They vanished in a swirl of expensive fur, and Stasy gave a shallow curtsey. “Daughter Stasy, to serve you,” she mumbled.
“You make it sound like a death sentence,” Arlen said.
Finally, the baron’s daughter met his eyes. “I apologize, Messenger, but the letter you brought from the count may as well have been.” Her tone was the resigned one of someone whose tears are long dried.
“My legs still ache from the climb,” Arlen said, gesturing to the table. “Will you sit with me a little longer?”
Stasy nodded and allowed Arlen to pull her chair. “As you wish.”
Taking his own seat across from her, Arlen leaned over the table, his voice low. “They say if you whisper a secret to a Messenger, it’s safer than a Tender’s ear. No man, nor all the demons of the Core, can pull it unwilling from his lips, save the one it’s meant for.”
“This from the man who spread court gossip to my parents for the last hour.” Stasy noted.
Arlen smiled. “Once those rumors reach the main hall of the Messengers’ Guild, they are no longer secret, but I will tell you something that is.”
Stasy raised an eyebrow. “Oh?”
“Derek still thinks there ent no woman finer than Stasy Talor, and prays you haven’t bled,” Arlen said. “Said I could tell you so.”
Stasy gasped and put a hand to her chest. Her pale cheeks turned bright red and she looked around guiltily, but there was no one to see. She met his eyes fully now.
“Clearly I haven’t,” she said, absently touching the loose lacing about her belly. “But it makes no difference. He is not good enough for me.”
“Are those your words, or your father’s?” Arlen asked.
Stasy shrugged. “What does it matter? My father might have taken the ‘i’ from his name when mother died and he married Count Brayan’s Royal cousin, but amongst the other nobles, he still feels like a Merchant, because his access to Royal circles is only as strong as his marriage vows. He wants better for me, and that means bearing children to a proper Royal husband and attending the Mothers School.”
Arlen resisted the urge to spit on the floor. His father had tried to force him into an arranged marriage when he was eleven, and he remembered how it felt.
“Ent got anyone calling themselves Royal where I come from,” he said. “Reckon we’re better for it.”
“Honest word,” Stasy agreed sadly.
“How will your father arrange that, once your state is known?” Arlen asked.
Stasy laughed mirthlessly. “Likely he won’t be able to, which is why that ‘caravan’ he’s sending will ship me off to Count Brayan’s Court to have my babe in secret amongst the Servants, at which point Countess Mother Cera will present me at court as having just arrived in the city and broker me a ‘proper’ marriage. Derek will never even know he’s a father.”
“You’ll have to pass the waystation,” Arlen said.
“Won’t matter,” Stasy said. “A new keeper will be sent with us to relieve him, and he’ll be on his way back up the mountain before he even knows I’m locked in the coach.”
She looked around to make sure they were not being watched, then reached out and gripped Arlen’s hand. He saw passion in her eyes, and a thirst for adventure. “But if Derek knew what was coming and had supplies hidden, he could sneak down the mountain instead of up. Even if father sent someone after us the moment Derek went missing, we’d have a week’s lead. More than enough to find each other, sell my jewelry, and disappear into the city. We could get married no matter what his station and raise our child together.”
Stasy looked at him, her eyes burning. “If you’ll tell him this, Messenger, with no word to any other or mark in your log, I will pay whatever you ask.”
Arlen looked at her, feeling as protective as an elder brother. He would take her message for nothing, but he could not deny there was something he wanted. Something the baron’s daughter might be able to arrange.
“I need a thunderstick,” he said quietly.
Stasy snorted. “Is that all? I’ll have half a dozen of them packed with your supplies.”
Arlen gaped, shocked at how easy it had been, but it quickly melted into a smile.
“What do you need the stick for?” Stasy asked.
“Gonna kill a rock demon that’s been following me,” Arlen said.
Stasy tilted her head, studying him in that way people had, as if trying to determine if he were joking or simply mad. At last she gave a slight shrug and met his eyes. “Just promise you’ll deliver my message first.”
Arlen took an extra couple of days to catch his breath while the Goldmen finished preparing their messages for his return trip. He still tired easily in the thin mountain air, but the effects bothered him less each day. He spent the time wisely, watching the miners put the new thundersticks to use. Everyone wanted the favor of the new Messenger, so they were quick to answer his questions.
After watching as they reduced a solid rock face into tons of rubble in an ear-splitting instant, Arlen knew the destructive power of the thunderstick had not been exaggerated. If anything in the world could penetrate One Arm’s thick carapace, it was this.
At last all was in order, and on the third day he put his heavy armor back on and headed to the stables. His saddlebags were already packed with supplies, and in them, Arlen found a small box of thundersticks packed in straw, along with a sealed envelope addressed to Derek in flowing script.
As the Baron had promised, it was far easier going down the trail than coming up. He made it to the first wardpost early in the day and pressed on, making the station well before dusk. Derek came out to meet him.
“I’ve a special letter for you,” Arlen said, handing him the envelope. The keeper’s eyes lit up at the sight, and he held the unopened letter up to the sun.
“Creator,” he prayed, “please let it be that she ent bled.”
He tore the letter open excitedly, but as he read his smile faded and his face slowly drained of color, becoming as white as the snow around him. He looked up at Arlen in horror.
“Night,” he said. “She’s out of her corespawned mind. Does she honestly think I’m going to run off to Miln?”
“Why wouldn’t you?” Arlen asked. “You just prayed to the Creator for this very thing.”
“Sure, when I thought it would make me the Baron’s son-in-law, not when it means a week and more alone with the corelings.”
“What of it?” Arlen asked. “There’re campsites the whole way, and you’re a fine Warder.”
“You know what the worst thing about being a keeper is, Messenger?” Derek asked.
“Loneliness?”
Derek shook his head. “It’s that one night it takes to get home. Sure, you can tumble downhill to the station in a day, but going back up, you always have to stop at that corespawned wardpost.” He shuddered. “Watching the corelings stalk with nothing between you but magic. Don’t know how you Messengers do it. I always come home with piss frozen to my breeches. I ent ever even done it alone. My da and brothers always come out when I’m relieved, so the four of us can take turns at watch.”
“Folk make the trip all the time,” Arlen said.
“And every year, at least half a dozen of them are cored on the way,” Derek said. “Sometimes more.”
“Careless people,” Arlen said.
“Or just unlucky,” Derek said. “Ent no girl worth that. I like Stasy well enough, and she’s a ripping good rut if you get her alone, but she ent the only girl in Brayan’s Gold.”
Arlen scowled. Derek’s calm obstinance, producing excuse after excuse for his cowardice, reminded him of his father. Jeph Bales, too, had turned his back on wife and child when it meant spending a night out of walls, and it had cost Arlen’s mother her life.