Ten of them ride out: six Hold guards, Leah and Solace on Beeswax, Adan on a stout dun mare, and Seffon on a black mare with faint points of brown showing through at the elbow and stifle. They keep a healthy pace, Seffon and a guard in the lead, Adan at the rear. Solace has already illusioned herself to look like Jeno, wearing plain linen clothes and unadorned, looking better than she did on the day of her avoided execution but not by much.
The ride is quiet and careful; the few remaining invaders from Kain’s group were tracked heading north, but everyone is on the lookout for another group. Leah focuses only on following the path, running over rune names and shapes in her head.
They stop for the night after almost ten hours of riding; Seffon immediately starts setting up wards around the campsite, while the guards see to the horses. Solace does her best to look like a prisoner about to be exchanged; sitting near the campfire with a drawn expression, fiddling with the hems of her sleeves. Leah knows that the candle is hidden up one of them, unlit but apparently still active.
By firelight, Adan and Leah train – using real weapons, and pulling their blows, but nonetheless rigorous after a long day of riding. Leah’s legs ache deeply, and she calls for a break after barely twenty minutes. Not just soreness; sort of embarrassing to train in front of highly proficient fighters who knew of me before the swap, and don’t know about my memories.
Seffon eyes them as they return to sit by the fire, Leah dropping down beside Solace and tucking away her replacement shield and spear. “We’re scry-proof for now,” he says with a sigh, rubbing his temple. “I haven’t picked up anything on your wards, Leah; have you?”
“Would I recognise it if I had?” Leah asks with a shrug, taking the bowl of stew Solace offers her.
“It feels like a sort of tingle,” Solace says quietly, with the faintest wink, and Leah nods.
“Oh. Oh, then no.”
“Good.”
“When do we call him?”
Seffon’s hand passes over his pocket. “When we’re about four hours from the city. We’ll arrive in the afternoon or evening, so at midday.” He hesitates. “It would be best if I did the talking, but I want him to know that you’re a part of our party, Leah.”
Leah nods stiffly. “Alright, but won’t he realise soon enough when we show up?”
“He will probably suspect the moment he hears our proposal. But you were right, that time you walked out to be negotiator – and I’m not approving of what you did, just acknowledging the logic – that he clearly does have an interest in you. Whatever the nature of that interest – ” Here Seffon’s face darkens, “ – it clearly impacts his decisions; I just want to increase his odds of agreeing to meet us.”
“And if he agrees to meet us, but doesn’t agree to the swap?” Solace asks.
“Then you and Adan will withdraw, take on new illusions, and go searching for the Baroness while we distract him.” He then translates this for Adan, who nods curtly.
“Will the Algic ships be there by then?”
“They’ll be within sight of the harbour, but I doubt any will dock at the city. All we need is their visible presence to help intimidate Cheden into cutting their losses and running.”
They set up no roof for the night; the weather is clear and warm, and with bedrolls and saddle-blankets they keep comfortable enough. Leah watches stars glint through the broad leaves of the trees, wondering what the constellations look like here. Surely if they sail, they must have constellations. Even the fact that they have an astronomical calendar implies that they do more than notice the stars.
I wonder if there are planets up there? ‘Wandering stars,’ Iris said. Are we in a galaxy far, far away?
She curls on her side, tucking her limbs in for warmth, and falls asleep.
*
At noon the next day they stop for a rest and Seffon goes aside to contact Eschen. Leah keeps an eye on him attentively, standing by Beeswax while the horse drinks from a stream.
She sees him put the bracelet on and hold the charm to activate it. He speaks, softly, then waits. A few seconds later Leah can hear a faint answer from the charm. Seffon starts talking, a carefully neutral tone, face half-turned away from the rest of the group. Leah catches only occasional murmured syllables, no words.
Finally he drops the charm, leaving the stolen bracelet on one wrist, the other with its standard chain of many clustered charms and stones. “He will meet us in the marketplace, near where the north bridge was,” he tells Leah, voice still a little formal.
Almost immediately Leah feels a tingle along her arms and up to her neck. She raises a hand for Seffon to wait, her eyes unfocused. Seffon watches her face intently, and Leah stays motionless until she feels the tingle fade to nothing.
“Gone now, but someone tried something,” she says, shaking out her arms and rubbing the back of her neck.
Seffon nods and presses the charm again. “Captain?”
A pause. “Thane?”
“Ask, next time you wish to speak with her. I can arrange something for you.” Seffon smirks a bit as he says it. There is a static sound of chuckling, and then the line goes dead. Seffon drops the charm. “And just like that, he knows you’re here.”
“Yep. Just like that,” Leah says, a little tensely, hugging an arm across her chest then dropping it immediately.
Seffon notices, and reaches out a hand to muss her hair a bit. Leah grins and slaps it gently away, then goes to lead Beeswax back to the path. They all mount up again, Solace in her Jeno-illusion hugging her arms around Leah’s waist, and they ride on.
The sun is starting to set behind them, casting their long shadows ahead, when they reach the edge of the trees. Leah sees people working in the fields, re-tilling them, teams of oxen and horses pulling ploughs. A few faces look up at their approach, some unrecognising and some clearly recognising; some curious, some worried, some relieved. Leah tries not to be caught watching, but she does keep an eye out for familiar faces among the farmers – the one who gave her and Vivitha a place to rest during their ride, or the one who’d helped her after her fall from Beeswax. The faces blur in her memory, feeling very distant.
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At least a few of the watchers appear to be soldiers, simply by their bearing and the quality of their clothing. The locals avoid them, but the soldiers do not appear concerned by their treatment; they observe the approaching delegation carefully, neutrally, aloofly.
“They know,” Seffon murmurs, and Leah’s face goes cold, her eyes fixed straight ahead. Behind her, she can feel Solace sit a little straighter.
“They know?” Leah prompts.
“Devad,” he clarifies, still at a low whisper. “They know about our missive to Valerid. They know we are not allies, yet they’re letting us go forward with the swap…”
Leah casts another quick glance over the surrounding countryside, but can’t pick out any details beyond those few soldiers closest to the road. “Maybe they are fine with giving up their bargaining chip, if they regain possession of the one person who can legitimise their siege from the perspective of the international community.”
“And if Algi has arrived by now, they will certainly be preoccupied about appearances…” Seffon does not finish his thought, sitting tense in the saddle, hands carefully relaxed on the reins.
A group of six riders meets them near the city’s edge. All the riders wear the Auzzo colours, though not quite as resplendently as Eschen; crests stamped into the breastplates or pauldrons, green and white trim to helmets or capes. Seffon stays in the middle of the Enterlan group and keeps pace with Leah and Solace, Adan behind them looking brooding in her dark armour, bronze detailing glinting like fire in the sunset.
The streets are much less busy than Leah remembers from pre-siege days, but busier than they had been during the siege; food carts and beggars and message-carriers and street-sweepers step out of the way for the convoy headed toward the marketplace. Leah remembers the place well, from her one visit, though the northern half of the city in general is less familiar to her.
For a moment her thoughts fly back to Wellen. He was at the execution, or at least, he was going towards it. What would have happened to him once Solace shifted us away? Eschen knows he’s a magic-user; they were both at my interrogation, the first one, way back. Would Eschen have thought him worthy of notice? Certainly Wellen believed that the Auzzos dismissed him totally, but would their warrior-mage feel the same?
She drags her thoughts back to the present, seeing the street open up before them. Two Cheden ships, similar in design and decoration, rock at anchor in the deepest part of the river. Two more, smaller and with red striping along the foremost sails, rest nearer the shore. Far, far out into the widening estuary of the river, Leah can just barely see sails on the water, too far to make out details.
The marketplace itself is barren, though it shows signs of having been recently in use; the occupying force had clearly allowed business to resume, but had shut it down again for the coming exchange of prisoners.
People line the edges, watching. “Do you know any?” Seffon whispers over to Leah, and she casts her eyes around, carefully.
“There are a group of estate guards, to the south-east,” Leah says, nodding in the direction. “A dozen or so, but not in uniform. Actually, almost half of the people here seem to be city guards, out-of-uniform.” Continuing to look around, she sits up in sudden shock. “Oh.”
“Oh?”
“Valerid.” Leah’s eyes are glued to him; standing straight and regal, despite the weight of all that has happened to him. He stands with one of the estate guards and with Meredith, in her captain’s gear. Her eyes are glued on Leah, wide and yet sharp. She leans forward to whisper something to the Baron, who nods marginally.
“Ah,” Seffon says, spotting them. “Eschen of course expects us to deliver the Baroness to her husband, or else to take them both and leave the city.”
“Eschen must have seen the Algic ships?”
Seffon looks downstream. “I imagine, but what he makes of them…”
Their group stops ten metres from the stone-block edge of the marketplace where it descends sharply to the river. At the end of the wooden docks, Eschen stands a half-step behind the tidy figure of Duke Auzzo. Behind him, looking worn-out but well, is the Baroness.
Seffon dismounts and walks forward, leaving the reins of his horse with one of the guards. Adan dismounts next, falling into place behind him and to his left.
The distance makes eavesdropping difficult at first, but body-language reveals much. Seffon stops a dozen steps from the Duke, bowing formally and addressing him in Devadiss. A soldier wearing dark brown and silver armour and a strangely brimmed helmet shuffles up to translate. Leah stifles a chuckle. The politics of this are so ridiculous. Which language, which language…I shouldn’t be so surprised, having grown up where I did. Maybe it’s just seeing it somewhere else that’s so entertaining.
The Duke returns the bow, not quite as deeply but just as formally. He addresses Seffon in Ched, and the soldier again translates.
Wouldn’t surprise me at all to learn that Seffon speaks Ched too, but just doesn’t feel like telling them that.
Eschen’s hand twitches, and Leah feels another tingle over her arms. She looks away from the politics long enough to meet his eyes across the distance, and smile just a tiny bit. The tingling stops, and Eschen looks back to the scene in the centre.
The Duke summons the Baroness forward; he takes her hand very gently, and seems to be paying some sort of compliment or farewell, his tone even and polite. The Baroness nods with a small smile, receiving his words, and says something that Leah can almost catch about thanking the Duchess for her hospitality.
Seffon gestures over his shoulder, and one of the guards nearby dismounts and holds a hand out to Solace, whose illusioned face has been one of dignified worry, afraid and yet composed. Leah watches her go with a strange jolt of concern. When she turns back to the centre group, she sees that Eschen is watching ‘Jeno’s’ face with interest, only looking to the Duke again when she gets close.
The Duke’s posture shifts, almost reaching out to Jeno, but he remains where he stands. With the soldier as translator, he and Seffon discuss things with a peaceable air, while the Cheden and Devadiss soldiers lining the square form a subtle yet unmistakable wall.
Beeswax shifts, hoofs clopping heavily against the stone, picking up on Leah’s tension. Leah takes a deep breath and looks instead at Meredith and the Baron. The former has her left hand gently resting near the hilt of her long sword, eyes fixed on Eschen, while the latter is staring at the Baroness with palpable anxiety. Meredith leans forward and whispers something to him. The estate guard on his other side nods and whispers something as well. Lord Valerid does not seem to hear.
Seffon bows again. The movement draws Leah’s eyes back to the centre, where the Duke also bows, then gestures for Eschen to approach. Leah feels her heart rate increase, but he merely makes a hand motion towards Jeno then nods to the Duke, subtly.
Jeno steps forward, standing stiffly beside her father, eyes on the ground, cheeks flushed, hands wringing, brown hair slipping loose and falling over her face. The Baroness takes a few steps towards Seffon, her palms against her borrowed jacket, apparently wiping away sweat or perhaps just trying to keep from shaking.
Reaching over to adjust one of his bracers, Eschen’s hand lingers a moment, then pulls out a bracelet of some sort, glittering with large round charms. Seffon notices this at the same time as Leah does, and he flicks his wrist to grab a charm on his bracelet. Eschen sees, and seems to hesitate.
The Baroness is a few steps from Seffon when Eschen moves his hand, and a ripple of pain washes out from him; Seffon collapses, Solace collapses, and Leah spasms so forcefully that Beeswax rears in fear. No-one else in the square reacts in pain, though they do clearly see the reactions of those who do. The crowd begins shouting and pushing back in confusion.
Seffon is being supported by Adan, and Solace gets up from her knees, holding her head in both hands. Leah’s stomach drops; Solace’s face is visible. The illusion has ended.