I can’t stop shaking, I’m chilled so badly from my adventure, but Rhurc silently brings me a mug of hot tea – a luxury! – and I drink it down as Trellan puts an extra blanket around my shoulders and rubs them through it briskly to warm me. They wouldn’t treat a lady this way. Thank goodness I am no lady.
I don’t wake until midway through the night when the door creaks. Nearby, someone moves in the straw. There’s just enough light to make out the silhouette of a man with hunched shoulders and his head hanging low in despair.
Sir Oakensen.
He needs his sleep, but even now he turns and turns again in the straw, the relief of sleep evading him.
I saw Fliad take Hessa from him in that neat little trick. And now I know why she bid me leave her side and then rode off without me. She was planning this little cruelty. But why? Why trouble our guardian? Why distract him right when he should be alert? Why bid me sleep away from her room when all good sense warned us to stay together?
I drift off and wake to the faintest light of dawn coming through the crack at the bottom of the door.
“Wake them. We ride with the dawn,” Sir Oakensen says to Rangen. His voice is even rougher than usual. I think he has been crying, though I don’t think he’ll ever admit it.
A candle is lit, and we rise, packing silently in the darkness. Everyone knows what happened. Gragor hangs his head with shame. I pat him on the shoulder.
“Not your fault,” I whisper.
“Feels like it,” he whispers back. He’s blinking like he’s holding back tears, too.
“Feelings don’t always match the truth,” I tell him gently. “None of your friends want you dead and that’s what would have happened.”
He looks up at that with a wry expression as if he isn’t so sure of it himself.
“She was his only family left, you know. All the rest are dead. Just that dog. He’s had her since she was a puppy. A last gift from his mother.”
He chokes a little on a suppressed sob and I do the unthinkable and wrap my arms around him in a kind hug. It’s not something a good noblewoman would ever do. But it’s something I’ve done to comfort the goat boy or the cook’s assistant when a goat was gored, or the biscuits burned. If we couldn’t have the touch of another human to tell us we aren’t alone when everything goes wrong, then are we human at all?
I go from one to the other of the men, offering help with bundling things on the backs of horses, with fitting bits into mouths and checking hooves over, with distributing hot tea and collecting wooden cups to wash after. I keep busy. I touch shoulders where I can and offer smiles. They drink in every touch, every word, every hint of a smile like parched ground, and I wonder if it’s mothers they miss, or wives, or sweethearts, or grandmothers, and if they’ll ever see them again.
Sir Oakensen said that they could have peace if I bought it for them with this marriage. When they look up at me with those bright eyes, I want to buy it for them. But when I look away, I see only Lady Fliad’s cold indifference and I wonder. If she – an inconsequential noblewoman, unmarried, unlanded – sees me as so small compared to her, what will a golden fae king think of me? Will I be of less value to him than a brace of snow kittens? Will he break my neck to force the hand of an enemy as I am certain she did to those cats?
I have no answer as we mount our horses, and she joins us in the stable yard with an arrogant sniff. I still don’t know, as we ride out in miserable silence behind our mourning leader. The trail seems lonelier without a black dog on it. The number of our party seems reduced by half, the hope in their hearts, almost entirely depleted.
13
HALDUR OAKENSEN
It is day one of my life without Hessa. The world is a fog of red rage.
14
HALDUR OAKENSEN
Day two without Hessa. We travel north toward the front. I think I eat and sleep. I am not certain. I know we cover miles. The men look thin and cold. The ladies harrowed. I cannot look at Lady Fliad without my hand drifting to my sword of its own account. I don’t dare be near her, lest I succumb to my worst instincts.
15
IVA FITZROY
Ican’t sleep. Lady Fliad finally invited me to sleep in the tent with her again, but my mind is too full of gnawing anxiety and repulsion. The sight of her given over to sleep makes me feel ill. I know what she did. I can hardly bear to look at her. That disgust combines with anxiety. I keep seeing it all play out as I watch from the kitchen door. Fliad, gleeful, as she delivers a death blow. Her accomplice smiling maliciously. The knight I’ve come to rely on buckling as if from a blow. He’s not the same now. It’s as if he left his spirit with his dog and only the body rides with us now.
I slip from the tent, gathering my thick cloak around me. I sleep in all my clothing. It’s too cold not to. The fire has burned down but the embers glow. I crouch down by its warmth, carefully laying a few sticks on the embers to wake it up. I could use the heat to chase the cold from my bones and my heart.
The camp is quiet around me, the soldiers all asleep in their tents except for whoever is on watch. I hear him moving around the perimeter of the camp, but it’s so still that when I don’t move, I can also hear the heavy breathing of sleep gusting in the tents.
I wish I had a cup of tea to calm my nerves. We ran out of the small store of leaves I brought yesterday. The men carry only the most basic food with them.
As the fire leaps into fresh flame, I draw my hands close and blink against the strong of sharp smoke. This moment, here, alone in front of the licking fire, might be the last free moment of my life. I’m not used to living so closely under the observation of others. I’m used to coming and going among the stables and kennels and in the fields, tied only to the rhythm of the daily chores and meals. Here, it is all watched and disciplined. When I am given in marriage to a stranger, I think it may very well be the same. I’ll be an oddity in his world. A curiosity. Will I ever hold a sleeping puppy on my lap again or clean the hoof of a horse? Will I ever while away quiet hours in a field teaching dogs to come and go and follow? I think I will not. I think that I am losing what makes me Iva as surely as Sir Oakensen lost what makes him the brooding warrior these men follow.
