“Get up, boy.” Cenric ripped the blankets off Kalen, his pale face gaping up at Cenric in shock.
“Lord,” Kalen stammered.
“Up,” Cenric ordered. “I need you to come with me to see the king.” He worked a knot out of his shoulder as the boy scrambled to adjust his cloak and bundle up his belongings.
Spending the night on the trunk had been hard and uncomfortable. He’d slept on less forgiving surfaces, but he wasn’t as young as he had once been.
Last night hadn’t played out perfectly, but Cenric was hardly going to take a weeping woman. He wasn’t yet sure he could trust his new wife, but he didn’t want to hurt her.
Brynn’s story played over in his mind. Something was missing.
He didn’t think she was lying, necessarily, but she had described a Valdari raid. Valdari didn’t usually raid in spring, and they didn’t sail all the way down the coast and upriver to raid fortified inland keeps. There had been no other recent raids along the coast, which would mean that a group of Valdari would have banded together to raid a fortified keep when there were plenty of unfortified towns along the coast. Towns where they could have taken thralls, sheep, silver, and maybe even gold, but without the risk of encountering real defenses.
Most Valdari raiders wouldn’t be pillaging until summer or the last few months before winter. Either when their own crops were planted or when the Hyldish villages and towns had their winter stores built up and ripe for taking.
And the raiders had happened to come on the night Brynn was gone? She seemed to accept it as just misfortune, but to Cenric it seemed quite convenient.
“I’m ready, lord.” Kalen stood at attention, brushing his bowl-cut hair into place and buckling on his leather breastplate.
“Edric, make sure to find my wife’s servants and ready them.” Cenric might be giving Brynn time, and he might be giving her space, but he wanted everything promised to him. “Take this to the steward of the king’s storehouses and get the ship loaded.”
Edric took the scroll from Cenric’s hand, etched on the finest lambskin vellum.
“And count everything twice. I don’t want the old goat to cheat us.” It wasn’t uncommon for stewards to shortchange their lord’s creditors and pocket the difference.
“This could take all day,” Edric warned him. “We might not be ready to sail until tonight.”
Cenric looked pointedly to the scroll in his friend’s hand. “Just see what you can do.” He marched back through the hall, stepping over sleeping forms with Kalen at his heels.
The noise of him rousing his men had disturbed several of the other sleepers. Figures rose across the hall, stirring from beneath their cloaks and blankets.
Cenric had not been to the keep of Ungamot for some time, but all Hylden spoke of the king’s morning habits. Sure enough, he found the king in the garden beneath a young elm. The old tree had been cut down during the occupation of Ungamot by Winfric, during the war over kingship. The new tree was one of its saplings.
King Aelgar sat crosslegged in the shadow of the tree. A heavy fur mantle draped around his shoulders that seemed excessive in the mild autumn morning. A stack of pages sewn together on one side and pressed together by wooden boards lay in the king’s lap—a codex or what were being called books. A servant waited on the king, holding a steaming cup in both hands. From the smell, Cenric guessed it was that same wretched herbal concoction the king always took for his stomach ailments.
A guard blocked Cenric at the entrance to the garden. “The king will see petitioners this afternoon.”
Friend?Snapper asked, wagging his tail up at the stranger.
The guard ignored the dog.
Cenric looked the guard up and down. The man was wider than him, but not much taller. He had a crooked nose and held a spear, but no armor. If Cenric had really wanted to, he could have jabbed a knife into the man’s ribs and shoved his way to the king.
“Is that my nephew?” Aelgar called, lowering his book.
It took Cenric a moment to realize Aelgar meant him. By marrying Brynn, Cenric had become Aelgar’s nephew. The thought felt wrong.
“Let him pass,” the king ordered.
Cenric smiled at the guard, confident he could have killed the man, and slipped past.
Snapper bounded off into the garden, loping in a large circle as he sniffed the grass.
By the time Cenric reached Aelgar, Snapper was nosing a row of shrubs and the king had gone back to reading his book. “Have a seat, Cenric.”
There was only the grass, coated by a thin layer of dew. Cenric grimaced.
“I enjoy an exercise in humility before attending to the needs of the kingdom.” Aelgar kept his eyes on the book before him.
