Ishbel? Will you ride with me a while?”
“Of course, Maxel.”
She turned her horse after Maximilian, who was riding a little distance into the surrounding countryside.
“You look tired,” she said as she reined in beside him.
They both pulled their horses back to a walk, ambling along twenty paces from the main part of the column.
“I spent most of last night with Josia,” Maximilian said. “He left me enough time only for a few hours’ sleep.”
“And?”
He smiled. “So now there are a few more objects in the Twisted Tower, and a little more knowledge is gained.”
“I’m glad.”
“Ishbel, I asked Josia for a favor.”
“Did he grant it?”
“I asked him to teach you as much as he could about the Twisted Tower, and the memories it contains. He agreed. Ishbel, I want you to know as much as I about Elcho Falling.”
“Why?”
“Because I do not want it to just be me with this knowledge, Ishbel.”
Ishbel took a deep breath, still staring at Maximilian. “Thank you,” she said.
Maximilian gave a nod, but didn’t say anything.
“When should I go?”
“I don’t see any reason why we cannot work there together, Ishbel. The evenings and nights are the only time when we can spare the hours to slip away to the tower. I can work by myself a good deal of the time, while Josia works with you. If I need him I can call. With luck, you can catch up with me.”
They talked for a while about the Twisted Tower, and the training both would undergo within its walls, then Ishbel changed the subject. “Garth told me something of what happened between you and Ravenna. I wish that Venetia had not had to give her own life to save mine.”
“It is not your fault that Venetia is dead.”
She shrugged.
“Ishbel, I am going to say something now, and I do not want you to either interrupt me or to spur your horse away from me. Can you just listen?”
She gave a nod.
“You and I, Ishbel…we met at the wrong time, and married at the wrong time. We both made some terrible mistakes, and said things that we both regret. I certainly regret what I said to you in the snow, when I denied you for Ravenna. No, Ishbel, hear me out, I beg you.”
Maximilian paused to take a deep breath. “We would make a good marriage together now, I think. I know you said that there was no possibility of this, and that whatever was once between us was gone. Maybe so, and maybe that is a good thing. But what we could make between us now, Ishbel…I think that could be very good indeed.
“Just think about it. Please. Just think about it.”
Ishbel stared at him, and Maximilian held her eyes for a long moment before he spurred his horse away.
That night they met within the Twisted Tower. There was a moment of awkwardness, then Ishbel relaxed and smiled, and the awkwardness passed.
They worked through the night with Josia, who spent most of his time with Ishbel. Three hours before dawn, he sent them back to their beds.
Alone in her tent, Ishbel dressed for bed, then sat on its edge, the Goblet of the Frogs in her hands. Holding it each night had become almost a ritual for her, strengthening her sense of peace.
Tonight, it wanted to chat.
Maximilian has asked you to marry him once more.
“How did you know that?” Ishbel asked.
Well, he was wearing his Persimius ring, and the ring told Serge’s sword, which told Madarin’s belt buckle when the two met for a game of dice at dusk. Then—
“Then the belt buckle told you,” Ishbel muttered. “Am I to have no secrets?”
We all think it would be a good idea, the goblet said, and Ishbel sighed and put the goblet away. She was damned if she was going to marry a man simply because a ring, a sword, a belt buckle, and a goblet thought it a good idea.