Shadow War - Deborah Chester [32]
Servants came down the steps with tray of tall silver cups. Caelan could already smell the sweetness of honeyed mead on the men’s breath, but they drank deeply and with gusto, then climbed onto their mounts. There was a momentary milling about with horses prancing and men flinging back fur-trimmed cloaks over their shoulders; then they were off at a gallop.
Caelan rode as one of them, galloping down the mountain road that wound through the hills overlooking the western crescent of the city. There were no servants along, and no soldiers for protection. The prince and his friends feared no brigands.
It was a sweet night, crisp and still in the way of Imperia winters. The hills stretched and rolled down toward the sea that was inky black in the indigo twilight. Stars began to glitter in the sky, except to the north, where a black cloud spread dark fingers across the horizon. A storm must be coming in, although it was strange to see one approach from that direction. Just looking at it gave Caelan an involuntary shiver he could not explain.
Owls flew on silent wings, eerie hunters among the trees.
Something in all the quiet stillness unsettled Caelan. He had the feeling of being followed, of being watched, a niggling uneasiness that he could not dismiss. He glanced back several times, but nothing came behind them. He gazed into the sky, wondering what seemed amiss. Were he in Trau, he could dismiss his fears as simple nervousness about the wind spirits that hunted at night. But there were none here. Men came and went freely in the darkness. During the blistering Imperia summers, residents left the windows of their houses open all night long with a fearlessness that left him amazed.
He told himself to stop imagining things. They were unlikely to be set upon by robbers. They were not being followed. Yet his fingers itched for a dagger hilt. And his heart beat faster with every passing minute. It was forbidden for a slave to carry weapons, but if necessary he would appropriate arms from one of the men around him.
Yet his worries proved groundless. Without incident, they rode past quince trees marking the property boundaries of expensive villas. Here and there lights glimmered in the distance, and the distant strains of lute music or merrymaking could be heard.
Caelan glanced back yet again, and one of the others looked his way.
“Is something following us?”
“No,” Caelan said. “I see nothing.”
The other man shrugged, and Caelan told himself to stop imagining things.
Every gate and every house they passed flew the red imperial banner tonight in honor of the empress. Red could be seen everywhere, fluttering from rooftops, windows, gates, and walls. A full week of festivities was still to come; then the coronation would conclude the celebrations.
Caelan had noticed when they left tonight that no imperial banner flew at the prince’s gate. Only Tirhin’s banner hung over his house. It was a deliberate slight, a deliberate defiance. It was bound to cause trouble.
Tirhin had always seemed to be an easygoing prince, apparently content to let nature take its course with his long-lived father. If he desired the throne, he seemed patient about it. He defied the emperor in small ways, typical of any son with fire in his veins, but politically he had always been loyal.
But since what was obviously to be the last marriage of Emperor Kostimon barely a year past, the prince’s mood had grown progressively darker, his temper more brittle. The announcement that the lady would be crowned empress sovereign instead of merely empress consort had snapped something in the prince. In recent days he had been showing his disgruntlement