Part 10 (1/2)

' YOU ' V E BEEN ON your horse since yesterday,' Roen said, taking her hands, 'so I'm guessing you don't feel as lovely as you look. There, that smile tells me I'm right.'

'I'm tight as a bowstring,' Fire admitted.

'Sit down, dear. Make yourself comfortable. Take off that scarf, I won't let any gaping no-heads in here for the next half-hour.'

Such a relief to release her hair. The weight of it was great, and after a morning of riding, the scarf was sticky, and itchy. Fire sank gratefully into a chair, rubbed her scalp, and allowed Nax's queen to shovel vegetables and ca.s.serole onto her plate. 'Haven't you ever considered cutting it short?' Roen asked.

Oh, cutting it short. Hacking it all off, throwing it once and for all on the fire. Dyeing it black, if only monster hair would take colour. When she and Archer had been very young, they'd gone so far as to shave it off once as an experiment. It had shown again on her scalp within the hour. 'It grows extremely fast,' Fire said wearily, 'and I've found it's easier to control if it's long. Short pieces break loose and escape from my scarf.'

'I suppose they would,' Roen said. 'Well. I'm glad to see you. How are Brocker and Archer?'

Fire told her that Brocker was splendid and Archer, as usual, was angry.

'Yes, I suppose it's what he would be,' Roen said robustly, 'but don't mind him. It's right for you to be doing this, going to King's City to help Nash. I believe you can handle his court. You're not a child anymore. How is your ca.s.serole?'

Fire took a bite, which was very nice, actually, and fought the disbelieving expression trying to rise to her face. Not a child anymore? Fire had not been a child for quite some time.

And then, of course, Brigan appeared in the doorway to say h.e.l.lo to his mother and to bring Fire back to her horse, and immediately Fire felt herself revert to a child. Some part of her brain went missing whenever this soldier came near. It froze from his coldness.

'Brigandell,' Roen said, rising from her chair to embrace him. 'You've come to steal my guest from me.'

'In exchange for forty soldiers,' Brigan said. 'Twelve injured, so I've also left you a healer.'

'We can manage without the healer, if you need him, Brigan.'

'His family's in the Little Greys,' Brigan said, 'and I promised him a stay here when I could. We'll manage with our numbers until Fort Middle.'

'Well then,' Roen said briskly. 'Are you sleeping?'

'Yes.'

'Come now. A mother can tell when her son lies. Are you eating? '

'No,' Brigan said gravely. 'I've not eaten in two months. It's a hunger strike to protest the spring flooding in the south.'

'Gracious,' Roen said, reaching for the fruit bowl. 'Have an apple, dear.'

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FIRE AND BRIGAN didn't speak as they exited the fortress together to continue the journey to King's City. But Brigan ate an apple, and Fire wound up her hair, and found herself a little more comfortable beside him.

Somehow it helped to know he could make a joke.

And then, three kindnesses.

Fire's guard waited with Small near the back of the column of troops. As Fire and Brigan moved toward the spot, Fire began to know that something was wrong. She tried to focus, which was difficult with so many people milling around. She waited for Brigan to stop speaking to a captain who'd appeared alongside them with a question about the day's schedule.

'I think my guards are holding a man,' she told Brigan quietly, when the captain had gone.

His voice dropped. 'Why? What man?'

She had only the basics, and the most important a.s.surances. 'I don't know anything except that he hates me, and he hasn't hurt my horse.'

He nodded. 'I hadn't thought of that. I'll have to do something to stop people targeting your horse.'

They had picked up their pace at Fire's warning. Now, finally, they came upon a nasty scene: Fire's guards, two of them, holding back a soldier who shouted curses and spit out blood and teeth, while a third guard cracked him across the mouth again and again to shut him up. Horrified, Fire reached for the mind of the guard to stop his fist.

And then she absorbed the details that turned the scene into a story. Her fiddle case fallen open on the ground, smeared with mud. The remains of her fiddle beside it. The instrument was smashed, splintered almost beyond recognition, the bridge rammed into the belly as if by a cruel and hateful boot.

It was worse, somehow, than being hit by an arrow. Fire stumbled to Small and buried her face in his shoulder; she had no control over the tears running down her face, and she did not want Brigan to see them.

Behind her, Brigan swore sharply. Someone - Musa - laid a handkerchief on Fire's shoulder. The captive was still cursing, screaming now that he could see Fire, horrible things about her body, what he would do to her, intelligible even through his broken, swollen mouth. Brigan strode to him.

Don't hit him again, Fire thought desperately, Brigan, please Brigan, please; for the sound of bone sc.r.a.ping bone was not aiding her attempts to stop crying. Brigan uttered another oath, then a sharp command, and Fire understood from the sudden formlessness of the soldier's words that the man was being gagged. And then dragged away, back toward the fortress, Brigan and a number of Fire's guard accompanying him.

The scene was suddenly quiet. Fire became conscious of her own gasping breath and forced herself calm. Horrible man, she thought into Small's mane. Horrible, horrible man. Oh, Small. That man was horrible. Oh, Small. That man was horrible.

Small made a snorting noise and deposited some very comforting drool on her shoulder.

'I'm so sorry, Lady,' Musa said behind her. 'He took us in completely. From now on we'll let no one near us who wasn't sent by the commander.'

Fire wiped her face with the handkerchief and turned sideways toward the captain of her guard. She couldn't quite look at the pile of tinder on the ground. 'I don't blame you for it.'

'The commander will,' Musa said. 'As he should.'

Fire took a steadying breath. 'I should have known playing it would be provoking.'

'Lady, I forbid you to blame yourself. Truly, I won't allow it.'

At this Fire smiled, and held the handkerchief out to Musa. 'Thank you.'

'It's not mine, Lady. It's Neel's.'

Fire recognised the name of one of her male guards. 'Neel's?'

'The commander took it from Neel and gave it to me to give to you, Lady. Keep it. Neel won't miss it, he has a thousand. Was it a very expensive fiddle, Lady?'

Yes, of course, it had been. But Fire had never valued it for that. She had valued it because of a rare and strange kindness that was gone now.

She studied Neel's handkerchief. 'It's no matter,' she said, measuring her words. 'The commander didn't hit that man. I asked him not to in his mind, and he didn't.'