The Song of Andiene - By Elisa Blaisdell Page 0,93

spring in a village, and I unlearned my fear of them, but it is no place to live one’s life. Then we came south, and saw Oreja city, and took the forest roads to where we met you.”

She nodded. They prepared their evening meal, tediously gleaned and even more tediously ground blaggorn stirred into cold water. Not even to cook a traveler’s supper may fire be raised in summer, for fear that it would draw down answering fire from the air.

“What is your plan and purpose?” Kallan asked Andiene, after the meal was over.

She pulled her golden ring out from under her shirt and toyed with it, putting it on, taking it off, turning it around and about on her little finger. “To go to the city of Oreja, and spend the summer there. What else? What reception will I find there?”

“If you declare yourself? Wary courtesy, at first. He would not dare to turn you away, but he would fear to be too cordial, for fear of making an enemy to the north. Spies would send back word to Nahil of you, and of how you were received.”

Andiene smiled. “So he would welcome me, and greet me with all honor, and then a messenger dove would fly north to its cote, with a little scroll sealed by a king’s ring, saying that I was here with much pride but little strength of arms.”

“Remember,” Kallan said, “Nahil would fear you if he were told that you had come barefooted in your shift, with no weapons in your hands, alone. That was how we—that was how he saw you.”

“I know,” she said. “Fear will be my weapon, one weapon at least, and a better one than the sword that you carry. Come, we must travel.”

They walked on, stumbling through the dark. On either side of them lay the wide blaggorn fields, clean-gathered to feed the city so close—only narrow margins left for travelers to glean.

“What would you do if you found a village?” Kallan asked Andiene.

“I think I would lose my companions! Only one of you is bound to me by any vows. I would see then who would follow me and who would not! Traveling in summertime is hard and weary work, more than I had thought.”

Kallan shook his head. “This is not true summertime, yet. Why must you be in the city? I have spent summer in a king’s palace, and in a mud cellar in the forest, in equal misery. They are alike. ‘No history is made in summertime.’”

She turned to face him. Though he could not see her face clearly in the dying starlight, anger filled her voice. “We spoke of messenger doves. I want to send Nahil word that I am coming. I want him to spend the summer thinking of me. You said that he lived in fear? I want him to live in greater fear. Is that clear?”

It was clear enough to silence him. He lagged behind, and Ilbran joined her. To judge by their soft voices, they talked of pleasant things.

Kallan looked at the people ahead of him. A strange group of the homeless and the outcast. Ilbran was a wanderer driven by evil memories. Kallan had traveled with him for most of a winter’s year. Though they had stayed in many places that would have welcomed a strong man and his child, none had tempted him.

Kare seemed content enough to follow her father, though the road was no life for a child. Stronger tonight, maybe grown accustomed to the heat, she held her father’s hand, walking easily by his side.

Syresh was simpler to understand. He was one of the minor nobility, high enough to be proud but not high enough to be ambitious, a poorer swordsman than he thought, but brave enough to be eager for battle. I was one such as that when I was young. Before I lost all reason to be proud.

Lenane walked close beside Syresh. For all their quarreling, they had had the look, in the last few days, of ones who had found kinship, a home and family in each other, perhaps without even recognizing it yet.

She was a minstrel without a lute, too free with her claws and her tongue, secure in a minstrel’s privilege to say what she pleased. In the days since Kallan had confronted her, she had grown less wary of him. Andiene tolerated her as a king will tolerate his jester.

And Andiene herself was the greatest mystery of all. Revenge-lust ran deep