An Intimate History of the Greater Kingdom

"I feel your wishing," she said in trembling Old Sairish. "I feel your wishing to touch me, to do--things--with me--I know not the words in this tongue! And I wish these touchings, too! How is this? You are a stranger!"

Warin brushed her tears away with his thumb, and then kissed her; she opened her mouth to him with a moan approaching a wail. Perhaps she was a gift; perhaps the Lovers had given her to him for consolation. He pressed her close at the thought. She neither fought nor protested, but only followed, never leading. "Will you come to bed with me?" he said. She whimpered, head down, and nodded. Warin frowned. "You do not have to. It is your choice." She nodded again, looking up at him through tears. He picked her up and carried her to his narrow bed, their clothes collecting in a heap beside it.

Ammaday, the 19th Day of Spring's Beginning

Temmin spent a restless night dreaming again of the assassin. Next time, he thought when he awoke, he would be better prepared. "Jenks!" he called as he came in after breakfast. "I know you weren't an officer, but have you ever trained with the Brothers?"

The balding head appeared in the bedchamber doorway. "The Brothers?" he said cautiously. "Why d'you ask?"

"I'm just wondering if Papa might let me have one as a fighting teacher. I'm sure Brother Mardus could show me more than the pudding bags I had at the Estate."

"Those men were not 'pudding bags,' sir, and Mardus isn't available. He's the head of your security detail. We can continue our sparring in the interim, and you can ask your father about training with the Brothers."

As Temmin walked to the Keep's mudroom from the stables, he saw Ellika in the gardens, cutting carefully chosen roses in fastidious little snips. She wore a dress of tiny pink and white stripes, with a neckline that would have gained their mother's strong disapproval without a modest lace fichu tucked into it. Atop Ellika's pile of blond hair balanced a wide straw hat covered in a ridiculous mound of silk roses, tied under her chin with trailing pink ribbons.

Temmin slept late the next day, but went out on his usual ride; while he had no marketing of his own to do this Paggday, he had the day off with everyone else. "No hangover, Jebby! There's a rare thing after a party. I wouldn't even have minded one today, what a night," Temmin said to his horse. The gelding snorted. They walked at a leisurely pace through the King's Woods, down a tributary path of the War Road. He knew the Woods were safe, but he still half-expected to see Brothers secreted in the underbrush.

The morning chill lifted. Mist rose thready from the meadows he glimpsed through the trees; birdsong and the murmur of streams rushing down to the Shadow River were the only sounds. A beautiful day, the kind of day that made him wish to ride until dark, and sleep where he stopped. He certainly hadn't slept well the night before. He knew the assassination attempt was political, but in his young heart he could not get over it: why would anyone want to kill him?

Into this green restfulness came a discordant sob. Temmin pulled Jebby up short, listening. It came from just ahead on the trail; he urged Jebby toward it, until they came to a downed log just off the path, and a girl sitting atop it, crying tears enough to join the Shadow in their own little salty stream.