A/N: I am sorry that this update is so so SO long after the last one. I hope this chapter is worth the wait, and I appreciate your patience very, very much!
Thank you so much to melxvidhearts, Rayless Night, helplessromantic801, Starling Rising, Kopijka4, katie, edessa, Wackysocks, FelSong, mollyanonymous, Countess Sasha the Weird, do lo lou, juliette black, Adalon Ithilriel, m, and Silver-Shelter for your wonderful, wonderful reviews!
Disclaimer: Crown Duel belongs to Sherwood Smith
To Take a Risk
Part 2 of 2
"Oh, she was going to kill me."
Upon entering the cozy stables, I picked out two ginger-colored mares myself with grim purpose. I made painstakingly sure that they were evenly matched in spirit and size. I observed their saddling with a critical eye. A very critical eye. A very, very critical eye. The stable hand started to look nervous.
Upon noticing the lad's tenseness, I felt rather contemptible. I ended up helping him. Now, any fledgling diplomat would've known stepping in would only make the lad more nervous. Sadly for him and myself, I didn't get the note about this. We were spectacularly miserable together, and even made the mares uneasy. I will say nothing more than he was relieved to see me (the stingy noble with obsessive tendencies toward bridles and saddles) leave. I was just as glad to lead the mares free of the stables, sternly ordering my mind to stop flopping around like a dying fish.
Waiting, I breathed the living air and thought through my strategy. I had 'mail' to pick up from two contacts of mine at the first inn Meliara and I would encounter. It was there that we'd change horses...I tried to picture Meliara climbing onto her new mount and waiting politely for me. I almost laughed.
Little birds never wait for anyone. They have attitudes, the feather-puffs. Tottering, gawky storks like myself, however, make stable hands' lives miserable...
But this particular stork was in his own territory now. I'd managed to pry Meliara from her cage of pine and rock and now the game was mine.
The lone bird was still singing. I know what you plan to do, he seemed to say. I just pushed my hat more snugly onto my head. I hoped it would still be there after this caper.
Gritty footsteps approached and I turned.
I pause now to ask a question: how do they do it? How do women disappear for five minutes, change their clothing, and then waltz out and knock you straight over without even touching you? All I had to do was look at Meliara, in a riding outfit in deep forest green, her fiery hair glowing beneath a smart hat, and I was struck dumb.
Again.
I shall have to ask Russav about this.
As she approached, I could see her eyes surveying the mares' legs, eyes, chests, and tack. I almost smiled my approval. But then she had selected a mare and was mounting up, a little girl climbing up onto the back of a massive animal like it was nothing.
This next part is embarrassing. You may notice my penmanship deteriorating because I hope to confuse you and spare myself...but no. I will write clearly.
The foot I lifted toward the stirrup was the wrong one. Had I not noticed at the last instant, I would have hauled myself up, kicked my mare in the neck, and settled into a commanding view of her hindquarters. Bran would have had ammunition against me for the rest of our lives. I had never aspired to such outstanding brainlessness. Oh how I marveled at myself as I numbly switched feet and swung myself up!
Taking up the reins, I felt better. I was about to gallop off with the woman I loved, alone in the rain and the coming-alive world. For the first time in weeks, I felt no exhaustion.
Ho, say you, nice try at changing the subject. We still remember that you almost mounted backwards. So do I, my friends, so do I. And I employ several talented assassins. May I therefore trust your silence?
Bran and Nee were getting into the carriage. I studiously ignored them. There was someone far more interesting to look at: Meliara was taking the reins in her small, gloved hands.
She looked at me, cheeks flushed, waiting.
"Let's go," I said, and tapped my mare's sides, squeezing my knees. In a surge of muscle she lunged for the road and I could hear Meliara's right behind me.
Movement becomes a revelation when you've been still for hours. It is like…well, seeing a beautiful woman anew. I could feel the hardness of the cobbles and the occasional softness of mud translated through my mare's body into mine. The trees formed a corridor of brown and green, mostly pines growing out of a carpet of red-orange needles and green-filmed shrubs. The landscape faded into soft white mist on all sides, even the road ahead. Above was a narrow ceiling of gray.
The hooves of Meliara's mount flashed in my peripheral vision. The mare probably felt like she was carrying nothing!
Quickly, Meliara came up beside me. Her green riding habit was drenched and the hair on her pale neck was turning a deep russet. And she was looking at me, her mouth open in a merry, astounding laugh. For a moment I was on fire, blue-hot and incandescent. Breathless, confused, I could only turn and stare ahead, my mare's mane slapping me in the face.
That burning feeling was her joyful face being branded on my memory. It's still there, believe me. At last, I knew what joy looked like Meliara-style. I can describe it in one word: addictive.
We remained side by side as the road unrolled before us. I have never felt more content. It was as if my soul had come inside from a winter storm and was stretching out before a blazing fire, tranquil at last. I was disappointed when we reached the next inn.
We'd ridden side-by-side the entire time. We dismounted together. Stable hands brought out fresh mounts and oh, observe, they were just as evenly matched as our first ones. It was so pristinely fair, Justice Travil (a local judge in Shevraeth) would just cry into his baby-blue handkerchief.
Brown and Kettlinger, my contacts, met me just outside of the inn, bringing the smell of stew and coffee with them. Brown handed me a bag. "From the Prince," he said.
This would be information gathered from our spies, consolidated and encoded by my father. The bag was fairly heavy. I wasn't overjoyed. "And the transferal of warriors to Athanarel?"
"Almost complete," Kettlinger said with a nod of his graying head. "Commanders Nessaren and Trevel are on their way, and they are the last ones."
"Good." A horse was prancing in the yard at my back. I turned and saw Meliara astride a gray-and-white mottled mare, her posture perfect. I was pleased to see her eyes were on me.
That was when she stuck her tongue out at me. Her kitten-nose wrinkled adorably and her blue eyes gave a wicked flash. Then, with a deft pull on the reins and a tap of her heels, she off at an impressive clip.
For a moment, I wasn't sure what to think. Where had this Meliara come from? Not that I was complaining...
May I also mention that among her many endearments is the shortness she requires of her stirrups? If I tried to ride with stirrups that short, I'd bruise my chin with my knees.
Come to think of it, she'd bruise my chin with her fist if I let her read that.
Brown and Kettlinger were looking at me strangely. "Anything else, gentlemen?" I asked.
"A few instructions concernin' the bag," Kettlinger said, eyes cautious. "D'you..." he glanced down the road, "have the time, m'lord?"
I straightened, indignant despite myself. "Of course."
Ten extremely painful minutes later I was free. I hurtled out of that inn yard like my life depended on it. Brown and Kettlinger had tried so hard not to show their suspicious amusement as they relayed my father's instructions over cider I didn't touch. Painful, painful, painful!
Sensing my urgency, my mare ate up the road with hungry strides but I knew the road would deliver me to the inn after Meliara. Half a mile down, I turned my mare's head toward the trees and she leaped over a thornbush, landing with a grunt and taking off like the wind.
It was downhill to Lumm, long slopes of pine and deciduous trees giving way more and more often to fields. Together my mare and I performed a dance of endurance and reflexes, exhilaration washing over us with the rain. I had never ridden so recklessly for anything as superfluous as a wager.
It felt wonderful. I was strangely proud of myself.
I remembered the night before we left Meliara's home. She'd vanished so softly into the inky trees, leaving me to stand on the highest spire of the Astair castle, my entire being aching to be at her side. Show me the groves you like. Show me your favorite outcroppings. Show me the secret paths you've discovered. Show me the world you love so that I may fall in love with it, too.
Perhaps I was truly becoming a man. Any man can learn to fight with a sword, to trick others, to live through stress and weariness. But not every man can win the ultimate conquest, the one of love, which really isn't a conquest at all because both sides win.
Life, could I hear Russav laughing!
We crossed an empty bridge. Heart pounding, I leaned back as my mare took a particularly deep plunge into a meadow. Thud. My teeth rattled when we landed and then she gathered herself and we flew on. The grass was still yellow and stringy, but green glowed at its roots. The whipping air smelled of dirt and leaves. Lumm was in the distance. I leaned forward and tightened my legs. My mare opened her stride, hooves pounding faster than my pulse, faster than life itself. The vibration was so intense it numbed me. I held on, watching for holes and ridges in the blurred ground that could hurt her.
We covered that meadow in no time, careened through a glen, and then into the outskirts of Lumm. I pulled my mare gently into a trot and we bounced along a quiet street, humming with warmth and adrenaline. My ears felt full.
Jeriab's Broken Shield came into sight and suddenly I was nervous. Meliara was not without cunning and it was possible she'd taken her own shortcut. Was she already there, peering out a window and laughing?
I said goodbye to my spirited mount and swept inside after shaking my cape and hat out. A fresh-faced girl approached me immediately. "Stew, sir? Cider?"
"Both, thank you, but a room first," I said.
She led me upstairs and showed me into a cozy little parlor with a couch, fireplace, and desk. A bedroom branched off one side. The girl curtsied, and began to leave.
"I…" I paused as the girl turned, and then I soldiered on. "I have a companion, a woman. She is rather small, and has red hair. Has she arrived yet?"
"No woman with red hair has arrived, sir," she replied.
"Thank you. But she will. Arrive, I mean." I rubbed my forehead. "When she does, please bring her here."
She curtsied again and was gone with a smile.
I released a sigh of relief. I draped my cloak over a candle sconce and tossed my gloves and hat aside. I dropped the bag next to a desk. Then I sat down and collected myself.
I could safely assume that Meliara would be...irritated at my trickery. Hopefully, she wouldn't throw anything at me. Hopefully, this would remind her that her sense of fairness was uncommon and that she needed to be on her guard. On her guard! She already was, and that was an understatement…
My heart still hadn't calmed down, because I had it. It was mine.
Her kiss.
For a long, long moment I reflected on her lips, heat gently submerging me. I confess: I have Countess Meliara Astair's lips memorized more thoroughly than any map. More than anything, I wanted to memorize them by feel.
Oh, she was going to kill me.
Grinning, I reflected for a while longer. I couldn't take the kiss when she arrived. Even though she agreed to the wager, doing this would be too much like grabbing her and forcing her. If I did something like that, she would kill me.
She would kill me. Have I already said that? We keep coming back to my death, burn it.
I made myself sit at the desk and open the bag of letters. Stew and hot cider arrived and I got down to business. Well, I tried. I got through a spectacular three letters because the third stopped me in my tracks. This letter was addressed to my parents, from the Icicle Queen (excuse me, the Marquise of Merindar, Galdran's sister, monster, plotter, liar, murderer, widow spider, crab, ferret, and other kind titles). I scanned over the eloquent phrases and flourished letters, my mind working quickly.
She was grateful to my parents for their kindness, but it was time for her to move on, she said. The Icicle Queen was getting restless. Right on schedule. We needed to heighten the watch on her home. I began to make a note of this with my own quill and ink.
Footsteps thudded in the hallway. I wondered if it was Meliara, and kept writing.
Suddenly someone entered, I looked up, and there she was.
Do. Not. Laugh! was my first thought. The woman who owed me a kiss was absolutely, fantastically plastered with mud. Face. Hat. Hair. Hands. Arms. She probably had fallen off…picturing this made it harder not to laugh. I hoped she hadn't broken anything. Her nose was running and water dripped off almost every available surface. And this isn't mentioning the look on her face, the most hilarious mixture of surprise, anger, and wariness I've ever seen.
I couldn't breathe.
She crossed her arms, eyes hardening. Her gritty lips puckered up and then she was squelching toward me like a child doomed to take a horrid physic...or a giant cat about to rip my throat out. I numbly raised my quill. She stopped. "As winner," I managed, "I chose the time and place,"
Her face cleared. "You cheated."
"If you had waited, I would have shown you that shortcut."
"It was a trick!" She bristled. "And as for your wager, I might as well get it over now."
Life, she really never had flirted, had she? "Wet as you are," I said reasonably, "and you have to be cold; it'd feel like kissing a fish. We will address this another time. Sit down and have some cider. It's hot, just brought in. May I ask your opinion of that?" I casually flipped the Marquise's letter to her. She didn't touch it, knowing she was too wet. "Next time you'll have to remember to bring extra gear."
"How come you're not all soggy?" she asked.
I flicked my quill toward the cloak. "Water-resistant spells. Expensive, but eminently worthwhile."
"That's what we need in Remalna." She knelt in a breeze of rain-scented air. I watched her small hands manipulate the pitcher of cider, pouring the amber liquid. "A wizard," she said, as steam rose into her face.
"I don't know," I said carefully. "A magician is not like a tree that bears fruit for all who want it and demands nothing in return. A wizard is human and will have his or her own goals."
She was already nodding. "And a way of getting them that we couldn't very well stand against. All right. No wizard. But I shall have to get me one of those cloaks."
She drank, one finger hooked through the porcelain cup's handle. I looked down at my note, swallowing. She had just agreed with me, amiably, thoughtfully. We had conversed like normal people. Happiness spread like cool balm over my festering worry and frustration.
And then she picked up the letter.
I had to remind myself to breathe as I watched her. There was a little surprised widening of her eyes. Then a wary tightening of her mouth. Eyes narrowing now as they flicked from left to right. Finally, lids low as she stared down at the Marquise's signature. I waited.
She finally looked at me.
Softly, Vidanric, softly. "What do you think?"
"What am I supposed to think?" she stared into my eyes. "The Marquise is going back to Merindar, and blather blather blather about her nice year at Athanarel."
"Wants to go back. Do you see a message there?"
Her eyes slid away. "It's not addressed to me."
"Ostensibly it's addressed to my parents," I agreed. "Look closely." It was all I could do not to slam my fist into the table and tell her exactly what was going on. But she wouldn't believe me.
She obeyed, blinking rapidly at the letter, her brow furrowing. She could have thrown the letter down and stormed out but she didn't. And I loved her all the more for it.
Her face cleared suddenly. "The signature is different from the rest of the writing, which mean she must have used a scribe...Ah." Meliara looked at me. "She didn't write this herself. Is that some kind of oblique insult?"
Ignorant little back country countess indeed, I thought. "Well, one may assume she intended this to be read by other eyes."
"And since the signature is so different, she wanted it obvious. Yes, I see that." She scrutinized the letter anew, taking a deep breath. "But unless there's some kind of threat in that last bit about taking up the threads of her life, I don't see any real problem here."
There is no problem - except for what this letter represents as a whole, and what it's supposed to make me think about you, little bird. I began to torture my quill, running my fingers over the satiny fibers. "One of the reasons my parents are both in Remalna-city is to establish someone of superior rank there until the question of rulership is settled."
"You think Arthal Merindar wants to be queen, then?" she asked.
How I adored her bluntness. But this was an ugly subject to confront. I tensely watched realization sink into her widening eyes.
"What is she like?" she asked. Her sudden question took me off-guard because I had expected her to deny any connections with the Marquise. Instead, this. I felt my guard rising fast.
"Like her brother, except much better controlled," I said honestly. "She's the only one of the family who is still a danger, but she very definitely is a danger."
"She might be saying the same of you," she said stoutly. "Not that I think all that much of the Merindars I've met so far, but they do have a claim on the throne. And their marquisate, like Renselaeus, takes its name from the family even if it isn't nearly as old."
I felt cold and empty. She, in her determination to be fair, was advocating a monster. Or perhaps Meliara Astair really was on Arthal Merindar's side...no, I could not think that thought. "You think, then, that I ought to cede to her the crown?"
"Will she be a good ruler?" she shot back, and then distress and frustration overcame her. "I don't know. Why are you asking me?" she threw her hands up. "Why does my answer make any difference at all, unless showing me this letter and asking me these questions is your own way of making a threat?" And then she stood and began to pace, fists tight, leaving a muddy track on the worn rug.
"No." I watched her, resigned. "I merely thought you'd find it interesting." I forced myself to dip my bedraggled quill and continue writing, hating each word. Why should we guard the Marquise's house when the love of my life wanted to let the awful woman try on the throne for size, and possibly throw me out? The entire situation was impossible.
Baby steps, Vidanric, I heard my mother's voice. Baby steps.
Meliara was sitting down. I stonily kept writing. Let her do whatever she pleased; I couldn't care. But after some moments I heard steady breathing, and finally lifted my head.
She was curled like a kitten on her cushion, head pillowed on one gritty arm, a strand of muddy hair falling over her cheek. Sleeping.
Sleeping.
I stared, relishing this unexpected opportunity to study her. How long her lashes. How sculpted her ear. What a bundle of might she was, so much strength wrapped in a delicate latticework of bone and pale skin!
Her face was tense, even in sleep. No matter what she was doing, she was clearly trying her hardest to do it right.
I had to get her on my side. She was the fulcrum on which Remalna's destiny teetered. The greatest powers at court had already begun the fight for her loyalty. I was the only idiot who had staked my personal future on her. If the Marquise lost the battle for Countess Meliara Astair, her heart would not break (partly because it is stone). Mine would. I had so much to lose.
I had so much to gain!
I dipped my pen again, crisply. Let the real games begin. And when Meliara Astair gives me her kiss, I'll look back on this moment and smile.
We both will.
TBC
Please tell me if I've compromised any character in any way and thank you for reading! :)
