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‘I don’t know.’ Tomas turned away and swore profusely, and that was another thing he never did—at least not in front of Ana and Sophia. ‘She knew about the coloured cloth instead of jesses and what they meant. It’s in one of the royal falconry journals and I read that section aloud to her one day when she was helping me nurse a hawk with a broken wing. She was good with the birds. They trusted her. She knew all the call signals.’
‘Why would she stay away all these years, only to return now?’ asked Silas.
‘Because the father who left her to rot is dead, her brother is whole and happy, Byzenmaach is moving forward and she wants to come home?’ snapped Tomas. ‘How should I know?’
‘But you think it’s her,’ said Ana. ‘Again, just to be clear.’
‘Yes.’ The word sounded as if it had been dragged from Tomas’s soul.
‘Then we need to tell Cas.’
‘And say what?’ Tomas started pacing again. ‘You would have me talk of colours and hawks and then tell him I think his sister’s alive? Do I tell him I can feel her on the wind, like a storm coming in? He’ll think me mad. I think I’m mad.’
‘They’re heading for the bridle path,’ Silas said suddenly.
‘They would have heard about it in the village,’ Tomas replied.
‘They’re taking the old bridle path,’ Silas said, and there was a whole lot of silence after that.
‘Is there another not dead dead person coming?’ asked Sophia.
Ana really didn’t want to say maybe in answer to that question. But she did. ‘Maybe.’
Everyone watched the two riders and their hounds accelerate into a loping canter. ‘How long before they get here?’ she asked.
‘Two hours, if they keep to the pace they’re going,’ said Silas.
‘And if they push it?’
‘Half that.’
* * *
Casmir sat with Augustus and a room full of advisors, trying to debate the merits of Augustus approaching the rebels to the north when an aide summoned Rudolpho from the room. That wasn’t so strange in itself, but the fact that Rudolpho returned with a frown, holding a phone that he held out to Casimir was.
‘Ana,’ the older man said, and Casimir immediately feared the worst. Why had Rudolpho brought the phone into the meeting? Why hadn’t he called Casimir out of the room to take the call? There was a protocol for the way phone calls were handled. And his head advisor wasn’t following it.
He took the phone and headed for the door. ‘What is it?’ he asked.
‘Two riders are approaching by horseback,’ Ana said. ‘Silas thinks they’re an envoy from the north and Tomas thinks he knows one of them. You need to be here within the hour to greet them.’
‘And you and Sophia need to not be there. Start packing.’
‘Not on your life,’ she said.
‘You will stay away from them.’ He could feel his temper rising.
‘That I can do. Until you get here and then we’ll see. Rudolpho says you’re in an important meeting.’
‘I’ve just stepped out.’ He closed the door behind him.
‘Are you alone?’
‘Yes.’
‘Tomas says you can fire him if he’s wrong. Personally, I don’t think you’ll need to. He’ll probably jump off a cliff if he’s wrong.’
‘Ana, what is it?’
‘One of the envoy is a woman and there’s no easy way to say this so I’m just going to say it. Tomas thinks it’s Claudia.’
* * *
Forty-seven minutes later, Casimir landed in the courtyard of the winter fortress. His security team had run the faces of the riders through recognition software and the elder male had been identified as a statesman for the mountain tribes to the north. No surprises there. The woman remained unidentified but Casimir had seen the picture, black and white and grainy as it was, and Tomas could be forgiven for thinking it was her. If it wasn’t her—if they’d deliberately chosen a negotiator who resembled his dead sister…
If they’d done that he would be hard pressed to negotiate at all.
‘Any more information?’ he asked as he fell into step alongside Silas and headed towards the door.
