Chapter 73: Safe Travels (3)

Chapter 73: Safe Travels (3)

JessicaJeshinkrahad received a letter. That was how it started. Shed been expecting friends of hers for a visit. Three from her unit, traveling a bit on their way home, leaving the safety of their caravan for a detour to this little town. This was not spring with its dragons, or winter with its lean hungry things. It was summer, the weather mild, and her village only a few days from where the caravan had parted ways with them. Still a risk, but. They were veterans, they were together, and there were towns they could shelter at along the way if they kept a good pace.

They were coming from the west. The letter came from the east. It arrived; they did not. She sat, and she read, and then she told her husband in no uncertain terms that he was to pack his things and leave their house and not return.

Her husbands hands twisted grass into rope as he told them this, methodical and mindless, a counter-twist that went first one way and then the other, the rope held together in the tension.

I was so angry with her, I didnt even argue. Intelligently. I argued, just not He let out a breath. I left.

Why did you think she sent you away? Adelaide asked.

The man laughed, once. A breath too painful to keep in. Shed been fighting on the border since she was of age. In the same unit, too. With the prince. Neither of them corrected him to king. They saved each others lives a few times. I never heard the end of it. I wasnt her first choice; I know that. But there was nothing in it for him. No grand dowry exchange with another blood noble house, no solidifying of allegiances. Nothing except her. And I told her, if that wasnt enough for a person, then they didnt deserve her. And she chose me. But then she gets a letter coming from the direction of the capital, and she sent me away. One letter, and Im gone. What was I supposed to think?

Well. He could have trusted that his wife really had chosen him, for one. But Aaron wasnt much a judge of that kind of thing, and the people that were seemed to put a lot of their mind towards imagining the worst, and getting angry over their imaginings. Love was an even more fickle thing than family, so far as he could tell.

Jessica turned away their friends, too. Her sister. Her mother. Her husband, again and again, when hed cooled down enough to think maybe there was more to this than the things his own mind had made.

She wedged shut the door of her goahti. Said we couldnt talk to her, or wed catch her plague.

Do not come near me, for the plague I have can spread through hearing. Her words, as relayed by Duke Sung.

That didnt sound like a cheating thing. That sounded like a hiding thing, like trying to protect people from a truth too dangerous to spread.

But she wasnt sick, said her husband, who didnt get it. Or didnt want to.

What happened next? Adelaide prompted.

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It had been noticed almost immediately, middle of the night though it had been. These forester villages lacked most recognizable defenses, but a night watch wasnt one.

Most of the villagers had tried for her door. Still wedged shut.

But she liked to prop the window, in the summers, even at night, her husband said. She hadnt been during the day, not with all us bothering her, but I thought I tried. It had fallen shut, but it opened.

So hed tumbled into a bedroom too full of smoke to see, down next to her funeral pyre. Her straw mattress had been lit aflame. Shed been on it, at the time. She hadnt been alive.

Her he swallowed. Took a breath. His hands had worked new fibers onto the rope, extending it while his mind was elsewhere. There were scars on his hands, flecking up under his sleeves like embers, emerging again above his collar bone. Little pink things, healed and fading. Someone had done her like they do doppels, in the capital. Her throat.

Slit, then.

They found her dead inside with her sword laid out in front of her, the Duke had said. Which was certainly one way to summarize things.

The prince was sent a sword, Adelaide said. He was told it was from her.

That stupid sword, the man said, and unkinder things besides. She never left it behind.

It had been next to her. He didnt much remember the next few minutes. Just a door broken open behind him, the heat at his back and all around him, enough to make the woman in his arms feel feverish instead of cold. Their neighbors had taken her from his arms and laid her on the ground. Nightblind from the fire, her sister shaking her, not seeing her throat past the burns.

Hed been left holding her sword. Her stupid, awful sword. He hadnt remembered picking it up, and still didnt.

She would never have left it, he said. If shed been She would never have left it.

So hed carried it out for her, as if shed still want it back.

He found the note later, wrapped around the polished blade inside. It was to be sent to Orin.

Everything else had burned with their house. That last piece of her was not for him.

Was there anything else on the note? Adelaide asked.

Just to send it on to him, the man said, his voice hoarse but his fingers steady. With haste.

Did you read that letter of hers? Aaron asked. The one that started things?

It was a doubt, which was all hed needed to give her. The least he could arrange, for a husband that wanted his wife to live, even if she wasnt the woman hed married.

His sister got back on her horse. Apparently they were done with the walking together thing. She dug his wolf cloak from her saddlebags, and tossed it to him. He chose to interpret this as a courtesy rather than a request for his silence, and draped it over his shoulders.

So, he said, as her horse started walking again, and so did he, are you going to tell me why you were glaring so hard at their laundry, when we first got there?

The change in topic was accepted, even if she kept her eyes on the road ahead, rather than on him. Those were reindeer pelts, Aaron. Theyre illegal.

So they poach a bit. Seems like their forest can take care of itself, if it cares to.

Its not about poaching. Reindeer are theyre a symbol, the further north you go, and on the other side of this forest is as far north as you can get. The Executioner didnt break the enclaves until he broke their herds; foresters are just enclavers who bent the knee before it was bent for them. White reindeer, in particular, have a weight to them. For the superstitious ones, anyway. Which most of these people are.

She eyed at the stones bordering the road, with their ropes. A few had little white streamers, but less than at that first village. A difference in tradition, or were they still replacing the ones that had been torn off by winters storms? It was ropes for these rocks that Jessicas husband had been making.

It wouldnt surprise me if theyve set these stones well before the actual border, she said. They could have a herd a hundred strong between here and the true start of the forest, and no one the wiser.

He had wondered why the road would run so close to the Lord of Seasons domain. But humanity did like poking at borders, so. Maybe she was right, and maybe she wasnt. Maybe Jessica was the same woman whod married the man theyd met, or maybe she hadnt. Bit hard to tell either, without stepping on dangerous grounds.

The main road showed through the trees, up ahead.

Are you putting that back on? Adelaide asked, eyeing his cloak.

Conversation over then, he supposed. Aaron slipped on his hood, and fell down to four paws. He stretched, from forelegs to tail tip, then trotted into the human side of the forest to stick his nose into things. Mostly the little patches of strawberry plants, to see if any were ripe, and whether wolves had a taste for strawberries to begin with.

The answer was yes, on both counts.

Adelaide had reached the end of the village road. She halted her horse just before the main road, looking up. Aaron tilted his own head back.

Their draconic admirer was back, its wings rippling with whites and blues that didnt quite keep pace with the pattern of the clouds behind it. Its spirals seemed to be moving slowly westward. So it had suspected theyd slipped away from it, then.

He sat back on his haunches, and unclasped his cloak.

Wait, fight, or bluff? he asked, quietly. Ahead, her horse stamped its foot, not sure what they were waiting for, with the road so open before it.

That village cant defend against dragons, Adelaide said. Which Aaron already knew. He hadnt meant for them to involve the village; the woods were better cover, anyway. Theyd just need to

Wait until it was safe to move on, and invite themselves on to the next undefended village? Backtrack to the last town? That one had ballistae, at least. But theyd be arriving unexpected, and near nightfall by the time the dragon was too far to sight them. The towns that lasted were the ones who left suspicious visitors waiting outside their gates until morning.

Is it so bad, spending a night out of a town? Aaron asked. Asked genuinely, even though he knew it for a stupid question. But it wasnt a thing hed any real experience with. Only endless tales, cautioning against. The closest hed come was those nights with the kings caravan.

Its not bad for the ones who survive it, his sister answered. Shed put up her hood, and checked that her prosthetic was resting in a natural enough position. The hood was a bit more suspicious than it had been this morning, now that the sun was beating down.

Bluffing, then? he asked, from under the relative safety of the canopy. Theyd left the last town under its nose; they might hope to do the same here, if it was still looking for two riders. But it had to suspect some trick, by now, or it wouldnt have started searching the road to begin with.

Maybe, Adelaide said, still watching the sky. Her horse took a step forward, before she could reign it in.

The dragons head jerked towards the motion. They had very good eyesight, had dragons. Like hawks spotting field mice, but on a scale that made horses and people the mice. It was not a comfortable scale to exist on, speaking as the lesser of those parties.

I dont think a regular messenger would be trying to trot past under the dragon, either, Aaron said. Maybe just stay here, a bit.

And what are you planning to do, she said, as it tightened its circle overhead. Run off as a wolf? Leave me to deal with it alone?

Her tone was neutral enough, but he couldnt help but think she was still a bit bitter over certain balcony fights.

That really depends on what happens next, Aaron said, because if she didnt want the truth, she should stop wearing it at her waist.

What happened next was the dragon peering down at Adelaide. Adelaide, who was unsubtly stopping her hood from falling back as she stared up at it. Adelaide, whose horse was right across from where Aaron still sat under the safety of the forests canopy.

The canopy that had just enough breaks for him to see out of.

Hed watched a kitten learning to hunt a string, once. Had found it adorable, how it thought that crouching behind things hid it from view, when the person pulling that string was tall enough to see right over.

Aaron looked up, and the dragon looked down, and he had a great and sudden sympathy for all things too inexperienced to know when theyd already been spotted.

Aaron flipped up his hood. Adelaide kicked her horses sides. The dragon dove.