'Right.' King Rolen began roaring orders.
Piro marvelled. Within a matter of moments, a carriage had been found and she and her mother were bustled into it. As they tucked the blankets around their legs and adjusted the heated bricks, she overheard her father telling Byren, 'It's just as well you're back early. We've had a complaint about a rogue leogryf that's taken to preying on the villagers up near the pass to Foenix Spar. You and Lence can handle it.'
Piro peered out the carriage window. She had never seen a live leogryf.
'Can I go too?' Garzik demanded. Then remembered his manners and dropped to one knee, placing a hand over his heart. 'I mean, I offer my service — '
Her father laughed, hauling him to his feet. 'Of course you can. We need every able-bodied man, even if he is not much more than a boy!'
Garzik looked as if he was torn between being pleased or slightly affronted.
King Rolen turned to Orrade. 'What happened to your head, lad?'
'Took a fall. King Rolen, I — '
'How's the old Dove, feisty as ever?'
Orrade nodded and went to speak, but the king turned away to deal with his honour guard and the disposal of the seer's body.
The carriage gave a jolt and began to rattle over the cobbles so Piro saw no more.
'It's not fair,' she muttered. There was Garzik, only a year and a bit older than her and he was allowed to go hunting with Lence and Byren, but she never would. She sighed. Right now she was heading for the safety and boredom of the castle while Byren and Lence went off on the king's business. The high point of her day was seeing a feather that glowed in the dark and even then she'd been let down. 'Why can't I go with Byren and Lence?'
Her mother's distracted gaze drifted across the carriage as if she was seeing something beyond its panelled walls.
'Why can't I go?' Piro insisted. 'I would love to see a leogryf. I'd be no trouble.'
The queen blinked.
Piro frowned. What was wrong with her mother? By now she should be lecturing her on the proper behaviour for a kingsdaughter.
It was that renegade Power-worker.
Startled and dismayed, Piro slid off her seat, dropping to her knees on the floor of the carriage and taking her mother's hands in hers to offer comfort. 'Don't worry, Mother, that… that…'
But she could not do it. She could not form the words to speak of the old seer.
The queen's luminous, obsidian eyes focused on Piro. A sense of imminence filled Piro and her heart quickened.
'That…' her mother stumbled then, as she forged on, Piro felt a shiver of relief. 'That seer!'
'Yes!' Piro nodded. 'She pretended to be a seer but she had no idea. Everything she said was wrong.'
Distress tightened her mother's features. The queen's lips worked and her chin trembled as if she was holding back tears or fury.
'What is it?' Piro whispered, empathy making her skin prickle. She felt as if her mother was about to reveal something vitally important.
The queen pressed her fingers to her mouth, took a shuddering breath then shook her head. She tucked a strand of hair behind Piro's ear. 'It's nothing.'
But it wasn't. Piro pulled back to sit on her seat. Something the old seer had said had disturbed her mother deeply.
Surely nothing could threaten Rolencia, not while her father held the kingdom together. At nearly fifty he was getting old, but in Lence and Byren he had strong warriors to defend Rolencia from beasts, spar warlords and Utland raiders.
It was probably the part about loved ones dying that worried her mother. After all, anyone could fall from a horse and break their neck like poor Uncle Sefon had, or catch a cold that went to the chest. And Lence and Byren were always facing danger. If their ongoing joke about who was due to save the other's life could be believed, they could have died a dozen times these last five years.
An image came to Piro, a body in the snow. In her mind's eye she dropped to her knees turning the body over, fearing the worst. But it was not Byren or Lence. It was Fyn.
She almost retched.
Stop it, she told herself. Fyn is safe with Halcyon's monks. It would break her heart if anything happened to any of her brothers but, despite the time he had spent at the abbey, she was closest to Fyn.
That image had to be the product of her over active imagination. She was not a seer — her growing Affinity had shown no sign of developing in that direction. Thank the goddess!
Suddenly afraid she'd betrayed herself, Piro focused on her mother. The queen stared distractedly out the window as the carriage climbed the steep road that repeatedly turned back on itself before reaching the gates of Rolenhold. Good, her mother hadn't noticed.
As if sensing her scrutiny, the queen met her eyes.
'Why do you look so worried, Piro?' she asked. 'Is something wrong?'
'What? No.' Piro looked down, adjusting the blanket over her knees. If she admitted her unwanted Affinity her parents would have to gift her to Sylion abbey. She'd be shut up with hundreds of other women, forced to worship the cold god of winter when she loved the sun and laughter. 'Nothing's wrong. Nothing at all.'
That seer was mistaken, Piro told herself. She must have been wrong about everything else because she was wrong about me being like Mother!
'We're home.' The queen sounded relieved.
Piro looked up at the castle's steep walls. Its domes and towers gleamed in the winter sun but instead of feeling a sense of homecoming, she fought a sense of entrapment. Piro put it down to wanting to hunt the leogryf, rather than sit and study.
Why couldn't her life be simple, like Byren's?
Chapter Five
Byren rode into Rolenhold's stable courtyard on a borrowed horse. With everyone about to leave to hunt the leogryf, he had to grab his father and explain Orrade's disinheritance. He stood in the stirrups. Where was King Rolen?
There, speaking with Captain Temor and Lence on the far side of the courtyard. Good.
'Come on, Orrie. Now's the best time.' Byren swung his leg over the mare and dropped to the cobbles. Orrade and Garzik followed suit. They were right behind him as he approached his father.
A group of new arrivals rode in between them, six or seven men on horseback, followed by a wagon-load of servants and belongings. They were led by a handsome man whose grim, rigid features seemed vaguely familiar. He rode one-handed, the other arm caught in a sling. His warriors wore the vivid blue surcoat of the Cobalt estate, with the coat of arms emblazoned on their chests. In the lower corner was the original Cobalt House symbol, the silver dalfino, a winged, warm-blooded fish. In the upper corner was the inverted crown, added when King Byren the Fourth's bastard married into Cobalt House.
'You, sir.' The injured man fixed on Byren, who stood a head taller than everyone else. He spoke Rolencian with a slight accent and his voice carried despite the din in the courtyard. 'Direct me to the king.'
'Who wants me?' King Rolen turned.
Orrade leant close to Byren to mutter in his ear. 'Who is that? I feel I should know him.'
The man dismounted gracefully, handing his reins to Byren, who accepted them without protest. Dressed in his stained travelling clothes Byren could easily be mistaken for one of his father's men-at-arms. Lence sent him a rueful look, one corner of his mouth lifting. Byren grinned and beckoned a stunned stable boy, who ran over and took the reins, apologising profusely. All around them the new arrivals were dismounting and handing over their reins as the stable lads took the horses away.
The general hubbub died down and everyone gathered to hear what the stranger had to say.
'King Rolen.' Even with one arm in a sling, the man managed to give an elaborate bow, reminding Byren of the Ostronite ambassador. That helped him place the accent. One thing was certain, the mannered style of clothes the stranger affected would not catch on at court. You'd never see Byren wearing a coat with shoulder pads, a nipped-in waist and lace at the cuffs and throat.