“She’ll be at the coronation,” Starhawk said. “It killed me to miss it, but Yirth said she’d rather not have you left alone. Yirth stayed with you yesterday when I went to the wedding—Sheera and Tarrin’s, I mean. There was a hell of a dust kicked up over it with the parliament, because Tarrin and Sheera insisted that they be married first and then crowned as joint rulers, rather than have Tarrin crowned King and then take Sheera as Queen Consort.” She shrugged. “Parliament’s meeting this afternoon, and there’ll be a town-wide gorge on free food and wine all night to celebrate. Tomorrow, if you’re up to it, you’ll be received by Tarrin and Sheera in the Cathedral Square.”
He nodded, identifying at last the faint wisps of noise that had formed a background to the room. It was music and cheers, coming from the direction of the Grand Canal. If the town had found time to reorganize itself for celebrations, he realized, he must have been unconscious for longer than he had thought.
He smiled, picturing to himself the jewel-box vaults of the Cathedral of the Three and Sheera in a gown of gold. Drypettis had been more right than she knew. Sheera was worthy to be Queen—but Queen on her own terms and not on any man’s. He was glad she’d achieved it, no matter what the hapless Tarrin had felt on the subject.
“What do you think of her?” he asked. “Sheera, I mean.”
Starhawk laughed. “I love her,” she said. “She’s the damnedest woman I’ve ever met. She’s a good general, too, you know, easily better than Tarrin. She always had her forces at her fingertips—always knew what was going on. Even in the worst of it, getting through the traps that guarded the ways up to the Citadel, she never batted an eye. Yirth showed her the true way, and she followed, through illusion and fire and all hell else. The rest had no choice but to do the same.”
Sun Wolf grinned and reached up to touch the bandage over his eye that would soon be replaced by the patch that he would wear for life. “Even a man’s deepest fear of magic,” he said in his hoarse voice, “isn’t strong enough to make him admit that he’s afraid to follow where a woman leads.”
One of those dark, strong eyebrows moved up. “You think I haven’t capitalized on that ever since you made me a squad captain? One memory I’ll always cherish is the look on the face of Wilarne M’Tree’s husband when they met in the battle in the tunnels. It was a toss-up whether he’d die of a stroke induced by outrage or I’d die laughing. She all but hacked the arm off a mine guard who had him cornered—she’s wicked with that halberd of hers—and he looked as indignant, when he finally recognized her, as if she’d made a grab at him in the street.”
Sun Wolf laughed. “I suspected Sheera would be a good fighting general,” he said. “But sending her green into her first battle—and an underground one involving magic at that—in charge of fifty other people, would be one hell of an expensive way to find out I was wrong.”
“You know,” Starhawk said thoughtfully, “I always did suspect you were a fraud.” The gray eyes met his, wryly amused. “The hardest-headed mercenary in the business...”
“Well, I was,” he said defensively.
“Really?” Her voice was cool. “Then why didn’t you sneak off to Altiokis first thing and offer to trade information about the whole organization for the antidote? It would have got you out.”
Sun Wolf colored strangely in the pale, butter-colored sunlight. In a small voice, he answered her. “I couldn’t have done that.”
She extended her foot like a hand and patted the lump of his knee under the covers. “I know.” She smiled, got to her feet, and walked to the window. The shadows of the lattice crisscrossed her face and her short, sulfurous hair. Over her shoulder, she said to him, “The Dark Eagle says there’s going to be years worth of pickings, with Altiokis’ empire broken up. Tarrin told me this morning they’d gotten news of a revolt in Kilpithie. You know they lynched Governor Stirk—the man Altiokis appointed here in Derroug Dru’s place. There’s already war in the North between Altiokis’ appointees in Racken Scrag and the mountain Thanes. With the fortune Altiokis amassed in a hundred and fifty years, the money will be incredible.”
Her back was to him, only a part of her face visible, edged in the colors of the window; her quiet voice was neutral.
Sun Wolf said, “You know I can’t go back, Hawk.”
She turned to face him. “Where will you go?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know. To Wrynde, at first. To let Ari know I’m alive and to turn the troop over to him. To give Fawn money.”
“To pay her off, you mean?”
There was a time when he would have lashed back at those words, no matter who had said them, let alone Starhawk, who had never criticized his dealings with women before. Now he only looked down at his hands and said quietly, “Yes.” After a moment, he raised his head and met her eyes again. “I didn’t treat her badly, you know.”
“No,” the Hawk said. “You never treated any of them badly.”
It was the first time he had heard bitterness—or any other emotion, for that matter—in her voice. Ii both stung him and relieved him, to let him know where she stood.
“Do you blame me for it?” he asked.
“Yes,” Starhawk said promptly. “Completely illogically, since I was the one who never told you that I loved you—but yes.”
Sun Wolf was silent, trying to choose his words carefully. With any of his other women, he would have fallen back on the easier ploys of charm, or excused himself on the grounds of his own philandering nature. But this woman he knew too well to believe that her love for him would keep her by his side if he was anything other than straightforward with her. With any of his other women, he realized that it had not much mattered to him whether they stayed by him or not. The last several months had taught him that he did not want to live without Starhawk in his life.
At last, finding no adequate way to excuse himself, he only said, “I’m sorry I hurt you. I wouldn’t have done it knowingly.” He hesitated, fumbling for words. “I don’t want to have to do this to Fawn, because I know she is fond of me—”
“Fawn,” Starhawk said quietly, “loved you enough to leave the troop and come with me to look for you. She traveled with me as far as Pergemis. She loved you very much, Wolf.”
He heard her use the past tense and felt both sadness for that gentle girl and shame. Shame because he had, in fact, loved Fawn no more than a kitten, no more than he had loved the others—Gilden, Wilarne, Amber Eyes, or any of his concubines before. “What happened in Pergemis?” he asked.
“She married a merchant,” Starhawk replied calmly.
Sun Wolf looked up at her, the expression of hurt vanity on his face almost comical.
Starhawk continued. “Farstep and Sons, spices, furs, and onyx. She said she would rather marry into a firm of merchants than be the mistress of the richest mercenary in creation, and to tell you the truth, I can’t say that I blame her. I was asked to stay there myself,” the Hawk went on in a softer voice. “I thought about it. We had lost so much time, I don’t think she ever thought you’d come out of this alive.”
“She wasn’t alone in that opinion,” the Wolf growled. “Will he be good to her?”
“Yes.” Starhawk thought of that tall stone house near the Pergemis quays, of Pel Farstep in her tall hood and elaborately wrought widow’s coif, and of Ram and Imber and Orris, smoking and arguing in front of the hearth, amid a great brangle of children and dogs. Anyog should never have left there, she thought, and then wondered whether he would have been any happier living among them constantly than she would have been, had she given up her quest and accepted Ram’s love.
She realized she had been too long silent. Sun Wolf was watching her, curious and concerned at the change that had come over her face. She said to him, “They are good people, Wolf. They’re the kind of people whose homes we’ve looted and whose throats we’ve slit for years. I can’t go back to our old life in Wrynde any more than you can.”