Lord Terbolt greeted them from the steps of his great hall. He was a tall man with hooded brown eyes and a weary expression. But he greeted Cratyn warmly before he turned to Adrina.
“Your Serene Highness,” he said with a small bow. “Welcome to Setenton Castle.”
“Thank you, Lord Terbolt,” she replied graciously. “I hope our presence will not tax your resources unduly. And you have been playing host to my Guard. I trust they have not been a burden to you.”
Terbolt shook his head. “A few language difficulties, your Highness, nothing more. Please, let me have you shown to your rooms. You must be tired, I’m sure, and we men have things to discuss that will not interest you.”
On the contrary, Adrina was vitally interested, but it would be difficult to convince these barbarians that as a woman she might have any idea of politics or war. “Of course, my Lord. Perhaps Tristan might be of help, though? I am sure he could learn something from your discussions and he might be able to offer a new perspective, don’t you think?”
“But he doesn’t speak Karien, your Highness,” Cratyn pointed out, with a rather horrified expression.
“Oh that’s all right, I’ll translate,” she offered brightly. “I’m really not tired, my Lords, and although as Lord Terbolt pointed out, I will no doubt be bored witless by the discussion – we are allies now, are we not? All that I ask is that you not speak too quickly so that I may follow the discussion. Tristan!”
Neither Terbolt nor Cratyn looked pleased by her suggestion, and poor Madren looked ready to faint, but she had left them little choice.
“As you wish, your Highness,” Terbolt conceded with ill grace.
She picked up her skirts and, with Tristan at her side, marched indoors.
“Adrina, does something bother you about these people?” Tristan asked her quietly as they entered the gloom followed by the rest of the entourage. A quick glance over her shoulder revealed Terbolt greeting Chastity with all the warmth of a man renewing his acquaintance with a distant relative.
“What do you mean?” she asked as she looked back at him. “They are fools.”
“Maybe. I just wonder if we are the ones being played for fools.”
“You pick a fine time to have second thoughts, Tristan,” she muttered as they walked the length of the rush strewn stone floor. Tall banners, depicting both the sign of the Overlord and the Lord Terbolt’s silver pike on a field of red hung limply from the walls. Presumably the red background was a romantic representation of the muddy Ironbrook. “You were the one who encouraged me to accept this arranged marriage.”
“I know,” he sighed. “I just have this feeling. I can’t define it, but it worries me. Be careful.”
“You’re the one who should be careful. Although, I have it on good authority that provided you confine your attentions to unmarried women, you shouldn’t need to worry about being stoned.”
“It’s going to be a long, cold winter, I fear, Rina.”
He had not called her Rina since they were small children. “You at least have the option of going home someday. I have to spend my life with these people. Not to mention Prince Cretin the Cringing.”
He leaned closer to her and, although speaking Fardohnyan, even if he was overheard, nobody here would understand him. “Look on the bright side. He’ll be off to war in a month or two. With luck the Medalonians with keep him there for years.”
“With luck, they’ll put an arrow through him,” she corrected with a whisper, then turned to her fiancé and smiled serenely, every inch the princess.
Cratyn was looking at her with an odd expression. Not dislike, exactly. It was stronger than that. She had a bad feeling it was distaste.
Chapter 14
Tarja returned to the camp late in the day, letting Shadow set her own pace, still brooding over his last argument with Jenga. The Lord Defender was trying to hold together a disparate force, Tarja knew that, and the knowledge that he was doing it through deception weighed heavily on him. But it didn’t excuse his intransigence over the matter of attacking the Kariens. The Lord Defender was willing to defend his border, but he refused to make the first move. He wanted to wait until the Kariens invaded. Tarja disagreed. The Karien camp had grown considerably from the five hundred knights that had been camped there all through summer. They should be taking the fight to the enemy and they should do it now, before the Karien force grew so large that they would simply be overrun.
Jenga was furious when he heard that Tarja had crossed the border. Using the same Hythrun tactics that were so effective in the south, on their numerous cattle raids into Medalon, he had taken a handful of men into Karien under cover of darkness and stampeded the enemy’s horses through their camp. The ensuing destruction had been extremely gratifying – it had probably set back their war effort by weeks. He’d only lost three men to injury, and had considered the entire affair a small, if significant, victory.
Jenga did not see it that way. He had exploded with fury when he learnt of the attack, accusing Damin of being a reckless barbarian for suggesting the idea, and Tarja of being an undisciplined fool for listening to him.
Following his desertion two years ago, Tarja had often longed for the chance to return to the security and brotherhood of the Corps. But now that he was back, he discovered it was not the easy ride he had hoped. He had liked being in command of the rebels, he realised now. He had been raised to command, and knew, without vanity, that he was good at it. Tarja respected Jenga, but had grown accustomed to making his own decisions. Jenga was a good soldier but he’d been Lord Defender for more than twenty years, and that meant he had more practice with politics than war. Tarja had spent the best part of his adult life at war with the Hythrun, the Defenders and now the Kariens. Jenga had not raised his sword in anger in decades.
They still had only six thousand of the twelve thousand Defenders they could count on, and a thousand Hythrun Raiders from Krakandar. As he thought of the Hythrun, he wondered, as he had already done countless times, where Damin Wolfblade was.
Nobody had seen the Warlord for nearly a month – not since the argument with Jenga after the raid, when he announced that he was going to speak with his god. If Almodavar knew where he was, he wasn’t saying. The grizzled Hythrun captain seemed unconcerned by his Lord’s absence. If Damin wished to speak with the God of War, to seek his blessing, then his troops were not about to object. They fervently believed Zegarnald would help them. They were counting on it, in fact.
When he reached the camp, on impulse Tarja turned toward the scattered Hythrun tents. Perhaps Almodavar had heard something. It was becoming increasingly difficult to reassure Jenga that Damin had not simply deserted them.
He rode through the camp, acknowledging the occasional wave from the Hythrun troops. The Raiders were much less respectful of rank than the Defenders. Among the Raiders, one earnt respect through battle, not promotion or pretty insignia. But some of these men had faced Tarja on the southern border. They knew him for a warrior and found nothing strange in their Warlord’s alliance with his former enemy.