“He’s too young,” Tayse said.
“I thought so, too!” Cammon exclaimed.
Senneth looked unsure. “Maybe. But an older man might feel he could influence or intimidate Amalie, whereas a younger man-” She shrugged. “He might be overawed enough to hang back. Let her develop her own style and her own strength.”
Tayse grunted. “Some truth to that. But if she takes the throne at a young age, a more seasoned husband could guide her through.”
“She’s got the regent,” Senneth pointed out. “He can advise her as long as she needs guidance.”
“Then why make her get married at all?” Cammon said.
“The succession,” Senneth said. “The marlords are worried about stability in the realm. If Amalie marries and produces heirs right away, there’s the stability they crave. It will perhaps provide a disincentive to war.”
“Unless she marries the wrong man,” Tayse said, holding up another blade to the firelight. “Then the rebels find it even more imperative to push her off the throne.”
“Yes,” said Senneth. “There is that.”
“So she’s not safe no matter what she does?” Cammon demanded.
Tayse glanced at him. “No king, no queen, no prince, no princess is ever entirely safe. That’s why there are Riders.”
Cammon groaned. Senneth laughed and changed the subject. “So, how close is Justin now?” she asked. “Can you tell?”
“They’re over the mountains,” Cammon said. “I think they’re in Kianlever. I’m guessing they’ll be here in about a week.”
“I need Kirra!” Senneth exclaimed. “We have work to do!”
Cammon felt surprise. “Oh, she’ll be right here. I thought you knew that.”
Tayse glanced up, trying to hide a smile; Senneth looked irate. “What do you mean, ‘right here’?” she demanded. “Give me a time frame.”
“She’s at the door.”
He barely had time to take in Senneth’s expression before there was a knock and the door was pushed wide. Kirra entered in a swirl of hair and laughter, Donnal a shadow behind her. “Hello? Are you home? Oh, look, it’s the newlyweds. Don’t you appear fat and contented. What a picture of domestic bliss!”
Serramarra Kirra Danalustrous tossed back her golden curls and dropped a few bundles on the floor. She was blue-eyed, beautiful, and utterly impossible to contain; even the stone walls of the cottage seemed to bow out and quiver at her entrance. By contrast, Donnal was a dark pool of silence, a well of deep stillness. Sometimes, when Cammon would visualize the two of them in his head, he pictured them as fuel and flame, or a meteor shower over black water.
Kirra came dancing in, pulled Senneth into a hug, and dropped a kiss on Tayse’s head because he did not bother to rise and greet her. Tayse always treated Kirra like an impulsive and reckless younger sister whom he had long ago given up any hope of controlling. Donnal followed in her wake, kissed Senneth on the cheek, and settled smoothly on the hearth next to Cammon and the Rider.
“Good trip?” Tayse asked.
Donnal nodded. “Easy.”
“Cammon!” Kirra exclaimed and bounced over to give him a hug, too. “Look at you, someone’s dressed you up a bit. I like the look, but you need to cut your hair.”
“I just had it cut,” he said, grinning.
“Not by anyone with any fashion sense. Is there anything to eat? We’re starving.”
“Didn’t you pick up dinner on the road?” Senneth said. By dinner, she meant wild game, since Kirra and Donnal were shape-shifters who almost always traveled in animal form and hunted for all their meals.
“Tired of raw meat and stringy rabbits,” Kirra said. “If there’s nothing here, we’ll run up to the palace. One of the cooks will feed us.”
“You don’t have to go so far. Plenty of food at the barracks,” Tayse said.
“What? But-but-your new wife doesn’t make sumptuous dinners every night to please you?” Kirra demanded, affecting shock. “Doesn’t cook and bake and wait on you at the table just to prove she loves you?”
“She pleases me, and proves she loves me, in a sufficient variety of other ways,” Tayse said in the dryest voice.
Kirra burst out laughing, though Cammon could see the faintest blush on Senneth’s face. “See, if I needle him long enough, he’ll always break down,” Kirra said, a note of satisfaction in her voice. “I don’t know how he got a reputation as the most stoic of the Riders.”
“That title would belong to his father,” Senneth said. “Will you sit down? You’re fluttering around so much! You’re setting my nerves on edge.”
“I’m too hungry to sit.”
Donnal was on his feet. “I’ll go fetch food from next door,” he said, and disappeared.
Kirra bent over the bundles she’d dropped at the door. “I brought you a present,” she said, and pulled out what looked like a thick, flat square of cloth. “Do you like it? I had it commissioned by one of the weavers up by Danan Hall.”
Senneth took it with some foreboding, and then laughed and tossed it to Tayse. Cammon craned his neck to see. It was a finely worked tapestry designed to fit over a small pillow. The busy background of twining vines and flowers was overlaid with the initials “S” and “T” done in Brassenthwaite blue. “Very pretty,” Senneth said. “I’ll sleep with it always under my head.”
“No, no, you display it, you don’t ruin it by sleeping on it,” Kirra said. “I had one made for Justin and Ellynor, too, would you like to see it? I wasn’t sure what colors Ellynor might like, so I used the king’s black and gold. It turned out very nice, I thought.”
“I like that one even better,” Cammon said.
Senneth gave him a look of derision. “As if Justin would ever want a thing like that! That’s why she bought it, of course.”
“Well, of course he’ll make fun of it,” Cammon said. “But it will please him that she did it.”
And since they all knew that to be true, they laughed.
“He’s not back yet, is he?” Kirra said. “We’re not too late?” She appealed to Cammon. “I could tell you wanted us to return, and I could tell that it was because Justin was on his way, but I couldn’t actually sort out dates and times. You have a very strange way of communicating. It’s just this-odd feeling-this belief that something needs to be done. Right away. And it’s very clear what that thing is, but the rest of the details are murky.”
“They’re not here yet,” Cammon said. “But they’re over the mountains.”
Kirra clapped her hands together. “So they’ll be here in a few days! The king has granted them a cottage, of course. Have you done any work on it yet?”
Senneth shook her head and resettled herself on the sofa. “I was waiting for you.”
Something about Senneth’s movements had caught Kirra’s attention. “Oh, but what’s this?” she said, stepping closer to Senneth and bending down to inspect her throat. “You’re wearing a new necklace, aren’t you? Hold it up and let me see. You’ve got such a nice figure-I don’t know why you insist on walking around in high-necked shirts and trousers. When you could look so pretty!”
“You sound like my sister-in-law,” Senneth said, tugging at the gold chain just visible under the collar of her shirt. For years she had worn a necklace hung with a simple gold sun charm, but she had given that to Justin when he was wooing Ellynor and needed a gift with some history to it. “Tayse bought this for me. Had it made especially. I can’t tell you how much I love it.”
It was a small sphere made of many fine gold wires; inside the mesh cage was a tumble of jewels. Brassenthwaite sapphires, Danalustrous rubies, Fortunalt pearls-all the great Houses were represented. “Oh, yes, indeed, that is quite a marvelous piece,” Kirra said, examining it closely. “He must have spent a whole Rider paycheck on such a bauble! Clearly the man loves you.”