Champion of the Rose - Kobo Ebook (4 page)

Struck anew by the sheer unreality of everything happening,
Soren could only try to be practical. "Who are you?" she asked.

"Nina, Champion. Lucia's my heart-sister. You are
the Champion, aren't you?"

Soren admitted that she was. "Are you hiding under the bridge for a reason?"

"They're looking for us, Champion. Mama and Mama-la sent me to tell you what to
do, when you get to Teraman. Don't
look!"

"Who are 'they'?" Soren asked as she stared
obediently at the small round leaves of the lorams and suppressed a faint urge
to laugh. The situation appealed to her
sense of the bizarre, if nothing else.

"Everybody," Nina said, sounding more than a
little overwhelmed. "Strangers
started arriving a week ago, but mostly they kept to themselves. Then the news came – about the Rose, and that
you were coming to make Helena Queen. After that, everything changed. No-
one'd
believed Lucia before, when she said
that the lost prince had come to her. Not even Mama-la, I think."

This was getting convoluted. "What happened?"

"Well, soon as Mama-la heard the news, she had us grab
what we could carry. Then we went down
the back. We were still on the stair
when they rode in, and we had to keep quiet, between the walls, while they
searched the inn. Jutlanders. From the trade caravan. Garrison men came and ran them off, but they
haven't gone far, Mama-la says."

"Jutlanders?" That certainly wasn't who Soren had expected to be taking an interest in
the Rathen heir. New factors, spinning
her tentative plans all awry. "What
was that about a lost prince?"

"Don't you know, Champion?" Nina asked, suspicious
and uncertain.

"I only know that the heir is – or was – in Teraman,
two weeks ago."

"Oh." The
little pause spoke volumes. Champions
were supposed to do better than that.

Then, in a flurry of words: "The lost prince was one of
the Rathen princes that got killed in The Deeping centuries and centuries
ago. Our inn's named after him. He haunts the woods just a ways north of
Teraman, and people who cross his hidden grave are doomed to die before a
week's gone by, and to see
him's
a bad omen, but
sometimes he comes to girls out walking alone and lays with them if they please
him. And he came to Lucia, and she had
Helena. Mama and Mama-la weren't a bit
pleased."

"I can well imagine," Soren said, weakly. It was some sort of explanation, at least,
for how a Rathen child could suddenly come into being. It sounded like the Teraman situation was
already a hopeless muddle. "Where
is your family now?"

"We've a hidey-hole in one of the safe places in the
Tongue. Mama-la said to say that the
Jutlanders, or even the garrison men, are sure to have spies out to see if we
try and contact you. That the garrison
men sent someone to
Thissen
to follow you along, sure
enough. She says to say that you can
trust
Mesdie
Cantlever
or
Rimana
, but none of the rest, no-how. They'll be watching, in hopes you'll be
leading them to us."

"I understand," Soren said, tightening her grip on
Vixen's reins as the mare decided to wander into the shallow stream. Vixen turned her head and looked back at
Soren speculatively as she moved further into the water. "The grass is just as green on this
side, wretched beast," Soren said, to hide her dismay. Maybe anyone watching would assume everything
she said was addressed to the horse.

Nina, after a short hesitation, continued. "It's all fixed that
Rimana'll
put you in the right room tonight, and you can go through the wardrobe and down
the back stair. Go real late, after the
moon's passed over the Temple gates, and I'll be on the stair waiting.
If'n
I'm not there,
go back the next night, same time."

"I'll do that, Nina," Soren promised, still
watching Vixen, feeling solemn and absurd and hopelessly overwhelmed. "And if – if I don't come after two
nights, tell your mothers they should leave Darest, will you? Until the child is grown."

There was no reply, so Soren risked a glance. Nina was biting her lip, holding back
tears. But she didn't say anything else,
and Soren thought it best to move on, if there really was someone watching her.

Back in Vixen's saddle, she gazed about, but saw no sign of
spies. Soren was a child of the
seashore, used to sand, rocks, and grassy hills dotted with grazing sheep. Woodcraft wasn't something she'd had occasion
to learn. She could be completely
surrounded, and would never know. Champion Stumble-blind.

The girl had been clever to hide at the stream. Anyone travelling from
Thissen
would be sure to stop, exactly where Nina could pass on her message
unnoticed. Far less suspicious than
drawing Soren to the side of the road at a place where there were only trees,
which would be exactly what a shadow would be watching for. A lead to a girl called Helena.

It sounded like the heir's grandmothers had dealt with the
situation as effectively as possible. And the babe and her family were taking refuge in a 'safe' place in the
Tongue? Soren hadn't known there were any.

More than eight centuries ago, Domina Rathen had performed
some signal service for the Queen of the Old Race and been rewarded with the
vast tract of land which became Darest. The histories theorised that the place was a disputed territory among
the Old Race, and the Fae Queen had abruptly ended an age-old feud by handing
it over to a human. Despite the valuable
orchards, and rich land waiting to be cleared, Domina Rathen had initially
found it difficult to convince settlers that Darest was no longer part of the
Deeping, that all the dangers of the Faerie realm had been withdrawn. Time had proven Domina Rathen right. Darest was safe.

But that guarantee had held true only while Rathens still
lived. The Rathen bloodline had been
whittled down to its last King over two hundred years ago. When Torluce had died, the forest had come
back, licking across the border. It
wasn't as if it had sprung up overnight, or if farmers hadn't been able to chop
the trees down. But they'd grown in such
numbers that people became convinced The Deeping was trying to take back its
own. Families gave up the fight and
moved on to less chancy ground, leaving their farms to fall into neglect. A spate of disease, of bad luck, the
discovery of gold just over the western border; it had all added up until there
was a great swathe of forest cutting off the north-east. An entire town, Aramond, had been abandoned,
slowly swallowed. Every year the Tongue
stretched a little further west, grew a little thicker in the middle. The past catching up with Darest.

It was not long after the Tongue had taken shape that it
began to be whispered that 'things live there', that the Fae had cursed Darest,
were even living in the Tongue. Some of
the enchantments of the Old Race had certainly returned, and it had grown
almost as dangerous to venture into the Tongue as it was to wander unescorted
from the trade road through The Deeping.

A half-dozen villages such as Teraman lived uneasily along
the road which ran between The Deeping's northern border and the Tongue. Soren had seen evidence of continued
maintenance in recently uprooted saplings and lopped branches, but she still
found that the trees pressed too close. She hoped that, wherever Nina's mothers had taken their family, it truly
was safe.

Chapter Four

The first and best thing Soren noticed about Teraman was the
space. The people of this village had
managed to maintain their fields, and the only trees within its bounds were
small and confined to even rows, heavy with nearly ripe apples, pears and
peaches. Late afternoon shadows
stretched from the wall of trees behind Soren, but had not yet reached the
centre of the massive clearing, where warm sunlight glowed on thatch and
shingle, promising comfort and safety. A
loose sprawl of perhaps thirty homes made up the heart of the village, with a
handful of farmhouses scattered among the fields. A steady tang,
tung
,
tang announced a blacksmith hard at work. Closer by, two young voices spiralled into shrieks of laughter, and a
handful of toffee-cream cows moved toward a milking shed, bells around their
necks clanking in time with their unhurried gait.

And soldiers. They
were waiting by the fence of one of the farms, two women in the uniforms of
Darien swear-swords. They'd already seen
her, were stepping forward with a kind of attentive respect Soren suspected she
should find complimentary. Since turning
tail and running had long since become impossible, Soren nudged Vixen to a
faster walk, and soon reached them. They
both saluted crisply, with no suggestion of irony.

"Welcome to Teraman, Champion Armitage," said the
older and darker of the pair. "Captain Sharwell, of Elder Garrison, presents his compliments, and
asks that he might speak to you at your earliest convenience."

Trying to work her mind around her new status, Soren simply
smiled and gestured for them to lead the way. They saluted again, then formed a miniature honour guard at either side
of Vixen's neck, who inspected them until certain they weren't carrying the
appropriate treats to reward the long day's journey. The younger of the two, round-cheeked and pink,
kept stealing glances up Soren. It was
hard to guess if she was impressed by what she saw: a tallish woman with enough
looks to make her pretty, and a stupidly long sword strapped across her back. She wasn't even wearing the surcoat.

It looked like she wouldn't need the Regent's Writ of
Passage to gain the Garrison's help. The
fact that everyone seemed able to recognise her without her full uniform didn't
make Soren any more enthused about wearing it. No doubt it was the sword giving her away now. But it hadn't been possible to leave it
behind.

Soren shifted uneasily in her saddle, attention straying
from the buildings ahead. Why hadn't it
been possible? She'd managed to get away
without fanfare, and it wasn't as if Lady Rothwell would have held it against
her if she'd chosen not to take a valuable heirloom along for the ride. She certainly wasn't capable of wielding the
thing: she'd unsheathed it in the Champion's apartments, just to see how it
fitted her hand, and nearly gouged the ceiling trying an overhead swing. Simply possessing the sword hadn't given
Soren the ability to defend herself, only confused her with the tingling
pleasure she experienced when handling it.

Leaving it behind truly had been out of the question, much
the same as staying in Carn Keep had been impossible. Because she was Champion, and the Champion's
place was with the Rathen ruler or, failing that, with the Rathen Rose. And the Champion's sword, now that she'd
touched it, had become part of her. That
last night in Tor Darest, she'd been unable to rest until she'd fetched the
sword into the same room, though she'd managed to refrain from actually
sleeping with it. Just thinking about
not keeping it with her made her uncomfortable.

It would, Soren suspected, be equally impossible for her to
do anything to harm the babe, Helena. She was bound by magic to do everything in her power to help the future
queen of Darest.

There was no element of choice at all.

-
oOo
-

Annoyed by the thought of control, Soren rode into Teraman. The blacksmith, a woman with shoulders to put
an ox to shame, stopped her work and came to stare critically. A boy made some comment and pointed, only to
be shushed by his father. Curtains
fluttered and doors opened – wide or just a crack depending on the courage of
the occupants. Soren chose to appear
oblivious as the two guardswomen led her to a large, solidly constructed
building.

A painted forest decorated the board swinging beside the
inn's metal-bound doors. It was only
after intent study that Soren made out a small, smudged shape among the
towering trunks, a flash of white face looking back over one shoulder. The Lost Prince.

As Soren drew back on Vixen's reins, the door opened and two
people came out. The man's bearing and
air of command would have told Soren this was Captain Sharwell, even without
the insignia on his arm. He looked up at
her and saluted. The woman, stout and
neat behind a creamy apron, spared Soren a single judicial glance, then
withdrew.

"Welcome to Teraman, Champion." Captain Sharwell was a small man, with grey
specked through brown hair. "I'll
try not to tell you too often how very glad I am to see you," he added as
she slid from the saddle.

"Thank you. I'd
be glad to know what's been happening here." Soren regretted that she had to start by
lying to the man. She doubted Captain
Sharwell would be supportive of her plans to decamp with Darest's heir, even if
she could trust him not to have an agenda driven by Aristide Couerveur's
ambition.

"That makes two of us," Sharwell replied, stepping
back and gesturing toward the inn's door. "I'd call the last week a shambles, but that might cast too
positive a light. Come in, and I'll give
you a full report, made slightly more palatable by some excellent
cooking."

Leaving Vixen to her escort, Soren followed. The inside of the inn was cool, dark after
the sunlight, and smelled of ale and stewing apples. Blinking, she saw stairs straight ahead and a
public room to the right, unexpectedly crowded. Everyone had twisted around in their seats to watch her come in. No-one spoke.

The Captain turned left, toward the open door of a private
dining room. Discomfited, Soren hurried
after him, then stopped. Someone was
looking at her, a very specific presence dwarfing the avid curiosity of the
crowd. Standing just inside the second
doorway, she looked over her shoulder and saw, alone at a table in the very far
corner, a lean and saturnine man who wished her gone.