to Nahil’s mercy—that messenger doves would be flying north, barely enough time for them to go, in these last few days before summer set its teeth truly into the land.
What had possessed her to boast of armies she did not own? A sudden thought chilled his blood. What did he know of armies that she had or did not have? He knew nothing of where she had lived, what she had done, what she had learned. He could imagine an army not of men, waiting patiently in the hills while her plans ripened.
Taules Reji had none of those fears. When he spoke, there was scorn in his voice. “Go then, and clean and dress yourselves as a queen and her servants should be. We have little time for rejoicing before the summer is upon us.”
They were dismissed, and servants and guards led them down the long halls to their rooms. In that listening company, they could say nothing of their thoughts. Andiene was at ease, wearing a secret smile, half-cruel, half-mischievous. For all the folly of what she had said and done, she seemed pleased with herself.
Kare alone spoke freely. She stared around her with huge startled eyes. “Look, Daya, look!” she said as they passed corridor after branching corridor. She reached out and stroked the smooth blue-veined paleness of the walls. “Have you ever been in a cave so grand?”
“This is not a cave,” Ilbran said. “Men built this a long time ago, as they built the house we lived in. This is the same, only grander.”
Kare reached out to touch the smoothness again. “What kind of magic did they use? Was it what she does?”
“We’ll talk of that later,” he said. But the servants and guards had heard, and would remember and report, no doubt.
He looked around him in wonderment also, though he tried not to show it. Palaces were as unfamiliar to him as to his daughter. One of the servants opened the door to a wide chamber. “This is where you will be. The three of you.” Ilbran stood in the doorway and watched his daughter, walking between Andiene and Lenane, go down the long corridor, and out of sight, still surrounded by a crowd of servants and guards.
Then there was no stranger to hear them, so he could speak his mind. “What if there is treachery? This place stinks with it.”
“What did you expect?” asked Syresh. “We are come to civilized lands.”
“Quiet!” Kallan said. “The scars on your face should have taught you not to be insolent.” Then he turned to Ilbran. “Listen, your child is in good keeping. You have not seen what I have seen of our lady. Her power is not only over the creatures of the forest. When she was a child not much older than your daughter, she held a whole company of armed men at bay with her voice and her eyes alone. She is better protection for your daughter than any we could give.”
Ilbran nodded reluctantly. “I still do not like this place.”
“None of us do, to be unarmed in a strange land. I would rather have sheltered in a villager’s cellar. But there will be no treachery, not till a message comes back from Mareja. No matter how swift the sand doves fly, nothing will come before summer; we will have a long respite from fear.
“And if some spy had ideas of his own, our lady Andiene would be our guard. In these seven years she has grown mightier. Mightier than a grizane, I think. We do not know what she has done.”
“And we do not know who is at the door listening,” Ilbran said. These two had no imagination. They spoke no reassuring words. Andiene’s powers were half of what he feared for Kare, powers that might corrupt and draw her down to the darkness of her mother.
Then they were silent, finding nothing to talk about as they bathed, and dressed themselves in the clothes they had been given. They trimmed each other’s hair, and shaved, all but Syresh, grown proud of his beard.
Ilbran looked in the bright-steel mirror to see his face lined like a man twice his age, his eyes troubled and guarded.
Kallan spared no time on studying his face. He pulled on his leather and mail armor, still filthy from long traveling, and put the embroidered robe on to cover it.
“I thought you said there would be no treachery,” Syresh said.
“I would feel naked with nothing between my ribs and a dagger but