Heir of Scars I: Parts 1-8 (13 page)

She rose, and Adselm half-rose along with her out of respect for her Sisterhood, until Sir Marbury smiled at him, shook his head, and motioned for him to be seated.

He knew, as well, all along. I truly
have
been a fool.

As Adselm sank back onto his bench, confused and embarrassed, his wife showed real surprise, and perhaps a little indignation because of the admonishment of her husband.

The children, for their part, looked as if a story had been changed upon them right in the middle, just when they thought they had it figured out.

How do I explain that I am not a ghost, not a werewolf, and yet not reveal who I truly am? I may as well
be
such a myth..
. Adria breathed a full measure.
A royal need never apologize, and an Aesidhe does not apologize lightly, for they rarely have to. The formalities of such are very clumsy in their language — they measure each word for absolute understanding, both for themselves and for whom they apologize
.

“I have deceived you all, and out of simple fear, both for myself and for you.” Adria bowed her head a little.

Lady and Sir Marbury both nodded, solemnly but with some reassurance, and Adria raised her chin and turned to consider them all.

“I am not a member of the Sisterhood, though I was trained by them to great measure, and so have some of their knowledge, as I have shown.”

She paused again, and one of the younger children, her blue eyes wide with wonder and perhaps a little fear, interrupted the silence.

“Are you the White Wolf Woman?”

Adria could not help but smile, and others followed.
They know this story...

“No, little one,” Adria smiled, then frowned and almost whispered, “I am Adria Idonea.”

There was absolute stillness, and then a stirring from nearly everyone. With a glance to his parents, then his wife, Adselm half-rose again, and knelt beside his bench. Others started to follow.

Adria shook her head, having first expected disbelief, but then realized that her story must have been as well known here as the White Wolf Woman, and one glance at Sir and Lady Marbury, nodding, confirmed. Adria would have asked them all to stop the absurd motion, but Sir Marbury cleared his throat first.

“Please be seated, all of you...” He motioned with his hands. “You as well, Highness, if you would.”

Adria’s face had flushed even more, her knees weakened, and she now welcomed the excuse to sit.

Sir Marbury leaned forward to clasp his hands on the table, still nodding without the slightest surprise. “Thank you for your honesty, and know at once that you are in no danger here. While you are within our house, you are our guest, and we will count you as a friend. Our son has invited you in as any lone traveler, whether you are a Sister or a ghost, highborn or outlaw. Though too many in our land have forgotten, I have learned that even the greatest of enemies, when treated with honesty and respect, may be made a worthy friend. And I would teach the same to my sons and daughters. It is not wrong to go to war for a just reason, but those who take up arms for the sole purpose of power forget that there are no ghosts in the wood save the ones we make ourselves.”

Adria’s voice was barely above a whisper. “You’ve spread no ashes at the edge of the wood.”

“For there are already far too many walls we have to climb in life,” Sir Marbury smiled. “Welcome home, Princess Idonea... though it is easy to see you’ve found another welcome these several years.”

“I fear I no longer understand my place within my father’s kingdom.”

He nodded, frowning, but it was the lady who spoke then. “Your Highness. You are the daughter of kings. It is for you to make your own place, or one will be forced upon you.”

“It is true, and I fear it dictates my haste. I have enjoyed your welcome and counsel more than I could have hoped, but... I must not delay my journey further. My brother will take his first duty soon, and I hope to see him before.”

“You are three weeks from the capital, even by road,” Adselm said. “And the danger to a woman alone, regardless of her position…”

“Two weeks,” Adria shrugged. “I walk swiftly. And I may just as well ignore the roads, though I am well capable of my own defense.”

“Look to the red beads in her hair, Adselm… these will prove her strength in battle as well as any knightly insignia. The Aesidhe do not deny a woman with skill at arms.” But Sir Marbury shook his head nonetheless. “Still, skirting the woods will cost you days, and I would not trust the open roads after dark. You must stay the night and avoid at least one.”

“And of course you will have an escort,” Lady Marbury insisted.

“Unfortunately, I am in as much need of haste as protection. An escort would only attract undue attention and slow my passage.”

“They might also... bear witness to your arrival at Windberth,” Lady Marbury agreed, words veiled a little. “Should this be unwelcome.”

Adria considered a moment. “Believe me when I say that reaching the gates of the citadel and passing through them are lesser in my concerns for safety.”

Sir Marbury waved away remaining objections. “Stay the night, and you will have the loan of a horse, with or without escort, as you wish. You can be there in six days, if you can ride at all.”

“I will repay your kindness when I can.”

“Your Highness, we owe you the better part of our labor as liege,” Lady Marbury smiled. “A meal and a palfrey are small duty.”

“Fealty or no, we are all beholden to each other, my lord and lady. This I have learned far better beyond my father’s walls and ashes.”

The first roads she took were little more than dirt paths, though thankfully dry. It was friendly enough land, riders or men driving wagons or working in the fields typically just waved to her as she passed. She received some ungracious looks from occasional passersby when they saw she was a woman in a man’s saddle, but no one accosted her in any significant way. She was glad of the relative speed the palfrey’s tack allowed, despite the relative insult to propriety. It was by no means her first transgression of masculine rights.

Adria’s riding returned to her swiftly enough. It had once been a favored activity, though she had only ever been permitted to ride within the citadel itself, her activity dictated by her father’s horse sergeant, whose will had had been harder to break than Adria’s horse.

Though Lady Marbury had offered her a full change of clothing, Adria had taken only a simple hooded cloak as an outer layer, both for warmth and for some small amount of disguise. What remained of her defiance convinced her to pass into the city and the citadel in the clothes of an Aesidhe.

Six more days of pride, and then…?

By the first afternoon, she was surprisingly hungry, worn, and sore in places she might not have named aloud if asked — except perhaps for the Somanan terms used by physicians. She was nearing a larger town, Sotower, and led her horse a little off the road before stopping to rest. She rubbed down the palfrey’s coat with a brush from the saddlebag before lying against an oak and enjoying the remains of the last evening’s meal. Peryna had offered it with a smile and a curtsey. “Only a little of it is meat,” the girl had said. “You’ll need it, even if you don’t prefer it.... Your Highness.”

“Thank you, Peryna,” and she leaned and embraced the girl about her shoulders, whispering, “And always remember that I was your friend before I was your Princess.”

When she continued, Adria was able to avoid the town, thankfully, walking the horse beside hedgerows between wheat fields and apple orchards. Heading north of the town, she found a somewhat truer road — stone tile paving, dangerously suffering from disrepair, forcing an even slower gait than she might have wished. The tiles were mostly uneven, and many were missing entirely, probably taken by local lords to reduce the cost of stone for some nearby keep or tower. “King’s Road,” a wooden post occasionally proclaimed.

“Fitting,” she sighed to her mount. “Falling to pieces… and not even given a name, just a title. Who can really know who rules the road of this land?”

Here also the King’s Road split. The older right branch went towards Highreach. There Adria could find a ship to take her to Windberth by sea, but depending on the winds and the tides, this might not save her any time at all. A
nd should I risk trading saddle soreness for seasickness?

She sighed and turned left, continuing through the heartlands and towards the Werdstan Mountains far beyond.
Two or three days..
.
and home.

The road might have given the wheels of wagons and carts a better ride — or at least kept them from sticking in mud, but it didn’t make riding any easier, even when the tiles were even. Wind rose from the west, before darker skies. The world trembled on the edge of a storm. A little fear, but more anticipation. Tips of trees and birds animated, and at the edge of her vision shadows again lingered, vanished with her attention. When it rained, she opened her mouth to the sky.

Those she passed were still unconcerned with her, and when she reached the next village, the local conscripts seemed only concerned whether she had the coin for their toll. As she passed through, she saw Knights in violet in a small palisade, but they left the grunt work to the townsmen — a laxness for which Adria was grateful.

Adria did not linger, and was gracious enough to not draw suspicion. The man counting her toll seemed less concerned with her odd dress, she realized, than with the shape underneath. He patted her knee before waving her through. Her face reddened.

“This is the way it works, then...” She said to herself.
It could be worse, should they mean to take their toll in kind instead of coin.

The days passed mostly the same. Her anxiety at having to keep the horse at a walk was rapidly replaced by the agony of her riding muscles — every muscle, really, for even at a slackened pace, the hard unevenness of the road jarred her limbs to the bone.

More than once, as she had the horse lodged, washed, and even once re-shod, she nearly resolved to send her home early and walk the rest of the way. But after the third morning, in the north past Rightshaw and beyond the Steps of Amos, her subsequent awakenings were a little less stiff, and she set her jaw in stubborn defiance, her feet firmly in the stirrups.

Adria grew more careful with her coin as she went, and was astonished at the tolls collected at each settlement and bridge, even for someone with no cart or pack animals.
They prepare for war, of course.

Occasionally, a Knight asked her a routine question about her identity or destination, but her fabrications were received with disinterest. None of them had the sense or intuition of Lady Marbury, although it helped that she spent her nights in places where she could hear the local speech, to better her accent the following day.

After Rightshaw the road again met the border of a forest, where travelers likely poached from whichever lord held claim. Adria could soon see that there was some sort of disturbance ahead — dust rising above the horizon, the sounds of work, of metal and stone, and sun glistening off of steel. Finally, black and violet standards waving in the wind and sunlight.

Knights of Darkfire,
Adria realized, wondering,
How many? An army?

She reined in a moment just off of the road to consider.

There was certainly more traffic on the road than before, and Adria could soon see it was diverted a little to the east, onto a fresh dirt path now muddy and already half-blocked by merchant carts glutted in the mud, where Adria could almost hear the curses of the wagon master as his guards and servants worked to lever and push the vehicles back onto safe purchase.

Adria looked straight ahead and now saw the source of the dust itself. “They’re fixing the road,” she realized. For a moment, she felt a sense of satisfaction, seeing that the Knights were being put to good use, remaking the old stone road which had been laid down by a Somanan army some hundred years before.

Then she remembered the purpose to which the Somanans had put the road, and the likely purpose for its current repair. They cared far more for moving armies than trade caravans. Her father had ordered similar repairs, she remembered, when she had been only a child. He had even built the first northern road to the Violet West.

Each coin I give paves the way for a swifter victory,
Adria shook her head sadly.
This will indeed be a banner year for the Knights of Darkfire, and I will not be standing among their enemies.

Adria pulled her palfrey away to the right, a little into the forest itself, preferring wolves and poachers to either Knights or merchants.

It was slower going, to be sure, but the underbrush was not too thick, and Adria had a good sense of how to avoid the brambles and inclines most unwelcome to her horse. Before long, Adria again had the sense she was being watched, even as she welcomed the familiarity of the environment.