not clever.” He put an arm across his forehead. “All I am is scared.”
For the first time since Zehava’s death, Chay stopped comparing father and son to Rohan’s lack. Zehava would have chosen a path and marched down it without any further thought. But the son differed from the father in constant examination for the right of things. Rohan questioned and doubted, sought deeper truths and hidden motivations. It would be the same when the High Prince’s death opened paths of even greater power to him. Rohan would never stride arrogantly down them, blind to all else, never questioning his right to do as he pleased. He would always question—and this was what would make him wise. At that moment Chay ceased regretting that the son was not more like the father. He would have followed either wherever they cared to lead, but with Rohan, he knew that the path would always be the right one.
Chapter Twenty-nine
This time Sioned did not go to Feruche alone.
As Ianthe’s time neared, Tobin and Maeta made quiet plans which they discussed with the reluctant Ostvel only when all was arranged and he could make no real objection. If he had hoped for an ending different from the one understood and unspoken all this time, that hope was now gone. Rohan and Chay were bogged down in the south, and though Tiglath’s fighters were now free to make an assault on Feruche, Sioned had ordered Walvis to stay in the city. The child must be taken in secret if she was to have any chance of presenting him as her own.
That Ianthe would die was something equally understood, equally unspoken. One night in early winter, Tobin and Maeta described to Sioned plans for the infiltration of the castle. She merely nodded. No one mentioned Ianthe’s name.
During the clearer days of autumn Ianthe had often strolled the battlements of Feruche, almost as if she knew Sioned would be watching. Her sons were usually with her and Sioned wondered bitterly why the Goddess had seen fit to give such wealth to such a woman. As Ianthe’s pregnancy advanced, the envy was sometimes more than Sioned could stand. But now Ianthe’s burden was too heavy to permit much walking. She slept uneasily in the huge bed with its dragon tapestries, for Rohan’s son rode restlessly in her womb. Envy turned to hate when Sioned caught sight of the great emerald sparkling from her finger. Ianthe was in possession of things not rightfully her own, and Sioned’s need to claim what was hers became a demand that threatened to destroy her hard-won balance.
For some days after plans were confirmed for the journey to Feruche, Sioned lapsed into a strange, waiting silence. Tobin understood; as her own birthing-times had neared, she had grown detached, all thoughts and feelings directed inward. Sioned’s womb might be empty, but she was going through pregnancy as surely as Ianthe.
One early winter night at moonrise, as clouds brushed the northern horizon, the alarm Sioned had been waiting for flushed servants out of bed at Feruche. Lingering long enough on moonlight to be sure this was no false labor, she smiled with an odd mixture of envy and satisfaction as Ianthe’s body arched in agonized spasms. Then she returned to Stronghold and sent for Tobin and Ostvel.
“She’s early by forty days,” Sioned told them when they came to her rooms, sleep-rumpled and apprehensive. “I felt she might be. We leave tonight.”
Soon thereafter three riders on Chay’s best horses were galloping north. Pale figures on pale horses, they rode in silence and made swift progress through the night made dazzling by three full moons. Sioned alone showed no fear. Tobin, schooled over the summer and autumn by Sioned in certain faradhi techniques, kept her mind busy reviewing what she had been taught but could not banish the intermittent quivers that ran through her body. Ostvel clenched and unclenched his fingers around his sword hilt, unable to protest and unable to stay behind. Neither of them dared speak to the woman who rode between them with her body straining eagerly forward, her green eyes blazing.
Sioned took the lead during the day through hills where, earlier in the year, dragons had basked and battled and mated. She had used this back approach to Feruche before, but this time was sure of the path. In spring she had mistaken the way. The dark nightmare of that lonely journey had merged into the horror of Feruche and the return to Stronghold.