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Morag left the caravan in one of the wide stone courts of the citadel. “Be sure you take your medicine for three more days,” she warned the caravan master by way of farewell, “or the fever will be back, no better than before.”
“Yes, my lady,” the man said. “I won’t miss a dose, my lady.”
“See that you don’t,” she said. She considered reminding him that she was not a noblewoman and had no slightest desire to be one, but that battle was long lost. She fixed him with a last stern glare, at which he duly and properly flinched, then judged it best to let him be.
She found a groom to look after her mule and cart and paid him a silver penny to guard the belongings in the cart. Not that that was strictly necessary—there was a Word of guard and binding on them—but the boy had the lean and hungry look of a young thing growing too fast for himself.
He seemed glad enough to take the penny. He told her in careful detail where to find the one she was looking for, although he said, “You won’t get that far. They keep to themselves, that kind do.”
“I’m sure they do,” Morag said and thanked him. He seemed a little startled by that. Manners here on the Mountain were not what they might be.
Too many nobles, not enough common sense. She shook her head as she made her way through this unexpected place.
She had expected a castle with a village of farmers nearby to keep it fed. This had the fields and farms all around it, but it was much more than a fortress. It was a city of no mean size, built on the knees of the Mountain.
Ordinary people lived in it, servants and artisans and tradesmen. There were markets and shops, taverns and inns, and once she passed a theatre hung with banners proclaiming some grand entertainment direct from the empire’s capital.
The groom had warned her not to wander to the west side—that, he said, was the School of War. The greater school lay to the north and east, toward the towering, snow-crowned bulk of the Mountain. She could see it everywhere she walked, down alleys and over the roofs of houses.
The power of its presence made her head ache. It must be sending out the Call. She was not meant to hear it, but her magic was strong. She could feel it thrumming in her bones.
She refused to let it cow her. Magic was magic, whatever form it took. She advanced with a firm stride toward the gate with its carven arch.
There were no guards standing there. She had seen riders walking in the city, men and boys—never women or girls—dressed like servants in brown or grey. But no servant ever walked as they walked, with a casual arrogance that put princes to shame.
None of them guarded the gate to their school. There was no magic, either, no wards as Morag would have known them. And yet she paused.
The carving of the arch was worn with age and almost indistinguishable, but she could make out the shapes of men on horseback. The men rode light and erect. The horses were blocky, cobby things, thickset and sturdy—there was nothing delicate or ethereal about them. They were born of earth and stone, though their hearts might be celestial fire.
Morag shook her head to clear it. The gate blurred in front of her. It was trying to disappear.
“Clever,” she said. It was a subtle spell, masterfully cast. She might not have detected it at all if she had not been looking for it.
Once she recognized it, she saw the way through it. She only had to walk straight under the arch and refuse to see any illusion that the gate might weave for her.
It did its best. The wall was thick, but it tried to convince her that the passage through the gate was a furlong and more. Then it tried to twist and fling visions at her, armed guards and galloping horsemen.
The visions melted as she walked into them. The turns grew suddenly straight. She stood in the sunlight of a sandy courtyard surrounded by tall grey walls.
Windows were open above, catching the warmth of the day. She heard voices reciting and a lone sweet tenor singing, and at greater distance, the high fierce call of a stallion.
Beneath it all ran a steady pulse. It had the rhythm of a slow heartbeat, but there was a ringing depth to it that marked it as something else.
Hoofbeats. The gods were dancing in their courts and halls.
She followed the beats that seemed most in tune with her own heart. They led her down passages and along the edges of courtyards. Some had riders in them, mounted on white stallions, or men on foot plying long lines while the stallions danced in circles or twining patterns around and across the sandy spaces.
None of the riders took any notice of her. They were in a trance of sorts, intensely focused on their work. The horses flicked an ear now and then, and once or twice a big dark eye rolled in her direction, but they made no move to stop her.
They knew her. She could not say they offered her welcome, but the air seemed a little less thin and the place a little less strange.
She granted them a flicker of respect. Their awareness guided her to the northern wall of the citadel, a long expanse of grassy paddocks in clear view of the Mountain. Blocky white shapes grazed and gamboled there, and at the western end was another court where yet more riders danced.
She turned away from the court toward the colonnade that ran along its edge, ascending a stone stair into a tower that, as she went up, overlooked the citadel and the fields and forest that surrounded it and the Mountain that reared above them all.
Just short of the top was a room surrounded by windows, a place of light. It was empty but for a man who sat on one of the window ledges. He was an old man, his faced lined and his hair gone grey, but he was still supple enough to fold himself into the embrasure with a book on his knees.
Morag waited for him to finish reading his page. She made no effort to intrude on his awareness, but he was a mage. He could sense the shift of patterns in the room. After a while the awareness grew strong enough that he looked up.
His expression was bland and his tone was mild, but annoyance was sharp beneath. “Madam. All the servants should know I’m not to be disturbed.”
Morag folded her arms and tilted her head. “That’s refreshing. Everyone else persists in taking me for a noblewoman.”
His brow arched. “Should I recognize you?”
“Not at all,” she said. “My daughter takes after her father’s side of the family. How is she? Still here, I hope. I’d be a bit put out if she turned out to be in Aurelia after all.”
He blinked, clearly considered several responses, then stopped as the patterns fell into place around her. It was fascinating to watch. Morag had a bit of that kind of magic—it was useful for a wisewoman to be able to see where everything fit together, the better to repair what was broken—but this was a master of the art. The Master, to be exact.
At length he said, “Ah. Madam. My apologies.” He unfolded himself from the window ledge and bowed with courtly grace. “Not a noblewoman, no, but a great lady. I see it’s no accident your daughter is what she is.”
Morag studied both the face he showed her and the one, much younger and brighter, that she could see behind it. “You respect her,” she said. “Good. Even after…?”
“The white gods and the Ladies have made it clear,” the Master of the riders said, “that she is their beloved. Whatever she does, whatever becomes of her, she has their blessing. Riders are stubborn and mired in tradition, but even we can learn to accept what we can’t change.”
“I’m not sure I believe you,” said Morag.
His smile was wry. “Do you know, she said the same. It’s no less true for that.”
“I hope so,” Morag said, “for your sake. So she’s well? Not locked in a dungeon?”
“Well, loved, pampered—the child when it comes will have a hundred uncles.”
Morag allowed herself to soften just a fraction. “Good, then. I’m spared the trouble of setting this place to rights. Now if you’ll excuse me, you have an hour left of your escape from duty and tedium, and I have a daughter to find.”
“She’s down below,” the Master said.
“I know,” said Morag, gently enough when all was considered. She nodded briskly. He nodded back with more than the hint of a bow.
Good man, she thought, and no more of a fool than any man was inclined to be. He had reassured her more than he knew. Her opinion of the riders and their school had risen somewhat, though she was still reserving judgment.
Chapter Four
“Straighten your shoulders,” Valeria said. “Good. Now lift him with your tailbone—yes, so.”
The stallion who circled Valeria sat for an instant, then floated from a cadenced trot into a slow and rhythmic canter. The young rider on his back flashed a grin before he remembered to be properly serious.
She bit her lip to keep from grinning back. She had to be proper, too, if she was going to pass muster to become a Fourth Rider. Riders might have changed enough to accept a woman among them, but they still had certain expectations as to manners and deportment.
She shifted on the stool the Healers had insisted she resort to when she instructed her handful of rider-candidates, and rubbed her back where the baby’s weight was taking its toll. She had had to stop riding a few days ago, out of pity for her poor stallions who had to carry her burgeoning bulk. She missed it less than she had expected. Now all she wanted was to be done with this labor of growing a child.
Rider-candidate Lucius was losing that lovely canter. “Hold and release,” she said quickly. “Shoulders straight, remember. Now, sit back and hold.”
Lucius held just a fraction too long. Sabata’s ear flicked. With no more warning than that, he stopped short. Lucius lurched onto his neck.
Valeria held her breath. But Sabata had decided to be merciful. He let Lucius recover his balance and his breath, and did not tip him unceremoniously into the sand.
For that the stallion had earned an extra lump of sugar and a pat on the neck. Even a season ago, he would have yielded to temptation. He was growing up.
The baby woke abruptly and kicked so hard Valeria wheezed. Fortunately Lucius was too busy dismounting to notice. She eased from the stool and eyed the distance from it to the colonnade, then from there to the schoolroom where she was to assist First Rider Gunnar with a particularly obstreperous roomful of second-year rider-candidates.
The day’s lesson was clear in her head. History and philosophy, dry but essential for understanding the patterns that made the empire what it was. But first she had to get there.
Sabata’s whiskers tickled her ear. She ducked before he snorted wetly in it. He presented his shoulder.
“You don’t want to carry me,” she said. “I’m like a sack of barley.”
His ears flattened. She was being ridiculous and they both knew it. He folded his forelegs and lay down, saddle and all—to Lucius’ vocal dismay.
She sighed, but she yielded to superior logic. She stepped astride.
He rose as carefully as he could. She could not deny that his back was a warm and welcoming place, even as badly balanced as she was. He professed not to mind.
He carried her all the way to the outer court, attracting glances and occasional expostulations, but no one was fool enough to risk Sabata’s teeth and heels. At the door to the schoolrooms, he deposited her with exquisite care.
She had a fair escort by then, rider-candidates of various years and a rider or two. Not all of them were on their way to the afternoon’s lesson.
They would have carried her up the stair if she had let them, but she was humiliated enough as it was. “Damn it!” she snapped at the lot of them. “I’m not a cripple. I can walk.”
“So you can,” said a voice she had not expected to hear at all—not for another month.
She whirled and nearly fell over. Her mother measured her with a hard, clear eye. “Walking’s good for you. Riding, not so much.”
“He insisted,” Valeria said, jabbing her chin at Sabata. The stallion stared blandly back, as if anyone here could believe that he was an ordinary animal.
“He must have had his reasons,” Morag said. “Whatever you were planning to do up there, unplan it. You’re coming with me.”
“I am not—” Valeria began.
“Go on,” said Gunnar, looming above the pack of boys. He was half again as big as the biggest of them, a golden giant of a man. “I’ll manage with this lot.”
“But—” said Valeria.
“Go,” the First Rider said.
That was an order. Valeria snarled at it, but there was no good reason to disobey it. She was tired—she had to admit that. She wanted to lie down.
That made her angry, but she had enough discipline, just, not to lash out. She caught Sabata’s eye. There was an ironic glint in it. She was growing up, too.
Morag’s examination was swift, deft and completely without sentiment. When she was done, she washed her hands in the basin that she had ordered one of the servants to have ready, then sat beside the bed in which Valeria was lying. “You’re certain when you conceived?” she asked.
“Why?” Valeria demanded. She tried to throttle down the leap of alarm, but it was hard. “Is the baby too small? Is there something wrong?”
“Nothing wrong at all,” said Morag, “but she’s nearer being born than I’d expect. Are you sure you’re not a month off in your calculations?”
“Positive,” Valeria said. “She’s really all right? She’s not—”
“All’s well as far as I can see,” Morag said, “but you’ll be pampering yourself a bit more after this. If you’re tired, you rest. And no more riding—no matter how much the horse may insist.”
“I was tired,” Valeria said. “That was why—”
“It was considerate of him,” her mother said, “but you won’t be doing it again until this baby is born. Which may be sooner than any of us expects. Have you had any cramping?”
“Nothing to fret over,” Valeria said.
“Ah,” said her mother as if she had confessed to a great deal more than she intended. “You rest. I’ll let you be. Are you hungry?”
“Not really,” said Valeria. “Where are you going? What—”
“I’ll fetch you a posset,” Morag said. “Rest. Sleep if you can. You’ll be getting little enough of that soon enough.”
Valeria let the storm of protest rise up in her and die unspoken. Morag was already gone. She was almost sinfully glad to be lying in her bed, bolstered with pillows, with the curtains drawn and the room dim and cool.
It was decadent. She should not allow it. But she had no will to get up. The baby stopped battering her with fists and heels and drifted back into a dream. She was as comfortable as she could be, this late in pregnancy.
She let herself give way to the inevitable. Sleep when it came was deep and sweet, with an air about it of her mother’s magic.
Kerrec was putting a stallion through his paces in yet another of the many riding courts that made up the school. Morag watched him with an eye that was, if not expert, then at least interested.
He had changed since she last saw him, back in the autumn. The gaunt and haunted look was gone. He was as relaxed as she suspected he could be. He would always have a hint of the ramrod about him, but he looked elegant and disciplined rather than stiffly haughty.
He was a beautiful rider. He flowed with his horse’s movements. There was no jerkiness, no disruption in the harmony.
His face was naturally stern, with its long arched nose and somber mouth, but there was a hint of lightness in it. He was smiling ever so slightly, and his odd light eyes were remarkably warm.
This was a happy man—in spite of everything he had suffered, or maybe because of it. Morag did not like to cloud that happiness, but there were things she had to say.
He was aware of her—she felt the brush of his thoughts—but he did not alter the rhythm of his horse’s dance. Morag waited patiently. This was a subtle working but a great one, a minor Dance of time and the world’s patterns. The sun was a little warmer for it, and the day a little brighter.
The Dance ended with a flourish that might be for the watcher, a dance in place that stilled into a deep gathering of the hindquarters and a raising of the forehand. The white stallion poised for a long moment like a statue in an imperial square. Then, with strength that made Morag’s breath catch, he lowered himself to stand immobile.
She remembered to breathe again. Kerrec sprang lightly from the saddle and bowed to the stallion. The beast bent his head as if he had been an emperor granting the gift of his favor, then lipped a bit of sugar from his rider’s palm.
A boy led the stallion away. Kerrec turned to Morag at last. “Madam! Welcome. I’ve been waiting for you.”
“Have you?” said Morag.
He stripped off gloves and leather coat and began to walk toward the edge of the courtyard. She fell in beside him. He was only a little taller than she—not a tall man, but graceful and compact and very strong.
