Dragon Prince 02 - The Star Scroll (30 page)

In far less time than he imagined, there was a powerful presence on the moonlight that captured his weaving and threaded it through with veritable ropes made of moonlight.
What do you think you’re up to, you young idiot?

Andrade’s brilliant colors flared painfully and Riyan winced.
All right, tell me the whole of it.

He did so, sensing her astonishment and her suspicions. When he was finished, he heard something like a hissing intake of breath, and wondered if it was only his past experience of her that made him imagine it.
You did the right thing by telling me,
she admitted.
Keep watching Kiele when you can—and Chiana, too. But by the Goddess, the next time you’ll wait for sunlight or I’ll skin you alive and nail your hide to the refectory wall as a caution to all the other young fools who think they know everything!

Yes, my Lady,
he replied meekly.

Do you understand me, Riyan? If you’d tried to return, the moonlight would have unraveled like a rotted blanket—and you would have been shadow-lost. Those four rings of yours do
not
allow you to attempt Moonrunning! Now, let’s get you back where you started, shall we?

The moonlight was like a gigantic bolt of silk flung from Goddess Keep to Waes. He slid along it pell-mell, breathless at the speed and the whirl of colors around him. Back in the alley outside the garden again, he watched with his mind as Andrade effortlessly disentangled him from the weave and vanished back along her silken moonlight.

It took him a few moments to recover. But it took him no time at all to promise himself that he would not try that again until he had been properly instructed. The moons might be nearer than the sun, but the light they gave off was thinner, more delicate. He didn’t want to think about what might have happened if he’d tried to come back on his own.

 

Andrade had not left her chambers, merely woven the moonlight from her windows. On returning she glanced at Urival and Andry, who had joined her after the evening meal to discuss the scrolls again. “It seems interesting things are happening,” she said, and told them the gist of her conversation with Riyan.

Urival nodded slowly. “ ‘Interesting’ is the right word for now. I only hope these things don’t become ‘fascinating.’ ”

“Or worse,” Andry murmured.

Andrade grimaced her appreciation of their remarks. “Well, I don’t want to give Riyan too much to worry about. I’ll send somebody else to Waes.”

“Who?” Andry asked eagerly.

“Never you mind.” She eyed him sternly. “You’re another one just like him, wanting to know everything, thinking you know it all at your age! Four or five rings, and you believe you understand the universe! Bah!”

Andry stiffened, then bent his head. “Yes, my Lady.”

“I’ve had enough for the night. Leave me.”

When he was gone, Urival replaced the scrolls in their cases and went to the door, where he paused and said, “I understand that he needs reprimanding every so often. But not
too
often, or he’ll resent you—and be ungovernable.”

“You think he’s governable now? Did you hear him lecturing us tonight about the scrolls, Lady Merisel, and Sunrunner history he’s the first in hundreds of years to know? If he didn’t have such a damned talent for translating, I’d take them from him and let somebody else do it. But he’s got a quick mind and the will to learn.”

“As mind-hungry as Sioned always was, but without Sioned’s humility.”

“When was that girl ever humble? She and Rohan both have defied me since the day they were wed! She hasn’t worn her
faradhi
rings in years! Just that bloody great emerald. Humble?” She laughed bitterly.

“You’re in a foul temper tonight.”

“I know.” She gestured an apology with one hand, rings and bracelet gleaming in the firelight. “What Sioned has is a healthy fear of the power knowledge can give her. Andry’s not afraid of anything. Except, for now, me. But not for much longer.”

“Andrade—he’s like her in that he can be led by love. Not fear.”

“I’ve given him no cause to love me. I never meant to—not with any of them. I don’t want them to adore me. It’s not necessary.”

“If you want them to do your fighting and your work for you—”

“Leave off, Urival!”

“As you wish, my Lady,” he said in a voice heavy with disapproval.

Andrade heard the door shut and resisted the urge to throw something. She was too old for this nonsense, too old to be juggling the actions and motives and feelings of so many people. In her youth she had relished power; by middle age she had exercised it with consummate skill. But now she was tired of it. Tired of the responsibility and the scheming and keeping one eye on everyone to make sure they stayed in line.

But more than her weariness, she was frightened. Andry would not stay in line. He would do with the scrolls what she was scared to do: use them.

I
t was virtually impossible for the High Prince to travel incognito, but Rohan gave it a good try on the journey through Princemarch. No dragon banner announced the identity of the eight riders; no royal badges appeared on the guards’ tunics, which were plain and unmatched; no expensive trappings decorated the horses; and no farmer or innkeeper with whom they stayed went without payment, though it was every prince’s right to demand free meals and lodging when traveling through his realm.

But though Rohan did not advertise his presence, neither did he deny his identity when people addressed him with royal titles. News of his travels seemed to spread more quickly than
faradhi
messages on sunlight; Andrade would envy the silent efficiency of these people. For his own part, he appreciated their general lack of ceremony. He hated fuss, suspicious practically from birth of those who made a great show in his presence, for show was usually designed to cover substance people did not wish seen. These folk, however, were casual and cordial in their welcome, with nothing to hide from their prince. Rohan viewed this as a tribute to their good sense and Pandsala’s good governance on Pol’s behalf. Had she been a bad ruler, they would have hated everything to do with him, while trying to hide it with false good cheer.

Accommodations varied. Some nights they stayed in neat chambers at an inn; occasionally they unrolled blankets in a barn; quite often they spent the night in the open beneath the stars when evening found them still on the road. Food ranged from tavern fare to farmhouse stews to their packed provisions and whatever half-a-day’s hunt could provide.

They rode wherever curiosity took them, investigating local landmarks, seeking deep into remote valleys, riding measures out of their way to visit famous sites recommended by their hosts. There were impromptu races across flower-strewn meadows and excursions into the hills for baths in ice-cold waterfalls. All these side trips were watched over by four guards who, while joining in the spirit of fun, remained on constant alert.

The four were commanded by Maeta, whose presence had not been planned. She merely showed up their third day out, as casually as if the encounter was an accidental one during an afternoon ride. Her explanation that she had always wanted to see the sights fooled no one; they all knew that she had been sent by her formidable mother as an extra guard for Pol. Rohan did not send Maeta back to Stronghold, for not even he felt equal to facing Myrdal’s wrath; the old woman was
probably
Pol’s kinswoman, but she was certainly the only grandmother he would ever know, and Rohan respected that special relationship almost as much as he respected Myrdal’s temper.

Besides, it suited him to add Maeta to the group. Pol had already shown a talent for taking off on his own. The mare Chay had lent him, a streak of lightning compacted into four legs and a pair of roving eyes, liked nothing better than a wild gallop. Pol defended his escapades with the innocent reminder that he had promised to keep the horse in good trim for sale at the
Rialla.
Threats did no good; even the private promise of the application of Rohan’s palm against his backside did not impress him overmuch. But his first attempt to bolt off after Maeta’s arrival earned him an afternoon riding on a lead rein behind her horse. Rohan heartily approved of his son’s discomfiture—while wondering ruefully if he really was so complete a failure as a disciplinarian.

Maarken, too, was glad of Maeta’s presence. They talked tactics and strategies most of the day and half the night. She had been in most of the important battles of the last thirty years, and her wealth of experience was nearly as great as his father’s. Sometimes Rohan and Pol joined in these discussions, sitting around the campfire to trade ideas. But more often father and son spent their time with each other. During the long nights spent talking, Rohan came to understand his son more deeply—especially the reason why physical punishment was nowhere near as effective as a judicious dose of public embarrassment. He should have known, of course; Pol was just like him in his consciousness of rank, his pride, and his notions of personal dignity. It was not quite arrogance—and that failing was something to guard against.

The lowlands of Princemarch were a revelation: rich, rolling valleys of cropland and pasture, a careless abundance that amazed Desert eyes. Farmers gifted the royal party with the summer fruits of the countryside, proud of their productivity and grinning as their guests marveled at the bounty.

One midday an incredible array was produced for their lunch in a farmer’s front yard. Rohan asked, “Tell me, is there anything you people
don’t
grow?”

The farmer scratched his chin thoughtfully. “Well, my lord,” he said after due deliberation, “not much.”

And it was true. Fruit, grain, meat, cheese, nuts, vegetables—they partook of the plenty and were amazed.

“And you own all of it,” Maeta remarked to Pol one morning, her arm sweeping out to include the fields and orchards around them.

“All of it,” he echoed incredulously. “It must feed the whole world!”

“A goodly portion of our part of it,” Maeta answered. “You don’t remember the old days. Sometimes we had to give up a year’s salt or half Radzyn’s horses for food enough to last the winter. Now that this is ours, we’ll never have to crawl again.”

Rohan met her gaze over his saddle as he tightened a girth strap. “Never again,” he echoed. He remembered very well the year to which Maeta alluded, and the fury of helplessness in his father’s black eyes when Roelstra had demanded exorbitant payment for food enough to keep the Desert from starving. More lightly he added, “But it probably sharpened the wits, bargaining back and forth. I sometimes miss the stimulation of my first
Rialla
as prince.”

Maeta snorted. “Nothing wrong with your wits, if what I hear about Firon is true.”

“And what do you hear?”

“That all of this—” She waved again at the fields, “—will include most of that.” One battle-scarred finger pointed northwest where Firon lay.

“It’s possible,” Rohan conceded.

Maarken laughed as he swung up into his saddle. “Don’t let my mother hear you say that! The tapestry map is already being rewo ven, you know—she’s using it to teach Sionell stitchery. If you change your mind, she’ll have your head on a spear.”

“Aunt Tobin knows how to sew?” Pol was astounded. “She doesn’t seem the type to like that kind of thing.”

“She doesn’t,” Maarken said cheerfully. “She says it’s only good for something to do with your hands when you want to strangle somebody.”

“Strangulation really isn’t in her line,” Rohan observed. “Knives, arrows, swords when we were growing up—that’s more her style.”

“Is it true about her marriage contract with Uncle Chay?” Pol asked as he mounted.

“No knives in the bedchamber!” His father laughed. “Oh, it’s true enough. Chay insisted on it.”

“What’s in your agreement with Mother?” Pol teased.

Maeta answered him. “Sunrunners are much too subtle to go around waving steel.
Her
contract says that the only Fire she’ll call up in their bedchamber is the kind that burns the sheets. And that, my lad, is how
you
got started!”

That day, the twenty-fifth of their journey, began the climb into the Great Veresch. Chain upon chain of peaks rose nearly to the clouds, the tallest of them snow-crowned even in high summer. In between were blue-violet depths where, when the angle of the sun was right, thin ribbons of water reflected silver. Conifers ten and twenty times the height of a man grew bunched needles as long as Pol’s arm, and bore cones that could be split open for sweet seeds and resin that tasted like honey. Herds of startled deer lifted white antlers to the sky before racing into cover. The water in lakes and streams was the sweetest any of them had ever tasted, as if milked directly from the clouds without touching the ground at all. The number and variety of birds astounded them; the world seemed alive night and day with wingbeats and songs and hunting cries, so different from Desert silence. They sometimes spent whole mornings watching flocks of birds float across a lake or dive for fish or plummet from the sky over prey-laden meadows. And the flowers—narrow trails through the forest would suddenly give way to mountain meadows awash in blue, red, orange, yellow, purple, and pink, the unbelievable profusion of colors enough to make
faradhi
senses drunk.