Walvis glanced uncertainly at Rohan, who nodded and told him, “Come back later. I have work for you.” The boy bowed and fled.
Rohan went into the bathroom, stripped—blushing as his aunt’s critical gaze ran over him—and slid into the cool water. The lecture began at once, as he had expected.
“I don’t know what game you think you’re playing, but I’m not overly fond of intrigues not my own. Especially when the master of the plan is my own kinsman who won’t tell me what he’s up to.”
“Why do you think I’m up to anything?”
“Sweet innocence! You do it very well, Rohan, but don’t try it with me! Why didn’t you give that girl her proper welcome? Oh, not as your future princess, I’ll admit to a marginal understanding of that. But if Urival hadn’t seen to her comfort, she’d still be standing out in the courtyard!”
“I knew I could count on him.” Rohan scrubbed determinedly at a dirty foot.
“You did, eh? And are you counting on Sioned as well? She says very little—your instructions, I assume—just that you both agreed to wait until the
Rialla.
” She snorted. “As if you needed all that time before you know each other, when you’ve already felt the Fire!”
“Have you ever felt it?” he asked suddenly.
“None of your damned concern,” she snapped.
Unsuccessful in his attempt to take the skirmish onto enemy ground, he decided to return to a subject that concerned him profoundly. “What else did she say?” he asked, his nerves tightening. If he could not trust her, then everything would be ruined.
“That you have interesting eyes,” Andrade replied in disgust.
Rohan hid a smile. “You haven’t really told me much about her family.”
“I thought genealogy was Mila’s hobby, not yours. On her father’s side, Sioned descends from a prince of Syr whose younger son inherited the lands at River Run. Her maternal grandmother was a Sunrunner before Prince Sinar of Kierst winked at her and carried her away to his island. Her ancestry’s quite good enough for you.”
“You chose her for me, so I never doubted it,” Rohan said with deliberate sweetness. “What is it you think I’m planning?”
“Learn to be more subtle,” she said scornfully and he felt color sting his cheeks. “The part about the
Rialla
tells me a great deal, you know. I’m looking forward to watching you blink those big eyes of yours at Roelstra as you trick him into thinking you’re an imbecile.”
He laughed. “Slightly foolish and very young, but not a complete idiot, please!” He rose from the bath and wrapped a towel around his hips.
“Sioned also had things to say about parts of you other than your eyes,” Andrade drawled maliciously.
If she intended to make him blush, she succeeded admirably. He damned the curse of a fair complexion and glared at her. “I assume you’ll tell me what she said after you’ve finished embarrassing me.”
“Oh, no,” she chuckled. “You’ll have to find out for yourself.” She draped a towel around his head and rubbed his hair dry. “Make your plans as you wish. I’ll help, if you’ll trust me enough to let me. But you must promise me . . .”
“What?” he asked warily, peering at her from under the towel.
“Marry her, Rohan. You’re both very dear to me,” she said, looking anywhere but at him. “And you’ll never find any woman more suited to you than Sioned.”
“And if I don’t promise?”
She laughed again. “Your body already has, at the very mention of her name.”
Rohan thought she hadn’t noticed, and was humiliated. But his sense of humor was still in working order, and he grinned. “What do you suggest? A longer tunic?”
“Or a nice, concealing cloak,” she answered wickedly.
Rohan waited, hidden among the trees near the grotto his mother had designed to be a refuge during the worst of the summer heat. Fruit trees had been brought at outrageous expense from Ossetia, Meadowlord, and Syr, transplanted with such loving care to Desert soil that not a single one had been lost in the shock. For ten years they had been pampered into lush maturity near the rock grotto where the spring that fed Stronghold splashed down into a small pool. He had loved playing here as a child, and had always found it a good place to sit and dream and listen to the water. He wanted to be the first to show it to Sioned.
Walvis had arranged everything. The squire had sidled up to him just after dinner with the breathless information, “My lord, your lady will attend you at midnight.” The boy’s term made Rohan smile; Walvis was no fool. He was of an age where romance between a prince and a pretty lady caught his imagination, and secret meetings late at night were exactly to his taste. Rohan knew what it was like to be Walvis’ age and a go-between, for he had been just eleven the year Chaynal had inherited Radzyn and arrived to pay homage to Zehava. Though he’d teased his sister mercilessly, he’d been thrilled to arrange encounters between her and the handsome young lord. He had liked and admired Chay at once; despite the ten years’ difference in their ages, Chay had never treated him like a child. Politic of him, Rohan thought now with fond amusement. One did not antagonize one’s future prince, let alone the brother of the woman one hoped to marry. But their friendship was based on more than canny self-interest, he knew. It had grown stronger over the years until Chay was one of the few people Rohan really trusted.
Much depended on whether he could trust Sioned. Much depended on Roelstra, too, whom he knew very well he could not trust. His whole scheme rested on the beliefs of two people—or, rather, on his ability to make two very different people believe two very different things.
Prince Zehava had ruled by his sword, demonstrating strength through victories over dragons and the Merida. High Prince Roelstra ruled by his wits, demonstrating strength through political and personal humiliation. Rohan intended to base his power on a little of both for the present—victory over the Merida after humiliating Roelstra at the
Rialla
—and eventually to work his way around to leadership through law. Sioned would bring him no alliance and no lands, but she brought something much more useful: the
farad-h’im.
The Desert’s resident Sunrunner, Anthoula, was growing old, and Rohan intended to send her back to Goddess Keep with Andrade so she could live her remaining years untroubled by the Desert’s searing heat. Anthoula had taught him how the network of
faradh’im
worked and where their loyalties lay—not with the courts they served, but with Goddess Keep. They were forbidden to do battle except to protect their own lives, forbidden to take sides in any dispute, and most especially forbidden to use their powers to kill. With Andrade as Lady, however, the distinctions of nonpartisanship had grown a little blurred, though she had thus far behaved with scrupulous impartility. She had been waiting for him to grow up so he could marry a Sunrunner.
But Sioned’s loyalty must be to him, not to Andrade. He refused to torment himself with doubts of his ability to win her mind as it seemed he had already won her body and, perhaps, her heart. A rueful laugh escaped him as he realized they had
both
been scorched by Fire. But he needed a princess, not just a wife.
He had long since surmised that Andrade had purposefully arranged the match between his parents. Milar had used Zehava’s wealth to embellish his home and their lives, adding to his prestige and his power by impressive display of its rewards. This, Rohan saw now, was the foundation for his own coming power. He was grateful for the benefits of his mother’s tireless work. But he needed more of a woman than someone to run his castle, bear his children, and order tapestries. He needed what Chay had found in Tobin: a woman to trust in and work with, who understood him and his ambitions. A
faradhi
princess would make him a very powerful man indeed. Andrade’s design, of course—but to what end?
Rohan had to admit that his actions in pursuit of his own ends would be incomprehensible to most. He would play the indecisive prince when the vassals arrived to do him homage, then next spring fight the Merida for a time before buying them off and sending them home rich and smug to plot his destruction. He wished them pleasant dreams of retaking Stronghold, for two or three springs hence he would show himself the true son of the dragon.
As for the
Rialla
—he smiled tightly and rubbed his fingers against the smooth silver bark of a tree. Roelstra would offer a daughter. Rohan would pretend to consider. The High Prince would sweeten things with treaties, and Rohan would make certain they were binding, not like the promises that had died with his father. He would lead Roelstra a wonderful dance, make him sign wonderful parchments, and all the while have a wonderful time pretending to decide between princesses. And then he would marry Sioned.
Rohan coolly reviewed possible reactions to his marriage, specifically to his
not
marrying one of Roelstra’s daughters. Prince Clutha of Meadowlord would probably have an apoplexy; his country was the traditional battleground between Princemarch and the Desert. The last war had been in the reign of Rohan’s grandfather Zagroy, who had wrested the Treaty of Linse from Roelstra’s ancestor, the agreement giving the Desert to his line for as long as the sands spawned fire. If Roelstra was angry enough—or could drum up support enough to “avenge” his rejected daughters—Clutha would be frantic to prevent another war across his landscape. He would, in brief, do Rohan’s work for him. But there was another place from which Roelstra might attack with the help of the Cunaxans and the Merida they sheltered. Rohan thought hungrily of Feruche Castle, set into the mountain pass just above the desert. Long a Merida holding, in exchange for assistance several years ago Zehava had promised the keep to Roelstra. It had been to the High Prince’s advantage to support Zehava in that final campaign against the Merida, for Feruche guarded the major trade route across the north. Fees for caravans’ safe passage were lucrative.
Rohan had seen Feruche at his one and only battle. Disguised as a common soldier, he had fought alongside the vassals’ recruits while his parents thought him snug at Stronghold. Afterward he had camped in the sand below the castle with his new companions, for to enter the keep with his father and Chay would have necessitated revealing his true identity. Feruche nestled into the mountains like a gemstone between a woman’s breasts. It would make a perfect summer residence, with its cool spires of pink and golden stone. He decided he’d give it to Sioned as a wedding present. If she fulfilled her part in his plans as well as he hoped, she would deserve the extravagant gift.
All thoughts of her usefulness fled when he saw her coming toward him. Moonglow turned her to dark silver from the veil over her hair to the hem of her gown. He had seen her shape more clearly when she’d worn her riding leathers, of course, but there was something about the allure of shadows shifting down long thighs that made the breath catch in his throat. He told his body to leave him alone and called her name softly. Turning, not quite startled, she approached him with a shy smile.
“I’ve never met a man in secret in the middle of the night before. I could learn to like this!”
Rohan blessed her for saying the perfect thing. “I’ll arrange it every so often once we’re married. Although I don’t know what people would say if they knew their prince had to sneak around in the dark to spend a few private moments with his own wife!” He paused an instant, then went on, “After the way I behaved today, I’m surprised you’re even speaking to me. Sioned, have you thought about this?”
“I need to hear what it is, first,” she replied, not looking at him.
Rohan nodded, approving her caution. But part of him was disappointed that she was no longer so blindly trusting. Knowing this to be absurd—for it was reassuring proof that she could think as well as feel—he coaxed her over to a bench and when they were seated, side by side but not touching, he began.
“You know what happens at the
Rialla.
Everyone comes to arrange the next three years’ trade, settle disputes, and so on. There’s a huge fair as well, and races—Chay usually wins most of them and makes pots of money selling his horses.”
“The High Prince will be there, too—with his daughters,” Sioned purred.
“The eligible ones,” Rohan said, hiding a grin. “And that’s why you’re so important. When they think I’m indifferent to you and you to me—but with wounded pride on your part—they’ll talk. My sister picks up all sorts of useful information talking to the other women at the
Rialla.
And she’s an expert at passing along information my father and Chay want circulated. You’ll like Tobin,” he added.
“I like the way she treats her husband,” Sioned answered mischievously.
Rohan had a sudden vision of his bedroom turned into the kind of verbal battlefield he knew Chay’s sometimes became—and lost the image of an infuriated Sioned in the even more compelling picture of her between the sheets of his bed. He pulled in a long breath, managed a smile, and told her, “She’ll probably give you lessons, if I know her.”
“Oh, I didn’t say I wanted to emulate her,” Sioned answered earnestly. “I’d never yell at you in public, Rohan.”
He regarded her with a whimsical smile. “Don’t go making any hasty promises, my lady. You don’t know me all that well yet.”
“But we can talk to each other and find out. I was afraid we wouldn’t have anything to say, that you’d be too serious or too proud to speak what was on your mind. Or that you wouldn’t have a mind to speak of.”
He nearly took her hand, but remembered what had happened earlier in the day. “I was worried about the same thing. You don’t know how glad I am to find you’re as clever as you are beautiful.”
“You still haven’t told me what you’re planning,” she reminded him.
“Oh.” She was the first woman he had ever met who didn’t preen or at least smile after a compliment. “Well, I’m not quite sure of all of it yet myself. Roelstra will be looking for a naive princeling and that’s just what I’ll present him with, while I pretend to look his daughters over.”