been waiting for you to ask me what I know about Roelstra. He probably knows everything about you, through his spies.” Her eyes looked haunted, but before he could say anything she went on coolly, “Although I hope they’re only the things you want him to know.”
Rohan took her arm and they walked through the encampment. “I’m more interested in his daughters.”
“I’ll just bet you are. He’s kept them tight in Castle Crag, so I’d judge them anxious for freedom. Only the legitimate ones will be proposed to you, so you needn’t worry about the others.”
“I’m going to look them all over. The more the merrier.”
“The dragon among the herd, you mean,” she countered with a smile. “I see more and more of your father in you, Rohan—in your own sweet, ruthless way. Since those girls probably don’t have hearts, you won’t be breaking anything. But you’ll wound their pride, which is more dangerous.”
“You’ve taken a hurt to your pride, too,” he commented gently. “Have you found out anything about this faradhi?”
“No, but I will,” she replied in a grim voice. “Roelstra will answer for this. I’ll wait until you’re through with him, but leave me some pieces.”
“He used your Sunrunner to spy on me—he owes us both. But tell me about his daughters.”
She did, as much as she knew, and Rohan listened attentively. Naydra was pretty, placid, and malleable; Lenala was stupid, end of report. Ianthe and Pandsala were the ones to be wary of.
“Ianthe is the most beautiful and seems to be the most intelligent, so she’ll long since have figured out the advantages of marrying you. I’d be surprised if she doesn’t slip into your tent some night. As for Pandsala, she’s nearly as beautiful and almost as smart as Ianthe, or so I’m told.”
“By whom?” he asked, knowing she wouldn’t answer.
“Never you mind. Just have a care to Sioned’s feelings. Tobin and I will do what we can to protect her from their spite. Have you decided just how and when you’ll end your little comedy?”
“I thought I’d see what develops,” he answered. “Is that dinner I smell?”
“One day soon you’re going to have to give me a straight answer, you know. Yes, that’s dinner, and I’m starving. Chay and Tobin are coming to my tent for family dinner tonight. You’ll do me a favor by joining us to provide some intelligent conversation. I don’t know how long I’ll be able to stand watching them watch each other.”
A long time later, as Rohan left his aunt’s tent in the dark, he tried to recapture the feeling of freedom he’d had on the journey. Impossible now. Conversation at dinner had revolved around the Rialla. Tomorrow they would reach Waes, and the next day the princes would begin their talks. Rohan walked slowly to his own tent and stood outside it for a time, staring moodily at the gilt poles with their stylized dragon heads on top. Ostvel had ordered guards set around the royal tent tonight, good practice for the Rialla when such would be necessary, and one of them paused in his measured pacing to salute Rohan.
“Will you be retiring now, my lord?”
“No. Not yet.”
“Very good, my lord.” After saluting again, the man continued his rounds.
Rohan remembered the last Rialla, when he’d been watched far less formally and all the real attention had been on his father. No longer could he go where he pleased; he would be the cynosure of all eyes from now on, his movements watched, his words analyzed, his every gesture commented on. Feeling suddenly stifled, he turned and headed down toward the river.
He stood on the shoreline and watched the black water. The moons had not yet risen, and the starlight was feeble between wispy clouds. Up the opposite shore trees splayed darker shadows, a breeze whispering through them in answer to the low, insistent murmur of the river. Rohan shivered, reacting to the hint of autumn in the air, and rubbed his hands together to warm them. He was not meant for such places, he told himself, places with a careless abundance of water and effortlessly thriving crops and herds. He had been bred to the bone-burning heat of the Desert, the harsh winter wind off the Long Sand that could strip away a man’s flesh and bury his skeleton without trace. Yet even dragons sought out softer lands—to pick them clean. Rohan shivered again, and not from the chill, before turning to walk back to his tent.