“He's not ridden into action since the Great War!” Koenyg scoffed. He seemed, Damon observed, highly agitated. “This is my responsibility, I am Commander of Armies and protector of the realm. I can handle this.”
“Like you handled the Goeren-yai?” Damon nearly asked. He refrained with difficulty, and despised himself for it. “Sofy is missing,” he said instead, his jaw tight.
Koenyg gave him a dark stare, controlling his unsettled stallion with a yank of the rein. Damon's mare tossed her head. “You haven't found her yet?” Koenyg asked accusingly.
“She's not here,” Damon retorted. “There are horses missing, there was chaos at the gate, there were guards away from their posts…she could easily have ridden out.”
“She barely knows how to ride!”
“Sasha's shown her.”
“Bloody Sasha,” Koenyg said between gritted teeth. “As if it weren't enough to have one sister for a traitor, now she corrupts the other.”
“Maybe she wouldn't have felt the urge if you hadn't betrothed her to that perfumed Larosan shitheap.” Koenyg stared at him. “Yes, I know.”
“Who told you?” Darkly.
“None of your damn business. It was your idea, wasn't it?”
“Not mine.” Shortly, and more defensively than Damon might have expected. Koenyg was rarely defensive about anything. “Archbishop Dalryn's. And Father's.”
“Father's?” Disbelievingly.
“Yes, Father's,” Koenyg snapped. “As you said, he's the king. I'm a soldier. I think we should ally with the lowlands Verenthane brotherhood because I see the military possibilities. I don't arrange marriages. Dalryn took the idea to Father, and Father approved.”
“And you went along with it,” Damon accused him. “Why keep it secret? Is this how all Lenayin will be ruled from now on? You, Father and Dalryn, making decisions for the kingdom that are so unpopular amongst the people you don't dare even tell them?”
“You speak for the people now?” Koenyg said dangerously. “You sound just like Sasha.”
“You ignored Sasha,” Damon jabbed back, a forefinger extended, “and you ignored the Goeren-yai, and they brought all your precious plans crashing down around your ears. Ignore me if you like, and ignore Sofy and ignore all the people you've infuriated—that's your choice. But if this is what you and Father call leadership, I fear for Lenayin, because the kingdom can't take much more of this!”
For a brief moment, Damon thought Koenyg might strike him. One hard fist balled on the reins and his dark eyes blazed with anger. Then he snorted contemptuously and rode his prancing stallion ahead and across, cutting them off. “This is what happens when you spend all your time with girls,” Koenyg said to Myklas, loudly enough that the guardsmen and soldiers nearby could hear. “You start to believe that men will love you just by smiling prettily and complimenting their shoes.”
He dug in his heels, leapt the adjoining paddock fence and raced across the fields, weaving between abandoned tents as he went, his guardsmen in pursuit.
“I hope he falls and breaks his neck,” Damon muttered as he and Myklas continued down the slope toward their father and his entourage.
“No you don't,” Myklas replied, watching him with wary eyes. Damon matched his gaze. Whatever Myklas had hoped to see there, he didn't find it. “I hope Sofy comes back soon,” Myklas sighed. “Last I saw Alythia, she was screaming that ‘that mangy bitch Sasha’ had ruined her wedding and that her husband would arrive in the midst of this chaos and there wouldn't be a proper reception to greet him. Sofy's the binding that holds this family together, everyone says so. Without her, we'll all kill each other.”
“Only now she's being married off to foreigners,” Damon muttered. “Maybe Father and Dalryn want us to kill each other.”
“No offence, Damon,” Myklas said with typical matter-of-factness, “but if it ever comes to that, my copper's on Koenyg.”
The rebel column rode onward in the brightening morning, two abreast along the road and sometimes three, then thinning to single file in parts where the forest closed in, or the road climbed steeply to clear a ridge. Sasha noticed that the vanguard appeared to have doubled to as many as ten riders, in addition to several scouts who made brief, random appearances to declare what lay ahead, before galloping off once more. Sasha suspected that the increase was due to Sofy, who now rode several places behind Sasha, at Jaryd's side. Royalty always demanded extra protection in the mind of any loyal officer. Sasha considered sending Sofy further back in the column, but decided against it. Any ambush would likely strike midcolumn or to the rear. The column's