“We can’t stay here long,” Borenson warned Myrrima. “The sun will be going down soon. We’ll want to be clear of the Westlands.”
“The Westlands?” Myrrima asked. She couldn’t keep the edge of fear from her voice. She had heard children’s tales of the wights that haunted them. “Are they close by?”
“Oh, you’ll get a close look,” Borenson assured her with a grin. “If you spit that way, you’ll hit them.” He nodded toward the south.
“But I thought they’d be farther...west,” Myrrima said.
“They’re west of Old Ferecia, and that’s all that matters.”
“But there’s supposed to be bogs and swamps.”
“They start just beyond that rise,” Borenson assured her. He nodded toward a rise where the remains of a castle wall still thrust up like a dog’s tooth. “That’s Woglen’s Tower.”
Myrrima shuddered. She knew the tales. The land here had been black with Toth, and blood had once filled this river. For three months Fallion’s armies had fought to break their siege and win that tower, only to discover that Fallion’s bride was dead inside.
Somehow she’d expected Woglen’s Tower to still be standing. In the old tales it had seemed indomitable. And she’d imagined bones here upon the ground.
She didn’t feel prepared for Borenson’s news. She’d thought only about getting to Inkarra, not about any dangers between. But there would be bogs full of wights and mountains with hazards of their own.
“Can’t we go around the Westlands?” she asked.
“It will be faster if we go through them,” he said, obviously amused to see her dismay.
Myrrima and Borenson sat for a few moments counseling about what they should take with them south. Borenson had found gold in his father’s purse. He assured Myrrima that the city of Batenne near the Alcairs would carry all the supplies that they needed. Iome walked downstream as they spoke.
When it was near time to leave, Myrrima went looking for Iome. She walked down along a grassy trail beside the river and scared up a family of mallards.
She smelled an apple tree somewhere in the band of woods nearby, and found Iome there, leaning with her back against it, looking to the northwest. The head of a kingly statue lay in the grass, gazing upward with blank eyes. Wind-fallen apples carpeted the ground at Iome’s feet. Deer had nibbled many of them. Iome thoughtfully chewed a yellow apple. The sunlight striking the golden fields was piercing, brilliant.
“Are you worrying about Gaborn?” Myrrima asked. “No,” Iome said. “My thoughts are far more selfish.”
“Really?” Myrrima said. “Good.”
“Good?” Iome asked. She turned and stared into Myrrima’s eyes. Over the past three hours she had been so preoccupied that she had not said a word to anyone.
“You don’t indulge yourself that way enough,” Myrrima suggested.
“Well, I’m making up for it today. I was just wondering if Gaborn would even spare a thought for me this afternoon.”
“I’m sure he will.”
“That’s the trouble,” Iome said. “He’ll think about me, and with a thought he’ll know whether I’m safe, and where I am.”
“I imagine so,” Myrrima said.
“I wish that I could go with you,” Iome confided. “Jerimas said that Gaborn’s nearest kin should deliver the message.”
“Gaborn couldn’t risk that,” Myrrima assured her.
“I know,” Iome said. “Now that he knows that I carry his son, he’ll send me to ‘safety.’ No doubt he’ll want me to lie comfortably in bed until it’s time to spread my legs and deliver his child.”
“Your Highness!” Myrrima said, affecting a shocked tone that she really did not feel.
Iome grinned wickedly, dark eyes flashing. “I’d go with you if I could. But Gaborn would know. He might even use his Earth Powers to hunt for me, and in wasting his precious time, I might place others in jeopardy. I can’t risk that. So it seems that I must do as I’m told.”
“At least you’ll be safe,” Myrrima said.
“There is no place in the world safer than at the Earth King’s side,” Iome countered. “That’s where I want to be.”
Iome tossed her apple to the ground, and took Myrrima’s hands. “I’ll miss you. Though you’ve saved my life twice now, I think of you as far more than a protector. I want you for my friend. Each day, I’ll beg the Earth to guide you, until you hurry back.”
“I’ll think of you, too,” Myrrima said. She found it hard to speak, could add little more. Words didn’t suffice. “I wish you well in the birthing of your son.”
Iome grinned, placed her left hand low on Myrrima’s stomach, just above her womb. “May you have a child of your own,” Iome intoned.
It was an old tradition in Heredon for a pregnant woman to offer a blessing upon her barren friends this way. It was merely a gesture of goodwill. Yet Myrrima felt a muscle spasm beneath Iome’s hand, and stepped back quickly. For half a second she imagined that Iome’s touch really could fill her empty womb.
Iome laughed. “It will happen soon enough, now that your husband...I’m sorry if I’ve offended, or upset you,” Iome quickly added. “I know that you and your husband have your troubles. I—only want the best for you.”
“No, it’s all right,” Myrrima said. “Thank you.” She couldn’t hide her uneasiness. Myrrima dared not tell Iome that Borenson had never slept with her, and that she had lied about his miraculous restoration.
“Let me give you another gift,” Iome said, as if hoping to atone for an unintended offense. “You need a necklace—to make up for the one you gave away.” She reached around her own throat, where a necklace lay hidden beneath her tunic. “I’ve been wearing this, for luck. You’ll need it more than I.” She brought out the opal necklace that Binnesman had used to fight the Darkling Glory.
“Your Highness,” Myrrima said, “I could never—I have no present to give you in return.”
“You gave me my life, and the life of my son.”
Iome put the necklace around Myrrima’s neck, hugged her, and they walked hand in hand back upstream to find Borenson brushing the mounts.
Borenson said goodbye to the queen and leapt up into his saddle in a single fluid move, as Runelords do. Myrrima swung onto his warhorse, her back straight, her movements quick and efficient.
Myrrima wondered why Borenson didn’t ask for his warhorse back, for it had more endowments than the little piebald mare he rode. Perhaps he no longer wanted it. His horse was a kingly mount, and Borenson was no longer the king’s guard. The piebald mare he rode was more appropriate for a minor lord. The two rode south along the river, turned at a bend and waved back through the trees.
Iome stood among the silver-barked birches at the edge of the wood, waving in return.
Myrrima had a strange view of her then. It seemed right for Iome to be there in the woods, as natural as berries on a holly tree. There with the golden limbs hanging above her head, wearing her traveling robes of green, with a son growing in her womb and horses at her back, Iome looked a proper wife for an Earth King.
Iome waved farewell to Myrrima and Borenson. She felt miserable. Gaborn wanted her to be safe, protected. He wanted what was best for her.
But right now, she felt very much alone.
Her friends were riding to Inkarra. Gaborn planned to go to the Underworld. And she...would go where she was told while the world collapsed around her. She yearned to do more.
Iome had Sergeant Grimeson call the guard together and they headed east with the guards and wagons.
The golden plains soon dissipated, replaced by lands so rich that they remained green even at the last of summer, and great oaks pocked the fields. Cottages began to dot the landscape, and stone fences lined the highway.
People were soon everywhere, and as Iome’s horse raced by, more often than not the farmers with their pigs or sheep or wagons would hardly have time to recognize her, much less doff a hat or bend the knee.