She did not know. She could not even guess. Perhaps one day, years from now, she would risk trying to find out. But in any case she could not travel into the depths of the Hellers at the midwinter-season; most of the women who took leave for family visits lived no further away than Thendara or Hali, which was, perhaps, seven days ride.
In this desert country there were few signs of spring. One day it was cold, icy winds blowing and rain sweeping across the plains, and the next day, it seemed, the sun shone hot and Romilly knew that far away in the Hellers the roads were flooding with the spring-thaw. When she could work the horses, she took off her cloak and worked in a shabby, patched tunic and breeches.
With the spring came rumors of armies on the road, of a battle far away between Carolin’s forces and the armies of Lyondri Hastur. Later they heard that Carolin had made peace with the Great House of Serrais, and that his armies were gathering again on the plains. Romilly paid little heed. All her days were taken up with the new group of horses brought in to them early in the spring – they had put up a shelter for them and rented a new paddock outside the walls of the hostel, where Romilly went with the women she was training, every afternoon. Her world had shrunk to stables and paddock, and to the plain outside the city where they went, two or three days in every ten, to work and exercise the horses. One afternoon when they left the city and went out through the gates, leading the horses, Romilly saw tents and men and horses, a bewildering crowd.
“What is it?” she asked, and one of the women, who went out every morning to shop for fresh milk and fresh fruits, told her, “It is the advance guard of Carolin’s army; they will establish their camp here, and from here they will move down again across the Plains of Valeron, to give battle to King Rakhal,” her face twisted with dislike, and she spat.
“You are a partisan of Carolin, then?” Romilly asked.
“A partisan of Carolin? I am,” the woman said vehemently, “Rakhal drove my father from his small holding in the Venza Hills and gave his lands to a paxman of that greedy devil Lyondri Hastur! Mother died soon after we left our lands, and Father is with Carolin’s army – I shall ride out tomorrow, if Clea will give me leave, and try to find my father, and ask if he has word of my brothers, who fled when we were driven from our lands. I am here with the Sisterhood because my brothers were with the armies and could no longer make a home for me; they would have found a man for me to marry, but the man they chose was one Lyondri and his master Rakhal had left in peace, and I would not many any man who sat snug in his home while my father was exiled!”
“No one could blame you, Marelie,” said Romilly. She thought of her travels in the Hellers with Orain and Carlo and the other exiled men; Alaric, who had suffered even more from Lyondri Hastur than Marelie’s family. “I too am a follower of Carolin, even though I know nothing about him, except that men whose judgment I trust, call him a good man and a good king.”
She wondered if Orain and Dom Carlo were in the camp. She might go with Merelie, when she went to seek her father in the camp. Orain had been her friend, even though she was a woman, and she hoped he had come safe through the winter of war.
“Look,” said Clea, pointing, “There is the Hastur banner in blue with the silver fir-tree. King Carolin is in the camp – the king himself.”
And where Orain is, Carolin is not far away, Romilly remembered. That night in the tavern, when he had wanted her to make a diversion – had that shadowy figure to whom he spoke, been Carolin himself?
Would he welcome a visit from her? Or would he only find it an embarrassment? She decided that when next Jandria visited the hostel – she had been coming and going all year, on courier duty between Serrais and the cities to the south, Dalereuth and Temora – she would ask what Jandria thought.