There had been blood on Aedan’s saddle, too.
Why they had gone out by themselves, without taking an escort of the house guard with them, was anybody’s guess. It was certainly not like Aedan to be so irresponsible. He had even left his sword behind in the stables. Clearly, his mind had been elsewhere than on his duties.
Questioning of the guards posted at the castle gate had resulted in the information that Prince Michael had gone out hawking by himself, and that Aedan had followed alone, shortly thereafter. Lord Arwyn had reportedly flovm into a rage at his guards for allowing the prince to go out by himself, but the guards had insisted that Prince Michael had commanded them to let him through, saying Aedan would be following right behind. They had naturally assumed Aedan would follow with an escort, but when Aedan came galloping through the gates alone, they had seen no reason to stop him. Perhaps the guard escort would follow on his heels.
When they didn’t, however, it was reported to the captain of the watch, who supposedly should have delivered the information to Lord Arwyn, who in turn claimed he had never heard a thing about it.
When the boys’ horses returned by themselves, Lord Arwyn had raged that heads would roll and had immediately set out with a squad of mounted men-at-arms in search of the two boys.
What Lord Tieran had done then must have been the hardest thing he had ever done in his entire life.
As soon as Lord Arwyn and his knights had passed through the castle gates, Lord Tieran had assembled the Royal House Guard and immediately had horses saddled for the empress and her daughters. Without stopping to bring anyone else along except his wife, the Lady Jessica, Lord Tieran had made haste to depart before Lord Arwyn could return with his knights. He had left the rest of the court behind and immediately set out for Anuire on horseback with his female charges and the entire house guard for an escort.
They had ridden hard, covering the entire distance from Seaharrow to Anuire, about two hundred and fifty miles, in a mere three days. It must have been a brutal pace, thought Baladore, for he had heard that when they finally arrived at the Imperial Cairn, the empress and her daughters had to be lifted from their mounts and carried inside. It was a miracle they hadn’t killed the horses.
Lord Tieran had set a fast pace during the day, and then a walking pace during most of each night to allow the horses to recover. They took only short rest periods, sleeping for only a few hours at a time while the guards took turns standing watch. More than anything, Lord Tieran had been afraid of being overtaken on the road by Lord Arwyn and his knights. They had to reach the capital at all costs, even though Lord Tieran knew absolutely nothing of what had become of his own son.
As the sea breeze ruffled Baladore’s cloak, he bit his lower lip and tried not to think about the pitching of the boat in the choppy waters of the bay.
Instead, he thought of how Lord Tieran had looked when he had seen him last-tired, drawn and haggard, pale, with a haunted, tortured look about him.
To have left Seaharrow as he did, with his own son’s fate uncertain, must have taken a supreme act of will and self-sacrifice. As a father, he must have wanted desperately to set out on Aedan’s trail. As lord high chamberlain, however, his first duty was to the empress and the empire, and he had to act quickly to safeguard both.
As the boat drew up to the jetty at Cairn Rock, the windswept island from which the imperial palace rose almost like a natural extension of the rock formations, Baladore stepped onto the dock, assisted by the boat captain. He swallowed hard, thanked the man, paid him a bonus for making the journey under full sail, then hurried up the jetty toward the palace gates, grateful to be on dry land once again. Well, relatively dry, at any rate, he thought. He squinted at the sea spray coming off the rocks as the waves crashed against the island. The wind had picked up, and the swells were coming in harder and faster.
Why Haelyn, in his mortal days, had ever wanted to build the palace on this rock out in the middle of the bay was something Baladore had never been able to discern. Its natural defensive position was the only thing that argued for the site. It was as safe from any attack as possible, except a protracted siege by sea, and an enemy’s ships would have had a hard time maintaining a blockade, given the unpredictable swells and currents of the bay in the Straits of Aerele. Unless a captain really knew these waters, he could easily wind up on the jagged rocks that ringed the island like a deadly necklace.
Admitted through the gates, Baladore hurried to find Lord Tieran. The lord high chamberlain was in his private quarters in the tower, standing at the window and staring out across the bay at the city of Anuire. He turned as Baladore came in. Lord Tieran appeared to have aged at least ten years since he had returned from Seaharrow. The strain of worrying about the empress, who had sunk into despair at the loss of her son and husband, and the stress of losing-or so he thought-his own son, added to his
concerns about the fate of the empire now that the succession was in
