Allegiance (River of Souls 3)

Interesting. Nadine sensed that more secrets lay beneath that simple confession. But she would not let herself get distracted. “Then your excuses will be genuine,” she said. “You’ve heard rumors. You are sick with worry. You want a distraction. You want a woman versed in massage and pleasure both.” Swiftly she bent down and retrieved the knife in one swift motion. “You want,” she said, “a woman who loves women best of all. That would be me.”

Her gaze caught Heloïse’s and to her great surprise, her pulse leapt in desire.

You are lovely, she thought. Lovely and brave and true. Even to someone as worthless as your brother.

It took her a moment to recollect herself, and her position. The other woman studied her with an expression that reminded Nadine uncomfortably of Lord Kosenmark.

Heloïse nodded slowly. “I believe you are right. We have a great deal to discuss. Until next hour, then.”

“Until next hour,” Nadine replied.

But as she wound through the palace, back toward the courtesans’ quarters, her thoughts strayed from the machinations of kings and dukes and lords, back to the warmth of skin against skin, of a voice that called up an echo inside her heart, and the impulse of a desire she thought she had lost years before.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

IT WAS MARYSHKA Rudny’s favorite hour of the day—the moments just before sunrise. The night watch had returned to their homes not long ago. The rest of the village lay quiescent, with only a rill of water from the nearby river to break the dawn’s calm.

She knelt beside her garden, fingers plucking the leaves from summer savory and comfrey, blossoms from red clover, the last hidden strawberries and raspberries. She didn’t need much daylight to work. She knew every furrow, every root and leaf in this patch. When she finished with one crop, she laid a cloth over it and moved on to the next. Next spring, she thought, she might send a basket of comfrey roots and leaves along with Karel Hasek, when he went up the valley to trade at Dubro’s garrison and the nearby town. Get a handful of jewelweed seeds, or better, a few young plants.

The raspberries were scarce this year. She washed a handful in the dewy grass and ate them, still thinking about next year’s garden. The village of Ryz was hardly more than a collection of shadows at this hour, but higher up the slopes, light was trickling down the mountainside. Down and down, over the meadows on either side of the river, and across the plowed fields—none too big this year, with the rains late and Lev Kosko’s old mare going lame.

A breeze gusted over the slopes, and Maryshka shivered inside her quilted jacket. That wind carried a hint of frost. Next month might see the first snows.

A poor harvest, an early winter. And rumors of troubles along the border. Duszranjo was not so far away from Veraene, for all that the mountains stood so high.

She glanced toward the eastern ranges that divided Duszranjo equally well from Károví’s central plains. They stood like tall sentinels, shrouded in dark blue cloaks. Even as she watched, a scarlet ribbon unfurled behind them and a speck of golden sunlight spilled through a notch between the two highest peaks. The few remaining stars stood out li

ke pale freckles against the blueing sky. A moment later, they, too, had disappeared.

Day. Time for cooking breakfast and chores. Even now, she could hear her mother stirring about inside the house.

Maryshka stood and hoisted the basket to her hip. Just as she turned toward the door, a movement across the river caught her attention. She paused and shaded her eyes with one hand. A shadow, large and misshapen, lumbered over the hillside opposite the Solvatni River. Her heart gave an uncomfortable thump. Was it Matej or Lev who said the king was raising extra troops for his army? Surely they wouldn’t take anyone from Ryz.

We have so few already.

As she watched, the shadow lurched and swerved to one side, immediately dispelling the thought of soldiers. They rode in patrols of five or six, or marching in formation, not stumbling from ridge to ridge. And none of them crossed into Duszranjo from the eastern notch. They came from the north, from Dubro, along the river path.

As the shadow approached, it divided into two. Now she could make out a horse and … a pile of bags? A rider? Yes, a rider, slumped over the horse’s withers. A smaller figure led the horse by its reins. They had gained the lower slopes. Very soon they would reach the ford.

The chancy mountain breeze swirled around and buffeted her face with a strange new scent. Green and sharp. It reminded her of winter nights, the pine kindling burning in the fireplace. Or how the grass smelled under her bare feet in the hot summer sun. A familiar scent and yet like nothing else she had known.

She set down the basket and ran to the house.

Her mother met her at the door. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

“Strangers,” she gasped. “Not soldiers. Something … different.”

For one moment, her mother went still, and the folds around her mouth and eyes deepened—not in laughter, but in fear. As if she guessed all that Maryshka had sensed and seen. “Go fetch Jannik,” she whispered. “I’ll tell Papa and the others.”

Maryshka nodded and sped up the winding dirt path toward Jannik’s home. The speaker lived alone, on the highest ridge, overlooking the rest of the village. Ditka Jasny appeared in her doorway and called out a question, but Maryshka shook her head. Talk could come later. She scrambled up the slope and fell against Jannik’s door, pounding the rough planks with her fist.

“Jannik!”

The speaker flung the door open. He wore only his trousers, hastily tied with a sash, and his hair hung loose, as though he’d just woken up, but he held a staff in one hand. He dropped the staff and caught her as she stumbled over his doorstep. “Strangers,” she said breathlessly. “Not soldiers. Not … I can’t explain it.”

For a moment, she hung in his arms, trembling. She could not tell why. She hated that. But as he asked a few more questions, her trembling died away. How to describe that alien scent, the way her skin prickled, as if Toc himself had breathed upon her? It was all nonsense.

“I woke you for nothing,” she said. “Just two strangers.”