The new year dawned, and spring came. Fir Castle bustled with preparations for war. By then, even the people of the castle knew that Rosia was having trouble with her leg. The spearmen too expected Jaeim to lead this expedition. But as the preparations neared completion, Rosia announced that she would lead the spearmen herself. Rosia was sixty-one. It would probably be her last campaign.
Since the new year, Rosia had not gone outside unless something required it, so the inhabitants seldom saw their lord’s face. What they did not know was that Rosia could no longer take a single step without medicine. All the elders and captains, Joel among them, tried to dissuade her from going to war, but it was no use. They told her to send Jaeim in her place, that he was old enough now. Rosia shook her head firmly.
On a spring night of drizzling rain, someone knocked on the shutters of Rosia’s room. Rosia thought for a moment, then answered.
“It’s open.”
When the window opened, Denny was there. There was nothing but bare wall beyond the window, nothing to hold on to, yet there he was. It was as though he had come walking on the wind. Denny hopped into the room and approached the bed. Rosia spoke.
“You certainly have no trouble entering another man’s wife’s bedchamber.”
“What was ‘It’s open’ if not permission?”
Rosia sat reclining on the bed. A candle was lit, but she was neither reading nor speaking with anyone. She had merely been staring into empty space alone. Denny drew up a chair, sat beside her, and murmured.
“One useless mouth has gone, and the useless mouth left alone is lonely.”
“Are you a poet?”
“Am I a wizard or a poet?”
Wind came through the shutters and made the candle flame tremble. Rain blew in as well. But neither of them did anything beyond looking at it. At last Denny spoke.
“Ah, such stubbornness?”
“Think what it took to preserve these spearmen.”
Denny could hardly fail to know. Rosia, once the lord’s beautiful wife, had tamed the fierce spearmen, led them into battle, and protected Fir Castle amid enemies on every side. How could it have been easy? Raeven, who hated such a mother, had fallen into dubious magic and left home. Siardric, who had tried to take the burden from such a mother, had died in his first battle. Den, who feared such a mother, had fallen in love with a maid, stolen the family’s gold, and run away. These were the spearmen she had protected and preserved at the cost of them all. Rosia had become the Queen of Firs, but the only crown upon her head was one of thorns.
“You’ll cripple yourself doing this.”
“Then I’d be better off dead.”
“Why do you have so little faith in your grandson? He’s nineteen this year. Siardric had his son at that age.”
Rosia sighed quietly.
“Jaeim is weak. Rosa would be better.”
No one in the castle would ever hear Rosia say such a thing. Denny giggled.
“So you do know. Back then, at Neve’s rite, you did that on purpose so she’d drink the blood, didn’t you?”
“She did well. Such a fierce little thing.”
“And what about you? Haven’t you kept every mouth in this castle fed with that same fierceness? Watching Rosa risk being buried alive to save her little sister, I thought she was just like her grandmother. If it hadn’t been for her, what would have become of the snow bird?”
Rosia nodded readily.
“That child preserved the Daeiors’ pride.”
Had they lost the castle’s guardian at the North Mere envoy’s demand, the Daeior lord’s honor would have been trampled into the dirt. Yet an all-out war with North Mere had to be avoided at any cost. Saying the bird had departed solved both problems. Whether Kyprosa had known that when she acted or had merely wanted to save the bird, Rosia could not say. In the end, however, the girl had done what was needed.
“You promised that envoy you’d kill the bird because you knew Rosa would do that, didn’t you? Grandmother and granddaughter could work together with their eyes shut. Why are you so harsh with a child like that? You said you hated her all the more because she resembled me, but that’s the very face she has.”
Rosia turned to Denny. A smile seldom seen by the people of the castle passed over her wrinkled face.
“That child doesn’t resemble me at all. She’s the very image of Landry.”
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