To the King a Daughter

One The chill gray mistof early morning had become a driving sword blade of sleet before noon when their last horse foundered. This was the Bale-Bog, or the edge of it, and no sane Outlander forced his way into that sludge of bottomless pools and unsteady islets unless the need was urgent. The woman who had been plucked from the exhausted horse, escaping being borne down with it just in time, managed somehow to keep to her feet, but only because there was a hard, broad shoulder and a tough, war-trained body there to support her. Instinctively, her hands pressed her swollen belly, and a grimace of pain twisted her once-beautiful, now gaunt features. "How do you, Lady Alditha?" The rumble of that voice came from the chest very close to her ear. She could feel under the sodden folds of a trooper's cloak a fineness of mail, which no common trooper could hope to wear. Forcing all sign of pain from her, she looked up into the weathered face of Hasard, the Marshal of the House of Ash. The icy wind drove the ends of a wide, gray mustache against his half-hidden lips. "I do as well as I might, my lord." She brought out the words one by one, as if they were separately strung on a too-loose cord. Somehow, she summoned the pitiful shadow of a smile. Two men wearing beggars' trappings over studded leather were stripping the bags from the downed horse. She could not see their faces. For a moment, her vision dimmed, overridden by the thrust of pain that swept through her. They were all who were leftjust the two soldiers and the man who had once led the Ash host. And somehow she believed it was the fierce determination of the man now steadying her that had brought them also to this ending. She must strive to honor him with her strength, such as it was, and not betray his faithfulness by a display of female weakness. Their greatest need was shelter. Without shelter, they would all be stark by morning. Ashenhold, where they might have been safe, was denied them. Again her hand supported her heavy belly. Hasardhis appearance far different from what it had been in the days of his splendor as the Marshal of Ashenhold and the command he had led with keen wits and all the knowledge of one soldiering from boyhoodstill sheltered her as best he could. He made his body a shield between her and as many of those icy blasts as he could wall away. There was not time now So many lives dashed out, ended by dagger in the dark, by sword during day, by poison offered with a sly smile that touched only one corner of the mouth. So many women dead, all of them Ash. She tried to shut it out of her memory but could not escape the fact that not only did she exist because of the child she borewhom her pursuers would pluck from her living body if they couldbut that the very child also brought her the greatest of danger. Once she had thought to deny; no more. In her womb she carried the heir not only to Ash, but to Oak as well, if the King's wishes would prevail when it came to heir-naming, for this was his only progeny, whether legal or not. Certainly her child was greater than she and her present companions combined. They had fled on this very night, bearing the Ash badge, trying to escape the Yew badge of the Queen who would reach beyond death itself for revenge, should that be necessary. "Sir?" The men who had dealt with the horse awaited orders. She felt rather than saw Hasard's head lift. His hoarse voice broke through the screech of the storm. "The river" Ah, yes, the river; her wits were growing more murky. That waterway, part natural, part man-enhanced, had always been a merchant's path, but in fairer weather. Tonight it might not gain them safety in either direction, not from thosMiller, Sasha is the author of 'To the King a Daughter', published 2001 under ISBN 9780812577570 and ISBN 0812577574.