Rhapsody chuckled. “His father has him,” she said, coming alongside him to follow his gaze as the birds flew over the keep’s tower again and out of sight. “And really, for a newborn. he’s very quiet. But perhaps your race is quieter in its infancy, as in all other stages of life. Don’t Dhracian babies ever cry when they are hungry or cold? Or do they just communicate their needs silently, the way an entire colony of adults can?” Achmed shrugged. “I’ve no idea,” he said flatly. “I was raised by Bolg, not Dhracians, if you recall. I have no more knowledge of Dhracian infants than you do.” He finally turned to look at her and winced at what he saw. One of the fairest aspects of her face had always been the color palette; her rosy skin set off the emerald-green of her eyes, framed by golden hair that caught the light in a room. Achmed, who had known her before her transformation from spirited street trollop to serene lady of the Alliance, knew that while some of her famous beauty was instilled in her by the power of the elemental fire she had once absorbed, much of it had been in her all along, even in the bad old days on the long-dead Island of Serendair half a world away. Now, as he looked at her, he saw a very different woman. Rhapsody’s normally sun-kissed skin was pale as porcelain, her eyes a dimmer shade of green, like spring grass instead of the normal verdant hue of a forest in summer. Her glistening hair had lost a little of its shine, and the tips of her fingernails and the whites of her eyes seemed bloodless. She looked tired and spent, a reasonable appearance for someone who had just survived a difficult childbirth and the near-death experience that followed it. “I thought your husband requested us all to remain silent,” he said, turning back to the window. “He did.” Rhapsody came closer and slid her small hand into his. “And I will respect that request after I thank you, once again, for saving my life, and that of my child. We can speak more later, but I cannot let another moment pass with-out telling you how grateful I am that you are my friend, in spite of whatever hateful things I may have said to you in the past. I hope you will forgive me for them.” Achmed did not look at her, but merely nodded and continued to stare out the window. Rhapsody watched him in silence, but he never met her glance again, just followed the patterns of the swallows on the warm winter wind. Finally, when the silence became heavy, she squeezed his hand and left the room, taking the comforting music of the vibrations she emitted with her, along with what was left of Achmed’s modestly good mood. When he could no longer hear the distant echo of her footsteps on the polished marble floor of the hallway beyond his door, he gave voice to what, in another lifetime, he would have said aloud to her. “I can feel the very world unraveling.”
The soldiers had been following Velt the fruit monger on the road for a long time before he noticed them. Velt normally considered himself a fairly observant man but the late-winter wind had been stinging his eyes most of the day, and the roadways of eastern Navarne were hilly, winding through and around frozen haystacks and the hummocks that sculpted the wide, empty fields of this sparsely populated farmland. He did not really look behind him until he was out on the straight, flat stretch of thoroughfare past the village of Byrony, and by the time he did, he was well beyond any place where he could hide or make an excuse to pause in his journey. So when he noticed the dark mass approaching in the distance he clicked to his horse and slowed his pace, preparing to move off into the grass if necessary when they passed. Beads of sweat broke out on his wrinkled forehead that had been cool and dry in the late-morning sun; Velt did not know why, but suddenly he was nervous, more anxious to be home than he had been a moment before. Calm yourself, idiot, he thought to himself. You have nothing to fear from the soldiers of Roland. You’ve done nothing wrong. And yet the hair on the back of his neck was still standing on end, as if he were about to be caught smuggling stolen jew-els rather than transporting the load of winter apples he had been fortunate to obtain in Kylie’s Folly, a farming settlement in southern Bethany. As the ground beneath his wagon began to tremble, transmitting its vibrations through the buckboard on which he sat, Velt suddenly realized why he was nervous. Merchants had for the last several years been encouraged by the crown to join the routes of the guarded mail caravans that plied the trans-Orlandan thoroughfare, the roadway built in Cymrian times bisecting Roland from the western seacoast to the edge of the Manteids, the mountain range also known as the Teeth, in the east. While it was not illegal to have taken the shortcut Velt had chosen, he suspected he might be in for a dressing down by the approaching soldiers. He stole a glance over his shoulder and sighed miserably. The blue and silver colors of their regalia were visible now, confirming their allegiance to the Lord Cymrian. Velt willed himself to be calm and prepared for a tongue-lashing. It was not forthcoming. The crossbow bolt hit him squarely in the spine between his shoulder blades, just above the rib cage. At first Velt could not comprehend what had happened; he only knew that as he concentrated on keeping the horses steady he felt the wind go out of him, followed a second later by a numbness in his legs. Then there was nothing, no sensation in his lower body. He tried to turn, tried to twist, but succeeded only in throwing himself off balance and out of the wagon, narrowly missing becoming ensnared in the tack. In contrast to the loss of feeling in his lower extremities, the fruit monger could feel every pebble in the roadway that was impressed into his face, absorbed the shock, then the nausea as his nose was smashed to the ground below his limp body. He struggled to breathe as the roadway shook, his stunned miind a jumble of questions, but one overriding instinct warning him to remain still and feign death. He could hear the soldiers approach as well, a great thud-ding sound that mixed with the terrified pounding of his heart. He kept his eyes closed and tried not to move as the horsemen came nearer. It did not occur to him to beg sanctuary in the name of the Lord Cymrian, or to protest to a regiment that served a peaceable ruler for attacking a fruit merchant who was minding his own business. Velt was too much in shock to wonder anything but why this was happening to him. He continued to breathe shallowly, inhaling snowy dirt, as the cohort came upon him. Velt prayed that whatever end was about to come would be quick. By happenchance he had been at the Navarne winter carnival four years before and had survived a grisly assault by the soldiers of Sorbold on that festival, had hidden with his wife and children behind the keep’s wall while the carnage ensued over what seemed like hours. When it was over, he had joined those giving aid to the bloody victims lying in the pink snow, and witnessed many long agonies that ended in shuddering death. From that moment on Velt had prayed for a quick end when the time came. It appeared that time was upon him. He gritted his teeth as the horses’ hooves spattered him with gravel. He waited for them to stop, but the soldiers rode on as if oblivious to him. Finally, as the thunderous noise began to dim, Velt grew brave and opened one eye a crack. The cohort was almost out of sight, but he could see that the horses were gray mountain horses, rather than the standard bays and chestnuts most often seen in this part of the lowlands, or the roans preferred by the Lirin to the west. Freezing as his body was, Velt’s heart was suddenly colder. The last time he had seen such horses they were under the soldiers of Sorbold who were assaulting the winter carnival. The extremities of his body were going numb, and Velt’s mind was following. As the fog closed in, he looked up at the wagon looming above him. Could’ve at least taken the apples, he thought before the darkness took him. They’ll be withered and frozen by the time anyone finds them. As will I.