The Godspeaker Trilogy (117 page)

Taken aback, he stared at her. “That’s—why, I—Your Highness—”

“Rhian,” she insisted, and blinked tears away. “With my father and brothers dead I’ve no-one left to say my name.” No-one but Alasdair, and I’m a long way from Linfoi . “Shall I make it a royal command?”

“No, no, of course not,” he said, flustered. “I’m honoured. And you’ll call me Dexterity?”

“I will,” she said, smiling. “I’d like that.”

“Well … Rhian,” said Dexterity. “I know it seems addled to be trusting Zandakar’s no danger to us, just on the word of a dead woman. If it wasn’t Hettie …”

“But it is.”

He nodded. “Yes. And that’s everything. At least, it’s everything to me.”

And without him she’d still be a prisoner in the clerica. Maybe even married to Rulf by now. Pregnant, and breeding a dynasty for Marlan.

One way or another this keeps coming back to faith.

“Very well,” she said. “I’ll accept Hettie’s word, for now, that Zandakar’s not sinister. But when she comes to you again, Dexterity, tell her I expect to be told what’s going on, sooner rather than later!”

“Well, Rhian …” he said cautiously, “I’ll certainly mention it. Though it’s only fair to warn you, even when she was alive Hettie never was a biddable woman, bless her.” He cleared his throat. “I wonder. Since we’re having a chinwag …”

“Say it,” she said. “Only a foolish queen ignores advice from her councillors.” Another lesson she’d learned from her father. See, Papa? I remember. I’ll do you proud yet .

Dexterity took a deep breath and huffed it out. “All right, since we’re speaking of trust. It seems to me you’re putting a lot of faith in this Alasdair Linfoi. If he’s not the man you think he is …”

No letters since he’d left the capital. No attendance at her father’s funeral; just a brief message through his uncle, Henrik. Had her father forbidden him or had she slipped from his heart?

I don’t know. I mustn’t think it. Alasdair will help me. He’s the only hope I have.

“I put no more faith in him than you’re putting in Hettie. And at least we’ll all be able to see Alasdair when we reach him.” Just a few days from now. Lord, she was nervous.

“True,” Dexterity conceded, rueful. “If I might ask, Highness. What do you intend to ask of the duke when we do reach duchy Linfoi?”

There was no easy way to say it. “Alasdair, marry me.”

He choked. “What?”

“I need a husband,” she said baldly. Beneath his blanket Zandakar stirred, muttered, then slid back into sleep. “Without one I can’t rule in my own right. Alasdair’s a legal man, he doesn’t need anyone’s permission to wed.”

“But Rhian, you’re not a legal woman! As a ward of the Church you—”

Folding her arms against his dismay, she met his worried gaze unflinching. “I have Chaplain Helfred. He can release me from Church wardship and marry me to Alasdair in five minutes. And if he knows what’s good for him that’s exactly what he’ll do.”

Dexterity gaped like a goldfish. “But the prolate—the prolate—”

“Won’t be able to un marry me. Not without rewriting his own precious Church laws. And if he tries that he only plays into my hands. I have no choice, Dexterity. And neither will Alasdair. I’d rather not marry anyone right now, but I must. And he’s the only man I can think of that I’d like to see as king.”

“Well, you’ve taken my breath away,” said Dexterity. “I never—”

But she never learned what he’d never, because the wagon’s hinged doors opened and in came Ursa and Helfred, with dinner.

“Suppertime!” said Ursa, with a sharp, assessing glance at Zandakar. “Don’t sit there, Jones, with that look on your face. Get the bowls and the spoons, man. Rollin protect me, anyone’d think you’d never seen a pot of soup before!”

When the sun rose next morning, Zandakar rose with it and left the van to dance his hotas . Rhian heard the hinged door’s soft closing, lay under her blanket on the wagon’s bench for a few moments fiercely arguing with herself, then got up, dressed with held breath, and followed him. No-one tried to stop her. On the floor, Helfred and Dexterity snored in harmony, while Ursa was an unmoving mound beneath her blankets on the top sleeping-shelf.

This early in spring there was a nip in the air. She sat on the van’s bottom step to pull her shoes on over her socks, then hesitated. Zandakar always danced his hotas barefoot. She put the boots on the ground, stripped off her socks and tucked them safe and dry inside. Then she rolled her woollen leggings up to her knees, stood, and marched across the dewy grass to where Zandakar leapt and cartwheeled and spun on his hips. He’d taken the bandages off his wounded arms. Ursa’s green ointment had worked its magic, the stone-slashes in his flesh were already knitted closed.

He was stripped to the waist, as usual. The thin, dawn light burnished his skin, sliding over the marring scars on his chest and back and belly and shoulders. Sculpted with muscle, he was aesthetically perfect. He looked like a statue by pagan Icthian artists brought miraculously to life.

I shouldn’t be noticing that. I’m travelling north to marry Alasdair.

But it was impossible to ignore Zandakar’s physicality. Not even her brothers or their friends, riders and fencers every one, could touch him for breathtaking elegance of movement. For the implicit violence that was his hota dance. Set beside Zandakar, Ranald and Simon and the men of their acquaintance were merely children playing at war.

If every warrior where Zandakar comes from is as perfect and deadly as he …

He was a warrior, of course. She didn’t need Dexterity or Zandakar to tell her that. She’d trained in swordplay with her father and brothers enough times to recognise a war dance when she saw one. Thrust and feint and disembowel with a stroke. Zandakar held no knife but still she could see one. See it severing limbs, slashing throats, spilling guts. Watering the ground with fountains of blood.

Thousands of Zandakars …

The thought came to her unbidden, enough to dry her mouth with fear. Ethrea had no warriors. Kingseat’s garrison, the dukes’ soldiers charged to keep their local peace, they weren’t warriors. Ethrea held the upper hand against other, warlike nations because of the treaties that bound them and because gold could blunt the sharpest sword. But against an enemy who recognised no treaty …

And then she shook herself, because she was being silly.

A month ago I never knew a race like Zandakar’s existed. Now I’m imagining them on the rampage. I must be overtired. Even if it’s true, which it’s not, it doesn’t affect us. We don’t need our own army or a fleet of warships. Our treatied foreign friends are pledged to defend us. We are their bankers. They’d die for us gladly. Well, they’d die to save their fortunes but it’s the same thing. Ten thousand Zandakars couldn’t stand against their might … or determined, greedy self-interest.

Ethrea was safe.

Provided I defeat Marlan.

On that cheerful thought she shook her head and folded her arms. “Zandakar.”

He must have known she was there, but hadn’t so much as looked at her. Now he did look, and ended a sequence mid-step. His face was calm. No outward sign of exertion, no echo of the anguished man she’d seen yesterday in the stream.

“Good morning, Rhian,” he said. His voice was calm too, tranquil as a pond. “You want?”

“Good morning. Yes. I want you to teach me hotas .”

In silence he considered her, his clear blue eyes grave. “Hotas?” he said at last. “Why?”

“Because.”

“Because why?”

She shrugged. “Because why not?”

“Tcha,” he said, unimpressed. Because he understood her, or because he didn’t? She couldn’t tell. But just in case…

“Because I am a queen, and a queen should know how to defend herself.” And because I will know you in my own time, not Hettie’s .

“Queen,” he said slowly.

“Do you know that word?”

He nodded. “Queen. Hushla .” His expression changed. “Yuma.” The word was scarcely more than a whisper.

Yuma? The name Dexterity had mentioned last night. So, if he was right, Zandakar’s wife Lilit was murdered by his queen. But then … who did that make Zandakar?

Dammit, I want this mystery solved!

“Zandakar, these hotas .” She raised her hand as though it held a weapon, mimed slashing and stabbing an invisible foe. “They are for fighting. Yes?”

Again he nodded. “ Zho. Hotas for fighting.”

“Then I want you to teach me.”

He glanced at the quiet peddler’s van, where nobody stirred. “Dexterity …”

“Does not command me. I am queen here, Zandakar. I decide.”

His ice-blue eyes didn’t blink at her tone. “Rhian queen. Rhian decide.”

She nodded. “Exactly.”

“ Hotas … wei easy. Hotas … hard. Zho? ”

“I’m used to hard work,” she said, shrugging. “You won’t frighten me with that.” His expression said he didn’t follow her comments. She tried again. “ Hotas hard is all right. Zho? Zho hard.”

His turn to shrug. “Zho,” he said, and cut her feet out from beneath her with a lightning-fast scything of one leg. She hit the grass rump-first, her teeth nearly closing on her tongue.

Outraged, she glared up at him. “What was that?”

His face was calm but his ice eyes were laughing. “Hotas,” he answered, and held out his hand.

She let him help her up. His response was to whip her in a fast circle around her shrieking shoulder-joint, plunging her back to the grass again. This time she landed face-first, which was good. Duchy Arbat’s greenery swallowed her shriek as he slapped her behind.

“Hotas,” he said again, as she rolled over. His hands beckoned her. “Stand, queen. Lesson now.”

She stood, fiercely smiling.

Think you’re clever, don’t you? Well, fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me a third time? Don’t get your hopes up.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Z
andakar was right about one thing. Hotas were hard work. They made her years of training with a foil seem like a giddy romp for infants. By the end of her first lesson she was panting like a bellows and running sweat as though she’d stood beneath a waterfall. Even her bones ached. He’d pushed her unmercifully. Shown no respect for her person. Swatted her behind so many times she’d lost count.

She didn’t mind. He took her seriously. It had become obvious, very quickly, that the fact she was female meant nothing to him. In his eyes, if they weren’t equal it was because she was a student—not because she wasn’t a man.

I like that. I like it a lot.

By the time they were finished she could tell she’d impressed him. His exclamations of tcha had started out impatient, scornful, but his last one had contained a note of reserved approval.

I wasn’t imagining it. I wasn’t. He thinks I’m not … bad.

And that was something else to like. A lot.

Afterwards, as they stood calf-deep in the cold stream drinking in great gulps and splashing water on their sweaty faces, she glanced at him and said, “All right. It’s time to talk. Who are you?”

He didn’t look at her. “Zandakar.”

“Don’t play games with me. Who are your people? Where is your country? Why were you a slave when Dexterity found you?”

Probably he wouldn’t understand all the questions but the words tumbled out of her before she could stop them. Not that she tried. She needed the answers. Before she reached Alasdair she had to know who Zandakar was.

“Zandakar?” she prompted. “Please. Tell me who you are.”

Now he did look at her, his face impassive again. The approval she’d seen there, and the restrained humour, were hidden away behind his mask. He shook his head. “Wei.”

She let out a hard breath. “Zandakar—”

“Wei,” he said again, and held up a silencing hand. “Rhian. I know name. I know hotas .”

It hurt, that he’d deny her. “And your wife was Lilit. Yuma killed her. You know that. Dexterity told me.”

A flash of searing pain in the clear blue eyes. “Zho.” He shrugged. “ Wei more.”

She stared. “You can’t remember where you came from? Who your people are? Nothing else?”

He met her gaze squarely. “Wei. Yatzhay.”

Odd, to think that while he’d been learning her language, she’d been learning his. No. Sorry .

But was that true? Or was he lying?

And if he’s lying … what has he to hide?

God protect her, there was too much here unknown. Suddenly aware of his closeness, his overwhelming physical presence, suddenly feeling not quite so safe, she took a step back. Put some space between them.

“ Yatzhay , Zandakar. I’m sorry, too. I’m very sorry you don’t remember.”

From the direction of the van came a plaintive shout. “Highness? Where are you? Zandakar? Are you near?”

Ursa . She looked at Zandakar and he looked back. For a moment she knew her expression mirrored his: guilty apprehension. “Oops,” she said. “We’re caught out. I think we’d better go.”

Zandakar grinned. It was so unexpected. So vivid and mischievous. She felt her heart thud. “ Zho, Rhian,” he said. “We go.”

Turning her back on that blinding smile, she stumbled over the running stream’s uneven stone bed and onto dry land. Zandakar leapt out beside her, flashing her another swift smile. The dry land shifted beneath her feet and her blood became a waterfall, thundering through her veins. She pressed a hand against her thudding heart and made herself breathe normally.

It’s nothing. It doesn’t matter. I’m going north, to Alasdair.

They were greeted back at the van by outrage. Helfred, of course, led the chorus of dismay.

“Your Highness, what were you thinking, disappearing like that?” he demanded, thrusting himself at her with his hands fisted on his hips. “What were you doing ?”

She looked quickly at Zandakar, whose blue eyes had kindled. “ Wei . I’ll deal with this.” Turning back to Helfred, she stood her ground before him. “I was taking exercise, Helfred. Zandakar was teaching me his hotas .”

“His hotas ?” Helfred’s eyes popped wide with shock. “Whatever possessed you? You’ve no need for his heathenish dances!”

“I disagree,” she said coolly. “Helfred—”

He shook a pointed finger in her face. “Princess Rhian, you will listen to me ! You are an unmarried minor, a ward of the Church! You cannot traipse about the countryside unsupervised with a man of no character, a man not your father, a man of dubious antecedents! Good God have mercy, think of your reputation ! If you—”