15. Damned to Drida
Chapter fifteen
Damned to Drida
Rerdas winced as the coach jolted and medicinal balm oozed onto his clothes. He’d mixed the treatment himself from Almes’s stores, but it had come out soupy, not the thick, cool paste most apothecaries sold. It would have to do. He trailed it over the swollen skin on his arm.
“You could bring a suit against him with the magistrates.” Umber was the only other occupant of the coach and spent every other breath spitting out his indignation at Hize and new ways for Rerdas to make the man pay.
“That’s rather a lot of time and onyx I’d rather not spend on Lord Hize,” Rerdas said quietly.
He rarely spoke of their finances with Umber, but the duke must have some inkling of their trouble.
He likely enjoyed it. Rerdas with only half an ingot to his name made it all the easier for Umber to swoop into his life and save him.
“At least send a complaint to the Kiboan governor. Feld councils are useless, but you could complain to the Western council. You have a right to demand some accountability.”
Or he could just get as far away as possible and never see that beast of a man again. Instead of pointing out that Hize would make a retaliatory complaint against him and would do everything possible to ruin him, he reached for a loop of fresh bandages. “I’d be glad to put it all behind me.”
“Rerdas, you can’t just let him hit you with a whip and run away!”
The fabric pulled uncomfortably. Rerdas realized he was twisting it. “Hize disgraced himself in front of half his home city. He’ll pay for it in standing. And you were the one who told me he has few friends already.”
Umber sighed irritably, settling back amid the tufted blue velvet cushions.
The coach was far more luxurious than the one Etiana, Uralta, and Imalroc rode in behind them, but Rerdas desperately wished he wasn’t in it.
He’d barely had a chance to speak to Etiana and ferret Uralta out of Almes’s house, much less an opportunity to comfort Imalroc and see that he was alright.
Rerdas swallowed thickly. He couldn’t dwell on his desire to be huddled close to a man he wasn’t meant to touch.
“Put this on; you’ll catch a chill.” Umber extended one of the carriage blankets to him.
“Thank you.” He draped the blanket over his knees and glanced out the window. There were few good distractions. It was too dark to watch the landscape change from desert to Midland prairie. They weren’t far enough east yet to see it, even if there had been light.
“That’s hardly snug. Tuck it around you.” Umber’s expression, half-hidden in shadow, looked almost like a glare. His eyes glittered in the dull light of the tiny interior lantern.
“Right,” Rerdas said faintly. Awkwardly, one-handed, he crammed the blanket close around him as best he could.
Umber watched without offering to help. “That’s much better.
Thank you. Your Grace.” The honorific stumbled out, but Umber didn’t sigh fondly and correct him as he usually did when they were alone.
He turned to rewinding his bandages, so he had an excuse not to look at his companion. The duke’s attempted comfort felt more like a rebuke, and he was too drained to parse what Umber wanted from him.
After a bit of restless shifting, Umber slumped into a doze. Rerdas scooted back into the opposite corner, holding his throbbing arm gingerly across his lap.
Umber asleep was at least marginally better than Umber awake. There was finally space for him to think.
He didn’t regret the scandal, or hitting Hize, or even the aching welt on his arm. Since the moment Hize had bounced into the sand with that look of bloodied shock, Rerdas was overwhelmed with relief. He had not sat there, useless and frozen. He hadn’t let Hize hurt Imalroc.
Earthbound gods, he wanted to be in the other carriage.
They had given no clear instructions to the drivers, only told them to leave Kibo with a whirlwind’s haste and make for the main thoroughfares that cut back east. If they continued long enough on these roads, they’d be back in Kirinoll.
Back in the queen’s shadow, back at Umber’s nightly beck and call.
He needed a good reason to shake off the duke and slip out of his sight again.
It might be only a matter of time. Kuraya wouldn’t allow Umber to traipse around the country; she would demand he return and attend her.
In Tamasyad, Imalroc had looked at him with such disbelief, as if Rerdas on the sand between him and Hize had to be a hallucination.
Rerdas needed so badly to slip his arms around him, whisper promises in his ear, kiss and touch him until he couldn’t remember his own name, let alone all the things he had endured in Kibo.
He needed to be with Imalroc, somewhere far from the capital, somewhere too far for Umber to follow.
Rerdas angled himself toward the little window, pushed the tasseled curtain back, and leaned his forehead against the dust-stained pane so he could see the lanterns swinging from the second coach some ways behind him.
He watched the wavering lights until exhaustion and pain won out, and he curled up on the cushion to sleep.
***
When Umber woke, he insisted they stop for a meal and a change of horses.
The nearest waystation was a busy Midlands establishment packed with travelers.
A flash of Umber’s signet ring got them a table draped in linen and set on a raised landing, separated and on display from the common folk.
Rerdas ducked his head towards his tea, avoiding the assault of curious gazes.
“I’m afraid I’ve little appetite,” Rerdas said, attempting a smile as he and the duke took their seats opposite Etiana. “Bread, butter, and tea will do for me.”
Umber frowned. “No, I don’t think they will. You’ll have something heartier.” He proceeded to order a small army’s worth of food.
Etiana smiled. “It’s so good to see my dear cousin so cared for, Your Grace.
” But when her glance flicked to Rerdas, she held it a moment too long, and he felt the questioning worry in it.
He couldn’t reassure her that everything was fine.
His gut told him it would be a lie, even if he found a way to say it without attracting Umber’s attention.
Rerdas nibbled fresh bread and looked queasily at the newly arrived plate of roast pheasant.
It was not until a second cup of strong tea beat his headache back a little that he came up with the idea. He knew where they needed to go. It was a simple thing to steer it into the conversation.
Umber was displeased to hear his plan, but he had barely begun to complain that it took Rerdas too far from Kirinoll before someone interrupted him.
“Your Grace?” A vaguely familiar voice called to Umber eagerly. “You should have told me you were traveling in the Midlands; I’d have arranged something finer than this for you!”
“Lady Eamon! Do come up.” Umber waved toward an empty seat at his side.
She ascended the stairs and greeted everyone, but as soon as they’d all dragged themselves through the pleasantries, she turned to Umber with a keen look.
“You honor me with the invitation to your table, Your Grace, but I must be quickly away. I wonder if you might like to see my horse before I go? She’s a fine hunter, and I know how you adore them. ”
Umber blinked and rose sharply. “I’ve been meaning to add a new hunter to my stables. Shall we go discuss, ah, her bloodline, perhaps?” The duke was not accustomed to having to lie. He did it with about as much skill as a toddler.
Etiana and Rerdas smiled politely until the two were safely gone from the table and forging through the milling crowd.
“What do you think that’s really about?” Etiana eyed the duke.
“Southern Felds again,” Rerdas murmured. “Kuraya tasked him with finding the spies.” He set his tea down and leaned across the table. “How’s Imalroc? Is he alright?”
Etiana stirred the contents of her bowl. “He’s fine.” She looked up, examining him for a long, tense moment, and sighed. “We didn’t talk much. I get the sense I’m not his favorite person in Inofar. But truth be told, he seems mostly to be worried about you.”
“You, not the favorite of all people everywhere, including battleboxers?” Rerdas smiled wryly. “Impossible.”
His cousin’s answering smile was only a trace of her usual grin. It faded entirely before she spoke again, running a finger over the rim of her cup. “I know you don’t want to hear it, but this dalliance… it makes me nervous.” She nodded toward the door Umber had exited. “Especially with him here.”
“He’ll have to go back to Kirinoll soon; he’s mentioned it half a dozen times.”
“Is that why you told him we booked a fight at Bren Kul Mari?”
He poked guiltily at the pheasant. “It was the best I could think of. He won’t follow us as far as Drida.” Rerdas draped a clean cloth over his plate of pheasant and set a roll, still warm from the oven, on top. “But I need to go tell Imalroc the plan.”
“I’m not sure this counts as a plan,” Etiana muttered. She shook her head. “Imalroc won’t like it.”
“Neither do I. It’s the best we have for the moment. Keep Umber entertained if he comes back before I do.” He lifted placating hands when she sat up in alarm. “I’ll be quick. Promise.”
He slipped out into the courtyard and found their coaches, traces empty. A driver still perched in the seat of Umber’s coach and quickly reassured Rerdas that his fellow had gone off to swap for fresh horses.
Rerdas nodded distractedly, glancing toward the stables. With any luck, Lady Eamon and her discussion of hunter bloodlines, or whatever she really needed to say, would take Umber a good amount of time.
He approached the second carriage and rapped lightly at the door. A pale face flashed in the window, peering down at him, and then the door shot outward so quickly it nearly clipped him.
Imalroc lunged for him, gripping his good arm to reel him up into the coach and onto the seat beside him. The battleboxer plucked the plate from him, set it aside, and folded him close.