The Will of the Empress

Chapter Ten

The village Speaker soon arrived, trailing a few bewildered goats. Tris stepped back, out of the way of the dance of manners required when Namornese commoners met the noble whose lands they worked. Once the greetings were done, Sandry asked to see the homes and wells damaged by floods in earlier years. Tris watched it all with Chime on her shoulder, her book safely tucked in a saddlebag. Since the dragon was clear unless she'd fed recently, most of the villagers couldn't see her until they were close to Tris. One bold girl reached out to touch the small creature, and only looked around when Chime began to purr. When her eyes met Tris's, the girl jerked her hand away with a gasp of alarm.

Tris made herself smile in what she hoped was a friendly way. Looking at the trembling smile on the girl's lips, she told herself, I think it worked.

After that first experiment with the village girl, she got to keep on performing her social smile. The children — those who didn't have to return immediately to work at the tasks of daily living — came to meet Chime. While she held the dragon so her new admirers could touch her more easily, Tris shifted until her nose was pointed into the rainy day breeze.

Someone upwind is making soap, she thought as she sorted through scents. And that's butter in the churn. Oh! Household privies and animal manure, she thought grimly. Really, these people should learn to clean up more if they don't want their water going bad. I'd better let Sandry know they need to collect their manure, before it starts leaking into their well water.

She smiled happily. There's wet spring earth. I love the smell of wet dirt. And here's the river under all of it.

She frowned. The river was young and ferocious, clawing at the banks. Tris didn't know a great deal about bridges, but she did understand rivers. Left to its own devices, this one was probably digging the banks away from the piers that supported the bridge.

Handing Chime over to the girl who'd touched her first, Tris left their tour and ambled over to the steep banks near the bridge. Closing her eyes, she let her power spill down the earthen sides. They were awkwardly held in place with a patchwork of boulders, bricks, smaller stones, and even planks of wood. She felt the swirling and thrusting river as it tugged the man-made walls, trying to pry them apart. They needed to be strengthened without disturbing the bridge, or they would collapse into the river, clogging it.

Tris took a breath and sent threads of magic down into the ground as Sandry might set the warp threads on a loom, reaching deep into the clay soil. Stones of every size peppered the ground underneath her and under the far riverbank, more than enough to shape solid rock walls. The problem, of course, was that they were scattered throughout the ground, separated by the dense earth.

Tris grinned, her pale eyes sparkling. This is a wonderfully knotty problem, she thought. The trick is to warm the ground just enough to make it easy to mould, then to start shaking it just enough to move the stones as I want them — and just enough that the villagers don't panic and run from the earthquake. Her fingers danced through her layers of braids, seeking out the ones she had used to trap earth tremors and those in which she had braided the heat of molten lava. They were heavy braids bound with black silk thread in special knots to contain the forces in them.

She sat down on the muddy earth with a plop, settling into the most comfortable crosslegged seat she knew. Carefully she began to undo the knots on her braids, sorting through the spells that would release their power for her guidance. Control is the thing, and patience, she told herself over and over, concentrating. They won't know I did a thing.

*

"Oh, good, it's one of her rainy-day gowns. Tris! Tris!" Someone — Sandry — shook Tris by the shoulder. Tris stirred. "Tris, you've been here for half the day. You're scaring the nice people! You've scared me, and Chime, and Ambros doesn't look that well, either!"

Tris blinked. Getting the earth to calm down once she was finished had been the hardest part of the whole thing. She had forgotten how tiring it was to force what was left of the power of the tremors and the volcanoes back into their proper braids. Weakly she fumbled to tie them up.

"What?" she demanded irritably, squinting up at her sister. "I wasn't bothering anybody. I was just sitting here." The rain had finally stopped.

"She made the ground ripple," said someone very young. "It all shivered and rumbled and twitched, and nobody dared go on the bridge."

Tris turned her head on her very stiff neck. The speaker was the girl child Maghen. Of all the people who stood and stared at her, Ambros and their guards included, only Sandry and Maghen had dared to come within reaching distance of Tris.

"I was repairing the walls on the banks," she explained to the child. "Otherwise they were about to drop into the river." She looked up at Sandry, her grey eyes glinting. "Or would you rather I'd have let them alone until they collapsed and you had no river?"

Sandry smiled at her. "You'll feel better once you've eaten something," she said practically. "And I didn't make your boots. They'll be scraping mud off them for a week." She offered Tris her hand.

Tris took it, and fought her body — it had been in one position for much too long — to get to her feet. The mud seemed far deeper than it had been when she sat down. As she struggled and lurched, worried that she would pull Sandry into the clayey soup, she looked at herself. From her waist down she was coated in mud.

Maghen saw Tris's self-inspection. "You sank," she explained. "The ground went soft and you sank, and you didn't even move. Oooh," she whispered as Sandry and Tris brushed at Tris's skirts. The mud slid off as if the cloth were made of glass.

Tris grinned at Maghen. "When Sandry makes a dress for a rainy day, she makes sure no one will have to wash it twelve times to get it clean," she told the child. "Really, she's very useful to have around, even if she is a clehame."

Sandry elbowed Tris in the ribs. "Shake that mud off your stockings, too, while you're at it," she ordered.

Tris obeyed.

"Come see," begged Maghen. "Look what happened." She towed Tris closer to the river's edge. On both sides, a hundred yards upstream of the bridge and roughly the same length downstream, the riverbanks were secured by solid stone walls. Closer examination showed them to be made of thousands of pieces of rock, large and small, fitted tightly together into barriers a foot thick. Tris bent down to look under the bridge. The walls continued under it, supporting and filling in the spaces around the piers. The riverbanks would stay put for a few decades, at least.

"Not bad for a day's work," she told Maghen, and trudged back to Sandry and Ambros. The man had procured sausage rolls, which he offered to her. Tris took two — she was ravenous — and ate quickly and neatly as the guards mustered the nerve to bring forward their horses. When she was done, she shook hands solemnly with Maghen and waited for Sandry to mount up.

"I'll make sure the villagers thank you before we return to the capital," Ambros murmured to Tris. "They're just... unsettled. The ground quivered and growled for hours."

"I didn't mean to unsettle anybody," Tris grumbled as she swung herself into the saddle. "I just didn't want you to have to pay to repair the riverbanks along with everything else." She smiled crookedly. "Sandry might actually have to sell rubies, or something."

As Ambros mounted his horse, Sandry looked back at Tris. "Donkey dung," she said. "I was so hoping to sell the rubies Papa bought Mama. I prefer garnets, you know. They have a much more pleasing colour."

Chime glided over to them from wherever she had been as they set their horses forward, waving good-bye to the villagers. Ambros shook his head and continued to shake it. "I've never known anyone like either of you," he said, befuddled. "Not a noblewoman who didn't prize expensive stones, nor a young woman who could stir up the earth like a stewpot and say, 'Oh, by the way, I've just saved you a hundred gold argibs in riverbank shoring.' Not to mention the lives of the few who always manage to fall into the river and die during the work."

"Then you've led a sheltered life,"Tris informed him.

Sandry patted Ambros on the arm. "We lived in a very rowdy household," she added sympathetically. "You should be glad we didn't live here, with all the mistakes we made."

"But you..." Ambros said, looking at Tris.

Tris slapped her mount's withers lightly with the reins, sending the horse into a trot ahead of the group. I hate it when they go on and on about the things I can do, she thought irritably. Why can't Ambros just let it drop?

It'll be different when I get an academic mage's license at Lightsbridge, she told herself. Then I can just do all the work mages are expected to do: charms and spells and potions and things. The trouble with the Winding Circle medallion is that when I show it I have to explain about weather magic — a Lightsbridge license won't require that. People won't fuss at me for being odd. I can live a normal life.

As she crested the ridge, the wind brought an unexpected metallic tang to Tris's nose. When she straightened to get a better whiff of it, the scent was gone. She drew her mare up and raised a hand to signal the others to slow down.

"What's wrong?" demanded Ambros.

The wind shifted. Tris no longer smelled whatever it was. Slowly she lowered her hand.

"Maybe nothing," Sandry replied to her cousin. "Maybe trouble coming."

"Maybe one of those villagers slipped off to warn someone we'd be coming this way — bandits or the like," one of their guards suggested. When Ambros frowned at him, the man shrugged. "Sorry, my lord, but we couldn't watch everyone. There's no word the Pofkim folk have any dealings with outlaws, but you never know."

On they went, the guards with hands on their weapons, tiding around Sandry and Ambros in a loose circle. Tris refused to retreat into their ranks. After seeing her work with the riverbanks, none of the guards insisted that she move inside their protection.

They had gone two miles when a spurt of wind showed Tris metal plates sewn to leather and shoved the tang of sweat, oil, and iron into her sensitive nose. She sneezed and reined up. Twenty men trotted out from behind a stone outcrop at the bend of the road and rode wide to encircle them. Some guards tracked them with their bows, sighting on first one, then another rider. Ambros and the remaining guards drew their swords.

Three of the newcomers halted directly in front of their party. One of them was an older man, grey with age and red-nosed from too much drinking, though his seat in the saddle was assured and his gaze clear. Another was a redheaded man in his thirties who wore a gaudy blue tunic over his armour. He grinned at them, but there was nothing friendly about the double-headed axe in one of his hands. The third man was barely older than Sandry and Tris themselves. He wore a metal cuirass and held a bared sword in his trembling grip.

"Good day to you, Saghad fer Landreg," the redheaded man said casually.

Ambros looked as if he'd bitten into a lemon. "Bidis fer Holm. Saghad fer Haugh." He directed the glare that went with the Saghad title at the oldest newcomer. For the youngest of them, Ambros spared only a sniff of disdain. He spoke to Sandry, though his eyes never left the men in front of them. "Behold the least savoury of the so-called nobles who haunt your borders in search of easy pickings. Saghad Yeskoy fer Haugh is uncle to Bidis Dymytur fer Holm and father to that young sprig of a rotten family tree."

"Ah, but Dymytur is your eternal slave, fair Clehame" the redheaded man said, bowing mockingly in the saddle. "Now, which of you wenches would that be? Please tell me it's not the fat one, Ambros. Fat redheads always spell trouble in our family — look at my mother. I suppose I could cut this one back on her feed, get her a little less padded."

Tris sighed and leaned on her saddlehorn. "I wouldn't touch you to kick you," she told him rudely, her brain working rapidly. Ambros must think I'm worn out from the river, she thought. Oh, dear. I suppose a little surprise won't hurt him. He really ought to know that Sandry isn't a helpless maiden. Now seems as good a time as any for him to learn.

"You're going to try that thing, aren't you?" demanded Sandry, her eyes blazing. "You're going to try and kidnap me and force me to sign a marriage contract so you'll get my wealth and lands."

"Oh, not try, dearest, wealthy Clehame," Dymytur assured Sandry. "We're going to do it. Your party has eight swords, and we have twenty."

"Isn't that just like a bully," Sandry replied shortly. "You think you have a sword, so you don't have any vulnerabilities. Out of my way!" she ordered the guards.

They hesitated long enough to infuriate Sandry. Before she could shout at them, Tris said, "Do as she says, please."

The guards flinched at the sound of her voice. When they looked at Sandry and met her glare, they reluctantly kneed their horses to either side to open a passage for her. Ambros lunged forward to grab Sandry's rein and missed. "Are you Emelanese mad?" he demanded coldly, his cheeks flushed.

"No, we aren't," Tris told him quietly. "We know precisely what we're doing."

Sandry rode forward until her mount stood between those of two guards. "I'm not going with these people," Sandry replied, her blue eyes fixed on her would-be kidnappers. "I can't abide men who don't dress properly."

Tris saw the billow of silver fire that passed from Sandry to strike the three nobles in front of them. It spread to their followers, jumping from man to man, until it formed a ring that passed through them all. For a moment it seemed as if nothing had happened. The only sound was the wind over the grasslands around them.

Then a man yelped. He wore a leather and metal plate jerkin over his heavy tunic. Now the tunic collapsed into pieces, squirmed out from under the leather, and fell to the ground. Another man in Tris's view grunted as his breeches fell apart at the seams and wriggled off. The tunic under the youngest noble's breastplate also went to pieces and crawled away, while the cloak tied around his neck disintegrated into a heap of threads. Yeskoy hitched his chin, as if trying to adjust the shirt under his armour. Instead, a cloud of threads trickled from his sleeves and the hem of his armour, like milkweed down.

"Maybe if you had women you didn't treat as slaves, your clothes would hold up better," Sandry continued, her hands white-knuckled on the reins. "Oh, but look. Your leather workers don't do very well, either."

Now the stitches on the leather tunics gave way, as did the stitching that secured each metal scale to the leather beneath it. Leather breeches came apart at the seams; boots fell to the ground in pieces.

"I doubt their saddlers like them, either, Clehame" remarked one of the guards.

All the stitchery in the saddles, tack, and saddle blankets was unravelling. Men slid to the ground, reins in their hands, stumbling as they landed in piles of leather and cloth. Their belts gave way as Sandry's thread magic called to the stitches that held the buckles in place. Leather-wrapped weapon hilts came apart in their owners' fists. By the time Sandry was done, twenty naked men surrounded them. Only a few still held the better-made swords. Even the binding that secured the double-headed axe to its haft came apart, leaving Dymytur to scrabble for the sheathed sword that lay among his belongings. The horses fled, unnerved by the feel of things coming apart on their sensitive backs.

"I'd surrender if I were you," yet another of Sandry's guards advised. "She's been nice. She hasn't asked the redhead to look after you. The redhead isn't at all nice."

"I've been working on it," complained Tris.

Ambros looked at the ring of naked men. "Do you know, I would have thought that, for a mission to kidnap a young girl, you'd all be better... equipped."

"That's why we needed her, curse you!" snarled Yeskoy. "A plumply dowered heiress — do you think one of the imperial pretty boys will serve you any better, Viymese Clehame?" Although he was covering his private parts, he still managed to look fierce. "You'd best get it into your head, magic or no, you'll be married soon enough. You won't hold your nose so high when you've a belly full of brats and you're locked up in someone's country castle while he prances for the empress!"

Tris looked at Sandry. "What do you say? There's hail coming in the next storm. I could hasten it along, bring the hail down here. By the time I'm done, they'll look like they've been kicked by elephants."

Sandry leaned forward. "I will never marry in Namorn, willing or no," she said, her voice low and ferocious. "Never, never, never. Get out of my sight, before I tell my friend to send for that hail."

Dymytur hesitated, his eyes still on Sandry. His uncle snarled wordlessly and dragged him back, away from Sandry's group.

"The empress has mages, too!" Dymytur shouted, enraged. "Great mages who will tie up your power in a wee bow, so you'll marry whoever she pleases as she commands, then you'll see about your never-never-never!"

He turned and ran for the nearby woods, his kin and his warriors following at a stumbling trot. Sandry spat on the ground in disgust, and kneed her mare forward down the road, After a moment's hesitation, Ambros and their guards followed. Tris remained behind for a moment, undoing one of her wind braids. She drew out a fistful of its power, held it on her palm while she gave it a quick stir with a finger, then turned it loose. It circled the area in a powerful blast, strewing leather and cloth all over the wide fields around the road. Only then did she follow the others.

*

Sandry fumed in silence all the way back to the castle. How dare these people? she asked herself silently, over and over. How dare they? What gives them the right to assume they may tell me how I am to live? They don't know me. They don't even care to know me. They look at me and all they see is a womb and moneybags.

"Do people do this with your daughters?" she demanded sharply of Ambros after they had ridden several miles.

Her cousin cleared his throat. "Only a fraction of women are at risk. If a woman is already bound by marriage contract, like most of the young ladies at court, she is considered untouchable. There are women and girls who are related to families or individuals considered too powerful to offend, like Daja's friends in Kugisko, the Bancanors and the Voskajos. The rest of us keep our daughters close to home in their maiden years."

"And it's considered safe to offend my family?" Sandry asked, her voice cutting.

"The head of your family is the empress," Ambros murmured. "And the empress wants you to remain here."

Sandry suggested what the empress could do about it in words she had learned from Briar.

Ambrose flinched and shook his head. "It was folly of me to let us come out with less than two squads of men, but we needed every free hand for the ploughing. I thought we would be safe enough inside our borders. Holm and Haugh must be desperate, to strike at you here." He frowned. "And someone from Pofkim must have been in their pay, to let them know of our visit."

"Or someone at the castle got the word out when you announced this jaunt last night," Tris said, matter-of factly.

Sandry glared at her.

"What?" demanded Tris. "I'm not saying you shouldn't venture outside your precious walls. It isn't as if we didn't handle the whole mess with no bloodshed. Though I don't see why you didn't arrest the nobles, at least," she told Ambros. "It was highway robbery, in a manner of speaking."

"I wanted to get Sandry home," Ambros said. "We'd have had our work cut out for us, to round them up and hold them, even without their weapons. And, well, there is the matter of the unspoken law."

"What unspoken law?" Sandry wanted to know.

Ambros sighed and scratched his head. If he hadn't been such a dignified man, Sandry would have described his look as sheepish. "The one of runaway marriages," he said reluctantly at last. "No magistrate will penalize a man who kidnaps an unmarried woman for the purposes of marriage. Or if they do, it's a fine, and one so tiny that it's insulting. The only exception is if someone is killed during the kidnapping. Then the man must die."

"Mila of the Grain, of course we must punish him if he kills someone, but kidnapping?" cried Sandry. "A mere bit of manly folly! I'm sure if he apologizes to the woman and gives her flowers, she'll come to thank him!"

Wincing, Ambros continued in his dry way: "The custom's from the old empire, the one west of the Syth. Those we've conquered since have chosen to, well, honour it."

"That's barbaric!" snapped the girl.

All around them the guards from Landreg bristled.

"It is!" Sandry insisted, swiveling to look at them. "Around the Pebbled Sea, women control their own lives, within limits. No one can force us to marry against our will!"

"Actually, they can, but they have to be sneakier about it," remarkedTris, watching the clouds overhead. "Contracts, and bride prices. Telling the girl it's for the good of the family, that sort of thing."

"It's not right, the Namornese custom is barbaric, and I won't be forced to marry anyone!" Sandry snapped. "Anyone who tries to force me will learn a sharp lesson!"

"Any would-be kidnapper with chain mail would still be wearing it even after you were done with your spell," Ambros observed. "And if they know what you can do, they'll be sure to prepare ahead of time."

"I am not helpless deadweight," Sandry whispered, her eyes blazing. "I am no victim, no pawn, no weakling."

Tris sighed as they trotted onto the road that would take them to the castle gate. "No weakling against the imperial mages? Ishabal is a great mage. So's Quenaill. Do you even know if you could face down great mages, if one was trying to kidnap you?"

"If you three weren't fighting what we used to be, I wouldn't think twice about it!" cried Sandry, furious. "But no, you fear I'll discover something naughty in your minds. Or silly. Or ugly. It's like the three of you went off to have your adventures and then you come home and blame me because we're all different! I want us to be what we were, and all you care about is that travel broadened you!" To her disgust she realized she was weeping as she shouted her resentments. "Forgive me for wanting my family back!" Before she disgraced herself even further, she kicked her horse into a gallop and pelted headlong up the hill to Landreg Castle.

*

On their return Sandry retreated to her rooms. As they waited for the bell to call them to the dining hall, it was left to Tris to tell Briar and Daja what had happened that day.

Daja nodded when Tris told them about Sandry's last outburst. "She mentioned that to me, back home," she admitted.

"But she said when we left she didn't mind," Briar complained. They had gathered in his chambers, watching as he put together a blemish cure for Ambros's oldest daughter. He spoke to his sisters as if he were doing nothing else, but his hands were sure as he added a drop of this and two drops of that to the contents of a small bowl. "She told us to stop being silly and grab the chance when it was offered."

"What else could she say?" Daja wanted to know. "If you've forgotten, she hates to distress people."

"That wasn't apparent today," Tris murmured, watching the flames in Briar's hearth. "She left those kidnappers in plenty of distress. And she certainly gave us the rough edge of her tongue, coming back. I can't recall ever seeing her angry enough to yell."

"She hates being treated like a thing," Daja reminded them. "She always hated it when people looked at her and saw a noble girl, not a human being. And she's been running Duke's Citadel since a few months after we were all gone. It must be hard, going from mistress of a castle and adviser to a nation's ruler to someone who's supposed to go where she's bid and do as she's told."

"If she doesn't like it, let her sign it over to Ambros," Briar suggested, wiping off the slender reeds he used as droppers. "Sign it all over and go home."

"I think it's a matter of pride," Tris remarked slowly. "She hates being treated like a noble, except when she wants to act like one. Like today. She was happy enough with the villagers and everything. It was when those idiots tried to make her into a prize that she got all on her dignity. If she gives up these estates now, it will be like she's been forced to surrender what's rightly hers out of fear."

"She'll think she's shirking," added Daja. "She already thinks it, with all the things that didn't get done because they had to pay so much out to her, and because of people like Gudruny."

"No, it's not that she's afraid to shirk, though Lakik knows she hates that," Briar told them, pouring his cure into a small glass bottle. "She's got the bit between her teeth now. It's how she always gets, when someone says she has to do anything she thinks challenges her rights. Remember when I stole my shakkan and Crane and his people were chasing me?" He reached out and stroked the tree, which he kept nearby whenever he was working. "There she was, all of ten and no bigger than an itch, standing in front of the house and telling Crane and his students she forbade them to come onto her ground." He shook his head with an admiring grin. "Nothing between her and them but a flimsy old wooden fence and gate, and there she was, telling them they weren't allowed to pass."

Daja chuckled. "Or the time she said she wanted me to sit at table with her, and the other nobles balked, and she pulled rank on them. She was that strong-willed even eight years ago."

"Then she must hate all this," said a soft voice from the doorway. The door had been open, but they had thought everyone else had gone downstairs. Now Rizu leaned against the frame, her arms crossed over her full bosom. Her large, dark eyes were filled with pity. "Noble girls don't usually get to dictate the terms of their lives in the empire. I was wondering how she'd come by the regal manner. I suppose it was losing her parents that made her grow up so fast?"

The three looked at one another. Tris shrugged, then Briar, indicating Daja could decide what to tell the older woman. Briar thought it would be all right to trust Rizu a little. He'd noticed she listened more than she gossiped, and she hardly ever said a hurtful word. Briar liked her, for all that he felt she was unavailable to the likes of him. Since she was always friendly, he knew it wasn't that she had problems with his being a commoner or a mage. He just wasn't her type. That was fine with Briar. Caidy, with her sly eyes and her habit of touching his arm, or his shoulder, or his chest, was far more intriguing.

"Well, her parents travelled a great deal, you know that," Daja replied to Rizu's question. "She was with adults more than children, and her parents could be a little..."

"Distracted," Briar supplied, writing down instructions lor the use of his blemish cure.

"That," agreed Daja. "And once Niko, who found us lour, once he saw we had magic, we were spending more time among adults, and with each other. Then there was the earthquake, and the pirates."

"Forest fire," added Tris softly. "Plague. His Grace's heart attack."

"And getting caught up in murders, and having a student to teach, and handling a kind of magic most of us can't even see," Briar explained. "It rearranges the way you lot at the world."

"I should think so!" said Rizu, awed. "You've led such adventurous lives!" She leaned her curly head against the door frame. "All this must make her feel like a bird in cage, then," she commented. "Maybe the three of you feel that way, too?"

Briar grinned as Tris chuckled and Daja shrugged. "We don't like cages," Briar replied for all three of them. "We tend to stay away from them while we can."

"You're lucky you're not noble, then," said Rizu, a shadow passing over her face. "We're supposed to think our cages are open air."

The supper bell chimed at last. Daja was the first to get up and leave the room. As she passed Rizu, she linked her arm through the woman's, drawing her along with her. "Come away with us, then," she offered casually. "Live without cages."

Rizu threw her head back to laugh. The light gilded the line from her chin down to her bosom. Daja looked at that gilding, and away, feeling heat rise in her cheeks.

*

They sent up a tray of food from supper when Sandry refused to come downstairs. She poked at it with her fork, far too angry to eat. She kept trying to sort out her feelings, but they continued to tangle. How can I feel selfish for yelling at my friend, proud because I finally said something, humiliated at the idea that I might be carried off a prize sheep, frustrated because I hadn't unravelled those disgusting kidnappers all the way, ashamed of myself for sulking, and homesick? she asked herself, stacking vegetables on top of meat for entertainment's sake. All at once?

I hate it here, she decided, pushing away from the table. I hate how you never know what people are really thinking. I hate being a prize sheep.

Someone tapped on her door. "Come in," she called, thinking that Gudruny had come to collect the tray.

Fin opened the door and stepped into the room. "We missed you at supper, Lady Sandry," he said. "Ambros told us what happened."

Oh, dear, thought Sandry as he came over to kneel by her chair. He's going to try to court me.

Fin caught her hand. "Forgive me that I wasn't there to protect you," he said, his blue eyes blazing. "I should have been. I'd have sent those dogs on their way before they could set so much as a wrinkle of worry on your brow. I'll do it now, if you ask it. Ambros can give me a couple of squads and I'll find those curs and bring them back for your judgment."

"That's very good of you, though I am certain they are long gone by now," Sandry replied gently. "But truly, I needed no defenders. I can take care of myself, Fin. And Cousin Ambros needs the men for ploughing."

"Ploughing, over your honour and safety? I knew Ambros was little better than a bookkeeper, but what an insult! And you shouldn't have to defend yourself!" he protested. "You are a gentle creature who must not be touched by sordid ness like that! From now on, I'm your devoted servant. My sword is at your command. And if any more hedge-knights distress you, I'll make sure they get a lesson they'll remember for what's left of their lives." He kissed Sandry's hand fervently. "Unlike them, I care only for your happiness."

Sandry couldn't help it. Her mouth curled with disdain. "And my moneybags?"

Fin kissed her hand again. "Don't interest me in the least," he assured her. "You don't see something precious and beautiful and consider its cost — or, at least, a true nobleman does not. Leave that for the merchants, and the Traders. Those of us of rank know what real value is."

She got rid of him finally, after two hand kisses and more fervent promises of protection. He waited until after dark to offer to go recapture those men, Sandry thought dismally as she wiped her hand with her cloth napkin. Oh, I'm not being fair. He's been fidgeting ever since we came — no doubt he wants to go kidnapper-chasing.

Briefly she remembered Dymytur's furious, red face as the man had shouted at her. For an instant she fought the urge to call Fin back and to order Ambros to give him enough men to capture Dymytur and his uncle. It was harder than she had expected to resist the temptation.

Humiliation again, Sandry thought glumly. I hate uncomfortable emotions. They're so ... Her stomach cramped. Sandry wrapped her arms around her waist and thought, Uncomfortable.

She had managed a spoonful of stewed apples when someone else knocked on her door. "Come in," she said, thinking this must be Gudruny.

Jak entered, a smile in his brown eyes and on his handsome lips.

Mila of the Grain, have mercy on me, thought Sandry as she gave Jak her most polite, chilly smile.

"I came to see how you did," he said easily, digging his hands into the pockets of his light indoor coat. "I missed you at supper." Sandry had noticed that, in the jockeying at mealtimes, Jak had most often gotten himself into the chair next to Sandry, being smoother and more adept at distracting others than Fin. "Ambros told us what happened," Jak continued. "You should write to Her Imperial Majesty."

"I thought she was contemptuous of women who got taken, since she managed to escape when it happened to her," replied Sandry.

"Well, she'll approve of you taking care of the matter yourself, but it's not just that. May I sit?"

His eyes were so open and friendly that she caught herself gesturing to a chair before she'd really considered it. Jak dragged the chair over beside hers and sat, leaning forward to brace his arms on his knees.

"You are all right, then?" he asked. "No aftermath jitters, no fiery wish for revenge now that you've had time to reflect?"

Sandry smiled. "None at all. Such men are their own worst enemy."

"You certainly deserve better," Jak replied. "A man of culture and refinement. Someone who can make you laugh."

"But I don't want to be married," Sandry pointed out reasonably. "I'm happy being single."

"But think of the freedom you'd have as a married woman!" protested Jak. "You can ride wherever you like — within limits, of course. There's crime everywhere. But on your own lands you'd be safe. You'd have your lord's purse to draw on, his lands and castles and jewels to add to your own, an important place at court... what?" he demanded us Sandry gave way to giggles. "Why are you laughing?"

"Because I'm not interested in any of those things, Jak," she explained when she could speak. "I know other girls are, but I have all I need when it comes to wealth, and if I were as poor as a Mire mouse, I would be able to earn my way with my loom and my needles. With Uncle Vedris I am important at court. You're sweet, truly you are, but you don't know me in the least."

Jak looked down. "And I suppose that gardener, that boy, does?" he asked quietly.

"Briar?" Sandry cried, shocked. "You think I prefer — please! He's my brother!"

"I hadn't noted the family resemblance," Jak said.

"Well, it's there," Sandry replied. "I would no more kiss Briar than... oh, please! It's just too grotesque to even think about!"

Jak grinned at her. "Well, that's a relief, at least." He must have heard the genuine disgust in Sandry's voice. "Look, just forget what I said," he continued. "We can still be friends?"

"Yes, of course," Sandry told him, offering her hand. Jak clasped it with a smile, then left her alone.

He's sweet, she thought. If I wanted a husband...

Suddenly she saw Shan's face in her mind's eye: the easy smile, the wicked twinkle in his eyes, the firm, smiling mouth.

Nonsense, she told herself strictly. "I don't want a husband. Any husband." She said it aloud, in the hope that it would sound more real that way.

She shook her head with a sigh and put all of the dinner things back on the tray. She opened the door, then fetched the tray and set it in the hall. With that chore taken care of, she closed and locked her bedroom door. Gudruny and her children had their own door to their bedroom, which meant Sandry could have a good night's sleep without one more interruption, from anyone. I'll write to Uncle and set a date for my return home, she told herself, taking out paper and pen. After that, I know I'll sleep well.

* * *