Most of the women were lone—their husbands already dead or gone with their lord to fight for the feckless Perryn, which they believed the same as dead. And rightly so. The men called to the manse to help fight the fire had been graybeards or cripples or boys under fifteen.
Saverian dressed burns and tended injuries, moving briskly from one to the next. Our warriors offered packets of bread or cheese, sympathetic ears, and strong arms to build shelters. The people gawked at me, wondering, as if I might perform some magic to rebuild their lives. But of course, they didn’t know I was the most useless of sorcerers. I managed only to uncover their well with a minor voiding spell, but I had no confidence they could survive the frigid night.
“The new year will bring a new king,” Gram told one trembling goodwife. “Survive until then. Greet him with your needs and sorrows. Those who have done this deed are not messengers of great powers, but vile ravagers, and your king will call them to account for this crime. Gods do not begrudge you a roof.”
After an hour, we rode on. Though our escort remained alert, we encountered no Harrowers, only the path of destruction they had crafted. Every manse, croft, village, and sheep shed we passed by lay in ruins, some already cold ashes, some still blazing. We stopped wherever we found people, whether Evanori or Ardran, whether villeins, noblewomen bundled in charred furs, frightened boys, or grizzled crofters with burnt hands. Some mumbled fearfully of the blind immortal Gehoum, afraid even to help themselves. But more picked themselves up and set about their own survival once they heard that a new king would bring them aid with the new year.
As we rode past a ragged Evanori procession on their way from their charred hillside to a warlord’s hold, I moved to Osriel’s side. “Why, lord?” I said softly so that the soldiers could not hear. “Why do you not reveal yourself to these people? Not that you are Eodward’s heir…I understand that. But how much more would their spirits lift if they knew the one sharing his bread and blankets to be their own duc? And how eagerly would they rally to his cause when he did step forward to claim his father’s throne?”
“Fear has ever been the Bastard’s staunchest ally,” he said, hunching his shoulders against the bitter wind. “Hope must stand aside and do its work softly until the day is won.” He kicked his mount ahead of mine and said no more.
Seeing the steadied shoulders, the firmer grasps, the clearer eyes that Gram’s care effected, I could not but remember Luviar’s talk of the mystical bond between Navronne and its sovereign. The lack of a righteous king speeds the ruin of the land. And so, perhaps, was the reverse true; the ascension of a righteous sovereign might have consequences deeper than law or politics. I wanted Osriel to be that king. I believed he could be. But the poisoned fury of the dead that infused this land and hung like battlefield smoke inside my skull made me fear that he was not.
For three days we pushed hard, fearing that a new storm might leave the roads impassable. Late on the third day we descended a steep pass between two spiny ridges only to see a grand prospect opened before us, washed in the indigo light of snowy evening. From west to east the dark, jagged gorge of the River Kay sliced the frosted landscape of treeless terraces. Just below us the river plunged down a great falls and veered northward through broken foothills, where, freed from the confining rock, its character altered into the lazy sweeping flow that fed the fertile valley where Gillarine lay.
Bridging the gorge a quellé west of the falls was Caedmon’s arch, its broken entry pillars on the Ardran side resembling thick ice spears. And just north of the pillars lay the crossroads where I had first glimpsed a Dané and a tree that did not grow in the human plane. My stomach tightened.
“Lord Stearc,” I said, coaxing my balky horse up beside the thane as the road wound downward onto the flatter approaches to the bridge. “Call a halt as soon as we’re across. I’ll lead from there.”
He jerked his head in assent. Before very long, Stearc passed over the bridge and between the broken pillars. He raised his hand.
“Saints and spirits,” I mumbled, as I reined in beside him, gulping great lungfuls of Ardran winter. Blessed Ardra. The clouds seemed thinner this side of the bridge, the air clearer…cleaner. Only my own anxieties thrummed my veins, not the muted violence and suffering that had tainted my every breath in Evanore. I felt as if a mountain had rolled off my back.
“Are you ill, Magnus? It’s been only a few hours since you renewed the damping spell.” Saverian slipped from her saddle, squinting at me as if I were a two-headed cow. She’d not spoken three words to me all day. Only diseases piqued her interest.
“On the contrary,” I said, wishing she weren’t watching as I lifted my mangled bum from the saddle and dropped to the ground. I winced, but managed not to groan aloud. “Both health and spirits seem much improved now we’re this side of the river.”
“Except for the posterior.” Her slanted brows mocked a frown and her small mouth quirked, as she cupped her hand beside her mouth and whispered, “However will you ride naked?”
Gods… A number of entirely crude retorts came to mind, but they would likely only encourage the creature. I vowed to ignore her and her odd humor.
Leaving the horses with Voushanti and the soldiers, we joined Osriel and Stearc beside Caedmon’s pillars. Thane and prince were arguing quietly. “…But you have too few men to protect you, lord.”
“Have the past three days taught you nothing?” snapped the prince. “You need to be out of sight. You carry the lighthouse ward. Remain at Gillarine until I give you leave to do elsewise.”
The thane stalked away, threw himself into the saddle, and barked a command. He and his five men mounted up and soon vanished into the valley of the Kay.
“Are you ready to proceed, my lord, or do you wish to wait for morning?” I said, removing my mask now Stearc’s men were gone. Voushanti, Philo, and Melkire had dismounted and were sharing a skin of ale with Saverian. The prince sat on a stained block of marble fallen from the shattered columns.
“We go now. I’d rather not push our luck with the weather.”
“All I know to do is try to find the Sentinel Oak and seek a way to take us past it. I gather we’ve brought no nivat?” Though my voice remained determinedly neutral, conscience and resolution battled the guilty hope that he would contradict me. Would he dare tell me if they had it?
“No nivat.” The prince rubbed his neck as if to ease the stiffness. “What need to lure the Danae into our lands, when your talents can take us into theirs? I trust we’ll have no inflated illusions today.”
Relieved, yes, truly relieved, I told myself, I sought some trace of good humor in this reference to my artful past. But none of Gram’s wry humor or controlled excitement leaked from under Osriel’s thick cloak and hood. He manifested only this passionless determination I’d seen throughout this journey.
Voushanti commanded Philo, Melkire, and Saverian to remain with the horses, while he, Gram, and I ventured onward. A few hundred querae from the bridge, I halted. Time to keep my promise to Elene.
“My lord, perhaps we should discuss how we’re to approach the Danae. If I could but understand the terms of your discussion, what exactly we are seeking from them, what’s to happen on the solstice…”
“That is not your concern. The time for discussion has passed.” And that was that.
I could have refused to take him farther, but I had no means to weigh the world’s need against Elene’s fears. If I postponed my leaving, stayed close if and when this meeting took place, then perhaps I could glean Osriel’s purpose.