Clare’s face lit up. “I’d love that.” They fell into silence as they sipped their tea. After a while Clare said, “May I ask you a question?”
Sage grimaced. Now Clare would ask about matching. The conversation had been designed to make Sage to open up. Maybe she should let Clare try to get Ash Carter talking. Sage nodded warily and set her cup down by the hearth.
“Why don’t you want to be friends with any of us?”
Sage’s mouth dropped open, and she quickly snapped it shut. “Maybe you haven’t noticed, but no one wants to be my friend.”
“I do.”
Sage pulled her knees up under her skirt and hugged them against her chest. “I’ve never had friends.”
“Never?”
Sage shrugged. “Too low for noble friends, too high for common ones when I lived with the Broadmoors.”
“What about when you lived with your father?”
“We traveled a lot. Most other girls thought I was a boy, since I always wore breeches. So not really, no.”
Clare looked at her with pity. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. I had Father. He was all I needed.”
That was plainly a strange concept for Clare. “I rarely saw my father. He probably would’ve married me off years ago if it weren’t for the law.”
“You know how that law came about, right?” Clare shook her head, but she looked genuinely interested. Sage lowered her knees and reached for the kettle to pour a fresh cup, falling into her schoolmistress tone. “Young noble girls were dying by the score in childbirth, and King Pascal the Third commissioned a study that found pregnancy was much safer for a girl after the age of seventeen. He wanted to craft the law according to that, but his nobles revolted, and they compromised. Since then, anyone properly matched must be at least sixteen.”
Clare shifted her eyes away and bit her lower lip. “My sister was married at sixteen, two years ago. And now it’s my turn.”
“How do you feel about that?”
Clare shrugged, her face blank. “Does it matter?”
Sage didn’t know how to answer. Often she felt it better to accept what couldn’t be changed, but she’d rejected what had seemed to be her fate. She snorted. Maybe it was fate that rejected her.
“What about you?” Clare asked. “Will Mistress Rodelle find you a good match while we’re in the capital?”
Sage nearly spat out her tea. “What in the world gave you that idea?”
“That’s what Jacqueline’s been saying. Everyone thinks it’s how Darnessa will pay you.”
“Well, it’s not.” Sage tapped her finger on her teacup. “What else does she say?”
Clare tucked her feet under her nightdress. “She says I lower myself by associating with you.”
Sage grinned. “How do you like it, down here in the dirt with us common folk?”
Her friend smiled back. “I like it very much.”
19
QUINN FROWNED AT the messages they’d collected from the picket scouts in the three days since leaving Galarick with the ladies. Just before the group reached Lord Darrow’s manor on the first day, one of the four scouts reported coming across a Kimisar squad. They’d stopped the next night at Lord Ellison’s, where a message arrived from another scout, saying he, too, found a traveling group of Kimisar. Knowing he couldn’t go after them and still guard the women he was supposed to be protecting, Quinn instructed the scouts to shadow the squads for now.
Then, this afternoon, two more squads were reported. They were all traveling east, same as the escort. With ten in each, Quinn’s men were now officially outnumbered.
But it was the forward scout’s report that disturbed him most. He’d pushed ahead and passed their fourth stop, Baron Underwood’s castle, and entered the Tasmet province. Instead of Kimisar squads, he saw traveling groups of Cresceran men, supposedly headed to work in the mines south of Tegann. It wouldn’t have caused concern except in questioning local taverns on the increase in business, the numbers didn’t make sense, so the picket had left his assigned area and followed some of them. Disregarding his primary mission risked a hanging, but Quinn trusted this scout above all others.
Right before they arrived at their evening stop, the scout’s coded message arrived:
Paid soldiers, not miners. 3,000 strong.
Camping 40 miles south of Tegann. Waiting.
Returning to post. —C
An entire regiment was gathering in Tasmet. Quinn kept expecting one of his father’s couriers to catch up to them, though, so he hadn’t reported it yet. If there wasn’t a messenger waiting at Underwood tomorrow, Quinn would send one of his own.
And Starling—Lady Sagerra—kept asking questions every day and on evenings Mouse found her for extra lessons. Innocent questions that always led to deeper ones. Questions that, when added up, could be very valuable information to their enemies. How was the army organized? How could Ash Carter advance through the ranks? What weapons had he trained with, and who did he report to? What kind of food did soldiers eat? Were even the cooks and pages trained in combat?
Every night she wrote in that ledger.
Every day he saw more signs that the ladies did not consider her one of their own.
Every instinct he had screamed one thing.
Lady Sagerra was a spy.
20
THE FOURTH MORNING dawned gray and drizzly, but Sage intended to ride with Ash Carter again anyway, so she dressed warmly, and gladly put on her hat for once. The ladies bustled about excitedly; their next stop would last three full days at Baron Underwood’s castle. A banquet was planned for the second evening, and they tittered over the prospect of dancing with the army officers and other noble guests. At one point Sage overheard Jacqueline whisper loudly that “Sagerra can dance with the kitchen staff,” and her audience burst into giggles.
Sage was too absorbed in her own concerns to care. If Darnessa realized just how little information Sage had gained after so much time with Carter, there would be hell to pay. She’d stayed up all last night debating how to confront him about his strange silence.
He already sat on the driver’s seat, staring at the low-hanging clouds with a frustrated expression. She had to call his name twice to get his attention.
He looked down and removed his cap. “Good morning, my lady. I’m afraid today it would be better for you to ride in the back of the wagon.”
Sage opened her mouth to protest that she wouldn’t melt, but then she noticed a crossbow on the bench beside him and a sword belted at his waist. She glanced around at the other soldiers. They were all armed with twice as many weapons as usual. Did they expect trouble?
Looking back at Carter, it struck her that the sword hung to be drawn by his right hand. He always wrote—rather poorly—with his left.
“Perhaps it would be best,” she said. “Consider this an apology.” She pulled an apple from her pocket and tossed it up to him, aiming slightly to his left in a small test.
He held reins in both hands, but he dropped them into his left and caught the apple with his right. “Thank you, my lady.”