“Therrador, my Lord,” Sir Matte panted as he jogged to Therrador’s horse. “There’s been a messenger.”
Therrador looked down into the man’s watery blue eyes. Reading Sir Matte’s mood in his eyes was difficult because he constantly looked on the verge of tears, but the hard line of his lips showing through his meticulously trimmed salt and pepper beard told the king’s advisor that the knight had something urgent that required Therrador’s attention.
“What is it, man? Don’t keep me in suspense.” Therrador slid off his horse and handed the reins to the groom who came up behind Sir Matte. As the lad led the animal away, Therrador put his hand on the knight’s shoulder and steered him toward his tent. “What would make a man of your years run about camp like he was out to have his heart burst?”
Sir Matte shook his head. “The messenger waits for you by your tent, my Lord. He wouldn’t speak his message to myself or anyone else. He said his words were only for you.”
Wouldn’t tell?
Therrador’s chest cinched about his heart, but he kept his face plain, his pace steady. If the messenger wouldn’t tell any but himself, then things were terribly wrong.
Has something happened to Braymon?
Looking back six years later, the irony that he thought first of the king struck Therrador. He had nary a thought of Seerna until reading her name on the damned parchment. He hated himself for it sometimes, but it spoke of what he lived his life for then.
The messenger waiting outside his tent had seen perhaps seventeen years, certainly no more. His jaw was set, determined to deliver likely the first message of any importance with which he’d been entrusted, but fear and uncertainty shone in his eyes. As Therrador approached, the boy straightened and saluted by thumping his fist against his chest hard enough to make himself flinch. Therrador didn’t return the formality, instead waving the youth into his pavilion.
Curiosity and anxiety fluttered in Therrador’s gut. Everything-the manner of the messenger’s arrival, Sir Matte coming to Therrador himself, the look in the boy's eyes-all pointed to news of the worst kind.
“Make sure no one disturbs us,” Therrador said over his shoulder.
He caught a glimpse of Sir Matte nodding as the tent flap fell into place, then he faced the young messenger. The boy seemed to tremble but, to his credit, his expression remained firm and resolved despite the look in his eyes.
“Sit.” Therrador indicated a stool beside the central fire pit where a blaze already flickered in the brazier. He pulled another stool from beside the bed and set it across from the boy. “What’s so desperate our king couldn’t wait for my return?”
“I don’t know, my Lord.” Without sitting, the boy fumbled a leather tube from his belt, opened the top and slid a rolled parchment out of it. “I wasn’t told what the message is, only that it’s for my lord’s eyes alone and it’s of the utmost importance.”
“Is this your first mission, son?”
Therrador took the scroll offered by the messenger and rolled it in his fingers. A spot of blue wax emblazoned with the royal seal held it closed.
From Braymon himself. He must be all right.
“No, Lord Therrador. Not my first.”
Therrador smiled. “Your first outside the city?” If he dragged out the reading of the scroll, perhaps whatever it contained would no longer be real. Maybe the words written upon it would disappear and whatever happened would go back to the way it had always been.
The messenger hung his head, embarrassed. “Yes, my Lord. It’s my first trip outside Achtindel.” He snickered to himself. “I’m lucky I found you.”
“I have a feeling I’m not so lucky you found me.” Therrador tapped the parchment scroll on his knee while the messenger watched. “You’re dismissed. Thank you for your efforts.”
The boy saluted again, this time with less zest, and turned abruptly. Therrador returned the salute halfheartedly and watched the messenger leave the tent. When the flap settled into place, he looked down at the scroll in his hand. Whatever news it contained was at least a week old-it would have taken that long or more for its carrier to reach the frontier, more if he didn’t locate the camp immediately.
Therrador moved to the chair by his cot and contemplated the message. He rubbed the wax seal with his thumb, felt the outline of the tiger’s head emblem signifying the message was written by Braymon’s hand; thoughts swirled through his mind. If the message was of a military nature, it would have been given to Sir Matte in Therrador’s absence. If it contained news of ill befalling the king, it would be someone else’s mark in the wax-Sir Alton Sienhin’s or perhaps the healer’s. Therrador shook his head and sighed. Nothing to do but open it and find out.
He slid his thumb under the wax, broke the seal and unrolled the parchment. Even before he began reading, one word jumped off the page, grabbing his attention and freezing his breath in his lungs.
Seerna.
He scanned the looping letters of Braymon’s hand, taking in the meaning without resting overlong on any one of them.
Regret to inform you…
…died in child birth.
The baby survived, physicians are attending him.
…her last wish was to name him Graymon.
It said more: expressions of regret, offers of assistance. At the end of the message, Braymon encouraged him to continue his duties at the foot of the mountains, ensured him the babe would be cared for until his return.
Therrador lowered the parchment, allowing it to dangle from his fingers, and stared straight ahead at the plain canvas tent wall. Numbness started in his fingers and toes; the lack of sensation crawled up his arms and legs. It spread through his chest, to his head, creating a swirling throb threatening to pop his skull like an over-filled wine skin. He let out a shuddering breath in an attempt to dispel the uncomfortable feeling along with the air from his lungs, but it didn’t leave him. Instead, it clamped his teeth tight and curled his fingers into fists, crumpling the parchment.
He stared at his boots, at the ground under his feet. His vision blurred as tears came to his eyes. One slid down his nose, hanging from the tip before plummeting to the dirt between his boots. He stared at it a second before anger exploded in him. Therrador stood suddenly and hurled the crumpled parchment against the wall of the tent.
“Braymon,” he whispered through clenched teeth.
This was the king’s fault. If he hadn’t sent him away to suppress the tribal uprising, he’d have been there for his wife. If he’d stayed in Achtindel, she might still be alive, or at least he’d have had another month to show her how much he loved her.
His thoughts turned to the baby. His son. Alive and well and taken care of.
And named after the king.
Therrador stared at the tent wall and the crumpled parchment lying on the ground for a long time, every muscle in his body taut and strained, the cords in his neck standing out. The world dimmed and brightened as waves of emotion broke over him like the ocean slamming against the rocky shore. Anger, sadness, longing, hatred. His breath came in short bursts through his nose. His fists quivered at his sides, his anger contained in them with no place to go. How long he stood in that spot fighting the urge to jump on a horse and ride for the capital, he didn’t know. The next thing he remembered was Sir Matte’s voice calling him. He might have been calling for an hour, for all Therrador knew.