The Queen of Dacia had also had the plague, though she didn’t die of it. She was made crippled and weak, and so ill the king shut her away in a private chamber. She might as well have been dead, for all most folk spoke or cared about her; certainly not the king. He had bedded with Kiri’s cousin Accacia until some mysterious event put a stop to that.
Now as she climbed the narrow cobbled street, Kiri kept her eyes cast down, watching the city under her lashes. Suddenly she heard horses and commotion. She raced to where she could see the main approach to the palace gates. She saw a slim man on a white mount. He was elegantly dressed in a red cape and gold tunic.
He rode with easy grace the shying, sidestepping war-horse. Three other horses followed him, mincing, tossing their heads, but held lightly on thin leads. He appeared far too regal and too wealthy to be traveling this land alone, and with four of the most wonderful horses Kiri had ever imagined, horses that surely had not come from Dacia or any of the surrounding countries.
They were taller than Dacian horses, for one thing, and slimmer of leg. They carried themselves with a balance and grace that no Dacian horse could match. Their necks and shoulders were dark with sweat and their legs spattered with mud from the road as if they had had a long journey. But still they were dancing and bowing their necks, their tails switching with high spirits and challenge.
When Kiri reached the small palace gate that led to the servants’ quarters, she paused to watch the rider enter the main gate ahead. First she heard the creak of the gatekeeper’s small door, then words exchanged that she could not make out. She could see figures stirring inside the courtyard. The great gates clanged open and the horses’ hooves rang on the cobbles. When rider and horses had disappeared inside, there was more conversation muffled by the wall. Kiri waited until the gate had been closed and the gatekeeper gone back into his cottage; then she climbed the palace wall in deep shadow, her bare feet knowing the toeholds.
She slipped over the top between the iron spikes like a sparrow hopping between spears, scraping her arm only once as she eased down the other side. Who was this elegant rider, to come alone to Sardira’s palace with such horses? The voices inside the courtyard had challenged him, and then had gone soft and smooth as syrup. What was his business? No one traveled on any business these days that did not have to do with the wars.
Kiri moved silently through a narrow passage to the back door of the servants’ quarters, then inside. Half a dozen women looked up dully from where they were scrubbing clothes. They never remarked on her comings and goings or even noticed them, so muddled had their minds become with the nightly rations of drugged liquor. She went quickly through the dim room to the inner hall that led to the courtyard, and along this toward the tangle of voices, pressing close to the damp stone walls. She could hear the traveler giving directions for stabling his horses. He sounded young. She stood in deep shadow where she could see out into the cobbled yard.
He was young, not much older than she, a slim, tanned boy with high cheekbones and dark hair tied back neatly, and dark eyes. And what strange directions he was giving. A triple ration of oats—well, that was all right. But no rubdown or grooming? And the stall doors to be left wide open, the horses unfettered so they could roam at will?
“But there are no fences,” the king’s steward said. “Surely you don’t mean . . . ?”
“They will not leave,” the young man said, with an impatient scowl at the steward.
“I can’t be responsible for such a thing.” The steward stood stolidly, his square face sour with this challenge to his good sense. No one left horses to roam free and expected them not to stray.
“The horses are not to be tethered or confined. They will not tolerate confinement. They will be here when I want them.”
The horses did seem nervous within the confinement of the courtyard. They moved and shifted close around the young man and kept glancing up past the top of the high stone wall toward the freedom beyond, as if it would not take much for them to leap that eight-foot stone barrier and be gone. Kiri had no doubt they could leap it, these tall, finely muscled creatures. She thought the slim white halters they wore would hardly hold them if they were to rear or pull back. And the saddle mare wore no bit in her mouth.
This lad was a very skilled horseman if he had trained these mounts himself. She could see that they loved him, that they remained steady only because he was there with them. What would they do in the stable, with strange grooms? Kiri stood watching the beautiful animals hungrily, just as Papa would have done. Oh, Papa would covet these horses. Papa . . . she bit her lip and pushed thoughts of Papa to the back of her mind, and studied the rider more carefully.
A white leather thong, like the leather of the halters, tied back his smooth dark hair. His face looked strong and, Kiri thought, honest. His red cape was of soft, fine wool. His tunic was gold with red trim over dark-brown leggings. His boots were made by a master craftsman.
He removed the saddlebags and the mare’s saddle deftly—such a thin saddle, little more than a white leather pad—and caressed her neck and ears as if he were loath to send her with the grooms who had come into the courtyard. As they led the horses away, the mare looked back at the lad.
When they passed Kiri, all four horses twitched their ears in her direction. The nearer stallion gazed directly at her, directly into her eyes. His look froze her so that she stood dumb, staring as they passed on out of the yard.
She stood still long after the horses had gone and the young man had left the courtyard accompanied by the king’s marshal, in the direction of the great hall. Her mind, her whole being, seemed frozen with the stallion’s deep, searching look.
She roused herself at last and fled for the hall, to listen. Who was this man? And why did the intent stare of his horses set her blood to pounding? Her wrists prickled with the thought of magic, but she put that down to excitement. She must be levelheaded, clear-minded if she was to gather information accurately.
Her way was dark and close, between storage chambers and through back passages, until she reached the big indoor cistern that stood behind the fireplace of the great hall. This cistern heated the water for the kitchens, and its iron sides were warm against her as she slid around it, to stand between cistern and stone wall, pressed tight in the small space.
She put her ear to the wall where, with her help, mortar had long since crumbled away from between two stones. She could hear the voices in the hall clearly. The stranger was there, and the king himself, and the king’s son, Abisha.
Kiri peered through and could see Abisha’s plump, silk-clad legs stretched before the hearth. King Sardira, in black robes that seemed an extension of his black beard and locks, looked very pale and lined. Too much feasting, Gram would have said. Too much wine on the table. Or too much of the white powder they gave to the slaves and sometimes indulged in themselves, Kiri thought.
She could see the stranger, too. Was that a touch of humor in his dark eyes, in the lines around his mouth? One did not usually smile in the presence of King Sardira, and this stranger seemed to be holding back a laugh. Kiri liked his looks—but she knew better than to rely on a first glimpse. She pressed her ear to the hole, and listened.
Chapter 4
The voice of the king came clearly through the little hole in the mortar. The stone was cool and smooth against Kiri’s cheek. She could hear the ring of china as Prince Abisha poured out mithnon liquor and tea. She saw the stranger shake his head.