2

Dally was lithe and slender with lovely hands that had been scarred and roughened with hard work. Her most beautiful feature was her hair, which held to a shade of permanent autumn. It was brown and red and gold all at the same time, long and silky and thick as a living rope. Her eyes were green and held such intensity many people actually turned away.

Most folks could not say precisely what it was that caused them to flinch under her gaze. But something burned inside those eyes that frightened all but the smallest and least of the villagers. The children loved her. Animals vied for her attention. Ever since childhood, Dally could milk the most ill-tempered cow and never know a scratch or a kick. The most savage of village curs crouched low to the earth and whined, begging for her touch.

But for most of her village, especially those of her own age, Dally’s gaze was deeply unsettling.

Even the young men who thought they might have their sweet way with the lovely kitchen wench retreated from those eyes. Why precisely, they could not say, or would not. Perhaps they feared Dally saw to the secret core of their dark lusts. As a result, most young men shunned her. The women her age mocked and taunted her. And afterward, when they gathered together and struggled to excuse their actions against one so defenseless, they resorted to the word their parents used to describe Dally.

Strange.

As a result, Dally grew up isolated and hurting and alone. And something else besides.

The mayor’s household did not own a mirror, as was the case with many hidebound families. Back in the dark days, so long ago that even the legends had been forgotten, it was said that certain witches could treat mirrors as portals and reach through and capture those who studied their reflection.

So Dally had only the other young people’s attitudes to gauge how she looked. And from their response, she had no choice but to assume that she was ugly as well as alone.

At dawn the next day, the night guards rushed into the village. But they did not announce that soldiers were approaching. For Shona’s army was already there.

A place centrally located yet set apart. A location they could easily fortify. A habitat within clearly defined boundaries that they could claim as their own. Even before Shona had finished her request, Dally already knew the answer. She had told the young queen where to go. And by the time the sun was fully over the horizon, it appeared as though the camp had been there for years.

Even so, no citizen of the Three Valleys met this so-called queen for nearly a month. For most of that period, Dally remained the only line of communication between the Three Valleys inhabitants and the newcomers.

There were several hundred in the army, perhaps more. Every three or four days Dally was informed of their immediate needs—so much bread and meat, vegetables of this or that type, horses needing a shoe or suffering from a saddle sore. The land occupied by the army extended into the river like a huge thumb and was rimmed on three sides by the streaming water. The stone dike that kept the spring floodwaters at bay had been laid in place by Norvin’s great-great-grandfather. Even when the newcomers fashioned a thorn barrier from the forest perimeter and sealed off the entire peninsula for their use, Norvin did not complain.

But after sixteen days, and the deliveries of food and supplies continued to mount, and still there had been no word emerging from the camp, Krim began urging her husband to demand payment.

Another four days passed, and Dally could hear Krim’s complaints echo through every window of their home. She knew she was at least partly at fault for Krim’s rising anger. The entire village watched Dally now. Krim’s harsh rule over her life had ended, at least temporarily. Even so, Dally still ate her meals on the stoop of the shed. She tended the vegetable garden and she washed the cottage floors and she milked their cows and she helped Norvin with the dogs. But much of her time was spent on the river’s edge, staring at the camp and wondering if the queen might ever again wish to visit in the night with a lowly kitchen girl.

Now and then she thought perhaps she caught a glimpse of the queen walking around the enclosure. Dally never saw the woman’s face, of course. But the cloak she wore was of some remarkable weave. Leggings of some golden material peeked from the cloak’s lower rim. What was more, the hood was lined in a strip of royal purple. And everyone the lady passed either saluted or bowed or both. If the woman responded in any form, Dally never saw.

The first direct contact between Honor and the newcomers came on the twenty-third dawn. And only because Dally begged the queen to keep her best friends from being scattered throughout the Three Valleys.

Dally knew her village in the manner of a young woman who had lived through hard years. Yet despite the nightmarish events that had brought her here to the garden shed behind the mayor’s house, with eight young dogs for her only friends, she loved her village and the valley region. Even now, when the forest sealed them away from the world and feral beasts slipped in to steal livestock and wreak havoc and fill their nights with desperate hours.

Through the four hard years, Dally had come to know all manners of silence. Now and then she could take her pups for a sunset walk along the empty river path, where the quiet safety surrounded her. These lonely hours chanted a soft melody, inviting her to open up and reveal the sorrows and the memories and yearnings that she spent most of her days ignoring.

Night silences were the worst. As a young child Dally had loved the dark hours, when the world was still and she was tucked safely into her little bed in the room under the rafters. She heard her brothers’ sleep-breaths from the next room, soft as midnight tunes. She heard the quiet laughter as her parents ended another long day. She sensed the love that filled their home and the knowledge that she belonged here. Their fields were close to the forest, and Dally and her brothers had loved to play along the border, fighting pretend beasts and eating berries and dreaming of great quests to come.

Until the night that changed her world forever.

She was the only one awake when she heard the beast that the valley’s occupants wanted to believe was merely a fable. A tale used to frighten misbehaving children. But Dally knew otherwise. Her worst night hours always began with the sound that beast had made. Just before the flames had enveloped her home. Now the silence contained within the dark hours was a fiend.

This morning’s silence was something else entirely.

Dally was up long before the sun and quietly finished her chores before the rest of the house awoke. Since the meeting with the valley’s elders, Krim had taken to suppressing her foulest moods. Even so, it was increasingly difficult to be around the woman. Dally knew sooner or later Krim would explode, releasing all the ire and invective her husband had ordered her to stifle.

The morning began like most others in a farming village, with the roosters challenging the day and farming families noisily beginning their chores long before the sun was fully up. Then Honor became enveloped by a breathless hush.

Knowing what was about to happen kept Dally tossing and turning all night. She had drawn fresh well water and washed herself by the light of the morning star. She wore her cleanest shift and her only shoes. Her long auburn hair was neatly plaited. But there was nothing she could do about the way her hands shook or the tight manner of her every breath. The dogs sensed her anxiety and whined about her legs.

Then Norvin called through the kitchen door, “Dally, could you join us?”

The way he spoke it as a request was enough to set her heart to fluttering like a caged bird. Dally let herself out and made a mess of refastening the pen’s lock. Norvin was there in the doorway, his broad features creased by genuine shock. Silently he led her through the house to where Krim stood, hands tucked into her apron, transfixed by the apparition looming outside her front door.

Two warhorses called destriers were flanked by half a dozen foot soldiers outside the front gate. One rider was a woman, yet she bore the same warrior-hardened expression as the man standing beside her. Their helmets were inscribed with golden crowns. Their mail held links of gold and silver both. They wore identical over-mantles that were sewn with the same crest Dally had seen upon the queen’s robes. Their sword hilts and scabbards and belts were encrusted with precious jewels.

When Dally stepped into the daylight, the officers touched fists to chests and bowed as one.

She knew how to respond because Shona had told her, and Dally had practiced in the shed’s secret confines. Ignoring the villagers who stood and gaped, she curtsied so deep her left knee touched the flagstones.

“The Lady Shona sends her greetings to the family of Dally,” the woman said. “I am Meda, colonel of the palace guard. This is Captain Alembord, my second.”

Dally had been told how to respond to this as well. She bowed back, but only slightly, and said, “This is Norvin, mayor of Honor, and his wife Krim.”

Meda gave them both a terse nod and told Norvin, “My lady asks your pardon. She owes you both thanks and payment. But she is observing a month of mourning. The Lady Shona prefers to wait until this is ended before starting new alliances.”

Norvin stammered, “Who does she mourn?”

“The one you know as Hyam,” Meda replied. “He has suffered a great loss. Our lady and all her company mourn with him. Hyam’s loss is a wound to us all.”

Norvin’s curiosity took hold of his tongue. “You said the one we know as Hyam. How else is he named?”

Meda had clearly been expecting the question. “Prince of the realm. Consul to Lady Shona. Senior wizard. Emissary.”

Krim muttered, “I knew he was a secret wizard. Told you, I did.”

Meda kept her gaze upon the mayor. “Secret no longer.”

Norvin’s mouth opened and shut several times before he said, “Our . . . Dally called Shona a queen.”

“She has been crowned but does not use the title herself. And will not, until the scourge in Port Royal is destroyed and Shona assumes the throne.” Meda ended the questions by saying, “Now if you will be so good as to show me your dogs.”