seen the doubt in her eyes.
“I don’t look like much,” Borenson said. “My middle is all going to fat. But I used to be the Earth King’s personal guard, and now I serve his son. I’ve killed men, too many men, and too many reavers. I’ll protect you, as if you were a princess, as if you were my own daughter.”
Rhianna wondered if that could possibly be true. Sir Borenson was going bald on top, and he didn’t look like some great warrior. Could he really protect her?
More important, what would he think once he got to know her? Rhianna knew that she was no one special. She wasn’t worth taking chances for. In time he would see that, and he would hate her.
It was still the dead of night, and Rhianna looked up, saw a woman in the door. The woman had dark hair, long and elegant, flowing over her shoulders, and eyes so black that they gleamed like the waters roiling deep in a well. Her face was kindly, loving. Several children huddled beside and behind her, clutching at her midnight blue dress, peeking shyly into the room.
Almost, it seemed a dream.
“I’m not fit to ride,” Rhianna said, all business.
“We’ll not be going by horse,” the woman said. She drew near, smiled down at Rhianna for a long moment, and took her hand. Rhianna’s heart was still thumping in fear, troubled from her nightmares. The opium had diminished her pain, and it had left the world seeming fuzzy, disturbing. But the woman’s warm smile seemed to wash away Rhianna’s fears.
“This is my wife, Myrrima,” Borenson said. “And my children-” He nodded toward a tough-looking girl with dark red hair who held a babe in her arms. “Talon, Draken, Sage, and the little one, Erin.”
“Hello,” was all that Rhianna managed to say. She couldn’t think straight. Did this man really want her, or was he just trying to be kind? And what of Myrrima, what would she be thinking? Would she want another child clinging to her dress?
Rhianna couldn’t imagine it.
But as she looked into Myrrima’s eyes she could see depths of peace and calmness that defied all understanding. Rhianna’s own mother had been a terrified creature, tough but fearful, living on the edge of madness. Rhianna had never imagined that a woman could feel the kind of peace that emanated from Myrrima.
“Come,” Myrrima whispered seductively, as if inviting Rhianna to join her in a game. “Come with us.”
“Where to?” Rhianna asked.
“To a place where children don’t have anything to fear,” Myrrima promised. “To a place where the skies are blue and daisies cover the hill, and all you have to do all day long is roll in the grass and play.”
Rhianna’s mind balked at such notions. She didn’t trust strangers. The opium haze held her, and she tried to imagine a place where the skies were blue, and daisies bobbed in a summer breeze, and it almost felt as if no such place had ever existed.
Rhianna smiled, and Myrrima peered at that innocent smile, relieved to see it, happy to see Rhianna grinning the way that a child should.
“All right,” Rhianna agreed.
“Fine,” Myrrima said. “I’m glad that you’re coming.”
Could it be true? Rhianna wondered. Could she really be glad? What did Rhianna know of these people?
I know that others trust them, she realized. Kings and lords trust them with their own lives, even with the lives of their children. Maybe I can trust them, too.
“Okay,” Rhianna said, surrendering completely.
And then Sir Borenson checked her wound, peering under the bandage. “It’s healing some,” he said, but looked worried. Very tenderly he lifted her, and bore her as if she were as light as a maple leaf, floating down the hallways of the castle, past nooks where bright lamps glowed like small stars, to a worn cellar door beneath the buttery where an old crone in dark robes waited with Jaz and Fallion, who had a bloody rag wrapped around his hand.
Rhianna was borne into a dank tunnel, where men with lanterns waded ahead of them, splashing through shallows as black as oil, in a tunnel where the walls of rounded stone were covered with green algae, and water and slime molds dripped from every crevice.
Rhianna peered up at Sir Borenson and admired his fine beard, which was red at the chin but going to silver on the side. In her opium haze she felt that every hair looked abnormally strong, as if each was spun from steel, while the sweat rolling down Borenson’s cheek was like wax melting off a candle. She imagined that he too would melt away.
She closed her weary eyes for a bit, and her heart seemed to soar.
Do I want to go with them? she wondered. What would Mother say?
But Rhianna didn’t even know if her mother was still alive, or if she was alive, how Rhianna would ever find her.
And she knew one other thing: her mother would want her to leave this place, run far away to hide.
She woke to find that Sir Borenson had stopped and that he was setting her in the back of a boat.
They were in a cave now, and above them she could see muddy gray stalactites dripping mineral water. Dark water churned and swirled all around the boat; they were in an underground river.
The smell of minerals and ripe cheese filled her nostrils. Rhianna peered up to a tunnel overhead.
Of course, she realized, the water keeps the tunnels cold and moist, perfect for aging cheese. That’s probably how they discovered the river, cheese-makers tunneling through the rock, widening the caves.
The boat was long and wide of beam, like the ones that traders sometimes used to cart freight up and down the River Gyell. At the prow, the carved head of a heron rose up, its long beak pointing downriver; the gunwales were wide and carved to look like feathers, but there was no other adornment. Instead the boat had been painted a plain brown, and was loaded with crates. A crevasse between the boxes made up the sleeping quarters, and a dingy canvas stretched over the top served as a small tent.
Myrrima knelt at the edge of the water, drawing runes upon its surface with her finger, whispering as if to the river. Rhianna saw her draw a rune of fog, a rune of protection from Air, and runes of blessing for battles ahead. She dipped her arrows in the water one by one.
For a moment Rhianna had a vision of her uncle in the morning sun under the Great Tree, teaching her to scry runes as he traced them for her in the dust, then erased them with his hand, and had her repeat each one. Those had been happy times.
The old crone was at the front of the boat, loading the boys in, her voice tender and comforting, and Rhianna thought that this woman must be their grandmother.
“Where are we?” Rhianna suddenly asked, worried.
“We’re on the Sandborne,” the crone whispered, “above where it flows up out of the ground.”
Rhianna tried to focus. The Sandborne was a small river that came out of the hills three miles from Castle Coorm, then joined the River Gyell. She puzzled for a moment, trying to imagine just where they might be.
Borenson laid her under the tarp, upon a bed of straw. His daughter Talon came and sat beside her, giggling, as if this was some great game, all the while balancing baby Erin, who was still just a crawler, asleep in the crook of her arm. Then Borenson handed them a basket full of fresh beer bread, a shank of ham, a few pear-apples, and candied dates stuffed with pistachios.
Rhianna felt frightened and tried to rise up, but Borenson saw her fear. He spoke to one of the guards that bore a torch, “Your dirk.”
The man tossed it to Borenson, and he passed it to Rhianna, let her hold it close, as if it were a doll. “Quiet now,” Borenson said. “Make no noise.”
Then the other children piled into the tiny space as Rhianna traced a rune upon her blade: death-to-my- enemies.
Rhianna glanced up. The old crone was staring at her severely, but to Rhianna it was not a look of anger- more of a question.
Rhianna suddenly realized that this was no grandmother at all. This was the queen. But without her courtiers and finery, Rhianna had not recognized her.
Iome studied the injured Rhianna and thought, She is a rune-caster. What a special child. I should have let her have a forcible when I could.
