perceptibly, as he challenged them, and she thought she understood why.
‘She has freed the prisoners, the brigands. She has killed our people,’ the leader of the patrol snarled. He gripped his sword in both hands, plainly readying himself to strike. Two of his followers were archers, both women with arrows already to the string and aimed, one at Varmen, one at Thalric, and each of them recipients of the Wasps’ attention in return. Che knew that there was only so long a bowstring could be restrained.
‘Tynisa did that?’ she asked hurriedly and, when the man gave a brief nod, added, ‘And you saw her?’
‘I did,’ one of the archers declared flatly.
‘We have to act now, to get the drop on them,’ Thalric hissed between his teeth.
‘Wait,’ Che said, for everyone’s benefit. ‘Hold, there’s no need for bloodshed.’
‘You have to come with us,’ the patrol leader insisted, but there was now a tremor to his voice, his eyes flicking between Thalric and Varmen. It was a familiar reaction from all through Commonweal lands, the scars the Twelve-year War had left on the minds of the losers. Three-to-one odds were not enough to overcome such a legacy.
Still, something was likely to snap any moment, either one of the archers or one of the Wasps, and things had obviously gone badly wrong at Leose. I have to know what’s happened, Che decided.
‘You just want me, then,’ she informed them. ‘Your orders were to bring back Tynisa’s sister?’
‘Che-’ Thalric started angrily, but she silenced him with a look.
‘They meant…’ The patrol leader grimaced unhappily. ‘I’m sure
…’
‘Take me to Leose. I have committed no crime, nor harmed anybody. I will come of my own free will to see what my sister has done, and to answer for her if I can. But my companions have no part in this, and if you attempt to take them, then…’ she almost said, they will fight, but decided a little more drama was necessary, ‘they will kill you.’
She could see that they believed it, the same fear stamped on each face.
‘Che, not again,’ Thalric hissed.
‘I am not being taken prisoner,’ she insisted. ‘I am going of my own free will.’ This was more to save her pride than to reassure him, for he had mocked her about the number of different cells she had seen the inside of, his own included.
I do not want a fight here, though, for the odds are not good, and besides, I do not want to make enemies of Salma’s own family. Surely there must be a sensible solution to this.
‘Trust me,’ she told Thalric, although she felt far from certain herself. She stepped forward, away from the others, a slow and careful movement, aware of the bowstrings loosening and hoping that the Wasps would not see this as an opportunity.
‘Take me to Leose,’ she instructed the patrol. ‘I have my wings, so I can fly at least part of the distance.’
She had half expected to be brought before Salme Elass in her throne room, surrounded by the woman’s court and servants, to give whatever account of her sister’s actions she could. Diplomacy, she told herself, had always been one of her stronger suits – at least she had not been killed for it yet. A more pessimistic prediction anticipated stone walls and bars, and perhaps worse. Neither prediction bore fruit.
When she was brought into the courtyard of Leose, the place was alive with hasty preparations. There were armed men on horseback, inside the gates and outside, and a ragged company of spearmen was being assembled even as she entered. Whatever had happened here at Leose, a great many people now seemed set to leave it. Aside from a handful of servants, everyone she saw was armed and ready for battle, and their faces spoke of bloody murder.
‘My Princess!’ the patrol leader called, and the nearest rider cocked back her helm and glowered down at the new arrivals. In that face, Che could read the same lineage that had produced her friend Salme Dien, and the briefly glimpsed Salme Alain.
‘You have her,’ the woman remarked, neither praising nor condemnatory. Her eyes, resting on Che, were loveless and bleak. ‘Bind her, put her on a horse, bring her along. I’ll speak to her once we have an idea of where the vermin have gone.’ Her eyes narrowed. ‘And her companions, too.’
‘She was the only one who surrendered to us.’ The faces of the patrol were united in a conspiracy of omission.
Minutes later, Che was sitting astride a solid, patient beast moving alongside the one being ridden by the patrol leader, who had clearly hoped to be rid of her by now. Whether Che would have ever taken to riding if left to her own devices, she would never know, but having her wrists roped together to the saddle bow only meant constantly wrenching her arms every time she slid sideways. If the column had not been limited to moving at the speed of the foot soldiers, then she would probably have soon broken her neck somewhere along the way. As it was the progress was merely painful and difficult rather than fatal.
At last, with the dawn light appearing in the east, they stopped, but nobody dismounted. Che sagged against her restraints, feeling more exhausted than if she had been forced to walk the whole distance. She could see woodland ahead, and wondered if there was fear of an ambush, but shortly she spotted a scattering of figures winging their way over. One of them was clearly not Dragonfly-kinden, and she recognized him long before he landed.
‘Gaved,’ she greeted him, and he started in surprise just as he was about to go and deliver his report. The Dragonfly scouts had landed directly in front of their mistress, but Che guessed it was safer for the Wasp to approach humbly on foot.
‘They came looking for me on dragonfly-back,’ he murmured as he neared the Beetle girl. ‘Every tracker the Salmae can call in is here. I’ve not slept since then – they sent me right out after the runaways. Your sister, she finally did it then? She finally snapped.’
Che said nothing, but he read her expression well enough to add, ‘I’m sorry. It happens to the greatest. What can I say?’ And then he was hurrying off to add to the other scouts’ briefing.
Shortly after dawn, Che was sent for. The warband, hunting party, retinue, whatever it was, had not set off again, but scouts had been back and forth, flitting into and around the woods, and Che assumed that either the brigands and Tynisa were lying low or waiting in ambush, or they had disguised their trail so well that the princess did not know which way to follow.
Che’s bonds were cut before she was presented to Salme Elass, but she did not get the impression that she should feel encouraged by that. It was more of a ceremonial matter, as if some tradition prevented bound prisoners from being allowed in the royal presence. What manner of meeting will this be then? she wondered; a group inquisition or a private word? Even as she considered it, she saw that matters were going to be a good deal more public. Salme Elass was holding court.
The princess herself, clad in her mail of red, blue and gold, knelt on a woven mat, while all around her were other nobles, a dozen of them in their own uniquely patterned mails. Beside and behind the princess knelt lowlier specimens, presumably her followers and staff, and each of her tributary nobles had their own orbiting system of retainers, so that what appeared just a random assembly of kneeling men and women resolved itself into a precise map of station and status, comprehensible even to Che’s eyes. The hollow in the ground Elass had chosen had thus become her courtroom, as thoroughly as if her people had put up walls.
Che found herself standing at the far end of that notional space, on an invisible threshold that she could somehow sense and not argue with. Her escort let go of her arms, and she felt the gravity of that system of interlocking circles draw her forward almost against her will, each noble and his followers forming a wheel that moved her on towards the princess who was the centre of it all, and yet who at the same time seemed quite alone in the midst of it.
Che put on her bravest face, straightened her shoulders, and made the approach as proudly as she could, though feeling all around her the disparaging looks of the mustered aristocracy and their creatures. She knew what it was to be looked down on as lesser kinden, she had experienced quite enough of that when amongst Wasps, Moth-kinden and the Masters of Khanaphes. Halfway towards the princess, it seemed suddenly too much, too unfair, and she felt something slip within her, opening up a crack in the dam of her reserve. There had been a slight rustle of movement, a mutter of inaudible but barbed words. Che stopped and closed her eyes for a moment, and heard the background murmur die away abruptly. When she looked again, the expressions visible to her had changed. Mouths were shut, eyes were wide or wary. What had they seen? But she might as well ask what Maure
