halls as the lords and barons of the realm!”
The watch fires crackled and spat sparks as their flames reached orange fingers for the stars. As Alusair walked softly among them, a dark night cloak thrown around her shoulders, she could hear laughter and even some less than tuneful singing. The men were happy this night. The deaths of Dagh Illance and the others had already become tales of renown and heroics, in which each survivor had a story of his own legendary ability in the face of the orcish hordes.
The six men at the southernmost watch fire didn’t see the warrior princess approach, or they’d surely never have said what they did.
“Damn you, Brace Skatterhawk, you always take the other man’s side in any argument! How many sides d’you want?”
“Just like the king at that, he is!”
“And why not? He’s a son of Azoun, after all. Haven’t you heard the tales?”
Threldryn spoke up now. “We all have, Kortyl, but most of us have the wits not to say such things when we’re riding with Azoun’s daughter!”
“Aye, Kortyl. What if she heard you?”
“Bah! I don’t fear her! Why, if I…” Kortyl’s voice trailed away suddenly, and the others around the fire looked up, feeling a sudden tension. The princess stood over them like some dark shadow of the night, the firelight gleaming in her eyes.
“Yes, Kortyl?” she asked softly. “What would you do?”
“Uh… well, I… that is, I…” The young knight looked away.
She knelt down by the suddenly abashed nobleman, took hold of his ear, and said into it, “Well, if I were you, Kortyl Rowanmantle, I’d have the basic wits to look all around to see if someone’s listening before I talked about them!”
The princess playfully shoved the kneeling Kortyl backward onto a pile of kindling. Whatever apology the youth tried to stammer was lost in the general roar of mirth.
The roar was cut off abruptly by Alusair’s next, soft words: “Brace Skatterhawk, I’ll see you at my fire, once you’ve eaten. Don’t forget.”
Overhead, the stars were bright tonight, there were few clouds to dim their sparkling beauty. Alusair lay on her back, her own personal fire warm at her feet, and stared up at them, remembering the many tales she’d overheard of her father’s… excesses. Nay, lass, she thought, call it what it was: philandering. Most such tales stemmed from before he was even married, and some were mere boasts, to be sure, but…
She closed her eyes and was back in the Grand Chamber on a bright morning when she was still in her teens, when many young noblemen who’d come of age together were being presented at court. One after another came in to kneel-and one after another resembled Azoun. Finally old Vangey murmured from behind the throne, “Moderation, my liege?”
She remembered her father’s solemn frown and her mother’s tight, amused smile, and she remembered pestering Uncle Bhereu about it until the kindly warrior, red-faced and stammering, explained the situation in gentle terms.
“You and your sister are the heirs to the Obarskyr throne,” he had said, finally surrendering to the inevitable task of explaining the complex nature of life to the young. “Yet there are others who share your bloodline, though not officially noted as such. Unrecognized, these half-siblings stand no more chance at the throne than a chimney sweep, yet they are there and cannot be ignored.”
She sighed and opened her eyes to the stars again, wondering with a sudden chill just how many of these half-siblings shared Bhereu’s assessment. How many thought they were justified, by their unrecognized blood, to rule Cormyr? How many of those men with something of her father in their faces would she have to fight, should her father perish?
She sat up and drew her sword. So it was that Brace Skatterhawk found her, still in full armor all misted with night dew, her naked sword across her knees. His eyes widened, but he said merely, “I am here, Lady Highness. You sent for me.”
Alusair turned her head and wordlessly beckoned him nearer.
When he stood over her, she looked up at him and asked softly, “So, are you my brother… as they say?”
“Princess!” he said reproachfully, “Does it matter? Should it matter?” He raised a hand to wave away his own irritation at the question, only to find her sword tip at his throat. His commander had come to her feet faster than any night-hunting hill cat.
“As I grow older and more and more of a hag,” Alusair murmured, looking into his eyes, “I grow less and less patient. It may have something to do with the ever-decreasing time left to me before that last step into the waiting grave.”
She let out a deep, ragged breath, and Brace realized she was a good deal less calm than she was pretending to be.
“I am also, as I grow older,” Alusair continued, “falling more and more in love… with the truth. So let me have some of thine, young Skatterhawk. By your oath upon the Crown: Is my father Azoun also your father?”
Brace swallowed, feeling the sharp point of her war blade at his throat and the even sharper points of her eyes, gleaming at him in the gloom. He breathed deeply and said, “So-so I’ve been told, Lady Highness.”
And the blade was gone, bouncing on the turf, as Alusair flung her arms around him and said, “Damn! That means I can’t rightly do more than this!” And she grabbed the startled Skatterhawk by the forehead and placed a solid, sisterly kiss upon it. Such was the force of her action, however, that her breastplate bruised Brace’s ribs.
Then she spun away, to kneel by the fire and draw forth from it her other blade, the slim court sword she kept at her saddle. Brown things were shriveling on its smoking blade. “Care for some fried mushrooms, Brother?”
He stared at her for a moment in amazement, then burst into shouts of helpless laughter.
“You find mushrooms funny?” she asked in mock aggrieved tones and slid the hot blade between his lips. Hastily he took a toasted mushroom, moaning at its heat as he gabbled and chewed. He managed to get it down at last, tears coming to his eyes from the burning. A glass was steered into his hand, and he downed its contents in one long, thankful swallow. Then he nearly choked in fresh amazement.
“Elverquisst! Gods, Lady Highness, but this is a gift fit for… kings.” His voice trailed off slowly, his eyes on hers.
Alusair shrugged. “I like you. I must admit I want you. You fight well, better than most of the citified nobles I’ve had to command. And if I can’t have you as husband-or openly, as brother-well, I need a friend at the moment.”
“Aye,” Brace said softly. “I have noticed that.” He gently took her arms and looked steadily into her eyes. “Do you mean this?” he asked. “I mean, needing a friend? The gulf between noble and royal is as deep at times as that between noble and farmer. You and your elder sister Tanalasta have always occupied another sphere of existence, removed from even the rarefied intrigues of the nobility. Can Alusair the Firetongue trust a mere member of the nobility?”
Oak-brown eyes blazed into his with a leaping, amber fury like a brushfire for a moment, and the arms in his grasp trembled. “You dare?” she gasped.
Brace held her gaze steadily and said, “I do.”
They held gazes for a long time, during which neither drew breath, and then he added softly, “Forgive my blunt words, High Lady, but it had to be said. I have been raised to respect the Obarskyr line, and though I have been told my heritage, I and… others like me have been taught not to dream of the crown. That belongs only to one truly Obarskyr born and Obarskyr raised. Yet, even given all this, can you trust me-or anyone-enough?”
She looked down and away for a moment, biting at her lip. Then her head came up again, proudly, and she met his eyes again with all the fire gone. She nodded. “It was fairly asked,” she murmured, “and-I can trust. I will trust. For you. And as a friend, I will tell you we will be on patrol out here longer than we had planned, until we have found all of those Black Network gates.”
Brace Skatterhawk let go of her arms and trailed his left hand down to her right hand. He grasped her hand and raised it slowly to his lips. “Then I should be honored to be your friend.”
Then he reached for the buckles that held her armor along one shapely flank. “I can think of one way to celebrate this friendship. Brothers daren’t do such things, or people talk. And lovers are always in too much of a
