The Blue Sword (Damar #2)(7)

" - because the fort is not built for receiving guests of honor," Dedham said easily as Sir Charles paused.

"And," Sir Charles added plaintively, "it doesn't look quite so warlike here." Dedham laughed. "But four o'clock in the morning," Sir Charles said.

"I think we should be thankful that it occurred to him to give us any warning at all. I don't believe it's the sort of thing he's accustomed to having to think of." The colonel stood up, and Richard promptly took his place behind him. Sir Charles was still pacing about the room, cup in hand, as the ladies prepared to leave. "My apologies for spoiling your morning to no purpose," said Colonel Dedham. "I daresay he will arrive sometime and we will deal with him, but I don't think you need put yourselves out. His message said merely that he desired an audience with the Homelander District Commissioner - not quite his phrase, but that's the idea - and the general in command of the fort. He'll have to make do with me, though; we don't rate a general. The Hill-kings don't go in much for gold plate and red velvet anyway - I think. I hope this is a business meeting."

"I hope so too," murmured Sir Charles to his teacup. "And - at the moment - we can't do much more than wait and see," said the colonel. "Have some more of this excellent tea, Charles. What's in your cup must be quite cold by now."




Harry and Lady Amelia took their leave, and the older woman closed the breakfast-room doors with a sigh. Harry smiled. Lady Amelia turned back to her in time to see the smile, and returned it ruefully. "Very well. We will leave the men to do their uncomfortable waiting alone. I am going to visit Mrs. McDonald, you are going to go riding with Beth and Cassie and bring them back here for luncheon."

"Perhaps under the circumstances - " began Harry, but Lady Amelia shook her head.

"I see no reason why you should not. If he is here, those girls have very pretty manners, and are just whom I would invite if we were to give a formal dinner. And - " here her smile broadened and became as mischievous as a girl's - "if he has brought his thousand best men, we shall be terribly short of women, and you know how I dislike an unbalanced table. I shall have to invite Mrs. McDonald as well. Have a pleasant ride, dear."

Harry changed into her riding-clothes, mounted her placid pony, already bridled and saddled and held for her by one of the Residency's many servants, and rode off in a thoughtful mood toward her meeting with her two friends. She wondered first what and how much she should tell Cassie and Beth; and, second, found herself hoping that this Corlath would stay at least long enough for her to see him. Would a witch-king look any different than any other man?

The sun was already hot. She pushed her hat back long enough for a cautious squint at the sky. It was more dun-colored than blue, as if it, like everything else near Istan, were faded by the fierceness of its sun. It looked as hard as a curved shell overhead, and brittle, as if a thrown lance might pierce it. The placid pony shuffled along, ears flopping, and she stared out over the sands. The woods to the west of her father's house were old, hundreds of years old, tangled with vine and creeper. Ancient trees had died and, not having room to fall, crumbled where they stood. No landlord had thought the old forest worth clearing and the land put to use; but it had made a wonderful jungle for herself and Dickie as children, to be bandits in, and hunt dragons through. Its twisted shadows had always been welcome to her; when she grew older she liked the feeling of great age that the forest gave her, of age and of a vast complicated life that had nothing to do with her and that she need not try to decipher.

The desert, with the black sharp-edged mountains around it, was as different from what she was accustomed to as any landscape could be; yet she found after only a few weeks in Istan that she was falling by degrees in love with it: with the harsh sand, the hot sun, the merciless gritty winds. And she found that the desert lured her as her own green land never had - but what discovery it lured her toward she could not say.

It was an even greater shock to realize that she was no longer homesick. She missed her occupation; and even more she missed her father. She had left so soon after the funeral that it was difficult to believe that he was dead, that he was not still riding around his estate in his shabby coat, waiting for her to return. Then she found that she remembered her parents together again; as if her mother had died recently, or her father five years ago - or as if the difference, which had been so important, no longer mattered. She didn't dream of honeysuckle and lilac. She remembered them with affection, but she looked across the swirled sand and small obstinate clumps of brush and was content with where she was. A small voice whispered to her that she didn't even want to go Home again. She wanted to cross the desert and climb into the mountains in the east, the mountains no Homelander had ever climbed.

She often speculated about how other people saw the land here. Her brother never mentioned it one way or another. She was accustomed to hearing the other young people refer to "that hateful desert" and "the dreadful sun." Beth and Cassie didn't; they had lived in one part or another of Daria for most of their lives - "except the three years our mother took us Home, to acquire polish, she said" - and to both of them, Darian sun and Darian weather, whether it be on the fertile red earth of the south, with the eternal fight against the jungle to keep the fields clear, or the cool humid plateaus of the orange plantations, or the hot sand of the northeast Border, were simply things that were there, were part of their home, to be accepted and adjusted to. Harry had asked them how they liked the Homeland, and they had had to pause and think about it.