“Well, whoever you are, you’re amazing. You truly are the empress worthy of ruling all of mankind.”
Modina lowered her voice and said, “I’ll tell you a secret-it’s not me at all, really. Sure, on occasion, I come up with something intelligent-and I am usually surprised by it myself-but the real genius behind my throne is Nimbus. Amilia deserves everything this empire can give her for hiring him. The man is a wonder: quiet, unassuming, but utterly brilliant. If he had a mind to, he could replace me in a heartbeat. I am convinced he could organize a perfectly lovely coup, but he has no aspirations for power at all. I haven’t been in politics long, but even I can see that a man as capable as he and yet so absent of greed is a rare thing. Do you know he still sleeps in his cubicle? Or at least he did until the castle was destroyed. Even though he was chancellor of the empire, he lived in a tiny stone cell. He, Amilia, and Breckton are my jewels, my treasures. I don’t know how I could have survived without them.”
“Don’t forget Hadrian,” Arista reminded her.
“Hadrian? No, he’s not a treasure of mine and neither are you.” She paused in her brushing and Arista felt Modina kiss her head. “There’s not a word that can describe how I feel about the two of you, except perhaps… miracle workers.”
The center of the village clustered along the main road. Wood, stone, and wattle-and-daub buildings with grass-thatched roofs lined either side, beginning at the little wooden bridge and ending before the slope that climbed a hill to the manor house. They consisted of a ramshackle assortment of shops, homes, and hovels, casting long shadows. Beyond them, Hadrian could see people in the fields working in the strips closest to the village. Down in the valley, near the river, the fields were nearly clear of snow and villeins worked to spread manure from large carts. Hooded in wool cowls, the workers labored. Long curved rakes rose and fell in the faltering light. In the village, smoke rose from a few of the buildings and shops, but none came from the smithy.
As they approached, their horses announced their arrival with a loud hollow clop clip clop as they crossed the bridge. A pair of dogs lifted their heads, the sign above the shoemaker’s shop squeaked as it swayed, and farther down the road a stable door clapped absently against its frame. The intermittent warbling wail of lambs called out from hidden pens.
Hadrian and Royce led the procession through the village. Behind them rode three elves-Royce’s new shadows. Now that Royce was their king, and given what happened to Novron, and his predecessor, they were adamant about his protection.
The change in the elves’ demeanor had been dramatic. The moment Royce got to his feet, they all knelt. The sneering looks of contempt were replaced instantly with reverence. If they were acting, Hadrian thought they were all remarkable performers. Perhaps it was seeing Royce come back from the dead, or some magic of the horn, but the elven lords could not appear to be more devoted to him.
Royce did not protest his new protectors. He said little on the subject and rode as if they were not there. Hadrian guessed he was humoring them-for now. Everyone, especially Royce, was too exhausted to think, much less argue, and Hadrian had just a single thought-to find shelter before dark. With that in mind, he headed south, following the little tributary of the Bernum River he knew simply as the South Fork, which brought them to his boyhood home of Hintindar.
A man sitting in front of the stable was filing the edges of the coulter on a moul board plow when he caught sight of them. He had a bristling black beard and a dirty, pockmarked face. He was dressed in the usual hooded cowl and knee-length tunic of a villein. The man stared, shocked, for a handful of seconds, then emitted a brief utterance that might have been a squeak. He ran to the bell mounted on the pole in the middle of the street and rang it five times, then bolted up the main street toward the manor house.
“Peculiar man,” Hadrian remarked, stopping his horse at the well and, in turn, halting the whole party.
“I think you scared him,” Royce said.
Hadrian glanced back at the elves sitting in a perfect line on their great white stallions in their gleaming gold armor, the center one holding aloft a ten-foot pole with a long blue and gold streamer flapping from it. “Yeah, it was probably me.”
The two continued to watch the man run. He appeared only as tall as an outstretched thumb, but Hadrian could still hear his feet slapping the dirt.
“Know him?” Royce asked.
Hadrian shook his head.
“What’s the bell for?” Royce asked.
“Emergencies, fires, the hue and cry-that sort of thing.”
“I’m guessing he didn’t see a fire.”
“Are we stopping here?” Myron asked. He and Mauvin sat on their mounts just behind the elves and just before the wagon. “The ladies want to know.”
“Might as well. I sort of planned to ride up to the manor to announce ourselves but… I think that’s being taken care of.”
He dismounted, letting his horse drink from the trough. The others got down as well, including Arista and Modina-the empress still wrapped in her blanket. They left the sleeping girls wrapped up in their covers.
Hadrian was just about to rap on the bakery’s door when a crowd of people began filing into the village, following the cow path from the fields. They carried rakes over their heads and trotted into the street, stopping the moment they saw them. Hadrian recognized most of the faces: Osgar the reeve, Harbert the tailor, Algar the woodworker, and Wilfred the carter.
“Haddy!” Armigil shouted. The old brew mistress pushed her way through. Her broad hips cut a swath through the crowd. “How did ya-What aire ya doin’ ’ere, lad? And what ’ave you brought with ya?”
“I-” was all he got out before she went on.
“Never ya mind answering. Ya needs to be gone. Take the lot of ya and go!”
“You need to work on your manners, dear,” Hadrian told her. “The last time I came to town, you hit me, and now-”
“Ya don’t understand, lad. Things have changed. There’s no time to explain. You need to get out of here. His lairdship caught the storm after you left last time.”
“Haddy?” Dunstan the baker and his wife approached, staring at him in disbelief. They were both dressed in worn wool, covered in speckles of mud, and their bare feet and legs were caked with drying earth.
“How are you, Dun?” Hadrian asked. “What are you doing in the field?”
“Plowing,” he replied dully as he stared at the strangers on his street. “Well, trying to. Things have warmed up a lot, but the ground’s still not quite soft enough.”
“Plowing? You’re a baker.”
“We bake at night.”
“When do you sleep, then?”
“Quit yer yammering and go, shoo! Away with ya!” Armigil shouted, waving at him as if he were a cow in her vegetable garden. “Haddy, you don’t understand. If they find you here-”
“That’s right!” Dunstan agreed, as if he suddenly woke from a dream. “You need to go. If Luret sees you-”
“Luret? The envoy? He’s still here?”
“He never left,” Osgar said.
“He charged Lord Baldwin with disloyalty,” Wilfred the carter put in.
“Siward died in the fightin’,” Armigil said sadly. “Luret locked up poor old Baldwin in his own dungeon, and that’s why you and yer friends need to get!”
“Too late,” Royce said, looking down the road toward the manor house. “A line of men are marching down the hill.”
“Who are they? Imperial troops?” Hadrian asked.
“Looks like it. They’re wearing uniforms,” Royce said.
“What’s going on?” Arista asked, coming forward. She beamed a smile at Dunstan and Arbor.
“Oh, Emma!” Arbor spoke to her with a fearful tone but said nothing more. Arista appeared puzzled for a moment and then laughed.
“Oh dear,” Armigil went on when she noticed the wagon, where Allie and Mercedes were stretching and yawning. A sorrowful expression came over the brew mistress. “Ye got wee ones with ya too?”