“I understand,” she answered, knowing that he would think her childish and irresponsible. “And this is the way I see through. Mother was ill for more than a year. Curlinte has had her shutters closed for too long. I ride to end the mourning.” She stepped forward then and kissed his cheek. “It’s what Mother would have done.”
His eyes blazed, and she thought for just an instant that he would berate her. Instead, he turned away. She could see from his expression that he recognized the truth of what she had said. He would be angry with her for a time, but he would forgive her.
Her father had been right about one thing. The people of the duchy needed her now. Diani was two years past her Fating, old enough to assume command of the castle and Curlinte’s army. But she had yet to prove herself. Her grandmother had lived to be nearly eighty, so that when her mother became duchess, much of the duchy already knew her. Dalvia had been mediating disputes and joining the planting and harvesting celebrations for many years. Diani had started to do the same when her mother became ill, but there hadn’t been time to visit all the baronies, not with the more mundane tasks of accounting the tribute and paying tithe to the queen intruding as well.
Normally her father would have helped her, but as duke, it was his duty to train the soldiers, and as husband, his place was by Dalvia’s bed, watching as she wasted away.
If this weather held, Diani decided, she would spend the early turns of the planting visiting all the baronies to oversee the sowing of crops. It was important that she be seen, particularly now, and not just in the courts but in the villages and farming communities of the Curlinte countryside as well. Even her father could not find fault with such a plan.
Diani reined Rish to a halt at the promontory, swinging herself off the beast so that she might walk out to the edge. There she sat on the stone and closed her eyes once more, feeling the sun on her face. There would be less time for these rides in the turns to come-the demands of the duchy would tether her to the castle, or force her to ride away from the sea. Either way, these rides to the headlands were about to become a rare luxury. She knew it was foolish, but she begrudged the loss.
It was here that she and her father had scattered her mother’s ashes just a turn before. Dalvia had loved this spot as much as Diani did. Often, before her mother grew ill, the two of them, mother and daughter, duchess and lady, had ridden out together to discuss matters of state, or just to escape the burdens of the castle.
Their last ride together had come on a cold, clear day near the end of Kebb’s turn more than a year before. Her mother had been more talkative than usual that day, perhaps sensing that her health was beginning to fail, and she had offered a good deal of counsel.
“A duchess must marry well,” she had said. “Your father will want you to marry for an alliance-one of the brothers Trescarri I would imagine, or perhaps Lord Prentarlo.”
“I prefer one of the twins to Prentarlo,” Diani said, smiling.
Her mother had glanced at her, a smile tugging at her lips and her dark eyes dancing. “As would I. But my point is this. A marriage based on military might is as fraught with peril as one based solely on your mate’s good looks or skill with a blade. With luck you’ll lead Curlinte long after his hair thins and his muscles begin to fail him.” She stared out at the sea, brilliant blue that day, like a gem. “Marry a man you trust, a man with whom you can share your fears and doubts as well as your triumphs. Your father is still a fine swordsman.” The smile returned briefly. “And I still think him handsome. But I value his friendship above all else. You would do well to marry as fine a man.”
Diani glanced sidelong at her mother. “Choosing a husband seems more complicated than I realized,” she said lightly. “Perhaps I’d be wise to claim both the Trescarris as my own.”
Her mother laughed long and hard. At times it seemed to Diani that this was the last she had ever heard of her mother’s strong, deep laughter. She knew it wasn’t in the turns that followed they managed to share small precious moments that shone like gold and then vanished, as if illusions conjured by festival Qirsi. But it might as well have been the last. Grief had consumed Castle Curlinte ever since. And as much as she wanted to order an end to their sorrow, to banish her mother’s ghost with some sweeping ducal decree, she knew that her father clung to the pain, as if he thought it better to mourn than to live without his love.
She would ride to the baronies to reassure her people. But she couldn’t deny that she rode also to seek refuge from Sertio’s despair.
She heard a falcon cry out, and opening her eyes, saw a saker soar past her, following the contour of the cliff. It was the color of rust, of the rich soil in the hills. Its wings remained utterly still, its tail twisting to direct its flight. The Curlinte crest bore an image of a saker-seeing one, it was said among her people, was a portent of good tidings. Diani watched the bird as it glided up the coast, until she lost sight of it among the angles of the rock face.
From behind her, Rish snorted and stomped.
“I know,” she said, climbing to her feet. “Father will be expecting us.” She stepped to her mount and tightened his saddle before starting to swing herself onto his back.
The first arrow embedded itself just above her breast on the left side, knocking her to the ground. No warning, no sense of where the archer had concealed himself, though she guessed that he must be in the jumble of hulking grey stones just off the promontory.
A second arrow skipped harmlessly off the stone and past her head before diving into the sea below. A third struck her thigh, making her cry out.
She grabbed at the shaft of the arrow in her chest to pull it out, then thought better of it, remembering instructions her father had given her many years before.
“You’ll do more damage pulling the thing out than it did going in,” he had told her. “If you have to break off the shaft, do. But don’t remove it. You’ll bleed to death.”
Right.
“Down, Rish!” she said through clenched teeth, as another arrow struck the stone and clattered over the edge.
She crawled back a bit toward the cliff, flattening herself against the stone, her chest and thigh screaming. The pain wasn’t spreading, though-no poison on the points.
Rish lowered himself to the ground. Diani scrambled over to him, took hold of his mane and the pommel of his saddle, and kicked at his flanks with her good leg.
“Ride, Rish! Now!”
A third dart buried itself in the back of her shoulder and yet another whistled past her ear. But by now she was speeding away from the promontory, clinging desperately to Rish’s neck and steering him from side to side to present a more difficult target. She wasn’t certain she could hold on if she was struck again; if Rish was hit her life would be forfeit. Even as she rode, though, she glanced over her bloodied shoulder toward the stones. She saw her attackers immediately. They weren’t bothering to conceal themselves anymore.
Two men, both with heads shaved, both tall and wearing dun cloaks. They loosed their bows again in unison, but the arrows fell short. She was too far.
Diani shifted her gaze to the shaft jutting from her chest. There were two rings just below the fletching-yellow and blue, the colors of Brugaosa. Of course. The Brugaosans had long been Curlinte’s sworn enemies. They were a patriarchal dukedom within the Sanbiri matriarchy, and had long chafed at the Yserne Supremacy. Unwilling to oppose the Crown openly, however, they had instead sought to undermine Yserne’s strongest allies: Curlinte, Prentarlo, and Listaal. The Brugaosans often boasted that theirs was the finest ducal army in the realm, second in skill and strength only to the queen’s own. Their archers were renowned throughout all the southern Forelands.