And the guilt never came.
The Queen slept soundly, without nightmare or dream. Even on the road, when rest was usually difficult. She found herself reinvigorated every morning she awoke in her tent or carriage. It was oddly easy to keep moving, and her convoy’s pace reflected her ambitious manner.
Autumn crept closer, the heat of summer breaking when they left the lowlands. Green hills rose as the procession climbed out of the fertile valley of the Great Lion, heading east. A fresh north wind rode the landscape, carrying the smell of pine from the Castlewood. It would be colder still at the Madrentine border, the winds angled by the mountains.
The final morning was crisp. Erida took advantage of it, electing to ride her horse rather than shutter herself up in the massive but stifling carriage. The cold air made her alert as a falcon, the hood of her emerald velvet cloak thrown back, her gloved hands tight on the oiled leather reins.
While some of her ladies were just as happy to escape their rolling box, a few grumbled, their voices low behind their hands. Erida heard them anyway, well accustomed to eavesdropping. She listened from her saddle, keeping her eyes on the Cor road ahead.
“The Queen sets a quicker pace than most armies,” Margit Harrsing, one of Lady Bella’s many nieces, chittered to her companions. Fiora Velfi, the daughter of a Siscarian duke, hmm-hmmed in her high voice, in neither agreement nor contradiction. The dark-haired young woman was better suited to intrigue than the rest, raised in the royal villa at Lecorra, a pit of vipers. She very rarely, if ever, gave her true opinion on anything.
The fourteen-year-old Countess Herzer, with ringlet curls as stupid as her instincts, didn’t bother to check her tone. “Her Majesty is eager to see her husband again,” she said, sending a smattering of laughter through the ladies. “I think it’s romantic.”
A tongue of fire went down Erida’s spine. She kept straight and still, but her lips pressed to nothing, her teeth clenched behind them, as she weighed her options. A woman in love is a woman in weakness, not to mention far from the truth, she thought. It won’t do for my ladies, and by extension my court, to think their queen reduced to a simpering, starry-eyed girl trailing after the first man to touch her.
But it is not useless either. Taristan stands in a precarious position. My favor keeps him steady, keeps him important. And that helps me maintain control over him, at the end of it all.
She elected not to answer, in either direction. Countess Herzer meant to be heard and wanted to draw a response. Erida of Galland would not give her the satisfaction. There was too much else at stake to be drawn into small-minded games.
Besides, she had not missed the way the ladies seemed to whisper about Taristan. Their conversations varied, assessing everything from his appearance to his stoic manner, but always returned to the way he had seemingly bewitched the Queen, winning her hand at first sight. For reasons you cannot fathom. It was frustrating, but ultimately, she was glad for their ignorance. And their expectations. It made her endeavors easier, if no one expected them of her.
The border with Madrence loomed, somewhere over the forested hills and down into another river valley. Erida imagined it like the lines on her map, starkly drawn, with a row of Gallish castles built up along the river, her soldiers strung between them like ropes of pearl. Their lines had held for years, the border country precarious, a stack of dry kindling that needed only a few sparks to burst into flame. Erida carried that candle with her now, ready to set all alight.
Madrence was a soft country made strong by flanking mountains and gentle neighbors. Siscaria cared only about its storied history, looking inward for glory, while Calidon kept to itself, hemmed within its own mountains and deep glens. Galland needed only reach out, now that the timing was right. Push south to the sea, storm the castles and the capital with such speed and force that their aging king could not help but surrender. Such a victory had not been won in decades, not since her grandfather’s time. Erida pictured raising the Lion over the Madrentine shores, at every palace and castle. How the people will love me then.
Taristan’s letter rode inside the lacings of her riding habit, the parchment brushing against her bare skin so Erida might not forget it. As if she could ever do such a thing. The jagged writing was like a scar, the ink burning her fingers as his hands had burned her skin.
We ride for your shifting borderlands. Ronin leads us to a hill with a broken castle, its slopes overgrown with thorns. Find me there.
The message had come only two weeks after he left, dispatched with speed.
No wonder my ladies talk, Erida admitted to herself. It took me only hours to follow.