Page 3 of The Maiden

“He said it is what he has always planned.” Cilean sat down on the ground by the little fire Jura now had going and her face showed her anguish. “I think Thal fears what you fear, that this son of his that he has not seen in over twenty years will be all that you think he is. But Thal is determined to have his way. The more people who try to dissuade him, the more adamant he becomes.”

“I see,” Jura said thoughtfully, and looked at Cilean for a long moment. Perhaps Thal wasn’t such a doting fool after all. Cilean was a logical, intelligent woman who had proved herself on several battlefields in the past. Cilean was able to control her emotions, and, most important, her temper, under the most stressing of conditions. If this English prince was as weak as people said, Cilean’s intelligence and wisdom could perhaps keep Lanconia from falling under his rule. “Lanconia may get a sulking English brat for a king but we will have a wise Lanconian woman for queen.”

“Thank you,” Cilean said. “Yes, that is what I think Thal has in mind and I am honored by his trust in me but I…”

“You want a man for a husband,” Jura said with feeling. “You want someone like Daire: tall and strong and lusty and intelligent and—”

Cilean laughed. “Yes, I can admit to you, my closest friend, that on one hand I am greatly honored, but on the other, I am thinking with the softness of a woman. Does this Englishman really have white hair? Who told you that?”

“Thal,” Jura answered. “When he was in his cups, he talked about the English woman he so stupidly married. He did it once in front of my mother, and my father took her from the room.” Jura’s mouth tightened into a grimace, although the expression did not take away from her beauty. Both of her parents had died when she was five and Thal had taken her in and raised her—raised her in that big stone fortress-house of his without the companionship of women. When a washerwoman had stopped Jura from playing with a sharp, long-handled ax for fear she would cut her toes off, Thal had dismissed the woman.

“Thal told us more than we wanted to know about his time in England,” Jura continued. Cilean knew the “we” referred to Geralt, Jura’s half-brother, and Daire, who had been raised with them.

“Jura,” Cilean said sharply, “are you going to eat that fish or not? If so, hurry up so you can help me decide what to take on the journey. Do you think Thal’s son’s sister will be wearing silks? Will she be utterly divinely beautiful? Will she look down her nose at us Lanconian women as those Frankish women did two years ago?”

Jura’s eyes gleamed. “Then we shall do to her what we did to those women,” she said, mouth full of fish.

“You are wicked,” Cilean said, laughing. “We cannot do that to a woman who will be my sister-in-law.”

“I have no such compunction. We ought to make plans for what to do to protect ourselves from their English snobbery. Of course all we have to do is lead this Rowan into a single battle and that will be the end of him. Or do you think he sits on velvet-cushioned chairs and drinks ale while watching the battle from afar?” Jura stood and kicked dirt over the fire then pulled on her trousers and laced her boots. “And Daire is to go with you?”

“Yes,” Cilean said, smiling. “You can bear to be without him for a few days. We ride out to meet this Englishman and escort him back. I think Thal may be afraid of the Zernas.” The Zernas were the fiercest tribe of Lanconia. The Zernas were as devoted to battle as the Poilens were to books. The Zernas attacked anyone at any time and what they did to captives was what gave grown warriors nightmares.

“No Irial is afraid of a Zerna,” Jura said angrily, coming to her feet.

“Yes, but this prince is English and the English king believes himself to be king of all Lanconia.”

Jura smiled in a nasty way. “Someone should let him walk up to Brocain, the king of the Zernas, and announce his kingship. That would be the end of our worries. At least Thal’s English son would be buried on Lanconian soil, and, I swear, we would bury every piece Brocain hacked from him.”

Cilean laughed. “Come on, help me choose what to take. We will leave in another hour and you must say goodbye to Daire.”

“That will take much longer than an hour,” Jura said seductively, making Cilean laugh again.

“Perhaps I can borrow Daire’s virility some lonely night after I am married to this limp Englishman.”

“That will be the night you die,” Jura said calmly, then smiled. “Let us pray Thal lives long enough to see this English softling of his and sees the error of his ways and corrects it. Geralt will be our king, as he should be. Come on, I’ll race you to the walls.”

Chapter Two

ROWAN WAS STRETCHED out on the western bank of the Ciar River, his arm behind his head and sleepily looking up into the trees. His chest was bare, sunlight and shadow playing on the muscles in his stomach and chest, glinting on the thick mat of dark gold hair. He wore only his short, baggy breeches and hose that stretched over heavy, muscular legs.

Outwardly, he looked to be calm but then he had had years of training in keeping his emotions hidden. His old Lanconian tutor had never missed an opportunity to tell Rowan he was only half Lanconian and that the weak, crying English half had to be cut out, burned out, or removed in some other fashion. According to Feilan, Lanconians were stronger than steel, more immovable than mountains, and Rowan was only half a Lanconian.

Absently, he felt the scar on the back of his thigh twitch, as it always did when he thought of Feilan, but he did not scratch it. Lanconians did not show fear; Lanconians thought of their country first; Lanconians allowed no emotion to govern their thoughts and Lanconians did not cry. His tutor had pounded that into his head well enough. When, as a child, Rowan’s favorite dog, an animal that had comforted him many a lonely night, had died, Rowan had cried, and the old tutor had been enraged. He had laid a red-hot poker across the back of Rowan’s thigh and warned the child that if he cried or so much as flinched, he’d receive a second branding.

Rowan had not cried again.

Behind him he heard someone hurrying toward him. Instantly, he was alert and grabbed his sword, which lay by his hand.

“It’s me,” he heard Lora say, and there was anger in her voice.

He reached for his tunic. In the distance he could hear the Lanconian warriors moving about, no doubt looking for him, afraid he might see a gnat and be frightened of it. He wiped the grimace from his face and looked up at his sister.

“No,” Lora said, “don’t bother to dress. I’ve seen unclothed men before.” She sat on the ground not far from him and was silent for a moment, her knees bent, her arms wrapped around them, her slim young body rigid with what could only be anger. She was heedless of the dampness of the earth seeping into her brocade gown. When she spoke, it was more of an eruption. “They are awful men!” she said furiously, her eyes fixed straight ahead. Her jaw set in rage. “They treat me as if I am stupid, as if I am some spoiled, lazy child who must be patronized at all times. They will not let me walk two steps without aid. As if I were an invalid! And that Xante is the worst. One more of his looks of contempt directed toward me and I’ll set him on his ear.” She stopped when she heard Rowan’s soft chuckle and turned blazing blue eyes on him. She was quite pretty, with delicate features and a tall, slender body, and her anger gave added color to her face.

“How dare you laugh,” she said through clenched teeth. “The way they treat us is your fault. Every time one of them offers you a pillow, you sigh and smile. And yesterday, holding my yarn! You have never done that before, you were always too busy sharpening a sword or knife, but now you delight in pretending to be weak and soft. Why don’t you cuff a few of them, especially that Xante?”

Rowan’s smile softened his square jaw. He was classically handsome with his dark blond hair and deep blue eyes, and next to the Lanconians he looked to be of another species of human. Where their eyes blazed, his twinkled. Where their jaws were gaunt and weathered, Rowan’s cheeks were pale and smooth. Lora was accustomed to seeing men smile at Rowan, thinking they were about to joust with a beardless boy whose tall, big body was no doubt all fat. Lora often laughed with glee when Rowan unseated the smirking knight so easily. The men found out that Rowan’s face changed from softness to blond English oak within seconds—and that big body of his was about two hundred pounds of solid muscle.