“The King told me when I supped with him earlier that we’ll leave the army nearby,” J’anda said, stirring Cyrus from his silent reverie. “When we stop for the night, they’ll encamp there for the time that the moot takes place. He’s asked you and no more than five other officers to come along when he and the rest of the court goes to the moot.”
“Fine,” Cyrus said, his voice scratchy from disuse. “You, Longwell, Terian, and Curatio. We’ll bring the Baroness as well, give her an opportunity to see her brother.”
“I can’t decide whether that will be a very good idea or a very bad one,” J’anda said. “But I suspect it will be one of the two.”
“Either Tiernan will be happy to see her or he won’t,” Cyrus said. “It doesn’t much matter to me which it is.”
“It would not much matter to you if you were being slowly picked apart by vultures on a battlefield, I suspect, “ J’anda said, prompting Cyrus to send him a look of indifference. “Thank you for proving my point, I think.”
“Impressive,” Cyrus said without feeling. “You sussed that out without even having to reach into my mind.” He laughed, a low, grim laugh that caused the enchanter to edge away almost nervously. “I wonder what you’d see if you cast a mesmerization spell on me now. What do you think my heart’s desire is at this moment?”
“I …” J’anda swallowed deeply, and Cyrus could hear the reluctance in his answer. “I don’t think I would care to know, whatever it is. Your thoughts are not your own, they’re the blackest sort of darkness. You look at a bright summer’s sky like we’ve had for the last three weeks and it looks bleak and grey to your eyes. You are covered in it; it swallows you whole, infects you in a way I have only seen happen to you once before-and this time, it may actually be worse. And since last time involved a death of someone dear to you, I would have thought that that would be impossible.”
“Well, doesn’t that just make you all kinds of wrong,” Cyrus said. “Before I just mourned the loss of a friend. Now I get to watch my faith in others gradually disappear.”
“I don’t think it’s others you’re losing faith in,” J’anda said. “I don’t think it’s that at all. I think you’re starting to lose belief in yourself, that that is what is really eating at you-your confidence is shaken because you feel betrayed. After all, how could this happen to you, twice in a row? You trusted them, you opened your heart to them, and they hurt you. You are wounded. You are licking those wounds. You may think it’s your belief in others that is waning, but this is a problem of you, my friend. You are taking it too personally; these sort of things happen.”
“What do you know?” Cyrus snapped. “I haven’t seen you with a woman in three years.”
“I wasn’t talking about women,” J’anda said coolly. “I was talking about you. Have you not seen me with you in the last three years? Because then I might be speaking of something I know not.”
“Listen-”
“I’m going to ride off now,” J’anda said. “I am not upset with you, though I expect you are with me; I just imagine that you’re running a bit low on people to talk to and I don’t want to make it easy for you to drive another away. We’ll speak again later.” With that, the enchanter rode off, leaving Cyrus staring at him in openmouthed irritation.
Within the hour, the army was beginning to set up camp in the shade of a forest in the hills. From atop one of them, Cyrus could see Enrant Monge in the distance and other armies, smaller ones, encamped to the north and the west, like the three points of a triangle.
Enrant Monge was a castle but not like Vernadam at all. The blocks that it was made of were smaller, yet the design was less ornate and more functional. A simple curtain wall with parapets extended in a perfect square around a courtyard with three towers in the keep. The towers looked to be of different construction than the outer wall, as though they had been added later; cracks in the wall also looked to have been patched with some sort of grout that was visible in the orange light of sunset as the towers cast shade over the whole scene and a cool breeze blew across them. The castle was only a mile or so away, he estimated.
The journey went all too quickly for Cyrus; a few minutes and it seemed to be over. He and the others-Curatio, J’anda, Longwell, Terian, and the Baroness, the latter two trading uneasy looks-rode along with the small delegation from Galbadien to the gates of Enrant Monge. Cyrus had noted that the castle’s four walls each had a gate, one at each compass point. They entered through the eastern gate, and Cyrus looked back to make sure his delegation was still with him as he followed the King’s over the drawbridge. He saw each of them in turn; Longwell, whose gaze was moving around, examining their surroundings with a little awe, Cattrine, who met Cyrus’s look with indifference and turned away after staring him in the eyes for a few seconds. Curatio and J’anda seemed somewhat wary, and Terian was watching Cyrus when he caught the dark knight’s stare. Terian did not look away, however, but continued to watch, Cyrus could feel, even after he had turned back to the path ahead.
The drawbridge was long, a hundred or more feet, and Cyrus pondered the age of the wood with every step Windrider took. It creaked and he looked down into the water. The dark moat rippled as the last vestiges of daylight sparkled across the surface, the orange sky reflected above the ramparts of the castle’s mirror image in the water. As they crossed under the gate, Cyrus saw a few guards standing at attention on either side of them. They carried poleaxes and did not move, their livery something very different than what Cyrus had seen before, a kind of red and yellow surcoat with a coat of arms that had red diagonally at top right and bottom left and yellow at top left and bottom right, with Luukessian writing in the banner across the top. Their surcoats were flawless, their helms a shining metal that gave him a stabbing reminder of Vara. He cast another look back at Cattrine, but she was looking elsewhere, her gaze sliding off the guards at attention.
They passed through a bailey and into a smaller keep, between the guards standing at attention outside it. Once through the gate, there were no guards, only stewards, unarmed, waiting for them, bowing (Again with the bowing, thought Cyrus, it’s a wonder these people have spines left at all after so much of it) as King Longwell brought his delegation to a halt and Cyrus stopped his just behind him.
“Welcome to Enrant Monge,” the lead steward, a short man in flowing grey robes with long hair that matched them, said, “the heart of unity in Luukessia.”
Cyrus heard Terian snort loud enough to attract the attention of everyone around him. “Sorry,” the dark knight said, “I guess I must have failed to notice the unity in all the battles I’ve fought since I got here.” Cyrus sent him a dirty look, which was matched by Curatio and J’anda. Terian shrugged, unfazed.
The steward ignored him and continued his clearly pre-practiced speech, hands in the air above him. “The delegations from Syloreas and Actaluere have already arrived, and we will begin with the traditional welcome ceremony of peace in the garden in half an hour.” The steward nodded. “I would remind you that no weapons or armor are allowed in the garden of serenity, and that no violence is permitted within the walls of Enrant Monge under penalty of death.”
“That’s usually how my acts of violence turn out anyway,” Terian said, prompting Curatio to shush him.
“Your tower quarters are prepared,” the steward said. He bowed again, causing Cyrus to unwittingly roll his eyes. “Go forth in peace, brothers.”
“But not sisters, eh?” Cyrus heard J’anda mutter to Cattrine, causing her to laugh airily.
“This way to the tower,” Odau Genner said from his place next to Count Ranson, who looked back at the Sanctuary members in amusement. If the King thought anything that had been said was funny, he hid it well, riding atop his horse with only the thinnest hint of expression.