” Kiefan told her.

“Are yet women, for all their power. Not all saints have tastes for war. Needs must defend our land despite them.”

His tone eased at last. “You chose exile, then, in choosing your people over your saint?”

“No.” Teleri tugged at her chains with both hands. “Choosing love and duty.”

There was an ache in her words. I remembered her at the Riverman tavern, at Theo’s party, with Crown Ciara’s arm wrapped around hers. How they smiled and danced together. “You did this for love, did as she asked?”

Teleri only looked down at the grass.

“Caercoed has sealed its passes, then?” Kiefan asked. She gripped her chains in both hands silently. He drew closer, lighting a handful of green kir close by her face. “You led the Tadhlon Guard here to die. What honor’s in that?”

The green light shone on her eyes; she did not even blink as it knotted down to a hot spark near her skin.

I didn’t know Teleri so well, that was true. But I felt it safe to say, “Elect Tannait would not agree to that.”

Kiefan drew the spark back, let it unwind into a heatless lamp. Teleri stared into the distance. “Elect Tannait might say there must be sacrifices,” he said, “but no, she has more honor than to send two thousand to die without a word in it. Captain Eith knew nothing of this, that’s clear enough.” When there was still no response, he asked, “Will you fight alongside them?”

Her eyes came up. “You cannot stop me.”

Qadeem nudged me. “Will you be bound?” I asked.

“No. Honor that, and I aid my sisters in whatever you order. ’Tis them I owe a debt to now.”

He sent a nod. “Saint Qadeem will honor your wish,” I told her.

“Let us take Temitte, then,” Teleri said. Her eyes narrowed, looking to Kiefan. “’Tis a plan, surely, that brought you to me at all.”

Row Bídon rode back to Scyfe’s camp outside Temitte with word of the plan. Qadeem, having listened through my Blessing, had agreed to his part in it. Saint Woden, Kiefan said, had given his advice at the first idea of it and would stand ready.

My hands shook for much of the third day’s march, knowing what we must do. Steal a fount from under Arcea’s nose.

Kiefan’s anger at Teleri, the price he’d paid for this broken promise — that bit of a smirk from Captain Eith — clung to my mind. Why wouldn’t Kiefan speak of it? Through my bond, I asked Qadeem if there’d been stories from Knapptal. He was slow to answer and gave me only a sense that I knew all I needed.

That, I disagreed with but I did not press for more.

Perhaps Crown Ciara had taken Kiefan as a consort, if only for one night in that oíche-te Anders had been put to. Thus, there’d been no talk of marriage. Perhaps he’d liked her more than he expected, and now the betrayal stung all the worse. But would he call that a price? Why would it amuse Eith?

I chewed on the gristly problem, or perhaps it chewed on me. Better that than the plan for tomorrow.

If he cared for Crown Ciara, though, if he hoped to see her again — or had, before this — then I could be content as his friend and fellow elect. It would be a burden off my mind. That was why I settled Jenner in alongside Pip soon after the army finished its noon-time rest.

Kiefan glanced at me, sidelong, expecting me to speak some moments before I had the words.

“In Knapptal,” I said. “You gained Caercoed’s aid without a marriage?” I glanced up in time to catch his grimace. “You gained a promise of aid.”

“Yes.” He had to search for words as much as I. “Foolish of me to trust, perhaps. I’ll not blame m’lady Leix or Síochana for my failings, but…”

My thoughts went to Crown Ceelin and her manipulating, but I put them aside. “You must’ve found common ground with Crown Ciara, then? Some manner of — arrangement? The Crowns do not marry, but they do take consorts.”

Kiefan looked at me then, eyes fixed despite the sway of Pip’s striding. The sun caught on his gold band, back in place despite that he’d flung it off in doubt. But he said nothing.

I tried another tack, venturing closer to what I wanted to hear. “If you mean to see her again — often —”

“If we survive this, Kate, we are —” He caught himself, put up one hand. “If we survive. Let’s see to that first.”

He tapped Pip and the warhorse lengthened his stride. Across the hole he left, I saw Sir Waldemar and Sir Garrick. They noted me with polite nods. I tugged on Jenner’s reins to angle him closer, remembering that they’d gone with Kiefan to Knapptal.

Sir Waldemar was closer. He was a man of middle age, one of those who’d long been on King Wilhelm’s Guard with Captain Aleksandra. There was a sprinkling of grey in his brown beard, but age hadn’t softened him yet.

“You rode with Kiefan to Knapptal,” I said. They both nodded to that. “You know, then, what arrangement he reached with the Crown?”

Sir Waldemar’s brow furrowed under the force of his brows rising. “We weren’t privy to Majesty’s negotiations, Elect…”

“Not the conversations,” I allowed, “but you must’ve seen the two of them. How often they met?”

“The Crown refused him.” Sir Garrick leaned past Waldemar as he fumbled for an answer. “She’d not see him at all, at first.”

Given how she’d left Vorspitz with her sister’s ashes, that rang true. “But they must’ve talked. They must’ve agreed to this, however false it is now.”

“They did speak after Solstice,” Waldemar said.

“After m’lord laid the bet.” Sir Garrick threw that out and smiled when my brow crinkled. “He bet half the garrison he could sweeten the Crown into aid — I joined the pot on his side.” Garrick was careful to make that clear. “It did seem a long shot, but m’lord’s not one to fail the task before him.”

“Sweeten?” I echoed. “Truly?” He’d seduced Crown Ciara? Kiefan?

Garrick cast about for an answer. “Grief may drive a man to strange things and m’lord had his share. That was clear enough.”

“And he did this?” I needed to hear it said, not only guess at it.

Sir Waldemar shrugged. “He had proof.”

That widened my eyes. “What proof?”

The knight’s cheeks colored, above his beard. “Well, it — she, well —”

“The Elect’s no tender maid,” Garrick said, swatting Waldemar’s elbow. “She tamed Sir Anders. The Crown was hungry enough to cut m’lord’s cote off him. Or perhaps the other ladies in the pavilion helped in that.”

Oh. I remembered Crown Ciara in her snowy white layers of gauze, bound by the green sash under her bosom, twinkling with gold and emeralds. She’d slid across the floor without effort, chin held high. Would she be so passionate? The Voice of the Empress had warned us the Caer were hot-blooded… Captain Eith’s smirk flitted through my memory again. Sampling the camp dogs, indeed.

Garrick went on about a drinking celebration in Knapptal’s tavern but my gaze turned ahead to find Kiefan among a few knight captains. The King’s Guard had no reason to lie to me, but Kiefan as a seducer didn’t fit him.

Not when he’d written me that anguished letter from Knapptal.

I asked no more on the matter, though. We had surviving to see to, as Kiefan had said.

We split on the Southbound Road late that afternoon, two miles from Temitte. A road branched off toward the east and that was where we took leave of Elect Teleri, Captain Eith, and the Tadhlon Guard. I held out my hand to Teleri and she took all my kir; Qadeem had sent me enough to fill her.

“If ’tis for me to die,” Captain Eith said, “shall be under a heap of Arceal corpses.”

“No less,” Teleri said, agreeing. Looking to Kiefan, she nodded. “The bridges will fall.”

He nodded in return and she tapped her horse. The Caer rode in loose formation, their banners furled and wearing cloaks over their mail. Not that two thousand could be anything but a division — our Rangers had been out hunting enemy messengers, and while word could still get through, with luck it would be vague. The towns we marched through were shuttered but there were always some folk barricaded in a stockaded house or a watch tower. Surely more in hiding, watching us pass. They’d left fields part-plowed and seed for the planting; they’d not go further than they must.

There’d been another flogging for rape and one for looting, but on the whole we’d left little mark on Suevia thus far.

Kiefan sent one of Theo’s senior wagon-drivers who spoke Suevi well to Scyfe’s camp and he returned with word. Scyfe had orders to find Wodenberg’s army and attack it, but would not. Theo had his new instructions, would be ready for us at dawn, and had named a meeting place. The wagon-driver attested that the camp was well settled and showed no signs of readying for attack. Several Ranger squads reported there were no Suevi scouts trailing us.

A greedy captain-general we could trust over the Crown of Caercoed, it seemed.

“But you said I’ve improved so!” Gregor barely held off whining.

“You have. It’s no small thing to squire for Captain Aleks,” Kiefan told him, stern. “You keep her well and whole.”

Aleks cuffed him from behind, across the head. When he swung around, she grabbed his wrist and twisted his arm to tip his ear down lower. “Keep yourself whole or I’ll thrash your ass at the Shepherd’s Hearth,” she growled. With a shove, she let him go and stalked past, her peg leg thudding. “Boy! Come.” Gregor jittered, fighting two urges, but followed.

Kiefan heaved a breath, setting a hand on his sword. “That was the worst danger of this,” he said. “Thank the Father we survived.” The dozen King’s Guard around us laughed.

Captain Aleks hadn’t been pleased that she must stay behind with the rest of the Guard, but surely she knew she was too much an oddity with her peg leg. She’d draw too many eyes and questions.

Abbot Shaw stepped into the uncomfortable moment and recited the first few lines of the Father’s Challenge. The men fell into that easily, answering Father Duty’s demands with firm, rumbling cheers. I lingered on the edge of that, too unsettled to join in.

The command pavilion was already down and dawn was just warming the horizon to yellow. The horses’ puffs made only wisps of cloud in the dewy morning. I stood patting Jenner, wearing one of the dresses Qadeem had so insisted I buy — a fawn-colored, lightweight wool with little kir-whorls embroidered in green around the neckline. I kept my wool shawl wrapped close to hold the chill off. My disguise didn’t allow for the mail tunic and I was glad to go without the weight. But also uneasy without it. Qadeem went unarmored as well, but he was a saint.

The knights wore their gambesons and mail, their scuffed riding boots and swords, but no tabards or black cloaks. The colors would give us away. Kiefan went without his crown-band and I couldn’t help noticing the crease where it usually sat. Their knights’ crests and Blessings, they’d hide under their bucket helms. My low ridges might go unnoticed in my hair — I’d braided loosely, for that, and wrapped it around my head.

I fidgeted with Jenner’s bridle, wishing for the weight of my medicine bag on my shoulder. Something for my nervous hands to grip.

Qadeem touched my shoulder and he gave me more kir. “Clarity,” he told me, voice low. “Trust your instincts. You are, in truth, far more a fighter than Mechdan ever was.”

I thought of the notes that my sounding shared with all the knights — signs of fierceness, perhaps. My teacher’s sounding had been gentler, that day I’d heard it in his office. “But he died fighting.”

“Defending those he loved. As he ever did. I would not have agreed to this, Kate, if it were him beside me.”

Rostislav, on his horse already, caught my eye as he turned toward me. “The lieutenant might disagree on how well I fight,” I said, hoping to make a joke of it.

He heard me. “Only stay close, m’lady,” he said. “Hard enough to chase a lamb through back streets without archers sniping at me.”

Saint Qadeem smiled. “She’s no lamb. It will turn deadly to stay too close, today.” He pointed a look at Rostislav, and then all the dozen Guards. “Keep that in mind. Your duty is to defend against swords and arrows. That’s danger enough.”

They took it as an order. We were ready once I was perched on my saddle in the skirts, and we rode from the camp in silence. It had been even simpler than the camps on the march; most had slept on the ground, wrapped only in their blankets, rather than put up tents. We’d left the wagons and baggage behind yesterday with some of Vysokov’s reserve to guard them.

Villages ringed Temitte; the crossroads came often enough and the houses lay thick enough that they crowded out the fields and orchards. We slipped past shuttered taverns and lines of shops, noted only by bakers who looked up from their morning bread-kneading as we passed. Their open doors spilled out warm light into the lingering shadows.

I couldn’t help looking as we passed, wanting that simple life inside. Thinking of home and Rafe, my little sweetling. And Anders.

The road led us toward the city and just when it seemed there’d be no more pastures to separate the villages, the houses ended. Acres of grass spread out across the road and on it camped Scyfe’s ten thousand.

Sentries moved to block the road. Kiefan tugged Pip to a stop and raised his helm to give the password. We rode through, the sentries’ eyes tracking us for being curiosities on a dull morning. I caught their interest, in particular.

Lathe-and-wattle cottages, with thatched roofs, clustered in the middle of the campground rather than a command pavilion. Kiefan led us to the longest and widest of them — a warehouse — and as we approached a figure stepped around a two-horse wagon and raised one hand.

Theo. His uncle was with him, Eadgard Bídon who had brought the refreshments to the brief parley during the siege of Wodenberg. He’d unwittingly brought that first cambifax with him and it had tried to murder Kiefan when it saw his grey eyes, when it knew he was the heir to the Suevi throne.

Kiefan dismounted and caught Theo’s hand in a clasp with a brief nod. Bídon, in doing the same, dropped to his knee and touched his forehead to Kiefan’s hand. Then stood, his deep-lined eyes damp.

“The uniforms,” Theo said, pointing to the wagon bed. He wore one of them himself. Rostislav and his men were quick to hand them out. For a little while, there was only the rattle of leather and mail as they pulled on the green tabards and the brown sash baldrics, then buckled their sword belts over-top. There was a green shield for each, as well.

I was beckoned to the wagon beside Theo during all this. Qadeem had climbed up into the wagon-driver’s seat and settled himself. He was dressed plainly and had given up his fur-lined cloak for a simple brown one.

“When all begins, Theo, you and your uncle take the horses and go. I see you’ve made an officer of yourself,” Qadeem said, noting the tasseled white braid that secured Theo’s baldric to the epaulette at his shoulder.

“M’lord will be my second, as his Suevi is good enough. You and Uncle bring the wagon. Uncle has a few Arceal teamsters and you can pass for that. Few Rasilai are seen this far north. We go to fetch a fresh payroll, as Scyfe’s was stolen by those Alemanni dogs. Kate —” Theo looked me up and down, considering. “Let your braid down, at least. I brought a couple caps. Wear one of those.”

I pulled the pin from my wrapped braid and gave it to him. Looking to Qadeem, Theo asked, “Might there be a reason you’d let a maid ride in your wagon?”

Qadeem smiled, a flash of white. “Must a man explain such things?”

Theo caught the jest before I did. “Perhaps explain why she’s not on your lap, then.”

It struck me funny for a moment and a handful of men closest by laughed. But I blushed at the same time; I hadn’t thought of my saint thus, though he’d said himself he’d raised two families. He didn’t seem older than his mid-thirties, as no grey salted his midnight hair or his close-cropped beard. And he certainly wasn’t unpleasant to look at.

“You must have my ár?” Kiefan asked, walking up from the rear of the wagon. He spotted Theo’s white braid and said. “Oh, lieutenant then?”

“Yes, sergeant.” Theo tossed Kiefan a brown, tassel-ended braid. “The rest of you, do not speak. And don’t pay anything much mind, we’re only escorting payroll. Temitte’s no den of thieves.”

“When Kiefan dismounts,” Saint Qadeem said, scanning across us all, “do the same. As I said, you’re to guard against swords and arrows. Some of you saw the Order’s courtyard, that final day?”

A few of them had followed Kiefan over the earthen wall to finish off the centaurs, and nodded.

“This will be far deadlier. Saint Gauvail’s talent is in putting his strength through kir-vines.” Qadeem flicked out a little tendril from his hand, as he spoke. He whip-cracked it at Sir Waldemar’s face, getting a flinch. “I knew him, yes, he was a young saint when I first met the Empress. It was Gauvail who broke Saint Aleksandr’s city wall. Do not stand between us.”

I had put away the terrible memories of the wall exploding, the fire, the screaming horses and the dying king, but my throat still tightened.

“Father, keep us strong for your duty,” Kiefan said, his voice rough. The Guards echoed him.

“And the Shepherd will honor those he takes,” Qadeem added. “If you’ve any accounts yet to balance, forgive them now.”

That pinched me; my gaze shot to Kiefan before I could help it, and Mother help me but our eyes met. Caught in the same tangle. I closed my eyes and asked the Father to keep safe all those I’d left at home — Kiefan and Anders, too.

I climbed up on the wagon’s open gate and sat with my legs dangling. I leaned my elbow on the sideboard as Qadeem whistled to the horses and they started off. Theo, riding Jenner, circled around to me and he handed over a knit green cap that came to a soft point on top. I pulled it down over my memory Blessing ridges.

“Tip it.” He mimed bending the point to my right, so I did, cautiously. “No, the other way. You’re not a ruffian. Good. Cute as a gnome.” Theo gave me one more smile, this time with worried eyes, as Jenner picked up his pace. As he passed, Theo touched my arm and told me, “Anders will see the Father keeps you strong.”

Anders. My fingers went to my necklace, hidden under my shift’s high neckline. I had to push that ache away, though, and review all we’d gleaned from Renata in preparing for this. And all Qadeem had told me of what we must do to steal a fount.