When I left the Kingdom for Shraeven, these conferences were larger. But I am now in a planning session and I see only three faces: Donal with his curly horns; Gavan, still so intent on doing right; and Oweir, his face lined from the strain of losing his entire company, but determined yet to give his best.
I have lost Colblain to treachery and Silfie to… gods know what. But I have gained observers: Negrat, so unflappable; Ragna, my helpmeet…and young Tam Vinter, who is squiring for Oweir, and the two of them seem inseparable these days; surely that is an auspicious sign for relations between the Godkindred and Shraeven. My egg drowses in somnolent warmth on its brick in the corner.
“So this is revolution,” Gavan says slowly.
“I suppose it is,” I say. “I didn’t intend it.”
Oweir squints at me. “That’s a fine thing to not intend and end up doing anyway, Mistress, if you’ll pardon me saying so.”
I shake my parti-colored mane back. “If the Godson had been any other way...”
“...but he’s not,” Donal says, and something about his voice draws everyone’s eye. He lifts his brows. “You forget, I am no Godkin native. I’m Donal Blacksmith out of Aneshet, and we didn’t choose to bow to the Godson.”
“Wasn’t it worth it, though?” Gavan asks. “Didn’t we bring anything to you that you didn’t have already?”
“Maybe so,” Donal says. “But who’s to say we wouldn’t have been able to solve our own problems in time? And it would have been in our own way.”
“This is neither here nor there,” I interrupt. “Our problem is that I have accidentally laid claim to this blasted province and now I need to take it before the Godson arrives.”
“You think he will?” Oweir asks.
“He must,” I say.
“Godkin woman,” Negrat says. “All you need is the capital. Everything else will fall in place.”
I eye him. And I know my gaze is a hard thing to hold now. “It’s not usually that simple.”
“It will be this time,” he says. “Your Godson has barely held the fields, the farms, the rocky tors. We have always run with the bit except where he can firm his grasp. And that is only in the cities. His own men have devastated those…all save one.”
“Chordwain’s,” I say.
“You must make it yours,” Negrat says.
But it goes against the grain to just take the first suggestion that makes sense and plan a war on it…so Donal, Oweir, Gavan and I bend our heads over a map and argue strategy, from one end of the province to the other. In the end we return to Negrat’s plan and beat it until it whimpers, and of all of them it’s the most possible. And we will need the capital anyway.
We will lay siege to a city without walls. Truly, I am mostly worried about accidentally hurting the civilians.
The conference is drifting to a close when the tent flap bursts open for a brown-and-gold blur. I hold up my arm against the whirlwind, and that’s all luck for the messenger uses it as a convenient perch to peck the top of my head.
“Fine way to treat your Mistress Commander,” I say, but the messenger is tugging at my hair now.
“Fine, I’ll come.”
“We’ll go with you,” Donal says.
I expect the messenger to object, but he doesn’t. I grow uneasy. “Should we go armed?”
A bob of a nod. Wonderful. I feel like my body’s going to drip into the parched earth and vanish there from weariness and now I get to follow a cryptic message into the dark.
There’s nothing for it, but to march, following the glint of the Messenger’s gilt wingtips. We press on until we are far enough from camp to make me wary and all-too-aware of every joint in my body. I wonder what exactly we’re supposed to be looking for.
And then we see a rider on a mount gone to froth, limping. The silhouette slides off and begins to lead the exhausted creature. They stumble through a ragged patch of starlight, and I surprise myself by recognizing the body language, the carriage of the man approaching me.
“Rei!” I say, astonished.
He looks up. “Angharad? Angharad!” And then he staggers and I leap forward to catch him. Hastily I check him for signs of abuse, but it’s only weariness. I recognize it in the boneless drape of his body against mine.
“Get the mount,” I say to Donal, who nods. Then I turn my attention back to my old comrade-in-arms. “I didn’t expect to ever see you again.”
“I didn’t either,” he says and lets me loop an arm around his shoulder. I tuck one wing up against his back as well and we turn back toward camp. “I was trying to get to you…started before you got to town, heard you’d been in it and gone and how could you have come this far so fast?”
“Long tale,” I say. “You probably wouldn’t believe it anyway. Have you . . .”
“Defected, for true, yes,” he says. “After they said they planned to arrest you.”
“I’m shocked they trusted you after you came back,” I say.
He shrugs. “When I gave them the message, they thought you were lying about wanting to join up with them and have what halves of the spoils they won.” He glances at me. “I’m glad you didn’t come. They would have taken you to pieces.” He takes a deep breath and continues, “But of me they thought me only stupid, stupid enough to get caught, stupid enough to believe you. So I was safe, I guess. As safe as an idiot in a bandit army.”
I winced.
“But I left because you had to know they plan to pummel you. All three of Nedwin’s “bandit” companies plus Casandre’s two from Fort Endgame. And,” he falters. “And because they have Silfia.”
“I see,” I say. And I do. It was the only place she could be.
“You’re outnumbered again,” he finishes.
I think of Negrat finishing his errand to raise the people of Shraeven despite my change of plans; remember him saying I’d find a way to make use of them anyway. I smile. “Let’s get you to a place you can lie flat on. We’ll talk in the morning.”