His lips pursed in puzzlement, but he saluted and continued on his way.
The second portion of the ride was much shorter than Ista had expected, a mere five miles or so up over the next ridge and into a somewhat wider watercourse. The road switched back and forth a few times, angling down the steep slope, then ran beside the little river. Arhys moved up and down along the column, but fetched up toward the end by her side and Ferda's. "Look, there." He pointed ahead, an expansive wave. "Castle Porifors."
Another walled village, much larger than the last, nestled by the stream at the foot of a tall rocky outcrop. Along the outcrop's crown, commanding a long view of the valley, an irregular array of rectangular walls loomed, broken only sparingly by round towers. The blank walls, pierced by arrow slits and capped by crenellations, were of fine-cut stone, palest gold in the liquid light. Elaborate twining carvings, running in bands of contrasting bright white stone around the walls, marked it as the best Roknari masonry work of a few generations back, when Porifors had been built to guard Jokona from Chalion and Ibra.
Arhys's upturned face held a strange expression for a moment, drinking in the sight, at once eager and tense, longing and reluctant. And for the briefest, lid-squeezed flash, weary beyond measure. But he then turned to Ista with a more open smile. "Come, Royina! We're almost there."
More of the baggage train split off at the village, and most of the soldiers. Arhys led his remaining troop and Ferda's past those lesser walls and up a narrower road, single file, winding across the slope. Green bushes clung dizzily to the rocks with roots like grasping fingers. The horses' haunches bunched and flexed, pushing them up the last breathless incline. Cries of greeting rang down from above, echoing off the boulders. Had they been attackers, arrows and stones would have fallen on their heads just as readily.
The cavalcade circled the walls and approached a drawbridge lowered over a sharp natural cleft in the rocks, its downward plunge adding another twenty or so free feet to the wall's height. Arhys, now at the head of his troop, waved and gave a great whoop, then cantered his horse through the archway with a clatter like a drum roll.
Ista followed at a saner pace, to find herself in what seemed a sudden other world, a garden gone amok. The rectangular entry court was lined with big pots of blooming flowers and succulent shrubs. One open wall was covered with an array of more pots, secured in wrought-iron rings driven into the walls, exploding with color—purple, white, red, blue, searing pink—dripping with green vines trailing down over the pale severe stone. A second wall boasted an espaliered apricot tree, grown immense across it, twining with an equally ancient almond, both in bloom. At the far end of the court, an arcade of harmonious stone pillars held up a balcony. A delicately carved staircase descended like a white alabaster waterfall into the court.
A tall young woman, her face glowing with joy, fairly flew down the stairs. Black hair was braided up from her temples, framing her rose-tinted ivory features, but was freed to ripple like flowing silk over her shoulders. Light linens graced her slim body, and a pale green silk robe with wide gilt-edged sleeves fluttered about her, billowing like a sail as she descended. Arhys jumped from his dappled horse and flung his reins to a groom barely in time to open his arms to the impact of her frantic, fragrant embrace. "My lord, my lord! Five gods be praised, you are come back safe!"
The young soldier had appeared at Ista's horse's head and stood ready to help her dismount, but his head turned to mark this play with open, if tolerantly amused, envy in his eyes.
"What an incredibly lovely young woman," Ista said. "I did not realize Lord Arhys had a daughter."
He managed to look back around to her, and hurried to hold her stirrup. "Oh, my lord's daughter does not live here, Royina..."
She came about from her dismount, upright on her feet, as Arhys strode up to her, the young woman clinging to his arm.
"Royina Ista," said Arhys, breathless with pride and a long kiss. "May I have the pleasure and honor of presenting to you my wife, Cattilara dy Lutez, Marchess of Porifors."
The black-haired young woman dipped in a curtsey of surpassing gracefulness. "Dowager Royina. My household is honored beyond all deserving by your presence here. I hope I may do everything possible to make your sojourn with my lord and myself a memorable delight."
"Five gods give you a good day, Lady of Porifors," Ista choked. "I'm sure you shall."
CHAPTER TEN
FLANKED BY TWO SMILING LADIES-IN-WAITING, THE YOUNG marchess led Ista through a cool, dim archway under the balcony and into an inner court. Ferda and Ista's medical acolyte followed less certainly, until gestured forward by Lord Arhys. The courtyard was graced by a small marble pool in the shape of a star, its water bright, and more pots of succulents and flowers. Lady Cattilara darted up the stairway to the second-floor gallery and paused to wait, staring in concern as the acolyte helped Ista labor upward on her sore legs. Ferda hurried to lend his arm. Ista grimaced in mingled gratitude and annoyance.
Their footsteps echoed on the boards toward a corner where a short tower loomed, until Lord Arhys stopped abruptly. "Catti, no! Not these chambers, surely!"
Lady Cattilara paused outside the carved double doors her woman had been about to open, and smiled back at Arhys in uncertainty. "My lord? They are the best rooms of the house—we cannot offer the dowager royina less!"
Arhys strode to her side, lowered his voice, and said through his teeth, "Have some sense!"
"But they are swept and garnished for her—"
"No, Catti!"
She stared up at him in dismay. "I—I'm sorry, my lord. I'll... I'll think of something. Else."
"Five gods, please you do," he snapped back, exasperation leaking into face and voice. With an effort, he recovered an expression of bland welcome.
Lady Cattilara turned, smiling stiffly. "Royina Ista. Won't you... come to my rooms to rest and refresh yourself before dinner? Just this way..."
She eased back past them, and they all reversed direction toward a similar set of doors on the opposite end of the gallery. Ista found herself, briefly, next to Arhys.
"What is the problem with the chambers?" she asked.
"The roof leaks," he growled after a moment.
Ista cast a look at the bright blue, cloudless sky. "Oh."
The men were excluded at these new doors.
"Shall I bring your things here, then, Royina?" asked Ferda.
Ista glanced apprehensively at Arhys.
"Yes, for now," he answered, apparently finding this other, if temporary, lodging more acceptable. "Come, dy Gura, I'll show you and your men to your quarters. You will wish to see to your horses, of course."
"Yes, my lord. Thank you." Ferda gave Ista a parting salute and followed Arhys back down the stairs.
Ista entered the chamber past the lady-in-waiting, who had paused to hold the door open for her. The woman smiled and bobbed a curtsey.
Ista felt an immediate sense of ease from having come at last to what were obviously a woman's private quarters. A softened light filtered through elaborate lattices at the narrow windows on the far wall. Wall hangings, and vases of cut flowers, brightened the austere whitewashed angles. A door, closed, gave interior access to some adjoining chamber, and Ista wondered if it was Arhys's. The walls were crowded with chests, variously carved, inlaid, or ironbound; Cattilara's women whisked away piles of clothing and other evidences of disorder, and set a feather-stuffed cushion on one such trunk for Ista to rest upon. Ista glanced through the lattices, which gave a view onto the roof of another inner court, and settled her aching body down gingerly.
"What a pleasant room," Ista remarked, to allay Lady Cattilara's obvious awkwardness at having her refuge so suddenly invaded.