Rye did not notice, too occupied with his soup. “Who might?”
“Her, the fancy one.” Pole dropped his voice to a whisper. She heard him clearly, as if he were shouting across the common room. He even pointed with a knobbled finger. “Came tromping in here like a knight in six feet of armor with a cloak to match.”
It took longer than it should have for Rye to follow. But finally he noticed Ridha at her table, her chair braced against the wall, her eyes fixed on her plate. “Oh right,” he said, clear he’d forgotten her completely. “Maybe she will.”
And then Pole really was shouting across the room, picking a scab on his neck as he did so. “Hey, do you know who the Queen’s marrying?” he said, his voice shrill and hard.
Ridha bit back the urge to cover her ears, remove herself, or remove him. I should have just stayed upstairs and stared at the wall.
“I beg your pardon?” she said instead, her voice soft from days of disuse.
The men exchanged a very patronizing roll of their eyes. “The Quee-een,” Pole said, drawing out the word. As if I’m completely stupid, even though I’m the one they’re asking for information. “Who’s she marrying?”
“Which queen?” Ridha replied, in an equally slow voice. There was a host of queens, mortal and immortal, reigning and consort, this side of the mountains and the Long Sea. Silently, she willed Nirez to recover quickly, so she might be free of this inn.
Rye blinked his mud-brown eyes. His mouth went a little slack and he looked to Pole in confusion. “There’s more than one queen?” he hissed under his breath.
Baleir save me.
Pole waved him off. “The Queen of Galland,” he said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “Queen Erida.”
“I can’t say I know much of her.” It was the truth. Ridha had not traveled far from Iona in twenty years, never riding west of the Monadhrion. The mortal lands changed so quickly, even in two decades. It was not worth recalling what she remembered of them.
The two men scoffed in unison. Now Pole really did think her stupid, an overly tall woman playing at knighthood in borrowed armor. “She’s been queen of this here kingdom for four years yet—you certainly should,” he sputtered.
A heartbeat in Elder time, Ridha thought. “I am sorry, but no,” she answered, dropping her eyes. “No idea who she might be marrying.” And no interest either.
The innkeeper’s wife bustled out from behind the bar, wiping her hands on her apron. She put herself between Ridha and the men, smiling at them as she cleared their table. It was no small reprieve when she took up the conversation.
“Must be a great prince. Or another king,” the woman said, balancing plates. “That’s how it works, don’t it? That lot always keep to each other. Keep things in the family, so to speak.”
While the men blustered between themselves over subjects they had no knowledge of, Ridha sat back in her chair. She felt oddly warm in her skin, though the fire was barely lit, and the room was cool and dim. All this talk of royalty and marriage put her off balance, for she was a princess herself, with a duty to a throne and an enclave like any other royal woman. Elders might live long, seemingly endless years, but there was still a need for heirs. Isibel Beldane and Cadrigan of the Dawn had not wed for love, but for strength, and for a child to keep the enclave when the Monarch could not. At least I have time, where mortals don’t. At least my mother does not force me into choices I don’t want to make. She felt warm again, a cloying heat at her collar. She frowned, fingers pulling at her tunic. Or does she? Is that not what this is? The rule of another driving me forward, in acquiescence or opposition?
She gritted her teeth, feeling the now all too familiar surge of anger in her chest. Cowards, she thought again. In Sirandel and Iona, where Elder warriors would rather sit and hide than fight. Dooming us with their fear.
The flow of ale did not stop. The innkeeper’s wife filled the men’s tankards with a bright smile, then Ridha’s, though she had no intention of drinking any more of the poorly made crop water. Still, she nodded in thanks all the same.
“So how about this proposition of Old Joe’s?” Pole was whispering again, raising a hand to hide his mouth. It did nothing to stop Ridha from hearing, though she wished she could not.
“Joeld Bramble is a loon,” Rye said, dismissive. “It’ll come to nothing. Don’t bother.”
Pole leaned forward on his elbows, too eager. He glanced around the room warily, as if the walls had suddenly grown ears. “Joeld Bramble has family on the coast. They said the Watchful’s been awfully quiet for this time of year. No Jydi, no raids. Not a single longboat spotted since last season.”