and he hasn’t moved more than fifty men. We can withstand two more battles if we’re lucky—but that’s all. I wanted half his troops on this side to wipe them out and then I was going to cross and take care of the other half. But he’s not obliging me. If you have any suggestions, I’d like to hear them.”
Rohan nearly laughed. In camp only long enough to wet his throat, and Chay was asking him to make the kind of tactical decision he’d never been much good at anyway. He drank down the remains of the wine, got to his feet, and said, “I’m going for a walk. When I get back, I expect to see a bed waiting.”
“Have some dinner while you’re at it. The way you look now, you could hide behind your swordblade.”
“Is that what you think? That I want to hide?” he demanded.
A slight smile played around Chay’s mouth. “Much better. Now you’re a prince again.”
Urival watched long fingers drum impatiently on the table where a meal lay untouched. Candlelight picked out each gem in each ring as Andrade’s fingers lifted and fell in angry rhythm: ruby-agate-amethyst-sapphire on the left hand, emerald-topaz-garnet-diamond on the right. Both thumbs were flat on the polished wood, amber on one and moonstone on the other. On Andrade’s fingers were symbolized formidable attributes: luck in war, persuasiveness, nobility, truth, hope, intelligence, constancy, and cunning. But somehow Urival was more concerned with the two other stones, the ones that promised protection against danger and wisdom. They were sorely in need of both.
“Well? Is it merely the inactivity, or the inability to give them all orders?” he asked, deliberately provoking her.
“Would any of them listen? At least we’ll be spared the fine Lady Wisla from now on. Thoughtful of her to remove to River View.”
Urival nodded. The chamber in which they sat was Lord Davvi’s own at River Run, a tidy room unencumbered by his wife’s notions of elegance that burdened much of the rest of the keep. Lady Wisla had been faint with shock at receiving such august visitors, horrified by the revelation of Chiana’s identify, and only too glad to accept Urival’s private suggestion that she would find life much easier and safer at her late father’s keep of River View, five measures distant. Her absence freed them from her nervous whining and gave them a comfortable base of operations. The question, of course, was what sort of operations were possible. The faradh’im all knew where Andrade was—those not shut away from the light—and were constant in their reports. Andrade and Urival were close enough to observe both armies without strain, and far enough away to be undetected by Roelstra. If he decided to take Lord Davvi’s family hostage, they might find themselves in difficulties. But Roelstra had made no move toward River Run, probably surmising that Lady Wisla had long since departed. Urival, with the best charity in the world, could not discover a reason why any man would want to ransom such a wife.
Still, her household was efficient and she had left enough servants behind to cater to her guests’ needs. But lack of worry about ordinary matters here left too much time to think about the extraordinary events elsewhere.
“Still nothing from Sioned,” Urival said to himself.
“I can’t force her, thanks to the training you gave her,” Andrade snapped, fingers drumming faster now. “I need a Sunrunner at Stronghold, one I can trust to tell me what’s happening there.”
“And you no longer trust Sioned. That’s what you’re really saying. Andrade, you placed her where she is! Trained her, took her to Rohan already half in love with him, showed her to him so he was just as in love with her. You planned it, Andrade, and now you’re going to have to live with it.”
“You never let up, do you?” She paced in front of the windows, rings flashing as her ringers clenched and opened, clenched and opened. “How was I to know? What I foresaw and what’s turned out to be are so different. What should I have done?”
He shrugged. “Probably nothing at all.”
“Damn you, Urival, let me be!” she cried. “Don’t you know why I matched them in the first place? Faradhi princes would have ended all the petty quarrels—”
“You still don’t see it, do you?” He went to her, took her shoulders in his hands. “You always forget people. That’s what your new manner of princes will be. People with all the honor and vices