Someone tugged at her, and she opened her eyes. The actor-priest. Kit. Starlight lit his smile, and she felt a little thrill of fear and revulsion. The man might be a tame priest, but the same spiders were in his blood as in the others’.
“I think you’ll find it more comfortable once you’re unharnessed, Lady Kalliam,” Kit said.
“Thank you,” she said, meaning to go on with I can manage for myself only it seemed she couldn’t. The straps had worked themselves around her back, and so she suffered the priest’s aid in silence. When she tried to walk, her legs felt half strung and uncertain. Captain Wester was at her side, helping her to keep her balance. He had already stripped off the thick wool traveling clothes to reveal the guard’s tunic beneath. The great green sword was still across his shoulders, but wrapped in rags and leather. The priest was pulling on the grubby robe of a servant with a deep hood to conceal his face and hair. Somehow, he managed to seem smaller than he was. It was quite a talent.
“First light’s not more than an hour from now, and I’d guess we’re at least an hour’s walk from the camp,” Wester said.
“I don’t know that I can manage that,” Clara said.
“Once we start moving, you’ll warm up,” Wester said. “Besides which, if you rest, you’ll cool down. So we’re short on options.”
“You stand before me,” Inys said, his great voice low but all the more threatening for that, “and moan you can find no warmth?”
“Anything that would fuel a fire, that army burned weeks ago,” Marcus said. “And while I’m sure streams of dragon flame could heat some rocks enough to thaw our hands by, I’d prefer not to call attention this way just before we walk up to their sentry posts.”
The dragon snorted his vast derision, but didn’t press the issue. Clara nodded and began pulling off her own flying gear. She knew the robes she wore underneath were warm and thick enough for uses besides flying through the night sky like a witch out of legends. Still, she did wish they had something to make a little fire with.
“Head out away from the camp before you turn north,” Wester said.
“I shall go as I wish, and do as I please, Stormcrow.”
Now it was the captain’s turn to snort, but when the dragon leaped again into the darkness, it seemed to Clara he was doing as Wester had ordered. Or suggested. It wasn’t easy to know the difference with those two.
“Kit?” Wester said.
“Ready, I think,” the priest said. “I’m not certain which direction to go in, though.”
“That’s all right,” Wester said. “I am. Keep close, both of you.”
He forged through the snow, breaking through the soft white with his legs. Clara found it was easier to walk in his footsteps, and before long the snow thinned, and they found themselves on a track of frozen mud and churned ice. It stretched out to north and south, winding. The ruts of wagon wheels showed in the muck like scars.
“All right,” Marcus said. “Let’s go see if this works.”
“It will,” Clara said.
“Things can always go wrong, lady,” Wester said, but there was a smile in his voice. Clara took the lead. It was a shame, she thought, that they didn’t have horses. Or at least one for her. Coming in on foot was beneath her station, not that a poor beast could have survived being carried all the way from Carse. Even if it didn’t freeze to death, the fright would likely have killed it. But they could have gotten a litter. Something light that the two men could have used to carry her. Well, it was something to keep in mind for next time.
Next time. She chuckled. God, let there never be a next time.
Wester was right: the walking did help. By the time the eastern sky began to come rose and gold, she was feeling almost herself. She was Clara Kalliam, taking a brisk morning’s constitutional with a guard and servant trailing behind her. She wondered whether Jorey had any tobacco left. Almost certainly not, which was a shame.
The track curved around an outcropping of rock, and a voice came across the snow, sharp and angry. “Stop there! What’s the watchword?”
Five archers, arrows nocked, stepped out from behind the stones. They looked terribly thin, the dark leather of their armor hanging loose against their sides. Clara remembered the story—wholly imagined—that the dead rose at night to march in Geder Palliako’s army. She didn’t know if it was amusing or tragic.
“Watchword?” she said crisply, her accent perhaps a bit thicker than it might have been. “Why, I haven’t a clue, dear. Who would have been the one to tell me?”
The archers hesitated. The lead man lowered his bow. “Lady Kalliam?”
“Yes, of course. You are… no, wait. You’re Sarria Ischian’s boy, aren’t you? Connir?”
“Ah… yes, ma’am.”
“I never forget a boy child,” Clara said, something like victory singing in her veins. “The fathers are always so put out if you do. I’ve just returned from Porte Oliva. I hope it’s all right that I haven’t got the watchword? Because it would be terribly inconvenient to go back now.”
The other archers lowered their bows as well. Wester and Kit stayed carefully behind her, as they ought. The more the guards looked at her, the less they saw anything else. Guards and servants weren’t the sort of people one paid attention to anyway, not when a baroness was present.
“Of course not, ma’am. Only we didn’t know to expect you.”
“My fault,” she said, waving the comment away. “I should have sent word. Where would I find my son?”
“The Lord Marshal’s tent’s up on the western side of camp, ma’am. If he’s not inspecting the troops, he’ll be there.”
“Lovely.”
“Permit me, ma’am. I can lead you.”
“Thank you, Connir. That would be very welcome.”
The mask of habit slipped on so easily, it almost frightened her. Was she the somewhat touched woman of the court wandering about the field of war like it was a garden party? To them, she was. It wasn’t that appearances were deceiving. That was a given. What astonished her every time was that they were so fluid.
Her weeks away had done the camp no good. Dawson had always spoken of supply lines and provisioning men in the field, and she had listened with half an ear. These men had been away from their homes for years. The little city of tents and shacks they had cobbled together in the fields of Birancour were less than those of the beggars and thieves who made homes on the sides of the Division. What food there was would have to arrive by cart from Porte Oliva. There was no allied city nearer. All the woods nearby had been cut down for firewood, the game, she had no doubt, hunted to extinction. They were hungry, cold, and far from home.
And she had watched them kill the innocent of Porte Oliva. Had seen the pain and horror in the Timzinae woman’s eyes. These men she walked among, by whom she was greeted with pleasure, had killed. Had stolen. Many, she was sure, had raped. And her son, her Jorey, was their leader, as Dawson had been before him. Soldiers of the glorious empire or monsters of violence and suffering. So much depended on the story one told about them.
And then he was there, in a group of emaciated men, his hair under a knit cap he’d gotten somewhere. Her Vincen, his eyes bright and his smile as rich and full as it had ever been. Tears leapt to her eyes and she blinked them away. He touched his hand to his heart, and she melted. No one seemed to notice when she dabbed her cuff to her eyes.
The news of her arrival had run ahead of her, and Jorey was standing outside the leather walls of his tent when they arrived. The spider priests, thankfully, were not with him. She saw the exhaustion in his face and the relief.
“Mother,” he said. “I was worried you wouldn’t be coming back.”
“Oh no, dear. Nothing could have kept me away.” She waved absently over her shoulder at Wester and Kit. “These are my men. They’ve been very good to me during the journey. Now do let me come in and warm my feet, won’t you?”