“I’m sure she did,” Sasha replied, calm and low. “She had a lot of people to help her, and she was ahead of us.”
“And what of Alfriedo?”
“He’s in the Mahl’rhen. It’s too hard to rescue him there, the lords just wanted Lady Renine.”
“With me,” Errollyn whispered. “Alythia first, stay close to the wall, move in my footsteps.”
He slid out the doorway and along the courtyard wall, Alythia following, Sasha next.
“Hold there!” came a yell, and Sasha and Errollyn spun. Several figures emerged from small doorways, bows drawn and aimed. Sasha looked up, and saw more archers appearing on the rooftops. Errollyn cursed.
“Nasi-Keth,” said Sasha, with almost relief. “Nasi-Keth!” she said more loudly. “I’m Nasi-Keth, and he’s talmaad, as you can see!”
“And who’s that?” More figures were emerging, these with swords.
“That’s my sister!” Sasha replied, on a flash of inspiration. “The Princess Alythia Lenayin! I’m reclaiming her for the Tol’rhen, she will increase Kessligh’s bargaining power. We intercepted her during the escape just now!”
One figure came ahead of the others. Errollyn swore again, barely audible. Sasha could only guess that he knew the approaching figure in the gloom.
“We were watching your progress across the rooftops, Sashandra Lenayin!” the man said, and his voice was familiar. He came closer, and Sasha recognised the man-Timoth Salo, Reynold Hein’s young ex-nobleman friend, and convert to the Civid Sein. “You have partaken in treason with feudalist wretches, and you shall be given directly to the justice of the Revolutionary Council.”
“Revolutionary Council? What fucking nonsense are you talking now?”
“The Revolutionary Council, led by Mistress Rhillian, convened of revolutionary Rhodaani patriots and without those scum-sucking traitors whom you have come to call your friends!”
“Too many archers,” said Errollyn in a low voice, looking about. “We’ll be hit for sure.”
“It is true then,” Alythia said loudly, peering down her nose at their new captors. “Tracato and the Nasi-Keth are all going straight down the sewer.”
Eleven
THE DAY AFTER THE WEDDING, Sofy awoke in her husband’s bed and gazed at the ceiling. The bedchambers were enormous, and the bed wide. Its posts were decorated with sprigs of local herb, in the Larosan custom, and the sheets smelled of lavender. Her nightgown was silver lace, a scandalous thing that a year ago, a virgin girl, she might have giggled to behold. Morning sunlight fell across the wide flagstone floor, the carpets and wall hangings, the rich chairs, the cabinets, the breakfast table. Balthaar’s shield, emblazoned with the Arosh coat of arms-a beast Balthaar had told her was called a griffin, and crossed lances. The mounted head of a buck he had once killed.
A bell hung from a stand by the bedside, awaiting her tinkle. Sofy refrained, wondering that her husband should have awakened so early, and left her in bed alone on her first morning as a wedded woman. Perhaps she’d made a mess of things already. Perhaps she’d been wrong. In the haze of the newly awakened, she wasn’t certain of anything. It did not feel different, to be married. Perhaps she had been a fool to expect otherwise.
She recalled Sasha telling her of the first morning after her first battle. She’d killed a Cherrovan warrior in that battle, and had become a blooded warrior herself. In the Goeren-yai tradition, such an occasion was worthy of grim celebration, recognition not only of triumph and honour, but of duties fulfilled and responsibilities acquired. A warrior’s honour was the foundation of Lenay society, and Sasha had expected to awaken the next morning feeling something, for good or ill. And yet, the sun had looked the same as it rose above the rugged Lenay hills, and the air had smelled as it always had, and Sasha was still Sasha; perhaps a little wiser, but no more than that. Relief, Sasha had said. That had been her main emotion. To have finally gotten it out of the way. Sofy thought she could empathise with that now.
She held up her right hand to examine the great, golden ring on her fourth finger. It held an emerald jewel, large and sparkling. In the Bacosh, green was the colour of royalty, and riches, and power. It felt odd upon her finger, cold and hard. It was going to distract her attention now, every time she used her right hand. Something about the thought annoyed her.
Thinking of Sasha annoyed her.
Sasha had sworn to be there, had sworn as though she would move heaven and earth to attend her little sister’s wedding. Sofy had told her at the time that she should not promise that which she had no guarantee of delivering, yet a part of her had believed all the same. It had been a little girl’s foolishness, believing her big sister could walk on water, and turn ale into honey at the wave of a hand. Now, she knew she had been silly, yet she felt annoyed at Sasha all the same. Betrayed, in fact, in her own small, petty, immature way.
Gods, she thought glumly. Perhaps I truly am cut out to be a spoiled, vain little princess after all.
She reached, and tinkled the bell. Ten maids entered the chambers in the blink of an eye, with trays for the breakfast table, new wood for the fireplace, and great, steaming jugs of water for her morning bath. Ten maids became twenty, and Sofy sat up, feeling slightly ridiculous in her lacy nightgown.
“Would Your Highness take her breakfast now?” asked the senior maid. “Or would she prefer to take breakfast with her bath?”
It sounded a little too decadent even for a princess of the Bacosh. “Breakfast first, if you please,” said Sofy. And, spotting her Lenay girls amidst the others, “Hello Jeleny, hello Rhyana! Did you have a nice time last night?”
The girls paused, giving slightly pale looks at the head maid. Sofy frowned, abruptly understanding.
“I do recall stating that my Lenay handmaidens should take instruction only from me,” she said coolly.
The head maid bowed. “Your Highness, these are the Larosan Royal quarters, and there are certain standards to which the Prince is accustomed in his chambers…”
“I shall speak with him,” Sofy said firmly. “Please, my girls, I will not have such stifling formality that you must ask permission before speaking with me.”
“Of course, Highness,” said Jeleny, finishing laying the table, and hurrying off. The senior maid continued about her business, expressionless. Clearly the old witch had frightened them. Well, Balthaar was occasionally short with the servants, and these were his chambers more than hers. Another annoyance on a very surreal morning.
“Someone fetch Yasmyn for me,” she requested, standing to slip into the robe one girl held ready.
When Yasmyn arrived, the senior maid glowered at her, for Yasmyn wore only a scarlet morning gown, her hair still mussed from bed, her eyes squinted in the manner of one recovering from a heavy night.
“Some spiced tea for the noble Isfayen!” Sofy requested of the maids, as Yasmyn shuffled to the opposing chair and slumped. Headache or not, Yasmyn was smiling. “You look rather like the cat that got the milk, and was then beaten with the bowl,” Sofy observed.
“A good wedding,” said Yasmyn thickly. Tea arrived, and she took it, sipping deeply.
“Great Lord Faras will not have a new grandchild in nine months?” Sofy wondered.
Yasmyn grinned. “It was not that good a wedding,” she said. “And what of the Regent Arosh?”
Sofy sighed. She glanced about, but most of the maids had gone, or were clustered by the far wardrobe chamber, arranging the princess’s dress for the day. Yasmyn peered more closely. Sofy shook her head.
“He is not an ugly man,” Yasmyn pointed out. “Or did you take the powder?”
“No, nothing like that,” Sofy said tiredly. They spoke Lenay, though Sofy did not think that all the Larosan maids would be deaf to it. Surely the regent had spies. “It’s just-”