Wolfblade (57 page)

After a while, Marla had given up trying to make friends. She had Elezaar and Lirena for company. Her old nurse insisted on looking after Damin, and Veruca was here in the palace, too, having come out of retirement in Winternest to look after Darilyn’s orphaned sons. Travin and Xanda also lived with them, ostensibly in the custody of Mahkas and Bylinda, but in reality everyone seemed to take a hand in their care.

Marla was lonely rather than unhappy. Laran was away a lot, either off fighting cattle raiders on the border with Medalon or launching his own cattle raids in retaliation. When he was home, he was usually so busy Marla didn’t see much of him. It wasn’t easy. She knew everyone was expecting her to bear another son. Just because she had provided Hythria with an heir didn’t mean her duty was discharged. Now Krakandar needed an heir to inherit the Province.

Marla wondered if Bylinda was hoping she would deliver a boy and that Laran might make Mahkas’s son his heir. Her brother-in-law’s wife was due to give birth any day now and was firmly convinced she was carrying a son. For that matter, every woman in the palace had an opinion about it. Some
claimed she was carrying the child high, so that was sure to mean a boy. Others claimed they could tell by the colour of her cheeks, the size of the half-moons on her fingernails and—Marla’s all-time favourite—by the amount of meat she had consumed during her pregnancy. It was no secret that Mahkas was desperate for a son. For all their sakes, she hoped Bylinda was able to give him what he wanted. Then he could petition Laran to make his son the heir to Krakandar and Marla would be relieved of the need to provide an heir herself.

As it was, only Marla’s child made everything bearable.

The sheltered young princess had been unprepared for the feelings of love and protectiveness that swamped her the first time she held her son. She had expected to feel little more than relief when the midwife announced she had delivered a healthy boy. But she would never forget the moment they laid him in her arms. And she would never let any harm come to him. She had promised him that as she held him, still slick and bloody from the womb. “
I will never let anyone hurt you, my darling,”
she had whispered softly.
“I swear it.”

Not that her son seemed to need much protecting. Surrounded by guards who would give their lives to protect him, he was a strapping boy who had suffered none of the risky childhood fevers that stole so many babes from their mother’s breast before they made it through their first year. Damin had thrived. He was a sturdy toddler, with a laugh that cheered everyone in the palace and an eye for mischief that Marla suspected was going to be the cause of a great deal of trouble when he grew older. She didn’t care, though. There was nothing about her son that Marla could find fault with. He was fair-haired, blue-eyed and blessed by the gods, as far as she was concerned, and she didn’t care that everyone thought her a silly, pathetic girl, blind to her son’s failings. As far as Marla was concerned, Damin
had
no failings.

As promised, Lernen had made Damin his heir when the boy turned one year old. Her son was officially named Damin Wolfblade now, having taken his uncle’s family name to continue the Wolfblade line. It was an adoption in name only, however. Following the ceremony, Marla had returned to Krakandar with Laran and their son. Damin was to be raised away from Greenharbour, at least until he was much older. It was an arrangement that suited everyone. Marla didn’t want to leave her child; Laran wanted to keep his son close and safe; and Lernen had no desire for a toddler running loose in the Greenharbour Palace, getting in the way of his other amusements.

Marla glanced out of the tall windows that opened onto the balcony overlooking the gardens of the inner compound of the city and realised it was almost time for Damin to wake from his nap. She liked to be there when he woke. Let Orleon figure out the best way to arrange the tables to fit in three hundred guests for the Feast of Kalianah. He probably thought her incapable of organising the function, anyway.

She was about to announce her intention to leave everything to the steward when a commotion at the entrance at the far end of the banquet hall caught her attention. Several armed men pushed their way into the hall over the protests of the slaves. Her initial stab of fear vanished when she saw the swooping hawk escutcheon on the soldiers’ breastplates. Marla’s frown turned into a cry of delight as she realised who it was.

“Nash!”

The young lord looked at the head table and immediately began heading towards her with his escort following close behind. With rather unladylike haste, Marla dropped the steward’s carefully detailed seating plan on the floor and hurried to meet them halfway, almost colliding with Nash when she reached them as her slippers failed to find any traction on the highly polished floor.

“I swear, your highness, you’re even more beautiful than the last time I saw you,” Nash declared, catching her smoothly as she all but crashed into him. He steadied her with a laugh, took her palm and kissed it gallantly, then indicated the men who stood behind him. “Allow me to introduce Captain Sawen, your highness, and the captain of Elasapine’s Household Guard, Captain Darenne. Gentlemen, allow me to introduce her highness, Princess Marla of the House of Wolfblade, the Lady of Krakandar, mother of Hythria’s true heir and the most beautiful woman in all of Hythria.”

“Your circle of female acquaintances must be severely limited, Lord Hawksword, if you think I’m the finest example of Hythrun womanhood,” she laughed, blushing at his introduction. Elezaar had taught her a great deal over the past few years, not the least of which was how to deal with outrageously flirtatious compliments. Marla wasn’t the same girl who had swooned over Nash on the balcony overlooking the ballroom of Greenharbour palace. She still felt her pulse race whenever she laid eyes on Nashan Hawksword, broke into a sweat whenever he touched her, no matter how innocently, but at least now she knew enough not to advertise the fact to all and sundry. She smiled at the captains graciously. “Please, present yourselves to Almodavar down at the barracks,” she told them. “Tell him I sent you. He’ll see you and your men are taken care of.”

“Almodavar’s not with Laran and Mahkas?” Nash asked in surprise as the captains saluted and took their leave of the princess.

Marla shook her head. “Almodavar is captain of the Palace Guard now. Laran’s still rather touchy after what happened to Riika at Winternest. He doesn’t take his most trusted captain with him over the border any more. These days he leaves him at home to look after his son.”

“And his wife?”

Marla smiled. “I think if it came to a choice, Almodavar would save Damin before he lifted a finger to save me.”

“And the rest of the guests? Have they arrived yet, or do I have you to myself for a few days?”

“The High Arrion sent word he was on his way,” she informed him. “We’re expecting him about the same time Laran and Mahkas get back from the border. But Jeryma’s gone back to Cabradell for the spring. She worries Chaine is becoming too popular. She likes to remind him that he’s Governor of Sunrise at Laran’s whim, I think.”

“Is Laran’s whim likely to change?”

“I don’t see why it should. Chaine’s done a fine job these past couple of years.”

“And the High Arrion is coming too? It’s a long way for Kagan to travel,” Nash remarked. “Just for the Feast of Kalianah.”

“Laran mentioned some urgent business,” she shrugged. “Who knows what the High Arrion really wants, though.”

Nash looked her up and down and sighed. “Motherhood agrees with you, Marla. You look ravishing.”

The compliment was not misplaced. Motherhood had left Marla with a much more curvaceous figure. She
felt
like a woman now, even if she was only just eighteen. “I’ll bet you say that to all the girls,” she laughed.

“Only the ones that have children,” he conceded with a grin. “The others tend to get a little upset, for some reason, if I start complimenting them on their maternal qualities and they’re still unmarried.”

Marla slipped her arm through Nash’s and led him towards the entrance to the banquet hall. “Well, I’ll suffer your pathetic attempts to flatter me because you’re Laran’s friend. But you’d better stop once my husband gets home or I’ll have to have him run you through.”

“For you, it would be worth it.”

Marla laughed. “Nash, you really are incorrigible.”

“Incorrigible, eh? It sounds contagious. Where is Laran, anyway? The border, you said?”

“He and Mahkas have gone to liberate some cattle for the celebration.”

“When are you expecting them home?”

“Any day now,” she informed him as they stepped into the main foyer of the palace. “If they don’t get back soon with our ‘liberated’ cattle, we won’t have time to slaughter and drain the beef properly.”

“Liberated?” he asked with a chuckle.

“Apparently the Medalonians get upset if you call it stealing.”

“I can see how they might.”

“Anyway, according to Mahkas it’s not really stealing,” she explained as they walked through the foyer towards the grand staircase that wound its way impressively to the upper floors. “Rumour has it all this raiding started a score of years ago when some cheeky Medalonian farmer stole one of Krakandar’s
best bulls and took him back over the border to service his herd. Being a Krakandar bull, he was naturally of above average stamina and virility . . .”

“Naturally,” Nash agreed solemnly.

“. . . so he covered most of the cows in the region during his sojourn over the border. Consequently, if you believe my brother-in-law, stealing Medalonian cattle isn’t stealing at all, because all their cattle are descended from our bull, so technically that makes them ours, anyway.”

“Sounds perfectly reasonable to me,” he laughed.

“I’m not sure the Medalonians agree with you,” she warned. “They have a new Lord Defender in Medalon. Laran says since Lord Korgan took over the Sisterhood has been sending more and more Defenders to protect the border.”

“You see,” Nash sighed, shaking his head. “That’s what happens when you let women rule a country. Medalon has the best damned army on the continent and they’re going to waste it fighting off cattle raids.”

“What would you rather they did, Nash? Invade us?”

“Of course not. But surely, they could declare war on
somebody
, every now and then. For the practice, if nothing else.”

Marla smiled. “For the
practice
? Really, Nash, why do you get so excited about the idea of going to war?”

“I follow Zegarnald,” he shrugged. “What else is one supposed to do to honour the God of War?”

“Good point,” Marla agreed with a laugh. They reached the foot of the grand staircase and stopped. “I’ve had the Green Room made ready for you.” Nash had been a frequent enough visitor to the Krakandar palace that he didn’t need a guide to find his way to his room.

He turned to look at her, lifting the arm she had linked through his to kiss her palm and then her wrist, smiling at her, his eyes never leaving hers. “Are you sure you wouldn’t like to show me the way?”

His words whispered against the skin at her wrist, causing goose bumps along her arm.

“You know the way, my lord,” she replied, with commendable calm.

“Yes, but it would be so much more . . .” He hesitated and searched her face for a moment. “Are you happy, Marla?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

“You just look a little . . . forlorn.”

“This is the first time I’ve organised anything on this scale without the Lady Jeryma watching my every move,” she said, more than a little uncomfortable that Nash might suspect her true feelings. “I’m nervous, not forlorn.”

“You don’t have to be alone, Marla,” he said, as if he could read her mind.

Marla smiled faintly, wondering if Nash had any idea how tempted she was by his offer. He flirted with her quite openly now she was safely married
to Laran, in a manner he would never have dared when she was single. “Perhaps it’s a good thing I’m going to the nursery to see my son, and you’re going to your room, Nash.”

“There’s nothing wrong with honouring the Goddess of Love,” he told her in a low, seductive voice.

“Then I’ll have one of the
court’esa
sent to your room, shall I?” she suggested, pretending ignorance about what he was really proposing.

Nash lifted her hand to his lips again and smiled. “You’re a cruel woman.”

“The cruellest,” she agreed, extracting her hand carefully from Nash’s grasp before she did something likely to embarrass them both. “Now go. I’ll see you at dinner.”

Nash smiled regretfully and bowed before taking the stairs two at a time to the upper floor. Marla watched him leave, a part of her wishing she was brave enough to follow her heart instead of her head. Nash was always joking about making love to her. Even when Laran was around. Marla was never sure if he was just doing it to tease her, to get a rise out of Laran, or if he was testing her in some way. Perhaps even at Laran’s behest . . .

I’ve been listening to that damn dwarf too much
, she told herself as she headed across the foyer to the south wing where the day nursery was located.
I’m seeing plots in everything these days
.

Nash flirted with Marla because he flirted with every woman he met. Marla had seen him flirting with Jeryma. At Damin’s adoption ceremony in Greenharbour, she’d heard him telling old Lady Foxtalon, the incumbent Warlord of Pentamor’s great-grandmother, that she was the most stunning woman present. It was what Nash did. It was his nature. Marla was wise enough now to realise that believing anything else would simply lead to heartbreak.