"Lianne! Lianne, you come running right back here, or I'll tell his Grace, your father!" Lady Enris's slightly shrill voice was barely audible from the hill on which the Duke of Naxen's daughter stood paused, black hair shining with a faintly blue cast where it had come free of her coif. A breath of wind blew the white linen from her head and sent it billowing gracefully away like a sail, to Lianne's delight. Lady Enris turned bright red when she saw the headdress flapping down the hillside, catching occasionally on stalks of high grass. "Is this how you show your gratitude?" the stout woman rasped. "That coif cost your father--"

But the Duke's daughter was not listening; already she was dancing away over the hillside, toward the bluffs that hung over the River Olorun which poured into a valley where the capital of Corus was situated. She kicked off the expensive satin slippers her maids had shod her in as she ran, and heard a despairing wail from lady Enris a minute later. But the girl had already far outdistanced the portly older woman who had been appointed her governess; Lianne was not usually so inclined to disobedience or wildness, but this gambol over the hill would be her last such freedom for some time--she was going down to Corus to spend the summer at the palace, refining her courtly skills and visiting with her father and brother Gareth. The latter prospect she was pleased about; the former, however, brought mixed feelings of resignation and regret. And so she had decided to run free while she could, when Lady Enris was escorting her to Corus and could not keep up with her.

The ground she was running on grew steadily steeper beneath Lianne's feet, until at last she reached the crest of the ridge, and looked down at the gleaming form of Corus below her. For a moment she forgot her ducal dignity and gawked like any country bumpkin at the sight: the white sprawl of the palace, with a great golden dome gleaming in its midst, then the outer walls, then the somewhat less glorious clusters of common buildings.

Then Lady Enris's hand was heavy on her shoulder, tugging her around. "You wicked, wild girl!" Lianne's governess panted, and slapped the Duke's daughter in the face. Lianne took the blow in silence, her joy undiminished--her father was a firm believer in the saying "spare the rod and spoil the child," and Lady Enris had full disciplinary rights. The governess's temper cooled as she hauled her charge back down the hill to where their small train waited for them, and handed Lianne over to the bevy of handmaids who had come with them. One girl looked sadly at the slippers the Duke's daughter had ruined, and bore them away; Lianne's friend, a lively young woman named Gwen Alarch who had come in their employ from Naxen, smiled wickedly as she helped Lianne take off the dirt-streaked traveling dress and put on a clean, light-blue kirtle. "Eh, how was yuir little romp, then?" she asked with her broad country accent. The Duke's daughter laughed a little. "Good, very good," she said. "And if I have anything to say about it, not my last." Gwen shook her head, amused by her mistress's fancies, and set about to brushing and braiding Lianne's glossy black hair, knowing full well that Lady Enris would be highly displeased if her charge arrived at the palace utterly unpresentable.

*****

Gareth of Naxen wearily swung his leg out of the saddle and dismounted, losing his balance momentarily as his feet hit the ground.

"A little saddle-sore, Gary?" Roald asked, mouth slightly quirked. Then the prince grimaced. "That makes two of us." He dismounted as shakily as his friend had.

"I fear our legs will be stuck like this forever," Gary complained with a laugh, wiping a slick of sweat from his dull brown hair. He looked up into his friend's face. "What did our General Haryse have to say to you?"

The amusement went out of Roald's eyes, replaced by a haunted look.

"If it's nothing personal...?" Gary amended.

Roald sighed. "Oh, just kingdoms, kingship, that sort of thing," he said dryly. But the previous moment's levity was gone. Gary was about to say something more, when a flurry of movement on the other side of the courtyard caught his eye. A small party had just arrived, and his heart leapt when he saw the colors of his own Naxen carried by the lead horseman. He seized the nearest groom the shoulder and thrust his horse's reins into the man's hands, then ran full-tilt across the courtyard to where the newcomers had gathered.

"Gary!"

Lianne laughed as she vaulted out of the carriage, over the arms of the dismayed grooms who had come to assist her and Lady Enris, and threw herself at her brother. His fine silk shirt was damp and redolent of sweat and horse-stink, but she was so glad to see him that she did not mind--she had not seen him since the past Midwinter, and even then only briefly, for he had been busy attending his knight-master, Sir Jakome of Meron. She threaded her arm around his and walked him away from the bustle of grooms helping Lady Enris and the handmaids down from their mounts. "Mithros, but it's good to see you," she told him, smiling. "Even if you do smell horrible."

*****

The soft chime of silverware and fine crystal and china, a sound Emry always associated with the Corus palace, sounded about the dining table as the nobles of their court and their ladies took their places. The knight-general held his wife Abella's hand as she clumsily lowered her heavy body, swollen in the late stages of her pregnancy, into her seat. Her wrist in his grasp was slender as a deer's leg-bone, for Abella had always been a slender woman--all of their children had come hard into the world through her narrow hips, alive and whole thanks only to the skill of the palace's chief healer, Duke Luzin of Queenscove. She gave him a tight smile of thanks when she was comfortably seated, and Emry took his seat beside her.

A small group of musicians in one corner of the great hall filled the air with subtle music, which the Lord of Haryse listened to with an attentive and well-trained ear while observing the flowing procession of nobles as they came to make their obeisances to the King and Queen before the high table. A small flurry of movement caught his eyes at the darkened entrance to the hall--the pages fooling about, impatient to begin serving the many guests at tonight's banquet. Emry's mouth quirked in an ironic smile--doubtless young Galen was beside himself even now, fretting that he was two years too young to be included among the serving pages. The Lord of Haryse wondered briefly how his son had settled into the palace life--he had not seen the boy since Galen had enrolled, nearly a season ago.

The milling pages suddenly parted hastily, forming the barest of rows as two young men--Prince Roald and Gareth of Naxen, the general saw--came into the room. Emry smiled; judging from the barely-suppressed grins on the youths' faces, the Prince and the Duke's son were not so long out of boyhood themselves. Emry took a judicious sip from his wine glass--a fine, dry white from Port Legann--and studied his wife's face. It had been so long since he had seen Abella, he'd almost forgotten what she looked like; her face was a little older than he remembered it, although her dark gold hair hid the fine strands of silver well; the great bulk of their growing child looked strange on her willowy frame; the glow of motherhood had faded in the lateness of her pregnancy, and her face wore an expression of pain and weariness. Then Abella lifted her eyes from her plate, and their gazes met for a long moment; they looked at each other as they had when they were young, unmarried, in love. Emry took her bird-fingers in his own callused ones.

"I can't tell you how good it is to see you," he said in a low voice.

She smiled, years lifting from her face. "Neither can I." She reached up, and ran her finger along his jaw line. "You have a new scar," she said. "It must have been a hard campaign."

He touched the mark self-consciously. "The hill-folk fight hand-to-hand, and they're good at it. I got off easy, with just a scar--they killed any number of good soldiers there." He looked down at her belly. "Our child cannot have been easy on you."

She shrugged, looking away. "We've both had our burdens to bear." Then she smiled, and intertwined her fingers with his. Neither of them said anything more, but silently enjoyed being in each other's presence, however briefly.

The rest of the meal went uninterrupted, and Emry and Abella continued their conversation between the courses. The Lord of Haryse, in his usual frugal manner, ate lightly, and did not indulge in wine to the extent that some of the other Lords, Dukes and Barons who were at the feast did. Abella returned to her chambers after the meal had finished, pleading a sore back from the weight of their growing child, leaving Emry on his own as the great throng of people moved from the great hall to the vast, candle-lit room where the dancing was to be held.

Emry still had trouble believing that this grand event was being held in his honor--while the victory in the Hill-Country had been a welcome respite after months of fighting, but the larger conflict was far from over; in fact, it would not end until the kingdom of Tortall encompassed everything from the mountains to the north to the River Drell in the east and the Inland Sea to the south, if then. The Lord of Haryse sighed, and stopped trying to justify this enormous expenditure of time and material for his sake.

He left the dinner and dancing as early that night as could be considered decent, and hummed a part of a corrante as he came up the hallway, remarkably in tune for someone who'd had little to no musical training.

"My Lord Emry?" A page tapped his elbow politely. "Your quarters have been set up in the other wing. These are the women's quarters."

It took the general a moment to realize he had been headed towards the room where Abella slept in his absence. "Of course," he murmured, embarrassed. "Thank you, page." The boy nodded, and stepped aside as Emry corrected his course to go up the adjacent hallway. Eventually he found the door which bore a placard with his name on it, and went in. The palace servants had already put his few articles in the room, and it was not long before he had turned down the elaborate bedspread, lain down on the cool pallet, and fallen into a well-deserved sleep.