“I did,” Cyrus said, unrepentant. “Twice.”
Longwell was overcome by a fit of coughing. “Ahem … uh … the Baroness would have known how great an insult this would be. I’m surprised she still … ah … acceded to your … charms.” The dragoon looked uncomfortable at every word, and when done, settled into a silence in which he would not meet Cyrus’s eyes.
“She was the one who started it,” Cyrus said, drawing another coughing fit from Longwell, a wide grin from Unger, tired disinterest from J’anda and practiced neutrality from Curatio. “I didn’t start it, she did. So if she knew what she was doing was insulting, she did it on purpose.”
“Aye,” Unger said, “I can’t imagine why she would choose that moment to insult the man who beat her. If the man were one of my barons, I’d have him flogged in the streets of Scylax for pulling even a tenth of what that bloke has. What a load of goat dung he is.”
“We seem to have wandered afield from our original topic of discussion,” Curatio said with a weak smile. “We have a meeting-or moot, I should say-tomorrow, yes?”
“Yes,” Unger said. “It may already be in progress when we arrive. If so, they’ll move directly to our topic, and Ranson and what’s-his-name from Actaluere will have their moment to speak, but nothing will be decided until after the Kings have a chance to talk with their men in private. We’ll go to any other business then adjourn. Should be a short session.”
“Thus was said about every long meeting I have ever attended,” Curatio said dryly, “and I’ve attended one or two very long meetings in my life.”
“So, we have a war to begin,” Cyrus said, “a land to unite,” he nodded at Briyce Unger, who nodded back, “a guild to inform, troops to rally, reinforcements to summon …” Cyrus folded his arms, and settled his eyes on Longwell, Curatio, J’anda, and finally on the darkness beyond the campfires where he knew, in the distance, Enrant Monge lay just ahead on the horizon, beyond the black skies, “… and I don’t know which of those things will be hardest to do. I really don’t.”
He left them, then, without word, deep in his own thoughts, and paced through the campfires, looking for Aisling.
He felt her hand around his shoulders, felt her tongue in his ear, gentle, caressing, smelled the cinnamon on her breath. “Productive meeting?” she whispered.
“Not really,” he said, and turned to her, backing her against a tree. “What about you?”
“Been waiting for you,” she said as she let her fingers brush through his hair, then kissed him again, and he felt his head swirl as he lifted her gently off the ground and pinned her against the tree as their passion consumed them.
“Put me down,” she said after they were done, and he did, leaning against the tree for support, his weight resting heavily on his left arm. “I’ll see you back at the camp.” He heard her words, sensed her pull her breeches back up, then heard her footsteps disappear, as they always did, quiet to the point where he couldn’t hear them, and he was left alone, again, in the woods, in the dark, and he stayed there for quite some time.
Chapter 41
It was midafternoon when they rode into Enrant Monge through the northern gate of the Syloreans. After the second gate, the stewards of the Brotherhood of the Broken Blade greeted them and quietly informed them that there was a session underway at present in the Garden of Serenity. They would be expected within the half- hour, then the debate would shift to hear their reports. Briyce Unger nodded and was on about his business, heading toward the tower nearby, while the Actaluere envoy headed west through a keeping gate and Cyrus and the others followed Ranson to the eastern bailey.
The sun was still high in the sky as Cyrus made his way out of the tower set aside for the Galbadien delegation a half-hour later. The stewards had shown him to the communal bath, and he’d washed the dirt of travel from him, felt the cool water rinsing the dust and grime of long days of travel from his skin, along with something else which was becoming familiar, the smell of Aisling, her sweat and the tangy aroma of cinnamon. He caught a peculiar look from one of the stewards, who thereafter tried to avoid making eye contact with him. When he looked in the mirror, he realized his neck was covered with bruises from bites; not small ones, either, but ones that were obvious and exposed above his armor. Fiddling with his collar was of no assistance; they stood out against the green of his robe. With a sigh, he left, joining Curatio, J’anda, Longwell and Ranson in the courtyard before the Garden of Serenity. Aisling and the others had gone to rejoin the Sanctuary army, still encamped in the eastern woods outside the castle.
They were called into the garden, the walls bathed in orange by the light of noon. Clouds were on the horizon, but as yet the breeze was soft, the sun was unobscured, and the weather pleasant enough, if a little hot. They were not announced, not this time, save for Briyce Unger, who went first and with little fanfare. Cyrus watched from the tunnel as Unger strode out to take his place in the amphitheater, and Cyrus and his delegation were ushered out moments later, as a quiet settled upon the proceedings, and he took a place on an empty bench, conspicuously far to the back of the Galbadien delegation. Count Ranson went forward, invited to a place of honor nearer to Aron Longwell, though not as near as it had been before the expedition; Ranson took a seat in the third row rather than the first.
Cyrus scanned the audience until he found Ryin Ayend and Nyad, sitting a few rows closer and upon the aisle opposite the one Cyrus had entered by. The soft breeze stirred Nyad’s hair as he looked upon her, and Ayend next to her looked especially drab in the dull green robes provided by the Brotherhood of the Broken Blade. Seated to the left of the two of them was Cattrine, her dark hair shining, her face less so, reserved, and focused on him but for a few seconds before she broke eye contact, impassive, hesitant, almost fearful.
The greenery around them almost faded into the backdrop as the meeting began. The assemblage was quiet, and there was a sense of restlessness in the audience made all the worse by the breeze, stirring as it was every few moments. Cyrus could feel it in the air, a desire to move, to run, and as he looked down at Cattrine he felt it grow stronger. He longed for touch, for hers or Aisling’s, and wished desperately he were elsewhere, though he could not define why.
“I offer a welcome to our brothers who have returned from the north,” Grenwald Ivess looked somewhat haggard, a little pallid, and the lighting helped not a whit. “Would that you had come at a more auspicious time, when we had more … pleasing news to report.” Cyrus looked to Unger, who sat isolated in the front row of the Sylorean bench by himself, and watched the King look to the men behind him, his brow furrowed.
“I take it there was little progress whilst we were away?” Unger asked, drawing his attention back to the assembly. “No forward momentum on making amends between our august Kingdoms?” The King of Syloreas was loud, restless, and his hair moved as he turned to look back once more at the row of men behind him, none of whom would look him in the eye. Cyrus watched as he slapped one of them on the knee, enough to jar the man to attention but not to compel him to look at his King for more than a few seconds before lapsing back to staring at his feet.
“I take it by your rather enthusiastic demeanor,” King Aron Longwell stood, commanding the attention at the center of the room, “that no one from your delegation has told you the news yet?”
“I haven’t seen anyone from my delegation since I got here,” Unger said, wary. Cyrus could not see King Longwell’s face, but the relish was evident in the man’s voice, and it gave Cyrus no comfort, none at all. “Since they all appear to be too craven to tell me whatever ill news you all have, and since you seem all too eager to do it, Aron, why don’t you just go ahead and be on with it?”
“You do me insult, sir,” Aron Longwell said, his hand springing to his chest as though Briyce Unger had just plunged a dagger into it. “I do not take any pleasure in your pain, and to suggest otherwise-”
“Tiernan?” Unger interrupted King Longwell, and Cyrus looked to the King of Actaluere, who was actually somewhat pale himself, not nearly as well composed as he had been two months earlier, the last time Cyrus had laid eyes on him. He reminded him much of his sister now, as she looked when Cyrus had seen her at her worst, when she realized her husband was still alive. “Would you do me the courtesy,” Unger strained at the last word,
