The Born Queen - J. Gregory Keyes [36]
“It hardly took us out of our way,” the Hansan replied. He gestured north and east. “The old Nean Road is just over that hill, and that will bring us to the Vitellian Way in a few bells.”
“Thank you just the same.”
“William was a good man,” Aradal said. “An opponent, usually, but I liked him. I am sorry for his loss, Muriele.”
She smiled a thin smile Neil had come to understand was her alternative to screaming.
“Thank you,” she said. “And now, by all means, let us go. I would not have us miss the feast you describe that awaits us at the inn at Bitaenstath.”
“I would not have you miss your first taste of Hansan hospitality,” the duke replied.
Muriele’s smile tightened, and this time she did not reply.
And so they went on, the road taking them through fields of spelt and wheat that rose high enough to hide an army of murderers. Neil saw a malend high on a hill, its four great sails turning rather quickly in the breeze from the sea. It was the first he had seen since leaving Newland, where they were used to keep water out of the poelen. But what was this one doing? Why was it here?
As promised, within a few bells they met the Vitellian Way, the longest road in the world. It had been built by the Hegemony a thousand years before, and it stretched more than a hundred leagues from z’Irbina in Vitellio to Kaithbaurg in the north.
Neil had traveled the southern portion of the road and had found it well kept, stoutly embanked, and wide enough for two carriages to pass.
Here it was hardly more than a pair of deep wain ruts. The old Vitellian bed of the road seemed barely there.
The women stayed in saddle for a bell or so and then retired to the carriage that the Hansans had brought along with their twenty horses.
Why only twenty?
He became aware of another rider at his flank.
“Sir Neil,” the young man said. “I don’t know if you remember me.”
“I know the name of every man in this party, Sir Edhmon,” Neil assured him. “When I saw that you had joined the Craftsmen, I picked you for this duty.”
“But you hardly know me, Sir Neil.”
“You fought on my left flank at the battle of the waerd,” Neil replied. “I do not need long walks in the gardens with you to know what I need to know.”
The young man blushed. “It was my first battle,” he said. “You inspired me to something I never dreamed myself capable of.”
“Whatever you are, it was in you before you met me,” Neil replied.
“I don’t know about that,” Edhmon said, shaking his head.
“Well,” Neil said, searching for a reply.
They rode on in silence.
They reached the looming fortress of Northwatch while the sun was settling into a bed of high western clouds. The sky was still blue, but the slanting light was copper and brass, and the white walls of the castle, the verdance of the fields, and the still-blue sky made such a pretty picture that war seemed very far away.
And yet Northwatch, despite its sunset patina, had been built for nothing but war. Its walls were thick and from the top it would appear as a six-pointed star, so that the outside of each section of wall was defensible from the inside of another. It was a new design, and Neil reckoned the ramparts were no more than ten years old.
The keep was a different story. Its weathered and vine-etched stone formed four walls with a squat tower at each corner. Clearly a fancy new fortification had been thrown up around a very old castle.
Six riders met them, four of them in lord’s plate. As they approached, they doffed their helmets, and the oldest-looking one let his horse step forward.
The carriage door swung open, and Muriele stepped out. The riders dismounted and knelt.
“It’s good to see you, Marhgreft Geoffrysen,” Muriele said. “Please rise; let me embrace you.”
The marhgreft looked to be sixty-five at least. His iron-gray hair was cropped to his skull, and his eyes were that blue that always startled.
“Highness,” he said, rising. Muriele crossed to him and gave him a perfunctory embrace. Then the marhgreft bowed again, this time to Aradal, with a good deal less enthusiasm.
“My lord,