From Darkness Won - Jill Williamson [79]
“I don’t blame Arman. I blame myself. If I hadn’t pushed so hard she—”
“If, Your Highness, is a word that will steal your soul. Do not waste your thoughts on ifs. What is done is done. Look to the future.”
Achan met Sir Eagan’s pale blue eyes. “What future?”
A soft smile spread across Sir Eagan’s face. “Despair does not become you, Your Highness. Do not lose sight of the goal.”
Achan looked at his lap. “Armonguard.”
“Precisely. Focus on Armonguard. Leave the rest to Arman.”
From the corner of Achan’s eye, he could see the dark maroon fabric tied to his arm. Another shadow that followed him everywhere. “But Câan told me if I submit to Him, He would give me the desires of my heart.” He glanced at Sir Eagan. “I thought He meant Sparrow.”
Sir Eagan chuckled. “Câan is not a wishing stone, Your Highness. What you think you desire now is not necessarily the most important thing. Câan has seen places in your heart that no man or woman will ever see. He knows your hopes for next year and thirty years from now. And He does not operate on man’s schedule. He will bless you in His time. But not necessarily in the ways you think you want now.”
No sense fretting, then. But for Achan, being calm never came naturally.
That night they made camp in a field. The soldiers in Achan’s division circled the wagons, creating a sentry wall around the camp with hundreds of tents erected inside.
Achan sat on the bed inside his tent, which was round and held up in the center by a single pole with dozens of spokes jutting out like a wheel. Solid brown on the outside so it would not appear special, the inside walls were covered in thick tapestries depicting vineyards and forests. It reminded him of Esek’s tent. The tent where Achan had found Sparrow unconscious and bruised, lying on Esek’s bed, dressed in that ridiculous gown. Achan’s tent had no hole in the center roof for the smoke of a fire, but it was big enough to hold a large bed on one side of the pole and a round table, three chairs, and all his new trunks on the other.
Esek’s tent. Just what had Esek been planning for Sparrow if Achan had not gotten there in time?
A darker idea crossed his mind. What if Esek had already done something vile to Sparrow before Achan had arrived? Esek had struck her, but Achan had not thought to inquire as to anything else. He hung his head. No wonder Sparrow had left. What woman would want a man who forgot to ask of her well-being after she had been kidnapped by a maniac? What woman would want a man who thought of taking her as a mistress along with his wife?
He was an insensitive fool.
A fool who would marry Lady Averella. Achan hoped to find her as agreeable as her mother, for that would be good fortune indeed. Perhaps Sir Eagan was right about the desires of his heart. Perhaps in time Lady Averella would become just that.
Achan walked to the entrance of his tent and lifted the flap.
Shung and Kurtz stood under a square valance that covered the entrance. They turned toward him.
“I feel like a bird in a cage,” Achan said.
“Come out then, Pacey,” Kurtz said, “so long as you don’t mind two extra shadows trailing after you, eh?”
Achan mumbled, “I suspect I’ll have extra shadows trailing me for the rest of my life.”
“Is that so bad?” Kurtz threw an arm around Achan’s shoulders. “Some of the men are reveling, they are. Shall we join them?”
The weight of Kurtz’s arm on Achan’s shoulder shocked his cham wounds. “I don’t feel like reveling. There is much on my mind.”
“And reveling will help you forget it for a few hours. What could be better, eh? Come on.”
Kurtz led Achan around a large double pole pavilion, past a series of triangular tents, around a round tent with a domelike roof, and past three tents that looked like tiny cabins. All were dark, solid colors—maroon, navy, emerald, brown—not striped or bright like the tents Achan had seen at the tournament in Sitna. Armonguard flags flapped in the wind atop each tent they passed.