The Destined Queen Page 3

  “Aye.” Rath forced himself to turn his back on the inviting pool and walk in the direction of a giant hitherpine some distance away. “I always reckoned such tales were only fanciful nonsense. Now that I have been here, I am not so sure.”

  “A pity it could not have been the other way around.” Maura hurried to catch up with him. “Then we might have dallied here a long while with only an hour or two passing in the outside world.”

  “That would have been fine indeed.” Rath reached for her hand.

  Together, they followed the trail of six tall hitherpines until it brought them to the path they had traveled the night before. Now and then, Maura paused long enough to gather a sample of flowers or leaves from some unusual plant they passed.

  “Perhaps one of the Vestan wizards can tell me what magical or healing properties these may possess.” She tucked a cluster of tiny, red, bell-shaped flowerlets into one of the many pockets in the sash she wore over her tunic.

  Rath also wondered what those innocent-looking little blossoms might do—make his mouth lock shut or knock him into a dead swoon? Since meeting Maura, he had learned the difference between the gentle vitcraft she practiced, using plant and animal matter, and the lethal mortcraft wielded by the Echtroi with their wands of metal and gemstones. Though he had come to respect the capricious power of her life-magic, he still had trouble trusting it.

  When he spotted a familiar-looking boulder, draped with moss, Rath beckoned Maura off the path, though part of him wondered where it might lead them if they continued to follow it.

  “Where next?” asked Maura.

  “A brook, wasn’t it?” Rath glanced around, his ears pricked for the sound of flowing water. “Why don’t you check the map, just to make certain.”

  “I thought you had it.”

  Rath shook his head. The last time he recalled seeing it was yesterday night, after they’d climbed the rock stair beside the waterfall. The appearance of the massive goldenwolf who’d led them on the final leg of their journey had driven all thought of the map from his mind.

  Maura patted the pouches of her sash, then checked the hidden pocket in the hem of her skirt. “We must have left it back in the Secret Glade.”

  Rath shrugged. “That could be for the best. I reckon either of us could remember how to find the place again in need. But I would not want that map falling into the wrong hands.”

  Not that the Han would find anything of value there. But the thought of them invading Umbria’s last sanctum set his blood afire and made his sword hand itch.

  “True enough,” said Maura. “And you were right about the brook. I hear it over that way.”

  The brook led them back to a small glade, just inside the bounds of Everwood, where they had left their horses the previous evening. So much had changed since then, it seemed much longer to Rath since he and Maura had entered the ancient forest.

  “Our mounts are still here.” He gave his an affectionate pat on the rump. “And their manes are no more gray than when we left them. I take that as a good sign Everwood has not bewitched our time here.”

  “Unless the horses were caught in the spell, too.” Maura chuckled to show she was only joking, then quickly turned sober again. “I hope our time is not out of joint. I would not want the friends who helped us get here to have waited in vain for our return.”

  Rath nodded, remembering the men he had led in the miners’ revolt, the struggling farmer’s family from the south and the beggar boy who had reminded him of his younger self. What would they think if they knew he was the Waiting King?

  With his mind less than half on his task, he retrieved some food from their saddle pouches. “I reckon we have enough to get us as far as Duskport, if we are careful. I only hope this Captain Gull will not want big pay for taking us to the Islands.”

  He had heard of smugglers who kept open tenuous ties between the tiny part of Umbria that was still free, and the rest—whispered tales of the lavish ransom they charged to ferry human cargo. Many of whom were rumored never to reach the destination for which they’d paid so dearly. Rath did not fancy putting his and Maura’s fate into the hands of such men.

  They wasted no time consuming their bread and cheese in thoughtful silence. Now that Maura had persuaded Rath to accept his destiny, she did not want to linger in Everwood for fear he might change his mind…or she might. After washing their breakfast down with swigs of delicious water from the falls, Rath helped Maura onto her mount and they set off for the coast.

  Nothing about the countryside beyond the borders of Everwood gave a clue as to how much time had passed in the rest of the world while they had sojourned in the enchanted forest. It was clearly still midsummer, though of the same year Maura could not tell. Yet some vague stirring in her heart told her this was still their own time.

  Whenever she glanced at Rath, he appeared to be lost in thought. Though she knew two horses would bear them more swiftly and easily than one, she found herself yearning to ride pillion behind him, as she had through the Long Vale—telling him legends from Umbria’s past, sometimes falling asleep with her hands clasped tight to his belt and her head resting against his back.

  The sun was high in the sky by the time they came upon a narrow river.

  “If we follow this, it will lead us to Duskport.” Rath slowed his mount. “Let us stop for a bit to rest the horses.”

  When he helped her dismount, Maura pressed herself close against him as she slid off the horse’s back. And even when she had firm ground beneath her feet, she did not loosen her arms from around his neck. Rath accepted the invitation of her lips as she raised her face to his, but he broke from their kiss far too quickly to suit her.

  “This is not Everwood.” His answer to her unspoken question trailed off in a tone of regret. “We cannot afford to be caught off guard by the Han or whoever else might be lurking.”

  Maura did her best to hide her disappointment. This protective vigilance of Rath’s was a practical token of his love for her.

  “May I hold your hand, at least?” She tried to tease a smile out of him. “And stand close to you? Or will that interfere with your efforts to keep watch?”

  The tense furrow of his brow eased. He raised his hand, then let the back of it slide down over her hair. “Both will distract me worse than I can afford, but I will do my best to bear it.”

  Maura laughed. “You favor me with your tolerance.”

  “So I do.” Rath feigned a stern look, but the flesh of one cheek twitched from the effort to maintain it. “Do not impose upon it more than you can help.”

  “How far is Duskport from here?” Maura wedged herself into the cleft under Rath’s arm so he had no choice but to drape it around her shoulder.

  He stared off downriver. “It has been a long while since I last made this journey. After Ganny died, I was fool enough to reckon I might make an honest living crewing on a fishing boat.”

  “And?” Maura scarcely needed to ask. If he had succeeded in finding honest work after the death of his foster mother all those years ago, she would never have encountered him that day in Betchwood, fleeing a Hanish ambush with his outlaw band.

  Rath’s lips curled in a sneer at his own childish stupidity. “I was lucky to escape the place with my throat and a few other parts of me unslashed. I know the Han spread many false rumors to frighten ordinary folk of wizards, outlaws and smugglers, but I believe the one about Duskport fishermen using human flesh for bait. I swore I would never go back again.”

  Maura shuddered. It was no use saying she wished Rath had told her all this before she’d urged him to take her to Duskport. She would not have let it stand in her way…at least she should not.

  “Then again,” murmured Rath, tilting his head to rest against hers, “I’ve done a good many things I never thought I’d do before I met you, enchantress. Are you sure you haven’t bewitched me?”

  “If I had, it would only be a fair exchange for you stealing my heart, outlaw! Now, are you going to
tell me how far it is to Duskport? A day’s ride? A week’s?”

  “If we can keep up the speed we have this morning I reckon we should reach the coast in two or three days.”

  As it turned out, their ride to Duskport took every hour of three days, because Rath refused to risk the least chance of them meeting up with Hanish patrols in open country.

  “How can your hundredflower spell make us blend in with the crowd when there’s not another Umbrian around for miles?” he demanded, leading her in a wide loop to avoid a ford he guessed might be guarded.

  They passed a few scattered farms and two small villages, both of which Rath insisted upon giving a wide berth. “It is warm enough to sleep out of doors and we have supplies to last us until we reach the coast. I’d rather not draw any more attention to ourselves than we have to. Besides, if anybody nasty comes following our trail, I’d just as soon the folk around here have nothing to tell them.”

  Was that all? Maura wondered. Or did Rath not want anyone else guessing who they might be and raising hopes he feared he could not fulfill?

  “Well, there it is,” he said at last as they crested a bit of rising ground.

  “There is what?” Maura peered down the far slope toward a thick bank of dark fog. If she squinted hard enough, she fancied she could make out a cluster of rooftops rising from the mist.

  “Duskport.” Rath pointed in the direction of her rooftops. “The rest of the year, it is a good deal warmer than most towns this far north. But in summer, that gray fish soup of a fog rolls in. Haven’t you heard the saying, ‘Better a winter in Bagno than a summer in Duskport’?”

  “Cold, is it?”

  “Aye.” Rath gave his horse a little nudge forward, and they headed down into the fog. “The kind that settles right into your bones after a while. The smugglers and cutpurses like it well enough, though, for it hides their crimes…or hides them if they get caught. Whatever you do, stick close to me, and maybe pull a wee bit of something from that sash of yours to have handy in case of trouble.”

  Swallowing a lump that rose in her throat, Maura edged her horse as close to Rath’s as she dared without risk of their hooves getting tangled and pitching both riders to the ground. After weighing the merits of a few defensive magical items she carried in her sash, she extracted a generous pinch of madfern and cradled it in her clenched fist.

  Bless the twarith of Westborne who had refilled the empty pockets of her sash! A pity they’d had no cuddybird feathers. Where she and Rath were headed, it might be very useful to be able to disappear at the first sign of trouble. As it was, they’d have to make do with confusing any enemies they encountered. Fortunately, it was a good strong spell if the madfern was fresh—capable of befuddling quite a large crowd.

  Once they reached the edge of town, Rath signaled Maura to slide down from their saddles and lead the horses. “We’ll draw less notice that way. Besides, most of the streets are narrow and crooked—easier to get about on foot.”

  They met only one Hanish patrol—three soldiers and a hound, whose gazes roved warily, as if expecting an ambush at any moment from any direction. For all their heightened caution, the soldiers took no notice of Rath and Maura thanks to the hundredflower spell she had cast on them both before they’d entered town. The hound seemed aware of them, though, straining in their direction on the end of its short chain, a menacing growl rumbling in its throat.

  Once the patrol passed without challenging them, Maura breathed easier—though not for long. She and Rath spent the next little while approaching some of Duskport’s less threatening citizens. To each, Maura murmured a phrase in Old Umbrian that followers of the Giver might understand and respond to.

  But the people she spoke to only gave her puzzled, frightened looks before hurrying on their way.

  “There’s no help for it,” Rath muttered at last. “We’ll have to leave the horses at the stable we passed on the way in to town. It looked halfway respectable—like they might not sell the beasts off to somebody else before we’re all the way out the door.”

  So they tracked back to the stable, almost getting lost in the cold fog. When they asked to leave the horses with him, the proprietor gave them a suspicious look.

  Suspicion changed to something else when Rath asked him, “Is there an eating and drinking place handy where the fisher-folk gather?” He lowered his voice and glanced behind him. “One where the patrols don’t visit too often?”

  The stable owner looked around, too, before answering. “You mean the Monkey, down on Wharf Row? You’ll find plenty of sea-goers there. Though you might soon wish you hadn’t, if you take my meaning.”

  Maura knew better than the man might suppose. She pictured a sea-going band of outlaws rather like the ones who had held her captive in Aldwood. Why would the Vestan wizards instruct her to seek out a man of that sort?

  “The Monkey it is.” Rath grabbed Maura by the wrist and pulled her out into the thick, chilly fog that smelled of rotten fish.

  He led her through a maze of narrow, fog-shrouded lanes and alleys. The only way she could tell they were getting closer to the water was that the fog became even thicker and the smell of fish more rank, until it nearly gagged her. When she struggled to fix her attention on something besides her writhing belly, Maura realized she could hear the rhythmic slap of waves against wood.

  “This looks like the place.” Rath pointed up at a hanging sign, barely visible in the fog. It bore the crude likeness of a Tolinese monkey.

  From within the building came sounds of raucous laughter, angry shouts and the high-pitched tinkle of breaking glass.

  As Rath pushed the door open and tugged Maura into the place after him, she heard him mutter, “May the Giver watch over us…if it can see through this fog.”

  The common room of the Monkey reminded Maura a little of the tavern in Westborne where she’d gone seeking help from the secret followers of the Giver, who called themselves twarith. But only a little.

  The smell of strong spirits overpowered the ever-present stench of rotten fish, but that came as no comfort to her suffering stomach. Somewhere on the other side of the crowded, noisy room, someone was torturing wheezy music out of an instrument Maura had never heard before. Most of the patrons huddled on low wooden benches that ran along either side of three long, narrow tables. There, they guzzled some drink from earthenware mugs and either argued or laughed loudly with their neighbors.

  It eased Maura’s fears just a little to realize they were not speaking in Comtung, the language her people used to communicate with their Hanish conquerors. Instead, they spoke native Umbrian, though with a strange accent unlike any she’d heard before.

  The noise did not quiet as Rath threaded his way through the crowd, towing Maura behind him. No one turned to look at them. Even the people they brushed against as they made their way toward the counter seemed to stare through them. Yet the flesh between Maura’s shoulder blades prickled, as if sensing many curious, hostile gazes aimed at her back.

  When he reached the counter, Rath spent a while trying in vain to catch the eye of a short man dispensing drinks behind it. Reaching the end of his limited patience, he lunged forward, grabbing the man by the front of his shirt and lifting him off the floor until they were nose to nose.

  Having succeeded in gaining the fellow’s attention, Rath spoke in a quiet, mannerly voice quite at odds with both his actions and surroundings. “I’d like to see a Captain Gull, if you please.”

  Maura braced for the surrounding hubbub to fall into an expectant hush, as everyone’s attention fixed on her and Rath. The prickling sensation between her shoulder blades intensified, but the noise continued as loud as ever.

  The barkeep did not answer, though his face grew redder and redder. His gaze skittered to a large man standing beside Rath, whose shaved scalp bore a tattoo that looked like a map.

  The big man leaned toward Rath and spoke in a friendly tone that surprised Maura. “You fancy seeing Gull, do you, inlander? I can take
you to him.”

  “When?” Rath eased his grip on the barkeep’s shirt, lowering him back onto his feet.

  The man with the tattooed head shrugged. “As soon as you like, inlander. Now?”

  “Now.” Rath let go of the barkeep.

  “Follow me, then,” said the man, his tone still affable.

  A month or two ago, his obliging manner would have eased Maura’s apprehension. Since then, a little of Rath’s wariness had rubbed off on her.

  The big fellow turned and began to make his way through the crowd, which parted to let him pass. With Rath and Maura following close on his heels, he strode toward the opposite end of the room. As they approached, Maura could see that a shadowed corner was in fact a shallow alcove. Their guide pulled back a bit of curtain to reveal a door, which he opened and entered.

  Maura clutched Rath’s hand tighter when he drew her toward the doorway and the dark passage beyond. He glanced at her, brows raised, as if to ask what other choice they had.

  “At least we knew there is a Captain Gull.” He gave her hand a reassuring squeeze. “You haven’t lost faith in that destiny of yours already, have you?”

  “Our destiny,” Maura corrected him, trying to sound more confident than she felt. How could she expect Rath to place his fledgling trust in that baffling power when her own doubts were all too evident? “Lead on.”

  She reached back to shut the door behind her—no easy task with the madfern still clutched tight in her fist. A glance back showed that it was not necessary. Several more people crowded into the narrow passage after them, their sinister-looking forms lit from behind by the flickering candle flames in the tavern.

  Rath’s grip on her hand betrayed the tension that clenched the rest of his body as he led her into the darkness. They seemed to shuffle along the dim, narrow passage for a long time. It twisted several times, confusing Maura as to the direction they were headed. Would they emerge somewhere behind the tavern…or down the street from it?