The Crow God's Girl (28 page)

Balafray snarled and they fell back. Ceremoniously, Grigar handed her the letter with a bow.

“She said she wants to meet with you, and asks you to come to see her.”

Kate chuckled.

“She just didn’t want to be seen coming to me,” she said.

“But she had a pretty excuse for it,” Grigar said, grinning. “Your coming to her would make it clear that you have the right to move freely in Salt.”

“Ah, good point.” She scanned the letter again. Lady Trieve had a fine hand and chose only a few words where others would have been more long-winded.

Lady Temia, greetings. I am looking forward to our meeting. I am sure you have as many questions of me as I have of you. Please join me this evening. We await your arrival.

Lady Trieve, and what a pretty flourish she added to the name. Lady Trieve had a well-trained hand. And was that a royal we? Probably not–she meant that she would not be alone. So she would have to bring her own companions. Grigar of course, Balafray for the intimidation factor, and Ossen, for her friendship and to have another woman involved–not to mention to counter Balafray’s frightening presence.

“Tamra, will you keep an eye on things here?”

The crow snorted. “They’ll not stir without my permission.”

Anticipation stirred up the butterflies in her stomach and she took a deep breath to calm her nerves. Lady Trieve was smart, and she had reason to be favorably disposed toward Kate already. It was a lot of goodwill right there.

She just had to make sure she didn’t squander it.

“I had expected treachery from Kenery,”
Terrick said in his dour way. “Not you, Salt.”

“The crow army sits outside my walls, Terrick. What would you have me do?”

They were in Salt’s chambers, the door closed and guarded against listeners. Colar watched his elders, his cup of wine unheeded at his elbow. He was listening but with only half his attention. All he could think about was Kate. He had never seen her so beautiful, so sure of herself, yet looking as if she were edged with ice.

She never even looked at him.

“It is not treachery to complain about the way you’ve used me, Terrick,” Kenery said, complaining. “I’ve done my part. I’ve given my daughter, lent my name, and committed my men. You’ve dragged me all across Aeritan and abused my wife and daughter. And now it looks as if we are outsmarted. Well, you can’t blame Kenery. I am blameless in this venture.”

Salt looked as if he had a headache. He closed his eyes and pressed a finger against his forehead. “Did you have no notion whatsoever of the girl’s plans, Terrick?”

“Leave the girl out of it,” Terrick snapped. Colar knew the signs. His father was on his last nerve.

Salt laughed. “I’d say the girl is very much in it. She sat there cool as you please, and told us all to go to the soldier’s god’s hell. If I had known she could raise an army, I wouldn’t have sold your son to Kenery after all. We could have just used her.”

Kenery tried to object, but since he couldn’t figure out if that was an insult aimed at him or at Terrick, he subsided.

“Look,” Salt went on, “What I mean is, what’s her game? Is she getting revenge for hurt pride, or is something more going on?”

“Ask the boy,” Kenery said, jerking his head sullenly at Colar. “He’s insulted my daughter enough over the little slut. He knows her nature better than anyone.”

Colar threw his cup of wine at Kenery’s face. The lord started and sputtered, wiping the stinging wine from his eyes and making things worse. Kenery bellowed with pain and lunged. Colar rose with a smooth motion and drew his sword.

“Stop!” Salt ordered.

“Colar!” Lord Terrick shouted at the same time.

“Tell the old fool to back down,” Colar said. He kept on his guard.

“You bastard whelp,” Kenery choked.

Salt looked between the two. “Kenery, sit down. This isn’t helping. Here.” He threw a fine linen cloth at the lord and Kenery used it to mop at the wine.

“Colar,” Terrick said again. His eyes narrowed as he kept his attention on Colar.

“Not
until
he sits and keeps his hand off his sword,” Colar said.

Kenery growled and flung his hand back exaggeratedly. “Satisfied?”

Slowly, Colar sheathed the sword.

“Enough of this,” Terrick said. “We need a plan.”

“Here’s my plan,” Kenery said, and the aggrieved tone was back. “We annul the puppy’s marriage to my daughter, and I take my men home. This is all your mess, Terrick, and none of mine. I’ll have nothing more to do with it.”

Why not? Favor would go back to Trieve, his father would go back to Terrick, and Janye could return to her spiteful, bickering, hateful House, where no doubt her father had another thuggish guardsman he could marry her off to. Everything would return to normal, except for Kate, sitting in her House in the north, Lord of Temia.

“No,” growled Lord Terrick. “You are in it if I have to hold your feet to the fire, Kenery. Favor is ours. The crows are rabble. They are nothing against a trained force. Even added to Favor’s scant men and Trieve’s, we still have them.”

Kate to the north, Lady of Temia, himself to the south, Lord of Favor.

“Lord Kenery,” Colar said, “When Favor is mine, I will send Janye home with pleasure.”

The look the old bull gave him was sour with frustrated rage. Salt gave a cough that was suspiciously like a laugh.

“Well then,” Salt said, as urbanely as ever. “Now that that’s squared away, we can shift our pieces into place. Tactics, my lords. Tactics. More wine?”

Colar pushed himself to his feet. Soldier’s god, he wanted to get out of there.

“I have my own tactics for the moment, Lord Salt. Let me talk to her. I’ll find out for sure what she’s up to.”

Salt gave an appreciative nod, and Kenery glared. His father looked at him with narrowed eyes, as if he didn’t know what to make of his son. Colar bowed and left them to their plans. He had no intention of finding out what Kate was up to, but he did intend to find her.

He hadn’t taken more than twenty paces when he ran into his wife and mother-in-law loitering at the end of the hall. Cursing inwardly, he gave a barely respectful bow.

“Colar, dear son,” Janye’s mother said, with an anxious smile. “Does this mean your council is over with Lord Kenery? We hoped to see him soon, you see.”

“We are still busy, my lady mother,” he said. “I’m away on related business.”

“I see. Well, do you think it would be an impertinence to knock?”

“I think, ma’am, that it would be. They discuss weighty matters of war... and such.”

Janye gave her usual sour look. Serve you right, your face to freeze that way, he was tempted to tell her.

“Meaning, nothing for us to know about,” she said.

“Exactly,” he said, curt.

“I need to talk to you,” she said, equally as abrupt.

High god. Not now
. “I’m busy, as I said.” He made to go past them but Janye put herself in front of him. Her expression was hard. They hadn’t been in such close proximity–he couldn’t remember when.

“Oh!” Janye’s mother said, giving her daughter a meaningful look. “Let me leave you, then. I’ll just be off. Janye, find me when you and Colar are finished.” The busy little woman hurried off, leaving them alone in the dimly lit corridor.

Colar nodded, a muscle jumping in his cheek. “My quarters are this way.” He led the way down the hall, and opened the door to the guest room he shared with his father.

His father demanded precision and orderliness and so the room was neat, the gear stowed neatly, the beds made. Colar ushered his wife in and gestured her to sit in the chair. He lit a few lamps and waited for her to speak.

“Colar–”

Had she ever called him by his name?

“Yes, Janye?”

“I am... sorry for the way I treated you,” she managed, struggling to get the words out. “I let my anger at my father and mother influence my actions. You see...”

He didn’t want to hear it. “We don’t have to know everything about one another, Janye,” he said, with a mean stab of satisfaction. She flushed, and abruptly gave up a plan to try to cozen him.

“I’ve changed my mind about this marriage,” she said. “I will be your wife and join with you after all.”

He laughed at her. Janye bridled, and her expression became one of fury.

“How dare you–”

“What kind of fool do you take me for?”

“You are every kind of fool,” she shot back. “I don’t like you, and I certainly don’t love you. But if that girl gets away with her plans, not only will you never have Favor, the balance tilts in Council, and it will be a disaster.”

“And you lying with me helps that cause how?”

“It will force my father’s hand. He won’t be able to annul the marriage once we have lain together.”

So Kenery had told her of his plans to get out of the alliance. Instead of rejoicing, Janye had clearly seen how disastrous that would be.

“Listen,” she said. “Favor is not what is at stake here.” She got up and paced, frustrated by the small space. She turned, her skirts whispering, and her expression, usually disdainful, was intent. “Lie with me. I will bear your children. And then we’ll have Kenery, not Favor.”

He was repelled by her but it was an attractive proposition. Kenery was a larger, more influential House than Favor, sitting on the river and controlling the gateway to Brythern and other countries. Plus, he could build the bridges that already soared across the river in his mind’s eye. A true lord of Kenery, not the pompous blowhard who ruled it now, could become more powerful even than Salt or Red Gold Bridge. There was one major obstacle, though. Janye could not inherit Kenery. Her baby brother was heir. Kenery would have to die before the House passed on, and though Colar would not be sorry if that happened tomorrow, he would not hasten his death; nor would he move against the baby.

“How?” he said, wondering what perfidy she planned. She relaxed, but he could tell she knew she didn’t have him yet. She licked her lips, proceeding carefully.

“My father wants to slip the bonds that tie him to Terrick and Salt. He was telling my mother and me that just today. Renounce Favor, and he will be grateful. I will be grateful. He will reward you, and you will not regret it.”

“He’ll reward me with his House?” What she was proposing was treachery against his father, and even more so, blasphemy. The high god summoned the lord to the land, though men were known to nudge the god now and again. He wondered how much of a nudge she planned for her House.

“Of course not. The high god will choose for Kenery, as he has always done. But he will choose the right lord. My dear little brother, so tender in years, so innocent, will be unable to take up the lordship for years to come. My lady mother is not fit for governing and so it would reasonable to expect that you and I would be his council until he comes of age.”

Reasonable. In the event of Lord Kenery’s untimely death, his daughter meant to wrest her brother’s house away from him, under the guise of council. And he would be her conspirator. Bile rose into his throat. He got up and opened the door for her.

“Go.”

The familiar flash of anger crossed her face, but she managed to stay calm. She collected herself and swept out. She went down the passage and he watched her go, then blew out the lamps and closed the door.

Soldier’s god, I can’t wait to be rid of her and her whole family.

The palazzo was crowded with lords and
servants, ablaze with lamplight, and warmed by flickering braziers where people stood chatting, gossiping, or scheming, depending upon their natures. Colar pulled up the collar of his half-cloak against the evening chill and stepped out, keeping a wary eye for enemies. When the crowd noise rose in an excited buzz, he turned with everyone else to see what was the matter.

Kate walked up with three of her crows, their weapons at the ready. Her hair gleamed in the lamplight with the tiny pearls that decorated it, and she stood out in her rich and foreign clothes. The buzz of the crowd dropped away.

She saw him at the same moment.

He saw her hesitate, then say something to her guards. They didn’t look happy but they dropped back and she crossed the palazzo to meet him.

For the first time in months, they were face to face. She was much thinner than when he saw her last. Her face was pale with a few freckles over her nose. Her lips were chapped and he remembered that she must have been spending most of her days outside, on the road. She was a crow now.

But of course she wasn’t. She was Kate, not a crow. Not Lady Temia. He had to work hard not to grin in relief and happiness. He could explain. He could be forgiven. He almost took her hand, then remembered and stopped himself.

“Hi,” he managed awkwardly.

She arched a brow. He never remembered her doing that before.

“‘Hi?’” she asked.

His cheeks flamed. He didn’t know what to say; how could he explain anything here, in the middle of a palazzo?