Brie ca’Ostheim
IT TOOK TWO DAYS TO CATCH UP with the supply train of
the army, and another half-day to move through seemingly endless
triple lines of infantry toward the command battalion. The soldiers
cheered as her carriage approached with the insignia of the Hïrzg
on its side. They moved off the road to allow the carriage to pass,
and she waved to them. She also saw riders being sent ahead of her
farther up the line, galloping through the fields and meadows
alongside the road, and she knew that word of her arrival would be
going to the offiziers, and from them to Jan. Brie expected Jan to
be among those to greet her when she finally came within sight of
the banner of the Hïrzg and the starkkapitän, but it was instead
Armond cu’Weller, a chevaritt and a’offizier, who strode up to the
carriage as the driver pulled the reins. Brie pushed open the door
of the carriage and descended the steps before either the Garde
Brezno riders with her or cu’Weller could move to help
her.
“Hïrzgin,” he said,
saluting her. His face was worried and anxious, and he glanced from
her to the trio of mounted Garde Brezno gardai with her. Around
them, the army had come to a sluggish halt. “Is there a problem?
Was your train attacked? The children . . . ?”
“The children are
fine, and should be in Brezno by now,” she answered. “I returned to
be with my husband, that’s all, and to stand with him when he meets
the Kraljica. If you would tell him that I’ve come, I’d appreciate
it. I thought he’d be here . . .”
Cu’Weller looked away
a moment, his lips pressing together. “I regret, Hïrzgin, to have
to tell you that the Hïrzg, Starkkapitän ca’Damont, and several of
the chevarittai had ridden ahead of the army. They are likely in
Nessantico already.”
“Oh.” The vision of
Jan standing in flame came back to her, and the mysterious woman
with him . . . She bit at her lower lip, and that gave cu’Weller
the chance to hurry in. He opened the door of the carriage for her,
as if expecting her to immediately return inside.
“I’m sorry, Hïrzgin.”
He glanced again at the mounted gardai with him. “I’ll assign a
squad of additional troops to accompany you back to Stag Fall, and
give you new horses and driver. The cook can put together
provisions for the road . . .”
“I won’t be leaving,”
she told him, and surprise lifted his eyebrows.
“Hïrzgin, this isn’t
a place for you. An army on the march . . .”
“My husband isn’t
here. That means that I am the authority of the throne of
Firenzcia, does it not, A’Offizier?”
Cu’Keller looked as
if he wanted to protest, but shook his head slightly. “Yes,
Hïrzgin, I suppose so but . . .”
“Then my commands
supersede yours, and I will continue on with you to Nessantico,”
she told him, “until such a time as the Starkkapitän and my husband
return. Do you have an issue with that, A’Offizier?”
“No, Hïrzgin. No
issue.” The words were an acceptance, but the look on his face
belied them.
She didn’t care.
Something told her that she needed to be with Jan, and she would.
“Good,” she told him. She opened the door of the carriage, one foot
on the step. “Then let us not keep the army waiting,” she told him.
“We’ve a long march ahead.”
