The Born Queen - J. Gregory Keyes [70]
“Majesty?” Mother Uun asked, concern in her voice.
Anne realized she had tears running down her face. She shook back her hair and pulled back her shoulders.
“Nerenai of the House Sern, I would be pleased if you would join my ladies. But you must understand that there is war, and I will be in it, and you will be in danger.”
“We are all in danger,” Nerenai replied. “I am most honored to accept your invitation.
Anne felt something like a little curl of flame flicker up her spine.
This is a mistake, the woman said.
Maybe. But it’s my mistake. I make my own decisions.
The only answer to that was a derisive chuckle. Then the heat was gone.
CHAPTER FIVE
A STORM IN HANSA
NEIL UNBUCKLED his breastplate and, wincing, eased it down to the floor. He gazed at his murky reflection on its untarnished surface and sighed.
A tap came at the door of his tiny room.
“You’re welcome in,” he said.
The door pushed open, and Alis stood there, looking pretty in a yellow gown.
“Congratulations,” she said.
He nodded. “Thank you.”
“You don’t seem very happy,” she noticed. “Let me guess: You’re disappointed he ran like a dog.”
“He withdrew,” Neil replied.
“You were chasing him,” Alis chortled.
Neil shrugged, which hurt. “I’m sad for him.”
“But didn’t you mean that to happen? Wasn’t it all bluff on your part?”
“I wasn’t bluffing,” Neil said. “He wouldn’t have believed me if I was bluffing. There’s nothing more frightening to a man who wants to live than an opponent who doesn’t.”
“Ah. So you don’t want to live?”
“My sword arm is bad, and my other is worse. The skill in my head has no way to my hands, and I won’t win a fight again by being the better swordsman. Not caring is the only weapon I have left. I won’t kill myself, mind you. But my next foe may not flinch, and that will be that.”
“You aren’t fully healed yet.”
He smiled grimly. “No. But I don’t think it will be much better when I am.”
“Well, cheer up. Today you’ve won, and in the best way. Humiliating Sir Alareik is better than killing him. The story is already growing; they say it was your face that broke his will, that your eyes were burning like the sun, that one was as large as a dinner plate and none could gaze straight at you, as if you were Saint Loy made flesh. They say no mere mortal could have stood against you.”
“If they couldn’t look at me, how did they see that my eye was as big as a dinner plate?”
“Now you’re looking for hair on an egg,” she said. “Rather than that, you ought to go father a few children; I think you’ll find plenty of offers tonight. And since you didn’t get any exercise in the fight…”
Neil sighed and began working at doffing the rest of the armor.
“I didn’t mean me, of course,” Alis said.
“Is there anything else, Lady Berrye?”
She folded her arms and leaned on the door frame. “Sir Neil, you haven’t yet seen your twenty-second winter. It’s too early to act the broken old man.”
“Thank you for your concern, Lady Berrye,” Neil said. “I promise you, I’m fine.”
“I’m going,” she said. “I tried. And I did come to tell you something: We’ll delay here another day and leave at cock’s crow tomorrow.”
“Thank you. I’ll be ready.”
The road got a little better as they moved deeper into Hansa, creeping over low hills, along broad fields of wheat guarded by scattered farmers’ steadings. Men in the fields watched them go by without much expression, but they passed a pair of little flaxen-haired girls who giggled and waved and then ran off to hide behind an abandoned granary. Muriele could still see them peeking from there until they were out of sight.
“This could almost be the Midenlands,” Muriele mused to Alis.
“Farmers are pretty much farmers,” Alis said, “whether they speak Hansan or Almannish.”
“I wonder if they even care if there is a war or who wins it.”
Alis stared at her. “Are you joking?”
“No. You just said farmers are farmers. Their lives will be much the same whoever taxes them.”
“Oh, yes, true, but in the meantime—during the war—their fields will be plundered