The Born Queen - J. Gregory Keyes [64]
Aspar took a deep breath. Could he tell Emfrith about the geos? Then the boy could kill him or imprison him long enough to get Winna away from him.
It was worth a try.
“You remember where I got the berries that cured you from the woorm’s poison?”
“The Sarnwood witch, they say.”
“Yah.” There was a price for that. “She told me that Fend was going to kill Winna if I don’t stop him.”
He wanted to scream, but he couldn’t.
“Look,” he said desperately. “You said Winna dreamed I would be here?”
Emfrith nodded. “Does she often have premonitions?”
“No!” Aspar replied. “No, she—” But that was all he could manage. He was like a strangpoppet in a children’s farce.
“We’ll go to Ermensdoon for supplies and the rest of my men,” Emfrith said. “And I’ll send out a few scouts to see if they can get a better idea of how far behind you they are. You killed the wyver; maybe they’ve lost you entirely.”
“Maybe,” Aspar said dubiously.
The ride to Ermensdoon wasn’t a comfortable one. Winna rode near him, and Emfrith wasn’t far away. Leshya hung back, but that didn’t do much good. No one wanted to talk in front of everyone, so they mostly went in silence.
Ermensdoon was an old-fashioned hill castle with a square central tower and a stout wall. It sat on a little stub of a mound surrounded by a moat so old and unused that it had reverted mostly to a marsh of cattails and river grass and was currently home to a number of ducks and coots.
“There’s a newer fortress a league south,” Emfrith told him. “A full garrison marched up from Eslen last nineday. I reckon the queen thinks Hansa may try a march to the Warlock and then take boats down. My father gave me Ermensdoon when I was little. Before that, it hadn’t been lived in for a generation.”
Aspar didn’t really have anything to say to that, so he didn’t speak. Soon enough they were inside, anyhow, and he was in a small chamber in the tower. He was supplied with several cotton shirts, a pair of sturdy riding breeches, and calfskin boots. The thickset fiery-headed fellow who had brought them looked him over.
“What sort of broon you favor?”
“Boiled leather,” Aspar said.
“I can come up with a steel one, I think.”
“I’m not a knight. Steel doesn’t suit me: too heavy. Leather will do.”
“I can make one in a couple of days.”
“We’re in more of a hurry than that, I think,” Aspar said.
“I’ll start it, but I’ll see what else I might have on hand,” the redhead replied.
“Thanks,” Aspar said.
Then the fellow was gone, leaving him to his worries.
But not for long. The knock came that he had been both hoping for and dreading; when he opened the door, Winna stood there.
“Are you unpoisoned now?” she asked.
“I reckon.”
“You’ll kiss me, then, or I’ll know why.”
It seemed like a very long time since he had kissed her, but the taste came right back to him, and he remembered the first time his lips had met hers. He’d just encountered a monster then, too: his first. And the surprise of her kiss had easily matched the shock of seeing a kinderspell beast come to life.
The kiss went on a little longer than its sincerity. Too many questions were behind those lips.
They pulled apart, and Winna smiled.
“So,” Aspar said, glancing down at her belly.
Her eyebrows went up. “I hope that’s not a question,” she said. “Aspar White, I truly hope you’re not asking a question.”
“No,” he said quickly. “But, ah, when?”
“When do you think? In your tree house, back when we first saw the woorm.”
Cold crept along his spine. Winna had conceived the same day she’d been poisoned by the woorm. Of course she had.
“That’s not the look I was hoping for,” she said.
“I’m just—I’m trying to take this all in,” Aspar said.
“Yah, well, me too. Where have you been, Aspar? And what, by any damn saint, is she doing with you?”
“That’s a long story.”
“Does it start with you leaving me here?”
Aspar wasn’t sure what that was supposed to mean, but he nodded. “Yah.”
“Well, tell me.”
“Sit down, then.”
She took a seat on the bed.
“I went off after the woorm, followed it for a long time up through the