SAFRED WASN’T HAPPY, with Bramble or with Zel, and Martine felt increasingly annoyed with her as they rode single file back through the Forest and she maintained the sulk. Trine was sulking, too, lagging as much as she could on the leading rein Zel had secured to her own saddle. Zel already had bites on both hands from bridling her. Martine thought that Safred and Trine had the same expression, and the horse had more cause.
Nothing happened to disturb them. They crossed the stream without incident; they weren’t even bothered by the strange panic that they had felt earlier. It was all easy — too easy, Martine felt, as though the Forest wanted to see the back of them and was urging them on.
At the point where the trail into the Forest crossed the northwest road, they dismounted so that Safred could heal Cael.
“Out of the Forest,” she said, smiling. She placed her hand on his chest confidently, and sang a high chant in her terrible voice. When she took her hand away the wound was as bad as ever. She tried twice more, with the same result, until her face was white with effort and she swayed on her feet.
“Enough,” Cael said. “Let it heal on its own.” His face was solemn and wary. “Don’t kill yourself for something impossible,” he added gently.
Safred’s eyes filled with tears. “I can heal everyone else, why not you?”
He shrugged and helped her to mount. They all settled back into their saddles, while Safred recovered a little. Martine could see that she was getting set for a long, involved discussion of why and why not and what could be done about it, and she was thankful, at first, when they were interrupted by a party of riders cantering down the northwest road. Then she saw they were a warlord’s men and she felt the familiar tightening in the gut that armed men always brought, anywhere in the Domains. But Safred smiled for the first time since she had woken to find Bramble gone.
“Arvid!” Her voice rang with pleasure. “It’s you!”
She was calling to a man with light brown hair, dressed as the others were in simple green uniforms without emblems. No crossed sword and spear here, as there was on Thegan’s uniforms. Arvid. The warlord himself. He was about forty, maybe a bit older, with a smiling, open countenance that invited trust. With very shrewd blue eyes. Martine felt another jolt in her gut, but this one brought heat with it, fire licking along her nerves and into her bones. She wanted to melt into her saddle, but she stiffened her back and kept her face impassive. The week after Equinox, she thought with resignation. All the body wants is to be satisfied, and it doesn’t care who does it.
“They didn’t tell you who to expect?” he asked, smiling.
Safred laughed too, ruefully. “No. Just that we would meet someone.” She looked quizzically at him. “Someone who would give us silver.”
He laughed. “Oh, yes, that’s all I’m good for, I know,” he said with mock humility. “Just the treasury, that’s me.”
He was easy to like, but he was still a warlord, Martine reminded herself.
Safred introduced her companions by name, but with no other information. Martine nodded at him, and received a nod and an assessing glance in return, which warmed into admiration.
“You travel with beautiful companions, Saf,” Arvid said, nodding politely to include Zel, but looking at Martine. She felt the color rise in her cheeks. The fire was getting entirely too strong for comfort.
“I am riding to the Plantation, and then to Foreverfroze,” Arvid said. “There is a question of markets, of sending food to Mitchen for sale. The Valuers and I are combining to hire a ship, to trade down the coast.”
“As far as Turvite?” Cael asked, edging his chestnut forward.
Arvid looked surprised. “We hadn’t intended so,” he said with a question in his voice.
Safred answered. “We need to get to Turvite. We were headed for Foreverfroze, to find a ship to take us there. The gods said we would find someone here today to help. I thought they meant with silver, but a ship would be even better!”
Cael laughed at her enthusiasm and at Arvid’s long-suffering expression.
“It seems to me that the gods use me like a banker!”
“At least you have some use,” Martine said quietly.
His gaze lifted quickly to meet her eyes, and this time he was the one who flushed. “Not all warlords are useless,” he said.
“So they say,” Martine replied. She wasn’t going to give in to the fire, no matter how hard her heart beat when Arvid looked at her. This was just backwash from the ritual, and nothing personal.
One of his men moved his horse closer, as though Martine might be a threat, and scowled at her with ferocious loyalty. “My lord is the best warlord in the Domains!” he declared. Martine saw with surprise that it wasn’t a man but a brown-haired woman of about thirty, strong and tall and flat-chested. The woman continued, “My lord shares his wealth and his power. He’s even set up a council of all the Voices in the Domain to guide his laws!”
“Does he abide by their advice?” Martine asked, looking at Arvid.
He smiled and answered her directly. “He does, when he can. When he can’t, he explains why and gets their agreement.”
“Always?”
Arvid nodded. “So far. The Voices are usually reasonable people. And an increasing number are Valuers, which makes coming to an agreement easier.”
“A warlord who values Valuers?” Martine’s tone was skeptical, but her eyes never left his. That would be more than unusual — it would be extraordinary. Could he be that extraordinary?
“My mother was a Valuer,” was all he said.
Martine nodded, once, and looked away. If she maintained that gaze any longer she would drown in it. Valuer mother or not, he was a warlord and no concern of hers. The thump her own heart gave at the thought surprised her.
“Let’s get going,” she said.
Arvid nudged his horse into a walk and somehow managed to get it next to Martine’s chestnut. “The Plantation for the night, and then Foreverfroze,” he said companionably. Martine turned to look at him, making her eyes as unreadable as she could. He smiled, nonetheless. “I’m not a despot,” he said quietly. “Don’t condemn me without evidence.”
She sniffed in exaggerated disbelief, but her hand went to the pouch of stones at her belt for comfort. She wished that she could cast the stones for herself, to see what he would mean to her. The last time her heart had beaten this fast for a human man was when she was a girl, with Cob. That had led to heartbreak, and he had been one of her own kind. No good could come of encouraging Arvid. But she let him ride beside her, with Safred, Cael and Zel behind, and she was aware of every movement of his thigh against the horse, every shift of his hands on the reins. She was glad when Trine took a dislike to Arvid’s horse and surged forward to kick it, because it made Arvid give a rueful shrug and move up the column to get away from her.
Martine had heard about the Valuers’ Plantation all her life and had, as most Travelers had, imagined living here in comfort and beauty. But it was just a farm. A very big farm, admittedly, with quite a number of houses and sheds and barns, and dairies and forges and one big meeting hall.
A tall, solid woman named Apple, with graying yellow hair, met them with a smile and arranged for them to have lunch in the meeting hall with the Plantation council, but there was no special banquet organized. The councilors came from the fields in their work clothes, and Arvid was treated the same as the other guests. Children ran in and out of the hall constantly, cajoling food from their parents and from other people, including Arvid, who sat up one end of the table with the councilors, engaged in serious discussions.
Martine noticed that the children looked up into the adults’ eyes, instead of down at the ground in respect as they did in other places. She mentioned it to Apple as she passed a plate of ham and pickles to go with her bread.
“They’re taught that they are the equal of all. To look up, not proud, or cheeky, because that means you are more important than the other person. But of equal value.” The words came easily to her, and it was clear this was a lesson she had recited many times to her own children.
“Thinking you’re equal won’t stop the warlords’ men from beating you if they think you’re disrespectful,” Martine said.
Holly, Arvid’s guard, laughed, unoffended.
“Aye, in other places, that’s so, and we’ve all had cause to know it,” Apple answered around a mouthful of ham. “But Arvid is a Valuer himself, or as good as one.”
“His mam was raised Valuer, just like mine,” Safred said unexpectedly. “But she stayed with her lord. She’s still alive. Almond, her name is, but they named the baby Arvid after his grandfather, instead of Cedar, like she wanted.”
There was a brief, uncomfortable silence. Safred grinned.
“The gods didn’t tell me that. Almond did.”
Cael laughed and had to cover his mouth to stop crumbs flying out. Then he winced, and his hand went surreptiously to his chest, as though to ease the pain of the wound there. Safred noticed and her face tightened, but she said nothing.
Martine turned to look thoughtfully at Arvid, who was smiling courteously at an older man as he laid down the law about something, poking Arvid in the chest with one bony finger as he spoke. She couldn’t imagine a warlord like Thegan even sitting at the same table as a farmer in dirty boots. Anyone who poked him in the chest would be poked back with a sword through the heart.
They were parceled out among the cottagers for the night, and Martine was placed with Apple. She was grateful when Martine offered to cast the stones for her, but refused.
“There’re questions which shouldn’t be asked, and there’re questions which aren’t worth asking, and those are the only two kinds I’ve got,” she said, smiling, but with a tightness behind the smile that told Martine she’d seen some pain in the past.
Apple sent her son, Snow, over to stay at a friend’s place, and Martine slept in his bed, in clean sheets scented with the rosemary bushes they had dried on. The Plantation wasn’t paradise, and no doubt they had a long, cold winter of it so far north, but Martine thought as she drifted off to sleep that it was the best life she had seen so far in a warlord’s territory.
She dreamt of Arvid. They were naked, encased in flames that did not burn, but sent impossible heat through every nerve. Her hair floated about her as though they were in water, and he tangled it in his hands and brought her head toward him, seeking her mouth as though frantic for her, as she was for him. She woke the moment before their lips touched and lay, aching, staring at the window, wanting him to climb through like a lover from a story.
I must be mad, she thought. This is more than the normal backwash from the Equinox. Perhaps it’s punishment from the fire. Lord of Flames, she prayed, forgive me and set me free from this. But her skin was tender as though exposed to too much heat, and every movement of her breath rasped the sheet across tight nipples. She had to curl up in a ball, like a child, for hours before she fell asleep again.
She dreamt of Arvid.