“I’ll notice. There won’t be anyone among them who says the things you do or who dares beat me soundly at fox and geese, but go.” He looked oddly sad for a moment. “I understand your wish to spend time at your home. Once I would have wished to go home. Now there is no home for me and nothing any longer to wish for and no one else I may trust for the truth.” He forced a smile. “Be safe. I will send some of my guards with you to Aranskeep if you like?”
“To Aiskeep only if it please you, my Lord.” Aisling spoke quickly. The last thing she wanted was to be forced to ride on past her home. “Keelan has asked my cousin and me to stay a few days there before we continue. His grandfather will send keep guards with us after that.”
“Very well. To Aiskeep then.” He kissed her hand gently. “Go safely and return in spring.” He sighed theatrically. “Long will the winter be without you, my Lady.”
Aisling snorted in disbelief. “You’ll have dances and revels all winter, and there’s the midwinter celebrations: masques, ice-skating, and dancing. By spring you’ll have a new love most probably. I’ll arrive back, and you’ll say, ‘Oh, were you away? I hadn’t noticed.’”
Shastro laughed. “Away with you, you insulting woman. I do not forget my friends so easily. Any light love of mine will still never do as you do.” Again she saw that flicker of sadness as his hand closed. “You speak the truth to me; you treat me as a friend, not as your duke. I value it. Come back safely, and I swear I’ll notice you’ve returned.”
Aisling smiled gently. “And I swear I shall come back. Take care of yourself, my Lord. Tell your guards we leave mid-morning.” She bowed and hurried off to speak privately to her companions.
She had noticed something very interesting that they should hear. She found them at the stables with their hired guard. With Shastro’s arrangements explained and the hired guards paid off but engaged again for spring, Aisling was free to link arms and walk the men to the Aranskeep suite, where they found Wind Dancer asleep on a seat in the main room.
Once the door was shut Aisling checked quickly. The pendant’s mists swirled about her, as she listened with her mind for any who might be about, but the passages within the walls were empty. Her hand went out to stroke Wind Dancer’s soft fur.
“Listen for any spy in the secret passages. Let me know if you hear anything suspicious.”
Then she removed from its shelf the small carved cat charm Shastro had given her and held it, looking down on the object thoughtfully before looking up to catch their gazes in return.
“You remember Shastro kept the other of these trinkets. Well, all the time I was talking to him he was playing with it. And he was… strange, twice. He spoke of not being able to go home again and that if he did there was nothing there to wish for any longer. He said he’d miss me, that I was the only one left to tell him the truth.” She looked up from the trinket. “I think he was remembering his cousins.”
“That’s more than likely.” Hadrann said. “I’ve seen him play with that amethyst several times of late. I saw Kirion noticing it once. I don’t think he liked it. There’s been gossip too that Kirion doesn’t spend as much time at court as he used to before this season. I’ve noticed that since we gave Shastro the trinkets and something to consider, Kirion’s hardly been seen. I’ll be glad to be out of this place for the winter. I have a feeling this may be blowing up to a storm.”
Aisling shivered. “I have the same feeling, but not in Kars, surely. There hasn’t been real war in the city since the Sulcar sailed in and burned half the docks and warehouses there. Even Franzo backed off from an attack before.”
Keelan’s expression was hard. “That doesn’t mean it can’t happen. Our guards were talking to some of the others from along the coast. They say Jedena’s father and mother are taking the girl’s death very badly. They’ve announced Franzo’s son as the Carmorskeep heir. They seem to be pushing for the formal ceremony to be completed as fast as possible. And I wonder,” he paused. “I wonder if they don’t want the lad in place as heir before they do something else, and there’s only so many other things that something else could be.”
“Franzo?”
Hadrann shook his head. “We don’t know, Aisling. But Shastro should have remembered that other people besides him love their kin. Franzo isn’t a hothead. He isn’t likely to attack over the Jedena business, but if anything more occurs, then I wouldn’t depend on him staying out of it. His clan will want him to lead them in any attack, and he’ll obey. If he’s given a more personal motive he might insist on acting anyhow. He isn’t a hothead but he isn’t stone either.”
He left it at that and was soon caught up in packing and choosing what he would take. Keelan had vanished to his own suite and was sorting rapidly. Most of his clothing could be moved to the Aranskeep rooms to be kept aired and dry there. It had been a good idea of Aisling’s to use the maid. Everyone worked briskly for the afternoon. They spent a last evening at court. Aisling danced once with the duke and a number of times with other acquaintances.
The morning was good, not hot nor too chill but calm and clear. By the tenth candlemark they were away. Aisling had firmly rejected the coach. The horses could not drag it swiftly. The roads were becoming muddy, and in places holes were forming under the growing drifts of snow. They would travel quicker and more easily riding horses and with their gear on sturdy pack ponies. Shastro’s guards agreed. They would have to ride back in worsening weather. The faster they reached Aiskeep the faster the guards could return.
The party clattered out and down the road at a brisk canter. Wind Dancer slept curled in his carrysack against Aisling’s shoulders, much to the amusement of the guards. Shastro had provided six guards, all arrayed in the screaming purple and gold uniforms that shouted their status. No bandit would be stupid enough to attack anything or anyone marked so clearly as the duke’s. Shastro had a reputation for resenting hands laid on his friends or property. Anyone who did lay hands on such was likely to draw back bloody stumps.
Aisling was thinking of that as she rode the last miles to Aiskeep mid-morning six days later. The duke knew his reputation, knew that few would be that bold or that stupid, and he’d cared for his cousins. They were traveling with only a driver but still, knowing Shastro, they’d have been marked as his in some way. Probably the carriage doors bore his crest. The driver would likely have been in the duke’s colors, and Shastro would wonder, would always have wondered, who would attack what was his.
Her hand went to her waist-pouch and she felt the shape of the little cat. What had the duke’s cousins been like? Fair, dark? The guards rode spread out. Two ahead and behind. Another one each scouting far ahead and trailing the party far to the rear. None could hear her. She nudged her mount to range alongside Hadrann’s horse and asked her question.
“You saw Shastro’s cousins. What did they look like?”
“I never saw them alive but I heard.”
“Well?”
“The boy was slender, not tall but wiry, blond but that tawny shade with a faint hint of red, and he had blue eyes. The girl was slender, with long blonde hair, quite a pale color, an oval face, and dark blue eyes. Not beautiful but pretty and with plenty of character in her face. She wore pale soft colors a lot; so did the boy. Is that what you wanted?”
“Yes.” She allowed her mount to move away. The trinkets had been a vanity in one way. The amethyst would have shown well against a blonde. The small cat, she suspected, would have been a contrast to the boy’s hair. She wondered why both trinkets had been with the girl. Perhaps it was she who carried them for safety when they traveled or for luck. Or perhaps she was wrong, and the girl had always owned both small trinkets.
But Hadrann had confirmed something she’d observed before. Men often sought out loves similar to their first. The men Shastro most often befriended were wiry in build and blue eyed. The women he chose as lovers were always blonde, slender, and young and most had eyes of dark blue. If he had loved his cousins enough to seek out only lovers or friends who reminded him of his lost kin, then he’d loved them indeed.