Sasha (30 page)

“Oh dear lords,” Sofy exclaimed. And shook her head in despair. “Old family history. I swear nothing causes more catastrophes in this kingdom than old family history. Shall we ever be free of it?”

“Twelve years is not old history, Sofy,” Damon said sombrely. “I remember Krystoff well.” Sofy gazed at him. He seemed more serious, somehow, than when he had left. More adult. The look in his eyes was the look of a young man concerned with matters far greater than himself. Prior to this ride, there had not been so many of those.

“What is it, Damon?” Sofy asked him. “What happened out there?”

Damon sighed and shook his head. “I'll tell you later,” he said.

The road opened onto Soros Square, a vast expanse of stone paving centred by the Verenthane Angel of Mercy. On the left were grand stone buildings fronting the square with ornate facades, pillars, arches and windows. To the right, the great front gate, open to the traffic of early evening and surrounded by many guards who warmed themselves near the blazing fires beyond the wall.

“Sasha sends her love,” Damon added.

“She is coming to Rathynal?” Sofy asked.

“She'd better,” Damon said darkly. “Krayliss will make a fuss if she doesn't.”

“And Kessligh?”

“That was the impression.” Sofy was glad to hear that…and yet nervous, too. There were probably only three men she'd known in her life whom she'd never been able to charm: Her father, Koenyg and Yuan Kessligh Cronenverdt. He loved Sasha, that was clear to her, even if Sasha was sometimes uncertain, and the relationship they shared was utterly remarkable in its unlikeliness. And yet, somehow, when he looked at Sofy, she felt it was as if he saw straight through her and was considering the texture of her bones.

“Oh well,” she sighed, trying to get her thoughts back into order. “More people. I swear I'll go crazy trying to remember them all.”

“I doubt Kessligh will be attending the events you're organising,” Damon reassured her.

“No?” Sofy said, with a sudden, humorous inspiration. “You're certain he wouldn't like a formal dance? Perhaps a tour of the artworks? Or maybe some flower arrangements? Arrangements are all the fashion in Petrodor now, it's becoming quite an art.”

“I'm sure all the
important
people will have far more important matters to attend to,” Damon retorted. Sofy scowled at that. “Particularly Kessligh.”

“Not true!” said Sofy, skipping sideways to jab a delighted finger at him. “Kessligh
loves
gardening, Sasha's told me all about his precious vegetable patch! She says he even grows ythala flowers in rows between the vegetables because they're good for the soil!”

Damon sighed and swiped at his flattened hair, now a little damp in the light rain. “Nasi-Keth are strange,” he said with a shrug. “I know
Sasha
doesn't have much time for flower arrangements.”

“I don't know about that! Sasha loves all wild things.”

“Exactly. She wouldn't understand why you need to cut its head off to make it look pretty. And I'd agree with her.”

“Well, at least it wasn't the two of
you
who fought the duel,” Sofy said with a meaningful sideways look. “It sounds like you have finally become at least civil with each other.” Damon nodded glumly, but his attention was wandering. They passed the square's central statue, the angel's wings and outstretched arms making a ghostly silhouette against the gloomy sky. Ahead, the spires of the Saint Ambellion Temple soared into the night. “Damon, what's wrong? Why are you so brooding?”

Damon's jaw tightened as he walked. “I sent a scout from the Falcon Guard to follow the Hadryn,” he said in a low voice. “Several scouts, actually. They volunteered. I was worried our wise Lord Usyn might do something stupid.”

“Like?”

“Attack the Udalyn,” Damon said grimly. “Every bit of Goeren-yai trouble the Hadryn get from Krayliss, they conveniently blame on the Udalyn. It's as good an excuse as they've had in decades. And with father's mind as it is lately, I don't know if he'll stop them.”

Sofy did not pretend to understand everything about
those
old troubles…except that the Hadryn had wanted to destroy the Udalyn since long before there was ever a Lenay king. But she did understand some of Damon's responsibilities on rides to troublesome provinces beneath the king's banner. “Are you allowed to send scouts across the Hadryn border?” she asked anxiously.

“They're scouts,” Damon said shortly. “Wild men of Lenayin. They go where they please…and, like I said, they volunteered.”

Sofy guessed that the answer to her question, therefore, was “no.” She gave her brother a long, misgiving look. “I hope you know what you're doing,” she said quietly.

Damon sighed. “Me too.”

The procession passed the wide steps leading up to the doors of the great temple. The Royal Palace loomed opposite, its many tall windows ablaze with light, guards waiting at the doors to the Grand Hall entrance. They crossed the road from the temple to the palace and climbed the wet stairs, Damon recalling his manners to offer an arm to his sister, approaching those doors.

Through the grand foyer, with tile-patterned floors and busts of family-long-dead, then into the hall proper. The ceiling arched high overhead, beneath which four enormous chandeliers hung suspended along the hall's length. The procession's footsteps echoed in the vast space. Groundsmen extinguished their torches and departed, replaced by the senior hall master of the hour, leading the way with brown robes and a formal stride. Large paintings and tapestries looked down from the high walls. Ahead, servants scurried, preparing to open the doors to the throne hall.

“Are you invited?” Damon asked, as Sofy showed no sign of stopping.

“Assuredly,” Sofy said sweetly. And it was Damon's turn to fix
her
with a wary glance. A princess at the king's formal business? Surely not. But Damon said nothing.

The servants hauled the doors open with a squeal of weight-bearing hinges. Damon and Sofy walked the throne hall together, its many tall columns forming a row down the central aisle toward the raised dais and its throne. Along that length, many Royal Guards stood to attention…and Sofy wondered if it were merely her imagination, or whether those guards truly were as attentive and edgy as they appeared. Certainly there were a lot of them and their hands seemed uncommonly near their weapons, resting upon the hilt of a sword or with thumbs tucked into a belt.

The king stood at the foot of the three-step dais, in close conversation with Koenyg and Father Dalryn—the Archbishop of Lenayin. The king wore his customary formal black robes with golden trim. Koenyg wore similar, only with a greater prominence of leather as one might expect of a Lenay warrior. All looked up at Damon and Sofy's approach, and the procession that trailed them.

At the last moment, Sofy disengaged Damon's arm and stood demurely to one side. Koenyg did likewise, giving her a displeased, “What are you doing here?” stare that Sofy ignored. The king took a pace forward and extended his black-gloved hand. Damon dropped to one knee, took the hand and kissed it. Then stood and embraced his father, to one side and then the other. From the sides of the dais, and from behind the rows of columns and guards, well-dressed nobility looked on, their expressions both grim and anxious. Lord Krayliss was not the first of the provincial lords to arrive in Baen-Tar for Rathynal, and Baen-Tar was becoming crowded with important lords and ladies from all over Lenayin.

“My son,” said King Torvaal, his hands on Damon's shoulders. His face, with its dark, close-trimmed beard, remained as impassive as his formal black robes. Verenthane black, like those of the archbishop. The colour of purity. “News precedes you of a crisis averted at Halleryn. Yet details are lacking.”

“Aye, my Lord,” said Damon. His expression, Sofy saw, was guarded. He rarely wore that expression with her. She would spot it and suspect him of concealment. She wondered if their father would. No, she decided sadly, that was unlikely. But Koenyg might. “Lord Krayliss has cast himself upon your justice, and has accompanied me to Baen-Tar. He awaits your audience even now.”

A crease divided King Torvaal's dark brows, ever so faintly. “And how did this come to pass?”

Damon explained. Torvaal listened, with the same faint, dark frown. Sofy felt her heart beating faster.

“The girl had no right to submit to those demands on my behalf,” Torvaal said when Damon had finished. His tone was firm, yet devoid of obvious emotion. As usual. “She serves the Nasi-Keth. Her privileges as a daughter of Lenayin were renounced twelve years ago. The king is not bound by her word.”

Damon's jaw seemed to tighten, just a little. “She saved lives, my Lord,” he replied. “Lord Krayliss admitted to killing Lord Rashyd, though he claims just cause. As such, his was the wrong deed under the king's law, and Lord Usyn Telgar was merely reacting to that wrong deed. Lord Krayliss defied my original demand that he submit to your justice. To enforce your law, my Lord, I saw that I had two options—to join with the Hadryn armies and defeat him by force of arms, or to agree to the terms provided by M'Lady Sashandra. An assault would have cost hundreds of lives on both sides, and perhaps sparked a broader conflict between Taneryn and Hadryn that could have cost thousands. I deemed the second option more sensible…with your blessing, my Lord.”

Koenyg, Sofy saw, appeared somewhat annoyed, although he hid it well. Their father's expression remained unchanged. He considered his son with thoughtful dark eyes, within a face that might have been handsome if it had just once shown the faintest hint of levity. And that thought gave Sofy a familiar, melancholy sadness.

Torvaal nodded. “You did well, my son,” he said, and Damon seemed to relax a little. “I will see Lord Krayliss now.”

Koenyg made a gesture to the guards at the end of the hall and, once again, the doors squealed slowly open. Damon and Sofy moved to Koenyg's side as Torvaal ascended the three steps and sat in the simple, wood-carved throne. At the hall's end, a new procession appeared. These men did not walk with the refinement and dignity of Verenthane nobility. They swaggered, with heavy, muscular steps, swords swinging against their legs. Their hair was long, tied with apparently random braids. Gold glinted around necks and along ears and, despite the uniform glow of many lamps, it seemed somehow that the light only came from their right, for all the men's left profiles appeared cast dark into shadow.

At their head strode a huge bear of a man, abristle with wild hair and beard, and a sword so enormous its leather binder squealed as it swung from his belt. His girth was greater than two Damons, Sofy reckoned with amazement, and Damon was a skinny lad no longer. His clothes were all leathers and skins, and his boots were patterned with intricate, beautiful stitching. Only when he and his men drew closer could Sofy see the equally intricate tattoos across the left side of their faces. Not all Goeren-yai men wore the tattoos, Sasha had told her. Those who did began to add the first strands after the Wakening, the Goeren-yai ceremony of manhood.

The Taneryn contingent halted before the dais, staring about them insolently. There were perhaps twenty men in all, Sofy reckoned. She realised then why the guards had seemed on edge. Disquiet spread throughout the hall, a disbelieving, angry murmur. It grew louder when Lord Krayliss took a step forward and stared directly at the king with no sign of obeisance.

“Kneel before the king!” Koenyg demanded. King Torvaal's expression remained impassive. Krayliss's stare turned to Koenyg…Two dark, burning eyes within a bristling mass of dark hair. The fur coat over his huge shoulders added to the bear-like effect. To the right side of his face lay a long, winding braid, composed of three separate strands bound together.

“Ha!” Krayliss laughed, his voice like a heavy drum at festival. “The king's heir defends his father's honour!” Within that mass of beard, his lips appeared to twist in humour. “That is good! Honour should be defended at all costs! Only know this, king's heir—not all men of Lenayin follow the path of honour quite so rigorously as others.”

Lord Krayliss knelt before the dais, and his contingent did likewise. His eyes, however, did not lower. Around him, the angry murmuring continued. Sofy found herself wondering at his accent—it was not unlike the northern accents she had heard, from men of Hadryn, Banneryd and Ranash. In Lenayin, one could never avoid the question of languages when determining a man's loyalties. Some said that the sooner all peoples abandoned their mother tongues and spoke only Lenay, the better. But what would that cost the kingdom, to lose so much of their ancient ways forever? Men like Krayliss would never stand for it. And, quite possibly, women like Sasha too.

“Lord Krayliss,” said the king from his throne. Sofy noted Duke Stefhan and several of his Larosa contingent watching from between the columns. She wondered what they would make of this very Lenay scene. “My son informs me that you have ridden to Baen-Tar to place yourself within the protection, and the justice, of the king's law. Is this correct?”

“No,” Krayliss said proudly, looking his king firmly in the eye. Another angry muttering from the crowd. “I am here on behalf of my people. The ancient people, the last of the true Lenays. It is we who are here to judge your law, King Torvaal. We shall judge it and we shall see if we find it worthy.”

The king raised a hand to forestall the angry words from the crowd. His manner was calm. “And what expectations do you hold, Lord Krayliss, of my justice?”

Krayliss smiled a dark, unpleasant smile. “We in Taneryn have had a hundred years experience of the Verenthane kings, King Torvaal. A hundred years of Hadryn attacks. A hundred years of Verenthane cronies and sycophants raised to the nobility of every lordship of Lenayin, to the point where I stand before you as the last remaining Goeren-yai chieftain in Lenayin. I shan't hold my breath for your justice.”

“If you have not cast yourself upon the king's justice,” Koenyg said loudly from Damon's side, “then Lord Usyn Telgar's claims of vengeance still stand. Are you within the king's justice, Lord Krayliss, or are you not?”