Ravenna and Venetia packed away their night things, ready for the day’s march. They worked in silence, each avoiding touching the other or catching the other’s eye. It was a well-worn ritual, enacted as it had been every morning over the past week.
Whatever closeness had once bound them was now long dead.
Soldiers were standing about outside, stamping their feet and blowing on their hands, waiting for the two women to leave the tent so they could pack it away for the day’s march. There was a murmur of voices, a movement, and the tent flap lifted back.
“Venetia? Ravenna?”
Both women turned about, startled.
Garth Baxtor entered the tent, looking unsure of himself. “Is this a bad moment?”
Venetia and Ravenna exchanged a glance, then Venetia smiled, set aside the blanket she had been folding, and walked forward to hug Garth.
“No, it is not a bad time. Garth, it is so good to see you.”
Garth hugged her back, relieved at the warmth of her welcome. He had seen Venetia on several occasions over the past few years, stopping by her hut in the marshes to exchange news and information about herbal remedies, but it was strange to see her here, and under these circumstances.
Then Venetia stepped back, and Garth looked at Ravenna.
The moment stretched out awkwardly. She was so different from the girl he remembered. She had grown into a beautiful woman, but there was a hardness about her, and a singular determination that Garth found unsettling.
But perhaps his discomfort was too much influenced by the tale Maximilian had told him and Egalion last night.
“Ah,” said Ravenna, very softly. “I see by your eyes, Garth, that Maxel has been chatting to you.”
Garth tried to inject a little more warmth into his smile. He stepped forward and kissed Ravenna lightly on the cheek, his hands on her shoulders.
Maximilian’s son, he thought, sending his Touch through Ravenna’s body, and healthy.
“I could have told you that,” Ravenna murmured, pulling herself away from Garth’s touch, and his smile slipped a little.
Why was it that he was always making an ass of himself with Maximilian and his women?
“Garth,” said Venetia, “I’ll let you and Ravenna talk. I’ll ride a little with you later, yes? We can talk then.”
“That would be good, Venetia,” Garth said, then turned back to Ravenna as Venetia left the tent. “It has been a long time. We’ve all changed. Maxel…I had no idea that he should inherit another, and stranger, crown and I wager you didn’t either, Ravenna, when you helped rescue him from the Veins. As for Vorstus…” Garth shook his head. “I trusted him with my life, as Maxel did, and he was our friend for these past eight years. To now find that he helped imprison Maxel…it is difficult.”
“These are difficult times, Garth.” Ravenna stuffed the last of her things into a pack, then picked up her cloak.
“Ravenna—”
She turned to face him. “Do you speak for Ishbel now, Garth? Am I no longer your friend?”
“Ishbel and I do not have a history of friendship, Ravenna. When I first met her I instinctively distrusted her. I never truly liked her as Maxel’s wife.”
Ravenna visibly relaxed. “She is a hound from hell, Garth. Maximilian is fixated by her, to his shame.”
“He loves her, I think, despite the distance currently between them.”
Ravenna waved a hand dismissively. “So he may, but Ishbel will murder him, and spread disaster throughout this land. She will ally with evil, Garth, and betray everything for which you and I have ever worked. You must speak to Maximilian, make him see sense where I have failed. He must put Ishbel aside.”
Garth’s sense of discomfort grew more intense. “I do not think Maxel is a man who takes well to being told what he must or must not do.”
Ravenna gave a soft, bitter laugh. “As I have discovered. Why does he not see reason, Garth? Why?”
“Ravenna…you and he…” He stopped, not knowing how to say gently what he thought best.
“What?” Ravenna said. “He and I…not suited to each other? Is that what you want to say?”
“I think he has only ever wanted to be your friend, Ravenna.”
“Then he should be my friend and listen to what I say to him.”
“He feels trapped by the baby. He thinks that—”
“That I trapped him? That I conceived this child to bind him to my side? No marsh woman does that, Garth. I conceived this child not to win Maximilian to my side, but to save Elcho Falling, should he refuse to see Ishbel for what she is.”
She threw the cloak about her shoulders, tying it closed with angry jerks. “Enjoy your ride with my mother, Garth. I am sure she, too, will speak nothing but poison against me.”
Garth stood looking at the tent flap for a long time once Ravenna had gone. He could barely believe the woman she’d become. It was as if Ravenna the girl had been the promise, and Ravenna the woman the…
“What, Garth?” he murmured. “What?”
He thought about what Ravenna had said to him just as she left the tent. She had conceived the child to save Elcho Falling.
What did that say about her loyalty to Maximilian?
What if Ravenna ever came to believe that Maximilian threatened Elcho Falling?
Garth shivered, and, hearing the soldiers outside move impatiently, went to mount his horse.