“These you will carry north to your masters. You—” He pointed his sword at the man wearing the finest clothing. “A captain of some sort? I thought so. You will have the privilege of going south, not north. You will deliver that as a gift from me to High Prince Roelstra and inform him of what occurred here. Be sure to impress upon him that it will not be his hand I will deprive him of when next we meet, but his head.” He paused, then finished mildly. “I suggest you leave Skybowl alone, incidentally. Before you reach it on foot, my troops will have slaughtered your compatriots there.”
“On foot!” the captain burst out. “But we’ve no water!”
Rohan gave him a quiet smile. “Neither had I and my lady wife during the days we walked here from Feruche. You have the longer path to tread, my friend. Start now, before I change my mind and have all of you killed where you stand.”
He turned his horse and rode back up to Stronghold, dismounting in the inner courtyard. No one dared approach him. As he climbed slowly to his chambers, he met his sister hurrying down. She was limping, and there was a bandage wrapped around her thigh, and through his monumental fatigue he felt a pang of concern.
“Rohan! Is it true?” She grasped his bare arm, the coolness of her fingers on his sun-blistered skin acutely painful.
“Not now, Tobin.” He pulled away from her and continued climbing.
“Answer me! Is it true you’re to have a child?”
He stopped dead.
“Rohan! She told me you were going to have a son! Is it true?”
“She told you that, did she?” He turned and looked into his sister’s black eyes, heard the bitter hollowness of his voice as he replied, “Yes. It’s true. I’m going to have a son.”
He walked away from her bewilderment and closed the door of his chambers behind him. He stood for a long time beside the bed, gazing down at his wife. They lived, as he had promised. He had not been raised in the Desert for nothing. Such food and moisture as the sand and cliffs provided, they had partaken of, and survived.
He traced the fine lines of her gaunt face that was so oddly at peace. Suffering aged most people, but Sioned’s face was a miracle of childlike purity as she slept, lips curved in a tiny smile, the fine sweet bones in sharp relief.
He had promised her life. She had promised him a son. Could she hold Ianthe’s bastard to her breast, even considering that she could wrest him from his mother in the first place? And could he ever look at the child and not see the woman who had borne him?
If Sioned could, then he must. Goddess help him.
He lay beside her, staring at the high ceiling painted blue to match Desert skies. It was a vague surprise to find there was still water enough in his body for tears.
Tobin and Ostvel found them like that at dusk, sleeping. She had come to tend their hurts, he to bring them food. They exchanged glances and the princess spoke.
“She said nothing about a child to you before she left?”
“Nothing. Do you think I would have let her go?” He shook his head. “And do I really think anyone could have stopped her? But why did Ianthe release them?”
“Perhaps they escaped.”
“From Feruche? The only way to leave is to be allowed to leave.”
They watched the pair for a time: Sioned peaceful in sleep, Rohan haggard. Tobin saw that youth had fled her brother’s face, and mourned its loss.
“Doubtless we’ll learn as much of it as they care to tell,” she said.
“Doubtless,” Ostvel agreed. “We’d better let them sleep.”
Chapter Twenty-seven
Late in the day the cool scents of water and trees around the Faolain gave way to the warm smells of food cooking in the great firepits of the Desert camp. A sentry could be forgiven a certain drowsiness after a long, uneventful watch, especially if her duty was nearly over and dinner enticed on the breeze. In the ten days since the battle, nothing had happened and nothing was likely to before sunset; she shrugged to herself and found a more comfortable position with her back against a tree, eyes closed.
“Were I the High Prince, you’d be dead right now.”
The clear incisive voice snapped her upright, arrow nocked and bow drawn with admirable speed. But she lowered her arms at once and bent her head.