IT WAS COLD IN THE LIBRARY. Sasha sat on her stool before the wide, wood desk, and wrapped herself more tightly with her cloak. The lamp on the table flickered a wan light upon the page before her and a coal brazier gave some warmth to her back. Across the surrounding benches, several figures sat hunched, likewise with braziers and lamps—all men, some scribbling on parchment with a quill tip.
At either end of the vast floor, shelves lay dark and gloomy, groaning beneath their weight of parchment. Books were more trouble than they were worth, she'd often thought in her youth. Only living with Kessligh, scrolling through ancient serrin writings during long evenings before a crackling log fire, had she discovered their wonders.
“It was a female who came before the court, and she wore a sword at her back like a man, and did move and speak with the authority of a man. Her eyes were a demon blue, and all her soldiers wore a most ungodly aspect.”
Before her lay the writings of a Torovan archivist who had lived in the Larosa court two centuries before. Here lay an eyewitness account of the Larosa court following the disappearance of King Leyvaan's Bacosh army in the hills and forests of Saalshen, and the subsequent occupation of the three Bacosh provinces now known as the Saalshen Bacosh by the serrin.
“The demon said her name was Maldereld, and that by her hand and others were King Leyvaan and his entire force of twenty thousand slain. Lord Sharis was enraged, and would have struck the demon down where she stood.”
Why he did not, the text did not say. Perhaps it had something to do with most of the Larosa army having been killed with Leyvaan the Fool, Sasha thought sourly. Larosa had been defenceless, at Saalshen's mercy. Why the serrin had only occupied the three closest of the nine Bacosh provinces, she did not know. They could have spread further and made an empire. But then, maybe that was human thinking. The serrin had little interest in empires. The Saalshen Bacosh now made a wall, behind which Saalshen had been protected for two centuries since.
Echoing footsteps made her turn, with a reach for her sword hung across the chairback. A shadowed figure with one arm in a sling emerged from the doorway, and paused, scanning the room. Sasha straightened, pushing back her hood so that the lamp lit her face…the figure looked her way, then came quickly over between the tables.
Closer, the face resolved itself as Jaryd's, his expression urgent. “M'Lady,” he whispered, “please come quickly. I ride on Prince Damon's business.”
“Ride?” Sasha frowned…Jaryd did appear to be dressed for riding. “Ride where?”
“Please come, I'll explain on the way.” And he leaned closer to whisper in her ear. “It concerns the Udalyn, M'Lady.”
Sasha stared at him. Then she got up and blew out her lamp. She followed Jaryd between the tables, ignoring the cloaked, hooded stares of men at their tables.
Outside in the cold night, it was only a short walk to the stables. Torches gave the road a dim, patchy light, with the odd, passing shadow of another walker.
“M'Lady,” said Jaryd, “I looked all over! Why were you not at the Rathynal feast with everyone else?”
“To avoid ‘everyone else’,” Sasha said shortly. “They'd have made me wear a dress, for one thing.”
Jaryd gave her a bemused look. “Would that be so terrible?”
“Would you wear one?” Sasha retorted. Jaryd blinked. “There you are. Should you even be walking around?”
“It's my arm that's broken, M'Lady, not my leg,” Jaryd said testily. “I dislike sitting still.”
“I felt the same, once. Then I discovered books.”
Jaryd made a face. “Books are no friends of mine. Princess Sofy was missing you,” he added. “She fears you're avoiding her.”
That hurt. Sasha gazed at the lighted windows of a streetside building, biting her lip. She saw so little of Sofy. But…“I'm not avoiding her, I'm avoiding her new friends. I don't want to kill any of them. Or rather, I think I do want to kill some of them. But not in front of Sofy.”
“You have my sympathies there,” Jaryd said darkly. “That lot need a good belting. But the ladies love them.”
“It's difficult enough to defend your gender, most of the time,” Sasha told him wryly. “I'll not even try to defend mine. What's your urgency?”
“There is a rumour of refugees,” said Jaryd in a low voice, with a cautious glance about the gloomy street.
Sasha stared at him. “Refugees from the valley? How has word come?”
“We don't know, M'Lady. We think they were seen upon the road. It seems a messenger was sent to Prince Koenyg at speed and now he has deployed men of Ranash and Banneryd upon the Baen-Tar perimeter this night.”
“And now he sends loyal Verenthanes out to intercept,” Sasha muttered. “You said ‘we.’ Is Damon…?”
“Prince Damon has quietly asked some of the Falcon Guard, M'Lady,” Jaryd murmured. “We feel we might find the refugees first if they arrive tonight, yet Prince Damon is required at the feast, and the usual routes through which one might move a person undetected into the city are watched by Prince Koenyg's spies…”
“Damon intends to smuggle a Udalyn into the city?” Damon, undermining Koenyg's authority beneath his very nose? She was amazed. “To what purpose?”
“M'Lady, Prince Damon wonders if the king is aware of all that transpires. He says…he says that while the king is in agreement with these policies in principle, he does not follow their implementation in detail.
“Prince Koenyg has done this before, M'Lady…two years ago, you might recall that a Goeren-yai village in Yethulyn fell beneath the thrall of a headman who proclaimed himself possessed by a great spirit and declared his village an independent kingdom.”
“Father sent Koenyg, and Koenyg had the leaders killed and the entire village burned to the ground,” Sasha replied.
“And the king, Prince Damon says, was most displeased to learn of Prince Koenyg's methods,” Jaryd added. “He said the execution was just, but to punish the entire village was unnecessary. He sent gold and dispatched tradesmen to help in the rebuilding.”
“And Damon thinks father is not aware that Koenyg may be encouraging a Hadryn attack on the Udalyn?”
“M'Lady, the king spends much of his days in temple. He prays and he reads from the holy texts. His directions are broad, Prince Damon says, yet he trusts Prince Koenyg to implement the detail of those orders.”
Sasha nodded, thinking hard. The road wound about the armoury and the training hall now. On the right, the great city wall loomed dark and bleak in the night. “He should know,” Sasha muttered. “How could he not know?”
“Prince Damon feels that perhaps if the king were presented with a refugee from the Udalyn, an eyewitness who might sway the king's compassion…” Jaryd took a deep breath.
Sasha gave him a hard look. “And why are you doing this? You don't need to help. Spirits, you're in enough trouble already.”
“Trouble frightens me no more than it frightens you,” Jaryd said stubbornly. Sasha shook her head in faint disbelief. In Lenayin, Goeren-yai men weren't the only ones with rocks for heads.