EVENTUALLY PROVED TO BE NEARLY a week. That was how long it took for Corwin to regain some measure of strength—and to deal with all the other business pressing for his attention. Governor Prewitt had been in to see him at least twice each day, always with an air of sincere concern over his welfare. Corwin knew better; the governor was just eager for him to depart. Corwin was, too.
There’d been no news on the Gregors. In the weeks since the attack on the freeholding, no one had seen or heard a word about the entire family. Officially, they’d been declared dead. Corwin didn’t doubt it, given the utter destruction of their home. It had also been confirmed that wilder magic was responsible for the fire and other damage. The two magists who’d examined the body of the dead Andrean miner finally identified the magic that killed him as a form of spirit magic. Their authority on such matters was absolute. One was a white robe, whose order dealt in the high arts, those spells too complex for everyday application. The other a gold robe, the order in charge of detecting wilder magic and the running of the Inquisition. The confirmation made Corwin uneasy, especially given Dal’s speculation that the two attacks were connected. At a minimum the Rising was gaining in power.
“Do you think wilders could have created these daydrakes somehow?” Corwin had asked the magists. “Like how they were supposed to have unleashed the nightdrakes upon us?”
The gold robe made an exaggerated motion with his hand. “Anything is possible with wild magic, your highness. All the more reason it must be eradicated.”
Such was the mantra of every magist. Corwin didn’t know what to make of it, except to feel certain that if there were answers, they lay in Andreas. Despite his brother’s command, he planned to head there before returning to Norgard. Dal had already commissioned an artist to draw the miner’s face so they might learn his identity.
But first Corwin had to talk to Kate. It felt a little like preparing for battle. He forced food down his gullet as often as he could and took to walking up and down every flight of stairs in the governor’s mansion. When he was finally able to make it all the way to the top floor without feeling faint, he declared himself ready—despite his lingering certainty that he would never be ready.
The next morning, Corwin and Dal headed for the Relay house. Although he wanted to go without escort, Governor Prewitt insisted on sending four guards with them. Corwin reluctantly agreed but ordered them not to carry the royal banner—and no trumpeters either. The royal tour was over, after all.
Not that it made a difference. Everyone still recognized him. Even though he’d dressed in a plain tunic, forgoing the royal sigil anywhere, his likeness had been posted in every newspaper across Rime far too often of late for anonymity. What with his disappearance and sudden return, he was a mystery that kept the press in print. Doubtless, some of the servants in the governor’s household had been paid handsomely to provide notice of the high prince’s movements as well. The moment Corwin appeared on the street, the crowds converged.
It made for slow going, the four guards a weak force to part the crowd. Halfway there a woman dressed in rags and smelling like a tavern privy managed to get past the guards and race up to Corwin’s borrowed horse. The mare shied away, snorting, but the woman grabbed onto the reins.
“Mercy, your highness!” she shrieked, unmindful of getting trampled. “Mercy!” The guards seized her at once and started to haul her away. “Mercy for my husband! He’s been banished!”
Corwin gritted his teeth, a muscle ticking in his jaw. Banishment was the cruelest of sentences handed down by local judges. Execution was arguably kinder than the uncertainty of being sent outside the city walls without protection. By nightfall, the condemned would become drake fodder. Corwin wished he could just ignore the woman, but there were too many eyes on him, including Dal, who watched with a mouth half opened in dismay.
“Stop,” Corwin commanded the guards. “Let her speak. What is your husband’s crime?”
The woman dropped her head in some semblance of a bow. “They say he killed a man, your highness, but my Joe couldn’t have done. He’s a good man, your highness. A kind man. Mercy!”
Corwin took in her tear-streaked face and the brittle, hopeful look in her eyes. Pity swelled inside him, and he wished for the power to end her suffering.
“Her husband was a drunk, your highness,” one of the Farhold guards said. “He killed a man in a tavern brawl.”
Corwin sighed. It was a common enough story, and he knew without asking that banishment was always the sentence for such a crime in Farhold, same as it was in many of the cities of Rime. Violence could not be tolerated. Life behind these cities’ walls was too confining to allow the possibility for panic or mayhem. Punishment must be swift. But it should also be absolute, Corwin’s father insisted, which was why banishment was not employed in Norgard. Loved ones of the condemned needed the closure of a certain death so that they would not spend the rest of their lives in futile hope that their relative had survived and might one day return.
If only Norgard laws were Rimish laws.
“When was the man’s punishment carried out?” Corwin asked the guard who’d spoken.
“Nigh on a week ago, your highness.”
And there it was, although Corwin knew there would be no convincing this distraught woman of the truth. Instead he relied on the advice Edwin had drilled into him before he’d come on this tour: to avoid any political entanglements. “I’m truly sorry, but the high king is not above the law. What the judges of Farhold have decreed must stand.”
The woman’s mournful tears turned to anger, and she spat at him. “Coward. Coward! What good’s a high king who won’t rule and do right? What good? What—” The guards covered her mouth, silencing her as they hauled her away.
Relief swept over Corwin once it was over, but the woman’s words continued to echo inside his head. What good, indeed. A prince without power. That’s who I am. If only the rest of the world would finally come to accept it. Although he would never wish his father dead, he wanted it to be over, for Edwin to be named heir and for him to be free of the expectation at last.
When they arrived at the Relay house, the Relay master welcomed them in with palpable enthusiasm, an expression exaggerated by the way his eyes seemed to protrude from his head. “Please come in. The grooms will see to your horses.”
“Thank you,” Corwin replied, handing over his horse’s reins to one of the stable boys who approached them. “We are here to see Miss Kate Brighton.”
The Relay master seemed to deflate a little. “Miss Brighton? Oh, yes, she is here, but I’m afraid she’s due to run a trial any moment. We’re holding qualifications today, you see. Our current riders have to requalify, and the new hopefuls will be tested this afternoon.”
“A trial?” Dal arched his head, sounding delighted. “I’m sure his highness would like to see that, if we may.”
Corwin nodded, and again the Relay master looked disappointed. Rubbing his hands together, he gave an awkward little bow, his foppish white curls bouncing. “As you wish.”
The man led them through the stable yard to the training fields situated in the back of the complex. A grandstand resided at the side of the field, more than half the seats occupied. “The trials always draw spectators,” the Relay master explained over his shoulder.
For a moment, Corwin hoped the crowd would allow him to blend in and go unnoticed, but as always, the gods were working against him where Kate was concerned. Astride a stocky chestnut with a white blaze running down his nose, she was facing the fence that ran in front of the stands when he arrived. As if by some magnetic force, her gaze caught his at once. The color blanched from her face, and she jerked her head to the side, steering the horse away from the stands. Corwin winced, hoping that his presence wouldn’t interfere with her trial.
She seemed unaffected, however, as she asked the horse for a trot, then a loping canter. Keeping his attention centered on Kate, Corwin climbed into the stands and sat in the second row, a place opening up for him at once as the people realized who he was. Excited murmurs echoed all around him.
Dal let out a low whistle. “The girl can ride.”
“Did you expect something less?” Corwin shot him an amused look. “Her father was master of horse at Norgard. Not a position easily won.”
“Maybe so,” replied Dal, “but he might’ve required his daughter to study more womanly pursuits.”
Corwin laughed. “Not Hale.” The sudden affection he felt for the man took him by surprise. It had been years since he’d thought of Hale Brighton with something other than hatred. But once, he’d loved him like a second father. “He always encouraged her where horses were concerned,” Corwin added. “If she’d been a boy, you would’ve thought Hale was training Kate to take over as master of horse.”
“Didn’t her mother object?” Dal glanced at Corwin, frowning.
Picturing the small, wispy woman, Corwin grimaced. “Lynette Brighton never went against her husband’s wishes. At least not directly. You’ve never met a more passive person. She’s the opposite of Kate in every way, meek and decorous.”
“You mean boring.” Dal wrinkled his nose. “I would say you’re lying, but I know better.” Craning back his head, he peered up at the bright sky. “Thank you, sweet gods and goddesses, for not dooming us all to become our parents.” Lowering his head once more, he added, “I’ll bet the woman isn’t happy her daughter is now a Relay rider.”
“I doubt she knows,” Corwin replied. “After Hale’s death she returned to her father’s house in Kilbarrow. Lady Brighton is the fourth-born daughter of Baron Reece.”
Dal scratched at his unshaven face. “It’s hard to believe Kate was once part of the gentry.” The magestone in his ear looked dull this morning, a sure sign it was beginning to fade, and Corwin made a mental note to have it replaced before they left Farhold. It was his fault Dal had to wear it, after all.
“I know what you mean,” Corwin said, thinking about the Relay master’s reaction when they’d asked for her. “When Hale was condemned, Kate refused to renounce him and lost any such claims to land or station. Her lady mother, however, did not. She returned to Kilbarrow, leaving her daughter to her own means.”
“She sounds like a peach.” Dal leaned over the edge of the grandstands to spit in emphasis.
They fell silent as Kate’s trial began. She lined up her mount in front of the starting pole on the far side of the field, her gaze fixed on the flag bearer at center. Two judges stood next to the flag bearer, one holding a pocket watch to record Kate’s time and the other carrying parchment and pen to record errors. The field was divided into three lanes, each designed to test a particular skill—arrow, lance, and sword.
When the flag bearer lowered the standard, Kate sent her horse forward and drew her bow, heading down the farthest lane. She pulled an arrow from her quiver and let it fly in one quick, seamless movement. It slammed into the first archery target only an inch outside the bull’s-eye. Before it had even landed, Kate twisted her body to the left, aiming at the next target, one set lower than the first. This time the arrow hit dead center, and in moments her quiver was empty and all her targets were marked.
Arriving at the end of the lane, Kate slid the bow onto her back and grabbed the lance protruding up from the ground just ahead, yanking it free. She wheeled the horse around and headed down the middle row; this one was comprised of jousting rings and ground targets. She raised the lance to shoulder height while the horse ran steady and straight beneath her. Aiming for the first ring, Kate missed it by a hair’s breadth, but she snagged the second one and the next, making the difficult task look easy.
Dal whistled low again. “She’s good. I think she’s better than you are. Hells, she might even be better than me.”
“She always was better.” Old memories tumbled through Corwin’s mind. So many nights they’d snuck their ponies out of the stables and ridden them onto the cavalry yards, where they challenged one another to races or mounted duels with wooden swords. Their childhood competitions had been fun but fierce, each trying to best the other. Kate usually lost the duels but never the races. When it came to riding, she was untouchable. She is as good as her father ever was.
Clearly her fighting skills had improved, too. She snared the last jousting ring, completing the line, then bore down on the ground targets just ahead. Most riders slowed their horses for this part, the tent pegging, as it was called, but Kate kept the horse at full gallop. With easy effort, she lowered the tip of the lance just in time to stab the wooden peg sticking up from the ground. She yanked up, pulling the target free with a mighty heave. Raising the lance once more, she launched it over her shoulder and into the straw dummy crouched at the end of the lane.
They were moving so fast, the horse looked ready to crash into the fence. Kate sat back, pulling on the reins, and the crowd let out a collective gasp as the compact animal set his haunches and slid to a stop mere inches from collision. Then Kate spun the chestnut around once more, drawing the sword from the scabbard at her waist at the same time. She headed down the last lane, this one rimmed with burlap sacks shaped like men posed in attack stances. She slew the first one easily.
Dal whistled through his teeth. “Is the Relay training riders or soldiers?”
“A little of both, I suppose,” Corwin replied. “The Relay has ancient military roots. It was formed during the War of Three.”
“It’s as old as the nightdrakes?”
Corwin nodded. “During the war, the cities needed a way to communicate with their allies quickly and without risk of exposing secrets. One fast horse with a skilled warrior proved the most effective way.” He wondered what Rime would be like now if that war had never been fought. Its official name made it seem like some minor conflict, when in truth every city in Rime had been involved, all of them aligned in opposition on three fronts—eastern, western, and northern. The fighting nearly destroyed Rime. Ironically it was the unleashing of the nightdrakes that eventually wrought peace. The cities couldn’t afford to fight one another when faced with this greater, more devastating enemy.
Leaning forward in his seat, Corwin focused on the final leg of Kate’s trial. The targets were spaced so close together that she barely had time to pull back from one swing before launching another. They were set high, low, and in between, and she managed to hit each one, demonstrating a flexibility Corwin felt certain neither he nor Dal could’ve managed. Corwin watched her with his mouth hanging open in awe. She rode and fought with her whole body, her face a hard mask, eyes blazing.
Kate crossed the finish line a moment later. Corwin and Dal both raised their hands in applause, but their claps were met with silence from everyone sitting around them. All except for the only woman rider in the stands.
“I don’t understand,” Dal said, speaking loud enough that everyone could hear. “Why wouldn’t you applaud a performance like that?”
“Because silence is the coward’s favorite tool,” the woman said, in the accent of an Esh Islander. She cast a glower over the crowd, but most refused to look at her.
It’s because of who she is, Corwin thought. Traitor Kate. The truth struck him hard. It wasn’t his fault—Hale had attacked his father—and yet he felt the blame as if it were his own.
The Eshian shook her golden-haired head, then stepped off the stands and disappeared around the corner.
Corwin clasped a stunned and speechless Dal on the shoulder. “Come on. We better find Kate now before she has a chance to run away.”
They hurried off the stands and headed toward the gate. Kate was leading the horse, having dismounted the moment the trial was over. She walked fast, her head down in a bid for a quick escape, but before she could make it, the judge with the pocket watch called out to her.
She stopped and faced the man as he approached. A wary but respectful expression rose to her face. From the sigil on the man’s tunic, Corwin guessed he was the Relay foreman. He and Dal hung back, not wanting to intrude.
“Well done, Kate,” the man said. “That was your best time yet, and you had only one error.”
Kate scowled at the compliment. “Does this mean I’m finally ungrounded then?”
The foreman rubbed his fingers over a line of pale, twisted scars on his forearm, vivid against his brown skin. “We’ll discuss it later.” The finality in his tone told Corwin that Kate’s chances of riding again were slim. What a waste, he thought, although secretly he didn’t mind the idea of her not being outside the city walls again anytime soon.
The foreman retreated to his post, and reluctantly, Kate turned her gaze onto them at last. “Your highness,” she said, giving him a stiff bow.
“Nice to see you again, Miss Brighton.” Corwin smiled, wishing he had some way to set her at ease.
“What are you doing here?” She glanced over her shoulder, as if afraid someone would notice them talking. Her worry was pointless—everyone had noticed.
Corwin cleared his throat. “I wanted to talk to you about what happened on the road to Andreas.”
“Oh.” Her gaze fell to the ground. “Can it wait? I need to take care of Trooper.” As if in emphasis, the horse sucked in a breath, then blew it out in a loud snort.
“We’ll come with you,” Dal said before Corwin could respond.
Kate’s lips formed a thin line, but she didn’t argue. Leading the way, she headed into one of the stables. Fortunately, few people lingered about. As good a battleground as any, Corwin thought, then chided himself for it. This wasn’t a battle. He refused to let it become one.
Kate led the horse into a wash stall in the back and pulled off the bridle, trading it for a halter. Then she snapped the crossties into place before stepping past the gelding’s shoulder to the saddle, her hands raised to undo the girth.
“That was a fantastic ride, Miss Kate,” Dal said, patting the horse’s neck. “I was just telling Corwin that you’re even better at cavalry games than he is. However do you manage to be so accurate with the targets?”
A smile ghosted across Kate’s face. “It’s not so hard. I just imagine I’m slaying my enemies.”
Although she didn’t look at Corwin as she spoke, he couldn’t help but wonder if he was among those enemies. Then again, perhaps it was best not to know. He clasped his hands in front of him to keep from fidgeting. Gods, this was hard.
Dal cleared his throat, not quite concealing the sound of suppressed laughter. “Speaking of slaying things, his highness is here to thank you for saving him.”
Corwin inwardly groaned, feeling like a fool. I should be doing the saving. He pushed the thought aside, letting his gratitude come to the forefront. He bowed his head toward Kate.
“Yes, thank you. I would be dead if not for you. I am in your debt.”
“You’re welcome.” She glanced at him with her large, large eyes. Then she added in a low breath, “If only I had earned such before now.”
Corwin winced at the blow. Save him. He’s my father, he heard her beg again. Stop the execution, give us exile! And he hadn’t. At the time, he’d believed there was no alternative, that such an offense must be paid by death, lest someone else believe they should attempt the same and perhaps succeed. But in the years that followed, he’d begun to wonder if he’d been wrong. The time he’d spent away from Rime had taught him that the world was rarely so black and white. He wrapped his fingers around the vambrace on his right wrist, hiding the tattoo beneath.
“Well now,” Dal said with a nervous laugh. “We’re also here to find out more about that marvelous revolver your friend made.”
Pulling the saddle from the horse’s back, Kate glanced at them both, her expression guarded. “Why?”
“You used it to kill three of those four daydrakes,” Corwin said, holding out his hands to take the saddle from her.
Ignoring the offer, she stepped past him and slid the saddle onto a rack just out front of the wash stall. “I . . . I didn’t think you would remember any of what happened.”
Dropping his hands back to his sides, Corwin hid a wince at his blunder. Of course she would hope he hadn’t remembered. Especially after all the intimate things he said to her in his delirium. If only he could take it back—but somehow he doubted telling her he’d been crazed out of his mind and hadn’t meant a word of it would go over very well. Denial then.
“I remember very little aside from that. But seeing a weapon kill so many drakes so easily is impossible to forget.”
“There was nothing easy about it.” Kate picked up an empty bucket at the front of the stall and crossed the aisle to the water trough, where she dipped out a bucketful. “What do you want to know?”
“Well, to start,” Dal said, stepping forward to take the bucket from her. To Corwin’s chagrin, she allowed the help this time. “Are there any more?”
“I . . .” Kate bit her lip, then seemed to realize she was doing it and schooled her expression into a neutral mask. “There is only the one. My friend Tom Bonner made it special for me. To keep me safe on my rides.”
Corwin’s fingers clenched, halfway toward making fists. Who was this Bonner? Was he the one who gave her the moonbelt? For a second, the image of another man with his hands at her waist, pulling her into a kiss, flashed in Corwin’s mind. It wasn’t one his imagination needed to conjure. Memory of her and Edwin would suffice.
“That’s very nice,” Dal said, shooting Corwin a wary glance. “But surely if he made the one, he can make others.”
Corwin nodded his agreement while he wrestled the jealousy beast back into its cage. Kate’s life was not his business anymore. Who she was friends with, who she loved . . . who loved her.
Fetching a dry rag off the front of the wash stall, Kate dipped it into the bucket and doused the horse’s neck with it. The gelding snorted a protest, raising his head in a vain attempt to avoid the water.
“Oh, stop it, you big baby,” she chided. “This should feel nice.” The horse shook his neck, spraying them all with water. Kate bent toward the bucket once more. “Yes, I suppose he could make more.”
“Excellent.” Dal clapped his hands once. “When can we meet this Tom Bonner?”
Kate rolled her eyes as she ran the wet rag along the horse’s back. “Seeing how I’ve no real work to do anymore, I suppose I can arrange a meeting.” She made a point of addressing the offer to Dal.
He grinned. “Perfect. Should we come back later today?”
She shook her head. “Bonner will want time to prepare. Tomorrow would be better. Meet me here at seven o’clock.”
“The moment the bell tolls.” Dal placed a palm over his heart and stooped into a theatrical bow.
That sideways smile appeared on Kate’s face then, stealing Corwin’s breath away for a moment. It always made her look like she had some secret, one you would give your right eye to possess, if only she would tell you.
Emboldened by the smile and the warm memories it provoked, Corwin said, “Thank you again, Kate.”
The smile vanished, and she fixed a cold stare at him. He wished he could know what she was thinking at that moment.
Then again, maybe not, he thought, imagining his face on one of her targets.
After a few seconds, she asked, “Is that all you wanted from me then, your highness?”
It was a dangerous question, a multi-edged sword forged to cut no matter which way he answered. “Yes,” he finally said, guessing it was the answer she wanted to hear.