“Your Highness, I am here to offer you an invitation of hospitality, from Family Renine to you. We would be honoured for you to join us, where we can lodge you in the manner to which you are rightly accustomed.”
Alythia’s gaze flicked to Sasha. Smug.
“I should be very pleased to accept such a gracious offer,” she said. “Would you be so good as to grant me an escort?”
“Your Highness, I am most relieved. I had feared our rash noble friends had caused you an offence. I shall escort your carriage personally.”
He rose, and strode to his horsemen.
“’Lyth, you’re crazy!” Sasha exclaimed in Lenay. “You’ve no idea who the hells he is!”
“He is nobility, Sasha,” Alythia said calmly, as though that made everything fine.
“And you’re the daughter of the man who leads the best warriors in Rhodia into a war against Rhodaan! You don’t think you’d make a wonderful hostage?”
Alythia did not get angry. Instead, she placed a hand on Sasha’s shoulder. “Sasha, it’s very sweet that you’re concerned for me, but please. You know me. This is what I’m good at. You have your sword, and Kessligh has his high reputation and military mind, and I have the influence of status and royalty. Besides which, if not to make contacts of this sort, why on Earth do you think I came along?”
“Because in Petrodor you were poor,” Sasha said drily.
“Exactly,” said Alythia, smiling sweetly. “This is my element, Sasha. I don’t tell you how to fight. Do me the same courtesy, yes?”
Two
S OFY LENAYIN GALLOPED ACROSS THE ROLLING HILLS of southern Telesia, and felt that life could not possibly be more wonderful. Everywhere the grass was rising on tall stems that lashed about her horse’s legs, and flowers were blooming, yellow and purple and red across the glorious green sea.
Ahead, the land rose once more, and Sofy urged Dary faster up the rise. Perhaps she would finally discover a view down into Algrasse, and the Bacosh. But when she arrived, she saw only more hills, and lush, waving grass and flowers, far off to the horizon. The sight made her happy. She did not want this journey to end.
Further along the shallow ridge there loomed another old fortress, stark, broken walls and piles of fallen stones now overgrown with weeds. She pointed Dary that way and let him run as only a Lenay dussieh could-tirelessly, and with little sign of fatigue. She liked to ride out in front of her guard like this, and pretend she was alone on the plain, just her and her horse, and the wind in her hair. Princess Sofy Lenayin had been truly alone and in charge of her own destiny so very few times in her life.
Upon reaching the first of the fallen black stones, she reined Dary to a halt and dismounted. Immediately she heard the approach of her guard, four warriors on splendid warhorses, red capes flying, sunlight flashing on silver mail.
“Highness,” said Lieutenant Tyrel of the Royal Guard, “allow us to search the ruins first before you enter.”
“Oh, nonsense, Lieutenant!” Sofy protested. “It’s no fun exploring when you’ve already checked everything for me! Besides, these things have been deserted for centuries!”
“All the same, Highness,” he said, handing her his mount’s halter. “There could be bandits, or scavengers.”
Tyrel and another man drew their blades and climbed over the stones through a gap in the wall, leaving Sofy minding the horses while the other two guards rode the perimeter. That much, at least, they trusted her with. She was not much of a rider yet, compared to men such as these, but she could mind horses well enough.
Soon the guardsmen came back to say all was clear. Sofy climbed gingerly over the rocks, still not entirely accustomed to her leather boots and the riding pants she wore beneath her dress. She wished she could discard the dress, but there were too many men around who would find such a thing confronting. Whatever her recent adventures, she remained a princess of Lenayin, and a princess of Lenayin could not in good conscience wear pants alone.
Within the wall, she found herself in a wide courtyard of lush grass. Rising about, forming a square, were the remains of defensive walls.
“A place for perhaps fifty men and their horses,” said Lieutenant Tyrel. He pointed toward a large gap in the wall. “That would have been the main gate. They would have fetched water from the stream in the next valley.” Sofy hadn’t noticed a stream, but perhaps that was the difference between herself, who rode purely for pleasure, and Tyrel, who did not.
“It would be very crowded for so many horses in here,” Sofy said.
“Only if they were attacked,” said Tyrel. “Most other times the horses would graze free. These walls are only for defence in face of a superior enemy.”
“Not from an army, surely,” said Sofy. She wandered alongside the near wall, sidestepping fallen stones. On the most well-preserved portions of wall she could see battlements, where archers would have defended the walls from attack. “Fifty men behind these walls would barely last past breakfast against a determined infantry.”
She nearly smiled at her observation…as if
A gleam in the grass caught her eye. She stooped, and picked up a small piece of metal covered in dirt. Brushing at it, she found it was a coin. “Oh, how wonderful! It has markings… I can’t read them, it’s too dirty. Perhaps I’ll have found a clue. I must have this cleaned.” She tucked it into the little pouch at her belt.
Sofy wanted to climb to the battlement, but Tyrel forbade it.
“It’s my neck on the block if you so much as twist your finger, begging your pardon, Highness. You’ve a wedding to attend, and I’ll see that you reach it in perfect health.”
A wedding. Just like that, her day darkened. Suddenly, the old walls lost their fascination, and she yearned once more for the freedom of the plains.
They rode down to water their horses at the little stream Captain Tyrel had spotted. Thick bushes grew there, and a few small, twisted trees, clinging close to the water’s edge. Sofy remembered the coin and washed it in the crystal water, but the dirt was centuries ingrained, and the metal itself seemed black with age. Perhaps someone back at the column would know a way of making it clean.
Finding the Lenay column once more was not difficult-it stretched for a half day’s march and more. So many men could be heard well before they were seen-a tinkle of metal, a creaking of leathers, a whisper of boots through the long grass. And coughs, whinnies, conversation and snatches of song. And, because they were Lenay, laughter. Lenay men made jokes to pass the time. Sofy had overheard some on her daily rides, and most had been coarse enough to make her blush bright pink. But that had been weeks ago; now she only smiled. She could hardly begrudge them their humour after six weeks’ march, and more yet to come.
Then they cleared a rise and she could see it. The column snaked across the hillside, as untidy and irregular as the Lenay people themselves. Certainly there was little discipline in their formations, as men walked where they would and stopped where they would, and went wandering off to the column’s side as they felt the urge to relieve themselves, or observe some passing curiosity. Only the banners held the broader column into its preferred order- the bannermen had been informed of the dishonour to their unit and region should they fall behind or lose their place, and so far, none had done so.
Sofy galloped to them, unable to see the column’s head. Men saw her coming, four Royal Guardsmen at her sides and another ten fanning further behind and to the flanks. Cheers went up, and swords were raised to salute her. Sofy grinned and waved back, coming close and then turning across them, heading toward the front.
These here were men of Rayen, southeastern Lenayin-she could tell well before she saw a banner from the long, thick locks of their Goeren-yai men. They favoured hard leather armour, studded and decorated with
