'Sofy,' said her brother with exasperation, 'one does not 'look after' Sasha, any more than one 'looks after' a wild animal. She does what she does, and the best any in her vicinity can hope is to remain alive at the end of it.' And to Sofy's continuing, accusatory stare, he added, 'Farys insulted Krystoff's memory. It was calculated, I'm sure his elders put him up to it.'
'Oh dear lords,' Sofy exclaimed. And shook her head in despair. 'Old family history. I swear nothing causes more catastrophes in this kingdom than old family history. Shall we ever be free of it?'
'Twelve years is not old history, Sofy,' Damon said sombrely. 'I remember Krystoff well.' Sofy gazed at him. He seemed more serious, somehow, than when he had left. More adult. The look in his eyes was the look of a young man concerned with matters far greater than himself. Prior to this ride, there had not been so many of those.
'What is it, Damon?' Sofy asked him. 'What happened out there?'
Damon sighed and shook his head. 'I'll tell you later,' he said.
The road opened onto Soros Square, a vast expanse of stone paving centred by the Verenthane Angel of Mercy. On the left were grand stone buildings fronting the square with ornate facades, pillars, arches and windows. To the right, the great front gate, open to the traffic of early evening and surrounded by many guards who warmed themselves near the blazing fires beyond the wall.
'Sasha sends her love,' Damon added.
'She is coming to Rathynal?' Sofy asked.
'She'd better,' Damon said darkly. 'Krayliss will make a fuss if she doesn't.'
'And Kessligh?'
'That was the impression.' Sofy was glad to hear that… and yet nervous, too. There were probably only three men she'd known in her life whom she'd never been able to charm: Her father, Koenyg and Yuan Kessligh Cronenverdt. He loved Sasha, that was clear to her, even if Sasha was sometimes uncertain, and the relationship they shared was utterly remarkable in its unlikeliness. And yet, somehow, when he looked at Sofy, she felt it was as if he saw straight through her and was considering the texture of her bones.
'Oh well,' she sighed, trying to get her thoughts back into order. 'More people. I swear I'll go crazy trying to remember them all.'
'I doubt Kessligh will be attending the events you're organising,' Damon reassured her.
'No?' Sofy said, with a sudden, humorous inspiration. 'You're certain he wouldn't like a formal dance? Perhaps a tour of the artworks? Or maybe some flower arrangements? Arrangements are all the fashion in Petrodor now, it's becoming quite an art.'
'I'm sure all the important people will have far more important matters to attend to,' Damon retorted. Sofy scowled at that. 'Particularly Kessligh.'
'Not true!' said Sofy, skipping sideways to jab a delighted finger at him. 'Kessligh loves gardening, Sasha's told me all about his precious vegetable patch! She says he even grows ythala flowers in rows between the vegetables because they're good for the soil!'
Damon sighed and swiped at his flattened hair, now a little damp in the light rain. 'Nasi-Keth are strange,' he said with a shrug. 'I know Sasha doesn't have much time for flower arrangements.'
'I don't know about that! Sasha loves all wild things.'
'Exactly. She wouldn't understand why you need to cut its head off to make it look pretty. And I'd agree with her.'
'Well, at least it wasn't the two of you who fought the duel,' Sofy said with a meaningful sideways look. 'It sounds like you have finally become at least civil with each other.' Damon nodded glumly, but his attention was wandering. They passed the square's central statue, the angel's wings and outstretched arms making a ghostly silhouette against the gloomy sky. Ahead, the spires of the Saint Ambellion Temple soared into the night. 'Damon, what's wrong? Why are you so brooding?'
Damon's jaw tightened as he walked. 'I sent a scout from the Falcon Guard to follow the Hadryn,' he said in a low voice. 'Several scouts, actually. They volunteered. I was worried our wise Lord Usyn might do something stupid.'
'Like?'
'Attack the Udalyn,' Damon said grimly. 'Every bit of Goeren-yai trouble the Hadryn get from Krayliss, they conveniently blame on the Udalyn. It's as good an excuse as they've had in decades. And with father's mind as it is lately, I don't know if he'll stop them.'
Sofy did not pretend to understand everything about those old troubles… except that the Hadryn had wanted to destroy the Udalyn since long before there was ever a Lenay king. But she did understand some of Damon's responsibilities on rides to troublesome provinces beneath the king's banner. 'Are you allowed to send scouts across the Hadryn border?' she asked anxiously.
'They're scouts,' Damon said shortly. 'Wild men of Lenayin. They go where they please… and, like I said, they volunteered.'
Sofy guessed that the answer to her question, therefore, was 'no.' She gave her brother a long, misgiving look. 'I hope you know what you're doing,' she said quietly.
Damon sighed. 'Me too.'
The procession passed the wide steps leading up to the doors of the great temple. The Royal Palace loomed opposite, its many tall windows ablaze with light, guards waiting at the doors to the Grand Hall entrance. They crossed the road from the temple to the palace and climbed the wet stairs, Damon recalling his manners to offer an arm to his sister, approaching those doors.
Through the grand foyer, with tile-patterned floors and busts of familylong-dead, then into the hall proper. The ceiling arched high overhead, beneath which four enormous chandeliers hung suspended along the hall's length. The procession's footsteps echoed in the vast space. Groundsmen extinguished their torches and departed, replaced by the senior hall-master of the hour, leading the way with brown robes and a formal stride. Large paintings and tapestries looked down from the high walls. Ahead, servants scurried, preparing to open the doors to the throne hall.
'Are you invited?' Damon asked, as Sofy showed no sign of stopping.
'Assuredly,' Sofy said sweetly. And it was Damon's turn to fix her with a wary glance. A princess at the king's formal business? Surely not. But Damon said nothing.
The servants hauled the doors open with a squeal of weight-bearing hinges. Damon and Sofy walked the throne hall together, its many tall columns forming a row down the central aisle toward the raised dais and its throne. Along that length, many Royal Guards stood to attention… and Sofy wondered if it were merely her imagination, or whether those guards truly were as attentive and edgy as they appeared. Certainly there were a lot of them and their hands seemed uncommonly near their weapons, resting upon the hilt of a sword or with thumbs tucked into a belt.
The king stood at the foot of the three-step dais, in close conversation with Koenyg and Father Dalryn-the Archbishop of Lenayin. The king wore his customary formal black robes with golden trim. Koenyg wore similar, only with a greater prominence of leather as one might expect of a Lenay warrior. All looked up at Damon and Sofy's approach, and the procession that trailed them.
At the last moment, Sofy disengaged Damon's arm and stood demurely to one side. Koenyg did likewise, giving her a displeased, 'What are you doing here?' stare that Sofy ignored. The king took a pace forward and extended his black-gloved hand. Damon dropped to one knee, took the hand and kissed it. Then stood and embraced his father, to one side and then the other. From the sides of the dais, and from behind the rows of columns and guards, well-dressed nobility looked on, their expressions both grim and anxious. Lord Krayliss was not the first of the provincial lords to arrive in BaenTar for Rathynal, and Baen-Tar was becoming crowded with important lords and ladies from all over Lenayin.
'My son,' said King Torvaal, his hands on Damon's shoulders. His face, with its dark, close-trimmed beard, remained as impassive as his formal black robes. Verenthane black, like those of the archbishop. The colour of purity. 'News precedes you of a crisis averted at Halleryn. Yet details are lacking.'
'Aye, my Lord,' said Damon. His expression, Sofy saw, was guarded. He rarely wore that expression with her. She would spot it and suspect him of concealment. She wondered if their father would. No, she decided sadly, that was unlikely. But Koenyg might. 'Lord Krayliss has cast himself upon your justice, and has accompanied me to Baen-Tar. He awaits your audience even now.'
