Kings of the North - Elizabeth Moon [187]
“This is Arian of Lyonya,” Gwenno Marrakai was saying. “A former forest ranger, who brings news from Lyonya.”
Arian met the Duke’s gaze as Duke Verrakai turned to her.
“Are you one of Kieri’s messengers?” she asked. “I thought he was using King’s Squires now.”
“The message is not from him, my lord. Forest rangers asked me to bring you this word—best given in private, I would judge.”
“Very well,” the Duke said. “Be welcome here, and I will hear your news when we are warm inside.
“Settle your troop,” the Duke said to her squire. “Then eat dinner with us. Beclan left this morning for the south, so we will be a small group—Master Feddith has another of his headaches. You need not serve.”
“Yes, my lord.”
Arian followed the Duke to the house as Gwenno led her troop toward the stables.
“You’re a Knight of Falk, too,” the Duke observed, touching her own ruby. “Well met, Sister, and Falk’s grace to you.”
“And Falk’s honor be upon this house,” Arian said. She reached out, and they clasped hands in the Falkian greeting.
“You travel light for this season,” the Duke said, glancing at the light pack Arian carried.
“It’s my years as a ranger,” Arian said.
“Enter, and welcome. If you’ve been traveling for days, I expect you’d like a bath.”
“Yes, thank you, my lord,” Arian said.
The Duke beckoned to a neatly dressed servant with a light blue tabard. “Bel will show you to a chamber and make sure you have what you need,” she said.
Arian followed the servant upstairs and along a corridor to a room that looked out over a walled garden and orchard. She could hear shrill voices of children at play and looked out to see them scampering up and down paths at some game, their nursemaids standing by.
“The Duke’s children?” she asked Bel, wondering how a woman soldier had borne so many.
“No, lady. These are the old … the former … they were too young to be attainted, I mean. The Duke’s responsible for seeing they grow up good.”
Arian saw one—a boy, she thought—throw a lump of frozen mud at another and thought the Duke had her work cut out for her.
“The bathing room’s just along here, lady. I’ll have the water hot in no time.”
Soon Arian was bathed, dressed, and settled in a comfortable chair near the fire with a pot of sib and a plate of pastries; dinner, she’d been warned, would be some hours yet. “Someone will call me?”
“Oh, I’m sure my lord will come to you sooner,” Bel said. She had gathered up Arian’s clothes. “I’ll just take these downstairs to wash, and they’ll be ready for you in the morning.”
“Thank you,” Arian said. Shadows dimmed the garden and orchard below; she could hear shrill voices in the house now. She relaxed, muscle by muscle, letting her taig-sense reach out to the orchard. Fruit trees, some espaliered on the walls, answered her touch. A few, at one end of the orchard, were unhappy about something else … she concentrated. Bones? Children’s bones? And something else—the roots were turning back from whatever it was.
A knock on her door; she pulled her attention. “Come in,” she said. The door opened, and the Duke stood there without her chain of office.
“If you’re rested, I thought you might give me what message you brought before dinner.”
“Certainly,” Arian said. The Duke sat down in the chair on the other side of the fireplace. This close, Arian could see silver strands in her black hair. The ruby in her ear flashed red in the firelight.
“You look part-elven,” the Duke said.
“Half-elven, my lord,” Arian said. “My father was elven; my mother old-human, a farmer in western Lyonya, only two days from the border.”
“What news do you bring, then?”
“Six Verrakai trespassers attacked Lyonyan rangers; rangers killed them.” Arian repeated the descriptions. “They were buried with all their