Snowflakes swirled in the air.
“You mustn’t brood, Inos,” Shandie said.
Brood? She choked back an angry retort, for of course he was right. She had been brooding, about Kadie. She would never forgive herself for what had happened to Kadie—or was going to happen to Kadie, abducted by a horde of savages. Kadie filled her nightmares and was waiting for her when she awoke and haunted her days. She had very little hope of ever seeing her husband again, but the thought of doing so and then having to tell him of her folly and the loss of Kadie was unbearable.
“No,” she said. “Who am I to argue with the Gods?” Shandie raised an eyebrow. The abrasions on his face had mostly healed now, or been covered over by his beard. He was a ragged, dirty, disreputable excuse for an imperor. Not that she was a notable example of queenhood. “What about the Gods?”
“When Rap spoke with the Gods, They told him he would have to lose one of the children.”
Shandie eased himself to a more comfortable position on the load and adjusted his fur cover. He frowned. “You didn’t tell me that!”
She almost asked why she should have, when he kept secrets from her. Discretion prevailed, and she restrained her temper. “Then I forgot. That’s all, really, typical divine vagueness. They wouldn’t say which child, or how. They implied that all this mess was Rap’s fault.”
“It’s not his fault, but he caused it without meaning to.”
“He doesn’t know how.”
“He does now.”
“Well, you didn’t tell me that!” She had discovered that Shandie was a very taciturn man. He asked a lot of questions and volunteered very few answers. He had not yet told her about the magic scrolls. Raspnex had, and she was grateful to the warlock for that—it was wonderful to know that Rap had been in good health as recently as a few days ago—but the imperor had not seen fit to trust her with that information. In a week, she had not penetrated his shell, and he still refused to say exactly where Rap had gone. She could understand the reasoning, but it rankled.
He grunted. “Sorry. The warlock explained to us, that night in Hub. There used to be an unlimited supply of magic. Rap cut it off somehow. Apparently he thought he was doing a good deed, but he had made it impossible for the wardens to counter Zinixo’s Covin. It had something to do with Faerie. I don’t know the details—do you?”
She shook her head. “It hurts him to talk about sorcery.” For a few minutes neither spoke. The wagon lurched and jangled over rocks and hummocks. This was the least uncomfortable of the wagons, laden mostly with the party’s tents and a mountain of leather. Dwarves had curious ideas about loot. Several wagons carried gold and silver and were unbearably knobby and noisy to ride in. Others were full of rope, canvas, alum, and fuller’s earth. Given the same chances, jotnar would have taken spices and dyes, works of art and fine fabrics. Dwarves spurned those as impractical conceits.
“But the God’s message is interesting,” the imperor said. “Did They say that Rap must lose a child, or you yourself must, or both of you?”
“I don’t know.”
“They can be very cruel, Inos, but They rarely add to Their punishments by foretelling them. Perhaps They meant only one child? They may have intended Their words as a comfort for you.”
“Perhaps They meant he would lose one and I another? As I recall, They implied that one child was a minimum. Frankly, I think we are all doomed!”
“Don’t ever give up hope!” Shandie said sternly. “If They specified one child, then They had reason to do so, and They gave the message to Rap, not to you. If They foresaw these events happening and being important, then the circumstances must be ordained and therefore not your fault. I think you have cause for hope there, Inos. Trust in the Good!”
There was just enough difference in their ages for him to seem young to her. Pomposity and youth were an unpleasant blend. He was imperor by right of birth and he could claim to be on a diplomatic mission at the moment, but in truth he was a penniless refugee and more or less a prisoner of war. He had blundered into an ambush and almost died because of it; he had even lost a letter Rap had written to her, which she resented unreasonably. Again she suppressed a snippy reply.
“I expect you’re right. And I am not the only one with loved ones in danger. I think you were doing some brooding yourself.”
He smiled weakly. “Perhaps a little. I have had several hundred predecessors on the Opal Throne, and not one of them was ever overthrown by a dwarf!” He had evaded the question.
“Who knows? Your subjects believe you still reign. Who can say what hoaxes may have been carried out in the past?”
“Perhaps. But I am the first imperor ever captured by goblins!”
There was no denying that humiliation. “I meant to ask you,” Inos said, making a digression more tactical than tactful. “You had a companion who escaped?”
“A man by the name of Ylo, a superb horseman. I think he escaped.”
“So where will he have gone?” Shandie grimaced.
“Well?” she demanded, shutting the trap.
“I think he will have gone back to tell my wife.” Shandie would lecture for hours about his dreams for the Impire, about justice and equitable taxation and the rule of law, but in the last week he had not once mentioned his wife.
“Tell me about her.”
He sighed. “Eshiala? She is the most beautiful woman in the world.”
“You love her deeply?” “Beyond words.” “What’s she like?”
He shrugged. “Tall,. . . Not as tall as you, but she’s pure imp, of course—no offense meant. Dark coloring, naturally. Face, figure . . . How can I describe perfection?”
“Well, apart from that?” Inos persisted. “What does she enjoy?”
“Enjoy?”
“Yes. Does she like music? Dancing? Riding?”
“I . . . I’m not . . . She’s a marvelous dancer now. I mean, she was always naturally graceful but . . . ” His voice trailed off uncertainly.
“How long have you been married?”
“Three years—but we’ve been apart a lot of that time, you understand. We were only together a few weeks after the wedding and . . . And I was terribly busy after I got back to Hub last summer.”
“Too busy, you mean?” she inquired, wielding her best harpoon smile, spoiling the effect with a sudden grunt as the wagon lurched into an especially bad pothole.
“Much too busy—my grandfather was in his dotage and had almost let the Impire fall apart. Ylo helped me stick it back together again.”
Friend Shandie was very good at manipulating conversation. Perhaps it was a military thing—feints, diversions, attacks deflected. Inos thought of several pertinent comments and discarded all of them. Instead she asked, “How old is she, the impress?”
“Er, twenty.”
“It must be very hard for her.” Married at seventeen to a man who disappeared after a few weeks and left her with child? Married to a man so busy that he didn’t have time to entertain her when he got back? Inos had a vague memory that the prince imperial had married a commoner. To be promoted to the highest rank of the aristocracy at seventeen would be a shattering experience for a girl who had any sensitivity at all. Inos also suspected that the imperor did not know his wife nearly as well as he thought he did, or should.
“Tell me about this Ylo man.”
“My signifer. A soldier, an aristocrat. He was quite a hero in the army.”
“Young? Old?” “Young.”
After a long pause, the imperor added, “A bit of a rogue. Good-looking.”
“So that’s why you were brooding!”
The imperial eyes flashed angrily. “What do you mean by that?”
“He thinks the goblins killed you?”
“It would be a reasonable assumption.”
Inos sighed and then smiled sympathetically at the troubled young man beside her. “We were both brooding and we both have much to brood about.”
He nodded. “Yes, I’m afraid we do. I trust my wife absolutely, you understand, but if she believes she is a widow, then she will have to consider our child’s welfare.” For a while the imperor stared blankly out at the rolling moorland, doubtless imagining his wife married to the handsome signifer.
“She is physically safe, though,” Inos said. “Or I assume she is. That’s one comfort.”
“True. Whereas your lambs are not.”
“And few women are as fickle as most men fear. She will be very unusual if she forgets her love for you and throws herself into another man’s arms right away. Two years is a normal mourning period—I don’t mean legally, I mean it takes that long to recover from a bereavement. You will just have to hurry back to her as soon as you can.”