Plots arise
“I would never have imagined that the Palace would be this big,” Lianne said as they sat down for dinner.
“When I was here last time for the coronation, I would never have thought it so.”
“We have changed the plans somewhat,” Yevgen admitted, “originally, we intended to have several different buildings within the Palace compound, to house the garrison, the bureaucrats, the living quarters, and such, after the Imperial fashion. Last time you were here, only the living quarters and the actual governing offices were finished. However, we soon learned that it would be more efficient to place them all within separate wings of the same building, and then somebody found the original blueprints for the Royal Palace. And the rest, so to say, is history.”
They were in the royal couple’s private dining room, which, like the rest of their large apartment, was cheerful and unpretentious, though everything was of the first quality. Alanna was reminded rather of Sir
Myles’s townhouse, rather than the Palace in Corus.
There were only nine of them at dinner – the King and Queen, obviously, Buri, Lianne, Duke Gareth, Alanna, George, Radanae, and Keladry, looking as though she had no idea what she was doing there. The food was simple, but well cooked, the serving staff were efficient, and one didn’t need to fear that the crockery, cutlery or the glassware would blind one due to excessive use of gilt. Alanna couldn’t think of a meal she had enjoyed more with foreign royalty, even if she had known one of them for all her life. The meal passed quickly, as it does with good food and innocuous small talk.
Dessert was cleared away, and the servants discreetly left the room after providing everyone with drinks and chocolates, before anyone said anything that caused anybody else the slightest amount of discomfort.
Oddly enough, of them all, it was Duke Gareth.
Looking back though, it was something that they should have expected sooner or later.
It wasn’t said with any particular inflection. Indeed, it appeared to be more a conversation starter than anything else. He wasn’t even looking directly at them, instead preoccupied with one of his salt-and-pepper terriers who had come to nose for scraps and pats. The scruffy little dogs were a far cry from the elegant hounds and enormous mastiffs expected for the nobility, but he had a soft spot for them due to their unbreakable spirits and stubborn wills. The late Duchess of Naxen, who disliked them, had never allowed them inside the manor, and perhaps their permanent fixture by the Duke’s side was a some irreverent way for him to remember that fierce, determined, spirited, imperious…wonderful woman he had loved for over half a century.
But say it he did, that question most dreaded by young couples the world over.
“So, Yevgen, Kally, is there any chance of me becoming a great-great-uncle soon? I won’t be around for much longer, you know. Young Jon is coming along very nicely – the Court Artist – Rain or whatever the fellow’s name is – painted some watercolours for you.”
Roald and Shinko, predictably enough, had named their first child, a boy, after Roald’s father. During the one conversation that Yevgen and Kally had about that subject, they had been in complete agreement. When they had children (because neither of them for a minute imagined that they would not – Kally found it personally a little surprising, all things considered, that she wasn’t pregnant yet), they would not have regurgitated names of various relatives. Not only was it doing a disservice to the child not to take the bother to think up a new name, from a practical perspective, it was going to be much easier at gatherings to call people if of them people didn’t have the same name.
Meanwhile, though, there was a silence at the table that had to be broken somehow. There were a lot of glances being exchanged at the table, though Radanae and Keladry appeared to be oblivious, being seated next to each other at one end of the table, discussing horses, dogs, and for some strange reason, sparrows. One or two were flying around the dining room, much to the excitement of Duke Gareth’s terriers and a very ugly dog who had somehow managed to join them.
Appearances can be deceptive.
“No…not yet, Uncle Gareth,” Kally replied hesitantly, after a nervous glance exchanged with her husband.
“Oh? Well, that’s surprising. Would have thought that young people like you would have…”
Maybe it was the wine, maybe it was the familiarity of the company, but even Alanna’s jaw dropped open at the Duke’s following remarks. Radanae dropped her teacup with a clatter, not because of the advice he gave – on that, she’d given far more ribald advice under the influence of a few nice chardonnays at parties – but that it came from someone outwardly so elderly, so staid, and, from intelligence reports, so relatively conservative (for he was, except possibly in the area of female knights, where he thought that anyone who could survive the training and the Ordeal at least deserved a chance).
Yevgen and Kally, though, showed no signs of being the least perturbed. One got the feeling that they got that sort of advice all the time, from their rough, but well-meaning Council, who, when it got down to it, vastly preferred their current rulers to anyone else their opponents could propose. Consequently, then, they were anxious to see the succession secured, knowing very well that the death of both monarchs would mean that Sarain would be absorbed into the Empire proper, no more than a border buffer province, with not even the pretense of independence.
“He’s not normally like that,” Kally said worriedly as they got ready for bed. She had already dismissed her maid, so Yevgen helped her unlace the gown. She hoped he didn’t notice her involuntary shiver as he placed an affectionate kiss between her shoulder blades before he stepped away.
He was hoping that she didn’t notice his hands trembling, but that’s a different story entirely.
He gave an easy one shouldered shrug as he rolled his clothes into a ball and pitched them neatly into the laundry basket inside his dressing room, followed by his shoes, then shrugged easily into the rather worn, but comfortable robe he wore around their bedroom. Kally sighed a little as she headed into her dressing room to scramble out her clothes and into her own robe. It really wasn’t worth putting on a nightdress when they were home. It was going to end up on the floor anyway.
He was looking at the water clock with a slightly amused expression on his face.
“It’s barely one in the morning,” he told her as she came in. “I do believe that this is the earliest we’ve gotten in all month.” He raised an eyebrow suggestively.
He was already in bed, sheets pooled around his waist, robe flung over the bedside table. It took less than a minute for Kally to discard her own robe and join him.
“Is that so?” she purred, pushing him down into the pillows. The overall seductive effect was completely ruined when she burst out into giggles, “Well, we’ll just have to find something to do then, won’t we?”
It was as it always was, Kally thought drowsily some time later. It was enjoyable, it was satisfying, and eventually they would have children out of it. Even if there wasn’t the grand romantic passion of the novels that she always denied that she read, at least she had fun.
After all, that was more than a girl in her position could hope for. She was perfectly happy with it.
Wasn’t she?
“Where are Lianne and Keladry?” Duke Gareth turned around as soon as the Tortallan delegation returned to their quarters.
“They went off with Dama Radanae somewhere,” Buri informed him from the back of the group. “I did try to dissuade them, but Lianne all but dragged the Imperial off, so I insisted that Kel go with them.”
Gareth looked at the smaller woman with a frown. “I wonder. What on earth could the Imperials want? I hear Myles finds out about a new agent almost every month.”
“Not nearly so often. We haven’t got the resources they have,” George answered the unspoken question. “For every one we find, I can probably say there are two or three we won’t. If it makes you feel better, she won’t be the one assigned to get new information.”
The Duke exhaled audibly. “Then Myles’s agent has done the investigations?”
“Not nearly so many as we would like, and certainly not so many as they undoubtedly have on us. He only has one agent there, and all he’s been able the access is the public files and records. But yes, speculation is that the young lady gossiping with our young ladies over tea and sweet cakes is going to go very far in the Diplomatic Service.”
He did not need to say the obvious.
Buri had, by now, softly closed the doors to the wing behind them, and they made their way to one of the sitting rooms.
“I suppose,” Alanna said thoughtfully, “that they’re both sensible enough girls not to give anything away. Besides,” she added, “it will do Keladry good to have more conversations with female knights of her generation.”
“There’s nothing much we can do about it now,” Buri remarked practically as she sprawled on a couch.
Duke Gareth took a comfortable armchair, one of the terriers climbing onto his lap, the other taking up position as a foot warmer. “No,” he admitted, “it would not do to be wandering around a foreign Palace – even one belonging to my great-niece – in the middle of the night. I can only hope that my other niece and the lady knight keep their wits when they’re around a very slippery lady.”
“So why are you really here?” Lianne asked bluntly as soon as they entered Radanae’s apartment. “By the way, fantastic view,” she added, but it was clearly very much an afterthought.
Radanae raised as eyebrow as she lit more oil lamps. “As a young, knighted junior diplomat from a distinguished family, I am, of course here as the official representative of the Empress Rislyn, to oversee the construction of the Imperial Embassy and the provincial offices of the Imperial Diplomatic Service.” She let the corners of her mouth tilt up slightly. After the years spent in the much more subtle Imperial court, it was a relief to see the plainer Tortallan manners again.
“Codswallop,” Lianne said, as Keladry looked as though she had no idea how to salvage the situation. “You’re the inheriting daughter of one of the richest families in the Empire. You’ve got more real power than almost all your superiors, and you have a private line to the entire Imperial Family. You could be anywhere in the Empire you like. You’re not in Sarain exchanging insults with building crews simply by chance assignment.”
Kel looked as though, had it not been dreadfully impolite, she was going to pound her princess into the rather nice hardwood floor (it was made up of many different types of timbers, ranging from pale mountain oak to deep mahogany). Such directness to a near-stranger would have been unthinkable even in the famously fiery Kalasin, much less the quieter Lianne.
After barely a second of shocked silence, Radanae laughed. “You’re right. You know, you’re the first person to remark on that. Everyone else thinks either that I’m coming just to carve out a name for myself away from the rest of the family, or that Yevgen’s sisters want someone to keep an eye on him. What made you think of it?”
Lianne went bright red, as what she had just said finally registered. “I…I…suppose just that it didn’t really make sense. I mean, you could make a name doing anything, anywhere. You certainly didn’t have to do this.”
“No, I don’t. Any ideas? And it’s not either of the ones that people at home suspect. Well, not really. I believe that it’s something quite similar to the reason that you wanted to come and speak to me tonight about your sister and my friend. Tea?” she asked as a soft whistling indicated that the small kettle on the hearth was boiling. She politely did not make any remarks on the dumbfounded expressions on the faces of either of the other young women in the room.
“With respect, lady,” Kel took a sip of the green tea. It was curiously similar, yet completely different to Yamani green tea, somewhat mellower, but with a slight peppery bite. “How did you know?”
“Why else would you be coming to see me so soon after your arrival? – so soon after having a conversation with her Majesty, might I add.”
She pulled out a tin of cookies from some hidden recess in the low table that was placed at the juncture of three couches. “Had to go down and make them myself.” She confessed. “Saren cooking isn’t really big on things like this.” The cookies may have looked a bit irregular, but the taste more than made up for their appearance.
“I didn’t know knights learnt how to cook,” Lianne remarked, with a sly sideways look at Kel.
“Survival skill,” Radanae confided. “You cannot cover tens of miles a day on salt meat and dry bread. You just collapse after a while. Secrets of the Swords – good food, good boots, and good pay.”
Kel had to chuckle at the succinct summary of military morale, then had to leap to pull Jump away from the cookie tin. Radanae laughed and pulled out another tin, of rather more dramatically deformed cookies and gave two to the dog. She ruffled his fur as he politely left the rug to eat his treats where it would be easier to lick the crumbs from the floor.
“This is remarkably like another conversation I had a few months ago,” Radanae remarked to nobody in particular, then got down to business. “Your Highness, might I inquire about the purpose of the honour of your visit?”
“You know very well, Dama,” Lianne put her teacup down. “My sister is head-over-heels in love with King Yevgen…”
“And, according to his sister, his friends from the Academy, including, most importantly, myself,” Radanae grinned, “he’s in love with her.”
“So we all know where we are, page fifty-three of ‘Romantic rubbish’,” the words came out before Kel could stop them and the Tortallan knight went bright red at the words.
“Yes, precisely,” Lianne acknowledged with a toss of her head. “She’s convinced that he doesn’t really care for her as anything more than a Queen and a friend,”
“He wants to keep things that way, even if it means that he’s not getting what he really wants, because he’s scared of losing even that.”
“So we all understand each other?” Kel put in as her colour went back to normal.
“Yes,” Radanae nodded, her eyes meeting those of the other women.
“You came all this way to patch up my sister’s marriage?” Lianne looked amazed.
“I’m not that romantic,” Radanae snorted. “I needed a break, and a challenge. This does both.” She pulled out a piece of paper, pen, and ink from the mysterious compartment in the table. “Any suggestions? And just getting them in a situation together is pretty uncreative. They’ve always shared a room if they’re both in the same place and the maids say that they’re not exactly reviewing laws together every night…..”
OK, so what if the 'my' version of Duchess of Naxen is probably pure fluff? The woman has only had one mention in the three quartets so far, where she's described as 'imperious' and that's when she's trying to organise people during Jon's coronation - so she's got a forceful personality and is cool under crisis. Anyway, I rather like Duke Gareth and Gary (who turned out rather well), so I wanted to give them a pretty good home life (that's if they were ever at home). I imagine her as elegant and aristocratically handsome rather than beautiful, very authoritative, organised and extremely intelligent. If you have an objection, hey, this is fan fiction, and a very humble tribute to the creator, Tamora Pierce.
******************
Weather Mage
It was barely past dawn, but that made no difference to the Duke of Naxen. He rose early, a habit he still kept from his long-ago days as a page and squire, and one he saw no reason to change. After a few words to the rather harassed looking servant who brought him a simple breakfast of fresh-baked bread, butter, and cider, he set off for the training yards, the terriers wuffling along beside him.
Lianne and Keladry had returned in the early hours of the morning, heads together, clearly plotting something. Since neither was the sort who plotted over things so minor as social scandals or love affairs, he gave the matter a little concern. He sighed a little, and drew his cloak a little tighter around himself as he reached the large grounds behind the Palace. Springtime might have been evident in the abundant meadows and flocks of birds, but there was a definite bite in the air.
The yards were already more than half-full, with men and women practising all forms of martial arts. Some were familiar, some not so. Duke Gareth watched them all with an appraising eye. The standard was high, though not inhumanly so (as the current urban myths circulating around Corus about the Imperials nearly two years after their major visit stated), and he took particular note of the various styles and weaponry favoured by the female knights, so as to fulfil the slight favour that the Training Master back in Corus had asked of him. While he would never consider himself either a progressive or a liberal, Gareth the Elder had long since accepted the inevitability of the odd female knight or two within Tortall’s ranks. Despite decades of marriage to a woman who could make battle-hardened mercenaries bow their heads in shame, he still retained enough idealism to imagine that a lady knight or two might make their male colleagues a little more gentleman-like. Though he would have gone to the rack rather than admit it, out of all the knights that he had trained, his favourite was indisputably a plucky redhead by the name of Alan of Trebond. He had been less shocked that he would have thought when Alanna’s real identity was revealed, and thereafter treated the matter as simply a change of pronoun and address.
Kally was leaning against one of the columns that supported the upper levels of the Palace, watching her husband as he wove and ducked around the blows aimed at him by a very large member of his bodyguard. The King wore the plain, close-fitting knee length breeches and sleeveless shirt that seemed a sort of unofficial uniform for unarmed fighting among the Imperials. Gareth watched for a second, with his practised, slightly critical eye, before reaching his great niece.
“Good morning Kally,” he greeted her, as one of the terriers placed his front paws on the Queen’s knees, in their no-nonsense grey breeches.
“’Morning, Uncle Gareth,” Kally replied. She was dressed for riding, and carried a plain, slightly curved sword of the sort her mother usually bore. She caught her uncle looking at it. “It was a gift from Kay,” he lips tilted up slightly. “Here, they tend to be used by civilian diplomats who haven’t been training with a sword since childhood, because it’s felt that anyone can pick this up.”
Kally was, in fact, a decent swordswoman, though Gareth knew (and so did Kally, as a matter of fact), that had she been able to get the same sort of training as a boy of noble birth when she was younger, she could easily have been an exceptional one. It was but one more small regret of many that she had managed to accumulate in her short life.
“Do you train?” Gareth asked lightly.
Kally nodded. “A little, and mainly with the female knights. Archery three times a week, some sword, a little dagger, and occasionally unarmed. But Yevgen and I ride nearly every day. Don’t worry Uncle, I’m not training today. I’m just waiting for him to finish up. The sword’s just for show – no use advertising to the world that one relies completely on bodyguards keeps you as well as themselves alive, after all.”
The King went crashing into the hard-packed dirt of the practice yard in a decidedly unregal heap. The bodyguard held out a casual hand to help his monarch up.
Gareth watched with interest as Yevgen stood stiffly, then had the guard demonstrate just how he had managed to pull the not-exactly-diminutive-King over his shoulder. They practised the move several times (with Yevgen collecting quite a nice collection of bruises), before the King was satisfied with his ability to fend off the tactic. Though the Duke liked his nephew both as man and as King, he could not imagine Jonathan of Conté taking being so comprehensively bettered in a contest half so well. Gareth knew that Yevgen was good – his effortless defeat of Sir Garvey of Runnerspring nearly two years was proof enough of that – but was more impressed by the manner he handled his defeat.
Evidently, that was the end of the King’s training session, for Yevgen’s opponent made a sketchy bow and went off to harass some other opponent and the King came towards them, wiping his brow with a towel that had mysteriously appeared via a hovering attendant.
“Good morning, Gareth,” he said easily, recalling the Duke’s request that Yevgen simply use his first name the night before. “Are your rooms to your liking?”
“Yes, very much so. The boys,” he indicated the terriers, now inspecting Yevgen, “enjoy the garden very much.”
“That is good to know.” There was a slight pause, “I suppose I should change if we’re to go riding today. Will you join us, sir?” the last was directed at Gareth, who nodded his agreement as Yevgen went off inside the building.
“How do you like it here, Kally?” the Duke asked softly, as soon as he was sure that there was no one in easy earshot.
“More than I expected to,” was her honest answer. She had always found it easier to speak to her great-uncle than to her parents. “I mean, there are the usual difficulties, but here I’m doing something important. I’m not just sitting around listening to the Countess natter on about the correct way to walk down stairs or the different types of curtsey. I’m making a difference in people’s lives – hopefully for the better.”
Gareth had always had slight misgivings about sending a girl of Kally’s temperament to King’s Reach to learn the social graces. He felt that she could manage an equally good understanding of etiquette at the Palace, while making it easier to maintain a higher standard of academic study.
“I meant…on a more personal level. You have undoubtedly done more good in Sarain than any of her rulers in the last few decades, and even if you do nothing else for the decades that you will rule, you will be honoured for the peace you have brought. No…perhaps I should have said…are you happy, Kal?”
The silence was broken by the clang of weaponry, the thud of falling bodies, the occasional curse, but that all seemed to be very much in the background for the Duke of Naxen as he watched his great-niece’s face. Not a flicker of emotion showed, which meant that she was going through some very complicated mental processes.
“You know, uncle, I think…”
Whatever she was about to say was cut off by the sound of Lianne’s voice as the Tortallan princess came towards them. She was followed by a characteristically silent Kel, and Radanae, the Imperial looking as though she would far rather be in bed, but that since she was up anyway, she might as well join the others.
Kally made a remark about the last, as Radanae was the sort that would never voluntarily be seen before seven in the morning. The other woman grimaced. “I remember now why I left these hours behind with my schooldays. However,” here she bowed slightly to Lianne and Kel, “I promised her Highness and her Ladyship that I would be honoured to show them a little of the Saren countryside while they were here.”
“It looked absolutely beautiful as we were coming here, we can’t wait!” Lianne’s enthusiasm was so obvious that one could almost hear the exclamation marks. “We’re going to ride out just as soon as we can organise the horses! Do you have time to come?”
Since Kally had already indicated to Duke Gareth that she and Yevgen already intended to ride out that very morning, she could not very well say no. However, she did take a moment or two to glare at Lianne, sure that the younger princess was up to something. Whatever it was, Kally wasn’t anticipating whatever could have Lianne greeting the morning with anything other than sullen acceptance.
Sarain’s capital did not quite have the bustling early morning madness of Bersone, or even Corus, so there were only a few people up to greet the monarchs and their guests as they ambled their horses through the quiet streets. In those cities, the self-same streets would be full of bakers and dairymen, carters and fishmongers, beggars and thieves, all plying their trade while the rest of the city stirred reluctantly from its slumber.
Despite the recent wars, the countryside surrounding the capital was relatively safe, enabling the party to ride out with little more than a token bodyguard. One pair rode ahead, scouting for possible dangers, while six more ranged around and behind the group. It was a fairly low-key affair, though it was already common knowledge in the capital that the King and Queen rode in the countryside most mornings.
Kally took advantage of the ride to show Duke Gareth the various sites of interest, and to point out particularly lovely vantagepoints where he could see the true beauty of the city. Yevgen rode at the Duke’s other side, largely quiet except when he made some remark about the weather.
Whenever his great-niece paused in her commentary, the Duke took time to gaze at the younger man. The King of Sarain was still very much a puzzle, and despite Gareth’s decades of experience in reading young men, he still did not know half so much as he would like about his relative-by-marriage as he should like. Personable and polite, yet that self-same pleasantness seemed to create an invisible barrier around him. Kalasin seemed happy enough with him, as he seemed happy enough with Kally, but Gareth thought he could detect underlying currents in the few conversations between them that he had heard that did not seem consistent with their outwardly courteous friendship. He could not quite pinpoint it, but it was something to consider further.
Gareth turned stiffly in the saddle to ensure that three other young women in the party were keeping up. Dama Radanae seemed to be playing the role of the sleep-deprived tour guide, pointing out landmarks to Lianne and Keladry, though with a deal less alertness than Kally did.
Buri, Alanna, and George, being the imminently sensible and mature people that they were, had elected not to come, by the simple measure of still being in bed.
The three were obviously plotting something, as Gareth had ever known any young person capable of getting up at that hour for something as pedestrian as an equestrian excursion in what was, frankly, a rather dull neighbourhood. With a slight bow and a stock excuse, he dropped back to the trio. Kally and Yevgen nudged their horses further ahead, and rounded a slight hill, putting them temporarily out of sight.
“Are you enjoying the ride, ladies?” Gareth asked brightly, as they caught up with him. “Lovely brisk morning, isn’t it?”
He was somewhat amused at the dirty look that was almost shot his way by the diplomat. It appeared to have been halted mid-glare, and instead project as perfectly normal eye contact.
“Yes it is, Sarain is lovely in the springtime,” Radanae muttered, then covered her mouth in a discreet yawn.
The Duke turned to the women he knew better. “How do you two like Sarain?”
“Well, we haven’t seen very much of it,” Lianne was the first to answer. “But our rooms are very nice, the food is very nice, and the scenery is very nice.”
High above them, there was a soft chirping sound, and then a ball of feathers came hurtling down from the sky, to finally materialise a few inches in front of Peachblossom, fluttering and chirping all the way. It appeared to be trying to say something, flying around in circles, and occasionally puffing up its feathers. Kel looked on, bewildered, as she tried to play the strange form of charades.
“A…pufferfish? …no…a bear?…no…”
“Fog?” Radanae sounded alert. “What’s so alarming about….fog.”
It wasn’t fog so much as a thick duvet of white winding its way around the hill, enveloping everything in its path, as it spread its languorous folds as far as the eye could reach.
One of the guards wrinkled her brow. “My, this is very unusual,” she muttered to nobody in particular. “Milady, another exercise?” this was directed at Radanae, who was looking at the swiftly approaching swirls with an expression very close to complete shock.
The others looked at her.
“Whatever you may have heard of my abilities, Lieutenant Juditeline, I can assure you that they were greatly exaggerating.” She said in a calm, removed voice. “I am a weather mage of no small ability by Imperial standards. I can call clouds within about a five-mile radius. I can call rain to a largish football field. I can turn rain to sleet, to hail, to snow. But I cannot form fog.”
“So this is normal?” Lianne’s horse had begun to dance on the spot and roll his eyes as white swirls gathered around his legs. The princess looked as though something was definitely not going to plan.
“No. Not at all.” The lieutenant said firmly. “I’ve gone on these rides with their majesties for over a year. This has never happened before.”
“Is it…natural?” Kel asked as though she didn’t want to hear the answer, but had to know anyway.
“That depends on what you say is natural,” Radanae said humourlessly. “Almost everything is, if you’re willing to go back far enough. But in answer to that, not really. It is the work of a weather mage, but not one that I’m familiar with. Look.”
The pale fog was suddenly threaded through very faintly with threads of deep ultramarine. Kel knew from her limited studies of wild magic that those abilities were normally indicated by hues of copper. She raised an eyebrow as Radanae opened her eyes, and the threads faded.
“So it’s not you?” Juditeline’s anxiety was easily audible. She seemed to be almost pleading that the knight had something to do with it.
“No. Even were this one of my accidents, they would be my colours – amber and green.” the other Imperial said heavily with some finality. “But whoever it is, one, they’re a weather-mage. Two, they’re a lot better than I am, and three, well, I have no idea who they are.”
The sounds of galloping horses were clearly audible, even before the two guards who had been riding at the front all but careered into them. They looked around the group. The group looked at them, the same conclusion lying heavily on the ground (wherever it was under the cover of white) between them.
It was up to Lieutenant Juditeline, strong woman, to ask the obvious. “Where are the King and Queen?”
Unfortunately, nobody seemed to know the answer.
**********************
A Different Kind of Magic/That Conversation
Everglade stood still as the tendrils of opaque white mist swirled around his hocks and then crept up his legs at a most alarming rate. The bay gelding laid his ears back momentarily, then settled for briefly snapping at the fog. Yevgen patted the destrier’s neck in a reassuring manner, though the King looked far from comfortable.
Kally did not have the very handy ability to hold philosophical discussions with her horse, so her elegant sorrel mare was alternately pawing the air and rolling her eyes. Even though Kalasin was a talented equestrienne, she had difficulty keeping her seat as Ikaria cavorted and danced nervously as the white mist continued to surround them, obscuring their view.
Within moments, the King and Queen could barely see each other, though they were only a few feet apart.
“What is this?” Kally asked, when she had finally managed to calm Ikaria. Yevgen and Everglade seemed pensive, her husband waving his hand through the fog as though he could hold it. “The fog’s never been this bad before.”
“No, it hasn’t,” he said grimly. For a second, she thought that she imagined the mist take on a slight blue tint, but it was gone in less than half a blink. Yevgen turned to her – even though she only knew this by the shifting of shapes, “I never thought to ask this, but can you see weather-witchery?” he asked, his voice matter-of-fact.
“I don’t think so…what is it?”
“This may not be the best time, but it’s a sort of Talent – wild magic, if you like – that allows the possessor to be able to slightly manipulate weather patterns. But I can’t think of anyone who is powerful to do this. Oh…” here Yevgen blurted a string of rather nasty swear words as he gazed up at the approximate direction of the sky, which, too was obscured by the fog. It did not seem to be noxious or harmful, but it did create a complete screen around them. Kally was about to ask him what had prompted such a reaction, then she felt a single, fat droplet of rain fall on her face, followed by another, and another, until they were in the midst of a torrent, yet the mist did not lift.
“Oh, bother this,” Yevgen exploded. ‘Bother’ wasn’t the precise word that he used, but it conveyed the same sentiments. “Kally, I hate to ask this, but would you prefer to be able to see where we’re going, or to stay dry?”
Kally, who was, despite her occasional romantic fantasies, a very practical woman, sensibly elected for the former. Much to her surprise, then, the fog in their immediate area began to fade, until they could see perhaps five or six feet in front of them. Yevgen appeared to be concentrating very hard on something. Kally could not sense anything in particular, but that wasn’t much of an indicator, the magical heritages East and West of the Roof being so different. At any rate, his teeth were clenched, and there were thin rivets of sweat pouring down his brow as he urged Everglade forward, Ikaria following her stablemate.
“Wait!” Kally called, as she followed him off the path, to plunge down the side of the embankment, “What about the others?”
Everglade wheeled around sharply on his haunches, causing Ikaria to crash into him. He danced a little, complaining.
Yevgen looked up at the fog-shrouded hill that they had just come down from. There was still mist around them, but it was not so thick, so they were able to see perhaps ten feet around them. “Radanae or your uncle will know what to do,” he said, as they heard the panicked, galloping hoofbeats that signalled their advance guard returning to the main party. He turned Everglade away and nudged the gelding further into the woods.
“Shouldn’t we return?” Kally asked as Ikaria ignored her efforts and followed the other horse. If she hadn’t known her husband reasonably well, Kally might have suspected that he had been having a chat with the horse.
He paused, and twisted in the saddle to meet her eyes. With the rain increasing to a downpour, he was absolutely drenched, but gave no indication that it particularly bothered him.
“Can you find your way back in this fog?” he asked levelly. “Kally, as unlikely as it may seem, if this is an assassination attempt, it would be better for the others if we’re not with them.”
“Where are we going?” she asked as the horses started off again. It seemed a given that Ikaria would follow her stablemate, even if Kally was less enthused about the idea.
“…Hunting lodge…” Yevgen shouted above the pelt of the rain. He was still absorbed in clearing the immediate area of fog, so they managed to weave between the trees and avoid fallen logs.
Eventually they came to a small clearing, one that was so well hidden from the usual riding paths that she had never even imagined that it was there. In the middle of the clearing, there was a low cottage, with an attached stable. Shivering (for, by this time, they were both drenched), they led the horses into the stable, stripped them of tack, wiped them down and filled water buckets and haynets before collapsing through the door.
A few miles away, another door was pushed open with a great deal more force. Radanae threw her soaked overtunic and cloak on the floor before heading towards her dressing table for what appeared to be a box of face powder.
Only it was blue and green.
Taking a handful of the powder, she threw it into the charcoal brazier, as she found a towel to try her hair, muttering swear words all the way. It had taken all her persuasive powers to convince the guards and the Tortallans to return to the Palace, that nothing would be served by charging after the King and Queen, for it was fairly obvious where they had most likely gone. The fog had soon concentrated to one side of the hill where they had been riding, and neither Yevgen nor Kally were in sight.
That, however, did not stop her from fuming. What she had said on the path was true, that the fog was the work of a powerful weather-mage, and not one she recognised. That didn’t mean that she didn’t have a keen suspicion who was ultimately behind it. Her suspicion was confirmed when it was soon apparent that there was no sinister motive behind the mist.
“Kay! Justinia!” she exploded as soon as the smoke from the brazier resolved itself into an indistinct scene. It appeared to be a combination dance party and beer appreciation festival, being held in the princess’s private hunting lodge in one of the northern mountain provinces– a building several times larger than even a prosperous merchant’s house. “What on earth did you think you were about just then?”
“You said that you had no idea how to get them to talk about anything other than Sarain,” Kay said reasonably, taking a large gulp from the mug in her hand.
“I didn’t mean for you to get us all lost in fog and then drown us!” Radanae did not lose her temper easily, but when she did, it was not a sight anyone wished to behold. She empathetically threw her wet towel on the floor as punctuation.
“Oops. Sorry.” The barest hint of a blush could be seen under Justinia’s deep tan, but it was swiftly gone. Radanae rather thought that it was more likely due to embarrassment that her plan had an unanticipated side effect than any discomfort suffered by an old friend.
“Who was it?” she asked through clenched teeth.
The other two women exchanged a glance. “It’s a bit of a new technique, we had a weather-mage and an earth-mage working together – earth to find your party, understand. Quite revolutionary. I mean, we had no idea that it was going to work…” Kay trailed off.
“I doubt you know them. Elera Fergandi and Gordon Belaron,” Justinia named members of two very minor families.
Radanae didn’t, in fact, know them, but she wasn’t going to concede that little fact. Instead, she changed the subject.
“That’s all well and good, but have you any idea were Yevgen and Kally have gone? In case you’ve forgotten, we do have the Tortallan delegation here – you have no idea how difficult it was to get them to turn back – and wait out the rain. Which is bucketing down, thank you very much for asking.”
“I…hadn’t thought of that.” Kay seemed a little shamefaced. “I thought they were due next week…”
“So did I, but apparently, Yevgen decided he wanted to make it some big surprise for Kally, so kept the whole thing quiet. Now. Where are they?” Her voice was low and menacing, but the dramatic affect was rather ruined by the fact that she looked rather like a soaking wet bird of prey.
Very reluctant looks were exchanged. “Before we went to Tortall, Silas, a few of the other officers and me chipped in and had a little place built as a joke….it’s at….”