She held up the scroll. “We are now at peace with the Lonak, my lord. Besides, the only punishment you’ll find north of the pass will be your own.”
Her gaze was drawn to Brother Sollis, noting the way he straightened as he received news from one of his brothers. He caught her eye and came over. “Tidings from the Realm, Highness. It seems there was an attempt on the life of Tower Lord Al Bera. He lives but is grievously wounded. Witnesses lay the blame on Cumbraelin fanatics.”
Lyrna stifled a groan. End one war and there’s another brewing at home. “What has the King commanded?”
“The Battle Lord musters the Realm Guard with orders to root out the fanatics. Fief Lord Mustor has been ordered to render assistance but whether his people will do so is another matter.”
“I see. Then I had best not linger. Lord Marshal, we leave within the hour.”
The Lord Marshal bowed and strode away, shouting orders. Lyrna turned back to Sollis. “It seems our farewell must be brief, brother. I know there is no gift or favour I can offer that you will accept, so I can only offer my thanks, for my life and the success of this mission.”
“It was . . . an interesting journey.” He hesitated. “There were other tidings, Highness. Lord Al Sorna has returned to the Realm.”
Vaelin . . . “Returned?” She heard the shrillness in her voice and coughed. “How?”
“The Emperor released him, apparently in gratitude for some heroic service. The details are a little vague. He arrived at Varinshold some weeks ago. It seems he has left our Order. King Malcius sent him to the Northern Reaches, as Tower Lord.”
The Northern Reaches . . . For once her foolish brother had made the right move, although she found herself wishing he had waited a little before making it. “Please thank Brother Ivern for me,” she told Sollis. “Convey my regrets I have no more kisses to offer.”
“I think one was more than enough, Highness.”
“Where will you go?” she asked. “Now there is no-one here for you to fight.”
“I go where my Aspect commands, Highness. And there’s always someone else to fight.” He gave a bow lower than any he had offered before, straightened and turned to walk towards the squat tower at the south end of the pass.
A Realm Guard sergeant hurried up to her, leading a fine grey mare. “The Lord Marshal offers you this gift, Highness,” the man said, holding out the reins. “From his own stables.”
Lyrna turned to scratch the nose of her pony. She had taken to calling him Surefoot in recent days, something Davoka seemed to find amusing and baffling in equal measure; the Lonak did not name animals they might have to slaughter for meat in the winter months. “I have a mount, sergeant,” she said, climbing onto the saddle, feeling the now-familiar bones of Surefoot’s back. “Shall we be off?”
In Cardurin cheering people thronged the streets, bunting decorated the myriad bridges between the tall buildings and townsfolk cast flowers along her path through the city. When she reached the main square the city factor made a florid and somewhat long speech praising her as a peacemaker and deliverer. “Anything Your Highness commands, this city will provide,” he finished, with an elaborate bow.
Lyrna shifted a little on Surefoot’s back as the crowd fell to expectant silence. “A bath, sir,” she said. “I should very much like a bath.”
So she bathed in a suite of rooms at the factor’s mansion, twice, and chose clothes provided by the city’s finest dressmakers whilst Davoka looked on with a wary scowl. “Can’t ride in those,” she said. “Or fight.”
“I’m hoping my riding and fighting days are over,” Lyrna replied. “This one,” she said to the serving girl, pointing at a long gown of dark blue chiffon and discarding her bathrobe. The girl gasped and looked away, blushing furiously. “Never seen a queen’s tits before,” Lyrna explained to a puzzled Davoka.
She put on the dress and stood before a long mirror, taking satisfaction from the way it complimented her figure, though it was looser around the waist than she would have liked, the consequence of so many days in the saddle she supposed. She paused at the sight of her face, half expecting the journey to have left some mark on her, some hardening or weathering to her features, but saw only the same face she had always seen, except . . . Was there something new in the set of her eyes? An openness that hadn’t been there before?
“You are . . . v-very beautiful, Highness,” the serving girl stammered, having recovered enough wit for flattery.
“Thank you,” Lyrna said with one of her best smiles. “Please lay out the riding gown for the morning and pack these others for me.”
She spent a few hours at the banquet the factor had convened in her honour, sitting through more speeches from various town notables and suffering the inane chatter of their wives. The only oratory she offered was a reading of the Mahlessa’s scroll, which she ordered be copied and sent to every corner of the Realm. From the speeches and conversation it was clear these people saw her as more a victor than a peacemaker, as if she had won a great battle rather than merely survive a perilous journey to return with a piece of parchment. Watching the laughing, and increasingly drunken faces around her, she found herself pondering the Mahlessa’s words. They come, Queen, to tear it all down . . . Your world and mine.
She sighed into her wine cup. Now I have the evidence, what to do with it?
They moved on the next morning, though the town factor had been vociferous in his entreaties that she stay a little longer. “Your greatness enriches our city, Highness.” Judging by the gifts they had attempted to bestow on her and the scale of the ongoing celebrations, Lyrna thought it more likely they would bankrupt themselves if she lingered another day. She did accept one thing, a copy of the Mahlessa’s scroll, inscribed on velum and illuminated with an image of her astride Surefoot as she arrived at the gates of the city, scroll in hand. Apparently the Scribes Guild had worked on it through the night and the ink was barely dry.
They were two days south of Cardurin when one of the Lord Marshal’s scouts galloped up with news she had been dreading with every southward step. “Fief Lord Darnel comes to greet her Highness, my lord.”
“An enemy, Queen?” Davoka asked, seeing Lyrna’s sudden tension.
“You remember the man I told you about?”
Davoka nodded as a line of horsemen appeared on the horizon. “He comes?”
“No, his opposite.”
Fief Lord Darnel had lost none of his good looks in the years since their last meeting, a blessedly brief exchange of greetings at her brother’s coronation. He wore no helm but was otherwise fully clad in armour inlaid with intricate blue enamel, riding an all-black stallion, long dark hair streaming back from his finely sculpted face, every inch the lordly knight. Nobility is a lie, her father had once told her. A pretence that high standing comes from anything more than money or martial prowess. Any dolt can play the noble, and as you’ll discover in time, daughter, it’s mostly dolts who do.
“Princess!” Lord Darnel exclaimed, reining to a halt and dismounting to fall to one knee. Behind him his retinue of more than fifty knights did the same. “I bid you welcome to Renfael. Forgive my failure to offer you a suitable welcome, but word of your coming only reached me yesterday.”
“Fief Lord,” Lyrna replied. She gestured at Davoka. “May I present, the . . . Lady Davoka, Ambassadress of the Lonak Dominion.”
Darnel rose from his bow, squinting up at the Lonak woman with a poorly concealed grimace of distaste. “So it’s true then? The savages have finally yielded.”
Lyrna saw Davoka’s hand tighten on the haft of her spear and was sorely tempted to let her act on her anger. The stories about Darnel’s actions during the fall of Marbellis were well-known, and none of them flattering.