‘What is it?’ Landra said. She sounded almost nervous. Marith caught it too, looked ahead curiously.
‘Horses.’ They could all hear them now, thundering hooves like that terrible day outside Reneneth.
‘Horses?’ Landra frowned. ‘From Malth Salene, it must be. Nobody else would be out here.’
‘Unless it’s brigands, My Lady,’ said Mandle.
‘Not brigands,’ said Landra. She sounded frightened. ‘Not so close to Malth Salene. Someone must have brought word.’
Marith had raised his head, staring into the distance at the riders coming closer. Green and gold pennants fluttering, that put Thalia in mind of the kites she had seen sometimes in the square of sky above the Temple that had been her world. Green and gold, that Marith had said were the Relast colours. A flush rose in Landra’s face, her throat worked and her lips moved.
As they had once before, the horses rode down upon them and stopped almost in a circle, great dark things and one white. Armed men, in heavy bronze helmets. Three horses, led on long reins, saddled and harnessed in scarlet leather. An older man, perhaps forty, greying, heavy-faced, in plainer clothes but wrapped around in power.
‘Uncle—’ Landra began. The older man turned his face to her, then dismounted and came towards Marith. The whole group stiffened, an indrawn breath held as sharp as the frost.
The man bowed his head awkwardly, then went down slowly on one knee. ‘My Lord Prince,’ he said.
‘Aris.’ Marith looked at him. Confused.
‘You will forgive … What has been done here,’ the man said in a strained voice. ‘My Lord Prince. Lord Relast did not countenance this.’
‘Deneth …’ Marith still seemed utterly lost.
‘We are here to escort you to Malth Salene, My Lord Prince.’ The man turned to the other men, gesturing for them to dismount. ‘Attend to them. Cloaks, and wine.’
Marith gazed dully at the grey-haired man. As if none of this was entirely unexpected yet also as unreal as a dream.
Landra argued and shouted, stamping her foot and almost spitting.
‘He killed my brother! Your future Lord! He deserves nothing but pain.’
‘He is the rightful heir to the White Isles,’ the grey-haired man said. ‘A Prince of the Altrersyr.’
‘He’s an exile and a murderer! A dead man! When my father hears of this—’
‘Your father sent me, you fool. We lathered the horses half senseless to get to you.’
‘He killed Carin!’ Landra cried again.
‘Yes.’ The faces locked; Thalia could see familial resemblance in the square jaws and the pale blue eyes. ‘Have some wine, Landra. You look half dead yourself.’ He came over to Marith and Thalia. ‘Are you fit to ride, My Lord? We have horses for you and … and the lady.’
‘Lady Thalia.’ Marith’s arm tightened on Thalia’s waist. ‘You will accord her every courtesy you accord me. Treat her as you would an Altrersyr princess.’ He must have seen Thalia glance nervously at the horses. ‘She will ride with me, on my horse.’ Laughed dryly. ‘Tempted as I am to make Landra walk, we’ll make better time if she rides. Mandle, however …’ He shook his head, rubbed his eyes wearily. ‘No. He can have the other horse.’
Marith swung up easily into the saddle, lifting Thalia and helping her arrange herself before him. He pressed his face into her hair for a moment, sighing with pleasure or pain, then commanded the horse forward at a rush, breathing out with a little ‘ha’ sound as it leapt at his words and ran the bare landscape into the wind, its mane flying, Thalia’s hair flying, her eyes watering, the air suddenly brighter around them, the sky pale with light. Birds, for the first time in this place, black against the pale sky. The first sign of life here. Everything felt more alive. ‘Ha,’ said Marith again. He slowed the horse a little, waiting for the rest to catch them.
‘Not afraid, are you?’ he asked. The wind caught his words.
‘No,’ Thalia said in reply, half-lying.
‘Good.’ He whipped up the horse again and made it run faster. Distant voices behind them shouted. A thunder of hooves as a couple of the men raced to follow them, Marith laughing, then pulling the horse in to allow them to catch up.
‘I swore I wouldn’t run,’ he said. The old man, Aris, snorted and muttered something under his breath.
‘Who is he?’ Thalia asked after a little while. Her shock and confusion was wearing off, the numb feeling in her mind easing a little.
‘He? Oh. Yes. I never actually introduced you, did I? Aris Relast. Some kin of Deneth’s. A servant, though he pretends otherwise.’
‘Deneth?’
He sighed. ‘Gods, I forget. Denethlen Relast. Lord Relast. Landra’s father. And Carin’s. My enemy, or so I thought. Curious, that he should send all this. Almost a hero’s welcome.’ She could hear the amusement in his voice for the first time in many days, wry and self-mocking. ‘Well, we shall see in a while, now. He may just think it entertaining, to wrap me in status and then kill me. It entertained him no end to see the state to which he and his son reduced me, I’m sure.’
A pause, and then, more seriously but still with mockery, ‘You are the only woman I’ve ever knelt for, you know. To you, and for you. All this, for you, Thalia.’
It was full night when they reached the great fortress of Malth Salene, their horses lathered and worn. Thalia saw it approaching, rising up dark against a darker sky, yellow firelights glowing in narrow window slits. Rough and angular, so different from Sorlost with its domes and towers of gold. It had no houses around it, rose up sheer and sudden, a rock jutting from the thin soil like the rocks on the moor. The land narrowed, a track like a neck with the sea far below. Cold, and the sea was trying to swallow it, batter down the cliffs, reach up its claws to them. The air smelled of salt. Marith had said it was a beautiful place. The most beautiful place in all his kingdom.
Gates were thrown open: they had come, she saw, to an outer wall, high as the walls of her Temple, giving onto a courtyard aflame with torchlight. Marith spurred the horse forward, racing in through the gates in a great clatter of hooves. A voice behind them shouted ‘The Prince! The Prince comes! Amrath! Amrath and the Altrersyr!’ Marith threw back the hood of his cloak and wheeled the horse about.
Every person present in the courtyard fell to their knees, heads bent.
They hung for a moment frozen, the two of them on the great horse, the people kneeling. The courtyard was very much like the courtyard of the caravan inns that were all Thalia really knew of the world of men. It seemed to her, therefore, disappointing as the entrance to a great noble’s fortress, dirty and crowded, not much larger than the courtyard at the inn in Reneneth, straw on the ground, horse shit, dogs, small doorways and narrow windows with metal bars. The back entranceway, the stables and service areas, though she did not know it then.
The other riders came in after them and the gate was closed. Aris Relast swung down and knelt again at Marith’s feet.
‘My Lord Prince. Welcome to Malth Salene. On My Lord Relast’s behalf, I bid you enter and be welcome here.’