could not have expected to prevail against six. It seems the god has favoured me.’ That last was a challenge of sorts.
She didn’t rise to the bait. ‘And Rian as well. We can bear witness for you that they attacked first.’
‘Bear witness?’
She smiled then, and that smile, too, took him back to the High Priestess in her night forest. ‘It would have served you better, Blaise of Gorhaut, to have been more curious about affairs in this part of the world.’
He didn’t like her tone, and he didn’t know what she was talking about. His uneasiness increased; the women in this country were unimaginably difficult to deal with.
‘How do you know my name?’
Again the secretive, superior smile, but this time he had expected it. ‘Did you imagine that once having been allowed to leave Rian’s Island alive you were free of the goddess? We have marked you, Northerner. Thank us for it.’
‘Why? For following me?’
‘Not following. We have been waiting for you. We knew you were coming. And as to the why … hear now what you should have learned already for yourself. A fortnight past, the countess in Barbentain had an edict proclaimed that any further killings among the corans of Talair or Miraval would result in property of the offending party being ceded to the crown. The troubadours and the clergy are carrying the tidings, and all the lords of Arbonne have been cited by name and formally bound to impose the edict by force if need be. You might have cost En Bertran a part of his land today had we not been here to give a report in your defence.’
Blaise scowled, in part with relief, in part because this was indeed something he should have made a point of knowing before. ‘You will forgive me if I do not express dismay,’ he said. ‘I must admit I would not have valued his vineyards over my life, however much he proposes to pay me in wages.’
The priestess laughed aloud. She was younger than a first impression had suggested. ‘Our forgiveness hardly need concern you … in this, at least. But Bertran de Talair is another matter. He might have fairly expected an experienced coran to avoid giving provocation before even arriving at his castle. There is an eastern way around the lake if you hadn’t noticed, one that does not pass by the vineyards of Miraval.’
The situation was, Blaise had to admit, becoming belatedly clear. And indeed, had he known these lands belonged to Urté de Miraval—or taken some pains to know—he would certainly have gone the other way. It was no secret, even to Blaise after a short time in Arbonne, that for reasons that apparently went years back into the past, the present lords of Miraval and Talair had no love for one another.
Blaise shrugged, to cover his discomfiture. ‘I have been riding all day, this path seemed easier. And I thought the countess of Arbonne stood surety for the safety of the roads in her land.’
‘Barbentain is a long way off, and local hatred will usually overmaster larger laws. A wise traveller will know where he is, particularly if he rides alone.’
Which also was true, if arrogantly spoken by someone so young. He tried not to dwell on the arrogance. Clergy of all kinds seemed to have it as a collective quality. One of these days, though, he was going to have to try to sort out why he was so reluctant to pay more attention to the gossip, or even the geography and divisions of land here in Arbonne.
Behind the priestess he saw three other small boats being drawn up on the shore. Men and women in the robes of Rian disembarked and made their away over the grass to where the dead were lying. They began lifting the bodies and carrying them back to the boats.
Blaise glanced over his shoulder to where the Arimondan lay beside his slain horse. He turned back to the priestess. ‘Tell me, will Rian welcome such as he?’
She did not smile. ‘She waits for him,’ the priestess said calmly, ‘as she waits for all of us. Welcome and grace are other matters entirely.’ Her dark eyes held his own until Blaise looked away, beyond her, past the isle in the lake, to where a castle could be seen on the northern shore.
She turned and followed his gaze. ‘We will take you if you like,’ she said, surprising him. ‘Unless you want one of their horses for yourself?’
Blaise shook his head. ‘The only one worth having was killed by its rider.’ He felt a sour amusement suddenly. ‘I will be grateful for passage. Doesn’t it seem apt … that I should arrive at Talair Castle in a craft of the goddess?’
‘More apt than you know,’ she said, not responding to his tone at all.
She gestured, and two of the priests moved to collect Blaise’s armour and goods from the dead pony. Blaise himself took his saddle from his mount and, following the tall, slender form of the priestess, walked over grass and stone to her boat.
They put his gear on board as well, and then the craft was pushed free of the shore and with the west wind in the one sail and the sun low now behind them it went skimming across the waters of Lake Dierne.
As they approached the castle, Blaise registered with a practised, approving eye how well defended it was, poised on a crag above the lake with the water coming around on three sides and a deep moat carved to the north. A cluster of men had come down to the pier to wait for them. There was another boat already there, with two priests and a priestess in it; tidings would have preceded them then. As they drew near Blaise recognized Valery, Bertran’s cousin, and then, surprisingly, Bertran himself stepped forward to neatly catch the rope thrown by the priest at the prow.
The duke of Talair crouched to tie their craft to an iron ring set in the wooden dock, then he straightened, looking expressionlessly at Blaise. There was no hint in his gaze of the eerie, late-night intimacy of their last conversation. Twenty-three years, Blaise remembered, suddenly. The last thing he’d heard this man say, in the dark of a stairway, speaking of a woman long ago: So much longer than I thought I would live.
‘Welcome to Talair,’ Bertran said. The scar on his cheek was prominent in the clear light. He was dressed much as he had been when he came to Baude, in a coran’s clothing made for the outdoors. His hair was uncovered, disordered by the wind. He smiled thinly, a crook of his mouth. ‘How does it feel to have made an enemy before you even report?’
‘I have my share of enemies,’ Blaise said mildly. He felt calmer now; the ride across the lake and the memory of that dark stairwell in Baude had taken away the last of his battle mood. ‘One more or one less should not matter greatly. The god will take me when he is ready.’ He raised his voice slightly on that last, for someone else’s benefit. ‘Do you really think the duke of Miraval will bother hating me for guarding my life when attacked?’
‘Urté? He could,’ Bertran said judiciously. ‘Though it wasn’t him I was thinking of, actually.’ He looked for a moment as if he would explain, but then he turned instead and began walking towards the castle. ‘Come,’ he said over his shoulder, ‘there is meat and drink inside and after we will help you choose a horse from the stable.’
Broad-shouldered, greying Valery stepped forward and extended an arm. Blaise hesitated a moment, then grasped it, pulling himself forward onto the dock. His gear had already been lifted up by three other men. Blaise turned back to the boat. Already the line had been untied and the small craft was beginning to glide back out over the water. The young priestess had her back to him, but then, as if aware that he was looking, she turned.
She said nothing, nor did Blaise as the distance between boat and shore slowly increased. Her hair gleamed in the still warm light of the setting sun. The owl on her shoulder gazed away to the west. More apt than you know, she had said on that western shore, responding with weighty sobriety to an attempted irony. He didn’t understand what she’d meant, he didn’t understand it at all, and within him a spark of rekindled anger blazed. He’d meant to say goodbye and to thank her, but instead he watched for another moment and then turned away impassively.
Valery was waiting for him. Bertran’s cousin had a wry expression on his face.
‘Six men?’ he said. ‘Fair to say