The High King's Tomb by Kristen Britain
“Thank you,” Garth said. On his way out, he squeezed Karigan’s shoulder and said, “We’ll talk later.”
Karigan nodded and smiled at him as he departed.
“Now then,” the captain said, settling back into her chair, “shall we continue?”
“Yes, Captain.”
“As I mentioned, the errand is threefold. Your first and most urgent errand is to Selium. If Lord Fiori should produce this book we’re looking for, or if he should know something of it, you are to return immediately and report, and disregard the other two errands. They are of lesser importance, understood?”
“Yes.”
“The likelihood of the book existing is slim in any case, so should nothing come of your visit with Lord Fiori, the king is permitting me to send you on two additional errands while you are in the west.”
“These are not king’s errands?”
“They’re Rider business. As you may have noticed, we’ve more Riders than horses these days.” Here the captain smiled, as she often did when the subject of her new Riders came up. “I need you to visit with the man from whom we purchase our horses and tell him our needs. I’m afraid we aren’t likely to get the horses till spring or summer, but it will have to do.
“The horse trader’s name is Damian Frost and his farm is located on the outskirts of the town of Aubry Crossing.”
Karigan searched her mental map. “The border with Rhovanny?”
“Yes, and also where the boundaries of Wayman and Mirwell provinces meet as well. It’s something of a crossroads as the name implies.” The captain unrolled a map that had been lying across her lap and spread it over the king’s desk. She planted her forefinger on a speck in western Sacoridia. “Aubry Crossing’s small. People mainly use it to travel between Rhovanny and Sacoridia. There’s a garrison of boundary guards there, a few shops and outfitters, and a couple inns, and that’s about it. You’ll have to ask around for directions to Damian’s place. Everyone knows him. And if anyone else tries to sell you horses, we buy only from Damian.”
The captain told her how many head she had in mind. “We’ll give you an official certificate that Damian can redeem for currency at the garrison—much safer than carrying around purses of king’s gold. Damian will receive the rest of his payment when the beasts are delivered. Don’t worry about haggling for a price; that comes later, and it will probably be Hep closing the deal anyway.” Then she rolled her eyes. “Not that Damian has any competition, and he knows it. We just try to keep things fair.”
Karigan nodded, a trifle disappointed that she wouldn’t be able to flex her merchanting skills.
Captain Mapstone then gazed out the window and into the gardens with a whimsical smile. “I rather envy you getting to visit with Damian. He’s…well, he has a way with horses.”
And Rider horses were special, very intelligent. Karigan found herself looking forward to meeting the man who supplied them.
“My third assignment?” Karigan asked.
“Lord Mirwell,” Captain Mapstone said.
An image of gruff old Mirwell with his bear hide draped over his shoulders flashed through Karigan’s mind before she remembered he was dead. The captain meant his son, Timas, who had made Karigan’s life unpleasant during her school years at Selium. Now he was a lord-governor and she knew he would love the fact that she was a lowly messenger who must grovel before him no matter what abuse he chose to heap on her. Maybe he’d matured since those days. Maybe he wouldn’t even remember her. But how could he forget how she humiliated him in front of all their classmates that day during a bout of swordplay?
“Actually,” the captain said, “Lord Mirwell is an excuse. You’ll deliver him some innocuous message from the king. I’m more interested in you contacting Beryl. We haven’t heard from her in a good while, which leaves me a little concerned.”
Beryl Spencer was a Green Rider whose special ability allowed her to portray a role and convince others of it, which made her an ideal operative for the king. Placed in the Mirwellian militia, she had quickly earned rank as a major and gained the old lord-governor’s confidence. He had handpicked her as his aide, never suspecting her true allegiance till she helped to bring about his downfall. Afterward, Beryl returned to Mirwell Province to resume her role in the militia and as an aide to Timas, keeping an eye on him lest he decide to follow in his father’s footsteps or was approached by any of his father’s fellow conspirators who had escaped king’s law.
“If you can’t see or meet with Beryl,” the captain said, “make some careful inquiries, but nothing more. If something untoward has happened to her, do not get involved. Return to report immediately. I don’t want you endangering yourself. Most likely she is out on maneuvers with the militia—it would not be the first time we’ve had silence from her because of this.” Then she gave Karigan a penetrating look. “Are you clear on this? You are only to observe, not to get yourself in trouble.”
“Clear,” Karigan assured her. She had already had enough adventures to last a lifetime, and steering clear of potential trouble was fine with her. “Is that all?”
“Actually, no,” the captain said. “There’s one more thing. I’m sending Fergal Duff with you.”
“But he’s new—”
“Precisely why I’m sending him with you. As horses become available, I’m pairing up other Riders in hopes our new people can get a feel for being on an errand before actually having to do a solo run.”
Karigan clamped her mouth shut. It had been part of her training, too. She had accompanied Ty on several errands, but none so far afield as this one. She would be stuck with Fergal for quite some time.
“You will leave in two days. I’ll brief Fergal myself.” The captain rose from her chair and smiled again. “I’m sure you’ll leave Rider accounts in good shape so Mara can handle them—until you return.”
Karigan suppressed a groan. It appeared her least favorite aspect of the merchanting business would haunt her forever.
She found Garth in the Rider wing in the large chamber they had converted into a common room. With a long oaken table that was a gift from the king, some comfortable chairs, and a warm hearth fire blazing, it wasn’t too bad. Shelves even began to collect new books and games, replacing those that had been lost in the fire.
Garth’s bulk overflowed a rocking chair beside the hearth. He held a teacup that looked ridiculously dainty in his hands, and a book lay open across his knees.
She crossed the room and dropped into a chair opposite him, relieved no one else was around. Most senior Riders would be out on message errands and the new Riders were at lessons. Some were learning to ride, others were learning to write and figure, and still others would be at weapons practice with Arms Master Gresia.
“How did the rest of your meeting go?” Garth asked.
Karigan outlined her assignment and Garth let out a low whistle. “That should keep you busy for a while.”
“I haven’t been on a long-distance errand since forever. I hope it doesn’t snow.” She shuddered and gazed into the hearth fire. Avoiding snow was unlikely now that it was mid-autumn, and she briefly thought about all she’d have to pack to stay warm.
“At least the Grandgent won’t be frozen,” Garth said.
“True.” If they were unable to use the ferry crossing, it would lengthen the journey by weeks. She shook off thoughts of her impending travel and said, “How’s Alton? Did he mention me at all?”
Garth blew on his still steaming tea before sipping. “I’m sorry, Karigan, but he refused to talk about you. I tried, I really did, but he just wouldn’t talk.”
“Then I suppose he didn’t respond to my letter.”
“I’m afraid not.”
A silence fell between them and the fire popped. Crestfallen, Karigan could only look at her knees.
“Alton hasn’t been well, Karigan,” Garth said. “The mender down there tells me he’s still fighting the forest’s poisons in his veins. He doesn’t look very good. And
“Probably not,” she mumbled.
“Be patient with him. He’ll come around—he’s had a hard time.”
Karigan frowned. And she hadn’t? Who had born the consciousness of Mornhavon the Black within her? Who had been assaulted, stabbed, and manipulated? Why did Alton get to have excuses when it was his behavior that had been execrable? Abruptly she stood and strode out of the chamber.
“Karigan, wait!” Garth called after her.
She kept walking and did not stop till she reached her own chamber. She stepped inside and heaved a long breath. Without a hearth fire to warm her room, it was cool, which in turn helped to cool her temper.
To her surprise, she discovered a white cat sitting in the middle of her bed, staring at her with pale blue eyes.
“Hello,” Karigan said.
The cat stood and stretched, then leaped off her bed, darting past her legs through the doorway. Karigan peered into the corridor, but there was no sign of it.
“Strange,” she murmured. Either the cat was phenomenally quick or she was seeing ghosts again. Ghost kitties? That was all she needed.
She shrugged. The comings and goings of the castle’s mousers, supernatural or not, were the least of her worries. She would sit down and list all the things she would want along with her for her impending journey. It would help her keep her mind off both Alton and King Zachary.
KING ZACHARY’S TREASURE
The Huradeshian dancers wove circular patterns to the beat of drums and rattles, a strange stringed instrument whining in the background. Their dance was not dance as Estora and other Sacoridians knew it; a refined meeting of ladies and gentlemen moving in time to harmonic orchestral music. No, this was something quite different, their dance like a story unfolding in a foreign language that required interpretation. Sacoridians had no point of reference from which to understand it, and watching it proved disconcerting in its alienness, even uncomfortable.
The dancers wore animal masks decorated with feathers, antlers, and fur, some representing specific creatures, others without any semblance at all to the natural world. Many of the masks were nightmarish, sporting huge eyeballs and teeth, some slashed through with scarlet, like blood.
The male dancers wore little more than loincloths in addition to their masks. Even their feet were bare, leaving Estora to speculate whether or not they were cold on the stone floor. As they contorted their oiled bodies as though in the throes of some madness, the ritual tattoos of birds, serpents, and animals emblazoned across their chests and down their backs rippled to life across flexing muscles, and it occurred to Estora that maybe it was the tattoos that they were trying to make dance.
The ceaseless giggling and whispering of the ladies surrounding Estora was ignited by the sight of half-naked men. Evidently they were not put off by the masks or tattoos. Some of the matrons had acquired a high color in their cheeks and were fanning themselves.
Her mother, in contrast, and other ladies of Coutre, had gone stiff, disgusted by the exposure of bare flesh. Her mother, in fact, had grabbed the hand of Estora’s littlest sister and marched her out of the throne room the moment the Huradeshians began their dance, and gave her into the care of her nanny. Her mother then returned to her chair, disapproval etched into her features as if into stone, and sat. She remained, Estora knew, only because she was there at the king’s invitation and did not wish to offend him.
The eastern provinces tended to hold to a more conservative view of life, their values rather strict and restricting. Estora had heard her father and others mutter about the decadent standards of those in Sacor City, and she was sure that King Zachary only confirmed their notions by allowing the Huradeshians to perform in such a “depraved” manner before decent people. A glance at her father sitting next to her mother revealed a stony countenance of dismay. Meanwhile, non-Coutre members of the audience appeared unoffended by the show of flesh, and even seemed to be enjoying the spectacle.
The female dancers were attired more modestly, wearing rough woven dresses dyed with colors so dazzling they overwhelmed Estora’s eyes. They seemed to have taken on bird-type roles and fluttered about the male dancers, mirroring them, shadowing them, teasing them.
Tribal leader Yusha Lewend sat in a chair adjacent to Zachary’s throne. Lewend and the other men of importance from his tribe wore a melding of traditional Huradeshian costume and Sacoridian attire: velvet frock coats with fine stitching over multihued shirts, trousers that matched the frock coats, their feet shod only with sandals. The ensemble was topped off with cloths wound around their heads and tied in intricate knots. One of Zachary’s advisors, Colin Dovekey, explained that each of the knots was symbolic, but what they symbolized, he could not say.
“Barbarians,” muttered Estora’s cousin Richmont Spane, seated to her left.
“Handsome barbarians,” said Amarillene, another of Estora’s cousins, who could not stop ogling the dancers.
Richmont murmured something disparaging under his breath.
Lewend’s escort of Huradeshian warriors stood near the far wall, their arms crossed over bare, brawny chests. They wore bright scarlet head cloths and long, curved blades hung at their sides. Their clothing, or lack thereof, deeply contrasted with the black cloth and leather of the king’s Weapons, but astonishingly their watchful attitudes and stern expressions were nearly identical.
“Is it true,” Amarillene asked Richmont, “that Chief Lewend offered the king a gift of fifty slave girls?”
Richmont shook his head. “Only twenty.”
Amarillene squealed. “Did he accept them?”
Marilen, her older sister, nudged her. “Don’t be ridiculous. Slavery is against king’s law.”
“Did he?” Amarillene persisted.
Richmont rolled his eyes. “No. To do so would have been scandalous to say the least.”
Estora permitted herself a tiny sigh, wondering if the Huradeshians likewise considered the Sacoridians barbaric and strange. She wished the ladies behind her would stop their incessant giggling. It was most undignified. And annoying. Some elder Coutres passed the ladies looks of displeasure, but the hint went ignored.
She glanced in Zachary’s direction. His expression was pensive as he watched the dancers. Did he even see them? She didn’t think so, for his gaze seemed far away and she wondered what thoughts occupied him, but when the dancers finished and the music abruptly halted, he straightened and clapped along with everyone else. The dancers and musicians left the throne room at a trot.
Yusha Lewend rose from his chair and made a long speech in his own language. Since Estora understood none of it, her attention wandered. To her surprise, near the throne room doors, she saw the man she had met on the kitchen steps the morning she had exchanged unhappy words with Karigan. He was dressed in the same clothes as before, but from this distance she could not discern their flaws. He cut a sharp figure, angular and athletic, no excess to be found on his frame.
Estora placed her hand on Richmont’s wrist and he bent toward her.
“Do you know that man?” she asked, pointing him out.
“Distant relative of Zachary’s, I think. The name’s Amberhill. Small landowner, impoverished. I suppose he’s come around to ask his cousin for charity.” With that, Richmont returned his attention to Yusha Lewend.
Amberhill. The name was unfamiliar to Estora, but that was hardly surprising, considering how many counted themselves among the ranks of nobility. It seemed like most of them had paraded through the castle to meet her since the betrothal announcement. Amberhill perceived her gaze and returned it, nodding at her with a smile.
Embarrassed that she had been caught staring, she returned her attention to Yusha Lewend. An interpreter had come forward, probably a merchant versed in a number of languages, and spoke in impeccable common tongue: “Most gracious king, we are honored by your hospitality. You have further honored us by recognizing
The interpreter droned on, interrupted periodically by Yusha Lewend to add some comment in praise of the king. Bored by the ostentatious speech, Estora’s gaze strayed back to Amberhill, and when their gazes intersected, he mimed an exaggerated yawn. Estora stifled a laugh.
“…and your fair queen-to-be,” the interpreter said.
Estora blinked in surprise and found many pairs of eyes looking her way. She wondered what she had missed; what had been said about her. Did they notice she hadn’t been paying attention?
“Sacoridia is certain to flourish with such beauty in its midst, and assuredly the king will soon find many children playing at his feet. May Methren, our goddess of fertility, embrace you.”
Twittering from behind Estora made her cheeks warm.
Yusha Lewend then said something in his own tongue directly to King Zachary, and followed it with a hearty laugh. His people laughed as well.
The interpreter licked his lips and looked a little nervous. “Uh,” he began, “Yusha Lewend believes you will not, uh, need much of the goddess’ help to make children with your beautiful queen.” Yusha Lewend slapped the interpreter on the back and barked something at him. The interpreter turned red. “Yusha Lewend wishes me to tell you exactly what he said, sire. May I approach the throne?”
Zachary nodded.
The interpreter did so hesitantly, and spoke in such low tones that only Zachary could hear. A mortified look actually crept over his features and his ears turned scarlet. Yusha Lewend laughed uproariously at his great joke, obviously something of a rather lewd nature.
“Please inform Yusha Lewend,” Zachary said to the interpreter in a cool tone, “that this kind of talk is not acceptable in my court, not even in jest. I value all members of my court, including the women, and I would like that considered in all conversation.”
An uncomfortable silence followed as the interpreter relayed Zachary’s words. When he finished, Yusha Lewend looked baffled, but unoffended, and shrugged his shoulders.