Banners in the Wind Page 0,57

would never fade.

Those with carts and horses reached the heights first. Those with family and friends living in such fortunate districts found shelter. Branca and her family had been forced to huddle with the other paupers in the wooded gullies where Vanam's feral pigs foraged amid the city's refuse. They had finally returned to find their humble house half-destroyed and their sodden belongings comprehensively looted.

This time she would drown when that deadly squall arrived.

'Seldiviar ayemar ekelrath!'

Branca yelled her defiance at the storm. All at once, she was safe beneath the Solland Rope Walk.

She pressed a trembling hand to her breastbone. If she believed in any gods she would thank them. She certainly owed Mentor Tonin her gratitude for that passing mention of a mysterious incantation tied to the notion of Calm which occasionally had a quelling effect on other enchantments.

But if she told Mentor Tonin about this, she would have to explain how comprehensively Jettin had rejected his training and example. What would happen to the young adept then?

Had he truly meant to kill her? Branca struggled to believe it, recalling Kerith's stubborn advocacy for the youth. She forced herself to breathe more calmly and felt her racing heart slow.

Assuming that had been some spite of Jettin's, how had he found her terrified memory? Or was that his own recollection? Where had Jettin been, when that catastrophe struck Vanam? Wealthy as his father was, they still lived in the lower town--

'Good day, Mistress Branca.'

Startled, she saw a slender young man approaching, as soberly dressed as any clerk. Only a silver and enamel spray of honeysuckle gleamed on his collar. Yadres Den Dalderin.

She hastily gathered her wits. 'Good day, Esquire.'

'Are you taking the sea air?' His amusement told her he doubted that.

'Just running a few errands like yourself.'

'Quite so.' He bowed and offered her his arm. 'Shall we take the air together?'

Branca rose and felt her stocking feet squelch. They were sodden and cold, even though her boots were as dry and dusty as before.

She hastily thrust aside that shock as she searched out some nugget of information she knew Charoleia would be willing to share.

'Have you heard the latest news from Triolle?' She feigned amusement. 'The longer Iruvain lolls in Adrulle, the more loyalty to him melts like snow in a thaw.'

The duke had Charoleia to thank for the tales of his drunken idleness being whispered in every chimney corner. Her broadsheets printed in Solland had nearly the reach of Reniack's.

Yadres Den Dalderin pursed thoughtful lips. 'My uncle tells me Lord Leysen of Sharlac is now Duchess Aphanie's private courier to Duchess Litasse.' He glanced at Branca. 'Shall we see what your mistress might know of this noble?'

'Why not?' She took his arm.

That was at least as urgent news as telling Charoleia of Jettin's newfound audacity.

Chapter Fourteen

Litasse

The Mistle Wreath Inn,

Adrulle, Caladhria

34th of For-Winter

She looked down from the window seat into the bustling street, searching in vain for any courier.

These delays were as infuriating as the incessant squeak of the swinging inn sign. Even before all this, some missive too long or insufficiently urgent to warrant a courier dove's dispatch could spend as many as fifteen days making the round trip between Triolle and Sharlac. But now, when her mother's correspondence must first be smuggled out of Lord Rousharn's demesne, then covertly passed to Lord Leysen, then carried along the Great West Road to Abray before finally being sent down the River Rel to Adrulle? Karn had warned her that even a slip of paper fine as onion skin could take twenty days to travel in either direction.

He could do it faster. Litasse was convinced. He would steal fresh horses and evade whatever bandits roamed the roads. But that would take him away and she had no one else to rely on here, certainly not her husband. So she must just wait patiently for her mother's letters.

At least she could wait in comfort thanks to the coin her mother had already sent. If this apartment overlooked the noisy street rather than the peace of the inn's rear gardens, the rooms were warm and clean with polished panelling and mistletoe motif embroideries.

Best of all, she had her own bedchamber with a door to lock against Iruvain. His room was on the other side of this parlour while Karn slept on a truckle bed in here between them. And it seemed her husband wasn't quite shameless enough to bring his would-be mistresses to this well-respected inn. Not now that something of his standing