But there was time yet. Or so he prayed.
“We’re not ready,” he repeated. “The Republic’s done too good a job of keeping the people docile. I’ve done too good a job. We need to shake them from complacency first. I need you to understand that. And I need you to convince Crovan.”
“Of course.” Disappointment coursed thick through Revekah’s voice. “I stood with your mother. My loyalty’s yours until the day I die. But when that day comes I want to face it free, not hiding in the woods, haunted by what might have been.”
Anastacia’s lips curled into a sneer, though she had the good sense to say nothing.
Josiri laid a hand on Revekah’s shoulder. “You won’t. The Phoenix will rise. You’ll be there to see it. I promise.”
“And the Hadari?”
He stared up at the moon. Were the Hadari even now pleading with Ashana for swift victory in the Southshires? Everything had its reflection. Night and day. Ashana and Lumestra. Empire and Republic. All save the Southshires. Where did they belong? And what part did Josiri Trelan have to play?
“The Hadari remain the Council’s problem, until they become ours.”
Revekah set her hand over his, her bony grip firm. “I suppose that will have to do. But you didn’t venture out here to offer a pledge to an old woman. What did you want of Crovan?”
Josiri blinked. Lost in the perils and possibilities of the future, he’d quite forgotten. His wants seemed trivial – even childish – when set against the prospect of invasion. But perhaps – just perhaps – they were precisely what was needed.
“To ask a favour,” he said. “It concerns Makrov.”
“Our good archimandrite?” A smile gleamed. “I’m listening.”
Everything chafed. The shirt, the leather hunter’s coat. The britches . . . the britches most of all. Melanna longed for silken battle-robes. Even one of the embroidered dresses she wore when taking her place alongside her royal peers in the Hadari Golden Court. The latter wouldn’t have been practical among the briars and branches, but at least she’d have been comfortable. She couldn’t conjure how Tressians marched in such constricting garb, much less fought battles.
Melanna was to do neither that night. This was merely another step in familiarising herself with the lay of the land. It was more than her father had sanctioned, but it was far less than she longed for. She enjoyed more freedom than any other princessa before her – let alone one of her tender eighteen winters.
Branches crackled on the darkened slopes. Too much and too often to be creatures of the night. The wind bore voices through the moonlit trees. Urgent. Strident. Pained.
Melanna crouched, hand on the dagger at her belt. She’d have preferred a sword. Alas, such was denied to her.
Motionless, she let the sounds weave colour and form into the silvered nightscape, savouring the soft, damp fragrance of disturbed soil. Four Tressians. Maybe five. Walking with their usual graceless tread. Following the streambed at the hill’s foot, two score paces distant. Not arrayed as hunters – at least, not hunting her. Ashana be praised for that small mercy.
The commotion moved off to the west. Good sense dictated she withdraw. Garbed as a Tressian though she was, there was no hiding the olive skin that was so rare in the Republic but so common beyond its eastern border, nor her loose, black tresses. She refused to plait her hair in the style of Tressian nobility, let alone crop it in the fashion of their pauper-class. Were she taken, her captors would soon deem what she was, even if exactly who remained beyond their wit.
But then Melanna had never been one for caution, even that born of good sense.
She threaded her way through the undergrowth, skirting tangled or muddied paths in favour of ground that would bear no sign of her passage. An old game, practised as a child beneath the eaves of the sprawling forest of Fellhallow.
A thin cry and a crash of branches heralded the hunt’s end. Dark shapes converged on a fallen man. He lay on heels and hands in a tangle of ivy, scarlet robes muddied and torn, and his heavy jowls taut with rage. Misplaced defiance when confronted by four drawn swords.
“Wolf’s-heads!” The man’s fury did nothing to hide a northwealder’s immaculate nasal diction. “You’ll hang for this!”
Laughter pealed through the night.
“Brave words, my lord archimandrite.” The woman shouted to be heard above her fellows. “You weren’t quite so bold in the fight.”
Keeping low, Melanna crept towards the confrontation and sheltered behind a stump. The speaker was an older woman; thin, with cropped white hair and a patchwork phoenix tabard belted tight across her chest. Her companions were men, heavyset and rough-shaven. They waited on the woman’s lead, expectant and respectful. Melanna envied her that. In Tressia, a daughter was every bit as respected as a son, not a commodity wrapped in damask.
“I am a servant of Lumestra, not a soldier.” The man spoke with haughty pride.
The old woman’s sword-tip tapped the underside of his chin. “I know who you are, Arzro Makrov. You’ve blood enough on your hands for a hundred soldiers. Someday, that debt will come due, eminence.”
“Better it be now,” muttered another wolf’s-head. “Save the bother later.”
Agreement rumbled about the group.
The woman shook her head. “Kill him, and they’ll send another. No shortage of worthies.”
A wolf’s-head stalked closer to the man, a grim smile on his lips. “All of ’em bleed.”
“No.” The woman’s tone brooked no argument. “There’s more than one way to deliver a message.”
“I still say we kill him.”
“And if they send Viktor Akadra in his place?” The woman shook her head. “What then?”
The wolf’s-head spat. His face paled beneath its thick stubble. “Then we kill him, too.”
“You’re a fool.”
“Then why’d you have us do this?”
The woman grinned. “Why else? For the coin in his saddlebags. And because even so humble a functionary as his excellency can be humbled further.” She turned her gaze on Makrov. “Strip.”
A muscle danced in Makrov’s cheek. “I’ll do no such thing.”
The woman flicked her wrist. The sword-point prodded the fleshy folds of the archimandrite’s chin. “You will, or I’ll have my lads assist. And they’ll be a sight rougher.”
Quivering with anger, Makrov rose to his feet. Fingers fumbled at heavy buttons, and scarlet robes tumbled into the mud. Embroidered waistcoat and cotton shirt followed.
“And the rest, my lord.” The woman shrugged. “Let’s give Ashana a good view. Not often she’s granted clear sight of one of her sister’s blessed priests.”
Makrov, sword-point still at his throat, fumbled with boots and britches. Melanna looked on in morbid fascination and wondered if the archimandrite would make further protest. He did not, but the gleam in his eye promised retribution.
Woollen underclothes joined the growing pile. The woman withdrew her sword. “There. That wasn’t so hard, was it?”
The archimandrite shot her a look of pure poison but said nothing. Even stark naked and shivering, he clung to dignity.