odd behavior ruffled Margriet. Truly, I doubted an outbreak of man-eating wasps could have made the formidable woman blanch. She ate her own provisions, slept like a fallen tree trunk, and jogged along on her mule, exhibiting not the least trace of curiosity.
As we rounded a curve on the lower slope, the view expanded to include the dark thumb of rock protruding from the river’s deepest channel. Ah, saints have mercy, little brother. Bleak, harsh, isolated, the Spindle Prison had been Ambrose’s entire world since he was fifteen. The sight choked my heart beyond bearing and roused a guilty urgency that distant imagining could not.
“Sonjeur, will I be permitted to visit my brother?” I said, nudging my mount up beside his. My ingrained hostility to Duplais suddenly seemed childish. “He is a hostage, not a convict. Yet he’s been allowed no visitors. I’ve petitioned, written letters . . .” Everything I could think of. Few had even bothered to reject my petitions.
“I’ve no influence with the Spindle warder, damoselle. You’ll need to take it up with him if your duties permit. Move along faster, if you please. Prod that balky ass, Mistress Margriet.” He spurred his mount well ahead of me.
If eyes could truly launch daggers, mine would have pierced his straight, slim back.
The highroad stretched like a braid of dust toward Merona. “The city gates are closed at sunset,” said Duplais, as our course merged with the city-bound traffic, “and the only hostelries outside the gates are wholly unfit—especially for women. Worse than we’ve seen.”
I doubted they were so dreadful. Duplais clearly detested traveling. His mouth had hardened at the rough accommodations, and he did naught but pick at the food we carried with us: dried meat, sweating cheese, and fruit sorely bruised by heat and saddle packs. At each juncture, he had offered terse apologies, as if I were a discommoded queen.
Unwilling to ease his discomfort, I had chosen not to mention that my father had often taken Lianelle, Ambrose, and me into the wild to sleep on the ground, snare our supper, and live “rough” when we were children. We had called ourselves the Gardia Ruggiere, and considered ourselves well prepared to take on King Philippe’s worst enemies. Who would have imagined a day would come when our goodfather would regard us as those very villains?
An hour of Duplais’ prodding, and we arrived at the clogged approaches to the city gates. Market carts laden with potatoes and beets, and wagons hauling wine casks, coal, tin pots, or anonymous crates of merchants’ wares were strung out fifty deep at a customs station bristling with soldiers. We three were halted in a queue of horse and foot traffic almost as long.
“Soul charm, damoselle? ’Tis Camarilla approved.” A pock-faced woman draped in dusty scarves dangled a glittering bracelet of glass and silver beads where the sunlight could catch it. “Protect thy sight and soul from haunts and daemons, spectres and ghoulies. Twenty kivrae only . . .” Her left hand rested on her right shoulder, exhibiting a blood family mark. Its smudged lines testified it to have been drawn with ink, however, and not the indelible birth-marking of the Camarilla.
I refused, and the woman moved on, deftly avoiding the scrutiny of a collared mage in the striped robe of a Camarilla inspector.
A sultry breeze off the river swirled the dust rolled up from cart wheels, boots, and hooves. As the orange-hazed sun slipped toward the horizon, the crowd of travelers grew fractious. Our line lurched toward the massive gate tunnel from time to time in the mode of a caterpillar. The thrumming in my ears worsened with every centimetre, making my cheekbones throb and my teeth ache.
“Will they truly shut the gates with all these people outside?” I asked, to take my mind off the unpleasant sensations. “We’re not at war.”
“It’s disturbances inside cause the gate closings.” Duplais did not
As we rounded a curve on the lower slope, the view expanded to include the dark thumb of rock protruding from the river’s deepest channel. Ah, saints have mercy, little brother. Bleak, harsh, isolated, the Spindle Prison had been Ambrose’s entire world since he was fifteen. The sight choked my heart beyond bearing and roused a guilty urgency that distant imagining could not.
“Sonjeur, will I be permitted to visit my brother?” I said, nudging my mount up beside his. My ingrained hostility to Duplais suddenly seemed childish. “He is a hostage, not a convict. Yet he’s been allowed no visitors. I’ve petitioned, written letters . . .” Everything I could think of. Few had even bothered to reject my petitions.
“I’ve no influence with the Spindle warder, damoselle. You’ll need to take it up with him if your duties permit. Move along faster, if you please. Prod that balky ass, Mistress Margriet.” He spurred his mount well ahead of me.
If eyes could truly launch daggers, mine would have pierced his straight, slim back.
The highroad stretched like a braid of dust toward Merona. “The city gates are closed at sunset,” said Duplais, as our course merged with the city-bound traffic, “and the only hostelries outside the gates are wholly unfit—especially for women. Worse than we’ve seen.”
I doubted they were so dreadful. Duplais clearly detested traveling. His mouth had hardened at the rough accommodations, and he did naught but pick at the food we carried with us: dried meat, sweating cheese, and fruit sorely bruised by heat and saddle packs. At each juncture, he had offered terse apologies, as if I were a discommoded queen.
Unwilling to ease his discomfort, I had chosen not to mention that my father had often taken Lianelle, Ambrose, and me into the wild to sleep on the ground, snare our supper, and live “rough” when we were children. We had called ourselves the Gardia Ruggiere, and considered ourselves well prepared to take on King Philippe’s worst enemies. Who would have imagined a day would come when our goodfather would regard us as those very villains?
An hour of Duplais’ prodding, and we arrived at the clogged approaches to the city gates. Market carts laden with potatoes and beets, and wagons hauling wine casks, coal, tin pots, or anonymous crates of merchants’ wares were strung out fifty deep at a customs station bristling with soldiers. We three were halted in a queue of horse and foot traffic almost as long.
“Soul charm, damoselle? ’Tis Camarilla approved.” A pock-faced woman draped in dusty scarves dangled a glittering bracelet of glass and silver beads where the sunlight could catch it. “Protect thy sight and soul from haunts and daemons, spectres and ghoulies. Twenty kivrae only . . .” Her left hand rested on her right shoulder, exhibiting a blood family mark. Its smudged lines testified it to have been drawn with ink, however, and not the indelible birth-marking of the Camarilla.
I refused, and the woman moved on, deftly avoiding the scrutiny of a collared mage in the striped robe of a Camarilla inspector.
A sultry breeze off the river swirled the dust rolled up from cart wheels, boots, and hooves. As the orange-hazed sun slipped toward the horizon, the crowd of travelers grew fractious. Our line lurched toward the massive gate tunnel from time to time in the mode of a caterpillar. The thrumming in my ears worsened with every centimetre, making my cheekbones throb and my teeth ache.
“Will they truly shut the gates with all these people outside?” I asked, to take my mind off the unpleasant sensations. “We’re not at war.”
“It’s disturbances inside cause the gate closings.” Duplais did not
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